Amazon Maidens 6: The Siege
By Littlesilverstar, silverstar222b@yahoo.com
Livia is on the warpath, Katarina is under siege, and Jenova is caught in the middle


Once again, the Royalist citizens of the Colonial Capital found themselves
facing a siege from an army of angry Amazon women. The only thing preventing
full-scale panic was the presence of Princess Katarina. It was she who had
saved the city from the first Amazon siege, and now it was her strong
leadership that was keeping at least some level of calm among the citizens.

Right now, she was finishing up a meeting with the Colonial Governor. "The
evacuation of the outlying villages and farms is complete, my Lady," the
Governor reported. "All citizens are now inside the protection of the city
walls. We have a total of thirty-six cannons available for combat, and the
ones facing the sea have been repositioned to face the land."

Katarina nodded. "Thank you, Governor. You are dismissed." As he bowed and
left, she motioned for two young women, both dressed in the uniforms of
cavalry scouts, to enter the room. She looked at the first. "What news of the
advancing Amazon army?"

"My Princess, they are now two days' march away. They number ten thousand, so
they outnumber our forces two to one, and they have twenty cannons and a dozen
siege towers."

"Thank you. Ride back and rejoin your scouting team." Katarina then turned to
the other girl. "I need you to carry an urgent message to Princess Jenova and
Lieutenant Colonel Summers about the Amazon siege. Let them know what's
happening here and inform me how they are doing trying to reason with Livia
and lifting the siege on General Norton at San Sebastian. I've chosen you
because you're the fastest rider on this island. Good luck and may the gods be
with you."

"My Lady." The girl bowed and hurried out of the room. Now alone, Katarina
turned to gaze out the window at the city below, deep in thought. Yes, they
were outnumbered, but they had the protection of the city walls, and more
cannons than the enemy. And what were the Amazons thinking, bringing those
siege towers? They were an obsolete form of warfare. The cannons would blast
them to pieces. There had to be something she was missing. If there was one
thing she had learned from combat with the Amazons, it was that they were as
intelligent as they were athletic.

* * *

"So...uh...what's it like being an Amazon princess?"

Jenova gave Summers a strange look as the female Royalist officer asked her
question.

"Sorry. I guess that would sound weird to you. Just trying to make
conversation." Summers was leading the delegation of twenty female Royalist
soldiers that were accompanying Jenova's army of Amazons. Even though the two
forces had cooperated well in battle and inflicted a crushing defeat on the
forces of the usurper-king Frederick X, there was much nervousness and
apprehension among the women as they rode towards the siege of San Sebastian.
Everyone knew that the fiery Livia, Jenova's older sister and the heiress to
the Amazon throne, wasn't likely to take kindly to any cooperation with the
Royalists.

Jenova gave the female lieutenant colonel a warm smile. "Sorry. I guess riding
in silence was a little awkward. Being an Amazon princess...it's quite
complex, I guess. There are the good parts - battle, ceremonies and holidays,
presiding over graduations of new recruits. Then there's all the political
crap, which is not so fun."

Summers nodded. "I guess it's not that different from being an officer, then.
Although I'm sure being a princess has a little more pomp to it."

Jenova, still smiling, was about to respond when she suddenly stopped her
horse and tilted her head, straining to listen to something in the distance.
"Listen. Do you hear that?"

Summers paused her mount as well. She nodded. "Cannon fire. Twelve-pounders.
Lots of them."

Jenova got her horse moving again. "We'd better hurry."

* * *

"All right," said Jenova, when the girls had reached the outskirts of San
Sebastian. In the valley below, they could see Livia's Amazon army surrounding
the fort, pounding it with artillery fire. The Royalist flag still flew
defiantly from the battlements as the male soldiers trapped inside fired back
with their own cannons. "I'll go down and talk to my sister first. You girls
stay here, out of sight. I'll give you a signal. If I wave my arm, that means
everything's good and you can come down and join us. But if I take off my
headdress, it means it's gone bad and you should bug out of here as fast as
you can."

Summers nodded. "Good luck." She watched Jenova ride away, then looked over at
the fort. "Well, Norton's still alive. That's one thing."

"Don't know how much longer they can hold out, though, judging from the
condition of the walls," said Summers' second-in-command. The young woman
looked at the Amazons around them, dropping her voice to a whisper. "Do you
think we can trust these girls?"

"We can trust Jenova's girls, Captain," said Summers. "It's Livia's girls we
have to watch out for. But since they're all down in the valley, we should be
able to escape if..."

"Oh, shit," said a lieutenant. "Look, she's taking off her headdress!"

Summers' normally tanned face turned pale. "Ride! Ride back to the capital!
Captain, lead them! I'll cover the rear." As the Royalist women began racing
away on their horses, Summers turned to the nearby Amazon commander.

"It's all right. Go," said the Amazon. "Of course we can't fight our sisters,
but we'll sit here in the way. That should slow them down enough if they try
to pursue."

Summers nodded. "Thank you." She spurred her horse into motion to catch up
with her girls.

The twenty Royalist women rode hard back for the Colonial Capital. There
didn't seem to be any signs of pursuit, and they had too much of a head start
anyway...

Suddenly, several hundred Amazon archers popped out from behind trees. Aiming
their deadly arrows, they surrounded the little Royalist force. Summers saw
that each Amazon's face was marked with a tattoo that none of Jenova's girls
had, most likely indicating they were a special force hand-picked by Livia.

Summers shook her head as her second-in-command began reaching for her pistol.
"It's no use, Captain." She raised her hands in surrender.

"Well, well, well," cackled the commander of the Amazon archers. "Looks like
we've captured some foolish women who have chosen the wrong side. Livia will
know what to do with you. Now everybody dismount and put your hands on your
heads!"

* * *

Princess Katarina walked through the streets of the dark city, listening to
the crickets chirping. It was likely that this would be the last peaceful
night for a long time. She checked with each of her division commanders in
turn. All seemed quiet.

Suddenly, a male voice rang through the still night air. "Hey, what are
you...unhhh!" There was a zing, a cry of pain, and then the corpse of a sentry
fell down from the city walls, an arrow embedded in his chest.

"Do it now!" shouted a female voice. There was a tremendous explosion as one
of the cannons mounted on the wall burst into pieces. Then came more
explosions, one after another, as other cannons blew up. And then, if that
wasn't bad enough, still more explosions came from the harbor as the ships
docked there were destroyed.

"They're inside the city!" shouted a man. "The Amazons are attacking! We're
doomed! Run! Run for your lives...unhhh!"

Katarina rammed her knee into the panicking man's stomach, driving all the
wind out of him and shutting him up. "Don't listen to this fool. To arms, to
arms! To the city walls!"

Several female figures gracefully backflipped off the walls, doing double back
saltos in midair to soften their falls, and landed elegantly on their feet
outside the city. They then began doing extremely fast back handsprings away
towards the cover of the woods. Men fired at them with their muskets, but the
Amazons were too blindingly fast for them to hit.

Katarina drew her double-barreled pistol. Taking careful aim, she emptied both
barrels. The two Amazons in the rear fell dead to the dirt. She then drew her
sword.

Two Amazon infiltrators were seemingly trapped, surrounded by male soldiers,
but they weren't going down. Each girl fought with her sword in one hand,
easily slaying any male that tried to take her on in hand-to-hand combat, and
used her other hand to throw daggers, nailing with lethal accuracy any man who
tried to aim his musket. A growing pile of male corpses began surrounding
them.

Katarina charged them. Two daggers came flying at her. She expertly deflected
both of them with her sword. Performing a front tuck somersault to take her
the rest of the way to them, she began swinging her blade in midair, beheading
one of the Amazons as she landed. The other girl's sword flashed as it moved,
but Katarina kicked her hard in the chest. The Amazon went flying off the wall
and was brutally impaled on one of the large, razor-sharp wooden spikes that
were part of the city defenses.

The Princess looked around as her heart rate slowly returned to normal. The
combat was over. The Amazons were gone. She looked at the piles of dead men
and shook her head.

The Governor came running up, still in his nightclothes and a pistol in his
hand. "What happened, my Lady?"

"Amazon infiltrators." She shone a lantern on the headless corpse of the enemy
she had decapitated, prodding the body with her boot. "Wearing our clothes.
They must have killed some of the people in the outlying villages, stolen
their outfits, and infiltrated the city when we brought everyone in to the
safety of the walls. Then they were free to come out at night and destroy our
cannons." She shook her head again, her long black hair flying. "I should have
seen it coming, especially after getting those reports about their siege
towers."

"Don't blame yourself, my Princess," said the Governor. "No one could have
predicted this. Hindsight is always 20/20."

Katarina sighed. "I have to take responsibility for this. Well, let's try and
get some of this mess cleaned up." She began issuing orders to her senior
officers. "You, get a count of our cannons. See if we have any left. You, get
more sentries, I want their numbers tripled." She then turned to a female
officer. "I want you to organize several squadrons of female soldiers. Sweep
the city and make sure there are no more Amazons within the walls."

As the men and women hurried off to their duties, the Princess turned to the
Governor. "Come to the war room with me. We have some planning to do. Don't
bother changing, there's no time for that."

* * *

There was a knock on the door of the war room. Katarina and the Governor
looked up from their papers. "Come in," said the Princess. An officer entered
and bowed.

"What have you to report, Colonel?" she asked.

"My Lady, all the additional sentries you requested are now in place. The
girls are still sweeping the city for any Amazons, but they haven't found any.
I think they're all gone. And as for the cannons...we have two left. They had
explosives rigged up around them, which we disarmed. The ships...all
destroyed. They really did a number on them. Put the explosives in just the
right places so we couldn't salvage cannons from the wrecks."

Katarina ran a finger through her silky hair. "Well, two is better than zero.
That poor dead sentry. His shout made the Amazons flee before they finished
the job completely. Have him buried with the highest level of military
honors."

"Yes, my Princess." He bowed again and left the room.

"The other ships, the ones out on patrol..." began the Governor.

"Can't be reached. We have no vessels left to go out to them. All we can do is
hope that some of them return to the city in time," said Katarina.

"Is there anything? Do we have any aces up our sleeve?"

"We may. Do we have any ballistas in the city? They're an obsolete weapon, but
I heard we may have some in storage."

"I think we do. That's an idea. They're not nearly as good as the cannons, but
every little thing will help."

"They may help more than we know, Governor. Come on, let's go check on them."

* * *

Jenova shook her head as the twenty female Royalist soldiers, their hands tied
behind their backs, were frogmarched by Livia's handpicked soldiers into the
Amazon camp. She scowled at her sister.

"You've gone too far this time, Livia. They were our allies! We worked
together to defeat an army of sexist males! And now you want to throw it all
away by treating them as enemies?"

"Shut your mouth, little sister," growled Livia. "They are part of a nation
that has made war on the Amazons. And even worse, they take orders from MEN.
They serve a MALE ruler..."

"Actually, since Frederick X is an illegitimate usurper, the true queen is
Katarina, so we don't actually serve a male rul..." Lieutenant Colonel Summers
began.

Livia kicked her hard in the stomach. "Shut up, you dirty traitor to your sex.
You will speak only when spoken to, prisoner."

Jenova, though seriously pissed at her sister's treatement of a woman she had
come to regard as a friend, spoke in her calmest voice. "Livia, please. Just
let them go. They've done us no harm."

"No. I outrank you, and I am in command here. When we capture the fort, I have
something special planned for both the women and the men." Livia turned to one
of her officers. "Take the prisoners to the rear, and don't let any of my
sister's soldiers come near them."

Jenova looked at Summers as she and the other Royalists were marched away.
Both women nodded to one another. They were pawns...for now. They would have
to wait for their chance.

* * *

"They are coming! The Amazons are coming!" shouted a sentry. Sure enough, a
massive Amazon army of ten thousand women, twenty cannons, and a dozen siege
towers appeared over the horizon, slowly advancing towards the Colonial
Capital. Katarina moved along the city walls, giving words of encouragement to
her men and women, urging them not to panic. She could see the fear in their
eyes, and hoped that her fear didn't show in her own.

"They say the Amazon Queen herself has come to lead her army, my Lady," said
one of the men.

"That is what the scouts reported," Katarina agreed. There was no sign of the
Queen...for now. But surely she was biding her time until it was right for her
to lead a strike. Katarina had considered attempting to negotiate, but she had
no idea what the Amazon Queen's personality was like, and she couldn't take
the chance that the Queen wasn't more like Livia than Jenova. She couldn't
risk going out herself, and she didn't want to send one of her girls out to be
captured...or worse.

The siege towers and the main body of Amazon warriors stopped just out of
cannon range. The enemy cannons advanced further, then stopped and opened
fire.

The artillery duel that followed was highly unequal, the twenty Amazon cannons
against the Royalists' two. Still, under Katarina's skillful direction, the
Royalists managed to destroy three Amazon artillery pieces before one of their
own was blown up. Katarina ordered the last cannon pulled away to safety, to
be readied with grapeshot if the Amazons breached the walls.

The remaining Amazon cannons kept up a steady fire as the siege towers, pushed
by muscular girls on the ground and filled with archers and swordswomen on the
higher levels, began advancing. When they got within rifle range, Katarina
ordered snipers to open fire, but the slow-firing weapons could only knock off
a few Amazons here and there. Then it got worse when the towers reached
archery range. Royalist soldiers began dropping with arrows in their bodies.
And the enemy cannons were causing steady casualties with their fire.

The towers paused, staying out of musket range. Arrows flew through the air,
and the cries of wounded and dying men filled the air as well. "Everybody down
below," Katarina ordered.

When the Amazons realized their opponents had left the walls, the siege towers
began moving forward again. Katarina peeked through a hole, watching them and
giving orders. "Snipers, try to nail targets through the windows. Musketeers,
get ready. Prepare to climb back out on my order."

She watched the towers come closer and closer, judging the distance, waiting
to time it just right. "NOW! UP! TAKE AIM!" she shouted as loudly as she
could.

"FIRE!" The Amazons ducked, but only a few Royalists had actually fired. After
hearing the shots go off, the Amazons popped up again...and were greeted by a
massive volley of musket balls from the remaining soldiers, dropping many
Amazons off the towers to land dead or crippled on the ground. Katarina pumped
her fist in triumph. "Now fire at will, no more volleys!"

Screams of dying men and women, the stench of gunpower, and the whizzing of
arrows filled the air as the two sides set to work. Katarina began firing with
her double-barreled pistol, keeping count. "One, two." She looked around as
she reloaded. The towers were almost at the wall now. "Three, four."

"AIIIIIEEEEEEEE!" A horde of Amazon infantry advanced on the city. Archers in
the rear fired over the heads of their comrades, adding a massive amount of
firepower and dropping large numbers of Royalists. Meanwhile, the girls in the
front raced towards the city, fearlessly braving the musket fire, and began
placing ladders against the walls.

"Nine, ten." Katarina spoke to an engineering officer as she reloaded. "Get
those ballistas ready. Eleven, twelve."

"Yes, my Lady." He turned to his men. "Lock and load!"

Amazons began swarming up the ladders like ants. Some of them were killed with
musket balls. Some fell screaming to the ground as boiling oil was poured on
them. But they kept coming, showing no fear. And when they got onto the top of
the walls, the men's bayonets were no match for their swords. Males were
sliced and diced into pieces.

"Seventeen, eighteen," said Katarina as she shot dead two Amazons who had made
it onto the walls. She delivered a powerful kick to a ladder, having enough
leg strength to knock the heavy contraption down, sending several enemies
falling to their deaths.

The siege towers had reached the walls. One by one, they deployed their ramps
and Amazons began swarming onto them. Katarina raced towards the nearest
tower, drawing her sword. "Ladies, with me!" A platoon of female soldiers
followed her and a massive rumble of swordswomanship broke out.

Katarina stabbed, slashed, and parried with her sword, fighting in the thick
of the battle. She yelped as she was cut on the arm, decapitating the Amazon
that had wounded her, then looked around. Her well-trained girls were at least
holding their own against the lethal Amazons. The male soldiers trying to
fight off the Amazons coming from the other towers were not so lucky. Unable
to match the ferocious female warriors' speed, the men were getting brutally
disemboweled and decapitated.

"NOW! FIRE!" The massive bolts from the ballistas, attached to ropes, crashed
into the sides of the siege towers, ripping deep into the wood but seemingly
doing no further damage.

"That's all you got? You think that will stop us?" smirked an Amazon with a
fancy headdress. She charged Katarina, their blades clashing against each
other.

"NOW! RELEASE!" shouted the engineering officer. Soldiers pulled levers,
releasing heavy counterweights attached to the ropes. The siege towers began
slowly tipping over. Amazons screamed as they fell to their deaths.

Katarina kicked her opponent hard in the face, sending her flying back onto
the falling tower. "Happy landings!" The Amazon joined the others in
screaming. One by one, the towers toppled to the ground, shattering on the
dirt. Cries of rage came from the horde of Amazons.

A shrill whistle cut through the air. The Amazons retreated, covered by their
archers, the swordswomen elegantly backflipping away like pro-gymnasts to make
themselves harder to hit.

Katarina looked over the scene, watching them go. In the distance, she saw a
woman with an impressive headdress on a white horse, who seemed to be looking
straight back at her.

The Amazon Queen looked at the Royalist Princess and simply nodded. Then she
turned her horse away, retreating with her girls.

* * *

Katarina met with her senior officers in the war room. Even from there, they
could all hear the Amazon cannons, keeping a slow but steady fire on the city.

"That was brilliant, my Lady," said a general. "Bringing out those ballistas
from storage and using them to pull down the siege towers. Where did you get
that idea?"

"I saw it in a movie once."

"Huh? What's a mov..."

The Princess suddenly shook her head, as if she was dizzy. "What was I saying?
I don't even know. Anyway, I got the idea from my ancestor, Queen Roslyn I.
She defeated a siege from the barbarians of the north with those tactics. I
read the story in her war diary. But getting back to the present, we're still
in deep shit. We're surrounded, outnumbered, outgunned, and facing some very
pissed-off and talented ladies who won't be so overconfident next time. We
have to get ready for tomorrow..."

* * *

Two female Royalist soldiers stood in the darkness near a side gate in the
city walls. One of them mounted a horse as the other whispered to her. "Are
you sure you want to do this, Lieutenant?"

"I have to, Sergeant. I don't see any way out of this siege. We have to get
the Amazons to negotiate. With the surprise we sprung on them today, that
should at least give us some bargaining power."

"But we don't know that the Amazons are even willing to negotiate, ma'am. We
can hope that the Jenovas are the rule and the Livias are the exception, but
it could just as easily be the other way around. You could be killed. That's
why Katarina has forbidden anyone from going out there."

The young female officer smiled. "She wants to protect us. But perhaps it is
my turn to take one for the team. Perhaps it is my turn to be a heroine. Now
please hand me my white flag."

"Yes, ma'am. Good luck."

* * *

Two Amazon sentries, who happened to be members of Team Livia, observed the
rider in the distance. "It's a woman. She's carrying a white flag."

"Shit. They want to negotiate. If they succeed, Jenova's faction will become
more powerful than Livia's and we'll lose a lot of influence."

One of the women looked around. "Well, it doesn't look like anyone else has
seen her yet..."

The second Amazon smirked sadistically. "Keep watch for me." She reached for
an arrow.

* * *

Katarina finished her coffee and looked at her reflection in the mirror. Her
eyes were still red, but there wasn't much she could do about that. Quickly
donning her armor, she headed outside. A faint light brightened the eastern
sky, but the sun had not yet risen. She began making her rounds, checking with
each of her senior officers in turn.

Suddenly, there was a loud shout from the city walls. Katarina raced over,
dashing up the steps two at a time. The soldiers on top of the wall parted to
make way for her. She stared down onto the plain.

A horse was walking back to the city. On it was the corpse of a young woman in
a Royalist lieutenant's uniform. An arrow was sticking out of her buxom chest,
and her head had been cut off and placed neatly in her open saddlebag.

"NOOOOO!" The female sergeant who had been speaking with the dead lieutenant
earlier rushed up, screaming as she saw her friend's headless body. "After all
the strength we showed yesterday! We offer to negotiate, and this is how they
respond! They'll pay for this!"

Katarina put a hand on the sergeant's shoulder. "Calm yourself."

"Yes, my Princess." The young woman stood up straight.

"You knew she was going to do that?"

"Yes." The sergeant answered in a small voice, and she hung her head.

"It's all right. Look at me." Katarina brushed a strand of hair out of the
other woman's face. "I forbade riders going out to try to negotiate with the
Amazons because I couldn't in good conscience order anyone out on such a
dangerous mission. Your friend was very brave. I will not hold that against
her or you."

"Thank you, my Lady."

Katarina looked around, addressing the assembled women and men. "I think
there's more to this than meets the eye. I saw the Amazon Queen yesterday. She
looked at me. I couldn't be sure because she was so far away, but I think I
saw her nod as a sign of respect for the fight we put up. I believe that the
lieutenant's assassination was done without the Queen's knowledge or
approval." She put a comforting arm around the female sergeant.

Katarina called down to a group of men on the ground. "Open the gate and let
the horse and rider in. See that the lieutenant gets buried with full military
honors. The rest of you, get back to your regular duties."

* * *

Summers and her platoon of female soldiers sat glumly with their hands tied
behind their backs. Around them, an equal number of Livia's hand-picked Amazon
women, armed with bows and arrows, guarded them.

"I've been working on my ropes," whispered one Royalist girl. "I've almost got
my hands free."

"Just sit and wait, soldier," a lieutenant whispered. "Even if we all got
free, those Amazons are as quick as leopards. They'd shoot us full of arrows
before we could stand up straight. Let's not do anything reckless."

"We have to do something," whispered a captain. "We can't just sit here and
wait for whatever fate Livia has planned for us."

As the lieutenant began opening her mouth again, Summers motioned for both of
her junior officers to be quiet. "She's right that we shouldn't do anything
reckless. And she's right that we can't just sit here and do nothing. We'll
try to escape, but ONLY if we can do it without anyone from either side
getting killed. If we can't, we'll put our faith in Jenova. I will not be the
one to shatter this fragile alliance. Now everybody keep trying to get your
hands free, but NOBODY MOVE without my order."

Suddenly, there came an angry female shout. "They're trying to escape!"

Summers' heart skipped a beat. Her body tensed as she prepared to shout an
order...then suddenly relaxed with a huge sigh of relief when another Amazon
stood up and pointed. "Some men from the fort! They've slipped out on horses!
Archers, take aim! Fire!"

The Amazons guarding the Royalists fired a volley from their bows. Several
males fell off their horses, arrows impaled in their backs, but others kept
riding.

"Riders, AFTER THEM!" roared Livia's voice in the distance. "We're lighter and
faster! They can't outrace us! Ride them all down! Kill them all!"

The surviving men split up, riding away in all directions. Mounted Amazons
raced after them, their officers shouting orders. A dozen of the girls
guarding the Royalists leaped onto horses and joined the chase, leaving just
eight women guarding the prisoners. And some of them were busy aiming at the
forest with their bows, trying to see if they could get a glimpse of a male
for a shot. The captain looked at Lieutenant Colonel Summers and the senior
officer nodded.

The twenty Royalist women, their hands now free, pounced on their unsuspecting
captors. With swift knees to the face or kicks to the head, they knocked their
opponents out.

Some of the female soldiers quickly grabbed their ex-guards' bows. Summers
issued swift orders. "Go for the nearest horses, split up, and ride for the
Colonial Capital." She then turned to the captain. "You're good with a bow,
right?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Good." Summers handed the captain a bow and quiver of arrows and picked up a
set for herself. "Now let's go for those two horses over there. Hopefully we
won't have to shoot anyone, but if it comes down to tha..."

There was a whizzing sound, like the buzz of a bee. A split second later, a
steel bolt slammed into the captain's forehead. She stood ramrod straight for
a second like some strange unicorn, then crashed dead to the dirt.

"NOOOOOOOOO!" Summers whirled and saw Livia in the distance, holding a
crossbow. The ultra-lethal Amazon had made the perfect head shot from 300
yards. Livia, laughing sadistically, began reaching for another bolt.

"Bitch!" Summers took aim with her own bow and fired. The arrow missed Livia,
but struck the Amazon standing next to her right between her breasts. The
buxom woman toppled to the ground.

Summers immediately began doing a series of standing back handsprings towards
the horses. Livia's next bolt whizzed safely between her legs as she was
upside down in the middle of one of her flick-flacks. By the time Livia had
loaded and fired her third bolt, the lieutanant colonel was already mounted
and out of range.

Summers shook her head as she rode, urging the horse on faster. She passed
several arrow-impaled Royalist corpses, both male and female, as she raced for
the trees. The Amazons had already done a number on the escapees. She could
only hope that at least a few of them would make it to the Colonial Capital
alive...and that this wouldn't destroy the alliance with Jenova.

* * *

The forest was dark and foreboding. The dense leaves would have almost blocked
out the sun even if it had been shining, and the cloudy skies made it even
gloomier. It was as if the trees themselves had been in the presence of death
for too long, and had lost their vibrancy and beauty.

Summers paused her exhausted horse, listening carefully for any sounds of
pursuit. A pair of Amazons had almost nailed her earlier, some arrows missing
her head by inches, but she had successfully fought them off with her own bow,
killing one and wounding the other and forcing her to retreat. She gave thanks
that she still practiced with a bow for hunting despite it being considered an
obsolete weapon in the Royalist army for war. During her flight, she had
passed a couple more dead Amazon bodies on the ground, as well as three dead
Royalist men and four of her own girls' corpses. She shook her head. At this
rate, it would be a wonder if any of them made it back.

She patted her horse on the head. She knew that the animal couldn't keep this
up for much longer without a proper rest and water to drink. But there was
nothing to help in this decaying forest. The Amazons' horses, at least, should
be having the same problem, she thought. Unless they had found some way to
make their horses, too, have superior capabilities to the equivalent species
of other nations.

Suddenly, she heard hoofbeats. She tensed, inserting her last arrow into her
bow. She listened more closely. They were coming from the wrong direction. Had
the Amazons managed to surround their opponents and cut them off?

The rider appeared in the distance. It was a teenage girl. Summers sighed with
relief upon seeing that the newcomer was wearing a blue and white Royalist
uniform...then gasped when she saw that the slender, petite girl had an arrow
sticking out of her chest, right between her small, perky breasts.

Summers rode up to her, not recognizing her as one of the soldiers she had
brought with her. "By the gods, where did you come from? What happened?"

"Ma'am...Katarina...sent me...find out...happened with...you and Jenova...and
also...tell you...capital...under siege...massive army...got close to...San
Sebastian...suddenly...out of nowhere...Amazon riders...sniped a couple with
my musket...but...too many...nailed me right between the tits...managed...ride
away...unhhh..." The girl fell off her horse. Summers leapt down, bending over
her, but as she looked into her eyes, she could see that there was no life
left in them.

"Fuck!" cursed Summers, too loudly. A few moments later, more hoofbeats
sounded. Two more Amazons appeared in the distance. Summers immediately fired
her last arrow, nailing one enemy in the center of her chest, then threw
herself into an aerial cartwheel. The second Amazon's arrow whizzed safely
between her legs as Summers was flipping. The Royalist officer landed neatly
on her booted feet. Snatching up the teen girl's musket and praying that it
was loaded, she took aim and pulled the trigger.

She sighed with relief as the musket ball slammed into the Amazon's head as
she was drawing back her bow for another shot.

Still more hoofbeats echoed through the dark forest. Summers snatched up the
musket along with the girl's sword, mounting the new horse and praying that it
was fresher than her old one. The skilled woman reloaded the musket as she
swiftly rode away, wondering if she was even going in the right direction. She
had heard tales about this part of the forest when she was a girl, about how
people had gone in and never come out. She prayed that she truly was on her
way back to the Colonial Capital. And what of this massive army besieging the
capital? Could the city withstand another siege?

* * *

Will Lieutenant Colonel Summers make it safely home? Can Princess Katarina,
through battle or negotiation, break the siege of the Colonial Capital? Will
any of the Royalist ships out on patrol return to the city to help their
defenses? Will the Amazon Queen realize that there are subversives in her own
army? Will General Norton and his men survive the siege of San Sebastian? How
will Princess Jenova react to her sister's troops firing on her allies? What
will be the beautiful but sociopathic Princess Livia's next move? Will Susan
Lucci finally win an Emmy?

Tune in next time to AMAZON MAIDENS, EPISODE 7 to find out!

Contact me at silverstar222b@yahoo.com if you liked this story!