Jabone's Sword (34 page)

"Are you finished?" Tarius asked, and heard the two girls mumbling to each other.

Jestia's head popped over the edge of the bed and she said with a non-apologetic smile, "Just," at which point her whole body jerked as the other girl obviously shoved her. Then they were both laughing.

"Are you well, Jestia?"

"Better than well at the moment," she answered.

Tarius laughed. "I meant are you well enough to cast a spell?"

"No," Tarius heard Ufalla whisper.

"Yes, I think so," Jestia said.

Then Ufalla's head poked over the edge of the bed and she was glaring at Tarius. "No she can't do a spell for you right now. You made her do a spell that almost killed her and she's just now starting to feel better." Then she seemed to remember who she was talking to and added, "Great Leader."

"I'm sorry, you're right of course," Tarius said. she was being selfish.

"No she's not." Jestia jumped down from the bed then, quite naked, and started to pick up her clothes. "I can do a spell. I feel fine." She started getting dressed and looked at Tarius. "She thinks she has to protect me all the time, but ask her who snatched her out of the mouth of death. Me."

"I saved you first," Ufalla said, climbing down just as naked and also started dressing.

Jestia smiled and moved to kiss Ufalla on the cheek. "That you did."

"So are you two," Tarius shrugged, "just having some fun, or is this serious?"

"She's going to marry me," Jestia said matter-of-factly.

"I am?" Ufalla asked, more than a little surprised.

"Yes," Jestia said, walking out of the cabin with Ufalla right behind her and Tarius following them, "and not one of those Katabull trinket-exchange things either, Ufalla. I want a full-blown ceremony with you promising to love me and only me with passion for the rest of your life." Ufalla looked back at Tarius, rolled her eyes, and Tarius just laughed.

"I will have the most gorgeous dress made in blues and greens because I look best in those and you will wear armor, not that raggedy nasty now bloody and holey stuff but the fancy, shiny stuff, and you won't be making that face that I know you're making right now, either."

They were on deck then and Jestia looked at the hardly-billowing sails. She turned to face Tarius. "Let me guess you'd like more wind in the sails."

Tarius nodded.

Jestia flipped her hand about and said, "Wind in sails," and they all had to catch themselves as the ship started moving faster with a lurch.

Tarius just stared dumbfounded. Where was the silly incantation she was so used to hearing before a spell was cast?

"She's a thought caster," Ufalla explained, guessing what Tarius was startled by.

Tarius just nodded as if she understood perfectly what that meant, though she really had no idea.

"Tarius, you'll officiate at the ceremony of course."

"Of course?" Tarius looked at Ufalla who looked like she was being choked and smiled, "Oh girl, did you have any idea what you were in for?"

"Of course she did, she's known me all her life. She knows what I'm like and she still loves me, don't you, Ufalla?

"Yes," Ufalla said with a sigh. She looked at Tarius. "With all my heart and soul." Which was no doubt why she looked so distraught. She was trapped and she knew it.

"Now I don't want anything stuffy or formal, Tarius, just things about undying devotion and . . . "

"Jestia," Tarius said, "you do realize that your mother's going to have a screaming conniption fit over this union."

This just seemed to totally elate the already excited girl. "Oh! Do you really think so? What a marvelous extra."

"Jestia, I don't think you understand how upset your mother is going to be," Tarius said. Jestia was second in line for the Kartik throne. Her mother expected her to marry a
man
of noble birth and have heirs for the kingdom. If the girl wanted to keep her half-Jethrikian female lover that would be fine, but bound to her under Kartik law, no.

"I don't think you understand how much I don't care what she thinks," Jestia said. "My parent's didn't even write me a letter. They certainly didn't risk their necks to save me like you did for Jabone or Tarius and Ufalla's father did for them. I am going to be bound to her. Will you officiate?"

"Of course," Tarius said, thinking she was possibly the only one in the kingdom that could get away with it because Hestia wouldn't dare to incur
her
wrath. She watched as the two girls walked away Jestia basically planning out the whole of their lives together.

"We certainly aren't living in the castle because I hate it there and I'm not living in one of those mud huts you people dwell in either. I'm thinking we could get a home in Montero." Then she slapped Ufalla on the arm hard. "Maybe we'll buy our own spring . . . "

Ufalla looked over her shoulder at Tarius and mouthed the words, "help me."

Tarius laughed and went to find her son. He was in the first place she looked, which was where she expected to find him, sitting beside the girl. He looked up at her his face a mask of pain and she smiled at him. "My son I don't think going without food and fresh air and holding your face in such an unhappy mold is going to help her any."

He nodded, tried to smile, and failed. She sat down on her bed and just looked at him. She had told Jena she would get to him in time but it had all been boasting. She had never been sure, and the minute her foot had touched the shore of the territories and she'd smelled the Amalites she had known they were running out of time. How could she explain to him that when he was in so much pain she just wanted to laugh out loud because she had once again felt the rush of the battle and all those she cared for had been spared?

Well not all, Derek was gone.

"Why don't you go up and find your mother? She will get you something to eat and you'll feel better," she said, thinking that his mother's attention would do him more good than any food she might make him.

He nodded and stood up and she realized that he still didn't really know how to not do what she told him to.
He's a man, but he's still a boy, my boy. He only went against my will once in the whole of his life, to go to the territories to fight my enemies, and now they are his and he is second guessing everything that he did because of the outcome.

"Jabone, in battle you make the decisions of your body more than your mind. Your instinct guides you."

"But Madra, did you ever lead any battle you didn't win?"

She sighed as the memory ran through her brain. "My son, at the last battle of the Great War I made a mistake that nearly got myself, your mother, your fadra, and the whole of the Marching Night killed. It did get your mother's father and Tweed and many others of our pack killed." He looked at her in disbelief. "You never have heard the story for your mother will not listen and she drags you away with her. I used a formation I had used before against the Amalites and they were desperate. When they saw where we were they knew that we were blocking their retreat and the whole body of them did turn to attack us, us alone. I called a retreat and Harris led it as I stayed behind to try to slow them down. It is only because of the good people who stood with me that day and would not follow my orders that I'm alive to tell the tale and only because Persius, the King of the Jethrik, ordered his troops to our rescue that my mistake didn't take us all from this earth. He stopped a blade meant for me that day."

Jabone sat back down. "How did you know? How did you come to save us?"

"Your mother had a dream." She told him the dream.

When she had finished he nodded and said, "I had a dream when we were in the garrison. I told it to Jestia and she said that it meant my mother's love would protect me even in the territories."
"And so it did," she said. "Now, go let your mother feed you. It does her heart good to think you still need her."

He got up, walked over to her and kissed her on the top of her head. "I do still need her, I need you all, obviously." He stood up and headed for the door. He stopped half way through it and turned to face her. "Kasiria always wanted to hear a story where Persius wasn't the villain and Tarius wouldn't tell it because he said it was your story alone to tell. Jestia says that Kasiria might be able to hear us. Madra would you tell her your story?"

"I will if you will go and eat," she said. He nodded and left.

She got up and moved to the chair her son had been sitting in and looked down at the girl. "You do look so familiar." She took a deep breath. She felt somewhat silly to be telling a story to this unconscious, barely-alive, spell-bound girl, but she had promised so she began, "I tell the tale of the redemption of your father Persius, King of all the Jethrik. Now it was in this time that Persius had lived many years under the curse of Tarius the Black, that would be me, and he had neither slept in peace nor enjoyed life.—But I'm guessing you were born during that time so he must have enjoyed something, any way . . . ."

* * *

Eric sat on the rail of the ship looking out over the sea. They'd made her drink some concoction when she'd boarded which she was sure was meant to poison her at the time. It was horrid and she had tried to quit drinking it several times but the Kartik who'd given it to her had just kept forcing the cup back to her lips and shouting some Kartik word at her that she assumed meant drink. When she had asked young Tarius about it he had said it was the Kartik's famous sea sickness and hangover tonic. Having never been at sea before she had no idea what sea sickness was, but as the boat had left port and her excitement had been replaced by a rolling in her stomach she figured it out. Then just as she had been sure she was about to throw up, her stomach had quieted and she'd been able to just enjoy the fantastic new adventure of being at sea in a Kartik ship in the company of the Marching Night and Tarius the Black herself no less.

Katabulls and witches and the greatest fighting force the world has ever known, and me,
she thought.

She rather felt she didn't fit in at all and most of them didn't speak Jethrikian either. But here she was foreign, and a fighter, and a woman, and though she couldn't understand what they were saying she didn't think they were taunting her.

Thomas was dead and she doubted any of them cared, but he had been her dear friend. Oh she knew that if he had known she was a woman he would have hated her at least as much as he had hated Kasiria. At least at first. In the end Thomas had been growing to respect Kasiria, even trust her judgment, and he had told her on more than one occasion that he envied the way she was able to keep her Kartik unit out-performing all the others. That was why he had wanted Eric to go with them to see what Kasiria might be doing differently. But how could she explain that the only real difference was something he'd never be able to copy because the big secret was mutual respect? Well that and the fact that they were all bedding each other.

Thomas had been growing up, becoming a better man, and now he was never going to get a chance to be the best man he could be. None of them were going to be. She'd been with the unit all through the academy. There was no one in her unit she hadn't felt close to, that she hadn't connected with. She had been very angry with Kasiria after the bandits had attacked them. To Kasiria three men, three tormentors, were dead and she could have cared less, but to Eric three friends were dead. Jona, Henry and Kosian. Now they were
all
dead. She and Kasiria were the only ones left, and the only reason she was alive was because she had formed a different attachment to Kasiria's unit. They knew what she was and except for Kasiria—who had reason to dislike her—the others had embraced her, respected her not for what she appeared to be, but for what she was. And so she had been with them instead of her own unit in both battles and they were superior fighters and so the others were all dead and she was alive.

She hadn't seen him come up until he was standing right in front of her and didn't know she was crying until he was handing her a handkerchief. She wiped her face and blew her nose then looked at him.

"Are you all right?" he asked. Which was always a stupid question to ask when someone was crying.

"I'm fine. They're all dead and I've got a few stitches in my arm and my leg but I'm fine.

Hell, I'm better than fine. If I could have picked a fantasy and had it come true it would have been this, to be part of the Marching Night, and I am aren't I?"

"That is what the Great Leader has said," Tarius answered. "And as you might have guessed what she says goes."

"But why? Why did she welcome me into her pack? I'm nothing special."
He laughed at her and punched her in the arm—luckily not the one with the stitches. "Eric, you fought shoulder to shoulder with us and who knows if any of us would be alive if you hadn't been there. That is the code of the Marching Night. You protect your fellows because they protect you and if they're not there then you may fall to the sword blow they would have stopped. I'm sure Tarius and Jena and Arvon consider that you have helped to save their cub." Tarius grinned broadly, "Bards will tell great stories of you. In fact I will tell one right now."

And so he did. She knew he was just trying to cheer her up but that was all right because it worked.

Where had they come from? He had no idea and now they were everywhere, attacking the horses then knocking them onto their riders. Hundreds of them pulling and stabbing, slashing, and killing.

* * *

Earlier that day they had found where a battle had obviously raged because the whole field had been churned up and there was blood everywhere, but there was nothing else, not a body, not a shield, not a weapon.

He'd heard the lieutenant ask the captain, "Where are the weapons?"

"Tarius the Black must have taken them. It is said she will leave nothing that might be of use to the enemy," the captain answered.

"Where are the bodies?" he asked.

"That I don't know," he said, and they started up a trail that went deep into the woods. Here they found another site of obvious battle but again not a single body.