Chapter 5

Wouldn't you know it: the caravan was late getting to the ambush site! Armor had put 10 men, under the direction of Brad, in the trees along the ambush location. Aelinor was leading the other 6 men, including Stan and Joe, on the ground. Brad's group was to mount the main attack by shooting down on the caravan, while Aelinor's group was to prevent any escapes and to round up the women after the fighting was over. After the battle, everybody would join in to clean up the mess and drive the caravan back to the revolutionaries base. There, the women would be given the choice of returning home or remaining with the revolutionaries.

Aelinor had placed 3 men on either side of the road to catch escapees, no matter which way they ran in panic. The women were always locked inside the caravan wagons, so they wouldn't be going anywhere until the doors were unlocked. But you never knew what people could accomplish when they panicked, so Aelinor's men were cautioned to watch for running women and to be sure not to harm them.

After and agonizing 100 minutes of waiting, the caravan finally came into sight. The lookout used the radio in his amulet to warn everybody, so they were all ready when the caravan was in position. There were 6 wagons holding women and 2 more carrying guards and the items that they would need if they were stuck on the road overnight. The road was narrow, so they could trap the caravan if they could disable the first and last wagons in line. Brad had assigned 2 men to shoot the lead driver and 2 men to shoot the last driver. The other 6 drivers had 1 man to shoot at each of them. The crossbowmen had been ordered to keep shooting at the drivers until each wagon was definitely stopped; then, they were to shoot at the guards. Meanwhile, Aelinor's men shot at the guards. Everybody was repeatedly warned not to harm the draft animals.

The lead driver was killed in the first volley, but the last driver had to be shot at a second time to kill him. The attackers were pumped up with adrenaline to the point that they were practically shaking with tension by the time it came for them to fire the first volley. Most of the drivers were only wounded by this volley, but every one of them was hit somewhere. The shooters had calmed down by the time of the second shot, so the drivers were all eliminated at that point.

The attack on the guards met with mixed success. A few of the guards recognized that this was not a common bandit attack and realized that some sort of missile was being used against them. These men ducked for shelter, but the majority of guards stood up and brandished their swords and spears, shouting at the bandits to show themselves. These guards were quickly put out of action, often by only one fatal bolt; these guards made themselves such excellent targets that there was no problem putting a bolt into them on the first try—it was like the practice range.

The guards who had hunkered down were eliminated only a minute or so later, since they could not grasp that they were being attacked from overhead, so they did not shield themselves from elevated attackers. They had sought shelter by lying down, so this only made them an even better target for the men shooting from the trees. The whole attack lasted less than 15 minutes, and it was a stunning success!

The women trapped in the locked wagons were yelling and screaming, as they had no idea what was going on. All that they knew was that they were under attack. There were no windows for them to see through, so they had to assume that they were being attacked by bandits. Bandits would not have been an improvement over their current captors, since the most that they could look forward to from bandits was rape and slavery.

As soon as the fighting had wound down, Aelinor ran to the wagons and shouted to the women that they were safe and would be released as soon as possible. The women were startled to hear a woman's voice calling to them, and most calmed down as requested. It quickly became obvious that their plans would have to be changed: Aelinor realized that the women would not be pacified until they were let out of their cages. She couldn't find the keys, so she used her augmented strength to twist the padlocks off the doors.

She had to open her shirt and bare her breasts before all of the women were convinced that they had, indeed, been rescued. They knew that there would not be any women fighting for bandits, so this was enough to mollify the last of the hysterics. Aelinor gathered all of the women and explained who they were and what they had in mind. Many of the women felt flattered that they were being asked to join the revolt, instead of just being told what they had to do or be punished. Aelinor did tell them that they had plenty of time to decide what they wanted to do, since they were going to the rebels' home base before any commitments were made. She did tell them that they would have to return to their windowless wagons for the journey to the base camp, because the rebels wanted to keep their location a secret as long as they could.

The women weren't happy about returning to the closed wagons, but agreed to cooperate. The crossbow bolts were retrieved and the bodies were hidden back in the woods. They cleaned up the battlefield as much as they could in hopes of confusing any search for the remnants of the caravan. Armor wanted to give the appearance that the caravan simply vanished without a trace. He wanted to make the authorities start worrying. One vanished caravan wouldn't do much, but they all hoped that it would be the first of many.

Back at the base, the women were shown to a small building where they could rest and relax after their rough experience. The building was not much more than a shed, but it was all that the men had time to prepare before the women arrived. Everybody ate supper and retired for the night.

The next morning, Aelinor/Armor began interviewing the women to learn if any would consider joining in the revolt. All of the women were interested, but most had family commitments that they had to return to. It was decided that those women would stay at the camp until the amount of time had passed that it would ordinarily have taken for them to get to the brothel, spend their time there, and return home; this was about 4 weeks.

Three of the women were widows and one was a very young unmarried women, and these 4 were ready to join the revolt. The young one, Jane, wanted to become a soldier, but the other three were willing to take over some of the domestic duties in the camp, freeing up men to fight. These 4 women were welcomed into the troop on an equal footing with the men. One of the rules of the revolution, insisted upon by Armor, was the equality of the sexes; these women were not to be second-class citizens!

Before they were scheduled to return home, two of the young women who had husbands, but no children, decided that they just couldn't face the discrimination that they would encounter when they got home, so they elected to stay with the rebels. As they were about to depart, another woman in the same situation at home decided to join them. These three recruits decided that they wanted to become soldiers, too.

The four female soldier recruits were all in prime physical condition, so they really only needed to be taught to shoot the crossbow. They were used to following orders, they had been doing that all their lives. They were issued amulets and taught to use them, as well as the crossbows. The women were trained for nearly 3 weeks on the use of the weapon and deemed as ready as they would ever be to face their first action.

Another caravan was coming through Newberry in 5 days, so Armor decided that it would be a good chance to test the commitment of the new recruits. They chose to follow the same plan as they had used before, with each new woman paired with a man known to be reliable and not likely to lose his temper with an inexperienced companion. The men were instructed to make sure that the women followed orders, that was more important than actual success in killing someone. Armor now knew that he had enough troops to accomplish their goal of wiping out the caravan, so the training aspects were the primary objective of the exercise, though freeing the captive women was also at the top of the list.