A Tale Too Far

by Phineas Redux

Showing how following in a father's footsteps is sometimes not a good idea.

'A Tale Too Far'

By

Phineas Redux

-O-

Description:— Showing how following in a father's footsteps is sometimes not a good idea.

Disclaimer:— MCA/Universal/RenPics own all copyrights to everything related to 'Xena: Warrior Princess' and I have no rights to them.

-O-

Croesus had been named by his father in a fit of enthusiasm one day when he was feeling as if the Gods, for a change, were smiling down on him. It wasn't only that Kleandros had just become a father officially for the third time—though there were, sadly, several unofficial recipients for the title of his offspring scattered throughout the nearby demes and settlements—but that he had just heard that same day of a merchant with a huge fortune who would soon be passing through his territory; Kleandros being a brigand of renown. Sadly the father's expectations were misplaced; hardly had he and his band of associate dead-beats charged the approaching train of horses and carts which made up the travelling entourage of the merchant than Kleandros found out his mistake—the merchant had come prepared with his own private army; or at least, no less than forty armed warriors acting as escort. It can hardly be a surprise to learn that these, deeply-experienced mercenaries to a woman and man, laid waste the bandits without pity. Suffice to say Kleandros' wife became a widow on the same day she became a mother for the third time. And so to twenty-two years in the future—

-O-

"Yeah, it was no trouble; y'know these faint-hearted artisans journeying along the country-roads." The unprepossessing young man banged his flagon on the bar-top and turned to gaze contemptuously at the other customers of the Inn, sitting at the surrounding benches. "No bottom in 'em; ran like scared rats. Why, it was just a matter of dealin' with the slower stragglers, ha-ha, then merely pickin' up the stores an' wares they'd dropped in the road in their hurry t'escape—nuthin' to it."

The Inn was a run-down affair in a side-street of the small town in the hills. Apart from the ordinary locals the clientele hardly ever consisted of more than a few passing travellers on their way to nearby Patras, down on the coast. This morning such travellers were represented by three persons; one middle-aged man of indeterminate occupation, dressed in cloth leggings, old boots, and a short linen upper garment which had once been white held closed by buttons. He leaned against the bar to the young brigand's right-hand. On Croesus' left-hand, for indeed it was he, two women, both young, also did their part in making sure the waist-high bar did not collapse without warning. One was tall and black-haired; the other, an arm's-length or so away from the loud-mouthed teller of tall tales, had short blonde hair and was dressed—if the word fully covered her situation, which it certainly didn't—in not much more than an astonishingly short skirt of red cloth and red leather inserts, with a top which failed whole-heartedly in it's duty of coverage—this Olympus sent combination having given several of the local drinkers a great deal of innocent pleasure during the short period the women had honoured the shabby edifice with their presence.

However, none of these valiant spectators and connoisseurs of female beauty were at present in the mood to make any kind of physical play towards the visitors. Mainly because, some time prior to the loudly proclaimed arrival of Croesus and his small gang of dirty followers, a couple of locals had done just that—tried their luck. One, misguidedly, had ambled up to the tall black-haired woman, entirely failing to realise she was armed with a sword in a back-sheath,—he was after all on his third pot of the local brew—and made a rather personal suggestion to the lady. At the same time another wolf, bolstered by the action of the other, had focussed on the short blonde. He, too, failed to adequately scrutinise his prey; missing the sai tied to the outside of each of her low boots. He, on his part, made the wrong welcome move by proceeding to attempt to ascertain the reality of the lady's upper physique by the simple act of a manual embrace.

Retribution came to both instantaneously. The tall, mean-looking woman nearest the street entrance of the Inn's main room swivelled slightly; stuck out her left leg and, without seeming to give the action any thought at all, kicked her unwanted devotee right between his legs with her heavy boot, just at that spot guaranteed to make him take immediate notice. At the same time her blonde companion ducked a fraction, leaning away from the encroaching hand of her male surveyor; bent to retrieve one of her sai with a swift movement which showed expertise and long training; reversed the blade, and stuck the round-ended hilt into the man's stomach with a hiss of breath from between her clenched white teeth. Both men hit the dusty floorboards together, neither proceeding to take the slightest interest in life in general for the next quarter of a clepsydra or so; they being too much occupied in catching their breath and trying to decide, through a red haze, whether they were still actually alive or not. Everybody else in the Inn room got the message; and then a short time later—after the battered debris had been removed to another room for recuperation—Croesus, sublimely unaware of the danger he was placing himself and his handful of foul-smelling followers in, barged loudly through the entrance and took over the bar, calling for mead and a dam' lot of it thank you very much. Then, after his first three tankards, he began to boast about his latest success.

Croesus, failing miserably to live up to his exalted namesake, was barely over middle height, had long unwashed lanky hair falling greasily to his shoulders, a pale skin covered in spots of varying size and colour which reminded everyone who met him they really should go to their local apothecary to buy a pot of that new skin balm being bandied about if they didn't want to end up the same way, and had a character which left all the ordinarily acceptable social attitudes unhindered by his attentions—in short, he was a common jerk. Allied to bad breath, bad teeth, and a curious aroma, not of the good sort, which tended to follow in his wake wherever he went, alongside the firmly entrenched hang-dog expression with which he was accustomed to view the world, and it can be seen that only those who were actually paid to accompany him on his travels could be placed within the circle of his co-called friends—a sub-group of society otherwise non-existent, for good reason.

But now Armageddon, Nemesis, and Gotterdammerung were all, in their individual ways, about to fall on him from a great height—if only he knew.

"Bunch o' namby-pamby women, the lot of 'em." Croesus, recalling his latest victims with disdain, blithely carried on signing his death warrant with innocent abandon. Then he took that last step too far. "Just like these two here. Say, ladies, y'look as if y'like a good time—an' if anyone hereabouts can give a woman a better time than me, I'd just like t'see the colour of his eyes, that's all. How's about a kiss, Blackie? I like 'em tall an' muscled. Adrastus, you take the little blonde; she looks as if she could give a man a good time, too. OK, lady, let's get comfortable. Host! Y'got a private room upstairs? Me an' the gorgeous lady here wan'na get together for a while. OK, let's get t'grips, woman."

With this last query, which in fact turned out to be his official last words, Croesus ambled closer to the tall black-haired woman standing easily and quietly at the end of the bar, extending an arm to place his hand on an anatomical part of her physique which had caught his interest. It was only as he came within an arms-length that he suddenly realised he had made a gargantuan mistake. Sozzled with mead; full of his own importance; and letting his sexual imagination range freely over the coming encounter in what at the moment passed for his mind, he had missed the whole attitude and persona of the woman he had singled out for his unwanted amorous attentions.

But, close up, light dawned. His first discovery was the large, dangerous-looking sword hanging in the back-sheath, hilt standing proud over the woman's right shoulder. Then he took in the long bare muscled legs, the heavy boots, the short fighting skirt, the breast-plate protection, and finally, raising his bleary eyes to the woman's face, the hard set disgust mixed with contempt which showed there. Even such a hopeless degraded poltroon as Croesus realised he was in the proverbial soup.

Taking a step back he made a half-hearted attempt to draw the sword hanging at his waist in its sheath, a mean glare passing over his bloated features. This, however, was all the excuse the tall warrior woman required—now she could defend herself legally, wholly within the Law; and she proceeded to do so, remorselessly and without mercy.

Standing upright her left arm came out of nowhere, fully extended with fist tightly closed. It took Croesus on his jaw, sending him reeling back across the room, just as the handful of followers he had brought with him rose from their assorted tables to join the fray—after all, how much opposition could two women cause a pack of nine mean smelly bandits? Little did they guess.

The small blonde whirled on her own attacker, sai still gripped in her hand; and this time she wasn't playing. The filed point took him in the lower fleshy part of his right forearm; stabbing right through to emerge on the other side, before the woman pulled it free once more. Adrastus gripped his wounded arm and, crouching over in agony, staggered into a corner to scream in anguish to himself; he being of course, when it came to the crunch, a pathetic coward.

Across the dusty room, now swiftly becoming ever more dusty as the fight spread, the tall woman was taking on three bandits simultaneously. They may have thought they were on an easy lay, but reality soon hit—almost as hard as the blows of their underestimated opponent. The first man, rather beefy in the chest and given to wheezing—too many venison pasties and pots of the local brew having had their long-term effect over the years—rushed straight in, meaning to overwhelm by brute power. The warrior woman neatly side-stepped, thumped him mightily on the back with closed fist and turned away as he staggered, bent forwards, uncontrollably across the room and with enormous impetus neatly head-butted the lower frame of the wooden bar; which turned out to be much more solidly built than might have been suspected. There was a horrible crunch, he sagged like a toy doll whose sawdust stuffing was escaping through a rent, and collapsed on the floor in a heap which never moved again, his head having been split open; some of the grey matter which had till recently passed for his brain oozing out in a nasty manner.

The second of the dark woman's adversaries was more circumspect; he stood back a trifle to draw his short gladius, waved it around trying to scare the woman in front of him then, not realising his actions had been totally ineffective, dashed in stabbing wildly at her chest. The fact he was a really useless swordsman became clear in an instant; the tall woman, in one easy smooth motion, reached over her shoulder with her right hand and brought it forward with her sword clutched in a firm grip. She parried the bandit's loose thrust as if it were kid's play, pushing the oncoming blade aside like a feather. Then her own blade found the centre of the man's chest and disappeared within to about a forearm's length. He stopped still, gazing foolishly at the blade transfixing him, then grunted in the horror of the moment as the woman pulled the bloody blade free again. He looked up into her face, saw no pity whatever, and died there and then on his feet with her cold dark blue eyes considering him in scorn.

The third man was taller than his confederates, almost as tall as the woman warrior. He had a larger sword, of the Germanic type, and he also had a modicum more sense. He paused to consider the state of affairs, which by this time were clearly falling against he and his compatriots, but he took heart when he saw and heard Croesus coming back into the fray from the far corner of the Inn room where he had been thrown by the mystery woman's first blow. The man jumped forward, crouched low, and effected a side-swipe with his sword, obviously meaning to slice his female antagonist in two at her waist. But again he had misjudged; with a wild ear-splitting whoop the woman launched herself into the air in a high jump, somersaulting over her opponent's head to land with a dusty crash of boots facing his back. She raised her sword and brought the hilt down on the crown of his head with all the power in her arm. There was a sickening crack and splintering noise, a gush of blood splashed out the top of his head and he fell over like a tree in the forest, dead before hitting the dirty floor.

Meanwhile the shorter, but just as feisty, blonde warrior was now showing another two robbers who had ill-advisedly taken her on that she too was a power to be reckoned with. Her first attacker, wholly blinded by the idea he was about to hit a small defenceless woman—of which there could surely be no lesser easier target—found just how mistaken he was. The woman caught his sword blade in the crook of her two sai, wrenched the blade aside and up dislocating her opponent's arm at the elbow, and jumped aside to face her other danger as the man collapsed on the floor clutching his disabled arm and screaming in agony.

The second man again wielded a short gladius, his preferred modus operandi being to stand, legs wide apart and blade in the air, sneering at the slight woman the while. What he expected to gain by this attitude was a mystery, for she proved herself far quicker in thought and action than he could ever have believed. She ran in, paused at the last moment, crouched down under the unco-ordinated swing of the now scared man's blade, and jumped forward and up burying the blades of both her sai in his belly as far as the points of their side-extensions. He uttered a gurgle of disbelief and pain, jerked himself free, staggered back splashing blood in every direction, gave one last throaty gasp and collapsed in a bloody heap, to while away the last few pain-wracked moments of his life amongst the garbage and dirt of the filthy floor.

By this time the last remaining vandals, three in number, had congregated in a defensive group near the room's street-entrance, obviously ready for a mutual organised retreat; only waiting to observe the outcome of their chief's return to the fray.

Croesus, spitting blood and pure Archaic Greek epithets in equal amounts, staggered forward once more. He was still completely engrossed with his own woes, thereby not having fully taken account of the apparent direction and likely outcome of wider local events. This probably accounted for the idiotic action he now took, rushing towards his black-haired tall Nemesis as if he meant to exact terrible revenge for his wounds; which indeed was the single dim thought now coursing through the unpeopled byways of his addled, and never intellectually over-challenged, mind. He had picked up another gladius from somewhere, and now approached the tall warrior woman with bared teeth, growling low and entirely disregarding her blonde companion.

Without pause to consider the matter he came on with raised blade, screaming foul insults in a mix of Greek, Scythian, and Macedonian, he having led an international career as a mercenary bandit in his short life. With eyes bulging and red-shot with fury Croesus went straight for his victim, hauling the sword high over his left shoulder for a powerful slice to the tall woman's neck. Having, like the merest tyro, thereby exposed himself in this manner the black-haired Valkyrie gave an ear-splitting scream that seemed to go on for an eternity, then brought her own sword round under his too-widely extended defence, sinking the blade to the hilt in his chest just under his neck. With another ululating scream she twisted round to turn away from him, drawing her blade free as she did so. For an appreciable time the two foes stood motionless, the woman now facing directly away from her victim. Then came a soft, astonished, sigh, followed by the thump of the floorboards in the Inn room as another dead body hit the dust in a pathetic heap—Croesus' career having finally reached its Fates-appointed nadir. The three remaining bandits by the door took advantage of their position and vanished as one into the sunshine outside, never to be seen in those parts again. The women had triumphed; bloodily, it must be allowed, and without mercy, but cruel ruthless murderous bandits, as the leaves fall in Autumn, must always reach their just and final Nemesis in the end—and this was certainly Croesus' end, and no mistake.

-O-

"Thank you-thank you-thank—"

"Yeah, sure, it was nuthin'." The tall black-haired warrior woman nodded somewhat embarrassedly at the Inn-keeper cum local mayor, as she and her blonde companion stood in the street outside the Inn. "They had it coming, especially that murdering cold-blooded Croesus; he ain't no loss t'the world. Well, we better be on our way. G'bye."

"And thank you, too." The mayor turned to the short lightly-clad blonde woman as she stood, grinning widely, by the taller more powerful woman's side.

"Oh, just another day in the life. See you."

And in another instant the two women, one walking with a slow saunter, the other with a skipping jaunty stride, disappeared amongst the passing crowd.

The End.