The Chorus sings of Aster and Hirut and all the women warriors before and after.

Ibrahim asks Hirut the location of Kidane’s camp. When she refuses, they bind her and march her to the prison, where she sees that Aster has been captured and stripped.

The Chorus tries to soothe Aster, but the violation is too much, and she can only obey the soldier’s commands to dance. Beneath her resignation, rage grows.

Haile Selassie contends with more atrocities. His spy tells him that his people saw him lead a great ambush. His aids bring him Luce’s film of the battle, and he sees Minim, dressed as him, leading the charge.

Hirut tries to help Aster, but she is broken. Fifi worries about the cook, who begged her to help Aster and Hirut. Fifi can do nothing for them and will not take the cook’s basket to them for fear of exposure. The cook insists she can sway Fucelli and shames her for her sexual relationship with him. They part angrily, the cook insisting she must act.

When Fifi complains to Fucelli of the noise and the female warriors’ disruptive effect on the Italian and ascari soldiers, Fucelli turns on her. He accuses her of secrets and uses pressure points to cause her pain. She cannot manipulate their release as the cook suggested.

To undermine the fearful stories and rumors the warrior women have inspired, Fucelli shows Ettore a series of pornographic pictures and implies that all the men need is to be reminded that they are men and the women, women. Each day Ettore observes Hirut and cannot get her to comply or even speak to him.

When Ettore shows her the picture of his parents and uses the Amharic word for dying, Hirut feels rage. She corrects his pronunciation and gives him the words, “My mother and father have died” (341).

On his birthday, Fucelli removes the second belt he has worn since Seifu’s attack and parades the change openly. With Fifi in tow, he fetches Ettore and forces Hirut to comply with a nude photo shoot. Fifi encourages her to stand tall and salute. Aster flails and calls for Kidane when it is her turn, confirming their allegiance.

Ettore distributes the census. Fucelli arranges for him to be absent when the contingent comes to take the Jewish soldiers away. Fucelli buys him a sex worker in a nearby village and Ettore struggles with his conscience as he takes the bribe.

Fucelli and Ettore distribute the nude photographs of Hirut and Aster as postcards. Soon they have a booming business of staged portraits with the warrior women.

Holding a postcard, Kidane hardly recognizes Aster. The men express frustration that Kidane will not raid the prison and is instead waiting for Ferres’s word to attack. Kidane knows his army has doubled. Italian brutality is splintering the ascari. But Ferres tells them to wait.

Fucelli hauls two old priests within earshot of the prison. Hirut hears Fucelli accuse them of burying the rebels’ dead. Ibrahim and Ettore both balk at the order to kill the priests. Hirut tries to give her name to the priests. Ettore is so distraught that he grabs Hirut’s hands as she pulls the barbed wire instead of documenting the priests’ fate.

The Chorus depicts Aster giving a rifle to her beloved friend Getey to protect her from Kidane’s father, who has sexually assaulted her. Kidane steps between Getey and his father and promises to help Getey and her husband, Fasil, escape his father. Hirut fails to understand why Aster treats her as a rival.

Ettore visits Hirut and attempts to explain his situation in limited Amharic. Fucelli calls for Ettore, and even Hirut is moved by his fear. When he leaves, the Ascari on patrol tells Hirut that Fucelli is no good. When she accuses Ettore of the same, he explains that Ettore is just following orders.

Ettore packs, still unnerved by the telegram ordering Fucelli to turn him over to the authorities. Fucelli claims he will write Ettore’s pardon, but as Ettore gathers all his photos and unsent letters in a metal box, he knows he is going to his death.

From the nighttime prison yard Hirut watches Ettore bury the box beneath the tree. When he is done, he sees Hirut watching and uses the Amharic word for secret.

Fucelli invites Fifi to his room to help him forget the guilt of failing Ettore.

The Chorus describes Fifi’s transformation to Ferres beside the sleeping Fucelli. When she leaves his side to wake the cook, she becomes his undoing.

Fifi/Ferres’s message tells Kidane to attack immediately.

Ettore moves to dig up the box and add the letter from his father. Rebels capture him, and Hirut appears. At a command to kill, she knocks him senseless with the butt of a rifle. She and Aster flee.

Kidane’s camp celebrates their return. As the gathered celebrate, Hirut and Aklilu make gestures over their hearts for each other.

Fucelli whips Ibrahim for allowing the prisoners to escape. Fucelli tells Ettore they will claim he fought the rebels off to prove his loyalty as an Italian. To further prove his loyalties, Fucelli ties Ibrahim to the gallows tree, and Ettore whips him. Ibrahim orders the ascari not to cut him down. Ettore documents their vigil and waits for the authorities to take him away.

In the hills above the camp, Ibrahim sees the Emperor flanked by two female guards and knows attack is immanent. He tells his ascari to loosen his ropes and flee.

Kidane’s army calls Ettore and Fucelli by name. Ettore sees the Emperor flanked by Aster and Hirut before the charge. The ascari have fled, and they are quickly routed.

As the first arm of Kidane’s army approaches, Fucelli charges to meet them alone, envisioning the heroic image Ettore will capture with his camera. Aster shoots him in the gut and calls for Seifu to finish him. Hirut sees the cook and Fifi helping Ibrahim traverse the hills as she charges.

Ettore tries to help Fucelli, but the colonel tells him to flee and avoid the authorities. He tells Ettore that his father loved him, and Ettore joins the retreat. He finds Hirut struggling with Kidane’s body, unsure whether she is helping or fighting him. She tells Ettore to leave, and he asks her to retrieve his secrets. She agrees, and Ettore flees.

On the five-year anniversary of his departure, Haile Selassie returns. His wife Menen tells the story of how Aster took up her dead husband’s rifle in Debark and led his armies to many victories.

At the church of St. Giorgis, Minim mourns while the rest of the country rejoices. He is a peasant again. His brave deeds now belong to Haile Selassie.

Hailu, now a respected doctor, visits the photography studio in Piassa where Ettore has worked for 15 years. Ettore begs Dr. Hailu to help him contact Hirut before he leaves. He wants the box he buried beneath the tree before he leaves for Italy. Dr. Hailu agrees to arrange a contact but accepts none of Ettore’s apologies or excuses.

Haile Selassie, now 80, listens to Aida as protestors outside fling stones and call for his ouster. Selassie has a vision in which Aida’s father Amonasro visits him, along with Selassie’s daughter Zenebwork and the philosopher Simonides. Amonasro and Zenebwork beg Selassie to save Aida, and when he will not, Simonides comforts her. The Emperor dresses in peasant garb and flees toward the train station.

Hirut plans to give Ettore the box but not the prized letter. Like Aster’s necklace, she hides it to right an imbalance.

Hirut salutes, and Ettore imagines that Seifu is there to kill him. Instead, a peasant enters the station. Hirut recognizes the Emperor and calls his true names. By telling him the story of her service and naming the many compatriots that won the war for him, she rights an imbalance.

Ettore apologizes, but Hirut tells him to go. She gives Ettore the hidden letter and then escorts the Emperor back to the palace.

The photo of Aster and Hirut that Ettore tried to hand her captures their strength and beauty in a private moment on the evening of their escape. What it does not convey is that as the shutter captures the image, Hirut is asking Aster for permission to kill Ettore herself.