4.
Disclaimer: All characters and general concepts are property of Renaissance Pictures and StudiosUSA. No copyright infringement intended. Yeah.
The trees were black as if charred, and bits of rag strung up in the branches flapped in the lacklustre wind.
"Looks like there was a battle here," Ares said suddenly, startling a few ravens into the sky. "The forest looks like it was burned."
"It's blood."
"Huh?"
"There are stories about this place. Odin's torment. The trees and ground are stained with his blood from his long crucifixion. The forest is rotting."
Ares brushed his hand over a trunk, and the bark crumbled under his fingers. "Gruesome. Vikings are a cheery lot, aren't they?"
"We have our moments," Xena said. Her lips thinned and she glanced away sheepishly off his sharp look.
"You religious?"
"Don't be ridiculous."
"What, you don't believe in me?"
Her eyebrows lifted. "I shouldn't think I have to."
"Because you know I'm here?"
"We've had this conversation before, haven't we?"
Ares nodded contemplatively. "That's better than belief," he said.
She was staring at something behind his ear.
"I thought we were having a moment here, Xena."
"That tree looks very familiar."
"You're ignoring me in favour of the scenery?" Ares turned to look, anyway. The tree was huge, black, and spider-like, stretching its branches far enough to entangle those of other trees. It was empty but for some dozen ravens perched evenly across its limbs. As he watched, another landed and turned its head to one side and another, fixing them with one eye at a time. "Let's go," he said quietly.
Xena let herself be steered away without a fuss. "Odin's eyes," she muttered.
"Yeah. Just act like we don't see them. Odin doesn't bother Olympians if we don't bother him. Actually, my old drinking buddy Thor is—"
"No, you don't understand," Xena said with a shake of her head. "Something happened. It was important."
"That's right, Xena. Your little friend has something that belongs to me."
Ares winced at the new voice. Around them, armour clanked as several chargers settled heavily on the ground, steam rising from their flanks. He pasted a broad grin on his face before turning around. "Odin! Still losing the ol' hair, I see."
Odin tilted his head in recognition. "Ares. Mortal, I see."
"Ah, it's a long story, but hey, long stories are always best over ale—"
"Silence!" said a blonde valkyrie with a face like a lemon. She surged forward on her horse, and Xena threw herself to the ground to avoid the outstretched sword. The valkyrie followed, forcing Xena to roll to avoid trampling hooves.
"Hey, hey!" Ares yelled. "I'm the one who was mouthing off. Why are you picking on a defenceless..." He trailed off while he watched Xena drag the valkyrie off the horse. "Make that blameless—"
Odin interrupted him. "Shut up, Ares. Leave now before I give you a true taste of mortality."
"That has to be the lamest threat I've ever heard." Ares placed a hand casually on the hilt of his sword. A glance to the side showed Xena holding her own nicely. She ducked under a swing and kicked the valkyrie in the knee. Good girl.
He'd been about to draw his sword when Xena pushed past him. There was a bruise growing on her cheek, but she had the valkyrie in a choke hold.
"What friend?" she said, ignoring the struggling woman.
Odin frowned and leaned forward to peer into her face.
"Tell me! What friend? What do you want?"
He smiled, eyes slit and catlike. "Gabrielle," he said. "She needs your help. I only want what's best for her." At his gesture, the valkyrie fell limp in her arms.
"Gabrielle..." Xena said, dropping the blonde woman absently. "Where?"
"I'd be happy to take you to her."
"What do you get out of it?"
"Xena! You wound me." Odin pressed a hand dramatically to his breast. "What wouldn't I give to see Gabrielle safe and sound, reunited with her best friend?"
"Xena..." Ares said, injecting as much warning into his voice as he could manage.
Xena shook her head. "I don't trust you."
Odin's face blacked and his hand twitched before his expression settled back into that of benevolence. "Ahh, well, I don't blame you. After all, you don't remember me, do you? I can tell you where—"
"I'll find her myself."
Odin nodded stiffly. Valkyrie, one coughing heavily, took to the skies, and Odin vanished in a flash of light.
Showoff, thought Ares with some bitterness.
It was dark by the time they made their way out of the black forest and reached a small village. After Ares practically force-fed her, he watched Xena stare into the roaring fire.
"What do you want to do?" he said finally.
Xena's head tilted slightly in his direction.
"Odin's obviously planning something after we find Gabrielle."
"I'll deal with Odin when I have to," Xena said. She turned to face him fully, confusion and urgency in her eyes. "I just know I have to find Gabrielle. I can't even remember, but I know..."
"I know."
Xena nodded.
"We can do some asking around in the morning. This doesn't seem like a prime spot for nightlife."
She nodded again, thoughtfully. "Yeah, there's something odd about this village. Did you notice the barricades?"
"Of course. Every window looks like a rat cage."
They both jumped when a scream cut through the stuffy silence outside. Pounding footsteps were followed by a thud against the door of the inn.
"Please!" The shrill voice was followed by another thud, as if the man outside had thrown his entire body against the door again. "Please let me in!"
Ares turned to look at the innkeeper. He frowned incredulously when the man cringed and shrank against the side of the bar, pushing himself even further away from the door. "Hey! Aren't you going to open the door?"
There was some sort of inhuman wail, and the unseen victim screamed again. "Please!"
Ares jumped to his feet, but paused when Xena rushed past him, chakram in hand.
"No!" yelled the innkeeper, and he and another man attempted to grab Xena. "Don't open the door!"
Xena nailed him without a word and shoved back the wooden bar bolt. A man stumbled in and fell to the floor. Something claw-like reached in after him, and Xena slashed reflexively. The claw was snatched back, slapping the door open on the way so that a tall black silhouette was framed against the night sky. It seemed to see Xena, and with a roar, the claw was thrust forward again.
Ares stabbed forward and grunted upon impact. Bracing himself, he shoved the thing backwards, twisting his blade so that it sliced through half of the monster's hand. With another roar, it recoiled and lurched away rapidly. Leaning back, he let Xena slam the door shut in front of him.
They looked down at the victim who lay in a widening puddle of blood. Ares reached down, twitched aside the man's shirt, and winced. His torso was barely held together by a strip of skin. Shredded pieces of gut were slowly slipping out, lubricated by blood. Ares looked into the man's panicked eyes, and the man tried to draw in a gurgling breath.
"Sorry," Ares mumbled, unsure if the man could hear him.
Hands reached past him, and fingers dug into a couple of points near the man's collar.
His eyes widened. "Doesn't... hurt..." he rasped, and fell slack as he died.
Ares watched Xena shut the man's eyes and turned to glare at the innkeeper, who was huddled on the ground making loud gurgling noises. "Oh shut the fuck up," he snarled. "It's not like you had any balls to begin with."
He looked around at the various terrified patrons. "What was that?"
They'd gotten the innkeeper straightened up enough to get a room out of him.
"Did you know about this Grindl thing?"
Xena shrugged, intent on untangling a particularly bothersome snarl in her hair. "The reports said it was probably a bear."
"It looked like a walking tree." Her hair was long enough to touch her shoulders now. Ares reached out to pull away a stray strand, and she turned around to catch his hand.
"You're bleeding," she said.
He looked down in surprise. "I hadn't noticed."
She didn't look at him while she cleaned the cut, and her hand clenched around his fingers when he jerked as she dabbed some alcohol over it. It wasn't until she was tying a bandage over the back of his hand that he spoke. "You want to go after Grindl, don't you?"
She paused. "It recognized me."
"It tried to kill you."
"I won't ask you to come with me."
Rage flared like a red mist. "You know—"
"Yeah, sorry. Stop clenching your hand. It'll make it worse."
Ares stared at the top of her head sulkily. "I hate heroes," he grumbled.
Xena tilted her head to look up at him. Then, slowly, she smiled, and dull pain thudded through his chest.
"I thought you said fighting's a waste of time, anyway," Ares said.
That smile was still on her lips when she said, "But I have people to protect."
Ow. Maybe he was having a heart attack. He should probably eat more vegetables. "The villagers?"
She tugged on his hand until he bent down towards her, and shook her head. "Important people."
Ares took a shuddering breath. "Xena..."
"You think too much."
Her hand slipped into his vest and brushed over a rough nipple, and it was cool against his skin, just as her mouth was hot against his.
It probably wasn't a heart attack.
He was alone in the bed in the morning.
Ares rolled out of bed and lunged for the door. Self-sacrificing little bitch. It was just like her...
He'd gotten the door open on the second try, rushed forward, and ran straight into Xena.
She blinked at him slowly. "Where are you going without your pants?" she said finally.
Oh gods, he was probably bright red by now.
She leaned in and kissed him. "Let's go, Ares."
After some prodding, they found a man in the tavern that reluctantly disclosed what the villagers knew of Grindl's location and punctuated his sentences by claiming that they were mad.
They were walking through a grey forest of drooping trees before he remembered.
"Hey!" Ares said, "You..." He stabbed at the air ineffectually with his fingers.
"What?"
"What you did to that man who was dying."
"Oh," Xena said slowly.
He watched as something unreadable stole over her face. "It's a good thing," he said.
Xena shrugged helplessly.
Ares looked away awkwardly. They were quite close to Grindl's last known location by now. Even if the villager hadn't talked, Ares realized, they could very well have found the place by following the long lines scored on the trees, as if a monstrous cat had a case of the scratches. It was difficult to find a tree that had not been mutilated at this point. He was starting to jump at shadows. That tree over there looked particularly spiky. "Are there other things?" he asked. "Things you just... know?"
They walked in silence while Xena struggled for a reply.
"I have this feeling," she said finally. "Just somehow, I know that there's something wrong with what the people back there told us. That... wasn't Grindl."
"How many spiky tree monsters are there running around?"
"Grindl's dead."
Ares caught a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye, but when he turned his head, he saw only black trees shifting in the wind. Wait. Cold sweat was gathering on his palms. "Then what do you call that?" he said softly to Xena, gesturing with a tilt of his chin.
He pushed Xena to the side and drew his sword in one quick movement as the monster charged toward them, snapping off branches like so many brittle twigs. It took a swipe at his head, and he ducked and rolled.
Gods, what were those spike things made out of? They had an unpleasant organic give to them, while at the same time being completely impervious to his sword. At least the thing wasn't very creative, using brute strength to hack at whatever it could reach.
Ares caught a bone-jarring blow, turning it to slide the spike down and off the length of his sword. The other arm came around in a wide sweep, and Ares jumped clumsily over it, landing on an exposed root. His foot twisted, and he let himself fall with the motion, rolling tightly down a bit of a slope. Ow. He'd scraped his leg against the monster's. Was everything sharp on that thing? He slid to a halt, spinning immediately to catch a downswing aimed at his shoulder.
Grunting with the effort, he dug his boots deeply in the dirt and shoved the monster back, its arms wheeling while it fought for balance. He surged forward, thrust his sword out, and in a moment of what he could only describe as sheer dumbfuckery, lodged it deep into the tree monster's shoulder as it fell backward, wrenching his sword from his hand.
The monster screamed shrilly and thrashed a bit like a beetle that had been flipped onto its back, and then got to its feet and tried to step on Ares. He avoided that and kept a wary eye on the monster, ducking the odd wild slash as he cast about for a temporary weapon.
The chakram sang as it glanced off of the spikes on the monster's head, shearing a few off, and bit into the shredded tree next to him.
"Xena!" he yelled helplessly when the monster turned, charged her, and caused the two to tumble down the entrance of the abandoned mine the monster had been using as its hideout.
Ares worked feverishly to dead-knot the rope he'd gotten. Only about ten minutes had passed since they'd fallen down there, he calculated.
Xena could take care of herself.
Ares gritted his teeth until his jaw ached.
He'd just tied the rope around one of the mine's posts and tossed it down when a weight tugged on the rope.
"Xena?" he said quickly, peering down.
There was a pause, and he thought his heart would burst out of his chest in a spectacularly gory fashion. "Yeah," her voice filtered out finally.
"You alright?"
"Yeah." The rope twitched as it was tested for strength from below. "We're coming up," Xena said.
"We?"
He saw Xena first, one hand gripped around the rope and the other scrabbling for purchase on the loose stones. He hurried forward and hauled her up until she was standing and leaning into him, dusty hair pressed under his nose. He ran his hands over her arms and back, half checking for any injuries and half just relishing the feel after ten gut-wrenching minutes.
She smiled tiredly at him, brushed a kiss over his mouth, and turned back to the mine.
He saw blonde hair and his first wild thought was that it was Gabrielle, but then the woman raised her head.
She was dressed like a valkyrie, he noticed.
"This is Grinhilda," Xena said.
The woman nodded amicably at him before wincing. There was blood crusted to her shoulder, he saw. Grinhilda handed him his sword with a sheepish smile.
"You..." he said. "You're—"
"The walking tree," Grinhilda filled in for him.
"How?" he trailed off into incoherence.
She nodded toward Xena, who had been ignoring the exchange in favour of scouring the surroundings.
"I see an intact cart over there," Xena said. "Grinhilda's in no condition to walk. I'll go get it."
Ares moved to help her before turning to Grinhilda. "What did she do?" He asked.
Grinhilda had been watching Xena walk away, something complicated in her eyes, but now she looked at him. "She said..."
"What?"
"That I had sad eyes. And that she was sorry."
Ares followed Xena after a moment. He thought maybe he understood.
TBC