Jabone and Tarius and Ufalla had been going to the royal palace three to five times a year all their lives. It never once dawned on them that this might not be completely normal, or that it was any sort of a privilege. To them it was simply a chance to visit with friends they didn't see very often.
"So, Katan is a perfectly normal young man and will make a fine king, but Jestia . . ." Hestia sighed. "She is completely wild. She jumps from one thing to the next. You know all about her wanting to be a sword fighter because we sent her to stay with you and you know how long that lasted. Then she wanted to be a witch, she was sure she had the gift, so I sent her to Jazel's to be trained. She mastered most of the spells Jazel showed her and some she hadn't. Jazel said she had real promise, so Jestia immediately got bored with it and the next thing I know she's left Jazel's and gone on a drunken rampage across the lower coast line just looking for trouble, bedding any man that didn't move fast enough and drinking herself sick. We had to send troops to go and find her and bring her back home. She disappears for days at a time. I have no idea where she goes or what she does. Now she claims she wants to be a bard, so I've hired a singer to give her voice lessons. I keep thinking if I can keep her busy . . . but I just don't know anymore."
Tarius laughed. "Perhaps she doesn't wish to die Jestia the Boring."
Hestia glared at Tarius. "You feed me my own words. But I'll remind you those were the words of a selfish young queen, and my actions, however rash, were for the good of the kingdom. You can hardly consider my daughter whoring herself out and indulging in drink as the same thing."
"Perhaps not," Tarius said.
"I'm sure she'll find her way soon enough," Jena said, then added on a proud note. "Our son beat his madra up the other day."
"Is this true?" Hestia asked Tarius.
"Aye, is true," Tarius said, beaming. "He would have killed me dead had it been a real blade. He's a strong, fine, young man, who amazes me daily."
As always the conversation changed quickly to old battles.
* * *
"Well there they go again," Jabone said with a sigh.
"I wonder if they ever get tired of telling the same stories over and over again?" Jestia said. She was a ravened-haired beauty with her mother's good looks and her father's fine bone structure. She was only three inches taller than the young Tarius, which made her short for a Kartik, and was no doubt the reason he always panted around her like a love-sick fool. Of course she was only seventeen—had in fact been born only one week after Jabone—and she might still do some growing, but that didn't stop Tarius trying to get into her pants or her from ignoring him.
"I know I never grow tired of hearing them," Tarius said with a sigh.
"Just makes me long to do something more than just listen," Jabone said.
"My mother and father are having kittens because I run about. My brother Prince Boring is happy to hang around the castle and take his dull-assed going-to-be-king-someday lessons," Jestia said with a sigh. "I'm not like him. I long for adventure and if there aren't any real ones for me then I just go out and make them for myself. I just can't stand the boredom of sitting around the castle with my hands folded in my lap learning how to be a good monarch as if a second child with such a careful brother would ever get the chance to rule at all. They have had all these great adventures and expect us to live as careful people."
"They have taught us warfare and how to fight, but where is our battle?" Tarius added.
"When my father was my age he was fighting beside Tarius the Black in the Jethrikian war against the Amalites, yet he refuses to even listen when I talk of wanting to go and join our forces overseas in the territories," Ufalla said with a sigh.
"You, sprout, are only a child. Think of me—a full-fledged man—and yet they still treat me like a child," Tarius said.
"Because you look like a child," Ufalla spat back.
"Why I oughtah . . ." Tarius took a menacing step towards his sister and Jabone put up a hand to stop him. His mother had been right. He had been able to change his feelings for Ufalla and found that he enjoyed her company more than that of her brother's. For one thing he found that he had more in common with her than he did the young Tarius who was reckless and a bit of a braggart. In a way he felt as if Ufalla were his own sibling. It wasn't hard to lavish brotherly-type attention on her. In many ways she reminded him of his madra, and it was obvious that her own brother could hardly stand her.
"Enough you two," Jabone said. He was trying to listen to his madra as she launched into a brilliant telling of the Battle of the Arrow. The others were silent as well as they became mesmerized with the telling. When she had finished Jabone turned to the others with conviction. "Why should we sit here while the enemies of our parents and grandparents darken the shore of even one country?"
"What are you suggesting?" Jestia asked.
"My madra is ruler of the Katabull. The Katabull Nation has many ships which we use to fish with and to trade with the territories and the Jethrik. Why could we not be on one of the ships when next it sails to the territories? My madra killed her first Amalite when she was twelve. I am close to eighteen and have yet to know real combat. I have bested my madra, the greatest fighter who has ever lived, I am ready to test my skill in the real arena. We have all of us been trained to fight and you Jestia are trained in the magic arts as well. Why shouldn't we go to the territories, join with our Kartik brothers there, and go in search of these curs root them out and utterly obliterate them once and for all?"
"Yeah, now we're talking!" Tarius exclaimed. "I have been telling you this ever since we first started to hear the mumblings about the Amalite menace. If they will not let us go with their blessing then we shall go without it."
"I don't know . . ." Jestia started.
"You," Ufalla laughed. "You who run around the countryside whoring yourself out to any swinging dick for a laugh and drinking 'til you puke because you say you're bored, and now when we're talking a real adventure you've got cold feet." She looked at Jabone. "I'm in . . ."
"You . . . You're just a child. We don't need you. We need Jestia she's a witch . . ."
"She's also a whore." Ufalla never hid her disapproval of the way Jestia behaved. Jestia occasionally came by the Katabull Nation when she was on one of her "excursions," and they would go with her to Montero or some other near-by village and the four of them would just hit every pub in the village drinking themselves silly and having a good time 'til Jestia would go off with one man or another and then Ufalla would spend the rest of the night complaining about Jestia ditching them to tryst with someone she didn't even know. "But then perhaps having a whore along will make life easier for you brother."
"Why I oughtah," he raised his fist again and again Jabone pushed him back.
"Who are you calling whore, virgin," Jestia spat at Ufalla.
"I'm pretty sure I was talking to you," Ufalla spat back. To her Jestia was no one special, they'd been playing together and arguing their entire lives. They were friends. It didn't faze Ufalla one bit that Jestia was the princess of the kingdom she lived in. If she didn't want to be called a whore she shouldn't bed any man who walked past her.
"You ugly little toad, you're just jealous because no man would have you," Jestia hissed.
"I don't like men, remember, dumb ass?" Ufalla hissed.
"If no man would have you it's a sure bet that no woman would."
Jabone listened to them with only half an ear, more interested in hearing his madra weave yet another story. This one was about some battle that had taken place here. A small skirmish in which she and Harris and Elis had killed an entire contingent of Amalites by themselves.
He finally had to give up when the argument got so loud that it was a wonder that everyone in the room couldn't hear it.
"Gods, Ufalla! You are such a stupid, wretched little child," Tarius hissed.
"I'm a whole six months younger than Jabone and Jestia. I'm going. If you're all going then I'm going and if you won't let me then I'm going to tell our parents, everyone's parents," Ufalla swore.
"Why shouldn't she go?" Jestia now seemed to be on Ufalla's side which was common for their friendship. At each other's throats and name calling one minute, standing up for one another the next. "She's a better fighter than you are."
Tarius made an angry noise. "She most certainly is not."
"Quiet!" Jabone hissed. He turned away from his madra to look at them. "I am not sneaking away without telling my parents that I am going and neither should any of you. That would be the actions of a child, and if we aren't children why should we act like them? Listen to them, to all of them. They will all try to stop us but when it comes right down to it, we will go with their blessings. These are people who have lived by the sword and they will understand our desire. But perhaps if we can't even get along for a few minutes without fighting we shouldn't even think about going. We have heard these stories our whole life but I wonder if any of you have ever really listened. They didn't win those battles by fighting and arguing with each other. They won them because they worked together, always together, they trusted each other without hesitation. Your parents and my parents fought side by side, taking each other's council and direction, never doubting the others' ability or loyalty. They shaped the world that we have grown up in. A world that didn't have to fear death and annihilation at Amalite hands because they cooperated, not because they bickered amongst themselves like spoiled children."
They all mumbled but agreed that he was right.
* * *
Hestia and Dirk seemed almost relieved at the prospect of sending their middle child to the Jethrik to fight the Amalites. They saw it as her finally taking some real direction. At the very least it got her out of their hair for awhile, maybe even permanently.
Harris and Elis were more upset about their two oldest children leaving home than they were by what they wanted to go do.
Jena, Dustan and Arvon were resigned. Surprisingly, Jabone found that the one kink in his plan turned out to be his madra who he had assumed would be the first one to cave.
"Absolutely not!" she bellowed from where she sat on her throne just outside their dwelling, looking in that moment every bit the monarch that she was.
"But Madra . . ."
"No, I say! No, I absolutely forbid it. There is no discussion, Jabone. There is nothing to talk about. You will not go. You won't!"
"I am a grown man, Madra. I can go if I wish and you can't stop me," Jabone said angrily. His madra glared at him in a way that he imagined she had looked at hundreds of men just before she killed them, and he suddenly didn't feel quite so bold.
"You do not want to push that, boy. You do not want to push that at all. You will not go! There is no need for it, the problem is under control. Were the problem not under control then I would go and take care of it myself. I would not send children to do my work. I especially would not send my own child."
"We want to go, Madra. I want to go. I will go. You can't watch me around the clock. You don't command every ship or every crew in the Kartik. I will make passage one way or the other, with or without you. I will go."
She jumped up, quickly covered the distance between them, and stood toe to toe with her much larger son glaring up at him at which point he visibly shrank. "You will not go!" she said, catching and holding his gaze. "I forbid it! I am not just your madra I am your ruler. You will not go." She turned on her heel and walked towards the lake. It was the end of the discussion.
Jabone looked at his other three parents. "She can't do this."
"She's just upset, son," Arvon said.
"We're all upset," Dustan said, and ran crying into their house.
Arvon took a deep breath. "You're our only child, Jabone. It's hard for parents when their children leave and harder still for parents that have no other children."
"Why is she so mad?" Jabone asked Jena. Jena was silent. "Fadra?"
"Because she is Tarius the Black son, she knows she can't really stop you from going and Tarius can't stand anything that she has no control over. She doesn't want you to go, you're going, she can't really stop you, and she knows that, so she's mad."
"But you understand why I want to go?"
"Yes I do. You have my blessing. But it won't be easy to let you go." Arvon walked over and held his son. "I'd better go check on your father."
"Is he mad at me, too?"
"He isn't mad, son, he's worried." Arvon shot a glance at Jena and walked inside.
"Mother?" Jabone asked carefully. At that moment he couldn't be sure what she was thinking or feeling. She just ran over to him and held him. After a moment she moved away and looked up at him.
"Time goes by too fast. I knew this day would come; we all did. Tarius knows, too. It seems like only yesterday that you were born, took your first steps, fought for the first time, and now you're a man. Your madra . . . She taught you to fight, everything she knows, but she never wanted that life for you. You're her baby, our only child; she doesn't want you to go. She never wants you put in danger. And you think only of the glory of it and no matter how much we tell you how awful it is, you won't be prepared for what you'll feel the first time you kill someone. The first time you lose a friend. I know you won't be prepared because I wasn't. I'll tell you something else you don't know, that I probably shouldn't tell you. When we all went to the Amalite and the Jethrik to annihilate the Amalite horde, your madra did not want me to go. She hoped to leave me behind. She tried to tell me how hideous war was. It didn't matter to me then just like it doesn't matter to you now. I went, it was more hideous than I had imagined, but . . . I think what Tarius is forgetting is that if I had to make the same decision today knowing all that I know I would still go.
"Don't be angry with her. She loves you so much she doesn't want you to go. She certainly doesn't want you put into real danger."
"Talk to her, Mother. If you talk to her she'll listen. I don't want to leave with her angry at me."
She smiled at him and kissed his cheek. "You won't leave with her mad at you or you at her. That young man is where I put my foot down. I'll go talk to her. You wait here?"
He nodded.
* * *
Jena found Tarius not too surprisingly sitting in their son's favorite spot, crying like a baby. Jena sat beside her and put her arms around her.
"Why is he doing this?" Tarius cried.
"Because he's your son, Tarius, and it's in his blood to fight. There is no fight here . . ."
"I can't bear it, Jena. I can't bear to be separated from him. To not know if he's well or sick, alive or . . ." She couldn't bring herself to even say it. "These kids . . . They have no idea what waits for them there. They've never lived out of this village. Hestia's daughter is a joke. The girl paid no more attention to me than she did to any of her other instructors and she can barely sling steel. Tarius is as careless and reckless as his namesake without the natural gift, the strength, or the size. Ufalla, she's got a talent for steel just like her father, but she doesn't yet have the skill. They've not lived through what I had lived through by the time I was their age. They just don't get it. We fought because we had to. We fought so that they wouldn't have to."
"But they want to, Tarius," Jena said gently. "Our son wants this. He will be miserable if you make him stay here."
"He will be safe."
"True, but were you ever happy being safe?"
"I'm happy now."
"Because you've had that adventure. We made our own way, Tarius, no one handed us our life and said here it is. He wants to make his own way. This is their time, Tarius, and you have to let them—him—have it."
"Is it that easy for you, for all of you to just let go of our son, our only child?"
"We'll never let go of him, Tarius, and no it's not easy for me to watch him go. But I understand why he's going and so, my love, do you."
Tarius nodded. "Fine, but if our son must go then we will go as well . . ."
"He doesn't want us to go with him, Tarius. Jabone wants to be the hero of his own story. He doesn't want to spend his whole life in your rather large, all-encompassing shadow. You have to let him do this and you have to let him do this alone."
"But I don't know how, Jena," Tarius cried. "I don't know how."
* * *
Jabone watched with baited breath as he saw his mothers walking back from the lake. He couldn't see by Tarius's expression what she might be thinking and his Katabull senses had yet to help him in determining her moods.
She walked right up to him, not looking at him but at the ground. "So you're determined to do this thing?"
"Yes Madra."
"In spite of the fact that you are ripping your poor mother's very heart from her chest?" she said, pointing at Jena. He saw Jena pop Tarius in the ribs with her elbow. His madra finally looked up at him and he could see then that she had been crying. "It won't be as easy as you think." He nodded silently. "You are going to a foreign land with foreign ways. True many of the new settlers are Kartik, but most are from the Jethrik and there are still many Amalites there. Their customs are very different from our own. Even now the Katabull are barely tolerated. It is hard to wipe out the prejudices of many generations in one. Living a soldier's life . . . it isn't easy. When it rains you will get wet. When it's cold . . . and it gets very cold there, you will be cold. When it's hot you will be hot. Hunger and pain will become your constant companions and people you care for . . . they will die, and you will watch their blood spill into the earth. Both my father and your mother's father died in the Jethrik at the hands of the Amalite scum." She spat. "Do not, I pray of you my son, make us grieve for you as well."
She threw her arms around his neck then and held him tightly. Jabone felt the sting of his own tears. "I will not fail you, Madra. I will make you proud to call me son."
She kissed him gently on the lips then stood back and looked at his face. "I was proud to call you son on the day that you were born, and I will be proud on the day that I die, just take care that you make sure that I go long before you." She released him and walked off towards the house. To his memory his madra had never cried openly in front of him. Jena looked up at him and took his hand. Her own tears fell freely now.
"You have to understand, this is the hardest thing we've ever had to do." Her voice broke on a sob and he took her into his arms and held her. His resolve to leave home weakening with every tear his mother shed.
* * *
It seemed to Jabone that in the months that followed, his madra and fadra, Harris and Radkin and Rimmy were trying to beat them completely to death. They called it training, but Jabone called it sadism.
The four youngsters would move immediately from one seasoned fighter to the next 'til they couldn't stand. He didn't know who was taking the worst of it: Jestia whose wayward lifestyle had left her lacking the skill necessary to cover herself, or he himself, who considered it a point of honor to hold up longer than the others. Finally he staggered and fell to a blow that when they started the day he would have easily blocked.
"All right let's call it a day," Tarius said, and she and the "adults" patted each other on the backs, triumphant at having yet again put these arrogant youths in their place while the battered children sat in the dust of the practice field.
Jestia had a nasty swelling over her right eye which was no doubt going to turn a nice shade of blue. She took the wet rag Ufalla handed her and put it over the knot.
"Is it just me or do any of the rest of you get the idea that they are trying to teach us some lesson about how prepared we aren't?" Ufalla asked.
"They're just trying to scare us," Tarius said.
"They're trying to prepare us for what we might face in the territories," Jabone said, finally catching his breath.
"Well I didn't agree to have the crap beat out of me on a daily basis. Even battle, real battle, couldn't be this brutal. They beat on us from sunup 'til sundown," Jestia griped.
"Hardly that long," Jabone said. "Besides look at us. None of us can do more than stand on shaky limbs and all the old farts walked away with a few hours fight still in them."
Jestia gave him a look filled with distaste. "You truly are the beast woman's son. Look at him grinning he's actually enjoying all this. Well I've had it. I've had it with sleeping in these earthen hovels you call homes and bathing in cold lake water and eating . . . Well I don't even want to know what, so that I can have the living crap beat out of me by the most celebrated fighters in the Kartik . . ."
Ufalla just started laughing then.
"What? What's so damn funny?" Jestia asked hotly.
"You are, you spoiled little brat . . . I knew. I knew you'd get bored with this like you get bored with everything else and go running back to your safe little castle," Ufalla teased. "Well, go then and good riddance. You'd more than likely get us all killed anyway."
"Don't you tell me what to do you hovel dwelling little wretch!" Jestia screamed back. She started to get to her feet, groaned, and sat back down. "I'm . . . I'm not going home. I was just going to say let's go if we're going."
"If you can ever walk again," Ufalla teased.
"I don't see you up dancing, Ufalldown," Jestia clipped back, using the name she'd teased her with since they were children.
"I'm not bitching, either."
"Funny I recall it was you that started bitching in the first place . . ."
"Oh, I don't think so."
Jabone tuned them out then. He saw his madra motioning for him. He got to his feet with an effort and walked to where she summoned him.
"Madra?"
"You fought well today."
"Thank you Madra."
"In seven more days one of our ships will sail with a cargo to the Port of Sagal in the Jethrik-held territory of the Amalite. It is right on the Jethrik border. If you still want it you, your companions and your mounts will be given room on board."
Jabone nodded his head eagerly. "I do . . . we do."
"Even the young princess?"
"Yes," Jabone answered, although he wasn't quite sure. "But Madra, why the Jethrik-held territory? Why do we not go to help our Kartik brothers in our territory?"
Tarius smiled at him and said lightly, "Now what would be the adventure in that?" She quickly became serious again. "Our Kartik brothers in the territory don't need our help. The Amalite rebels aren't attacking there they are in the Jethrik territory right on the Jethrik border."
"Why?"
Tarius shrugged, "Who can say for sure? My guess would be that it's because the Amalites look so much like the Jethriks. It makes it easy for them to infiltrate without detection. It's harder for the Jethriks to keep an eye on them. I would imagine that as much as the sea between us is what has always made the Jethrik their target of choice. Also, there is something to be said for their fear of the Katabull. They can say what they like about their gods and cling to their hateful religion, but in the end they fear the Katabulls' righteous wrath against them, and we did totally annihilate them when last they came against us. You always remember your last battle best. They aren't supposed to be practicing their religion but it's hard to get people to stop clinging to the lies they enjoy. But they fear us more than they trust their gods." She got a puzzled look on her face. "But there is something else, too, something I can't figure out. There are too many of them. These raids do devastating damage more than a handful of stragglers hiding in the forest could do. They have found themselves a place to hide in great numbers, a hive."
"A hive Madra?"
"What else would you call something that held many stinging beasts?" she said with a smile. She looked him right in the eyes and he held her gaze. "There is a stench to an Amalite, they aren't fond of bathing and believe such things as perfumes are evil. They may look just like the Jethriks but there is a smell to them, you will know it when you smell it. There are many things I must tell you all." She turned and walked back over to the three beaten apprentices still sitting on the ground and Jabone followed.
"Listen up because I'm only going to tell you this once. No one wants to think that genocide is ever the answer, but you can kill people much easier it seems than you can kill idiotic beliefs. It seems that even I was short sighted in dealing with the Amalites." She spit on the ground. "That even I didn't go far enough. I who loathed them, even I didn't understand how insidious was their religion how it had so completely corrupted the soul of whoever followed it. We killed every priest, every warrior that we found among the Amalites, leaving only their noncombatants alive. We burned their temples, we split their country between the Jethirk and the Kartik, and we moved to inhabit their land. But somehow their hateful beliefs have survived. The Amalites have rebuilt their religion and are somehow bringing their people back to it, in secret and in hiding in the Jethrik-held territories of the Amalite.
"You may think that we are over reacting to this threat. That they are persecuted. You may say to yourself, what harm is a belief. But you haven't lived in the time of the Amalites in power. You haven't fought these people who believe their gods want them to kill the unbelievers. They hate us all because they believe that is what their gods command. You think that mercy is a virtue and it is, but you must show the Amalites no mercy. None are to be trusted, all are suspect, and when you find a group hiding and doing nothing more menacing than praying you must slaughter them to the last man, or they will kill you and all that you love, for this is their way.
"If you don't understand why they are so monstrous, why they must be killed simply because of their beliefs, then you don't truly understand what the Amalites do when they come to full strength. How they fell upon the Katabull and tried to make us extinct. How they marched across the Jethrik killing every living thing, burning crops and homes, leaving nothing but waste and famine behind them, all in the names of their gods.
"They follow their beliefs blindly and they will show you no mercy because you aren't one of them. If you don't understand all that I have just said, if you don't agree, than you shouldn't go, because you will die.
"Also know this. Great warriors and queens make enemies without trying even among their allies, so it would serve you all to keep your parentage a secret." She looked right at her son then. "The Amalites hate me more than any other being, living or dead, and I still have enemies among the Jethrik, so guard your lineage carefully."
"But Madra you are celebrated as a hero among the Jethrikian people."
"Some, yes, but many of them still consider me a sort of heretic and something of great loathing. I have friends there it is true, and those who admire me, but many would kill you in your sleep simply because you are my son. The same is true of Jestia for much the same reason, and as for Harris's children, Harris is of their country and yet he helped me. They have never forgotten that." She looked at the two girls then. "Understand this. The Jethrikians don't respect women as equals as in the Kartik. You will not be treated as an equal there. They will make you fight for even a crumb of respect." She looked at Ufalla. "What you and I are they do not respect at all. The Amalites believe we are an abomination. They used to kill people for being queer and probably still would if allowed. The Jethriks barely tolerate us."
"Then why go there?" Jestia asked, her mind no doubt going in the same direction Jabone's had. "Why go to the Jethrik-held territories if they will only be hateful to us? Why not the Kartik-held territories?"
"Because we aren't needed there," Jabone said. "There's no real fighting there."
From the look on the girl's face she obviously didn't understand why that was a problem.
Tarius smiled and went on. "Pearson Garrison is on the edge of a small village just a half day's ride from Port Sagal. There, I assume you will go through some sort of formal training and then be sent out on patrol. I have written a letter in my own hand which I have already sent out ahead of you. The Captain of the Garrison is an old friend of mine and will see that you remain together and that you are treated well. His name is Derek. He of course knows who you are, but heed my words well you must guard your true identities." She looked at Tarius and Jestia in turn. "Being who you are will not impress these people or gain you special privileges, but it might get you killed."
"Come follow me," she ordered. She turned and started walking as the tired youths staggered to their feet and started to follow. She continued to talk as she led them on a forced march around the lake that made there tired legs burn. She fed them so much information that there was no way they could possibly remember it all. When Jabone could stand it no longer he called on the night and the change gave him immediate relief that his friends couldn't experience. Finally Jestia saved the others when she said, "Please, Tarius, we can't change. Could we stop walking?"
Tarius turned, saw her son and said with a smile, "Cheater." He just smiled back and shrugged. "Yes we can stop. But remember, stopping because you're exhausted won't be an option in battle." She turned to face the tired youths who except for Jabone had all sat down hard on the well-beaten trail.
She addressed her son. "You won't always have the option of doing that, either."
He nodded. "I know . . ."
"No you think you know, and there is a difference. You are the Katabull. Here you are treated like a god, but there . . . the Jethriks will barely tolerate you. The best you'll get from them is fear and the Amalites—and there are still many of them that aren't practitioners of their religion that are trying to live as good citizens of the Jethrik and Kartik nations they now belong to—the Amalites still hate the Katabull. It is an inbred fear that won't go away anytime soon. Those who don't run in terror may try to kill you. They are not allowed to practice their hateful religion but you can not wipe out a thousand years of carefully taught hate over night. We did not slaughter and lay waste to those who held no weapons. That is their way, not ours, but now, now when they are regrouping in secret to raise their religion from the ashes and to try once again to dominate the planet . . . Perhaps genocide would have been kinder in the long run. To kill them all out once and for all, leaving none to remember their stain with anything but hate."
She looked at Jestia. "And you."
"Me?" Jestia said, a tone of righteous indignation to her voice.
"Yes you. This is not a joke. This isn't something you can quit once you start it. Learn your spells well and use them wisely. Make your sword one with yourself. Go for the right reasons or don't go at all."
Jestia very uncharacteristically nodded her head yes and said nothing.
"And you," she said to the young Tarius, who looked extremely shocked to have been singled out. "You aren't as strong as bigger people, quit pretending to be and embrace what you are. You are fast and nimble. Those are your strengths. Your only weakness my non-blood kin is your pride. Admit to your weaknesses and find your true strengths."
"Yes, Great Leader," he said, and his face shone with unhidden elation because even though she had just rebuked him she had called him her non-blood kin, a high honor among the Katabull.
"We will stop them from infecting the world again, Madra," Jabone promised.
She patted him on the back affectionately and called on the night herself. "The rest of you may go. Come Jabone . . . Let us hunt, enjoy this time together while we can."
He nodded in agreement and together they ran into the woods in search of game.
The others watched them go.
"Great, she's left us in the middle of nowhere. We're no doubt miles from camp and I swear I can't walk another foot," Jestia complained, not bothering to get up. In fact she thought she might just lay right there until some wild animal came and killed her. Death she was sure would be a great relief right then.
"No, she knew about where we'd run out of steam, look," Ufalla said, pointing up the small hill to where the Marching Night's camp was. She got up and put down a hand to help Jestia up. Jestia allowed herself to be hauled up though the very thought of walking up that hill filled her with dread.
Tarius grunted holding his hand up towards his sister. Ufalla sighed and helped him to his feet as well. They started walking back to camp silently and Tarius said smugly, "Oh Ufalla did you notice Tarius the Black had no parting words for you?"
Ufalla laughed and turned to face her brother walking backwards up the path with so little effort that Jestia wanted to throttle her.
"She didn't talk to me because she had nothing negative to say to me. Only you could take a chastisement as a compliment. Maybe you'd better think extra hard about what Tarius said about your pride, brother."
Jestia was certainly thinking extra hard about what Tarius had said to her.
"She didn't say anything to you because you're mostly forgettable," Tarius spat back.
There is nothing forgettable about Ufalla, Jestia thought as she watched her walk backwards as she fought with Tarius. She knows just exactly who she is and who she wants to be. She's tall and well muscled and there is purpose in those black eyes, in every move that she makes. Who could ever forget her? But me . . . I have no idea either who I am or who I want to be. I'm the one who's forgettable and . . . Tarius said not to go unless I'm going for the right reasons. Am I going for the right reasons? Do I even know what those are? Her thoughts were broken by Tarius's scream, and when she looked up Ufalla had twisted his arm behind his back and was marching him up the hill screaming at him.
"I'll make you eat dirt if you ever say that again."
"Let me go, beast girl," Tarius ordered.
She did, slinging him into a bush. He jumped up and ran at her and then the two were just beating the crap out of each other. Ufalla was stronger but Tarius was faster and older and knew more moves so it was hard to say when if ever the fight might end. Probably not 'til both of them were bloody and they were right in her way and she was tired and needed to think.
"Dark as night and warm as light stop these idiots' fight." She clapped her hands and the two were magically separated each going in a different direction. As the two startled combatants stared at her she walked between them and said smugly, "Brawn and speed will always lose out to brains."