Sword Masters (32 page)

Darian walked in, started to scream a protest, then saw the king and bowed low.

"Is it true then, Tarius? Is what he says true?" Persius asked in a hurt tone.

"Please give me a few moments alone with Jena, and then you can do with me whatever you wish," Tarius said. "She has done nothing wrong, she knows nothing of what I am. I beg you, please, let me explain myself to her. Then I'll go with you . . . stand by whatever judgement you see fit."

Suddenly Persius was filled with rage. He took a dagger and walked forward.

"No!" Jena started to rush forward, and Darian stopped her.

"What is this?" Darian asked. "As a servant of the kingdom, I demand to know what it is you think my son-in-law has done."

Persius closed in on Tarius, and she glared at him. "Persius, do not do this to me. I have saved your life not once but twice. For those deeds I beg you give me this one consideration, let me tell Jena myself. Is that too much to ask?"
Jena was crying loudly. Darian tried to comfort her and prepare for whatever Tarius had done. He couldn't believe Tarius capable of treason. None of it made any sense.

Persius cut Tarius's shirt down the front with the knife, then he inserted the dagger in the top of the wrappings.

"I beg you, Persius . . ."

"No!" Persius screamed in her face. "You have made an utter fool of me."

"How so? By helping you win a war you were destined to lose? By saving your life? Give me, I beg you, this one thing."

"Tarius! My gods!" Jena cried. "What is it?"

"Jena, I never meant to hurt you."

Persius cut down the length of cloth, exposing Tarius's chest. A few trickles of blood ran down her front, between her breasts where the knife had cut her.

"He's a woman," Persius said. "My warlord and your husband, is a woman."
Jena fainted dead away, and Darian caught her and quickly carried her from the room. He didn't know what Persius would do to Tarius, but he was sure Tarius would fight back, and he had to get Jena to safety.

Tarius looked at Persius and started to change. "If you know that, then you know what else I am, and you should not have done that, Persius. You should not have done that at all." Tarius busted the chains behind her back and slung an ironclad fist into the king's head. He stumbled back but didn't fall.

"Get it!" Persius screamed, putting a hand to his dazed head. The world was spinning, and it was all he could do to stay on his feet.

Harris had finally been awakened. He ran into the room, surveyed the situation quickly, and knew where his loyalty must lay. He dove on the floor underneath the combat overhead and grabbed Tarius's sword from under the bed where he knew she kept it.

"Tarius!" Harris screamed. When she looked at him, he tossed her the sword. She nodded at him and fought her way to the window. She dove through and Harris followed, landing on the ground beside her. She ripped what was left of the shirt off, as at this point it was only getting in her way. She looked at Harris and shook her head.

"Do you have any idea how much trouble you just bought yourself?" Tarius asked.

"You . . . whatever you may be, are my one true friend," Harris said. "Come on, let's get the hell out of here."

They started to run and ran right into a group of infantry. Tarius looked at Harris. "Get to the stables and grab our horses get one for Jena, I'll not leave here without her. I'll hold them off."

Tarius dove into the fray as Harris ran in the direction of the stables. Tarius jumped up on top of a table in the courtyard, then leapt over the men to land behind them. "Listen to me. Most of you have fought beside me, and I don't want to kill anyone, but I won't let anyone kill me, either. I have committed no crime. Leave me be and I will take what is mine and go."

They didn't listen to her speech, and if they did they didn't care, so she didn't hold back. There were too many of them to play with, so she started killing them.

* * *

Persius watched out the window. Tarius was too good. Man or woman, human or Katabull, there was no one who could stand against Tarius with a sword. Persius looked at the apprentice wizard.

"Does it love the girl, or is she just part of her disguise?" Persius asked.

"She loves her. There's nothing she wouldn't do for her," the apprentice answered. "She would kill for her, and she'd die for her."

"You and you," Persius ordered. "Bring me the girl."

He followed them. They found Jena with her father in the drawing room. She was just coming to. "Get her," Persius ordered.

"Sire, I must protest!" Darian said.

"Tarius is mowing my men down out there, and when he's . . .
she's
done, she'll very likely come after me. Now the wizard says that Tarius loves your daughter. I won't harm her, this I promise, but if Tarius thinks I will harm her, she'll give herself up without a fight."

"Why not let her go?" Jena said weakly.

"How can you say that after what that thing did to you?" Darian asked.

"Who has she hurt more than me? Please . . . Let her go," Jena pleaded.

"Get her," Persius ordered. Two guards took hold of Jena and drug her outside.

"Tarius!" Persius screamed into the night. "I have your woman, Tarius. I have to have my revenge. If you won't let me take it on you, what better revenge than that I kill the one you love?"

Tarius seemed to appear out of nowhere then. She ran up, sword in hand stopping some ten feet in front of him. No one was behind her. She was covered in blood and very much the Katabull. "Get your hands off her," Tarius ordered in a hiss.

"I will not release her till you are securely cuffed, chained, and in my dungeon," Persius said.

"You've got no quarrel with Jena," Tarius said. "She's committed no crime, nor has she broken any of your stupid rules. Let me have her. We will go away, and no one will ever know what I am."

"
I
will know!" Persius screamed. "Give yourself up, or I will kill your woman." He pulled his sword and put it to Jena's throat.

"Jena . . . I'm so sorry. For everything," Tarius said. She threw her sword as far as she could. It rolled through the air, the moonlight gleaming off the blade till it was out of sight. She put her hands above her head and dropped to her knees. "There now, Persius, you have beaten me."

* * *

Harris watched from a distance on horseback. He saw Tarius throw her sword, and saw where it had landed, so when everyone had left he rushed in and got it. He also picked up her armor.

He would find a way to save his friend. He didn't know how, though. He wasn't the plan man; that was Tarius.

Arvon . . . Arvon would know what to do, and surely he would help Tarius no matter what she was. So he rode off fast taking the back trails to Arvon's house.

* * *

Tarius's hands were cuffed in much stouter metal this time, and her hands were chained to cuffs that also cuffed her feet together. They weren't taking any chances.

She looked at the thick metal bars in front of her and wished she had killed Tragon a dozen times over. Better yet, she could just have let him die on the battlefield.

They wouldn't give her a shirt, and it was cold. However she had sucked the blood off one arm, and she was human again. She was stronger and warmer as Katabull, but if Jena should happen to make it down to see her, she didn't want to be the creature as well.

"My great crime! I have tits instead of a dick," Tarius mumbled. "I'm Katabull instead of a human."

"Your great crime was that you fooled
all
of them," Hellibolt said from inside the cell with her. "My, her skin is awfully bare, give her something warm to wear."

It was a red shirt, and Tarius nodded approvingly. "How appropriate, won't show the blood when they shoot me through with arrows. How about a spell to get me the hell out of here?"

"You don't really want that, though, do you?"

"Not without Jena," Tarius said shaking her head. "I deserve whatever happens to me because of what I did to Jena. I ruined her life."

"Ah, my friend that's not true. You gave her true love, and some people never have that. Besides, she still has lots of life left. It's a minor setback at best."

"Aren't you even going to say I told you so?" Tarius asked.

"What would be the point now? You've taken all the fun out of it," Hellibolt said with a sad smile. "To tell the truth, sometimes I hate being right all the time."

"I just wish I could make sure that Jena was going to be all right. Then I could die happy," Tarius said.

"You'll not die for a very long time, Tarius, and she'll be fine just as soon as you are together again."

Before Tarius had time to ask the old charlatan what he meant, he was gone.

Tarius paced the cell like a caged animal.

Arvon appeared outside the door of her cell. He looked as miserable as she felt.

"How you doing?" he asked.

"Oh, fine! Never better. How is Jena?" Tarius asked.

"You had better start worrying about yourself, Tarius," Arvon said. "The king is talking about executing you in the morning, thanks to Darian's insistence. He really hates your guts. Harris is holed up at our house awaiting your further instructions, apparently not upset at all that you are a woman and the Katabull. He expects me to find a way to get you out of here, but I don't have a clue. What about you?"

"I can't do anything. He's threatened to kill Jena if I do. Besides, I'm not leaving here without her. I'd sooner die," Tarius said.

"All right. I didn't want to tell you this, but
she
hates you, too. She doesn't give a damn what happens to you. Apparently at first she didn't want you hurt, but now that she's calmed down and had a chance to think about it, she really hates you. She demanded to know who the father of her baby is, and when she found out it was Tragon, she started to scream that she hated you and him, too. Your father-in-law was demanding a death sentence, and let me tell you she didn't try to dissuade him."

"I'm having a bad day," Tarius said with a forced smile.

"Quit feeling sorry for yourself and figure a way out of this one, because otherwise you'll be dead by morning. I'll do whatever you ask me to, and so will Harris, but you have to think of something, because everything I've thought of is guaranteed to get us all killed."

"This is my plan," Tarius said carefully. "Tell Harris to get his butt to Kartik. He won't be safe here now, that's for sure. As for you, you take care of Jena for me. Make sure she and her baby are safe when the Amalites come."

Arvon started to cry. He reached through the bars and took her hand. "I can't bear to just let you go, Tarius."

"You must. Save yourself; you have much to live for. Without Jena, without her love, I'm better off dead, and it will be easier for her, too."

Arvon squeezed her hand. "Good bye, my sister."

"Good bye, my brother," Tarius said. "I know you're mad at Jena right now, but remember you're the one who told me what I was doing to her was wrong. How can we expect her to react? Promise me you'll take care of her."

"I will guard her with my very life." He left crying so loudly that she could hear him several minutes after he had left.

She walked over and sat on a plank bench. She secretly hoped she didn't have to go to the bathroom. She'd hate to die with wet pants.

"Tarius."

Tarius's head snapped up, and she jumped up and went to the bars.

Jena jumped back.

Tarius ignored the pain in her heart. "Are you all right? Have they hurt you?"

"What a stupid question, Tarius! How could I be all right?" Jena screamed. "You know, when you didn't want to have sex with me, I thought of a million reasons why, but it never dawned on me even once that it might be because you were a
woman
."

"I'm very sorry, Jena." Tarius said.

"Sorry . . . What do you think that is? A magic word that makes all the pain and the lies go away? Was it funny to you? Did you get a good laugh because I was so stupid?" Jena's angry tears fell like rain. "And you love me, don't you? You must because you could have gotten away, and you gave yourself up because you thought they might hurt me. Do you have any idea how confusing that is? You love me, so you did all these terrible things to me."

"I never wanted to hurt you. I certainly never wanted you to find out like this. I wanted us to go away someplace where the love I have for you is commonplace. Where you might have loved me, too," Tarius said miserably.

"But that's the problem . . . I do . . . did love you. My mind and my life are a mess now, because I loved you. You want to hear the real kicker? I've been going over and over this in my head, and what's weird is that if you had told me you were Katabull, it wouldn't have bothered me at all. I could even forgive all the lies and the deceit and the fact that you didn't trust in my love enough to tell me the truth. I might even have been able to forgive the fact that you're a woman, but what I can never forget . . . what I can never forgive, is that you put him in our bed with me. That you would do something like that without my consent or knowledge."

Tarius didn't try to stop her tears now. "Jena . . . There is no excuse for what I did. I thought it was what you wanted. You said it was what you wanted."

"I wanted it with
you
!" Jena screamed back. "Except I was too stupid to know you couldn't give it to me."

"You're not stupid. I didn't just fool you, Jena, I fooled an entire country. Them I fooled because they wouldn't let me do what I wanted to do, and you I fooled because I couldn't stop myself from loving you." Tarius tried to raise her hand to dry her eyes and couldn't, so she wiped her face on her shoulder instead. "I know it doesn't matter now, but I tried to stay away from you. I tried not to love you, but you awoke within me something that I thought was long dead. You made me love again, gave me some reason for living other than revenge and killing. I'm sorry that my love hurt you. I'm sorry that it will continue to hurt you for a long time to come, but I'm not sorry for loving you. I don't regret having been with you, it was worth anything I will have to endure. If I die, then I die, and even at the moment of my death I will not regret one moment I spent with you. In fact, I would rather die. Better that I should have never been born than I should have had to live my life never knowing your love."