Holding strong.

The enemy advanced but it was not a steady advance as their ranks were getting tangled under each other's feet. The lead ranks suddenly were at the shield wall but as the rear ranks pushed on they could not deploy their spears or swords to swing and stab. The warrior behind the shields swivelled them slightly making a gap for them to stab at the enemy. Soon the enemy bodies started to mass and Helena ordered the shields closed again as the enemy retreated and her warriors cheered. Helena knew this was a reprieve only as soon the enemy commander would deploy his archers to which she knew she was heavily outnumbered. Then there were his elephants which when unleashed would smash through the shields opening up the wall for his sword and spearmen to pour through. Helena called a scout and told her to return to Princess Arerto and tell her of the events then she found Cressida and told her that in the next attack the archers would need to be revealed.

The day wore on without further attack and Helena had allowed the enemy to remove those troops who were injured and for the dead to also be removed. The ground outside the wall was stained in the blood of the fallen along with discarded weapons and shields which Helena ordered collected. Helena surmised that the enemy was going to wait until the darkness of night to launch another attack. She went around her troops making sure that they had their shields with them as she suspected the attack would be precluded by an archery barrage. Cressida reported back that the archers had been given their orders and Helena asked her what she would do if she were the enemy commander. Cressida told her she would use archers to keep the heads of the enemy down and look for a way to attack one of the flanks or both. The hills would stop the flank attack but what if there was a pass further back in the hills that rose above the pass.

Helena ordered her scouts to check the foothills for any paths that could put the enemy in their rear areas. She then watched as the sun began to set into the western sky. She had a small fire lit near the wall and two warriors stood by with spears wrapped in cloth that could be lit and then thrown to light up the area in front of the wall. The night moved into deeper darkness and one of the sentries reported movement and noises coming from the enemy positions. Helena ordered the spears lit and then thrown and as they cleared the wall they hit the ground in front of the advancing enemy who were startled. As Helena had thought an archery attack was incoming and just then her archers opened up and thirty arrows flew into the enemy. The second volley was on its way before the enemy could even load their bows. By the time the third volley was inbound the light from the spears had gone out and the enemy had no reference of where to fire back.

Outside the wall, the ground was littered with dead and dying archers. one hundred and twenty had approached and within a minute seventy-five had been killed or wounded and the rest had retreated. The one advantage of this attack was the enemy would have not seen where the arrows had come from so Helena may still have that as a surprise. No more attacks came during the night but reports came in of the enemy clearing the dead and wounded from the battleground. Helena dozed at her spot near the wall while Cressida went around checking on her warriors. Up in the hills, archers were taking stock of their arrows. Each carried ten arrows which meant between them they had three hundred and each warrior had fired three arrows which meant they had fired a third of their arrows. Two archers from each hill had gone back to the camo below and taken enough arrows to make up for those used during the attack. The night slowly gave way to dawn as the sun began to rise in the east and the darkness retreated into brightening skies as Helana stirred.