On the third morning, several hours after sunrise, Xena returned.
Gabrielle could tell she had been in battle. There were cuts and
scrapes and bruises on her arms and legs and across one side of her
forehead. Even Argo had cuts on her.

As she got off the horse, Xena asked about Asa. 
"He's getting weaker. Every time he goes to sleep I wonder
if he'll wake up again. But what about you? I see you found
them. Sit. You can tell me about it while I take care of these
cuts."

"I found them. They had a camp about a day and a half ride
from here. There were about twenty men, and about half of them were
archers.  They had quite a few guards posted, so I took to the
trees and was able to get right into their camp.  I still
don't know exactly what kind of people they are. They had a
few  families there too, but I couldn't tell if they were
captives or not.  I never did find Asa's parent's
bodies."

"So how did you get all banged up?"

"Bad luck. I decided it would be better if I just left, and
just as I got to the edge of the camp a girl about 10 or 11 looked
up, saw me and gave the alarm.  By the time I got to Argo
there were at least a dozen men waiting. I managed to avoid most of
the arrows, but between trying to protect Argo and fight them off,
a few blows got through. I guess they weren't really prepared
for an all-out fight because after a while they started running
off. Just as Argo and I rode off ourselves, I heard one of them
yelling something about me going after reinforcements and they were
going to have to  move the camp."

"I wondered why you said 'They had a camp.' I
thought you might have burned them out."

"No. Like I said, there were women and children there,
that's why I just decided to leave. But what about you? Are you
getting any rest?"

"Yeah. Asa sleeps most of the time, so I sleep when he
does. But we are getting a little short on provisions. I really
hated to leave him for any length of time. I never knew when
he'd wake up, and I wanted to be there when he did."

Just then Asa moaned, and said something neither could
understand. Xena started to go to him but Gabrielle was ahead of
her.