"I have sent orders for our other four units to come in. If we can keep them from over running us till all our forces arrive, we should be able to win this war and go home. Speaking of which, do you bring any news of my lady wife?"
"I happen to have a letter the dear lass wrote you right here in my pocket." He pulled out the letter and handed it to Tarius.
Tarius took it with trembling fingers, and a lump in her throat.
"You should tell her, Tarius. Her love for you is strong. I'm sure it would be a shock to her at first, but I think she would understand. I think she would love you anyway, given time to adjust."
"You don't know that," Tarius said. "What if Tragon is telling her even now?"
"Tragon is here . . . Isn't he?"
"No. He was wounded and he had to go home. You no doubt passed him on your way." Tarius seemed miserable. "I know how he feels about her. I'm not sure his loyalty to me will prevent him doing anything in his power to have her." She looked at the letter in her hands. "Whatever she has written here, it might have all changed by now."
"Don't think like that, Tarius. Read your letter and be happy to hear from her," Arvon said punching her in the shoulder.
Tarius nodded and she read the letter.
My Dear Husband,
I long for your touch. I only hope that the war will end soon that we will be victorious and that you will return to my side once again.
I hear that things on the front are horrible. They tell me that you ride out ahead of everyone else, charging head first into battle. Please don't do anything stupid. You don't have to prove anything to me or anyone else. Be more careful . . .
The rest of the four pages were filled with flowery tributes of her love for Tarius. Some of it made Tarius blush, and much of it called for body parts Tarius simply did not have. When she had read it, she folded it carefully and tucked it into the top of her pants.
"Well?" Arvon asked. He really hadn't read the letter, which had been pure hell for him, and he very much wanted to hear what Jena had written. Vicarious romance maybe, but Arvon wanted to know anyway.
Tarius looked solemnly over the valley filled with Amalites.
"She wants a man, Arvon. She wants me to take her like a rutting pig . . ."
"You don't know that, Tarius."
Tarius pulled the folded parchment from her pants, unfolded and leafed through the pages. "
I long to feel your warm swollen form inside me
," Tarius read in disgust, and once again folded the letter and put it away. "She wants me to be something that I can't be. She needs me to be something I can't be. What the hell have I done? I'm playing a game I can not win." She turned to face him then. "When I get home . . . How long can I hold her off?"
"Tell her, Tarius. Tell her and have it over with one way or the other. I think you're wrong about her. I look at you now, and I wonder how you have fooled anyone at all. To me, you are so obviously female. You are beautiful, and no normal man-loving woman would fall for you, my friend, because you simply don't look enough like a man."
"You thought me a man."
"Aye, but I thought you were a gay man and a fem at that," Arvon countered. "Jena could have had any man she wanted, so you have to ask why she pursued a woman instead."
"What are you saying?" Tarius asked.
"I'm saying that I think you and Jena are the same kind of women. She's just too ignorant to know it. She's young, and she's found a man who gives her what she needs. It's not so much that she wants a swollen cock inside her as it is that she wants to please you. You can't look at me and say that isn't exactly what you would like as well. Tell her. Yes, she'll be hurt at first. Of course she'll be confused. Eventually I believe she will come around, and then you can teach her to be the kind of lover you deserve."
Tarius laughed without humor. "I wish you were right, but you just don't understand. I only look like a woman to you now because you know that I am. Jena married a man; she wants a man."
"No. She
thinks
she wants a man. Any man would force her to be something that she isn't," Arvon said.
"Especially Tragon. He doesn't really love her at all. He lusts for her because she's beautiful. He wants her for a wife because she comes from a respected family. Mostly he wants her because she belongs to me," Tarius said. She was thoughtful for a moment. "When the war is over—if I can get her to Kartik. Then maybe there is a chance. If I can get her away from here, away from your strange rules . . ."
"You mean if you can move her away from her support base, across an ocean, so that she has no choice but to stay with you?" Arvon asked. "Do you really want to keep her under those terms?"
Tarius looked disturbed. She ran both her hands through her hair. "You said yourself that she loves me. You said Jena was like me. That she would still love me . . ."
"Yes I did, and I truly believe that she would. What you're talking about, though, is taking her choices away. Taking her to a place where she has no choice but to stay with you," Arvon said.
Tarius started to pace, throwing her hands around in huge circles as she talked and to Arvon's eyes looking more like a woman by the minute. "Maybe I don't care how I win as long as I win. The Nameless One knows that I have been accused of that enough lately." She motioned to the huge camp below her. "Do you think any of this matters to me now? It should, but it doesn't. All I care about is keeping Jena. Having Jena with me always. All I desire in this world is for her to love me for who I am. To be with her in every way. If I will break the unwritten rules to kill many men, why wouldn't I do the same to keep the only woman I have ever and will ever love? What? I shouldn't take her away and then reveal myself and make her stay with me because it's wrong? Everything I have done concerning her is wrong because I can't think straight when it comes to Jena. She restored my soul, Arvon, I can't live without her, I can't
breathe
without her love."
She stopped and turned away from him looking over the valley again. Arvon walked up behind her and put a hand on each of her shoulders. "I didn't mean to upset you, Tarius. I only want to help. I think you sell your lady short. Tell her the truth, tell her here, in Jethrik. If you spirit her away and try to force her to love you, you may make her hate you instead."
Tarius nodded silently. She tried to shake all thoughts of Jena from her head. The enemy lay before them. The Amalites outnumbered them ten to one. If the Amalites attacked tomorrow they would no doubt over-run them. They needed to hold the Amalites at bay for as long as possible, and there was only one way to do that.
She didn't have time to think about Jena or any of her personal problems. She had a war to fight.
"Arvon . . . I need you to do a favor for me."
* * *
They had tethered the horses, and Arvon had crawled through the brush along side Tarius.
"This is insane," Arvon said. "There are too many of them."
"I don't plan to plant a Jethrik flag in their midst. I simply go in, awaken all their Katabull fears, kill a few dozen of them and get out," Tarius said.
"I can do my eyes," Arvon started concentrating. After a few minutes the change occurred. "I can see better and my senses are more alert . . ."
"Don't be insane. No offense, but if I wasn't a fully formed Katabull I wouldn't even think of wading into that mess."
"You shouldn't anyway. They're waiting for you this time. All the guards are armed, not with swords but with spears," Arvon said. With the change he could now see as if it were daytime. "That's what I could do." Without another word Arvon crawled back to his horse. He reappeared several minutes later with his crossbow and a quiver of bolts. "I'll take out the guards outside the camp from a distance, clear a trail for you. Then you go in and do your worst. When you run out I cover your back, and we get out of here."
It was a good plan, and Tarius nodded. They crept slowly forward until the spearmen were in range. Then Arvon started firing, dropping one with each bolt he let fly. Tarius ran into the camp slashing, trashing and burning everything she came into contact with. She left a wide path of destruction through the Amalite camp, then she ran out under Arvon's covering fire. Together they ran back to their horses, mounted and rode away fast. When they were sure they hadn't been followed they slowed down. Then they looked at each other and laughed.
"I've . . . You know I've never really used it before," Arvon said conversationally. "I figured if I couldn't do a total transformation, why even bother? But I have to tell you there is an absolute plus to being able to see in the dark when your opponent can't. I was just picking them off and they had no idea where I was. They never even got close."
"Arvon . . . You mean . . . You never tried to change? You weren't trained?" Tarius said in shock.
"You can either change or you can't," Arvon said not understanding Tarius's questions.
"Who told you that?" Tarius asked.
"My father. My mother died before my tenth birthday while trying to have my brother."
"Arvon, don't you understand? It's like walking; you have to
learn
to do it. You have to
learn
to change. Your mother died before you were of changing age. Arvon . . . If you learned to change your eyes on your own, chances are you can shape-shift."
* * *
She led him to a stream far away from either camp. They both stripped naked and soaked in the stream's cold water.
"Why do we have to be naked?" Arvon asked in a whisper.
"Clothes might bind you in your changing. You bulk out as you change. It's why I wear my armor looser, why I loosen the bindings on my chest before I shift," Tarius said, she made a face. "When I remember."
"OK. Now my second question. Why are we sitting in ice cold water?" Arvon asked.
"Because I needed a bath," Tarius said with a smile that shone through the night.
Arvon laughed and shook his head. "All right, what do I do?"
"Close your eyes and remember learning to walk . . ."
"I don't remember that."
"Well, pretend like you do," Tarius said in an agitated voice. "When you are learning to walk, you put a foot forward, hold it in the air a moment, then you lean into it, you fall forward and catch yourself. One step. It's the same. Picture in your mind your features. Reach into yourself and find a wild thing that wants free. Pick it up gently . . ."
"With what?" Arvon asked, opening one eye just a slit.
"In your mind. Gods! You're hopeless . . . . Pick the wild thing up, hold it and caress it. Can you feel it?"
"Yes," Arvon said as if more than a little surprised.
"Now let it go. Let it fall . . ."
"That doesn't seem right," Arvon interrupted.
"Just do it," Tarius said with a sigh. "You drop it. It hits the ground, it busts, and the beast is loose within you. Open yourself up to it. Let its blood mix with yours. It is you and you are it, there is no diffrence between the two."
Anything else she said was lost to him. Arvon felt dizzy, as if he'd had way too much wine. There was a sense of falling and then being snapped upright just short of hitting the ground. His skin seemed to be exploding, like the feeling you got when you put on a shirt that was way too small for you. When he opened his eyes, Tarius smiled at him approvingly, her canines glowing in the moonlight.
"Arvon, my brother. You are the Katabull."
* * *
The next morning their scouts reported that the Amalites seemed more than usually quiet. Still, Tarius made the men stay at the ready all through the day.
Tarius and Arvon sat with Dustan and Harris having a late lunch.
"Why do you suppose they wait?" Dustan asked. "They outnumber us ten to one. They could easily take us."
"Perhaps their gods told them not to attack yet," Tarius said jokingly. Then added seriously, "Perhaps they wait for still more reinforcements. The Amalite army is huge."
"Why wait then?" Harris asked. "It doesn't make sense. They could crush us with the men they have here now, and their fresh troops could ride against our reinforcements when they arrive."
"The Amalite scout we caught earlier today said, after a little coaxing, that there was a Katabull in their camp last night." It was Hellibolt who spoke as he neared the fire, and both Tarius and Arvon gave him heated looks. "See, boys, the Amalites believe that if you see the Katabull at night you'll die the next day." He smiled broadly at Tarius and Arvon. "Perhaps for them it's true, hey, Tarius?"
"Don't fill these young men's heads with your foolish chatter. Away with you, Hellibolt, go tell the future of some other soldier," Tarius commanded.
"Ah! But the spirits have commanded that I tell yours, dear Tarius. In three days time you will commit an act that will finish the cycle you started when you saved the life of your partner through extraordinary means. The coming act combined with that one will surely cause your downfall. Take care that you do not rob fate of its true prize, for if you do, you will become the prize instead." That said he tossed something into the fire and walked away.
"What a creepy old fool," Dustan mumbled. He immediately dismissed anything the old man had to say because Gudgin had despised him, and anyone Gudgin had hated, Dustan was going to hate on principle. It was his way of respecting Gudgin's memory.
Harris was a peasant by birth and highly superstitious. He did not dismiss the old wizard's words so quickly. "What did he mean, Tarius?"
Tarius shrugged as if she hadn't given his words a second thought. "Who can tell? He is an old fool who talks in riddles." However she did not for one minute dismiss his words.
"What did he throw into the fire?" Dustan asked, noticing it had a funny shape and stench. He pocked at it with his sword. When he saw what it was he jumped screaming. "Bloody hell!"
It was a human ear.
"Crazy old coot," Arvon hissed.
Tarius smiled. "I guess the Amalite didn't want to talk."
* * *
That night both Arvon and Tarius ransacked the enemy camp. First they sat safely outside the camp and carefully picked off the now far greater number of guards. When they had killed two dozen or more and the camp was running around in panicked circles, they had run in with their swords swinging. The Amalites scattered before them. Not even one man stood and fought. They killed, they burned, and then they took off before any of the Amalites changed their minds and decided to stand and fight.