Jabone's Sword (49 page)

"Ah but I became queer for you therefore I love you more," Jestia countered.

"You were always queer just too ignorant to know it," Ufalla said, and from the change in the tone of their voices they were either escalating into a real argument or getting ready to tether their horses to the supply wagon and crawl under the tarp to get a little.

"I can't for the life of me understand why Tarius thought it was so important to separate me and Jabone but she thought you two weren't a distraction to each other and everyone around you," Kasiria said, turning in her saddle to look at them. For answer they just looked at each other and then laughed, rather proving her point. "Really, if anyone needs to be separated it should be you two. Do you ever think of anything but . . . Well whatever it is that you two do?" And she never should have said that because Jestia was only too glad to tell her—in detail—just exactly what they did, which Kasiria decided was much more distracting than just riding beside Jabone talking to him, because there were a couple of those things she and Jabone could do and hadn't yet and now all she could think about was doing them. "Jestia," she said when she'd had about as much as she could take, "could you please talk about something else, or better yet not talk at all?"

"Yeah, like that's ever going to happen," Ufalla muttered. When Kasiria turned to look at her, Ufalla was red in the face though it was hard to say whether the discussion had embarrassed or aroused her that much. No doubt she hadn't tried to shut Jestia up for the same reason Kasiria hadn't at first because of course letting Jestia know that what she was saying was embarrassing or annoying you only made her want to talk about it more.

"I don't understand why you act so chaste. I've heard . . . We've all heard you and Jabone going at it, and have you ever even made love in human form?" Jestia read the expression on Kasiria's face. "That's what I thought. You become Katabull every single time, so don't pretend to be all prim and proper. If you weren't completely consumed with your lust for him you wouldn't change."

Kasiria looked at Ufalla to confirm what Jestia said and Ufalla smiled broadly back at her. "She's right. Most Katabull don't change form every time they do it. Of course sometimes they start out that way or they change because they want to, but a forced change—that's rare."

"What exactly are you implying?" Kasiria asked, glaring over her shoulder at Jestia.

"That you're every bit as over-sexed as we Kartik sluts. You just don't like to talk about it," Jestia said.

Kasiria started to get mad and then she looked from Jestia to Ufalla and laughed. "No one on this planet is as oversexed as you two freaks. And that whole 'who loves who more' thing, well that's just about enough to make a battle-worn soldier throw up their lunch. Again I must say, I can't believe that Tarius separated Jabone and I and she let Eric and Tarius ride together and left you two riding together." They were too quiet and she knew why. "She separated you as well didn't she? One of you traded places with Eric or Tarius."

"You know, Kasiria, you don't always have to do everything you're told. Tarius is a huge hypocrite. Who is riding beside her right now?" Ufalla asked.

Kasiria started, "Your father and . . . "

Surprisingly it was Ufalla who interrupted with, " . . . Jena. She is riding right beside Jena as they have done most of their lives. And do you know why? Because I do," Ufalla said.

"Why?" Kasiria asked curiously.

"Because she doesn't trust anyone else to protect Jena, that's why. She keeps her close. She always knows where Jena is, and she certainly finds her a distraction, so she's a hypocrite. She's going to separate us from our lovers while she rides with her thigh rubbing against Jena's. Well I don't trust anyone else to protect Jestia, so I'm riding with her."

"And I don't trust anyone else to protect Ufalla," Jestia said with conviction.

"Oh bull, you mostly just want to be together and . . . " She looked over at where Jabone was riding and sighed. "It's my turn. One of you go ride over there and send Jabone over here."

"No," they both said.

"You two are so selfish," Kasiria says.

Jestia looked at Ufalla and said in a shocked voice, "So says the girl who I risked my very life to save."

"Where's the appreciation the respect?" Ufalla asked with a wry smile.

"Exactly my point," Jestia said.

So Kasiria rode with them the rest of the day listening to their idiotic "I love you more" argument interrupted occasionally with graphic descriptions of what they wanted to do to each other. When they finally stopped to make camp she ran, grabbed Jabone, and dragged him off into the woods.

* * *

Tarius stood beside the fire warming her hands though it wasn't cold it being late summer now. Still the warmth felt good on her hands. She watched Jabone and Kasiria coming back into camp holding hands and giggling, and since they were both now in their Katabull state she knew exactly what they'd been up to. "Look," she pointed them out to Jena who stood with her arms around Tarius's waist her head resting on Tarius's back. Jena raised her head then lay back down with a chuckle.

"Let them ride together, Tarius."

"Do you think they'd be any less likely to run off and couple before we can make camp if I did?"

"I think they'd be 'distracted' by each other if you put one on one end of our troop and the other on the other," Jena said.

"The others already ride together," Hellibolt said.

Tarius looked at him and for the hundredth time wondered just what he was doing here. Persius had gone back to the palace stating that he was too old to fight a battle, especially some strange cave battle. She thought it more likely that he felt uncomfortable being around so many Katabull because her people, her mate, and her son made no pretence of how they felt about him. As Persius had prepared to leave Hellibolt had come to her and insisted on coming with them, and though she was more than happy to have him she still didn't know why he wanted to go. He rode on one of the supply wagons as horses didn't like him. He stood rubbing his haunches, so obviously not even a cushion and his magic could stop his butt from hurting after riding all day on a rough wagon. Hellibolt quickly declined the chair that had been offered by one of her people when he'd walked up.
What are you doing here?
Tarius thought, watching him.

"Perhaps an old wizard would like a chance to relive his glory days as well," he said in answer to her unasked question. Tarius smiled and nodded.

"This cave, it will not be like any battle I have fought. These things they are not like us, not like any of us. They are eaters of human flesh. I had set up sentries around Port Sagal to make sure that none of the Amalites would be able to get through to go to the hive and warn them, but none so much as tried. Grey Noke, it was a Jethrikian settlement in the territory but the smaller villages they had hit first, the wagons they'd stripped, those were mostly Amalites. What do you make of that, Hellibolt?"

"That age hasn't made you any less sharp my friend," Hellibolt said. Then he seemed to think for a minute. "They are followers of the Amalite religion no doubt, but a splinter group even more fanatical than the others. I believe they broke from the original group long before the Great War started. They probably started out as heretics in their own religion and now as time has passed they see anyone who lives outside the hive as being a heretic and only they are the true believers."

"So they are exactly like the Amalites only they even hate other Amalites."

"Precisely. As the Amalites' religion has been stripped from them they would have seemed less and less like brothers and more and more like prey. What you have said, what the others said and what I have seen in my own head as much as proves that this people's entire society depends on cannibalism. I imagine they went underground to escape, yes, but not our armies searching for and killing out pockets of Amalite all through the territories. They hid long before that. As we all know, the Amalites believe there are only their gods, that only their priests can interpret what these gods say, and that they must be served in only the way they are told to serve them. This probably had some relatively small difference in what they believed or in the rituals they wished to perform. The difference wouldn't have had to be very big in our eyes. In fact, we might not even be able to understand it. So they went underground to avoid persecution from other Amalites.

"People hiding underground, well food would be scarce. I mean they couldn't very well raise it. They'd have to comb the woods at night looking for what they could hunt and gather. Fields, herds of any kind would give them away. As you know a large group of people hunting and gathering in the same area for many years, a group growing in numbers, the food would have eventually become scarce. They probably started out eating their dead and then that escalated into eating the dying, then the infirm and the old. I imagine their priests told them their gods condoned it. As we know, when pressed the Amalites' gods suddenly condone any number of things . . . "

"Their gods aren't real; the priests run the people through the religion."

"Gods are only as real as people make them, Tarius. You're a bright woman—you know that. Priests convince themselves they converse with gods and see visions. They have to believe the crap they spout or the people won't. That's beside the point. Eventually they just started hunting people instead of animals. Think about it; people are easier to hunt."

"It's terrible," Jena said with a shudder against Tarius's back. "I never thought they could be any worse than what we faced before."

"I'm thinking smoke them out, or close off their air holes and entrances—somehow suffocate them," Tarius said.

"There will be children in there, Tarius," Jena said, a disapproving tone to her voice.

"And any over eight would surely be ruined—hateful things you'd never be able to make human. Even younger than that may be too late. They are a cult of death. I think it might be kinder to just kill them all. Who knows what hell these children have lived through?" Tarius assured Jena.

"If we miss even one air hole . . . and how would we know how much air they have in there? Caves can be strange things drawing water and even air from the other side of the earth. With enough people they would eventually tunnel out. Are we to just leave a force there forever?" Hellibolt said. "I agree that everything over eight must be killed, but surely children younger than that should at least be given the chance to see if they can live normal lives."

"And then will you be the one to kill them if they can't?" Tarius asked. "I think it would be kinder to kill them all and safer for us to find some way to just kill them all in the hive, poison or gas or . . . "

"Babies Tarius," Jena said in disbelief, moving away from Tarius' back to face her. "Small children who've never had any choice about what they eat or how they live. They should have the chance to live in the sunshine, to eat real food. They should have a chance."

"I know what you're saying, Jena, but why put our children, our people in danger for them, when they may be damaged beyond curing?"

"I agree," Harris said. He had walked up and was now putting wood on the fire. "What would you do with all these babies? Who do you think would want to take in an Amalite brat who'd cut their teeth on human flesh? Surely there is some magic that could find all the openings. Then we could plug them or put so much fire down them they would cook in their cave."

"We could find homes among the rehabilitated Amalites of the territories for the children," Hellibolt said. "I can not condone killing the children with the adults. Anything under eight should be spared and I know of no spell that would show all the openings."

"I know one," Jestia said, walking up to the fire with Ufalla, "but I'd have to be in the cave to cast it. You build a fire—doesn't have to be big—and then tell the smoke to find all the holes. Then someone just needs to be watching for the smoke to see where the holes are."

"If we knew where the openings were we could start fires in some and have our men waiting at the others and when the smoke drove them out we could kill them," Tarius said.

"And the children would all die from the smoke or be killed in their mother's arms when they ran out with them," Jena said, glaring at Tarius "Surely not even you, Tarius, can just have us discount these children as casualties of battle."

"Not even me!?" Tarius was immediately hurt and agitated. "What is this then, Jena? You make it sound like I weekly go out and slay babies. I did not create their hateful religion. I am not the one who pulls my people under the earth and has them eating their neighbors. I didn't put these children in danger. Their parents, their priests did that."

"I'm sorry, Tarius, I know you're only trying to make sure that we take as few casualties as possible but . . . I also know that if you try just a little you can find some way to do that without killing the children," Jena said appealingly. "Tarius, you are the greatest war lord who has ever lived, but more than that you are also the most just person I have every known. I have seen you make the impossible happen many times. Please try to think of some way that we can save these babies."

Dammit, she knows me too well. She could have screamed at me all day and I wouldn't have budged, but when she asks me . . . When she insists on saying over and over again not to kill the babies. I was a child when the Amalites came and killed everyone but my father, when they tried to kill me and someone unrelated took me in. I was near dead and traumatized in unimaginable ways and she just took me to Montero and fixed me body and soul. It's the Amalites' way to kill the innocent towards their own ends. My ways can't be like theirs. Dammit they're right. I have to save the children if I can, and Jestia can only cast the spell from within the cave so I don't have a choice. What Kasiria said before she even woke from the healing sleep is right. We have to scout out the caves. Dammit, it's insane. I wanted to keep my people out of the caves if I could, but it can't be helped.