Children of the Moon  

By Rocky Macelli

Chapter VII

Spiro and Eponin hadn't talked much on their trek back to the Amazon territories; walking in the quiet of the early morning, the only sound was of the birds in the trees and slight breeze that moved the very top branches above them.  The small man carried a homespun pack and knobbed walking stick that swung out with purpose gripped tight in a knotted fist.  They had no words to give one another.  Other than the fact that they had parented three children together, they were virtually strangers.  Eponin glanced down at the small man as he marched beside her.  Where once there had been a full head of black, glossy, curly hair was now a shining bald spot encircled by short, fuzzy, salt and pepper gray.  Deep lines radiated outward from his eyes from long days of squinting into the sun.  She supposed wryly that she wasn't the Amazon girl that he remembered either. 

A tell tale noise tickled at her awareness.  "We're being followed." She said in a voice low enough that only the farmer could hear.

"Where?"

"In the bush behind you, maybe 20 paces back."

"One of your people?"

Eponin smothered the urge to laugh.  "No, our territory doesn't start until the next rise and I'd skin any of my warriors if they made that much noise."

Spiro stopped and cocked his head to listen. "Are you sure?"

"Very.  I've been hearing them for most of the morning but I wasn't positive until now." 

"What do you want to do?"

Eponin shrugged, "Nothing for now.  Once we cross this ridge it won't matter anyway.  No one in their right mind would enter Amazon lands without an invitation."

Spiro glanced over his shoulder into the brush.  If there was anyone there, he couldn't see or hear them.  Then he looked ahead into the Arboreal Forest of the Amazon territories and up onto the ridge where the feathers of the first marker fluttered in the breeze.

The territorial scream of a hawk broke the air and the little farmer scanned the air above him.  It sounded so close; he should be able to see the bird. 

The tall Amazon chucked and slapped the man on the back.  Putting her thumb and finger in her mouth she whistled the call of the thrush.  "Come on," She said with a smile, "There's someone ahead waiting to meet you"

Estrian had been watching from the trees for most of the morning and her heart started to beat faster when she spotted her mother and the little man come over the rise.  Her eyes narrowed when further back behind them she spotted a flash in the brush.  Cupping her hands around her lips, she requested recognition.  Her mother would have her slicing tubers until the next full moon if she didn't stick to protocol even if she did know who was coming.

'The thrush, Hmm… Mom knows there's someone behind them.' The little scout thought to herself as she strung her bow--just in case. If it had been safe, she knew that she would have been answered by the piercing 'all clear' but instead, the thrush meant caution. 

Watching and waiting, the flash didn't happen again, and Estrian relaxed a bit when the pair moved past the second marker.  Then her heart started thrumming inside her chest even harder, as she realized that in moments she would finally get to meet her father.

The tall Amazon seemed to stop for no apparent reason.  She simply crossed her arms and leaned against the nearest tree.  Spiro frowned and looked about into the surrounding forest. When he looked back, standing beside Eponin, as if by magic, was a smaller, brown copy of herself.

Eponin wrapped one arm around her daughter and smiled softly at the farmer.  "Spiro, this is Estrian."  She stepped behind her daughter and put her hands on her shoulders, leaning down to the girl's ear.  "Little one…  This is your sire."

The scout was at a loss for words.  Her gaze swept up and down over the small man.  This was the first time she'd ever seen anyone who was the same shade of deep brown as her own.  Foreign emotions swarmed in her heart like a hive of bees.  Part of her wanted hide in her mother's arms like a little girl, yet another part wanted turn and run into the trees until she couldn't run any more.  One part of her even wanted to reach out and strike him for being so unlike everyone else and thereby leaving his mark on her.  Curiosity won out, all the questions that had burned at her since she decided she was 'different' gave her the courage to step forward and offer her hand in greeting.  "Hi."  She said shyly.

Unexpected tears moistened the corners of the farmer's eyes as he smiled and took the girl's arm in greeting.  He could see the uncanny resemblance Estrian had to her mother but he could also see his mother's eyes blinking there before him.  Emotion swept his voice away and he stood there mute, holding her slender arm, and drinking in the sight of his newly found daughter.  He grinned up at the taller Amazon.  "She's beautiful," he said finally finding his voice. Then his smile turned to the girl as he released her arm, "It is good to meet you, Estrian.  I hear that you have already made scout, I'm very impressed."

The girl's heart swelled with pride and she grinned and looked at her feet.  "Yes, I passed my trial last season."

"The whole tribe is very proud of Estrian."  The tall Amazon stated proudly.  She looked around the area concerned at the pervading quiet of the surrounding trees. "There's a hut just north of here, we should go there to continue this."  Turning without another word, she led the way further into the woods until they reached a huge ancient tree. 

Spiro was confused until he watched his daughter scamper up the side of the tree and was lost in the leafy branches in less time than it took to blink.  He drew closer to the massive trunk where close inspection revealed cleverly concealed hand and footholds carved into the rough surface.  He followed the young woman up into the foliage, with Eponin bringing up the rear.

High in the branches of the Grandmother oak a small hut was securely built into the limbs, almost seeming to be a part of the tree itself.  A set of bunks were built into one wall, and a small table with a couple of benches sat on the other side of the small space.  Spiro looked around impressed that something this large was not visible from the ground, but then he could expect no less from the ingenuity of the Amazons.

The threesome found themselves at a loss for conversation, once they had all sat down.  Spiro and Estrian sat across from each other, content for the moment to simply take in their strange familiarity.  Eponin suddenly felt at loose ends and rose, going back over to the doorway.  "When is the duty scout due back?" She asked her daughter.

Estrian shook her head a little, to break the moment and looked up.  "She's due back an hour after sunset."

The tall Amazon nodded.  "I heard someone in the brush when we left the river this morning and they followed us all the way up to the ridge.  I think I'll back track a bit and make certain that they weren't stupid enough to try to cross the border."  And then, with out another word, she dropped from sight.

Spiro could feel the girl's gaze as he turned back to the table.  "Is she always that short with her words?"  He asked, and then frowned, unsure how the Estrian might take the question.

The small Amazon only smiled, "Warriors are all like that, especially Mom." She replied in way of an explanation.  "You get so you understand what she means in between the words."

The farmer studied his clasped hands for a moment.  "Yes, I see how much she loves you."

There was a long space of moments where nothing was said; and the only sounds were the insects buzzing in the warm air, and the songs of the birds that hunted them.  Finally the girl gathered her courage and asked the question that had burned in her heart.  "Are there others?"

"Others?"

"People like us.  …Dark."  Estrian bravely reached out with one hand and traced the long muscle in the man's forearm, pleased that it matched her own.

Spiro smiled warmly and covered the small hand with his own larger callused one.  He looked up into her deep brown eyes and saw the loneliness he himself had felt when he had first come to this strange land as a young man.  "Yes Estrian, where I come from, everyone is as you say… 'Dark', although my oldest sister was closer to the coloring of your mother.  You see my grandfather, who gave me his name, was a traveler from far away. I sat at his knee listening to his tales of the lands across a great desert and an even greater sea.  He was very tall, almost a giant, and had eyes as blue as the sky.  When I grew to be a young man, I went in search of this land of giants with eyes the color of the sky."

The girl's eyes grew large, never had she thought about having kin of her sire.  "Then everyone…  your people, …they were all small like me?"

"Yes," Spiro threw back his head and laughed, "in fact you remind me of my mother, she was about your height …and you have her eyes." He added patting her hand before he released it.

"I haven't reached my sixteenth summer yet, so I hope to be taller."

This made Spiro laugh yet again.  "No doubt," he chuckled, "no doubt of that; your mother is very tall.  I'm certain you will be taller than me when you're done growing.  My oldest sister was the tallest person in our village, next to grandfather."

Estrian's smile shone with delight at this news.

Chapter VIII

Kinay was lost. 

He'd followed his Papa and the wild woman through the bush until they disappeared into a huge dense wood.  He had thought to circle around and catch them on the far side of the ridge but the unfamiliar forest played tricks on his memory and he soon lost his way.  Normally Kinay was a very good, or at least he thought so, woodsman and hunter; but it was as if the tall ancient trees were plotting to trick him. 

The young man had been walking in circles for most of the afternoon and finally sat down in disgust at the base of a tree.  He was angry.  Angry at the damn forest for twisting him around so that now he couldn't even find his way out.  Angry at the mysterious woman who had been able to get his father to leave the farm for the first time that he could remember, of course other than market day in the village.    

'Why had Papa left?'  He wondered, 'who was she that he would drop everything and go, especially without a word to him or his older brother?'  Mama knew, of that he was certain but she had dismissed his questions with, "Your Papa has his reasons." End of discussion, with no room for argument.

'Damn!'

He was angry …and hungry.  He was angry that he was hungry.  Thinking about the lunch in his pack still sitting on his cot where he had left it in his haste to follow Papa and the strange woman.  He picked up a small twig and began snapping it into small pieces, the popping noise from doing something destructive, soothing him somewhat.  So intent on reducing the wood to splinters, it was a moment or two before he noticed the horse.  '…Horse?'

She was a beautiful tall palomino, fully tacked out with an ornately tooled saddle and bridle.  The horse stood there looking at him for a moment, and then shook her head like she'd decided he was of no importance and lowered her head to crop at the green shoots between the roots of the trees.

Xena sat on a high branch watching the boy for some time.  Surprisingly, unlike so many others before him, he simply sat looking at Argo, rather than trying to catch her.  The warrior smiled, the mare loved to play this game, 'She must be as disappointed as I am.'  Usually the mare would wait until the would-be thief got on her back and then she'd take him for a merry ride before trotting back to Xena, where she would dump the rider at her feet. 'Oh well…'

The warrior used the distraction to work her way to the tree where the young man was sitting and dropped down silently behind him. 

Kinay was still puzzling at the appearance of the beautiful horse when she suddenly galloped away and he felt the pinch of cold metal at his neck.  His eyes wide, he slowly stood up.  His shirt scraped at the rough bark as he slid up the tree, his whole attention on the dagger at his throat and the icy blue of the eyes of the warrior that held it there.

"Drop your britches."

"W-w-what?" he stammered, color rising to his cheeks, not sure that he had heard the tall woman right.

The blade pressed in tighter under his ear.  "I said…  Drop your britches.  …Don't make me say it again."

The poor boy felt dizzy as he fumbled with the drawstrings on his pants.  All the horror stories of the man raping Amazons, he had giggled about with the other boys from the village, didn't seem so silly any more.  The homespun cloth barely slid to his knees, when his eyes rolled back and he fainted dead away.

"Hmph?"  Xena said out loud as she tucked the blade back in her boot.  She hadn't really expected this to happen.  The boy had keeled over face first into the dirt, his arse bare to the breeze.  No tattoo.  She rolled him over and frowned at what she found.  The young man was circumcised.  What the blue blazes was going on? 

She tugged his clothing back into place and whistled for Argo.

'Upside down?'  Kinay awoke to find himself tied across the back of the golden horse.  The jogging motion and the blood that had run to his head was starting to make him sick.  He craned his face out away from the belly of the horse and tried to look around.

Women.  Everywhere he looked… wild women.

They were all dressed like the woman that had been standing in the kitchen.  Something in the back of his mind, too faded to really remember, made this place of women vaguely familiar, that is, right side up of course.

 The boy was taken the center of the village, and none to gently, untied and pushed into a wooden cage.  He sat there quietly looking around with big eyes, until the Queen showed up to see what was going on.

"Xena have you gone mad?" Gabrielle asked when she saw the poor boy sitting in the cage.  "He's only a boy!"  The warrior leaned down whisper in her ear.  The small blonde woman frowned.  "…Are you sure?"

"Oh yeah, I'm sure.  He was good enough to pass out so I could make certain."  Xena replied.  "He hasn't got the tattoo, but he's been marked just like the other one.  Doesn't look like an assassin though.  I didn't find any weapons on him."

"Did you ask him?"

"Ask him?  …Ask him what?" 

Gabrielle put her hands on her hips and looked up at the taller woman.  "Did you ask him if he was an assassin?"

"Gabrielle… who, in their right mind, admits to being an assassin?" 

The Queen just made a noise of disgust and bent down to eye level with the boy in the cage.  "Um…  Hi.  My name's Gabrielle, what's yours?"  She asked softly.

Kinay rubbed at his nose trying to pretend that he wasn't about to cry.  He swallowed and found his voice.  "Kinay."

Sitting down in the grass beside the cage, the queen looked at the young man for a moment.  "Kinay, what were you doing on Amazon lands?  Didn't you see the markers?"

Hanging his head, the young man spoke in a shy voice.  "I thought the Amazons were just stories.  I saw the markers but I didn't know…" He trailed off and suddenly terrified about what was to become of him.

Ephiny came running, Solari hot on her heels, looking to find out what was going on.  Amazons parted before her allowing them to come to stand beside Xena.  "Where'd you find him?"  She asked the Warrior about the young man who was talking quietly with the Queen through the bars.

"Near the Southeast border, sitting under a tree."

The Regent merely nodded at the terse reply.  She was used to the 'brief and to the point' manner of the tall woman.  "He doesn't look like much.  We haven't had trouble from the Southern lands in almost twenty years.  You sure he's a threat?"

Gabrielle looked up scratching her jaw under her left ear.  "No he's not a threat.  He's a scared kid, who got lost looking for his father."  She got up and walked over to where the three women were standing.  "But he's also hiding something.  I'm sure that he's telling the truth, but when I asked about why his father would also be on Amazon lands he didn't have an answer.  I say that we find his father if he exists and get some answers."

Solari smiled and nodded, "Consider it done."  She said and took off at a run, calling for a few of the Guard to join her.

Chapter IX

Estrian stood beside her mother on a hill above the river and waved goodbye as Spiro turned and head back towards his home.  She felt bigger, richer for having spent the afternoon and evening with her father.  No longer feeling so much the outsider, she smiled up at her mother.  "Thank you."  She said, threw her arms around her in a tight hug.  "I love you Mom."

Eponin's heart glowed.  "I love you too, little one.  But we have to get going if we're going to make it back across the border before full dark.

The two Amazons turned without another word and broke into a ground-eating jog back North, and home.

The sun had long since slipped into the west before they reached the first marker.  But once they'd slipped into the familiar bosom of the Arboreal forest, it no longer mattered that there was only the filtered light of the moon.  Their trip to the patrol hut had been uneventful, so they were surprised to find several Amazons in a cold camp beneath its branches.

"Solari…  What in the name of the Goddess is going on here?"  Eponin asked with concern when she spotted the head of the Guard.

Solari stood and walked over to her friend.  "There's been several attempts on the Queen's life, that's why she's returned to the Nation.  Xena caught someone on this section of the border this afternoon.  When the Queen questioned him, he admitted that there might be another man somewhere in this part of the forest.  So far we've found nothing."

Eponin was shocked to hear of the attacks, but she didn't really want to go into why she and her daughter were here.  But she also didn't want to discount the person who'd been following them this morning.  "We've been in the area all day, I noticed someone was in the bush just outside the border but when I looked, I couldn't find anything.  That could have been the one that Xena caught."

Solari nodded in agreement.  "You're probably right.  In the morning, I'll leave some scouts to keep looking around and we'll report to the Queen." 

Later after Estrian had bedded down and was long asleep, Eponin walked over to where Solari was on watch.  "So…" Eponin asked with a grin, bending down to sit beside her friend, "did you manage to do that little favor for me?"

Solari's teeth flashed in the moonlight.  "Oh yeah…  You earned a heap of favor in the Queen's eyes last night."

The Tall Amazon rubbed her chin trying to look innocent.  "A heap huh…  How about Xena did she seem okay with my 'gift'?"

"She was…  she was--let me put it this way; she was very vocal about how much she enjoyed your gift to the Queen."  The Captain of the royal guard replied, nudging her friend in the ribs with her elbow.  "Although, Ephiny is a little choked that she has to wait longer for a new bed."

"Well your lady love won't have to wait too much longer, I think that Estrian will be a lot more settled now and I can spend a bit more time in the wood shop.  You can tell her that I'll have it done before the new moon."

"Thanks, she'll be glad to hear that, and personally I think I'll be just as 'vocal' as Xena at the prospect of a nice big bed in our hut.  It's embarrassing to fall off in the middle of things, if you know what I mean."

Eponin returned the elbow, and chuckled quietly.  "It's been a while, but yes, I remember."

"Geez Pony, sorry I didn't mean…"

"No that's okay Solari, I know what you meant and I'm glad for you and for Ephiny.  Just because I haven't found the right partner doesn't mean that it won't happen some day."

"You know, you could have your pick Pony."

The tall woman simply smiled at her friend.  "I'm tired of simply having my 'pick', old friend, I want someone to grow old with, and lately with Estrian being such a handful, that kind of courting hasn't been possible."

Solari looked over to where the girl lay sleeping.  "She seems her old bubbly self, what ever you two got up to down here must have helped."

Eponin suddenly looked pensive and lowered her voice.  "Sol, I took her meet her sire."

There was a long silence as Solari searched her friend's face in the dim light.  "Are you mad?  Pony, what were you thinking?"

"Wait Sol, it's not what you think.  I went and got him and brought him to her.  I also made sure that he knew he was not to talk about his…" A soft hooting in the distance broke the weapons master's train of thought, so she waited for her friend to cup her hands to her lips and respond to the other warrior on watch.  "…Um… his other children."

"You'd better hope that no one finds out. What will you do if Estrian says something?"

Eponin looked crossly at her friend. "She knows this is a private matter; I'm certain she won't say anything to anyone."

"People are bound to notice a difference in her attitude."  Solari countered.

Sighing with the heavy pressure of guilt, Eponin ran her hands through her hair and looked her friend straight in the eye.  "I had to do it Sol, she's all I have.  It was killing me to see her hurting like that and then when she took off after we fought, I was beside myself.  I would have defied the goddess herself to see her happy."

The underlying sadness touched the shorter Amazon's heart, and she realized that she wasn't saying anything that her friend hadn't considered many times already.  Solari wrapped an arm around Eponin's shoulders.  "Did you see…?"

"Yes," The word slid from Eponin's lips like a whimper, "I saw both of them."

"Oh Pony."  Solari turned and pulled her friend into a hug.  She hung on tight and let her weep away the tension and sorrow on her willing shoulder, rubbing her back in lieu of all the things she was forbidden to speak of.

The Sun was still pink in the sky when Solari, Eponin and Estrian arrived back at the Amazon village.  Very few of the early risers even noticed the trio as they passed into the center courtyard where the prisoner lay sleeping, on a blanket, on the floor of his cage.

Looking down at the sleeping boy, Eponin reached over and grabbed Solari's arm in shock, all the color draining her face.  "Oh, Goddess…  No!" She breathed, her voice barely a whisper. 

Then without explanation she turned and ran in the direction of the Queen's quarters.

Part 4

(c) 2002 S. Day

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