Part Two
Blood in the Sand
Blood had 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 Dars-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 Dars-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.
Continued in Part 3.