Part IV

Once in raising sun lands, we were all business. The morning after getting to port, Ares was already on his way to the north. That same morning Xena and I ride to Higuchi, Kenji would follow us the next day – he was to look for more allies on the east.

It was a strange thing, travelling only with Xena again quieter than I remembered. My days of endless chatter were long gone. My younger self would have had never imagined how much I had learned to enjoy the silence.

Riding by the coast was wonderful, we were only a day's ride from our destination, but Xena stomach had not settled yet and we agreed would take it easy - a leisure pace before all hell broke loose.

I watched her closely, her hand going to her belly every now and then. She was afraid. I could tell. A rare sight for the mighty princess.

At midday, we rested near a little stream. Eat some rice we had taken with us from port. We joke a bit about the new things I could write about in my scrolls and how her belly would grow just in a few months.

Last time she had been adamant to continue using her battle dress until the last possible moment. Today, she had surprised me saying that she would try to get something made here to protect herself better from the weather and the fighting.

While she rested near the brook I took a look around, I saw that even the birds were different; so beautiful, and so foreign. The scenery was like a fairy-tale. It was so different to the dread Ares had made me feel that morning.

[Flashback]

"Take care of yourself, ok?" Ares told her rubbing her fingers interwoven in his.

"Always do" she replied gently, but I saw the nervousness in his eyes. He didn't want to leave her. He was physically aching to stay. He kissed her like it was the last kiss they ever shared and few moments later he let her go to arranged fresh horses for us with a merchant. I turned to leave to get us some food, but his hand stopped me.

When I turned to see him, he regarded me quizzically for a second. "Gabrielle, make sure she stays put", he told me and waiting for my acknowledgement I nodded.

"You need to look after her". He pressured on, I tried to protest that he didn't need to tell me that, but my words died on my lips at the sight of him. He didn't let me breathed one word, looking nervously to where Xena had gone, he continued.

"No, listen well. Xena will try to release the souls and she will get herself killed in the process", he said rashly.

"She is a big girl, she can take her of herself" I replied angrily - suddenly he was thinking so little of her.

"No, dammit! I don't have time to explain", his hand going to the hilt of his sword. "We've study the plans, all the angles, the only way to beat that army is with a larger one, one that even if I were a god, could not make be here on time", he paused and I open my mouth in vain.

"She will try to lure them out on the open, she will tell you to go with the generals to the west part of battlefield. She will tell you that she has a plan, a diversion for you to pass and that will be true…" He paused looking even more intensely my way. "But the only diversion she may pull off… she'll go one against a thousand – knowing she can't win." His voiced wasn't controlled anymore. "She will become a spirit to be able to go after the soul-eater – there will be no going back… no matter what she thinks", the dread in his voice went directly to my bones.

When had they talked about this? I asked myself. Xena will never do that. I paused and voiced my thoughts.

"She won't do anything that endangers the baby, this is her last chance Ares, she will not…" I tried to reason his madness.

"Gabrielle, don't be naïve, she will sacrifice herself, and she'll be dead in a fortnight if you don't stop her". He said harshly.

"What do you want me to do? Knock her out? Tide her to a pole? Drug her?" I flippantly replied.

"Yes", he said dead serious.

I looked at him outrageously. He gave me a pouch of herbs. "Put this in her water before the battle, make sure she drinks it".

"What is this?" I took the pouch as it was the cure of all poisons.

"It will make her sleep enough time to miss her queue of self-stupidity"

I eyed him warily, but nodded nor after voicing my ringing question. "How do you know she will do that?" I asked when he started moving his horse.

He smirked my way. "I know her far better than you or she will ever care to admit Gabrielle… She is mine", he said proud and patronizingly. And then, the dread was back in his voice – he whispered, "I was a god – I know a few things".

I regard him for a second, feeling aggravated by his comments. But not for the first time I looked at him seeing what he had given up for her.

After, he just moved his horse away and looking on the direction my friend was. "Please Gabrielle... don't let her out of your sight". He said in urgency.

"I won't", I replied quickly.

Looking into his eyes, I couldn't shake off the feeling that something big was coming.

"Aphrodite" I heard him called his sister from a few paces. A few seconds after, Aphrodite was hugging him dearly. "I didn't know where you were bro, don't do that again!"

"Aphrodite" he said again disentangling from her. She winked at me, and I smiled back. "I need you to do me a favor", I heard him say to her and they vanished and that is the last I see of him.

I had never heard him pleading before that day. It did make me fear what we were getting ourselves into. I shook my head and went for the rice and the provisions for our journey.

[End of flashback]

"We should continue, I want to get there before nightfall." She told me taking me out of my musings.

After what seems to be an eternity I nodded and helped her pick-up the few things we have taken with us.

Xena had been up since dawn going over maps and plans with the generals of the army we were supposed to help. I run to meet her in the general's tent.

His words running in my ears every time Xena was out of my sight, every time she was not in my immediate periphery. I feel dread every second of it. I am not afraid of him I tell myself, but truth is, I don't want to see what he is truly capable of doing if she was to die for good.

XXX

Xena taught me two days after how to listen beyond sounds. She also taught me how to use the infamous pinch. I dread Ares words ringing in my ears while Xena was telling me she would be happy to die looking into my eyes, telling me how I was the purest thing in her life. I dread his words because at this very moment they rang true. She was thinking about getting herself killed.

After we cried and hugged, she went to scout outside from our camp. It made me sick in my stomach being away from her, but I let her go. I thought to myself that what I was going to do was betrayal.

I was plotting against her, I was plotting with Ares against her.

I felt awful, but I want her alive, I shook my head and went to sleep when she came back. Relief in my sleepless face. She hugged me again. That night I saw her crying again. Silently, she cried herself to sleep holding her non-existent belly. And I knew without the shadow of a doubt that Ares had been right.

XXX

The next dawn, I got both of us breakfast while she went over the plans with the generals one more time, I brought her tea and for a second she eyed me warily when she took it to her mouth, but she drank it nonetheless.

She fell to the ground minutes after. I felt ashamed of what I was doing while I was dragging her to our tent, it was still dark. Placing her on the bed, I chained her to the pole behind it and did a double take of her prone body while kissing her forehead. It was the right thing to do, "Gods, forgive me but I won't let you do it", I whispered.

I went to the generals and told them Xena was already gone. We would follow her plan. We will attack when they reach the valley below us. But I needed to have them lure there first, so I did one thing that until that moment did not felt capable of doing.

I started a fire, I burnt the forest to the ground – thousands and thousands of kilometers from where the scouts had said the enemies camp was and the upper side of the valley. They will be force to go through the mountain passage if they wanted to get to the city – levering up our chances, delaying their force. I pray to all the gods that it would be enough. But more than that, I pray for the wind not being strong enough to let the fire go over the city a second time. The greater good to be damn. Not for the first time I put her above any and all my convictions.

I was on my way to the generals, my hands and arms tainted black, when I saw Aphrodite.

"Hey sweet pea, I'll take Xena out of here, ok? Bro told me… those chains will do nothing once she is up", and I nodded with a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes, very much grateful for her help and she disappeared as fast as she had appeared taking my friend with her.

XXX

Ares was supposed to arrive two days later when the battle was on its peak, if he had been lucky and his warlord had actually follow him into battle. We would lose a great number of soldiers before that, we just needed to hold on until the reinforcements arrived. I did not doubt he could be manipulative enough to lure a warlord into a bloody battle, he was Ares; war had been his business after all.

True to his word, Ares arrived the morning of the second day, I heard the voices of awe of the soldiers before I saw him. Damn, he truly was magnificent.

Once he had gotten used to being mortal, I saw how his skills had improved, he wasn't slow anymore. He fought like Xena. Or it was that Xena fought like him? Never had I been so happy to see him in my life.

When I approached him, we continued fighting back to back, he was grinning. Full in battle mode - in his element - I caught myself grinning back to him. He had a dried long cut on her upper shoulder.

"Had a rough welcome party?" I asked over the noises of clashing metal.

"He didn't feel like sharing his toys..." he replied while gutting the fool that had approached him with a maze. "… I made him an offer he could not refused". I laughed. We continued fighting, no other words said.

With the push of Ares' army, we made them retread to the west once again, the enemy discarded everywhere and with no leaders anymore. I had taken the last of them, while Ares slayed his last top ranked.

Kenji had asked where Xena was when we returned to camp base. The fool dare said that she had chicken out, that she had no honor. Needlessly to say, Ares punch him to a pulp.

XXX

That day I felt with Ares the comradery I had only felt with Xena. It felt good. But it was short-lived it. Aphrodite resiliently brought Xena back that night. Oh gods, how furious she was.

"Sorry bro, she threaten to burn my hair..." And with that Aphrodite was gone, I did see Ares smiling at her.

"Xena…" I started.

"From him" – she started point a finger to Ares "I am not surprise, I expected nothing less…" She said harshly. Ares for his part did not said anything, he just looked at her challenging.

"I..." I began. She cut me off again.

"I don't need anyone fighting my battles!" she shouted. "I should have been out there." She stomped the length of our tent.

"Don't be so hard on blondie - My plan, my sister, my rules" Ares began taking himself of the central pole. "You had spent years fooling my plans; for once the joke is on you".

"This is not a joke Ares!" She came for him like a bull – eyes red, holding back tears. "This is not one of your little plots in your little box of warriors! - there are forty thousand souls tramp because of me and I will free them".

He continued walking leisurely her way, "Before you start ranting and calling us betrayers or whatever you see fit in that head of yours. I am going to tell you one thing and one thing only Xena", he towered over her, it did felt right for him to be furious as well. I was. "When we embarked in this crazy atonement ride we agreed that we would do it together. Where is that togetherness in your little plan of going kamikaze-like?"

"It wasn't your choice to make!" he heard her say.

Needlessly to say, she was beyond furious and I could bet he saw red as well.

Taking the last step on her direction he added more seriously, "Sorry my dear, but I have held you dead body more times than anyone should, I just don't want to make a habit out of it."

She opened her mouth to protest, but he continued charging again. This time his face right into hers. "You do realize that it wasn't only your life you were putting on the line, right?" he said it in such vile tone that it gave me the shivers.

For her part, I did see a flicker of regret in her eyes, and just like that she just stormed off, more agitated that I have seen her in years. This time I followed her.