"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.