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The episode starts out with Xena and Gabrielle fishing. A man emerges out of the water and says a few words about "the hoard" and being surrounded before he dies. Xena and Gabrielle than see a bunch of dead bodies floating down the river. The hoard, and army of savages, see Xena and Gabrielle and run after them, but manage to fight them off. The hoard go after them in canoes, Xena and Gab are surrounded.
We learn a little about the hoard as Xena tells Gabrielle about them. Xena has dealt with the hoard before, back when she was with her army. The hoard are merciless, they had tortured and skinned men in Xena's army. They hunt like "a pack of dogs," surrounding their prey until they attack.
Along the the river, Xena and Gabrielle tied up along the shore calling for help. As much as Gabrielle wanted to help them, Xena knew that they wouldn't stand a chance if they were attacked by the hoard while trying to help the men. As a bunch of hoard hatchets come flying out at Xena and Gabrielle, a man jumps into the water and swims towards them. All three of them manage to make it to shore, where hoard members are being ambushed by an army of men. The man that Xena and Gabrielle manage to save eventually dies.
In a nearby compound, Xena and Gabrielle find out that the men there have lost hope against fighting the hoard. They no longer cared whether they live or die. Outside the compound dying hoard members are crying out for "kaltaka." It is assumed that kaltaka is their god of war. The men inside the compound regain hope once they find out the warrior woman is Xena and she is on their side. We find out that the soldiers in the compound are members from the ethenian army, and we start to see a dramatic change in Xena, as if she is losing control of herself as she cries out "we're gonna kill em' all" (refering to hoard). We also see the men cry out in hope.
Gabrielle takes charge of the wounded, separating the walking wounded from those who can't move at all. Xena's plan is to wear the hoard down, she knows that they will stay out there in the woods surrounding the compound untill food runs out in the compound and they are forced to come out. Xena finds out that the man she and Gab managedto save (but who later died) was Gallipan, who she almost fought with one time in Corinth. Xena also finds out that the dying soldiers who were tied up along the river were Gallipan's men, who were supposed to be the reinforcements for the athenian army.
Xena orders the walking wounded out to the wall of the compound against Gabrielle's wishes, and no food or water to the seriously wounded, just to those who can fight. Here Gabrielle is forced into a situation where she must decide who lives and who dies, something that Gabrielle's loving heart is not able to deal with.
Xena orders dead soldiers to be put on the wall of the compound, hoping hoping the hoard will think reinforcements have arrived. The athenian army and the hoard fight outside the compound, as Xena carries out her plan of wearing the hoard down. The athenian army is victorious thanks to Xena. Meanwhile we see the distraught Gabrielle as she witnesses Xena killing a hoard member in cold blood, as he had seen the defences in the compound and therefore Xena could not let him get away.
Xena objects as to why Gabrielle had not rationed the food to the men who are able to fight. While Gabrielle wants to stop fighting and try to reason with the hoard, Xena objects.
Xena has a plan to send Mercer, the leader of the athenian army, out to find help and get reinforcements, using smoke bombs to keep the hoard from seeing him leave the compound and the direction he was going. In the meantime, the hoard unsuccessfully attack the compound again. Xena finds a live hoard member and brings him into the compound hoping to get information from him. Gabrielle objects to Xena's methods of extracting information from the hoard prisoner. In reply Xena tells Gabrielle never to question her authority in front of her troops. When Gabrielle asks Xena what happened to the Xena she knew, Xena replies that that Xena cannot help them now and if losing that Xena is the price that Xena has to pay for their survival than that's what she will do.
As the hoard prisoner watches Gabrielle fill a jug with water, he calls out "kaltaka." It is here we learn that kaltaka means water. Gabrielle gives the hoard prisoner a drink and than, unknown to Xena, goes outside the compound to give wounded hoard members water. As Xena prepares to Gabrielle back to safety Gabrielle is confronted by two hoard members, but rather than attacking her, they start to retrieve their wounded, as they saw Gabrielle giving water to the wounded and took it as a truce and so both sides started retrieving their wounded. Gabrielle sees the wounded Mercer and gives him a drink. Mercer did not follow Xena's directions to go north.
We see Xena 'lighten up' a bit when she sends an athenian army member to report to Gabrielle with food for all of the wounded, rather than only those who can walk. Xena orders the hoard member to be cut loose, where he starts to attack the two athenian guards, but he would not fight Xena, knowing she is in charge and not worthy of her sword. Xena sets the hoard member free and realizes that before, she was blinded by fear and hatred and that it took the truce with the hoard to make her see that.
As the hoard have a warrior warrior's code of honour, Xena realizes that the only way to defeat the hoard is to defeat their leader. Xena fights and defeats the hoard leader. Although she does not kill him, his is killed by his own people when they lose face in his defeat. The hoard will be back thogh, sometime, someday.
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