Xena placed her hand on Lila’s shoulder. "I believe the Amazons can make room for the sister of their Queen. By the way, have you seen your sister?"

"No, I’ve been waiting around here for the a quarter of a candlemark. Maybe Tyndas knows." She ran down the final three steps to Tyndas. "Tyndas, have you seen my sister?"

"Like I told the warlord, I’ve haven’t seen her since this morning. Why?"

Xena looked at Lila. "It’s not like Gabrielle to be gone for this long."

Tyndas continued to wipe the glass in his hand. "Well, maybe she wanted to spend some time with her father."

Xena pounced on Tyndas and pulled him up to meet her eyes. "Her father?!?"

"Yes. He…he…was here…last night…"

"Where did he go?"

"He stayed in my barn."

"Lila and Sophia check the barn. I’m going to check out the stable."

She lowered Tyndas to the ground and all three ran to their destinations.

  ********

"I don’t see a sign of Father anywhere." Lila scanned the small barn. All she saw was some hay, a couple of stalls and a dirt floor. Of course Lila had no idea what to look for.

Luckily Sophia did. "Hey Lila, come over here." Lila ran to the first of the stalls. Her eyes looked to the rock that Sophia was pointing.

"Is that…"

"Yes, it’s blood. And look footprints. See the first set, leading away from this stall. The second set, same footprints, leading towards the stall, but deeper, as if the person was carrying something."

"Or someone."

"Yeah, and these are the tracks. From the looks of this," Sophia picked up some horses pellets, "they left here four maybe five candlemarks ago."

"We better find Xena."

Xena saw Gabrielle’s footprints outside of the stall, but there were no signs that Gabrielle actually made it into the stall. Xena bent down to have a closer look at the footprints. She found drops of blood on the ground. Horse and Argo both neighed and jumped back on their hind legs.

"She’s in trouble, you know that right? Okay, we are going to ride." She was taking Argo out of her stall when Lila and Sophia ran in.

"Xena, we found blood in the barn. It looks like he was carrying someone with him. He’s on a horse, and he has a four or five candlemark lead on us."