“c1″> 

The
tall raven-haired warrior now gave her attention to the
weapons’ master. "I owe an explanation to you. We can
talk on the way to the river."

“c1″> 

Eponin was
still too dumb folded
from Xena’s performance to
speak and only nodded.

“c1″> 

"When I
began to prepare the campaign against class=”c1″>Rome and Caesar I
tried to recruit the best warriors I could lay my hands on. The
Amazon village and their neighbours at the seacoast all had
suffered from raids of Roman soldiers and Roman slavers. They all
had a very good reason to fight them, so I was able to add some of
the best sailors and navigators to my army.

“c1″> 

“c1″>“I had opted for a combined attack by sea and by
land, and it really gave me the edge I needed to outsmart Caesar.
He was too arrogant to believe that any army would stand a fighting
chance against Roman legions, so he concentrated his attention on
the sea battle. My ships had to engage the Romans and break up
their battle formation. This necessitated a combination of
long-range fighting and hand-to-hand combat. There were a lot more
qualified candidates than I was willing to risk. I organised an
archery contest to determine who would go and who would stay with
the main army. I only allowed battle-hardened warriors on board of
my ships.

“c1″> 

“c1″>"Silea breezed through the preliminary contests,
technically she was one of the best. What you just saw was the
final test. The task was to hit the target behind me, regardless
how. Silea didn’t have the stomach to try and hurt me in the
process. This time she did, she even managed to trick
me."

“c1″> 

“c1″>"Then why didn’t she accept your
surrender?"

“c1″> 

“c1″>"I’m not sure. I think that she didn’t
believe that she could win and I suppose she still feels robbed of
her dreams. She desperately wanted to serve on my flagship but
ended as a scout. She did a really good job at it; she saved one of
my advance parties from running in an ambush. She would have been a
good asset to the army, especially after the war. She just needs
more time."

“c1″> 

“c1″>"You kept her in your line of sight by making her a
scout and at the same time made sure that she made use of all of
her Amazon training. Why did you try and protect
her?"

“c1″> 

“c1″>"When the campaign began she still had her blood
innocence. On a ship, there wouldn’t have been time to deal
with it but the leader of the scouts was also an Amazon. She
wasn’t alone when it happened and she had to deal with the
aftermath of a battle for the first time."