DISCLAIMER: Takahashi-sama created Ranma’s playground. I’m just playing on the swings, completely without any rights.

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“Wait a minute!” Nabiki peeked out of her bedroll, trying not to inhale. It smelled strongly of the Arun soldier who’d lent it to her and she knew he hadn’t washed in weeks. She could almost taste the raw odor of sweat and unwashed male at the back of her tongue. She wanted to spit, except that would be uncouth.

It was late in the evening and the Arun soldiers had stopped for a rest of a few hours. The three women were allowed to sleep together, though many a soldier had offered to join them amid male laughter and ribald jokes. Only their fear of Mousse kept them away.

Kasumi and Nodoka, huddled close by in their own bedrolls, regarded Nabiki questioningly.

“I want to escape as much as you do, but...” Nabiki whispered. “...but there’s no way I’m returning to Jiya.”

Her sister and mother looked stunned.

“Not return? But Nabiki, where will we go?” asked Kasumi, frowning.

“Surely you don’t mean Jin, do you, Nabiki?” Nodoka whispered, a spark of interest lighting in her eyes.

“No, it’s too close to Jiya. Father will never allow such a smirch on his honor.He’d never allow his women, his property, under the roof of someone who was until just a few years ago, our enemy. He will most definitely ride to Jin and drag us back in chains.” Here, Nabiki paused and took a deep breath, feeling the cool desert air fill her lungs. What she was about to say stunned her with its boldness. “We should go north. Past Dara, where these Arun are headed, and keep traveling north.”

“Nabiki! That’s where the barbarians live!” Kasumi cried, shocked. A soldier stirred in the darkness and she immediately lowered her voice, her slim fingers clutching the edge of the bedroll. “We could die out there! Who knows what such a lawless land is like?”

The younger princess set her jaw. “Well, I’m not going back to that tyrant. How can you consider it, Kasumi? Or you, Mother? I’d rather eke out my days as a hermit in the mountains.”

At these words, the three of them turned their heads to look to the north, where they’d seen the faint smoky line of the range visible on the horizon earlier that day.

“I have never been out of Jiya before, Nabiki,” Nodoka mused. “However, there is some merit in what you say. Almost anything would be preferable to returning to that hell. However...first things first.”

They glanced at the sleeping soldiers.

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Ranma watched as the caravan slowly began moving in single file. In the lead was fat little Cassim, resplendent in a silk turban and bright garments, riding a mule. It was said that camels were too stupid to get anywhere by themselves and thus had to be led.

Behind the mule, a long line of camels laden with precious stones, spices, silks and gold began to move. On either side of the line rode the guards on swift horses. Ranma and Akane rode at the rear with a few more guards while Ukyo and Cologne rode farther up the line.

In the late afternoon, the heat was decreasing. The foothills were turning purple in the evening light. A welcome breeze ruffled Ranma’s hair where he’d pushed his head cloth away. He was glad that they both wore the loose cotton trousers and tunics they’d found in the djinni’s cave.

“Ranma...”

“Hm..?” Ranma turned to face Akane, who was looking slightly uncomfortable.

“....” Akane stared at him with big, brown eyes, her head cloth encircling her face. She looked away. “Nothing.”

“What? Akane, what is it?” Ranma prodded.

She turned back. “Do you think...Nabiki and Kasumi and...do you think they’ll be okay?”

Ranma blinked at her. He’d almost forgotten about his sisters and his mother. They were such a remote part of life back at the palace, that they hardly ever crossed his mind at all unless he came in direct contact with them.

In fact, after he’d been weaned from breast-feeding, he’d had hardly anything at all to do with women, except the whore that had been brought to him when he turned fifteen. As far as he knew, his mother and sisters simply lived in the palace, doing whatever women did, staying out of Genma’s way. But everyone did that.

And now, on this journey, his mind had been occupied with his traveling companions and getting them through the desert safely. He’d never seen a warrior woman before, and here he was suddenly traveling with three of them.

As for the women of his family...

“I’d say we have to catch up with them as soon as we can,” he said. A few days ago, he might simply have said that Akane was wasting her time, that they would no doubt find the violated and murdered bodies of the women in a gully somewhere.

I KNEW traveling with women would make me soft, he told himself.

Akane found herself worrying, though. She knew that the soldiers would never have taken women with them without a specific reason. As the afternoon wore on, she searched the sandy ground for any trace of the soldiers’s passage, but found none.

The evening passed without incident and they traveled through the night into the early morning, taking advantage of the sunless sky, stopping when the sun rose to shine fiercely on them again.

Cassim had a tent erected for the use of Akane, Ukyou and Cologne. Ranma, as a man, was not allowed to sleep in the women’s tent and shared sleeping space with the guards.

Akane lay on her sleeping roll and listened to the faint even, breathing of her tent mates. She missed sleeping outside at night, right under the stars, watching them twinkling coldly until she fell asleep. She was astonished at the amount of stars out here in the desert. In the city, the lights from houses, lamps and buildings all outshone the more unearthly beauty of the stars. But out here, she’d seen that even behind the millions of bright stars, dimmer stars shone like tiny counterpoints, dusting the sky with brilliance.

Luckily, the thick walls of the tent allowed the interior to be dark enough that the sunlight didn’t disturb them overly.

She sighed. At the beginning of this journey, she had been instilled with the rush of confidence and exhilaration she’d gotten from beating those raiding soldiers, and it had powered her determination to find and rescue her birth-mother, Kasumi and Nabiki.

Now Akane wondered what would happen after they’d accomplished that. They must find Kuno. And what about Ranma? How did he feel about everything? He seemed to tolerate them all, at best. Did he remember that she was his fiancee? Did he care?

Oh, Ranma...Akane sighed, half asleep, and then sank into dreams.

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They’d been traveling for two more days, when disaster struck.

A howling wind came at them out of nowhere, with no warning, no picking up of speed, just a blast of air like a gigantic fist that slapped the caravan, sending camels off balance, the loads on their humps teetering. The horses whinnied in fear as sand swirled into their nostrils. The guards and drivers hurriedly put up their head cloths to cover their faces.

Ranma looked around for Akane, but the sand was stinging his eyes and he took a moment to get his horse under control.

A guard screamed, and suddenly there was mayhem. Dark figures appeared in their midst, wielding sabers and shrieking blood-curdling war-cries, fighting the mounted guards.

Akane and Ukyou didn’t stop to think as they waded into the fight. Ranma was about to join them, when Cologne dropped onto his horse and he heard her dry voice behind him.

“Forget them, boy,” she said. “Look for the source of the problem.”

“What are you talking about?” Ranma asked.

“The real problem is the wind, boy.” With that, Cologne hopped away. Ranma looked around. What did she mean? The wind? The source of the wind? Surely the attackers had simply taken advantage of the.....

But no. The wind had come up too quickly. Even in the desert, there were signs of approaching sandstorms to those who knew to watch for them. And these bandits could not have taken advantage of a natural phenomenon so fast. Which meant.....

“Dark sorcery!” Ranma growled to himself. He had no liking for sorcery in any form, and especially since his curse, he didn’t like the thought of anyone being afflicted with it. He urged his horse away from the fighting, passing between two confused camels. On the other side, on a low bluff, he saw a figure holding something.

Ranma grinned viciously to himself and drove his horse towards the figure. The closer he got, the stronger the wind became, but the horse persevered, until Ranma realized that the figure was that of a young man, blowing on a horn. No sound came from the horn, but in front of him, dust swirled and blew towards the hapless caravan. Behind the man, no rising sand was visible.

The prince drew his saber and sent it whistling through the air at the young man. The tip of his sword embedded itself in the horn and knocked it out of the young man’s mouth. Immediately, the winds stopped and Ranma’s ears rang with the silence. He urged his horse faster uphill, so that they were almost to the top before the young man saw them.

He looked bewildered and then angry. On a closer look, Ranma could see that the young man was in fact hardly older than Ranma himself, his hair tied back in a short ponytail.

“Stranger! Who are you to disturb a desert hermit and seek to harm him for no reason?” he demanded.

“You moron!” Ranma stood and balanced on his horse’s saddle, then went into a flying kick that hit the boy in the face. “YOU’RE the ones who attacked US!!!!”

The boy fell and rolled over the horn, and when he sat up, the horn was in his hand, the saber lying loose on the ground.

“Oh, I see,” he said. “You’re part of that caravan. Well, I’m very sorry, but you’ll have to die.”

He placed the horn to his lips and blew before Ranma could reach him. A mighty gust of wind shot out of the horn, caught Ranma and raised him off the ground. Ranma found himself hovering some feet over the ground, flailing against the wind. He was lifted higher and higher, the wind spiraling around him. He realized that as soon as he reached a really dangerous level, the boy would simply stop playing and let Ranma drop.

Suddenly the wind died and Ranma found himself falling, though the distance didn’t worry him overmuch. He looked around for the boy and saw that Akane had climbed up the bluff as well, and was battling the boy, who no longer had enough breath to blow his horn.

One of the bandits had followed Akane, and now crept up behind the fighting duo and attempted to skewer the short-haired girl, who now found herself fighting two opponents.

Ranma landed with a thud in a cloud of dust, and raced towards the three, realizing with growing rage that the boy was fighting with HIS saber. Well, fighting without weapons was his specialty, after all.

He slammed feet first into the back of the bandit, sending him rolling, his sword flying. He swung around and planted a solid elbow in the face of the boy, who went down with a groan.

“Who asked you to come up here, you stupid girl?” He demanded of Akane, who was holding her sword and breathing heavily.

Akane glared at him. “I saved your life, idiot!”

Ranma choked. “MY life? You saved my life? I don’t need some slip of a girl saving ME!!” The idea was ridiculous. Imagine a GIRL saving his....

“Well, you were just floating around in the air like a djinni, doing nothing!” Akane yelled. “In fact, why don’t you just grant MY wish and disappear?”

“Well, I see you two are all right,” came Ukyou’s drawl as her head appeared over the top of the bluff. “Who’s that kid?”

“He was using a wind-horn to create a sandstorm,” Ranma explained. He confiscated the horn in question and shoved it into his sash. “Did you take care of the other bandits?”

“Once the wind wasn’t confusing us anymore, it became a lot easier. Somehow, it was like they didn’t know how to fight without the wind.”

“Owwww.” A groan from the ground gained their attention, and they watched as the pony tailed boy sat up, rubbing his head. “Unkind people, how can you be so cruel to a young and innocent and charming boy like me?”

“Innocent! Ha!” Akane pointed at him. “You and your bandits have been robbing caravans. You’re thieves!”

“One must eat,” the boy offered, giving Akane a blinding smile and spreading his hands in a what-can-I-do gesture.

Ranma smirked and stared at the young man with folded arms. “Yeah, and I suppose all those jewels and silks were just barely enough to keep you in gruel.”

The young man’s smile turned sheepish. “What can I say, we like to eat well.”

Everyone stared at him blankly.

Three hours later, the caravan guards had forced the tied-up bandits to lead them to their hiding place, which turned out to be small town not very far away. The village seemed to be inhabited mostly be women and children. In fact, most of the bandits had been women.

“Hmm, looks like a problem, sugar,” Ukyou said, looking around. “What do we do with them?”

“Do with them?” Ranma thought it was obvious. “Burn the village to the ground to teach others a lesson, of course. What else is there to do?”

His three companions stared at him with varying degrees of disbelief.

“Are you familiar with the term-mercy-young prince?” Cologne asked quietly.

“Mercy?” Ranma asked blankly.

“I don’t believe it’s in his vocabulary, grandmother,” Ukyou said, staring hard at Ranma.

“Mercy is shown by the weak. We are the victors! Why are all of you staring at me like that?” Ranma didn’t understand it. He’d been taught that mercy was only an unnecessary step between victory and betrayal. He understood that. Why show someone mercy when they would just turn on you later?

“These are just women and children, Ranma!” Akane cried. “We can’t kill them! It isn’t right!”

Ranma stared at her, and then turned on his heel and strode off. The three of them watched him go with troubled eyes.

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Well, this is it, Nabiki thought to herself, staring up at the stars, breathing as shallowly as possible, not just so the stink of the sleeping roll wouldn’t make her gag( she’d somehow gotten accustomed to it; either that or her nose had lost the fight and died) but because she wanted to look as though she were fast asleep.

Their plan to escape would soon go into action. She went over the details again and again in her mind.

The princesses and the queen had debated on when exactly they should try to escape. Kasumi would have preferred to wait, at least until they were in sight of civilization. But Nabiki and Nodoka overrode her, the former because she couldn’t stand one more night in captivity, and the latter because she had a vague sense of danger approaching them. They argued that the soldiers would become more alert once they reached a town or city, and currently the soldiers were confident that the queen and her daughters were helpless out here in the desert.

Now, Kasumi watched fearfully as Nodoka, leading a pale and hunched Nabiki approached the captain of the Aruns. Nabiki appeared reluctant to go nearer, and in fact, kept entreating her mother to move away.

“Hush, child. I am sure the captain is a chivalrous and kind man, beloved of Khaitan, who will surely have pity on your plight.”

The captain watched them with curiosity until they stood before him. He looked at Nodoka questioningly.

“Noble sir,” Nodoka said. “I fear that we have come before you with a problem only you will be able to solve, as our weak womanly intellects are surely no match for it.”

The captain looked surprised and then pleased. He had overheard Nodoka call him a ‘chivalrous and kind man’.

“O noble queen,” he said, “If there is any way in which I might ease your journey, you must only tell me and I will see that it is done.”

Nodoka lowered her eyes and Nabiki blushed. “It is somewhat of a delicate matter, O brave and gentle captain. Are you married? Have you any sisters?”

The captain obviously did not understand what Nodoka might mean. “I have been blessed with brothers, noble queen. All know that sisters are only a burden on a man’s pocket, a cause of unrest in the house. I am not married, either, as Lord Mousse has kept me busy.”

Nodoka’s bent head hid a twitching eye, but she said calmly, “No doubt you are right, noble sir. However, it would ease our embarrassment if female company had prepared you for our request.”

“Speak, O gentle lady,” the captain entreated. “Don’t let my ignorance sway you from telling me your troubles. I will endeavor to help you as best I may from any knowledge of women I may have gleaned from my mother.”

Nodoka sighed, thinking how easily a man was swayed by soft sighs and womanly weakness. Only a few days ago, he and his company had ransacked their palace and their behaviour towards her and her daughters had not been exemplary.. “Thank you, captain. You see, my daughter is afflicted with the pains of womanhood.” She looked up expectantly to see the captain grow pale.

“The pains...of womanhood?” he said. “My lady, I know of such travail, since my mother did retire to her apartments on some days and would see no one. I know not how I may help you.”

That’s what we’re counting on, you fool! Nodoka thought triumphantly. She assumed a wide-eyed expression. “Oh, we would be most happy to tell you, my lord. In the desert, there grows a certain plant that is the only cure for this pain. It is yet only late afternoon. I wonder if we might trouble you to take my daughter in search of this plant.”

The captain frowned. “We cannot tarry here long, O queen. However, since I have given you my promise, I will indeed take your daughter upon my horse and carry her to find this plant. I suppose she will recognize it if she sees it?”

“Of course, noble sir,” said Nodoka, barely able to hide her glee. She turned to Nabiki. “Come, my daughter, mount up beside the captain. Soon, you will find the plant and it will ease your pain.”

“The plant induces the eater into a deep and painless sleep, O sir,” she explained to the captain. “My daughter will be asleep before you return.”

The captain stared at Nabiki doubtfully, who appeared to be wracked with pain. Nabiki looked up and said shyly, “Thank you noble Captain. We can never show you our gratitude.” For stealing us like chattel, she added silently.

The captain, appeased, lifted her onto his horse, and then turned to his second-in-command, who had been listening closely.

“Yusuf, see to it that the women are watched over. I will return soon with the princess and her cure.” He swung into the saddle in front of Nabiki.

“O kind captain!” Nodoka ran forward. “My husband used to warn us of the bandits lurking in this area. Please, beware of them!”

The captain nodded uneasily and rode off with Nabiki. Nodoka gazed after them for a moment and then went to her bedroll to kneel and pray.

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Nabiki pretended to hunch with pain and watched carefully as the Captain steered his horse along the sand dunes. It wasn’t for nothing that she had learned to glean information quickly. There was still some light by which they could search for her ‘cure’ but that would soon fade. And that only fit in all the better with her own plans.

From her cloak, Nabiki occasionally let drop pebbles tied with bright silky thread she and Kasumi had teased out of their caftans.

They had ridden for almost half an hour when Nabiki said, “Captain! I believe I saw the plant just now! Please, for Khaitan’s sake, stop and let me see.”

The captain drew back the reins on his horse and allowed Nabiki to dismount. She drew close to examine a small plant, then looked up with disappointment. “This is not the one, Captain. We must ride a little further.”

The captain cursed mildly, but he took Nabiki up on the horse again.

Perhaps another half an hour had passed when Nabiki decided it was time to act. The captain was studying a peculiar formation in the distance, trying to see what it was, when Nabiki, pressed up close against him, quickly slid his dagger out of his sheath and plunged it into his side.

The captain gasped and swayed in the saddle. He let go of the reins and glared down at Nabiki in shock. She drew back and kicked him out of the saddle, while reaching for the reins of the horse.

The mare, excited and scared by the scent of blood, stopped and half- reared, then set off in a gallop. Nabiki hung on tightly, fear burning through her as she found herself, for the first time in her life, alone on a horse.

Glancing behind her, she saw the dark shape of the fallen captain recede behind them. She felt a moment’s sorrow. She had never killed before. But this was a matter of life or death.

Looking forward, still clinging to the mare’s neck, Nabiki saw the odd formation growing closer. She realized it was actually two high boulders sitting close together at the base of a shallow sandy outlet.

The princess drew a deep breath and began to pull on the reins. She pulled too hard and the horse fought her. She tried again, more gently, and the mare slowed and finally stopped, her flanks heaving with light sweat.

Nabiki fell more than dismounted from the mare’s back, and stood for a few moments, shaking.

If only I could take this horse and run, she thought to herself. But Mother and Kasumi are back there.

Drawing deep, calming breaths, she stared at the odd rock formation. A path led down to the two boulders, which were more than twenty feet high. The boulders divided the one path into three so that each disappeared into darkness, no doubt joining again at the other side. Smaller boulders littered the area around the path, providing ample hiding places. An idea began to form in her head. She decided to modify the original plan slightly and approaching the boulders, did her best to augment her plan.

She turned and led the mare back to where the captain lay. He was quite dead. She began to strip him thoroughly and then she undressed herself as well.

She wiped the dagger clean on her shift, and then pulled her long hair together in one hand. With the other hand, she positioned the knife near her neck and cut swiftly and stoically through the hair.

She pulled on the dead captain’s headgear and caftan, bunching up clothing around her shoulders and torso so that she would look bigger. Then she looked down at the naked captain.

“This is the really hard part!” she said softly. She began to yank her clothes onto him, finally pulling her scarf to cover his head. She tied the hair into a tail, loose at one end, and fastened it to the captain’s head, allowing it to fall free and loose from the scarf, but hiding his face.

“Hello, Nabiki,” she said.

Now how was she going to lift him onto the horse? She dragged the corpse to a clump of small boulders and began to heave the body up them. He was surprisingly heavy, and she was sweating freely by the time she’d managed to precariously place him where she needed. She coaxed the horse forward and pushed the corpse onto the horse, scaring the mare. The mare ran off.

“Damn!” Nabiki cursed wearily. She stumbled after the horse, calling for it to stop. Miraculously, it did.

She led it back to the boulders and, using one as a foothold, clambered onto the saddle, allowing a sigh of relief to pass her lips. By this time, any sympathy she might have had for the dead captain had long since vanished.

There. The corpse was placed in front her and she grabbed the reins, kicking the horse lightly in the ribs. Luckily, the mare seemed as eager to leave the place as she did, and they set off in reasonable harmony.

Nearly an hour later, Nabiki galloped back into camp, yelling loudly, startling the soldiers.

“Bandits! Bandits! There are bandits not far from here!” she cried in a deep voice, imitiating the Captain as closely as possible. Fear and sand from the ride had hoarsened her voice slightly, and the thick cotton of the head cloth did even more to mask her voice. “Yusuf! Get the men together! We ride now!”

Nodoka had run up, in the meantime. Nabiki thrust the captain’s dead and disguised body at her. “Here is your daughter, O queen. She has indeed fallen asleep. I thank you for your warnings of the bandits!” Using one of the names she’d picked up over the last few days, she yelled, “Iram! Stay and guard the women! As for us, men, we ride!”

Turning she galloped off into the darkness. This was the crucial moment. Then she relaxed as yells and shouts came from behind her, screaming for the blood of bandits.

The Arun men rode behind her, Yusuf at their lead.

Nabiki, by now having mostly understood how her horse responded, strove at all times to stay ahead of the men, lest they discover her trick.

Finally they reached the area with the two boulders. Nabiki stopped and made certain that her head cloth covered her face. She turned her horse around.

“Men,” she growled, “I realize now that I’ve heard tales of these bandits. They have a dervish that serves them. The dervish disguises the bandits so that any approaching army believes they are killing their own comrades. Don’t be fooled by this! It may LOOK like your comrades, but the bandits will gallop toward you with evil intent, as your own brothers would never do!”

The men cried out in awe and fear. Yusuf asked in a suspicious voice, “Is this true, O captain?”

Nabiki nodded. “Indeed, Yusuf! For was it not your own face I saw here when I know that you are true and loyal to me?”

Yusuf paled and the men shouted in agreement.

“Now onward!” Nabiki shouted.

By now, it was completely dark, and as the men galloped forward, their horses were inevitably separated into the two side paths, for Nabiki had blocked the middle path with stones and brush. The company poured into two streams around either side of the boulders and met in the middle, each crying out as the other moved toward them.

Nabiki, having crawled through the third path herself, cried out, “Comrades! Comrades! The dervish tries to trick us! Look, even now the bandits, disguised as your companions, are attacking us!”

Each section, thinking their leader was addressing them, rushed forward into battle.

Nabiki, amazed that the trick had really worked ,crawled back out and led her horse and another whose rider she had managed to dislodge, away from the sounds of fighting, sending them galloping back towards the camp.

She glanced back briefly and whispered, “Hack each other to pieces, you monsters! Thus you face the revenge of a Saotome!”

When she finally reached the place, exhausted, she saw that Nodoka and Kasumi had made short work of Iram the guard, who sat with his feet and hands tied, a murderous expression on his face.

“Oh Nabiki, you are truly wise in the ways of men!” Nodoka cried, embracing her daughter when Nabiki had related all that had passed.

Nabiki grinned slyly. “Indeed, mother, I am just now finding this out for myself.”

“Oh, Nabiki, your hair!” cried Kasumi, tears coming to her eyes. Nabiki felt the back of her neck and the chopped strands of her hair. She felt sad and oddly unburdened at the same time.

“Never mind, Kasumi,” she comforted her older sister. “It will grow back.”

Everything was packed, and Nabiki and Nodoka mounted horses, using the third as a packhorse. Nodoka had learned to ride a horse in her youth but Kasumi never had and refused to try right then, so she rode with Nabiki.

“Freedom.” Nabiki smiled at her sister. “Until now, I never knew what the poets were talking about.”

Kasumi smiled back.

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Notes: Yay! Chapter 10 is finished! Up next, everyone FINALLY gets to Dara, the Black Diamond of the Desert! Click the button and please review.