CHAPTER 16
Dawn was just breaking over the horizon when he saw them. A vast, malevolent black patch, obscuring the otherwise newly lit ground, almost as if the sun was reluctant to cast its brilliant rays upon such a motley crew.
Easily forty, fifty men mounted on horseback. About what he'd figured.
The object of their attention was a sleepy little village that, from the look of the adjacent area, relied upon agriculture as their chief source of income. Little more than a curious glance could tell one that there would be no rich pickings here. Not even worth notice. Yet the band still struck. Violence for its own sake.
Batman could feel the bile rising in his throat. But that was good, it fanned the fire, the fire that had burned in his soul since that day as a child when he had witnessed the murder of his own parents. The fire that sustained him in his never-ending battle against the terror men loosened upon the world.
It has been asked what can be done by one man, when instead it should be asked what can not be done by but a single man. Bruce Wayne possessed no special powers, held no magical objects, knew not what the future may hold, was not unlike any other man, yet he had altered the world around him.
Some might belittle the feat as temporary, transient. But is not the life of man transient? And does its lack of 'permanence' somehow preclude the good accomplished? Is not a 'temporary' answer to a 'temporary' problem the best that can be asked for?
These quandaries and more assailed that deep inner part of the Dark Knight's mind as he dismounted at the village's outer edge and slid into the erupting chaos.
***
In the emerging daybreak Xena saw the smoke before its cause.
Xena's mind was blank; all that she knew was that Callisto was here, and that the endgame had come.
The looting had already begun when, with a war cry, Xena somersaulted from Argo's back into the midst of the storm.
***
She had noticed the warrior princess before anyone else. Noted her progress from a black dot on the horizon to an ever-larger smudge, to finally a fully formed figure bursting upon her men. She watched with fascinated glee at the skill and precision with which Xena was killing her men. Watched with a rapturous expression as she saw her own men cut down. Her tongue flickered over her lips, and her hand twitched at the thought of taking cold hard steel and feeling it render flesh. Her nostrils flared to catch a whiff of the odorous blood.
Yes, Xena's assault made a beautiful counterpoint to the slaughter Callisto's men had embarked upon.
But for its intensity, her survey of Xena was brief. A disturbance elsewhere had drawn her attention. Frowning, she turned away from the raven-haired goddess and tried to ascertain what was the matter.
***
"Crack!" The man dropped like a stone, his jaw shattered.
Bodies lay all around as Batman's offensive continued. And more were being added by the second.
They hadn't seen him coming. Like chain lighting he struck one, then another, and another, and so on until no one knew where he was coming from.
The left? No, no, the right. Wait, he's over there. No, he's over there. The confusion only served to hasten their plight, until pretty soon bedlam broke out.
Being divided as it was, the host could not know two separate enemies were attacking them. And even if they had, it would have done them no good.
In the relative blink of an eye the hardened, terrifying brood had been reduced to various stages of running away. But through it all, Batman had eyes for only one person…
***
It had been the flash grenades that brought him up straight.
Swiveling around, he saw the specter that gave even him, the Clown Prince of Crime, nightmares. There, in the middle of the sound and fury was 'The Bat'.
The 'how's' and 'wherefores' of the circumstance meant little to the Joker right then. What mattered was getting as far away as fast as possible.
The Joker little relished the idea of meeting the Bat without preparation. Facing down the Batman with a host of machine gun toting minions at his back was one thing; taking him on with nothing more than guys with pointy metal sticks was quite another.
He had already reigned his horse around when Callisto barred his way.
"Going somewhere?"
"Oh, nowhere in particular…" He looked over his shoulder anxiously.
Callisto raised an eyebrow. "Someone you know?"
"It's the pointy eared freak that put me here!"
Well now, that was interesting. Over the time they'd spent together, the Joker had told Callisto all about himself and this 'Batman'. His own personal 'Xena'.
"So, if you don't mind, I'm getting out of here."
"My dear sweet Joker," Callisto cooed, patting his face with her free hand. "I thought you weren't afraid of the big black bat?"
"Call it an aversion. I'm allergic to winged rats, and here I am without my rodent repellant." He tried again, unsuccessfully, in moving his mount.
"It would seem we have a common problem," Callisto said calmly, unfazed by the chaos. "Neither of us are ready just yet to meet our 'significant other'." Releasing the Joker's horse, she swung her own around.
"What about them?" The Joker jerked his thumb back at the outlaw mob, currently being trashed.
"Does it matter?"
"Not really."
In the maelstrom, no one noticed the absence of two lone figures.