Ufalla woke before the sun was quite up. She'd hardly slept. The cot had been comfortable enough but she was just too excited about the whole newness of everything. They weren't home anymore, no longer under the protection and rules of their parents. What had the Great Leader told them? "There is no true adventure without danger and only those who know great risk embrace their destiny." She looked back at where Jestia lay. She was even more beautiful with the world washed away from her features in sleep and with the first lights of false dawn crawling across her face. In sleep there was no pretence and you could see someone's soul. At least that was what the Katabull believed. Though she wasn't Katabull she'd been raised amongst them and they were her non-blood kin.
Jestia's soul was as beautiful as Jestia was. Ufalla remembered the first time she'd realized that her friendship for Jestia had turned to love. They had been sharing a bed at the castle on one of their pack's visits there. Ufalla had woken early and just like now she'd seen Jestia asleep with the near-dawn light on her face and she'd longed to hold her then even as she did now.
Jabone said she should change this love she felt into something else, a stronger friendship, but her bond to Jestia was stronger than any friendship always had been and always would be. Jabone didn't know how long Ufalla had tried to turn her feelings another way or how long she had failed.
But she was good at hiding her feelings. She had learned that from her mother, the stern Kartik fighter. Elise wasn't very demonstrative. It wasn't that her mother didn't have feelings, or that she didn't occasionally show them, but she didn't have to.
I will never embrace you or my destiny because I can't take the risk that my feelings for you—unwanted—might drive you completely away from me so that I could never even be near you. Love, who needed it? Her love certainly didn't serve her. Why did it have to be Jestia, the spoiled pampered princess who whined and willed her way through life? Why her and not a dozen other women she could have easily had? Women who wanted her. Because none of that is who Jestia really is, this is who she really is and when I have seen her real soul how could any other woman ever compare.
When she'd talked to her mother about Jestia Elise had sighed and said, "You don't rule your heart, your heart rules you. You will find another for which your heart longs and then you will forget you loved her at all." Her mother was a practical person. She saw no hope for a relationship between Ufalla and the princess, so she didn't tell her to pursue it, just leave it alone and it would go away. It just wasn't that easy.
She's right there, always right there, so close I can touch her and so far away that I can't. The more I'm around her the more I love her, and I can't stand not to be around her. How can I continue to just pretend that I don't need her, want her? How long can I fool her and everyone else? Jabone knows. He'd never tell but he knows. He guessed and how long before other people do as well?
Jestia yawned and stretched then as if knowing she was being watched and Ufalla looked quickly away out the window at the compound.
"Ufalla," Jestia whispered in a voice filled with sleep. "How long have you been awake?"
Ufalla moved to sit on the edge of Jestia's cot. "I was too excited to sleep," she whispered.
"Too excited or too cold?" Jestia asked with a shiver. Now Ufalla thought about it she was cold.
"Both maybe," she said. They lived on a tropical island; they had been told that it was spring here just like it was back home, but if so their spring was about like a Kartik winter.
"Grab your blankets and bring them over here. We can share," Jestia said sleepily.
Ufalla started to tell her all the reasons that was a bad idea and then . . . Well, the chance to be that close to Jestia just drove any form of logic from Ufalla's mind. She grabbed her bedding, slung it on Jestia, and then crawled under the covers with her, her back to Jestia and hugging the edge of the cot so as not to actually touch her.
Jestia crawled up to her back and wrapped herself around Ufalla, making her stiffen and then just relax into the feel of it. "You're as cold as a toad," Jestia said.
Blessed be the Nameless One my heart feels like it's going to burst in my chest. What does she think she's doing?
"Have you ever been so cold in all your life?" Jestia asked in a whisper right in her ear.
"No," she croaked back, thinking that she was anything but cold now.
"I thought Tarius was exaggerating—you know just trying to scare us so we wouldn't go—but if this is their spring I hope we aren't still here for winter."
"She was trying to scare us, but I think she was telling the truth about everything."
"Gods Ufalla," Jestia whispered even lower, "what are we doing here? What am I doing here?"
"Do you wish you hadn't come?"
"I don't know. I think so. I'm just so cold and . . . Well I just had the most awful nightmare I've ever had in my whole life."
Which explained why she had talked Ufalla into her bed and was clinging to her. There was no hidden desire in Jestia just a need to be comforted, to feel safe. It was the reason a child crawled into their parents' bed at night, not the reason Ufalla had been so eager to help "warm" Jestia. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"I'm a witch," Jestia whispered even lower.
"Yeah?"
"So a witch never repeats a bad dream or it will come true."
"Oh. Well I didn't know," Ufalla whispered back, taking exception to the "how stupid are you?" tone in Jestia's voice. Then Jestia's hand was under her shirt, rubbing her side near her hip and she was about to climb out of her skin trying to decide whether she wanted her to stop or not. Finally she said, "Ah, Jestia, either make love to me or quit petting me."
Jestia stopped with a snicker. "Sorry, your skin was just soft and warm and I forgot your peculiar persuasions for a minute." Yet as she said it she lay her head against Ufalla's shoulder and a few minutes later she was asleep.
Ufalla sighed and just enjoyed the moment. She's using me, for warmth, for comfort. She's playing me, just like she does every man who comes near her. Except she doesn't have to worry about me getting carried away and doing anything she doesn't want and she knows it. I've messed around and become one of her toys. She's a witch. Who knows but that she has bespelled me and made me love her just so that I'd gladly take an arrow for her?
* * *
Kasiria woke up and stretched. There was a moment of disorientation while she remembered where she was. She got out of bed; it was already warming up. When she looked over she noticed both her bunk mates were in the same bed and wasn't really very surprised. She smiled and got dressed. As a soldier she slept in most of her clothes, but armor and belts and boots still had to be put on.
She made so much noise getting her boots on that she woke Jestia up and she looked at her through a slanted eye. "It's not what you think, we were just cold." Her voice made the bigger woman stir and then Jestia let out a yelp as Ufalla turned, wrapped herself around Jestia's waist and tugged her close, burying her face in Jestia's cleavage. Jestia said something in Kartik and then shoved at her big friend who woke completely up but still didn't seem to be in any big hurry to unhand her. "Hounds, Ufalla, I'm not one of your hut-dwelling whores to be woman handled . . . "
"Don't flatter yourself, Jestia," Ufalla said, letting go of Jestia and getting out of bed. She looked at Kasiria and smiled. "I just garb any whore that happens to be in bed with me first thing in the morning."
Jestia pulled the covers tightly around her and snapped back something in Kartik. Kasiria decided she was definitely going to have to make a real effort to learn their language or she was just always going to be out of the loop.
Ufalla had also slept mostly in her clothes and was busy slipping on her minimal armor, belts and boots. Of the three of them only Jestia was sleeping in bed clothes.
"The horn will blow soon," Kasiria said.
"You hear that, Jestia? Get up and get dressed," Ufalla ordered, which caused another hissed comment in Kartik from Jestia. "Our new friend asked us to speak her language in her presence."
"Yes, well I haven't learned to cuss yet in their language," Jestia said. "What exactly happens when this horn blows?" she asked Ufalla, who shrugged. They both looked at Kasiria.
"The horn blows. We all meet in the middle of the garrison where they do a head count and then we go to breakfast."
"Well I'm all for breakfast," Ufalla said, and then turning to Jestia screamed, "get out of bed!"
"I'm cold," Jestia whined.
"Cold?" Kasiria said in disbelief.
"Yes, we're freezing," Ufalla said. Then to Jestia. "You'll feel warmer once you get up, move around and get dressed."
"I have to get undressed to do that," Jestia whined.
"I told you to sleep in your clothes. I don't know why you always have to put on such stupid airs," Ufalla said, obviously out of patience with her or at least pretending to be.
"I just wanted to sleep comfortably. That's not putting on airs. Could you hand me my clothes so I can get dressed under the covers?"
"You are such a little pain in the ass." But Ufalla handed over her clothes. Jestia was dressed and out of the covers as the horn blew.
They all put their swords on and then they walked out. Kasiria was just enjoying the idea that she now had companions when Ufalla and Jestia saw Jabone and Tarius and ran to meet them. "So much for my friends," she muttered, and went off to find her unit. She found them battered and bruised. "What in hell's name happened to you?" she demanded, expecting a pub story.
"We got in a scuffle with the new guys," Thomas said.
She found a whole new reason to like Jabone. She looked over to see if Jabone was hurt and saw that he didn't have so much as a scratch on him. "I guess I don't have to ask who won," she taunted.
"So did you . . . You know, get some action with the girls?" Thomas taunted right back.
His double meaning wasn't lost on her. She guessed they had already forgotten that she had saved them and were reverting right back to their old ways. She ignored him, it was how she got through the day. She lined up with them but longed to be with the Kartiks.
* * *
"Well?" Ufalla asked, sliding in beside Jabone.
"It's apparently how they make sure everyone is accounted for." He shrugged. "Seems a great waste of time to me. The way we do it at home makes a lot more sense."
"Huh?"
"You know, if you notice someone's missing you sound the alarm."
Ufalla nodded and then said, "That wasn't what I was asking. How did it go in the barracks with the chowder heads?"
"We had to fight, but they are our friends now. How about you?" he asked. Ufalla looked to make sure that Tarius and Jestia were busy talking, and then she whispered so low that only her friend the Katabull could hear. "Jestia got cold and asked me to sleep with her. It was better than full blown sex with other women so apparently I am doomed."
Jabone laughed and put his arm around her shoulders. "Maybe she got cold because she just wanted to be near you."
"A romantic thought, Jabone, of which we know you are filled because of your mothers, but she was just cold because it's cold here," Ufalla said.
Jabone nodded. "My mother packed me an extra blanket and thicker shirts. I thought she was crazy, just trying to coddle me, but now, well my mother knows the country of her birth. So did you get along with Kasiria?"
"Yes actually. I think she was just glad to be in the company of women who also wield steel. She has a huge undying desire for you my brother."
Jabone shook his head sadly. "No her fellows say she's much more likely to be interested in you."
Ufalla laughed. "No way. What's your mother always say? A beast can smell its own kind. That woman is not queer." Ufalla watched as a big grin covered her friend's face. "So at least one of us won't be loving in vain."
* * *
Derek watched as they lined up and the head count was done. The Kartik children apparently had no idea what standing at attention was and were talking and shoving each other. They weren't fighting they were just a very physical people Kartiks. They talked with flamboyant hand gestures and the way they pounded and shoved their friends you sometimes felt sorrier for them than you did their enemies. He ignored them; for the moment they were fine. What he couldn't disregard was the way Kasiria ignored her men as they taunted her in whispers under their breath. They had no respect for her what so ever. They were supposed to be her unit, she was supposed to be in command, and she obviously couldn't control them. What was worse was that she didn't seem to really care.
Three of her men had been killed. Not just three soldiers but three Sword Masters, men the country had put time and effort into training, and the princess cared not one rot.
If they had really been working as a cohesive unit it wouldn't have, shouldn't have happened. True when the chips were down it was Kasiria alone that had saved them, but she shouldn't have had to. If she had been able to command them, if they had been more intent on looking for danger than taunting her, they might not have been ambushed in the first place.
And none of them had learned their lesson. Kasiria wasn't trying to control them and they weren't showing her any more respect than they had.
Kasiria was the king's favorite child, not destined for the throne of course, but definitely number one in her father's heart. Persius was trusting Derek to keep Kasiria as safe as possible but it looked like in order to do that he was going to have to strip her of rank and take her out of command. That wasn't likely to go over well with the high-spirited Kasiria or her father for that matter.
Kartik words were screamed out suddenly, and the bigger of the two Kartik girls sent the other one flying a few feet backwards into Harris's son who shoved her back. As Hestia's daughter tried to slap the bigger girl's face and found first one and then the other hand held at the wrists, she kicked and squirmed and continued to scream out what he assumed were curses at the bigger girl. Then she hauled off and kicked her in the crotch, which made the bigger girl let her go and scream back at the princess.
"Enough!" he bellowed, pointing at them. They all looked at him. "Get in the line." They all looked at him like that was the stupidest thing they'd ever heard. In fact, Harris's son had to suppress a laugh, but they got in the end of one of the lines. "Now be quiet." They all looked at him and nodded. Then they looked at each other and it was obvious that they were all fighting their laughter.
They were never going to fit in here or in a unit on the road, they were just too different. Young Jestia was obviously a child of privilege but now that he thought about it so were the others. Jabone was the son of the Katabull's Great Leader, the character of legend Tarius the Black, Ufalla and young Tarius the children of Tarius's right hand man Sir Harris. In their land they no doubt took orders from no one save their parents. He looked at them even now looking at each other and making faces, no doubt because they thought being called out lined up and counted was silly.
Derek sighed. Everything was just clipping along so smoothly. I gave up being Captain of the Gaurds at the castle to take a post at the Pearson Garrison at the edge of the territory. It was supposed to be a semi retirement for me. I was just going to train a few fighters, spend time with my wife, and watch my daughters—hopefully—find nice Sword Masters get married and settle down, play with my grandchildren and basically just be left alone. Now I've got Amalites crawling out of nowhere and sacking entire villages and the king sends his wayward, sword-slinging daughter here with visions of grandeur hoping to be Tarius the Black, and Tarius the Black sends me her son and the rest of these Kartik thugs, and what the hell am I going to do.? I don't want to incur my king's wrath and I sure as hell don't want to incur the wrath of Tarius or Harris or Queen Hestia for that matter. And the girls—they have no idea what they are doing to the men. They are beautiful, and young men are young men, easily distracted by a pretty face. It is for this reason I have my own daughters stay close to the house, and now I have these three in amongst the men. If I'm not very careful we could easily have an international incident on our hands just because a bunch of children want to play soldier.
When he looked up the Kartik children had lost their battle and were just laughing out loud and Kasiria was ignoring her unit looking back at them and smiling, and a strange idea started poking at the corners of Derek's mind.
* * *
Kasiria watched as Ufalla spared with Thomas and stopped her self short of laughing out loud as Ufalla laid him out time after time after time. And it wasn't because they didn't want to hit her because she was a girl. Kasiria had broken them of that when they'd all been in the Sword Master's academy. Even Jestia proved to be too much for most of her unit, and Jabone, well there was no one here or maybe on the planet who could best him, of this she was sure. He had made fast work of her and taught her more with a few words and blows than she'd learned in three years at the academy.
Eric had walked into the ring with Tarius. His nose was still swollen and his eyes were going black from his injury.
Eric was considered one of the best and he was easily twice the size of the Kartik man.
Eric attacked with aggression and Tarius was all over him like a bad rash.
Kasiria heard laughter at her shoulder and turned to see Jabone. He smiled. "Your big friend doesn't understand. Tarius has always been too aggressive a fighter. Time and time again my madra would scream out, 'I will punish aggression!' and then lay him to waste when he was aggressive. What you learn the best is how to combat your own mistakes. The more aggressive Eric becomes the more badly Tarius will beat him, because Tarius knows nothing better than how to fight himself."
As if Derek had heard him—which he couldn't from where he was standing—he cried out, "Do you want him to teach you anything or do you just want to try to hurt him?" Eric seemed to calm some.
"So, do you ever make any mistakes?" Kasiria asked Jabone.
Jabone blushed with embarrassment at such praise, but on his dark skin it was only a slight change of color. "Everyone makes mistakes. I will not tell you mine, you will have to find them for yourself."
"He rarely watches his legs," Ufalla said helpfully at her shoulder. "But even that isn't much help because he doesn't watch his legs because he moves them away from blows instead of blocking them. He knows from where your shoulders and wrists are where your blows will fall, and he rarely blocks with his blade he just moves his body out of the way. And just as your blow misses he will hit you because his blade is rarely tied up with yours."
Ufalla walked away then and into the practice ring to fight another young man.
"Are there really so few women fighters here?" Jabone asked with a wave of his hand at the crowd of men assembled.
"Few!" Kasiria laughed though obviously not from joy. "I'm it. No other woman has joined the academy or the army in the twenty years that it has been legal to do so. Just me, so your mother was a sword woman?"
He seemed to take a moment to think and then said, "Yes, my fadra too, great fighters all my parents, but my madra, she is the greatest fighter of them all."
"I thought myself quite good 'til you all got here. I think even Jestia could beat me."
"I doubt that, she has no will for the sword, no real passion for it. The only thing that saves her is that she really, really doesn't like to get hit," Jabone said with a smile.
"And yet she is still beating some of our best."
"That is because she is hard headed and competitive, not because she has a passion for steel," Jabone said with a smile. "And she has had the best trainers that money can buy."
"She comes from money then?"
"Oh aye."
"Then . . . Why come here to fight?"
Jabone smiled. "Our friend Jestia becomes bored very easily. She can have anything she wants so she wants only that which she can not have."
Kasiria wasn't quite sure she knew what that meant. He seemed to talk in riddles at times, not unlike Hellibolt.
"She wants an adventure. To be quite honest, that's what brings us all here. Well, that and to slay our parents' enemies the Amalites." He spit on the ground and then blushed even redder than he had before. "I am sorry. We were told last night that's not proper."
"That's quite all right." Kasiria laughed. "I may start to do it as well before the year is done."
"I must fight now." He walked off towards the practice ring where Ufalla waited and Kasiria saw the first good fight of the day. They were well matched although Jabone obviously was the better fighter. Of all the people he had fought that day, Ufalla was the only one to touch him, and Kasiria found herself jealous of the woman's skill. Kasiria watched carefully. Ufalla faked a blow to Jabone's legs. When he moved and slung his blow she was no longer where she had been so he missed and she hit him in the head. Jabone stumbled backwards, rubbing his head and laughing. He said something to Ufalla in Kartik and she laughed, too. The next time she tried this shot it didn't work, but when she bluffed his head and then hit his leg it did. But Ufalla's bluffs only worked because she was very good at them. Kasiria would have thought the blows were going to land in the one place, be sure of it, and then with a flick of Ufalla's wrist they would land somewhere else.
Kasiria didn't know how they did it, but every one of the Kartiks seemed to just be able to sneak up on her without being noticed every time. She found it more than a little unnerving. "She's beautiful," Jestia said at her shoulder.
"What?" Kasiria asked, not taking her eyes off the fighters.
"Ufalla. She's a beautiful woman and rumor has it quite a good lover. She's really not mine if you want her."
Jestia had her attention then. "Let me guess, the men have been telling you that I'm queer."
"Yes, and you may have her if you want her."
Kasiria laughed. "I'm not queer. I don't want any of them, but I'm not queer."
Jestia smiled then, a smile almost too big for her face and said, "So then it is Jabone that you're swooning over." She sounded relieved and Kasiria had to wonder why.
"I'm not swooning over anyone."
"Yeah, whatever." Jestia laughed and walked away. Kasiria watched her go, not without a certain amount of contempt and thought, Who do you think you're ordering around? If I wanted her I'd have her with or without your permission. Giving people away, what do you think you are a princess or something? Swooning indeed . . . Oh my gods he is so beautiful and he would, should understand me. His own mother is a swords woman. Yes, but his mother isn't a Katabull, she isn't royalty. I have to stay focused, focused on my sword.
* * *
But in the next week she had little time to focus on anything other than the fact that her unit, seeing her friendship with the Kartiks, had something new to torment her about. They were supposed to be taking her commands and learning to actually live and work as a unit but they didn't listen to her at all.
The only joy she got were the few minutes she got to talk to Jestia and Ufalla before they fell to sleep and the moments spent sword fighting with Jabone.
They were at practice now and she was watching carefully as Ufalla beat the living crap out of Thomas, which was not only teaching her tricks she didn't know but was also warming her heart.
"Sergeant!" Captain Derek's voice broke into her thoughts. "Follow me to my office please." She nodded and followed him. As she walked in he said, "Close the door behind you." She nodded and did so, but she didn't like the tone of his voice. "Sit down Kasiria."
"Am I in trouble?" she asked as she sat down.
"Not really." He sat down across the table from her. "Kasiria, there is no doubt that you saved your troop the other day." She nodded silently. "But we both know that had your troop actually been taking orders from you, if they had been allowing you to lead properly, if they hadn't been spending more time taunting you than they were keeping an eye on the road, and if you hadn't let them distract you, that this probably wouldn't have happened at all."
"I have tried to make them respect me, but without my title . . . there is nothing to make them do so because I'm a woman and they are all idiots," Kasiria said hotly.
"I know it's not your fault, Kasiria, but even you have to admit that this is a problem that isn't likely to go away any time soon. You graduated at the top of your class and your skill with the sword is enviable. In fact everything about you says you should be a great military leader. The problem is that you aren't going to cure generations of ignorance fast enough to be allowed to lead your unit."
"What are you saying?" Kasiria asked carefully. That I'm being demoted? That I'll have to take orders from one of my tormentors? I'd rather go home first.
"There is a group among us now that desperately needs leadership. Its members need to be taught more about our land and our people and our way of life, and quite frankly with all the trouble the Amalites have been stirring up I don't have time to teach them. While they will be hard to command, you would have no trouble gaining their respect. In fact I'm sure you already have it."
"You are talking about the Kartiks?"
"Yes. They have no problem with female leadership. Two of them are women and the boys . . . Well their mothers are both swords women. In their culture women are the same as men. I've watched you with them, Kasiria. While all the men seem to need to be beaten into submission in order to accept them and I break up a fight somewhere in the garrison between them and our people every day, you seem to at least be trying to understand them. You alone have a rapport with them."
"But . . . They can hardly be considered a unit. There are only four of them."
"You've seen them fight. Do you really think that's a problem?"
Not since I'm the Katabull, Kasiria thought then said, "On one condition." Derek raised his eyebrows no doubt thinking she wasn't in the position to be asking for any special considerations. "I'm still a princess of the kingdom, Derek, and I've known you all my life. I think you owe me at least one concession based solely on that."
"What do you want?" he asked suspiciously.
"Move Jabone and Tarius over to where we are. Separate my unit from all the others. Put us together. It is their custom for both men and women to bunk together."
"Preposterous. Your father would never allow it."
"Then we won't tell him." She remembered what Ufalla had said the first night they'd bunked with her. "Ufalla's queer. I don't say that to shock you or to have you think ill of her, but it is true. That being the case am I any safer with her than I am with the young men? Besides as you said these young men have respect for women . . . "
"But . . . "
"It will help us bond as a unit and it will keep the men—both the Kartiks and our men—from being distracted by barrack posturing as they all stomp around trying to prove the ground they walk on is theirs alone."
Derek sighed. "The idea was to make them more like us, not you more like them."
"They will never fit in amongst the others. You know that as well as I do. Did Tarius the Black even before anyone knew he was a she, did she ever fit in? Was she ever part of the group?" Derek's silence answered her. "It wasn't until she had proved herself in a dozen battles that you even tried to understand her. These people are superior fighters in every way. They have already forgotten more than most of these men will ever learn. I don't want to ruin them by making them more like us. I want to make myself a better fighter by becoming more like them. Let them train the others, but let us carefully separate ourselves from them." She added sadly, "As you so wisely stated yourself, the men will never respect me. All things considered I think it far more likely that I will fit in with the Kartiks than I ever will with my own people."
"I'll give that what you say has a certain warped sense to it, Kasiria, but you are a princess of the kingdom and . . ."
"As such I will never be remembered after I am dead. I deserve to fight as you have so that someday people will tell stories about me." She stood up and grabbed an apple out of the full bowl that sat on his table. She shined it on her pants leg. "I'm going to go round up my new unit. You can tell my old unit about my reassignment. I'm sure they'll all be broken hearted."
* * *
Jabone couldn't say that he was too upset about the change in sleeping arrangements or having Kasiria as their sergeant.
He moved his cot over next to Ufalla's and Tarius put his on the other side of his.
He was glad to have his pack back together and happier still to have Kasiria as part of their pack even if she didn't yet know that's the way he would think of her.
"Tomorrow we will go on a field trip. You must learn about our plants and animals. What can be eaten, what can't. I have to teach you all about our country and culture in a very short length of time, and I think I can do that better away from the garrison," Kasiria said.
Jestia sat down on Ufalla's cot next to her and looked to where Tarius was still making up his bed for the night. "Tarius, tell us a story," Jestia begged.
"Yes Tarius," Jabone said, "tell us a story."
Tarius looked fleetingly at Kasiria.
"It's all right my brother," Jabone said.
"I have never told a story in this language.It might be clumsy and to tell one in our language would be rude."
"I'm shocked! My big brother actually knows what rude is," Ufalla said. "But then of course he would, he's practiced so much at it."
"Quiet, sprout," Tarius said. Jabone wondered how much bigger than him she was going to have to get before he stopped calling her that.
"Tell a story, Tarius," Ufalla urged. "What better time to learn to weave one in their language than now when it is just us?"
"What sort of story should I tell, of war, of great love, of betrayal?"
"Are not all the same in our history?" Jestia asked.
Tarius seemed to think about it only for a minute and then he started. "I tell the tale of Harris, a crippled servant boy who became a knight. The story of when he first met Tarius the Black, the Kartik bastard. Now there was in those days in the land of the Jethrik a Great War and Tarius had come into the land to go attend the Sword Master's academy pretending to be a man for the Jethrikian people did not believe that women should be allowed to fight . . . ."
As always Jabone was riveted as if he'd never heard the tale before as if he didn't know most of the players. The fact that Ufalla and Jestia had urged Tarius to tell a story and then were so quiet, and considering the story Tarius choose to tell, Jabone knew they were all as home sick as he was.
* * *
Kasiria had heard stories about them most of her life, but never this story, and never so well told. When he had finished she found herself clapping. She looked at Tarius. "You are a fine bard, Tarius."
Tarius blushed. "Thank you. I've had good teachers."
"So is that our Captain Derek that is your story's villain?"
"Aye," Jabone said. "One and the same. War changes men for the bad and the good."
That was the same rather confusing thing Derek had said about his youth, and Kasiria found herself wondering if Jabone was just repeating what he'd heard or if it was a common saying in the Kartik, something Derek had picked up from Tarius the Black.
"Well it's time for lights out," she ordered. They all went to their beds and Jabone blew out the oil lamp. It was then that she realized that she could still see because she could see Jabone walking across the floor without tripping over anything as he made his way to his cot as if he had already memorized the room. Maybe it just wasn't that dark. She closed her eyes and opened them again, but there was something different about the way things looked. She realized that it wasn't like seeing in the dark because there was a little light that made shadows, this was seeing in the dark, real seeing. Yet there was no light source that she could see. She rubbed her eyes and looked again. She could see everything in sort of a green spectrum but she could actually make out the faces of her companions. His face, Jabone's his dark hair looking all the darker against his white pillow.
It's got to be because of the Katabull thing. They see in the dark don't they? Damn Hellibolt he might have told me everything he knew. She looked at her "unit." Any one of them could tell her, but if she kept asking questions weren't they eventually going to get suspicious? She blinked. Was he looking back at her? She looked at Jabone again and his eyes were closed. Trick of the new eyes. Think about it. The ability to see in the dark, that couldn't be a bad thing for a soldier. So, now I'm the head freak of the freak brigade and instead of feeling like I've been demoted I feel like I've been reborn. I will teach them all about my country and they will teach me all they know about fighting and together we will prove them all wrong about us. That I'm just as good as any soldier in this army, better. Or I'll just admit—at least to myself—that the main reason I changed the sleeping arrangement is to keep Jabone close to me. That the main reason I don't care about my "reassignment" is that it means I get to be with him all day, every day.
The whole world, my whole world has changed in just a few days. That's the real reason I understand them, because we've all been thrown out of our comfortable places and forced to change or go back home with our tails between our legs.
* * *
Jabone waited 'til he was sure everyone was sound asleep and then he shook Ufalla awake. He put a finger in front of her lips and motioned her towards the door. She nodded and together they got up quietly and went outside.
Outside the barracks he said, "I've got to go to the privy."
"And I have to go with you? I'm freezing are you mad?"
"Come on I need to talk." She sighed and followed him. "Why do you suppose they've put her in charge of us?" he asked as they walked.
Ufalla shrugged. "I don't know, but you can't tell me you aren't glad."
"Do you think we did something wrong?"
"Are you kidding? Everything we do is wrong to them," Ufalla said. Having reached the privy Jabone went in and Ufalla stood outside the door much in the same way they had done back home. "They have rules about everything and most of them make no sense at all. Line up and be counted. What's that all about? And I wonder if any of them know how to just relax. They act like I'm some strange animal because I have breasts."
"Get this, when they have a dispute and they fight nothing is ever settled and they stay mad at each other," Jabone said.
"Then what's the point of fighting?" Ufalla asked in disbelief.
"Exactly!" Jabone said.
"I don't think it's what we did wrong though," Ufalla said thoughtfully, jumping from subject to subject because she just hadn't really gotten to talk to her friend that much and from foot to foot to stay warm.
"What do you mean?"
"I'm pretty sure she did something wrong and that's why she's stuck with us. Who cares? We all like her; she likes us. We'll be able to do what we want and deal with less crap."
"Right now I'm dealing with more crap," Jabone said, and they both laughed.
"Yeah, I don't know if it's their bad water or their bad food, but I've had the trots on and off ever since we got here," Ufalla said. "In fact when you get done I need in there and you can wait for me. I don't want to be alone out here. My father told me not to trust these men."
"And he was right. They are known to force women to have sex. It's common place with them. They do nothing all night but talk about sex. I don't think any of them have actually done it. And these 'cleaning rags,' what's that all about? Have they no suitable leaves? I hope they boil them to clean them. I'm done." He stepped outside and she went in. "You're lucky I warmed the seat up for you."
"I wouldn't call this stench you left behind you luck," Ufalla said with a laugh.
"Do you really think she likes me?" Jabone asked.
"I think she wants you to ride her like an animal. I don't think that necessarily means she likes you, but I suspect that she does," Ufalla said.
"You're sure she isn't one of you? All the men say . . . "
"All the men are a bunch of idiots. Jestia flat out asked her if she was and she said no."
"Jestia asked her?" Jabone said in disbelief.
"Yeah, you know Jestia, never let good manners keep her from getting . . . Well whatever it is she wants."
"Why would she ask her? She knows how they view it here."
"She wanted to know. Who knows with Jestia? She might have figured she could wrap her around her finger like she does everyone else who's physically attracted to her," Ufalla said, a bitter edge creeping into her voice. "Anyway she asked her and Kasiria said she was not. So I'd say it's clear sailing for you." She walked out of the outhouse pulling up her pants. "I miss having someplace to wash my hands." She made a face. "I'll race you; I'm freezing to death."
She beat him back she always had been faster than he was unless he was in his other form. Jabone went right to his cot and crawled in however Jestia reached over and grabbed Ufalla's pants leg, She stumbled and almost fell. She glared down at Jestia and whispered, "You liked to scared me to death."
"I'm sorry, but I'm cold." She looked appealingly up at Ufalla, not that it wasn't wasted on everyone but Jabone. He smiled as he snuggled into his bed.
"What would you like me to do about it?" Ufalla asked in a harsh whisper.
"I'm cold," Jestia said. Ufalla grabbed her bedding, threw it over Jestia's and then got in bed with her.
Jabone nearly laughed as he saw the look of pure bliss on his friend's face as Jestia moved up against her back spooning her. I don't think she's as cold to you as you think, Ufalla, he thought. He looked over at Kasiria and could have sworn she was looking at him. He blinked his eyes quickly and when he looked again her eyes were closed. Maybe we'll both find the love we want. He heard Jestia mutter something to Ufalla that even he couldn't make out.
Ufalla whispered back, "It's just a dream."
"Do you people ever sleep?" Kasiria asked with a hint of laughter in her voice.
They all started laughing, even Tarius, who Jabone had been sure was asleep. When it was quiet again Jabone wondered fleetingly what Jestia had dreamt and then he fell asleep and dreamt of his mother.
* * *
"If you dream of your mother what does that mean?" Jabone asked in Kartik, riding his horse up along side Jestia.
"Your madra or your mother?" Jestia asked carefully.
"My mother," he answered in a whisper, glaring at Jestia and then looking to where Kasiria was riding well ahead of them.
Jestia rolled her eyes. "Do you think she has learned our language in a day?"
"What does it mean that I dreamt of my mother?" he asked again.
"That you're a huge mama's boy," Jestia said with a smile, and Ufalla laughed from where she was riding on the other side of the princess.
"Come on, witch, I know you know how to interpret dreams."
Jestia shook. Yes she did, and that was why the one she kept having terrified her.
"You all right Jestia?" Ufalla asked.
"Fine just cold." .she pulled her cloak more tightly around her. She looked at Jabone. "What was your mother doing?"
"Sewing me this shirt. That's why I wore it, I thought it might be an omen," Jabone said.
"Did she say anything?" Jestia asked.
"She just kept saying over and over that it's cold here."
"What exactly did she say in the dream?"
"Remember it's cold in my home land."
"The dream means that your mother's love will protect you while you are here." Jestia smiled at the thought. Her own mother, so distant, cold even. Her father quiet and reserved and boring in ways that couldn't be imagined. She had been raised by the servants mostly and the only attention her parents ever gave her was when she was "acting out." Which of course was basically what drove her to 'bad behavior' time and time again, because bad attention was better than none at all. Oh she knew that they cared for her on some level but they didn't actually love her. She envied her friends, especially Jabone. While she'd had virtually no parents he'd had four. She was jealous most of all of his mother Jena, for Jena's warmth could always be felt and her love for him shone from her eyes when she looked at her son. Even now she warms him with the shirt she made him with her own hands. My parents never loved me like that. I'm just the middle child of a couple bound together for the sake of the kingdom. They don't really love each other so how could they ever really love us?
She looked at Ufalla and shook again then tried to clear the image from her mind. She didn't have to interpret her dream; she knew what it meant. She had to find some way to stop it, but how?
"Jestia, are you sure you aren't sick?" Ufalla asked with concern.
"My own dream is not so sweet," she said, as the thought of it darkened her features.
"What have you dreamt?" Jabone asked.
"She can't tell you stupid. If a witch repeats her dream it will come true," Ufalla spat back at Jabone as if it was something she hadn't just learned herself. Jestia smiled in spite of her troubles. For weeks as she was trained by the sadist that was Tarius the Black and even as they had been on the ship coming here she had wondered why she was really going. Tarius had tested her. "Don't go if you aren't going for the right reasons," she'd said, and her words had given Jestia real pause.
And yet she had come. In fact, there had never even been a real question in her mind that she would, but if anyone would have made her tell them exactly why she was going she couldn't have given them any better answer than she just felt she needed to be here. The first night she'd had the dream she'd put it off to being in an strange place and eating bad food but now she'd had it almost every night and she was sure that it was why she'd had to come. Either that or her being here caused the problem in the first place and fate had brought her here which meant there would be no changing events. No, she couldn't think that way she had to stop it from happening, but how, when she didn't know the when or where of it? How stop it, not with her sword she wasn't good enough with it, and none of the spells she knew . . .
"Invisible shield," she said out loud with a smile, her eyes wide. Ufalla and Jabone just looked at her. She smiled broadly and answered their curious faces. "It's a spell I was never able to learn and Jazel just kept pressing me over and over again. She told me it was an important spell for me to learn, but I stupidly decided it was better to run off across the countryside on a drunken toot. I must master invisible shield, that's the answer." She looked at Ufalla, who shrugged.
"If you say so."
"I need to practice all my spells, perfect them, but I must learn that one. I have to."
"When?" Ufalla asked.
It was a good question. Not even Derek had been told she was a witch because of the Jethriks open distaste of the craft. And all day long they were doing something.
"I'll just have to find a time and a place." Jestia swore. Wow! Sudden enlightenment. That's what I am. Who I'm supposed to be. I am a witch. I'm not just supposed to dabble in spells and potions for fun, I'm supposed to be a full-blown, potion-making, spell-casting witch of the caliber of Jazel herself. I've never been sure of anything and now I am because everything hinges on me learning this single spell. This spell which was the only one that eluded me. Every other spell Jazel taught me came easy, but not this one. Because I couldn't do this one spell, because it didn't come easy, I lost interest and took off without learning all I needed to know, without perfecting invisible shield. Now it's the spell I'm sure I need most. What a giant pain in the ass.
"Jestia, why don't you sing something?" Ufalla suggested. "I haven't heard you sing at all since we got off the ship."
Jestia realized it was true. Because I haven't felt like singing. She thinks singing will take my mind off my troubles. She looked over at Ufalla again. I will learn the spell; I must. She started singing her favorite song but it didn't make her feel any better.
Kasiria had been riding in front when Tarius rode up beside her. "I didn't know Jestia could sing," she said.
He nodded. "Oh yes, she's got a wonderful voice."
"What is she singing about?"
"It's the story of a woman who didn't love her garden until it was destroyed in a storm. My godmother said when she was a girl they used to have horrible storms in the Kartik but there haven't been any in my life time so it's an old song. The woman in the story had everything and took it all for granted 'til it was all destroyed in a great storm. She realizes only when all she had is gone how much she loved her garden."
"Well it's beautiful," Kasiria said with real appreciation and a little resentment. She couldn't carry a tune in a bucket.
"Tell me again what we'll be doing?" Tarius asked.
"Looking at plant and wild life. Most of ours is different from yours and I want to show you all which plants can be used for food or medicine in case . . . "
"In case we get stuck out in the field or the supply line is broken. Yes, we were trained for survival. Of course where I come from everyone has to learn it not just warriors. It's a good idea. We call it readiness training at home," Tarius said.
"We do here as well. Came from the same place I'm sure," Kasiria said, knowing that Tarius the Black was the Warlord of the Kartik and that "readiness training" had been something she had implemented when she was war lord in the Jethrik. No smart back talk from this Tarius, no telling her what a waste of time it was. She definitely could get used to this. "Tarius, is it true that the Katabull can see in the dark?"
"Oh aye, and their hearing is better than ours, too. Even out of the catted-up state their senses are better than ours. Nothing fights like a Katabull," he said with real admiration.
Suddenly Kasiria had a brilliant idea. "Do you have a Katabull story?"
"I have many Katabull stories," Tarius said with real excitement.
"Could you tell me one?"
Tarius thought only for a moment and then he started. "I tell the tale of Tweed, mate of Rimmy, a much-loved member of the pack of the Marching Night who died at the hands of the ignoble Amalites," he spat on the ground, "in the final battle of the Great War in the Valley of the Arrow. Now there was a time in this battle when the Amalites did realize that they were all about to die and they knew that the Marching Night did block their only chance for a retreat . . . "
They had actually gone past the spot of woods she meant to take them to before Tarius had finished the tale. She knew a little bit more about the Katabull, they were fearless, amazingly strong, and fiercely loyal. She saw a small stream and reined her horse in.
"Ah, this looks like as good a spot as any." Kasiria dismounted. She led her horse by the reins off the road, pulled out her tether rope and tied him to a tree. The others all followed suit without being asked. "Why don't we eat before we start?" She pulled a bag out of her nap sack and started walking with it down to the small stream. She sat down on a rock opened the bag and pulled out a loaf of bread and a wedge of cheese the kitchen staff had packed for her. She took a chunk of each and handed the remainder of it on to Jabone. She carefully watched them, each took only their share, seeming to first count how many of them there were and then carefully breaking off an equal share of what was left. It said a lot more about how they felt about each other than their constant squabbling would imply.
After they had finished eating she started walking them around showing them the different plants and was more than a little surprised when she noticed that Jestia had a tablet and charcoal out taking notes. She was glad but still surprised.
"This," Jabone pointed to a plant on the ground, "Is this clover?"
"Yes, but it isn't good for anything," Kasiria said, and started to walk on. She noticed that Jabone grabbed a whole handful of the leaves and stuck them in his pocket—she wondered why he was doing this and why no one in the Jethrik had thought to put pockets into their garments, they just seemed so handy. Kasiria couldn't even think to guess why Jabone was filling his pockets with clover but she didn't have to ask because Tarius did it for her.
"Jabone why are you filling your pockets with this worthless plant?"
"When my madra was here she used to keep her pockets full of clover. She fed it to her horse because it was a treat for him and then whenever she got separated from him in battle he would always come back to her because she always had clover in her pockets. In the Kartik I used to do the same thing with Lex only I used lespedeza. They don't have that here, but they do have clover."
The next thing Kasiria knew all the others were filling their pockets with clover as well. She smiled, shook her head, and moved on.
After about two hours she sent them each in four different directions with instructions to come back with any one of the plants she had shown them and tell her what it was good for. She sat down on a rock to rest wondering as they walked out of sight if it was a silly exercise that they'd be laughing about later like they laughed about coming when the horn blew or lining up and standing at attention. But at least they were doing it without question. Her old unit would have laughed her right out of the woods. She had just lifted her water botta to her lips when Hellibolt appeared in front of her and she spilled water all down her shirt.
"You know, you would have made a fine teacher," he said.
"Dammit Hellibolt!" she said in a harsh whisper, looking around to make sure none of the others were close enough to see him.
"Don't worry. They are far too busy with their own things to care what you're doing. So, what's this then? The king's daughter head of a unit built of four Kartik youths."
"They are good people; I like them."
"You like one of them perhaps too much," Hellibolt said.
Kasiria stood up. "I don't need you in my head, Hellibolt, and I certainly don't need you to spy on me. Tell me something useful or leave me be."
"If I tell you too much what will be the fun of watching this all unfold? What is happening here is something no wizard could do with a spell. You have been asked to guard more than you know. Do not take your duty lightly, but remember to enjoy this time as well."
Then of course he was gone.
"That's it?" Kasiria screamed at no one. Then flinched and went and sat back down on the rock. "That's it," she muttered to herself, "he just pops in long enough to spit a bunch of very cryptic crap out and then he's gone." She sighed. "It's just not helpful that's all."
* * *
Jestia wasn't wasting her time. She had found her one plant and gathered twenty others she recognized from her potion books. She was just about to head back to where they'd left Kasiria when she felt the hair pick up on the nape of her neck and a tingling sensation raced across her scalp. Only two things did that a Katabull changing form and magic being used in close proximity to where she was.
She quickly cast a spell to find Jabone. In minutes she was standing by him and he hadn't beasted out.
"Jestia I think we were supposed to do this on our own," Jabone scolded.
"Did you cat out?"
He shook his head no.
"Then someone else did or they used magic, I felt it," she said.
"You're sure?"
"Yes I'm sure jack ass. We have to get back. We have to make sure Ufalla and Tarius are all right."
Jabone nodded and they headed back in the direction they knew Kasiria was. When they were close they saw all three of them.
"Is the other witch still here?" he asked Jestia.
"They aren't casting now, but who knows what they cast or whether they're still here or not."
Jabone nodded. "All right then you go on down. I'll circle to the side and come in over there." He pointed. "I don't want Kasiria to think we cheated."
"Jabone did you not understand what I said? There was either a Katabull other than you changing or a witch other than me in these woods casting a spell, and I have no way of knowing what they cast or whether they're still here or not."
"Then the sooner we finish this assignment and get out of the woods the better."
Jestia stomped away swinging her arms in huge flamboyant circles muttering, "Impressing Kasiria is more important to you than the fact that some spell might blow up in our faces at any moment."
* * *
Ufalla was the first one back arriving only minutes after Hellibolt's retreat. She had a piece of wild cabbage and knew that you could eat it. Tarius was next with bark from a willow tree and he knew that it could be boiled and used for pain. Jestia showed up and produced lobelia and knew that it was both poisonous in large doses and used for cleaning blood in small ones, the only problem being that Kasiria hadn't told her either of those things and she was going to have to look it up in her book when she got back to the base to be sure Jestia was right. But she wasn't about to call her on it until she knew for certain because she didn't want to look ignorant if the girl was right.
Jabone showed up with a wild carrot root and after he said it was for eating he quickly walked over without being dismissed and fed it and the pocket full of clover to his horse. Then they all untied their horses, put their ropes away and climbed into their saddles, looking at her expectantly. She sighed she wanted to say something about protocol, how she was supposed to tell them when it was time to untie their horses and mount and ride away, but when she thought about it what was the point of all that? If you had good people who did what you wanted them to do without being told, why waste your time telling them to do it? She got her horse and mounted up too and then started leading them back towards the garrison.
It was almost dark when they got there and she found that she was tired. Still her "unit" decided to practice their sword fighting and she couldn't very well say no. So in the hour before the evening meal they practiced with each other and for the first time she noticed a peculiar thing. The Kartiks all smiled while they were fighting. She found it more than a little off putting when she had to face one of them.
The dinner bell rang and they all went to the mess hall dirty and sweaty and smelling of the woods. The four Kartiks sat closely together at a table on the far side of the mess hall and she sat at their table with them as she had been doing since that first night but she still didn't sit that close. She still felt like she wasn't quite part of their very tight group. Then there was the other thing—they sat so close together there was hardly light between them. They seemed to have no concept of personal space whatsoever. She got the notion they'd sit on each other if it wasn't completely impractical. She just wasn't ready to be quite that close to . . . Well anyone. Even their cots were so close together that there was just enough room to squeeze between them to get in bed and no more, and most mornings likely as not found Ufalla and Jestia in the same bed, and yet she knew they weren't lovers. They just all seemed to have a need to be in physical contact with each other most of the time. Maybe it was because they were so far from home.
She was so caught up with her own thoughts and her food that she didn't notice Captain Derek 'til he was sitting beside her. He made a face no doubt at the smell of them all but sat down anyway.
"So how did your field trip go?" he asked Kasiria as he pulled a piece of leaf out of her hair.
"Fine, it helps a great deal that they actually listen to me," Kasiria said in a whisper. "They learn very quickly. Jestia even took notes and I have the feeling she knows as much if not more about our plant life than I do. I think she's had a very extensive education." Derek nodded and she got the distinct impression that he knew more about her unit than he'd told her. "Out of curiosity who's leading my old unit?"
"Thomas," he said. Kasiria made a face but said nothing as she thought, I guess it makes a sick sort of sense. It was his constant taunting that caused the others to join him in making it impossible for me to lead my unit. I guess that could be considered a leadership skill.
Derek lowered his voice some, no doubt so the Kartiks couldn't hear him. "You do remember that we normally wash before the evening meal."
"We washed our hands. There wasn't time for anything else," she said with a shrug. "We will bathe after dinner."
"Are you just going to completely embrace their ways and forget our own?" Derek asked, obviously disapproving—of what she wasn't quite sure. After all it had been his idea for her to lead this unit.
"Maybe." She started eating, quite done with the conversation. She was hungry and it had been a long day.
"Kasiria," he sighed, "I've been thinking about it all day and . . . Well maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all."
"And maybe it was the best idea you've ever had," she said in a panic, and perhaps a little too loud. She lowered her voice before she said anything else. "Captain, we are getting along well together. We are learning from each other, and I'm not constantly worried that the knife in my back is more likely to come from my own unit than any Amalite scum we might encounter. Please I beg you, don't undo what you've done."
Derek looked down the table to where the four Kartik's were talking, and eating with perhaps the worst table manners she'd ever seen. "Don't you think Kasiria that someday you will want to go home, to be a lady of the court and . . . "
"And what?" Kasiria stopped even trying to eat, dropped her spoon, and turned to look at him as she figured out just exactly what the captain was getting at. "No man will have me after I've been bunking with Kartik men? When I have lost all my 'lady-like' qualities and become a true warrior," she said in a harsh whisper. "Is that what you're trying to say? Do you think me so lame brained that I don't know the real reason my father refuses to let me use my title as long as I have a sword in my hand? I'm an embarrassment, yes, but it's more than that. He hopes that I will grow tired of all this and go home, marry well, and make him more heirs—as if my brothers and sisters haven't given him enough already. I will never embrace this vision of the life he wants for me. It is not any sort of life that I desire. Those men," she pointed at Jabone and Tarius, "treat me the way I want to be treated. Like a man."
Derek shook his head. "But you're not a man, Kasiria, and no common born girl . . . "
"Forget who I am. I do. Look at me, captain. What I was born to is not what I am. Hellibolt himself told me that I'm the child of my father's curse." Her voice took on an uncharacteristic pleading quality. "All my life I have always felt that everything that I've ever wanted was just out of my grasp and now I feel as if I'm about to embrace it. Don't you wish that you'd fought what you'd been taught, that you'd created an identity early in life even if it did disgrace your family so that now instead of being the villain who kicked a crippled boy in a favorite story told throughout two kingdoms you'd be the hero who helped the great knight the crippled boy turned out to be?"
Derek took a deep breath and nodded, then said thoughtfully, "It's so rare that people get to create their own stories." He smiled. "I feel quite certain that this will indeed turn out to be a story many people will tell and let's hope it's one of triumph not defeat."
Kasiria nodded. Then without saying another word she got up and moved to sit closer to the Kartiks.
* * *
"Are we in trouble again?" Tarius asked in a whisper.
"No, he just wishes we'd showered before coming to dinner," she told them.
"Here, you have to have some, too." Ufalla handed her some grass-looking stuff that she knew by smell was wild garlic.
"Spice upsets the stomach," Kasiria said.
"No," Jestia said with an air of impatience for someone so ignorant. "Spice keeps your bowels in order and gives your bland food some taste."
"Besides," Ufalla said, "if one of us eats garlic we all have to or we won't be equally offensive."
Kasiria watched as Tarius took his knife and cut the garlic top and stirred it into his stew. Stew and bread. Kasiria was so tired of stew and bread but it was what they served most every evening meal both here and at the academy. Whatever vegetables were in season with whatever meat they could find. She knew all the reasons why but it didn't mean she didn't miss eating like a princess. She cut some of the greens into her stew and stirred them in. She started to eat again and had to admit that it did taste better.
"It's better if you cook it with it," Jestia said. "And better if you use the root and cook it but I just grabbed some when we were in the woods today because I have to tell you that if I had to eat even one more bland bowl of soup I was going to scream. Do you people really use no spice, no herbs in your food?"
"Not many and only on special occasions," Kasiria answered.
"No salt that's what's killing me," Tarius said. They all agreed and Kasiria decided to go into the village the next time they were allowed out and see if she couldn't find a shop that had salt. They weren't the only ones that missed it. Salt was fairly expensive here but she imagined it was plentiful in the Kartik.
Then she noticed to her dismay that Thomas was headed their way.
"What do you want?" she asked without much charity when he stopped at the head of her table.
"I . . . I wanted to apologize."
Kasiria looked at him with a complete lack of trust and then when she saw his eyes drift from Ufalla to Jestia she knew just exactly what he was up to. "Great, now leave me and my unit to our meal."
"But I just wanted . . . "
"I can guess full well what you just wanted," Derek said with at least as much contempt in his voice as Kasiria had. "These girls are not common whores to be ogled by the likes of you, now take your seat and keep to your station."
Kasiria found his wording strange. Thomas's station? That presumed that he was of common birth and that Ufalla and Jestia weren't. Then she knew why he had said what he said. When Thomas apologized he as much as admitted that he had been treating me badly and to Derek I'm more than just a Sword Master, more than just a sergeant, I'm his king's daughter. He must have realized that Thomas had been looking at me the same way and I'm way above Thomas's station.
Thomas bowed and then left though he obviously felt he had been badly wronged. Kasiria doubted that this whole incident would do anything to help the already strained relationship between them. It doesn't matter I don't have to deal with him any more. I'll just have limited contact with him here and if I'm lucky he and I will be in different troops when we're sent out.
"So," Derek asked with a smile, "may I try some of that?" he pointed to the wild garlic tops sitting in front of Ufalla's plate and she handed them to him. "My wife is a lovely woman but I must confess that I eat here most every night because the food is preferable to her cooking, which I'm afraid lets you know exactly how bad it is. Jabone?"
Jabone put down his spoon and looked at Derek. "Captain?"
"I would like to talk to you alone in my office after dinner."
Jabone nodded though it was obvious that he was worried about being singled out.
"Loosen up, boy, you aren't in any sort of trouble. I just want to talk to you."
Although she tried to hide it Kasiria was more worried about this meeting than Jabone seemed to be. What possible reason could Derek have for talking to Jabone alone except to ask about her, if Jabone thought she was a good leader?
* * *
After dinner Jabone went to Derek's office as ordered while the rest of them went to the showers. They had separated a section of the showers off for women. She hated to admit it but the first couple of times she'd showered with the Kartik women she'd been more than a little uncomfortable mostly because of Ufalla, because wasn't it just like showering with a man? Most of the time she didn't even think about Ufalla being contrary, and it really didn't bother her but she didn't really like being naked in front of anyone. To be naked in front of someone who might be looking with interest was a bit unnerving at first. However Ufalla seemed to work very hard at keeping her eyes on the floor at all times as if maybe she knew she might make the other girls uncomfortable and now Kasiria didn't really have much trouble changing in front of them. Of course the first time she'd seen Ufalla's nipple piercing she'd cringed and the one in Jestia's belly button wasn't much better. Kasiria didn't have her ears pierced even a single time, she couldn't imagine just sitting there and letting someone stick a needle . . . Well anywhere. That was precisely why she'd never had her ears pierced. The piercings meant something to the Kartiks. They were a symbol of something but she couldn't remember what.
When Kasiria stepped out of the shower stream, turned off the water and pulled back the curtain she was more than a little surprised to find that both the other girls were already showered dressed and gone. She shrugged it off to them being faster, and then she was dressed and started back towards her barracks. She was almost there and looking forward to her cot when she saw Jestia and Ufalla and Tarius all dressed in clean clothes and hair still wet heading across the compound their heads bowed in a very conspiratorial way. Kasiria started to just go on to bed and then she decided maybe she'd better follow them. They were after all her responsibility.
* * *
Jabone sat down across the table from Captain Derek. "Are you comfortable Jabone?"
"Yes quite."
"Is the food suitable?"
He smiled. "Yes just a little blander than we are used to. I doubt you've brought me here alone to ask me about my quarters and the food."
Derek laughed. "You're no sleeper Jabone. I have to ask you something and you don't have to answer it if you don't want to but . . . Jabone this may seem a stupid question to you but well I don't know who or what your father is and I'd really like to know. Are you the Katabull?"
"My fadra is Arvon."
"Sword Master Arvon?"
"Yes," Jabone said. It was obvious from the look on Derek's face that he still didn't know all he needed to know. "My fadra, he is the Katabull."
"Arvon, but he is one of us."
Jabone smiled broadly. "No he only looks like one of you, he is one of us." He pounded his finger into his own chest.
"Then you are the Katabull?" Derek asked.
Jabone nodded his head. "Yes, I am the Katabull."
To Jabone's surprise Derek sighed with relief and said, "Good, very good."
"I was sure you knew."
"At first I assumed and then . . . Well I just didn't know."
"And you're glad that I am?"
"Yes," Derek smiled. "Nothing fights like the Katabull. So how do you feel about your sergeant?"
Jabone hoped he was keeping the silly grin off his face. "I think she's a good leader, very smart. She doesn't seem to have a problem with us, why should we have a problem with her?"
Suddenly Derek laughed and Jabone gave him a curious look. "Oh it's nothing you've said son." He laughed again. "I just," he laughed harder still, "I just saw this image of Arvon and Tarius trying to conceive a child."
Jabone smiled, not offended in the least. "Yes, it's something I try never to think of."
* * *
Kasiria found the three Kartiks huddled in the shadows against Derek's office, their ears pressed to the wall.
"Do you hear anything?" Tarius asked.
"I might if you'd shut up," Jestia said.
"Would you both shut up?" Ufalla ordered.
Kasiria cleared her throat and they jumped about a foot in the air and then turned around to face her. She just smiled. "What do you think you're doing?"
They all just looked at her and shrugged then Tarius said, "We were just walking around."
"And what? We decided to warm our ears on this building? She knows what we were doing dumb ass," Jestia said, elbowing him in the ribs. He shoved her and Ufalla reached over Jestia and popped Tarius in the head with her knuckles.
"Ow!" Tarius said, rubbing his head and glaring at his sister. "What was that for? I didn't shove you." And then he did.
"Enough," Kasiria whispered. "Let's get back to our barracks before Captain Derek finds us out here."
They nodded and started following her. "What do you suppose he wants with Jabone?" Tarius asked.
Whatever the girls were speculating about, they didn't want her to know because they started talking in their native language, and when Tarius talked back to them he did as well.
They were still talking to each other in Kartik when they got back to their barracks. Kasiria didn't like it because it meant they weren't getting as close as she thought they were getting. She lay down on her bed and stared at the ceiling.
"Kasiria, what do you think the captain wanted to talk to Jabone about?" Ufalla asked.
"Oh, so you're talking to me now. Why should I tell you what I think when you wouldn't tell me what you think?"
"Oh come on," Jestia said, "We were just excited and we forgot you couldn't understand."
Yeah, until you want to ask me a question, Kasiria thought, but she didn't want to be angry with them. She shrugged. "Maybe he wanted to talk to him about fighting practices or something."
I'm not about to tell you that I think he may be talking to him about me because I'm only your sergeant now because I couldn't handle the last unit I was assigned.
Jabone walked in then and if she expected them to even pretend like they weren't going to grill him about it she was dead wrong.
"What did he want?" Jestia asked.
"We tried to listen through the wall but their wood walls are harder to hear through than our hut walls at home," Tarius said, "and Kasiria caught us and made us come to the barracks."
Kasiria almost laughed then because it was just so funny that they didn't seem to think that anyone deserved a private moment.
As if to prove that he didn't really need it Jabone looked at Ufalla and said as he gathered up clean clothes. "Come on, I have to go shower now." Ufalla didn't miss a beat, just stood up and followed him out of the barracks. Kasiria started to tell them all the things that were wrong with Ufalla going with Jabone while he showered but decided she was too tired to spend most of an hour explaining Jethrik customs to them.
As if forgetting the conversation they'd just had Jestia and Tarius started rattling in Kartik again.
Kasiria inwardly fumed and listened carefully to them but the only word they said that she knew what it meant was the word Katabull, because of course Katabull was the same in all languages. Kasiria was now more worried than ever.
Do they know about me? Did he tell Derek? They aren't looking at me. Why are they talking about the Katabull? Hell it might have just been one of their weird sayings. Why don't they want me to know what they're talking about if it has nothing to do with me and why did Jabone want to hide it so much that he took Ufalla to the showers with him obviously so they could talk in private? Instead of making the others go I should have gone after a cup to stick against the wall so that I could hear better and joined them. Was Derek asking Jabone about me or worse yet telling him about me being the Katabull? No, Derek couldn't know unless Hellibolt told him and he wouldn't have.
"He's supposed to be my best friend," Tarius said in Jethrikian, flopping on his cot. "But lately he only wants to talk to Ufalla."
"Because she actually listens when people talk," Jestia said.
She was only some relieved by the fact that they were talking in Jethrik again because that meant they really had been talking about something they didn't want her to know before.
"So," Tarius smiled a lustful smile at Jestia. "Are you in need of a man's touch yet?"
Jestia smiled impishly. "I'm a grown Kartik woman. I know how to take care of my own needs as well as you do and even if I didn't there are plenty of men around here and lots of empty rooms. You don't by any chance think I would ever bed you, swine?"
Kasiria forgot her problems and smiled as she listened to them.
"Why don't you work on Kasiria while you have a chance? You know before she learns what a disgusting little pig you are?" Jestia chided Tarius.
"I would never go after the object of Jabone's obvious affection."
"Just as well she probably wouldn't take you anyway," Jestia said.
Tired of them talking about her as if she wasn't there and almost wishing they would talk in Kartik if they insisted in talking about these sorts of things she said, "We are not as open sexually as you Kartiks are. Proper women of the Jethrik marry before giving themselves to a man."
She must have sounded as disgusted as she felt because Jestia laughed and said, "It sounds like you think even less of your strange customs than I do."
"I wouldn't be comfortable just bedding around as you obviously all do. I'm not judging you, just saying—perhaps because of the way I was brought up—that I wouldn't be comfortable doing that. But the whole idea that a woman has to give herself to a man, to diminish herself to be with a man, makes me sick."
"True love means that both must give equally of themselves," Jestia said in a far-away tone of voice. "To truly unite, both must be willing to give up part of themselves to create total union. It couldn't all come from one side, there would be no balance." She seemed to force a smile then as if not liking to get so serious. "Of course you have to shop around to make sure you find someone sexually compatible before you do anything as drastic as getting married."
Tarius laughed and nodded in agreement.
Jestia looked at Kasiria. "I can't imagine binding myself to someone before I even knew how they felt."
And Kasiria knew she didn't mean how they felt emotionally either. Kasiria blushed a little.
"Then the stories are true and Jena was no proper Jethrikian lady, because she was making love with Tarius the Black almost from the first moment they met," Tarius said with a laugh.
"Oh Tarius, please tell the story of Jena," Jestia begged.
He looked at Kasiria. "Yes please do," Kasiria said, thinking if they were occupied in such a way she could be left alone to brood, the last thing she wanted to talk about was sex. She didn't want to think about Jabone, especially not when he was having secret meetings with Derek and now with Ufalla to talk about her she was sure.
"I tell the story of Lady Jena of the Jethrik, daughter of Darian, mate to Tarius the Black the Great Leader of the Katabull People. A tale of the greatest love in all the Kartik and maybe the world. It was in those early days when Tarius was at the academy that Jena did come home from visiting her aunt's house, for you see Jena had been raised by her father alone, and in the Sword Master's academy and knew nothing of how to be a proper Jethrikian lady, so her father sent her periodically to learn manners and such things from her aunt. Upon returning to the academy from one of these visits her eyes fell upon Tarius who was sparing with Harris—the servant boy Jena had always treated like a brother—in the courtyard and her heart, which had always been cold, was filled with love . . . "
Kasiria was instantly mesmerized by the tale as it unfolded. Jena had always been just a side note in Jethrikian stories about the Great War. She had noticed she was mentioned in almost every story concerning Tarius the Black when this young Tarius told a story. She was a Jethrik woman, a lady of the court who had broken all the rules, and as such Jethrikian bards had mostly forgotten her. Not so the Kartiks and as this tale unfolded it was obvious why. Jena was a force to be reckoned with. She'd gone against everything she'd ever been taught, fallen in love with a woman, taken up her sword and left home and country for the sake of love. She and Tarius had ridden together in hundreds of different battles and their love had never flagged no matter what they were forced to face.
Jabone walked in with Ufalla not far behind him just as the tale was coming to an end.
" . . . and to this day Jena sits in the lap of the Great Leader on the Katabull throne and the Great Leader makes no decision great or small without her council." Tarius threw up his hands indicating the end of his tale and they all clapped even those who'd only heard the end of the story.
Jabone looked at Tarius smiled and said, "I recently heard a new chapter to that story. Some day when we are very old I will tell it to you."
"So are you going to tell us what the captain wanted?" Jestia asked.
Jabone looked at Kasiria then, and the way he smiled she was sure that he could see every thought in her head. "He just wanted to know if we were happy with you as our leader and I said yes."
Kasiria was only a little relieved because why would he have decided he needed to switch languages or take Ufalla off to the shower with him if that was all there was to it. And he has showered too, his hair is wet at the edges and he's clean and . . . my gods filthy or clean he just smells so good. That damned love story and . . . I just want to be Jena to his Tarius. To ride beside him as his right hand. To give myself to him, to have him give himself to me. Damn romantic Kartik bastards! My head is filled with nothing but cobwebs and love songs, and what I'm feeling is more like lust than anything approaching the undying devotion of the people in that story and . . . They're hiding things from me. What are they hiding from me and do I really have the right to question them when I'm keeping my own secrets? Gods! My father is the villain in almost every story they tell. He shot Tarius with Jena crying for her life. The man in that story is not my father, but do I really know him at all? Is it any wonder that Tarius cursed him? What did he say she had said? You have traded evil for good. She had never heard the actual curse before. It like Jena, was just a footnote in their own stories. She wondered how much of the curse was word for word what the beast woman had said to her father and how much it had been added to and detracted from in a hundred different tellings. I'm the child of that curse. I wonder how my new 'friends' would feel about me if they knew that. I was born in a sea of Jena's tears and Tarius's blood, does that not make me as evil as my father?
Ufalla grabbed her bedding threw it on Jestia's cot and crawled in getting comfortable.
"What do you think you're doing?" Jestia asked.
Ufalla obviously already working at going to sleep said, "I'm tired."
"So?"
"So, I'd like to sleep at least one night without you waking me from a deep sleep with the news that you're cold."
"Oh," Jestia said seemingly having all the wind taken out of her sails. Then she shrugged and crawled into bed with Ufalla.
"Lights out," Kasiria ordered, and Jabone put out the lamp and crawled into his own bed. Then she could hear him whispering to Tarius but couldn't quite make out what either of them were saying. She tried to call on her super Katabull hearing but if she had that trait it wasn't working in her human form and she was sure they were speaking in their own language so it wouldn't have mattered if she could hear them because she still wouldn't have been able to understand them. Frustrated in way to many ways to count Kasiria fell into a fitful sleep.