At the sight of such carnage, Zara backed quickly from the room. Following her lead, the men waiting for her in the corridor
walked behind her onto the deck.
Once on top, she began to inhale the fresh air in an attempt to rid the stench from her nostrils. Farraj, a harden warrior and seaman,
was the first to run to the rail. Unashamed, he leaned over it as he began to heave, while she and Zahair looked on with empathy.
When the sounds of the rest the men joined them on the deck, she turned away from the ill man.
“Jabir, Ahmed, any cargo?” The Moroccan woman asked when her nose cleared somewhat.
“None, Captain. The cargo bay is empty,” she heard one of the men say.
“Zahair, follow me,” the captain ordered and then turned to the rest of her men. “The rest of you, return to the ship,” she ordered as
she made her way back to the Arabic captain’s cabin.
The dusky woman moved to the scrolls against the wall and began to grab the captain’s journals, then handed them to her
crewman. “Return these to my cabin,” she ordered as she turned her attention to the maps in the farthest corner as Zahair quickly
left.
The only thought in Zara’s mind was to recreate the ship’s journey, to discover which route it had taken and how it had come to be
in these seas. As she took the journal and map scrolls, a slight sound caught her attention. Glancing around the room, she searched
out the sound, straining to hear it. When the slight knocking came once more she turned to the chest at the end of the captain’s
bed. Cautiously, the captain moved to the lid, torch held high as she listened to the slight knock. Without thought, she took hold of
the lid and quickly pulled it open.
In her time alive, she had seen and witnessed many horrible things but never had she glanced upon something as atrocious as
the sight of the dead cabin boy. Naked and tied into a tight ball with coarse ropes, the boy had been stuffed into the captain’s
clothes container, his mutilated body left for anyone who happened upon the ship. Like the men below deck, the ghastly
expression of the child indicated the length of time it took for his tortured body to die. As the ship gently swayed in the
ocean, Zara saw the boy’s knuckles, scraped clean of flesh, gently tapping the container, his lifeless eyes staring at her.
The dark leader felt her stomach heave at the sight. Fighting back her reaction, she stepped away from the boy. When she
regained control, the captain moved forward again, reached into the box and closed his eyes. Being so close, she was able to
see a fragment of cloth protruding from the boy’s mouth. With a grimace of disgust, Zara took hold of the cloth and pulled it
out.
One look at the cloth and she knew the culprits of these crimes. Angered at the sight, she pulled away from the dead boy and
leaned momentarily against the cabin wall. As her mind began to wander over the sight, she felt herself losing control.
Realizing what she had done, her legs buckling under her as she slid down the wall to the deck.
Zara felt the pangs of guilt washing through her. She wondered if this child would have still been alive if she had not tricked
the Prahu. Perhaps if her crew had fought the pirates, they could have injured them enough to force the pirates to return to
their homeport and this child and the Arabian crew would still be alive. Her mind spun with self-loathing and she felt herself
further losing control.
Xena waited next to Gabrielle. The silence on the ship became deafening as the men began to return from the other craft.
Without uttering a word to the crew, they moved close to Abu and began to speak in low tones as they told him what they
had found.
“Something’s not right,” Xena whispered as she moved away from Gabrielle.
“What is it?” the blonde warrior began to ask, but before Xena could respond, the ghost felt herself being tugged by an
unknown force. She was pulled through the air until she was standing in darkness in a cabin on the other ship.
The warrior took a moment to glance around the room. A torch sat on the floor near the captain’s desk. When she moved
toward it, she saw Zara sitting on the floor, her hands shaking uncontrollably as her gaze was frozen on a flag. From nearby,
she saw a figure of a boy standing in the shadows, staring from her to the fallen captain. Cautiously, she moved toward the
boy. When he turned and looked down, Xena glanced down into the wooden chest. The sight of his pitiful body brought a
sigh from her.
“Oh, baby…” the warrior princess gasped as she shook her head, “I’m so sorry,” she whispered to the child’s ghost.
When the boy looked behind her, the ghost warrior turned in time to see figures emerging from below the deck. Each one
wore the clothing of Arabia, their bodies pale as they moved from the bowels of the ship. Seeing them, Xena turned swiftly to
the Moroccan.
“Zara, we’ve got to go!” She tried to rouse the captain, knowing that the ghosts were rising.
“It’s my fault,” the captain murmured in a slight voice, her eyes glued to the flag.
“No!” Xena shouted. “It wasn’t your fault. You are NOT responsible for this! We have to leave now!” she ordered as she
tried to shake the guilt-ridden woman.
“But…?” Zara’s vacant eyes looked up at her.
Seeing her despair, Xena shook her head as she pointed to the deck. “You need to go before they cross the bridge to your
ship! Nadrah and Gabrielle are over there!” the warrior shouted.
Following her direction, Zara’s eyes grew wide. “Hungry ghosts,” the captain whispered as her crazed eyes focused on the
spirits.
For a moment, Zara felt herself losing control but before the sorrow could surface, she felt a presence nearby giving her
strength. At the sight of the shadows on the deck, she pulled a tight rein of control over her senses. With no other thought
but escape, she grabbed the torch and quickly ran out of the captain’s cabin as she stuffed the pirates’ flag into her sword
sheath.
Running, the captain made her way to the bridge leading to her ship. She felt an oppressive coldness chasing after her,
reaching for her. The cold was far more sinister than what she had come to recognize as Xena’s presence and she wanted to
get far away from it.
Although not superstitious, the Moroccan had heard tales about gangs of hungry ghosts. She remembered the tales from
fellow captains who explained that a hungry ghost’s main objective was to get hold of the living, in order to rip the lives from
them because the ghosts were confused and saw all living beings with the faces of their murderers. She decided that she did
not want to become the next tale told, so she pushed her feet faster toward her own ship.
As Xena ran behind the Moroccan captain, she could feel them getting closer. With a growl of rage, she kicked out at them,
holding them back. Some of the ghosts turned their attention to her and the warrior princess shook off a grasping hand as a
shiver went through her. She knew if caught, the ghosts would try to make her one of their own.
“Go, run!” Xena shouted at the mortal and then put on her own burst of speed when she saw Zara running for the wooden
bridge. She turned when she was on the bridge and gave one final kick, forcing the hungry ghosts back, then twisted around
and followed the captain onto the ship.
“Captain?” the dusky woman barely heard Abu as she made her way over the bridge.
The captain felt her mind spinning out of control and the myriad of sensations registered in her mind. The fear, disgust, and
rage began to boil out of control. With a deep-set frown, she turned and faced the ghost ship. She could not risk another
ship finding these ghosts.
Without sparing Abu a glance, she took an arrow and lighted it with her torch.
“Burn it!” she shouted as she watched her men remove the bridge joining the two ships. Not waiting for a response, she took
a bow from a crewman, placed the nock of the arrow in the bow and then aimed for the shadows of the torn sails. Her arrow
was the first to land. Before the cloth could catch fire, a volley of lighted arrows soared through the air.
