Sword Masters (47 page)

Rimmy turned to go after them just as Tarius arrived pulling on her armor. Jena was right behind her doing the same.

"Did anyone get my knee cop off the deck?" Tarius asked.

"Here Great Leader," Tweed said handing it to her. Tweed also was the Katabull.

"Thank you." Tarius nodded as she took it from him.

They were armored faster than any army Darian had ever seen.

"Give me my sword, and I will help you," Darian said. "The Amalites are my enemy as well."

"No," Jena said. "You'd as likely kill Tarius as one of them."

Tarius was busy giving orders, and slowly the fighters started to sneak back out on deck. They went on hands and knees crawling up against the edge of the ship's rails, out of sight of the Amalite raiding ship.

Tarius seemed to look down at her feet, and as she raised her head she was the Katabull as well. She looked at Darian and smiled. "Wait till you see me sling steel as the Katabull."

She kissed Jena on the cheek, and then together they crawled onto the deck.

* * *

Faced with only a token resistance, the Amalites got their grappling hooks into their prize and pulled the ships together. The Kartik soldiers did their part by running around and looking mortified and panicked. When the first Amalite foot touched their ship, Tarius gave the call, and the Marching Night attacked. Darian watched from the cabin as long as he could stand it, then he grabbed a mop, broke the head off it and ran into the fray.

Nothing, absolutely nothing moved like the Katabull. Up sails, up ropes, over rails and barrels and each other. And no Katabull moved like Tarius the Black. Tarius leapt over the rail and into the enemy ship, slicing the first man she fell on almost in half. Punching the second in the face with the hilt of her sword so hard that she drove part of his face into his brain, killing him instantaneously. Then she was everywhere, and so, he noticed was Jena. The oddest thing was that Tarius seemed to always be aware of exactly where Jena was and just what was happening to her. At one point in the battle Jena was easily holding her own against not one but two men. Tarius appeared swinging in on a rope and killed them both before moving on. For his part, Darian helped to keep the Amalites from coming onto the Kartik ship. He slapped one man in the head with enough force to daze him and pushed another back into the boat.

In minutes the battle was over. The Katabull took no prisoners. The Amalite bodies were tied together, weighted with one of the anchors and dropped into the ocean. They off loaded enough supplies from the Amalite ship to keep them at sea for a while, hopefully long enough to capture another Amalite ship. Half the Kartik soldiers and all the badly wounded boarded their prize. They changed the flags to Kartik banners and then they pointed the ship towards the Kartik. They would tell the others that Tarius and the Marching Night were delayed but well, so that they could stay at sea until they took out another raiding ship. Then they, too, would head for home.

Tarius looked at the bloody stick in Darian's hand and smiled. "Kill any?" she asked him.

"I think maybe one," Darian said, and he smiled back. "It's been a long time since I was in an actual battle."

Tarius nodded and went off to check her troops. She made sure that every minor injury was being cared for. The girl was right. Tarius
was
a good leader.

"Give me that," Jena grabbed the stick from his hand. "Leave it to you to wield a Katabull killing weapon."

"It was all I had," Darian defended. "Damn it, daughter! I am trying to understand. I'm trying; can't you give in just a little?"

"She's too much like you, Darian," Tarius said in his ear. She was still the Katabull. In fact, none of them seemed like they were in any hurry to change back.

"What a horrible thing to say, Tarius!" Jena turned on her heel and stomped off.

"See what I mean?" Tarius asked Darian in a whisper.

"You aren't mad at me any more, are you?" Darian asked more than a little confused.

"I have thought about what we said to each other the other night. I hurt Jena a great deal. If anyone else had hurt her that badly, I would have wanted them dead. I understand that. I could be mad at you for making her marry Tragon, but at least you didn't actually put him in her bed, and I did. Understand this, though. I was trying to give her what she said she wanted. It was never my intention to hurt her. I love her. I can't help myself; she's magnificent. We have both hurt and been hurt," Tarius said. "I never meant to fall in love with Jena, and I certainly didn't want her to fall in love with me. Surely you can see that it was only my love for Jena that was my great undoing."

Darian thought about that a moment and then nodded in reluctant agreement.

"I know it's not what you're used to. I know that our relationship, like the Katabull, is something that is tolerated by your people but never really accepted. But you have to realize that where I come from—in the Kartik—I could have been all that I am. But the Kartik were not at war with the Amalites, and the Jethrik was. My pain over my father's death still raged, and so I left my home to fight your war as my father had done before me, breaking your rules as he, too, had done. I love Jena with all my heart and soul, and I know that she loves me the same. I can give her everything a man could give her. In fact, I can give her more, because I let her be whoever and whatever she wants to be. When the war is over and the land is safe we will even have children if that's what she wants." Tarius stopped for a moment looking out at sea. "So the real question is not whether I'm mad at you, but rather are you still mad at me? Can you try to put aside your hatred of me long enough to see what I really am, instead of what you have decided I am? And then there is the second problem."

"Which is?" Darian asked.

"Can you convince Jena that you are truly sorry for what you did to her?" Tarius said. She turned and walked away. Darian watched her go.

* * *

For the next three days, Jena would not even deign to talk to him. She acted as if he did not exist in her space at all. It was driving Darian mad.

Tarius was on the deck looking out to sea. She had hoped to run into another Amalite raiding party before this. Darian stomped up to her. "Tarius, you were once a Swordmaster. You are a fighter, so you know what I must be going through being separated from my weapon, knowing that if we go into battle my only defense will be whatever I can grab hold of on the ship. Give me my sword."

Tarius turned to look at him, but before she could speak Jena ran between him and Tarius. "You will never hold a sword on this ship while I still take a breath," Jena said.

"Tarius . . . are you the leader or is she?" Darian asked.

"You still don't understand old man. As I have told you once before, Jena's a woman, not a toad. As I am a woman as well why would her will be any greater or smaller than mine in my eyes?" Tarius smiled and clasped her hand on Jena's shoulder. "In matters both great and small I always take Jena's counsel. In matters concerning you, since you are her kin and not mine, I'm afraid the decision is simply not mine to make."

"The Marching Night—are they better than the Swordmasters?"

"There is no comparison whatsoever. The least of the Marching Night could destroy utterly the best of the Jethrik Swordmasters," Tarius said boastfully.

"Then put it to the test. I have seen you playing with practice weapons on the ship. Let me pick my opponent. If I can beat them, then give me my sword," Darian said.

Tarius looked at Jena appealingly. It was a sucker bet. One she could not lose.

"You're on," Jena said and went herself to grab two practice swords from their storage place on the deck. "So, chose your opponent," Jena said.

Darian looked around at the Marching Night. He even looked at Tarius for a second, which made them all grow very quiet. "You, Jena. I pick you."

"Ridiculous!" Tarius screamed. "Preposterous! No! I say no! Pick another opponent."

"Why? Can Jena not hold her own? Is she not part of the Marching Night?" Darian asked.

"Because it's twisted and . . ."

"I'll fight you, old man," Jena threw him the practice blade, "and you will lose."

"Jena, I don't think . . ." Tarius started.

Jena looked at her. "I want this."

Tarius shrugged and stepped back, prepared to watch the old man trounced by his own daughter.

Jena was relentless in her first attack, and Darian was glad they used the hollow bamboo sticks instead of the wooden swords they practiced with at home. Her first blow to his head would have likely driven him head first into the deck if they had. He landed one blow to her stomach, she flinched, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Tarius start forward and then stop when Jena glared at her.

Jena caught him in the head, in the leg, in the stomach and in the head in a combination so fast he had no time to block, and he hit the deck. Jena turned to walk away as the Marching Night cheered.

Darian stumbled to his feet, his nose bleeding. "I'm not done yet."

Jena turned on him, the anger shooting from her eyes reminding Darian of her mother when she was mad. He smiled smugly at her, and she landed on him with a sound blow to his head. Then she sent a flying kick to his stomach. He fell again, and again she walked away.

Darian again crawled to his feet. "I'm still not finished."

Jena spun on him again, this time in a red rage. She battered him in the ribs with a series of blows that again knocked him off his feet, and scalded all the air from his lungs.

This time she stood glaring at him. "Damn you! Stay down."

"Sorry, can't oblige." Darian again crawled to his feet. He threw a blow at her, which she easily blocked, and again she battered him till he fell.

"Stay down!" Jena cried, looking into his bruised and battered face.

But he stood up again, tottering now and unable to stand straight. "So, are you still mad, Jena? Or have you had enough?"

Jena started to swing the sword again, but Tarius was behind her in an instant. She grabbed Jena's arm and took the sword from it. She threw it onto the deck, and Jena collapsed in her arms crying. Tarius held her tight. "Shush, shush! It's all right," Tarius said gently.

"Sosha! Take him below, clean him up and doctor his wounds."

"Rimmy!"

"Yes, Tarius."

"Get this man his sword and some clean clothes. Kartik clothes."

* * *

Darian lay on the deck in the sun in clean if somewhat gaudy clothes. His sword lay by his side on the deck and he hurt everywhere.

Someone strode up to his feet. He shielded the sun out of his eyes and looked up at Jena. It was obvious that she had been crying a good long time. She'd washed her face, but her eyes were red and puffy.

"Why did you do that?" Jena hissed at him. "Did you hope to beat me in front of the Marching Night? Make me look a fool?"

"If I did, then I failed miserably, didn't I Jena?" Darian forced a smile. "You kicked my ass good, and I have to tell you, although I'd rather lie, that I didn't hold back on you. You just really out-class me. In fact, I'd venture to say that you are better than I have ever been, even in my youth."

"You . . . Why would you pick me, then?" Jena asked. "The Katabull all outclass me, but only a few of the Kartik fighters do."

"I knew that. The Katabull woman Radkin told me."

"Then why?" Jena asked.

"Because I need you to forgive me, Jena, and you aren't even trying." Darian moved painfully into a sitting position. "I'm trying to understand about you . . . and Tarius. It's not easy, Jena. This was never what I wanted for you. I thought maybe if you could beat the crap out of me, we could get past the rage."

"You begged Persius to kill Tarius," Jena accused.

"At first you my dear girl didn't argue about her fate. Still, I'm sorry."

"You knew I hated him, and yet you made me marry Tragon."

"And I'm sorry, my only defense is that I thought I was doing the only thing that could be done to repair your good name."

"You didn't protect me from him, you didn't . . . "

"And there is no excuse for that Jena. None at all except that I had no idea he was actually being phisacaly violent until it was too late." He sighed. "If your mother had lived, things . . . you would have been so different. I wanted so much for you and I failed you in every way."

Jena sat on the deck next to him. "What about what I wanted, Father? What about what I wanted for myself? I never wanted the frilly dresses or any of the stuff that went with them. The idea that I might wind up washing clothes and taking care of a man the rest of my life terrified me. Arvon had a good point; he asked me why I thought I was attracted to Tarius in the first place when I had never been attracted to any other man. He told me he thought I fell in love with Tarius not because I thought she was a man, but because she wasn't like a man at all. When I realized he was right, I knew I had to find Tarius and be with her no matter what, and that's what I have done."

Darian sat up and nodded. "Truthfully, Jena, I don't know that I will ever truly understand it. However I have missed you, and I can't lie, I have missed Tarius as well. I can accept the two of you together as long as she continues to make you happy." He looked at her and held out his hand as if to shake. "So, can we call a truce?"

Jena hugged her father. He cringed a little at the pain, but said nothing.

Across the deck Tarius saw them and smiled.

"This is a good thing?" Radkin asked at her shoulder.

"Aye . . . very good. A woman should never hate her father," Tarius said.

"Just because you put him in Kartik clothes does not make him a Kartik, my sister," Radkin said.

Tarius smiled at Radkin and playfully slapped the side of her face. "Ah, my friend, but it is the first step."

Darian ran up to Tarius, covered in Amalite blood. "I had forgotten the thrill of battle," Darian said. "How alive it makes you feel to kill other people."

"It damn near made you dead, old man," Eldred laughed.