DISCLAIMER: I really hate writing these. Everyone knows Ranma and co. don’t belong to me. Else I’d be drawing Inuyasha right now. Wait, I’d ditch Inuyasha for a bit and then draw a Ranma sequel where Ranma and Akane get married! Woohoo!

Acknowledgement: Thanks, Ice, for prereading help! :)

*******************************************************

Chapter 6

Why did I agree to this? Ranko wondered.

The desert stretched before them in waves and waves of nearly pure white sand, the polished particles soft under the hooves of the flying horses. They had ridden hard through the night.

Ranko's narrowed blue eyes surveyed the landscape through the slit in her head cloth. Nearly thirty miles away, she could see the rocky spire of Taal, the most prominent landmark in the region. When they reached that, they were truly beyond the reach of any stray Jin or Jiyan desert patrols.

It was still early morning, but soon it would grow too hot to travel and they would have to rest until the evening. She glanced briefly around at her fellow riders. Akane and Ukyo were close behind her. She couldn't make out their expressions. Like her, their faces were covered by head-cloths designed to protect them from the stinging sand. The hide-wrapped handle of Ukyo's spatula jutted from her right shoulder.

Ranko faced forward. For the first few hours of their escape, she'd been buoyed by the thought of finally escaping from Genma's iron hold. For nearly the first time in her life, she was not being watched by guards in Genma's command. Genma himself had hardly ever left his foster-son's side. But now, the excitement had begun to ebb. She was heartily regretting that she’d brought anyone else along at all.

When Ranko first realized that she was free, her first instinct had been to escape to Jin, but she had never visited the place, and besides, how could she expect a warm welcome from the father who had sold her into slavery for land? She would have to consider any such course of action carefully.

The first oasis eventually came into sight and they stopped at the sight of the gleaming turquoise pool surrounded by date trees.

"These are beautiful horses, Ranko,” Akane asked, dismounting. “Jiyan horses, am I right? Bred out in the desert?" She led her horse to the pool. In the desert, one always saw to one's horse first. No man or woman of the desert would ever drink before their horse did.

Ranko nodded curtly as she urged her own horse forward, Ukyo close behind her. Akane's breezy good mood was getting on her nerves. Didn't the princess realize what a difficult journey lay ahead of them?

"We've bred them in Jiya for thousands of years," she replied. "They are bred to be as tough as Jiyan warriors. You must have heard the legend of these horses."

Ukyo and Akane shook their heads.

"A long, long time ago," Ranko began, "Before we had built cities and still lived in tents, the leaders of the desert tribes gathered the best of their horses and penned them up without food or water near an oasis for six days and six nights. The horses grew hot and thirsty under the sun, of course, and even worse, they could smell the water.

"On the seventh morning, they were released and the herd began to gallop towards the water. Then, the leaders came forth and whistled to their horses. Most of the herd continued towards the oasis, but a few wheeled and raced back towards their owners. These horses, the ones with the greatest heart and stamina, were selected to breed the greatest horses in the world."

Ranko's companions turned to eye their four-legged companions with new respect.

"That's the only way to create a true warrior, after all." The shorter girl had a glint in her eye. "Cut away the soft bits, the unnecessary things."

She sounds like Ranma and the king, Akane thought uneasily. Or do all these people think alike?

As the horses dipped their long necks and began to drink, Akane wasn't sure, but it seemed that Ranko stuck closer to Ukyo than she did to Akane. Did she feel safer with the prince because Ukyo was male? But no, Ranko had moved away again.

How had Ranko intended to manage on her own, Akane wondered. "Did you know this was here?" she asked, nodding to the oasis.

"Yes," Ranko said, leaning down to splash water on her hot face. "I've come here with patrols."

"Patrols? Since when are women allowed to ride in patrols?" Akane was puzzled. Ranko appeared to be independent in a way that Akane had been led to believe was uncommon for women in Jiya.

Ranko blinked and looked up at her with blank irritation, water streaming from her thick lashes.

"Uh...They escorted me." Jumping up to avoid further explanations, Ranko slipped off her embroidered slippers and began to wade into the water. “I'm going for a swim." It would get her away from Akane's incessant chatter.

The idea of explaining to Akane that she, Ranko, was really Ranma gave the redhead a throbbing headache. Akane, like any other warrior of the desert, knew the code of war. To let yourself be captured was shameful, and it was preferable to die in war. But the enemy had found no trace of Ranma at all, which made it looked like he'd run away, and THAT was even worse!

Did she want to explain to Akane that the curse had saved her? How could she tell them she was really a guy? Admittedly, she'd been ready to tell Akane before the engagement only because it would have put a wrench in Genma's plans, and now that engagement had been indefinitely post phoned with no help from her.

"Yeah, I'd love a wash." Akane nodded, and began to wade in. "What about you, Ukyo?"

The prince, silent until now, stared at them both uneasily. Then he looked behind them, the way they'd come.

"Aah, you ladies can take your turn, sugar. I think I'll just keep watch for a while. Once you two come out, I'll take my turn." After all, Ukyo reasoned, sitting down to dip both feet into the cool water, no one was removing clothes. No body parts would be displayed. Bathing might be safe.

"So, Ukyo, what DO you have against Genma?" asked Ranko, now floating on her back in the water. She was honestly curious, and the enemy of your enemy could be your tool.....

Akane studied the prince as well. He really did look uncomfortable. Probably just not used to being around women, she figured.

Ukyo ground her back teeth at the mention of that son of a dog. But she owed it to her companions, she figured. She'd been so eager to escape last night she'd practically promised Akane the truth. Though telling them that she was a girl was NOT in her plans.

"I was married last year," she said slowly, noting the surprised expressions on her listeners' faces. "It was a royal arrangement. I didn't have much choice in the matter."

Ranko glanced at Akane, who was too busy picturing Ranma to notice.

"The one I was getting married to was not of my choice, but I respected my father's wishes," Ukyo continued. She had to tread carefully here. "Tarou killed my spouse on our wedding night, and...I'm seeking revenge against him." She hadn't said that was WHY she was seeking revenge, Ukyo told herself. She hadn’t lied. So they didn’t know that she couldn't care less about the fat bastard she'd married.

Akane looked shocked, but Ranko simply turned and began to stroke through the water.

"However, my honor was diminished," Ukyo continued, "and I left the palace and my titles to wander until I heard news of him. One day, I learned that Genma was making a move to gain the land my spouse had been heir to. I developed a wicked suspicion."

Ukyo felt her fingers grow cold and damp as she remembered the first time realization had dawned on her as she watched Genma's armies move to secure tiny Jira, Tsubasa's kingdom.

"It was because the lord of that land no longer had an heir that he was susceptible to Genma's takeover of his land. Finally, I was lucky enough to capture an Arun bastard, who told me that his prince had received an anonymous message giving him details of how to enter the palace at Cantos, my home, unsuspected. The message was only signed 'One who will share your gain'. I realized it could only be Genma."

Ranko had no trouble believing the pony-tailed prince. Genma was more than likely to do something so underhanded and contemptible. How had he made a daughter like Akane? Or...

Ranko leaned out of the water. Did Akane perhaps possess cunning as well? She didn't know the princess that well. She'd talked to her perhaps twice in her life before the engagement ceremony. Genma's daughter would bear watching.

"So do we have a plan?" Akane demanded, wading out of the water and going to stand at the foot of a date tree. She hitched up her wet, muddy trousers and began to shimmy up the trunk.

"A plan?" Ranko tread water, looking coldly amused. "It will take us two weeks to get to Dara. On the way, we will no doubt run into wildlife, bandits, sandstorms, patrols from both sides of the war, though desert patrols from the city stop after the spire of Taal." She motioned towards the needle of rock jutting into the sky. "Then it’s your luck which army scouts you run into after that. You're being optimistic to think we'll get through at all, princess. The desert is filled with unknown dangers."

"I know that caravans often pass through this way," Ranko continued, "loaded with silks and riches from the ships that sail through the Gulf and unload at the towns on shore. They will give the war a wide berth, of course, but I believe they travel in that direction for a while."

"It would be wise to travel with a caravan if we can find one," said Ukyo in his slow drawl. "You are chasing after the guards who have the Queen and her daughters, I'm chasing after Tarou but remember...Mousse is still out there, and from the sound of things, he's quite a powerful sorcerer. If he decides to return home to Dara as well, we don't want to be caught between the rock and the ifreet."

"Ifreet?" Akane yipped from the top of the date tree. She had heard tales of the desert demons that haunted the lonely sands and hills. Ryouga had often scared her with tales of the Djinn, the Ifreet and fire salamanders. Suddenly, they came back to haunt her. But they were simply tales to scare children.

She plucked off an enormous bunch of dates and let it drop to the ground. She slid down the ridged trunk of the tree.

"Lunch!" she said, smiling.

************************************************************************

Deep in the Jiyan palace, not far from the room Ranma had occupied as a boy, Genma paced his cell in cold fury, the clanking of his chains accompanying each step.

How had the army gotten past his guards? There was sorcery here, without a doubt. Was Ranma dead? No! He'd trained his son too well. Was he in one of the cells with the other prisoners? None of the guards had spilled any information within Genma’s hearing. He'd seen how they watched him. They treated him like the dangerous man he was.

They had chained him and put him in their deepest, darkest cell, the one with the stoutest door.

Let them try. He would soon get out of here and find answers. Find Ranma.



************************************************************************

Evening found the companions on the move again. They had fed and watered their horses, and supplemented their own meager supplies with dates and water.

The soft, white sand had given way to harder basalt. The land grew rockier and the horses were forced to slow down.

Akane could follow the slowly rising range of the foothills to the west with her eyes. They were traveling parallel to that line. Eventually the range would lead to the mountains in the north. Beyond those mountains lay Dara.

She studied Ranko's slim back, the confident, arrogant way she rode her horse. The girl was a puzzle. During their lunch of bread and dates, when Akane had tried to discover Ranko’s background, she'd been reticent and eventually had simply curled up and gone to sleep without another word. It was almost as though she regretted talking to Akane at all.

Why was Ranko leading them, anyway? Hadn't this journey been Akane's idea? The redhead had assumed leadership so naturally that Akane had fallen into step.

Beside her, Ukyo rode with practiced skill. The prince was...obsessed, driven, Akane mused. He rode with his gaze always fixed ahead as though his sharp green eyes could make out Tarou's form from hundreds of miles away.

Suddenly Ranko raised her hand, motioning them to stop. They slowed their horses to a walk, finally stopping.

Ranko pulled her head-cloth away from her lower face.

"I heard voices," she said shortly. "They carried with the breeze, which means there's a patrol ahead of us." All three of them looked to the north.

"If the patrol is friendly, we can warn them of the massacre at the palace.” Akane shaded her eyes with a hand and searched the horizon.

A company of riders crested a sand dune. They wore the white uniforms and yellow sashes of the Jiyan city patrol. One of them, presumably the leader, said something when they spotted the trio and the company began to trot towards them.

They completely ignored a baffled Ranko and Akane and paused before Ukyo.

“Hey, you!” Ranko was infuriated. “Why don’t you talk to me?! Hey! Am I invisible, you flea-bitten...?”

The captain ignored her. “Who are you?” he asked Ukyo. “Are these your women?”

Ukyo glanced at Ranko but saw no forthcoming help there. The redhead seemed to be choking. “I am Ukyo Kuonji. We are escaping from Jiya. A small army of Arun tribesmen somehow entered the palace and captured it.”

“What?” The captain looked shocked. “It is impossible! How could King Genma lose the palace? It is impenetrable!” Behind him his officers stared at each other in dismay.

Ukyo shrugged. “We believe it was sorcery. A few people escaped, but most were captured.”

The captain wheeled his horse to face his men. “We must ride to Jiya and aid...the king!” He quailed at the thought of freeing Genma, who would just as likely punish him in his rage.

“I’d suggest finding the other patrols first. Strength in numbers, you know.”

The captain paused and nodded. He spurred his horse, leading his men away. The trio stared at the departing men.

Ranko was puffing angrily, her shoulders hunched and her fists clenched around her reins.

Akane shot her a sympathetic look. “It’s not unusual for officials to ignore a woman in favor of a man, Ranko.” It was common in Jin, too. Men were considered the leader in any group and thus, the only ones worth talking to.

Ranko shot her an annoyed look. “Shut the hell up, princess. Nobody asked you.” She turned her horse around in Akane’s astonished face and said, “Let’s go, we’re losing the light.”

Akane’s astonishment gave way to a slow burning anger. Just WHO did Ranko think she was talking to? Akane was getting fed up of the redhead’s snotty attitude.

Ukyo swallowed a grin and urged her horse after the fuming girls. This was proving to be an interesting journey.

******************************************

Two hours later, Ukyo was no longer smiling. If she had to listen to the bickering of those two for one more second...

“...and just remember that *I* saved your sorry behind aaaa...hey! Look at that!” Akane stared and pointed.

Ukyo and Ranko stared at an arm sticking out of the sand, the fingers twitching slightly.

“Someone’s in trouble!” Akane dismounted her horse and ran forward to kneel and claw at the sand around the arm. Ukyo and Ranko, horrified, proceeded to do the same.

Eventually, a dusty head came into view and the owner of the hand began to choke and cough sand from their nostrils.

“Don’t worry! We’ll get you out. Just hang on!” Akane urged. Eventually, they had dug down to the shoulders. Ranko reached underneath the arms and hauled the poor creature out.

It was a girl. She lay choking on the ground, sand in her hair and clothes. Those clothes consisted of harem pants of a thin, see-through material, and a short, jewelled blouse.

“Are you okay?” Akane couldn’t believe that the girl had survived. “What happened?”

The girl finally looked up at them. “It was a sudden sandstorm.” Her voice trembled. She looked around at them, and her gaze fastened on Ukyo.

“Oh kind sir, thank you for saving me.” Her eyelashes fluttered prettily, and she looked away with a blush. Ukyo snorted in amusement.

You efforts are wasted on *me*, sister, she thought. Ranko, on the other hand, couldn’t take her eyes off the girl.

“It was no problem.” Ukyo helped the girl up.

“Hey, I’m the one who...” Akane was cut off as the girl began to cry.

“My master left me here,” she sobbed brokenly. “I was a pleasure slave in his harem, but he grew displeased with me and abandoned me here. And the sandstorm came out of nowhere.” Ukyo patted her back awkwardly.

A pleasure slave, huh? Ranko mused. Too bad Ukyo got her first. She really was an eyeful. I wonder what Akane would look like in transparent harem pants and a tiny top like that...

“Ouch!” She rubbed her head and glared at Akane. “Why’d you hit me?”

“Sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”

Ukyo led the girl to her horse and helped her into the saddle. Around them, the breeze was growing stronger and sand began to swirl into the air.

Akane and Ranko pulled their head cloths over their noses and headed for their horses. The wind became stronger.

“It’s another sandstorm!” the girl shrieked. “Please kind sir, allow me to lead you to the cave we last sheltered in. We might get there in time, as this storm is not coming as fast as the last one.”

Ukyo glanced at her companions, drawing her own head cloth around her face. They nodded.

The girl guided them back the way they had come and then moved away from their trail towards the foothills. The wind was blowing incredibly strongly and sand was collecting in Ukyo’s eyes and around her nose. Her horse too was having trouble fighting the wind.

Eventually, the ground grew stonier and they came upon an entrance to a cave in small hill. Gladly they led their horses inside. With their first few steps, they felt immensely better. Compared to the howling of the sand storm, the quiet of the cave was deep and peaceful.

They dismounted and led their horses forward, the girl now trailing shyly behind them.

Ranko, now in the lead, came to a shocked stop. “What the...” Akane and Ukyo followed suit.

The inner chamber of the cave was large, the ceiling a good thirty feet over their heads. The floor was laid with Persian carpets of every size and color, and a large, black cauldron heated over a big fire in the far corner. All sorts of bric-a-brac littered the chamber.

But the most astonishing thing of all was that in the middle of the chamber stood a gigantic, blue-skinned being, wearing a turban and loose, flowing trousers. It grinned down at them with teeth filed down to sharp points.

“Ah, guests. Just in time for dinner.” His voice boomed down at them from a height of twenty feet.

Akane, Ranko and Ukyo stared up wordlessly at the creature.

“It’s a...”

“...demon...”

“...a spirit...”

The creature laughed. “Oh, little people, you are not very familiar with the tales your nurse told you? I am a jinni, of the Djinn-folk.” He bent, his blue face descending towards them until they could see the glowing fire that made up his eyes.

“I don’t care what you are!” Ranko did a high kick that was supposed to crush the jinni’s leg, but she merely bounced off with little effect. Undeterred, she spun around into another attack as Akane and Ukyo joined in. The two however were sorely puzzled to see Ranko fight.

So much for Jiyan girls not fighting, Akane thought to herself.

The jinni merely laughed and reaching down picked them up in his hands. He examined them carefully. Ranko and Ukyo suddenly remembered that the Djinn were known to see through illusions and disguises.

“Two girls! Ahh, girls are rare here in the desert. Such tender meat.” The jinni sighed with pleasure.

Two girls? Ranko and Ukyo dared to breathe. The jinni hadn’t seen through their disguises. Akane, of course, was not happy to hear that she was supposedly a Djinn delicacy. She momentarily overcame her childhood fear of monsters.

“Since when do the Djinn eat human flesh?” she demanded.

“They normally do not.” The jinni bared his teeth. “I, however, discovered a craving for it.”

“Master, you are pleased?” The pleasure slave walked forward into the light, bowing before the jinni. The trio had forgotten about her.

“You traitor!” Ranko was furious. “When I get my hands on you...!”

Ukyo couldn’t stand the thought that she had taken the traitor onto her horse.

“You’re asking for trouble, you sneaky bimbo,” she growled. “You really shouldn’t have messed with us.”

The girl tossed her head. “You are a man, and all men think with only one thing. You never stopped to think that I might be leading you into a trap.”

The jinni tossed back his head and began to laugh. “A man? You are mistaken, little houri. This one is not the man. See?” He calmly tugged at Ukyo’s tunic, ripping it away despite her struggles, revealing the tight cloth underneath that bound her breasts.

Akane and Ranko stared at her in shock.

“You really ARE a girl,” Akane breathed. Ranko went pale. Tarou had been right. Ukyo couldn’t believe the jinni had known she was a girl. But...hadn’t he said they were only two girls? Had she fooled him briefly?

“THIS is the boy,” the jinni said. “I’m afraid I see only the truth. It took me a while to realize that you are cursed by Jusenkyou and that you wear the appearance of a female.”

He poured a ladle of steaming water from his cauldron over Ranko, who fought so hard to avoid it that she almost escaped. But not quite.

“Ranma?!?!”

******************************************************************

Whew! I have more written up, but part 8 is not finished, sooo...please tell me what you thought of this so far...the Arabian Nights elements are coming in, but hey, this *is* the desert! :)