Sword Masters

by Selina Rosen

  "You are the Katabull, Arvon, and the Katabull is you. Blaming it on the Katabull is the same as blaming it on yourself. It's like a drunk blaming the liquor for a crime he committed. He only did what he would have done sober if he wasn't too afraid," Tarius said.

  "Are you saying I wanted to kill those men like that? That I enjoyed it?"

  "No. I'm saying that you knew what had to be done, and being Katabull just gave you the courage to do it."

  "It really doesn't bother you, does it?" Arvon asked, drying his eyes.

  "It does. I'd rather not have to do it, but they won't leave us alone. They won't let people be. They won't be happy until they have killed every nonbeliever, and that's you and me and everyone and everything we love. It's funny, because you're older than me, but you know what your problem is, my brother? You haven't learned what it means to truly hate yet."

  Chapter 9

  The word from the front wasn't good. Jena frowned and stared out at the courtyard from where she sat on a cut stone bench. She and Tarius had sat here for hours under this big tree, talking of everything and nothing, holding hands and just basically enjoying each other's company. It seemed like a lifetime had passed since he had held her in his arms and spoken soft words of love to her. She missed him in a way she had never dreamed it was possible to miss someone. Her body literally ached to hold him, to kiss him, to feel his lips on hers, to feel his hands on her bare skin . . .

  She took a deep breath and let it out with a sigh. The day was lovely, sunny and bright. The air was fresh, and nothing here seemed to realize what was going on just on the other side of the kingdom. It was almost noon, and by now Tarius would doubtless be on the battlefield. Maybe hurt, maybe even . . . She shook her head; she wouldn't think it. Tarius would come home. The war would be over soon, and Tarius would come home. They would be together again, and all would be right with the world.

  Suddenly someone was sitting beside her. She didn't have to look up to know who. Tragon limped around the courtyard and grounds, his leg seeming to be better one day and worse the next. She couldn't find a moment's peace from him anywhere save in the house. She knew what he was up to. He wanted her. He didn't care that she belonged to his friend and partner. He wanted her and hoped to win her while Tarius was away and she was vulnerable in her loneliness. What he didn't know was that every time he spoke to her she cared less for him. He was like a vulture waiting for hope to die in her so that he could rush in and devour her.

  "It's a beautiful day," Tragon said. "As they say, a good day to die."

  Jena glared at him through squinted eyes and hissed. "Is that supposed to be funny?"

  "I was simply saying . . ."

  "What! What were you saying? You know the war rages at the front. You know my own husband stands in the battle even as we speak. Why would you say such an awful thing?" Jena got to her feet, and she glared down at him waiting for his answer.

  "It's just a saying, Jena. I'm sorry . . . I didn't think," Tragon said.

  "And I think you did. I think you said it because you know that while you limp around here pretending to be hurt, my love fights for you both." She turned and started to walk away.

  * * *

  Tragon was suddenly angrier than he had ever been in his life. He didn't know why he was so mad. Maybe it was because in that moment he realized she'd never have anything more than contempt for him. Maybe it was just that she knew he was faking the severity of his injury so that he could stay here out of harm's way. Most likely he was so angry because he knew he shouldn't be going after Jena, not when he was only alive because Tarius had saved him.

  He jumped from the bench and grabbed Jena's arm in one movement. "Foolish girl! You wait for Tarius," Tragon hissed with venom. "You delude yourself that he cares for you. All he cares about is his sword and cutting people in two with it. Do you know that they call him Tarius the Black? Not because of the armor he wears, but because that is the color of his soul. They call him the Kartik Bastard not because he was born out of wedlock but because he's such a hideous killer that no family would want to claim him. I am a man with a gentle soul, Jena. I am capable of love. I love you, Jena; I always have. Tarius doesn't love you. Tarius can't love you because his soul is consumed with hate. Answer me this . . . Has he ever made love to you?"

  "Many times," Jena answered nervously.

  Tragon laughed bitterly. "Have you, Jena, ever been allowed to so much as touch him?"

  "What business is it of yours?" Jena hissed back and tried to pull out of his grasp.

  Tragon held on tight. "He hasn't, has he? And do you know why, Jena? Do you know why?" Tragon screamed in her face.

  "Let me go!" Jena demanded.

  "Because he can't. Because Tarius is not a man at all!"

  Jena's eyes burned into him like two blue coals of fire, and he started to tell her just exactly what she had married. Who she had let caress and touch her whole body, but then in her blue eyes he suddenly saw the cold black eyes of the Katabull, and terror gripped his heart. His voice calmed then, and his hold on her arm loosened. "Can't you see, Jena? Tarius is a monster; he lives only to kill. He could never love you the way that I do. Your life with him will always be what it is right now. Waiting for him to come home from battle; waiting to see if he is alive or dead."

  Jena jerked her arm free of his hand. She glared at him. "I would rather wait for a lifetime for a brave man to return home from a battle, than live with a cowardly man with too little honor to fight." She walked away from him, and Tragon watched her go.

  He was a coward, and the thing he feared most was Tarius. Yet he couldn't stay away from Jena, which was possibly the one thing Tarius would actually kill him for.

  * * *

  By midday their casualties were high, and they were losing ground fast. No matter how many Amalites they killed, there seemed to be just as many as before. It was as if they came from thin air. There were just too many of them. The men were losing hope, and their spirits were low. The king moved to the front of the ranks hoping to give his army courage, but they just had nothing left to give.

  Tarius and Harris were running the right flank and barely holding their ground. Any hopes for advancement were gone. If they could only hold their ground till the reinforcements from the villages got there, they might be all right.

  Tarius had a spear and from horseback was picking off men in the opposing shield wall. But more just moved in to take their place. The bodies were stacking up two and three deep in places. Their men, her men, under hoof and under foot. To fall to stumble in this battle was as deadly as taking a blow from sword, pike, arrow or spear.

  Suddenly from the corner of her eye she saw an Amalite bowman on horse back taking careful aim. She looked quickly and saw his target. She broke rank and spurred her horse so that he jumped over the shield wall, trampling Amalites on the other side as he did so. Tarius spurred the horse on at full gallop. Without slowing the horse, she jumped into the saddle, standing on her feet, then she leapt into the air and grabbed the arrow as it raced towards its intended victim. She landed on the ground in front of the king's horse on her feet on their side of the shield wall and her horse followed. Immediately, she spun around to face the opposing army, held the arrow high in her left hand, grabbed her sword with her right and drew it. Then she let out a scream that was heard all over the battlefield. There was a moment of silence as people on all sides became aware of what she had done. Tarius screamed again, and then ran, sword in hand and screaming, straight into the fray. She ran over her own shield wall and then the opposing army's shield wall. Running up a shield, she decapitated the man holding it and started hacking and slashing everything in sight. The Jethrik army behind her all went as berserk as she had, and the tide of the battle changed even as the reinforcements arrived, racing down the hill to join them.

  They soon had the Amalites on the run, and this time not one archer ceased fire. This time not one man stopped in his pursuit of the Amalites until they had crossed
over the river and into their camp. On Tarius's instructions they canvassed the killing field, killing the Amalite wounded and picking them clean of weapons and armor. They hauled their own wounded back to camp and then they stacked all the dead bodies of the Amalites up as a barrier. In places it was three and four high. Their own dead they carried back to the tree line. They couldn't deal with them now, but they could keep the Amalites from defiling their dead the way that they were defiling the dead Amalites. It was demoralizing to see your dead abused by the enemy. Tarius knew this, and so she made them into a wall and used their bodies as a shield.

  Twice the Amalites tried to stop them, and twice they drove them back into their camp.

  Yesterday's bodies were already starting to stink. In the heat and the wet it was no wonder they were decaying quickly. At least in the shade of the trees it would take their dead a little longer to rot. Maybe they'd have a chance to bury them before they got too ripe.

  Tarius was giving orders, setting up sentries and seeing to the wounded and the feeding of the men. All the things that were her duty. Hellibolt walked up to her and pulled her a little to the side.

  "That was it," Hellibolt said shaking his head sadly. "I couldn't be sure what it would be, but now I know that was it."

  "That was what?" Tarius asked curtly, not in the mood to deal with Hellibolt or his strangeness at that moment.

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

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

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

  Tarius nodded and watched the old man walk away. Harris walked up to her. "What did the wizard want?"

  "To warn me. Apparently the king was supposed to die in that battle, and now I have cursed myself," Tarius said, forcing a smile she did not feel.

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

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

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

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

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

  "Surely there is something . . ."

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

  Harris looked shocked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  * * *

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

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

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

  "We must at least hear them out."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "Tarius, hold your tongue!" Persius warned.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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