Things were not going well for the forces of the Trojan Aeneas and their allies in their fight to take the land that would, in time, become Imperial Rome from the Latins under Turnus. For a time, Aeneas' forces, bolstered by the expert horsemen of the Etruscan cavalry, had seemed assured of victory; but that was before Turnus had succeeded in persuading the Volscian regiments, whose general was the warrior-maiden Camilla, many of whose warriors were drawn from the ranks of the feared Thracian Amazons.
When these warriors had entered the fray, the tide of the battle had turned, and quickly. The Etruscans were a match for most of the mounted Amazons, but they were not a match for Camilla herself, who was reputed to be favored by the goddess Artemis. Many of the Etruscans thought she might be herself divine. Resplendent in her golden kilt and sandals, her breasts bared as was the fashion among the Amazon and her trademark tiger-skin band holding back her golden hair, the beauty of her face and body causing her male opponents to hesitate, she seemed to be everywhere at once; if a man wasn't falling from one of her seemingly unerring javelins or one of her arrows, then he was following his own brains to the ground after having them knocked free by the warrior-maid's battle- ax. Her personal charger was one of the swiftest and most powerful horses on the field, carrying her slight weight from battle to battle quickly and tirelessly.
She had just met and focused on the son of Aunus, who'd already made a reputation for himself among his own people--the Ligurians, an ally of the Trojans--for the use of guile in winning battles. With not a little fear, the Ligurian youth watched her storm forward to challenge him; in answer, he pulled up his own horse, put his shield to the side, and raised his sword to the air. She, as was the convention, stopped to see what he had to say.
"I challenge you, maid of the Volsians!" he cried, causing her to smile broadly. "To an even and fair combat I challenge you--are you afraid to meet me?"
Her blue eyes widened and she laughed. "Afraid? Ligurian, I was coming for you!"
He sneered at her. "Yes. On your marvelous horse, best on this field. I challenge you to put aside your mount, Camilla. Rely on your own abilities, not those of your horse, whose superiority to my own I will readily concede. Meet me on the ground, warrior to warrior, sword to sword!"
Her face took on a hard set. "You believe I fear you, son of Aunus? I accept your challenge, Ligurian; with pleasure I accept. With naught but a sword I will meet you, and when it is done your life's blood will be staining this soil!" Turning, she called to a woman riding up behind her as she lightly and gracefully dismounted. She hung her shield on her saddle; then, to the Ligurian's surprise, she also stripped off her kilt and her sandals--even her tiger-skin headband. Completely naked and barefoot, she grinned at the Ligurian and told her comrade to take the horse away.
Aunus' son waited patiently until the other Amazon was some distance away. "Your death, warrior maid," he said, "is worth more to the hosts of the Etruscans and the Ligurians than my honor is!" Then, with a laugh of his own, he spurred his horse into a hard charge, straight toward the waiting girl, his sword raised for a fatal stroke.
Camilla looked startled at this treachery, but only for a moment. Patiently, she waited for him; when he closed on her and swung his sword, she ducked under the stroke. Turning quickly, she faced him again as he wheeled his horse around. He had little time and he knew it, already the Amazons were rushing to her aid. A concerned look on his face--he clearly hadn't expected his first attack to fail--he shifted the sword to his left hand and opted for a lance instead. Cocking it toward her body, he came at her at a gallop.
But as the iron point sizzled through the air, she stepped aside. She dropped her own sword; with one hand she grabbed the lance near the Ligurian's wrist, and with the other she grabbed the horse's reins. Before Aunus' son knew what was happening, she'd launched herself up into the saddle behind him.
She threw a slim arm around his neck and pressed her body against his. "So you thought you'd go home to Aunus' home, did you?" she purred. "Thought you'd go home with tales of how you defeated Camilla by treachery and lies." She snatched his dagger from his belt as he struggled with her. "Silly Ligurian; all this was for nothing. You have lost not only your honor but your life as well." Before he could answer, she'd buried the knife between his ribs.
Already fatally wounded, he spasmed back, jerking on the reins; the well-trained horse slowed and stopped. By the time it did, she'd stabbed him twice more, and his blood was streaming down his leg, pouring out onto the ground. He groaned and squirmed in her grasp, trying to free himself still, trying to escape the thrusts of the blade, but it sank into his back nevertheless. His strength disappeared, and she did release him as he toppled from his mount and lay twitching on the ground. Camilla ignored him; her friends had by then arrived with her horse, and, after retrieving her sword from the ground, she mounted him again. Immediately, as she slung her quiver over her shoulder, she started scanning the battlefield.
And her gaze fell on Chloreus, once a priest of Cybelus, and, like herself divinely favored. He was conspicuously visible from a distance, clad in his shining Phrygian armor, a gold-linked bronze cloth covering his horse's back, a gold helm on his head and a saffron cloak around his shoulders, shooting arrows from a bow that was itself plated with gold. Camilla didn't bother to put her sandals and kilt back on; still naked she rode hard toward him, ignoring others she passed by.
With her focus completely on the Phrygian, she didn't notice Arruns, an Etruscan youth, who had begun quietly and unobtrusively following her about the battlefield. Like many another he did not dare confront her openly; but Arruns was an expert with the javelin, a master of the long cast. Constantly praying to Apollo for success, he kept waiting and searching for a moment, a moment which he could use to dispatch the destroyer of his people. He watched her as she started moving towards Chloreus, and he could see how her gaze was, wolflike, fixed on the gaudily-clad Phrygian. Spurring his own horse to a fast gallop he came around her side as her mount worked its way through the masses of horses and me. Then, when he was finally close enough and could see that Camilla hadn't even noticed him, he spoke a final request to Apollo and launched the javelin into the air. As it whistled toward the Volscian general, every man of the Etruscans, the Ligurians, and the Phrygians seemed to know the sound meant something, something of significance; they all turned their heads to watch its flight.
Camilla, as singleminded as a predatory cat that has decided on a victim, did not even hear it coming. It struck her right side just under her breast and cut deeply into her body. Her blue eyes flying wide open with shock, she bent her body backwards as the iron spearhead buried itself in her chest. She slowed her horse to a trot and looked down at the lance standing in her side. Grabbing it, she tried to jerk it out, but the head had found its way in between her ribs and had turned, and it would not come free.
Her lifelong companion Acca, a girl her own age and her confidant, came riding up beside her. Camilla looked up at her; blood was already pouring down her side and leg, leaving a red trail in the wake of the now-walking horse, and Camilla's once-rosy face had grown white.
"Acca, my friend, I am done with this world and all its affairs; already the blackness is closing around me. Make your escape, save yourself, and pass those words on to the others of the Volscian ranks." With an effort, she gripped her horse's mane with one hand while holding onto the javelin's shaft with the other. "Get a message to Turnus; tell him to move up into battle and fend these Trojans from the city." She sighed as she saw the grief on her silent friend's face. "Ah, Acca, have no regrets, there was no way it could have ended otherwise for me... fare well, Acca, ensure your own safety..."
Her strength failed her then, and she slid from the horse's back, falling clumsily to the ground. Lying on her back, she watched Acca retreat from the Etruscans who were already approaching her.
"I am done, warriors," she said to them in a faint voice. "I will trouble you no more." She managed to smile up at them. "But the shades of fifty of your men have raced on before me to Hades' kingdom..."
A burly Etruscan stepped up beside her. "It is so, Camilla," he agreed. He drew his sword. "And though I do not wish to torment you further, I feel it my duty to ensure your journey and to speed you on your way!"
She smiled again, and she kept smiling, right up to the point where he drove his heavy broadsword down through her left breast, shattering her ribs. Fresh blood erupted; Camilla choked and blood spouted up from her mouth. Impaled on the sword, the javelin still piercing her, she squirmed on the ground for just a moment before going limp. As she did, the retreating Volscians paused to let fly a volley of arrows; the Etruscans and Ligurians surrounding her raised their shields to fend off the deadly missiles. When the flight had stopped, they looked around to see if they'd suffered any casualties.
There was only one--Arruns. His mouth open in surprise, he lay on the ground with a
Volscian arrow piercing him squarely through his heart--a chance shot but a perfect one.
Artemis, it seemed, had taken her vengeance for the loss of her favorite...