Her decapitated foes were brave people (6)
I believe the answer is:
heroes
'brave people' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'her decapitated foes' is the wordplay.
'decapitated' means to remove the first letter.
'foes' with its initial letter taken away is 'oes'.
'her'+'oes'='HEROES'
'were' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for heroes that I've seen before include "men taking the lead" , "Record sung by 14 [BOWIE]" , "Cavaliers" , "Principal characters in fiction" , "Very brave men" .)