Kasiria looked at him, feeling a sudden shame. "I'm sorry, Jabone."
He sheathed his sword, picked up a spear, and then he smiled at her. "Don't be sorry, just don't do anything that stupid again. Who do you think you are, Tarius the Black?"
* * *
Tarius didn't have time to think about her near catastrophe. She just pushed Jena towards the back of the ranks where she'd be safest and started to command her army. There was no time to do anything with the baby, either. It was drop it or hold it and she couldn't make herself drop it. So she just ran through the ranks giving orders, occasionally killing some Amalite that was trying to go over the shield wall, all with the baby tucked in the crook of her arm.
Suddenly a loud crackling sound came from deep within the mountain and then black smoke was billowing out every crevice. The refuse in the pit had caught fire and those Amalites who hadn't already vacated the mountain did so then. They had them blocked in. They couldn't go back underground; they couldn't go out the back because fire blocked their way; they had to come out the front of the hive and face the armies of three nations waiting for them there. Many of them were unarmed but none of the soldiers showed mercy, none was deserved.
At one point she ran past Kasiria who was standing shoulder to shoulder with Jabone spear in hand holding the line.
"Thank you," she said as she ran past.
"Don't thank me it was the sword!" Kasiria screamed after her.
Tarius saw Harris with spear behind the shield wall and moved quickly to stand beside him. She smiled at him briefly and said, "Finally this battle feels as it should." He smiled back and they continued to kill the horde that struck their shield wall 'til there was nothing left to kill.
* * *
Kasiria had been driven, killing everything that came in reach of her and thinking nothing of it. She lost her spear in one of them and just pulled her sword and continued the job she was doing 'til one of them came screaming up the shield wall and she found what had to be a child under twelve hanging on the point of her sword. She slung him quickly off, feeling sick, but there wasn't time to think about what she had done or what she kept doing. There were just too many of them and they all had to die. When there were none left standing she just collapsed to her knees exhausted, and when she looked the front of her body, her sword and her hands were covered in blood.
Jabone took her sword out of her hands, rubbed his fingers down the blade to clear it, and sheathed it on her back. Then he put his hands under her shoulders and picked her up. When she was on her feet and looked around Tarius was standing with Jena and Harris was a few feet from them. Jena and Harris, covered in as much blood as she was, Tarius covered in even more and she was still clutching the baby in one hand and her sword in the other. The blanket the infant had been wrapped in was covered in blood and Kasiria wondered if it was even still alive until it cried. Then Tarius sheathed her sword with one hand, put the infant on her bloody shoulder, and started patting him.
"Poor baby," Jabone said with a laugh. "My madra, she always was a little rough."
Kasiria nodded silently.
"Are you all right Kasiria?" Jabone asked.
"I'm fine," Kasiria said fighting her tears. "I just, I know what Hellibolt was saying about Jabone's sword."
"It's your sword now, Kasiria."
"No, it's still his sword. It just belongs to me."
* * *
Tarius shifted the baby and grabbed Jena in her free arm and hugged her. Jena hugged her back. She kissed the top of Jena's head which since her helmet had come off was the only clean spot on her body. "I almost lost you today, Jena. I turned but I didn't have enough time. Were it not for Kasiria we'd both be dead today, because I wouldn't live without you."
"Or I without you," Jena said. Then she smiled broadly.
"What?" Tarius asked, a bit put off that Jena was near laughing at such a poignant moment.
"What are you still holding that baby for?"
"I . . . I." The baby had stopped crying and she realized something. "It didn't cry the whole time. I was sure Jestia had put a spell on it like all the others." Then in sudden panic she asked, "Harris where are the girls, where is Tarius?"
"Calm down, Tarius, all are well." Harris pointed to where they were all sitting on a patch of clean ground. "Jestia's a bit drained. I think the ball lightning spell took its toll."
"It saved us," Tarius said. She started to walk around; she had to check on her troops. She staggered and Jena grabbed her arm and steadied her. Exhausted, she was exhausted.
"Tarius, you need to rest." Jena took her thumb and wiped the blood from Tarius's chin.
"I can rest when I have checked on my people," Tarius said.
"You want me to take the baby, Tarius?"
"No," she said quickly and held him to her. The Jethriks had taken the most casualties. The Kartik unit had lost twenty people. Among her people only two were badly wounded. It helped that most of her people were Katabull and that those who weren't knew to stand behind or beside those that were. She had all her wounded and the Kartik wounded moved immediately from the woods to the wagons and on their way to the Port of Sagal. Hellibolt did a spell to make them move faster and she thanked him for that and for everything else he had done.
She walked up to the Jethrik generals. "I will move my people and the children back to our base camp now. Come morning we will move on towards Pearson Garrison and leave the children there to be farmed out as they see fit. This mess is yours to clean up. I suggest you throw the bodies of the Amalites into the caves they lived in. Better still take them deep within when the fire stops and throw them into the pit. Since that was where they threw their trash it seems appropriate."
They just nodded, didn't even say thank you, and she gathered her battle-weary people together and the infants and children and started to leave. Hellibolt stopped her getting on her horse which had been brought for her.
"Tarius, my old friend, I will stay with my people now. I wanted to say goodbye." She embraced him with her free arm, the other still holding the baby. "Tarius . . . What are you going to do with that?"
"With what?" Tarius asked, not understanding the question.
"Nothing," he said. He embraced Jena and then her son and then Kasiria. "Kasiria, you are beyond all that I had dreamed you would be. You will live a long life and all that know you shall be richer for that knowledge."
"Thank you, Hellibolt, for everything."
He nodded humbly then he caught Tarius's eyes and held them. "
They
will never say it, but thank you Tarius, and not just for once again saving the day or doing it in your very unique way, but thank you for having the courage to always do what's right no matter how distasteful it may be. My personal thanks for having allowed me to be something more than just a palace figurehead."
"Allowed?" Tarius laughed, getting into her saddle and resituating the baby. "Hell, we couldn't get rid of you. I love you, Hellibolt, and don't speak as if we shall never see each other again. Our days are still long and our world still small."
He laughed. "Indeed."
* * *
They had kept the children in a trance 'til they got them to the camp then taken them out of the trance, which Tarius decided was a huge mistake. They were terrified of the Katabull and trying to keep them in line was like herding cats. Finally she'd just had them all fed, put into tents, and had Jestia put a sleep spell on them. There were only fifteen babies altogether and they turned out to be no trouble at all once the cook had come up with some milk. It was no problem at all finding people willing to hold a baby. After all the killing it felt good to be so close to new life. She simply handed the babies out to different people and told them to care for them 'til they could get to the garrison.
Tarius was still covered in blood and was trying to get the baby to eat, but he really was just barely born. In fact his—because it was a boy—umbilicus wasn't even dry.
Jena sat down on the log beside her. "Tarius, why don't you give him to me? I'll take care of him and you can go get a bath."
"I just . . . I want him to eat first, Jena," Tarius said, more than a little frustrated.
"Tarius . . . What are you doing with that baby?" Jena asked again.
Tarius didn't know. She really didn't. "I don't know, Jena. I just feel like . . . Well there has to be some reason."
"Reason for what?"
"Everything that happens to us, has ever happened to us." She looked at Jena then and whispered so that no one else could here. "I think . . . We're supposed to keep this baby. I think he's ours."
Jena didn't even look surprised. She just kissed Tarius, leaned over and looked in the baby's face and said, "What should we call him?"
"Darian. Then one will be named for my father and one for yours," Tarius said. She must have been thinking about it more than even she thought because then she said, "We'll tell everyone that he's your child, and that Dustan is his fadra. Then he'll never have to know what he was born to or that he was meant to be a sacrifice and a meal. If anyone dare tell him the truth then I will split them."
"Good. Then if all that's settled, give me our new son and I'll go clean him up while you go get a bath," Jena said. She smiled brightly as Tarius handed her the baby.
"He should be yours Jena, because had I not listened to you none of them would have made it out alive. He certainly wouldn't have." Tarius smiled. The baby looked right in Jena's arms. She kissed Jena on the top of the head and then went off to get a bath.
* * *
Jena took the baby, cleaned him up, diapered him in a piece of cloth, and then wrapped him in a clean blanket, but she still couldn't get him to accept much milk from the cloth nipple she held in her hand. She sat close to the fire on a log where it was warm and he seemed content just to be warm and dry and held but she knew he needed more milk than he was taking.
Jabone walked up and sat beside her. He ran his huge hand over the baby's tiny head. "What have you got, Mother?"
"Your brother," Jena said with a smile. "His name is Darian after my father, and apparently Dustan and I are his fadra and madra."
"Father will be very surprised," Jabone said with a smile. "When she just held him through the whole battle I knew she'd never be able to let him go."
"I'm worried. He doesn't really want to eat."
"He is my brother of course he doesn't want to suck on some cloth tit."
"Jabone!" Jena slapped at him playfully. "You really are just like your madra."
He smiled happily. "You know, Mother, that's not such a bad thing to be. It's not even so bad to just always be in her shadow."
"Where is Kasiria?" Jena asked. "Your madra tells me I owe her my life."
"She is in our tent sleeping, exhausted, as we all are, and more than a little sick and sad."
Jena nodded understanding. "And you son, how are you?"
"You know Mother that I didn't want to come back here and fight this battle and now . . . " tears welled up in his eyes but didn't fall. "I know why all the stories are so grand, because as horrible as it may be there is something that happens to all of us in battle together. We become so close. To be part of something that changes the world. Those things, all those little kids, you saw how they act. They are afraid of everything. My new brother left as a sacrifice . . . "
"Oh, that's another thing. No one is to ever speak of that or your madra will split them."
Jabone nodded his understanding. "There were only fifteen babies Mother. You saw how many of them there were. Kasiria said that they must have gotten over crowded and just decided to start eating their young. To stop something like that, to give him a life, a good life with the best parents and big brother ever, I wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else. I know Kasiria feels the same way, or she will eventually."
Jena was getting more worried about the baby's lack of interest in the bottle by the minute, and Jabone must have noticed.
"When Madra gets here she will order him to drink," he said with a smile.
"Where is she anyway?" Jena asked. "I'm worried. It shouldn't have taken her this long to bathe. Would you go and find her for me son?" Jabone had just stood up when Tarius walked over with Jestia in tow.
"Here, take this," Jestia said, handing Jena a vial.
"Why?" Jena asked.
"It's the same potion you took when Jabone was an infant so that you could nurse him."
"Tarius . . . I'm over forty. I can't be nursing a baby."
"If you can have a baby, you can nurse it," Tarius said.
"Tarius . . . I didn't really have this baby, remember?"
"Yes you did," Tarius insisted, as if Jena had been too long in the sun and didn't remember giving birth.
Jena took the vial and looked at it then down at the tiny baby in her arms. It felt good to have a baby in her arms again. It felt right that this was her child. Once again Tarius was handing her a baby and saying here this is yours. She shrugged and took the potion. It couldn't look that much more foolish for a woman of her age to nurse a baby than to just have one.
"It will take a couple of hours for your milk to come down," Jestia said.
"Ah . . . I'm going," Jabone said. He kissed Jena on the top of the head and then kissed the baby's head, too. "I finally have my brother back." Jena felt the tears welling up in her chest.
"You are the most amazing person, Jabone," Jena said with a sniffle.
"She'll be a little emotional for a couple of days. That's the potion," Jestia explained to Tarius. Tarius nodded and hugged Jabone who then took off for his own tent.
"How are you Jestia?" Jena asked with real concern. She knew the girl had over used her powers.
"Tired, and overwhelmed like everyone else. But other than that, well everyone I care about got out alive and we saved all those screaming, hateful little brats so . . . I just want to laugh out loud I'm so happy."
"That's the way Tarius has always been," Jena said.