Surprise!

Prince Anochises steps forward pausing only long enough to collect the ropes that held Lord Marshal Raxius and the High Priestess of Helios by their hoplite 'keepers'; he pulls the two most hated pair of Athenapolis' foes by their wrists leading them to the High Council of the city that they had been so close to conquering. All eyes are on the strutting prince as he pushes the Lord High Marshal to his knees and turns his attention to the tall silver-haired woman who stares defiantly at the men assembled on the steps above.

The preening warrior steps behind the High Priestess and tears away the shift covering the hated woman's full breasts exposing her to the eyes of not only the High Council of Athenapolis, but to the crowds of spectators who have gathered to see this moment of triumph. So many of Athenapolis' elite have gathered to greet Prince Anochises and his victorious Apollonian troops that there is barely any room for the mercenaries normally guarding the crown of the citadel.

The reaction from the wealthy men and modestly covered freewomen crowding the overlooking walls and balconies is mixed. While some gasp in shock at the crudeness of their new ruler's treatment of the priestess, other spectators cheer enthusiastically at seeing the woman humbled. It is she, after all, who has nearly destroyed their city and promised to sell each of the wives and daughters present as naked slaves from the city's central **** block. All eyes are glued to the drama unfolding before the seated council, a good many of them, like yours, are admiring the exposed beauty of Prince Anochises' captive.

"She's a little old for my taste, and her hips have been stretched by her pups," Prince Anochises' voice is loud and triumphant, "but I'll let you grey-beards borrow her whenever you like." He reaches around the glaring High Priestess to grab one of her sagging breasts and squeezes it hard between his fingers until the soft flesh looks like it might rupture. "Someone like this might be just the right speed for most of you." You can see the furrowing of the councilmen's brows as they try to ignore the coarse rudeness of their 'savior' and a ruckus breaks out from the rear of the assembly. You wonder yet again how long it will take for this council to regret ceding their city to a vicious bastard like Anochises.

The commotion behind you grows slowly, but it is not until you hear the clash of metal weapons that you turn to see that the situation is not what it seems. While you, the prince and the vast majority of the citizens of Athenapolis perched on this lofty aerie were captivated by the sight of the High Priestess being humiliated, the captured officers of the United Army had been busy. The fake bindings once on the prisoners' arms are lying uselessly on the paved courtyard and the Apollonian hoplites who were supposed to be guarding them are instead moving to attack any armed Athenapolis forces in sight.

Hidden inside the rolled-up carpets were dozens of spears, the chests are full of swords, and the bulky cylinders stacks of shields that are being distributed with military efficiency. The hoplites from the city of Apollo move in organized groups up the steps to **** the mercenaries manning the drake-bows and rock-piles guarding the citadel's peak. Others charge to the doors leading down into the honeycomb of chambers and halls below, by sealing these passages, they trap any remaining mercenary forces below while the fate of the citadel was being determined by the men fighting in the tight spaces above.

Screams of terrified nobles filled the air along with trumpet blasts and the clash of weapons; the entirety of the elapsed time was probably no more than ten heartbeats, although it must have seemed like minutes to the stunned inhabitants of the citadel. Unlike the United Armies' officer's your bindings were not specially designed to fall free, but you are not totally hopeless. Picking up the marble bust that you had lugged up the winding path you charge towards a group of a dozen or so Athenapolis mercenaries who are linking shields and advancing on the officers still passing out weapons and forming ranks. The dense marble carving makes a reasonably good missile when hurled at full speed at the shield wall and although it is caught on one of the shields, the spearman holding it is knocked to his feet creating a gap in the wall big enough for you to leap into.

Once in the midst of the shieldwall you were relatively safe, the spears of the elite soldiers are deadly, but only when the wielder has his target in front of the shields. Your sudden presence in their midst forces at least some of the men to drop their spears and draw short swords. If you had to stand and fight for long with your hands bound at the wrists it would have been ugly, but now there is a bigger gap in the formation and a pair of newly armed war captains of Helios appear at your side. What could have been a dangerous counterattack was blunted before it started, this squad of mercenaries is overcome almost immediately.

With a joyous smile you step back over the fallen body of one of the mercenaries, trying to find Lady Relia before she is mistaken for one of the many pretty Athenian females that will soon be added to the long coffles of women below. You are stopped briefly by a hoplite bearing the sigil of Helios on his right shoulder and a sword in his hand, but only so he could slice of the ropes that still bind your wrists.

"I saw that you crazy Rider," he tells you pointing to where the marble bust still lies on the floor, "next time, leave the fighting to real warriors and you stick to flying around on your pet." The teasing is nothing you haven't heard a hundred times before; the rivalry between Riders and hoplites has existed since the first drake was harnessed but you can see the respect in the soldier's eyes. It had been a crazy thing to do, but it worked! You are relieved to find Relia is still standing pretty much where you last saw her; stunned but otherwise unharmed.

"I don't understand." She whispers as she clings to you with the strength of a drake's claw. "I thought Prince Anochises had won..."

"Me too, sweetheart." You laugh as the complexity of the Lord Marshal's plan slowly sinks in. "That Lord Raxius is one ballsy bastard; I'll give him that." In one brilliant maneuver he had cracked the nut that was Athenapolis' citadel, if you didn't know any better you would have thought that he had been planning this for months.

The final element of the coordinated **** came from the skies. With the drake-bows no longer free to fire their deadly barbed shafts, and the bowmen assigned to guard the walls of the citadel fighting for their lives, Riders screamed down onto the mercenaries still stubbornly refusing to give up. Once a dozen or so of these fighting men were plucked by a drake's talons and then released to plummet onto the city below the will of the defenders was shattered and the fighting was pretty much over. Your attention is drawn to Prince Anochises who, once he finally realizes that he had been duped, draws his sword and turns to face the Lord Marshal and the High Priestess of Helios who by now have been armed by their accomplices.

The fight between Lord Raxius and the much younger Prince Anochises is the climax of the ****. Not that the outcome of the duel would in any way effect the results of this siege, but you can tell that the Lord High Marshal had not forgotten his treatment at the hands of the prince back in his tent. It does not surprise you when a few minutes later Anochises' body is kicked from the walls even as he tries to yield; the only mercy shown to the traitorous prince is that he was already almost dead by the time he takes his final flight.

With the **** of Prince Anochises the attention of the men turns to plunder. In the rooms below no doubt there will be vast storerooms filled with gold, spices, tapestries and all sorts of works of art and holy relics, but at the moment, the soldiers are more interested in the High-born Ladies of Athenapolis who stare at them in wide-eyed terror. The veils of the women modestly dressed in their concealing robes are lifted from their faces and then the prizes are separated; first from the men and then the women are divided again into two smaller groups.

The girls too young for what is to follow as well as older, less attractive matrons are herded to the side, but almost fifty of the younger wives and post-pubescent daughters of the families sheltered in the citadel are assembled in the center of the courtyard. One by one, the captive's heavily embroidered outer robes are removed until they stand in clusters wearing nothing but light undertunics that leave their arms and lower legs bare. Added to these highborn women are an additional group of nearly a dozen priestesses notable by their white tunics and lack of jewelry. These holy women in particular are attracting a good deal of attention from the war captains of the United Armies. Once stripped of the concealing robes the captive women are made to kneel on the same paving stones that the captured war captains of the United Armies were on just minutes before.

You cannot help but admire the selection of nervous females before you. Now that they have been partially stripped you can see that, if not the most beautiful women in the city, many of these noblewomen and their daughters are certainly near the top. There is not as much struggling from the captives as you had expected when their robes are removed. Perhaps it is the shock of their sudden defeat, or perhaps these young ladies, better than any other, know what happens to beautiful women captured in war. Only now, as the invaders move among them do they realize that they too will share the fate of so many other women captured and brought to their city.