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.

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 Melossa'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."

Continued in Part 6.

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