The Queen of the Amazons was the war leader and high priestress of a scattered tribe of women warriors who dwelt on the high plains to the north and east of Persia. They were not isolated – travelers came and went through their territory, bringing news from the West, and carrying tales of the warrior women back home with them. The Queen’s daughter and heir was a strange girl. Etta had been born, so the Priestresses said, without a soul. And it was true that she was like no other child alive. She did not speak, and often seemed not to even see the people around her. She could not dress or feed herself, but she could ride and hunt like no other woman of the tribe. When the news came from the West ofa new Conqueror, a young man who came out of Macedon with a spirit like flame, intending to rule the whole world, Etta responded to the tale as a woman in the desert would to the sound of falling water. That very night she stole out of the camp and rode west. No one could stop her, and so they followed, crossed the mountains, and entered into Alexander’s Empire . . . (from the back cover)