Terror
at the Hotel Salmoneus.
Chapter 5
The dining room was a grand affair of highly polished old wood paneled walls, with a stone fireplace at one end of the room with a roaring fire going. With almost 20 to 25 sconces holding candles, there was plenty of cheerful light in the room. Gabrielle found it hard to believe that such a peaceful looking room could exist where such horror was lurking. There were two doorways into the room, one leading into the dining room from the corridor in the castle and the other leading to a short corridor that lead into the kitchen.
Salmoneus ushered everyone to their seats and then took his seat at the head of the long wooden table. "You are really going to enjoy this meal! Melerin and Cheara are the best cooks to be found." Salmoneus paused and then sighed when he saw the nervous look he was getting from Gabrielle.
Suddenly banging open the door that lead to the kitchen, a very large red faced woman entered carrying a huge platter of roasted meats. Following on her heels was the tallest and thinnest man Gabrielle had ever seen. He was carrying a platter piled high with fruits and cheese.
Gabrielle continued to shoot looks at Salmoneus. Finally Salmoneus looked at the red faced woman. "Cheara, is all the castle staff in the kitchen?"
"Yes Milord. They are all eating their dinner right now. Is there something that you need?" Cheara said with a large friendly smile.
"Yes, please tell the staff to stay together in the kitchen and as soon as we have all finished our meals, I have a very important announcement to make." Salmoneus said.
Cheara looked at him curiously and then nodded her head. As she left the room, the servant named Tobas entered carrying a large wooden tray covered with a cloth. Sitting the tray down in front of Gabrielle he said, "Lord Salmoneus said that you would really appreciate this." Removing the cloth he revealed a huge loaf of nutbread.
Gabrielle managed a smile and told him, "thank you".
As soon as Tobas left the room, Gabrielle turned to Xena. "Xena I'm worried! What if that creature attacks the staff while they are eating?"
Autolycus sitting across from Xena and Gabrielle spoke as he helped himself to a large piece of meat. "So far you are the only person that creature has attacked, Gabrielle."
Iolaus who had been quietly talking with Hercules looked up. "Yeah, I noticed that too! Why do you think he attacked Gabrielle first? I mean Salmoneus has been here for a while setting everything up and his servants have been here all this time as well. Haven't they?"
Salmoneus just nodded his head as he poured himself some wine.
Suddenly Autolycus snapped his fingers. "I got it! Remember when we were in Salmoneus's 'mystery room'? After Xena and Gabrielle left. I made some kind of statement about how sensitive and gentle Gabrielle was and how about finding out what the scrolls were made of would upset her."
Hercules nodded his head. "Yeah, the candles flared up for a moment and then resumed their flickering."
Xena looking very thoughtful glanced at Gabrielle. "That must be when the creature awoke. When he heard that there was a gentle person inside the castle that he could terrorize."
Autolycus looking at Gabrielle, expected to see her become even more scared at hearing that the creature was after her particularly, was surprised when Gabrielle relaxed a little.
"Then the servants are safe? The creature is after only me?" Gabrielle asked.
"I wouldn't rely on that! Remember you told us that the scrolls said he turned on his own men when they were no more women and children to hurt. If it decides that you are too hard to get to, it might try one of the others in the castle." Xena said cautiously.
Gabrielle who had started to eat after hearing that everyone else was safe from the creature suddenly lost her appetite when she heard that the creature might very well attack someone else. Xena noticing reached over with one hand and started rubbing Gabrielle's neck gently. "Please eat Gabrielle. It is going to be a long night and you need food."
Gabrielle nodded at Xena and managed a weak smile. "Okay."
Autolycus watched Gabrielle eat for a moment in peace and then asked her, "Why do you think he took your clothes off upstairs rather than just carry you to the dungeon dressed?"
If looks could kill, the one Xena gave him would have made him one very dead 'King of Thieves'.
Gabrielle smiled slightly showing that the question did not bother her. "I have thought about that and I think it is because the creature feeds on fear and terror. He wanted me, if I should awake before we reached his dungeon, to awaken naked and afraid. I also think that he was hoping that anyone entering my room and finding my clothes ripped apart would be scared and worried."
In the candlelight, no one noticed a muscle twitch on Xena's jaw. Xena did not even want to think about what she would have felt or done if she had entered the room and found Gabrielle gone and her clothes ripped up on the floor.
Xena studying Gabrielle's profile reached over and touched her hand on the table. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine now Xena. The creature caught me off guard and that is not going to happen again. I know that I am safe with you by my side." Gabrielle said softly as she turned and looked deeply into Xena's eyes. After a long moment, Gabrielle glanced at the others at the table. "Along with Hercules, Iolaus, Autolycus and Salmoneus, of course." She added quickly, dropping her gaze back down to her plate on the table.
Xena's heart was racing. Just for a moment she could swear that she saw in Gabrielle's eyes the same desire in Gabrielle that Xena felt for her.
Xena's racing thoughts were interrupted as she heard Iolaus calling her name. "Xena I said do you think that this room would make a good place to keep the servants until morning? I was talking to Hercules and he thinks this is the perfect place to keep watch." Xena looked around and nodded her head.
"Yes this is as good a place as any. Only two doors to watch and if the creature attacks through one, we can use the other to get the servants to safety. There is a fire in here to keep everyone warm and as comfortable as possible." Xena looked over at Autolycus who having finished his meal was pouring himself a goblet of wine. "I want you to check the walls carefully for secret passages and if you find one, point it out to me and Hercules so we can keep an eye on it."
Salmoneus looked up as Cheara entered the room. "Are you all finished with your meal yet? The staff is done and they are waiting for your big announcement."
Salmoneus looked around and saw that everyone was finished with the exception of Gabrielle who had just picked up the last piece of nutbread and was nibbling on it.
"Yes Cheara, I have some unfortunate news and I think that now is the time when I have to tell you all." Salmoneus said with a sad frown.
Cheara looked curiously at him and then went to the doorway to the kitchen and called out to the rest of the staff to enter.
Xena watched as Cheara and the tall thin man who was obviously her husband named Melerin entered and made room for the others to come in. Next in was the servant named Tobas and he was followed by the young stable boy.
Salmoneus waited a moment and then frowned again when no one else entered. "Cheara, where is your daughter. Uhm Megan wasn't it?"
"Yes that's her name. She heard from Tobas how the young lady over there came in dirty and how Tobas fetched a bucket of hot water and some towels for her. She didn't want the young lady to have to return to a dirty room so she rushed upstairs to clean it before the young lady turned in for the night. She'll hear from me later your announcement."
The piece of nutbread fell from Gabrielle's nerveless fingers and hit her plate with a soft plop that could be heard in the suddenly very quiet room.
Gabrielle leapt to her feet and grabbed her staff. "I will go and get Megan, while Salmoneus explains what we're up against!" Gabrielle took two steps before she was stopped by Xena's hand on her shoulder. "We will go and get Megan!" Xena said.
Xena could feel Gabrielle's shoulder muscles quivering under her hand and could see how tightly Gabrielle gripped her staff. "She's scared to death!" Xena thought to herself but whether it was the thought of facing the creature again or that something might have happened to the young girl Megan, Xena couldn't tell.
Grabbing some candles to light their way and with a brief word to Iolaus to watch the corridor and allow no one else to follow them, they left. As they were leaving they could hear the nervous voice of Cheara asking Salmoneus what was going on.
Reaching the stairway Gabrielle started up ahead of Xena. "Gabrielle slow down! Don't rush into the dark without me!"
As Xena and Gabrielle burst into their room, they found that it was well lit by several candles and there was a scrub bucket sitting in the middle of the room but no sign of the young girl Megan. Gabrielle looking toward the mirror on the wall and saw that the secret passage was still open. "Gabrielle did you, Autolycus or Iolaus close the passage after you found it?" Xena asked Gabrielle quickly.
Gabrielle scrunched up her face as she tried to concentrate through the fear. "No! I don't think we did! I was too anxious to find you and Hercules to tell you what we found."
"Then maybe Megan saw it and decided to explore it on her own. The creature may not have found her yet." Xena said as she examined the dust on the floor of the secret passage.
"Find anything?" Gabrielle asked nervously.
"Here are the dragging footsteps of the creature but I think they are from when he grabbed you the first time. And here are Iolaus's footprints here at the doorway. Aha! Here we go!" Xena pointed out to Gabrielle a small boot print near the edge of the wall inside the passage. "Here is where she entered the passage and hugged the wall as she made her way down it."
"Then there is a real chance the creature hasn't found her yet!" Gabrielle breathed a sigh of relief.
"Maybe, but the longer she wanders around down there, the more chances are he will find her. We are going to have to go down and find her before he does and quietly! If the creature hears us calling her name, it will let him know that someone is down there and he knows these passages and we don't."
They made rapid progress with Xena's tracking skills, a scuff on the floor here, a blob of melted wax there. Gabrielle was beginning to feel optimistic about finding the girl before the creature that once was Annilus. That was until they came to an intersection and found the girl's candle laying on the ground and signs of there being a struggle. Even Gabrielle could read the signs that were in the dust of the hallway. The girl had come down the hallway she had been traveling in, hugging the wall closely and must of almost bumped into the creature as it waited in the gloom of the side passage.
Gabrielle said nothing; merely following as Xena lead the way, following the signs in the dust of the girl being dragged along the passage. The tracks lead to a blank wall at the end of a long hallway and showed that there must be a secret door somewhere in the wall. It was Gabrielle who finally found the catch for the door by looking up at the ceiling and noticing a dirty hand print. Using her staff she quickly pressed the catch and opened the door. Stepping through the secret door found Xena and Gabrielle in another short corridor that lead to a wooden door. As they made their way cautiously toward the door, Gabrielle's foot hit something on the floor and holding the candle closely to the floor she made out a broken human leg bone. Drawing Xena down to her height she whispered into her ear, "Xena that is the door to the dungeon, the place where that creature took me. There is the bone that I used to try and bar the door."
Xena nodded her head to show that she had heard and then put her finger to her lips signaling quiet. Creeping quietly to the door they could hear the sounds of a metal blade being sharpened and the whimpering of a very frightened young girl.
Xena fought the urge to whip the door open and charge in yelling her battle cry. Not knowing where the creature was in relation to the girl, it could cause the girl's instant death so she settled for slowly and quietly easing the door open.
Gabrielle, as she and Xena slipped into the room, noticed that the creature had crudely tied some torches to the bars of the jail cell causing more light for the jail but throwing the rest of the dungeon into further gloom. As Xena and Gabrielle inched their way through the darkness of the main dungeon toward the jail cell, Xena used the time to get her first good look at the foul abomination. It had removed its heavy cloak that it had been wearing and was now revealed as wearing clothing like Ares. Black leather pants and vest but while the God of War's leathers were always in perfect condition, the creature's looked like it had seen better days. Ripped, torn and filthy, it barely covered its grayish green body.
Hearing a whimper that sounded like it came from a beaten puppy, Xena tore her gaze off of the foul thing and looked at the young girl hanging from manacles on the wall of the jail cell only a few feet from where the creature stood hunched over a sharpening wheel, sharpening a long and wicked looking knife.
The girl had blond hair, loosely braided into a long braid that hung to her waist and looked to be only about 15. Xena was relieved to see that the creature had so far spared her the terror of having her clothes ripped off of her and so far the girl looked to be unharmed, at least physically. The girl's eyes were huge and round and she was staring at the creature the way a mouse would stare at hawk. She had reached a state of fear so deep, she could not bring herself to scream any more and the only sounds she could make was the occasional whimper.
Xena, positioning herself so she could have a clean throw with her chakram at the creature without hitting the girl, motioned for Gabrielle to open the cell door and distract the creature.
Suddenly the creature straightened up from the sharpening wheel and turned toward the girl with the knife in its hand. "Time to enjoy your beauty my little one, before I enjoy your taste!"
Gabrielle thinking quickly, reached out and eased the old cell door open quietly and then backing up into the shadows and putting her hand over her mouth she called out softly, "Xena, where are you? I'm lost in this maze down here!"
The creature hearing Gabrielle and thinking that the muffled quality of her voice meant she was off in the distance, turned away from the girl. "Oh the pretty one! Is always so much more enjoyable skinning a woman alive when there is another to watch the fun!" The creature took several steps toward the cell door before pulling up in a stop and raising his hand with the knife. "Thought I closed that door?" It hissed.
Xena stood up from where she had been crouching in the dark and stepping into the light, yelled, "Skin this you rotting bag of pus!", and threw her chakram with all her might.
The chakram screamed through the open cell door and into the jail cell and hit the creature's hand holding the knife, severing it instantly. It then hit the far cell wall and bouncing off into the jail cell bars, it then ricocheted back the way it had came, slicing into the creature's neck before returning to Xena's hand.
The creature's head lolled to the right to rest on its shoulder from it's severed neck.
A thick greenish yellow liquid bubbled up from the open wound on the creature's neck and Gabrielle fond herself praying to every God and Goddess that she could think of that this was the end of the creature.
Gabrielle could feel her eyes try to bug out of her head as black oily looking tendrils shot out through the greenish yellow liquid on the creature's neck and attaching to the head pulled it back into place.
The creature rotated its head side to side for a moment and then looking at Xena said mildly, "ouch." Reaching down with the stump of its arm, it pointed the arm at the severed hand lying on the floor. The same black tendrils shot out and attaching to the hand pulled it back on with a disgusting slurping noise. The creature held the hand up and wiggled the fingers at them. Gabrielle could see over the creature's shoulder as Megan finally pushed past the limit of her endurance, fainted from the sheer horror of it all.
A deep laugh rumbled out of the creature's chest. "You can't hurt me!" He laughed at Xena.
"Maybe she can't but I sure as Tartarus can!" Gabrielle yelled as she leapt into the jail cell. Swinging her staff with all the power that terror and anger could give her, she whacked the creature in the middle of its stomach. Even being an undead creature, the blow was so great that the creature doubled over. Gabrielle without pause then spun on her heel and whacked the creature in the butt. The creature now off balance anyway, stumbled across the cell and hitting the jail cell bars hard had its head forced through the bars and found itself stuck.
Gabrielle watched the creature struggling to pull his head back in, gripping her staff tightly. Xena had to call her name twice before Gabrielle was able to look away. Looking up she saw that Xena was over by the unconscious young girl hanging on the wall.
"Give me a hand Gabrielle! That creature won't stay stuck for long! There is no time to pick the locks. Just hold her away from the wall and I will break the chains with my sword." Xena said as she drew her sword.
Quickly breaking the chains that were holding the girl, Xena sheathed her sword and then took the girl from Gabrielle and then hoisted the girl to her shoulder.
"What about the creature?" Gabrielle asked her as they made their way out of the cell.
"There is nothing we can do to stop it here. We will have to figure out some way to destroy the obelisk." Xena told Gabrielle as she grabbed a torch on the way out.
At the mention of the obelisk the creature let out a roar of anger and Gabrielle could hear as the bones on the creature's skull cracked as it jerked its head back into the cell. Gabrielle slammed the door to the cell but finding no way to lock it, she turned and with Xena carrying the girl, they raced out of the dungeon.
Gabrielle raced ahead of Xena to open secret doors and led the way for the burdened warrior princess. Racing up some stairs she opened a door and found her and Xena in a torch lighted intersection. Slamming the door behind Xena, Gabrielle leaned on the door and tried to get her breath back. "How is Megan, Xena?" She managed to get out between rasping breaths.
Xena breathing deeply herself said, "She is still out cold."
Gabrielle settled for nodding her head to show that she had heard Xena and allowed her head to tiredly droop forward. This action left Gabrielle looking at the floor and she noticed the footprints of bare feet in the dust of the floor. Turning her head she looked to the left down the corridor and noticed that several yards further it vanished into the darkness. "Xena, I think this is the way I came when I jumped out of Ares painting!"
Xena started to answer her when the door Gabrielle was leaning on jumped suddenly with the impact of the creature on the other side. The action nearly threw Gabrielle to the floor but she quickly recovered and threw her weight on the door to keep it shut.
Xena quickly but carefully placed Megan on the floor and then turned back to face Gabrielle. "When I give you the word I want you to step back and whip the door open." Xena told her.
The door Gabrielle was holding shut shuddered under another impact from the creature and Gabrielle nodded.
"1,2,3, all right Gabrielle now!" Xena shouted
Gabrielle quickly stepped to the side and opened the door. The creature that had been running to throw himself against the door flew through the open doorway. Xena leapt straight up into the air and lashed out with her feet catching the creature right in the face. The creature flew back through the doorway and to Gabrielle's hearing, it sounded like he fell down the stairs as well. Gabrielle closed the door and looked over to see Xena picking up Megan again. "Lead the way Gabrielle." Xena said with mock casualness.
Xena was handing down the young girl Megan to Gabrielle from the opening in the meeting room when the creature's voice echoed coldy through the passage behind them. "You may be able to keep me away from your more emotional friends but can you stop me from going after your more stable friends?" No more words followed just the horrible cackling of the creature's laughing.
Xena looked over to see Gabrielle trembling. "Come on. Let's get this girl back to her parents."
As Xena and Gabrielle reached the hallway that lead to the dinning room, they could see at the end of the hall a nervous Autolycus waiting at the door at the end. They could see as he turned and called out to the room behind him. "They're back and they have the girl with them!"
Xena reaching the room handed the child over to her father, the tall thin man named Melerin. Seeing the look of terror on the man's face at the stillness of his child, she quickly assured him that she had just passed out from fear.
Gabrielle paused at the doorway beside Autolycus. She could see that Hercules had positioned himself as guard at the doorway that lead to the kitchen. Iolaus was moving over to help Melerin and Cheara with their awakening and frightened daughter and Salmoneus was sitting in a chair in the corner with his head in his hands. "Salmoneus, are you okay?" She called out.
As Salmoneus raised his head to look at Gabrielle, two things were immediately obvious. One: he had been crying and two: he had the makings of a perfect black eye.
"Did Cheara hit you?" Gabrielle asked looking over at the very large woman standing next to her husband who was gently trying to comfort their daughter.
It was Autolycus who answered her. "No, it was Melerin. Cheara was just for going back to the kitchen and getting a clever and chopping him into little bits. It took both Hercules and Iolaus to hold her back."
Xena walking back leaned against the wall and folded her arms. "Looks like that hurts." She said casually.
"Not nearly as much as I deserve." Salmoneus said sadly. "Every time I think there is some hope for me becoming a better person, I mess it up with greed and someone get's hurt."
Gabrielle, who was still mad at Salmoneus for putting her off when she wanted to tell the servants earlier, couldn't take the sad and despondent look on Salmoneus's face. Dropping to her knees beside Salmoneus's chair she patted him on the arm. "It's not your fault. The servants would have wanted to leave as soon as they heard about the creature and they would not have been able to get off this mountain at night. We will protect them until morning when they can leave safely."
Autolycus looking at Xena asked. "Where did you find the girl?"
"The creature had her in the dungeon. Gabrielle and I rescued her before it could do anything more than scare her real bad." Xena replied.
Autolycus nodded his head and then asked nervously, "and the creature?"
Xena sighed, "We left it behind in the maze of secret passages. It really can't be killed Autolycus. I cut its head off and it just put it back on and kept coming!"
Autolycus swallowed deeply and then said, "Okay! Then what do we do?"
"At first light, you are going to escort the servants and Salmoneus and Gabrielle out of here while I and Hercules try to destroy the black stone in the mystery room." Xena replied with steel in her voice.
Gabrielle leapt to her feet. "I am not going anywhere without you Xena! If you are going to face that thing then so am I!"
"We are not going to argue about this Gabrielle! It is going to be a long night so try and get some sleep. We will take turns keeping guard." Xena replied giving Gabrielle the 'look'.
It was obvious that arguing about it was exactly what Gabrielle had in mind when she was distracted by Salmoneus asking in a small voice. "What do you think the creature will do tonight?"
"He yelled at us that since we were going to protect the emotional ones in our group, he was going to go after the saner ones." Gabrielle answered him and then turned back to argue with Xena.
She stopped instantly when she saw the tension in Xena's face.
"What!" Gabrielle asked nervously.
"He didn't say the saner ones! He said the more stable ones!" Xena said in a shaky voice.
Iolaus who had wandered over said, 'it's the same thing. Isn't it?"
Iolaus looked at Gabrielle and saw that she had turned white as a sheet. "The stables! The creature is going after Argo!" Gabrielle cried.
Gabrielle quickly turned and raced over to where the stable boy was sitting near Melerin and Cheara watching them comfort their child. "How do we find the stables? She asked him dropping to her knees to be at his level.
"I would have to show you the way. It twists and turns through storage rooms and corridors to get there." The boy answered nervously.
Gabrielle glanced up to see that Xena had moved to stand besides the chair. "Out of the question! You are going to stay here where it's safe. How do you get to the stables from the outside?"
"Through a wooden door in the wall in the back of the castle, I haven't locked the door yet. I was going to do it when I went back to check on the horses after dinner and then this all happened." The boy answered looking up at Xena.
"Horses?" Gabrielle asked him.
Salmoneus walking up answered her. "I have a horse of my own that I used to haul supplies up here. What are you going to do when you get to the stables?"
"We are going to get the horses and bring them back here so we can watch over them." Xena answered him.
"Bring the horses inside?" Salmoneus asked her.
"Yeah! You got a problem with that?" Xena asked turning to him with a cold glare.
"Um, no! Sounds like a great plan!" Salmoneus answered backing up.
Xena turned and started out of the room and noticed that Gabrielle had leapt to her feet and was right at her side. Xena thought about telling Gabrielle to stay there but she knew she would just argue and she did not have the time to waste with Argo in danger and the truth was, Xena wanted Gabrielle by her side. When she was apart from Gabrielle all Xena could do was worry about the young woman's safety and there was no one Xena trusted in fight more than Gabrielle.
Reaching the front door and opening it wide they felt the icy blast of wind that was whipping through the valley.
"I wish I had thought of grabbing my cloak from the saddlebags in our room when I had the chance." Gabrielle muttered to herself as she followed Xena around the edge of the castle wall.
Finding the wooden door on the back side of the castle proved to be not very difficult at all with a full moon's light to guide them. Xena motioned Gabrielle to stay to the side and jerking on the door, opened it quick. Sticking her head inside quickly Xena took a quick look around. There were lighted lanterns hanging high from the ceiling over each of the stalls and Xena breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that the nearest stall to the door held a nervous looking Argo.
Xena motioned for Gabrielle to enter and they both made their way cautiously inside the stable.
Gabrielle as scared as she was, still noted with approval the layout of the interior of the stable. There was a large center path leading between the stalls, with stalls on either side. The stalls were low enough that the horses could look over the sides but high enough to keep them from leaping over them and each one was securely fastened with a wooden door. All in all, it was clean and airy. "Better than some taverns we have stayed in." Gabrielle said out loud.
Xena looking around could not help but smile and nod her head.
Rushing over to Argo's stall she patted Argo on her head as the horse whinnied a greeting.
"I wonder where the boy put Argo's saddle and bridle? I would like her ready to leave quickly." Xena said as she continued to pet Argo's side.
"You find Argo's saddle and bridle and I will go and get Salmoneus's horse." Gabrielle said as she made to search the other stalls.
"Gabrielle! Be careful! The creature may not be here yet but it maybe soon." Xena called after her.
Gabrielle with a serious look on her face nodded.
Gabrielle found that the stall doors were too high for her to look inside so she took to standing in the center of the aisle and pushing them open with her staff to look inside. She made her way half way down the large stable when she saw a horse's head peaking over one of the sides of a stall near the back. "Trust the horse to be in a stall in the back and not in the front of this stable." She thought to herself.
Making her way toward the horse, Gabrielle began talking in a voice meant to soothe the animal. She reached the door to the stall and then paused. The horse's head had not moved at all and she had not heard it make a single sound. She could see the eyes of the horse in the lantern light and she could swear that they had not even blinked. With a sinking feeling of dread, Gabrielle placed her staff on the stall's door and pushed.
The severed horse's head being jarred by the door's opening fell from where it had been wedged on the stall's side and fell to land in the opening of the stall with a wet splat. Gabrielle opened her mouth to scream but nothing came out, she was so horrified. Through the open stall door she could see that the poor animal had been hacked apart and various parts of its organs decorated the sides of the blood slicked stall.
Gabrielle whirled around to look behind her and pushed the door to the opposite stall open with her staff but when all it revealed was a plain clean stall she turned quickly to check the path through between the stalls. Finding nothing she turned back to face the stall where the horse's body lay. Taking a deep breath she tried once again to get her paralyzed throat muscles to work. "XENA! XENA!" She finally managed to scream.
Xena who had searched the entire front of the stables without finding Argo's bridle or saddle, heard Gabrielle's scream and raced back to find her standing at a open stall door. Reaching the stall, Xena felt her eye's widen in shock. Xena had been one of Greece's worst warlords and she had seen more battlefields than she wanted to admit. Horses got killed in battle as much as the men who rode them but even Xena had never seen such cruelty done to an innocent horse. "Gabrielle?" Xena asked her gently and touched her on the shoulder. As soon as Xena touched her, Gabrielle spun on her heels with her eyes wide open in terror and dropping her staff she grabbed hold of Xena in a fierce hug. "Xena, I really want to get out of here now!" Gabrielle sobbed into Xena's shoulder.
Xena looking over Gabrielle's shoulder could see that hanging on the far wall was Argo's bridle and sitting on a shelf below it was Argo's saddle.
"We are going to get out of here Gabrielle and go back to the others. I want you to go and wait with Argo. I see her saddle and I am going to get it." Xena whispered to her as she stroke Gabrielle's hair.
Gabrielle jerked back but still hung on to Xena's arm. "Leave the saddle! We can come back for it later!"
"I need that saddle Gabrielle. If something happens to me, I want you to take Argo and ride out of here but you are not an experienced enough rider to ride Argo without a saddle or bridle. I will be careful." Xena told Gabrielle gently.
Xena watched as Gabrielle nervously made her way back to the front where Argo waited. Xena waited until she saw Gabrielle enter the stall and heard Argo's greeting whinny, before she turned and made her way to Argo's saddle at the back of the stable.
Xena approached the shelf cautiously and using her sword she prodded the saddle gently, worried that the creature might have bobby trapped the saddle in some way.
As Gabrielle entered Argo's stall and Argo whinnied at her, Gabrielle broke down and crying she dropped her staff and rushed over and hugged the horse's neck. "Argo! Argo! I don't know what me and Xena would have done if that had been you!" She cried into Argo's mane.
Argo was not sure what was wrong with the chattering young woman who traveled with her and her mistress Xena but she could tell that she was upset.
"I want to get out of here!" Gabrielle continued to sob.
Argo thought to herself that that made two of them, Argo did not know what had happened to that horse that had been screaming a little while ago and then was silent all of sudden but she was sure that it could not have been good.
As Gabrielle kept sobbing and stroking Argo's neck, which Argo thought felt really good, Argo noticed that the door to the stall across from them was opening slowly. Argo perking up her ears and raising her head slightly watched as the creature eased the door open silently and started creeping toward Gabrielle's back. Argo whinnied at Gabrielle to let her know that someone was sneaking up on her but Gabrielle still lost in the memories of what had happened to that poor horse, did not notice.
The creature licked it lips and moved a little closer to the young blonde's back. He had wanted to take his time with this one and enjoy her screams of pain but he would settle for quickly cutting her throat. Looking down the path between the stalls, he saw that Xena was still examining the saddle carefully looking for traps. If he cut the pretty one's neck quickly enough maybe he could cut her head off and take it with him, the creature thought moving another step closer.
Argo now really worried for Gabrielle's safety, whinnied loudly and bucked a little in Gabrielle's arms. Gabrielle breaking free from her memories, dropped her hug and stepped a little away from Argo, bringing her even closer to the creature who was now completely in the stall with them. "Argo? What is it?" Gabrielle asked the horse.
Argo whinnied once real loudly and then reared back up on her hind legs. Gabrielle instinctively ducked under the horse's front legs and rolled under her. Argo lashed out with her front hooves and catching the creature by surprise, in the chest knocking him flying out of the stall.
Xena who had finally decided that the saddle and bridle were safe, was on her way with them when she heard Argo's warning whinny. Putting on a burst of speed she managed to get within several yards when she saw the creature coming flying out of Argo's stall backwards. Xena dropping the saddle reached the front stalls in just enough time to see the creature disappearing through a secret door in the stall opposite from Argo's.
Xena didn't even think twice about going after him. Not when she did not know what had happened to Gabrielle! So letting him get away she turned and rushed across the corridor to Argo's stall. "Gabrielle! Gabrielle! Where are you?" Xena screamed only to relax a little when she saw Gabrielle tear stained face peek up at her from under Argo. "Can we go now?" Gabrielle asked quietly.