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dropping from exhaustion.
    As the two newcomers to the group they were often put together, and Myrina felt that she was being forced into the role of companion to Cassandra, whether she wished it or not. Atisha often spoke sharply to them both, but watched their struggles with approval.
    Their journey took them first along the western shore of Thrace, through the lands of the old king Peiroos and the warlike Ciconi tribes. Myrina stared in wonder at the strange way the men wore their long hair, tied up in topknots on the crowns of their heads. Before the Moon-maidens danced for them, the Ciconi men honored them by performing wild wrestling matches, making the young women cheer and swear that they were glad these people were their friends and not their enemies.
    Two young women from the Ciconis were presented to Atisha and accepted as new Moon-maidens. Suddenly Myrina and Cassandra were not the only new recruits.
    From there they traveled south to Abdera, and on to the lands of the Paionis, where the chieftain Pyraechmes ruled. Then they turned north to the lands of the great Thracian overlord Rhesus and the Edoni tribe, where two of the older Moon Riders would return to their families and two younger girls would be welcomed in their place.
    In Thrace the Moon Riders were welcomed just as they were by the Anatolian tribes, but here they were known as Wolf-maidens in honor of Harpalyce, daughter of the Great Thracian Mountain Mother. The stories that Atisha told were different and Myrina listened with rapt attention to the adventurous stories of Harpalyce’s childhood in the wilderness and mountains of Thrace.
    At last their journey took them in an easterly direction, through the mountainous lands of the Moesians, and through the Month of Flies they rode back along the southern shore of the Black Sea.
    Atisha brought her fine white stallion up beside Myrina and Cassandra. “Spring has come and gone,” she told them. “We ride fast toward our favorite camping ground, where we’ll stay and rest during the Month of Burning Heat. You have both worked hard and proved yourselves; now is the time for you to be happy and enjoy!”
    “We will!” Myrina agreed, smiling and acknowledging the compliment, but Cassandra looked a little puzzled; enjoyment would not come easily to her.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Sting like a Scorpion

    T HE M OON R IDERS crossed the narrow Bosphorus Sea then rode south again, along the shore of the Sea of Marmara, to Elikmaa, where they made their summer camp each year. Though Myrina had traveled far and wide with her family she’d never before been to this lovely spot beside a huge lake. They set up their tents beside the water; lush fertile hills with clumps of cypress trees stretched out behind them. Myrina breathed in the scent of iris flowers, mint, and sage.
    A breeze from the water ruffled her hair. “A good cool place to be,” she murmured.
    “Yes,” Cassandra agreed, seeming a little more at ease in this beautiful place. “And see the fig trees heavy with fruit and ripe golden peaches growing all about us; nobody will go hungry here. We are like the fish.”
    Myrina frowned, puzzled. “Like the fish?”
    “Like the fish,” Cassandra insisted. “We go north in the summer for coolness, then turn south for the winter to find warmth.”
    Suddenly Myrina understood and laughed. “You’re mad,” she told Cassandra cheerfully, making her hands float like fins, and her mouth gulp, to imitate a fish swimming upstream.
    “Yes, that’s what they always said in Troy,” the princess answered, laughing back at her. “They called me mad!”
    “You look beautiful when you laugh,” Myrina told her truthfully.
    “No one in Troy ever said that ,” Cassandra answered, happy for once.
    Myrina smiled back at her. Being Cassandra’s stalwart companion was not turning out to be so very difficult after all.
    The tribes who camped near Elikmaa welcomed the Moon Riders with goat’s milk cheese and delicious