A warrior's goodbye

By: Kristian Fischer

I saw her entering the camp just after sundown. She was walking stiffly, seemingly weighed down by a burden much heavier than the limp form she carried in her arms. As she passed by a flaming torch, I heard myself gasp. The torchlight was reflected on strawberry blonde hair. Our leader was coming back to us carrying the dead body of her best friend in her arms. Two of the men ran up to her, intending to relieve her of her burden, but as they came near, she… snarled at them. There's no other word for the inhuman sound she made, and it stopped them dead in their tracks. As they stepped back, she strode past them without even looking in their direction, her eyes firmly fixed ahead. As she passed me, I saw by the light of the torch I was holding that her ice-blue eyes were glazed over; it was as if she didn't even see the world around her, didn't see the faces of the men watching her with expressions of grief and shock on their faces. Without acknowledging anybody, Xena entered the tent she and Gabrielle had shared since the day our army had been assembled, and disappeared from our sight. Slowly, one by one, the men turned their attentions back to the fires they'd been gathered around. I did as well, but my mind was reeling from the shock. Xena and Gabrielle had left the camp two days earlier, to scout on the movements of the army of Atrejos, the powerful warlord that our allied force had been gathered to fight. Xena was the leader of the army, by request of the princes and lords that had provided the troops, but she had still gone out on a mission that would normally have fallen to the scouts of the army, taking her friend Gabrielle with her. It should have been an easy mission for two women of their skills and experience. Yet something had gone terribly, terribly wrong. I offered up a silent prayer for the soul of the gentle bard. Xena was our leader, respected, even revered by the troops, but she'd kept herself a bit distant from us normal soldiers. Gabrielle had been another story entirely: she'd always been among the campfires, telling her bard's tales, letting us bask in a bit of the light that she shone on everything she passed. She had been loved and now she was gone. My thoughts were interrupted by a hideous wail that tore through the evening air like a sword though linnen. It had come from our commander's tent, and was quickly followed by a string of screams, sobs and howls as our bereaved commander vented all her sorrow at the winds. Noone in the camp that night slept at all, I think. We were all torn by grief for Xena's loss, for our loss. As I sat at the fire, looking alternately at her tent and the silent faces of my friends, each deep in his own thoughts, I knew that tomorrow wouldn't be the day we had prepared for. The scouts had come in that afternoon, reporting that Atrejos's army was close by, and the confrontation would come in the morning. It would be a battle, yes, but now it would be personal as well.

The morning air was cold on my face as I stood in the battleline. To my left was Baschios of Corinth, his gnarled hands gripping his spear with determination. To my right was Klytides of Athens, his young eyes squinting at the early light. Klytides was no more than nineteen summers, but already old in the ways of war. We stood in the middle of our line, the heavy infantry, armoured and armed with long spears and swords. On our flanks stood our cavalry, Thessalian horse on the left, centaurs on the right. Behind us, lines of archers stood, among them a number of Amazon warriors. The Amazons, along with the centaurs, had come to the battle at the request of Gabrielle, or so the word was. It was said that the slender young bard was a queen of their realm. Or had been, I reminded myself, and felt a short stab in my heart. I looked to my right, and saw, some sixty feet away, our leader, mounted on her golden charger. She was wearing a black cloak trimmed with dark purple, colors I'd never seen her wearing before, and her naked sword was resting across the saddlehook in front of her. Her head was bowed, as if she was in deep thought, and under her raven tresses I could have sworn I saw her lips moving. Praying, perhaps, or saying her last goodbyes. I couldn't tell. She had come out of her tent before dawn this morning, looking pale, her eyes red from crying. I had been awake, by chance, and overheard her say the only words anyone heard her say that morning. They were directed at her second-in-command as he came running up to her, and what she said in a hoarse whisper was, "deploy the troops according to the plan". Simple and to the point. Ignoring her lieutenant's reply, she turned back around and reentered her tent. And now we were here. I tore my eyes off her, and turned my attention to what faced us maybe five hundred paces away, on a hill opposite our own. Atrejos's army was deployed in a formation identical to our own, except for one difference: there were three of them for every one of us. I thought back to a speech Xena'd given the day after she'd taken command of our army. She told us that we'd probably be outnumbered once the day of battle came, but that we'd fight better than Atrejos's men, because we had to. Because we were better soldiers than them. Because our cause, ridding the land of this threat, was just. Because it was the right thing to do. Granted, it wasn't much of a pep talk, but it worked anyway. Every soldier in the army was drawn to this tall, beautiful woman. Drawn to her whole way of being as she stood there on the dais that day. I knew that we wouldn't fail with her leading us. And now, there was yet another reason to prevail. The men in front of us had taken Gabrielle. Oh, Xena had very likely exacted her own immediate retribution on the murderers, and there were fewer enemies here this day for it, but… These men had taken Gabrielle's light from our midst, from the world, just as they'd torn it out of Xena's chest, and now they would be made to suffer for it.

So lost in my own thoughts was I, that I didn't notice the enemy army starting to move. Only when Klytides said, under his breath, "here they come", did I shake myself out of my reverie. And come they did. Surging across the field, foot soldiers and cavalry charged at us like a flood. I cast a glance around me, seeing my two friends and the other men in the line tense up. I looked on my commander as well, and saw that she'd raised her head to look upon our foes. Her face was a mask of steel, as hard as the blade she now raised above her head in a prearranged signal. As the enemy came closer and closer, I heard the rustling behind me of archers readying their weapons. Our foes came within bow range, and Xena let her sword drop. At the next instant, two hundred arrows sped high into the air, and slammed into the charging ranks. The massed volley wreaked havoc, as scores of enemy soldiers fell to the ground only to be trampled by those behind them. The next volley was more uneven, but just as destructive. Then the command came."Infantry ready!" We braced ourselves to receive the charge, as another volley of arrows passed over us. Then I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. Turning my head slightly, I saw a golden horse carrying a black-clad, raven-haired rider rear up, and then gallop forward straight at the charging enemy. "That's not part of the plan", I thought, as somebody started cheering. The cheer spread through the ranks, growing in strength until it was an all-consuming roar, and then we charged into the enemy. The two armies met with a crash louder than anything I'd ever heard, and the battle was joined in earnest.

The first one I killed that day was a big, swarthy man in studded leather armour. I don't even think he saw me coming as I impaled him on my spear. The barbed spearhead stuck in his body as he crashed to the ground, and I immediately dropped the weapon and drew my sword just in time to parry an overarm axe swing from an enemy soldier. We battled for I don't know how long, none of us able to find an opening, until a falling body crashed into my opponent, knocking him to his knees. I swiftly seized the opportunity, and stabbed him through the throat. He was quickly replaced by a spear-wielding comrade, as the battle surged around us.

I had felled four enemies when I saw her again. She was still on her horse, fighting against two armored, mounted opponents. Temporarily bereft of opponents of my own, I watched as she chopped the sword arm of one opponent clean off, and then, with apparent ease, disarmed her other foe. As her enemy's sword tumbled to the ground, she swung her blade again, and took the man's head off. Then she spurred her horse forward, directly towards Atrejos's standard, where the enemy warlord would be found. Then another enemy soldier charged at me, and my attention was wrenched away from my commander.

As the battle continued, I worked my way through the milling throng, on the way that Xena had taken. The Lord of Battles protected me well this day, and I hewed my way though enemy ranks that were beginning to falter under our furious onslaught. At one point, I saw Atrejos's standard fall, and my heart sang at the thought that Xena had slain the standard bearer and broken the banner over her knee. Others saw it too, and another cheer arose from tired throats, as our soldiers drove themselves deeper and deeper into the rapidly disintegrating enemy ranks.

The press of bodies around me slackened somewhat as I got closer to the hill, and an ice cold hand closed around my stomach as I realized that I couldn't see Xena anywhere even though there weren't enough obstructions in my way to prevent it. I drove my bloodsoaked sword into the gut of another enemy soldier almost absent-mindedly as I stumbled up the hill across ground churned to mud by the passage of hundreds of booted feet. The next thing I saw was the corpse of a golden warhorse lying on its side in the mud. Fighting a sudden and unexpected feeling of nausea at this unwelcome sight, I inched closer to the horse and saw that it had been pierced through the heart by a long black footman's lance. Gathering what strength I could for what I feared to find on the crest of the hill, I slowly walked further up the hill, stepping over and around dead bodies. I saw the black standard lying broken, on top of the dead standard bearer. I saw the men of Atrejos's bodyguard lying dead left and right, spread like toys dropped from the hands of a giant child. Then I saw the warlord himself, bereft of his high-crested black helmet, a deep sword wound piercing him through the heart, dead eyes staring up at the sky. And then…

I suppose I knew what I would find, but that didn't make it easier. She was lying on the ground, facedown, her body covered in blood. Her leather armor had been pierced in many places by spears and swords. She had found death fighting, her sword clasped firmly in her hand, lying in a circle of slain enemies. Stepping over her vanquished foes, I stood next to her prone form, not knowing whether to scream every breath of air from my body or just weep silently. Then I noticed something, and knelt down for a closer look. Her face was peaceful in death, not contorted in the pain that the many wounds had to have caused her. And she was smiling. A slight twist of her lips that had stayed on after death, maybe, but to me it was a smile. It took me a while to realize why she was smiling. She was with her friend now. With Gabrielle in the Elysian Fields. For ever…


AUTHOR'S NOTE: I guess I'm best at these shorter stories. Comments are, as always, welcome and can be sent here.

AUTHOR'S SECOND NOTE: This should rightfully have been in my two previous stories as well, but wasn't, and so this goes for them too. Xena and Gabrielle, and the world of Xena: Warrior Princess are the property of MCA/Universal and Renaissance Pictures. This little piece of fiction is merely meant as an homage to a great show, and not as any kind of copyright infringement.

AUTHOR'S FINAL NOTE: Hey, I get to write a thank-you note. That must mean I'm an established writer (GRIN). Hey, if that's true, where are all the fat pay checks? Oh well, back to being a poor student. Anyways, I just want to thank those of you who took the time to comment on my last two stories. Especially you, Emmie. Thanks.