Chapter 13

Xena followed Chen's clear tracks down the path, running against time. When she came upon the place of the offense she barely paused to make sense of all the scuffing, then headed off the road, led by the hoof prints. Surprise was on her side. These men had attacked simple farmers. They wouldn't be expecting a full fledged warrior to be right at their tail.

Xena ran all day and all evening, stopping only for water whenever she heard its musical rhythm. Luckily, the men on horseback had ridden along a small stream that sometimes arched away, and sometimes cut across their path, forcing Xena to leap over it. It supplied her with occasional gulps of water.

It was well into the night when Xena finally caught up with them. They had slowed to a trot shortly after their attack, and had continued on until they reached a large camp right next to the persistent little stream. Xena surveyed the encampment from a thick tree. It was made up of about 100 tents, most of which could easily house five men each. There was one large one that probably served as the main quarters for their leader. She made a mental note of the horses tied to something in the darkness. Xena listened hard, but all she could hear were the shallow breaths of the camp's sleeping inhabitants. She also spotted a few look outs. Whoever had positioned them must have been an idiot. It would be easy to avoid them.

Xena needed to act quickly. The moon was only a quarter full, which would give her an advantage since she was able to fight blind, simply listening for her enemy's movements.

Quietly Xena descended from the tree, and proceeded slowly and with caution, approaching the horses. They stomped their feet and smelled their intruder, but allowed her to touch them without whinnying. She chose the flightiest of the bunch and dressed him in the tackle from a nearby tent and untied his reins to wrap them loosely around the makeshift rail. Then she approached each tent, listening to the sounds from within. When she came upon one that didn't betray a sound, she opened the flap slightly, then wider to let in the moonlight. She had found the supply tent. She rummaged as quietly as she could until she found a candle, and lit it. She had been in too much of a passionate rush to gather such things that she needed from the house before she left. She went from tent to tent with the candle without making a sound, looking in each one for Bao. Finally she found her in a pile of blankets on the floor of a purple tent that had been erected next to what she had guessed were the main quarters on the army's leader. In a flood of relief she quickly made for her, but stumbled as her foot caught on a soft sleeping form. Her bane leaped to its feet and drew a sword, knocking the candle out of her hand which rolled to a corner of the tent. Xena drew her own sword in one fluid movement. The flame from the candle grew slightly, silhouetting her adversary's face but undoubtedly lighting up her own.

"Mulan?" Came a tentative voice that cracked into cruel laughter. "Couldn't live without knowing how your child was? Couldn't sleep without wondering what awful things I was doing to her? How does it feel?" The man twirled his sword while a flutter of panic erupted in Xena's stomach.

"What did you do?" she growled, her voice lowered to almost mach the voice of the man.

"I'd rather die than satisfy your imagination!" he taunted, swinging his sword. Xena could only imagine the shock on his face when she raised her sword to stop his.

"You just might have to die, then." She growled. She advanced on him, meeting his blade, playing with him. Savagely, she savored his stunned silence, beating him backwards with the strength of her swings. The flame in the corner of the tent was growing.

"Who are you?" His quivering voice joined the clashing of their steel.

"I am your judgment and your executor." She said nastily. They had circled one another, and the light that fell on his face revealed the terror in this little man. She swung for his neck, and her blade forced his to scratch his skin as he barely had the strength to stop her.

"Guards!" He shouted, panic cracking his voice. Xena had let herself torment him, costing her a stealthy retreat. She should learn not to play with her food. She twirled her sword around his, disarming him, then ran him through with the long katanna. She heard a girl's scream and turned to see Bao shaking with sobs.

"Follow me!" She yelled. The fire had nearly surrounded them as the tent became hot with the yellow flames, but Bao did not move. Xena grabbed her roughly and lifted her over her shoulder, turning to the last intact wall. She slashed an escape through it and sheathed her bloody sword, hurdling herself out of her dying enemy's tomb. With Bao bouncing limply on her shoulder, Xena sprinted to her horse and unattached it from the rail. She lifted Bao bodily onto the saddle, then after scuffing out her tracks, flung herself up behind her. Hugging Bao's shaking body to her she galloped straight into the forest. She needed the army to believe the fire had been an accident and the absent horse a mistake in the knot. On she rode, not in the direction of Bao's home but to the west, a 90 degree shot from her true course. She pushed the horse until dawn, straining to hear any sounds of pursuit, but none came. Thank the gods. Thank Eli, she added as an afterthought.

Finally she slowed down and began meandering in the eventual direction of the Zhu household. If they did deem this horse worthy of being tracked down, she might as well make a good show of it. If things went according to her plan, this horse's flighty nature would be blamed for such a long run from the fire. Bao had cried the whole rest of the night, and Xena tried to console her quietly, unable to do much more than coo gently in her ear while the horse bounced smoothly beneath them. Her tears finally slowed and she fell asleep with exhaustion in Xena's arms as the first rays of sun peeked at them over the horizon.

Xena kept the horse at a trot the rest of the way back, anxious to get there but worried about the horse's health, having no source of water. After the thrill of the run had worn off it tried to fight her to go back to the camp, but soon gave up its will and obeyed Xena. She had always been a horse whisperer.

The sun was high in the sky when she finally returned to familiar surroundings. As the landmarks passed them by Xena's urgency slowed to a worry. She wasn't returning victorious. Bao's captor had eluded to have hurt her, and there was no way Xena could inspect her on the horse, and she wasn't about to wake her up for a talk. She wouldn't know what to say, and she couldn't slow down. Her grandparents were probably sick with worry.

But they didn't have much longer to wait. Xena was soon pulling up the reigns at Bao's front door, and Chen and Liang were running out for a tearful reunion. Bao was downcast and unresponsive. After her grandparents had held her close for several minutes Xena pulled her away.

"Are you ok?" She asked. Bao pushed her away violently.

"You killed him! She killed him!" She cried.

"What?" Xena asked, confused, then remembered. Killing had become so casual for her. "You mean the man that took you away?" Bao nodded.

"He was my daddy!" She wailed, throwing herself into Chen's arms. Xena was bewildered.

"Your father?" She said. She couldn't let this sink in. Pure instinct told her not to understand. But the truth came to her unwillingly. She turned to Chen, who looked just as shocked. Chen saw her confusion, shook herself, and explained, hesitantly.

"Mulan came to us in the dead of winter. She was huge, at least 6 months in, and in terrible health. We took her in and nursed her back to health. Junjie fell in love, and married her that spring. She had Bao, and he raised her as his own. She never spoke about her past, and we never asked her. This-"

"So it's true!" Bao cut across her, staring daggers at Xena through teary eyes. "You killed him! You took him away! My daddy, my-"

"No. Bao, he said he had hurt you! Well, I mean he alluded to it, he said-"

"I don't care what he said! Xena, he was my father!" Xena was taken back to when those same words were spoken about Gabrielle's child, and her heart hardened. She turned and mounted the horse. She had everything she owned, and all of it was hers, except her borrowed cloths.

"Thank you for your hospitality. I am sorry to have brought so much pain to your family." She spoke to them all in general, not looking at any of them.

"Xena, you returned Bao to us." Liang pleaded.

"Yet I caused even more pain by doing it. I have brought this family enough strife." She was turning the horse around. It must have sensed and sympathized with her pain, for it moved quickly to her touch. "It is time for me to go, this… horse is stolen property. It can't be found on your land." Her lame excuse for her escape echoed in her head as she dug her heels into the horse's flank and galloped away. Their indescript shouts of farewell or good riddance were lost to her. She could not hear above her own chaotic thoughts. She had been right to try to take Bao back to her family. But she was not prepared for the consequences. To have killed her father? She had taken away another one of her fathers. Xena knew she should have suspected a bigger picture. Why else would a group of men swooped out of nowhere to take away one little girl, leaving the other victim completely unharmed? In hindsight, it made absolutely no sense. She had been so eager to repay this family her debt that she had charged headlong into another debt, another loss that could never be repaid. She would go to the land of the Norsemen, and never return to the land of Chin. It had brought her too much heartache. She even wished she didn't look like a woman from Chin so that she wouldn't be reminded of her fatal mistakes every time she looked into a mirror. But that was something that couldn't be helped, the same way she could never take away her mistake. When had she become so indiscriminant with her deadly blade? When had taking a life satisfied such a craving for death? She was disgusted with herself. Who had she become without Gabrielle, without someone to guide her sword, without someone to keep her in check? She remembered all the times Gabrielle had pleaded with her to stop her bloodlust. Like the time she had tried to kill an archangel, and Gabrielle had pleaded with her, but to no avail. Eli had taken her power to kill gods as punishment as well as to stop her. She hadn't even listened to Gabrielle.

Eli. Could he undo the past? Maybe he could bring back Bao's father. He had brought her and Gabrielle back from the dead, but only because she was threatening to take over heaven with an army of demons. No, Eli was too selfish to want to raise some Chinese general from the dead.

Suddenly, Xena was blinded by a great golden light that seared through the eyelids she quickly snapped shut. Nothing happened, but the light glared on. Finally she opened her eyes, to see Eli standing on the road before her, smiling at her. Her horse seemed undisturbed, though he had stopped.

"Of course I care enough to bring other people back from the dead." He said. Xena stared impassively at him. Although she hadn't expected him at that moment, she had known he would pursue her once more. He had given her new life through forgiveness, and she hadn't given him a thought. She tried not to show her surprise.

When Xena didn't answer, Eli continued. "I don't, however, plan on bringing Bao's biological father back to life. He was a ruthless warlord, and would have exposed Bao to things a child should never see." Xena knew that line all too well. Her heart yearned for Solin, her little boy in the Elysian Fields, who she hadn't seen in over 400 years. Eli must have felt her heart's desire, for he smiled again.

"Solin is fine, he's with me now. When all the Greek gods died, the souls in their afterlife were released, and placed in another cycle of life. He became a great scholar for the faith of the One God. He's in heaven." Xena couldn't help but look relieved, though she kept her guard up. She wasn't about to let him claim possession of her soul.

Knowing her thoughts, Eli said, "Xena, I'm not here to force you into anything… well, actually I am." He looked a little guilty. "But I'm not going to take your soul. You need me, we both know that, but I'm not going to force you to take me. That's not what I want."

"Then what do you want?" Xena was getting tired of his cryptic talk.

"Besides your willing love? I want you to go back to the Zhu family."

"That's just not going to happen, Eli" She said aggressively. She had been mortified enough, not to mention the harm she had done to Bao.

"Xena, this is part of my plan for you. You did no wrong by killing that warlord, and it was Junjie's time to go. You have nothing to be ashamed of with that family. I'm not saying you don't owe them, Xena, you do… That army is not going to track down that horse!" He said quickly, seeing her face, "But there is something more I want you to do for them. Go back."

"No." Xena said flatly. There was no way she was going to face Bao's teary accusations once more. She couldn't bear to hear that child's uncharacteristic shouts.

"Yes." Eli said firmly. "That is my body you inhabit, Xena, and I will not let up on it until you fulfill your destiny."

"You mean your destiny?" Xena challenged him, "Do your worst."

Eli looked at her sadly. "I will." he said simply. And he disappeared.