General Disclaimer: Xena, Argo, Borias and other X:WP characters belong to Studios USA/Renaissance. This story is for fun only, no copyright infringement was intended.

EXTREME VIOLENCE WARNING: More people come out of this story dead than alive. This is a vicious story. It is my take on Evil Xena, what she could have been like, the things she and others in her world might have done. If blood, fighting, rape, torture or foul language displeases you in any way please read elsewhere. You should be over 18 to read this story.

Subtext: This is set Pre-Gabby. If you have no problem with all the violence but don't like subtext, venture forth, this story is safe for you. (Hey, that sounds like television...)

Note: The name Gentari is pronounced with a soft "G" as in "Jentari".

This story is for Susan, a real life Daria, just because she shares the same warped and twisted zeal for evil Xena as I do.

To Catch A Warrior Princess

By Poto

The barest glimpses of light from an overhead window were strangled by the dankness as they struggled into the cell. Four brick walls were thick with the accumulated grime of decades.

A dark, dishevelled woman sat, barely clothed and shoulders hunched. Behind her back she twisted and picked at the cords that bound her wrists. Steel blue eyes peered numbly into the darkness.

The smell she could deal with. Same with the damp. She'd kept her enemies in much worse. The absence of light and the thick muck on the walls and floor were almost bearable, and the rats... they kept to themselves. The rodents had realised that their lives were likely to be inconvenienced by getting too close. It wasn't really worth the effort. Two perished creatures lay crumpled, twisted, on the floor at the woman's feet, warnings to others who dared to follow in their comrade's footsteps.

A voice snaked insidiously into the cell from outside the bars. "I wouldn't worry too much about those cords if I was you, Warrior Princess. Gentari tied those ropes himself. You won't be having the use of those pretty hands for a while."

A gnarled hand touched the steel bars and Xena stared hard at the owner. The guard had little hair, less teeth and body odour that made her flinch even from her perch across the empty cell. If she was worried by the man's words or presence she didn't show it, content to keep working patiently at the strains of her bonds, knowing soon...soon...they would give...and the God of War himself be merciful to the guard once her hands were free.

"I heard that the mighty Xena couldn't be captured!" His toothless grin spread revoltingly wide. "I heard that she'd rather die." The man spat idly onto the dungeon floor, and Xena watched the spittle as it dripped slowly between the cracks in the stone. "And yet here...you...are. This is more than any man could have hoped for in his lifetime, to guard the cell of the Destroyer of Nations..."

The man prattled on, but she didn't hear anymore. She'd developed an useful ability to disregard the things that irritated, from the guard's misguided bravado right down to the sweaty itch forming between her breasts as the heavy air and humidity of the room began to stick uncomfortably to her skin.

She could even smile knowingly, planning the fate of the fat, revolting man before her. Switching something off in her mind, making him less than human, moved him one step closer to deletion.

She moved her wrists to get another angle on the ropes, her fingernails rubbing quickly across the thick cords. Her skin smarted, rubbed raw by the effort.

Anxious to move, Xena kept her composure by concentrating on the implements in her cell. A chamber pot lay in the furthest corner from her. In order to use it she had to squat uncomfortably without the use of her hands, in full view of the leering parasite outside. Rather than give him the satisfaction, Xena held onto her need, dismissing the painful sensation of the pressure against her bowels. She felt the first of many threads give under the ministrations of her insistent fingers. An eyebrow raised, betraying hope. The guard didn't notice her reaction, the darkness offering her protection even as it choked her.

She practiced a useful technique, to keep her mind off the cage she sat in. She went over, step by step, that last battle. Learning, feeling her way through a catalogue of errors that had led to her capture. Mistakes never to be made again, men never to be trusted again. Some already dead by her hand.

A traitor.

"Cut off his ears! That way he can't hear anything more to take back to Gentari!"

Fists flashing, Xena dealt the man at her feet a punishing blow to his face, watching in satisfaction as his nose splintered and crumbled underneath her blow. Blood streamed and spurted, splashing onto the thick cloak the warrior wore over her black, spidery armour. Her hand tingled from the impact.

"Darien, what's Gentari's position?"

"Two leagues south of the village pass, heading up the main road. The second division is in the hills, the scouts reported an hour ago. He looks like he's trying to flank us."

"Well, you can't catch a fly in a mousetrap Darien, we'll just have to be small and cunning enough to slip away."

"You mean run?" Darien squinted miserably from under his helmet.

"Did I say run?" Eyes flashed fire as she twirled and faced her men. "I meant fight. But we need to fight smarter than he does." She paused for effect, the confidence of her voice sinking into the hearts of her men. Their breastplates rose and fell, covering chests heaving with the adrenaline of battle.

"Send the scouts into the hills up to that rock wall we spotted on the way in. It shouldn't take much force to get those boulders to fall over onto the road, he'll have to take his cavalry around the village to the North." Xena pointed to various spots on a large map unrolled onto the tabletop in front of her. "We'll set up defences here, here and here, that'll give the main force enough of a hole to slip right through." Xena's eyes glinted dangerously. "And then, Darien, we take the cheese. I want Gentari. No one gets to one of my men and lives to say they got the better of me. No one."

"Where did you learn that strategy?" Darien asked keenly, his eyes and ears peeled to every breath his commander took. Xena stared up at him, an angry smile forming from her beautifully cruel lips.

"Escaping the mousetrap? Oh, something I once cooked up with an old friend in an emergency worse than this. Borias would be glad to see some old tricks being put to good use."

Xena winced as the rope cut into her already flayed skin. She pictured Darien's face as it shattered under her hands, eyeballs gouged roughly from their sockets, a jagged knife blade torn from the still bleeding flesh.

As she saw the sword light flashing from the trees it took less than a minute for her to call her horse, and have Argo carry her up the ragged hillside. There was the code, four flashes, a break, two more. The traitor had run straight to the rendezvous point, and it could only be one man.

Surprised into submission, he shrieked in terror as a crunching blow knocked him from the rock ledge. Xena heard his miserable howling without emotion, screams for mercy from his former commander.

"Like I said to you Darien, no man betrays me and lives." Xena whispered, menacingly, her hands first flipping and then clenching the hilt of the lethal blade.

The man heard two more sounds in his life, the whooshing of the sword as it fell and the horror of his own screams as they echoed, drifting off into the surrounding canyon.

One more strand popped from the rope. A satisfying memory of blood revenge seared in her head and she shook a little from her lethargy. As the rope snapped piece by piece she knew she had to move her fingers more, had to gain back the feeling in her hands, enough to hold whatever weapon was on the guard as he came to inspect the cage. She knew she had no way of knowing how many guards were posted in the stairwell. Not that it mattered, but even a little preparation was better than none.

Gentari wouldn't be far away, gloating over his prize catch and arranging whatever profit could be made from the intelligent disposal of her remains.

It was what she would do.

"Change the plans. Call back the scouts! We have to move out, now!"

"But Xena, the scouts left as soon as you gave the order, they're probably halfway to the rock wall by now."

"Then there's nothing I can do for them. We have to ride out towards the village. Gentari knows exactly where we are."

Questioning eyes were answered with an unfathomable glare.

"I took care of the traitor myself."

The soldier nodded swiftly and moved out, organising men and equipment as he went. Xena glanced around her, inspecting every asset she had at her disposal for whatever plan she might have to invent in a hurry. She hated to fall back without some kind of clear idea of her destination, but she knew that if she didn't move out now...

She had other things in mind for her death.

"Bath time, Xena." The guard sneered lustily, moving towards her carrying two large buckets of water. She let out an involuntary gasp as the first wave of water hit her, just a degree or two above freezing. The second bucket was received without shock, but the temperature chilled her veins, just as the heat of her anger flushed her glistening skin. Shaking the water viciously from her eyes, wasps of her long, dark hair clung to her face and neck. The guard's eyes roamed gloriously over her firm flesh, now sodden and clad with wet leathers, sticking luxuriously to the tanned body.

"I must admit, Gentari's policy of keeping his prisoners wet and miserable is certainly...entertaining." Lascivious smiles dropped on the bound warrior like heated knives, each glance along her exposed skin pricking her senses into calm rage. One more thread on the rope snapped reluctantly. The bonds now moved freely around her wrists.

"Use whatever you have to in the village to set up a siege wall on the southern side, the rest of the walls should hold by themselves. Move!" Xena shouted to the grumbling men. Trapped in a corner, she was struggling to come up with a way out. A protracted siege was only going to get them all killed, picked off one by one by archers or slowly starved to death as her mousetrap disintegrated into a cage around her.

She oversaw sandbags lifted wearily onto badly fortified walls. Inspecting one section disgustedly she saw the broken stone, beaten by a hammer to a state where it crumbled under her fingertips.

Danger pricked almost lovingly at her senses. She stopped and turned slowly around, the morale of the men dropping by degrees. They'd made it to the village easily. Too easily. NO patrols within leagues of their position.

"You're out there somewhere Gentari, I can smell ya." She whispered softly to herself. Snapping her head around she spotted more men loitering near the walls.

"Get back to work. Do you wanna die in this miserable little town?" The men quaked and did as they were told, the steady rhythm of obeying orders keeping them from outright panic.

A makeshift corral of horses sniffed the air in alarm. Xena listened carefully, but could hear nothing but the clanging and bustle of the soldiers fortifying the village. Waylaying a passing man she grabbed the front of his tunic roughly.

"You came from the south wall? You see anything?" The man shook his head nervously, and Xena dropped him to the ground impatiently. It wasn't good for any of the men to see her lose her cool.

Through it all, she of all people had to stay perfectly, unbendingly calm.

The ropes slid over her fingers, the warrior resisting the urge to immediately rub her wrists and scratch the places that desperately needed the attention. When she moved, it had to be swift. The guard could move away from the bars faster than she could get to them.

Her mask of nothingness remained perfectly intact, the warrior showing no outward signs that the guard was wise enough to detect. He roamed the outside of the cell, peering occasionally closer through the bars, his tongue hanging, perverted, from his foul lips.

And this will teach Gentari to have one stupid guard and a rope on the Destroyer of Nations, she thought, blood boiling in her veins.

The guard's throat was slit and dripping blood with his own knife before he had the chance to draw a breath. Snatching the keys from his belt the dark woman unlocked the cell, careful not to scrape the floor with the rusty barred door. She glided noiselessly over the stones, water flinging from her tattered leathers, leaving puddles of red stained drippings in her deadly wake.

Voices on the stair warned her of three more guards. She crouched, ready to spring.

"You checked everything Xena, the walls, the houses, the wine cellars - even the town dungeons... you had no idea where I would strike. I hope you don't mind if I call that a score."

"Keeping count are we?" Xena spat, her hands bound viciously behind her back, doubled in pain from a swift kick delivered by a young captain. Xena merely smiled up at him, humourless eyes boring into the man's brain. "He dies first, you die next."

"You always were one for insolence, Xena. No wonder Borias had to employ harsher measures to remind you to keep your place." Gentari leant down and planted a long, sweaty kiss on the warrior's lips, making her spit in revulsion.

"A kiss?I heard this Captain here was more to your taste, Gentari." Xena smirked at him, her face a mask of defiance.

A hand slapped sharply across her face, Gentari looking down at her struggling form with genuine amusement.

"Tell me Xena, are the stories true? Did Caesar really break both your legs, or is it just another part of the Warrior Princess legend?" Gentari paced leisurely in front of Xena's prostrate form, the warrior woman suffering yet another kick to her ribs by the guard. "No, don't tell me, you'll just ruin my image of you if it's not true. I'd like to leave you larger than life, even while I'm watching you having your insides sliced open."

"Then do it, you miserable, scum sucking, son of a whore! Finish it off! What are you waiting for?"

Gentari approached Xena, slowly, sensuously placing his callused hands under her strong, determined chin.

"That would be too easy Xena. There's no profit to be made by that. I'm working on the deal of a lifetime. I'm going to sell your death, to the highest bidder. Maybe even Borias himself will come answering this call."

"Borias is dead. Along with lots more of your kind who thought they got the better of me." She bluffed. If Gentari didn't know it wasn't her who killed Borias, who was she to enlighten him? "It's a mistake leaving me alive, Gentari."

Her words raked the nerves of some of the surrounding guards. It heartened her a little to see she could still inspire fear, bound like a pig for the spit. She fed on their terror, her eyes growing large and wild.

The guard in the stairwell stirred at his post.

"I haven't heard anything from downstairs for a while, I'm going to ch..." The words were cut off by a knife splitting his lungs, the blade wrenching down, cleaving his major organs neatly in two. He gurgled blood, and died. A practiced stroke, designed to silence and then kill slower, with as much pain as possible.

A quick strike, left elbow to the temple, knocked his companion senseless. All they saw was a blur and a glimpse of swirling black hair. The knife in the second man's belt was his own demise, the blade stolen by the enemy, piercing the thin flesh at his throat with a soft whisper of flowing blood.

"Sharp. Nice balance." Xena said to herself, testing the weight of the handle to instinctively feel how far she could throw the dagger with accuracy. "Wasted on an incompetent like you." She stabbed a toe at her victim, watching as his crumpled body crawled slowly towards rigor mortis.

The second flight of stairs was no more challenging. The guard failed to raise the alarm when he spotted a shadow moving on the opposite wall. Imagination could play tricks on you when you let paranoia set in. It was a strange feeling having the Warrior Princess in a cage two floors down. He was still contemplating this point as the blade pierced his windpipe.

Cool rage seeped into adrenaline as Xena wound down from the three kills, flexing the muscles in her hand absentmindedly, paying no heed to the blood that dripped from the exposed blade of the sword borrowed from a dead soldier.

A large wooden door, bound across with thick iron bars, blocked her exit from the stairwell. Bracing herself for an onslaught the warrior pressed firmly at the door, opening it a crack so that she could see the room beyond. Armour jangled loudly as two heavily armed guards passed by, heavy boots stomping roughly, echoing along the stone floor.

Quick minded efficiency took over as Xena stepped through the door, despatching one guard through a tender point at the back of his neck, admiring the flight of the dagger as it swept its deadly arc towards its victim. The second guard managed to cry out an alarm before Xena had him too engaged with the flashing sword to do anything else but fight for his life. Two quick passes with the weapon revealed the soldier had a lazy left side, and a slash through the heart under his guard took him by surprise, a cry for help dying on his lips.

But the first cry had been made. Xena heard the clamour of boots down some stairs that were hidden behind the far doorway. A curtain in the passage provided the flimsiest of shelter, and she listened grimly as three guards first passed, then stopped, reversing their steps cautiously towards her hiding place. She looked down and cursed silently. Her victim's blood that covered her arms to the elbows, now dripped down and flowed slowly out from beneath the curtain, turning the floor in front of her shelter a bright crimson.

"Xena, you surprise me. How could you walk so easily into such a well laid trap? The village has been ripe for plucking for three days. You were surrounded My men have been covered up in straw, lying outside its walls for days. They weakened the wall...all that my troops had to do to break your feeble defences was push." He mimed pushing down a stone wall with one manicured pinkie finger.

She remembered. Her men crushed, dying before her eyes as the horses trampled through the rubble. Her army folding under mountains of hooves, plowed down by an avalanche of javelins and ballista.

"You know what Gentari, I don't really feel like talking." Her eyebrows raised sardonically, blue eyes betraying no hint of fear as the would be warlord pranced and gloated, arrogantly spitting at the feet of the woman known as the fiercest fighter in all of Greece.

"And what do you feel like doing, Xena?"

"Ripping your heart out with my bare hands, watching the blood drip between my fingers." Xena deadpanned. She ignored the pain in her ribs and the ache of her back as she hung, half-standing, from ropes attached to the ceiling.

Xena looked up and spotted the pulleys for the curtain hanging slightly above her head. Even if they knew she was there, she guessed she could still surprise them, their approach was so tense and filled with dread. With a slash of the sword the pulley lines were cut, weights holding the heavy curtain flinging towards the ceiling. The bright orange material came down with a crash, and Xena allowed her lips to form a humourless grin and a bellowing, get wrenching battle cry. Their shrieks of confusion were silenced with two sword strokes and a well placed kick.

Xena knew that Gentari was more than likely holding court somewhere above her, rather than through some of the stone doors that littered the hallway. That was where the guards were coming from. Toying with her own senses a little, she weighed the pros and cons of revenge or escape, unsure of being able to live through an attack on Gentari within the walls of his own castle. It was one thing to pick off the guards one by one, another completely to start a siege inside the man's heavily fortified home.

"I'm taking you to my castle Xena, where you will dance for the other warlords. Maybe I'll make you sing, I've heard rumours that for a vicious bitch you have a great ear for a song."

"Yeah, hearing your throat being slit will make my blood sing I'm sure."

"Whose throat being slit? One of the rules of this little sale will be that the buyer must kill you in front of all the other warlords before taking your body from the castle. I'm afraid it will be me laughing at the sight of your blood, Xena.

"Revenge." Xena whispered, ignoring the door she knew led to the outer courtyards. She turned her face upstairs, listening for the sounds of laughing men.

"Sorry Gentari, but the bargain is no longer in the basement." Xena looked back to where the passage had led up from her own dungeon. The door beside it had similar markings. Some of her men might still be alive.

Days in the dungeon had not dulled Xena's senses, if anything the time spent in the dark dulled nothing but her patience. She could feel herself rejecting every plan of attack but the most direct, reasoning herself out of every idea for caution. She reached the top of the staircase and flung open the door.

Inside she was disappointed. There were no warlords yet, only Gentari and twenty of the same sort of guards she'd despatched along the way. In some remote, impractical corner of her mind she'd expected - even looked forward to - a bloody reunion with figures from her past.

"Xena." Gentari growled.

"I don't much like cages Gentari, and I don't like missing out on all the fun." Xena sneered back. "But you promised me some of my old friends would be here. This isn't much of a party."

Gentari yawned, feigning boredom, indicating to his Captain.

"Deal with it. Capture her if you can, but if not, slit her throat."

"Oh Gentari, where's your sense of hospitality?" Xena's face crept into a horrifying picture of glee and bloodlust.

Without armour, almost without clothing, bearing only a sword she'd long discovered was too light for her, Xena stepped in to battle twenty men. Flicking a casual glance around the room to see what she could use to help her cause, her eyes rested in possessive satisfaction on the armrest of Gentari's chair. A round piece of metal, dotted with blue sparkling stones, hung benignly.

She snarled. "You have something of mine."

"Oh you mean this?" Gentari picked up the chakram. "Just another one of the spoils of war really, a toy I picked up when its owner carelessly dropped it."

It never ceased to amaze Xena that her enemies attempted to taunt her. The demon fury evoked tended to calm the irrational, berserker rage that took over in the heat of battle. She focused on her prey. Amazingly, she knew she fought better when just a little bit out of her mind.

Xena entered the fray.

With two slashes left and right she split the head of one guard and ripped through the armour of another, sending him staggering backwards. The men tried to circle her as she advanced, surround her on all sides. Xena flipped up in a triple somersault and landed, catlike, behind the row of soldiers closest to the opposite wall. On a wall jamb hung a ceremonial spear. Grabbing it with practiced efficiency she wielded it first like a staff, knocking the weapons out of the hands of two attackers with four swift movements; across, down, swept under the leg and disabling a third.

On one knee, but perfectly balanced, she pulled the spear around and lunged, spitting two guards one after the other. The force sent them both flying backwards into another advancing group, the long piece of metal protruding from a shoulder blade of one and the chest of another. Blood burst out in gasps, spraying Xena and the guardsmen, making the floor slick with red.

Dropping to pick up the discarded sword of a guard - heavier she noted by instinct - she swung again in deadly arcs towards her assailants. None of the soldiers lasted more than four passes against the warrior; if she was unable to disarm them almost immediately she simply turned sideways and smoothly kicked them out of the combat, or smashed their faces against the cold brick wall until their noses were unrecognisable masses of blood and crushed bone.

Bodies were beginning to pile. None of the guards held any delusions about capturing the warrior. They fought blindly and in pairs, searching for any kind of protection against the evil efficiency of the onslaught.

Gentari shuffled uncomfortably in his seat, aware that Xena was keeping one eye on his movements lest he try to disappear down some pre-prepared bolt hole. As luck would have it, Xena had nothing to fear. It was an old castle, unequipped with the modern conveniences of trapdoors and escape tunnels. Gentari had two choices, leave by the door Xena had entered, or cross through her deadly swathing path on the way to another door hidden under the curtain on the far side.

Catching a man under his chin Xena grabbed his hair and swung him swiftly around, using the human shield to deflect a dagger thrown by a soldier from the corner.

The trick is no wasted movement boys, unless showmanship serves your purpose.

Xena raged on.

Gentari still fingered the chakram lightly from his chair, unmoving. Xena made a silent promise that the second thing she would sever would be his hand, for touching her precious weapon.

But the first thing he would lose...

"It's so rare that one gets to study a warrior princess close-up", Gentari smiled, through a mouthful of perfectly white teeth.

"Don't get too used to it, you miserable slug."

"Oh, I'll do anything that is my pleasure with you, Xena. No one will notice if the goods are a little more damaged than before, I'm sure you don't have any virtue left to lose."

"You wouldn't dare." The woman snarled. For a second that was almost enough to deter him, but he collected himself gamely.

"I think you should have a closer look at who has the position of power here." The warlord sniggered, removing his robe.

With a click of his fingers he ordered two soldiers nearby to arrange his prey. Xena's legs were spread, and tied securely to small poles that had been driven into the ground at perfect intervals.

"Convenient." Xena spat, viciousness coursing from her suddenly dark eyes. "You know, I was just going to kill you before." She listened as behind her she heard him remove the buckles of his armour, a slow moving sound that was meant to heighten her fear and his desire. It served only to fuel her hate.

Hate was the answer to everything. It blocked out any pain, any humiliation.

"You're kidding yourself if you think you're the first man to try and wield this kind of power over me. Not every woman crumbles so easily."

"Let's just see how well you crumble."

Xena felt a blade inserted into the waistband of her breeches, splitting them, leaving her exposed. Her face revealed nothing. Gentari moved closer, the sniggers of his men audible in the background, cruel yet nervous.

With a rough shove he entered, and she bucked involuntarily at the sharp pain.

The memory came at a bad moment for the guardsman who stood before her as the final barrier between her and the warlord. Disabling the soldier she grabbed his hair, drew the sword back to a full arms length, and drove the blade mercilessly through the throat, severing the spine instantly, the sword making a long scraping sound against bone as she withdrew it from his body.

There was no one left.

Gentari awaited his fate with a demeanour that Xena thought could almost classify as courageous, but she was too enraged to care.

"This little auction you planned was an inspired idea. It was something I might have done. Pity you couldn't keep the canary in her cage." Xena's voice dropped frighteningly, sickeningly low.

"Kill me. I don't care."

"Oh I will." Snapping out her hands roughly she hit the pressure points on either side of the warlord's neck. As the blood drained from his face and Gentari knew he was dying, his calmness slipped into a pallid mask of terror. She watched his face, the pain in his body shining out his gradually dulling eyes.

"You'll be dead in thirty seconds. Isn't it a relief to know that exact moment when you're going to die?" Xena moved back from the chair and started pacing back and forth, as if considering the angles.

She stopped, took three easy steps up to the warlord, and stared deep into his blood shot eyes.

"By the way, you're not taking these with you to Tartarus." She whipped up the sword and brought it down point first between his legs. The warlord's strangled screams satisfied her immensely. Blood seeped quickly through his trousers from his severed manhood. Xena wasn't in the mood to take a look at the parts detached from their owner.

She brought the sword up again and clanged it down on the armrest where Gentari's twitching hand still gripped the chakram. As the weapon and the severed hand that held it bounced across the floor, Xena watched the last of the blood drain from the warlord's face. His head dropped to the side, eyes vacant.

Behind the chair she was amused to find both her sword and breastplate, obviously meant to be sold as commiseration lots to another warlord once he'd sold off her body. She dressed slowly, surrounded by the remains of the carnage. The stench of blood settled in the air and flowed with the currents around the chamber, resting on her skin and massaging her senses.

Xena stared at the pile of soldiers with pride, as if she had just built a palace. "Like I've always said, I'm quite fond of a good kill." Bending down, she unhooked the dead warlord's hand from her chakram and secured the weapon at her side.

She took one last look at the battle scarred room and left the chamber, wondering if any of the remaining guards were going to be stupid enough to risk her ire on the way out.

Vaguely, in the back of her mind, she felt a twinge. As she always did. To conquer others is to know power. To conquer yourself is to know the way.

"This is my way..." She whispered to herself. As she always did. The ends justify the means.

"Now where would that rotting heap of pig's dung have put my horse?"

As she emerged out into the courtyard, she put her fingers to her lips, and blew.

The End.

back to the fiction index