THE PRICE

Yum. Fish for breakfast! Suddenly, a tribe known as "the horde" are upon Xena and Gabrielle. Quick! To the canoe! Even Xena seems scared. She's run into them before. During their escape, they manage to find their way into a hopelessly surrounded fortress. We hear the dying horde calling out, "kaltaka." (Probably the name of their god of war.) Soon, Xena takes command. "We're gonna kill 'em all!" Gabrielle, on the other hand, takes charge of the makeshift hospice. But Xena meddles with Gabrielle's conscience, coming to a low point when she kills a fleeing man. "There are no good choices, only lesser degrees of evil," she explains about war. But Gabrielle wants to at least try to understand this horde. Another attack! Xena takes a prisoner. Gabrielle learns from him that "kaltaka" means "water!" She also learns that the price of war is losing your humanity -which is reflected in Xena's recent behavior. SO Gabby heads to the battlefield to aid the dying enemy, giving them their water. This is taken as a truce. Xena shows a change of heart. "You understand hatred but you have never given into it. You don't know how much I love -that." Xena uses the horde's code of honor to defeat their leader and, thus, the horde.