"After we reach Pearson Garrison, resupply, and pick up the Jethrik troops there, we will travel on six days," which is what she figured it would take with so many men on foot, "'til we are no closer than a half day's ride from the hive . . . " Tarius started but was interrupted by Jestia.
"But we don't know where the hive is."
"I'm sure I do. I'm sure it's the goat mounting the horse." They all laughed at her and she grinned when she realized what she had said. "It's the small hill against the big one; I'm sure of it. Anyway when we are . . . "
"What if you're wrong?" Jestia asked.
Tarius looked at Ufalla smiled and said, "You poor, poor girl." Ufalla smiled and shrugged, then Tarius continued as if Jestia hadn't interrupted her. "I didn't want to but we're going to have to go scout out the caves. We'll scout out the area first and make sure I'm right about the location of the hive. Then when our scouts come back and we know for a certainty where they are I will gather the Marching Night and we will go into the caves. We will go in when they are sleeping—which I believe will be in the daytime. We will scout out the whole of their complex. Just before we leave Jestia will do her spell to find the openings. We will have spotters all around the hive to mark the openings when the smoke shows itself . . . " Kasiria and Jabone walked up to them then and they were human again so they'd obviously gone hunting. "While we are scouting the caves we will work on getting the children out. Hellibolt and Jestia, you will have to come up with some sort of spell."
"We'll need far more than one," Jestia said.
"Half way through the day the rest of the troops will move up to surround the front of the hive. Our smoke spotters will make fires on the back side of the hive over all the openings they find there so that they will have to come out the front of the hive and face our forces in their entirety.
"What if we aren't out yet?" Jestia asked.
"If we aren't out by then it will be because we have failed to extract the children from the hive and are dead," Tarius said.
"See, I don't like this plan Tarius," Jestia said.
"Jestia," Ufalla said glaring at her, "shut up!" she commanded. To Tarius's astonishment Jestia looked hurt and fell silent.
Tarius smiled and went on. "It's just the skeleton of a plan. We will work on it over the next few days. I'm not going to lie. This is going to be a difficult battle especially if we are going to try to save the children in the hive."
"I have a spell that will work on the children," Hellibolt said. "The problem may be that it will work on all the children, not just those eight and under."
"That's good. We want to save all the children," Kasiria said.
"Not if they're over eight," Jestia said matter-of-factly.
"Why not?" Kasiria asked.
"Older than that they will have seen too much. Everything they will have been taught will be set in stone. No one would ever be able to turn them, to fix them. They will be too far gone, too twisted," Hellibolt answered. "I'll work on the spell and see if I can make it more age specific."
"How do you know that after eight there is no saving them? What has told you this?" Kasiria demanded. Tarius sighed. perhaps this was why the Amalites didn't allow their women to fight at all and the Jethrik had only allowed it grudgingly. Jethrikian women brought their emotions and sentimentalities to the war table, insisted on worrying about babies and children and then argued over what constituted a child instead of just accepting that distasteful things sometimes were necessary to win a battle.
"Even I know that you can not change a child's personality after eight," Tarius said.
"How?" Kasiria demanded.
"I just know," Tarius said.
"But how? Who told you this? What if you're wrong and . . . "
"We are taking a huge personal risk to save any children from the hive. Saving the children takes a difficult task and makes it almost impossible," Tarius said. "This is war. War isn't glorious and it isn't tidy. You often times have to do things you'd rather not do. As war lord my first concern always has to be winning the battle, then it is the safety of
my
troops, and only after that do we even start to consider anything else. I will not argue with you, with any of you, over things I find to be unimportant. For me it is a huge concession to agree to extract any of the children from the hive, it puts us at great risk. An unnecessary risk when our main goal is to kill everything in the cave. This is danger we wouldn't other wise be in, but I have listened and agree. I can not condone killing the innocent with the guilty, but it is my belief that any child over eight will not be worth saving, can not in fact be saved. Furthermore they will be big enough to attack us if we try to 'save' them. A spear head in your stomach is a spear head in your stomach whether it is in the hand of an old man or a child. If I am wrong, then their blood will be on my hands and I will accept that as well. Do you think my job an easy one, Kasiria? Maybe even an enviable one?
"I have been for most of my life the warlord of kingdoms. The decisions that have been mine alone to make have affected multitudes. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. I have lost many friends who died because of decisions I made, my orders that they followed, even when I had made no mistake. When I made a mistake many people I loved paid with their blood. I will take a chance on being wrong about these children long before I will put us in any more danger to save them. First we must win, we win when everything in that hive, every living thing that might go on to spread the Amalite curse is dead. Second, we must take as few casualties as possible. Then if we happen to save any of those wretched children then we have surpassed ourselves. Anyone who doesn't have the stomach for what must be done may stay at Pearson Garrison." Tarius turned on her heel and stomped away from the fire through the camp and towards the woods.
* * *
"I'm sorry," Kasiria said, "I didn't mean to make her mad."
"You didn't make her mad," Jena said, frowning at the fire then looking in the direction Tarius had gone. "The situation upsets her because she doesn't like the idea of children as casualties any more than you or I do. She knows, though, that no matter what we do some will die, others will have to be killed, and we will all be put in danger we would not otherwise be in trying to save any of them."
"It's the sort of thing no person should have to face—human-eating demons living in the earth," Hellibolt said. He looked at Kasiria. "No one wants to believe that a child of nine or ten can be ruined beyond repair but I assure you that from all I know it's the truth. Think of yourself at eight. Other than physical changes, how much have you really changed since that time?"
"And she thought," Jena's voice caught in her throat and she took a deep breath, "we all thought that we had gotten rid of them. Now there are many of them again and their religion has perverted them even further."
"And it's my father's fault they're back because he ignored the threat 'til it was too big to be ignored—something he has made a habit of. And he isn't here with us now to face the danger because he's a coward," Kasiria said with real venom.
"He was not afraid to fight," Hellibolt assured her.
"No it's worse than that. He was too cowardly to face all these people who know what he did. He rushed back to the castle where he can pretend that he never did anything wrong and that no one knows because away from the Katabull he can forget all those things he wishes not to remember."
"You're awful quiet," Jena said to Jabone.
"There is nothing to say. Madra is right, she's always right. That doesn't make you or Kasiria wrong, doesn't make any of us feel good about a bunch of little kids getting killed. Battles, your battles, were between combatants, not like this."
"We have done battle in towns before, with children in harm's way. We just don't talk about that fact. No battle is ever as clean as the stories make them sound," Jena said. "Who would enjoy such stories as the day a toddler ran in front of Rimmy's horse during a battle and was trampled to death? Or how about the story of an old woman coming at me with a pitchfork and me cutting off her head?"
"No battle has ever been like this one will be," Hellibolt said.
"Should I go after Madra?" Jabone asked his mother.
"No, I'll go after her. I was just letting her walk it off a minute." Jena smiled then took off in the direction Tarius had gone, walking at a leisurely pace.
"I'm sorry, I should have held my tongue," Kasiria said to all those assembled.
"She was only angry because earlier she'd had almost the same argument with Jena, and Tarius had already given in to Jena," Ufalla said. "Tarius didn't want any of us to have to go into the caves. Then Jena pointed out that there would be children in there, something I don't think Tarius had even considered and then . . . Well Tarius had to change her plans."
Kasiria was pleased Tarius had changed her plans to accommodate Jena. At least those stories were true—in all things Tarius took Jena's council.
"I still think it's daft," Harris said. Then he took a deep breath, let it out and said, "Yet I guess if we had just found a way to kill them all in the hive I'd be having nightmares of babies crying the rest of my life."
Ufalla looked down at Jestia and asked, "Do you think that you and Hellibolt will ever be able to cast enough spells to pull this off? There is no possible way to do it without magic."
"So, am I allowed to speak now?" Jestia asked, glaring at Ufalla.
"Oh, Jestia for all the gods . . . You kept interrupting the Great Leader," Ufalla said in disbelief.
"I was just trying to help," Jestia said, and Kasiria was astonished to see that Jestia actually looked hurt.
Kasiria noticed only then that Hellibolt wasn't there. She wondered just where he'd gone and what he was up to. "Is Tarius mad at me?" she asked Jabone in a whisper. "I just . . . Well it seems so wrong to me."
"My mother was right, Madra isn't mad at you, you just happened to remind her of what she was mad about," Jabone said solemnly. "It's a terrible thing even if things work out for the best and I think . . . Well I think you should stay in Pearson Garrison and we can pick you up . . . "
He stopped talking no doubt because she was shaking her head so violently. "No, this is my fight too, Jabone. More my fight than it is yours. I am going."
Eric and young Tarius walked up then, "So what's going on?" he asked.
"We're all going into caves with thousands of angry Amalites," Harris said simply.
Tarius just smiled. "That will make a great story."
* * *
Jena found Tarius on the edge of the camp looking out at the woods.
"No one understands," Tarius said, proving once again that she did always know where Jena was. Jena slid up to her and took her hand.
"It's not that we don't understand. It's that you aren't saying what we want to hear."
"It isn't what I want either, Jena. I didn't create the situation. Those hateful bastards," Tarius ran her free hand through her hair.
"You'll do the best you can. No one expects more than that."
Tarius laughed then, though she obviously wasn't amused. "Yes they do Jena, you know they do. Even you do. You expect more of me than I can produce. I can not make a miracle. I can't take us down into those caves and even say that we'll all come back out again much less rescue a bunch of children, infants. We need total stealth to even think of pulling this off, and how keep a hundred warriors in armor quiet much less the Nameless One alone knows how many children? How do we get them out without waking the whole of the hive?"
"You don't have to do it alone, Tarius. You have many good people with you and a powerful witch and wizard both willing to use all they have. We will do the best we can. I'm not worried, Tarius, my dreams are sweet. Come on, come back to camp with me. I can smell that dinner is almost ready. You'll get something to eat, I'll give you a back rub, we'll get some rest and tomorrow you will have even more answers. You always do."
They had picked up the Jethrikian troops and supplies at Pearson Garrison and moved on. They were now a half day's ride from the hill Tarius was sure was the Amalite hive. They had just finished eating their evening meal when the three scouts who had left early the day before returned.
"You were right Great Leader, the Amalites live within the mountain," the man called Riglid announced as he approached them where they stood around the fire. His brother Laz followed him. "We watched with spy glasses at a good distance away as you instructed and all through the day all was quiet. There was no smoke none at all. Then as soon as it was dark they started to come out in twos and we could see smoke coming out of holes all in the mountain. Laz made a drawing." He handed it to Tarius who looked at it. "These are some of the openings we saw them coming out of, and these are where we saw smoke." Tarius nodded and patted both men's backs fondly.
"You have done well Riglid and Laz. Your fadra would be proud of you, as your other parents are, and as I am," Tarius said.
"Thank you Great leader," Laz said, his chest swelling with pride.
"Who is their fadra?" Kasiria asked in a whisper in Jabone's ear.
"Their fadra was Tweed who died in the last battle of the Great War. Their mother and father, Radkin and Rimmy, also stood with my madra that day," Jabone answered in a whisper. Kasiria nodded. She knew the story. Their fadra had died—one of the heroes who saved the pack of the Marching Night and Tarius the Black. Where had she heard that story? Young Tarius had told a short version but she'd heard a longer more complex version. Where had she heard that version? She remembered it so well she was sure she could tell it herself but couldn't remember who had told it to her . . . It was the story where her father wasn't the villain. The one where he saved Tarius the Black. The one that no one save Tarius herself told. Kasiria smiled as she remembered. "What?" Jabone asked.
"I know that story, I remember it." She looked up at him and smiled broader. "Your madra told it to me when I was ill."