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faveficarchive · 5 years ago

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The Amazons of Dahomey

By Susan M. Smith

Pairing: Xena/Gabrielle

Rating: Mature

Synopsis: Xena and Gabrielle head out of the city of Har and run into trouble on the road that separates them. Will they ever find their way to one another again?

A/N: This is a sequel to The Charioteer, and may not make a lot of sense without reading that first.

Part One

Traianus, leaning on the deep windowsill of his officer's rooms in the garrison at Palmyra, looked moodily at the outline of the city. It's silhouette was eastern, a collection of low buildings of varied hues, none of the height or blinding white marble of the city that haunted his dreams.

"Rome." He said in a sonorous voice, and in that one word was contained all the longing a military man could express for his distant home. His voice was blurred around the edges with red wine, an occurrence common enough lately that he'd begun to forget the mechanics of being sober.

"I look out on the sand and waste and horror of the East, when I deserve to look on the beauty of Rome. All roads lead to Rome, but mine." He said bitterly, his gesture taking in the room, the garrison, and the city on the horizon.

"This is what I, Traianus, Patrician and son of a Senator, have fallen to. I tell you, Sextus, were it not for love of my aged father I would fall on my sword."

Sextus, sitting at his commander's desk, said nothing. His square face, burned red by the outland sun, was a mask under his military haircut. He was a model Roman officer of middle rank, hard bitten, humorless, relentless, with an endless capacity for methodical warfare. It was said, by the legionnaires he commanded, that the last person to see Sextus smile was his mother, in the moment of his birth. He'd made a career of the army, serving in Africa and Libya, Judah and Syria.

He'd managed, through blind luck, to avoid all the circumstances that might have propelled him higher, and remained at a second in command position. He endured equally the vagaries of fortune, the middling rank, and the string of ineffectual commanders sent to his garrison by the politicians in Rome. It had been ten years since he'd seen the Eternal City, and would probably be another ten before he did. Men in his position were not mobile.

Sextus was used to Traianus' monologues, brought on every evening by the thin red wine. He knew enough not to interrupt, or remind his superior that his aged father had seen to it that he was banished from Rome. The matter of some weighty gambling debts, incurred while his father was away from the city, had all but ruined the family. The Senator had spoken with patrician friends, pulled a few strings, and gotten his son assigned to the farthest outpost of the Empire, a garrison in Palmyra. Though he was nominally in charge of the garrison, the dizzying drop in rank, wealth and prospects had left Traianus reeling. After six months in the East, he swilled red wine like water and raged every night to his silent second in command.

Sextus walked casually to the window and poured Traianus another goblet. He calculated the time it would take his commander to quaff the wine, estimating that he would begin his monologue again when the cup was half empty. In matters of strategy, Sextus was rarely wrong.

"Caesar. There is a man making the Senate shake in their sandals. I heard of his Triumph, after his victory in Gaul. The people loved him. Had he but held out his hand, they would have made him Emperor. And where was I? Here! Rotting in the degenerate East, never to see Rome again!"

"If you could impress a man like Caesar, I'm sure that he could rescind your exile." Sextus said, as if it had just occurred to him.

Traianus' attention snapped away from the window, to his normally taciturn second in command. Disbelief showed on his narrow face.

"How might I impress mighty Caesar? There are no wars, he cares nothing for this part of the world. He cares for Gaul, for Britannia. Pompey cares for Egypt, but he is alone in that. He won't be able to break it." Traianus said.

"Give Caesar Egypt as a Roman province." Sextus said, bluntly. He had Traianus' ear, it was time to play on his weakness.

Traianus blanched, and his wine cup shook. "Egypt is very powerful, very rich. I have only this garrison, one legion."

"If Egypt were distracted by a border war, her resources drained, she would be an easy target. Then you need only alert Caesar, and he could have an army standing on the northern border, ready to ride from Alexandria to Thebes. Rome would get Egypt and her wealth, Caesar would show up Pompey, and the balance of the triumvirate might shift. Caesar is known as a man of gratitude." Sextus said, as he'd rehearsed. Traianus must be hit over the head with the idea, and not allowed to recover.

Traianus began to pace. "A border war. But who? Nubia loves Egypt too well, they share royal lines. Ethiopia? But how would Ethiopia be raised against Egypt?"

"The Amazons of Dahomey." Sextus said, interrupting Traianus' pacing.

Traianus waved him off. "The Amazons are allied with Egypt. As well seek to raise them against Har the Decadent."

"Har's Great King died recently. The new king is young, rumored to have grown up a recluse. Har will be occupied in internal affairs, and won't rise to Dahomey's aide. Now is the time to divide and conqueror." Sextus said.

Traianus started to pace again. "The Amazons would never attack Egypt. They care nothing for more land, they defend their borders and keep their allies as blindly as only barbarians would."

"Commander Traianus, what does an Amazon love enough to spill blood for?" Sextus asked, knowing that he would get a blank look from his superior.

Traianus paused, waiting for him to continue.

Sextus inhaled, as if preparing to draw his sword. "Another Amazon. I have a slave, a Syrian, who used to work the border of Dahomey as a tradesman. He knows a bit of their culture. Every girl, on her coming of age, is sent out into the grassland with only a small knife to survive on her wits and skills for two moons. She may return sooner, if she slays a lion, a boar, or a man."

Sextus refilled Traianus' winecup, and continued. "I happen to know that Nzinga, their Queen, has four daughters. Three are already warriors, the last is of an age to prove herself."

"What has that to do with me?" Traianus' asked, starting to sweat.

"Kidnap the girl when she's alone, away from the thicket of spears of Dahomey. Put it out that she'd been taken by slavers as a 'special order' from a wealthy Egyptian who has a taste for Amazons. When Nzinga hears of it, she will raise her army and march across Egypt like a plague of locusts."

Traianus swallowed convulsively. "What about the girl?" He asked.

"Kill her. Or keep her here, for yourself, it doesn't matter. The Amazons' frenzy will be visited upon Egypt, draining their resources and supplies. Alert Caesar, that he might be poised to attack. And you, my lord, may watch it all from your new villa in Rome."

When the moon had risen, Sextus slipped away to his own quarters. Traianus had taken to the idea at last, drinking himself into a stupor at the thought of regaining Rome.

He entered his quarters, waking the slim, dark man who slept on the stone floor. The man started to remove Sextus' cloak, but the soldier brushed him off.

"He went for it. You can provide the goods?"

The man folded himself in the parody of a bow, the courtesy not reaching his hooded eyes. "As my lord requires." His tone was soft as a cat's paw.

"I want the girl delivered to me, not to that idiot, until I'm certain of Traianus' nerve. I can't have him panicking and destroying my future. Can you get her unharmed?" Sextus asked.

The Syrian inclined his shaven head, touching a pouch at his waist. "There are certain powders derived from the lotus that render the victim somnambulant. It will be a little matter to drug one girl."

"She is still an Amazon, never forget it. I've fought them. Few men care to do so twice. Succeed in this, Shaitan, and you have your freedom. Fail, and do not imagine that death will be enough to hide you from me." Sextus said. The Syrian called Shaitan bowed again, and slipped away.

The moment he left the garrison, his whole manner changed. He straightened, the look of subservience falling away. Hatred, black as the apex of the night sky above him, black as the heart of the space between the stars burned in his eyes.

"Fool, like all your thick minded Imperial race, to place your hopes on the loyalty of a slave." He whispered at the shadow of the garrison. On his lean face was a look, had any seen it, that would be called monstrous, a twisted joy that made a rictus of his mouth. He'd been a slave to Rome for a little over a year. Now fate, or the gods, or blind chance had dropped opportunity right into his lap. He'd been sold to a Roman with ambition, who thought himself clever in their guileless western way. He was an easterner, schooled in such subtly that would maze the straightforward Romans. They rule the world solely by crushing it, he thought. It would be a joy to bring them down.

***

They'd been on the caravan road to Nubia, where it joined Dahomey, after leaving the City of Har. The generosity of Oromenes and Malache ensured that they didn't need to hire on to work the caravan, but instead could travel as honored guests. They had parted from the Great King and Queen reluctantly, after a week of celebration. Xena and Gabrielle had spent most of it alone, in Malache's house, emerging only when Xena had protested that she was turning Harrian.

"All this lovemaking, and feasting, and lovemaking will make us forget we are Greek."

"That would be bad why?" Gabrielle asked, won over by the Red City.

Oromenes, in white robes and sandals, had clasped her arm in parting. They'd been escorted to the Manticore Gate, where a caravan would take them eventually back to Krylos and the sea. Gabrielle had hugged Malache, both she and the former Harlot weeping. It was hard to part from two who had given them so much. Xena returned Oromenes' clasp in silence. The warrior had given the Great King her throne, Oromenes and Malache had given her Gabrielle. There were no words large enough to encompass Xena's emotion. Sapphire eyes looked down on jet, as a silent understanding passed between the warrior and the Great King.

Oromenes had offered them a litter, or a wagon, but Xena longed for the saddle, for the wind on her face, the rhythm of the road after weeks of playing Lord in a pleasure city.

"Can I ride behind you, like we do on Argo?" Gabrielle asked, the glint of a knowing mischief in her green eyes.

"The horse might live through it, but I won't." Xena said.

"I thought you were used to having my arms around you by now."

The warrior smiled, blue eyes burning as they traveled over the bard's body. "I hope I never do get used to that. I want to be surprised by it, constantly."

"Oromenes did call it an ambush. She was right."

In the end they accepted one horse from the caravan master, citing an obscure Greek custom. Xena kept one hand on the reins, one on Gabrielle's arm where it circled her waist. It was a pleasure she allowed herself, even with the stares it drew from the caravan master, his drover, and some of the other travelers. Greeks were considered barbarians this far south, as Xena well knew. Her reputation as the Lord Chabouk in Har was a garbled rumor to the caravaneers. They had heard, from friends in Har, that the Great King owed her throne to the savagery of the black haired Greek. She had slain two hundred men in a valley in Baluchis, and tortured the Persian satrap who had sought to become a regicide.

The habits of the two barbarians were watched with great interest by the caravaneers and the other travelers. It was confirmed, by the caravan master, that the Great King of Har had personally paid for their passage all the way back to the coast of North Africa. Yet they rode only one horse, the small Greek behind the tall, savage woman and they traveled without servants.

At night the small woman would build them a fire of their own, away from the main camp circle, and they would sit together. Their tent was ornate with bullion and scarlet tassels, a gift from the Great King, but they slept together on a pile of skins.

Xena, from the vantage point of her own campfire, knew of the curious stares, of the endless interest in her and Gabrielle, but found it harmless. The legend of their adventure in Har was already spreading, her reputation as the Lord Chabouk, a foreigner, and a woman lent her every action the aura of the supernatural. Her habits, she knew, were being observed with explicit curiosity, and discussed every night at the main campfire. She considered leaping into the circle around the main fire and giving her war cry.

The caravan master turned to his drover, who seemed to know more about the barbarians.

"They seem like simple savages. I know, we were paid a king's ransom to escort them to Kryllos, but the big one doesn't seem to need an escort. She was a Lord in Har, the small one her consort, or the tales go. But look, they dress like peasants, they travel without goods or servants. They didn't learn a thing in Har."

The drover heard laughter coming from the Greek's fire circle, the deep, rich laugh of the black haired woman, followed by the infectious lively laugh of her companion. "They are barbarians. But they seem cheerful enough. The small one is friendly. She gave me water from her own skin, when she saw me wiping sweat from my brow."

The caravan master shrugged. "What I don't understand is why they don't use two horses."

The drover explained about Greek heroes and their pair bonding, like Gilgamesh and Enkidu from Uruk.

"Two women?" The caravan master asked, unconvinced.

The other travelers were similarly puzzled. There were two Egyptian brothers on a pilgrimage, a Nubian soldier returning home, a Syrian who kept to himself, and didn't seem to take notice of the Greeks. He was a slaver, or had been at some time, and often spoke about his business. "You can't make a good slave of an Amazon. They don't have the slave mind. They are free, even in chains. Now, Greeks have been enslaving each other for hundreds of years. Athens runs on slaves. Every household has a slave or several if they can afford it. They are constantly fighting each other, taking war captives and enslaving them. Unlike the Persians, they don't make eunuchs of the beautiful boys, though their reputation as boy lovers is well earned. But Amazons? No market for them."

The Syrian leaned in to the fire, glancing at his fellow travelers. "Though, I have heard tell of a lord in Egypt who would pay a roomful of gold for an Amazon girl. A man might retire and live like a Harrian prince after a job like that." The laughter from the Greek's campfire halted him. There was something about the black haired Greek that infuriated him, aroused a blind anger, a loathing that made it hard to dissemble. Perhaps it was her arrogance, in wandering the world with only her female companion, perhaps it was the ease with which she wore steel. He couldn't stand the sight of her, her height, her carriage that said she was as good as any, and better than most. A woman simply did not do these things, barbarian or no. They were almost Amazons, with their obscene confidence. Even the little Greek had it, with her Harlot's costume and walking stick. He would relish ridding the world of them.

Night on the caravan road, with the snap and hiss of the small fire of the two Greek women counter-pointing their shared laughter. Gabrielle threw a stick into the fire and sat back down next to Xena, leaning companionably on her lover's shoulder.

"It's a shame we won't be going further into Nubia. I wanted to see the capital, while we're in this part of the world. We won't even get to see Egypt. I've always wanted to see the Nile."

"It's a flat, broad river with wide mud banks." Xena said, helpfully.

"Thanks. With that poetic description, I no longer need to see it. You know, someone should travel the length of the Nile, find it's source. It'd make a great story. " Gabrielle tilted her head back to look up at the bowl of the night sky.

"Anything you wrote would make a great story." Xena said, and was rewarded with a broad grin from her bard.

Later, when the camp had settled in to sleep, and the drover was checking the horses' picket line, a loud crash echoed from the barbarian's tent. He plucked a knife from his sash and crept closer, waiting for the sound to repeat before he opened the tent flap. He wondered if the Greek women were under attack, if the small blond needed any help. The sound of flesh striking earth, followed by a grunt of pain galvanized him. He threw the tent flap back, knife raised.

The blond woman was sitting on the back of the black haired one, holding her arm at a vicious angle. "That's got to hurt." Gabrielle said cheerfully.

"We have company." Xena said, halfway into the dirt floor.

The bard looked at the startled drover, his knife hanging loosely from nerveless fingers. "Oh, hi. We're fine. Just sparring." The bard explained, not loosening her hold on the black haired woman beneath her.

The drover nodded, unconvinced, and backed out of the tent. The caravan master would never believe this, he thought, scurrying away.

"I'm going to regret teaching you that hold. You keep using it on me." Xena grumbled. Muscles writhed under Xena's smooth skin. The desert sun had burnt her a deeper bronze, almost Harrian on her face and arms, contrasting with the pale skin normally hidden by her leathers.

"You're striped, like a cat." Gabrielle said, examining the warrior's back. She trailed her fingers over the skin, loving the feel, letting her grip loosen on the warrior's arm.

In a rush of movement she found herself flat on her back in the skins, a dark silhouette straddling her.

"Ouch. How do you do that?" Gabrielle asked.

Xena chuckled. "I have many-" She began, only to be cut off when Gabrielle hooked her knee and toppled her backward.

The warrior blinked up at the bard from her prone position.

"You were about to say it again." Gabrielle warned.

"You're getting better at the ground fighting." Xena said, and Gabrielle beamed at the compliment. "Of course, you are built for it. Stocky, low to the ground-"

"Stocky?" Gabrielle spat, furious.

"Thick legs, small hands, a good peasant build." Xena continued, as Gabrielle sat down on her stomach.

"We can't all be fifteen feet tall and cast in bronze. Peasant build, indeed. You're the one from the family of farmers!" Gabrielle said.

"My mother owns a tavern." Xena reminded the bard.

Gabrielle thought about this for a moment before answering. "In Amphipolis, a farming village."

Xena shook her head. "I can't win an argument with a bard. Come down here and tell me a story."

Gabrielle rolled off into the skins next to the warrior and draped an arm around her waist. "Alright. Once upon a time…"

Xena raised an eyebrow at her. "Once upon a time? What in the world is that?"

"A new way to begin stories that I'm working on. Like-In the days when our grandmothers were young, or when giants walked the earth, it gives a feel of timelessness." Gabrielle explained.

"Why not just say when it happened? In the year Troy fell, or the Persians were beaten at Marathon." Xena said, stretching her arms behind her head and momentarily distracting the bard with the play of muscle.

"People don't reckon time on the deeds of heroes and armies, Xena. Besides, you don't always want to pin a story down to a time; it limits it. You have to suspend your disbelief." Gabrielle said, patting Xena's stomach.

"I didn't know listening to a story was so complicated." Xena grumbled.

"Hush. Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess who lived in a tower, and brushed her night black hair all day long." Gabrielle said, combing Xena's hair with her fingers.

"I don't like this story." The warrior said, and frowned.

"All right. Once there was a beautiful princess who rode at the head of a murdering, rapacious army. She kept her night black hair bound up under a helmet to help cushion against blows from blunt objects." Gabrielle said, exasperated.

Xena's satisfied grin irked her, but she continued.

"This beautiful, yet rapacious princess had no sense of humor and actually tortured captives for enjoyment."

"I never tortured captives." Xena growled.

"This isn't about you. One day this rapacious princess went off on a fishing trip by herself, a sort of vacation from all the murdering and plundering. How she managed to fish in armor was only one of the mysterious skills she kept blabbering about. She was fishing in a lovely little rill, near a prosperous, happy village of peasants. One of the villagers, a gorgeous, virginal young maiden was sitting on the riverbank, weaving flower garlands and writing poetry."

"So the rapacious princess grabbed the virgin and ravaged her." Xena added, hopefully.

"I'm telling this story. No, the princess saw the gorgeous, virginal young maiden and felt completely shy. She was suddenly aware of how tall and awkward she was, how much noise her breastplate made when she walked, the heavy tread of her warrior boots. She felt like a big, clumsy oaf next to the charm and grace of the virginal maiden." Gabrielle managed not to laugh at Xena's glowering look. "Fortunately, the village maiden was wise as well as gorgeous. She looked up at the rapacious princess and recognized the good in her soul. She invited the princess to sit on the bank, washed the blood from her hands, and set a garland of flowers on her black hair. She managed to get the rapacious princess to relax, even laugh bit."

Xena snorted in disgust. "So nobody fished anymore. They wove flower garlands and braided each other's hair, right? "

"No. Once the wise and gorgeous virginal maiden had gotten the glowering, rapacious princess to relax-" Gabrielle halted, watching Xena's face. The warrior's eyes were open with interest, bordering on impatience.

"Yeah?" She demanded.

"She pounced on the startled princess and had her way with her. The princess protested, at first, but couldn't resist the maiden's overpowering charms." Gabrielle finished, with a flourish, climbing on top of the warrior.

"I like that story." Xena said, grinning.

"You'll love the end." Gabrielle whispered, leaning in and kissing her.

In the cool of the night, after proving that their time in Har had been very educational, the lovers slept, Gabrielle coiled into Xena's possessive embrace. The bard dreamed. She saw a spider, the size of a desert cat, its back glossy and incandescent like a beetle's carapace. She followed it out of the tent, knowing that she dreamed, but compelled to follow. The spider danced in the sand, writing in an ancient language that the bard almost recognized. When she pulled near it scampered away, playfully, to the west, and her dream self followed. In the moonlight, rising from the sand was an irregular pile of stone, the ruins of some ancient shrine or tomb. The hand of time had long ago thrown it down, blurring the hard edges of cut blocks with generations of wind and sand.

The spider danced across the sand, headed for the tomb.

Gabrielle woke with start, finding Xena's arms encircling her. The warrior slept on, heedless of the bard. That was unlike her, Gabrielle thought. Usually Xena slept lightly as a wolf along the trail, ears keeping watch as her eyes slept. Perhaps whatever had sent her the spider dream also sent heavy sleep to the warrior, Gabrielle thought. She eased out of her lover's arms. Xena slept on, merely rolling over onto her back. Serves me right for exhausting her, Gabrielle thought wryly. She picked up her staff and slipped out.

The tents of the caravan were quiet, the horses dozed on their picket line, the camels shifted drowsily on their tethers. False dawn lit the east, the sky going from charcoal to pearl gray, to a thin line of pale blue. Gabrielle walked through the circle of tents, feeling the pull of compulsion, but not knowing why. It felt odd, as if she were still dreaming. A movement caught her eye, the scurrying of a small animal. Thinking of the spider in her dream, Gabrielle followed, out of the camp circle.

The scurrying form was far too big to be a spider, yet it moved like one, dancing across the sand like a madman's nightmare in the pre-dawn light. As in her dream, Gabrielle saw the bulk of a small temple, or tomb, built out of age worn stone. It crouched on the endless horizon of the desert. The spider ran right for it, waving her to follow. Tawny grass grew beyond the stone building, transforming the desert into a savanna. The abruptness of the change in ground gave the building the look of a supernatural demarcation between one environment and the next. Gabrielle raised her staff to a guard position. The spider danced with glee, then disappeared into the building.

Gabrielle walked around the outside of the stone pile, prodding it with her staff. It seemed sound, despite the appearance of great age. The stones, though rounded with age, were closely joined. The bard doubted that a knife blade could fit between them. The archway was clear, no debris, no dust. The doorway faced east, catching the first rays of the coming sun. The light began to reveal the interior, a single room with a bare floor. There was something hanging on the wall facing the doorway.

Gabrielle, curiosity getting the better of her wariness, crossed the threshold. The light caught the object, an oblong of black wood. When she moved closer, the bard could make out the features. It was a mask, carved from an extremely dense, dark wood, with exceptional skill. The face was supernatural, with elongated eyes like a cat's under heavy lids, mouth half open as if to whisper. Gabrielle automatically leaned closer to hear what the mask might say. She felt a chill run up her spine when a word was spoken in no language she recognized. It came from behind her, along with the pressure of hostile eyes.

Gabrielle spun, her staff at the ready. In the doorway, surrounded by the light of the risen sun was a girl, armed with a stone dagger. Her height made Gabrielle think her a grown woman, but her face was young. Muscles played along her limbs as she balanced on her toes, a natural fighter's stance. Instinct made Gabrielle lower her staff. This girl was not her enemy, she was certain of it, but not certain of how she knew it. Experimentally, she set the end of her staff on the floor and straightened up. The girl kept her fighting stance.

She wore a doeskin kilt and halter, and a necklace of cowry shells sewn to a leather collar. On her left arm a band of red gold, shaped into a running lioness, circled her biceps. Her feet were bare. The sun gilded her skin, adding red tones to the basalt black of her proud face. The girl narrowed her eyes when Gabrielle set her staff on the floor and spoke.

"I'm not an enemy." The bard said, and the girl's eyes widened. She replied in the tongue Gabrielle didn't know, her voice rising at the end. A question of some sort, Gabrielle guessed.

"I'm sorry, I don't understand." She said, apologetically.

Comprehension crossed the girl's face, and she nodded. "Greek. I remember. What...eyha! What you are to be doing with the guardian?" The girl pointed to the mask on the wall with her stone knife.

"Just looking at it. I'm with the caravan, over by the road. I had this dream; I woke up and followed a big spider to this building." Gabrielle blushed, sure that she sounded like a lunatic to this girl. Yet the girl lowered her knife and looked as if such an explanation were perfectly normal. Had she not understood, Gabrielle wondered?

"Anansi." The girl said, knowingly.

"Anansi? Is that your name?" Gabrielle asked.

The girl burst out laughing, doubling over at the thought. When she could draw a breath she said, "No, no."

"I'm Gabrielle." The bard said with a smile, glad that the girl seemed amused. The girl straightened up, her mirth gone as quickly as it had come.

"Tanit, daughter of Nzinga, Queen of Dahomey." She touched the hammered gold armlet proudly. Gabrielle's face lit up.

"You're an Amazon princess! I'm Gabrielle, Queen of Melosa's tribe, in Greece."

Disbelief was plain on the girl's face. She stood a full head taller than the bard at fourteen.

"I can read that look, you know. I am an Amazon. Terreis gave me her rite of caste. I became Queen after Melosa died. It's a long story." Gabrielle said.

Tanit shrugged in disbelief, but extended her arm. She clapped Gabrielle's forearm with her long fingered hand. "All Amazons are sisters, no matter the tribe. Welcome to Nzinga's lands."

Gabrielle returned the clasp. "You have to come back to camp with me. Xena, my companion, has to meet you."

Tanit shook her head, moving back. "No. I'm on my two month." She said, indicating the stone knife.

"You're what?" Gabrielle asked, as Tanit gave her another odd look.

"My coming of age. I cannot accept food, nor drink, nor hospitality from any. I should go back away from the border. I thought there might be a man here for me to kill. Anansi sent me a strange dream, full of fighting, near the guardian's place. Well met and well parted, sister."

Part Two

Blood in the Sand

Blood matted the sand into a brick under her cheek. She felt the grains adhere to her skin, felt the sluggish trickle down her temple, and wondered where blood was coming from. This was important, but she couldn't remember why. Experimentally she opened her eyes, finding only one of them functioning. The other was sealed shut, the blood sealing it in its socket as firmly as a sarcophagus. Three things occurred to her at once, driving like nails into her returning consciousness: the blood is mine, I'm lying down, Gabrielle is gone.

Powerful hands braced against the sand, heaving her to a sitting position. The scene swam madly before her eyes, a dance of gray and charcoal, spotted with light like the heart of the sun. The warrior, weaving, fighting to maintain her grip on a failing consciousness, saw a field of bodies strew about the road, hacked to pieces. A jackal nosed about, seeking a meal. Two vultures sat on the corpse of the caravan master, delicately, as if discussing their repast. Her tongue was unwieldy, swollen, between lips mashed and caked with blood. She cudgeled her brain to form the syllables. "Gab-ri-" The darkness swam up and claimed her again.

Memory fled from Xena, the last night in the caravan retreating with it. A thousand demons were striking her skull with cooper's mallets, rattling her teeth, pulping her brain in her cranium. Her left eye was long past opening, sealed like an Egyptian in his tomb. Heat, thirst, the cacophony in her skull all bade her lay down again in the welcoming sand, already shaped to her body like a lover.

She ignored all. In defiance of physics, she gained her feet and staggered like Atlas, the world slipping on her shoulders. The sun was white at its zenith, transforming the road into a blast oven. But the hate roaring in the chambers of her heart made it look like a spring day in Ephesus. She heard the muffled thudding of unshod hooves striking sand, saw the cloud rising of armed riders approaching. Xena reached automatically for her sword, slung in its sheath over her shoulder. The movement sent a wave of blinding pain through her side, reminding her of her broken ribs.

The riders wore loose robes and headclothes, defense against the merciless sun. They reigned in a dozen feet from her, eyes glittering through their mantles. Xena cursed the earth for rolling under her feet, cursed her own weakness for not being able to draw her own blade. I'll go down fighting, she thought, as she reached for her Chakram, then there was nothing.

Hearing returned to her first, the sounds of men muttering suspiciously. She let her awareness come back into her body, testing her surroundings with her ears, her nose, before opening her eyes. Four voices nearby, maybe fifteen feet away, male, nervous, she thought. One more, closer, calm, a voice of command. The language was the lingua franca of the Bedouin tribes, a bastardization of Persian, with Egyptian and Nubian borrowed words. There was something odd about the calm voice, but she couldn't place it yet. Accent, she thought. She could smell spiced meat, smoke from a dung fire, burning oil in a lamp. Minutely she tested her limbs, finding them whole, and unfettered.

Experimentally, she opened her right eye. She was lying on a pile of rugs, in a tent. Nearby sat a child in a desert raider's robes. The head turned, and Xena saw that it was no child, but a man the size of a child. The dwarf wore a red leather belt bristling with knife hilts, raider's robes, and boots with upcurling toes. His face and hands were a dark brown, Nubian, Xena thought. He was bald as a stone, with bright mahogany eyes that were now fixed on her. The four men standing further away had curling black beards against olive skin, and restless eyes that saw her wake. They reached for knives and scimitars. One gesture from the dwarf halted them mid motion. He turned to her and smiled, teeth like salt in his brown face.

"You live." He said, like a blessing he had bestowed. "You understand me?" He asked.

"Some." Xena said, her voice ravaged.

He snapped his fingers and one of the raiders brought him a ewer of water. He held it to her lips as she drank, tenderly. "My men want to kill you." He said, pleasantly. She said nothing, but increased the range of her stare to include the four raiders. It brought a chuckle from the dwarf.

"They think you are not natural. A woman on the road, chopped like meat, bathed in blood, but walking upright? You must be a ghoul."

"Maybe I am. Why did you save me?" Xena rasped.

"I am a curious man. I see you, and you are like nothing this world has ever shown me. Your skull is cracked, your ribs broken, the number of your wounds should have bled you dry. Yet you walked upright, and tried to draw steel. Why?" He asked, gently.

"Bring me my weapons and I'll tell you." Xena hissed, not liking the calm of her savior.

The dwarf laughed with great good humor. "Like a lion, wounded unto death and snarling at the hand extended. So! Bring the barbarian her blades." He lifted a finger and one of the raiders brought forth her weapons in a bundle, and set them near her.

She unwrapped the cloth and found her armor, sword and Chakram, all cleaned and oiled. She shrugged on her leathers and armor over the bandages that held her ribs in place, then slung the sword belt over her shoulder. "I was with a caravan from Har. We were attacked. My companion wasn't with us when the attack came, I set out to find her. " Xena said, slipping on her bracers.

The dwarf nodded. "I saw the bodies. They were shredded, yet I saw no foes. Who attacked you?"

Xena struggled to remember the fight. It had been dawn when she woke, to find Gabrielle gone. She'd staggered out of her tent, cloudy, into chaos. "There was smoke, fire, shouting. The attackers wore robes like your riders. I must have been drugged, it didn't make any sense. I killed many, but couldn't focus. I grabbed a horse, but fell from the saddle. I killed a few more, then couldn't see. They started cutting at me. I went down. They must have left me for dead." Xena recited, without emotion.

"You should be dead. Drugged, wounded, left on the road." He said, admiringly.

"I need to go back to the battle site, find out more about my enemies. I have to find Gabrielle." Her voice shook on the name, betraying emotion. "Thank you for saving my life. I'm Xena." She extended her hand, and he took it.

"I am Geb. I will take you back to the site, Xena, Drinker of Blood. You interest me."

Geb let Xena pick a horse for herself, and didn't offer any help in mounting. The warrior grit her teeth against the pain in her ribs and leapt into the saddle, clamping her teeth against the wave of nausea that threatened to keel her over. The dwarf chieftain rode a horse of his own, a long legged Persian mount, with a saddle constructed to fit his short legs. The deference the raiders showed him made Xena wonder what reserves of ferocity the small man possessed. Life among brigands in this corner of the world was harsh, the desert a cruel mistress. Only the exceedingly tough survived here, and raw strength was worshipped. She could tell from Geb's fascination with her ability to survive her wounds, his refusal to offer her any help in mounting that he was testing her vitality. She was an exotic animal to him. As long as her strength was admired, she would have a place with the raiders. It was like the curiosity of man watching a leopard battle a lion, to see which beast might win.

When they reached the battle site, Xena dismounted, swearing in Greek. From the state of the corpses, she'd been gone for three days at least. The bodies were bloated and blackened from the sun, jackals and vultures had done their work. The raiders stayed mounted dozens of feet away, upwind, clothes over their noses, watching her. She steeled herself, searching efficiently among the carrion for signs. Xena turned bodies over, looking into the wreckage of faces. Geb, heedless of the stench, rode over.

"There was a Syrian with the caravan. A slaver. I don't see his corpse." She said, over her shoulder.

"Or the corpse of your friend. Yet you seek her." Geb said, enjoying the antics of the barbarian rooting in the gore. His own men were now convinced that she was a ghoul, looking for hearts to eat. The black haired woman straightened up, fixing him with a baleful stare, eyes fierce and distant as the apex of the sky.

"You know this area. Where would a slaver go to sell his goods?" She asked, her voice tight with hope. Geb knew that the barbarian would not surrender the search for her companion. It made him sad, to think of losing the fierce woman's company so quickly. Perhaps, the chieftain thought, there was a way to keep the barbarian around, learn what the gods of the underworld were trying to teach him.

"Many places. We stand in the Red Land, between Egypt and Nubia, near to Har and Dahomey. All claim this sea of sand, but only the nomads ride here. I might know of four places where slavers go, within a week's ride of this spot. All good markets for slaves. Depends on the whim of the slaver." The chieftain shrugged. "One person, alone, could not reach more than one of the markets in a week. By that time, if you choose wrong, a slave might be long gone, into the interior, up to the North, to the sea- never to be found. Abandon your hope, Drinker of Blood. The girl is long gone, if she lives."

Xena snarled, lips writhing back over bared teeth. "I will find her. And if you try to stop me, you'll be greeting your ancestors in Tartarus."

The answer delighted Geb. He plucked a dagger from his belt, hurling it at Xena without warning. Her hand moved without thought, so fast Geb's eye couldn't follow the motion. Xena's fingers closed over the dagger's hilt, inches from her face. The pain from her ribs grinding together nearly drove her to her knees. Geb smiled broadly.

"I know the Syrian of old. Kill him for me, with that dagger." He waited for Xena's fury to pass, waited until she lowered the dagger. Then he held up one hand. Four of his riders came forward. He gave each a set of orders, and sent them galloping madly off. "They will search the four markets and return, swifter than the howling wind. If your woman lives, and has passed that way, we will know." He wheeled his horse and rode away, leaving Xena struggling to mount.

She kneed her horse up to the chieftain's side, hope singing new life into her veins. The sudden decision on the part of the raider to help her left her reeling. She examined the knife he'd thrown at her. It was blued steel, with a vicious curve to the blade. The pommel was set with a pigeon's blood ruby in a basket of silver wire. It wasn't a Bedouin dagger, nor Egyptian. She set the mystery aside, clinging to the one shaft of hope that pierced her heart. She would find Gabrielle, there was no other choice.

Xena glanced at Geb, at the saddle with the shortened stirrups, at the dozen hilts bristling from the red leather belt, at the glint of gold earrings under the headcloth.

"You wonder about me. You wonder how a dwarf leads desert raiders, no? " He said, still in profile, his mouth twisting with amusement.

"Yes." Xena said, simply. The chieftain was a man of sudden moods, and she wanted to learn how to handle him.

"I tell you. I am Nubian by birth. In my land sometimes are born dwarves, to the rejoicing of the village, for that means favor."

"From the gods?" Xena asked.

Geb's mahogany eyes fixed on her. "No. From Pharaoh. The court of Egypt buys dwarves as entertainment. I was trained from birth as an acrobat, and given as a tribute, along with ivory and ostrich feathers, copper and furs, to the house of the rulers of Egypt. I was the Pharaoh's entertainment and delight, a petted, pampered toy. Ptolemy Philadelphos was not a strong man. He liked his diversions too well, he should have been a musician, not a ruler. His daughter Cleopatra, is strong. She should have been a man, but Egypt at last has a true king."

The chieftain fell silent, and Xena left him to his thoughts.

Xena was given a tent of her own. She took her meals from Geb's fire, eating what was handed to her, ignoring the other raiders. Geb treated her like a favorite hound, handing her meat and wine, letting her brooding silence go undisturbed. When the darkness had gathered she rose and went to her tent, collapsing on the rugs next to her discarded armor. Sleep claimed her like a lover, drawing her close, but the embrace was not comforting. Xena's dark head tossed on the rugs, her fingers twitched on her sword hilt. The dreams that crowded her tent were more of an agony than her shredded flesh. Gabrielle was standing on the caravan road, far away, looking back over her shoulder, her green eyes pleading. The warrior could make out a single word on her bard's lips- Xena.

The warrior woke, sweating, welcoming the pain of her fractured skull, the grinding of her broken ribs. It reminded her that she lived. Tears were running from her eyes, from the pain of the dream. It was too cruel a jest, to be given Gabrielle in the City of Har, only to have her snatched away so quickly. Not yet, not like this, she pleaded. She had let herself hope, let herself surrender to the love she felt for her bard, the love that devoured her heart. She had let herself fall in the embrace of the younger woman, knowing she would never be able to get back out.

A vision of Gabrielle, exalted, sweaty, lying in her arms looking up at her with green eyes knowing and splendid, filled her. The sound of her lover's laugh, the delight the bard took in the passion that raged between them, in the tangled union of its aftermath. The way her bard would hold on tight when she tried to roll off, afraid of crushing the smaller woman.

"Don't go. I'm strong enough to bear you." She'd been afraid that it was all a mirage, an aberration brought on by their adventure in the City of Har. Xena recalled taking Gabrielle in her arms, assuring her that the love they shared was more than a week in a pleasure city. The sound of her own voice, pitched low with passion, came back to her- I've always loved you. Not even death will separate us. Waking alone in the raider's tent was like waking in a tomb. The grief was a stone on her heart. I will find you, Gabrielle, Xena vowed. And if I do not, I will follow you.

Xena wept, in fury, in frustration at the limits of her body, in the rent agony of her exposed heart. Damn you, Gabrielle, for leaving me alone, she thought. The tent flap opened. Xena hastily ground the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand as Geb entered. His rolling walk was becoming familiar very quickly. He stood, hands on hips, knife hilts jutting at all angles.

"We ride to Dar es Sharef. You can sit a horse?"

"Try me." She growled, pushing up from the rugs. The pain was as pure as sunlight, as all encompassing, but none of it showed on her face.

Geb recognized it, and enjoyed it. A portion of his life was spent ignoring constant pain from his bones, his stunted limbs. He valued and admired any who did likewise. This barbarian was becoming a joy to him, in ways he did not fully understand. He knew that the Greek wept from missing her woman, but it didn't soften her savagery, so he let it pass. The pain of the heart had never been his, the pain of the body so all encompassing. Occasionally, at court, a woman had taken a fancy to the novelty of bedding a dwarf, but never had one loved him.

The desert was a harsh tutor, valuing endurance above all. It had suited Geb as a proving ground, after the pampered court of Pharaoh. If he could survive here, even rise to leadership in this most barren of places, he could survive anywhere. So here, in the Red Land that bordered Egypt, he became, for himself, a free man. He found a reflection of his ferocity in the steel of the black haired barbarian, in her rage. It spoke to him of a passionate nature. If she could be roused to hate with such depths, her loyalty must be immense. Looking at how she sought her woman, surely long ago eaten by jackals or sold by slavers, he marveled. The barbarian did not relent. It would be good to bind her to him, make her his second, harness that fury of ten devils that drove her. His men already saw her as supernatural, the Ghoul, the Drinker of Blood. What a combination to destroy their enemies, he thought.

In the saddle, he found himself inclined to talk. The barbarian listened, or at least kept silent about her own thoughts, Geb didn't care which.

"Fortune is a strange mistress. I had a secure life as an acrobat in Egypt. I was well fed, housed in rooms at the palace, respected as a good hound or a hawk is respected. I had some wealth, the companionship of my fellow dancers, jugglers and entertainers. Yet, I grieved for a life where I was not a favorite pet, an exotic animal in a gilded cage. One day, I posed for the court painters to do a mural of me, for my master's eventual tomb. These Egyptians lavish much of their life thinking about their state after death! The painter, a trained artisan in his own right, treated me exactly as the members of the court did- like a leopard, or an ibis, trained to live in a house.

Ah, but his assistant, a Nubian and so a countryman of mine, looked at me, right at me. It was something that had not happened in all my years in Egypt. He looked at me as a man looks at another man, and I knew the sympathy of a countryman. It was not pity, but sadness, that we sell ourselves into these cages. It moved me, as nothing else ever had. We never spoke, but this man was my brother. He gave me a mirror, that I might see the strutting peacock I'd let myself become. When had I started to believe that I was not a man, because of my birth? I took off my collar of malachite and jasper, set it on the pedestal, and walked out of the tomb. I have been walking since. Here, with my raiders, I may not be wealthy, or protected, or pampered. But I am a free man. This saddle is my throne, this dagger my scepter, all this land my kingdom."

The oasis at Dar es Sharef was a meeting point for Geb's raiders, half of whom were waiting there for the chieftain. From the sheltered oasis Geb organized raids, on passing caravans, on other bands of brigands. He was careful to keep Xena's involvement to attacking other roving bands, knowing instinctively that the black haired Greek would not raid innocent travelers.

Xena had been grimly silent at the first raid, riding along like a statue until the fighting started. Geb watched the changes come over the warrior, the descending frenzy grip her. Suddenly her rage had a focus, if a temporary one, an enemy to smite. She spurred her horse forward, shrieking her battlecry. Geb's enemies became hers, falling like wheat before the scythe. She killed, and kept on killing, until nothing near her lived.

Geb's raiders stood back from the Ghoul, who wove in the saddle, fresh blood added to the just healing wounds she bore. At night they gave her wineskins and choice joints of meat, even offered her a dancing girl, but she stalked away from them, into the nighted oasis. Geb watched her go, watched her shoulders shaking. Did the barbarian regret giving her frenzy rein?- the chieftain wondered. It would be a shame if she did, from the evidence of the corpses, she was born for this. War was her home.

As his four riders returned from the slave markets, one by one, they met an increasingly frantic Greek warrior. No word anywhere along the Red Land of a small, blond haired Greek slave for sale. When the last rider returned, after a week, arriving on a lathered horse and simply shook his head at Xena, she turned on her heel and went straight to her tent.

Geb followed, entering without asking for a permission that would surely be denied. He found the black haired giant thumbing the edge of her steel, hellfire in her eyes.

"I am sorry, Blood Drinker." He said, convincing himself that he even meant it. The barbarian was a treasure. He'd unleashed her on one raid only, but the story of her frenzy made his enemies shake all along the Red Land. Tales of Geb's new second, the Ghoul, already made his job easier. He contemplated telling her that her woman was dead, to tap into that elemental fury, but guessed that without the lure of finding her woman, the Greek killer would collapse. Signs of exhaustion told on her face, blue shadows deeper than blue eyes they surrounded. She seemed not to sleep, rarely to eat, or speak.

That is what happens when too much of you exists in another body, Geb thought. To have your heart a bleeding wound, unable to staunch the flow, was to his way of thinking an impossible way to live.

"We will find her." Geb wasn't prepared for the sudden rising of the barbarian, the uncoiling of her great height.

"No. She's not in the slave markets. Your men would have heard word of her by now, if she were. That means only that she is somewhere a normal search cannot find her. Off the market." Xena said.

Geb played his hand, sensing that the barbarian was slipping out of his grasp. "Or that she is dead." To his surprise, the woman didn't bellow with rage, didn't hack the tent to ribbons. She shook her dark head, dismissing the idea.

"I spent a week fearing that. But if she were, I'd feel it. She's alive, and she needs me. Is there a temple of Har nearby?" The warrior sounded calm, for the first time since she'd come into the raider's camp.

Geb had not supposed her to be religious, certainly not a worshipper of the pleasure Goddess of decadent Har. "Yes. She has her devotees in this land, as in her own. Yes, there is one quite near."

Xena nodded, and belted on her sword. I'm coming, Gabrielle, she thought.

Part Three

Amazons in Chains

Gabrielle shifted in her chains, trying to keep her tortured muscles from snapping under the strain. What is it about me that makes everyone want to manacle me?- the bard thought. A groan from the pile next to her let her know that the girl was coming around.

"Tanit?" She called, softly.

The young Amazon rolled over, her eyes flickering open. "Oseye?" She said, groggily.

"It's Gabrielle. From Melosa's tribe." The bard said.

Tanit's eyes gradually cleared, and focused on the Greek Amazon. "Gabrielle. The Greek. Yes. What happened?" The girl asked, seeing the chains that bound both of them.

"We were attacked." Gabrielle said, grimly. They'd been talking in the guardian's hut, the small stone building on the border of Dahomey. Gabrielle had heard running feet, felt the prick of a dart bite into her. She'd yelled for Tanit to get down, but the girl was an Amazon, out on her coming of age, looking for a man to kill. Tanit had charged out the door with her stone dagger raised, and promptly gone down under the darts. The drug acted fast, robbing Gabrielle of her senses. She'd collapsed next to Tanit, thinking as her sight faded, that Xena would be disappointed to wake without her.

When she came around, she was chained hand and foot, in a box or wagon, along with Tanit. Her staff, and the girl's knife, were gone. Tanit sat up, sullen fear and recognition in her eyes.

"We were captured." She said, her voice hollow.

"We were drugged. We're in a wagon of some sort. We've been moving since I woke. I haven't seen our captors yet, so I don't know anymore about them." Gabrielle stopped at the bleak look on Tanit's face. "What is it?" She asked, gently. She'd been around Xena so long that her mind went directly from recognition of the situation, to possible solutions. She looked at the Amazon girl, remembering how terrifying being kidnapped could be for someone who didn't go through it weekly, as she seemed to. The girl looked ready to cry.

"We are Amazons. We should have died fighting before we let them take us."

Gabrielle shook her head. "We were drugged, from a distance. There was nothing we could do."

The girl's eyes were large and round in her face, like a skittish colt's. "I've heard what men do to captured Amazons."

Gabrielle's heart went out to her. Though she was as tall as a warrior, and bore herself with the warlike pride of the daughters of Nzinga, the girl was still fourteen, on her trial run as a candidate for adulthood. She wasn't yet a warrior, hadn't earned her spear. And she certainly wasn't inured to kidnapping the way Gabrielle was, after years spent with the most dangerous woman alive.

"Listen. We're still alive, so they must want us that way. We haven't been harmed yet, so maybe we are worth more to our captors unharmed. That's always to our advantage. For now, we have to hold on, keep our minds sharp and our spirits up, until we find a way to escape. If we give in to fear, they have us." Gabrielle said, as gently as possible, hearing Xena's voice in her mind. Where was the warrior, anyway?- she wondered. She should be kicking the walls in any minute, Gabrielle thought.

The look on Tanit's face told her that her speech had the desired effect. "You are an Amazon." The girl said, slowly.

"Why are people always so surprised by that?" Gabrielle asked, and laughed. "Come on. Tell me about your home, your family. What is Queen Nzinga like?"

Tanit's face relaxed. She sat up cross-legged and started talking. Her Greek improved with every moment, as the girl remembered her lessons. That was one of the first things she told Gabrielle, how her mother had insisted that each of her daughters learn to speak many languages.

"Any one of us might be Queen someday, so we each need to know how to talk. My sister Oseye speaks Phoenician, Egyptian, Nubian and Harrian. I speak Greek, Harrian, and Persian. Izegbe and Enomwoyi both speak Greek, Ethiopian, Harrian, Egyptian, Nubian, even the languages of the desert raiders. Mother is odd that way. We have to learn to speak at least three languages before she lets us earn our spear."

"You have three sisters? Let me see, Oseye, Izegbe, Enomwoyi, and you. They all are warriors?" Gabrielle asked, trying to keep Tanit engaged.

"Oh yes. They all have their spears. Izegbe and Enomwoyi are both old, twenty five and twenty seven, both long wed, wives and children. My closest sister, Oseye, is mad for this girl, but won't let anyone know about it. She thinks Mother won't approve." Tanit said.

"Nzinga won't approve of her being involved with...?" Gabrielle asked, unsure.

"A griot. Apprentice, really, but she's not a warrior. Everyone thinks a Queen's daughter should only marry a warrior. A griot won't be able to afford the bride price of a princess. They have no cows. But I've told Oseye all this; she doesn't care. She wants this girl, and no other. I think she'd pay the bride price herself, just to have her. When I am a warrior, I will have a great herd of cattle."

The Amazons of Dahomey certainly seemed to reflect their Greek counterparts in their romantic habits, Gabrielle thought. Wonder what Xena would do if I told her she had to pay a bride price for me?- the bard thought, then giggled.

"What's a griot?" Gabrielle asked, interested.

Tanit frowned for a moment, then said something in her own language. "Eyha! Greek...isn't right. Doesn't have the words. Griot is a storyteller, one who keeps the history of the people, knows the tales of gods and ancestors. They take news from village to village, they advise Queens and tutor Queen's daughters. They lighten the hearts of warriors after battle, they ease the grief for loved ones lost, they sing and celebrate marriages and births. They belong to all the people, not their family. They travel throughout the whole land. What Greek word...bard? Like a bard. The girl Oseye wants is apprenticed to a griot. It's said the ancestors listen to her, she will be very great."

The movement of the wagon halted. From what Gabrielle could tell, they'd been moving all day, and now it approached evening. The air in the wagon was close and stifling. A grill opened in the roof, and waterskins were dropped down. Gabrielle caught the glimpse of a hand, a tiny corner of a night sky, but nothing more. Dry flat bread followed the water, then the grill closed.

"At least we have food. Come, eat some of this. We have to keep our strength up." Gabrielle said.

The girl took the bread, tearing into it with strong white teeth. "What are you doing so far from Greece, Gabrielle? So far from your tribe?" Tanit asked, passing her the bread.

"I travel with a warrior, Xena. We were just in the City of Har, helping the Great King gain the throne." The bard said, the very mention of Xena's name causing an ache in her chest. It had been at least a day, perhaps longer, that they'd been captured. The warrior hadn't come for her yet. What could be keeping her?- Gabrielle wondered.

"You are Queen, but you travel with one warrior? What about your tribe?" Tanit asked, stunned.

"Well, actually, Ephiny rules them as Regent. I chose to continue my life on the road with Xena, helping people. She's a hero, and I record her adventures." Gabrielle said.

Tanit dropped the waterskin. "You are a Queen, and a griot, a bard, yet you travel alone with one warrior. She is too poor to pay your family for you, and so you run away?" Tanit asked, trying to understand. She had heard that the Greek Amazons were different, but not that different!

"No. Well, yes, but- that's not the way we do things. I don't give her family cows, and she doesn't give my family cows. We just travel together." Gabrielle said, trying to picture Xena leading a herd of cows to her father's doorstep in Poteidaia.

"But you love her. You say her name like you love her. Like Oseye says Malika's name. " Tanit said, stubbornly. If love were involved, there had to be an exchange of cows somewhere, she knew.

"I do. More than my own life." Gabrielle said, in a low voice.

"Tell me an adventure of your hero." Tanit asked, and Gabrielle was glad to comply.

The wagon continued it's journey for a week, the heat and silence broken only by the grill in the ceiling being pulled back in the evening for the food and waterskins. It became the way Gabrielle and Tanit reckoned time, the sliding of the grill, the glimpse of evening sky, the hint of cool, live air from the outside. The days were spent in a gray haze. Sleep became a sweet reward, an escape that Gabrielle longed to fall into. She knew how much she was coming to rely on escaping, and so she rationed her sleep to just barely more than her body needed. It would not serve her companion to become lost in dreams, unable to face the reality of their confinement. She'd heard of prisoners, long caged, that became like sleepwalkers, living inside their own minds. It led to a blurring of the edges of reality, a weakening of the senses and the will. It had been the third day when she realized that Xena wasn't coming for her.

It was an idle thought, at first, indulging in the daydream of the warrior kicking through the wooden walls, her battlecry echoing in the hot air. Like she did in Megabyzus' camp, Xena would chop through the guards, hack the manacles from her limbs. Gabrielle pictured the warrior flinging the chains aside in disgust, then sweeping her up into a fierce embrace. The feel of Xena's strong arms, the smell of dust and blood and leather, bronze armor pressing into her cheek as she held her lover were so real that for a moment, Gabrielle believed. It was sweet, to sink into Xena's arms, let the warrior's low voice soothe her- then the wagon struck a stone, knocking her head against the wall.

Gabrielle rubbed the back of her head, fully restored to the present. The image of her lover faded into memory. Tanit's eyes were half closed; the rich brown glazing over with despair. Zeus, Gabrielle thought. While she was indulging in her Xena fantasy, the girl was left to sink into her own imagining. From the look on the young Amazon's face, they were not pleasant thoughts.

"Tanit. Hey, are you okay? Tanit?" Gabrielle called. The girl's head rolled against the wall, her eyes slid open, but there was no vitality in them.

"Your warrior hasn't come for us. I think there will be no rescue for us. I am sorry, Gabrielle. We will soon join her in the ancestor's halls."

The though hadn't even occurred to Gabrielle that Xena might be dead. The remembrance of her days in the Amazon village preparing for Xena's funeral pyre came back like a blow to the chest. Gabrielle's body recoiled from the memory of waking next to the sarcophagus, every morning opening her eyes on nightmare. Xena was gone and it was like the weight of gravity evaporating. The future she'd imagined, the life lived with the warrior until they were old and gray was swept away and nothing stood in its place. She'd tried to picture a future without Xena, and found nothing. Her imagination failed. There was the image of work, yes, and helping people in need, of things left undone, of battles to face, of the emptiness left by a hero the world needed. But for herself, there was no joy, no pleasure, nothing but toil for what was right, with her heart ashes in her chest.

Nothing had been enough to replace Xena, not the Amazons, not philosophy, not the gods. Gabrielle remembered touching the sarcophagus, telling Xena they would meet again on the other side, hoping that she wouldn't be left here too long. The grief was quiet and thorough, like sinking into still water without a protest. Gabrielle could see the bleak landscape that yawned for her, the hills of gray under an iron sky, the blinking out of all color and light. Oblivion called to her, soothingly, to leave behind the pain of the world. Hadn't Xena left her alone to endure this, again?

"No." Gabrielle said, in the stillness of the wagon.

"No?" Tanit asked, raising her head.

"No. There might not be any rescue coming for us. That means that we have to get ourselves out. Review what we know about our situation. We're in a closed box, traveling for a week. They feed us well, for prisoners, so they must want us healthy."

"We don't know who they are." Tanit said, surprised by this surge of energy in the Greek.

"So we find out. When the grill opens tonight, we try to engage them in conversation. And we keep it up, every night, until they break." Gabrielle stood, as much as she could under the heavy manacle. "We need to move around, wake up our limbs. When we get a chance to bolt, we'll need to be able to move."

"What happened, Gabrielle? You have a fire lit under you!" Tanit said, awed.

"I'm an Amazon, we have to be resourceful. You're right, Xena probably won't be coming for us, if she hasn't yet. That means she needs our help, we'll have to go to her." Gabrielle said, practicing crouching and standing with the chains.

"She might be dead, Gabrielle."

The bard smiled, hearing the words out loud. "I'd know if she were." It was true, and saying it released the remembered grief that held her hostage. Her body relaxed, her heart started beating again. I know what that grief is like, the bard thought, and this isn't it. Xena was still out there, and she would find her.

Birth of the Ghoul

Shaitan, the Syrian, had intended to take Nzinga's daughter alive and slaughter the rest of the caravan. One member might be left alive to carry the rumor that the girl was taken by slavers for an Egyptian, but if they proved troublesome, that was not essential. The caravan had been skirting Dahomey's border for days. Shaitan would slip out of the camp and keep watch on the stone huts, where the guardian masks marked the edges of Amazon territory.

Girls on their coming of age sometimes journeyed near the border, looking for trouble to blood themselves with. Shaitan imagined that a Queen's daughter might have a lot to prove, and would want to kill a man, not a lion or a boar. And there were no men in Dahomey. If the girl wanted one to kill, she'd have to venture near the border, near the trade routes.

This was the third caravan he'd traveled with, to stay in this area without arousing much suspicion.

His supposition had borne fruit. The hired men he'd purchased from a desert raider brought him word that the girl's tracks had been seen nearby. He left instructions to watch the caravan camp and slipped out to watch the guardian's huts. There, in the dawn light, he had seen her, tall, magnificent, wearing an armband of hammered gold in the shape of a running lioness. Nzinga's own symbol. He reached for his darts. Another had stepped out of the stone hut, talking familiarly with the girl. It was the blond Greek, the black haired warrior's whore. She seemed to know the Amazon. They clasped arms, like old friends.

A tremor went through Shaitan's hand. He knew that he should just kill the Greek and leave her body for the vultures. He pictured the black haired woman howling in agony, and smiled, his lips stretching against closed teeth. Yet…there was something cold in his chest, a fear that woke when he imagined the Greek warrior's steel blue eyes. He could see skulls looking back at him out of those gemstone depths. The tremor shook his hand, spoiling his aim. Kill her, he thought, but he could not get his hand to obey. They image of bleached skulls against endless blue taunted him, dared him to strike down the blond woman. At last, nerves frayed like rotted string, he convinced himself that it was good strategy to leave her alive. So he sent his darts, and took them down.

A quick visit to his desert raiders, instructions to pick up their cargo outside the stone hut, and he was back to camp. The morning cookfire had just been lit. Shaitan smiled, baring his teeth now in his lean face. The drover was up, setting tea to boil over the fire. He waved to the Syrian to join him. Shaitan did, one hand flicking open the pouch at his waist. It was a simple movement, really, to empty the pouch into the fire. Simple, to watch the drugged smoke bring down the unknowing drover. He stepped over the body and heaped more fuel on the fire, letting the smoke drift through the camp. The caravaneers would pose little threat to his raiders, drugged and sleeping. When they drifted like ghosts into camp, he nodded and they began their work.

It should have been an easy task, easy kills. One of the Egyptian brothers on the holy pilgrimage had woken, and seen a raider over him with a dripping knife. He'd shrieked like a woman in childbirth, and roused the camp. The drug from the central fire had done its work, and the raiders managed to hew down groggy caravaneers like wheat. The noise had dragged the Greek warrior from her tent.

Unlike the caravaneers, she came awake as a tiger wakes, instantly and thoroughly, ready to deal death. Her armor was on, steel was naked in her hand. She had charged into the camp circle, giving tongue to her unearthly battlecry, and gotten a lungful of smoke, enough to fell a prize bull. Shaitan smiled, thinking her contained. He couldn't have been more wrong.

Xena recognized the smoke as drugged the minute she breathed it in. She knew she didn't have much time before the effects robbed her of her fighting prowess, so she moved like a razor edged hurricane, bringing the fight to the raiders with a leap none of them could believe. Her sword came down like Zeus' judgment, splitting a skull to the teeth as she landed. Her foes were unknown to her, but they were slaughtering sleeping people, and Gabrielle was missing. The thought of the bard added fuel to the bonfire of her rage, and five more raiders went down in as many strokes.

I'll have to cut through their circle and get to the road, she thought, her sword arm slowing. The picket line had been cut, the horses careened madly through camp. She reached out and seized a saddlehorn, swinging her leg up, but the drug ruined her coordination. She landed on the other side as the horse ran on. She shook her head to clear it, but the fog was internal. Her fingers clutched her hilt.

Shaitan had screamed at his raiders to get her, to bring the unnatural woman down, before she leapt again and finished the rest of them off. They did, swarming over her like jackals on a wounded lion. The weight of numbers dragged her down, a dozen hands clutching her sword arm, a dozen weapons striking her, eager for her blood. She managed to thrust her point through the throat of one more raider, before the blow to her skull brought her down. They kept striking at her after she folded to the sand, unable to believe that she wasn't moving, wasn't slaying them. She lay like a broken doll, blood pouring into the greedy sand.

"Leave her. She is dead. Grab the bodies of our dead and wounded, leave no trace. Burn the tents."

Part Four

Escape

When the grill opened that evening, Gabrielle set her plan into action. She blasphemed every god she could think of, starting with the Harrian and Egyptian gods. She made it through Osiris when the waterskins fell, and the grill closed. "Okay, they aren't Egyptian." She said, picking up the waterskin.

"Or they aren't religious." Tanit commented, tearing into the bread with strong white teeth.

"Hey, that was funny! Your spirits are returning. Even if they aren't religious, they'd probably chuckle or something if we are cursing their gods. If we can get any sort of a rise out of them, even a gasp, it'd be a good sign. This silence is the worst. If I didn't have someone to talk to, I'd be going mad." Gabrielle said, sitting down.

Tanit shook her head, glancing down into her lap at her folded hands. "No. I would be lost by now, without you here to cheer me. You are a griot, Gabrielle, you raise the hearts of warriors before the battle. But I am no warrior."

Gabrielle threw the waterskin down and grabbed the girl's shoulders, forcing her to look up at the fierce green eyes. "Now you listen to me. You are Tanit, the daughter of Nzinga of Dahomey. You've been drugged and kidnapped, but you've managed to stay alive, and keep looking for a way out. Being a warrior comes first from the heart, not from the amount of blood you've spilled."

The girl's eyes glowed when they met hers. "Did your warrior teach you that?"

"Yeah. Over and over, until I got it." Gabrielle said, with a sigh.

"It must be good, to love someone like that. Enough to keep going." Tanit said, looking away.

"Did I ever tell you how Xena brought peace to the Centaurs and the Amazons?" Gabrielle said, and Tanit looked back at her.

"Yes. And about Prometheus, and the fall of Troy, and the Bacchae."

"Okay. How about the enthroning of Oromenes as Great King in Har, and how Xena became known as the Lord Chabouk?" Gabrielle asked.

Tanit started to laugh, softly at first, then breaking out into guffaws.

"What is so funny?" Gabrielle demanded.

"Was she really called Lord Chabouk? She allowed this?" Tanit asked, when she could speak.

"Of course she allowed it, it was an honor bestowed by the High Priestess Mara, straight from the Goddess herself. " Gabrielle said, feeling protective of Xena's reputation.

"No, no. Not the title, not 'lord.' Who had the gall to call the mighty Xena a Chabouk?" Tanit asked, gleefully.

"Er, the army. The soldiers gave her the nickname. They said it was soldier's slang for a charioteer." Gabrielle had the feeling that the word had a different meaning outside of the Red City. "Tanit, what does 'Chabouk' mean?"

"It's a charioteer's braided leather whip, for driving the horses. It may be Harrian slang for a charioteer, but it's like calling Xena Lord Buggy Whip. A Bedouin would laugh himself out of the saddle if you called her that." The young Amazon said, with a straight face.

Lord Buggy Whip, oh Zeus.- Gabrielle thought. She tried mightily to picture her lover's solemn face as she addressed the army in Har, tried to conjure up all the stoic, sullen dignity Xena was capable of, but it didn't work. She burst out laughing, causing Tanit to loose her dignified expression. The two of them laughed until they were holding their ribs and crying.

"Tanit, do me a favor, let me be the one to tell Xena what her title means."

"As you say. I wouldn't want to be spitted on the end of your champion's sword."

The next evening, Gabrielle worked through the Persian gods and started on the Nubian and Persian. She thought there was a hesitation in the hand that held the waterskin when she was blaspheming Ahura Mazda, but she couldn't be sure. The grill was slammed closed before she could continue.

"Did you see that?" She asked Tanit.

The girl narrowed her eyes. "I think he reacted to your speaking Persian. Ahura Mazda didn't move him. If he were a Persian, he'd have opened the grill and struck you, they are very touchy about their One Lord."

"So he speaks Persian, but doesn't worship their gods? That doesn't make any sense."

"He might be a raider, one of the tribes from the deserts around Kemet. They speak a mix of Persian, with some other stuff thrown in. My older sisters know their talk. "

Gabrielle grabbed her arm, not an easy thing to do with the heavy chains they both wore. "Can you speak any of their language?"

"Some. It's like Persian." Tanit admitted.

"Good. Do you know who they worship? Or how to insult them?" The bard asked, not noticing how Tanit's face fell when she released the girls' arm.

"They worship their fathers. Insult them by calling them women, and they'll draw their scimitars so fast you won't even see it."

"Great! Help me work up a vile series of insults. I want to be sure they get so angry, they beat me." The bard said.

"Gabrielle, they might hurt you! Why would you want to be beaten?"

"Because they'll have to stop, open the wagon and maybe even unchain me, to beat me properly. Trust me on this, Tanit. I don't want to be beaten. But it may be a way out of here." Gabrielle's green eyes found the Amazon girl's, and held them.

"Let me be beaten. I can take the punishment. You should never have a hand raised to you." Tanit said, vehemently.

"No." Gabrielle said, and stopped. She knew that look, the hungry look on the girl's face. It was the desire to prove herself, to become a warrior, but it was something more. It was the same look she'd had, the first minute she'd seen Xena, hero worship, recognition, and love. Oh, Tanit, the bard thought.

"No. I need you free, so you can get the keys from them. You're stronger than I am, and faster."

It took much convincing, but Tanit reluctantly agreed to Gabrielle's plan. She spent the day coaching Gabrielle on the foulest things they could concoct, in a flawless Persian accent.

"Are you sure about that one? It sounds way too pretty, like love poetry." Gabrielle said.

"It's a description of how they were willingly castrated, to be pleasure slaves for low caste foreign men. It is not love poetry." Tanit said, and looked away, embarrassed.

"Oh. That's all right, then. What about the rest of it?" The bard asked, wanting to know what she was getting herself into. Tanit only shook her head, and Gabrielle could have sworn that the Amazon girl was having trouble breathing.

"Never mind."

When the grill opened that evening, Gabrielle launched into a stream of beautiful, classical Persian, sounding like a song of praise to her own ear. The hand hesitated over the grill, and didn't drop the waterskins. She continued, louder, the symphony Tanit had insisted was the worst thing you could ever say to a man. She insulted their parentage, their father's virility, their own sexual habits, their wives fidelity, their courage. She called them castrated pleasure slaves, she called them lovers of boys and animals, she intimated that their mothers had been prostitutes in Babylon.

Then she called them women. The hand jerked back, the grill slammed shut, without food or water being lowered.

"I think that did it." Gabrielle said, feeling weak.

The wagon ceased moving, almost immediately. "Get ready. Don't break." Gabrielle whispered to Tanit, then the door to the wagon was jerked open.

The first thing Gabrielle noticed was the cool evening air rushing in. The figure in the doorway was wearing flowing robes, held closed by a sash, and a cloth covering his head. He unhooked her chains with a turn of his wrist, then savagely seized her, and threw her out of the wagon. It worked, she thought, as she hit the hard packed dirt of the road. The kick came first, lifting her off the ground with its force. She doubled over, feeling the searing pain along her ribs and prayed that they weren't broken. Her wrists were still chained together; she held them in front of her body, the loop of chain protecting her abdomen.

Gabrielle counted on their captors not wanting to kill them. She hoped she hadn't made a mistake, when the blows started falling, not from a whip, but from what felt like a sheathed scimitar. She managed to roll onto her side and get a look at the area. Desert stretched everywhere she looked, the road an amber thread along the center of yellow dunes. One man was beating her; another stood to his left, a few paces back. She didn't see any others.

The man's arm rose and fell, striking her. A scream of denial cut cross the space between her and the wagon. The man near the wagon turned, and met a heavy length of chain, wielded like a flail. It caught him on the temple, felling him instantly. Tanit had broken free.

Rage danced on the face of the young Amazon as she stood over the body of her captor, swinging back the bloody chain for another blow. The man beating her unsheathed his scimitar in one feral motion. Gabrielle knew he'd hew Tanit down in his next stroke. She moved without thinking, tangling his legs with hers, hooking his knee and bringing him down. He fell in a heap on top of her, snarling and twisting away. Her length of chain was trapped beneath his body; she couldn't wrench it free. He discovered this just as she did. The bard could see the flash of teeth in his black beard as he grabbed the length of chain, pinning it. His scimitar raised to lop off her head. The breath went out of him in an explosive grunt, as the length of chain struck him in the back. He writhed like a fish on the hook, throwing himself off Gabrielle. Tanit swung another blow at his head, but he ducked under it, slashing as he went. The Amazon girl cried out, the curved steel catching her naked thigh and sawing through the muscle.

Gabrielle bunched the chain between her hands and struck at the raider's back. He grunted again and dropped his scimitar. The bard followed up with a blow to his knee that took his legs out form under him. He hit the sand, his arms splaying out.

Gabrielle pushed herself up and ran to Tanit, who was clutching her rent thigh. She took one look at the wound, and tore the sash from the fallen raider.

"I'll have to make this tight, to prevent more blood loss." She warned, and the Amazon nodded. "Why didn't you stay in the wagon?" Gabrielle asked, gently, as she tightened the sash around Tanit's thigh.

The girl gritted her teeth. "I couldn't let them beat you."

The green eyes softened. "That was a very foolish thing to do. And very brave. You saved my life." Gabrielle said. The bard fished the keys to the manacles out of the belt pouch of the man Tanit had felled. She unlocked the chains on the girl, then herself, flinging them aside.

"The man I struck. Is he..?" Tanit asked.

"He's dead." Gabrielle said, tightly.

Tanit nodded, her eyes shutting. "I can go home." The girl slumped in her arms, weakened from the exertion and the blood loss.

Gabrielle set her down, as gently as she could. She checked the man who'd been beating her, and found him alive. She closed her eyes briefly, thankful for that. The manacles from Tanit served to bind his right arm to the wheel of the wagon.

Tanit gradually woke to a strange motion. The ground under her was moving, not as the wagon had been moving. She opened her eyes, and saw that the ground was many feet below her. She was on the back of one of the raider's tall horses; her arms tied to the saddle. Her leg throbbed in complaint, and she remembered her wound, the fight, and the Greek Amazon Queen.

"Gabrielle?" She called. The bard was leading the horse. She came around immediately, a smile on her face, and loosened the ties that held Tanit's arms.

"Glad to have you back. I couldn't think of another way to get you to stay in the saddle." The bard was wearing the robe of one of the raiders, as protection from the fierce sun.

"Where are we?" Tanit asked, thickly. The fact of their escape was just dawning on the girl. She was on horseback, free, she had killed her man, and she had saved the life of Gabrielle, Queen of Melosa's tribe.

It came back to her, the fight, watching Gabrielle be beaten by the raider, the instinctive urge to protect the Greek Amazon. She'd gone into motion without thinking, swinging her chain like an extension of her arms. Then had come the sickening crunch, the impact of chain striking bone- the memory sent a wave of nausea over her. She had killed a man.

"Gabrielle. I think I would like to walk now." Tanit said, hoping that she could get out of the saddle before she became ill.

'You can't walk, honey. Your leg is hurt." Gabrielle said, gently, thinking the girl had forgotten her wound.

"Nevertheless, I would like to get down." She swung her good leg over the saddlehorn, then jumped.

The Amazons of Dahomey are not raised around horses. They are the among the finest soldiers in the known world, but they fight from birth on foot, wielding their ten foot spears and oblong shields in well ordered lines. Their weapons, their battle order, their fighting style are not suited to horseback. Nzinga's daughters had seen horses, surely, for their were chariots in Nubia and Egypt, riding mounts in Har, even horse nomads in the desert. Yet, they had never had occasion to mount one, or dismount one. With the added help of a wounded thigh, the task proved impossible for the girl. Tanit collapsed in a heap in front of the startled Gabrielle.

The bard grabbed her arm to help her up. "Hey. I thought I was the one who didn't like riding." She said, concerned when Tanit didn't respond.

The girls' jaw was clenched with effort. Gabrielle turned to the saddle and untied one of the scimitars. She handed it to Tanit in its sheath. "Lean on this. I don't have any wood to make you a crutch. If I'd have been thinking, I'd have grabbed some of the spokes from the wagon wheel, but I just wanted to get away from there."

The Amazon nodded, grateful. The Greek was careless with weapons, but she had handed steel to her, the moment she stood on the ground. It was a good sign, that Gabrielle was thinking of her as a warrior now. It made Tanit's leg hurt less, made the pain of the kill recede.

"The ghosts of our captors will haunt that place, it is good to be gone." Tanit said, deepening her tone.

"Only one ghost, if I'm right. But more than enough." Gabrielle said, glancing away along the road.

"I think there were more men, in the beginning. I don't know why there were only two on the wagon, but if I'm right, more will be coming along this road to join them. We don't want to be here when they do. Tanit, do you know this area?" Gabrielle asked.

The girl shrugged. "Looks like the fringes of Kemet, but we were on the road for a week. I think we are far from Dahomey."

"Okay. Zeus, I wish I had a map! We have to get off the road, find a place to hole up for the night. I saw some hills in the distance, we might make them by nightfall if we strike out off the road. I don't want to venture too far out into the desert, I don't know anything about surviving out here."

When darkness came down over the desert, Gabrielle led the horse into the foothills. The pale yellow stone was pocked with dark spots, yawning cave mouths too regular to be natural. Gabrielle's curiosity flared up, wondering at the hands that labored at carving living stone in the middle of the desert. Night fell too fast to investigate, so she led the horse and the Amazon girl for the first opening she'd seen. The rise was littered with smaller stones, and treacherous, so she staked the horse out on the level.

Gabrielle helped Tanit to sit, then explored as much of the cave as she could, on hands and knees. The moon shone directly in the cave mouth, giving her a silver wash of light to see by. The cave was fashioned by human hands, the floor rough but even, the debris scattered about by wind was enhanced with bits of old leather, stone cutting tools, copper axe heads. Gabrielle's hands closed on a familiar object, and she nearly laughed aloud. She gathered as much as she could carry, then hurried back to the Amazon girl.

"I found wood. They must use beams to transport the stone after they cut it; some of them are broken and scattered on the floor. We have enough to make a fire with good cedar."

Gabrielle set the fire near the cave mouth, so the smoke wouldn't choke them out. It rose, blue and gray, into the night air like a sacrifice. The stillness of the hills, the ancient silence of the yellow cliffs, the cracking of the desiccated wood in the flame all soothed her. She sat down with her back against the cave wall, facing the fire, looking out at the night.

It was the first quiet moment since her capture, and she became aware of the bruised places on her back where the raider had struck, of the exertion of fighting, then fleeing into the wasteland. The wall behind her was rough, poking into her shoulders. Gabrielle wished she were leaning back against a bronze breastplate, encircled by loving arms, inhaling the scent of leather. The absence of Xena came on quietly, settling on the bard. I hope you have a fire tonight where you are, she thought.

"Gabrielle." Tanit spoke, wanting to banish the sad look that came over the bard's face. She had watched the Greek Amazon with amazement as she handled fighting, securing the horse and supplies, the flight, the finding of the cave. Now, after making the fire, some of her own fire dimmed, and she sank down against the wall, turning her head out toward the sky. Tanit knew that she thought of her warrior, and the stab of jealousy was sharp and immediate. I am the one who saved you, not your lost Greek hero, who very well may be dead- Tanit thought. The Greek Amazon didn't seem to hear her, listening instead to a voice that wasn't present.

"Gabrielle."

"Hmn?" The bard murmured, looking at the night.

"Where do you intend to go, in the morning?" Tanit asked. Gabrielle's head turned, her green eyes blinked.

"Go? Back to the road, though I don't like it. We have a way to go before we get back to the border."

"You intend to head for Dahomey?" Tanit asked, trying not to let the joy show on her face.

"Of course. You're hurt; I have to make sure that you get home. Why?" Gabrielle asked.

"I thought that you would seek your warrior." Tanit said, frankly.

"I will. I wish I had a way of letting her know that I'm all right, but I'll find her." The certainty of the statement hurt Tanit more than she wanted to show, so she turned away from the fire, fussing with her bandage.

"Is your leg hurting you?" Gabrielle asked, but the girl shrugged her off. The gesture was so like another warrior's that she smiled to herself. They start so young, denying pain, pretending to be made of stone - the bard thought.

The fire burned down to embers during the night, the bard succumbing to sleep. She twitched and whimpered in Morpheus embrace, unable to find peace. Tanit, awake and watchful, felt her heart constrict at the restless way Gabrielle slept. The Greek Amazon had been the picture of strength throughout their captivity, always bringing her joy or distraction with a story, forming plans to escape, never once giving in to despair. To glimpse her vulnerability as she slept was almost too intimate for the daughter of Nzinga.

Tanit was used to sleeping next to her sister Oseye, in her mother's hut. Izegbe and Enomwoyi both had places of their own, filled with wives and children, noise and confusion. Nzinga's hut had been a quiet place for nearly a year now, since the death of the Queen's wife in a hunting accident. She had been Nzinga's third wife, a woman many years her junior, younger than Enomwoyi, a warrior of proven courage and easy temper. Nzinga had loved her well, and mourned her respectfully. Tanit had been devastated. She'd been too young to remember her mother's other wives, all who had fallen in honorable battle, and had come to see the warrior Mazena as a parent. Nzinga hadn't laughed, hadn't sang or celebrated for a year now, and the time of mourning was drawing to a close. Tanit was of an age that her mother's emotional retreat hit her hard, making her desperate to draw the Queen back into the world. She thought that, if she achieved great things on her coming of age, her mother would smile for her in pride, maybe even celebrate when she took her spear. Then the mourning would end, light would return to their home, and perhaps Oseye might be able to admit that a griot's apprentice had stolen her heart. The excitement of her first kill, the joy of escaping confinement, the fierce protectiveness and uneasy tenderness she felt for the small Greek woman all kept her from sleeping.

Gabrielle was used to sleeping in absolute safety, the circle of Xena's arms. Without her lover, part of her soul could not rest, could not find ease. In sleep she reached out for the black haired warrior, seeking her balance. Gabrielle dreamed of Xena, towering over a bloody field, swaying in the saddle of a desert raider. Her skin was pale, her eyes shadowed and haunted. Blood spattered her face like a mask, only her eyes showing fever bright through the red dappling. The blue eyes were restless, mad, looking past the carnage, never stopping their sweep of the horizon. Oh, gods, she looks terrible - Gabrielle thought. She saw Xena sitting by a fire; a dwarf with a dozen knives in his belt was handing her a wineskin. She sat like a statue or a corpse, staring into the flames that licked at the dripping haunch of lamb. The warrior rose and went to her tent, fell to her knees and wept, head in her hands. Gabrielle's heart was on the ground, unable to bear Xena's pain, unable to assuage it. She moaned, then felt strong arms encircle her, hesitantly. Gabrielle shifted in the embrace, falling into a deeper sleep, the dream vanishing.

Tanit kept her wounded leg propped up, and tightened her arms around Gabrielle's waist. The blond woman quieted down when Tanit's arms went around her, sighing and leaning back. Tanit's heart nearly burst from her ribs. She knew that it was Xena Gabrielle received the embrace from, in her dream, and that was why she relaxed, but a part of her didn't care. She tucked the blond woman more securely into her arms, letting sleep claim her.

Gabrielle woke in a close embrace, which was not unusual, but the feel of it was strange. The arms that held her were strong, but thinner, not quite right. She slid her hand over a forearm, wondering why it wasn't as corded with muscle as it should be. When her hand reached the wrist, it was bare, no leather and bronze bracer. Had Xena taken them off? She couldn't remember. She blinked her eyes open, and saw the dark brown skin under her hand. It came back to her in a rush, Tanit, the cave- what was the girl doing holding her? Gabrielle sat up, the motion waking Tanit.

She retracted her arm, a guilty expression on her face. "You were having a nightmare. I just thought that…"

"Thanks. I'm sure I slept better with you there." Gabrielle said, lightly. She stood and stretched casually, not letting the moment sit between them. She felt for the girl, for the struggle she was going through, and didn't want to make it any harder.

"I bet there's enough wood to fashion you a crutch." The bard said, examining the cave in the morning light. Her eyes fell on a stick leaning against the wall, already smoothed down and formed into a walking stick. "Tanit? When did you do this?" She asked, examining it.

"Last night. I made one for you, as a staff. You always fight with one in your stories. We are good at working wood in Dahomey." Tanit said, with a show of nonchalance.

"You are a remarkable young woman, Tanit." Gabrielle said. The girl fairly glowed at the praise. "Come on, sister, let's see what the day holds."

The Necropolis

The valley was honeycombed with cave mouths, some natural, some made by hand. In the clear yellow light of morning, Gabrielle could see limestone pits where half-carved blocks weighing tons waited the final cutting. She shaded her eyes, squinting at what looked like buildings at the far end of the valley. "We might be in luck. Maybe they are quarters for the stonecutters. They might have food we can barter for."

They made their way across the broken landscape of the valley floor. By the time they reached the buildings it was midday, and Gabrielle had an eerie feeling that she was very wrong about their use. They were inhabited, but all the inhabitants slept in the arms of eternity. The buildings were mastaba tombs, long, low rectangular buildings of mud brick. They resembled nothing so much as a giant's blocks, left scattered across the end of the valley. Gabrielle walked between the tombs, leading the horse with the Amazon girl silent in the saddle. Both had heard of the Egyptian methods of burying their dead, but neither had been in a necropolis before. The city of the dead brought with it a hush, the weight of immense age, of timeless keeping of culture, endless as the flow of the great river that formed the heart of Egypt. Even the horse seemed muted by the silence of the tombs.

An avenue ran between the mastabas, lined with statues of man headed lions, crouching to guard the way to eternity. Gabrielle paused before a tomb that looked new, the mortar on the stones fresh. A statue, hewn from diorite of a man in a linen kilt with the head of a jackal, stood as gatekeeper. The eyes gazed out on unfathomable gulfs. "Anubis." Gabrielle said, with a shiver. Incongruously, there was sound- the clatter of sandals on paving stone, cries of labor, the sound of mallets striking stone. Had the shape of the valley distorted the sound, hiding it until now? Gabrielle motioned Tanit to stay and sprinted around the corner of the tomb.

There was a gang of four men in ragged khaffiyas, swinging mallets at the back wall of the tomb. Mud brick and limestone paving were splintered, sending up dust and shards. Anger suffused the bard's fair features. She knew what they were. Vultures, thieves, graverobbers, come to steal the tomb goods of a newly deceased countryman.

She reacted without hesitation, giving tongue to a battlecry that would make Xena proud, and charging. Tanit heard the Greek Amazon cry out and reacted instantly, drawing her scimitar. Though trained since she could walk with the long spear, her weapons master hadn't neglected the tools of foreign peoples. She could draw a passable bow, was excellent with a dagger and javelin, and could swing a scimitar in a fashion that would not shame a Bedouin. With the curved steel in one hand, the other clutching the saddle horn she kicked the horse into life. It careened around the corner of the tomb, hooves slipping on paving stones, eyes rolling.

Gabrielle had closed with the four men, dancing in the center of them like a cobra among jackals. Her staff found exposed knees, unguarded ribs, darted in and struck with surprising force. Not for nothing was she the lover of the greatest warrior to walk the earth. The staff was her chosen weapon, whirling like a thing alive in her hands.

Tanit had not thought of the Greek woman as a fighter. She was strong willed, resourceful, and very, very brave, but she seemed too gentle to be good in battle. Tanit saw now how wrong she had been. One man went down, holding his ribs; another fled back, rapped smartly across the jaw. The horse ran right at the group, and Tanit gave up trying to control its mad gallop. Her long arm went up, the scimitar catching the sun like a fish leaping out of water. A bloody furrow opened on one of the graverobbers' shoulders as she passed. His mallet crashed to earth, rebounding. He grabbed at his rent flesh, howling in Egyptian.

It was over in a matter of moments. The graverobbers had not expected to be caught at their foul work, and certainly had not expected two Amazons to batter them to a standstill. They dropped their mallets and fled, knocking into one another as they ran.

The screams were a surprise to Gabrielle, who had turned to congratulate and chew out Tanit for not staying put. One moment the graverobbers were running, the next they fell, long cane arrows standing out from their backs. Gabrielle saw Tanit's eyes go wide, looking over her shoulder. She turned, feeling the air as thick as water.

The end of the avenue of sphinxes was blocked off by two wheeled chariots, drawn by pairs of horses. In each chariot stood a driver, naked to the waist, and a bowman. All wore kirtles of linen, golden armbands and wide necklaces of gold and colored stones. Their hair was black and square cut above brown hawk's faces, framing eyes made supernatural large with kohl. In the lead chariot stood a shaven headed man, a leopard skin slung across his chest like a mantle. He gestured to the driver, who edged the team forward, toward Gabrielle and Tanit.

He paused, his amber eyes sweeping over the scene, the damaged tomb, the mallets, the four bodies pincushioned with arrows. He spoke in a light voice, more cultured than Gabrielle expected from his fierce mien, soft rounded tones that she didn't follow. "Tanit, what's he saying?" Gabrielle whispered.

The girl frowned, then translated. "He says his name is Mekere, he's a...scribe to the local nomearch- the governor of this province. That tomb belongs to his uncle. We...put into darkness? We stopped the jackals who sought to desecrate his uncles tomb, and thereby have done him a great service."

"Oh. Thank him, and tell him who we are, would you?" Gabrielle asked, smiling at the shaven headed man.

Tanit did, her Egyptian coming more quickly. The scribe bowed from the waist to the Amazons, and spoke again. "He says we have to go with him to his house. Should we, Gabrielle?" Tanit said.

The bard looked at the chariots, the archers, and the dead bodies at the end of the avenue of sphinxes. "I think it's not a bad idea."

In the Temple of Har

Xena threw the reins of her desert mount to the temple guard. He was an Egyptian, and so didn't know her. He held his spear across the temple door, barring her way. The sudden appearance of a tall, dust-covered woman with savage blue eyes who tossed him the reins of a lathered raider's horse, then stalked toward the Goddess' sanctuary was frightening. She glanced down at the spear shaft, her fist following the look in a downward arc too swift for his eyes to follow. The shaft splintered, she continued her stride unchecked. Her long legs carried her into the main room, right to the altar of Har where a priestess was giving sacrifice. The guard followed, shouting to the priestess to beware of the hostile stranger.

He made the mistake of standing too near Xena while he bellowed.

One large hand shot out and gripped his throat, lifting him off the floor. His sandals barely brushed the stone, his face turned and angry red. The Harlot stood up quickly, coming forward. "Tell this idiot to go away." Xena growled.

The Harlot recognized her, and bowed. "You may retire, Datin. Do not allow anyone else to come in." Xena released her grip, and the guard fell flat. He scrambled backward like a crab in his haste to get away from the terrible Greek giant. "How may I serve the Lord Chabouk?" The Harlot asked, musically, as the guard fled.

"You have a Royal Messenger here?" Xena asked, without flourish. She had no time, no patience for formality.

The Harlot acknowledged that they did. "All temple are connected by the Royal Messengers to the City."

"Send word to Oromenes. Gabrielle is missing. Xena asks his help."

The Harlot clapped her hands, a girl came forward with scroll and stylus. She inscribed a short message, then sent the girl away. "The messenger rides within the hour, Lord. The Great King will receive your word in two days time."

Xena felt the weight settle again on her shoulders, the despair that threatened to crush her. It had been held off by her anger, by the urge to get to the temple, to send word to the Red City. Now, having done the one thing she could think of doing, her mind went blank again, the grief enshrouded her.

The Harlot watched the warrior's shoulders sag, as if her body could no longer remain upright. She took Xena's arm, leading her to a bench. "Is there aught we might do for you, Lord Chabouk, as you await word? I will have a guestroom prepared here, in the temple. Let me ready you a bath, bring you food and drink."

Xena ran a hand through her hair, mazed. She had trouble thinking, trouble focusing. It had been two days since she took a horse from Geb and rode hell for leather toward the temple of the Great Mother. She couldn't recall when she last slept, last ate. "No." She said, softly. Not without Gabrielle.

The Harlot knelt by the bench, as the warrior set her head in her hands. "I am Belile, Lord. I saw you, at the wedding of Malache and Oromenes. We of the Goddess owe you much. Is there nothing I might do, to ease your mind?"

The blue eyes looked up. "No."

"Harlots have certain gifts, Lord Chabouk. You are a Friend of the Royal House, dear to her own Beloved. I could ask Har where your consort is."

Fingers like steel closed on the Harlot's arms, bruising her. "Do it."

The preparation was simple. Belile took a copper dish the size of a Harrian soldier's shield and filled it with sand. She lit tapers, put out the lamps, and told Datin to keep everyone out, even servants. From under the altar she brought forth a casket of silver, polished to a dull white glow. It was ancient, smoothed down by generations of hands, carved with symbols strange to the warrior's eye. Belile stood before the copper bowl, holding the cask. "Ask the Goddess what you seek, Lord Chabouk."

The warrior narrowed her blue eyes into slits, staring at the statue of the Great Mother on the altar. "I'm not one of your people, Har. But I came when your people sent for me and did my best for them. Now a woman is missing, a woman who was ready to sacrifice everything to see your Great King crowned. If you can see into people's hearts, look into mine. Help me find Gabrielle." The Harlot opened the box and drew forth a snake, a silver so bright that it glowed white in the candlelight. She held it like a precious necklace, cradling it, then kissed it's wedged shaped head and set it in the copper bowl.

The serpent writhed in the sand, leaving tracks like a madman's scribbling. The Harlot bent low over the bowl, reading. "Your consort rests in a cave tomb in the yellow valley necropolis of Kemet, surrounded by the dead. An Amazon of Dahomey rests with her. The Syrian caused them to be there." She said, her voice a chant. Xena swore a sulfurous oath and reeled, the ground giving way beneath her. She sank down on one knee, blind from the pain. It was too much to bear, her mind staggered under it. The fear rose up and savaged her, tearing away the last vestige of her control. With a growl of inhuman rage Xena sought to lash out, to strike away the source of her agony.

She grabbed the edge of the copper bowl, hurling it across the room. The snake flew like a ribbon of moonlight, striking the wall. Sand showered over the floor. Belile shrank back from the madness of the Lord Chabouk The black head flew back, the scream that loosed from her throat bore only chance resemblance to humanity.

The Harlot tried to check the reeling, staggering Lord Chabouk, to calm her, but the only one who could calm her was gone. The snake, having landed in a pile of the scattered sand, continued it's writhing, in a frenzy as great as the madwoman's. The woman that ran from the temple bore little resemblance to the Lord Chabouk, friend of the Royal House of Har. This was a Greek giant in the grip of a frenzy that would make a beserker pale. Datin fainted dead away at the look on the warrior's face, in passing. It was a razor edged whirlwind that caught the saddle of the desert raider's mount, a primal force that hurtled into the gathering night like the rage of a god. And it rode toward the yellow valley necropolis of Kemet.

In the temple of the Great Mother, the Harlot looked at the snake's trail in the sand, and sprang up, shouting after the fleeing Lord Chabouk. Rage, or the drumming of unshod hooves filled her ears, and the warrior did not hear.

Part Five

Shifting Sands

Shaitan, called the Syrian, was tired. It had been a busy week, starting with the capture of the Amazon girl and the Greek whore. As soon as his men had them securely in the wagon he gave them explicit instructions, backed up with violence and gold. Not for nothing had he been a raider and a chief of raiders in the fringes of Kemet. It had been two years since he'd been free, in the hellish wasteland that the desert nomads claimed as their kingdom. Two years since he'd been shackled by his men, and sold as a slave to Rome. Now, with the excuse of Sextus' ambition, he was free, and able again to bend the world to his will. It took little to find the remains of his old band, bribe or threaten them away from their new masters, the Nubian dwarf Geb, his enemy of old.

There had been a time when his rival had been in his power, and he had given the dwarf reason for a lifetime of nightmares. Geb had survived, despite the Syrians conviction that he wouldn't. His hatred had fed him, kept life in his stunted body, had given him reason to wield his band of raiders into an army. He'd organized a night attack on Shaitan's camp, and slaughtered the Syrian's band. In the end he had Shaitan in chains. The Syrian was impressed with the calm the dwarf managed to show. True, he was on his knees, fettered, and the dwarf was free, sitting up on his tall Persian mount. But there had been no hatred in his eyes, and his speech was a gentle and round as an Egyptian courtier's.

"We are alike, Syrian, in many ways. Your flaw is that you forget that I am a man." Geb had said, motioning for his raiders to drag the Syrian off. He was to be sold on the block, and eventually end up in Roman hands. Geb had gone on to mastery of the wasteland, Shaitan to a garrison in Palmyra. Fortune was indeed a strange mistress, as the dwarf chieftain liked to say.

After the capture, the real work began. It was too sensitive to leave to underlings, so Shaitan had taken it on himself, sending his raiders north up Kemet's border, away from Dahomey. Now was the time to rake over the ground for the planting of rumors, to drop the seeds that would shake Dahomey apart. Rumors had to be started, at strategic points along Dahomey's borders, that the daughter of Nzinga had been captured by brigands in the employ of a lord of Egypt. Shaitan let the story embellish itself as it spread, bleeding into the heart of the land of the Amazons. He stood near the stone guardian's huts, not daring to physically cross into the grasslands of the Ten Thousand Spears.

He smiled, knowing that no matter how secure borders, no matter the thicket of steel that protected the women warriors, some things cannot be kept out by borders and armies. Shaitan was a master of such things, of rumors, dark hatred feeding on fear, on the weakness that love caused in any fighter's armor. Nzinga, no matter how magnificent at the head of her spears, had a woman's heart. It would break her, to hear of her daughter taken as a pleasure slave. Such a weakness was too easy not to be exploited.

It was almost a shame, that he didn't actually want Sextus to succeed. It would be entertaining to watch Dahomey crash against Egypt like a red wave. What Shaitan knew and hid from his Roman master, was that the Amazons could well take Egypt. They were strong enough, organized enough, and with the capture of Nzinga's daughter, they were motivated enough to make the land of the Pharaohs into a cemetery ground. He could not allow that. It would serve Sextus' plan, allow him to give Traianus' credit, and Caesar would conquer from the Mediterranean down to Nubia. No, the forces of Dahomey had to be diluted, so that they would prove a local threat, but not enough of one to rouse the entire Egyptian army.

So Shaitan began the second phase of his plan, the planting of a different strain of rumor. Soon the borders of Dahomey were running with rumor and counter-rumor, that the girl had been taken to Egypt, that she had been taken to the City of Har. The new Great King and the Queen of the Amazons had never met. It was possible to strike at that weak spot, to sever the joint of their budding alliance, but only if he acted quickly. Har was too long allied to the Amazon nation, and a meeting between their respective monarchs would quell any bloodlust he managed to stir up.

The rumors took on wings, arrowing across the border, infecting the villages one by one, until the capital city was breached. Drums thundered in the night, summoning the spears. The army of Nzinga gathered, called up by the raging Queen. And in the capital Nzinga's women sharpened their blades, sacrificed to the ancestors, and gird themselves for war. Small goats were staked out and slaughtered to placate Legba and Hevioso, blood spilled with copper knives, the dance to the thunder god began, inciting frenzy. The warriors bared their white teeth and stretched like panthers, eager for the fray.

Dahomey had not risen to war as a nation in generations. It was a thing for the griots to sing of forever after, to let the girls who came after remember when the Ten Thousand Spears united. Griots were seen in every village, enacting the tale of the ancient Nzinga who had conquered the City of Har, turning back from sacking it only for love of the Harrian General Narbada, who was brought back as a bride of the spear. Thus the warriors were reminded of the joys of slaughter, of the warlike pride of their bloodlines, of the bravery of their ancestors, of the pleasures of the spoils of battle. Figurines of the Egyptian gods were scorned, cast down into the dust and offal. Village dogs gnawed on them, children threw filth on them. Shaitan, looking on from beyond the border, smiled.

Satisfied, he had ridden to rejoin his men at the oasis camp. He had found them restive, concerned about the movements of Geb and his raiders nearby. Rumors were hatching along Kemet, of Geb's new second, a supernatural black haired giant who could not be killed. She was called the Ghoul, for her skill at slaughter. Rumor said that Geb had raised her from the dead, to take revenge on his foes, and they were worried. They hugged their campfires at night, whetting their knives and looking at the darkness beyond. It was said, by one man, that she ate only the hearts of men she had killed. By another, that she was ten feet tall. A third, who had been in the camp Geb's raiders had decimated, kept silent. He had seen the Ghoul fight, and knew her to be more real, and therefor more terrible, than the stories.

"It is the Greek we killed on the caravan rode, come back from Gehenna to destroy us." One said, not seeing his chieftain standing behind him.

Shaitan reacted as a leader must, to stop his men from losing heart. He grabbed the speaker by the collar, and with an awkward running step, hurled him into the cookfire. His robes went up in an instant, turning the raider into a living torch. He staggered upright, screaming, and ran into the camp circle. The seated raiders swore and dove for cover, avoiding the trails of fire. Finally, sick of his screaming, or afraid that the tents would catch alight, one threw a javelin into his back. Shaitan waited until the raiders settled down around the fire, eyes narrowed at him with hatred.

"The Ghoul is a myth. I am real, and more terrible than any woman. Are you eunuchs, to fear the story of a dead female? Come then, and face me. Learn what it means to fear." His speech had the desired effect. His men were focused, even by their hatred of him, and turned back to their tasks with energy. He had them mounted and riding within the hour, to rendezvous with the wagon on the road to Palmyra. They ran like ragged ghosts across the sand, in the tracks only demons and raiders know. In a night they had caught the wagon.

Shaitan knew that disaster had struck when he saw the wagon standing empty, the horses gone from their traces. He sat his horse and let his men run in circles and shout when they found the body of the slain raider, and the second chained to the wagon wheel, barely alive. Shaitan dismounted at that, and approached him, leaving him chained where he was. "Where." He asked, not wasting breath on this corpse who had failed him.

When the raider rolled his head and did not speak, Shaitan drew a dagger, and began gouging out his right eye. His tongue loosened with alacrity after than, and he told everything, stopping the wagon to avenge mortal insult, the fight, the escape. Shaitan sat on his heels, looking down at the ruined face of one of his men. "You stopped the wagon. You let them see you. You let them escape." He listed, unemotionally. He stood, brushing sand from his breeches. "Kill him. But make him beg for a full day for the hand of death." He said, to his gathered raiders. "I do not tolerate failure." The rest of his band he had remount, and start off along the road toward Kemet. He needed to get the Amazon girl back.

Mekere's house sat near the governmental district of the village, where the civil servants, scribes, managers, architects and chief builders had their quarters. He was an artisan of renown, his skills valued by the governor of the province, and his house reflected this. It was of two floors, whitewashed and brightly painted with murals of birds and fish, of men hunting in open reed boats. The floors surrounded an open court, where in the evening he and his family would gather to dine, to speak of their days. The rooms were deep and cool, shaded from the overarching light of Ra, the sun.

His children found the new guests fascinating, and spent hours watching them, poking at them, then running away, giggling. Gabrielle, unable to comprehend what they were saying, kept Tanit by her side. The bard was unsure of their status in the household, somewhere between honored guests and prisoners. After the chariot ride they'd been left under guard in the courtyard, while the delighted children examined them. Egyptians loved foreigners, particularly ones not often seen this far south. They loved to hear the blond woman speak, breaking into fits of laughter when she did. Tanit roared a few choice curses at them, driving them back, but the regained their courage swiftly. They knew enough of the Amazons of Dahomey to be wary of her, but they found her height, her scowl, her Amazon clothing to be splendid. They ringed around the pair of Amazons, watching them with bright bird's eyes. Gabrielle tried speaking to them directly, but the sound of Greek instilled too much hilarity for conversation, so she gave up.

"You think they never saw a Greek before." The bard commented.

"They probably haven't. This is Upper Egypt, closer to Nubia than the sea. They would know Ethiopians, Nubians, Amazons. Not Greeks, nor Romans."

Blood Calls for Blood

The horse was desert bred, as hardy as the lean, hawk faced raiders who normally rode such mounts, as impervious to pain, heat, or exhaustion. Now it bore a wild-eyed Greek giant, black hair flaring like a lion's mane, and bloodlust surging in her eyes. Thought had ceased for Xena the moment the snake in Har's temple had given the word- Gabrielle was dead. Now there was only the hell born impulse to get her body back, to rend and slay every living thing between here and the Aegean, until she found Gabrielle's killers. The gods had made a pawn of her again, her life a joke to them. Har, whom she had developed a grudging fondness for, had turned out to be like any other god. They were all cruel, capricious, these immortals who thought their meddling in human affairs was wanted or needed. Gabrielle was dead, and Xena was beyond reason. The horse, feeling the rage and energy from the demon on its back, ran with a will, terrified.

On such things are nations hinged, the passion of one woman's grieving heart. There were many roads Xena might have taken, in the frenzy of her grief that made even Har's lamentation for Dummuzi seem like a child wailing for a broken toy. Many roads, but only one leading to the yellow valley necropolis. North the desert horse ran, north the road ran. And the madwoman on its back turned her bloody eyes to the horizon and thumbed her steel.

For ten years rage had consumed her, after the death of Lyceus, and the deaths of so many others she had lost count. The gods of the underworld stretched and grinned, anticipating the return of their favorite daughter. The killer was back. The rage swallowed her whole, the bloodlust coming as a welcome companion, a soothing voice that promised relief from the gnawing in her chest. Blood could drown her hurting. Blood could sate the hunger that would forever consume her- the hunger for Gabrielle. In her mind, she knew that it could not. She could shed the blood of nations, grind them to dust under her bootheel, and never know a moments respite. She had lost the other half of her soul.

Geb, on his tall Persian mount held up is hand in the signal for halt. His riders froze in place, their horses dancing, tails whipping in the hot wind. They'd been riding hard, both away from danger and toward it, buffeted about the wasteland like a child's toy. The nomads were stirred up all along the desert fringe. Their kingdom, their strip of sand, was being invaded by the armies of several civilized nations. Organized troops from Dahomey and Har crushed the trade roads under their iron-shod feet. Geb had heard the rumors that the nations were rising, then saw for himself the troops massing. What had made Har the Decadent rise? And what idiot had woken the sleeping lioness of Dahomey? Civilized people, Geb knew as he was long a denizen of the court of Pharaoh, were all half-mad anyway.

Har and Dahomey were facing off along their shared border, and half the spears of Dahomey were marching on Egypt. He and his raiders abandoned their usual haunts and moved north to avoid being crushed between warring nations. The pickings after wars were often good, but the sheer number of troops on the move told Geb that this would be a cataclysm, not a chance for plunder. Rumor had it that Nzinga, the Dahomey Queen, intended to kill every living thing between the wasteland and the Nile for the kidnapping of her daughter. Geb gathered his nomads, decided that wisdom befitted living men, and fled, vanishing into the demon haunted wastes like mist before the sunrise. Let the placid, immovable Egyptians stay for their death, it was surely coming for them. Geb felt a twinge of remorse for the Egyptian villagers around Sekhmet, the closest fortified town. Surely Nzinga had taken it already. It was probably a smoking ruin now.

The horse before them was on trembling legs, head drooping down, only to be yanked back up by an impatient hand. The rider wore a nomad's robe over armor, but disdained the headcloth. Even slumped in the saddle, Geb could see that it was someone of unusual height, long black hair falling forward on the breast of the armor. It was the Ghoul. He took his waterskin and kicked his mount forward. Blue eyes like the heart of the sun slammed into him, but he did not flinch. "Drink, great killer." He gave her the skin, she took it abstractly, as if she'd forgotten that her body needed maintenance. Geb could see that the fierce vitality he so loved had snapped. The surge and crackle of energy was gone. Now the Greek warrior moved in a dark cloud, brooding and terrible. Her empty look he had seen before, on men condemned to die by slow torture. She had lost all hope.

"You have been to the temple of Har. I think you did not find what you sought." It was said gently, as a man might speak to a favorite hound that must be put down. Broken spirited as she was, the Greek wouldn't last two days in the wasteland. Better to give her the kiss of steel from a friendly hand, than let her linger in misery. Geb's hand stole to a knife hilt, his smile fatherly and comforting.

The warrior's eyes flickered, seeming to focus on Geb for the first time. "Where is the yellow valley necropolis?" She asked, her voice stronger than he expected to hear from a walking corpse. Perhaps she had some life in her after all.

"Not far. We ride that way." The dwarf chieftain said, taking his hand away from his knife. There would be time enough for that, if it were needed. It was the closest to mercy he could grant her, and he was willing to do it. The Greek had killed well on his behalf, it was the least he could do for her.

The black haired warrior tossed the waterskin back to Geb. The chieftain had a fresh horse brought. She climbed down from the saddle like an old man, but when the new horse was held she caught the saddle horn and mounted in a single smooth leap. Geb's smile widened. There might be some entertainment to be had from the savage still. The band of raiders gave tongue to a quick, sharp yell and galloped on toward the yellow valley.

When Raiders Collide

Shaitan's scouts returned to him, pointing up to the cave in the cliff face. "Remains of a fire, wood shavings, signs of inhabitants." The raider listed in a clipped tone. His chief's notoriously sullen temper had grown even shorter of late. He twitched with impatience, never resting.

"How recent?" Shaitan asked, allowing hope to return. His trackers were the best in the wasteland, and the two Amazons had left a clear trail. One was used to the lush forests of Greece, the other to the grasslands of Dahomey. It wouldn't be long before they were found.

"Maybe a day. No more."

Shaitan's band was ringed in the mount of the yellow valley, where the debris of generations of stonecutting made riding all but impossible. He had sent a few men on foot to explore the mastaba tombs at the end of the valley, to see if the trail led there. They were too close to the settled lands of Egypt for his taste. Better to grab the Amazons and flee toward Palmyra, before the armies he'd roused came this far north.

Geb's outriders came at him pell mell, hauling their mounts back on their haunches as they skittered to a stop. "Fortune favors us, Chieftain. Your enemy and his band are at the mouth of the valley, trapped against a field of cut stones." The raider's eyes were bright and hard with the joy of bringing his chief this word.

"You are sure of this?" Geb asked, feeling the excitement rise.

"Aye, Chieftain. On my father's head."

"Hai, you desert wolves! We ride for vengeance! Ready your blades for their work." Geb cried out in joy. "Well, Drinker of Blood? Will the Ghoul ride to slaughter with us?" The Nubian asked, mischief in his mahogany eyes. Indifference flickered on Xena's face. She cared nothing for Geb's intertribal warfare, and less than nothing. She knew that they had reached the valley, and that Gabrielle's body was in a tomb somewhere in front of her. When she didn't answer, Geb dangled the bait. "An armed band stands between us and the one you seek. The leader of that band is the Syrian."

The scrape of steel came so quickly that Geb flinched back. The Greek warrior sat upright, fired with hatred, sword naked in her hand. "The Syrian was responsible for-" She found that she couldn't say it, a sob twisted her lips. She battered it don with a snarl.

It was all the answer Geb needed. "Ride, you sons of dogs, to the slaughter!"

Xena had lead armies in Greece renowned for their discipline. She was a strict commander, following a personal code as hard as steel. She drove herself to attain things no other warlord had dared dream, and demanded the same of her warriors. Before mastering strategy, before learning the elements of civilized warfare, she had ridden with the horse nomads in the wastes of Asia, and learned how barbarians fought. They would sweep down the slopes in a howling horde, undisciplined, unrestrained, each man taking his mount and cutting down everything in his way. It left nothing in its wake, such a charge, but food for the worms. That is how the desert nomads fought.

In the corner of her mind that noticed such things, Xena was surprised. Geb was a civilized man, a product of a great nation, raised in the court of the oldest civilization under the sun. She would have expected a disciplined cavalry charge, perhaps the Macedonian left wheeling, flanking the enemy. Geb simply drew knives in both hands, gave the signal to charge, and let the riot begin. Civilization flickered in his face, and was gone, his lips curled around a dagger clenched in his teeth, as feral now as a wolf, as savage as the raiders who worshipped him.

Every man gave his horse its head and galloped toward the enemy, steel in hand, howling to the uncaring sky. They had old scores to settle with Shaitan's men, and vengeance was a pleasure on the wasteland. Xena's horse was used to the chaotic hurtling, the bounding back and forth between other riders, the dust, the heat, the screaming. It plunged between the loose standing stones with abandon. This form of charge suited her mood, suited the red frenzy that descended on her. She welcomed it like a lover's embrace, the familiarity of it, the strength that came with it. There was no pain, no fear. Only the yellow cliffs before her, the horsemen plunging ahead with her, the enemy massed before her. Her aim was to cut her way through their ranks, to die taking the Syrian down to Hades with her, teeth closed on his jugular if need be.

Life came into her tired limbs. She had a goal that even her seething brain could grasp- hack and slash until there was a clear path to the Syrian, then make a tomb offering of his head. She spurred her horse forward, ahead of the mad rush of raiders, ahead even of Geb. She no longer gave a thought to living, and was protected and buoyed by the thought of dying. Gabrielle was surely in the Elysian Fields, as surely as Tartarus gaped for her, but in death, she might stand along the banks of the Styx and gaze on the paradise where her love rested. It was more than living could offer her, anymore. She came like the whirlwind and brought the fight to the enemy.

Shaitan heard the yells that split the sky and knew them. It was the warcry of Geb's raiders. He sawed on his mount's reins, cursing his luck. Damn the Nubian dwarf, now was no time to be indulging in old vengeance! Shaitan had matters of import to handle, the fate of nations to topple. He knew his men, knew that they were more ruthlessly driven than Geb's, and outnumbered them as well. He drew his scimitar, recognizing Geb's advantage. His band was trapped against the field of cut stones at their back, and would have to break away to have room to maneuver. He called out to his seconds to break to the left, where Geb's line was thin. He was focused on reaching that point, so focused that he did not see Death coming for him up the center.

Geb watched the Greek killer spur her mount forward with a swell of pride. The Ghoul was back and she was terrible. She cared nothing for her own safety, cared nothing for the wounds that tore away her robes and bared both her armor and her blood to the air. Her long arm rose and fell tirelessly, showering scarlet across the wasteland. He wished for a court poet to witness this, the final battle of the Ghoul, for surely she would fall. No human could keep up that pace, be so in the teeth of the fighting, and expect to live.

As he sheathed his knives in his enemies' flesh, he gave tribute to his inspiration, the Drinker of Blood, the Ghoul, who he would have made his second. Shame that she was useless with her woman dead. Shaitan's raiders, bunched together by the press, by the rock at their back, fought savagely. They were civilized men gone feral, and so could not match the frenzy of the black haired Greek, who seemed the very definition of it. There was but a thin veneer of civilization over her wild soul, and that veneer had cracked. The beast showed its teeth, pure and uncompromised, the face of War was reflected in her face. The sweet edge of her sword was the edge of death, falling as night falls, all encompassing.

The way she threw herself into the center of a mass of bodies, of slashing scimitars and plunging hooves with no regard for pain, wounds, death, made her unhuman. The robe was long gone, the bronze and leather armor nicked and cut in a hundred places. It failed to slow her. She was everywhere, she was terrible, and she sent Shaitan's raiders down. Geb even paused in his slaying to watch the Greek warrior mow down his foes. She was magnificent, splendid, unstoppable. Surely the gods had sent her to be the arm of his vengeance! She killed and killed, and kept on, not waiting for the bodies to fall, possessed by a bloodlust beyond even his understanding. This golem, this monster from the black heart of Gehenna had within her a towering rage that left her quivering with eagerness to slay. Geb decided that, if he could, he would trade his one hope at the promise of Paradise to have her by his side. Damn her Greek bedmate for dying, anyway, he thought with disgust.

That is why women do not more often go to war, he thought. They are too full of heart, too capable of this atrocity, if you take from them what they need to survive. They are more terrible in their anger than a man could ever be, Geb decided. Look at the Amazons, ready to make of Egypt a sea of blood, over one lone girl. The Syrian misjudged, Geb thought, you don't create an army when you destroy what the heart needs to live. You create a juggernaut.

Somewhere during the carnage the recognition of who it was that hewed them asunder came onto Shaitan's men. The cry went up. Shaitan turned at that, to see who was shouting of the mythic Ghoul. Across the battlefield, his eyes beheld her, pulling her blade from the split skull of his second. The screams of horse and men, the stench, the clangor of steel all dropped away, into silence. Shaitan saw only her, her blue eyes raging about wildly, looking for flesh to sheathe her steel in. Like the note of a bell he heard her look up, though that wasn't possible. But her eyes of their unnatural hue looked on him, knew him. She smiled, and skulls looked at him from the blue fields of her eyes.

Shaitan shuddered down to his boots. Blind, unreasoning panic seized him. He turned his mount with a savage wrench of its head and fled for his life, riding down his own men in his haste to get away. His raiders, savaged by the Ghoul, torn apart by Geb's men, abandoned by their chief, dropped their weapons and surrendered. Xena didn't register this. All she saw was Shaitan's back, fleeing from her. She doubled her strokes, trying to hew a path through the last of his men to get to him. They gave back from her frenzy, from the red dripping blade in her large fist, from the lack of anything human in her face. Geb was so taken with her that it took him a moment to register the new source of yelling, coming not from his men, but from down the valley.

Two men sat in her way. Xena kicked her horse into motion, a sweep of her arm disemboweling the man on the right. She pulled back to finish the one on the left, and Fate, in the form of a loose stone, intervened. Her horse had gathered its powerful haunches to explode into motion, and slipped. It went down in a heap, giving the Greek warrior barely enough time to throw herself from the saddle to avoid being crushed.

She sprang away from the writhing horse, shaking sweat and blood from her eyes.

Her way as blocked by a tall Persian mount, her arm automatically went back to stab the rider from the saddle. The sudden swish of air stopped her stroke as she had to dance back to avoid the dagger thrown at her head.

"Ghoul, stop! The killing is done. Look." The dwarf chieftain pointed toward the mouth of the valley.

The peal of a bronze trumpet echoed, with the sound of iron shod wheels on stone. "It seems we are no longer alone." The Nubian commented, as the chariots ringed in a loose circle around his exhausted raiders. Egyptian bowmen drew their cane arrows back, ready to turn his men into quill pigs. Geb sighed. Never one battle at a time, but that was Fortune for you, he thought. He gave the nigh imperceptible signal to hold, and his men froze in place. He was more concerned with the Greek warrior who stood at his stirrup, twitching and fretting like a dog on the trail of blood. He could feel that she was one foolish move away from exploding into murderous action. "Hold, great killer. However much you yearn for death, do nothing to get the rest of us killed, or you will never find the body of your woman."

It was the right thing to say, the mention of her woman made the Greek warrior's shoulders slump. Her sword trailed point down in the sand, forgotten in her hand. The red frenzy abandoned her. Geb spared a long look at her suddenly inhabited face, consciousness returning. He wondered what she must have been like, back when her woman was alive. They must have been almost Harrian in their bond, a perfect balance, for the black haired woman was lost to reason without her mate.

Geb urged his mount forward, into the face of the arrows that creaked under the strain of being withheld. He let his Persian horse step delicately up to the lead chariot, to the shaven headed man who rode there. The Egyptian was surprised by Geb's approach, by his appearance, but more by the perfect, courtly Egyptian that the dwarf spoke, though clad as a desert raider. They conversed rapidly, breaking into smiles, Geb even laughed and made a beautiful gesture with his hand, indicating his men. The shaven headed man spoke a few syllables to his charioteer, and the arrows were taken from their strings, returned to the hide quivers mounted near the chariot wheels. The Egyptian leaned up and clasped Geb's arm. The Nubian dwarf smiled brilliantly, then rode back to his men.

He kept his hands far from his knives, not wanting to give a signal for violence to his men, or to the black haired Greek. A glance at her told Geb that her violence was done, the weight of knowledge had returned, she was crushed under it. "Mekere remembers me from Ptolemy Philadelphos' court. He visited there as a young man, an apprentice to his uncle, now sadly and recently deceased. It seems that we have been invited to his house for dinner. You will accompany me Hardanes, you Aram, and you, Ghoul." Geb indicated his seconds. Hardanes and Aram nodded in compliance, and wheeled their mounts off to give the order to make camp to the rest of the band.

Xena was left standing by Geb's stirrup. The abstraction had left her face after the battle, the grief had come down on her, choking off even thoughts of revenge, of going after the fled Syrian. Her sword still trailed from her hand, the point making a furrow in the rocky ground. Her eyes stared at the yellow cliffs, nearly blind with longing. The battle had passed, and she had not died. She was here, left alone by Gabrielle, standing in a valley between cliff tombs as night came down.

Geb repeated his instructions to her, hoping to penetrate her deafness with his voice. "You will accompany me, Ghoul."

"No." Xena said, not looking away from the cliffs, amber now in the afternoon light.

"No?" Geb asked, as if the word meant nothing to him, was merely a curious sound she had discovered and shared with him. The warrior's eyes had turned a pale gray, washed of color and heat. They fixed on the cave tombs, the eye sockets carved into the yellow skull of the cliff. Geb sighed. It was as he had feared, the Ghouls' madness had eaten her. With her woman dead, she wouldn't last. The best parts of her could not even be found, let alone roused to life. What point in conversing with the empty shell of a fighter, who had been the greatest of killers? She had lost interest, and now was merely another broken soul, sacrificed to the wasteland. "Why?" He blurted out, he who never spoke an unmeasured word. The waste of a life, the waste of soul so powerful, so close to his own, made him angry. He had finally found the city of paradise, but was only allowed to glimpse the ruins from afar.

The pale, dead eyes swiveled away from the tombs, and Geb knew what ice looked like, for the first time. "She is my source." It was the sound of a voice calling back from across the river of death, of a soul that had already decided to make the journey.

Geb understood, in his fashion. He saw the Greek warrior gazing into a fire that burned so hot the sun came wan and pale after. Such a light filled the soul forever, burning away darkness, fear, crimes, killings, gave hope where none had ever been sought. The Greek had met such a fire, accepted it within, and now had it torn away. There was no light left in the world to pierce her darkness. Geb felt compassion, an emotion he did not indulge in and did not like. He could not say what he wished, nor admit even to himself that he wanted to know what the Greek woman had known, even seeing the ruin of it's loss. "Very well. Seek her. My men will camp here and wait for me. They will keep you safe." It was an absurd thing to say to the fighter who had decimated half of his enemies single handed, but she looked now like she needed protection. Xena shrugged, disinterested in her own well being. The need for it, the need for self-preservation was gone, locked away in one of the cliff tombs. "Fortune go with you, Blood Drinker." Geb turned his Persian mount and followed the chariots out of the valley.

In Mekere's house, the heat of the afternoon had driven the inhabitants inside. Tanit and Gabrielle rested in a central court, with a wide hallway and several smaller rooms looking in. The walls were plaster, painted in bright scenes of fishing in reed boats along the Nile, harvesting grain, birds done in exquisite detail in the rushes of the marsh. It was the room where Mekere's children gathered, too excited by the strangers to sleep, though occasionally approached by their mother and her maids for that purpose.

Mekere's wife had tried to communicate with the strangers, but Tanit's Egyptian sounded odd to her ears, she had trouble following it, so in the end she gave them cool beer and seed cakes, and left them alone until Mekere returned. It had been a busy day, from the reports of graverobbers at the family tombs this morning, to the introduction of Amazons into her house, to the battle they had just heard was being fought in the yellow valley.

Gabrielle, after an hour of smiling and nodding at Mekere's wife, was relieved when she left them alone. Something was going on in the house, her host had jumped up, grabbed his weapons and galloped off in his chariot, his men streaming behind him. She sat in the central court, glad to be out of the direct heat of the sun.

Tanit took a liking to the Egyptian beer, and was telling Gabrielle stories about it. "…oldest people on the earth to brew beer. We in Dahomey of course have our skills with it, but they invented it in Egypt. Sweet, like fruit- sure you won't have any?" Tanit asked, warm from the mug she had drained. Her leg was feeling much better, she could hobble on the walking stick quickly. It was a grand adventure, beating off graverobbers, ending up in an Egyptian's house. There were two more wounded men to add to her first kill, she was well on her way to being a great warrior. When had another girl had such a coming of age? All the traveling and fighting, at the side of the Queen of Melosa's tribe. Tanit's eyes drifted to the Greek Amazon who sat on a wooden chair, her staff on her knees. Her green eyes were clouded, her face still. It brought on a surge of anger in Tanit, to see that Gabrielle hadn't heard a word she had said. The Amazon girl stopped speaking, letting the silence catch Gabrielle's attention.

Gabrielle glanced up and saw Tanit staring at her. She ran a hand absently through her hair. "I'm sorry Tanit. My mind was wandering."

"You think about Xena." Tanit said, more bitterly than she realized.

Gabrielle nodded. "I miss her."

The simple admission ran through the girl like a spear blade. She was unprepared for the sudden pain, and gasped from it. After all they had been through together, after saving Gabrielle's life, sharing adventure and danger, she thought only of a missing Greek hero. "And if you never see her again what then? Would you pick another consort, from your Amazons?" Tanit asked. Her own mother had lost three wives over the years, and always found another woman eager to join with the Queen. Even after Mazena, for whom Nzinga had almost finished her year of mourning, she would probably pick a new warrior to take as a wife.

The thought of Mazena, whose easy, gentle nature had tempered her mother's ferocity, made Tanit's throat close. The morning the hunting party had returned carrying Mazena, Tanit had been in the hut with Oseye, her sister giggling with her as they sharpened spear blades. The warriors had set the litter of spears down before the hut, the colorful cloth thrown over the body. Tanit saw the spear hand hanging down, a powerful hand with broad, blunt fingers. On the wrist was the circle of red gold, a running lioness. The symbol of Nzinga, which all her family wore. Oseye had run to get Nzinga, leaving Tanit staring at that hand. When her mother arrived and saw the litter with it's covered burden she did not howl, did not run. Her steps softened, slowed, she walked with great dignity to it and knelt. Tanit could see her face, as composed as a guardian's mask, as she pulled back the cloth and saw the ruin the lions had made of her young handsome wife. Nzinga stroked Mazena's braids tenderly, arraying them over her shoulders. She placed the cloth carefully back over Mazena's face.

What Tanit remembered was that she did not weep. All those she loved went away from her, Mazena to the ancestors, Nzinga to her distant grief, even Oseye would leave her to marry her griot's apprentice the moment she could. There was no one for her, only for her. Now the Greek Amazon Queen, who had seen the finest bravery she could display, who praised her and kept her heart alive, wanted only her missing Greek consort.

Gabrielle went pale at the question, and closed her eyes. She knew what it was like to have Xena die on her. She opened them again after regaining her breath, looking off at the mural of a heron spearing a fish. "No. If I never saw her again, I would finish our work here, and wait to see her in the Elysian Fields."

"You would give up on life, if one woman died." Tanit asked, partly wanting to hurt Gabrielle, partly amazed at such a bonding.

"She is my life."

Part Six

Mekere returned home to find his wife and servants in the hallway looking in on the center court. There all his children gathered, listening raptly to the small Greek woman. She sprang from a crouch, arms held wide, and all the children jumped, squealing in delight. He put his arm across his wife's shoulders, and drew her in.

She slipped an arm around his waist, looking for signs of battle fatigue on his face. "The trouble is completed?" She asked him, in a whisper.

"It is well. Two bands of raiders fought one another, the winner is led by a friend. You remember Geb, an acrobat of Ptolemy's court?" Mekere said, indicating the Nubian dwarf who stood so colorfully at his side.

His wife gasped at the fierce aspect of the dwarf, clad in raider's robes, belt alive with knife hilts. But the savage mien was belied by the way the dwarf essayed a bow, in a manner that bespoke a gentleman's training. "My pleasure at meeting you is matched only by my recognition of your beauty, lady. Mekere is indeed favored of the gods."

Mekere watched the Greek woman jump around, shouting in her incomprehensible language. The dark skinned girl at her feet translated into awkward Egyptian. Apparently they were telling his children stories about some Greek hero battling monsters. The children understood some of what was being said to them, but enjoyed the performance of the Greek woman immensely, giggling at every move she made.

Geb waited politely, as befit a courtier from the house of Pharaoh. He understood how much stock the Egyptians placed in their family life, how they enjoyed their children, so he watched along with Mekere and his wife. "Your children do you credit, Mekere." He said, in wonderfully round tones.

The Egyptian beamed at him. "They are my chief joy, behind only my wife, former servant of Pharaoh."

"This storyteller, she is a house slave perhaps?" Geb asked, something about the oddness of the scene touching him. The fair woman and the dark girl worked as a team, telling stories to the children of an Egyptian scribe. Mekere shook his head. "Guests of mine, they saved my uncle's tomb from graverobbers just this morning. I don't understand what they were doing in the valley, the fair one doesn't speak Egyptian, and the girl's Egyptian is passable, but no more." Mekere turned away from the court. "Come, we will eat, the children have been well entertained. Beloved, bring our guests, perhaps Geb can make more sense of them than we have."

Gabrielle and Tanit followed the gently insisting Egyptian woman. "She wants us to eat." Tanit said, understanding that much. They were led to the dining chamber where their host sat, clad in his linen kilt and pectoral, at a low wooden table. Next to him sat a Nubian dwarf in Bedouin robes, a brilliant smile illuminating his face, gold earrings bobbing as he threw back his head. He was as bald as the Egyptian, and both heads bent together, sharing some jest. They looked up as the women came in.

Mekere held out his hand. The dwarf rose and sketched a bow. His mahogany eyes passed Mekere's wife, and took in Gabrielle. Red gold hair, small stature, green eyes, and if he wasn't wrong, Greek. He felt his blood congeal in his veins. His smile faltered, his eyes went wide in shock. It was the Ghoul's woman, it had to be. The one she now searched for, in a fit of madness, among the tombs. What in the name of Fortune was she doing here, in Mekere's house, alive?

The manners of Pharaoh's court came to his rescue, while his seething brain recovered. "I am Geb of Nubia, late of Kemet, now of the Red Land." He said in Egyptian.

The dark girl next to the Greek seemed to understand him. He looked more closely at her, and again felt shock bleed him dry. The girl was an Amazon, tall and handsome, even leaning on her walking stick. She wore the armband of Nzinga's house, any man on the desert would recognized it. He turned immediately to Mekere. "Forgive me, Mekere, for interrupting what surely would be a most pleasant meal, but I believe I have information that will change many things quite quickly. The girl, does she follow the Egyptian of the court?" He asked, in that very stilted dialect. Mekere assured him that she did not, she spoke the common dialect of Upper Egypt. "Good. Have you heard that Dahomey marches to war against Egypt?" Mekere allowed that he had, but hadn't heard much more about it. "Allow me, in my sorrow, to bring more knowledge to you. Nzinga, the Lioness of Dahomey, has seized Sekhmet, to the south. She will slay every living thing within those walls, if she has not already. She seeks the return of her daughter, who rumor has it as kidnapped by an Egyptian lord, to be kept as a pleasure slave."

Mekere's face fell apart. "You mean that-"

"Your guest is the daughter of Nzinga. And she will rend every inch of ground between Sekhmet and here, if she finds out you have her."

Mekere looked quite ready to faint.

Geb held up a hand, still maintaining the courtly Egyptian. "I think I have a way that might avert disaster on all sides. The companion of the girl may well be the key. Would you allow me to try a certain thing? If I am correct, there is someone who could get the girl to Nzinga, before Egypt is torn asunder. But the one I think of needs a reason to live."

"Do whatever might be best, Geb, servant of Pharaoh. I and my family are at your disposal." Mekere said.

Geb returned his attention to the Greek woman and the Amazon girl. "Forgive me. Your appearance has quite startled me. Tell me, do you speak any Egyptian?" He asked, in the dialect of Upper Egypt. Tanit affirmed that she did. "Glorious. I have great news for you, if you are in fact the daughter of Nzinga of Dahomey."

Tanit touched the golden lioness on her arm. "I am Tanit, daughter of Nzinga, Queen of Dahomey."

Gabrielle waited in impatience, not understanding the flurry of Egyptian that flowed around her. First the dwarf spoke rapidly to their host, then to Tanit, who grew very excited. She finally couldn't stand it. "Tanit, what is going on here!" Gabrielle asked.

"This is Geb, he's the chieftain of a band of raiders. He says that Dahomey had gone to war against Egypt, my mother thinks I've been kidnapped!" Tanit said, full of pride that her mother loved her enough to bring the entire army to come get her. She hadn't thought about the bloodshed that might come from it, but the look on Gabrielle's face sobered her. "Nzinga's taken a town called Sekhmet. She wants me back, or she's going to start burning it down."

"We have to get you there, fast. Gods, if only Xena were here-" She said.

The dwarf looked at her with unfathomable mahogany eyes. He seemed to be weighing her, judging her, against some image in his mind. His scrutiny was so through and so personal that Gabrielle felt the urge to back away. Instead she squared her shoulders and met his gaze with green eyes cool as stones. He smiled at this, just a bit, and said something in Egyptian to Tanit that made the girl go numb with shock. "Tanit, what is it? What did he say to you?" Gabrielle asked, concerned at the abrupt change in her friend.

"He said he knows where Xena is." Tanit said, in a low voice.

The bard's fingers closed on Geb's shoulders. "Tell me where she is! Is she all right?" Gabrielle asked him directly.

He looked oddly pleased at her loss of control, and smiled hugely. "He says she's with his men, in the yellow valley. She seeks the body of her lover." Tanit translated. The Amazon girl felt her heart crash to the ground. The Greek hero lived. Gabrielle was lost to her, now.

"I have to go to her." Gabrielle said, springing up.

Geb spoke to Mekere, who gave him what he asked. In a whirlwind of movement, Gabrielle was gone, Geb with her, and Tanit was left leaning on her walking stick, her heart bleeding into the air.

The dwarf raider smiled like a demon at her from the back of his tall Persian mount. He had a horse brought for her, Hardanes' mount, and motioned for her to climb into the saddle. Geb had considered letting Aram or Hardanes take the Greek storyteller to the Ghoul, but decided that he wanted to witness this resurrection. It didn't matter that she didn't speak Egyptian, or Persian, or even the Bedouin lingua franca. He could read her every thought, plain as temple carvings on her face. She was calmer than the Ghoul, but just as mad. She clearly didn't know much about riding, but she clung to the saddle with a will, galloping across the darkened plain of sand.

Gabrielle didn't ask anything of the dwarf chieftain. She let him have his private amusement. Her mind was in a suspended state, learning that Xena was near had made her heart pound out of her chest. Her body ached to feel her lover pressed against her, to let her blood join into the accustomed rhythm of it's other half. Xena thought she was dead. Gabrielle choked back a sob at the thought of it, at what Xena must be suffering.

The valley looked different tonight. Gabrielle was vaguely aware of the stench of slaughter, of the dim bulk of bodies dragged off to the fringes of the camp for the jackals to tear at. Geb's raiders had set their tents at the valley mouth, their camp fires distant sparks against the blackness, like earth bound stars. Geb pulled up his horse and gestured toward the cliffs.

Gabrielle nodded, understanding. Xena was out there, looking for her body among the tombs. She urged her horse forward, over the rocky field. The horse stumbled, righted itself, then slipped again. Gabrielle dismounted, picking her way between the cut stones on foot. She wished she had brought a torch, but the light of the moon was enough to see by.

"Xena!" She called out, breaking into a run. She felt her before she saw her, the silhouette dark as the stones, tall and singular, in the mouth of a cave tomb.

"Gabrielle?" The voice was as rough as the scraping of steel on gravestones, disbelieving. The warrior believed that grief had finally driven her mad. She heard the bard call her name. That couldn't be, Gabrielle was dead.

The bard froze between two rocks, letting the moonlight hit her, letting it describe her to the grief-bowed silhouette before her. The fact that Xena did not approach her made her fear acute. What had her warrior been through? "Xena? Xena, it's me. I'm not dead."

Xena stepped out of the tomb, called forth by Gabrielle's voice. The moonlight hit her, and the bard's heart cracked. She looked like a shadow of herself, hollow with grief, bled dry of her wolfish vitality. The moonlight showed dull on raven hair, on the blood, dust and weariness that seemed incised into the planes of her face. "Oh, Xena-"

The ravaged warrior took a step, then faltered. She fell to her knees, striking the stones on the valley floor with a clap like thunder. Her body gave out, unable to bear her up any longer. Gabrielle covered the distance between them. Xena, on her knees, clasped Gabrielle's waist in her strong arms, hanging off the bard's hips like iron chains. She buried her dark head against the bard's stomach and wept, bitterly.

Gabrielle felt her eyes spill with tears at the sound of the warrior's grieving. She tangled her hands in the thick black hair, kissing the top of her head, crooning reassurances that she was in fact there, not a ghost of the warrior's tortured grief. "I'm here, love. I'll never leave you. Never."

She waited until the storm of grief abated, then drew Xena up, wrapping her in a firm embrace. They stood locked together, wordless, letting their bodies regain contact, letting that contact heal them. Gabrielle finally pulled back, holding Xena's face in her hands. "You haven't been taking care of yourself." She said, gently. It was an understatement. Xena looked like a map drawn in blood, fresh wounds, old wounds creasing her skin. The haunted look in her eyes was starting to fade, the warmth of Gabrielle's skin convincing her that she lived, that there was hope for both of them.

"I thought you were dead." Xena said, her voice rough.

"That's no excuse." Gabrielle said, glad to see some life returning to those blue eyes.

"Seemed like a good one at the time. You look good. How've you been keeping yourself?" Xena asked.

"Oh, you know. Egyptian nobleman's house, in the company of an Amazon kid, the usual."

She felt Xena's large hand caress the side of her face. "Did you miss me?" The warrior asked, still needing reassurance from her.

The bard answered her in the only way she could, grabbing her and kissing her like the world was ending. She felt her soul shake loose at the contact of their lips, and gladly surrendered to it. When Gabrielle pulled back, she could see the spark of vitality back in Xena's eyes. "Does that answer your question?" Gabrielle asked, tucking her head into the warrior's shoulder.

"No. But if that's the response I get, I'll keep asking all night."

Geb watched them from the back of his tall horse. The black haired Greek fell apart when she saw her woman, but was soon standing, embracing her. They spoke in low voices, he could imagine what they said. At last they walked toward him, both moving gingerly, keeping their bodies in contact. The Ghoul kept her little blond tucked firmly under her arm, and in turn, the small Greek kept a possessive clasp around the warrior's waist. Geb saw that life was working its way back into the Ghoul's features. Even in the moonlight he could see some color in her face, see the snap of her eyes returning. She proved of interest to him yet. He smiled in greeting. "My gift to you, great killer. Life from the tombs of Kemet."

"Gabrielle filled me in on what's been happening. Let's get back to your Egyptian friend's place and get this sorted out."

She sounded like Geb had never heard her, masterful, in control, her mind working on great problems. Something about the woman tucked under her arm healed her, anchored her, freed up the part of her that was capable of greatness. She was no longer simply a brilliant killer, fired with rage, charging madly across the sands. This was a conqueror, a hero. Interesting, Geb thought. Her woman did complete her. Geb whistled, and Hardanes horse came trotting up.

Xena swung up into the saddle and helped Gabrielle mount in front of her. The bard leaned back against her warrior, and felt the strong arms tighten around her. She closed her eyes, reveling in the feeling of peace that came with the embrace. It didn't make any sense, they were in the saddle of a raider, they had to gallop across the wasteland to try and avert a war, but she felt peaceful. Xena nuzzled into her hair, nipping at her ear, drawing a grin from the bard.

"I can see that you missed me. I thought warriors were hard and stoic."

"Only in the face of death, pain, destruction, fire, floods, that sort of thing. Gabrielle, I thought I lost you. I..." Xena's voice broke. She felt Gabrielle's hand close on hers.

"You didn't. We'll talk about this, at length. I have to give you Hades for the way you've been treating yourself." She could feel Xena's smile, pressed into the back of her neck as the horse galloped across the nighted sand, the Nubian dwarf ahead of them.

A Gathering of Amazons

Mekere met them at the gates to his house, wonder on his face when Geb pulled up his Persian stallion, gesturing to Hardanes' mount. A tall, pale eyed Greek woman in armor rode double with his blond guest, her long arms encircling the storyteller. Mekere had heard tales of Geb's new second, the Ghoul, and with a twitch of fear knew he looked right at her now. What was Geb thinking, bringing this uncivilized berserker into his house?

"Mekere, I present she who the tribes of the wasteland called the Ghoul, our hope of salvation."

Xena frowned at him. "Don't scare the man, Geb. My name is Xena. I hear you have a problem with some Amazons."

Tanit heard the chaos of horses arriving, the babble of voices in Persian and Egyptian and Greek, the servants running into the chamber to prepare for the new guest. Food was brought, and wine, hastily. Voices grew louder, approaching the chamber, the tread of sandals and boots. She wanted to look away, to run, but her leg wound kept her captive. Mekere came in first, wringing his hands, his eyes darting about the chamber at the food, the wine, resting finally on his wife. He seemed to draw some strength from seeing her, and so settled his shoulders. Geb entered next, laughing with delight at the prospect of violent action.

He could hear the wings of vultures whenever he looked at the Ghoul, and it soothed something in his heart. Gabrielle was right behind him, asking an uncomprehending servant for water and clean cloths. Geb translated for her, enjoying the game. Then, she entered. Tanit had heard many stories of the Greek hero, all told from Gabrielle's loving perspective. Even knowing that the bard was in love with the hero, and so biased, she expected to see something remarkable walk through the door, an aura of lightning perhaps, a rumble like drums or thunder, a shinning glory like the sun surrounding the greatest fighter who ever lived.

Tanit dropped her walking stick to the pillows next to her. She was tall, for a Greek, but would be only of average height in Dahomey. There was no aura of glory. Her hair was black and thick, like the mane of a horse, and hung down tangled in her eyes. Her face was cut into sharp planes, masked with dried blood and road dust, and her armor was covered in gore, torn and splashed with crimson. The sword across her back looked well and recently used. The scent of sweat, carnage and horses clung to her, mingling with the smell of leather. Around her eyes the shadows on her pale skin were deep, as if she hadn't rested in weeks, the eyes themselves oddly sane and clear in the madness of her face. She looked like a warrior after a battle, a sight intimately familiar to Tanit. She was a mortal, where Tanit had expected a god. What was it about her that made the men circle round her, hang on her every word? Mekere looked ready to faint when she spoke to him, even Geb, chieftain of fierce desert raiders, gave her deference, nodded at her words, and kept his own amused council.

Then there was Gabrielle. As the Greek hero spoke and strategized with the men, the Amazon Queen made her sit and remove her armor. She proceeded to wash the blood and dust from her limbs as Xena talked. Tanit could see her face clearly as the bard worked, tears welling up in the green eyes as she beheld the wounds crisscrossing the warrior's frame. The bandage that held her ribs was caked with old blood and spotted with new. She ignored Xena's strategizing and took a dagger from the warrior's armor, slashing the bandage away. She rebound the ribs with new cloth, tapping Xena to get her to raise her arms. Xena's wounds were bound quickly, efficiently, by the bard's gentle hands, both of them acting as if this were an old ritual, and need not distract from the important business being discussed.

Tanit was mesmerized by the way the bard's hands repaired the rent and bruised flesh, managing to seem loving and practical at the same time. Xena seemed oblivious to the ministration, until Gabrielle's hands came to rest on her broad shoulders. Then the warrior reached up and covered one small hand with hers, the gesture speaking of an intimacy that connected them, even in a war council.

Gabrielle sat down cross-legged next to Xena, her hand resting on the warrior's thigh. Xena paused in questioning Geb to give the bard a look of such explicit devotion that it made Tanit want the floor to swallow her, and spare her this pain. Then the Greek hero reached out her arm and gathered Gabrielle into her side. The bard didn't protest being hauled about like a pet, Tanit thought with disgust. She seemed to enjoy it, curling into the warrior's shoulder, as if she never wanted to leave that spot. She gave the warrior a look that burned the air, and Tanit had to look away. She focused on what they were saying, welcoming any distraction.

"Send your seconds to Sekhmet to stall Nzinga. No, don't sent the whole band, that will be an act of war. Send only Aram and Hardanes. Tell her that you accede to her demands, that you have her daughter and will be bringing her. We want to parlay. That will keep her from slaughtering the town until we get there." The Greek hero's voice was deep, a rumble under it, like Hevioso's thunder. She exuded a confidence that Tanit hated to recognize. This beat up old fighter was the consort of Gabrielle, Queen of the Amazons? She had the gall to expect the Queen to bind her wounds in front of men as she spoke? Tanit sulked in the corner, forgotten. Any spearwoman of Dahomey, she thought, could best this wounded Greek in single combat. She had no idea what Gabrielle saw in her.

"Why not tell her that it's all a big misunderstanding?" Gabrielle asked.

Xena shook her head. "Too late for that, if the army has already taken a town. The Amazons have already committed themselves to a war, already invaded another nation. They can't back down now. The loss of face wouldn't be borne. Besides, Nzinga wouldn't believe it. She'd raze the town, and come to us." Xena said.

Tanit looked up, right into the cold blue eyes regarding her. Gabrielle smacked herself on the forehead. "I'm so bad at introductions. Tanit, this is Xena. Xena, Tanit." The bard's sweet voice filled the silence where mahogany eyes met blue, young warrior and seasoned observed one another.

"Do you have a clan sigil, a totem or symbol?" The warrior said to her.

Tanit touched her armband. "Only Nzinga's family wear these."

The Greek warrior walked over to her, dropping into a crouch. She extended one brawny arm, hand open. "Gabrielle told me what you did. How you saved her. That wound was bravely gotten. Thank you."

Tanit took the forearm and returned the clasp, warmed by the praise, by Gabrielle having mentioned her. Up close, the pale eyes were unnerving, like staring into the eyes of a panther. "We need to send something to your mother to convince her you are with us." Xena said gently, knowing that it might be against custom to remove the royal symbol.

Tanit hesitated, then glanced at Gabrielle. "Bloodshed should be avoided." She said, removing the running lioness and dropped it into Xena's hand.

The war council broke up, with Geb instructing his seconds to Sekhmet with Tanit's armband. Xena, Gabrielle and Tanit would leave in the morning with Geb, escorted by his raiders. Xena suggested leaving at the same time as Aram and Hardanes, but Gabrielle adamantly refused. She countermanded the order, in front of everyone.

"Absolutely not. You need food and rest. You are not going to ride all night, then collapse at Sekhmet."

This set Geb to chuckling, then laughing aloud. The Ghoul, chastised by her woman, ducked her head, grinning sheepishly. The Greek hero seemed oddly pleased at the reprimand, even proud of it, Geb thought.

Mekere's house was crowded that night. Aram and Hardanes set out, leaving Geb, Tanit, Gabrielle and Xena to frighten Mekere's servants and tax his wife's patience. She told the women, through Geb's translation, that she would have blankets and pallets brought into the main chamber for them.

The dwarf chieftain accepted an alcove of his own. He knew that his status as a favorite of the last Pharaoh ranked significantly higher with the Egyptians than did the Amazon's rank. The presence of his murderous Ghoul had Mekere quite on edge, even with the civilizing influence of her woman. She seemed, Geb thought, to be quite tamed, following the blond Greek around like a puppy. When the bard insisted that they take a walk together before retiring, she agreed without protest, following her out the door. How odd, the dwarf thought, are Fortune's ways.

They walked along the quiet street outside Mekere's house, toward his stables. The moonlight was bright enough to read by, flooding the flat landscape. The quiet was accented by the occasional snort of a horse in its stall. A broken mud brick wall stood in the stable yard, Gabrielle paused and sat on its rim. She faced Xena, arms folded. The warrior stood against the waning moon, the light glinting on her dark hair, bringing out lights of blue. Her expression was set, still, mournful, exactly like a child who knows that she is about to be reprimanded. Gabrielle had to remind herself not to grab her and kiss her.

"You going to give me Hades now?" Xena asked, in a sullen voice.

The bard sighed. She took Xena's callused hand in both of hers, kissing the palm. "Yes. You look terrible."

"Thanks. You washed off the blood." Xena said, defensively.

"The first layer of it. You've been fighting and running for weeks, from the look of you. You haven't been eating. You haven't slept. Even you can't keep doing this to yourself, Xena." Gabrielle said.

Xena tossed her head, like a horse fighting the bit. "Gabrielle, I thought you were dead! How am I supposed to live with that?"

"Exactly. I've been kidnapped before, and you never reacted quite this way." Gabrielle said, tugging on Xena's hand. "Come on, look at me."

The blue eyes were baleful in the shadow of Xena's face. "You were never my lover before."

Gabrielle patted the wall next to her, and Xena sat down. "When I was in that wagon, and I didn't know what had happened, I thought that you might be dead. It nearly killed me. It brought back the memory of being in the Amazon village, after..." Gabrielle's voice quavered, then steadied.

Xena's hand tightened on hers, instantly protective. "I told you that I'll always be here, Gabrielle." Her voice was low, soothing, a sound that made the bard's heart leap in response.

"I know. That's what calmed me. I knew that you couldn't be dead, because I'd know. I'd feel it." Gabrielle said, touching Xena's chest. "What scares me is that you thought I was dead. You accepted that so easily, and went tearing around like a madwoman. I talked to Geb, about the battle. He said you threw yourself into it like you wanted to die." She risked a look into Xena's face, gone still as a mask.

"I did." She admitted.

"I can't live like that, Xena. It's not enough anymore that you won't become a monster. I need to know that you'll take care of yourself." Gabrielle said, looking into the warrior's face. What she saw there surprised her. There was a look of peace, of perfect calm and resolve on the carved planes of Xena's face.

"I love you, Gabrielle. You are the best part of me. And when you cross over, I'll be right beside you."

"I understand. But what if I'm not dead, and you go off on a suicide mission? If you had died in that battle, can you imagine what it would have been like for me, hearing that you were within my reach, but died before I could get to you? That you didn't believe in me enough to stay." The look of horror on Xena's face was complete. Gabrielle didn't let up. "You've told me that you'll always be here, and I believe that. Now you have to believe me. I'm not leaving you Xena, not even in death. When the time comes, we'll be together on the other side. " The bard took the warrior's face in her hands, the gentle green eyes searing into the volcanic blue.

Xena dropped her eyes, unable to meet Gabrielle's gaze. It was too much, what the bard said to her, she felt her heart immediately shutting down. No one could love her like that, not the bloody handed warlord that she had been, not the dark-souled fighter she was. Her crimes were too great, they unbalanced the scale.

The love of one woman could not ransom her from the pit.

"Xena, look at me. I know it's hard. You think that everyone who loves you, leaves."

The warrior looked away, out at the stable yard, at the swept earth of the square. She felt as empty as the wasteland that stretched away under the moon. "They don't leave, Gabrielle. They die. I'm not loved by the gods. I haven't earned what you want to give to me."

Gabrielle sighed. She dropped Xena's hand and stood up, brushing brick dust off her skirt. "Okay, we tried gentle. Now listen to me, you thick skilled, self absorbed, moody, destructive, sullen child! I am not offering you any gift or prize for being a good reformed warlord. I am informing you of what you already have. For whatever reason, the Fates, or the Gods, or blind stupid luck saw fit to make me fall in love with you the moment I saw you. My soul looked at you and knew you, Xena. You're my other half. And if you persist in trying to destroy yourself, you destroy me along with you. You got that?"

Xena sat open mouthed at the sight of Gabrielle raging at her. The bard stood, hands on hips, glaring at her. The warrior blinked, then nodded. "Yeah. I got that."

"Good! No more trying to die on me. No more doubting me. No more treating yourself like offal. And you better bloody well stop denying my love, or I'll have to knock you around the stable yard until your thick warrior skull rings like a bell." Gabrielle stood, breathing heavily, green eyes snapping with anger.

Xena held up her hands in surrender. "Okay."

"Okay?" Gabrielle asked, not expecting that answer and thrown by it.

Xena stood and put her hands on the bard's shoulders. "I believe you."

The dark head bent down and claimed the bard's lips, a seal on the testament of her faith. When she pulled away, Gabrielle took the leather-clad waist in her hands, pulling her a little closer. "Are you done giving me Hades?" Xena asked, resting her chin on the top of the bard's head. Gabrielle murmured an affirmative, and burrowed into the warrior's neck. "Good. We both need to get some sleep. We have a war to stop tomorrow."

They set out for Sekhmet at first light, much to the relief of Mekere and his wife, to the disappointment of their children. The new guests interested them greatly, and they wanted a chance to examine them before they rode off. They crowded in the stable yard, eyeing Geb on his tall horse. He looked solemnly at them, then did a backflip to the ground. With a bored look on his face he plucked a dagger from his belt, hurled it straight up into the air, then leapt after it. He caught it mid-air, turned neatly, and landed back in his saddle. When the adults came out for their farewells, they found a silent Geb gazing off at the wasteland, children clutching at his stirrups. He shrugged to Xena's raised eyebrow, and looked back to the road.

Xena rode point, with Gabrielle and Tanit fanned out behind her. Geb brought up the rear, followed by his raiders. They rode as nomads ride, full out, horses straining against their leather harness, trying to rejoin the wind. Gabrielle thought that two years on the road with Xena had improved her relationship with horses, but they were not bosom friends. She did her best to hold on and not complain, but watching Xena didn't help. The warrior was in bliss, moving like she was born in the saddle, whooping to her desert bred mount, urging it on. She looked like a youth out on a lark, not a hero off to avert a bloody conflict. Part of Xena came alive under circumstances most mortals would find daunting.

By nightfall they were two thirds of the way, according to Geb. The motion of the horse had long ago dulled Gabrielle into a trance state, and its abrupt halt jerked her awareness back. One moment they were hurtling down the hard packed road, the next they were stock-still. The raiders had their mounts hobbled and fires going by the time

Gabrielle climbed from the saddle, weary muscles complaining. One foot caught in the stirrup, and she unbalanced herself by yanking it out. Strong hands caught her before she fell, and lifted her into the air.

"I've got you." Xena said, grinning.

Gabrielle put an arm around the warrior's shoulder automatically. "You can put me down now, you know. Unless you feel like showing off." The sudden gleam in Xena's eyes made Gabrielle regret saying it.

Xena kept her aloft, holding her as lightly as a child, and strode through the camp the raiders had set. "Geb!" She bellowed, ignoring Gabrielle's pummeling.

The dwarf chieftain sat at the central fire, wineskin in hand. Tanit sat with him, easing her leg out after the long ride. She looked up at the Greek hero, hauling Gabrielle about like a slain deer, and grimaced. There was no dignity in the Greek savage, no recognition of Gabrielle's rank. Tanit felt offended, on the Queen's behalf. Gabrielle smote Xena on the shoulder, and hissed at her to put her down. The warrior roundly ignored her.

"Have you a tent for me?" She asked the Nubian, meeting his broad grin with her own smirk.

"Of course, Ghoul. It is set next to mine."

"See you in the morning." Xena said, striding off in the direction of the tents. Gabrielle's outraged protests drifted back over the warrior's shoulder.

Geb nodded goodnight to the Ghoul's back. The change that had come over the Greek hero in the past day was almost beyond belief. When he had first saved her from dying on the desert, Geb had loved her primal ferocity, the savagery that showed in every move, every gesture. He had thought her a splendid animal, exotic and deadly. He'd entertained dreams of harnessing her, as a lion might be harnessed, then loosing her to decimate his foes. She had been a great killer, but had displayed nothing else, no intelligence, no soul. Now, in the span of a day, she had become herself again, with the reunion of opposites- the small blond woman bringing her wholeness. Geb had to relearn the Ghoul again, to see her for the first time. Her mind was quick, brilliant, she issued orders and his own men jumped to fill them.

Command was in her blood. This was a conqueror, a general, a hero. He could not make this woman his second- she was his better. He found himself glad to serve under her, something that had not happened since he'd become a raider, since he had become a free man. Geb thought he understood the change, at least externally. The Greek had her soul back. For the first time, Geb could see the value in such a bonding. The loss of it had left her bereft, mad and bloody, but the presence of it made her great. She rode to stop a war, and none with her ever questioned she could do exactly that, so vast was her confidence that infected them all.

Geb took a pull on the wineskin, enjoying the night. From the corner of his mahogany eye he could see the Amazon girl, the cause of all this madness, sitting dejected, staring into the fire. The dwarf chieftain focused on her, curious. All else who rode with them were high spirited tonight, catching their mood from the Ghoul. He had heard that she'd gotten her first kill in saving the Ghouls' woman, and was now a warrior of Dahomey, able to take the spear. Yet she looked like death had claimed her entire family, pets and all.

The demon that lived in Geb's heart awoke, and he indulged it. He passed the wineskin to Tanit, startling her out of her examination of the flames. Her face looked red in the firelight, red masking over deep brown, much like his. Fire glinted on the gold of his earrings, on the salt white of his teeth. "Magnificent, is she not? " He asked.

She took the wineskin casually, so casually that Geb knew she'd never had wine. "Xena?" She asked, imitating the dwarf's movements with the skin. Red wine splashed into her throat, she fought the urge to choke.

"Ah, the Ghoul is truly magnificent. But I spoke of her woman. Gabrielle. Such a show of strength, to command the Ghoul about as she does. And to have the Ghoul listen! Amazing." Geb noted the girl's shrug, as she handed the wineskin back.

"Xena should listen to Gabrielle. She is a Queen, Xena's only a fighter." Tanit said, glancing off in the direction Xena had carried Gabrielle.

Geb's chuckle brought her back to the dwarf. "Only a fighter. She is the greatest fighter who ever walked the earth, I think. And she is something more, that I only begin to see now that her woman is back with her. Destiny rides with them."

The wineskin passed back and forth. Tanit noticed that somewhere her leg had stopped hurting, and even the pain in her chest, associated with Xena carrying Gabrielle off to the tent, had loosened. The Nubian dwarf was interesting to talk to, if oddly amused by everything.

"Why do you keep calling her the Ghoul?" She finally asked, when the dwarf handed her a fresh wineskin.

"When I saved her from the desert, she was a sight from a charnel yard. Bloodied, flesh hanging in strips, armor hacked and dented, ribs cracked, one eye shut from the wound in her head. I could hear the vultures gathering for her, I could hear the Lady Death whispering her name. Yet she stood up, and drew steel on me, half dead as she was. My men gave her the name. It suits her, I think."

Tanit squinted at the fire. "She's not so tall. Gabrielle described her as ten feet tall and made of bronze. She's just average. I'd be that tall, when I'm grown."

Geb took a long pull on the wine, giving the girl a measured look. "Perhaps you will." He said, in a quiet voice. The Amazon girl looked at him, taking in his short, powerful limbs, the ease with which he stretched before the fire, the collection of knives in his belt.

"You are a warrior. Does it ever bother you, your size?" She asked him, frankly.

The dwarf was silent for a moment, appearing to study the fire. He lifted his left hand in a curious gesture, in a moment one of the guards from the fringes of the firelight was at his side.

"Chieftain."

"Change the guard, give the men their ration of wine." Geb said. The raider touched the hilt of his scimitar, then vanished beyond the firelight. Geb looked into Tanit's eyes. "My horse is my legs, my men are my arms. They follow me because they know I can lead them." He took the skin, sending a stream of red into his mouth. He wiped the back of his hand across his face. "They know, because I know."

They reached the outskirts of Sekhmet just after dawn. The village was mud brick and limestone wash, surrounded by fields watered from the Nile in a series of ingenious canals. Camped around the village was the army of the Amazons of Dahomey. The ring of fires and hide tents swallowed the mud brick town like snake devouring a mole. They could see it rise before them on the horizon, the splendor of the martial nation of Dahomey.

Gabrielle drew level with Xena, whispering in awe. "I never imagined so many Amazons in one place. This makes Melosa's tribe look like a family reunion."

"Dahomey is an entire nation, many tribes. And it looks like all of them are camped out in front of us, waiting to get Nzinga's daughter back." Xena said, looking over the thousands of tents. If they failed, Egypt would be a red ruin between Nubia and Thebes before the Pharaoh in Alexandria could get an army down the Nile. She raised her voice, including Geb and Tanit in the conversation. "We're ready to make the approach. If Aram and Hardanes convinced Nzinga to parlay, we will be able to meet with her. If not, we'll end up on the business end of those famed spears."

"How do we know if they succeeded?" Gabrielle asked.

"If we are not dead the moment we are seen, they succeeded." Geb answered her, with a trace of humor.

"Remember what I told you. Ride tall. Don't talk to anyone. Follow my lead. Gabrielle, keep Tanit next to you. If anything happens, she should be able to keep you safe."

"If anything happens, I'm right beside you." Gabrielle said to Xena, daring her to contradict. In answer the warrior reached out and took her hand, holding it in silence.

From the city of tents a company of spearwomen marched, double ranked, toward them. Sunlight glinted on the long steel blades, on the white and yellow of their bullhide shields, on the ostrich feathers and cowry shells of their ornaments. Gold and ivory circlets clicked on wrists and ankles. They were the flower of Dahomey, tall, fierce, beautiful, black as basalt in the new sun, proud as lions in their strength.

Xena kicked her horse into a walk, riding out to meet them. Gabrielle's heart skipped a beat when the spear all leveled, pointed at her lover. Xena indicated her party with the sweep of an arm, the ranks of Amazons parted. Xena motioned to Geb, he urged Tanit and Gabrielle to follow him. They rode up to Xena, in the center of the Amazons. "They'll give us escort to Nzinga." Xena said, turning her horse's head.

It was like a parade, Gabrielle thought, the slow clop of the horses moving at a walk, surrounded on all sides by the Amazons, hedged in by spears. Tanit worked to keep silent, to look calm, as Xena had warned her. The escort was a sea around them, obscuring the road, giving glimpses of the camp through the points of spears. Gabrielle understood why Xena had insisted they stay mounted. The average height of the Amazons was over six feet. If they had walked, they'd have disappeared into the crowd. On horseback, they could make an impression. She cast glance at her lover, glad to see that even in the midst of this display of martial beauty, Xena stood out, her air of command visible. Her back was straight, her shoulders set firm, but she rode with deceptive ease. Her face was set in her warlord's mask, cool, arrogant, unaffected by the pomp and military might displayed before her. She might have been a conqueror, reviewing the troops of her new nation.

In the center of camp the Amazons stopped, the horses stopped with them. The hide tent was large, the sides rolled up and tied back, open to the air. As one, the Amazons dropped down to one knee, and waited. Gabrielle saw Tanit quicken, and looked to see what had the girl so excited.

Nzinga, Queen of the Amazons of Dahomey stalked forward between ranks of kneeling spearwomen. She was tall, taller than Xena, Gabrielle saw, gorgeous and strange in her doeskin kilt and vest, in the collar of leather and cowry shells. Armbands of red gold, the royal lioness symbol adorned her biceps, and the bard thought the image appropriate. Her face was extraordinary, that of an unquestioned leader, full of knowledge and authority. Her hair was bound in elaborate braids, tied off with leather strips and cowry shells, arrayed like the mane of a lion over her powerful shoulders. She was leaner than the Greek hero, lithe and sinewy where Xena was muscled, and gave the impression of whipcord strength. Had she been naked among the thousands of her troops, Gabrielle would have known her to be the Queen. She had the same eyes as Tanit, the bard saw, mahogany in the basalt of her face. On her left arm rode an oblong shield of zebra hide, in her right hand was the spear of a warrior.

Part Seven

Xena swung down from the saddle and strode over to her. It was the play of lions, the air of carnage and danger strong on the wind, the stillness of thousands of fighters watching their every move. Greek hero faced Amazon Queen, each recognizing the spirit of the warrior before them, despite the differences in appearance.

Nzinga spoke, her voice made for singing, rich and deep, with the warning note of thunder. "Your messengers have come. You requested a parlay. Very well, name your terms." The Queen said, in a ceremonial tone.

Xena answered her in the same manner. "No terms, other than your hand, Nzinga. I give you back your daughter, safe and unharmed." At Xena's signal Tanit rode up, and Xena helped her to dismount.

She took a step forward, leaning on her walking stick, unsure of her mother's reaction. This was the Queen of the nation she faced, who had roused ever spear in Dahomey to come fetch her. Tanit was suddenly shy.

Her nation had gone to war to rescue her, after her capture during her coming of age. Now she had to face her mother, their leader, who had been distant since the death of Mazena. Tanit trembled, unsure of her reception.

Nzinga threw down her shield, cast her spear to the ground and embraced her daughter. Tanit was so stunned that she nearly fell over, losing her grip on the walking stick. The girl couldn't believe that her royal mother was embracing her and weeping, in front of the entire nation. The Queen pulled back, tears in her eyes, and ran her hands over her youngest daughter. She stopped when she saw the bandaged thigh, and turned eyes of murder on Xena. "You said safe and unharmed. She is wounded!"

"I got this in fair battle, killing my first man. Gabrielle and I escaped." Tanit said, diverting her mother's rage.

Nzinga turned to her. "Are you truly well?"

"Truly. We weren't harmed in Egypt, they treated us as guests after we escaped." Tanit insisted.

Nzinga raised her eyebrows. "We?"

"This is Gabrielle, Queen of the Amazons of Greece. We fought off our captors and escaped together." Tanit said, her voice ringing with pride.

Nzinga's eyes went to Xena automatically, then focused on the small blond Greek woman she hadn't noticed before. "This is the Queen of the Greek Amazons?" Nzinga said, disbelieving. She pointed to Xena. "Then who is that, and why are you in her company if she didn't rescue you?"

"Xena's a fighter. She travels with Queen Gabrielle."

Nzinga put an arm around Tanit's shoulders, drawing her back. Nzinga's mahogany eyes swept over Xena, Gabrielle and Geb, suspicion writ large on her splendid features. "I see there much to discuss. For now, I am glad that my daughter is well and returned to me. I will withdraw my spears from the town, to the plain." The Amazons rose as one, gathering behind their Queen. Xena felt some of the coiled tension in her begin to ease. "I will speak to my daughter alone. You will remain under guard until I have done so. If I am satisfied that you had no hand in capturing her, I will release you and honor our agreement, giving you my hand. If not, you will find enough time to pray to your gods."

A full company of guards escorted Geb, Xena and Gabrielle to a hide tent, and motioned them inside. Xena spotted a camp chair and claimed it, lounging with her arms behind her head. Geb sat cross-legged on another, his head propped enigmatically on his fist, watching Xena. Gabrielle paced the confines of the tent, well aware that outside the hide walls stood a formidable ring of spearwomen. Xena's negligent ease infuriated her. "How can you be so relaxed? We're under arrest!" She said, passing by the camp chair.

Xena smiled at her retreating back. "We still have our weapons. That means we have some rank, we're not prisoners. Nzinga thinks enough of us to have a full company posted to guard us. I expected this. Until Nzinga is convinced we're telling the truth, we'll be her guests."

Gabrielle continued her circuit of the tent, talking over her shoulder to the lounging warrior. "Lot of good our weapons will do us, surrounded by five thousand spearwomen, most of them taller than you."

"You never told me size mattered." Xena reached out a long arm and snared Gabrielle, pulling the bard down into her lap. "Relax, Gabrielle. Nzinga is a warrior, as well as a Queen. I think she'll deal fairly with us."

Gabrielle exhaled, settling down. "I hope you're right. I've got an odd feeling about this. Like something's going on under the surface, and we can't see it yet."

Geb watched, fascinated, at the interplay between the Greek hero and her bard. Xena exuded a confidence, a mastery not only of her self, her emotions, but of the environment around her. It was unthinkable that anything would happen to her that she did not will. She appeared for all the world to be the general of this vast fighting force, relaxing in her tent with her companion. She stroked Gabrielle's fine hair with the fingers of her right hand, seemingly wholly absorbed in the task. The red gold strands ran through her long fingers like water, her touch calming the bard.

Gabrielle sighed and accepted the caress with the distracted interest of a cat. Geb was riveted. He'd been observing Gabrielle closely for two days now. She was the key to the Ghoul. The killer he had known was not the conqueror, who lounged before him, petting her consort. That woman had been edgy, violent, always thrumming on the brink of murderous action, propelled from fight to fight by forces beyond her control. She had been easy to lead, sullen, uncaring of anything but a chance to deal death, heedless of pain and fatigue. This woman was a stranger to him. Even her face was different. The hard planes of her face had softened, as if flesh and muscle lay over the bones, not marble. She smiled easily, often at her woman. Intelligence was in her eyes, the evidence of a quick brain backed with years of experience. His men had feared the Ghoul. They were wrong, Geb thought. This woman, with her deceptive ease, was far more deadly than a manic killer with a swift sword. This woman could rule the world. The brooding danger was gone, retreated behind a dynamic force of personality as attractive as the violence had been repellent.

For the first time since becoming a free man, Geb felt stirrings of admiration and envy. He'd seen the wasteland as his kingdom for so long, he felt that he'd mastered it. The elements in his personality that made him a chieftain had long been honed to perfection. He understood loyalty and inspired it, he took care of his men, he kept his discipline strict, and left little room for argument. He was a hard man, ruthless with his enemies, generous with his friends, as a desert chieftain needed to be. But now, looking on the transformed Xena, he felt something lacking. It was as if the wasteland he had come to as a slave and ended up ruling, was suddenly to small to hold him. The blue eyed giant had done this to him. He was changing, he realized, with a sense of grief. It had been long since his last transformation, so long that he resisted it now. Yet, the pull of the dark woman beckoned him on, so he followed, seeing Fortune's hand in it.

The bard was the key to the Greek hero, who was the key to his destiny. She was no warrior, he saw that in the first moment. She was a storyteller, entertaining children. She wasn't the most beautiful woman he had seen, in his years among the beauties of the Pharaoh's court. He found her pleasant to look on, small, muscled like a fighter, with a good stance. Her smile was disarming, she was gifted with words, and quite intelligent. The Ghoul looked on her with adoring eyes, as if she walked always in the light of the sun. The bard seemed to have no fear at all of the red-handed killer. She ordered the warrior around, rode with her, slept with her, fed the killer by hand without so much as a twitch. His own men went blind with fright if the Ghoul walked too close to them. How could this gentle hearted creature embrace the murderous berserker, without reservation? It made no sense to him. Even he feared the Blood Drinker, and he had only seen her in action a handful of times. Gabrielle, he was certain, had seen worse. Yet she took the Ghoul's head in her hands and kissed her tenderly, as if the Greek killer were the most beloved thing on all the earth. Perhaps she was, Geb considered. The bond between them was convincing, even to a cold heart such as his. What was at the heart of that bond?

He propped his head on his fist, watching them.

"Something you find interesting?" Xena drawled in Persian, not looking at him.

"Yes. A tiny cub, curled on the lap of a panther, blood dripping from the panther's fangs. Yet the panther does not bite, the cub does not flinch. Truly I am fascinated." Geb answered, melodically.

"I wish you two would speak Greek." Gabrielle said, looking between them.

The Nubian dwarf complied, repeating his observation in Greek.

"I'm a cub?" Gabrielle asked, not certain she was pleased.

Xena scratched behind her ears, and the bard tilted her head to allow it. "You're my cub." The warrior growled in her ear.

"That's good. Right there." The bard purred, as Xena's fingers continued their journey.

"You have no fear." Geb remarked, as Gabrielle curled under that large hand. He had seen that hand snap the neck of one of Shaitan's raiders not three days ago. In the midst of hauling her blade free from an impaled foe, another had thought her helpless. He'd gone in on her flank, scimitar whistling for her unprotected head. The Ghoul hadn't even looked his way. Her right hand shot out and seized the raider's throat, breaking his neck like a rotten twig with a flick of her wrist. Geb remembered the sharp crack, then the flopping of the head onto the raider's shoulders as he fell. The hand had retracted, clenched on sword hilt and pulled it free, seeking new men to kill. Now, that same hand curled around Gabrielle's neck, massaging the delighted bard.

It was like a panther who disembowels an antelope with one swipe of its paw, then tumbles her young about with a touch like velvet, Geb thought. An idea clarified for him, fed by the image of Xena's hand on Gabrielle's neck. The Greek storyteller was not a fool. She knew that the fingers bringing her joy brought death in equal measure, that the hand tangled in her blond mane would soon reach forth, bloody and smoke stained, to rend and slay. It wasn't ignorance, Geb decided, it was innocence, of the purest sort. The bard saw Xena, saw what she had done and was capable of doing, and looked through it, as if these deeds were only a latticework screen. The Greek storyteller looked on the warrior's soul and found good there, found heroism, found greatness. Her belief allowed Xena to believe. The bard had no fear, true, but she was also Xena's family, her home. That was the key.

Wonder filled Geb. He's thought that the gods of the underworld had thrown the Greek killer in his path to show him new heights of ferocity. Now he saw that it was a very different lesson before him, one that his eyes and his mind had to stretch to accept. Savagery was only a way to get his attention, to lure him in. It was Fortune's hand, an epiphany, while watching a hero caress her bard, in a hide tent, in a sea of Amazons.

Geb laughed out loud, unheeded tears running from his eyes, until he tilted the camp chair back. He rolled in a back somersault, landing on his feet. Xena and Gabrielle looked at him as if he'd lost his mind. I have, Geb thought, lost my mind- that set part that thought I was finished, complete, done. "I understand, Fortune!" He cried out in Nubian, fists raised to the tent roof and the heavens beyond.

The tent flap snapped back, four spearwomen entered, clapping the butts of their weapons down imperiously. Their Captain walked in, a tall, haughty, powerfully built woman, her thick arms and shoulders seamed with old scars like lines of rain. Her face was square, heavy jawed, with a thin pale scar creasing her left cheek, up into her hairline. She wore the elaborate braids of a warrior of Dahomey, but kept them bound back by a single leather strap at the base of her neck. Around her throat she wore the symbol of a double bitted axe of hammered copper, hanging on a thong.

She looked down at Xena, with Gabrielle sitting on her lap, as a woman might look at a rat discovered in her grain stores. She spoke in Dahomey, combining a sneer and insult into every word, even without Geb's translation.

Gabrielle looked at Xena. "Sounded important, whatever it was."

Xena drawled, to the standing dwarf. "Who is she, and who kicked her dog and blamed it on me?"

Geb responded, the smile gone from his face. "The Captain Musu said that Nzinga will see Gabrielle, Queen of the Greek Amazons, now."

Xena nodded, letting Gabrielle up.

She rose and stretched, but found four spears leveled at her chest. "Not you, Ghoul. You and I are under arrest." Geb put a hand on Xena's back, restraining her.

The Captain walked face to face with Xena, edging Gabrielle aside. She tilted her head down and growled into the Greek hero's face, speaking slowly and deliberately, smiling with a bite like acid at the end.

Geb translated. "We are to surrender our weapons."

Xena smiled pleasantly at the Captain, leaning in even closer. "Listen, scar-face, I don't surrender my steel to anyone." She finished with a sneer as explicit as the Captain's had been.

"Shall I translate?" Geb asked. Xena shook her head. "She understands me. Don't you, titaness?" The warrior put a hand on her Chakram, unhooking it.

Gabrielle pushed between the two warriors, shoving each of them back. "Both of you, stop it! Xena, I'm not having you start fights with the Amazons." She chastised the Greek hero, who opened her mouth to protest. "No argument! You keep your temper under control. And you, Captain Musu- I'll go with you to see Nzinga. But I am a Queen, she is my consort. She keeps her weapons. Geb, tell her what I said."

The dwarf did so, as Xena smirked at Musu from behind Gabrielle's back. The Captain looked at Gabrielle, then at Xena. She flicked a gesture at the Greek that needed no translation, them stormed out of the tent.

Gabrielle followed her, after whispering to Xena- "Be nice."

"We still have our weapons." Geb observed, as the spearwomen left.

Xena started pacing, in the exact circuit Gabrielle had used earlier. "I don't get it. Why did they take Gabrielle and not us? And why place us under arrest? Nzinga got Tanit back. She's not bloodthirsty, she warned the Egyptians rather than sack Sekhmet. She could have burned the town, then given her demands. I would have. Tanit's fine, she should have confirmed our story with her mother."

The dwarf sat back down, his face still and thoughtful. Without his customary smile, he was like a statue from a tomb, beautiful, still, reserved, with regretful wisdom sealed behind carved lips. He looked at the warrior he had given his loyalty to, at the killer who was dropped into his path as a lesson. She had her own blind spots, Geb saw, and sadly, enlightened her. "The girl does not like you, Ghoul."

Xena dismissed this with a wave of her hand, not bothering to look at the Nubian's face. Had she done so, she would have believed him instantly. "Of course she does. She loves Gabrielle." She continued pacing, unaware of what she had just said.

Geb leapt into a somersault, landing to block Xena's path, neatly. "Exactly, great killer. She loves Queen Gabrielle. She does not love the bard who follows at the heels of a common fighter. You are not good enough for Amazon royalty."

Xena stopped pacing, her blue eyes wide with shock. "What?"

Geb nodded, holding out a hand in an uncommon gesture of comfort. "I have seen the lovesick glances she shoots at your woman. She speaks of Gabrielle as royalty, you as a red handed savage. Not in admiration, as I might. I think she sold us out, to remove you from her path."

"That's ridiculous. Gabrielle would never-" Xena protested.

"No matter. If Tanit believes in her heart that Queen Gabrielle should be with Amazon royalty, I think our luck has run out. Dahomey is not famed for mercy."

A sulfurous oath ripped from Xena's lips, a remainder from her warlord days. She clenched her hands until her knuckles turned white, rage frothing in her. When she could speak more calmly, she said- "Why that little harpy. I should have seen this coming."

She berated herself for not seeing what Geb had, the eyes lingering on Gabrielle. She'd been so caught up in her own joy at having Gabrielle alive, reunited with her, that no other thought could touch her. Her mind started to exert its famed control, cooling her hot emotions like steel from the forge plunged into a bucket of water. Reason asserted itself. The girl was fourteen, an Amazon who had just come of age. She'd killed her first man, been through the excitement of getting kidnapped and escaping, seeing Egypt and the Red Land. And, Xena admitted, Gabrielle was Gabrielle. Anyone, the warrior thought, could be forgiven for falling in love with her, especially now that Xena had few doubts as to where Gabrielle's heart lay. What the warrior could not forgive was any effort to remove her from the bard's life.

"Great killer." Geb said, to the dangerously calm woman in front of him.

Her blue eyes flickered to him. "Yes?" She said, her voice under complete control.

"You have a plan, perhaps?"

Xena tilted her dark head, at the thousands of spearwomen waiting outside the hide walls of the tent. "Perhaps. I have to focus. My concentration has been divided. Gabrielle is right, there's something else going on under the surface. I'd like to grab her and ride the first horse out of this part of the world, let the damned Amazons of Dahomey go hang themselves. But..."

"But your woman would not. Even if they are against you, she will insist on helping them." Geb surmised.

Xena sighed heavily, and sat down on the camp chair. "Yeah. Her insistence on helping people can be complicated. Especially Amazons. What is it about me that pisses Amazons off, all over the world?"

"We are near the battlefield. Runners from Enomwoyi arrived this morning." Nzinga commented, offhand, to the Greek Amazon. Nzinga wasn't easy around Gabrielle, even when she's confirmed her right to royal status. The Greek's obvious connection to the warrior, the Harrian Lord, made her angry and nervous. Har had been the ally of Dahomey for generations, since the day her ancestor Nzinga had defeated and loved General Narbada. Why would Har march against the Amazons? - she wondered. None of it made sense, but she had roused every village in Dahomey to seek her daughter, and now they were at war.

She had a responsibility to her women to see that war out, ally or no ally. The long lived Great King Amasis had been a friend of hers, a man who had ruled in Har since she'd assumed the throne at age twenty. He was already in his fifties then, and had been a friend of her mother's before her. There had been no question that the two nations would keep their strong ties.

Now, for the first time in over fifty years, a new ruler rose in Har, a daughter of Amasis. This had never happened before, that a girl ruled from the Goddess' throne. Harrians were odd that way, Nzinga though, worshipping a Goddess, but only allowing a King to rule. Her mother had explained it to her once, that it was the Harrian's way of trying to balance the male and the female energy. Now a female Great King ruled. Did that now mean that heaven and earth were out of balance? Did it drive the Harrians to this madness, or was their female Boy King the right balance? Nzinga shook her head, angry that these thoughts were running around in circles.

Amazons were much more understandable.

Nzinga's thoughts eased when they turned to her own people. Amazons kept their villages a respectable size, not overpopulated like the mud brick City of the Harrians. It left enough grazing land for the cattle, enough water, enough room for the people to hunt and farm. Even the capital was of modest size. When a woman came of age and took the spear, she could move out of her mother's house and start her own herd of cattle. If she could show that she had the resources to keep a family, she might marry and have daughters, thereby increasing the nation. Family life was rich and good, girls were raised to love their people and know themselves. Griots kept the traditions alive, reminded the people of who they were, of the great deeds of the ancestors and the foibles of the gods.

Nzinga thought of her grown daughters Izegbe and Enomwoyi with pride. They were well respected by the people, generous in peace and fierce in war, loving to their wives and daughters. Splendid tales were told of their bravery in the hunt and the battlefield. Oseye had taken the spear, but still lived with her mother at 16. She might wed soon, Nzinga thought, she was of an age, but Oseye had kept strangely silent on the matter.

Tanit was a puzzle to her. The girl had turned sullen a year back, going from a laughing little girl with bright round eyes, to a teenager given to fits of temper. She already had cows of her own, even before taking the spear. She had looked forward to her coming of age with such intensity; even the distracted Nzinga had noticed it. She was hungry for blood, talking constantly of the men she would kill, the enemies of the nation that would fall beneath her hand. What had turned her youngest daughter to that path?

Why, it was only yesterday that Nzinga would walk on the path toward her hut and hear Tanit laughing out loud, followed by the booming laugh of Mazena. The Queen smiled at the memory then felt the bite. Mazena was dead, slain by lions. And Tanit had not laughed since. Losing her handsome young wife had frozen Nzinga's heart. She remembered seeing the litter of spears, remembered arraying Mazena's braids tenderly, as a mother might. Then, nothing. The shock had carried her through the funeral, the forty days of mourning and celebration. She told herself that it was good not to feel it yet, she was a Queen, and had responsibilities. The grieving would come after the funeral. When it did not, she told herself that that was alright. There was still the formal year of mourning, rituals to be observed, and the business of governing the nation. She was a Queen and had her responsibilities. She would feel the grief in a few months. Time ran away, and soon the year of mourning had nearly ended. Nzinga looked up and found her heart still frozen, found the shock had not abated. She still expected Mazena to come up the path, her spear casually titled on her shoulder, the broad smile for her Queen and wife like the first rays of sun on the grasslands.

A year had passed, the mourning was ending. Tanit had gone on her coming of age, fierce and silent and determined, and Oseye had ceased speaking with her. She found her hut to be a darkened place, devoid of laughter and life. All that had gone to the ancestors with Mazena. Nzinga wondered if her heart would ever unfreeze, if she would come to know her daughters again. Enomwoyi, her oldest, came to visit her from her village, bringing the new daughter her wife had borne. Nzinga held the baby, delighting in its smell, in the way it moved against her, when Enomwoyi had told her the girl's name.

"We will call her Mazena, mother. I hope you are pleased." Enomwoyi had said.

Nzinga had remembered to stretch her mouth into a smile, to bless the girl and her name, to return her newest granddaughter to Enomwoyi. When she left, and Nzinga knew she was alone, she sat in the center of the floor in the darkness, rocking. There were no tears, though she willed them to come, willed herself to howl like a woman in childbirth. There was only the silence, the cold stone in her chest where the heart of a loving woman had been.

Nzinga had heard that Amasis had died, at long last. She heard of the girl prince and the prophecy, and that the Red City was mad with joy at the coming of a scion from the line of Dummuzi. Nzinga waited and reserved her judgment. This new Great King hadn't sent an embassy to Dahomey yet to meet with her and cement their ties. This alone might not be suspicious, but coupled with the entire Harrian army massing on the borders of Dahomey, it was plain guilt. The rumors of Tanit's capture, by an Egyptian or a Harrian, had driven Nzinga into a rage that felt like the return of life. The hot emotion was a change from the void she carried within her, so she indulged it, perhaps beyond the reason of a ruler. She woke the sleeping lionesses of her spears, and marched.

The Greek Amazon Queen pacing beside her hadn't stopped talking in two days. Relentlessly she insisted on her lover's innocence, on the bizarre chain of events that proclaimed unknown men guilty but not the Egyptians, nor the Harrians. She demanded to see Tanit, but Nzinga was not about to let that happen. Her daughter was strange after coming back, she didn't sleep, she barely ate, and this Greek had an effect on her that Nzinga did not like. Tanit had not proclaimed Xena's guilt, but she did confirm that the Greek hero was a Harrian Lord, that she rode with desert raiders like those who kidnapped Tanit.

The Greek Amazon apparently didn't understand justice in Dahomey. She had argued passionately enough for Nzinga to go against her own judgment and grant the Greek hero a trial. To grant a trial to a foreigner, an enemy, even though she slept with an Amazon Queen was unheard of. The Greek hero wasn't an Amazon, she wasn't even wed to Queen Gabrielle. If she meant all that much to the Greek Queen, why had Gabrielle not married her? Nzinga privately thought that the fighter probably was dallying with the Queen, and would discard her when she was finished. Xena certainly didn't seem to be the type to offer the lifetime bond to an Amazon. They weren't going to sit her paramour down before a council and discuss the crime, the possible motives, the guilty parties. They would do what the royal house of Dahomey had always done- leave it to the challenge, and the Ceremony of the Ancestors. If the Greek warrior were telling the truth, the Ceremony would let her live. If not, there was no need for punishment, the ancestors would claim their own.

"What will happen when we get to the battlefield, Nzinga?" Gabrielle asked. She was weary from trying to talk to Nzinga, it was worse than trying to talk to Xena in a foul mood. The woman might as well have been born without ears, for all she let on that she was listening.

"We will join our spears with Enomwoyi's and Izegbe's, and we will fight." The Queen of Dahomey said, surprised that it wasn't obvious to the Greek. "Haven't you led in battle before?" Nzinga asked, suspicious.

"Not exactly. But what about Xena's trial? I told you that the Harrian army is here because she sent for them-"

"I know that. The army came running because their Harrian Lord Chariot-whip called to them. That does not help her, Gabrielle! Why would they send out the army for one foreigner, were she not guilty? This is Har, the land of pleasure, not a nation of warriors." Nzinga said.

"They came because Oromenes and Malache are friends of ours. Xena was looking for me and sent for help. Why can't you understand that?" Gabrielle asked, her temper fraying.

Nzinga stopped walking and faced down Gabrielle. "I understand that you were not born an Amazon. I understand that the Harrian Lord is your lover, not your wife. I understand that my daughter was taken from me. I understand that my daughters are leading my people in battle against the army of Har. What else must I understand?" Nzinga said, moving closer to Gabrielle. The Amazon honor guard halted, standing a respectful distance from the two Queens, shouting at each other in Greek.

"Understand that Har is not your enemy! I am not your enemy, and Xena is not your enemy. If you'd let us, Xena can talk to the Harrian army, get them to call a truce." Gabrielle said, desperately.

"If I release the Lord Chariot-whip, she will go right to the army and lead them against us." Nzinga sneered.

"Not if you have me." Gabrielle said.

Nzinga's eyes flared red, like the eyes of a hunting hawk. "Will you stake your life on that?" She asked, her own temper gone past controlling. The single-minded idiocy of the Greek when it came to her paramour enraged her. It wasn't as if she were mourning a wife!

Gabrielle didn't hesitate. "Yes."

The answer surpassed Nzinga. She rocked back on her heels, thinking. "Very well. I will release the Harrian Lord. If she convinces the army to call a truce, I will parlay with them. You will remain here. If the fighting does not stop, you will pay the forfeit for her." Nzinga said, in a commanding tone.

Gabrielle raised her chin, her voice perfectly steady. "I will pay any price Xena would pay."

Nzinga looked askance at the small Greek, starting to walk again. "So be it. You believe in her that much." It wasn't a question, but an observation. There was an undercurrent of respect in Nzinga's voice. She called out in her own language to her guards. One ran forward, dropped to one knee, and listened to the Queen. She raised her head, looking at Gabrielle wide-eyed. The guard rose, saluted her Queen, then jogged off. "I have given word. The Greek Harrian Lord is being released. You are brave, Gabrielle of Greece. I hope that your faith in your paramour is not misplaced."

Xena saw Captain Musu striding toward them, and gave Geb a tap on the shoulder. "Looks like someone killed her dog again." The Greek hero commented to the Nubian chieftain.

He rolled his eyes at her. "You display your barbarian origins, Ghoul. Dahomey has few dogs. They keep cattle. Now if you killed her cow, she would come vaulting over here and spear you before you could move. Yes, even you, Oh firstborn of lightning. Looking innocent does not become you."

Xena dropped her pose, and narrowed her blue eyes. "She doesn't look happy. Translate for me, would you?" She asked Geb.

The dwarf sighed, as if the burden were too great. "You must learn to speak Dahomey, Ghoul. Greek is only spoken in a few corners of the world, and Persian is anathema in these lands, since they overran Egypt."

Xena smiled, without mirth. "I speak the language that Musu understands."

The scarred captain stopped the Amazon guard, and had them stand a distance away. She approached Xena slowly, doing her best to not look intimidating. It was no easy task, for she topped the Greek warrior by half a head, and the sweep of her shoulders made Xena seem like a mere girl. There was an odd deference in her approach, she refused to stare directly into the Greek hero's eyes. She held her massive hands out, palms up. Xena made a similar gesture on impulse, and Musu smiled, baring her white teeth. "Geb, what is going on?"

"She wishes to court you, perhaps?" The dwarf said.

"Damn you, translate, don't make trouble." Xena hissed to him. His smile indicated that he was prepared to face her wrath.

Musu looked at Geb, gesturing between herself and the Greek hero. The Nubian made a showy bow to the Amazon Captain, worthy of the Pharaoh's court. "Go on, Lady of War. I will bring your words to the great killer." He cleared his throat, speaking a half step behind Musu, his voice burring under hers like the voice of a ghost. "You, foreign warrior, have been given your freedom by Nzinga, Queen of Dahomey. She does this at the bequest of Gabrielle, Queen of Greece. You are to stop the war with the Army of the Goddess. If you go to the Harrians and lead them against us, Gabrielle of Greece will pay your forfeit."

Xena listened, her body still as a stone. Her face was unreadable under her black mane, the carving of an inhuman patience. "Where is Gabrielle?" She asked in a soft voice, low enough that Geb had to strain to hear it.

Geb knew enough of her now to recognize it as a sign of worry, an emotion he associated with fool and children before he'd met the Ghoul. Her raging across the wasteland in search of her woman had given him a whole new definition for worry, one that included madness and grief, soul killing loss. The quiet about her now worried him in its implications.

He was hasty to translate Musu's next words. "She is well, and you may not see her. She is Amazon royalty, and until you are sent through the Ceremony of the Ancestors, you are our enemy. I am sorry, foreigner."

Xena seemed to flare up like a bonfire catching new wood, though not even a muscle twitched. Something in the air around her hardened and glowed with an obsidian light. Geb blinked, wondering if he'd imagined it. "How long do I have?" Xena asked Musu, through him.

"A day, sun to sun, no more. You haven't asked the price your Gabrielle will pay."

Xena looked into the Captain's mahogany eyes. "Because I won't fail." Musu requested no translation, nodding at the snarling Greek in understanding. Geb felt that they had reached a place where he could not go, and could not intercede between them. It was fascinating, the way the towering Amazon seemed smaller, somehow, than the Greek hero. "Bring me Geb's mount, he's sound. And Musu- if one hair is harmed on Gabrielle's head, there won't be enough of you left to feed the vultures."

Geb's mount was brought, the tall Persian horse dancing in its elaborate harness. The stirrups were far too short for Xena, she had the saddle removed. She was handed her armor and weapons by the Captain, a look of warning passing between them. Xena gave a fierce cry and the horse tore off, dividing the ranks of Amazons. The drive of hooves was followed by Geb's bitter laughter, following on the wind of their passing.

Xena knew the territory. They were in Baluchis, across the Harrian border, near the holding of Azarnes. The Army of the Goddess wasn't hard to locate. The Greek hero crested the dun hills and saw them arrayed before her, tents stretching away over the valley floor, red, crimson, glowing in the harsh desert light. A thousand rubies had been cast out on the gray dust, a thousand drops of crystallized blood, fallen like tears from the Great Mother. A shudder at the omen twitched between Xena's shoulder blades. She shrugged it off angrily, shrugging off the authority of the gods with it. No immortal was worth obeying, no immortal was welcome to interfere in her life.

A small city of wagons followed the tents, bearing food and supplies, servants and Harlots. She twisted her lips at the extravagance of it. This Army must be slower than the creep of ice from the mountains, traveling like a circus parade, she thought. The Harrians couldn't even march to war without a wagon train of diversions and delights. A splendid people, if unsuited for bloodshed. Xena, sitting on the back of the dancing Persian gelding, wondered what her life might have been like, among such people. She shrugged off the thought, as she had shrugged off the gods. The past was set in blood; she could no more erase it than she could be reborn.

She rode down into the valley, knowing that the sentries had spotted her. She made a mental note to commend Azarnes for his improvements in discipline. The soldiers greeted her by name and rank at the edge of camp, effusively inquiring to her health and well being. Two ran on to get the General. One stood holding her reins as show swung down. She recognized him from her reorganization of the Army; his rank had improved.

"Azarnes must think well of you, Sarenes. You've gone up a rank."

They were dressed in mail coats and helmets of enameled iron, small round shields rode their left arms. At the waist they wore long thin swords and occasionally a curved dagger. Their mail coats were lit with gems, engraved and inlaid, glowing like the tents in the sun with spots of color. Pretty enough for a parade, Xena thought, with the fine round shields and delicate, leaf bladed spears. They wouldn't last a minute against raging Amazons.

"Lord Chabouk! Har, woman, we thought you dead!" The voice of general Azarnes cut across the camp. He strode up to her, his blackened steel mail coat drinking in the sun, reflecting nothing. On his rough cut black hair was a cap of similar make, plain and unadorned amidst the peacock finery of his officers. Only his cloak shone, a brilliant scarlet like new spilt blood. Xena recognized it, from the afternoon when she'd killed Bessarius. Azarnes clasped her forearm, her hand closed over the thick muscle shielding his bones. He was a soldier to the core, still. "Where's Gabrielle? Did you find her?" The old soldier asked her, his small black eyes dancing in the planes of his face.

He'd changed, Xena saw, when he was up close. His armor and weapons were still plain and serviceable, not about show at all. But there was a softening in his craggy features, a warmth there she didn't remember at all. The lines around his mouth spoke of mirth, now. His new rank was good for him, as was his return to the life of the Red City.

"Yes, she's alive. But she's with the Amazons." Xena said.

"Great Mother! It'll be Chehou's own time getting her back. The spear lines-"

Xena cut him off. "She's not a captive, not exactly. I'll explain it all at once. Is Oromenes here?"

"Oromenes and Malache. Your message roused us all. Oromenes wouldn't rest until we marched. Then we got to the border- and found Dahomey making pincushions of our men." Azarnes said, grief and frustration in his voice. Har's age-old ally had turned against them, and he couldn't understand why. His nation was thrust into a war that they had no hope of winning, and little of surviving, if the Amazons wanted to march across their kingdom. It was like the ancient times, when the Amazons had carried their invasion right to the walls of the Red City, sweeping all before them. Har was many things, but not a nation of soldiers.

"Take me to them." Xena said, clasping his arm tightly.

Oromenes, Great King of Har, had been overjoyed to see the Lord Chabouk come striding into her tent. The greeting had swiftly turned when the grim warrior gave her the news- Gabrielle was being held by their enemies, the Amazons. Oromenes sat in her traveling throne, a chair of Nubian ebony inlaid with topaz and ivory. Her wife, Malache, called The Beautiful, sat on her lap, none in the tent needing formality. Gathered there were the General Azarnes, Oromenes' uncle and adopted father, the Greek hero who was known in Har as the Lord Chabouk, and the Great King and Queen. All others had been barred from the tent, for this war council.

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