was early morning; Gabrielle and Joxer were still yawning. Xena herself was the only one fully awake and alert when the attack came.
Xena didn't know how long the brigands had lain in wait for them, but she knew they were experts at what they did. They had chosen the perfect time and place to ambush her little party, and she had never seen it coming- that, in itself, said a lot. The sun was still low in the sky, and the brigands came out of the east, knowing the bright morning sun would at least partially blind their intended victims. And they struck when Xena's party had just reached the rockiest section of the path by the deepest cliff overlooking the river gorge- a place where there was hardly any room to maneuver and escape would be difficult. A place where the roar of the river would drown out the sound of muffled movement and whispered commands until it was too late.
"Serves me right for taking a shortcut," Xena growled, as she unkempt men, and a few women, emerged seemingly out of nowhere, blocking the road both before and behind them. There were at least twenty of them, she calculated. At least there were trees and outcroppings of rock on both sides of the path- perfect for bouncing a chakram off.
She did just that, letting the ricocheting weapon serve as a warning to their attackers. The brigands paused for a moment.
"Don't try to make this difficult, my friends," their leader said. "You'll live through this so long as you relax and let my boys empty your purses. And perhaps fill the space between your legs."
He got no further. With a yipping war cry, Xena drew her sword and charged.
The battle was brief and bloody. The men were good fighters, but none was Xena's equal with a blade. Several of them fell, wounded or dead.
Two came from behind, though, and went straight for Gabrielle. Joxer leapt to her defense- or tried to. Barely breaking stride, one of the robbers knocked him unconscious with a cudgel blow.
Gabrielle defended herself handily, landing blows on both her assailants with her staff and stunning one of them.
That was when things went wrong.
The stunned man reeled away, while his partner approached Gabrielle with caution. Like her, her carried a fighting staff. The bard and the brigand traded blows, and Gabrielle stepped up onto a rock to gain a little height.
With an unexpected low move, the villain swung his staff forward and swept Gabrielle off her feet, and she fell backwards.
Off the rock.
Over the cliff.
Into the gorge.
"GABRIELLE!!" Xena screamed. She threw her chakram almost without thinking, killing two more men. She fought like a madwoman, and the brigands seemed to sense her desperation, for they gave way before her. When three more men had fallen dead, the rest retreated into the underbrush.
Xena dismounted and ran to the edge of the precipice.
Distantly, she heard the sound of hoof beats as the robber band fled.
There was nothing below except rocks. And water.
The Bard of Potidaea was gone.
wood-nymph Echo was harvesting herbs on the river bank, when the river made a burping, gurgling sound.
She immediately turned her attention from the land to the water. There was a whirlpool somewhere upstream, although she's never located it. The whirlpool tended to spit out all sorts of odd things here, practically at her doorstep- weeds, crystals, clothes, the occasional otter. Once, it had produced a bag half-filled with dinars, another time it had brought a live (but exceptionally cranky) badger. The gifts of the whirlpool were usually interesting, and often useful.
She watched quietly, fingering the slim tin whistle that hung on a thong at her neck. She had been cursed by the goddess Hera, and could not speak unless spoken to. Her husband had given the whistle to her, to use if she needed to summon him; would she need to use it now?
With a loud BLORP!! A shape was thrust up out of the water, and splashed back down. A large shape; a human shape, a halo of blonde hair swirling around her head.
This time, the whirlpool had brought her a drowned woman!
Echo placed the whistle between her lips and began to blow, even as she plunged into the water. In a moment, she'd gotten hold of the woman's skirt and rolled her onto her back- but the wood-nymph wasn't strong enough to pull the body out of the water on her own.
"I'm coming!" Lysander called, and moments later she heard his hooves clattering on the rocks behind her. He slipped into the water and caught the drowned woman under her armpits, and Echo took her by the feet. Between them, they hauled the woman out of the water and laid her down on the bank.
"Is she dead?' Lysander asked softly. Echo pressed her ear against the woman's chest, and while she could hear no breath, there was- yes! - the weak beat of a heart.
"She's alive, but she's not breathing," Echo replied. "You'll need to give her the Kiss of Life."
Lysander quickly swept a few leaves out of the woman's mouth, and then pinched her nose shut. Covering her mouth with his own, he exhaled deeply, filling her lungs. Over and over, he did this, until suddenly the woman gasped and coughed up quite a lot of water.
Echo gave a sigh of relief.
The woman moaned, and then she spoke one word.
"Xena…"
searched the riverside for hours, and with every minute Xena's anguish grew.
Her best friend was gone. They found Gabrielle's staff, caught in some reeds by the water's edge, but of the little bard, there was no sign.
Xena was in a state, rage and despair warring within her. Why had she decided to take that stupid shortcut? Why hadn't she stopped the two men who'd attacked Gabrielle? Now, she felt as if she had a hole in her soul.
Joxer was uncharacteristically, but wisely, quiet as her searched with her. He'd been knocked out, and there was nothing her could've done, but still he felt guilty. If only he were the warrior he wanted to be, he could've saved his little Gabrielle, he was sure of it.
The miserable pair had just come to a wide, sandy bank, when they heard hoof beats. Lots of them.
The damned brigands again, Xena thought, and her hand dropped to her sword. This time, she wouldn't leave a single one of them alive.
The riders came in view, and she saw she was right- it was the same gang, in pursuit of a young girl on horseback.
With a raging shriek, Xena launched her attack. The next few minutes were a blur of blades and screams. Startled by the sudden appearance of the same enemy they'd faced earlier, some of the robbers fled, but not all. The rest crowded in, trying to muscle each other out of the way to hack at the warrior princess. She felled one with her sword, another two with her flung chakram. Joxer availed himself of Gabrielle's staff; Xena heard the sound of bones breaking, and a howling robber rode away, cradling his arm.
Then, in quick succession, three of the men fell dead with arrows lodged in their throats or chests. From the corner of her eye, Xena saw that the girl, no longer fleeing, had drawn a bow and was firing arrows at the robbers with terrifying effect.
Even after the last man fell, it took a while before Xena shook off the red haze of rage.
She looked at the girl she'd just saved. She was a buxom young thing, dressed in a soft sea-green gown, her coppery curls tied back with a piece of twine. She was mounted on a large dapple-grey gelding, which was possibly the most massive horse Xena had ever seen. She had joined the fray in complete silence, and now she surveyed the carnage without a word.
In shock, Xena supposed,
"Are you all right?" Xena asked.
"Yes, I am, thanks to you. And yourself?" Her voice was low and smoky- not a young girl's voice at all, but the trained voice of a singer or priestess.
"Fine. This isn't a good time to be out alone," Xena advised her. "You should get to a safe place."
"I know, but I have an errand… a mercy dash sort of thing."
"Well, good luck to you then," Xena said curtly. "We haven't got time to chat." They had all the time in the world, she thought, but she wanted to spend it away from other people; she wanted to grieve in private. She signaled for Argo to move again.
"Xena, wait up!" Joxer yelped.
"Xena?" The girl's voice rose. "I've been looking for you!"
Oh swell, Xena thought. The girl was probably an emissary from some village that was seeking protection.
"It'll have to wait, whatever it is," Xena grated.
She turned her back on the girl. A moment later, something soft hit her on the back of the head. Xena wheeled Argo around and drew her sword.
The girl was watching her impassively, arms crossed. And… Joxer was smiling, looking incredulous.
The warrior princess reached behind her, to where the offending object had landed on Argo's rump. She picked it up and looked at it in disbelief.
It was Gabrielle's green blouse.
"Where did you get this?" she gasped.
"From a young lady who asked me to find the great Warrior Princess," the girl replied. "Would that be you?"
an hour of riding, mostly at a trot, with Joxer mounted uneasily on the gelding, they came to the girl's home.
If she was a girl; Xena had a feeling she was far older than she seemed. And perhaps not even human.
Home was a stone cottage, surrounded by a lush well-trended garden, and a small vineyard; to one side, a wooden enclosure held three fat sheep.
At the sound of their approach, a naked man emerged from the cottage. He was a muscular fellow, with thick chestnut hair on his head, his chest, his goat-like legs… No, Xena realized, he wasn't a man, but-
"A satyr?" She glared at the girl. "You left Gabrielle alone with a satyr?"
The girl frowned and cocked her head at the creature.
"Gracious, Lysander, you are a satyr," she exclaimed.
"I am?" He looked down at himself, as if somewhat bemused. "Hm. That would explain all the fur, wouldn't it?" He smiled sunnily up at them. "Your friend, dear lady, is as safe with me as in her own mother's arms."
He trotted up to the gelding, helped Joxer down, then let the girl slide down into his arms and greeted her with a long and passionate kiss.
"Come," Lysander said, waving Xena towards the door, "She's waiting for you."
Xena dismounted and stepped inside. The cottage was obviously ancient; the doors and shutters had long since rotted away, and there were ghostly faded frescoes on the walls. It was cozy, though, and very clean.
In the tiny bedroom, in a deep warm pile of furs, she found her Gabrielle.
"I thought I'd lost you!" Xena cried.
"No such luck," the bard teased. She sat up, and the effort brought on a coughing fit. Xena sat beside her and held her gently.
"Echo says I'll be all right in a couple of days. I inhaled a lot of water, I guess."
"Echo?" Xena asked. She turned to see the couple leaning against the doorjamb. "The wood-nymph from the story? You're supposed to be dead."
"I get that a lot…" Echo sighed. "That's me."
"You three can stay here until the young lady's recovered," Lysander told them. "Longer, if you care to. That is, if you don't mind sheep… and goats."
Xena laughed for the first time all day.
The End