Sword Masters (14 page)

"Tarius, when one is in command one does not ask people what they want to do. One tells them what they will do."

"I'm afraid I'm not very comfortable giving people orders," Tarius said. She sat on a rock and looked at the king. "The men don't like me, and I don't like being in command."

"Well, you'd better get used to it, Tarius. You are a fair man, with good common sense, and a hell of a fighter. You are a leader of men; of this I have no doubt. I have total faith in you," Persius spoke softly. "Besides, my personal retinue has forgotten their place. They have become sluggish and out of shape. I figure by putting an out-country freak such as yourself in charge they will all be humbled. Maybe they'll even work toward improving themselves so they won't continue to be shown up."

The next day when they rode out, gone were Tarius's issued armor and clothing. Once again she was clad in studded leather and gaudy Kartik gambeson. The only thing she had kept from the Jethrik armor were the pauldrons, which she tied on her gambeson. Around her waist she wore a blue and white sash to show her loyalty to the king, but other than that she looked just like what Persius said he wanted—an out-country freak. Intimidating to the men she commanded, and hopefully terrifying to their enemies.

"That's damn cheeky of you," Tragon said riding along side Tarius. "You could at least
pretend
to want to be like the rest of us."

Tarius smiled back at him undaunted. "I want to be me."

"No you don't, or you wouldn't be here at all. You'd be home darning some man's socks." Tragon realized just how resentful he felt when he saw how angry Tarius looked. Her dark features seemed darker, and he could swear that just for a second her eyes went to their Katabull state.

When she spoke to him, her voice was hardly more than a hissed whisper, and yet he had no problem hearing her at all. "If you ever say anything like that again, I'll split you."

The way she was looking at him, he had no doubt that she would, too. He had better hide his resentment and watch his mouth. He needed Tarius as an ally. As a friend she would let no one touch him. On the other hand, if he gave her any indication that he wanted to disclose what she was, he had no doubt she'd kill him just as easily as she would any other man.

He'd seen her kill only twice, but knew it didn't bother her. Knew it didn't make her lose sleep or worry her in the slightest. Tarius was a killer. You didn't want to make an enemy of someone who killed as easily as Tarius did.

He had to rid his mind of the hateful thoughts he was harboring for Tarius. He could ride Tarius's coattails to get where he wanted to go. If she was discredited, if she was found out, then she couldn't help him. Worse than that, if she were discredited, he would be as well. That was if Tarius would let him live at all.

He took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, Tarius. I'm afraid I'm still having trouble with the whole Jena thing. I know it's not your fault that she loves you, but I can't blame her, so I blame you, even though I know it makes no sense."

Tarius nodded, seeming to calm. "I think I know how you feel. If things were reversed I suppose I would feel the same way that you do."

Harris rode up on Tarius's left, moving from his position behind them.

"Tarius?"

"Yes Harris."

"I thought you would want to know . . . I heard many of the men speaking against you last night. They think it is wrong that the king has put you over them. They say they'll not take orders from you for long, and . . ."

"Harris, my friend, know this . . . Men talk crap. They talk crap to impress each other, and they would talk crap about whoever was running things. They talk crap about the king when they dare. I'm just an easy target because I am strange to them," Tarius said. "Listen closely and inform me of what you hear and who is saying it. But let them talk all they want to. If I know who is talking, I won't be surprised if they should decide to follow their words with actions, but take heart my friend. The more they talk, the less likely it is that they will do anything."

Harris nodded, perfectly convinced of Tarius's wisdom.

About an hour later, the road narrowed and they were traveling through a much more densely wooded area. Tarius knew this meant there was a greater chance of ambush. Not that she really anticipated that a troop of Amalites would have gotten so far inland.

About two hours later she smelled smoke followed quickly by a smell that had been permanently etched in her memory so that there could be no doubt.

"Company! Stop and arm," Tarius screamed.

She sniffed the air; she could smell them. She truly had not expected them to be so far in country. She looked around, but saw no sign of them in the trees and no sign of them hiding in the bushes around the road.

"Keep watch," she ordered Tragon, and she went back to talk to the king.

"Sire."

He looked out the window of his carriage.

"I smell smoke and Amalites on the air coming from the north."

"There is a small village north of here," one of the king's councilors said from within the carriage as he looked at a map.

"Permission to take half the men and ride out to investigate," Tarius said.

"Permission granted," Persius said.

Tarius immediately started barking out orders. Who would go with her, who would be staying to guard the king and where they should position themselves. Then Tarius gathered her forces and rode off in the direction of the smoke at full gallop.

Harris was amazed at how the same men who had been talking "crap" about Tarius now fell in behind him, listening and obeying his every command. Harris even forgot his own sore and swollen balls as he raced his horse to keep up with Tarius.

As they got closer they could hear the screams of the villagers. Tarius split her forces in half, sending half of them to the other side of the village under the command of none other than Gudgin. Harris noticed Tragon hung back now, and let Tarius take the lead himself. Harris spurred his horse on. If Tragon would abandon Tarius, then Harris would fill the gap.

Tarius would attack from this end of the village first, and the other forces would close in as the Amalite horde tried to retreat, thus trapping them in the middle—hopefully on the outskirts of the village.

As they came into the clearing around the village, Harris saw that many of the structures were on fire. He also saw the horsemen and foot soldiers and heard the screams, but it wasn't till they were in the village itself that he saw for the first time how hateful were these Amalite scum. An old woman was running from the raiders trying to get to cover. One of them cut her across the middle and then trampled her beneath his horse's hooves as she lay dying. They were upon the scum before they were aware of it, their own carnage blocking out the noise made by Tarius and his men. Tarius broke from the rest, racing forward with his sword drawn. He dove into the fray first and had killed three of the Amalites before they were even aware of his presence. He killed four more before the rest of them even engaged. Then he dismounted, jumping first on his saddle and then flipping through the air to land on his feet. Harris saw the battle rage on his mentor's face, and for a second he froze. This was it. This was real, no fake battle with fake swords. He pulled his blade and ran into the fray. Tragon was nowhere in sight, and Tarius needed someone to watch his back.

Harris now knew that they must win. Tarius was right; they had to drive the Amalite horde back and utterly destroy them so that none of them would ever again darken the land. Harris saw dead villagers everywhere he looked, so that when he killed his first Amalite it didn't really even faze him. It didn't register when he killed his second or his third, either. They were to him like the bottles he had lined up on the fence to try and hit with a slingshot when he was a boy. Targets, no more and no less.

* * *

Tarius ran through the Amalites on foot, making it hard for Harris to keep up with her. She'd run up on a horseman, he'd lean down to run her through, and when he did she would easily duck his blow and drive her blade up into his heart. Then she'd jerk him off his horse and go after another. When the ground troops ran up, she was ready for them. She let out a scream that made the hair on the backs of necks everywhere stand on end, and then she ran at them kicking and slashing her way through, killing a man with every blow. She shouted orders to the troops behind her.

"Move up! Move up! Drive them out of the village!"

The Amalite horde ran in terror before her, and when they ran out of the village on the other side Gudgin's troop was waiting for them. The battle lasted for only an hour, and when it was ended every last man of the Amalites had been killed. They had lost four men, and three more were badly wounded. In the village more than half the villagers had been killed.

Gudgin rode up to Tarius and dismounted. He looked at Tarius and slowly he started to smile, then he ran up to Tarius and embraced her.

"You are a crazy bastard, Tarius, but thank the gods that you ride with us!" Gudgin released Tarius and he slapped her on the shoulder. "Never was there a fighting man such as you, my brother."

"We could not have left here victorious if not for your leadership this day, good brother. Go back with your men and get the king. Me and mine will help these good people tend to their dead," Tarius said.

Gudgin nodded, mounted his horse and left.

Tarius started barking out orders and soon all were busy either taking weapons and armor from the corpses of their enemies, or helping the villagers put out fires and bury their dead. They threw the bodies of the stripped Amalites unceremoniously into wagons. They would be taken far away from the village and dumped unburied in the woods. To the Jethrik this was a sign of great disrespect and loathing.

* * *

After the battle, Harris, like a good squire, had gone off to find Tarius's horse. It wasn't till he returned with the horse to see Tarius and another fellow throwing a dead Amalite into a wagon that it all started to hit him. Tarius turned to face him, and there was not one spot larger than an inch on Tarius's entire body that wasn't covered in blood. He looked at Harris and smiled, nodding his head in appreciation over the horse. He looked to Harris like some ghoul from a picture book.

All around them the villagers cried. There was not one of them who hadn't lost a good friend or a family member.

He saw again the body of the old woman he had seen killed by them. He looked from the woman to Tarius. "I had thought . . . I thought you were exaggerating about them, but the minute I saw them I knew how hateful they were."

"They kill because they think that's what their gods want them to do. They think that anyone who does not believe in the same gods that they do is evil and deserving of death. There could not be any more dangerous thought. There has never been a more hateful people. They kill everything that moves, and then they burn everything else. They destroy the world and everything in it for their gods' sake."

Harris nodded. If Tarius's words were meant to somehow comfort Harris, they did not. They did, however, reinforce in him a conviction to fight beside Tarius and rid the world of these bastards forever.

The king and his entourage rode in. Persius got out and walked among the people. After several minutes of looking, he finally found Tarius. "What a horrible slaughter!"

"Yes. And totally uncalled for," Tarius's voice was almost, but not quite angry.

"What do you mean?" Persius asked.

"There were twice as many villagers as there were Amalites. If they but had steel in their hands and had been trained to fight, they might have driven the horde off themselves. As it is, if we hadn't come along when we did, they would all be dead and the Amalites would have gained yet another stronghold in your country."

"What would you suggest?" the king asked.

"Only that you do this. Take one swordsman of any skill at all and send him to each village. Send him with weapons of any quality—anything is better than nothing, even farm implements can be used as weapons in trained hands—use the weapons we take from fallen Amalites. Then have him train the villagers. Let each village erect a watchtower and let them assign watches as we do in Kartik. Then your army will be as none before, for it will include every man in the kingdom, crippled or whole. In this way we can keep the Amalites from creeping into the center of the country. Keep them from burning our crops. Instead of it taking weeks for us to react to an attack, we would react immediately. Instead of your subjects cowering in fear, they could rest in the knowledge that they can defend themselves and their lands."

"You have given good council once again, Tarius. As you have spoken, so I will do. I will send a rider now to carry this decree back to the castle and then to issue it throughout the country. Who should I put in charge of the task?" He wasn't really asking, just thinking out loud, but Tarius answered him anyway.

"Who better than my own father-in-law, Darian, to choose swordsmen to train your subjects? And who better than Justin to help procure weapons?"

"It shall be done," Persius said. "Now if you would, Sir Tarius, please go wash the blood from your body. You look like a little Kartik devil."

"As you wish, Sire."

* * *

Persius went to his carriage and crawled in. He got out a piece of parchment and wrote out his orders along with a brief account of what had happened. Then he sealed it with his signet ring and sent it off with one of his heralds, sending along a swordsman for his protection.

Then he leaned back in his seat. Never had he seen such carnage and death. He should have come to the front sooner. He'd had no idea the Amalites had been able to break this far in country. All his life he'd been sheltered from the brutality of war. Oh, he'd been trained to fight from a very early age, but till now there had never been any need for him to put his own person in danger.

"She gives very good council," Old Hellibolt said from his seat across from the king.

The king took in a deep breath. "Tarius is a man, Hellibolt. He comes from out-country, from Kartik, that is why he looks so feminine. But he is a man, a strong man. He is married to Darian's own daughter."