Chapter 898

• They bled together and were forced from time to time to place their lives in each other's hands. They witnessed one another's courage and sacrifice. They watched them bury their dead, nurture their young and weep at their pain. Whenever things looked darkest, the Amazon would turn to their partisan partners and say with utmost confidence 'we have survived worse; so can you'.
• The seminal event happened on the night of February 17th, 1944. For two years, the fractured, wounded women that are ever-present wherever there is war began to attach themselves to the Amazon bands. At first they were little more than annoyances. In time, the Amazons tried to turn these women into something 'useful'. Later, a few earned the right to follow the Amazons into battle.
• On that February night, two ladies were inducted into House Živa. This was hardly the first time outsider women were brought into the Host, but this circumstance was unique - induction in the middle of a war, having proven themselves in battle before their now-sisters. From that action - not the last in that conflict - was born the concept of the 'Runners'.