Sword Masters

by Selina Rosen

  "If Tarius knows nothing else, she knows warfare. Did she not say that if you didn't follow the Amalites in and kill them all, that they would attack us again? Well, you didn't, and they are. Build the garrisons where she said to build them. Train and arm the people as she told you to train and arm them. Think like Tarius, and you just might save the country as Tarius did."

  Persius looked into the old wizard's eyes. "You know, old man, that I once thought you nothing but a dead weight. A charlatan."

  Hellibolt nodded his head.

  "I couldn't understand why my father had so trusted in your counsel, and now I know why. You never tell me what I want to hear; you only tell me the truth as you see it. You are right. I will give the commands at once."

  * * *

  They were fifty fighters strong now, and roughly half of those Katabull. Just now they were resting between raids in the Valley of the Katabull. The Katabull had carved out a new homeland in the west on a fresh water lake less than four miles from the sea.

  Tarius remembered the first time she had come here. She had been amazed at the numbers. She had thought her people almost dead, but they were thriving. Even making a comeback. The packs spread out in all directions around the lake. They even had a meeting lodge and a leader.

  People had taken to calling Tarius and her mercenary army the Pack of the Marching Night. Tarius felt like they were, too. Although a very different pack, since roughly half of them were human. But whatever its composition, it was good to be part of a pack again.

  Her new pack had built small round huts of small logs covered with clay mud and topped with thatched roofs that matched the other Katabull dwellings. Having done this, the Marching Night was firmly established as part of the Katabull nation.

  They would rest here, enjoy the quiet life for a while, and then ride out again.

  Today Tarius lay by one of the fire pits, her head in Jena's lap, just relaxing and taking in some sun.

  "It's a beautiful day," Jena said conversationally.

  "Aye . . . that it is," Tarius said.

  "What are you thinking?" Jena asked.

  "I'd rather not say," Tarius said with a laugh.

  Jena slapped at her playfully. "Well, I'd rather you did."

  "All right, but remember you asked," Tarius said. "I was just remembering your father's house. You know, the big house with the running water and the servants? I was wondering if you ever missed that. If you ever missed your father."

  "I miss the person I thought my father was," Jena said in a far-away tone. "I think it's like you miss your parents. Like he's dead instead of across the sea. I don't miss anything else. I love our life, Tarius. Every day is a new adventure. I love fighting beside you, loving you. Sleeping out under the stars when the weather's clear. Or in our little hut when we're here. I love being part of this pack. Each one of these men and women who ride with us are like brothers and sisters to me. Each one hand picked not just because of their fighting skill, but because of their personalities, their ethics. I love the Katabull and the Kartik people—so accepting of everything except that which is unquestionably wrong. They are a people who abhor thievery, murder and injustice. I love all the flowers, and the way the people keep their streets and cities clean. There are no venomous snakes, and it's never cold enough to need more than a long-sleeved shirt. No, I don't miss the Jethrik at all."

  "Good," Tarius said flatly and seemed to relax again. "I think, however, that we will bring running water to our camp. After all, we have the bamboo, and admittedly I do miss the running water. I wonder how they make those big pots . . ."

  Suddenly a Katabull in full beast-mode ran into the middle of their pack. Tarius jumped up in a single motion. "Can I help you, brother?"

  "Tarius . . ." He was out of breath. "It's the leader, he's been in an accident. We know that you have good medics."

  Of course they had good medics. They needed them, they were mercenaries, and they were always getting hurt. Even Jena now had a sword scar across the upper part of her left arm.

  "Elise, Edson, Jesop!" Tarius screamed. The screams echoed through the camp as everyone that heard the order shouted it out. These were trained fighting people, and in minutes the three had joined them. They ran to the place not far away where they had taken the leader, but Tarius knew when she saw him that there was nothing the medics could do. The man had been more or less gutted, and the strong smell of bowel meant something that shouldn't be cut had been.

  "What the hell happened?" Tarius demanded. It looked like a sword wound to her. No accident. The Katabull who had come for her answered quickly as the medics tried desperately to save the injured leader.

  "We don't know . . . he went riding this morning alone. He rode towards the ocean, and we assumed he fell from his horse onto something sharp," he answered.

  "You're wrong. Any fool can see that this is a sword wound." Tarius's eyes burned with rage. "He must have run into an advance party." Tarius's mind raced back to the time when the Amalites had fallen upon her pack. The Amalites were always either running in fear from the Katabull or falling upon them like locusts. No one likes to live in fear, and the Amalites feared the Katabull, so they wanted them dead. When they got up enough courage and enough men, their "gods" ordered an attack and they went looking for the Katabull. When they found them in their homes where they would be more concerned with protecting their young than with warfare, they attacked.

  "Jesop, see what you can do for Tarak." Jesop was a Katabull and understood Katabull anatomy better than the others. "Elise, Edson, Jena. Come with me. We'll assemble the Marching Night and try to find the advance party. You," Tarius shouted to the Katabull who had come after her. "Sound the alarm, and scream it through the camp. Get the children to a place of safety and prepare to do battle. The Amalites have once again decided to attack the Katabull. We must show them once and for all that to attack us is folly. Assemble our forces outside the village towards the ocean. That is the direction they will come from."

  The man nodded quickly and ran off to sound the alarm. The others ran to gather their weapons and horses and to start the word through camp. Tarius called on the night and beat the others to the Pack of the Marching Night. She called out her orders, and in mere minutes all were armored, armed, and on horseback.

  Arvon took the left flank, Harris the right, and Tarius the center. Tarius found and then followed the trail of Tarak's blood. It led them right to the Amalite advance party. They must have been terrified to face the wall of Katabull and Kartik that thundered down upon them, but they stood their ground.

  "They will be hard to beat!" Tarius screamed out. "Their priests must have promised them victory." She thought about it only a second. Seconds were all they had. "Attack!"

  They thundered down upon the less than twenty Amalites, totally annihilating them in mere minutes. Tarius spit on one of the bodies. "Tell this to your gods. When I am done, no Amalite will ever darken the shores of the Kartik again." She looked at the trail the advance party had made.

  "Jessy!" she called out. In seconds a Katabull lad rode up beside her.

  "Yes?"

  "Go ahead and scout the trail. I want to come in behind the main assault and squeeze the bastards between two walls of Katabull," Tarius said. The lad took off at a hard gallop. They followed several minutes later at a slower pace. Jessy was a good scout, the best she'd ever known. He'd come back in a few minutes with the exact location of their enemy.

  Jena rode up alongside her. "Tarius . . . What are they doing here? I don't understand. I thought we had almost erased them from the island. I thought they had given up. That they were afraid of the Katabull."

  "They can't give up, Jena. Their gods have commanded them to take over the world. They are here now because they have decided to make a full-scale attack on the Katabull. They think that if they can kill us, kill us all, they can be free of our curse and can march across the Kartik unmolested. They are ignorant savages who believe their power-hungry priests real
ly talk to their gods. They're ignorant. That's why they're so dangerous."

  Jessy came riding back, his horse blowing and lathered in sweat. "Six ships off the coast. Three hundred men, maybe more. They are headed up through the pass."

  "Come on!" Tarius ordered, and they doubled their speed.

  * * *

  Like Tarius had been, the Amalites were surprised by the vast number of Katabulls. They had assumed that the actual number of fighting Katabull would be small. By the time they realized the size of the fully-prepared army they had come up against, it was too late to retreat. Besides, their priests had promised them victory. Their gods would help them to strike down the evil Katabull and bring the Kartik people to their knees, thus bringing peace to the world.

  They had no idea as they engaged the line of Katabull that they faced that the infamous Marching Night was falling on them from behind. It had been so long since there had been an actual full-scale battle between the Katabull and the Amalites that they had forgotten how much stronger, faster, and more resilient the Katabull were.

  Katabull flung themselves over their own shield wall, coming down on the Amalites behind the wall and slicing them in two with one blow. They dodged sword blows, spear thrusts, and even arrows with the grace and agility of cats.

  Then she was there. Behind them, within them, through them. The she-beast herself. The woman who had posed as a man, and who had at the Battle of the Arrow so utterly destroyed them and sent them running home with their tails between their legs. Several of these men had been there that day. They had barely escaped her wrath then. Today she was the Katabull leading the Katabull army, and they knew they would never go home again. As they died they began to doubt their gods, but it was a little late for that.

  Tarius stopped, suddenly realizing there was no one left to kill. The Katabull cheered.

  "Wait . . . wait!" Tarius screamed. "It's not over yet. We have to get back to the ships, kill the crews and seize the ships. Quickly . . . Undress their dead and put on their armor. We will masquerade as Amalites, get onto their ships and take them. I only need fifty people in addition to the Marching Night."

  No one asked why, they just did as ordered.

  Tarius, dressed in an Amalite's uniform, grabbed Jena's arm as she prepared to strip the body of an Amalite. "Jena . . . you stay behind with Elise and help with the wounded."

  "But . . . I want to go with you!" Jena said.

  "We need you here more. You have done enough killing for one day." Tarius kissed her cheek.

  Then she turned and jumped on her horse. "Ride on!" she ordered.

  Jena watched the more than a hundred warriors ride off. Then she went to find Elise and help her with the wounded, only to find that Elise was one of them. She had taken an arrow in her shoulder. She looked up at Jena weakly as Jena knelt beside her.

  "You'll be all right, Elise," Jena said.

  "Easy for you to say," Elise groaned out.

  Jena looked at the wound. The arrow was in, but unfortunately not through.

  "Where is Harris?" Elise asked.

  "He went with Tarius. I'm sorry, Elise, if he had known . . . " Jena was glad she hadn't gone now.

  "No. I'm glad he went. Last thing I need is his screaming and crying. I'd be sure I was dying, and it's just not that bad, is it, Jena?"

  She needed reassuring, and Jena nodded. "It's not bad at all."

  Jena got up and helped Elise to her feet. She half carried her to the medics gathered around the fire pit.

  A Katabull medic in full beast mood ran over, took one look at the wound, and without warning reached down and forced the arrow through.

  Elise passed out cold.

  Jena helped hold her up as he snapped the shaft on the arrow and pulled it out.

  "Is she Katabull?" he asked as he irrigated the wound.

  "No," Jena said.

  "Then she'll heal quickly," he said. He grabbed a fresh iron from the fire and cauterized the wound on both sides. "Can you dress it?"

  Jena nodded, and he handed her the equipment. He started to walk away and then turned. "Tarak is dead," he told her.

  "I'm very sorry. He was a very great leader," Jena said.

  "Your mate, Tarius, she will be my choice to succeed him." He walked away and got back to work.

  Jena only then recognized him as the leader of one of the other packs.

  She tended to Elise's wounds, then tried to make her as comfortable as one could be when wounded and lying on a blanket on the ground. She covered Elise then went off to help with the other wounded. Katabull wounded and casualties were low, however several injuries were from spear or arrow, and the wounded were treated as best as they could be, loaded into wagons and shipped off to Montero which was only a half day's ride away.

  The Katabull were not a stupid people. The springs helped their healing, so they picked a homeland close to the springs. The Amalites had picked them off when they lived in small packs across the countryside, so they had gathered in one place, making a huge army that the Amalites could not hope to conquer. Jena was sure that if the Amalites had attacked an unprepared Katabull encampment as they intended, the Katabull would have suffered only a few more casualties.

  The Katabull were born warriors. In full beast mode, each one was as mighty as ten humans. Even when not catted out—she never did understand why the Jethriks called it that, they looked nothing like cats—they surpassed humans in every way. This was why she didn't worry about Tarius now. If Tarius could live through what Persius did to her, nothing a boat full of unsuspecting Amalites could do was going to even so much as scratch her.

  * * *

  "Keep your heads down," Tarius ordered the Katabull. "We don't want them to know what we are. "The humans will watch for us. Now row, row!"

  "How did they get their horses ashore?" Harris asked.

  "It was low tide," Tarius said in an exasperated tone. "They let the horses out, and they rode them to shore. They didn't have that many to begin with. The rest of the men came ashore in boats, then they pulled the boats above the high tide line."

  "Guess maybe they're not so sure of their gods as they would have us think," one of the Katabull said.

  "Why do you say that?" Harris asked.

  "Because they left their boats above the high water mark in case they had to retreat at high tide. Are you all right, Harris?" Tarius asked.

  He nodded, although his mind was obviously otherwise occupied.

  They rowed up alongside the ships, and the Amalites helped the first couple of invaders aboard, wanting to know what had gone wrong before they realized that they were under attack. The Katabull and the Marching Night swarmed the ships, and in minutes the Amalites had been utterly annihilated.

  Tarius and her boat had taken the biggest ship. She stood at the helm looking smug. She turned to Harris and smiled. "And now the Katabull have a fleet," she announced.

  Harris grinned back.

  * * *

  When they arrived back at the camp they were met with cheers and hugs. Jena ran through them till she found Harris.

  "Harris, Elise has been hit. She's OK, but she's in a lot of pain . . ." She didn't get to say more. Harris was gone, running past he and in the direction of . . . nothing.

  He stopped and turned suddenly in mid-stride. "Where is she?" he yelled back at Jena.

  "The wounded are in the main hall!" Jena yelled back.

  "Is she really all right?" Tarius asked, putting an arm around Jena.

  "She took an arrow in the shoulder. It's bad, but she'll definitely live, and it will probably heal well," Jena said. "So, tell me about the ships."

  "We killed all the Amalites, and we now have six ships. We cut down the sails and the flags so the Kartik wouldn't see them and think we were under siege. I will have a report made out about what happened and have it sent to Queen Hestia. She must be made aware of what the Amalites are up to," Tarius said. "I have a plan to rid the Kartik of the Amalites forever, and it has to do with t
hose six ships we just captured."

  Suddenly, the cheers and yelling became so loud she could no longer hear herself think. It took her a second to realize that they were screaming her name. She blushed a little and waved to them all to be silent.

  "The victory belongs to us all," Tarius said. They just started chanting her name again. She looked at Jena and shrugged. She was tired, and she wanted out of the stinking Amalite armor and into the lake. She told Jena as much, and together they walked out of the crowd and towards the water.

  * * *

  Harris fell on his knees beside Elise. "Oh, Elise! Can you ever forgive me? It was only after I had boarded that boat, and we were rowing out to the ship that I realized I hadn't seen you after the battle. That I hadn't even looked for you! I am a worm who doesn't deserve you. I am . . ."

  "Long winded," Elise said, mustering a smile. "I appreciate the sentiment, my love. But we are warriors, and this is what we do. Had the tables been turned and Tarius had called for me to go with her, I would have gone. I wouldn't have noticed whether you were wounded or not. In battle if you hesitate you lose. It's our way of life; a way we have both chosen."

  "If I had lost you, I don't know what I'd do without you, Elise! I feel like you are part of me. The best part. Your love has made me whole," Harris said.

  "In that case, stop talking all that mushy stuff and take me home. I want my own bed," Elise said.

  Harris smiled, gathered her up in his arms and headed back for their house.

  * * *

  Following the death of Tarak and the defeat of the Amalites, the leaders of the forty-six packs gathered outside the main hall. Outside, not inside, because the wounded needed the shelter.

  "Jerrad is Tarak's son; he should be leader in his place," one of the Katabull pack leaders threw out.

  Tarius was bored by the whole procedure and was only here because they made her come. She was lying on the ground thinking of nothing more important than making love to Jena. Battle always made her feel randy, and she wanted to get this whole thing over with and go home.