Athenian Steel (Book I of the The Hellennium) by P. K. Lentz Page A

tried to land another, but Thalassia dragged the woman's
sword arm up between their faces, obstructing the blow.
    Three paces away, Demosthenes stood unsure
whether to intervene.  Apart from temple friezes of Amazons,
never before had he seen such a sight as this, of women locked in
fierce combat.  And even in the friezes, the women's opponents
were male.
    “Ladies, surely there is a better way...” he
said feebly.
    By choice of one or the other of the women,
their struggle went to the ground, where they rolled in the dust
with legs entangled.  The orange linen restricting Thalassia's
lower body rode up, exposing her thighs, while the other's paler
legs were already bare under a high-hemmed slave chiton.
 Somehow Thalassia came out with the advantage, slamming her
attacker's sword hand repeatedly against a rock embedded in the
roadside.  The rock grew slick and dark with blood, and Eden's
sword fell free, clattering on the ground.  Thalassia went for
it, but the other woman's injured hand clapped onto Thalassia's
forearm, stopping her.  Their other hands meanwhile fought
over Thalassia's table knife, the point of which Eden had managed
to turn toward its wielder's face, its tip biting Thalassia's
cheek.
    As the sword flew free, Demosthenes' wits
and his instincts, briefly absent, returned.  He moved in long
strides toward the sword and kicked it out of either woman's reach,
then drew his own blade and leveled it at the combatants on the
ground.
    “Stop!” he cried—not too loud, lest he draw
onlookers.  Again, when they didn't desist: “ Stop this
madness, now! ”
    They rolled, and Thalassia came out on top
with one hand free.  Consequently, Eden had a free hand, as
well, and she sent it toward her waist where her second sword
awaited.  Thalassia's hand, meantime, grasped a smooth stone
half-buried in the earth, wrenched it free and hefted it over
Eden's head. 
    Demosthenes watched in horror as, without
hesitation, Thalassia brought the stone down with tremendous force
into her opponent's face, smashing the skull.  Eden's hand
flew from her half-drawn sword and came up, too late, to block the
blow.  Thalassia wrenched her knife hand free of Eden's grip
and stabbed Eden's blocking arm in the wrist, clearing a path that
the blood-smeared stone might find its way for a second time into
Eden's half-crushed face.  Blood and brain matter smeared
cloak and dress and skin and ground, yet incredibly Eden's limbs
fought on.  Of her two deep blue eyes, the one which was not
buried in gore stayed open and retained the spark of life.
    Straddling her beaten foe, Thalassia struck
Eden a third time in the head before reaching for the half-drawn
sword at Eden's hip.  Statue-like, his own sword still pointed
ineffectually at the pair, Demosthenes watched aghast as Thalassia
plunged the short sword over and over into her victim's neck and
face, so hard that the tip could be heard scraping ground
underneath.  Blood splashed from each new wound like libations
poured on an altar to some dark god.
    Seeing the savage fury which lit Thalassia's
face, Demosthenes knew he had to act, had to end this.  He
took two long steps forward, and reaching the scene of battle, he
thrust his sword with all the force he could muster into mad,
golden-skinned Thalassia's back.  It slid between her ribs,
grating on bone, through her heart, and out the other side, under
her left breast.
    Thalassia's head whipped round, dark
tendrils of shoulder length hair partly obscuring the crazed,
unearthly eyes, knit brows and bared teeth which came together in a
look not of surprise or pain, but of undiluted rage.  She
hissed, and then ignored him, turning her crazed attention back
upon her victim.
    Demosthenes backed slowly away, leaving his
sword embedded in Thalassia's torso.  He saw that the single
eye within that mutilated head on the ground stood open still, and
not just with the empty stare of a corpse.  This mutilated
being was alive and