(Inside the gates of ancient Troy, 1241 BCE)

Penthesilea returned to the main square inside the walls of the Trojan city. There she found her twelve warriors standing by their horses. Both animals and Amazons seemed refreshed, as her child-hood friend, Klonie, confirmed to her that they had all been well-fed and the horses watered. A crowd of children and many palace servants had gathered quietly to view the elusive women warriors. Across the courtyards, at a distant area of the citadel, an immense staging area was busily preparing troops, cavalry and chariots for the day's assault upon the Greek forces outside.

It was reported to Penthesilea by Bremousa as they mounted their war-horses and gathered into formation, that the men inside the walls had received word the Daughters of the Moon would be accompanying their forces out of the gates. The news had spread like a fire she told her, igniting spirits and quickening steps. The Trojan forces had begun feeling the confidence that they would be in the company of Ares' own fair daughter this day—Penthesilea's own legacy as an Amazon queen.

Several moments later the women were approached by a tall, helmeted man in heavy armor and himself on horseback. He identified himself as Polydamus, close friend of the late Hector, and one of the chief commanders of the Trojan army. He invited Penthesilea and her warriors at the behest of his war council to follow him to the staging area where they would be first out onto the wide plain. As the line of horses and warriors passed in front of the waiting and positioned soldiers, the men began to cheer at their presence. Penthesilea and her sisters could see the hope and excitement in their faces being contagiously ignited. The women could feel in the air this new-found exuberance as they were being called once more to arms. The look in the Trojan army's eyes as they joined the charioteers, steadying their horses, was not the trepidation and rage they had been used to seeing among men so close to battle. For all of Penthesilea's women it was the first expressions they had seen of welcome and camaraderie, among these, the more brutal sex. The Amazons who had now donned their helmets shook off this collaborative image which they saw as false, for they knew a more familiar view of man in combat awaited them just ahead. And they knew those more familiar expressions would come straight away when they charged seaward to intercept the waiting Greeks.

There was a general call to arms by trumpets and the quick tempo of drums which marshaled the procession. Swords and spears were made ready to fetch close-handedly as the Trojan riders were now flank to flank with Penthesilea's warriors. There was the smell of men's stale sweat and leather and horses urine as they crowded forward to pass through the narrow gateway. And at last the vanguard of the assault was galloping forward across the tired battlefield. It had been the venue of so many previous attempts, by one side or the other, to end this war through some resounding defeat. The rocky soil had been softened by blood, and by the thousands of sandals, thundering horses' hooves and the clattering of spiked chariot wheels for nine long years.

As the tension of contact rose, the mounted Amazons and Trojan generals vigorously charged the first line of Greek defenses and wooded barricades amid the battle cries of the forces behind. A line of Greeks on horseback, cheering hysterically, rode forward to counter the momentum and resolve of the offensive. At this, the first sound of arrows began to sing through the air, some striking bronze and leather shields. They flew amid the wild screams of horses which, wider and longer than their riders, met many of the points and shafts of the Greek archers cruelly and indefensibly.

One of the charioteers to the left of Penthesilea took an arrow in his neck. Reaching for the wound, he toppled over the rounded rim of the chariot, and then was trampled by the horses and wood-cleated vehicles behind. Another Trojan rider beside her fell to a shower of arrows, many glancing off the upheld shields of both Amazons and nomad mercenaries. Still another rider's horse, hit numerous times in the neck and chest by the spray of arrows fell from the weight of the pain, sending the young Trojan with his useless armor crashing to the ground and under the hooves of oncoming war-horses, all galloping forward at top speed.

The random waves of arrows were released by the Greeks in clouds. The Amazon's moon-shaped shields took the force of them like small roofs atop the attacking assembly while they neared the range to begin firing their own arrows with pin-pointed accuracy. Penthesilea was first to hit a mark with her arrow cast. Her bronze-tipped shaft was buried with force into the abdomen of a Greek soldier standing with sword and spear ready to clash with the oncoming forces. But just as he fell backwards, two more, helmeted with red crescents stood to replace him.

The Trojan riders and chariots had finally reached the wooden ramparts constructed by the Greeks. They rode in circles randomly back and forth before them. Behind could be seen the leather tents of the Achaeans and further still, beyond the river Xanthus, later to be called the Scamander, were the many ships lashed side by side with sails reefed, rocking in the gentle waves of the turquoise shallows of the Aegean Sea. Rows of Greeks now rushed forward, commanded by Agamemnon, their wise field commander, though many could be seen falling to the arrows of both Amazon and Trojan as they took aim from horseback and chariot. The bold offensive pressed forward to this line of contact with great resolve and the attainable spirit of victory could be felt in the dusty air.

A Greek known to his comrades as Molion fell to another of Penthesilea's arrows, passing this time between breast plate and helmet, just below his chin. The Amazon attackers were close enough now to see their foe's faces, many of them bearded, their mouths open in rage. The din from shouts of agony and the rattling of arrows striking wooden posts and leather shields became the cruel music once more of heated battle. Added to it the familiar ring of Iron swords in contact pierced the bright morning and bird-less sky.

The Trojan foot soldiers running from behind had now arrived and showered the Greeks and their protective barriers with their own cloud of arrows. They hit their marks of limbs and necks, weakening the Greek defenses. But between and around the Trojan cavalry Priam's own men were falling from a growing counterattack being sustained as more Achaeans came to the front. They were being led at the flanks by the wise Odysseus and his trusted Diomedes. There also appeared the forces of other Mycenaean kings, wielding theirs as well. These were men who, pledged to aid Helen's jilted husband, Menelaus—had once been suitors of her rare beauty themselves. These kings, fighting with their sons, had become cursed in the long war by their own honor and allegiance to a frivolous cause—the stubbornness and weakness of their sex

Antitheus and Eilissos, along with Teucer, the Greek's best archers, rode up on horseback to face the approaching Amazons. Antitheus fell forward onto his mount's head from Penthesilea's well-thrown lance. It struck and tore open his muscular leg, giving her the chance to plant a better-guided arrow into his eye. Amazon Thermodosa made the best of Eilissos, charging forward and removing his arm with one downward swipe of her iron sword. Both men, to the shock of their comrades, lay horseless on the turf, the blood draining from their wounds. A shower of arrows was returned to Thermodosa for her deeds, and she fell valiantly trying to wound another Greek—the missiles still protruding from her chest and arms.

Penthesilea circled around several of her Trojan allies who were engaged in close-hand combat. Employing spear and sword, the men swung and thrusted at on-coming Greeks frantically. One Trojan fell to a Greek's well-placed sword, between shoulder and neck, but at the same moment Penthesilea side gated her horse into them all as a battering ram. From her position she quickly accessed her labrys from a binding on her saddle straps. With two lethal swings she opened both the necks of the Greek defenders, coating her horse's flank with bright blood and bringing death to the pair instantly.

A senior member of the Greek camp was Idomeneus, King of Crete. While close to the front he marveled at the destructiveness of these raging women who fought as if possessed by the god Ares. He noted the legacy of Penthesilea to the young commander Diomedes—that her same-shared line of queens descended directly from the warrior-wasting god. Surely it was this and her enchanted handiwork of horses and weapons which was putting noticeable hesitation and fear into his own men. Wishing to test the mortality of these women, Idomeneus charged out onto the battlefield with his lance and shield. He overtook the young Bremousa, and when she wheeled to meet his advance, he had already released his spear. It struck her full-force above her right breast, toppling her backward where she lay, soon breathing her last.

From a rearguard the other generals watched as Penthesilea rallied these attacks upon her sisters, and with her remaining warriors, bettered so many of the battle-seasoned men which they had personally trained. Before them they witnessed the son of the great healer, Asclepius, a friend they called Machaon, fall to the ground by Penthesilea's bewitched labrys. It was hurled from the distance of a spear throw, striking the healer's son diagonally between helmet and breastplate. He too, was ejected from his mount and struggled only briefly before perishing face down on the rocky, stained soil.

Suddenly, Derinoe, whom Penthesilea had fought with the year before, and who had killed three in a party of marauding nomads that spring, rode forth to the edge of a wooden barrier and shot her arrows behind it, producing screams from those using its defense. Klonie joined her, having been pulled off her horse and now on foot. She hurled a lance at the remaining Greek, Laogonus, who ran from the rampart. The spear struck him full center in the back with such force, that the shaft passed through him, stopping only at his chest armor. Witnessing this from a distance, and seeing his long time comrades dying before him, a Greek warrior they called Podarkes, ran forward and threw his own javelin, finding its mark in Klonie's abdomen. It sent the fair-haired warrior crashing over the rampart, then crying out to her sisters as her entrails extended onto the ground beside her.

Trojan forces and Greeks clashed in the full swell of battle for hours, beneath the pitiless sun. The Trojan assault pushed nearer the ships, which lay empty, as King Priam's great trophies. The remaining Amazons and mounted Trojans had now pushed to within a Scythian arrow-shot of the guarded bridge over the Xanthos. The seashore lay just beyond. The women warriors , led by their queen, had given much punishment and death to their opponents and the Trojans had fought with a new vitality, doubly for the revenge of Hector's death, and the blood-roused charm of Penthesilea as their ally.

But soon the untiring Greeks, anxious in their efforts to end the assault and indeed the long war itself, were beginning to rally anew by word that Achilles, their own undefeatable favorite of the god Athena, had been summoned to the fight again on their behalf. He had been called out once more from his inconsolable grieving over the death of Patroclus, his childhood friend and prudent counselor.

As one of Achilles' many ships in the distance raised a banner seen from the battlefield, signaling his return to the fray, all the men cheered and prepared to greet him on the blood-soaked field with triumphant reception. They knew his presence would turn the tides again for the Greeks, as had been prophesized, and prayed for in their frantic hour of need.

As Achilles, the 'all-ravager' and favorite of the Greek gods, rode out alone to where the Amazons held their position, he was seen wearing again his charmed armor, crafted anew by the metal smith of Olympus, Haephestus. It was the very battle wear which the champion of warriors had donned to kill Hector, who in that fateful duel, had worn the hero's former arms, then died in them at his opponent's mighty hand and Athena's treachery.

At the same moment Achilles rode onto the field, the handsome giant they called Telamonian Ajax took on the charging Trojans inside the Greek camp. He pushed them back toward the city gates, leaving only the Amazons exposed to Achilles' wrath. But this was not before cutting down Derimacheia with is sword, one the best archers of the women.

Assisting Ajax in the recapitulation of Priam's soldiers were Achilles' elite forces, the Myrmidons, whom he had left temporarily in his charge as a last bastion of the ships' defenses. Ajax, a legendary warrior among his countrymen, and once a suitor himself of the fair Helen, had effortlessly laid waste scores of Trojan mercenaries in the onslaught. This he did singlehandedly in their hasty retreat, unmolested through the aid of his charmed, Mycenaean body shield in the shape of a figure-eight. Using only his massive sword and strength, Ajax vanquished even the Trojans' horses and  destroying several wooden chariots in the process.

But it was the return of Achilles, his new armor shining as a beacon in the midday light, which was most welcomed by the battle-weary Greeks and seen as some divine talisman to turn the tide against fierce Amazon and Trojan warrior. Penthesilea watched with anticipation as the celebrated hero dismounted his chariot and slowly approached her stolid position, the gates of Troy in the distance.

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