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?"

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.

Continued in Part 8.

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