Sword Masters (25 page)

"It was Persius' fate to die on the shaft of that arrow. Now I am afraid you have sealed your own fate, and it won't be pleasant. You will be destroyed by the very men you have saved," Hellibolt assured her.

Tarius looked thoughtful. She did not all together dismiss the wizard's words. She knew he had great power, however . . . "I do not believe in prophecy, Hellibolt. Prophecy negates free will, and I believe all people have free will."

"True enough. But there are times in which the snapping of a twig may change the course of history itself. Some men are meant to die before they can do evil. Now you have saved a partner who loves your wife and knows who you are, and a proud king who'd rather die than take advice from a woman. It is a recipe for disaster. Tread carefully, Tarius. Tread very carefully, or the earth will pull away from your feet and suck you down into the abyss."

Tarius nodded and watched the old man walk away. Harris walked up to her. "What did the wizard want?"
"To warn me. Apparently the king was supposed to die in that battle, and now I have cursed myself," Tarius said, forcing a smile she did not feel.

Persius rode up to her and dismounted. He had been riding through the camp, assessing the damages and basically looking kingly. He had taken his helmet off, and he ran up to her and embraced her. Not at all a pleasant experience since he was wearing a full set of plate.

"What honor could I bestow on you which I haven't already?" He stood away from Tarius and put his hands on her shoulders. "You have saved my life. Not once but twice. Never before have I seen or heard of a warrior such as you who can pluck an arrow from the air as easily as one might pick an apple. Ask for anything, Tarius, and it shall be yours. Money, lands, jewels, servants."

"I have no need for any of those things," Tarius laughed.

"Then let me give you a title. Make you a Baron or better yet a Count, and . . ."

"The title of knight is enough of a burden for me to bear."

"Surely there is something . . ."

"Actually . . . " She grabbed Harris by the arm and dragged him over. "My squire, Harris is as good a fighter as any swordsman. He is loyal to country and to friends, and is by far the finest man I have ever known. He is my equal in every way. For this reason I want you to knight him this very day at this very time. That is what I ask."

Harris looked shocked.

The king smiled and nodded, obviously glad to have found something that Tarius wanted. He called his herald over and gave him commands.

"Hear ye! Hear ye! His royal Majesty the good King Persius wishes all to pay heed."

"Good men! On this day I give honor to one who deserves more than I can ever give him." He pulled his sword, and Harris knelt before the king. "I dub thee, Sir Harris the Nimble, and charge you serve the kingdom and the people well in times of peace as well as in times of war."

He put his sword away. "Rise, Sir Harris."

Harris rose and suddenly the crippled boy was gone. Harris was a man, a proud man. Tarius hugged him tightly.

"And you, Sir Tarius," Persius started. Tarius released Harris and turned to face the king. "You, my friend, are the greatest warrior who ever lived."

The men cheered loudly for a good ten minutes. Then Persius said, "Enough! Get back to work."

Harris watched the king go, then he turned to Tarius. "I . . . I'm not equal to you, Tarius! I never could be, I . . ."

"Deserve knighthood as much as I do. Maybe more so," Tarius smiled. "You should have been a Swordmaster, but the stupid rules prevented you. The king picks who he knights, so the rules change with the king. Now, let's get back to work, Sir Harris."

"The nimble . . . Is that supposed to be some sort of joke?" Harris asked as he followed Tarius.

"When a crippled man moves the way you do, he is indeed the most nimble of men," Tarius said.

* * *

As the morning sun broke through, the fifth division arrived. They had sent word for their two units guarding the road into the Amalite camp to close in from behind. The battle went on all through the day and into the night, but now it was the Amalites who were getting slaughtered, and soon it was the Amalites who were badly out-numbered.

When on the very next morning their two divisions closed in behind the Amalites camp, the Jethrik army forded the river and entered into the Amalite camp. They cut a swath through the camp, and towards evening the Amalite leader appeared with a white flag. Persius called a cease-fire, and Tarius immediately rode up beside him.

"Persius," Tarius spoke, out of breath from the fighting. "We are winning. You can't make peace with the Amalites."

"We must at least hear them out."

"No! Send them away! They are our enemies, and we must kill them all," Tarius said. "They would not show us mercy."

"I will meet with them. Bring them to me."

They met in Persius' pavilion, which was erected for the purpose. There were five Amalites in all, only one of which spoke Jethrik. "Our leader wishes to retreat. To end the war."

"You are a liar. You are all liars," Tarius hissed.

"Tarius!" Persius said in a warning tone. "Go on. I'm afraid my warlord has even more reason to distrust your people than the rest of us do. You have attacked our country for the second time in less than twelve years. These were unprovoked attacks launched against us for the purpose of taking our country away from us. Make your plea ring with truth, or I shall turn my men lose on you to do as they please."

The leader spoke to the interpreter, and the interpreter spoke to them. "My leader says that we will leave you in peace. We wish to retreat in peace."

"Until they regroup, rearm, and prepare," Tarius insisted.

"Tarius, hold your tongue!" Persius warned.

"I can not, and I will not. Not while you harbor even one notion of listening to the words of these Amalite scum."

"Tarius," Persius whispered to her. "Do not make me have to ask you to leave. We all want an end to the war."

"Then let us end it," Tarius whispered back. "Let us go across their borders and hunt them down and kill out every fighting man and every priest in all of Amalite. Then and only then will there be lasting peace."

"Tarius . . . you are a warrior, but you do not understand everything about a war. While we fight farms go untended, crops don't get in, and people don't pay taxes. Our country doesn't run on the war machine. We need these men at home growing crops. Every day this war goes on, another field lies dormant and flocks go untended."

"And I tell you now that if you do not hunt them down to the last man, they will only rebuild their forces and come after you again. They are not like us. They don't care about fields getting plowed or flocks getting tended. All of that takes second place to serving their gods because they believe their gods will give them eternal life. So who cares if they starve to death or they die in battle? As long as they have served their gods, they will live on forever. And how do they serve their gods? By killing the unbelievers. And who would be the unbelievers? Well, that would be us. Ask them this one question, and if they answer it correctly, I will not question you again in this matter. Ask them to swear on their gods that they believe that we have the right to live here or anywhere else. Ask them to promise never to attack us or to send their filthy missionaries into our territories again."

Persius posed the questions. The interpreter told the leader what Persius asked, and then the leader answered.

"He says we will leave your lands now. That you may live as long as you like once you have seen the light. That we will take our missionaries with us," the interpreter said.

Tarius glared right into the eyes of the leader. "See how they dance around the truth? Swear an oath on your gods that you will leave us be, that you admit that we have a right to live."

"He's answered the question, Tarius," Persius said gently. "It's time to think about peace."

"There can never be peace as long as an Amalite breathes a breath on this world." Tarius glared at the Amalite leader again. "If you let them go now, we shall again be in this very same field fighting this very same war, and the next time we may not win."

"That's enough, Tarius," Persius said. "You're disrupting this meeting and making it impossible to negotiate with them."

Tarius didn't seem to care. She launched into a parable.

"There was a mother who had an infant child. One day she needed to go into town to get some milk for her child as she had gone dry. It was too long a walk to carry a baby, so she asked a wolf to watch the child for her. The wolf promised he would let no harm come to the child, and so the mother went into town to get the milk. When she arrived home the wolf had devoured the baby. The mother cried and said, 'How could you? You promised no harm would come to my baby!' She cried out to the Nameless One and asked for judgment against the wolf, but nothing happened to the wolf. For you see, it is the wolf's nature to kill and devour that which is weaker than him. The mother killed her own child," Tarius said. "Your fate will be the same if you make a deal with the Amalites. They will destroy your country, and you will have no one to blame but yourself." Having spoken, Tarius turned and left the tent without waiting to be ordered to do so.

The Amalite leader started to talk quickly, no doubt he wanted to know what Tarius had said, and the interpreter told him. The Amalite leader spat on the ground, then he glared at Persius. He spoke to him harshly.

"He wants to know if that was the one called Tarius the Black?"

Persius was curious. He knew men like Tarius gained reputations on both sides, but they knew him by name, which seemed odd.

"He is. What's it to you, and how is it that you know his name?" Persius asked.

The interpreter relayed the message to the leader, who spat something back quickly.

"He says that he heard his name on the wind. That it is him who your men cheer."

"He is a great and respected warrior," Persius said.

The Amalite leader spoke again, this time in a calmer tone.

"Our leader wishes to make a deal with you . . ."

Persius stood to his full height and glared at the leader. "Why would I make a deal with you? You have invaded my kingdom, killed my people, burned my land, and now when we are winning, you think that I should make a deal with you. The only deal I will make with you is that if you take your murdering scum back over my borders and stay out of my kingdom, I will let you leave with your lives, but not with your weapons."

The interpreter told the Amalite what Persius had said, and the Amalite frowned and made a long speech, all the while looking at Persius.

The interpreter looked at Persius. He obviously did not approve of what the leader had said. "We have many troops still in your lands, within your borders. He wants you to give them safe passage from your lands."

Persius thought about that. "No. I want you all gone, and I want you gone today. Any of your men within our borders who are alive shall be hunted down and killed to the last man. I know how you people work, and I won't allow it."

The interpreter relayed the message and the Amalite looked angry. He spoke angry words that the interpreter did not interpret.

"What did he say?" Persius demanded.

The interpreter looked at the leader and apparently told him that Persius wanted to know what he said. The leader nodded, giving Persius a look of utter contempt.

"He calls on the gods of light to smite you. He puts a curse on your house and your children, because you will not give our, 'missionaries' safe passage from your kingdom," the interpreter said.

Persius was mad now. Mad enough to seriously consider Tarius's proposal. But he had an idea, one that made him smile.

"All right, you want a deal? I'll give you a deal. You," he pointed at the leader. "Fight to the death with my champion. If you win, we will allow your 'soldiers' to leave unmolested. However, if you lose, you leave my country and we kill every single filthy Amalite we find in ours."

The interpreter told the leader, and he was just mad enough to take Persius' offer.

"We will prepare ourselves," the interpreter said, and he and the Amalite leader left.

"A barbaric practice my king?" Hellibolt said at his shoulder.

"Amalites aren't as good as Barbarians." He called his page over. "Go and get Tarius. Tell him to prepare himself for battle."

"At once, Sire." The page hurried out.

"You should take Tarius's counsel," Hellibolt said. "Kill the bastards to the last man. He hasn't steered you wrong yet."

"We have to have peace, Hellibolt!" Persius said in disbelief. "Too many good men have died already."

"But Tarius is right, Sire. If you do not kill them now, they will rebuild their army, grow stronger than ever, and come back after us," Hellibolt said.

"And we'll be ready for them if they do. For now, I want an end to the killing. I want to go back to my castle, my wives, and my children. I want to run the country, repair it after this conflict," Persius said.

"Then go home, by all means. Let your men push them back, hunt them down and destroy them," Hellibolt said.

"Do you see the future?" Persius asked a bit concerned. "Do you warn me because you see a future in which our armies will have to fight the Amalites again?"

"I don't see it, no. But I think Tarius does," Hellibolt said.

Persius slung a hand in the air dismissing the wizard. He grabbed his cloak from his throne and walked out of the tent. They had beaten the Amalites down. Now that they knew they could not win against the might of the Jethrik army, they wouldn't dare to try again. Tarius was a man filled with righteous hatred, and Hellibolt was an old fool who knew nothing more important than how to mix a few powders.

Outside the sun was still high in the sky. The Amalites were being stripped of their weapons and horses and forced to march on foot for the boarder. They deserved no more mercy than they were getting.

Tarius walked over to the king as soon as she saw him.

"Your page said you wanted to see me." Tarius was mad at Persius and made no attempt to hide the fact.