Jabone's Sword (20 page)

They all started laughing and Kasiria realized it was yet another joke she didn't get. She sighed.
They might as well be speaking in Kartik for all that I can understand what they're talking about.

"Yeah," Ufalla slurred out, "It's not like we're the Katabull."

"What?" Kasiria asked quickly.

"I said," Ufalla screamed in her direction, getting laughs from all her fellows. "It's not like we're the Katabull."

"What are you talking about now?" Kasiria demanded.

Jabone looked at her, shrugged and said, "The Katabull have no tolerance for alcohol at all."

"Which means?" Kasiria demanded to know.

"When they drink they cat out whether they want to or not, and just a little alcohol will get them rip snorting drunk," Tarius said.

Kasiria looked at the half empty mug of beer—her second—with a sort of panic.

"What's wrong Kasiria?" Jestia asked.

"I . . . I don't feel so good. I . . . I better go back to the barracks." She stood up quickly. "Please do me a favor and get back to the barracks in one piece tonight." She took off, stopping just long enough to pay their tab and leave extra for what they might still consume. Outside she looked in a panic up the street in the direction of the garrison, but she couldn't go to the garrison. If she was about to "cat out" the garrison was the last place she wanted to be.

Thomas had followed her outside without her knowledge and from behind her he started, "Hey Kasiria . . . "

She turned quickly and punched him so hard in the face that she knocked him off his feet. Then she just started running down an alleyway in a panic. She jumped a fence she shouldn't have been able to clear and ran off into the woods and as she did she could feel it happening. She was changing form. She ran 'til she was well away from everyone and everything and then she sat down on a rock. Now fully catted out there was no seeing like she had been. Now . . . Well it might as well have been day and if she had thought her hearing couldn't get any better she had been wrong. If she thought about it she could hear the noise from the Broken Mug Tavern and even pick out the sound of Ufalla's voice.

As if things couldn't get any worse Hellibolt appeared in front of her. She looked up at him and held up her hands that were half again their normal size and had claws. "Dammit all, you might have told me I couldn't drink anymore."

"Oh you can drink, you'll just turn into the Katabull." He thought about it and then said, "So I guess you can change if you want to but you'll be drunk."

"I'm not drunk now," Kasiria said.

"If you say so." Hellibolt shrugged.

"You might have told me Jestia was a witch as well, and . . . Are they even on our side Hellibolt?"

"Of course they're on your side." He laughed then. "Jestia's a witch. Well I guess that makes a certain sense. The gift is strong in her blood line. The green eyes should have been a dead give away. Kartiks almost always have black or brown eyes."

"Tell me about these people I live with, Hellibolt," Kasiria demanded.

"Why should you know who they are when they don't know who you are? All you need to know is that you can trust them."

"Can I?"

"Yes, with your life and with your heart. Heed my words, Kasiria, there are more Amalites than any of us could have guessed. I have seen them swarming in my mind."

"What do you mean?"

"Your destiny is at hand, Kasiria."

Then he was gone. She thought of all he had said then stumbled to her feet drunkenly and screamed in a slur, "Again you have gone, telling me nothing of real importance!"

She realized she was screaming and stopped. "Like how the hell am I going to change back?"

She saw a rabbit and chased after it, stumbling through the woods as she went.

* * *

Thomas walked in rubbing his chin and Ufalla let go of Jabone's arm. "See I told you she could take care of him herself."

Jabone looked at Ufalla who just threw her hands up as if to say do whatever you're going to do and Jabone got up and walked over to Thomas. He glared at him and Thomas flinched even before Jabone picked him up, carried him to the door of the tavern, and threw him out it into the street. "I told you not to talk to them and not to look at them. That will be your only warning." He turned to the rest of Thomas's troop and growled at them until they left, too. Then he walked over, sat back down and enjoyed watching his friends get pie eyed. Had they been home he would have drunk with them. After all nobody there cared if he changed. Finally when Jabone was sure they'd had enough he announced it was time to go and they took turns letting him hold them up as they got up walked out of the tavern and started back for the garrison.

About half way back Ufalla passed clean out and he had to throw her over his shoulder and carry her while trying to keep the other two walking in the right direction.
"Light weight!" Tarius screamed at his sister's unconscious form where she was draped over Jabone's shoulder, her head bouncing off his butt. Then Tarius and Jestia just cracked up laughing.

"Quiet both of you," Jabone said. Then they both made an unbelievable amount of noise shushing each other. He shook his head and walked double time. He had just laid Ufalla down and gotten the other two in the barracks when he noticed Kasiria was missing and he felt like his heart stopped in his chest.

He looked quickly at where Tarius had just tripped over one of the cots and landed on his sister who didn't so much as move. Then watched as Jestia launched herself at her own cot missed and hit the floor and then just started laughing. They weren't going to be any help and he decided they could very well take care of themselves.

He didn't hesitate. He walked outside and sniffed the air. He didn't smell her. Jabone took off running to the men's barracks. Inside he found where Thomas bunked and dragged the sleeping man out of his bed by his collar. "What have you done to her?" Jabone demanded.

Thomas looked down at him in real terror, no doubt a night of being beaten on had made him paranoid, and sure that Jabone was about to kill him he sputtered out, "Who? What?"

"Kasiria is gone. What have you done to her?"

"Nothing I swear it. The last I saw her she was punching me in the face. I swear by all the gods, Jabone. Seriously I really was just going to apologize to her. Really apologize to her and she just punched me before I could say anything and then she ran off."

"If you are lying to me . . . "

"I know, I know, no one will find my bones," Thomas forced a smile. "I swear Jabone . . . "

Jabone dropped him and took off. He went back to the tavern. No one was around so he called on the night and started to sniff out Kasiria's trail. Right then he didn't care about detection. He didn't care about anything but finding Kasiria. Having found her scent he took off at a dead run into the woods.

When he found her he felt like his heart finally started beating again. "Kasiria I . . . I thought . . . " He walked up to her back and put a hand on her shoulder, not even thinking about what he was. "Kasiria," he said with an air of relief. "I was so afraid something terrible had happened to you."

"It has," she cried, and he should have recognized the change in her voice, but maybe because his was altered the same way he didn't.

"Has someone hurt you?" he said, his anger rekindled.

"No, no one's hurt me," she said, but she was crying so her words didn't match her actions. "You might as well know." She turned then though she didn't get up from the log and he was looking into the face of the Katabull and so he suddenly realized even before she screamed was she. He didn't know who was more startled as they just stared at each other. Kasiria finally smiled and stated the obvious. "You, you're the Katabull."

Jabone nodded laughed out loud, moved and dropped to his knees in front of her. He ran his hand down her cheek and kissed her gently on her lips. "My madra always says a beast can smell it's own kind. I should have known when I was so attracted to you that you were one of us."

"Which mother the Jethrikian lady or the Kartik warrior?" Kasiria asked, an air of distrust entering her voice.

"My madra." Jabone laughed and hugged her tight to him. Then he let her go and stared into her face again. "Two thirds of the Katabull are queer. I'm the child of a cross pairing, I have four parents. Two mothers and two fathers."

"I have no idea what that means . . . I'm just so happy you weren't just making up the most huge lies to tell me." Kasiria cried then and hugged his neck. "I . . . I can't change back. I'm going to be stuck like this forever. For the god's sake I caught a rabbit with my bare hands and ate it raw and I'm still the Katabull."

"You're still drunk. The alcohol has to leave your system before you can change back. You didn't drink that much, so it shouldn't be long now," Jabone explained. "Don't you know that?"

"No . . . I don't know anything," she said, drying the tears from her eyes with the back of the hands she was sure she was just never going to get used to. "I don't know anything about being Katabull. I didn't know 'til a few weeks ago that I was one."

* * *

Kasiria explained how she'd come to find out that she was Katabull, leaving out the whole Hellibolt thing and explaining instead that the men didn't remember because she'd licked the blood off her hand and changed back before they saw her.

She couldn't very well tell Jabone that Persius was her father, not knowing how the Katabull felt about the king.

"My fadra, he was a half breed. My madra taught him to change when he was older than you are. I've never heard of any Katabull changing without willing it . . . Except well drinking of course and sometimes . . . " He let it lay there blushing a little and then said, "My madra taught me to change when I was very young but she said it was different than the way she taught my fadra to change. Maybe I could teach you, I could try anyway." He looked thoughtful and added. "Most of the nation are pure bloods like my madra. I don't think they know much about the changing in people even like my fadra, and you don't know how much Katabull blood you have do you?"

She sighed. She knew but if she told him, how was she going to explain how she knew? So she just shrugged.

"I don't understand why you felt you couldn't tell us," Jabone said. "I know why you and I must hide what we are from the Jathirks but why hide it from us?"

"I can't make it happen, so there would have been no way for me to prove it. This is only the second time it's ever happened to me, and you know how it is," she said with a sigh, "the more people that know a secret the harder it is to keep . . . Are the others?"
"No just me," he said proudly, and it was pride. He was proud of what he was. She was just trying to get used to the whole idea and he was busting with pride that he could finally tell someone that he was the Katabull. If half of what they had told her was true being Katabull in the Kartik was like being a knight here, so why wouldn't he be proud of what he was?

"So, the others aren't Katabull but Jestia is a witch?"

"How did you . . . "

"Katabull remember? Better sight, better hearing even in my human form. I followed she and Ufalla to where Jestia's been practicing her craft."

"She can't master a spell she thinks she needs," Jabone explained.

"Yes, that's what I got. So . . . We really
don't
need more than five people in our troop," Kasiria said with a laugh.

"No, I'm pretty sure two Katabull and a witch make up more than the difference," Jabone said with a smile. "You are changing back now and if we want to get back any time soon I need to find something to eat." And with that he ran into the woods.

Kasiria watched as her hands became her own again and was almost sorry. In minutes Jabone walked out of the woods and he too looked human again.
And that's all it is, too, a look, because we aren't human. It's just like a suit of clothes we put on. Under this we're still animal.

Jabone walked up to her and hugged her then he released her took her hand and started walking back towards the garrison. At least she hoped he knew where he was going because she sure didn't.

"Jabone . . . With all that's been happening, all these huge changes in my life, all I have been able to think about is you," she said shyly.

"And all I have been thinking about is you." He stopped then and took her in his arms. She wrapped her arms around him and then they were kissing and this time she was sure she was getting it right.

* * *

They had spent most of the night walking through the woods, just talking and holding hands, occasionally stopping to kiss. By the time they got back to the barracks the garrison was already bathed in the light of false dawn. They walked in to the almost too quiet barracks to find three of the cots pushed together and Jestia and Tarius as naked as the day they were born spread across them and each other.

"Oh no," Jabone said, a note of doom in his voice. He looked around for Ufalla and then tripped over her where she was lying on the floor. She groaned and rolled over and Jabone looked around for Kasiria and realized she had left the barracks. He tiptoed back outside and whispered, "Kasiria you have to help me. We have to dress them and move them before Ufalla wakes up."

"I can't," Kasiria said, shaking her head violently. "I just can't, they are naked," she told him as if he might not have noticed.

"Kasiria, you don't understand," Jabone pleaded, "If Ufalla finds them together like that she may kill them both."

"But why? You Kartiks just . . . Well you just have sex; it doesn't matter."

"That's not true, Kasiria, and . . . This is very complicated but she just can't find them like that."

But talking Kasiria into moving and dressing his friends turned out to be a moot point as a thundering voice erupted from inside their barracks, "How the hell could you do this!"

Then Ufalla was out the door, down the steps, and running past them. She started to throw up against the side of the barracks. Although it was hard to say whether she was sick because of how much she had drunk the night before or because of what she had just seen.