Fifth Day.

The sun rose and the early morning fingers of light spread across the pass and valley. The watching Helena saw Cressida arranging the archers into three ranks of ten. The amazon archers had trained to fire four arrows every twenty seconds which included loading and aiming and they rarely missed their targets. She looked to her right and saw the grave markers of her dead warriors and knew that soon they would have company. One of the lookouts signalled that the enemy was forming up on the plain and was being led by cavalry. Behind the archers were her twenty remaining swordswomen who would deal with any enemy who got close. Helena could not understand why the enemy commander was not using his archers and guessed that he did not want them hitting his own cavalry. Helena joined Cressida behind the archers and they stood and waited for the onslaught that would come and they did not have long to wait as they heard the trumpets sound.

They could first hear the horses then they felt the ground tremble as they crashed into the shields and hooks and chains were used to tear the wall down. The second wave charged in and was met with a hail of arrows as each rank fired in turn then reloaded to keep up a constant rate of fire. Helena knew they did not have enough arrows. The cavalry struggled and then started to retreat leaving a pile of dead horses and men behind them as they galloped back to their own ranks. The joy was short-lived as suddenly arrows started to rain down and soon Helena's archers were thinned out and she knew the end was near. The archers out of arrows drew their swords and waited for the next attack which came just before noon as hundreds of enemy troops rushed past the fallen shields and attacked. The clash of steel, was brief as the defenders were overcome but they were not killed they were knocked **** until the last fifteen defenders were down.

The enemy commander appeared and ordered the warriors stripped of weapons and to be bound and hobbled. Once they were secure they were all fitted with collars and linked together by a chain. Helena was treated differently she was stripped naked and her hands and feet tied to a pole so she hung down as two men carried her. With the battle finally over the enemy retreated leaving a small **** to guard the pass as the commander took his prizes back towards the border. He was already relishing what he was going to do with Helena as they rode eastwards. Lucky for Helena she was still **** and therefore oblivious to her peril.