In 1979 I picked up an interesting-looking short story collection with both the theme and title of AMAZONS (edited by Jessica Amanda Salmonson, DAW, 1979). I read the collection at a sitting of one afternoon and loved it. And to my mind, of all the work within, the best story of the lot was one entitled 'Wolves of Nakesht' by someone called Janrae Frank.

I liked the story so much that after that I watched hopefully for more of her work. The author information at the start of the story had said she was working on two novels set in the same fantasy world and I was eager to buy and read them. To my disappointment I never saw any other works by her. I wondered for years what had happened. Had she stopped writing, changed genres, or even died?

In 1991-12 years after I read 'Wolves', I met, in Seattle, the editor of the original two Amazons collections and was reassured that Janrae was at least alive. Hopeful that one day she might recommence writing more of the stories, I continued to watch for them.

My long patience has now been rewarded. Twenty-four years after reading that first story, I have at last been able to read more of her writing set in the Shaurone Amazon Empire. The breadth and depth of the world Janrae has created is incredible. It has color, complexity, and a blazing vivid life, which draws me in as certainly as that short story did a generation ago.

Her tales of Chimquar the Lion-Hawk, Amazon warrior, exile, parent, and priestess, are gripping, not only because of the strong realization of a world, but also because Chimquar herself is real. A woman who lives her own life, refusing to be confined by custom or the demands of her kin. She is far more than the stereotype Amazon of many fantasies, she has her own voice and life, and I, as a reader and a woman, am heartily glad of that.

It had taken almost a quarter century for me to read more of Janrae's work. I can only swear that it has been worth the wait.

Lyn McConchie.

Author (with Andre Norton) of The Key of the Keplian, Ciara's Song (Warner Aspect Witch World novels); Beast Master's Ark, Beast Master's Circus, (Tor).

"Changeling Son" is the sixth Chimquar story in terms of when I wrote them. I finished it in 1996. It was never submitted anywhere, as I remember, because the markets for this type of fiction appeared to have dried up. This is the origin story of Chimquar in the sense that this is how she came to be passing as male among the Euzadi. "The Hawk that Hunted Lions", which follows this one tells how she got her name. The Lionhawk described on her ring is a gryphon rampant.

A thick film of gray dust and old sweat coated the warrior's face and stole the shine from the long black hair pulled into a tail at the back of her head. The cooler air of the cavern chilled her sticky, sweat dampened shirt and breaches so they clung uncomfortably to her tall, raw-boned, rangy body. She stood just over six feet with around 165 pounds of densely compacted muscle fleshing her bones. Empty water skins draped her shoulder, a longsword hung from a wide leather belt, and she carried a torch in her hand. Her storm gray eyes scanned the cavern cautiously.

A scruffy red-roan wynderjyn mare trailed after her, reins drawing lines on the sandy ground. A hand span of twisted horn poked through its forelock, bespeaking the animal's mixed parentage. An elaborate Lionhawk hilted longsword with the peace-string tied nestled between the sheepskin pad and the saddle's left leather flap, a short horn bow balanced it on the right. A quiver of iron-tipped arrows and more empty waterskins hung from the saddlebow. Saddlebags and a bedroll crossed the roan's hindquarters.

Water pooled silently near the center of the vast orange, gold and pale dun streaked cavern dome. The water rose from a stream running deep beneath the arid steppes, water-starved in the heat of high summer, too deep to nourish the ground save in this one place.

When she first saw the outer walls of the abandoned shrine, cut into the side of a small craggy hill, it had appeared to her like a miracle. She had been giving most of her remaining water to her mare and limited herself to small infrequent swallows for the past two days. Tomyris had entered hoping for a well and found the artesian spring instead.

The flaring light of her torch glinted off black metal brackets set firmly into the stone walls ringing the cavern walls, their unlit torches still waiting after God alone knew how many years to be lit once more. The hands of myn showed in the absence of stalagmites and stalactites, which must have been cleared away.

"I don't know, Trouble," she said, her voice gravelly and rough. Whooping Cough in early childhood had scarred her vocal chords and throat, giving her a masculine hoarseness. It had killed her two youngest sisters. "Why would anyone abandon a water source in this god-forsaken land?" Unless there's something wrong with it.

The mare blew through her nose and shook her head in answer, following her like a big dog.

She circled the spring, lighting one torch after another. Completing her circuit, Tomyris looked again at the center of the now fully illumined cavern. Near the water at the far side, stood an altar with the towering statue of an ibis headed god crowned with the silver orb of the full moon between a pair of horns. Tremendous basalt sphinxes flanked the seated figure's feet. In its left hand it held the ankh and in its right a scroll. It was a shrine to life and knowledge. Again, she wondered why anyone would abandon this place.

Tomyris knelt at the edge of the water, dipped her cupped hand in, and brought up a handful. She let it drip through her fingers, smelling it. It smelled clean. She touched her tongue to it. It tasted pure. She pressed her face almost into the water, drinking handful after handful. The water was pure and good.

She pulled loose the lacings of her black leather vest and shed the torn, dirty rust colored shirt she wore. Old scars marked the lighter brown skin beneath her clothes. The top corner of a wide ugly triangle of twisted pink-white burn scar showed low on her left side, the rest concealed beneath her pants. Around her neck on a long chain hung half of a gold coin that had been split before her birth. On her half was the head and forepart of a horse. A silver unicorn talisman hung beside the half coin on a separate chain. She had worn them so long she scarcely noticed them anymore. The right edge of her wide leather belt, supporting an unadorned longsword, rode up against the bare skin of her side as she knelt by the water. A dirty bandage covered a week-old sword cut on her left arm. Twin leather bands held matching, ivory-hilted stilettos to her forearms. She splashed water over the small mounds of her breasts, over her heavily scarred arms, cleansing her of the accumulated blood, sweat, and grime. It felt wondrous after the dry heat of the summer steppes.

The warrior pulled at the bandage and grimaced--it had crusted painfully to the wound. She cut the bandage with her knife, then soaked it loose and washed the wound. It was not as bad as it had first seemed. Until then she could spare no water to clean it.

The red-roan watcher her, looking longingly at the water. It nudged her and Tomyris rumpled its dense red forelock, scratching around the horn. "It's okay, Trouble," she said. "Go ahead and drink.

Trouble dipped her head into the water. Tomyris stroked her neck; the long-lived animal was the only friend she had been able to bring out of her homeland six years past. They had come a long way through the wastelands with wolves harassing them for a week and a half ... wolves and a strange man-like wolf that ran on two legs and wielded a sword with rare skill: the Nakesht. She had heard their name whispered in the towns along the caravan route, but no one had ever offered to tell her anything about them. Until now the Nakesht had been just a name spoken with fear to her; now she knew them, for they had been skirmishing with her for days.

Her goal was the lands beyond the steppes and plains, the glittering cities of the east where she could lose herself and find--if not peace--then distraction from her memories and nightmares. She hoped that she could find a place where she could simply stop thinking.

"Let's see how defensible this place is." Tomyris pulled her shirt on, tuck it back into the wide band of her pants, and slipped into the vest letting it hang open.

They skirted several smaller chambers previously explored, returning to an entry room littered with broken pottery and the dry brittle skeletons of wooden furniture. Beyond the next door lay the cobble-stoned courtyard spiked with small scattered patches of tough grass gone dry and brittle in the heat.

A long low howl sliced the night, followed closely by a woman's shrill scream. Tomyris' sword cleared its sheath: someone else had taken refuge in the ruins--with the Nakesht at their heels. Trouble reared, shrilling, and broke for the door. Tomyris paused briefly in Trouble's wake, scanning the courtyard. A high, mortared stonewall enclosed it. In the center stood a twisted arthritic crab of an old man striking intermittently at the circling wolves with a long oak staff. A young woman stood at his back, brandishing a flaming Mesquite branch, and charging the wolves now and again in a desperate attempt to defend both the old man and their exhausted, collapsing pony.

Trouble plunged into the midst of the wolves pouring through the narrow stone archway into the courtyard. Her steel-shod hooves crushed skulls and broke backs. More wolves hesitated beyond the long-shattered gate, unwilling to try the mare.

Tomyris charged in beheading the nearest wolf. A stiletto opened the throat of one trying to bite through the thick leather of her boot and the sword came down across the back of another, breaking its spine and nearly dividing the body. A wolf erupted in front of her, dodging under her guard to rip its teeth across her stomach. Tomyris' knee slammed up, breaking the beast's jaw and driving the bone into its brain as she brought her sword hilt down on its skull. Brains and blood splattered her.

The Sharani loosed a war cry, cutting down two more wolves. A heavy impact struck her between the shoulders, knocking her sprawling. The sword skittered across the cobblestones out of her reach. She twisted instantly. The tearing teeth missed her jugular, grazing her neck and collarbone instead as she threw the wolf off. Her left elbow struck the wolf's head, followed by her fist. The stiletto shifted in her grip and gutted the beast. Warm entrails slide over her hand. She kicked the body away and regained her feet, glancing for her sword. Silence struck her next.

Tomyris turned slowly, taking in the devastation. No living wolves remained within the courtyard. The survivors had withdrawn. Dead wolves shimmered eerily in the bloody light of the girl's burning branch and the frosted silver of the full moon. Their shapes wavered, regaining--in death--the form of the men they had been before the Nakesht enslaved them. Wide golden collars with strange runes adorned their naked bodies.

The old man sank to his knees in exhaustion, breathing deeply to recover himself. His head pressed against the staff he held upright with both hands. Tomyris did not spot the girl again until a gentle hand touched the warrior's arm.

The girl looked up into Tomyris' face. "You're hurt...."

Tomyris snorted. "Forget it."

"No," the girl repeated stubbornly. "You will let me tend it."

The light of the branch, which the girl laid aside, cast a flickering light across her features in the darkness. A dark headscarf wrapped the girl's hair and the shifting patterns of light and shadow sharpened some of her features and diminished others. Tomyris guessed her to be about seventeen or eighteen. Maybe older? The warrior took in the sharp angles of her narrow face, the heart-shaped triangle of cheekbones and tiny chin. A bit of black hair crossed the girl's forehead, the ends tucked behind her ears when they vanished into the folds of her russet scarf. Full lips, a well-shaped mouth, slightly too large for her delicate face. A long, narrow nose. Tomyris found her gaze resting longest on the girl's large, dark liquid eyes, which reminded her of a young elk doe.

Light sprang up and Tomyris turned to see the old man shoving dead branches into a deep fire pit in the center of the courtyard where flames danced with increasing brightness.

She pulled a bit of cloth from her belt, wiped her sword and stiletto, sheathed them, all the while studying the girl who stood staring determinedly at her with folded arms and spread feet. She was definitely someone the warrior could like--perhaps even a kindred spirit--and the kind of woman Tomyris never expected to find so deep into the Lands of Men. Then a strange, twisted, almost smile engaged the left side of the warrior's mouth. "So be it."

The girl nudged the warrior nearer to the fire. "Sit down there." She reached into a deep pocket concealed in the folds of her dark skirt and came out with a brown pouch. "Take your shirt off."

Tomyris shrugged out of her shirt and sat by the fire in just the band, which snugged her breasts. She made no sound as Sarana cleaned the wound and started to stitch the long tear closed.

The warrior looked up from the fire. The old man squatted not far from her. She had not heard him come up. He wore a dusty black robe, a broad brimmed hat with a headscarf handing beneath it covering his neck and shoulders. His beardless face was deeply seemed and beaten to leather by years of exposure to the dry winds and the heat of the sun on the plains and deserts. Arthritis twisted and gnarled his hands almost to claws and hunched his shoulder. Yet power and authority shone in his large, dark brown eyes and profound self-confidence in the easy set of his mouth, the attitude of his head and posture. He stared interestedly at the half coin hanging against her breast a little apart from the talisman, then glanced away, pulling a pipe and a tobacco pouch from his pockets.

"You've seen the other half?" Tomyris asked, noting the way he looked at the half-coin, feeling a quickening of hope. She had not gone looking for her father, but what if she found him by accident? Would that be a bad thing? "One your people has it?"

"Possibly." He tamped down some tobacco into the pipe bowl and lit it with a twig from the fire. "That would have been a very long time ago. I really don't remember right now. Is it important to you?"

"Only a little."

"Ehsaaa!" The old man sighed, looking at the burn scar and nodding at it. "Dragon burn?"

Surprise crossed Tomyris' face and vanished back into a stillness of feature. "The Great War."

"Those wars were hard on my people. Some of our people were hurt then too. Those who summered in the northwest." He extended a gnarled hand to her. "I am Azkani Takara of the Dazalero Euzadi. You are?"

Euzadi. Her stomach did a slow roll. Of course they were Euzadi. What else could they be? The steppes she was crossing and the grasslands belonged to their thirteen tribes. They routinely butchered aberrant women and many--if not most--outsiders. She had found their leavings months before when she started down from the northeast: two Sharani staked out over anthills. Yet these two did not seem to be a threat. Despite all this, the Euzadi were said to be an honorable people. And she had just made a major, probably decisive, act for their survival.

"Tomyris." She gripped the twisted fingers in a brief contact. Yet it was enough to tell her still somewhat sensitive temple-trained instincts that the man was a mage. And now she almost remembered where she had heard his name before. Maybe by morning it would come to her. For now she was too tired to be bothered.

"Have you a last name, Sharani?" the old man asked.

Chimquar tensed at the question. "No."