by Selina Rosen
Persius nodded with a smile. After a moment's thought, he nodded again and patted Tarius on the shoulder. Then he climbed up on top of his wagon, called the troops near and told them of the plan. The men cheered, delighted with such a bright leader.
"Do you ever tire of him taking credit for your ideas?" Harris asked in a whisper.
Tarius smiled. "Not at all. If the plan fails miserably they'll only have one person to blame."
* * *
As soon as it was dark they started the task of moving camp. Tarius delegated authority, gave a bunch of orders, and got everyone moving. In the resulting turmoil, she and Tragon disappeared into the night.
"Do you want to tell me what we are doing?" Tragon asked riding up behind Tarius. When Tarius turned to face him, she was the Katabull, and Tragon almost fell off his horse. "Damn it, Tarius! You scared all hell out of me."
"We go to the enemy's camp. I will make a diversion." She smiled at him then, her long canines shining in the moonlight.
Tragon had forgotten how different she looked and sounded in this state.
"Yeah, I'll just bet you will," Tragon half mumbled. "So, what the hell am I here for?"
"Someone has to watch the horses," Tarius said.
"Why aren't the horses afraid of you? I'm afraid of you, and I'm not a stupid animal," Tragon said.
"Animals aren't stupid; they're simple. They have instincts that you humans have lost. I am the Katabull, as such I am more of their world than I am of yours. They know instinctively that I mean them no harm." She smiled again, and it made the hair rise on the back of Tragon's head. "Believe me, whatever I'm hunting gets plenty scared."
"So, where do I wait with the horses?" Tragon asked. "Because, quite frankly, I think this would be as good a place as any. Right here away from all those big, hairy-assed Amalites."
"Come on," Tarius ordered, and Tragon followed reluctantly. The closer they got to the Amalite camp the more it stank, and the more apparent it became that they weren't in much better shape than the Jethrik camp had been. Death, shit and decay. They were way too close for Tragon's comfort when Tarius finally stopped and dismounted. Tragon followed suit, and Tarius handed him the reins to her horse.
"What are you going to do?" Tragon asked.
She smiled—a look that literally turned Tragon's stomach. "Like I said. Create a diversion."
"A diversion from what?" Tragon asked in a whisper.
"From the fact that we are moving our entire encampment," Tarius hissed. She put the hood on her cloak up and walked towards the camp as if she belonged there. She was almost on the camp when a man keeping guard approached and stopped her spitting out a guttural sentence that no doubt asked her to give her name rank and purpose.
Tarius looked up at him and smiled. He almost had a chance to scream before she grabbed him by the hair of his head and dragged a dagger across his throat. She moved the rest of the way into camp unmolested, not really too big a surprise considering that the cloak she was wearing had been stripped from a dead Amalite. She walked right up to the fire where several men were warming themselves, her head down. She listened to them talk, not understanding a word they spoke, but understanding the emotion behind the words. Suddenly a man touched her arm, shaking it. She realized that one of them must have asked her a question. She removed the cloak in one smooth gesture and raised her head. The Amalites screamed. There were few things they feared as much as the Katabull. This was why they had tried to hunt them to the last child.
They ran away from her rather than at her, so she drew her blade and dove on them, chasing them through the camp, killing anyone she touched. She was the Katabull now, more animal than human, and an unbeatable force. She could see better than them, hear better than them, run faster, jump higher, and was ten times as strong. She grabbed a log from a fire on the unburned end and started igniting anything that would burn.
A man charged her with a glaive, and she threw the burning stick at him, catching his shirt on fire. He dropped the glaive and ran away screaming. Tarius sheathed her sword and grabbed the huge glaive. Then she started taking apart the rest of the camp with it, killing anyone who got close enough. When she tired of this, she dropped the weapon and tore through the camp grabbing screaming men and snapping their necks and slinging them aside like so much cordwood.
Then the first of the crossbow bolts whizzed past her, and she knew it was time to retreat.
* * *
From where he stood with the horses, Tragon could see the fires and hear the terrified scream of "Katabull!" as it was yelled throughout the camp. He could hear the sound of men dying. Occasionally he caught a glimpse of Tarius running amuck through the camp. Then suddenly she was at his side, covered with blood. She took the reins from his hand, mounted and was gone before he was even on his horse.
* * *
"By the gods! What is happening at the Amalite camp?" one of the captains asked.
"Tarius said he and his partner would create a diversion," Persius said with a smile. "It would appear that they have done so. Tell the men to work faster. We must be entirely moved by daybreak."
The captain moved away to do the king's business, and old Hellibolt took the captain's place at the king's side. "So, how do you suppose young Tarius is creating this . . . diversion?"
"What have I told you, old man? I'll hear none of your lies concerning Tarius. Besides which I don't care how he's doing it as long as it is effective."
* * *
If Tarius had been in her human form the night before, she would have awakened with stiffness in her joints. But she hadn't been human last night, and the only after effect of all that physical activity was the metallic taste of fresh blood still lingering in her mouth. She got up and took a long drink of water the minute she stepped out of the tent. Her leather was tight from the soaking she had given it last night washing off the blood, so she found some oil and rubbed it on her leather wherever she could reach.
"So, Tarius, do you ever take your clothes off?" It was Gudgin who asked the question. He wasn't trying to make her angry, in fact she and Gudgin had become rather close. He was a good leader and took her orders without question. Gudgin was ribbing her because he liked Tarius, it was his way of showing his acceptance of the foreigner.
"Not even to make love," Tarius answered, and Gudgin laughed.
"Quite some diversion you made for us last night. Care to tell me just what you and your partner did?"
"Just snuck in and started some tents on fire. Easy enough done. We were in and out before they were even aware of what was happening," Tarius said.
"So, do you think the king's plan will work?" Gudgin asked.
Tarius nodded. "Oh, aye, it seems a fine plan."
Tragon pulled himself out of the tent just as Harris ran over with a plate full of food for Tarius. Tarius thanked him and sat on a nearby rock. Tragon looked expectantly at Harris who in turn gave him a 'you've got to be kidding' look.
Tarius had almost finished eating when a page came running up as if a demon were on his tail.
"Sir Tarius! Amalite scouting teams approach. What are your orders?"
Tarius didn't look up from her food. "Tell the crossbow men to wait. Hold their fire until the scouts come into the cover of the woods. As soon as they're under cover, the crossbows are to open fire. Make sure none of them make it back out. Capture the horses if possible, but kill them if you have to. Nothing of the Amalites that comes into these woods is to leave to go back to their camp," Tarius ordered, and finished eating her breakfast as the page ran off. She put down her bowl and rose to her feet. She drew her blade and started to sharpen it with a whet stone. When she had run the length of the blade just three times on each side, she put the stone back in her pocket, sheathed her sword and put her helmet on her head.
Tragon took one look at her and swallowed hard. He knew this day there would be a hell of a battle. He knew it because he saw it in the way she sniffed the air, in the way her every muscle seemed
to tense up ready to spring. She wasn't worried about the consequences right now, wasn't wondering whether she'd live through the fight, or whether they'd win or lose. In fact, Tragon doubted Tarius ever even considered that she could lose in battle. No, she had none of the nagging fears that the rest of them had. She lived to fight, and in battle none could equal her. She was truly in her element.
Tragon, on the other hand, was one bare nerve. He knew death could be waiting, and that his own indecision would likely bring about his doom. His lack of skill could get him killed. He had no blood lust; he didn't hate the Amalites, and he didn't even understand the reason for the war. So they wanted to take over. Was one king or one religion any worse than another? Tragon didn't think so. Tragon was here for one reason and one reason only. His father and his brothers had been Swordmasters, and he couldn't bring shame on the family name, not and hope to inherit. His father had never respected him, and he badly needed to gain his father's respect even if he gained it falsely, riding on the coattails of the she beast, hiding always in Tarius's shadow, hoping to avoid being hit or killed. Being pulled along in her wake, letting others believe that he was as brave and as powerful as Tarius.
It was only now when he stood poised on the brink of death that he doubted his plan. He might die, and what good was glory or respect or inheritance to a dead man?
"Are you ever afraid?" Tragon asked in a whisper.
"Only of losing Jena. I was afraid of bees until I was stung. I was afraid of snakes until I was bitten, and I was afraid of death until I had killed a man. Now I am not afraid of anything, only cautious. I certainly don't fear the Amalites. I don't fear them at all. My father says a brave warrior knows the day of his death. He told me that the day he died. I will not die this day," she said with the confidence of someone who truly knows their fate and knows that they have not yet finished their required task.
Tragon didn't know that. He didn't feel like he had any duty to perform. This was scary, and he wished with everything in his heart that he possessed even the courage to turn tail and run. At least that would be the truth. The real him. Tarius, he realized, was not the only one who had secrets.
* * *
They sat there for an hour, silent and ready. A second Amalite scouting party was sent out and then a third. Both times they dealt with them the same way they had dealt with the first.
Soon the entire Amalite army rode into the clearing, but not at a dead run. Slowly and steadily.
The royal page ran over, and before he could open his mouth to speak Tarius rode towards where the king sat astride his horse in full plate, probably even more uncomfortable than the rest of them. The king was to take the center unit in after Tarius had taken the right flank in. The left flank was to circle around and try to get behind the Amalites. To Tarius, who wished to utterly obliterate her opponent, it was always important that their retreat be blocked.
The page ran along beside Tarius. "The king wants to know when . . ."
"It's all right, boy. I'll talk to the king myself. Many thanks to you."
Tarius rode up to the king.
"Should we rush them now?" the king asked. "They seem in no hurry to charge us."
"Our archers have been instructed. Let our enemy come into range, we will call on the archers, and many of the Amalites will fall. They will become less sure of themselves. When I ride out, wait till we have engaged, and then bring your men in. When you have engaged the enemy force, Ramses will bring his men around and try to encircle them. The plan is working; why change it now?"
"Exactly right. Return to your place," Persius said with a rough salute. He wasn't used to the armor, and it showed.
"Take good care, Sire. It will do nothing for the men's moral if their king falls in battle."
Persius nodded his head.
Tarius rode back up beside Tragon.
"Why do they . . ." Tragon swallowed hard. At this point, he just wanted to have it done with. "Why do they not charge? Why do they approach with such caution?"
Tarius moved closer to Tragon; further away from Harris. "Katabull history is handed down verbally from one generation to the next," Tarius said in a whisper that Tragon had to fight to hear. "It is done so meticulously and with such care that very little has been lost. See, the Katabull come not from Kartik but from Amalite." She saw the shocked look on Tragon's face and smiled. "It's true, or at least it is what our history claims. We lived there in peace with the Amalites. Outcasts, we weren't allowed to live in amongst the natives, but we weren't hunted and killed, either. We lived by our laws, we lived on our own, and they left us alone. Much in the way the Katabull are treated today in your own kingdom. Not mistreated really, but not with the same rights and privileges of the common man. Such was our life in Amalite. Then the new religion came to the land. It promised things that people wanted, and it didn't seem to matter to them that everything the priests of this religion said sounded incredible. They wanted the things the religion promised.
"The followers were pests, but no one regarded them as a threat until the king clutched this new religion to his bosom. He made it the religion of the kingdom and ordered all the citizens to obey its oppressive laws. Those that would not were punished or killed. However the Katabull had never had the same religion as the Amalites, and had never been considered part of the people. The king and the priests were hard pressed to find a reason for the Katabull to be forced into conversion. None of them truly believed that we could be part of their religion any way, as we were not, and never had been quite as good as they were. We were also stronger and more powerful than normal men. It would take an army to bring down the smallest Katabull village. The king knew that he did not have the support he needed to raid the Katabull villages. They had never been part of the general populace, so why make them part of it now? They didn't want us to be part of their religion, and yet the fact that we wouldn't bow down to their gods angered them. The fact that we did things that they could not do, things that they wanted to do, made them still madder. The cunning king knew it wouldn't take much to stir the people into war against the Katabull because they already distrusted us.
"One night the king sent a company of men out to steal six children of noble families. They then killed the children, dismembered them, and spread their parts through the streets of a Katabull village. When the noble men found their children's mangled bodies, one of them "recalled" that he had seen a Katabull that night outside his home, and the rest—as they say—is history. The priests announced that their gods had ordered that all Katabull were to be killed. The Amalites descended on the Katabull villages in such numbers that even the Katabull could not fight them and had to flee their land. But they failed their gods when they failed to kill us out. We were forced to live in small packs in every corner of the world, but we were still very much alive.
"From that time till this, the Amalites have believed that if you see a Katabull at night, death will follow in the morning." Tarius smiled at the look of understanding that crossed Tragon's face. "They are afraid because they believe their own lie. They believe that the Katabull brings bad luck for them. Bad luck and death, and this one does. You always hate most that which you fear the most."
Tarius moved again, this time closer to Harris. She pulled her sword, held it above her head, and the archers perched in the trees above them nocked their arrows. She let the blade fall, and the arrows started to fly. The barrage of feathered death seemed to go on forever, but really only lasted a few minutes.
"Now!" Tarius screamed and started out of the tree line at a full gallop, her unit following close behind her, Tragon pulled along in their wake.
* * *
The Amalites were bewildered and terrified. They had been winning easily against their battered opponents, but these were not the same timid men they had been fighting. These were beasts. Beasts who hacked through them with a vengeance and surrounded them on all sides.
The first attack brought death from above as arrows rained down on the
m from archers hidden in the treetops. The first targets struck were the Amalite archers, making it impossible to shoot the crossbowmen from their perches. Then they started to take out their horsemen—especially any that appeared to hold rank. The second attack came suddenly. Mounted horsemen ran at them, hitting their right flank hard and heavy. Then, even as they sent their left flank in to save the right, shield men ran out hitting them in the middle. The shield men were followed by men with pikes and spears, and behind them were the horsemen waiting till their footmen made a hole in the Amalites' shield wall. Then their own shield men opened like a wave and this new batch of horsemen descended on them like locust. When they tried to retreat, they found that another troop of horsemen had come in behind them, and still the enemy's arrows rained down.
They had seen the Katabull at night, and death had followed the next day. As it was written, so mote it be.
* * *
Persius' sword and armor were nearly as bloody as that of his chief warlord. Many good men had fallen, but for each one that they had lost, a dozen Amalites lay dead by the sword, the arrow, or the battle-ax. Persius held his sword high above his head and let out a triumphant scream.
Tarius did the same, as did all the men.
Tragon did it, but didn't feel it. He had a nick on his left leg, and he felt sick to his stomach. He looked at his blade; it was bloody, for this time he had truly fought. He'd had to fight just to survive. He'd nearly been killed a dozen times, and he was badly shaken. He got off his horse because he was afraid he was going to vomit. Just as he felt the bile rising in his throat, he saw Harris and Tarius jump off their horses and run to embrace each other. They were real warriors. This carnage was what they lived for. They made him even sicker, and he threw up.
