Gates Of Transformation:

Book Eight:Amberglass

(unedited)

by Kracken

A copyrighted work. Any distribution of this work for profit, or using whole or parts of this work in any other work, will result in legal action.

Amberglass
Gates of Transformation: Book Eight
By
Della Ann Boynton

CHAPTER ONE
(Beasts in the Wind)
Death was beautiful. With wings of emerald and sapphire blue, swirled with electric shocks of white and saffron yellow, it filled the sky with its immensity until the mind, overwhelmed, blanked in incomprehension.
Death had a heartbeat. Throbbing. Eternal. Like the pulse of blood through veins, it beat soft, then loud; all encompassing. That sound became the Universe, everything else shrinking and flowing away into oblivion.
Death had a voice. It promised peace and an end; a final rest from the weariness of the world. It spoke of the hope of an eternity where two people could be together, bodies cast aside like ill fitting garments. The soul would reign supreme, it promised, only let go of life and step willingly into it’s embrace.
Jhan knew that Death was a liar.
Gripping Kile’s arms hard, Jhan kept her eyes open, cherishing every last second of life. She felt his lips kiss the nape of her neck and knew that Kile had bowed his head, hiding in the cover of her hair.
The gate roared straight for them, the loud pulsing reverberating in their ear drums. The wind of it, and the electrical static, tossed Jhan’s hair into the air and stung the skin of her face. Still she looked, shuddering, but determined to face it.
It hit with flattening force. The imala staggered and almost went down. Jhan was half tossed out of the saddle, Kile holding himself and her onto the imala by shear force. The sky went dark. They became deaf and blind, crying out as electricity sparked over their bodies with burning intensity. Then, it was over, and they were left stunned in a bizarre silence as the gate dissipated into nothingness directly above them.
Jhan choked on a sob, dragging herself back upright and turning to look at Kile. His face was white and stunned, a burn mark dark on his forehead. The tips of his gold hair smoldered and his eyes were so wide they were ringed with white.
Jhan slowly reached out a shaking, numb hand, and began putting out the lit bits of Kile’s hair with her fingers. He slowly reached out and did the same for her in return. His big fingers touched a burn along her neck and then patted a smoking streak of black on the shoulder of her leather vest.
“We’re alive,” Jhan whispered hoarsely.
“Are you sure?” Kile breathed back.
Jhan looked about them, trying believe it herself. The grass was flattened as far as she could see. The sky was calm and blue, not even a wind to mark where the gate had passed. Close by, amidst that serene landscape, Rehn was taking one shuddering breath after another, his hands knotted in his hair as if he might start screaming at any moment. Beyond him, Jaross had fallen from his imala, but hadn’t let go of it. He was kneeling, head bowed and eyes closed, while his beast forgot it’s terror and calmly began cropping the flattened grass. Off to one side of him, Tevar was still mounted, his hand working on his sword hilt; the reflex of a soldier when faced with any danger. His mouth was open, eyes glazed and completely incredulous.
“They’re coming back,” Kile noticed. Jhan turned her head to see Alidae leading the mercenaries, Darkai, and Avrilla, towards them at a gallop.
It was telling, Jhan supposed, that all of them descended on her first. As the mercenaries milled uncertainly, Alidae was in the forefront, riding anxiously up to Kile and Jhan. His handsome face was concerned, his golden eyebrows drawn down over his purple eyes.
“You are unharmed?” Alidae asked Jhan in a tone of voice that wouldn’t accept anything less.
“Yes, I think so. Just a little singed,” Jhan mumbled, mystified. Why should this man, no, this Alamien, care?
Darkai and Avrilla, only a horse length behind Alidae, tripped over each other’s words as they asked the same question. Jhan echoed her reply in a stronger voice, feeling more certain of the truth of it now, and they collectively relaxed.
Reassured, Darkai turned to the men. “We will rest here,” Darkai ordered. “There are wounded who need tending.”
No one wanted to stay, instinct urging them to run as far as possible from the horror they had just experienced, but Darkai was adamant. He dismounted, pulling a pack down from his horse to underscore his command. With his example, everyone began to comply. The mercenaries paused only until they received Alidae’s curt hand sign of assent to Darkai’s order.
Kile dismounted, his knees weak. He grabbed the saddle of the imala to steady himself, trying to find his balance. Jhan slowly let herself slide down the side of the imala to stand next to him. She and Kile clung together.
“Let me see to those burns.” Darkai appeared beside them, disapproval in every line of his body. He turned a fierce scowl on them, but his hands were competent and professional as he raised a pottery jar and uncorked it. Dipping in fingers, he brought out a clear salve and motioned with it in an obvious fashion.
Jhan reluctantly allowed Darkai’s touch, wincing as he pressed too hard on a particularly bad burn on her arm. Kile was tense, his expression a warning as Darkai began treating him. The glitter in his eyes said better than any words that Darkai shouldn’t presume to do anything else.
Darkai, wisely, said nothing. He moved on to treat the other men. Jhan watched him step past Tevar. Tevar, who had an obvious burn along one cheek, began to say something, but then saw some expression on Darkai’s face that kept him silent.
Tevar walked over to Kile and Jhan, leading his imala behind him. Rehn and Jaross followed suit and they were soon sitting in a tight group, silent and still dazed from their ordeal.
Avrilla paced. She had escaped injury, as had most of the mercenaries, but her eyes were wide and she was impatient to go. She kept casting a look at Jhan, but Jhan couldn’t decipher the meaning of it. It was too wild and nervous.
“I thought that we were going to die,” Rehn said at last, voice low and troubled. He was staring at his hands in his lap, face set in anguished lines. He looked like a frightened boy just then and Jhan had to remember that he wasn’t much older than she was.
Kile gripped Rehn’s shoulder to give him strength, leaning close to say, “If you want, you can go back, Rehn-”
“No!” Rehn’s head came up indignantly, face flushing. “I’m not- I’m not a coward!”
“I didn’t say you were,” Kile retorted quickly, “but you aren’t a soldier either. We don’t expect you to carry on like one.”
“I’m not going back.” Rehn was defiant, too proud for his own good. The eyes under his thatch of hair were more determined than frightened. “I’m going to help protect Jhan.”
“As if any of us did her any good just now,” Jaross grumbled self deprecatingly. He took off a boot and shook it out. A stone tumbled to the ground along with a stream of dirt.
“You aren’t going to indulge in self flagellation, are you?" Jhan interjected scathingly, glaring wearily at all of them. “How could I possibly blame you for not saving me from- from that thing!”
“Enough!” Tevar ordered gruffly, fingering the burn on his cheek. “We are supposed to be recovering from our ordeal. Rest. You won’t get another chance until nightfall.”
Tevar was clearly troubled. Jhan could guess why. Alidae had been the hero. Despite the gate rushing down on them, he had tried to save the men under his command and the charges he had been paid to protect. Tevar had frozen, doing nothing. He couldn’t forgive himself for that.
“There wasn’t anything to do,” Jhan said to him in way of comfort.
Tevar glared, but it was at his own inner failing. “That doesn’t matter. I should have tried. Alidae-”
“Must have ice water for blood,” Jaross grunted, not able to keep a tone of respect out of his voice. “Still, everyone knew there wasn’t anything to do, Captain Tevar. I felt better facing it, and making peace with myself, rather than running; fooling myself into thinking there was a chance.”
Tevar was relentless in his self- doubt. He wouldn’t accept their comforting words. He half turned and stared off at the flattened plains, one hand fingering the two captain stripes on his collar. Jhan almost expected him to tear them off, but he didn’t. He had worked too hard to get them.
They ate a small meal, jerky and dried cakes of fruit, and then eagerly mounted their beasts and began traveling again. Almost everyone’s eyes scanned the horizon constantly, fearing another gate might descend on them, but Darkai and Avrilla were both calm.
Jhan, who’s imala hadn’t wandered far and had been recaptured easily, rode beside Avrilla. She wondered at Avrilla’s calm expression, her own still shaky and pale.
“Aren’t you afraid that there might be another one?” Jhan finally asked.
Avrilla shook her head, her eyes on the way ahead. “They are very rare. There has never been a report of more than one a year.”
Jaross, riding slightly behind them, had heard. “You keep track of them?” he asked, intrigued.
Avrilla nodded, replying absently, her mind on other things. “We have men stationed on the outskirts of the Silverwood. It’s easy to see a long way. They record the movements of the gates, hoping against hope to find a pattern to them, or to recognize the one that brought my people here. They all have distinctive colors, you see, and the same gates have been recorded over and over again. Unfortunately, their positions are less predictable.”
Jhan’s imala stumbled. She looked down quickly and saw something pass beneath the beast. It was an animal of some sort, smoking and twisted as if it had been struck by lightning. Jhan touched the burn on her shoulder, realizing how much worse it could have been.
There were other creatures, some so strange that they were clearly not from those parts. Rehn pointed a finger at one, eyes wide with disgust. “What is that?”
It lay on its side, as big as an elephant, and it was barely alive. It had a head like an insect, all faceted eyes and black, bristling hair. That hair covered a lump of a body with four, compact legs. It was surrounded by the smashed remains of other beasts of its kind.
“It’s not from this land,” Avrilla told Rehn quietly. “The gate brought it from elsewhere.”
“Hopefully, nothing vicious survived.” Tevar worriedly fingered his sword hilt. “Stay alert!" he ordered sharply, “There isn’t any way to know what we might run into.”
Rehn had been riding wide of the others. He brought his imala back in close, unable to keep from looking afraid. He wasn’t quick enough. Something brown, with white spots, leapt out of a clump of matted grass. It bounded once, twice, and then sprang for Rehn’s imala with a heart stopping roar.
A blade, as large as a bowie knife, flashed in the sun. It caught the beast in its eye, burying into its brain. It fell heavily, twitching and gnashing a mouth full of serrated teeth. Rehn’s imala honked as Rehn jerked the reins, turning it sharply to see what had happened. When he saw the beast, easily as large as a man and equipped with powerful, tearing claws, Jhan thought he would faint.
Avrilla still sat her horse with her empty hand raised and cocked. It had been her knife. She lowered her hand and flushed gold with pleasure at her own skill. “Please, fetch my blade,” she commanded Rehn, trying to be calm and superior. Her voice shook only a little.
Rehn didn’t want to go anywhere near the beast. It was Jaross who dismounted cautiously, made certain the beast was truly dead, and then tugged out the blade. He cleaned it on the spotted fur and paused to marvel at the knife’s workmanship. It was a large, clean forged blade with a whirling blue pattern on the metal.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Jaross commented appreciatively as he handed it hilt first up to Avrilla. “It went into that beast like it was butter.”
“A secret of my people,” Avrilla told him proudly. She checked the blade carefully for blood and then sheathed it when she was satisfied that it was clean. “It doesn’t take strength to throw it. I’ve used it for hunting since I was a small child.”
Jaross was watching her face as she spoke. Something stirred under his skin; a warming of his blood that gave his fair skin a pink tinge. Avrilla was oblivious. It was as if she were instructing an idiot. Her tone of voice was condescending. Jaross didn’t take any notice. In fact, he smiled almost shyly and gave Avrilla a half bow before mounting his imala.
“Thank you, Princess Avrilla, for my life,” Rehn said as he pulled his imala into their group as tightly as he could.
Avrilla looked at him with her great black eyes as if he were a hound that had come to lick her hand in gratitude. She didn’t deign to answer him, just wrapped her veil tighter about her to shade her face, and looked to Tevar to get them started again.
Tevar was suffering more pangs of self doubt. Jhan could tell what he was thinking. He should have told Rehn to stay close. He should have been the one to see the beast. It shouldn’t have been a princess, a mere woman, who had saved Rehn. Hard lines settled on Tevar’s face as they galloped to catch up to the others.

When they made camp, the sun was a red and orange glow on the horizon. The mercenaries were practiced and efficient in lighting several camp fires safely in the volatile grassland. The red head was the cook, quickly whipping out pots and pans and cooking them their dinner.
The camp settled into three groups after the beasts were hobbled and cared for. Jhan, Tevar, Kile, Jaross, and Rehn were one group. Avrilla and Darkai were another. The mercenaries, with Alidae, settled by a fire in a laughing, talking, melding of differences that were made a whole by their common profession.
As the sun disappeared behind the horizon, the pitch black of night blotted out everything outside the range of the firelight. Everyone relaxed and became companionable after the common meal, but they still didn’t leave their groups and mingle. Still, Jhan saw eyes on her, even though she didn’t lift her own to see who was staring. She found herself growing nervous.
Kile sensed it. He huddled close to her, his voice pitched so that only she could hear it. “There isn’t anything to be afraid of,” he reassured her, wanting to believe it himself. “All of us are determined to keep you safe.”
Jaross was laying out their blankets so that they would encircle Jhan even in their sleep. Tevar was sharpening and oiling a very business like sword. Rehn was watching the mercenaries intently for any trouble. It should have comforted Jhan. It didn’t.
Jhan tried to calm her fears. She tried to find the personalities behind the faces of the mercenaries, tried to pick out their names from the conversations they were having. If she could only reassure herself of their benign intentions...
The two older men were twins. One was named Rufar and the other was Yunij. Jhan could only tell them apart from a gold arm band Yunij wore. They were expressive, loud, and obviously senior in position as well as age. When either of them spoke, nobody interrupted. The dark man, who reminded Jhan of Sael, was called Raveni. He was quiet, his dark eyes moody, and his lips were set in a grim line at all times. Trey, the red head, struck Jhan as having an odd relationship with the others. He sat with them, yet was aloof and clearly a man apart. When he cooked, he smiled and spoke to those around him, but he was never over familiar.
Trey was now sitting with his back to the mercenaries, stacking his pans neatly and packing his supplies as if he were preparing in case they had to leave suddenly. The mercenaries talked and laughed behind him, but it was Yunij who kept his eyes on Trey intently. When Trey tied the last of his packs closed, Yunij said something that made his neighbor chuckle. The hair on the back of Jhan’s neck rose.
Yunij stood, hands on his broad belt, as he slowly sauntered over to Trey. Trey heard his boots approach, but didn’t turn. Yunij spoke with him briefly in a low tone. Trey replied and then made a quick hand motion, face showing mild irritation. Yunij scowled, his hands working on his belt, but he didn’t challenge his dismissal. He let out an angry curse and strode back to the other men. Sitting down heavily, he was the butt of a few, low jokes. He bore them without replying, but his eyes searched out and found Jhan. She could see an idea occur to him.
Yunij stood all in one motion and strode over to where Jhan was sitting. Kile had been watching him too. He stood and confronted Yunij. He knew what Yunij wanted.
Yunij motioned with his chin at Jhan. “Two coppers for a few minutes,” he offered.
Kile’s jaw clenched. “Jhan is my wife.”
Yunij snorted. “Handy. Makes it all seem decent.”
“Go back,” Kile growled warningly, a hand going to the hilt of his sword. “We don’t want any trouble. Jhan is a princess and a companion of Princess Avrilla. She isn’t a whore.”
“Trey says different,” Yunij retorted, but then in a cajoling tone, “Come now, you can share.”
Tevar stood, putting a strong hand on Kile’s arm. Kile’s muscles were bulging with his attempt not to attack Yunij. His face was turning purple with his effort at self control. “Go back, soldier,” Tevar ordered briskly, trying to diffuse the situation by pulling rank, “You are insulting a princess of the Kevelt.”
“Princess?” Yunij guffawed. “Dressed like that?”
Trey suddenly came up behind Yunij, taking the man by a great burled arm. The mercenary glared down at the liberty. “Leave them alone, old stick,” Trey said companionably, “I’ll give you a dice game like you asked for before. I have time now.”
Yunij was quickly distracted, but incredulous. “Didn’t you learn the last time I took your money?”
“I’d like a chance to win it back,” Trey retorted. As he turned Yunij, he glanced back at Jhan. His look was quick and appraising, telling her with a glint in his eyes, that he was averting the quarrel for her sake.
The two men went back to the mercenaries, hunkering down together to start the game while the other men gathered around them to watch.
Tevar was disgusted. “Grossly undisciplined!” he muttered. “I can’t believe that Alidae allows them to gamble.”
Jaross was more accepting, but troubled and a little surprised. “That Yunij knew what Jhan was, but wanted her any way. That could spell trouble. He’s a senior officer.” He consider the problem for a moment and then shrugged. “He didn’t press it into a fist fight. He can’t be all that undisciplined if he doesn’t forget himself enough to fight with the people he’s paid to protect.”
Kile was still watching the mercenaries tensely. Finally he nodded, as if agreeing with Jaross, and relaxed. Sitting down next to Jhan, he tried to gauge her mood.
“They’re just soldiers. Plain spoken and uncouth," Kile told her. “You have to expect scenes like that one.”
“Stay with us at all times, if that will make you feel safer, Jhan,” Jaross added, pointing out, “That man wasn’t going to fight to get you, he was just ready to show his teeth at Kile like any mercenary facing real soldiers. There’s always been rivalry. Now that he knows that you belong to Kile-”
“I don’t belong to anyone!” Jhan exploded, surprising all of them, “and you can stop coddling me! That man was just a jerk. I’ve grown used to his kind.”
Kile smiled tightly, knowing Jhan better than that. “Forget about him. They know now that you aren’t to be had, even for money. I think it’s good that we cleared that out of the way first off.”
“I do too,” Rehn interjected, staring after Trey and Yunij nervously. “I don’t relish having to defend your honor from a man that size, who has a twin brother besides.”
Alidae had been oblivious to the altercation, or willing himself to be blind to it, expecting some chest beating between the two parties. He was standing and speaking quietly to Darkai. Jhan wished that she could read lips. After the run in with Yunij, she was desperate to know how long they would have to travel in the mercenaries company.
“Get some sleep,” Tevar ordered them as he moved his blanket about to find a soft spot on the ground devoid of lumps. “We’ll arrange watches tomorrow night. I think it’s more important right now that we get our rest so that we can be sharp.”
Everyone agreed. Jhan slipped into Kile’s arms and he was a warm and comforting presence as they lay down to sleep. Jhan was purposefully facing the mercenaries so that they could see clearly that she was with Kile. She wouldn’t say ‘belonged to’ even to herself.
Trey and Yunij finished their dice game. The big man was smiling contentedly, but Trey didn’t look too upset either. He couldn’t have lost that much. Jhan was glad. She didn’t want to feel guilty on top of everything else. When Trey stripped and began cleaning off with a wetted down rag, as fastidious as a cat, Jhan felt her face go red.
When she saw the crude slave brand on his backside, she understood a great deal suddenly.
Jhan had seen, often enough, the contempt heaped on slaves. In a land that considered death preferable, the ones who hadn’t, were forced to do miserable tasks and kept out of sight of respectable free people. It was something that Trey was on friendly terms with the mercenaries, but it was clear, from his careful attitude towards them, that he didn’t completely trust in that friendship and that he considered his position tenable. It made Jhan think of Tevar.
Tevar was another one who didn’t fully trust his position. Though he too seemed on friendly terms with everyone, Jhan could feel the underlying tension. He was careful not to sleep too near or to even chance touching anyone. Despite his reputation for being insatiable with men, Jhan had yet to see it. She supposed he put it aside when he was on duty; always the professional. He needed complete confidence from his men. That was probably why it was so hard for him to accept his own mistakes. Being what he was, he couldn’t afford them.
“You’re not sleeping,” Kile whispered in Jhan’s ear.
Jhan snuggled back against him. “Just thinking about our companions. If I figure them out, maybe I’ll feel a little calmer.”
“All you have to do is stay close to me,” Kile told her firmly. “Soldiers respect strength. I have enough for the both of us.”
Jhan sighed. “Baby animals are protected by their mothers, but they often get eaten by other animals anyway.”
“I don’t think they’re bad men, Jhan,” Kile protested. “They’re just men.”
“For me, that’s enough,” Jhan replied uneasily.
“You’ve been among the worst sort, I know,” Kile assured her, “but most have a code they follow, some sort of honor, and certainly some compassion. Keep watching them. I think you’ll see it.”
“I’m hoping that I won’t have to take the time for that,” Jhan admitted softly. “Maybe tomorrow we’ll be where ever Darkai is going.”
Kile didn’t want to burst her optimism, but he wouldn’t let her delude herself either. “We’ll have days of this endless grass before we reach even the nomad tribes. They live by the marsh lakes. I can’t imagine that Darkai intends to stop there. It’s more likely that he’s heading for Amberglass beyond the plains. That’s many more days away.”
Jhan rubbed at the sudden pain between her eyes, depression settling. “After this, I never want to travel again.”
“That’s the first sense you’ve spoken in a long while,” Kile chuckled.
“I must be tired,” Jhan snapped back.
“Then sleep!” Tevar retorted from the darkness.
Jhan didn’t think she could, but the steady rhythm of Kile’s snores soon lulled her to sleep like a lullaby.

The smell of breakfast cooking roused Jhan early. When she sat up, stifling a yawn, it was a shock to see the fiery light of dawn breaking up the huge sky all about her. She felt as small as a flea in that vastness and the welcome light of the campfires was as comforting as the bodies still sleeping all about her.
Jhan’s stomach growled, reminding her that she had been too nervous to eat much the night before. The thought of waiting for Kile, always a late sleeper, to stir himself, was unendurable to Jhan’s stomach. It made her brave.
Untangling herself from Kile’s embrace, Jhan stood up, pulling her wrinkled clothes into order as she looked about. Trey was busy spooning a grain porridge in a lightweight pan while some strips of meat griddled on the pack of another pan. Raveni was seated beside him, sipping on something hot in a tin cup. Aside from the sentries standing out on the perimeter of camp, they were the only two awake.
Two men. Jhan’s courage grew. She slowly advanced. When neither of them so much as looked at her, she felt confident enough to come to the fire and crouch. Still they ignored her, Trey busy with the meal and Raveni’s full attention on the contents of his cup. He had it cradled in two hands as if the weather were cold and he needed its warmth.
Without saying anything, Trey spooned porridge, and two meat strips, into a wooden bowl and handed it to Jhan. He added a tin cup of the percolating beverage from a tin decanter nestled in the outer coals of the fire.
“Thank you,” Jhan murmured nervously.
Jhan started to rise to take it back to safety, but was forestalled by Raveni’s biting comment to Trey. “You are a liar. That is a woman.”
Trey didn’t reply. Raveni didn’t look at Jhan directly or address her. She was only a woman, and one who was another manes. Raveni was everything Sael hadn’t been. Spartan, arrogant, proud, and steeped in the customs of his people. She disliked him instantly. His comment had been for a purpose; a dismissal of her existence.
Trey’s eyes showed his anger at the insult, but he was careful not to turn those eyes on Raveni. That told Jhan something else. Raveni could be dangerous. Jhan rose then and hurried away. Trey’s voice stopped her half way. He had followed her. Jhan turned only a little, ready to run.
“How shall I address you?” Trey asked softly.
“Jhan is fine.”
“You were joking then, about all of those other titles?” Trey was relieved.
“No,” Jhan replied. “I don’t like them though.”
“I know what I saw,” Trey insisted stubbornly.
“Does it matter?” Jhan wondered quickly.
“I don’t like to be puzzled,” Trey admitted. “I like to know the people I’m with. I want to avoid nasty surprises.”
“From me?” Jhan snorted incredulously. “What can I do to you?”
“I don’t know,” Trey replied, but then he demanded, “Tell me what you are and I’ll judge for myself.”
Jhan did look at him completely then. He had freckles on his nose. The rising sun made them look like specks of blood. “I’m not a whore.”
Trey was impatient. “I know that! It’s clear to me that you and that big man are besotted with one another. I heard him call you his wife. What kind of wife is the question.”
Jhan grew angry. The cup of hot liquid was burning her hand and her temper was making her skin sizzle. “It’s none of your business what I am. All you have to do is ignore me, like your friend Raveni.”
“Not MY friend,” Trey retorted.
“Are you asking for Yunij then? He won’t get from me what he wants,” Jhan assured him acidly, “None of you will, so, you see, it doesn’t matter what I am.”
“To men, it does,” Trey replied seriously. “You’ll find that out, if you don’t already know it.”
“Our food is burning, Treyula,” Alidae said gruffly, coming up from behind Jhan.
Jhan turned, startled, and then looked, up and up, to meet Alidae’s purple eyes. She started to walk past him, her courage failing her at last, but Alidae put out a hand, not touching her, but preventing her all the same. He spoke over her at Trey.
“You will not speak to, or bother the princess again, Treyula. Your duties in my band are as clear as are the orders I gave you about your conduct.” Alidae made a curt hand sign of dismissal and Jhan heard Trey’s footsteps go away from them.
“I have ordered the others to protect your life,” Alidae continued to Jhan. “I have also ordered them not to bother you outside of that duty. There will not be a repeat of last night and Yunij. Don’t incite them to step over my orders. Being so bold as to join my men’s campfire, I can only assume that you are unaware of your great beauty and the effect it has on them.”
Jhan managed a pasty smile. “Why, thank you for the compliment!” her tone was mocking. “I’m glad I’m beautiful enough to get raped.”
“They wouldn’t do that,” Alidae retorted, clearly offended. “I don’t hire men into my band who would fall to the level of an animal. They would harass you for your favors, though. They have been without for some time. When they realize that you aren’t like their females, there might be frustration and a fight.”
“They already know I’m not,” Jhan assured him bitingly.
“There is argument on that point,” Alidae told her. “You are shaped as a woman. They doubt Treyula’s assurance that you are not.”
“Thank you for the candid warning,” Jhan said stiffly. “Now, if you don’t mind, my breakfast is growing cold.”
Alidae stepped aside and Jhan was glad to rejoin Kile and the others. They were just stirring, rubbing sleep out of their eyes and tossing off their blankets. Kile sat up and blinked at Jhan’s approach. When she sat down beside him, he tried to snag one of the pieces of meat. Jhan slapped his hand.
“That’s mine!” Jhan told him irritably. “I went to some pains to get it.”
“Are you insane?” Kile bellowed, finally coming awake enough to realize what Jhan had done.
“I often think so,” Jhan replied in a small voice, knotting her hands in her lap and looking down at them dejectedly.
“I know so,” Rehn grumbled as he stood and stiffly walked away to get his own breakfast.
Jhan ignored him, taking a sip of her drink. It was strong, invigorating stuff; somewhat like coffee with a shot of whiskey. She put it aside distastefully and started on her porridge. Jaross picked up the drink and sipped it appreciatively.
“I can see why you did it,” Jaross said as he swallowed and smiled. “Farni is hard to come by outside of Nava lands. I grew up drinking this wonderful stuff. When I found out that Pekarin only had a weak version that tasted like bilge water, I cried. I would have walked over sharpened blades to get a cup of this. Did you see much more of it?”
“I wasn’t paying attention,” Jhan replied around a mouthful of porridge. “You can have it all, Jaross. It’s tea I miss the most. Honest to goodness tea, not a few dried flowers in hot water. I went over there to get food. Only the red head and that Raveni were awake. I thought I would be safe.”
Kile bristled and paused in the act of rising and getting his own breakfast. “You weren’t?” It came from deep within him, like the warning growl of a bear.
“Raveni made up his mind that I was a woman and therefore beneath contempt or notice." Jhan explained briefly, "but Trey, or Treyula, whatever he’s called, wanted to know what I was. Alidae sent him away and gave me a lecture about allowing my charms too close to his men.”
“Good advice, but I think we gave it to you already,” Tevar grumbled as he sat up and wiped the sleep out of his eyes. There were bits of grass in his dark hair. “We don’t know these mercenaries, Jhan. Don’t stray again.”
Jhan sighed and put her bowl down. “I get very tired of being afraid, Tevar. Sometimes, I get so over loaded I stop noticing it. That’s when I can do outrageous things, like getting my own breakfast in the midst of strangers.”
“I’ll keep an eye on you then, in case you do it again,” Tevar promised grimly.
Jhan scowled. “Are you going to assign someone to follow me out when I pee too?”
“That’s what put you into trouble with the mercenaries in the first place,” Kile pointed out, only half joking. “I’ll go with you, if that will make you feel any better.”
“It doesn’t!” Jhan snapped in frustration, but Kile refused to bend on that point. He walked away and left her spluttering.

CHAPTER TWO
(Fitful Dreams)
The grass had sprung upright again during the night. The beasts breasted it with tireless plods, heads sagging and eyes nearly closed; dozing on their feet. Their riders weren’t in much better shape. With nothing to look at, but grass that stretched to every horizon, it was easy to nod in the saddle and let the beasts find their way.
Alidae and Tevar rode side by side, conferring with one another over ways to integrate their men, yet remain individually in control. Once or twice, there was a heated argument, but they quickly returned to calm, both of them concerned for the way their men perceived them.
Jhan kept to the rear of the column with Kile, Jaross, and Rehn. Avrilla rode beside her off and on and only condescended to conversation occasionally. Most of the conversations had to do with Jhan’s health. After the last inquiry, and Jhan’s tart reply, Avrilla galloped her horse ahead of the column as if trying to escape the boredom.
“You offended her,” Jaross said to Jhan reprovingly.
Jhan glared at Jaross. “When you are as sick as I am most of the time, Jaross, you get very tired of people asking how you are. I’m not well. I almost died not long ago. I had just recovered from my forced trip to the desert.”
“Tired?” Kile interjected, taking the brunt of her anger on himself and extricating a relieved Jaross.
“Of course I’m tired!” Jhan snapped at him and then sighed gustily. “You can say, ‘I told you so,’ any time you please, Kile.”
“But I won’t,” Kile replied seriously. “I’m glad you’re here with me, though you know I would rather have you back in safety.” He glanced up at the long line of men and then back at Jhan again. “We’ll keep an easy pace for you. They may get angry, but I don’t think they’ll leave you, or us, behind.”
“Better clear that with Tevar, Captain Kile,” Jaross warned.
Kile started to retort, but Rehn interjected, “If you have to keep up, Kile, I’ll stay and watch over Jhan. You can trust me to do it.”
Jhan saw Kile’s face pinch. It was the first time that she realized that Kile thought of Rehn as a boy. It reflected in his voice, though he spoke carefully to spare Rehn’s pride.
“You only have a knife, Rehn. That wouldn’t be wise,” Kile reasoned. “What if there are more of the fanged beasts that attacked you hiding in the grass?”
Rehn tried to hide his fear, but his hand went to his knife hilt. “Do you think there are more?”
“Who knows?” Jaross jumped in. “It’s better if we stay together, Rehn, and face them, or what ever else, together. Kile will convince Tevar to slow down, don’t worry.”
“I can protect her,” Rehn insisted.
“I never doubted it,” Kile replied firmly, “but you’re a soldier now and you have to act like one. We soldiers work together. The first rule is, ‘don’t get separated'."
Rehn relaxed. Jhan felt for him. He was gentle and timid at the best of times, but protecting her had always made him fiercer than common sense. It was why he was so dear to her. She found herself wishing that he had stayed behind, and for some of the same reasons that Kile had wanted her to stay. Rehn was something apart from the heaving, callous, testosterone rich men of that world. In Pekarin, his easy manner had made him many friends. In the real world, Jhan had seen him receive contempt for it. Age had excused him before. Now that he was older, she was afraid that protection was gone.
It was a problem for Kile as well. Kile was determined to protect Rehn and Jhan. Jhan felt the inadequacy of a man stretching himself too thin. There were too many of the mercenaries. Tevar had his duties. Jaross was loosing himself over Avrilla. If trouble started, Jhan knew who would lose. She berated herself for her actions of that morning. She would have to be more careful and not give trouble a chance to start on her account.

When camp was made that night, Jhan kept beside Kile, letting him get her food and even allowing him to trail after her when she went to relieve herself. It was embarrassing, she felt, but the thought of the alternative kept her quiet and helped her to endure it.
Trey had made an excellent dinner of noodles and meat in some spicy sauce. As he scoured his pans by rubbing grease into them, and putting them away, Jhan pretended to watch him idly while, in reality, watching the mercenaries behind him. She waited tensely to see if there would be a repeat with Yunij. There wasn’t.
Without any preamble, Alidae suddenly stood up and approached Trey. “You will please me,” Alidae commanded.
Jhan blinked and then looked at Kile inquiringly. Kile shrugged, just as mystified. Tevar, sitting beside Jhan, was watching to, but he had an expression of outraged disgust.
“Shameless,” Tevar grated through gritted teeth.
Kile asked in a low voice, “Is it? What can Alidae do with him?”
Avrilla blinked at Alidae and Trey, but then looked away in the next instant as if it were a usual occurrence. Darkai, beside her, was speaking about something. He broke off, scowled at the two, and then pointedly turned his back as he continued to talk.
“I thought Alamien men, you know, don’t have anything,” Rehn said uncomfortably as he sat down with a second helping of noodles.
“Good Gods!” Jaross choked, nodding towards Alidae and Trey . “I don’t think we’ll have to wait to find out!”
Without a pause of embarrassment, Alidae stripped off his clothes while Trey, eyes downcast, spread out a blanket. The tall Alamien was identical to Avrilla in every way, except that his genital slit was horizontal instead of vertical, and his body was more lanky. He settled it, cross legged, on the blanket and composed himself as if he were meditating.
It was Trey who was obviously embarrassed. The mercenaries didn’t so much as glance at him. It was the strangers in their midst that made him flush and move self consciously, although all he did, in the end, was lightly stroke Alidae’s skin. Confined mostly to Alidae’s shoulders and arms, it was certainly far from erotic. When it went on for nearly an hour, without Alidae so much as making a pleased noise, Jhan turned to Kile with a shrug.
“I suppose Trey is a masseuse as well as a cook and a soldier,” she said softly. “Maybe that’s what he did as a slave.”
“Alidae has a vertebrae that never healed correctly after an accident,” Darkai’s voice startled them all. “It pains him at times. Alamien also have very sensitive skin. They enjoy touching. It is sex for them, though it’s odd to allow a male... I suppose the red head is skilled.”
Darkai was standing nearest to Jhan. Wearing black dyed leathers, he seemed a piece of the darkness as he stared down at her. “Is your skin sensitive?”
Jhan was wary, confused by the question. “Why ask?”
“A botched attempt had been made to make you into a Human female,” Darkai explained, “Then you were changed to be like an Alamien female. I wondered how much that operation had succeeded.”
“Didn’t you see for yourself?” Jhan bit back, looking away from him and edging closer to Kile. “I’m sure you had a good eye full while you were doing to me what ever you pleased!”
Darkai was impatient, cutting to the heart of the matter. “I can look all I want, but it can’t tell me how you feel, how you respond.”
“Respond?” Jhan echoed warningly.
“You don’t seem to have Alamien hormones,” Darkai persisted, unperturbed by the tension and growing anger of Kile and Jhan’s companions. “I have been wondering, if injected by some, if you could possibly go into Readiness. I know you wouldn’t allow that, so I can only make suppositions from information that you give me. Can’t you forget about your dislike of me enough to further science?”
“Who’s science?” Jhan snapped. “What difference does it make?”
“To the Telestar, a great deal,” Darkai retorted. “Avrilla hasn’t gone into Readiness. Alamien don’t destroy children simply because they are the wrong color. That wrong coloring, for their people, is usually an indicator of more serious problems. Avrilla has her share. If I can figure out how you were changed, and how successful that change was, it might help Avrilla and save the Telestar.”
“Then you don’t have a clear plan yet,” Kile realized. “You don’t, fully, know how to help Avrilla and her family. You still need Jhan.”
“You could have asked me questions in the Silverwood,” Jhan pointed out suspiciously. “Why bring me all the way out here to ask them?”
“I need to study you as well,” Darkai admitted. “I have devices, where we are going, that will allow that. They aren’t invasive.” He paused, considering Jhan. “Do you understand what I’m trying to say? I have a... a magic that allows me to see inside of you without even having you undress. It’s completely painless and won’t take more than a moment of your time.”
Jhan scowled. “I’m not an idiot. I understand what you’re saying. What I don’t understand is why you didn’t see fit to ask me.”
“I can’t afford to,” Darkai snapped back, though grudgingly impressed by Jhan’s grasp of his explanation. “You must go.”
“What would you have done if I had refused to come?” Jhan wondered bitterly.
Darkai was chilling and assured. “The King of the Alamien would never have accepted your refusal to go, nor would I have.”
Jhan suppressed an urge to rise up and beat that superior look from Darkai’s face. He saw it and tensed, maybe to flee, or to shout for help. When Jhan remained still, Darkai misunderstood and thought that he had won the battle.
“Answer my questions, allow me what I wish,” Darkai told Jhan, “and you will return to your twisted life, unharmed, and the better for the operations I’ve already performed on you. By way of payment, as I said before we left the Silverwood, I can grant you a body either male or female. You can be what you like and no one will be able to tell the difference, not even your man. What you are now, I know. You are just a neuter who can pass water like a man and feel a little pleasure. If you can accept that, then you are mad as well as twisted.”
“I don’t need what you’re offering,” Jhan told him quietly. “I don’t follow carrots on sticks.”
“Jhan has heard enough out of you. I think you should go,” Kile growled and stood up a if he would physically heave Darkai away.
Darkai drew himself up and dared. “One question. The most important one. Allow me to ask that at least.”
Jhan didn’t say anything, still keeping her eyes turned away and her hands clenched in her lap to keep them from violence.
“Was the man who did this to you...,” Darkai paused, trying to form the question coherently while Kile tried to intimidate him by his sheer size and unvoiced threat. Darkai ignored him, continuing quickly. “Was the man Alamien? Did he intend to force you into some sort of Readiness to ignite his own? Was he intending to breed you?”
“That wasn’t one question! Jhan won’t answer anything so filthy!” Kile exploded.
“No,” Jhan answered softly, but she didn’t hear her own voice or know that she had uttered that one word. Her entire being had sunk into memory and she was finding it unbearable. Most of what had been done to her she had accepted and found a sort of peace with. Dagara Ku Ni’s day long, inventive rape, before he had sent her to Pekarin, she had never fully absorbed and come to grips with. It had been the disgust, she knew, of knowing that she had been a man when he had violated her, and that his aim had been, not to slake any lust, but to completely humiliate her.
It was like being stuck in a patch of darkness. When Jhan came to herself again, Darkai was gone and Kile was staring at her anxiously. Looking about dazedly, Jhan saw that everything was still the same. Everyone was still digesting dinner and getting ready to bed down. Trey had finished his massage and Alidae was dressing again.
“Are you all right?” Kile asked.
Jhan shivered and hugged herself. She blinked tears. “I was just... remembering. I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep tonight. I might-”
“Have a nightmare,” Kile finished and then angrily. “I think you were already having one just now.”
“You went so pale,” Rehn interjected, sitting with his knees drawn up and his arms clasped about them tightly. “You’re eyes dilated until you almost looked like Princess Avrilla!”
“Here. You need this now.” Jaross, his expression showing his deep concern, handed Jhan a tin cup of steaming farni.
Jhan sipped it automatically, lips pressing together as it burned her throat. It did take off some of the bone chill of horror and fear and she was grateful.
“Jhan-” Kile began, but she cut him off.
“I’m not going back, more than ever!” Jhan snapped. “We know what Darkai wants now. It’s nothing dangerous or even too outrageous.”
“A machine that can look inside of you?” Kile protested. “That’s not dangerous or outrageous?”
“It’s not,” Jhan assured him after another sip of farni. “I’ve seen machines like the one he spoke of. They are harmless.”
“He isn’t harmless, Jhan,” Rehn interjected with a frown towards where Darkai was rolled up in his blanket asleep. “Look what he did to you just now and what he’s already done; made you into-into,” he stopped and rubbed a hand across his mouth as if he were going to be sick. “I’m not a violent man, you know, but I could hurt Darkai easily for what he did to you.”
Jhan sighed, “Thank you, Rehn, that means a lot to me, but I want to avoid violence. I want to avoid any more incidents like what just happened.” Her voice went thin. “Darkai has what he wants. The mercenaries know you’re protecting me. Avrilla is only annoying. I can put up with that.”
“You’re dismissing them as threats. That’s not wise,” Tevar said from behind Jhan.
Jhan turned startled, but met his dark, hawklike stare with confidence. “I’ve just had a sharp reminder of what real evil is like. These people, they may have their little schemes, and they surely include me, but they aren’t evil. They don’t have it in them to hurt me.”
“I hope that is experience talking,” Kile said seriously, “and not just wishful thinking.”
Jhan handed her cup of farni to Jaross and curled up in a miserable ball, chin on her upraised knees, saying bitterly, “I know the look, Kile. It’s a madness in the eyes. Even Darkai doesn’t have that.”
“Yes, but that may be only because he thinks he’s doing the right thing,” Kile argued. “I won’t trust them and I won’t sleep well until we’re safely back in Pekarin, Little Lady!”
“Then we’ll keep each other company,” Jhan said quietly, reaching out to slip a hand into his, “especially tonight.”

“The Bhuntay clans,” Tevar said, not turning in his saddle. His hand was on his sword hilt. “Blue Feather clan.”
Jhan squinted at the collection of hide yurts up ahead, just poking above the high grasslands. “How can you tell?”
“By the blue feathers hanging everywhere.”
Jhan shaded her eyes and squinted harder. “Your eyes are better than mine. I can’t make out anything at this distance.” She noticed Kile and Jaross fingering their swords as well. “Are they dangerous?”
Jaross was looking about them uneasily. “They can be. Darkai is heading straight for them though, and Alidae and his men don’t seem concerned. He doesn’t even have out scouts.”
“They must be friends,” Rehn surmised quietly, as if trying to reassure himself. “Maybe we should hang back and see how they’re received first?”
“Never straggle, Rehn!” Jaross reminded him good naturedly and clapped him on the back. “If they are our enemy, they would like nothing better than for us to make ourselves easy targets.”
“Can’t get any easier than it is right now, even together,” Kile grumbled. “They could at least have warned us we were approaching the Bhuntay, Captain Tevar!”
“I agree,” Tevar replied angrily. “This is taking secrecy to an extreme level.”
Avrilla suddenly rode back to them, but she passed Tevar by and spoke directly to Jhan, as if the rest of them weren’t of importance. “We must stay close together, I’ve been told,” she said to Jhan. “The Bhuntay consider women property. We must not seem to be free for them to claim.”
“I’d be sorry for the man who tried to set hands on Jhan,” Jaross chuckled grimly.
Avrilla’s eyes were suddenly on him and Jaross flushed scarlet. “What does that mean?” Avrilla demanded.
“We are here to protect both of you,” Tevar replied for Jaross, who had become tongue tied. “We will protect you with our lives.”
Everyone had a look of comprehension. Tevar didn’t want to reveal Jhan’s ability to Avrilla. Darkai knew something about it, but not the extent of it. It showed that Tevar didn’t trust Avrilla or Darkai. He didn’t want to reveal to a possible enemy the state of their weapons. Jhan was only grateful. If they knew what she could do, they might expect her to use her ability. She wanted to avoid that at all costs.
Avrilla fell in beside Jhan, accepting Tevar’s explanation. She was making the same mistake everyone did; thinking that Jhan’s size indicated her weakness. In her superior arrogance she couldn’t imagine that death lay in Jhan’s small hands. Even Dagara Ku Ni had made that mistake in the end, despite having created Jhan’s deadly body.
They broke through the tall grass and entered into a great flattened area filled with yurts, cook fires, imala, some sort of small milking animal with heavy teats, and a great number of milling warriors with bold eyed women and children standing behind them.
Jhan thought of Earth Mongolians when she looked at the people of the Bhuntay. They had skin darkened by the sun and faces creased by its harsh light. Their eyes were sunken in squints and their hair was either varying shades of rust red or, scarcer, deep black. They wore skins and leathers despite the heat, but that was to soften the tough hide armor they wore. They liked gaudy bead necklaces and everyone, man, woman, and child, wore a blue feather in their hair.
Darkai rode at the head of their column with Alidae at his side. A very tall Bhuntay man stepped forward. He wore a brightly beaded breastplate and wore two blue feathers in his hair. He didn’t need those things to show that he was the leader. His chin was up and his dark eyes were hard under his haphazardly braided, shaggy, black hair.
There was an argument at once. Since Darkai hadn’t dismounted, Jhan supposed he had meant to ride through the camp and continue on the journey, courtesy paid to the owners of the land. The leader of the Bhuntay wasn’t so obliging. He stopped Darkai’s arguing by making a thumb across the throat motion with his hand. His warriors lifted bows armed with arrows.
“Kile?” Jhan whispered, terror beginning to take hold.
“Turn your imala,” Tevar ordered Jhan and Avrilla. “Gallop out of here as fast as you can. We’ll hold them.” His eyes were hard and his face grim. He would hold them, Jhan thought with a chill, even if it cost him his life.
Jhan looked behind them. The Bhuntay were obviously used to fighting. They weren’t fools. She wasn’t surprised to see the Bhuntay warriors standing behind them, faces dour and bows leveled at their hearts.
Turning back around, Jhan saw that Darkai and the mercenaries hadn’t been killed yet. Darkai was still facing the leader of the Bhuntay, but now he was dismounted and signaling everyone to dismount as well.
Alidae called back to Tevar, “Dismount! Don’t take any action until Darkai commands it. The Bhuntay only wish to have a council meeting.”
“Council meeting?” Tevar growled as he looked around and saw the archers circling them. “It doesn’t look as if talking is what they have in mind.”
“Should we obey?” Rehn wondered anxiously. Jhan could see the whites around his frightened brown eyes. He had drawn his knife with a white knuckled hand.
“We’re under Darkai’s orders,” Tevar snapped curtly. “We agreed to that. I won’t allow insubordination even from you, Rehn. You agreed to be under my command remember?”
“I haven’t forgotten,” Rehn replied stiffly.
“Good. Dismount, then,” Tevar ordered.
Tevar was the first man down. Jaross, Avrilla, and Rehn were quick to follow. Kile moved slowly and reluctantly, but he too slid off of his imala to the ground. Jhan was frozen in her saddle.
“Come, Jhan,” Kile urged gently. “It will be all right.”
The Bhuntay warriors lifted their bows to target Jhan. She stared into their hard eyes and saw them kindling as they registered her beauty. One man, with a long, hanging mustache, ran a tongue along his upper lip.
“Jhan?” Kile prompted again and put hands on her knee. “You have to get down.”
Women suddenly came from among the men. Dressed in beaded leathers, and hair done in fanciful braids tied with blue feathers, their painted faces were openly curious and reassuring. They took hold of Avrilla. They were all tall, but she was still a head taller than the tallest. They spoke to Avrilla in a rough, pattering speech.
“They say we are to stay in safety with the women while the men talk,” Avrilla translated. “They speak a bad version of Alamien; trade speech.”
The women circled Jhan, keeping nervously away from Kile, casting down their eyes and crouching submissively when he looked at them. Jhan stared down into their anxious, smiling faces, and felt oddly reassured. They understood her fear of the men. They were going to take her to where it was safe from them.
“Here,” Kile pulled a wrinkled cloth from his saddlebag. It was white and dirty from being used to polish Kile’s sword. Jhan saw a neatly stitched monogram of Kile’s name done in very feminine letters. Kile shrugged, embarrassed. “Mother sent me a dozen of these... foppish napkins for my birthing day last year. I’ve been using them for rags.”
Jhan took hold of the napkin. Opening it up, she saw that Kile’s monogram was twined with another, Caliya's. Scowling, Jhan waded it up in her fist, forgetting for a moment her danger.
“I can see why you used them for rags,” Jhan grated. “Why give it to me?”
Kile’s smile was tight and tense. “Tie it on your wrist. It will mark you.”
“As your property, you mean?” Jhan bristled, seeing that all the Bhuntay women had intricate scarves, bracelets, and woven leather braids to mark them as belonging to someone.
Kile was beginning to sweat. “Jhan, if you don’t get down, you’re going to be a pin cushion very shortly... and I will be too, because I’ll try and save you.”
That moved Jhan when nothing else had, as Kile expected. She slid down to the ground and he helped her tie on the napkin. It was awkward and slow, both of them nervous and darting eyes at their captors.
The Bhuntay women were becoming impatient. One, a tall red head with her neck covered in bead necklaces, took hold of Jhan’s arm and tugged. Jhan jerked it away from her.
“I’m not leaving you,” Jhan insisted to Kile.
“You are!” Alidae had come back to them. He had hands on hips and his face was stern. “Why is this taking so long? We are not in any danger! The Bhuntay respect Darkai. They only wish to talk. Go with the women and you won’t be molested.”
“Go, Jhan.” Kile was supporting Alidae only because he knew it would get Jhan out of danger for the moment. Jhan knew it, but she could also see the helplessness of the situation.
Jhan leaned close and glared at Kile. “If you die while I’m not with you-”
“I’ll hope that there isn’t an afterlife!” Kile finished with a soft laugh. He bent and kissed her and said all his words of love in a long look.
Jhan swallowed, nodded to that wordless communication, and then began walking. The Bhuntay woman with the red hair took Jhan’s arm again and led her over to Avrilla. Together, they were led around the press of warriors about Darkai. Alidae had joined him again and there seemed to be some sort of new argument.
Jhan could see, through a gap in the men, that the Bhuntay had singled out Trey and had him flat on the ground. One of his sleeves had been ripped off. Jhan could see an ugly brand on his upper arm. The leader of the Bhuntay was pointing at it in disgust even as he was ripping the brown feather out of Trey’s hair
The leader bent his head to listen to something Darkai was saying. He shook his head abruptly and drew a short sword from his side. Jhan saw it glitter in the sun as he brought it up, his aim obvious. He was going to decapitate Trey!
Jhan’s blood went cold. She uttered some small sound of distress, but the Bhuntay woman on one side, and Avrilla on the other, had a hard grip on her. They forced her to go on, taking her to a very large yurt with two strong men standing at the entrance. Those two men gave them a curious look, but didn’t interfere aside from checking for all the women’s tags of ownership. They shrugged noncommittally at Avrilla’s lack. Jhan supposed that they knew Alamien and realized that Avrilla was neuter.
Taking Jhan into the yurt, the women suddenly released her. Jhan swayed as she blinked in the dim light of a circular hearth fire. A score of wide eyes blinked back. The yurt was filled with women doing various duties; weaving, cooking, and cleaning but not any child care. The children were conspicuously absent.
An old, white haired woman, bent in the back and black eyes keen, jumped forward with amazing energy and pointed a bony finger at Jhan’s clothes. She spouted something furiously, snatched a soft leather dress from one of the other women, and threw it into Jhan’s face. Jhan didn’t make any move to catch it. She let it slide to the floor as she turned to look at Avrilla.
“You don’t need to translate that,” Jhan said, “but if you know what’s going on, I’d like to hear it. What was happening to Trey out there?”
Avrilla gave the old woman a disdainful look. The old woman quieted, but wasn’t cowed. “This is where the women with men live, who don’t, as yet, have children or are beyond having any,” Avrilla explained. “As for Treyula, he was a slave. These people were offended that he was wearing a clan mark. They were going to kill him for the insult.”
Jhan frowned, puzzled. “He must have known they would do that when we approached the camp.”
Avrilla disagreed. “Perhaps, or maybe he hoped to be welcomed back instead? He isn’t a slave any longer.”
“Darkai must have tried to explain that,” Jhan guessed. “It must not have made any difference.” Jhan felt a shiver. “Do you think that they killed Trey?”
“He is a stranger to you,” Avrilla replied, surprised. “Why should you care?”
“I cared about you,” Jhan pointed out. “I know him more than I knew you.”
“True,” Avrilla mused, but still seemed perplexed. She let it pass and took note of the women around them. The tall red headed woman was motioning them to sit on a thick carpet. “I think we had better find out what’s going on from our hosts.”
Jhan sat down stiffly. “Captors.”
“Not yet,” Avrilla assured her. “Darkai is respected among them.”
“So Alidae said,” Jhan replied caustically. “That didn’t make much difference.”
“We weren’t killed outright,” Avrilla retorted. “That is the difference. My people used to trade with the Bhuntay, at Darkai’s insistence. We make their beads. They proved so war like and unpredictable, that we broke off relations rather swiftly. One feather clan was always having a blood feud with another and they tended to absorb each other and break apart to form new clans at an alarming rate. We never knew who we were dealing with from year to year. They would either-”
Avrilla stopped and chewed on her lip, her black eyes going hooded. “Either what?” Jhan prompted sharply.
Avrilla was clearly sorry she had let that last slip out, but she finished as she pressed Jhan’s hand with her own. “Our trading caravans were either welcomed with open arms or ambushed and robbed as sympathizers with a rival clan.”
“Then we are in danger!” Jhan choked out, beginning to stand, determined suddenly to force her way back to Kile. Avrilla’s hand on hers prevented her.
“Darkai knows the leader of this clan personally,” Avrilla said quickly. “They have known each other for many years. That won’t have changed. They respect that kind of friendship.”
“Then why the weapons?” Jhan demanded.
“I think that we both know how stubborn Darkai can be,” Avrilla replied. “It would take force to get him to stop and listen.”
The tall red headed woman put a bowl of cut up meat before them and two cups of water. Jhan couldn’t eat, but Avrilla began eating appreciatively. The tall woman was concerned. She spoke quickly to Avrilla, nodding to Jhan with a frown.
Avrilla gave Jhan a sideways look of amusement and said around a mouthful of food. “Her name is Uinata. She says that your man must be a poor hunter to starve you so and that you must eat before your great beauty is ruined.”
The woman spoke again and Avrilla lost her amusement. “She also says that Lord Kile will have a hard time with the Bhuntay over you. Many men will try to claim you. She says that someone, with your looks, will grace many men’s beds and bear many sons by different fathers.”
“That’s a good thing here?” Jhan scowled, disgusted.
“It must be,” Avrilla replied. Uinata was still speaking. Avrilla shook her head and lowered her eyes to her meal. “I think she is jealous of you. She says that she’s only been with two men and has only a daughter to show for it. She wants to know how we curl our hair. She says that the men were very aroused by it. She thinks that if she does it too, she will have more success.” Avrilla spoke to the woman briefly and the woman looked crestfallen.
“You told her it was-,” Jhan was going to say ‘natural’ until she remembered how she had come by her curly hair. She touched it with a trembling hand, remembering how it had burned with Dagara Ku Ni’s Power as he had drawn it out of her scalp, twitching the genetic code to create the curls.
“What is it?” Avrilla asked, putting aside her bowl of food. “Your face is much paler than usual and your eyes are enormous.”
“I suppose I should tell Uinata that I’m a man so that the Bhuntay will leave Kile and I alone,” Jhan said in a small, distant voice.
Avrilla stared at her, still concerned, but then shook her head. “I wouldn’t recommend it. They hate Deviations here. They get enough of their own, more so than Alamien. They might not make a distinction between a born Deviation and one made that way.”
“What about you?” Jhan asked, suddenly coming back to herself.
Avrilla shrugged as if it were obvious. “I’m not Human. They can’t breed with me. Why should they care what’s wrong with me?” It was a logical assumption and very naive.
“It’s always about that, on this world, isn’t it?” Jhan snarled as she jerked her arm away from Avrilla and stood purposefully, “whether a woman can pop out sons or not. Whether someone’s blood is better than someone else’s. Whether someone is more perfect than someone else. I get so sick of it!”
Avrilla didn’t have to look up much to still be eye to eye with Jhan. Her expression was bitter. “I myself have had a belly full of it! In that we are agreed!”
They found a bridge through their shared misery and Jhan found herself liking the haughty princess once again. It was hard to remind herself that this Alamien woman had a secret agenda that might not be in her, Jhan’s, best interest. Misery loves company and Jhan had been alone with hers for too long.
Jhan waited anxiously by the door of the yurt. Women came in and out in groups, never alone, and they were always quiet and shy as they sidled past Jhan. Jhan tried to see past them each time the door flap of the yurt was opened, but all she was able to see were the broad backs of the two men who guarded it. By the time night fell, and the lamps were being lit, Jhan was frantic.
“What’s happening out there?” Jhan demanded explosively, pacing the narrow confines of the yurt. “Ask one of these women!” Jhan demanded of Avrilla. “They’ve been outside often enough to know.”
“They won't talk to me about that,” Avrilla replied, trying to keep her voice soothing. “Come. They’ve made diner for us and it looks good. They say that they must go out to attend to their men’s meals and to warm their beds. This is all we’ll be able to get until they return in the morning.”
Jhan shook her head dismissively. “I’m not hungry.”
“Or thirsty, it would seem,” Avrilla shot back . “You will make yourself ill. How will that help Lord Kile or anyone else?”
Jhan didn’t want to argue about it. She relented enough to sip some water, but she was forced to find an explanation that would quiet Avrilla about the food. “When I’m upset... my stomach becomes very nervous, Avrilla. I could eat, but I would just bring it back up again. Leave my share where I can get to it. When I calm down, I’ll eat.”
“You must,” Avrilla insisted sternly as she put a platter of meat and roasted vegetables aside with a cup of water. “You are too pale, as I said before, and your eyes don’t look good. This journey was wrong for you. I argued with Darkai a long while about it. You need months to recover from your wounds, not weeks. How you have even made it this far...”
“I heal quickly,” Jhan replied, brushing her concern aside. “I feel fine.”
That was a lie. Jhan felt bone tired and unaccountably frail. When the Bhuntay women silently filed out of the yurt, and she and Avrilla were left alone with an empty hearth fire, banked and glowing, she allowed herself to sit down in defeat, accepting at last that Kile wasn’t going to be coming for her tonight.
Avrilla picked up the dress that the old woman had thrown at Jhan when they had first arrived. She fingered it. It was plain and well made, with a string of red beads at neck and wrist.
“You must put this on.”
Jhan looked sourly at Avrilla’s tight expression. “Why?”
Avrilla carefully folded the leather in her lap, precise and attentive to the task. It gave her something to do so that she wouldn’t have to meet Jhan’s eyes.
“You are very beautiful. Very delicate,” Avrilla went on carefully. “The mercenaries talked about you when they didn’t know that I could hear. I didn’t like their crudeness. I think that your men’s clothing leads them to their disrespect of your title. I know that you are a man, but you were not disagreeable to wearing the gowns I gave to you. Now that we are among men who are even... cruder in their habits than the mercenaries, it would be wise to appear more modest.”
Jhan found a sting of temper, but she was as loathe to argue about that as she had been about the food. Without comment, she flung off her clothes and slipped the dress over her head. It fell to her ankles with a full skirt. It fit, remarkably, and must have been made for a child.
Sitting down again, Jhan curled up on her side and stared at the glowing coals of the hearth fire. A miserable ball of nerves, temper, and weariness, she wasn’t even tempted to eat her dinner. At that moment, she felt that her white lie to Avrilla had become true. Her stomach was queasy and she would have been afraid to put anything into it even if she had been minded to eat.
“Try and sleep,” Avrilla said and Jhan felt her curl up at her back. A man would have made Jhan jerk away in terror. Avrilla was a comforting female presence. Harmless.
“If Kile doesn’t come in the morning,” Jhan promised tightly. “Nothing is going to stop me from going to find him.”
“I would expect nothing less,” Avrilla murmured, already nearly asleep.

CHAPTER THREE
(Fever Pitch)
The dream was beginning. Jhan tossed and turned, fighting its grip, knowing that, in her present state, it could only be nightmare. She felt the sharp points of teeth, teasing her skin, running lightly along the long line of her neck, a hot tongue caressing every inch or two. There was the smell of musk.
It was coming into focus. At any moment , Jhan knew that she would either relive some horror out of memory or suffer through the torment of her own imagination. When she opened her eyes to her indigo, inner world, she breathed a sigh of relief.
“You’ve forgotten about this place,” a familiar voice said from all around her. “I thought I should remind you of it.”
“Thank you, Tsarianna,” Jhan said, heartfelt. “I don’t think I could have suffered through a nightmare right now.”
“I know. I’ve been watching you.”
Jhan’s gratitude turned to pique all in an instant. “You’ve been watching me? Why?” and then in embarrassment. “When?”
There was a deep, bodiless chuckle. ”I do have some sense of propriety. I’ve been watching you during the day, while you’ve been journeying. I grew curious to see how you were doing. I was shocked to find you throwing yourself headlong into danger and hardship, suffering wounds and sickness as well. You do realize that you are very ill? You shouldn’t have drank the water those women gave you. They pull it out of a well not far from their refuse heaps. Half of the men you were traveling with are ill.”
Jhan tensed, alarmed. “Kile?”
“He knew better. He stopped some while there was still time.”
“You can see him?” Jhan prompted. “What’s happening? What’s going on? Why didn’t he come for me?”
The indigo sky was a peaceful swirl of clouds. The mirror like lake was a frozen stillness in the silence. Jhan knew she should have been wild with impatience and worry, but she found herself waiting for Tsarianna’s reply with an eternal patience, her emotions drawn out of her and replaced by a dreamer’s calm. When Tsarianna spoke, Jhan had, incredibly, almost forgotten her questions.
“Jhalel, the leader of the Bhuntay, wishes Darkai’s help against Blue Sky and Amberglass, settlements that have been encroaching on their plains and taking slaves. Jhalel will not let your company pass until he has that help. He knows the worth of two princesses. He intends to hold you as hostages.”
“Kile and the others,” Jhan demanded. “Are they prisoners too?”
“They have all been placed in one yurt,” Tsarianna replied tersely. “Not ill treated. Jhalel will have what he wants. Your man, and the others of your company, are going to war. Find comfort in your confinement and become well again, Jhan. I would miss your presence in this world greatly if you were to pass out of it in death.”
“I don’t intend to die,” Jhan promised him, but there wasn’t a reply. Tsarianna was gone.
Jhan slowly walked about the lake and stubbornly tried to think about what Tsarianna had just told her. They were going to war for the Bhuntay. She and Avrilla were prisoners. Almost everyone was ill, including herself. Tsarianna was still traveling about in her mind, seeing things that she didn’t want him to, maybe sharing even her most private moments.
Jhan couldn’t even summon a blush. Her thoughts drifted despite herself and she found the calm, indigo world engulfing her to the point where thoughts were too much effort. She relaxed at last and let it happen. She needed the mental rest. When she awoke, she feared, things were going to be very difficult.

Jhan wasn’t disappointed. She came awake to a slap across the face and Avrilla’s cry of anger.
“Dirty slut!” That was Darkai’s voice. Jhan felt herself shaken hard. “You horrible pervert! You pulled out the stitches, didn’t you? You tore yourself open so that rutting soldier could stick himself into all my careful work! It’s all polluted with his seed now and his dirt! All of this was for nothing and now we’re caught in a border war with the Bhuntay and the very city we need to get to!”
Jhan dragged her eyes open. Her stomach was racked with cramps. The queasiness of her intestines told her terrible things were imminent. Darkai’s rage choked face over hers, and his fists knotted into the front of her dress, were a blur on the edges of that.
“Stop!” Avrilla shouted. She didn’t look ill. She had hold of Darkai’s arm. She was taller than he was and looked competent enough to help Jhan. “We can find another way. None of this is Jhan’s fault. Don’t hit her again or I’ll-”
“You’ll what?” Darkai snarled. “With Jhan corrupted you’ve become central to our plan once again.”
“No!” Avrilla shouted, rejecting his words. “I won’t submit to you and Jhan doesn’t have to now either. Go to war with the Bhuntay and forget this mad plan of yours!”
“Of your father’s!” Darkai snarled back. “If I were you, I wouldn’t return to the Silverwood and tell him about our failure. Your life would end shortly after.”
Darkai’s grip tightened on Jhan. She felt herself dragged out of the yurt. Sunlight broke across her eyes as Darkai pulled her over flattened grass to a heap of rotting garbage. Someone was chained naked there. It was Trey. There were other chains attached to the same thick stake. It must have been a common form of punishment or humiliation. Darkai snapped a manacle about Jhan’s wrist and closed it. It ratcheted tight on her small wrist and then he snapped a lock in place.
Stepping back, Darkai glared. “That’s where you belong. I held out my hand over and over again to help you become normal. You slapped that hand away and chose. Remember that. Remember that you chose.” He turned his back and strode away.
Trey looked up then and Jhan saw his troubled eyes through her blur of sickness. “You don’t look surprised at being treated so foully, Princess. I wasn’t either. I’ve been waiting for someone to remind me that I’m a slave. Alidae took me up after the caravan I was in was ambushed and slaughtered. He treated me like a man and the others grew used to me enough to do the same. Still, a slave is branded. It’s forever, princess. Never to be unmade. Jhalel knew that. He reminded me of it. What’s your story, hmm? I suppose it’s the fact that you aren’t really a woman. Am I right? You aren’t surprised because you were expecting someone to find out, sooner or later, and do this very thing.”
“That’s not it at all,” Jhan managed to say. She tried to sit up, but only managed to get onto her side. She was lying in the every day refuse of a very large camp far from any sanitation. The smell quickened her sickness. “I don’t expect it. I’m just used to it. Besides, I think I’m about to be very sick. I don’t have the strength for outrage.”
“Many of my companions are ill too,” Trey told her. “I grew up on plains water. It doesn’t effect me.” He was concerned. “If you are ill, this is the worst place for you. Does Darkai wish you to die?”
“I don’t think so,” Jhan replied and tried once more to sit up. She managed it, bracing herself with hands and feet and seeing the huge expanse of the sky whirl about her. “He doesn’t know I’m ill. I didn’t have time to tell him. I ruined his plans for him. He’s angry about that.”
Trey asked, “What plans does he have for you?”
“It’s too much to explain,” Jhan seethed. “What Darkai wants, I’m beginning to guess, but I don’t know for certain yet.”
A group of Bhuntay warriors strode by, laughed, and threw bits of refuse at Trey. He ducked and glared until they were out of sight.
“You aren’t very meek for a slave,” Jhan remarked, clutching her stomach and inwardly trying to talk it out of emptying itself. ”If you antagonize them, they’re going to find better things to do than throw old food.”
“Why should you care?” Trey shot back angrily.
“Because I’m chained next to you,” Jhan retorted. “I might get included accidentally.”
Trey grunted, understanding that. “I didn’t have a chance to be an actual slave,” he told her. “I was captured on a raid by Amberglass. They sold me to a slave master." His face went set and hard as stone. “I wanted to die rather than be a slave. I decided to starve myself to death, but my slave master was very wise. He denied me food, taking the choice away from me. He tormented me as well, not physically, but in many small, irritating ways. He wouldn’t let me sleep, would make me wait to relieve myself, would order his men to force me into demeaning positions. When he finally allowed me to eat, I felt that it was my triumph instead of my defeat. When he relented in his torments, I was only relieved and almost grateful. I fell into the habit of a slave that easily. My training began soon after that. He made me a body slave, one who eases the muscle aches, bathes, and attends to a man’s needs. He told me I was very good at it. I didn’t know about slaves forced to pleasure their masters like women then, and my master wasn’t in that business, luckily, so I didn’t know I could be worse off. I only know I hated every second of my existence."
Trey went on bitterly. “My slave master soon sold me to another man. That man branded me on the hip like a man would brand his beasts. He gave me clothes that were cut out in that area so that anyone looking at me could see it. I wanted to kill him. He must have seen it in my eyes. He put me in a wagon, tied me up, and took his time beating the spirit out of me. When his caravan was attacked by robbers, he ran out and was promptly killed along with all his men. Alidae arrived then, too late for them, but not too late for me. He drove the robbers off, released me, and cared for me. I knew that I couldn’t return to my people with slave brands, so I decided to hire myself into his mercenaries.”
“Is that payment for my story?” Jhan wondered. She saw his face. He had given enough. Jhan relented. “All right, I suppose I can keep it short, though it certainly won’t be sweet. A man wanted revenge on me. He cut off my manhood and tried to make me look like a woman to humiliate me. I lived through it, and found some happiness with Captain Kile. Darkai, thinking he was doing me a favor, or only pretending to, changed me into what I am now, half and half of nothing.” Jhan stopped and then lay down flat on her back. “I can see by your green color that you stopped listening at, ‘cut off my manhood.’ That’s okay. That’s where everyone else stops listening too. Spare me your disgust and any comments to the effect that I should have let myself die, or how could I let a man have me, or, well any of that. If you want to move far away now, I think I’m going to be very sick in more ways than one.”
Jhan found a broken pot shard and dug a hole. It did for several duties. She didn’t have much to empty out of her stomach, but that didn’t matter to her illness. She continue to retch up green bile until she nearly fainted and began to pass blood along with everything else in her intestines.
During all of this, Jhan didn’t once look around her. The midden was at the end of the encampment, but there were still people walking past. That she had witnesses to her shame and discomfort hardly registered with Jhan. She only cared, in the end, that she could crawl far enough away from the hole to escape the stench. She collapsed on her back, closing her eyes against the relentless heat and light of the sun. When flies began to land on her, it was a final indignantly.
“I wish that I could help you,” Trey said quietly.
“You-You can keep the flies out of my nose,” Jhan managed to croak out. “And if-if you have any water...,”
“That’s what caused you to be ill,” Trey reminded her.
“Can’t matter any more. So dry. I need water.”
“I drank what they gave me before you arrived,” Trey said. “They haven’t bothered with anything more. I can’t believe... They think you are a woman and they don’t know that you are ill. Despite what you really are, you are very beautiful. I’m surprised no one has come to try and claim you.”
“Claim a woman thrown into the middle of a garbage heap?” Jhan almost managed a strangled laugh. “Can anyone really be that desperate?”
“Yes,” Trey said, as if it needed a reply.
“I need to get to Kile.” Jhan tugged on her manacle. The metal was so tight that it was leaving a mark in her skin. She couldn’t slip out of it. Even if she could, she realized bleakly, she knew that she didn’t have the strength to walk.
“He is a prisoner. He can’t claim you.” Trey moved and became quiet.
Jhan turned her head and narrowed bleary eyes at him. The quality of his silence alerted her to her danger. He was staring away from them, red eyebrows lowered and mouth set tensely. Jhan began to follow his gaze, but the world went black and her stomach tried to turn inside out. She battled it and won, just.
“Ready to bear Havilar a son, outland woman?”
There were guffaws. A body shoved between Jhan’s legs and hands jerked her dress open at the neck. Her breasts were squeezed and fondled as a weight crushed down on her fragile pelvis.
“She may bear me one instead,” another voice joked.
“Or me,” another interjected in anticipation.
“Who ever it is, it will be another warrior for the Blue Feather Clan,” Havilar replied.
“There aren’t any sons in your pants, Havilar," Trey’s voice snapped out. “Or in your friend’s either. If there were, you wouldn’t be trying to mount a stinking, sick outland woman. A decent clan woman would be in your beds instead.”
“You have a bold tongue, slave boy,” Havilar snarled. “Did you use it to please your slave master? Is that why you have that mark on your backside? You aren’t a man to speak to men.”
“I was man enough to have that woman before you. Think about that while you ride her.” Trey was purposefully trying to anger the man, trying to begin a fight that might save Jhan. “Do you really want to mix your seed with a slave’s?”
“It will kill yours. She will be glad of it.” Havilar ignored Trey then and turned back to his rape.
Anger burned through Jhan along with her fervor. She was too ill to see anything of her attacker but a blob of a face with shaggy beard and hair. His breath stunk of bad teeth and his hands were cruel and calloused like tree bark. Nothing reminded Jhan of compassion and morality. Nothing spoke to her of this man’s humanity or his right to go on living. He was all that she hated; all that she had fought against every day since she had become what she was. Fury pounded behind her temples. When she heard him grunt and begin to push into her, she reacted with all the force of that fury. Quick as lightning, she wrapped arms and legs about the man’s body.
The man didn’t even have time for a start of surprise before Jhan squeezed with all of the strength she had left to her. As her senses faded and red lights shot behind her eyes, she heard bones crack and the gurgling sound of a throat filling with blood as lung were crushed.
She roused again as she was being dragged. Jhan felt the burn of grass against her skin. There weren’t any blows, but the hands that held her didn’t care what they were holding onto or how roughly they pulled. Jhan lost control of her body and emptied herself. She heard shouts of disgust. She was released as she began vomiting bile. Lying helplessly, and feeling like a day old corpse, Jhan heard shouts and arguments going on over her body.
There was a sodden thud and silence. Jhan opened her eyes and focused on a severed head lying very near her. Before it was kicked away, she saw a thatch of dark hair and a surprised face. Another one of her attackers had paid for his cruelty. The other managed to escape, leaving Jan with the victor.
The harsh light went away. Bodies moved all about Jhan. A very warm, wet rag began smoothing over her skin, cleaning the filth of the midden, and her own body filth, off of her. Naked, she was placed under a blanket. That was good, she thought, half delirious, the fever was making her skin chill. Who ever had her, was deigning to be kind. It was comforting enough to allow her to let go at last and truly rest.

In Jhan’s dreams, her skin burned. Power flowed from Dagara’s hands despite his best efforts to keep it in check. He was too agitated to control it, too full of outraged jealousy. Those burning hands smoothed over Jhan’s body starting blisters and leaving dark smoking marks where ever they paused to rest.
“You care about this Pekarin lord, don’t you?” Dagara accused. He was standing behind her and they were both facing Kile, who was sitting in a chair, blank and oblivious. “Don’t deny it!” Dagara snapped though Jhan was standing as blank and as still under his tormenting hands as Kile.
Dagara moved past her and Jhan took a shuddering breath, falling to her knees. She was naked, kneeling on thick, rich carpeting. She watched Dagara go to stand by Kile. His hand reached out and began to caress Kile’s face. The man didn’t blink as his skin began to smoke and melt.
Jhan stumbled forward on hands and knees, she begged, sobbed, performed every submissive position that she knew would please, and maybe distract, Dagara. He wasn’t moved. His hand continued his work, slow and careful, as if he were a sculptor molding clay.
Desperate. Jhan slipped her hands between Dagara’s. Her skin burned, but she had halted the destruction of Kile’s face. Dagara looked at her with cold, glowing eyes.
“You do care for him,” a statement of fact and displeasure. Dagara took hold of Jhan’s hands and they began to sear, with infinite slowness, down to the bone. He threw her onto her back and leapt on top as supple as a panther. The burning didn’t stop as he began to rape her.

“That didn’t happen.”
Puzzled words in a voice that Jhan knew and loved. It reached for her in the midst of her nightmare and brought her out of it. She blinked open eyes and saw Kile crouched above her.
“That didn’t happen,” Kile insisted again. His face was drawn with weariness, his sky blue eyes set in pain. “You told me that Dagara had raped you only once, that he didn’t like that, because it was too simple... too easy. It wasn’t any pleasure for him. The rest, I don’t know. He had me under his power. Could he have done something that horrible to me without me knowing it?”
“Yes,” Jhan answered in confusion, “But I don’t remember it either. It’s just a nightmare.” Her voice was a hoarse whisper. She couldn’t move. Her body was drained, literally, and felt as hollow and light as a globe of spun glass. Her eyes shifted, tried to see where she was as she tried to remember what was going on.
She was in a hide yurt that was very long. It was filled with the mercenaries, many of them lying down and some moaning ever so softly. Jaross, Rehn, and Tevar were moving among them, tending to the sick.
“You should have known better than to drink the water,” Kile admonished as he put a cool, wet rag on Jhan’s forehead. It felt wonderful and she sighed as he continued, “and I should have known better than to have- than to have let you go. I thought that you would be safe. The Bhuntay don’t fight women.”
“I was safe,” Jhan choked on her dry throat. Kile tilted up her head and gave her water from a cup. It was flat tasting. He had boiled it. “I was perfectly safe until I became ill. Avrilla-” Jhan struggled with dim memory. “She called Darkai to help me. He- I think he found out that I wasn’t sewn up any longer. He called me names. Said that I had ruined his plans. He threw me into the village garbage pit. Trey was there too.”
“He’s here,” Kile interrupted. “They brought him in shortly after we saved you. He said that he killed someone who was trying to rape you.” Kile glanced beyond Jhan, probably to where Trey must have been sitting. “All the blood was on you though and those men looked angry. They were dragging you somewhere for punishment. I was throwing a pot of dirty water outside of the tent, when I saw them.” He went pale and he looked down. “You were in different clothes and you were so filthy I didn’t recognize you right away. When I saw your face, I killed both of those men.”
“I thought one ran away,” Jhan puzzled.
“Almost. I chased him.” Kile wasn’t proud of it, but he wasn’t repentant either. “Was Darkai trying to kill you?”
Kile’s voice promised the same punishment for Darkai if Jhan said yes. She thought it over, realizing that she had the man’s life in her hands. “He didn’t know I was that ill,” she admitted. “I didn’t know. I think he just wanted to make me sorry by humiliating me.”
Kile wasn’t mollified. “When did those men come into the picture?”
“Since my man had thrown me into the garbage,” Jhan grated, “They must have thought I was free to claim. I-” Jhan sorted through hazy images, remembering anger. “I squeezed him to death.”
“One of your attackers?” Kile didn’t touch her, knowing she might still be sensitive after rough handling and a bad dream, but his sympathy was noticeable. “I know you, Jhan, Little Love. You’re going to go into agonies of guilt and horror. You’re too sick. Save it for another day.”
“It seems like part of the bad dream,” Jhan whispered with sunken eyes, “but it happened. Avrilla told me that it might happen. She warned me that, because of me you might be challenged, you might be in danger. I was angry. After the desert, I promised myself that no one would use me again. That man jumped on me like a beast in rut. He didn’t care that I was ill. He didn’t care that I was lying in my own filth. I-I wasn’t going to let him do that to me. I had only one defense. I was too weak for anything else.”
“Shhh!” Kile admonished, but his face was trembling as he refused tears, ashamed in front of all the other men. “You’re safe. You gave that man what he deserved.”
Jhan shook her head and it made darkness start in the corners of her eyes. “I put blood on my hands. Instead of overcoming what he was doing to me and getting rid of him, I’ve made him a part of myself for the rest of my life. Now he’ll never go away. He’ll be with the memory of the day I spent lying in a garbage heap, sick, and breathing in flies. I’ll always remember that moment when he started pushing into me, his stinking breath, and his hard hands on my body. I’ll always remember the moment I crushed him and that sickening snapping sound of his breaking bones.”
“Jhan!” Kile bellowed her name and Jhan started, blinking stupidly up at him. Kile went on, quiet, but determined. “Those three men were going to rape you in a garbage heap while you shit and puked out your life! What sort of memory would that have been?”
Jhan wept, quietly and completely, and Kile gathered her into his arms and held her as if she had been a child. He hid his tears in her hair.
“You saved yourself,” Kile said firmly. “You weren’t the victim. You weren’t helpless. You saved yourself, Little Lady, in the only way you could have.”
"Being a woman suits you,” Trey said as he came close and crouched. He was dressed in his clothes again and didn’t look any worse for wear, except that his eyes were harder. “But if you hope to stay out of the midden, you had best tell the Bhuntay that you are a man. You’ve spent the day in a tent full of bachelor men. A woman is encouraged to take many men to her bed, but only one at a time and in proper privacy after a proper claiming. They’ll consider you disgusting and eccentric to want to bed other men, but they’ll excuse it because you’re an outlander.”
Kile wiped at his eyes before looking up. “Why did you say that you were the one to kill Jhan’s attacker?”
Trey smiled tightly. “It rescued me from the midden. I’m still a slave to the Bhuntay, but I’ve come up a notch in their estimation of my worth. They need warriors to fight against Amberglass and Blue Sky, even slave warriors.”
“Don’t they care that we murdered those men?”
Trey laughed short and sharp. “They were hardly men. No one will miss them. Besides, you fought fairly. I saw you give them warning.”
“I won’t take a man in the back if I can help it,” Kile growled, “but that last man wouldn’t turn.”
“Coward,” Trey agreed in disgust. “No one will miss him or come to avenge him.”
Trey moved away to begin cooking a dinner of grilled meat for the men who weren’t sick and thin soup for the troubled stomachs of those who were. He was replaced by Rehn and Jaross, both of them hollow eyed and looking on the verge of total exhaustion. Tevar stood at the door of the yurt and stared out with hands on his weapons, expecting trouble. It was odd that the Bhuntay had allowed them all to keep them. Maybe they thought them too few to be dangerous even armed.
Jhan had calmed in the darkness of Kile’s embrace. Sniffling, she lifted her head and looked at her companions. Their eyes slid away from her’s uncomfortably.
“What did I say while I was delirious?” Jhan wondered quietly.
“Enough to make the hair stand up on my head,” Jaross replied, wiping a hand across his face as if he could wipe the weariness off of it.
“Nothing I haven’t already heard you say,” Rehn replied after that. “I also heard Kile say that the last bit didn’t happen. Is your mind that cruel to you? Does it truly have to imagine more horrors than you’ve already experienced?”
“I don’t know,” Jhan told him and felt concern for herself. “Fever can do that though, twist memory, or make you punish yourself...”
“For what?” Kile prompted angrily. “Are you blaming yourself for all of this?”
“Don’t shout,” Jhan protested as he helped her lay down, tucking her blanket about her. “I feel like I’m going to blow away just from the wind of your voice.”
“Are you blaming yourself?” Jaross persisted when Kile obediently fell silent.
“Kile wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for me,” Jhan replied as she closed her eyes and let her body sink into comfort. “I set all of this into motion the moment I decided to ride after him when he first left Pekarin. If not for me, he’d be home by now and we would have reconciled, maybe found a way to cope with our problems.”
“You’re lying to yourself,” Kile told her, struggling to keep from shouting again. “If you had stayed, we would never have come together. Your fear would have grown and, well, I wouldn’t have left you, but it would have been a torment for the both of us. You don’t know what you’re saying. You’re ill. Go to sleep so that you can get better. Maybe, by then, Tevar will have figured out how to get us out of this mess. I don’t relish dying to keep their hands off of you. I won’t let you out of my sight again to give them another try at you. Safety for you is only at my side. You kept saying that, but, now I believe it.”
“Good,” Jhan replied, relieved. “Now I can sleep.”
“Don’t dream,” Rehn commanded sternly as he took the cool rag from where it had dropped and placed it tenderly on Jhan’s forehead.
“I’ll wake you if you start,” Jaross promised, pulling the blankets up under her chin.
“Such good friends,’ Jhan murmured and began to fall away from consciousness. Before sleep and sickness claimed her entirely though, she heard a soft conversation going on over her head. She wanted to break in, but she couldn’t find the strength.
“Gods!” Kile’s voice said, anguished. “I sent her to safety, thinking we were all about to die, and she ends up almost raped in a garbage heap and half gone from bad water. How can I be such a fool? There isn’t any place of safety for her. No one will accept her, but me. No one will treat her well, but me. I have to get her out of this!”
“Don’t forget about us,” Jaross reminded him irritably.
“You go bloodless at the thought of what she is and what we do together!” Kile grated back, not in the mood to coddle Jaross’s delusions about himself.
“Is that your sum of me too, Kile?” Rehn interjected, hurt. “She’s a sister to me.”
“She isn’t anyone’s sister, Rehn!” Kile snarled in anguish. “She’s Prince Jhanian of the Kevelt. Enough of a man to make you ill and enough of a woman to have people want to rape her! Darkai tossed her in the garbage heap because of what we are! That was his opinion of us! Of her! Of our love! How can I trust even you with her after I failed to protect her from that?”
“Will you stay awake, day and night, to protect her because you can’t trust us?” Jaross demanded hotly. “You are a fool then! We are her friends as well as yours, Lord Kile. Captain Kile. Kile the Fool! You’re as tired as she is and you’re making as little sense. Go to sleep.”
Kile sighed. It held such a weight of depression and defeat that Jhan ached with it. “I’m sorry. I’m just-”
“We know,” Jaross said, cutting him off and relieving him of the burden of explanation. “Go to sleep, Captain. Rehn and I are on duty.”
They were under his command. They demanded the trust of their commander. Kile couldn’t refuse it to them no matter how he felt. His tension eased. The release of that tension allowed Jhan to relax into the grip of her fever, giving up the fight for the time being. It was wonderful, that surrender. It took away all thought and memory, even the memory of lying in a garbage heap covered in flies.

The soft darkness of sleep was a comforting embrace. Jhan was reluctant to struggle out of it, but when she did, she, remarkably, felt better. The gut wrenching cramps were gone, replaced by a hollowness that was beginning to want food. She was shaky and not very clean smelling, but the yurt was filled with many men who weren’t either.
“Do you have to use a pot?” Jaross asked. He was sitting by her side, cross legged, patiently oiling his naked sword with a cloth. Kile was still sleeping, snoring like a bear against Jhan’s side, one arm cradled protectively about her. Men moved about the hearth fire, getting their breakfast from Trey. Jhan wasn’t surprised that she had slept the day and the night away.
“Is there a private place?” Jhan wondered, propping herself up on her elbow. She saw Rehn asleep behind Jaross. Tevar wasn’t anywhere in sight. Dressing under the cover of her blankets, Jhan carefully put on a dress she had placed deep in her pack under the men’s leathers. It was rumpled, blue, and made of sturdy cloth.
“No, I’m afraid,” Jaross replied with a lifted eyebrow at her dress. He sheathed his sword and tossed the cloth aside without questioning her choice. Pushing his black hair out of his eyes, he came up on his knees, and leaned over to snag a metal pot with a lid.
“You could put that farther away,”‘ Jhan complained, catching the smell.
“Thought you might need it fast,” Jaross explained. “I’ve been cleaning enough of THAT up, thank you.”
“It was pretty bad for everyone, wasn’t it?” Jhan asked softly, looking about at the many men who were still, like her, recovering. She caught the eyes of several of the mercenaries staring her way. They looked angry and disgusted.
“They know,” Jaross explained without Jhan having to ask. “The Bhuntay came in wanting to take you out. They said that it was immoral to have a woman among so many men. Tevar explained the facts to them and the mercenaries heard it all. The Bhuntay weren’t completely mollified, but it seems that a cut man is slightly better than a woman making too free with her charms.” Jaross shook his head. “Don’t ask me to explain why. I can’t figure it out. Anyway, now the mercenaries are angry because you and Kile are showing affection where anyone can see. They don’t want to be strapped with a pervert, meaning Kile, in a command position when we’re likely to see battle.
“Is is likely?” Jhan asked, pushing aside all the rest as par for the course.
Jaross became very serious, his face hardening. “It’s very likely. They won’t let us leave, even as sick as we all are. They’ve been losing against Amberglass. Amberglass has been attacking deep in the plains, not giving any quarter. The Bhuntay believe that Amberglass wants to exterminate all of the plains people. They’ve been raiding each other since the beginning of time, but the people of Amberglass, for some unknown reason, have decided to end it permanently now. The Bhuntay are not soldiers. They’re good for little raids, but they don’t have the wits for full scale war. That’s why they want Darkai and us. They need real soldiers and a winning strategy.”
“This is all getting to be too much to bear,” Jhan sighed, pain lodging in her heart. She reached out and took the pot from Jaross. She levered herself up and was surprised that she could stand. Her head throbbed as blood began moving and her face felt very pale, but she was steady, ignoring Jaross’s proffered helping hand.
“I’ll pretend to fold blankets,” Jaross suggested. He straightened and prepared to make a show out of it to hide Jhan. Jhan forestalled him.
“There’s a curve in the wall over there. That will work,” Jhan pointed to the darkened place. “I don’t want to do my business right where everyone is sleeping.”
“I’ll come with you.” Jaross said.
Jhan scowled, embarrassed. “I can do it on my own. It’s just over there.”
“Kile will murder me if I move two feet from your side,” Jaross told her agitatedly. “You know that isn’t an exaggeration. It’s a fact.”
“If I can’t walk just over there,” Jhan replied plaintively, “Then life isn’t worth living, is it?”
Jaross held his breath, staring at her stubbornly, but Jhan was even more stubborn. He relented. “All right. Be quick. If he wakes up-”
Jhan stared down at Kile and found a smile. “Look at him. He’s exhausted. He won’t be waking up for hours yet.”
“I won’t take the chance. Be quick,” Jaross repeated.
Jhan obediently made her way to the darkness. Eyes followed her. Jhan could imagine Jaross standing and putting a hand to his sword. She wasn’t afraid of anyone challenging that. She confidently put down the pot and uncovered it.
Not having eaten anything, Jhan could stand and relieve herself. She was quick, wanting to get back to the safety of Kile and her friends despite her brave words. When she covered the pot and turned, she saw the door of the yurt and decided to get rid of the mess. With so many men, there had to be a waste heap close by.
Jaross was at Jhan’s elbow at once. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Taking care of this,” Jhan replied shortly.
“If you had seen how many men watched you pass water, and their expressions, you wouldn’t be,” Jaross told her.
Jhan looked carefully around. Raveni was standing and walking towards them, charms glittering on his neck scarf and dark clothes and hair making him look sinister. Some of the other men were glaring, watching Raveni approach her like dogs ready to support their leader if he should decide to attack.
Raveni stopped in front of Jhan. He was so like Sael and yet so very different. Sael had been effeminate compared to this man. Raveni was as hard as flint and his carriage and dark glare were as loud as words. He was setting out to prove something and Jhan knew what that was.
Raveni’s nose was pinched and his mouth was a straight thin line. He looked Jhan up and down and came to stand a foot apart from her. Jaross challenged him at once.
“Stand aside,” Jaross growled.
Raveni didn’t even condescend to look at him. Without warning, his hand suddenly grabbed and felt between Jhan’s legs. It was only a second of searing humiliation for Jhan before he lowered his hand and Raveni went white with shock. Before either Jhan or Jaross could react, the man fell to his knees and bowed his forehead to the floor.
Jhan was stunned. The other mercenaries were confused. Jaross took Jhan by the elbow and pushed her behind him. “What is it?” he demanded of Raveni.
Raveni stammered and then looked up cautiously, as if he thought Jhan might curse him. “Forgive me, Princess Jhan,” he said with exacting formality. “I was confused by what my companions were saying of you. I didn’t realize that you were Ikhil. You are honored among my people as the earthly presence of Sekhal.”
Jhan’s memory twitched. “Sekhal, who is both male and female,” she recalled. “I remember Sael telling me that. I wasn’t born like this.”
Jaross bit his lip and didn’t need to say that he thought that revelation unwise. He was proven right at once. Raveni surged to his feet, disbelief replacing reverence as his hand tugged out his knife.
Jhan had trained long and hard with General Vek to supplant her killing reflexes with non- lethal responses. She hadn’t realized how much that training had become a part of her until she dropped the chamber pot, grabbed Raveni's wrist, jerked him down to her level, and shoved the heel of her hand into his chin. He started back at the force and there was an audible pop, but she didn’t kill him. He fell to the floor in a heap, dazed and almost unconscious.
Jhan’s eyes were wide. She was amazed at herself. She looked swiftly about them as she picked up the chamber pot, expecting the mercenaries to rise up in defense of their comrade and thinking that it might make a good weapon. They didn’t attack though. They could see that Raveni was alive. The spectacle of the arrogant warrior put down by a small, fragile, creature such as Jhan touched a base humor within them instead. The laughter started slow and low, and then rose in volume. Yunij slapped a knee and guffawed outright. Trey nodded in appreciation and respect.
Jaross grabbed Jhan’s elbow and propelled her back to their beds. He stood nervously while she sat down, considering whether to wake their comrades. Some of the men had taken Raveni in hand and were helping him walk back among them. The man was rubbing his chin, still dazed.
Jhan remembered the chamber pot. She reached far and put it down before curling up beside Kile nervously. Her hand felt as if she had broken it. Raveni’s jaw had been like granite and her surprise at the last moment, at her own actions, had caused her hand to land the blow awkwardly.
“Don’t tell Kile about this,” Jaross begged as he crouched and glared at Jhan. “He’ll kill me!”
Jhan stared at her hand as if it belonged someone else. Her smile was brilliant. Jaross gaped. “Don’t you see?” Jhan said to him. “I defended myself twice now. I didn’t wait for you to save me. That man was going to knife me. I stopped him. I didn’t cower. I didn’t allow it. I stopped him. The other man, the one who tried to rape me,” her smile dropped and her face darkened, but she couldn’t stifle her excitement. “I stopped him too.”
Jaross took a last look at the mercenaries before sitting down. They didn’t look ready to avenge their comrade, but there wasn’t any telling what Raveni might do in revenge once he regained his senses.
“Maybe,” Jaross surmised, ”you have to be so sick that you aren’t afraid? That fear might return when you have the strength for it.”
That was more cynical than Jhan cared for and her excitement was extinguished like a blown out match. Jaross saw it and was immediately sorry. “That was stupid,” he swore at himself. “I’m the one afraid, Jhan. I’m afraid of those men over there beating the both of us to a pulp and Kile grinding up what’s left.”
Kile moved in his sleep, his hand searching for Jhan’s warmth. He found her waist and then curled his arm about it, pulling her close protectively without even waking. Jaross had tensed, wincing.
“You’re gentle,” Jaross went on. “You don’t want to hurt a fly. You’ve allowed every kind of torment because you don’t want to hurt anyone. Do you really want that to change?”
Jhan’s face twisted in anguish. Her stomach knotted with a new round of queasiness set off by her torrent of emotions. “I don’t want to spend my life hiding in other people’s shadows,” she murmured, but then sighed. “but, I don’t want to harm anyone either. I am gentle. I do care that I killed that man. I do care that I could have used just a little more pressure and killed Raveni too. I keep hoping for acceptance and understanding, Jaross, but I never get it. Can I afford to be gentle in the face of that? I promised myself that no one would make me a victim again. Aside from Darkai, I’ve almost managed to keep it. I want to keep it, but I’ve had to use violence to accomplish it. It makes me feel terrible. I hate it. Do you know what I’ve suffered not to be what I hate?”
“Some of it. You do talk in your sleep,” Jaross replied in a small voice.
Jhan leaned close. “I’ll tell you a secret Jaross. I don’t have very long to live. I can’t suffer any more stress to my body or I’ll go out like a candle. That journey to the desert tore away whatever hope I might have had to see my old age. What I have left; maybe it’s worth fighting for. Don’t you think I deserve, after all I went through, to have a few years of love and peace with Kile? Isn’t that worth hurting someone over, especially those who think that I DON'T deserve to live? Maybe I can forget about being gentle when I’m faced with people like that?”
“I’m ready to agree,’ Jaross admitted, but his expression was sad, “but I know you. You’re trying to justify it to yourself, but, if you do it, you’ll never forgive yourself even to live a little longer. You were agonizing over a rapist, a man I would have grilled over a slow fire for your sake and not given a second thought afterwards. You are different in every way from anyone I’ve ever known, Jhan. You’re hard headed, hot tempered, unreasonable, insane, gentle, kind, and loving even to that great, stupid man lying asleep beside you. I’ve always wished that you would stand up for yourself, use that great skill that you have, but to hear you say it; It is unlovely on your lips and I find that I don’t really want to see you change into someone like that.”
“I am a weapon that I can’t use,” Jhan agreed. “Maybe you’re right. Why should I change at the very end after all the fighting against it I’ve done? Why should I stop being the weak, frightened, and abused creature I’ve always been? Maybe I’ll find someone kind enough not to take advantage of it before I die.”
“Now you’re just wallowing in self pity,” Jaross growled at her. “Should I weep, or remind you of the friends you have, one of them me?”
Jhan stared and then smiled slowly. “I suppose that was as good as a slap. I’m being hysterical, aren’t I?”
“Can’t blame you,” Jaross replied, shrugging it off. “Try and rest from self indulgence. There’s still some soup from last night. I’ll go and get you some.”
“I’m hungry enough for something else,” Jhan complained.
“But that’s what you’ll get!” Jaross snapped like an angry nurse. “I’m tired of cleaning up messes and you’re stomach needs to work past the cramps.”
“All right!” Jhan relented and lay on her side wearily. “Jaross?” Jaross arched an eyebrow at her. “I like the man much better than the selfish boy you used to be.”
Jaross considered her words and then decided to take them as a compliment. He nodded briskly and went to get Jhan’s soup.
Jhan rested and, after tentatively eating the soup, she felt less like a corpse warmed over by the time Kile woke, stretching and yawning. When he saw her sitting up, he became alert at once and concerned.
“How do you feel, Little Love?” Kile asked anxiously.
“Alive,” Jhan replied. “The cramps are settling down and I was able to eat.”
“Aside from that?” Kile pressed.
Jhan shrugged and twisted her hands in her lap. “How do you think I feel? Same as always, I guess. It’s just something to live with.”
Kile closed his eyes for a moment and his jaw clenched. When his blue eyes looked at her again, she saw the guilt there though he smiled tightly. “Your stubbornness should be legendary.”
“And her temper,’ Rehn said around a yawn as he sat up as well, blinking sleepily. He looked about. “I see nothing’s changed. We’re still prisoners?”
“Conscripted soldiers,” Jaross corrected sourly as he settled on the blankets by them. “We’re supposed to go along with it or Princess Avrilla doesn’t live to see her father again.”
Kile shook his head, running his hands through his hair dejectedly. “We might have to fight, Jhan, but at least you aren’t a hostage any longer.”
“No, just a man like we are,” Rehn realized. “We told them that. They may force Jhan to fight with us.”
Kile scoffed. “How could they even consider it? Do you think they would want a man in a dress fighting alongside of them? I think they will be glad to leave Jhan alone here in safety.” Kile stopped abruptly and frowned, his lips going thin as he looked at Jhan. She stared back, knowing what he was thinking. He said it finally and the bitterness in is voice was deep. “You won’t be safe here. You aren’t safe any where.”
“You’re learning, my love,” Jhan replied shakily. “I have to go with you, even if you go into battle. Leave me behind and they’ll tear me apart.”
Kile took hold of her, rubbing his big hands along her arms. “What will you do in battle, Jhan? Will you fight? Will you kill? You’ll have to.”
“Maybe,” Jhan whispered, growing cold at the thought. “We won’t know until it happens. I have the skill, Kile, but you know that, unless I’m out of my head in one way or another, I can’t kill someone.” She looked at Jaross and his expression was distressed, knowing that he was responsible for firming her resolve. “I don’t want to be that kind of person. If I become that, they’ve won, haven’t they? They will have destroyed what I am.”
Kile clasped her hands in his. “I’m that kind of person, Jhan. I have killed and I will kill. I’ve chosen the life of a soldier. That’s part of it. Do you-”
“Hate that part of you?” Jhan finished when he couldn’t go on. “I suppose I should and I suppose it’s pretty sexist of me to say that it’s something men do, but I guess I feel that way about it. For me, there’s nothing more terrible than to hurt someone or to end their life, no matter what they do to me, but for you, it doesn’t seem the same. I’ve seen you kill. I-I have dreams about it sometime, but you’ve always done it for the right reasons.” Jhan’s face twisted in pain. “Right reasons,” she repeated. “I want to think that there are never any right reasons to kill someone, but reality doesn’t allow that delusion. I killed that man when I was in the garbage heap, because I was that angry at being used, once again, and for the simpler reason that I was too sick to be too afraid to. Maybe that’s all it is in the end, morality aside. I’m too frightened to kill. You aren’t.”
“I’m going to kill when we go into battle,” Kile said, pushing all of her words aside and cutting to the heart of it. “Jaross and Tevar are going to kill.” his gaze flicked to Rehn’s face. “Rehn may have to kill as well. We’re being forced into this battle by duty to Princess Avrilla. As Pekarin soldiers on a mission, we’re going to have to fight, and kill, to save her, you, and ourselves. I need to know, Jhan, that you aren’t going to hate me for it.”
“I married a soldier,” Jhan replied evasively. “I knew what that meant.”
“Did you?” Kile wondered skeptically.
Jhan sighed and told the truth. “No, you’re right, I didn’t think about that at all. I just wanted you. It was hard when you were being the soldier on our way to the Silverwood with Avrilla. It was hard to be second in your thoughts and to know that your duty was first and foremost. You seemed cold and cruel. Remote. I didn’t know you.”
“It will be that way again,” Kile told her sternly. “I have to be Captain Kile again and I can’t be distracted even by the person I love most in the world. It will be hard enough taking you along when everyone thinks you’re my bed-boy. Once we leave this place, I can’t even touch your fingers. They have to trust me, trust my commands. I can’t be seen as a love struck fool with his mind stuck below the belt.”
“I’ll be with you, Jhan,” Rehn reassured her, smiling from under his thatch of hair. “I’m not a soldier. No one will expect me to be on the front line. Kile and Jaross can go about their duty and we’ll stick close together.”
“I’m sorry, Rehn,” Jhan said, “I’m still scared to death.”
“You’d be a fool not to be,” Jaross chuckled to break the tension, “but no one is going to expect you to do doing anything, but warm Kile’s blankets.”
Jhan blushed uncomfortably. “I wish you wouldn’t say things like that. It makes me feel dirty!”
Kile was uncomfortable as well, but he didn’t say what he was thinking, though Jhan knew it well enough. He was the one sleeping with a man, surrounded by soldiers who, instead of respecting him, were thinking of him as the worst sort of pervert; a man who was shameless enough about it to flaunt Jhan in front of them all. Jhan knew how that loss of respect hurt him. His honor and pride were everything to him.
“Maybe we should follow Tevar’s example,” Jhan suggested. Kile looked up at her with a frown. She had managed to hurt him even more, comparing him to Tevar. “You’re on duty," Jhan continued. She slipped her hands out of his and straightened. “We can distance ourselves until this is all over. You know I can do without.” Sex, she meant, but she wondered if she could do without his closeness too.
“I was going to suggest it,” Rehn interjected, “but I didn’t want a punch in the mouth, Kile. I know how touchy you are about being open about your relationship with Jhan, but I see the way they look at you when you roll up in the same blankets or even just touch each other. It’s one and the same. We have enough troubles without conflicts with them too.”
“That’s exactly right,” Jaross agreed, running a weary hand through his black hair. His brown eyes were level, determined to be honest with Kile. “We have to stop putting space between us and them as well. If we’re going to fight together, we need to BE together.”
Kile nodded, already reverting to Captain. “It shouldn’t have been necessary for you to tell me these things. I know them. Tevar knows them.”
“Where do you think he is, Tevar I mean?” Jaross wondered uneasily. “Do you think they’re holding him hostage along with Alidae?”
“More likely planning a strategy that will give the Bhuntay at least one quick victory,” Kile replied thoughtfully. “If Darkai is still planning on going to Amberglass, it wouldn’t be wise to decimate them in a war.”
“Why do they respect Darkai’s ability so much?” Jhan wondered. “I thought he was just a good healer, but everyone seems to be in awe of him.”
“I’m not,” Kile ground out. “I could happily strangle him.”
“Still,” Jhan persisted.
“I don’t know,” Kile replied. “I haven’t heard much more than you have. I think Avrilla is the one to ask, or maybe Alidae.”
Jhan lay down, suddenly very tired. She curled up on her side using her arm for a pillow.
“What is it?” Kile asked in concern. “Feeling ill again?”
“No,” Jhan replied. “That’s going away. It’s only that I wish we were back home and that none of this was happening. I want to curl up by the fire and practice my Pekarin letters. I want to see Bheni’s baby. I want to relax, without fear, and love you. I want boredom. Sameness. Normalcy. Anything but this. I can’t even be with you now. We have to have our required two paces between us so that those louts over there think you’re up to leading them.”
“Jhan,” Kile said helplessly.
“I know,” Jhan sighed. “There isn’t anything to be done about it. We have to struggle through and find a way out of this. I just hope that I have something left of me when we do.”
“Rest,” Kile told her anxiously. He reached out to touch her shoulder, remembered, and didn’t. It was pure pain for both of them, that withdrawal. “Rest,” Kile repeated. “You’ll need to be as recovered as possible before we ride out.”
“Then let me have some solid food when I wake up again,” Jhan grumbled. “My body recovers faster than normal,” she reminded him. “You don’t have to coddle it. Besides, my poor intestines won’t know how to work right again unless I introduce some roughage.”
“That’s foolish,” Jaross grumbled. “I’ll let you clean up after you figure that out for yourself.”
“I’ll make you something light, but not quite slops,” Rehn suggested quickly to diffuse the situation. Jhan had begun to rise up on her elbow to argue. Rehn’s suggestion allowed her to nod and lay down again; a compromise reached.

CHAPTER FOUR
(Battle Lines)
They chose to close the gap between themselves and the mercenaries at nightfall. Kile gave the order softly so as not to draw attention. As one, they gathered their things and moved over to the hearth where Trey was cooking dinner with a preoccupied frown. He glanced at them briefly and then continued with his work.
Yunij and his twin brother were stretched out on their blankets with a small space between them. Rufar grinned at Jhan and patted the space.
“You can rest easy between us, boy, and show us your charms,” Rufar said.
He was trying to make Kile angry. Jhan could see that his eyes lacked lust. They were full of calculation instead. Soldiers and mercenaries disliked each other mutually. Soldiers thought that mercenaries lacked honor and discipline. Mercenaries thought that soldiers were above themselves; elitist snobs. Rufar knew what Kile was trying to do and he had set out to thwart it.
“I’m not a boy,” Jhan answered levelly as she sat a distance away from Kile on her blanket. She felt cold and vulnerable without Kile’s protective bulk, but Rehn was there to settle beside her reassuringly. “And my ‘charms’ aren’t going to be shown to anyone.”
“Aren’t you fiery!” Rufar growled appreciatively. “You’re beautiful enough for a man to make you show them. I’m sure golden hair there has made you show them to him many a time. I’m as good as any captain.” He looked at Kile then, the true object of his attack, “or don’t you share, Captain? Convenient, having a boy and a girl in one package. Must make border patrols very cozy. Do you share with your men? How do you decide who’s first? Toss a coin? Or won’t you share even with them? A face that beautiful...”
Kile was getting redder and redder, his fists like rocks in his lap. Jhan knew that he was searching for the self control to find something to say, anything that would help him save face and salvage his command. She watched him struggle and then made up her mind all at once.
Her hands were ice and her heart was pounding hard, but she slowly stood up and walked over to Rufar and Yunij. Without a word, she sat down between them as if she were totally at ease. Jaross looked ready to throw himself on her and drag her back. Kile was stunned. Rehn had his mouth hanging open.
Jhan lifted her eyes to Rufar. “Well?”
Rufar narrowed his eyes and his jaw ground together. Yunij was looking Jhan over. He was the one to speak. “You’re... You’ve had. .. DO you really have...”
“I’ve had them cut off and I’ve been cut open,” Jhan replied in a strong, assured voice. She didn’t take her eyes from Rufar. “I thought you wanted to see?” she challenged. “Since I don’t want to be forced, here I am. What’s the matter? You look a little green. Don’t you want some of what Captain Kile is getting?”
“No,” Rufar replied in a sharp tone. “Get your perverted ass off of my blankets!”
“It’s not my ass you wanted?” Jhan persisted, courting danger and even managing a smile. "I have other charms.”
“Get off!” Rufar repeated. “He can have all of you he wants! Perverts, the both of you! I won’t take orders from a man who pokes himself into the likes of you!”
Jhan curled her lip. “But he’s not. You just assumed he was.”
“You sleep together. He calls you ‘love’,” Yunij spat.
“So, he loves me,” Jhan shrugged, “and I like the protection he offers me, but he isn’t getting an of my charms in return, so you can stop being disgusted."
“There’s still you,” Rufar grated out.
Jhan stood up, brushing down her dress. “Then be disgusted with me. I don’t care and it doesn’t matter. Kile matters. You’re going to battle. He’s going to lead you along with Alidae and Captain Tevar, if we ever see them again. I don’t think you can afford to alienate him because he chooses to love my beautiful face. He’s a very good soldier. He’s an excellent captain. If you want to get out of this mess alive, he’s the man you want on your side.”
“I don’t want YOU by my side,” Rufar spat out.
“Then you’re a fool,” Jhan snapped back. Suddenly she grabbed him by the neck, fingers closing precisely on his spine and digging in. “Too fast for you to follow, wasn’t it?” she asked him with narrowed eyes. “I have joints and muscles that act sort of like a vice and a pulley. I could squeeze and snap your neck right now if I chose.” she released him. “That’s the least of what my little, perverted body is capable of.”
Rufar rubbed the back of his neck, scowling up at Jhan. “I’ll take honest, plain men any day,” he replied. “You and your lot... you’re too strange.”
“We have to work together,” Kile broke in, standing up and facing the mercenaries. He gently took hold of Jhan and, not showing his nervousness, he slowly moved her away from Yunij and Rufar and back to the safety of Jaross and Rehn. She could feel his hand shake. He had been terrified for her.
“We do have honor, despite what you think!” A man in the shadows growled. “We were paid to follow your orders. We’ll do that, no matter what we think about you.”
“Without hesitation?” Kile retorted. “Without question?”
“Prove yourself worthy,” Trey said suddenly, “ and we will.”
“There isn’t time for that,” Kile replied dismissively. “The thick of battle isn’t a place to prove I can lead.”
“Not in the thick of battle,” Yunij said as he stood up. “Here. Now.”
“How?” Kile replied simply.
“A leader’s worth is measured by his men’s loyalty,” Yunij flexed his muscles. He was easily as large as Kile, but broader. “One of your men must vouch for you. One of them must reclaim your honor from me.”
Jaross was tall and narrow. A swordsmen. Rehn was a fresh faced boy, a farmer’s son, but long unused to physical labor. Neither of them were a match for Yunij, even though the man was far older than they were. They realized it, looking at each other and knowing what Yunij expected.
“Your Captain Kile is a coward,” Yunij said steadily as he took off a large ring and stripped a silver hoop out of one ear. He tossed these to his brother, who caught them with an expectant grin. “A man who pokes men, who have been cut into women, isn’t fit to lead. A man like that,” he glanced briefly at Trey, “is worse than a slave. Trey I’ll fight beside in battle, you’re captain isn’t fit to shovel the manure from under my imala.”
“You will take that back,” Jaross replied, firmed his shoulders, and stepped forward. “Captain Kile is an honorable man and a fine commander. I-I am proud to serve under his command.”
“Under his command or under him, pretty boy?” Yunij taunted. “You look enough like his whore to be kin. Are you cut too?”
Kile flinched, but said nothing. Jaross’s face went tight with fury. “I think you will find out quickly how much of a man I am.”
“You can’t win,” Yunij retorted confidently. “Why bother?”
“He is my Captain,” Jaross replied curtly as he sank into a fighting crouch.
Yunij didn’t bother with fighting style. He balled up a hand into a huge fist, eyed Jaross, and then swung. Jaross dodged, but Yunij had expected that. The fist didn’t strike for where he had been, but for where he dodged. It connected solidly. Jaross stumbled, dazed. Yunij swung again. At the last minute, Jaross grabbed the man’s wrist, pulled him off balance and landed a boot into his gut. The air whooshed out of Yunij’s lungs. His eyes opened wide in astonishment as he sank to his knees, gasping.
Jaross started to back away, thinking the fight was over and unwilling to hurt Yunij when the man was down. It was a mistake. Yunij catapulted off of his knees and threw himself at Jaross with murder in his eyes. What he met, wasn’t Jaross’s smaller weight, but the solid, flesh wall of Kile. They went down in a thrashing bellowing heap.
It was the cue for everyone to fling themselves into the fight. Jaross and Rehn rushed to help Kile. What started as a fight between mercenary and soldier, quickly escalated into a wider conflict, as combatants tangled, infuriated each other, and broke into fights between themselves. Soon, the yurt was filled with battling men.
A hand took hold of Jhan’s elbow and pulled her to safety. She struggled, wanting to help Kile, but she was a gnat among battling giants, and in danger of getting trampled before she could gather the courage to land a blow in her love’s defense.
When she had been put into a far corner, Jhan was finally able to see who had her. She stiffened. It was Raveni. He looked dour, but his free hand was empty and his knife was still in its sheathe.
“Tell me that you are a woman,” Raveni demanded briskly.
Jhan swallowed fearfully. “I am,” Jhan replied.
Raveni was startled by her quick reply. His nostrils flared in disgust. “I thought to shame you, but you are beyond shame.”
“Do you want revenge?” Jhan demanded. “You were going to knife me. I only defended myself.”
Raveni moved them further away from the conflict as several combatants rolled close by. He glared at Jhan then. “Do you think that I, a warrior, would dirty my blade on such as you? Your companion put a hand on his sword. I was going to defend myself. I didn’t realize that you were honorless enough to strike me without a challenge.”
“What are you going to do?” Jhan wondered, tensing to pull away if she could and run.
Raveni had her firmly and his eyes were watching her carefully. He wasn’t going to be taken unaware again. “You will beg my pardon. You are not a warrior. You raised your hand against me when I could not reply in kind and keep my honor.”
Jhan glared back. “How shall I beg your pardon? What humiliation will appease you? Should I bend down and kiss your boots?”
“You are a cut man lying with another man, despite what you told the others,” Raveni replied. “What greater humiliation is there for a man than to be reduced to that? No, I only wished you to declare that you are a woman, so that I could, in honor, not kill you for the insult that you have done me. It suits me that you continue to suffer as you are, alive. That is revenge enough, but still I must save face before my sword brothers. You must beg my pardon where they can all hear you.”
“Or what?” Jhan countered.
“Are you even more shameless than I thought?” Raveni barked over the noise of the fighting. “Can’t you understand that it is the honorable thing to do?”
Jhan half turned to watch the fighting. Kile was still rolling in a heap with Yunij. An idea came to her. She was a woman, not a man to be stubborn about her pride. If putting it aside could help the situation, she wasn’t about to hesitate.
Jhan nodded. “All right. Give me my arm back.”
Raveni released her cautiously. Jhan strode away from him to a stack of baggage and saddles. She climbed to the top of it and stood above the fray, a small, impotent figure that no one paid the slightest attention to.
Jhan took a deep breath and then shouted as loudly as she could. “Attention!”
It dropped into the mayhem like a rock in a flood, but even the mercenaries were soldiers enough to respond to the command. Everyone froze and looked up at Jhan. She only had a second to keep their attention before it fully dawned on them that they could ignore her and go back to the battle.
“I humbly beg the pardon of Raveni,” Jhan shouted. “Being only a man, who’s had his manhood cut off, and being shameless enough to dress and act like a woman, I should have known it was completely wrong to knock Raveni on his ass. I should have bowed to him and not used my superior ability to best him, when he was bound by his people’s customs not to fight back. I will refrain, in the future, from defending myself when he attempts to use his inferior skills again.”
There was laughter. Raveni was livid, straight and flushed, his hand on his sword hilt. Everyone waited to see what he would do, their own quarrel forgotten. Kile stood, swaying, and then straightened as he helped Yunij to his feet. Yunij was grinning as he clapped Kile on the back.
“Good fighter,” Yunij said as he nursed a bruised jaw. “I hope you are as good a commander.”
Kile was tensed to jump to Jhan’s defense, hardly hearing him. Jhan stared down at Raveni as the man came to stand at the bottom of the baggage pile. His hand was white on his sword hilt.
“I apologized," Jhan told him, trying not to tremble. “I begged your pardon, just as you asked.”
“Not as I asked,” Raveni grated. “You are mocking me.”
Jhan slid down the pile and went down on her knees. “Is this better?” She stared up at him with her wide blue eyes. “Shall I kiss your-”
“Don’t finish or I will forget honor!” Raveni snarled.
Jhan blinked. “I was going to say boots, but your mind is on other things, it seems.”
The laughter was loud now. Everyone was enjoying Raveni’s humiliation. Raveni wanted to make it Jhan's.
“Tell them,” he demanded. “Tell them that you are a woman.”
“I am a woman,” Jhan complied with an easy smile. She stood and took a tentative step back. “Does that satisfy you?” the laughter had stopped. She eyed them coldly. “Well, you can all agree I’m not a man any longer.”
There was revulsion and an uneasy shifting of feet. Raveni was easing. He was getting what he wanted. They weren’t going to be making jokes of him, they were going to be talking about Jhan, the perversion now.
“I will not dirty my blade on someone like you,” Raveni said loudly for everyone to hear. “I am a warrior. I fight men. I refuse to fight someone who was emasculated and still thinks life is worth living in other men’s beds.”
Jhan shrugged. “Good, I don’t feel like fighting you either. My life is worth something to me, despite what you think. I want to go on living it.” she didn’t say what she could have, that she wouldn’t be the one to die if they were to end up in a fight to the death. With a blade, Raveni might be a professional, but hand to hand Jhan knew his skill was lacking. It should have made her more confident, less afraid, but Raveni and the others were too masculine, too large and full of testosterone for Jhan to summon that sort of confidence.
“Beg my pardon again,” Raveni snarled, “and do it honorably.”
Jhan went very quiet. Everyone hung on the moment. She sighed and relinquished her pride in favor of peace. “I beg your pardon, Raveni, for any insult or dishonor I have unknowingly dealt you.”
Raveni nodded curtly, gave everyone a long look of satisfaction, and then spun on his heel and walked away.
Darkai, Alidae, and Tevar walked into the yurt at that moment. Alidae sized up the situation at once and began shouting.
“Worthless!” Alidae exploded as he shoved men out of his way to confront Yunij and Rufar. “You were in command while I was gone! What happened here? How dare you fight when we are in a situation such as this. We have enough enemies. I don’t need you making new ones!”
“Sorry, sir,” Rufar grumbled, contrite. “Everyone has been so ill, tempers are short. They were in the thick of it before I could raise my voice to stop them.”
No one contested his version of events. Alidae wasn’t fooled, but he was an intelligent man. He saw Kile standing by Yunij in a companionable manner, and another of his men helping a dazed Rehn to his feet and clapping him on the back. Jaross was dabbing at Rehn’s busted lip with water and a rag. Another mercenary handed him an ointment, all enmity forgotten. Alidae knew that his men had tested the Pekarins and found them acceptable.
Tevar didn’t shout. He joined Kile, frowning furiously, but he knew Kile. Kile was a professional. Tevar didn’t need to be told that Kile hadn’t begun the fight. Still, he had to have Kile share some of the blame or there would be new enmity.
“You will consider yourself on report, Captain Kile,” Tevar said sternly. “I will not tolerate such insubordination in my absence.”
Kile nodded stiffly. ” Sir.”
Jhan found herself confronted by Darkai. As he drew her aside, she was surprised to see that the man had lowered eyes and a guilty expression. When he gave her a deep bow, her surprise turned to shock.
“My actions earlier were reprehensible,” Darkai said softly. “Being angry, and taken unawares by your... condition, I reacted in a cruel and unethical manner. I imperiled your health, knowing that you were already ill. There isn’t any excuse for my actions. When my temper cooled and I was able to think rationally again, I immediately returned to the- to the garbage where I had left you. You were already gone. Trey informed me- he told me what had happened and that almost all the men were deathly sick from the water. I could have killed you by leaving you there without attention. I am a healer first and foremost. My feelings toward what you are- what you do, should never interfere with my duty to care for you. I can’t forgive myself. I won’t ask that you do so either.”
“I wouldn’t, even if you asked,” Jhan informed him angrily. She flushed at the memory of stinking breath and harsh hands. Shuddering, she wrapped her arms about herself. “If you want to make amends, you can begin by telling me the truth. What plan of yours did I ruin? What did you really do to me?”
Darkai’s expression went flat. “This isn’t the place to speak of such things.”
Jhan went sour. “Meaning that you won’t tell me. I don’t like your sense of ethics, Darkai. You’re ashamed of throwing me in a garbage pit, but you’re not sorry that you did things to my body without my permission.”
“One imperiled your life,” Darkai shot back. “The other doesn’t. You don’t want to be a man. What I’ve done parallels that wish.”
“Does it?” Jhan narrowed her eyes. “That’s an odd choice of words. Parallels? I only have to look down to know that you weren’t trying to make me a woman.”
Darkai controlled his temper, just. “I am trying to save a people. Surely you can appreciate that some sacrifices are necessary.”
“Am I the one to make a sacrifice?” Jhan felt like weeping now, understanding now that Darkai had used her, in a way unknown to her, as brutally as the man who had tried to rape her. “You didn’t ask! I’m not going to let you use me against my will! What ever plan you had, it’s finished! Kile will escort you to where ever you’re going, but I won’t go. Now that I know that your plans don’t include him-”
“But they do,” Darkai informed her with vicious calm. “Your usefulness to me is at an end, but I can still salvage this mess. I still have Avrilla and Alidae. I still have Kile Helarion Dor.”
Jhan narrowed her eyes, fighting back tears. “Aside from guarding you, what possible use can he be?”
Darkai arched an eyebrow and he couldn’t help a superior smile. “I didn’t set out with one plan. I’m not a fool. I intend to succeed. There will be another Telestar with the power that entails The Alamien need it to survive. Kile’s predilection for excessive whoring, revealed to my by an exasperated Captain Tevar, is of particular interest to me. An aggressive sexual encounter, even by a Human male, might be just what Avrilla needs to tip her into Readiness. Since he is her intended, and has already shown himself a willing partner to perversion, it is logical to utilize him in this role.”
Jhan was startled. “That’s insane! He’ll never go along with it!”
Darkai frowned. “Perhaps I was misleading when I said that your usefulness was ended. Medically yes, but as a lever to convince Kile to acquiesce to my plans, you are invaluable. Once I inform him that you are going to die soon, and that only my instruments can change that, he will be willing to do anything I ask, I’m sure.”
Jhan shook her head. “He knows I won’t live long. You’re lying if you say that you can change it.”
“You are unaware of my past, so I will forgive your ignorance,” Darkai replied tartly. “What was done to you was fumbling incompetence compared to what I, with my machines, can do." His eyes swept her up and down. “Look at you. Your body is worn to the bare threads. Sickness, and a rough journey, only cut chunks of time from what little you have. You don’t have much time left to be stubborn.”
Jhan looked past the milling men to Kile. Kile was staring straight at them, fists clenched, but to aware that he couldn’t go to her. It would ruin what he had so painfully gained in the fight. Acceptance. It reminded Jhan that they were prisoners, conscripted soldiers about to go unwillingly into battle. Whatever Darkai wanted of them, whatever his plans were, it didn’t matter. The here and now did matter. It had to be dealt with first.
As if Darkai had suddenly ceased to exist for her, Jhan simply walked away. It was a deliberate insult. She was refusing to deal with him, in effect, rejecting his attempt to control her and make her feel helpless. It was empowering. She hadn’t known, until that moment, that she had possessed the strength to do it.
Alidae was speaking, everyone sitting at his feet as they nursed their wounds. Jhan settled by Rehn and Jaross. Tevar stood behind Alidae and he didn’t look pleased. Kile stood at his elbow in support.
“We will be moving out at dawn,” Alidae announced. “A march of three days will see us at the border of the Bhuntay lands. I’ve been told that the fighting there is fierce. It will be our job to break through the attacking line of Amberglass soldiers and make them think again about their fight with the Bhuntay. That means that we have to defeat them decisively. We will be given fifty Bhuntay warriors to help us accomplish this.”
“Fifty?” Jhan heard Jaross mutter in astonishment. “Is that all?”
Alidae had heard. Without acknowledging Jaross he replied, “This isn’t a full scale war. This is a feud between two cities, who want to claim the plains for grazing, and the Bhuntay, who claim it all and don’t want the people of the cities encroaching. Though the fighting has been nothing short of a massacre for the Bhuntay, they have told us they have only been facing small numbers of men, albeit well armed and more knowledgeable in tactics.”
Alidae eyed them all as if measuring each and every one of them for their strengths and weaknesses. His height made him very formidable and his solid arrogance kept anyone from questioning his automatic step up to general. Jhan wondered at Tevar’s agreement to this, especially when she could see his tight expression, but, she supposed, Darkai had probably ordered it. He needed Tevar, but Tevar and the rest of them were always going to be an unknown quantity. Alidae seemed an old acquaintance. Someone Darkai trusted more than Pekarin guards.
“I realize that some of you are still ill,” Alidae continue sympathetically. “The Bhuntay refused to listen to reason when I argued that we needed a few more days to recover. You will have to be strong. We will see this through. I have never taken you into a campaign and lost. This won’t be the first.”
There were confident nods. Jhan wished for some of that confidence. Her heart was shaking.
“Tevar Narin will be my second,” Alidae continued, ignoring the sharp intake of breath from Yunij and Rufar. “Captain Kile will be his lieutenant and Yunij will be mine.” There was a relaxing and nods. “You will obey these men without question. I know that we have generally kept apart during battle, remaining our own battalion under my command, but we are too few and the Bhuntay too untrained. It will take many hands to keep them in order.”
“Will they obey?” Rufar growled skeptically. “Are we going to risk our necks while they run at the first sign of trouble?”
Alidae didn’t lie. “We can’t know that. They’re skirmish fighters. We have to be prepared for that eventuality. At least, if they do run, we might be able to break free and escape behind the lines. They didn’t ask for my oath and I’m not about to give it to them. We are being forced to fight, and I will treat the Bhuntay as I treat the enemy.”
“Is it true that we were traveling to Amberglass in the first place?” Jhan wondered loudly.
Alidae scowled, but he didn’t see any reason to deny it now. “Yes, we were.”
“Then it isn’t very smart to make them our enemy if that’s still our plan.”
“We aren’t in a position to argue over that,” Darkai replied for Alidae. “I can only try to explain after we reach the city.”
“Explain why we killed their men?” Jhan retorted acidly. “Explain why we fought on the side of their enemy? I wouldn’t understand. Why should they?”
Alidae was annoyed by her questions, though he must have known that his men were thinking them as well. “You say ‘we’, but you will not be fighting.”
“The Bhuntay know that I am a man,” Jhan argued quickly. “They won’t let you leave me behind, and, I won’t let you either. I wouldn’t give a copper for my chances at living very long in one piece after you left.”
“That is your own difficulty,” Alidae replied coldly. “I can’t spare anyone to guard you and I won’t have you disrupting my command, which your very presence will do. Your men may have befriended you, but my mercenaries won’t tolerate you.”
Trey cleared his throat. Alidae skewered him with a look. Trey glanced about and Jhan was surprised to see some nods of encouragement, one from Yunij. “Jhan can come along, Captain Alidae. We men don’t mind, or not so much to wish him-her,” he stumbled, “to stay behind and get killed. Let Jhan keep up if he’s able. No special treatment, I’m sure we all agree. He can fight. Ask Raveni.”
Alidae looked at Raveni in surprise, but Raveni wouldn’t return his gaze. Yunij finished it with gruffness, not compassion. “Truth is, we don’t leave men behind to the enemy,” he reminded Alidae, “not even cut, little sports like that thing over there. Besides,” he grinned wickedly at Kile. “Our adopted Captain here needs his bed warmer.”
Alidae didn’t see the joke. He said quite seriously, “We don’t leave men behind,” he echoed Yunij, “but my other rule stands as well. I don’t tolerate whores on campaigns... of any kind.”
Jhan felt her face flame and her hands clench, but her voice was controlled. “I’m not a whore and I’m not warming anyone’s bed.”
Alidae confronted that with a warning. “If you keep to that, I agree to allow you to follow us, but if I find you with any one of my men, or being disruptive in any way, I will force you to leave us,” his voice grew very serious, not leaving Jhan any doubt that he meant what he said. “I will hamstring you, if I have to, to leave you behind. I am not soft. I am not kind when it comes to battle. Only winning, and the survival of my men, is of importance to me.”
“Understood,” Jhan replied, and turned away. She found herself staring at Rehn’s bruised face. He looked distraught. The fear of the coming battle was coming on him full force now. He was clearly weighing his lack of skill and his odds of coming out alive and in one piece. Jhan didn’t have any comfort for him. It would all be a lie and she had to deal with her own fear.
“Pack up and prepare to leave at first light,” Alidae commanded and the meeting broke up, each man knowing his duty.
Kile and Tevar helped, mingling with the mercenaries and speaking to them in low tones, making fast their new acceptance. Jhan wished for, more than anything else, Kile’s comfort. She knew that she wasn’t going to get it. She caught him glancing, surreptitiously at her now and again, but that was all that he could offer her. As much as Alidae, Kile was bent on making certain they came out of the battle alive.
“I don’t know how to dress,” Jhan muttered.
“What?” Jaross had heard and he looked at her as if he thought she might be hallucinating.
“If I wear a dress, I won’t be able to fight well,” Jhan told him thoughtfully. “But I don’t want to fight, so maybe that’s a good thing? Of course, if something terrible were to happen, the enemy would find me a woman and- I don’t want to think about that, about losing. If I wear men’s clothes, well, they’ve already seen I’m not quite shaped like a man. It might encourage the mercenaries to-to, well, I don’t want that kind of attention either. I don’t know what to do.” Jhan sighed self- deprecatingly. “I’m such a coward.”
“You’re a woman,” Jaross replied simply, without thought and then, chewing furiously on a bottom lip, he started again. “What I mean is, that nobody expects you to be brave. Even if you’re not really a woman, they know that you’re not really a man either. Being so small and so... feminine looking they’ll expect you to- to-,”
“Run?” Jhan finished crossly. “Cower in fear? I might do both of those things, but it doesn’t have anything to do with being a woman inside. There are many brave women, Jaross. I watched Bheni give birth. She had the knowledge not to become pregnant but, even knowing what would happen, she did it. She was in labor for nearly two days! That’s bravery, Jaross. As a woman and now, as a cross between both, I’m still timid and uncertain. Maybe it’s the way we’re born? I can’t believe it’s a choice. If I could chose, I’d want to be brave in a heartbeat.”
“I don’t know,” Jaross replied quietly. “I’ve thought about it too. When I fight, I’m frightened, I suppose, but I just do what has to be done anyway.”
“I just want to find a place to hide,” Jhan admitted. “Sometimes I overcome it, when I’ve reached the edge of sanity and it can’t touch me any longer, but that doesn’t happen often enough.”
Jaross swallowed and nodded, but then he frowned. “After all that you have suffered, maybe you just realize how very cruel life can be. Maybe you’re just too aware of what real pain feels like, what horrible things men can do to a body and have that body still go on living. I think, when I fight, I expect to either kill or be killed. You expect far more. You’re imagination is too keen, too able to, like your nightmares, to embellish on top of the horrors you’ve already suffered.”
“I’m too smart to be a soldier, you mean?” Jhan guessed with a tight, bitter smile. “Too smart to be brave?”
“I don’t know,” Jaross replied lightly and smiled too. “I’m not smart enough to figure it out. I think you have to figure it out for yourself. I don’t like a coward as much as the next man, but I don’t see you as a coward. I see you as... well, you won’t like it, but it is the truth; I see you as a woman. Women aren’t cowards.”
“They’re allowed to be, you mean,” Jhan finished sadly. “I wish I could accept that, but I can’t.”
“I don’t know what else to say,” Jaross replied lamely.
“Should I wear men’s clothes or women’s?” Jhan wondered again.
“Women’s,” Jaross replied promptly and then shrugged, “You’re so beautiful, it wouldn’t matter to a man pumped up with battle what sex you were. That’s the hard truth of the matter. If you aren’t intending to fight, you might be saved for latter and kept alive as a woman.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better,” Jhan said in a trembling voice.
“It wasn’t meant to,” Jaross told her. “You know what’s going to happen. You know what to expect. I’m the novice, here, Jhan, not you. You have to make your own choices.”
“I’m sorry,” Jhan apologized. “You’re right. It is my choice.” she grasped the cloth of her dress tightly. “I’m a woman inside. Not a strong woman who can stand in any man’s place and face everything bravely. I’m a timid, feminine woman with a very unhealthy fear of men. It’s what I am. I can’t change it now.”
“Then rest and make sure all of your things are here and packed,” Jaross told her. “We all have to be soldiers now, even if you won’t be one. Alidae said that he wouldn’t give you any quarter. I have to follow orders in that respect. You will be on your own.”
“I’ll be with her,” Rehn suddenly said strongly. His head came up and his eyes were level and determined. “I’m not a soldier either, but this I will do. I will guard Jhan, no matter what Alidae, or anyone else says.”
“Good,” Jaross replied. “You’re the only one who can do it, Rehn. Please, do it well.” Rehn nodded and they began to pack their things.
Jhan was moved by Rehn’s devotion, but she thought of Bheni and their baby, waiting patiently for Rehn to return. Something inside of her determined that he would return to them and it was stronger than Rehn’s determination to guard her. It cut some of the fear and gave her purpose. She was able to turn and help them without her hands shaking too much.

Jhan dreaded the dawn. She lay sleepless with Jaross snoring at her back and Rehn before her, lying on his back and staring up at the roof of the yurt. She knew that he was awake. She could see the glistening of his eyes from the light of the banked coals of the hearth fire.
Kile sat with Tevar, Alidae, and Yunij, talking and drawing maps in the dirt floor. There were arguments, strained voices, and compromises. Darkai wasn’t part of it. He had left before the sun had set, maybe to speak with Avrilla.
Jhan briefly wondered how Avrilla was coping, being alone among the Bhuntay, but then remembered that she at least spoke their language. Her arrogance would carry her through, Jhan thought sourly. The woman confronted danger in a frigid, emotionless manner, treating it as a problem to be solved and not a life or death situation. Jhan wondered if that was Darkai’s influence in her upbringing or something natural to Alamien. Alidae had a measure of it. In fact, he was a lot like Avrilla. It was probably the reason Darkai had chosen him, aside from the fact that he was probably the only Alamien that would have her.
It was time to rise all too soon. Jhan sat up and nudged at Jaross. For all his snoring, he was quickly awake and alert, blinking at Jhan and giving her a confident smile. Rehn was slower to sit up, though he had been as sleepless as Jhan all night. His face was ashen.
“I should have a sword, I think,” Rehn said softly.
Jaross snorted. “You would only cut off your head with it, Rehn. Keep with the weapons you’re familiar with.”
“We aren’t fighting today, Rehn,” Jhan reminded him.
“Can’t know that,” Jaross countered. He stood, knees cracking, and stretched. “We don’t know how far the soldiers of Amberglass have penetrated the plains. It’s three days to the border, but that’s only a reference point.” He combed his tangled black hair with his fingers and sauntered off to get breakfast.
The men were already dragging their baggage out of the yurt. Jhan could hear the sound of Imala outside. She stood, smoothing down her rumpled dress. A few of the men gave her appreciative, surreptitious looks. She ignored them, but not coldly. That would only make her enemies. Instead, she pretended not to see them. The complete illusion, that she was a defenseless woman in the midst of soldiers, wasn’t lost on them. It was too easy for them to forget, if only for a moment, what she really was.
“How are you feeling?” Rehn asked.
Jhan looked down, not understanding for a moment. He waited until she brought her mind back from her deep thoughts. “Oh, I don’t feel sick any more,” she replied at last, “just empty still and ... raw. It’s not going to feel good getting on an imala. As far as strength goes,” Jhan shrugged. “That’s never a sure thing. I won’t know until we get a few miles out.”
Rehn nodded as he took the breakfast the returning Jaross handed him. He stirred his bowl of hot porridge and snapped a look at Jhan when she shook her head at the bowl Jaross offered her.
“You will eat,” Rehn ordered like a cross nurse. “Every bite. Now.”
“Alidae meant what he said,” Jaross added. “If you fall out of the saddle because you didn’t eat, none of us will be able to help you.” He offered the bowl of porridge to Jhan again.
Jhan took it and began eating mechanically, not tasting the porridge and ignoring the fact that it was burning her tongue. She had to get it down fast, she knew, before her nervous stomach had a chance to react negatively. It was geared to having her eat like a bird, a trick of Dagara’s to keep her light and deadly. If overburdened, her stomach dealt with food as harshly as any sickness. It didn’t care that she was starving or that she needed more fat on her bones to endure a long ride. Such things hadn’t been a consideration to Dagara Ku Ni. Jhan had never been meant to live so long.
Jhan showed them the empty bowl, almost smiled in triumph, and then felt the twitch of muscles that sent her ducking aside. The porridge went flying, luckily not onto any of the men. When she straightened, sickly green, she was confronted by Trey holding another bowl of porridge. This one had been thinned and smelled faintly of honey flower.
The red head’s voice was knowledgeable. “Light and sweet often stays down better than greasy and thick. Ride with it and eat it a little at a time instead of all at once. I put some hayvar powder in it as well. That will keep your stomach from burning and making gas. After being so ill, it’s not any wonder that half the men can’t keep their food down.”
Jhan didn’t correct Trey. She found herself more willing to accept that it was the last dregs of the illness rather than her own body’s failing. She took the porridge and cradled it. “Thank you,” she almost said, but Trey was walking away before she could utter it, not wanting any show of embarrassing gratitude on her part. He had simply treated her as he had treated his companions, but it said something more. She had been accepted as one of them by that gesture. She wondered why. Was it because of Raveni? Violence was a great equalizer, she knew, but was sickened to think that she had won anyone’s approval by it.
Jaross began cleaning up with a sigh. “I guess it’s my fault for forcing you to eat.”
Jhan narrowed her eyes and felt a chill. “I think we both know who’s fault it is,” she replied darkly. “He’s already paid for his crime.”
“Not enough,” Jaross grumbled, understanding her. “Death was too simple a punishment for Dagara Ku Ni.”
Jhan trembled and turned away, the porridge still in her hand. She needed sunlight more than food; brightness to chase away the shadows. “Let’s go out.”
Jaross straightened and tossed the rag into a corner disdainfully, an insult the Bhuntay would find later. “Yes, let’s get out of here. It smells like sickness and unwashed men. I need clean air.”
They gathered their bags and carried them to the door of the yurt. Kile came in at that moment, brushing past Jhan without looking at her. His hand touched her hand as if by accident, but she felt his caress of fingers.
“Hurry,” Kile shouted at the men still inside. “Sun’s up and we need to travel!”
Jhan was out of the tent then, but she heard the grumbles of men who were still sick and irritable as the sunlight broke across her eyes. She blinked and tried to get her bearings as both Jaross and Rehn came out and stood beside her. She took a startled breath to realize that she was surrounded by Bhuntay warriors and restless imala.
One red- headed man, painted with red circles on cheeks and brow, and bare to the waist, drew his knife at the sight of Jhan. He spat out something in his language that didn’t need a translation. Whore was universal. When one of his companions shoved him and barked some reply, the man went pale, his knife wilting in his hand.
Jhan turned from them both, glad when Rehn and Jaross closed up on either side of her protectively. When they broke out of the milling warriors, they saw the line of their mounts standing beside those of the mercenaries. The mercenaries were saddling them and loading on light packs. They had an audience. Women and Bhuntay children were in a tight knot, watching them and talking in low, giggling voices among themselves. Some of the mercenaries paused to wink or make a comment, but that was met with cold rebuffs and turned backs. The Bhuntay were only curious, not interested in flirting.
Alidae was standing with the Bhuntay leader, Jhalel. Jhalel was watching the interaction between his men and the mercenaries, ready to punish any of his men if they dared attempt to start a fight. Alidae was speaking to him in a low tone and not looking pleased.
Jhalel was taller than even the tall Alidae. When Jhan began to pass them, he could see her plainly. His face suffused with blood and he shouted one word so loudly that Jhan stopped in her tracks. Jhalel pushed Alidae aside and grabbed Jhan’s arm in his big, bony hand, glaring into her face.
Jhan’s dress was jerked up before she could react. Another bony hand groped between her legs to the point of pain and then Jhan was being thrust to the ground, a foot stuck on her neck and her face in the dirt. Out of the corner of a panicked eye, she saw the flash of a sword.
Jhan twisted at an impossible angle and kicked upward. She rolled desperately, Jhalel’s boot releasing her as he flinched away from the low blow. She felt the hiss of his sword blade pass her cheek and the sting as it cut flesh in a thin line. She was on her feet then, touching the start of blood while she prepared to run.
Jhalel roared like a bull. He dropped his sword to the ground and simply threw himself at her, rage making him savage. Jhan met that thrust out chin with another kick. Jhalel grunted and dropped like a sodden sack, shaking his head and rubbing at his chin in a daze.
Jhan knew what was making Jhalel crazed. She was a wisp of body with a woman’s face and she was thwarting him, warrior leader of the Bhuntay. He had decreed instant execution and she had made a fool of him instead.
Jhan’s fighting skill relied on distance. She needed distance between herself and Jhalel to fully utilize that skill. Too close and he could grab her and break her light bones. When he threw himself up from his kneeling position to do just that, she wasn’t there. Instead, she was ducking behind the three people who had some chance of stopping Jhalel without killing him. Jaross, Alidae, and Rehn.
It was a mistake, Jhan realized too quickly. She had only confirmed what ever opinion Jhalel had of her. He came up short, spat in disgust, and shouted an order to his men. Alidae stepped aside, knowing the outcome already. Jaross and Rehn were harder to convince. It took more than a few men to drag them away.
Jhan was left alone, ringed by Bhuntay and confronting Jhalel. Jhalel took his time. Jhan watched his nose thin and his eyes look her up and down as he bent to retrieve his sword.
“Child,” Jhalel grunted in a word Jhan understood.
Jhan blinked confused and replied before she thought. “No.”
Jhalel grinned and grabbed her wrist. She could kill him, Jhan knew, in a heartbeat, but what then? His men were too many. They would finish her off and probably Kile and the others too.
Jhalel dragged Jhan behind him as he strode across the yurt city. She staggered and stumbled, trying to keep up with his longer legs as she tried to guess what he intended. He had been going to kill her, but now it was obvious that he wanted revenge for his humiliation. He had to show his men that he was still the leader.
There was a small yurt with a staggering amount of blue feathers covering it. Jhalel took Jhan inside. The floor was covered in furs. A small hearth fire was only white ash. A stack of weapons was placed neatly on a wooden stand.
Jhan had only a second to take all of that in before Jhalel threw her down on the furs. When he pulled open his trousers with an abrupt motion, Jhan froze in fear. He grinned, mistaking her wide eyes for awe.
She wasn’t a woman to him. She was a cut man. He didn’t want her on her back. He wanted something more disgusting and humiliating. He twisted his hand into the hair at the back of Jhan’s head and thrust her face at the opened crotch of his pants. His other hand began quick, business-like motions inside.
It was brutally repulsive, but brief. Jhalel never looked at her, his mind conjuring up someone else to help him accomplish the deed. When it was over, he smeared himself all over Jhan’s face. She wept, wanting to curl up and hide, but Jhalel wasn’t through. He jerked Jhan to her feet, did up his trousers, and thrust her out of his yurt. Hand still twisted at the back of her neck, he forced her back to his men and displayed her face for all of them to see. They laughed and nodded, respect for Jhalel restored.
The mercenaries were gone. As Jhan was pushed about and displayed, she noticed it with a chill that made her burning face sting. All the animals were gone. She saw the yurt where everyone had been with door flaps wide, showing its empty interior. They were all gone. They had left her!
“Mine!” Jhalel announced to Jhan and tied a beaded cord around Jhan’s arm so tightly it almost cut off her circulation. “Go! Women!” he laughed and shoved Jhan towards the huddle of women who had been watching it all with amusement.
Jhan stumbled, but the women surrounded her, and they went as a group back to the yurt where the childless women lived. Avrilla was still there. She rushed to Jhan anxiously.
“What happened?” Avrilla demanded. “What was all the shouting? What’s that all over your face?”
A short, heavy woman with black hair giggled and said something that made Avrilla’s lip curl.
“Why put it there?” Avrilla wondered acidly as she took Jhan by the arm and settled her on a blanket. She took up a rag and began cleaning off Jhan’s face. Jhan was still weeping, face still as stone, but great tears were streaming down it, mingling with the mess on her cheeks and chin.
“Say something,” Avrilla prompted after she had finished.
Jhan had nothing to say. She was in shock. Avrilla ordered like the princess she was and the women obeyed her without question. A steaming cup of something herbal was given to her and she tipped it to Jhan’s lips. Jhan didn’t drink. Avrilla lowered the cup and held it gingerly in her long fingered hands.
“What is wrong?” Avrilla wondered softly. “Are you still ill? I hated Darkai for what he did to you. He kept coming to me and begging forgiveness, but I refused. Are you angry with me? He came to see me, I didn’t send for him. He saw that you were pale and began examining you, ignoring my protests.”
Jhan lay down and curled into a ball, her arms locked tightly about herself. What he had done to her was a burning brand on her mind that seared as brightly as the knowledge that Kile and everyone else had left her behind. They had left her with Jhalel.
Avrilla pulled and loosened the beaded cord on Jhan’s arm. A woman said something, obviously confused. “She says that you are Jhalel’s now. I don’t understand. You can’t breed. You are not truly a woman. Is the man mad? Is that why he put his seed on your face?”
Jhan bit her lip until it bled. Avrilla stopped moving, staring at it in concern.
“I don’t understand,” Avrilla repeated, angry now. “You are very upset, but I don’t know why.”
Jhan closed her eyes, but the scene in Jhalel’s yurt played over and over again in her mind. Avrilla was Alamien. They mated because they had to and thought nothing more of it. They didn’t call it rape. Their bodies forced them to frenzy and who ever was closest, and in season, was to be mounted and mated without another thought during or afterward. It simply was the way it was for them. What had happened to Jhan was incomprehensible to Avrilla. She would never be able to understand the trauma the degradation had caused Jhan. She could only view it as disgusting and puzzling.
“They’re gone,” Jhan said at last in a very small voice.
“Darkai and the men? I know,” Avrilla replied. She took a sip of the hot herbal drink herself. “The women don’t have anything to do but talk. They told me that a big, golden man was wounded and that he and the mercenaries had to leave surrounded by armed Bhuntay warriors.” Avrilla showed compassion then. “They must have meant Lord Kile. I’m sure he’s all right.”
Jhan tried to reply, choked on a sob, and tried again. “How do you know that?”
“If he weren’t,” Avrilla replied matter-of-factly, “they would have left him behind.”
That made sense, but Jhan wasn’t ready to hear sense. She wanted to curl up and die, but her concern for Kile over rode that self indulgence. He was wounded. She had to get to him somehow. She had to escape.
Avrilla suddenly took hold of Jhan and pulled her up, cradling her close. Jhan allowed it, to distraught to offer any resistance. Avrilla could be very gentle and unthreatening. She caressed Jhan’s hair and murmured reassurances.
“I have missed you,” Avrilla said after a time. Jhan said nothing, closing eyes and trying to think coherently. “I’m sorry that I made you a part of this. I blamed Darkai, but it is my fault. I wouldn’t allow him to use me. He put you in my place, maybe thinking to make me change my mind and consent to save you. I couldn’t. I am a great coward, Jhan. The thought of having a child... the thought of Alidae having me and making me go through a mating while Darkai’s machines change the very nature of what I am... I couldn’t allow it, not even for you.”
That meant a great deal, but Jhan couldn’t dwell on it. Kile needed her. She had to ignore everything and concentrate on that, on making a plan.
“Darkai said that he couldn’t use you now, but I think that’s a lie,” Avrilla continued angrily. “I think he’s only trying to make me consent again. He over estimates my loyalty to the Telestar. They’ve never treated me with anything but hatred. They don’t deserve my sacrifice and, maybe, the Alamien don’t either. Be careful of Darkai, Jhan. He lies and lies to suite his needs.”
Involuntarily Jhan thought of children. She found a burning thread of anger for Avrilla’s rejection of motherhood. She could have it, that most precious of gifts, and she spurned it as a horror. Jhan couldn’t comprehend that as much as Avrilla couldn’t comprehend her trauma.
Avrilla continued to hold Jhan and Jhan found herself drifting into sleep, a numbed, shocked sleep bereft of dreams. Jhan was glad of that. They would only have been nightmares. When she roused again, Avrilla fed her a thinned broth, with small bits of meat stirred in, as if Jhan were a baby. Jhan didn’t resent it or try to refuse the food she didn’t want. She needed it as much as she had needed the sleep, to surmount the shock and to gain enough strength to escape.
It was getting towards evening when Jhan found the will to break free of Avrilla. Avrilla was reluctant to let her go.
“I-I have never been close to anyone,” Avrilla explained, looking down at the folded hands in her lap as if trying to hold onto the memory of the feel of Jhan in them. “The Alamien hated me so much, and Darkai wasn’t ever gentle, even when I was very small. If you would only stop fighting me, Jhan, and be my companion, I could be very happy.”
Jhan began to reply something short and nonsensical, hardly hearing Avrilla, but feeling the need to say something to the distressed woman. Jhan was forestalled by one of the Bhuntay women approaching. The woman was tall and very slim, her hair a riot of black curls tied with blue feathers. It was obvious from their abundance that she was Jhalel’s wife.
“Her name is Carean,” Avrilla told Jhan and her lips pursed tight as the woman spoke in a tight, clipped manner that showed her disdain. “She says that you will come with her. It is time to go to Jhalel’s yurt.”
Jhan went white. “Why? I’m not his wife! He didn’t want that from me. He only wanted to humiliate me!”
“You belong to him, nonetheless," Avrilla translated. “Even his pets must go to him at the close of the day.”
Jhan shuddered. The other women were slowly filing out of the yurt to go to their husbands. Carean wasn’t patient. She grabbed Jhan by an elbow and jerked her up with ease. She was a strong woman, despite her build. Jhan could only break her grip by hurting her.
And then what? Jhan wondered bitterly. Jhalel would only send his men after her and drag her to him, just as Carean was about to do. There wasn’t anything she could do. If she fought now they would only tie her and guard her closer. Jhan knew that she had to be meek, bear with whatever Jhalel wanted, and escape when their guard dropped. For Kile, she could do it. What could Jhalel do that hadn’t been done to her worse? Even his sickening humiliation of her had hardly been inspired. The shock had come from the suddenness of it, and the horror of being subjected to abuse she had thought she had put behind her forever.
“I don’t think they will harm you,” Avrilla was saying. “The Bhuntay kill what they don’t like. Jhalel would have done it already.”
“He already tried,” Jhan replied softly. “He may try it again.”
Avrilla became distressed. “You shouldn’t go then! Stay with me. I’ll tell them that you are my servant and that I must have you by me. They respect my title. They might obey me.”
Jhan shook her head. “It won’t work. You don’t know... you can’t understand what I did to Jhalel. He won’t let you have me.”
Avrilla continued to argue, but Carean was pulling Jhan from the yurt. The sun was going down in a spectacular blaze behind the horizon of tall grass. A stiff breeze was blowing up, perhaps a storm brewing. It whipped Jhan’s loose hair about and she bowed her head as she allowed Carean to take her where she would.
When they entered Jhalel’s yurt, it was a startling calm after the wind. He was naked and lounging by his hearth fire, smoking a carved pipe, wrings of the smoke circling up to an opening at the top of the yurt. Propped up on fur pelts, beads glittering in the light from the hearth coals, he looked completely savage. He looked at Jhan and Carean from under lowered brows.
Carean undressed completely. When Jhan stood sullenly, she turned in exasperation and pulled Jhan’s dress off over her head, leaving Jhan in only her boots. Jhan crossed her arms over her breasts, but Jhalel had sat up quiet suddenly, staring.
Jhan didn’t meet Jhalel’s gaze, but she knew he was feasting on her perfect form, pausing at the thin, white line of the arrow wound, and then resting at a point below Jhan’s navel. All desire extinguished at that point as Jhalel considered what Jhan had been and what must have happened to make her what she was now. She heard him lean back again and knew that she was safe for the moment.
Carean made dinner with expert ease. It was all for Jhalel. The women ate together without their men. As he ate, Carean massaged his muscles, combed his hair, braiding it where it needed to be braided, cleaned his yurt, polished his weapons, and then lay on his furs and waited.
Jhan had sat down, eyes still on the floor and arms still wrapped about herself. She didn’t trust the calmness and the lack of Jhalel’s interest in her. With Carean there, Jhalel couldn’t be accused of perversion. He wanted to treat Jhan like a wife to shame Jhan, not knowing that Jhan was unaffected by it. It was also, she thought, a continuation of the morning. Carean would tell the other women when she returned and they would tell their husbands. They would all laugh and approve of their leader’s mastery of an Outlander.
Jhalel wasn’t pleased by Jhan’s silence and stony expression. He wanted a reaction, a sign that he was master and that Jhan was feeling what she was meant to feel. He came over to her, crouching very close. When he took Jhan’s hand and put it on his manhood, she cringed, feeling that he was very large and very aroused.
“Real man,” Jhalel said as Jhan’s face went dark. “Feel?”
Jhalel laughed and let her hand go. Jhan tried to huddle in on herself. Carean was watching with wide eyes. Jhalel glanced back at her, grinned to show the joke, and then sat in front of Jhan with his legs spread, displaying himself obscenely.
“Like? Want?” Jhalel wondered with another laugh. “Bhuntay big. Bhuntay strong. Give cut man some of Bhuntay," his accent was harsh and almost unintelligible, but he made it clear when he suddenly jumped on Jhan, determined to get a reaction.
Hard hands bruised Jhan as he pushed her down on her stomach. He grabbed her waist and pulled her backside up against him. Jhan let out an involuntary cry as he began a horrible thrusting, a mock mounting that wasn’t penetrating, but harsh and painful all the same. Jhan cried out as Jhalel’s fingers dug in and his body slammed forcefully, his stiffness bludgeoning against her skin. It was only for a moment, but to Jhan it was a frozen, endless moment in time where her mind reeled and the stress of the trauma was too much to bear. The world whirled and went dark.
Jhan came to herself sprawled on the furs, aching viciously. Laughter was in her ears. When her eyes cleared, she found herself looking at Jhalel’s thrusting backside. He was very close and making the most of Carean’s charms. It was the woman who was laughing. She had enjoyed the joke and now Jhalel was reassuring her of his manhood and where his true desire lay.
Jhalel finished with a grunt and rose. Carean sat up, smiling and smoothing her curls. Jhalel turned and saw that Jhan was awake. He stood, still aroused and glistening and bent over Jhan. He caught at her hair and, forcing her face towards him, he smeared himself on her once more. Jhan almost vomited and fainted again. He laughed at her sick expression.
“Out!” Jhalel ordered her and tossed her dress at her. “Alive in morning. I kill you.”
Jhan could hardly move. Her bones ached as if some of them were broken. Jhalel lost patience. He grabbed her and threw her out of the door. Jhan fell in a heap with her dress in one hand.
It was still early, Jhan was surprised to see. The sun had just set, fiery tendrils still just visible. Had it only been fifteen, twenty minutes? Maybe not even that long. It seemed that it didn’t take much time to be reduced to shivering, mindless, humiliated flesh.
Jhan dressed with trembling hands, gasping on sobs as if her lungs were swollen. The world kept fading in an out. It was some time before she could make out enough of her surroundings to realize that all the Bhuntay were in their yurts, being attended to by their women. Only one or two very young youths were slowly meandering on the edges of vision, but thy hadn’t noticed Jhan's expulsion.
Alive in morning. Kill you. Jhalel was expecting these youths or the Bhuntay warriors to find her and tear her apart. It was obvious that he didn’t imagine her to have enough spirit to run, or maybe that he was too sure of Bhuntay superiority to think that she could escape. Or, maybe, a third explanation; he simply didn’t care whether she ran away or not. He was done with her. He had reasserted the manhood she had taken away. He had saved face in front of his warriors. She was now a non entity.
Jhan thought of Avrilla. It was only a brief thought. Her mind was too muddled to consider saving the princess for long. It was impossible. Knowing that Avrilla was safe and that the Bhuntay respected her title, and her position as a hostage, calmed some guilt.
Jhan stood and began walking, keeping to the deep shadows. It was difficult to walk. Jhalel had bruised her in places bone deep. The pain in her pelvis, though he hadn’t raped her, was a knot of throbbing, shooting jabs of pain that ran up to her belly with every few steps. His hands had been too cruel. His mock thrusts too hard. Jhan felt as if she had been trampled by an imala.
The path the mercenaries, the Bhuntay, and Jhan’s friends had taken was clear, the grass flattened in a long road that led off into the darkness. Jhan set her feet to it and began a hurried, limping trot. She stumbled in imala dung more than once, swearing in short, panting explosions that she soon had to give up because of weariness.
Animals bolted off into the darkness, startling her badly. She began to wonder if there were more creatures like the vicious beast that had attacked Rehn. She tried to peer into the darkness, ears straining for any sound, but the wind was whipping through the grass and her own hard breathing drowned out all else.
Jhan managed to travel half the night, before pain and utter exhaustion made her collapse in mid step. She sprawled in the grass, found it a soft cushion, and fell at once into sleep.

CHAPTER FIVE
(Battle Scars)
“They are too far ahead.”
Jhan sat up in her indigo world and breathed a sigh of relief that it wasn’t worse. “I’ll catch up to them.”
“So determined,” said the voice of Tsarianna. “There is great danger. You should go in the other direction and return to the Alamien.”
“What kind of danger?” Jhan almost shook off the ennui that world always imparted to her. “How far away are they? How is Kile? I was told that he was wounded.”
“I’m not a god,” Tsarianna replied regretfully. “I can only see and hear as far as my instruments will allow. The weather plays a great part in that. It hasn’t been clear enough to tell me much.”
Jhan frowned. “But you’re talking to me. You know what’s happening to me.”
There was a very long pause, a great considering, and then Tsarianna told her carefully, “In order to heal you I had to replace some things inside of you.”
“What do you mean?” Jhan was astonished, standing up and looking frantically about her at the purple landscape. “What did you do?” and then in anguish. “Why can’t you leave me alone! Why must everyone try and change what I am?”
Tsarianna was quick to correct her. “I didn’t want to change you. It was to keep you alive. Some of your organs had failed, Jhan. You were dying. Your heart had suffered too much and your lack of hormones, and certain necessary lymph nodes, was beginning to compromise your body. You wanted to live. I knew that. It was the only way.”
“What did you do?” Jhan shouted the demand, furious and full of grief.
“I replaced certain organs, as I said,” Tsarianna went on in a voice strained with the desire not to hurt her, “and certain internal functions with machines.”
Jhan mouthed the word, ‘machines’, shocked to her core.
“Small machines,” Tsarianna told her, “Most microscopic, but very effective. They keep your heart beating. They’re keeping you alive. That arrow wound you suffered in the Silverwood... it would have been fatal for anyone else. The shock alone... and your frail body... you wouldn’t have survived, Jhan.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Jhan wondered, sinking down cross legged, head bowed and hands lax in her lap. “Why tell me now?”
“You’re chasing after Kile because you think your time is short,” Tsarianna explained. “That isn’t so. You’ll live as long as Jhanian Kevelt of Karana was meant to, no more, no less. Your fate determines that, not your bodies frailty. Go back to the Alamien. Wait for Kile there. You have suffered so much. I know what that man did to you, that Jhalel. You deserve peace and happiness. If you go forward, you won’t have that. You will suffer again. War has begun and you are walking towards it.”
Jhan was accusing and bitter. “You know that, but you don’t know how Kile is? I’m beginning to doubt the truth of that.”
“Togo, Minyah, and Tagara were made a part of Selaya,” Tsarianna explained. “You are a part of me now. You are an extension of my senses, though not a perfect extension.”
“Tell me how Kile is,” Jhan demanded stubbornly.
“I can’t, “ Tsarianna lamented, “but I will as soon as I know, Jhan. I won’t leave you in the dark.”
“Send me to him,” Jhan went on relentlessly. “You sent us all the way to Pekarin from the Great Desert. This you can do.”
“No, I can’t,” Tsarianna replied regretfully. “You were at the heart of my power when I did that. I can’t bring you to me. I can’t send you to Kile, even if I knew where he was.”
“You are useless to me!” Jhan seethed and hid her face in her hands. “Go away. At least let me have some peace!”
“I have given you your life back,” Tsarianna retorted angrily. “Now you are going to throw it away!”
“Without Kile, it isn’t worth living!”
Jhan’s last shout was to the empty landscape. Tsarianna was gone.

Jhan awoke, sore in every muscle, her mouth tasting dirt. Her face was pressed into the ground and the grass, though soft, had hardly been a bed of choice. Jhan sat up, rubbing at the bruises Jhalel had given her and groaning softly.
The grass stretched out in every direction. The storm still threatened, the morning light dawning behind dark clouds. A stiff wind still thrashed the tall grass. It made a low swishing and a endless moan that harmonized with Jhan's.
Jhan knew that she needed food and water and that she needed it soon. Struggling to rise, she could already feel herself weakening. She began walking with a rising sense of desperation. She felt small and helpless in that vastness. The task she had set for herself, to catch up to Kile and the army, seemed utterly ridiculous now. Before she could even attempt it, she first needed to find a way to simply survive.
Jhan tore a strip from her dress and, as she walked, she braided her hair to save it from the wind’s whipping motions. When it was a tight rope, she tied it off and tucked it’s end into the cleavage of her dress. That relieved some of her misery, but her dress kept threatening to fly up over her head. She finally tied a knot in the hem to keep it closer to her legs and that allowed her to concentrate on putting one foot ahead of the other. The pain of her bruises, and the ache of hunger and thirst, were insurmountable.
Tsarianna’s words from her dream came back to her. Jhan found herself trying to, mentally, feel the machines inside of her. They were keeping her alive, he’d said. She should have been grateful, but Jhan couldn’t find it in herself. This hated body would never be hers. She had tried with all that was in her, but someone kept showing her that it could be taken, used, twisted, and corrupted for their own purposes. Only her mind was hers, Jhan thought bitterly. Only that and nothing more. All else could be snatched away at a moment’s notice.
She wasn’t going to die from her body’s frailty. Darkai had been wrong. Jhan had been wrong. Kile needed to know that he had been wrong. They WOULD grow old together. They did have time to make it right. If he was still alive, if she didn’t die trying to get to him, and if they survived the Bhuntay war. They might yet find peace and a place where no one would ever use Jhan against her will again. She hoped for it. It kept her steps continuing when she only longed to sit down and give up.
There was a crack of thunder. Jhan started and scanned the skies. She was alarmed to see dark clouds boiling towards her. The storm was done hovering in the distance. Now, it was on the march.
The rain hit her, stinging hard. Without shelter, stopping was useless. The rain was surprisingly chill as well and Jhan began to shiver as she trudged, head down, trying not to cower at every crack of thunder. The wind lashed, pushing at Jhan like a shoving bully. She couldn’t even see her hand before her face, the rain a solid sheet of water.
A very close lightning strike shook Jhan’s nerve at last. She hunched down into the grass at first, until her legs tired, and then sat in the mud and water on the ground and wept.
With nothing to do then, but think and drink the water she collected in her hands, Jhan slowly came to a terrible realization. Once watered, the grass would spring up and the telltale dung of the imala would be washed away. The trail to Kile and the others was disappearing. The horror of that realization brought Jhan to her feet again.
Jhan began a stumbling run. The only thing now in her mind was to go as far as she could before she became completely lost. The flattened grass guided her when her eyes were blinded with rain, but she used up precious time stumbling, again and again, into the taller grass and back tracking. When she reached the edge of the storm, the sudden absence of rain brought her up short.
The sun was shinning. Jhan turned and looked back. The wall of water and the roiling, dark clouds were only a few lengths away and heading off in another direction. Jhan watched it go, dripping and shivering, and then turned to see if she still had a trail.
Relief flooded Jhan. Like a painted arrow, the flattened grass stretched out to the horizon. Only a light wind stirred it and the sky was filled with comforting white clouds. The sun was hot and welcome on Jhan’s chilled skin. She stretched in it and then forced herself to begin walking again.
A shallow pond reflected the sky in a perfect oval. Jhan stopped, her body rebelling and refusing another step. Jhan reluctantly gave in to it. Her breath was harsh in her ears and her heart was pounding in a way that told her that she was on the edge of collapse.
Settling on the bank of the pond, Jhan closed her eyes and waited for the sun to dry her off. It was nirvana to her aching bruises and tortured bones. She didn’t know how long she sat there, drifting in and out of consciousness, but it was the chirp of a bird that roused her at last.
Jhan opened her eyes and saw the culprit. It was a small brown bird, bright black eyes looking this way and that in search of something as it slowly hopped around the bank of the pond. Still numb and unwilling to move, Jhan saw it seize a prize. A long worm. It gobbled it up and then began the search for another.
The pond was too small for fish, just a depression in the land that the rainwater from some distant day had filled up. Jhan couldn’t hope for any form of life higher than a worm and the bird was too nervous to catch. Jhan swallowed hard and felt her stomach tighten in the beginnings of nausea.
Jhan poked in the dirt tentatively, then looked up to watch the bird. Following its example, she soon had a handful of worms. They wriggled indignantly and tried to get back to their dirt home. Jhan washed them off in the water, closed her eyes, and then shoved them into her mouth. She swallowed fast, ignoring a reflexive choke of revulsion. It was long minutes before she could gather the courage to do it again.
Jhan washed the taste down with water, wanting to cry again, but she stiffened her backbone and refused the urge. She gathered more worms, ripping her tattered dress until she had a square of cloth that she could carry them in. She wished the water was so easy. It was hard to begin walking and leave it behind, not knowing when she would find more.
Jhan heard something crunch. She looked down and saw that she had stepped into a bird nest. The parents were twittering angrily and swooping in agitation. Jhan didn’t give them any notice as she bent and gathered up the three small eggs she hadn’t crushed.
The eggs were only half the size of a chicken egg, but the protein and fluid they contained would mean the difference between life and death. Jhan tied them up in the cloth with her worms. When she continued, she kept her eyes on her feet. She found two more nests before she had passed some invisible boundary. Then she didn’t find any more. The birds probably stayed close to the water.
A little heartened that she wasn’t going to starve to death immediately, Jhan felt more optimistic about her chances. After an hour of walking, the pain quickly began to chip away at that optimism. Her side kept jolting her with stabbing, agonizing pain. Cracked ribs? Her hip was awash with a dull throb. Out of its’ joint or bruised to the bone? Not knowing, Jhan could only force herself to go on despite it. It made her sweat more than she should have, wasting precious water, and her eyes kept going in and out of focus with weariness, making footing treacherous in the twisted, flattened grass.
Centered inwardly and bent on enduring, Jhan didn’t noticed the first few bodies. It wasn’t until she almost sprawled over one that she stopped with a gasp and raised her head. She was standing on the edge of a battle field. Only the wind had kept her from smelling the blood and gore, carrying it away from her.
Jhan quelled the urge to run. Nothing moved on the plain as far as she could see. All the tumbled figures in the grass were dead. Slowly, Jhan walked among them, forcing herself to look from one face to another, searching for Kile and her friends. The hack wounds from knives and swords, the bloated bodies, the frozen looks of shock and anger when she could make out features at all, made Jhan’s blood run cold.
There were a few Bhuntay, but most were men with skins the color of rich cinnamon. Their open, staring eyes were brown and gold. Dressed in black and white uniforms, they each carried a crest on their shoulders; a golden beast inside a circle. Jhan squinted. It looked like a tiger. Beside the savagely dressed Bhuntay they looked civilized even in death.
A downed imala, tongue hanging out of a blood covered mouth, offered up a prize. Two packs full of gear. Jhan rummaged in one pack and found a wrapped package of dried meat and fruit cakes, a flask of some warm wine, several changes of clothes, and a kit of needle, gut, and bandages for dressing wounds. The other pack made Jhan stiffen and look around. It was full of pots and pans.
Jhan found Trey sprawled on his back not far away. He was tangled with one of the uniformed men, his knife stuck up to the handle in that man’s side. Trey’s face was so pale that his freckles stood out sharply, like drops of blood. The feather in his red hair had fallen in his face. As Jhan stared, feeling sorrow grip her, she saw it move.
The wind? Jhan thought so, but she kneeled nonetheless and put her hand to the side of Trey’s neck. She felt a strong pulsebeat under her fingers. Quickly, Jhan pulled the dead man away and then kneeled by Trey again, looking frantically for a wound. She found it underneath him; a slice along his thigh that was very slowly making a pool of blood. Not a major artery then, Jhan surmised, or he would have already bled to death.
Jhan went to get the kit from the downed imala and returned with shaking hands. She had never done such a thing before, sewn up a man’s wound. She didn’t know if she could even do it properly. What if she only made it worse? Worse? Jhan berated herself. If she didn’t do something, she knew, Trey was going to die. That was worse than any botched sewing job she could do.
Jhan still had her handful of eggs and worms in its small bag. She tucked it into the breast of her dress, reluctant to throw it aside even now in case she might need it later. Hands free, she tugged at the buckle of Trey’s pants to pull them down to get at his wound.
“Stinking pervert!” Trey exploded out of unconsciousness, throwing himself onto Jhan and shaking her viciously.
Jhan didn’t even have time for a cry before Trey had found a hard surface, a shield discarded in the grass, and began slamming her head against it furiously. On the third blow, Jhan’s world disappeared into a black fog shot with stars.

Someone was dabbing at Jhan with shaking hands. Wet coolness soothed a raging headache, but other pains were like searing fire. Jhan moaned and stirred, instinctively trying to get away from her own hurts.
“Please tell me that you’re all right,” Trey’s voice demanded.
Jhan blinked. The world had separated into two images, a double sun blazing, and double images of white clouds marching by in a blurred, blue sky.
“I-I don’t feel all right,” Jhan managed to get out.
“I didn’t know that you were trying to help me,” Trey told her anxiously. “I was too confused to even realize that I was wounded. I thought...”
“You thought that I was trying to rape dead men on a battle field?” Jhan wanted to vomit.
“Or men too far gone to fight back,” Trey finished.
Jhan closed her eyes, waiting for her head to clear before attempting to open them again. “Do you have experience with anyone capable of doing that?”
Trey’s voice reflected inner horrors. “You would be surprised what I've seen men do to their enemies.”
Jhan felt her heart clench. “No, I wouldn’t.”
“You should wake up,” Trey told her. “One of your eyes is dilated. I’ve seen men die when that happens.”
“I’ll vomit if I sit up,” Jhan said. She touched her head and felt sticky blood. “How bad is it?”
“I-I wasn’t in my right mind,” Trey said, trying to defend himself again. “I was dazed from my own blow to the head and my wound was making me dizzy. I-”
“Shhh!” Jhan wished him, and then carefully, so as not to jar her head with her own voice, “You’re making my head pound. I understand. You made a mistake. Let’s skip the guilt and condemnation. Instead, tell me, how bad am I?”
Jhan was surprised that she sounded so calm considering that she couldn’t move without an agonizing jolt of pain. Trey dabbed at the blood again, taking his time looking the wound over.
“It’s swollen very large,” He told her at last. “I’m not a healer. I don’t know if it’s cracked or not.”
“What else did you do?” Jhan wondered.
“Nothing besides throw you to the ground.”
“Hard.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Very hard.”
“I don’t remember.” Trey groped for what Jhan wanted. “I was going to gut you. I put my foot on you-”
“And put your full weight on it,” Jhan sighed. If Jhalel had only bruised her ribs before, Trey had definitely cracked them or broken them, “stomping or grinding while you did it,” she finished.
“Maybe.”
“How bad are you?” Jhan wanted to know now.
“My thigh wound is deep, but mostly in the fat,” Trey replied diffidently, as if he were speaking of a paper cut. “It sliced through my slave brand, so that’s something. I never had the courage to cut it off. I sewed it up with- with the gut and needle I found in your hand.”
“Is that what stopped you from killing me?”
“Yes,” Trey replied and then slowly,” and the fact that you looked ten years old and like a rag doll covered in blood. Not very threatening, despite what I saw you do to Jhalel and Raveni. I’m not a butcher, even of people I think are perverts. You’re lucky my clan isn’t as blood thirsty as Jhalel’s. We don’t think compassion is a weakness.”
“I don’t feel very lucky, right now.” Jhan muttered, and then stronger. “So, how long ago was this fight?”
“Half a day,” Trey said after a pause to look at the sun. “They took us by surprise, but we still gave better than we received," he said proudly.
“Then why were you left behind?” Jhan pointed out cruelly.
“I don’t know,” Trey admitted. It was obvious that he was disturbed by it. “My imala went down. I fell, dazed, and then I grappled with that bastard over there until he cut me and knocked me out. At least I managed to kill him.” He thought for a moment. “Maybe they didn’t realize I wasn’t among them when they left.”
“Is Alidae that careless?” Jhan shot back.
“No,” Trey replied reluctantly. “No, he isn’t. He should have noticed.”
“Then something happened after you were unconscious,” Jhan surmised. “Surprise reinforcements?”
“Could be.”
Jhan had waited to ask the question long enough. She swallowed, gathered courage, and then asked. “Lord Kile. Was he alive?” “When I last saw him, yes.”
Jhan felt her heart sing and she almost smiled. “I heard that he had been wounded.”
“The Bhuntay warriors knocked him about, but they didn’t seriously hurt him,” Trey replied sympathetically. “You’re not free of that master yet.”
Jhan scowled. “I’m not his slave!”
“He wouldn’t listen to that Captain Tevar,” Trey told her thoughtfully. “He was bellowing that he had to go back and get you. The Bhuntay pulled their bows on him, but I thought he would try to go back even then. It took almost all of us to tie him. He was only released when we began to fight. I thought he was mad, caring so much about a bed slave. Some of the mercenaries thought that you must have been very good at warming his bed, but now you say you did it freely?”
“We love each other,” Jhan said in a whisper, forgetting that it was a secret in her joy that Kile was still alive. “I have to get back to him.”
“Is part of you that much of a woman or does he like putting it to a man’s backside?”
That was crude. Jhan opened her eyes in outrage and found the world as doubled up and indistinct as before. “Men!” she seethed through the pain of her head. “Here we are, miles from help, and all you care about is how I do it in bed.”
“Since we aren’t likely to be able to walk anywhere, I don’t see what else there is to talk about,” Trey retorted acidly. “I’m trying to avoid the hopelessness of our situation.”
Jhan forgot everything and seized on Trey’s last words. “You can’t walk?”
“I haven’t tried,” Trey admitted, “but it seems doubtful. You’re certainly not in any shape to walk any where.”
“I won’t admit that until I’ve tried,” Jhan replied with a challenge in her voice.
“All right. Try.” Trey left off his ministrations and waited mockingly.
“I need help.”
“I can’t help myself,” Trey replied, unmoved.
Jhan took several deep breaths while she thought. Finally, she knew what to do. “Is there anything we can use as a crutch? Maybe, lash several things together, if we have to? We’ll both need one, or several.”
Trey perked up. “I’ll look.”
Jhan closed her eyes again, waiting anxiously. She heard something heavy moving through the grass. Trey was crawling, hissing through his teeth at the pain it was causing him. There were other movements, other sounds. Jhan began to drift as the time crawled by without Trey saying anything.
“Don’t sleep,” Trey warned.
Jhan blinked open her eyes. Nothing had changed as far as her eyesight was concerned. As far as other things... “Did you find something?”
“Yes” Trey replied proudly. “I made three crutches out of spear shafts. Two of them are for me. The wound is stiffening up. I’m not going to be able to use that leg at all.”
“I only need one to lean on,” Jhan told him. “It’s my head and my ribs, not my legs, that hurt the most.”
“Cracked ribs,” Trey surmised guiltily.
“I think so.”
“If they’re broken, you’ll know when they stick through a lung,” Trey warned her with a battle hardened tone of matter-of-factness. “You’ll cough up blood and die quick.”
Trey sounded as if that would be a good thing and Jhan had to agree. Suffering until she died, under a blazing sun, could too easily be her fate. It had almost been Trey’s.
Birds were settling down to feast on the corpses. Flies had already arrived in swarming numbers. The wind was dying down and the smell of death was growing. It was time to move.
Jhan steeled herself and slowly sat up. Her head pounded like an anvil and her stomach nearly heaved what little it had. She refused it, bit her lip, and opened her eyes.
“I can’t see straight,” she admitted at last, to herself as much as Trey.
“Not good,” Trey replied grimly.
“What about this is?” Jhan shot back. “Maybe it’s the swelling. When it goes down... No, on second thought, I don’t want to think about what ifs. Help me get up. I have to concentrate on that. You’ll be my eyes for awhile.”
“I told you. I can’t help you,” Trey reminded her. “You have to get up by yourself.”
“I can do it,” Jhan replied determinedly. “I will do it.”
“I’m waiting,” Trey said doubtfully.
Jhan gathered her legs under her. They seemed sound, only a kneecap twinging. With a heave, she used the crutch to lever herself up onto her feet. There, she swayed and went bloodless as the pain of her head transcended anything bearable. Her ribs felt as if they had caught on fire.
“Now, you.” Jhan didn’t know how she had managed to say that.
“I never suspected that you were so strong,” Trey said with reluctant admiration. “I thought, being small, and used by Captain Kile, and maybe those others for all I knew, that you were a weakling. You have courage. Enough to be a man.”
“It’s not courage,” Jhan corrected him through gritted teeth. “I’m a great coward, Treyula-”
“Don’t call me that!” Trey seethed, struggling awkwardly to face her with a reddened face and scowling red brows. “It’s my name with an Alamien inflection. It means; less than less. Alidae is above contempt for an ex-slave, but I have a place and he keeps me in it. All Alamien are like that.”
“I’m sorry,” Jhan replied. She pressed her face against the wood of the crutch
and leaned her weight against the lashed cross piece near the top. “I didn’t know. I just heard it used.
“My name is Trey,” he insisted, calmer. “It means Summer. That’s when I was born.”
“All right, Trey. You can call me Jhan. I don’t know what it means and there’s a great deal more of it, but I like short names too.”
“That isn’t a name,” Trey grumbled, as if Jhan had offended him again.
“You want more?” Jhan grumbled back. “All right. The whole name is Jhanian, but don’t call me that.”
“Storm. Fierce storm,” Trey worked out slowly. “That’s the language of Karana. I remember you telling me that you came from there.” He gave her a suspicious look. “Why don’t you know the meaning of your own name?”
“The story is far too long!” Jhan snapped. “Can you get up or not?”
“If you can’t keep standing for this little while, you won’t be able to walk,” Trey pointed out, but Jhan could just make out his doubled, blurry form struggling to rise. He grunted and gasped.
“On my feet,” Trey announced breathlessly.
“Good, now, let’s walk.” It was easier said than done. Jhan turned her steps to follow the flattened grass. The pain in her body made her sob. She was both irritated and inwardly grateful when Trey’s voice brought her up short.
“The other way,” Trey corrected her.
“No, the sun is this way,” Jhan insisted.
“Yes, it is,” Trey agreed, “but that’s in the opposite direction. We need to get back to the Alamien or find my clan.”
“That’s not where I’m going,” Jhan persisted. “I need to find Kile and the others.”
Trey wasn’t compassionate, instead he was brutally honest. “We will never catch up to them. Even if we did, I’m too wounded to be of any use to my sword brothers. As for you, well, you aren’t very beautiful right now and certainly not of any use in a man’s bed.”
Jhan exploded, her head ringing and her body swaying against her crutch, threatening to fall in the force of her exasperation, “Is that all you think I’m good for, laying on my back? Can’t you conceive of me having friends and a man I love? I’m worried to death about them. I need to find them and make sure they are all right!”
Trey was taken aback. He stared long at Jhan and then sighed and shook his head. “It’s too easy to forget that you’re something more than a woman, yet less than a man. I don’t know how to treat you. A Bhuntay’s woman’s worth IS on her back, Jhan of Karana, and I did suppose a cut man’s as well. Skill and beauty in that area are worth more than glass beads.”
“That must be a lot,” Jhan shot back sarcastically.
“It is.” Jhan had the feeling that Trey was studying her. “You are lucky that you are not a woman. If a Bhuntay woman had shown your fire, she would have been beaten and shown her place by a man.”
“Jhalel tried that,” Jhan reminded him.
“How does your man deal with you?” Trey wondered. "Gently, it must be, for you to brave so much to get back to him. He must like your fire. I must confess that I find it fascinating as well. A man can grow tired of weak and submissive women.”
Jhan felt a chill, feeling the need to insist, “but, I’m not a woman.”
“Maybe enough of one not to make any difference.”
“Or, maybe not,” Jhan countered briskly and forced her body to begin walking again. “Come or go. I don’t care,” she hissed through her pain. “I need to find Kile and my friends, not waste my energy on satisfying your prurient interest.”
She heard Trey pause to gather some of the supplies, but Jhan knew that she couldn’t carry anything but her own weight. She went on, doggedly, panting and hissing with pain. When Trey came up beside her, he was silent, not wasting breath on the obvious. He was coming with her. Jhan wondered why, her mistrust of men coming to the fore in light of his questions, but then she discarded that fear. What could Trey do when he was so wounded, fall on her and faint?
“I think the mercenaries may be closer than my clan or the Alamien,” Trey said at last in way of explanation, and then with a hint of desperation, “I will hope that they are.”

Jhan sat down in the grass after only an hour. Her head felt ready to burst with the hot, roiling pain and her hands pressed against her ribs as she simply tried to breathe. Trey collapsed, rather than sat, rolling onto his back and staring up at the sky.
“I can see better now,” Jhan said inbetween pants. “Still blurry on the edges, but not doubled any more.”
“I hurt so much, I can’t see anything,” Trey replied tightly. “It’s hard to believe that this torture is making you better instead of worse.”
Jhan thought of the tiny machines keeping her alive and didn’t wonder at it at all. She only hoped that it would last and that she wouldn’t find a sudden deadly limitation.
“Are you really a Prince?”
Trey’s sudden question confused Jhan. It took her a long moment to bring her thoughts to bear on it.
“What does it matter?”
“I’ve worked for enough kings and princes to know one when I see one,” Trey told her. “All haughty and demanding their proper due of courtesy. If I had acted, as I’m acting to you now, they’d have had me dragged out and cut up alive.”
Jhan was purposefully cryptic. “The title belonged to someone else. I inherited it. You can forget about it. I try to.”
“Then you’re not, really?” Trey insisted on clarity.
“No, not really.”
“I remember you saying that your brother is the King of Karana?”
“Loosely, yes.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I.” Jhan sighed and then struggled to get up. The pain wasn’t any less for the rest. “You’re very curious for a savage.”
Trey stood up, panting and groaning. He leaned on his crutches and it was a long moment before he replied. “I’m just curious about you. I’ve never met anyone so strange that wasn’t taken out and killed. You have enough titles to protect you, but you seem too eager to discard them. Did your brother cut you? Were you a rival for the throne that he wanted out of the way?” Jhan blinked. “No and no.”
“Some of the mercenaries wondered why you hadn’t killed yourself after being cut and used by men,” Trey went on mercilessly, but he was suddenly tense as well as he admitted, “but I understood you. I didn’t kill myself when I was branded and made into a slave. I want my life. If I despise you, I despise myself.”
“Don’t you?” Jhan muttered back and began to walk.
Trey was quiet as he struggled behind her, and then he said. “I do. You know I do. You understand me. You called yourself a coward. I’m considered a coward. We both want our lives.”
“That’s bravery,” Jhan replied.
“Bravery?”
“To live despite everything is bravery, Trey. It seems to be the only thing I’m brave about.”
Trey didn’t have a reply to that. They struggled on in silence, repeatedly resting and gathering the strength to go on. In that limping fashion they made their way across the plain until nightfall.
Trey was despondent as they sat near a small, shallow pool of water. It was Jhan who lay on her back now, panting and sweating with pain, an arm over her eyes to shield them from the last rays of the sun.
“We didn’t get very far,” Trey informed her sullenly.
“I-I ca-can’t h-hardly breath!’ Jhan gasped out.
Trey pulled himself to Jhan’s side. “I’m going to have to look at your ribs,” he warned. “If they’re broken...”
He didn’t need to say it. Far from any healer, Jhan’s chances were slim. She was in too much pain to argue or react when Trey began unlacing her dress. He was quick and light handed, pulling the material open, he paused.
Jhan’s nipples were translucent pink atop breasts that were white silk; perfect small handfuls atop a gently curving waist mottled with ugly bruises and swelled knots. Trey fished out the cloth she had forgotten was nestled there.
“You were eating this?” Trey was respectful. “I’ve known starving men who wouldn’t stoop to worms.”
Trey put them aside and wiped his hand on his pants. His eyes were on Jhan’s breasts then, all amazement. Jhan felt his hands on them.
“My r-ribs,” Jhan hissed.
Trey withdrew his hands. “Sorry. They’re just... perfect. I can see why you wear dresses now, but I don’t understand. Does cutting off your manhood make them grow like that? Does it make you become a woman?”
“I-I don’t want to-to talk about th-that!” Jhan gasped out.
“How far do these bruises go?” Trey wondered, wincing at the damage. “I didn’t do all of that!”
“Jh-Jhalel!”
Trey unlaced Jhan’s dress as far as it would go and then lifted it up at the hem to see further than that. Jhan felt his hands touching sensitive places.
“Not much of the man left, is there?" Trey commented as he dropped her hem and began examining Jhan’s ribs critically. “Just enough to pee standing up. If it wasn’t for that, you would be close to a woman as made no difference.”
“T-Trey!” Jhan protested.
“I don’t think they’re broken,” he said at last, but his hands had gone back to Jhan’s breasts again and he cupped them and pulled playfully on the nipples. “Even as tired and sore as I am, you’re giving me a stand.”
As if it were completely acceptable, Trey was suddenly pulling Jhan’s dress up again and positioning himself between her legs. He was careful of his weight and both of their wounds as he unbuttoned his pants. Jhan was so shocked, he was pushing himself into her before she could react. Jhan reached up and her hand closed on his windpipe.
“G-Get off or-or I’ll,” she panted for breath, her head spinning. She squeezed her hand to make her point.
Trey was wide eyed. He winced as he levered himself out of her, rolling onto his side, his pants still open for Jhan to see. “I’m not like Jhalel. I won’t hurt you. You gave me a stand. I needed relief.”
Jhan glared. Trey was perplexed.
“What’s wrong with you?” Trey wondered. “It’s what you do, bed other men. Why am I different?” he sighed. “My leg probably wouldn’t have allowed it any way.” he smiled, totally unaware of Jhan’s horror. “A man will try even on his deathbed.”
Business like, Trey began to masturbate himself briskly, staring at Jhan’s breasts. It didn’t take him long. He grunted, sighed, and wiped himself off with a handful of grass.
“That’s better,” Trey said, doing up his pants and relaxing on his back. “You must be a prince. You think you’re too good to have a common man put it to you. Lord Kile’s good enough though, hmm?”
Jhan was weeping, almost turning blue with the effort to draw in air past her sobs and her agonizing ribs. Outrage made her force words with what little breath she had. “T-Touch m-me again and... I-I can... k-kill you!”
“A prince, indeed,” Trey muttered.
Jhan did up her dress with shaking hands. She closed her eyes tightly and when Trey put some food on her breast, she struck it away.
“As you will, Your Highness, but it won’t help you in the morning,” Trey warned her indifferently.
Jhan sat up and glared at him. Without a word, she levered herself to her feet and then began walking.
“What are you doing?” Trey demanded.
“Leaving a rapist behind,” Jhan grated. She was surprised that she could speak. Standing took the pressure off of her ribs. She cradled them with her free arm. “Stay and do yourself as many times as you want.”
“Now you’re offended by me?” Trey was incredulous. He struggled up and hobbled after her. “You are far more a woman than you are a man!”
“I’d thank you, but I hate you,” Jhan seethed. “You don’t even know what you’ve done.” She gasped at a particularly sharp pain, breathed through it and then spat out, “Why did you think I would welcome that from you?”
“It’s what you are,” Trey complained. “Why wouldn’t I think you would accept my advances? You’ve bowed yourself to men’s use of you. How am I different from any other man?”
“Would you treat a woman that way?” Jhan demanded.
“No, of course not!” Trey was incensed. “Women of the Bhuntay choose whom to bed. It’s the only choice they’re allowed to make.”
“The only one?” Jhan remembered Jhalel. “Are you sure they’re allowed to do even that?”
Trey shrugged and almost fell. He caught himself and cursed before continuing. “If a woman keeps with other women and is beyond reproach, she is respected. A woman who wanders alone, ignores propriety, or beds men without due regard for custom is considered a whore and free to be taken. You’re not either of those things. You’re a man. What difference does any of it make to you? A man is allowed to bed as often as he likes and however he wishes. Are you restricting yourself to a woman’s place? Is that what’s wrong? Are you denying yourself a man’s right to pleasure for women’s propriety? If that’s so, I’d have to name you a whore for traveling with so many men out of company with other women. The result would have been the same.”
“There is a difference,” Jhan replied, low and dangerous. “I’m a woman who can, and will, kill you. We are alone. Nobody will punish me. Nobody will come to your rescue. Before you can blink, even as wounded as I am, I can kill you, Treyula.” She stressed the name and heard him growl in anger.
“I doubt that,” Trey said. “You didn’t do much to defend yourself when I was slamming your head into a metal shield."
“You surprised me,” Jhan replied. “I won’t be surprised again.”
“You don’t know your place,” Trey shot back. “You may have been a prince, but you’re a cut man now; a camp whore who won a captain to his bed. Taking on airs and false modesty won’t change that.”
“Being a mercenary won’t change the fact that you’re a body slave either,” Jhan replied quickly. It was to wound him back and as false a charge as the one he had spoken, but it had a volatile reaction. It was too close to the mark. Too close to how Trey really felt about himself.
Jhan found herself on her back, light dancing in a red haze as pain exploded through her. Trey was on top of her, panting through his own pain. He was thrusting her dress up and slamming himself between her legs.
“You are not too good for a body slave, and I’ll prove it to you!” Trey measured out each word through gritted teeth. He was determined to do it. His face contorted above Jhan as he tried to find the strength of body and the desire. Both failed him miserably.
The world solidified and Jhan’s limbs began to move to her will. She locked her arms and legs around Trey. She tightened them, locking the joints and bringing to her extra muscles to bear. Like a vice, she began squeezing the air out of Trey’s lungs.
“I-I may break all of my ribs doin-doing th-this," Jhan panted as she felt the pain wash over her and her ribs protest, “but I-I’ll sn-snap every b-bone in your b-body before I let y-you rape me! I-If you want to die for it, g-go ahead!”
“Sorry,” Trey managed with his last breath.
Jhan loosened her grip only slightly. Trey gasped in air.
“If you feel that strongly about it...,” Trey panted.
“I-I do.”
“Your will is mine, Prince Jhanian of Karana.”
Jhan released him completely and Trey pushed off of her and rolled sideways. He flicked Jhan’s dress down and smoothed it over her legs.
“Shy as a virgin!” he swore under his breath. “Keep your charms. They’re not good enough to die for.”
“I warned you,” Jhan sat up and her breathing eased. “Now you believe it. I’m not helpless.” Jhan half sobbed and ran a shaking hand over her face. “Why did you have to do that? Why can’t you, and every other man, keep their hands off of me?”
Trey eyed her. The moon lit up his face enough for Jhan to see his sour expression. “Are you truly unaware of how beautiful you are? How can any man keep from wanting you? I know what you are and, even though it sickens me, I still can’t help getting a stand when I look at you. You even smell wonderful... like fresh bread. It makes my mouth water. You were made by some god to stir men’s manhood.”
“By a man, yes, I was,” Jhan replied quietly, then in anguish, “It’s me, you’re saying? It’s all my fault that men can’t seem to help wanting to rape me?”
“Yes.”
Jhan wanted to deny it. Weak, ill, and angry she didn’t want to accept what she already knew, that Dagara hadn’t just made her a weapon, he had made her irresistible in every way to lull men into complacency before she killed them. Trey, at the end of his strength and suffering from his wound, had still tried to have her.
“It isn’t my fault,” Jhan protested. “I won’t admit that. People shouldn’t try to force me against my will just because I’m beautiful.”
Trey liked dry lips, cautiously explaining, “It isn’t just that. You make men burn. I think Alidae realized that. He knew he was asking for trouble by letting you in among the men, but there wasn’t any help for it. Darkai wanted you with us.” he tried to ease the tension by chuckling. “At least you have defenses. Try and use them before a man starts next time.”
“There would be a long line of corpses if I had done that,” Jhan told him chillingly.
“I don’t doubt it,” Trey replied nervously, “but, according to your way of thinking, they would have deserved it, right? I can’t understand you why you won’t enjoy a good roll with anyone but your Captain, but if you are going to think that way, there are enough men who think my way to try you. I went between your legs twice. I’m a man. I might try a third time, if I think I can. You are a man too, if you’ll remember it. I beat you unconscious when I thought you were going to try me. Stop being a woman about it and do the same. I can take a headache more than I can crushed ribs!”
Jhan turned her head and gave him a hard stare. “According to your way of thinking, you should have just laid back and enjoyed it.”
Trey smiled. “If I had known you had breasts like that, I would have.”
Jhan felt sick. She wanted to lie down, but it made it too hard to breathe. She also wasn’t sure of Trey. All seemed to have been forgiven, but she didn’t trust it. She was afraid to fall asleep.
Trey saw her difficulty. “I don’t want to travel anymore tonight,” he sighed. “I promise, on the honor of the Brown Feather Clan, that you’ll be safe from me. Besides,” he lay on his back, his pride stung, “you saw how much success I had a moment ago.” he turned with difficulty on his side. “He patted it. “Lean back against me and try and sleep sitting up.”
“No,” Jhan replied shakily, but she was going over the edge of exhaustion.
Trey scowled. “You said that you could kill me. I believe it. You don’t seem to believe yourself.”
Jhan stared at Trey and went over in her mind all the things that she could do to kill him, suddenly and instantly. He saw it behind her eyes and his face went ghostly in the moonlight. Before, Jhan would have been comforted in knowing that she couldn’t have done any of those things. After her treatment by Jhalel and Trey, something inside of her was hardening. If Trey was right, and she still refused to think that he was, it wasn’t exactly men’s cruelty and baseness that was making them attack her repeatedly. It was herself. Evian Perazii had known Jhan’s trouble. So had Kile. Cowardice and training, by Dagara Ku Ni, had made her a participant in the attacks on her. She had allowed them.
Jhan struggled to Trey’s side, teeth set in her bottom lip as she quelled fear and reluctance to lay against his side. He pillowed his head on his arm and went to sleep without comment. He was hard, a muscled soldier, but his support allowed Jhan to breathe and she couldn’t help, despite everything, but be grateful for it.
“Don’t ever call me Treyula again,” Trey said suddenly.
Jhan stiffened and then forced herself to relax. “Then don’t act like one.”
“Whore,” Trey snapped in an undertone.
“Slave!” Jhan snarled back.
Trey chuckled. “Such fire! Maybe I will try again.”
Trey moved only a little under Jhan, but she had his arm locked in hers in an instant. He froze. She let him feel the strength of her muscles.
“All I have to do is tighten to crush the bones in your arm,” Jhan warned. “I’m not strong. It’s all leverage, the way I’ve been built, and the knowledge of the weakness of your body.”
“So brave against a wounded man,” Trey lamented, but he relaxed and Jhan released him. “See, all you had to do was warn me off forcefully and early to save yourself and myself some hurt. That’s being a man. Women have to submit. You don’t.“
Jhan would like to have spat out an argument to that, but she held it back. She was simply too weary.
“Go to sleep,” Jhan ordered. Trey, to her surprise, did just that. She thought that she wouldn’t be able to, still mistrusting her precarious position, but her wounds and her weariness couldn’t be fought against like Trey. They were not to be denied. She fell asleep almost at once.

Jhan woke first, her body stiff and her eyes stinging as she opened them to morning light. Trey was snoring softly, face pale and body sprawled beneath Jhan. She should have hated him, quietly left him while he slept, but she didn’t. She only felt resigned and calmer than she had been since Jhalel had dragged her off to humiliate her.
Jhan had changed last night. She didn’t know if it was good or bad, but she was resolved to hold onto that change. Jhan had reached a place beyond fear of consequences, beyond the submissiveness she had been taught. It wasn’t courage yet, but she felt the beginnings of it in a sudden confidence in her own skill. That Trey had given her that small glimmer of confidence by cruelty and callousness didn’t diminish it.
Trey stirred, but didn’t wake. Jhan lightly put a hand to his throat and thought of six ways to crush it or break it in the blink of an eye. Her ability had always appalled her. She had let General Vek teach her to control it, but not much more. Her soft heart, and fear of retaliation if she should fail, had been a barrier she hadn’t been able to cross until last night. Trey had given her the key. Men were expected to fight and protect themselves. If they didn’t, they deserved what happened to them. It was the cruel key to that world that she had tried not to understand. She was irresistible to men. She was considered a man, yet a woman too. She was expected to fight off assaults to prove that she didn’t want them.
Without killing him, Jhan had made Trey afraid of her and afraid to touch her. She had overpowered him, easily, and made her bluff. He had believed it. A bully seldom had to fight. He just had to garner a reputation as a fighter. That was the whole of the key. Jhan needed a reputation. She needed to stop trying so hard to appear to be what she was, helpless, gentle, and broken beyond repair.
Jhan needed her temper back. She needed it to be the facade to cover her true self. She searched deep within herself, searching for it as if it were a lost glove she needed to put on. She found it in her rage of being used and degraded. It was there, very deep, simmering behind the fear of retaliation and the traitor self that somehow thought that she deserved what happened to her because of what she was. Jhan plucked it out, stroked it hard, and pushed the barriers aside to embrace it. Sizzling, fiery rage.
“Wake up!” Jhan slapped Trey in the face, not hard, but not light either.
Trey started awake, stammering and blinking as he tried to remember where he was. He groaned as his wounded leg jerked with his motions. He glared and narrowed his vision down to Jhan.
“Why did you do that?”
“Part of your restitution for last night.”
Trey snorted and sat up, rubbing his stung cheek. “You’re the one with the dainty habits,” he reminded her. “I’m Bhuntay. I didn’t see anything wrong with what I did.”
Jhan didn’t pursue it. “We’ll eat and then go. The sun is near afternoon. We’ve slept too long.”
“What does it matter?” Trey grumbled as he rummaged in a pack and then handed Jhan several cakes of dried fruit. He bit into his own and added, “We won’t catch up to them.”
“Then lay down and die where you are!” Jhan managed to stand without too much trouble. Her ribs had settled into a dull throbbing and her other bruises were background aches. Her head still pounded though, and that made up for any respite from the rest.
Trey was astonished. “How did you... Last night you looked nearly dead!”
“I heal quickly,” Jhan replied as she settled the crutch under her arm. “You must not have broken anything. I still hurt, and my muscles feel stiff, but the rest was what I needed.”
Jhan almost felt sorry for Trey as he hobbled after her across the plains; almost. Most of what she felt was satisfaction. Here was something she was better at than even a healthy Bhuntay man. Her high metabolism was quickly reducing swellings, knitting torn muscles, and... Jhan felt a moment of trepidation. Her body was also burning what she ate quickly as well. She considered what little food they had left and how much more than Trey she would need.
“We need to find them,” Jhan muttered to herself.
“Yes we do, Oh Speaker of the Obvious,” Trey replied angrily. “We should have tried to reach my clan.”
“Would they have helped you?” Jhan retorted quietly. Trey blinked at her and then his face went sullen. “No,” Jhan replied for him, “so shut-up about it.”
“Outcasts, the both of us,” Trey sighed deprecatingly. “A cut man and a body slave. The gods must be laughing.”
“I hope not,” Jhan replied painfully. “I hope that this isn’t a joke and that I’m the butt of it. It’s far too cruel.”
Trey fell silent, panting in his pain. After awhile he said, “I like you.”
“That was obvious last night, Oh Speaker of the Obvious,” Jhan growled and glared.
Trey shrugged and chuckled. “A man will always try, or weren’t you ever enough of a man to know about that?” When Jhan shook her head Trey became more understanding. “No wonder you have the modesty of a virgin girl. Here I thought you were just being royal and picky. Do you even want men? Or is it women you want?”
Jhan rounded on him. “Why do you care? Why must you keep talking about it?. Am I such a freak that you can’t get enough of gawking at me?”
“I’m young. Sex is always on my mind,” Trey chuckled again.
“I don’t want you,” Jhan told him warningly.
“Just your captain?”
“Yes.”
“Do you feel anything when you do it? Can you, uh, get it up?”
Jhan stopped walking, clutching at her crutch. “I don’t feel anything!” She shouted, confronting him. “I don’t want anyone. I love Kile. You don’t seem to know anything about love, but that’s a far better reason to want to be with someone than just wanting to bang them!”
“Bang them?” Trey grinned. “I like that. Yes, you are a freak and, yes, I am curious. I think I have all of my questions answered now, though.”
“Good. Worry about getting to the others alive then.”
“That’s what I was trying to avoid thinking about,” Trey lamented. “Sex is much more relaxing a subject and you are quite a diversion!"
Trey reached out a hand as if to touch Jhan’s arm. Jhan hefted her crutch and spun it so that it poised near Trey’s head. He stared at it, transfixed.
“I can crack your skull,” Jhan said evenly,” Break your neck. Crush your larynx. Put out your eyes. Drive your nose right up into your brain. I can do all of that before you could take two breaths. Are you ready to try a third time?”
Trey leaned on his crutches and smiled, but it was nervous. “See. You only have to stop me BEFORE I begin. A warnings good enough for me.”
“I’ve met enough men where that isn’t enough,” Jhan replied.
“That’s when you actually do it.”
“Why do you care?” Jhan wondered suspiciously. “You should want me to get abused. Everyone else does.”
“I told you already,” Trey said with lowered eyes. “I had to make the same choice you did. Both of us were forced to be what we are, but we both chose to live with it. I’ve had to fight too, with people who fingered that brand on my rump and came to the wrong conclusion about what kind of slave I was. Luckily I can hide it, but you don’t get much privacy bivouacking with soldiers and mercenaries. You have to drop your pants in company too often to keep secrets. You can’t go to the trees or find convenient bushes when you’re facing the enemy on the field.”
“I suppose we’re a brotherhood of two, though there are more in the world, I’m sure,” Trey continued, trying to catch up to Jhan as she sullenly began walking away from him. “It makes me more tolerant than any Bhuntay you’ll find. Just the fact that your lying down with men would be enough for them to take you out and kill you. Having seen you, I can’t find any fault with it. You have the charms of a woman. What manhood you have left to you... well, you can’t be expected to mount any women with that thing!”
“You’re talking about it again,” Jhan seethed.
“Just explaining,” Trey replied soothingly. “You were going to sew up my wound when you could have left me with the corpses on the battlefield. If you want a clear answer and not any of that sop, then that would be it. Take either one.”
“I trust the last more,” Jhan told him. “I’ve never had someone empathize with me, say they felt the way I do, so I can’t really trust that.”
“I understand.”
Trey had his eyes on the distance, pain etching lines between them. He was very pale.
“I want to be considered a woman,” Jhan told him.
Trey looked sideways at her. “Why? Why would you give up all the freedom a man has for the little life of a woman?”
“I didn’t say that!’ Jhan retorted. “I don’t believe, like you do, that women should be kept shut up and used to please men.”
Trey frowned and shook his head. “I don’t understand. You won’t lay down and spread your legs to a man, but you want to be a woman. I can’t treat you any other way, if that’s what you want. I am Bhuntay.”
“You know what will happen to you if you try to have me again!” Jhan snarled warningly. “I have something your women don’t. A very deadly sting.”
“True,” Trey said gravely and then shrugged. “I owe you much, Jhan Dor. I will respect your wishes, even though they seem odd.”
“You do that,” Jhan replied sourly.

They traveled in stops and starts through most of the day. A light rain pelted them mid-afternoon, but it wasn’t enough to obscure the trail. Long before darkness fell, Trey gave out. He sat in the grass with his head bowed and his hand on his wounded thigh. Jhan could see his jaw clenching, muscles bunching with the tension.
“You’ll have to go on by yourself,” Trey told Jhan dejectedly. “I’m done.”
Jhan sat down as well, resting her throbbing head in her hands. “We’re both done.”
“Head still hurts?” Trey wondered.
“Yes,” Jhan replied with a sigh. “My vision is much clearer though. Something must be getting better.”
“Your one eye isn’t dilated any more,” Trey noticed.
Jhan blinked. “You didn’t say anything about that!”
Trey shrugged. “I did, you just weren’t in any shape to remember. Better that you did forget it. You would only have worried more.”
“Surprisingly considerate, for a rapist,” Jhan muttered.
“That isn’t a Bhuntay word,” Trey informed her matter-of-factly.
“Considerate?”
“Rapist. Only Outlanders think so much about what a woman wants. It’s a wonder they ever put seed in them to sire sons.”
“A good thing to know about an enemy!” Jhan knew the voice, rolling and rich. She turned with a cry of delight to see Bheni riding an imala towards them at an easy walk. The grass, and a light wind, had muffled her approach.
Trey stiffened. He didn’t have a weapon. They had been plundered by the enemy. He reached instinctively for one anyway, hand grasping ineffectually as Bheni swung down from her imala and approached cautiously.
Bheni’s skin was the color of clear mahogany and her eyes were a mottled green. Her hair was brick red, braided in a hundred plaits down her back. She was tall and muscled; a warrior of her people. Dressed in black riding leathers, she had a business like hand on her sword hilt and an air of command. Her whole attention was on Trey. Aside from a thickening at her middle, she didn’t look like a woman who had just delivered a child not long ago. Instead, she looked dangerous, a viper ready to strike.
“Friend or foe?” Bheni asked Jhan with a nod at Trey.
“Not a friend,” Jhan replied with a glare at Trey, “but not enough of an enemy to want him dead.”
Bheni didn’t relax her stance. “Should I send him on his way?”
“No, he’s wounded.”
Bheni looked Jhan over critically. “You look wounded as well. What happened? Where are the others?”
Bheni’s voice was calm, but Jhan heard the edge to it. She could tell that Bheni wanted to grab her and shake the information out of her instantly. She wanted to know where her love, Rehn was.
“I was taken prisoner by the Bhuntay,” Jhan explained, trying to encapsulate all that had happened. “Rehn and the others were forced to leave with an escort of Bhuntay warriors. They’ve gone to fight a war for the Bhuntay.”
“Rehn as well?” Bheni’s voice rose in alarm. “He is not a warrior! He will be killed!”
“He didn’t have any choice,” Jhan replied sadly. “I was kept behind, but I managed to escape. I found Trey in a heap of dead bodies from one of their skirmishes.” Jhan glared at him. “I was trying to help him, but he thought something else and,” she touched the knot on her head and its company of bruises,” he did all of this and more before he realized what I was trying to do.”
Bheni’s eyes saw more than bruises. “Left behind with those savages... what did they do?”
“It’s done and best forgotten,” Jhan replied in a clipped tone.
Trey snorted in amusement as he fingered the string of beads still tied to Jhan’s arm. “Whatever it was, he, or she, as she prefers to be called, managed to get a chieftain’s mark before she escaped. I hadn’t any idea Jhalel’s tastes were so strange.”
Jhan jerked her arm away. “They weren’t.” She pulled the string off and cast it away. “He just wanted to humiliate me in front of his men.”
“I avoided their camp,” Bheni broke in. “I’ve heard that they treat women like herd beasts and that foreigners are very unwelcome.”
“You would have been a prize with your dark skin,” Trey agreed. “It is very beautiful.”
Bheni scowled. “Keep your tongue civil, or I may leave you despite what Jhan says.”
“How did you find us?” Jhan wondered, suddenly looking about at the wide plains all about them. “How did you even know that we were out here if you didn’t stop at the Bhuntay camp?”
Bheni gave a small smile and a proud tilt to her chin. “There is always someone who knows what you want. You just have to find that person. When you did not return with Rehn, I traveled to the Silverwood. I could not get an answer even from their king! It was a guard at a lift device that told me he had seen you leave late in the night. The guard at the bottom knew in which direction you had gone in. After that, I found an Alamien boy who watched beasts in a pen. With a few bits of copper, I was able to get him to tell me that he had overheard a very important man, a Darkai, speaking with Princess Avrilla of the Telestar. He had overheard Darkai say that they were headed for a city called Amberglass and that he was taking you with him.”
Bheni looked about as well. “It was almost luck that I found you. There wasn’t a trail to follow for some miles. I spotted carrion birds and found the dead soldiers. Beyond that, I found the trail.”
“It’s the first bit of luck we’ve had,” Jhan replied sourly, “With our wounds, we haven’t traveled very far.”
Bheni left her imala to graze. She crouched by Jhan, keeping her body facing Trey. Her green eyes were troubled. “The sun has burned your pale skin very badly and your eyes are red and swollen. You are not a person for sunny strolls, Jhan.”
Jhan looked down at her hands. Her long sleeved dress had given her ample protection, but her hands were very red. She raised them to her face and touched sensitive skin, hissing. “Everything else hurt so much that I didn’t feel it.”
Bheni touched Jhan’s head, feeling the lump there. “Cracked, maybe,” she thought aloud. “It needs to be cleaned. There is pus in the wound.” She looked at Jhan’s eyes, but was relieved by what she saw. “Headaches? Blurred vision?”
“My head still hurts, but my eyes are all right,” Jhan replied, wincing at the pain Bheni’s calloused fingers caused.
“Anything else?” Bheni prompted.
“Ribs. Hips. Upper legs.”
Bheni glared at Trey. “You will turn about. If you so much as twitch an eye Jhan’s way, I will gut you without question, understood?”
Trey paled and turned obediently. “I don’t think I ever want to go where they raise women such as you. It isn’t natural! A woman shouldn’t carry a sword!”
“Or know how to use it?” Bheni responded acidly as she unbuttoned Jhan’s dress. She lay aside the fabric and looked critically at all the bruises. “That looks like someone’s boot,” she observed, fingering an oval bruise. “And that looks like someone’s fingers,” she said, touching many small bruises above Jhan’s hips.
Bheni looked at Jhan and her face went very dark. “Did the Bhuntay rape you?”
“I told you, no,” Jhan replied, looking down and feeling very cold despite the hot sun. “The Bhuntay chief just did a few filthy things to humiliate me because I made him look a fool in front of his men.”
“Jhan can fend off any rape,” Trey said over his shoulder.
Bheni scowled. “I told you-”
“All right!” Trey growled.
“It will mend,” Bheni proclaimed confidently as she rebuttoned Jhan’s dress. “I will put you in the saddle. We can still travel some way before darkness falls.”
Jhan was relieved. “I’ve never been good for walking, even when I was well. Trey will have to ride too.”
Bheni was surprised. “You will tolerate him touching you, being that near in the saddle?”
Jhan was surprised at herself. Trey had tried to rape her, not once, but twice, but those attacks had given her a new insight into her life. Trey had given her a rope to hang onto when she had been sinking in the quicksand of helplessness. Trey was also unarmed and wounded. He didn’t have any companions to avenge him. Jhan knew that she could kill him. Knowing that, she didn’t fear him.
“It’s all right,” Jhan told Bheni firmly. “It’s necessary.”
Bheni doubted that it was, but she held her tongue as she helped Trey get onto the imala. It was awkward and painful for Trey. Bheni was snapping and irritated with him, finally getting him into the saddle with a heave that almost threw Trey off the other side of the Imala. He grabbed the saddle prow, gasping and panting in pain, and managed to stay on.
Bheni lifted Jhan as if she were fine glass. She placed her behind Trey, surmising that the man couldn’t make as much mischief when they were in that position. Jhan was grateful, balancing herself easily and feeling only a few sharp jabs of pain catch her side. She didn’t want to have to worry about Trey and his roving hands as well as staying in the saddle.
“Do not turn about or bother Jhan in any way,” Bheni warned Trey.
“I won’t!” Trey assured her angrily. “I don’t have a death wish woman!”
Bheni arched an eyebrow. “You know of Jhan’s skill?”
“Yes, intimately," Trey glowered and said nothing more.
“I could leave him,” Bheni suggested again.
“No,” Jhan insisted and then felt an unexpected thrill when she added. “I can take care of him if he tries anything.”
“I know you can,” Bheni said with an uncertain smile, “but will you, gentle Jhan?”
“Yes.”
It was clear that Bheni didn’t believe her, but she didn’t see any alternative that didn’t entail leaving Trey to die. Since Jhan was opposed to that, the situation was unalterable. Bheni took up the reins of the imala and began walking with long, ground-eating strides.
The rolling gait of the imala was torture for Trey. He bowed over, clutching at his wounded hip, but he didn’t utter a sound, not willing to show weakness in front of a woman. Jhan saw the difference then, between the way he had been treating her and the way he was treating Bheni. It was clear that he hadn’t considered Jhan a woman. His attitude toward her had been as with any man, yet a man far inferior to himself and a sex object a well if he wished and dared it. Bheni was ONLY a sex object, an object Trey felt that he had to show his superiority over, despite his condition. That Bheni threatened him, and seemed to know how to use the sword at her side, must have been confusing him terribly.
Jhan rubbed at her aching head, relaxing and looking ahead from her height on the imala’s back. In the distance, she could make out the cloud wreathed tops of mountains and a distinct line where the plains ended. She could also see the small, wheeling forms of carrion birds. Another battle? It was at least another day’s travel away.
Jhan closed her eyes for a moment and then looked down at Bheni. The tall woman was a commanding presence with a strong, straight back and a face that didn’t concede to anything. Something stirred in those green eyes. Jhan knew that she had seen the birds too.
“Where’s the baby?” Jhan finally asked, feeling guilty that she hadn’t thought of it before.
Bheni’s face tightened and hardened. “I left him with Rehn’s mother. She delivered of a girl not long after I did. She is suckling them both until I return.”
“At her age?” Jhan was amazed.
“Rehn told me that farm women bear until they cannot any longer,” Bheni replied absently, her eyes still on the birds. “They are never taught what makes a child and how to lessen the chance of conceiving. I tried to teach her, but she only laughed and told me that Island women were immodest and, besides, she liked being pregnant.” Bheni frowned, remembering her own pregnancy. “It makes one awkward with a sword. I couldn’t practice. I didn’t like that.”
Jhan almost laughed, but saw, in time, that Bheni was serious. Trey only stared, and then couldn’t help saying, ”You try not to conceive sons?”
Bheni ignored him. “I miss my little one.”
“I’m sorry,” Jhan whispered, stricken. “This is all my fault.”
“How is that?” Bheni retorted impatiently. “Always you blame yourself! It sickens me! Your only fault is that you make yourself too easy for people to use.”
“Trey says that I invite all of this because...,” Jhan groped for a better way to put it and couldn’t find one, “because Dagara made me to make men want to use me and abuse me. I exude sex and defenselessness.”
“I don’t remember saying that,” Trey muttered. “I do know that even your smell gives me a stand. Every man I know who’s seen you wants to put their sons in you, even knowing you aren’t a woman.”
“If you say such things again, I will slit your throat!” Bheni barked, startling Jhan and Trey. She rounded on Trey, her nostrils flaring and her sword slipping a hand span from its sheathe. “It is foolishness!”
“Is it?” Jhan shook her head and looked away again at the carrion birds. “Maybe not, Bheni. You don’t know the things I saw Dagara do. He wanted me irresistible. He wanted me perfect. He wanted me helpless. Not for himself. He liked men and he liked them strong and fighting him. No, he made me to fool men, to make THEM weak and defenseless before I killed them. Now that my purpose is gone, I’m only left with this facade that is only half that. I’m not defenseless, but I look it. It encourages any man to use me.”
“Darkai used me too,” Jhan continued. “I was struck by an arrow and he saved my life, but he saw me, weak, spiritless, and easy to use. He used me because he knew that he could. He knew that I wouldn’t fight him. That’s why we’re all out here. Because I let him control me, control Kile, and pull Rehn and Jaross in after us. I was worse than a puppet.”
“What does he want with you?” Bheni wondered carefully.
“I don’t know,” Jhan replied sadly. “He changed me, Bheni. He has great skill as a healer. He... He made me into something between a man and a woman. He did something inside of me, but he won’t say what. It has to do with Princess Avrilla and another Alamien named Alidae. They want a child, but Avrilla has defects the Alamien won’t accept. We were being forced to travel to Amberglass so that Darkai could use equipment he had there to make the child. Where I fit into that, I don’t know. I don’t think I want to know. I won’t let it happen, whatever he intends.”
Bheni slammed her sword into its sheathe and her hand opened and closed on it reflexively as she began striding once more, tugging the imala after her. It came from her slow and difficult. It was clearly not something she wanted to offer, but was willing to do anyway.
“I should take you home,” Bheni said slowly. “With you gone, this Darkai will not be able to use you. He will not need to threaten Lord Kile or hold Rehn and Jaross hostage.”
“They are prisoners of the Bhuntay,” Jhan argued quickly. “Darkai isn’t running things any longer. I won’t go back, Bheni. I need to see that Kile and the others are all right.”
Bheni accepted that, pleased with Jhan’s bravado. Her people lived and died by the number of great deeds they could accomplish. She hadn’t been content as a housewife. Her stride was full of her excitement.

CHAPTER SIX
(Amberglass)
It took a little over a day for them to reach the edge of the plains. The grasslands melted into rocky, rolling ground and sparse, sickly looking trees, but they soon gave way to a thicker, healthier forest. Out of the blazing hot sun at last, Bheni and Jhan sighed with relief. Trey looked troubled. Having been raised under the sun, he probably felt more comfortable there than in the claustrophobic confines of a forest.
They had found the signs of a skirmish not far from the forest, but the bodies had been few and unknown. Scouts, Trey had surmised, caught by surprise and quickly dispatched. Without a sight of any hasty graves or signs of disaster, it seemed possible that their companions could still be alive and well. That elation was dampened by their growing danger.
“We are in enemy territory now,” Trey told them unnecessarily, his voice low and troubled. “They could be hiding anywhere.”
Bheni nodded, loosening her sword in its sheathe. “There is still a clear trail where the others passed, but, as you say, it could be signs of the enemy passing as well. It is good that we only have the one beast. More might give away our position.”
“I wish that I had a weapon,” Trey grumbled.
“I do not,” Bheni shot back.
Trey lost patience with her at last. “I am not your prisoner!”
“Jhan does not like you. She does not say so, but I can see it plainly,” Bheni replied. “Your tongue betrays that you do not respect women. That is, perhaps, the root of her dislike.”
“Jhan is not a woman,” Trey pointed out roughly, perhaps wondering if Bheni knew that. “I respect him well enough. I am learning to respect you, against my will. I’ve never had a woman threaten me before. Are you like Jhan, not really a woman?”
Bheni’s eyes went cold and Trey tried very hard to hide the sudden anxiety that look was causing him. Bheni kept her gaze on him until he dropped his eyes sullenly. “If you do not be quiet,” Bheni threatened, “It will be all the same to you, of no consequence.” She didn’t have to elaborate. Trey went very pale.
Jhan had watched the confrontation carefully. It was easy for Bheni to intimidate. She was tall and very strong for a woman, but there was a tone to her voice that chilled the blood; an unspoken menace that silenced even someone like Trey. Jhan committed it to memory.
There was a sound. They stopped and strained their ears. It was a low, dull sound. A low roar, Jhan thought, or maybe many noises blending to make one sound. They were too far away to tell, or so Jhan thought. Bheni frowned, concentrating, and then she drew her sword.
“A battle up ahead!” Bheni announced.
Trey was nodding, hands opening and closing and wishing for a weapon again. “It isn’t hard to guess who’s fighting. Let go the reins, woman, and get off Jhan. A battle isn’t a place for a woman or a half-man. I have to help my comrades!”
“In your condition and unarmed?” Bheni mocked, but there was a light in her eyes that Jhan knew. The thought of battle was exciting her. Jhan was only becoming frightened, her stomach knotting with fear.
“If I stay on the imala, my bad leg won’t matter,” Trey retorted impatiently. “Let me go!”
“Get off, Jhan,” Bheni ordered suddenly and Jhan went wide eyed. “Trey and I will go ahead. Hide yourself in the trees until we return.”
“Or don’t return!” Jhan snapped angrily. “I won’t wait here for the enemy to come collect me later if you lose! I’m coming too!”
“You are not well,” Bheni pointed out impatiently, eager to go and hopefully fight. “This man may do as he wishes with his own life, but I am concerned for yours.”
“Too concerned!” Jhan snarled. “I won’t be left behind!”
Bheni wanted to argue some more. Her people’s customs came to Jhan’s rescue. Jhan was being brave. She couldn’t tell Jhan to stay behind without it being an insult to that bravery. It was something Bheni couldn’t force herself to do. She nodded her head in the end, bowing to Jhan’s madness.
It was madness, Jhan thought, as they continued. As they neared the battle, the sounds began to become more distinct, metal clashing against metal, people grunting, swearing, and screaming, animals honking, and the pounding sound of many feet and hooves churning the earth. Jhan’s heart began to beat hard and her mouth went dry. She had wondered what she would do when faced with a battle. Was she going to find out now?
There wasn’t a clearing. The men fought among the trees. There wasn’t a line for non combatants. They found themselves in the battle unexpectedly as it shifted towards them.
Jhan did the worst possible thing. She froze. When Trey slammed his heels into the imala, it bolted forward, causing Jhan’s unprepared body to tumble off the back. She hit the ground hard and the breath was knocked out of her. As she gasped, in a daze, she watched the rump of the imala disappear into the trees and into the heart of the fight.
Bheni tried to protect Jhan. In men’s clothes, and holding a sword, uniformed men rushed her, thinking she was a man. Her sword licked out, sliced a man’s throat open, caught and parried on another’s, and then began a desperate dance as she was born backwards into the trees.
Jhan found herself staring at the man Bheni had wounded. Blood spurted, thick and red, from his neck as he tried to stop it with frantic hands. He gurgled and choked to death on his own blood, slowly toppling over and landing very near Jhan. She watched him die as men rushed back and forth, almost trampling her small form underfoot.
A man aimed a cut at Jhan’s head and then checked as he saw her beauty. “I’ll be back for you,” he promised with a leer, rushed a Bhuntay warrior, and was gone.
That threat roused Jhan. She caught her breath and looked for a way of escape. She saw a space between struggling Bhuntay warriors and the strange uniformed men. She raced towards it, ignoring aches and pains; ignoring the sudden fire in her ribs and the pounding of her head. She hitched up her dress and fairly flew.
A sword licked out, missed. Another sliced Jhan’s arm. She owed her life to her small, helpless seeming body, and her obviously feminine face and hair. Her black curls were a flying trail behind her, proclaiming what she was to anyone behind her who might have thought to cut her down.
Jhan broke from the battle. Her feet found a trail, flattened and spotted with imala dung. In her panic, she took it, only wanting to be away as fast as possible. She didn’t think of Trey. She didn’t care about him. She cared about Bheni, but she wasn’t thinking about her either. All that was in Jhan’s mind was a leering soldier’s promise and the memory of a dying man trying to save himself.
When Jhan’s heart wouldn’t carry her in flight any longer, she fell into a staggering walk, panting and bracing her aching ribs with her arms wrapped about her middle. She didn’t realize that she was in shock until Bheni came up behind her. Jhan couldn’t force herself to stop or to even acknowledge that Bheni was there.
Bheni’s strides easily kept up with Jhan's. The woman didn’t say anything. Out of the corner of a wild eye, Jhan could see, and smell, that the woman was covered in blood.
Darkness began to fall. The trail became difficult to see. Jhan was on the verge of collapse. Bheni must have known it, but she continued not to speak. She was a solid presence, an anchor that kept Jhan’s mind from becoming unhinged altogether. It gave her something else to think about besides a man desperately trying to keep his blood in his body.
Jhan finally fell and couldn’t get up. She floundered in the leaf mold of the forest floor and then lay still, curling up about herself and sobbing. Bheni stood looking down at her for some time and then, like a wave poised for an eternity and then suddenly breaking on a shore, she kneeled and pulled Jhan into her embrace.
“Gentle Jhan,” Bheni murmured. “You feel too much. You care too much. This is not a world for someone like you.”
“It was his eyes,” Jhan whispered, stricken to her soul, talking to herself more than Bheni; the Island woman just a shadow on the edge of Jhan’s hysteria. “He was so frightened, knowing he was going to die.”
Bheni didn’t speak about her belief in the honor of dying in battle. She didn’t point out that the man probably had killed before he had been killed and that he had been trying to kill her. She didn’t say anything. She knew that none of it mattered to Jhan as much as the fact that, in the end, the man had been as small and as frightened as Jhan herself.
Bheni’s grip was female and comforting. Without supplies, or imala, they stayed as they were, huddled together, Bheni watching the darkness while Jhan slowly, emotionally exhausted, fell into deep sleep.

“My experiments. Aren’t they pretty?”
Jhan was a he again in her dream, and a hard hand was taking his chin and turning it towards a line of men chained to a wall. They were naked and blank eyed, where they had eyes. Twisted some of them, beyond recognition, body parts deformed into claws, hooves, or something unknown. Their faces were full of teeth, pulled into snouts, or erased and half molded as if the sculptor had wanted to create something completely new and hadn’t quite finished. Everyone of them was mad.
“I wanted you here,” the voice said in Jhan’s ear. “I’ve never had anyone so young to change. I wanted to see if it made a difference. Is the body more pliant to change when it is young, do you think?”
A hand touched Jhan’s bare side and Jhan’s skin twitched in trepidation.
“Don’t worry," the voice said. “I don’t have my brother’s taste for that. My tastes run to far different things, things that don’t include young princes. I didn’t think my brother liked such things either, but what a pretty thing he’s made of you. You almost tempt me too, but no, I really don’t go for that. I would much rather prefer using you here, chained in my menagerie.”
Gyven’s voice joined the first, exasperated. “Prince Hajian! The king has been summoning Jhanian for hours! He thought the guards had killed him and hidden the body. He’s tortured two of them to make them talk already!”
“What’s that to me?” the voice became bored. “Useless beasts! He can kill them all! The world will not shrink for the lack of them.”
“I’d like them dead, too,” Gyven agreed sourly, “and I wasn’t given to them for sport like you and Jhanian here either, but, unless you liked it so much that you’re willing to suffer it again, I suggest that you hand Jhanian over to me at once so that I may return him to the king.”
“They’ll pay for that, I promise you,” the voice lost its boredom and turned sharp, “and my brother will too, be sure of it.”
Jhan was turned and he met the face of Dagara Ku Ni, but with a difference. This faced lacked the burning, red eyes and the cruel wolfish smile. This one was languid, as if drugged, the eyes dark and heavy and the mouth turned down with long suffering. The hair was very long and straight, the bangs cut across the forehead, almost hiding a brand there. Dark, as if it had been rubbed with ashes, it looked like an upside down seven with a concentric circle hovering at its center.
Gyven swore as he took Jhan in hand. “Always they mangle him there. If our Jhanian ever manages to escape, he won’t be fathering any sons with what I’ve had to keep putting together.”
“Don’t speak of such things,” Prince Hajian snarled. “If my brother treated him as he treated me, even the thought of being with anyone will be a horror to him.”
Gyven stared at the wall of twisted humanity. “Why bring Jhanian here? Are you trying to thwart your brother now? If you had kept Jhanian much longer, he would have died. As it is, he’s bled all over your floor.”
“It’s seen enough blood. It won’t mind,” Prince Hajian replied offhandedly, but then more seriously, “I wanted to see what Dagara was up to. I wanted to see the ‘masterpiece’ he keeps bragging about.” He sneered. “I don’t see any masterpiece. Oh, Jhanian is beautiful enough, I’ll grant my brother that, and he’s certainly enough to drive men as mad as my experiments, but Dagara is still an amateur next to me. Jhanian’s heart can’t support what Dagara has done to him. He’ll most likely shrivel up and die long before he accomplishes his task.”
Gyven couldn’t help sounding upset. “Truly? I thought-,” he stopped and bit his tongue. He seemed to grow angry. He took Jhan’s wrist roughly and began to pull. “I’ll take him now. He needs healing and quickly.”
“A moment.”
“There isn’t a moment!” Gyven protested.
“There is,” Prince Hajian asserted.
Hajian pulled Jhan away and Gyven could only grumble and wait. Hajian took Jhan to the wall again. The floor was slick with Jhan’s own blood. They hadn’t raped him, they weren’t allowed to, but that would have been preferable to what they had done. Jhan was still lost in it, the memory of rough, sweating bodies, and voices shouting and laughing at their new game, thinking themselves so clever to have skirted the order Dagara had given them and yet still have what they wanted. The wound was deep and their crude stitching afterwards had only slowed Jhan’s death from it. They had panicked. If Hajian hadn’t come along just then, as they had shoved Jhan into a hallway, they might have done as Gyven had feared, hide Jhan’s body and deny that they knew anything about it.
Hajian whispered in Jhan’s ear, very low. Jhan felt his hands touch him lightly along the back. Power seeped through skin and Jhan trembled with the force of his genetic code being subtly altered. The hand stroked the gaping wound and it closed as Hajian pulled out the stitches.
“I am the artist,” Hajian whispered. “Dagara uses hammers to accomplish what should be done with a fine brush. Well, he won’t notice my contribution. You are truly irresistible now. He won’t be able to control himself where you are concerned, and, I’m afraid, neither will any man. You WILL drive them mad for you, and my dear brother... he’s never been attached to anything, but he will be attached to you. It’s a grave mistake to fall in love with something so deadly. A fatal mistake, I’m hoping. Go along now. Back to your master.”

Jhan woke to morning light filtering through the thick canopy of the forest. She was wrapped tightly in Bheni’s strong arms and legs, pinned to the ground with Bheni’s hand clamped over her mouth. The woman was worn to the bone, her dark skin gray about the eyes and lips.
“I’m all right,” Jhan mumbled hoarsely .
Bheni cautiously released her and Jhan sat up, her body protesting with strained muscles and an empty, aching stomach. She felt like a wraith, something plucked out of her; her spirit maybe.
“You kept screaming,” Bheni said at last, low and tight. “I was afraid... afraid that you would mark us for our enemies to find.”
Jhan remembered the dream vividly. It puzzled her as well as sickened her. Why would she image that Dagara had a twin brother? To punish herself or to support Trey’s idea that none of it was her fault, yet all of it her fault? Was she trying to give the men who had abused her an excuse? Maybe it was simpler. Maybe she needed to have a reason why they did it.
“Stop it!” Bheni shook at Jhan and Jhan blinked dazedly at her. “I don’t know what you dreamed, or what you’re thinking now, but we don’t have time for hysterics! Take command of yourself. We have to get out of here.”
Jhan remembered her cowardice. Bheni had fought to protect her and she had run away, too frightened and in shock to use her great skill to help her. Bheni’s face was hard as she stood and pulled Jhan up with her. Her green eyes demanded some response from Jhan, some sign of sanity.
The Bhuntay had been losing the battle. If she had stayed, that man would have made good his promise. She imagined him having her right next to that man who had bled out his life. It was as clear as the dream. It didn’t make Jhan feel any better about herself or what she had done.
“I’m sorry,” Jhan choked out. “I- I was...,” she wanted to explain, but nothing she could think of was good enough. “I don’t usually run. It doesn’t work, you see. They always catch me and-and do what they want anyway. It was that man. The one you cut. I’ve killed people, but I’ve never... not even Dagara made me stand and watch them die. He-He always stressed a clean, quick kill.”
“I didn’t have time,” Bheni replied quietly, her eyes never leaving Jhan's.
"I’m not-not blaming you. How could I?” Jhan was babbling and she knew it. She bit her lip until it bled. It startled Bheni who frowned and shook at her again.
“Stop it!’ Bheni repeated. “You are not a warrior! You are not a killer! Neither is my Rehn. Whatever you were taught. Whatever you were forced to bear and witness, none of it has managed to stamp out your gentleness. You did not run to save your life, did you?”
“No,” Jhan replied without hesitation, not giving Bheni reason to doubt the answer. “It was that man and-and another. I wanted to get away from them. I couldn’t... You were gone. I felt so small and helpless. He was coming back, he said. The other one kept trying to stop his blood. He couldn’t, Bheni! I couldn’t stay and watch the horror on his face. I couldn’t. I’m sorry.”
Bheni didn’t say that it was all right or that she understood. The customs of her people ran too deeply in her. She said, as if trying to convince herself of Jhan’s courage, “On our first journey together, when we were attacked by bandits, you killed them to save me and yourself. You did not run. I have seen you do very brave deeds. This..., “ she thought a moment and then understood at last. She sighed as if relieved. “Of course. You have never been in a true battle. A few men are easier to face then hundreds clashing together and throwing blood and gore left and right. You were overwhelmed, that is all.”
Jhan desperately needed Bheni to forgive her. She didn’t argue, staying silent when Bheni drew her along beside her and began to walk deeper into the forest. A long time had passed between that day in the mountain pass and the forest path they walked now. In that time, Jhan had become a different person despite her best efforts not too. The Jhan who walked beside Bheni now, had been broken of the habit of considering anything, but how not to get abused again. Her sanity had slipped and she had run, that was true enough, but the saner Jhan who would have frozen and stayed, wouldn’t have tried to help Bheni either. She would have curled up and waited for that man to return. She might have fought him. She might have killed him, but she wouldn’t have spared a thought for Bheni. Jhan’s world had narrowed down to only herself and day to day survival.
“What did you dream?” Bheni asked softly. “Old memories or some madness from the battle still?”
Jhan flinched and then shook her head with a shudder, mumbling, “It didn’t make any sense. I thought that I remembered everything from my time with Dagara Ku Ni, but... I was under his power so deeply. I was trying so hard to hide within myself. I might have forgotten...”
“Forgotten what?”
Jhan shook her head again. “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. It’s all in the past. What just happened, the battle, that was horrifying. I should have dreamed about that.”
“Forget dreams. Forget battles,” Bheni told her sternly. “Now, think about survival. We have nothing. We have enemies behind us and, maybe, before us as well. Where should we go?”
“To Kile,” Jhan replied with a tinge of desperation. “I still want to do that.”
“That’s straight into enemy territory,” Bheni warned. “We most certainly will see battle again if we continue.”
Jhan licked dry lips and tasted the blood from her bitten one. Kile was her world. She wanted him and it back. “I don’t care. I want to find Kile.”
Bheni smiled, satisfied, her eyes glowing with the anticipation of more fighting. “That was not the answer a coward would have given.”
Again Jhan let her think so, knowing better. Kile was safety. She was running to him, not only out of love, but because she was so very afraid. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t been able to protect her. He was still her anchor in a chaotic, violent world.
“They managed to get away from the Bhuntay,” Jhan thought aloud. “They must still be heading for Amberglass. We have to go there as well and hope we catch up to them.”
“On foot and without supplies...,” Bheni snatched berries from a bush and gave them all to Jhan. “You will need the most. I am hardy enough to do without for a long while. Eat.”
Jhan didn’t argue. Her stomach was quiet for once as she stuffed it full of berries. She ate whatever Bheni gave her without comment. Some of it made worms look appetizing. Water was harder. Jhan’s mouth dried up and swallowing became very difficult.
Jhan wasn’t made for walking. Bheni’s long strides were impossible to keep up with. The woman tugged on Jhan’s arm incessantly, holding her up when she stumbled. She didn’t even allow Jhan to rest when she handed her something to eat.
Jhan sat down, quite suddenly, almost making Bheni drag her. Bheni, hot, hungry, and anxious for her husband, rounded on Jhan and swore. She cut it off in mid word when she saw how pale Jhan was and how she was gasping for air and holding her side.
“Ribs?”
“No,” Jhan breathed, bowing her head and trying to calm her pounding heart. “Just a stitch from walking. I’m sorry. I can’t go any further right now. I have to rest.”
Bheni paced in agitation for a moment and then returned with a quick motion and sat cross legged in front of Jhan. She stared as if counting every second that Jhan rested with ill- concealed impatience.
“It’s going to be awhile,” Jhan snarled. “You might as well relax.”
Bheni relented, but she didn’t relax. Her eyes roved the trees and she seemed to be straining her ears for noises. Absently, she undid her leather vest and opened it almost to her navel to let in cool air. Her skin was streaked with sweat and her breasts were cinnamon colored and swollen with milk to the point where they must have been painful. Bheni pushed at one and her brow crinkled, obviously wishing for relief.
Jhan was staring. Bheni noticed it and became embarrassed, doing up her vest again. “I forget-,” she stopped, confused.
“A few things,” Jhan finished, suddenly irritable as well as exhausted. “I was never a man, Bheni. I don’t feel anything for you or anyone else. I was thinking about your baby, if you want to know, and wondering if your breasts were hurting you.”
“Of course,” Bheni recovered and then hissed in anger at herself. “I am a warrior used to being with men,” she explained. “One has to act a certain way to avoid situations. It is ingrained. It has been so long since I had to act that way, I thought of it only when I saw you staring. The memory of it made me act wrongly, Jhan. I am sorry.”
Jhan sighed. “I am a confusing creature. I suppose it must be hard to know how to treat me.”
“It is,” Bheni replied truthfully. “Now, especially, when you say that you are now both man and woman, instead of neither.”
“Not enough to trouble you or Kile,” Jhan admitted with a sickly blush. “And I’m still the same. I don’t ‘want’ anyone, Bheni.”
Bheni nodded and Jhan saw a little relief. It made Jhan bitter, knowing that Bheni had been anxious all of that time, as if Jhan would really have propositioned her.
“You have a high opinion of yourself, besides,” Jhan said, trying to lighten the mood between them.
Bheni was incensed for only a second and then she chuckled. “I suppose I do, but you’ve already proven you have a liking for oversized beauties.”
“Kile, yes,” Jhan said and then grew quiet, thinking about him. “He has to be all right. I think I would know if he wasn’t.” Jhan thought of her dream and slowly asked an embarrassing question. “Bheni, are you- are you attracted to me?”
“Of course not! I am not a lover of-,” Bheni stopped, confused again. She sighed and shook her head sharply. “No,” she said more strongly. “You do not have to fear attention from me either. You do not move me at all, despite your beauty.”
“We have to go on,” Bheni continued as she rose to her feet. “If we are ever going to catch up, you have to try.”
Jhan stood, feeling a little better, but not enough, she thought, to get her far. Bheni hooked an arm in hers and supported her as they continued.
“I could carry you,” Bheni suggested after an arduous mile. “I have carried packs heavier than you.”
Jhan began to retort, but then stopped as they suddenly found themselves among a large group of men. They had been sitting so quietly and so still that Bheni and Jhan were taken completely by surprise.
Bheni drew her sword with a lightning movement and shoved Jhan behind her, but Jhan was gripping her arm in the next moment as she recognized the mercenaries. Raveni had drawn his weapon to confront Bheni. When he saw Jhan, his face soured.
“The Captain’s boy has returned,” Raveni called out derisively.
“Careful!” Jhan snapped back maliciously. “If you admit that I’m a man, then you’ll have to fight me for that insult I gave you back in the Bhuntay camp.”
“Boy, I said, not man,” Raveni retorted and sheathed his sword, disdaining to even face Bheni , a woman, in a battle.
Yunij laughed, short and sharp. “I missed your pretty face.” He had a cut across one cheek, stitched in a ragged line to his ear. “Looks like you’ve brought another.”
Bheni was going to reply, to quickly put down any designs the men might be seeding, but it was Jhan who replied first. “Try and touch either of us, Yunij, and you’ll be missing more than my pretty face.”
Bheni started and stared down at Jhan with owl eyes. Jhan was melting inside, shaking like a leaf, but outwardly she was determined. Whether her attraction was created or natural, it was very real. She had to counteract it with a dose of fear. Trey had given her the key and Bheni had unwittingly reinforced it. She had to stop men before they started. She had to give them something else to think about. She had to stop being afraid of retaliation, or at least not show how terrified she really was, or she was going to end her life waiting for men, like the one from the battle, to come back and abuse her.
Her choice had its consequences. They could attack her. She saw it in their angry eyes. She could only stop so many before they overwhelmed her. Still, the other possibility was that they would anyway if she cowered and showed them how helpless she was. The dream had given her unexpected strength to do this. It had reminded her how much she could bear and how pathetic anything these men could do to her would be. It was more acceptance than courage, but it would do.
Yunij glared. His body wasn’t young, but he was still built like a bear and still very strong. He puffed himself up threateningly, turning his hands into big fists. “Come and try,” he growled.
Jhan’s large, blue eyes carried the memory of death and torture. Yunij looked into them as Jhan said quietly. “I can kill you, Yunij. Don’t doubt that. Ask Raveni.”
Raveni shrugged. “He has some pretty dancing steps, but he took me by surprise.”
Yunij blinked. He wasn’t afraid of Jhan, but he was uncertain whether he was being bluffed or not. Jhan was a strange creature, out of his experience. He didn’t want to loose face though. He couldn’t be seen to back down. He chuckled. “Brave words from a man who spreads his legs for other men. Get along to your captain. He’s been missing your charms. I would hate to deprive him of his cut boy.”
Jhan knew enough to keep silent. She had made her point to Yunij. She had put a thought in the man’s head and made some of the others who had heard think too. She walked, not hurriedly, past them, ignoring their snickers when they realized that she was doing what Yunij had suggested; looking for Kile.
Bheni trailed behind, making certain none of them tried to follow, as Jhan made her way through the tight camp. It was unnerving how quiet the men were. All of them stared as she passed. One of them even jerked a thumb to his right, knowing who she wanted. Jhan followed his direction and soon saw Kile standing with Tevar, Alidae, Jaross, Rehn, and a frustrated Kile. Kile had both hands on his hips and he was scowling as he shook his head at something Alidae had just said.
“With all of these men out in the field,” Kile retorted, “they won’t just let us walk up to their city. Besides, now that we’re free of the Bhuntay, I’m going back for Jhan!”
Alidae saw Jhan first. He was facing her. His head came up and he frowned as if Jhan’s appearance was a very unpleasant turn of events. Kile saw his attention wander and he turned with the others.
“Jhan!” Jaross bellowed and came rushing forward with Rehn beside him. They stopped short of throwing themselves on her and hugging her, knowing how she would react, but they were all smiles of relief.
“How did you get away?” Jaross demanded.
Rehn passed Jaross and Jhan and caught Bheni in his arms. Bheni gave him a short hug and then freed herself, wanting her hands loose. She still wasn’t certain about the men around her.
“What happened?” Rehn demanded, frantic “You didn’t bring the baby?”
“Of course not!” Bheni snapped, even as she smiled warmly at Rehn. “I am not a fool, husband. He is with your mother. I had to come and save his father.”
“And ended up saving Jhan instead,” Jaross guessed. “How did you get Jhan away from the Bhuntay?”
Bheni raised eyebrows. “I did not save Jhan. She managed that on her own. I met her on the plains.”
Jaross’s face twisted in self recrimination. He had several livid bruises on that face, his lip was swollen and cut, and his black hair was matted on one side with blood. “We promised to protect her and we couldn’t even manage to protect ourselves.”
“You’re covered in blood!” Rehn exclaimed, suddenly noticing that the dried black stains were separate from the black coloring of Bheni’s leather clothing.
“None of it mine,” Bheni assured him.
They kept talking, but it had sunk to a low buzz in Jhan’s ear. Tevar had stayed behind, crossing his arms over his chest defensively, obviously blaming himself for what had happened to Jhan. The guilt she could see didn’t match the guilt on Kile’s face. He was still standing beside Alidae and Tevar, his hands clenched and his jaw tight. His blue eyes were bruised and hollow with inner pain.
Jhan wondered if he was still determined to be apart from her in front of the men. She didn’t care. She slowly walked forward, eyes on Kile’s, pleading with him not to turn from her or walk away. She could see that he was tensed for it.
Jhan reached Kile and looked up. She took one of his big, clenched hands in hers and carefully worked it open so that she could clasp it. Kile had a large bruise on the side of his face. His gold curls were a knotted tumble all about him. A line was graven between his gold eyebrows. She watched his jaw clench and release. She reached up and caressed it lightly with her fingertips.
Kile was lifting Jhan off of the ground then, his arms coming around her and almost crushing her. He whispered into her hair. “How can you love me? I have failed you so many times!”
Kile’s grip on her ribs was agony. Jhan bore it and held onto Kile with everything that was in her. She whispered back. “Even you, with your strength, can’t stop the world.”
Kile released Jhan and held her a little away from him. He stared at her, searched for wounds while his open hand stroked her face anxiously. “Tell me what they did.”
“I escaped,” Jhan replied evasively. “What does the rest matter?”
“Are you wounded?”
“Bruises, some deep and painful. They’re healing.”
Kile’s hand touched her head. “There’s a large bump here.”
Jhan touched it to. “Healing,” she assured him. She touched his hand there and pulled it away.
“Captain Kile,” Alidae’s voice conveyed all of his meaning very clearly. He didn’t want trouble. He didn’t grudge them their reunion, but they weren’t safe and he didn’t need that kind of talk and friction among his men when they needed to keep trusting Kile.
Kile understood. He very slowly released Jhan as if he were leaving his heart behind in pieces. Tevar cleared his throat. He needed to explain, but Jhan hardly heard him as she watched Kile take several steps back from her.
“It wasn’t my decision to leave you behind,” Tevar was saying. Jhan nodded absently. “There was nothing we could do. Jhalel had us surrounded by Bhuntay warriors. They beat Kile to the ground and threatened us all with death if we didn’t leave at once. They forced us into several skirmishes, all of which we won, but the last, we were outnumbered. We tried to reason with the Bhuntay, told them we needed a strategy, but they wouldn’t listen. We barely managed to extricate ourselves from the battle, but the Bhuntay stayed and fought.”
“They were loosing, badly,” Bheni said as she approached with Rehn and Jaross. “I doubt any of them lived.”
“Treyula,” Alidae interjected. “Was he with you?”
“He stayed and fought,” Bheni told him and it was clear she thought that very honorable and worthy of a song or two. She was shocked by Alidae’s reply.
“He had clever hands,” Alidae said in a regretful tone, “It will not be easy to replace-”
“You will not have to replace me yet, Alidae!”
Trey’s voice carried to them loudly. They turned and saw him riding an imala towards them. He looked exhausted and drawn with pain. He slid off his imala as he reached Alidae and managed a smile as he stumbled and almost fell.
“Reporting for duty, sir.”
Alidae frowned. “Not yet, I think. Take yourself over to Deverel and have him see to your wounds.”
“Can’t walk that far,” Trey reluctantly admitted
A short, black haired, whip thin man came out of the press of mercenaries gawking at the newcomers. He put an elbow under Trey’s arm. “Fool! I weary of stitching you up! In the backside, wasn’t it? How many times have I told you. Slice down, parry sideways? Without the parry sideways, the blade easily finds a mark in the side or leg.”
Trey grumbled something in reply, but it was lost in a groan as Deverel helped him walk to where he could be treated.
Rehn took Jhan by the elbow. “We don’t have long until we have to ride again,” he warned her. “Come here so that you can clean up and eat.”
Jhan nodded wearily and followed him. Rehn settled Jhan and Bheni on a fallen tree and, as neat as any nurse, poured water into a pan and began washing Bheni off.
“Nothing to be done for your clothes right now, I’m afraid,” Rehn muttered. He was looking for wounds as he cleaned, knowing that Bheni was too proud to bring them to attention if she had them. “Everyone was knocked about pretty badly. Everyone has a wound or two to show.”
Jaross kneeled with a handful of spiced meat cakes. He handed the bulk of them to Jhan. Jhan had paused in the act of biting into one, startled as Bheni grabbed Rehn’s chin and brought his face up. She stared into it anxiously.
“Are you wounded?” Bheni demanded.
Rehn tried to smile, but it was wan and his skin had gone pale. “A cut or two, but I stayed out of the fight as much as I could.” He looked away and his expression tightened. “I’m not a warrior. I found that out quickly enough.”
Bheni released his chin and her expression softened. “You were never trained to it, farmer’s son.”
Jhan swallowed the piece of food in her mouth with difficulty, thinking again of the way she had run and left Bheni. Bheni had excused her, but Jhan hadn’t the comfort of the excuse of never having seen violence. Her only thought had been for herself. Bheni had retreated from the battle too, but she had tried to defend Jhan, fighting even as she fled.
“They would have killed me if I had stayed,” Jhan muttered to herself, remembering the blood, the screaming, and that dying man. “I wouldn’t have known what to do. I would have fought until I couldn’t and then they would have killed me, or worse... probably worse. I’m such a coward!”
Jhan dropped her food and buried her face into her hands. She wanted to curl up and hide. She hated herself at that moment, more than she ever had. She hated her weakness, her fear, and for still loving her life so much that she was willing to do anything to save it. It didn’t make any sense until she thought of Kile. It was for him that she wanted to live, she knew, not because she found her life so sweet. To be with Kile, she would have done anything; had done and suffered everything. He was the one who had made her sorry life worth living.
“I think the battle was too much for her,” Bheni was saying softly to Rehn and Jaross. “She is not herself.”
Jhan wondered who Bheni thought she really was. The woman couldn’t seem to accept that Jhan was a coward. Maybe, Jhan thought, Bheni was afraid that, if she did admit it to herself, she couldn’t be Jhan’s friend any longer. Her disgust would have been too great.
“Only a fool isn’t afraid, Jhan,” Jaross told her sympathetically. “It’s the same thing I told Rehn. Soldiers are good at overcoming it. That’s why we’re soldiers. Most people aren’t. Most people have a much healthier respect for their own lives. In a pitched battle, when you see hundreds of weapons made to hack a man to death, all coming at you, it seems more sensible to get out of the way then to do what soldiers do, which is to run right into them.”
“I left Bheni to die!” Jhan shouted into Jaross’s face and then she spun away and pulled her knees up against her chest, wrapping her arms about them and hiding her face, stark with her guilt and shame, against them.
They still didn’t blame her, Jhan knew. So small and helpless, and with a mind and heart as delicate as glass, they couldn’t imagine her fighting to save anyone. It was right, in their minds, that she had fled. It was proper that Bheni, a strong, confidant, seasoned warrior, should have stayed behind to protect her retreat.
“You need to eat,” Rehn said and pressed food into Jhan’s hand. Jhan took it, not letting her own self hatred make her stupid. She did need to eat.
Jhan came out of hiding and bit into a cake of meat, chewing as if it were gravel. Bheni and Jaross had gone away. Jhan slowly looked about and saw them standing by the spare string of imala, picking out likely mounts for them.
“I ran too,” Rehn said under his breath. Jhan’s eyes darted to his and they were bonded in an instant by shared horror. “No one saw me. I- It was- I’ve never imagined- I always saw the soldier’s going off in their bright uniforms. When I was young, I wanted to be one of them, but I didn’t have the balance or an arm strong enough. I’m built to be a farmer; raw boned from bad harvests and good only for enduring long hours striding after herd beasts and leaning over a plow. After seeing what it’s really all about... I will have nightmares until the end of my days!”
“I love Bheni,” Rehn continued, his eyes dropping, “but I don’t think that I would have stayed to save her either. There was a point where the fear was mindless. I didn’t think. I just ran.”
“A man told me that he was going to come back for me,” Jhan replied, lost in her own horror. “You can’t know what it’s like, Rehn, always to have men wanting that from me. I had a dream.... I don’t know if it was a memory or not, but it made me wonder if Dagara purposefully made me irresistible to men. If that’s true, then I’m never going to have peace. What I do to men can’t be reasoned with. I learned that I have to frighten them, fight them, or run. That time I ran.”
Rehn frowned, drawn out of his own self- loathing to consider what she was saying. “I can’t deny that I haven’t felt something when I’m with you. I consider you a sister, though. I keep my mind on that and it stops it from going further. Jaross it nearly drove mad. He’s found his own peace with it, or at least he says he has. He just calls to mind what you really are. He thinks about what’s below your navel. Kile... if that were true, have you thought what that might mean?”
“That Kile doesn’t love me?” Jhan felt the wound open up in her heart and she trembled. “That he can’t help wanting me even though he clearly likes women who are the complete opposite of me? I have thought of it, Rehn. It’s tearing me apart!”
“He does love you,” Rehn insisted vehemently. “Don’t doubt that! I meant, it may be what’s allowing him to be with you. He doesn’t love boys, Jhan. The very thought of training with Tevar used to drive him into fits of anger and loathing. He hated theklings, Jhan. He hated you when he found out what you were.”
“After this is over, Kile and I may have to find a place far from any men for me to truly have peace,” Jhan sighed and then pushed it away, trying to calm her fears. “Tell me what’s going on now. Tell me what I have to look forward too.”
“I wish I knew,” Rehn replied, running a hand distractedly through his thatch of sun streaked, brown hair. “We’re trying to reach Amberglass at the moment, but we don’t have Darkai with us. He took two men and headed back to the Bhuntay. He wanted to try and rescue Avrilla. He told us that the entire journey was a waste without her.”
“We should just give ourselves up to the next group of troops to go by,” Jhan mused.
“No,” Rehn replied. “I thought so too, but Tevar says that we are too large of a force. This far away from Amberglass, an enemy captain won’t consider taking us prisoner. He said that we need to get much closer before we attempt to declare our intentions.”
“More traveling and maybe more fighting.” Jhan closed her eyes and sighed. “I’ve seen so much blood and death, Rehn. It shouldn’t bother me now. The things they did to me... I shouldn’t ever be afraid of worse, but I can’t face a battle like the one I left behind. That was slaughter, men being butchered. I can still hear them screaming.”
“I can too,” Rehn replied quietly. “We aren’t going to get used to it, Jhan. We shouldn’t ever get used to it. Those men, we don’t even know why they’re fighting. For a border? For grazing for their beasts? Just because they don’t like each other? I won’t die fighting for things like that.”
“You at least have the excuse that you only had a knife,” Jhan said hollowly. “You know what I’m capable of. I could have done something.”
“Killed four men, five, or six if you were lucky?” Rehn snorted. “How would that have helped Bheni? It wouldn’t of. You would have been killed. Jaross told me that a weapon is well and good, but without knowledge it’s useless. You were separated from Bheni. If you can tell me how you could have saved her, what strategy you would have used, I might choose to blame you.”
Jhan was quiet, thinking, but she couldn’t think of anything she could have done that would have helped Bheni. If she had stayed and killed, there would have only been more men to fill the gap. They would have cut her down. Bheni had realized that and had left the battle herself.
“How did Jaross suddenly become so wise?” Jhan wondered bitterly.
Rehn chuckled, “General Vek can mold even a fool into a man.”

CHAPTER SEVEN
(Ships in the Night)
They rode through the day, wary, but unmolested. The ground became rocky and the air thinned. They were riding up, imperceptively, into the mountains.
Jhan rode at the center of the mercenaries with Rehn on her one side, Jaross on the other, Bheni behind, and , surprisingly, Trey in front of her. He was still friendly to Jhan, but quieter. He was a slave among men again and, though they treated him as a comrade, there was still an undercurrent that Jhan could sense, a feeling that Trey wasn’t as good as they were. It probably explained his attachment to Jhan. She at least could sympathize with him.
Kile rode ahead with Alidae while Tevar brought up the rear with Yunij. Scouts rode ahead and lagged behind, ranging about and making certain their passage was going unnoticed.
When nightfall came, Jhan was grateful to slide off of her imala. It was a rough beast, more used to carrying supplies than people, and its gait had been rolling enough to make Jhan queasy. The firm ground under her feet seem to sway. She staggered and Bheni caught her under the arm to steady her.
Campfires were lit, but they were made small. Everyone huddled close. The forest was dark and impenetrable. It could have been hiding an army ready to fall on them and they wouldn’t have known it. It was nerves, not a need for warmth, that made everyone stay close to the light of the fires.
“Your cooking stinks!” Trey swore at the hapless mercenary that had taken over his duties. The man made a rude sign at him and Trey laughed.
Tevar nervously told Trey to be quiet. He paced about incessantly until the men began bedding down and setting up watches. Jhan watched him as he scanned the darkness repeatedly. His nervousness began infecting Jhan and she was glad when he abruptly walked off into the trees, taking his tension with him.
Bheni and Rehn were laying close together, face to face, and speaking in low, intimate tones. Rehn was slowly running a braid of Bheni’s hair through his fingers as he spoke. Jaross was sorting out his blankets and yawning. Rehn was curled up, as neat as a hound in front of the fire, and already asleep. Jhan was too restless to sleep, despite her utter exhaustion.
Kile moved about the camp. Jhan watched him longingly. When he said something to Alidae, and then moved off into the trees, Jhan thought he must be looking for Tevar. She stood.
“I have to, you know,” She said absently to Jaross.
“Want an escort?" It sounded like a joke, but Jaross was serious.
“I just saw Kile. I’ll go with him,” she said, trying to be nonchalant. When she glanced aside at Jaross she found him smiling enviously, not at all fooled. Jhan scowled at him, stood, and strode away after Kile.
He hadn’t gone far. He had a little lantern on the ground beside him. Jhan could see that he had just finished his business and was dropping his clothes back into place. Jhan knew better than to surprise a soldier. She called to him with a healthy distance still between them.
“Kile?”
Kile started and turned. “Jhan?”
Jhan came up to him then and put her arms around him. She rested her cheek against his warmth and sighed contentedly. She could hear his heart beat, quick and strong.
“We shouldn’t be here together,” Kile whispered sternly and unconvincingly as he put his arms about Jhan.
“Who can see us?”
“I do have a light,” Kile admonished her. “They’ll come to see why I didn’t return.”
“Don’t,” Jhan begged, holding him tighter. “Don’t push me away. I need you, Kile. I know we’re in danger and that you need to have those men trust you, but they already know you’re having me. You didn’t fool them. We don’t have to-”
“They suspect, but they don’t know,” Kile corrected her. “They’ll make their jokes, all men do.”
“You’re my life,” Jhan begged again, great, blue eyes shimmering in the lantern light. “I can’t be apart from you. When I am, it’s too easy to forget why I bother to go on living.”
“Don’t say that!” Kile grabbed her chin and looked into her eyes. They were filling with tears. Her lips were a perfect pink bud. Kile grabbed them with his own lips and kissed her hungrily. He ran his tongue over them as if they were a delicacy. He touched them with his rough fingertips and they trembled ever so slightly against them.
Kile moaned. He left her lips and pulled her hair against his nose, breathing in the scent of Jhan as if she were a heady wine. He was content with that for some time, as if he were trying to marshal the strength to resist, but resistance to Jhan was clearly futile.
It was Jhan who resisted, the strength of his need hard against her. He was misunderstanding. She had only wanted to be in his arms to be comforted and reassured. She hadn’t wanted this; his hands hot against her cold skin and his face flushing with desire. Kile was beyond the fear of discovery, but Jhan was thinking about it in a rising panic. Alidae hadn’t left any doubt what he would do with Jhan if they broke their promise to him to remain apart.
Kile’s hands unlaced Jhan’s dress. They were trembling and very warm as they cupped her small breasts. He began to lower his head to the translucent, pink nipples, his breath coming hard. When Jhan felt his tongue curl about her flesh and his lips draw her into his mouth, it took all of her resolve to push him away.
“It’s all right,” Kile breathed quickly, impatient for her. He pulled her close again and his mouth found her other nipple, sucking hard. His free hand touched the front of her ragged dress below her navel. His fingers moved, searching for a bit of flesh that, once aroused, would take them both beyond the point of no return.
Jhan shivered, but pushed Kile away again. Kile straightened and both of his hands went to her waist, holding her tightly there. He was poised, panting ever so slightly, to take Jhan completely. She could taste his need and his frustration. It was everything he could do to control himself. Sweat began to run down his face. His eyes were very focused on her, pleading as she had pleaded not a moment before.
“We can’t,” Jhan told him breathlessly.
“We can,” Kile replied simply and he did pull her to him, then, and she felt him hard against her once more. The hands on her waist lowered and Jhan felt her dress pulled up as Kile gently guided her to the ground.
Kile was a mountain above Jhan, his strength beyond hers, his need beyond reason now. It was the time she had always feared without knowing why. Now she knew why. Kile wasn’t in control. He was in her trap. The trap that Dagara, or if her dream could be believed, Hajian, had set in her with consummate skill. Kile was the proof of it. Within a stone’s throw of the camp, in the light of a lantern, and forgetting even his vow to Alidae, Kile was going to have her right there on the ground.
Rehn’s words came back to Jhan. To avoid the trap, he had concentrated on believing that she was his sister. Jaross had concentrated on her cut off manhood. Jhan knew that Kile’s only hope was to be given something else to think about.
“When we were prisoners of Dagara Ku Ni,” Jhan gasped out in desperation, “he had you under his power. He made you do things. Things you don’t know about. I know. I was there.”
Kile froze. In the light of the lantern, his face went bloodless. Very slowly, he sat up as if he had forgotten what he was about to do. His clothes were open. He didn’t take any notice. All of his attention had crystallized on Jhan.
“What did he make me do?”
Jhan sat up shakily, lacing her dress with fumbling fingers. She stood and smoothed the material down, as if it weren’t the crumpled ripped thing that it was. “Let’s go back to camp.”
Jhan started to pass Kile, but he reached out and snagged her wrist. “What did he make me do, Jhan?”
“Nothing,” Jhan said too quickly. “I needed to bring you to your senses, that’s all.”
“That’s a lie. Don’t ever lie to me again.”
Jhan snarled at him, “Who are you to talk about lying? Have you forgotten Dreya already?” The pain in his eyes and his flinch made her sorry at once. She touched his cheek in apology. “I’m sorry, Kile. There’s something I do to men, that I do to you. I rob you of your senses. I just wanted to hold you, but it can’t help but go farther, not when you’re in need. I had to distract you. We can’t break our promise to Alidae. It’s too dangerous.”
”Why won’t you tell me?” Kile refused to be diverted.
Jhan tried not to hesitate, but she swiftly picked a memory that wouldn’t sting too badly. “You dined with Dagara, remember? You told me about it as if I hadn’t been there. I had been. I sat at your feet and you fed me bits from your plate. You thought I was some pet beast of Dagara’s. It was very amusing to him, to know that he could control you so easily.”
Kile’s jaw clenched. He stood, trying to find something to say. Jhan took him by the hand and shook her head, relieving him of the struggle.
“Come. We have to get back, my love.”
“Yes,” Kile replied, his voice filled with pain.
“Button your pants up, Kile. While you’re doing that, I’ll go first,” Jhan told him, a ghost of a smile on her lips.
Kile attended to the task, embarrassed, while Jhan strode back into camp, settling her clothes as if she had just relieved herself. She didn’t look around as she made her way back to Bheni and the others. To look around would have alerted everyone that she had been doing something to be nervous about.
Bushes rattled and someone tripped. Jhan looked around, faking mild curiosity. It turned to real surprise when she saw Deverel come from the bushes. The man had a sated smile on his lips that he was trying hard to wipe off of his face by pretending to stroke his short, brown beard. He sauntered over to the other mercenaries and wrapped himself in his blanket with a satisfied sigh.
Tevar was the next to appear out of the trees. He was moving slowly, hands straightening his red coat. His blanket was near Jhan's. He came over and sat on it gingerly. His face was relaxed, but there was a small hint of guilt in his eyes.
“You should sleep,” Tevar said offhandedly to Jhan and settled as if he would sleep himself. He hissed under his breath, froze in mid motion, and then tried another position.
Jhan thought of her own sacrifice and how much it had cost in misery for her and Kile. Tevar had risked everything, ignored his own code of conduct, and done it any way. It made Jhan furious.
“So, I guess Deverel was able to forget what you had between your legs when you dropped your pants for him?”
Tevar colored deep crimson. His nostrils pinched and his eyes were almost hidden under down turned, black eyebrows. He said, low and vicious. “I don’t know what you’re talking about! I’ve been ill. I was out in the trees trying to convince my body to stop trying to pass every fluid in me!”
Jhan went white, mortified. “I-I’m sorry. I just saw Deverel... when you came after him...”
Tevar stared until Jhan felt like running. He relented and let out a long breath. “My reputation doesn’t inspire confidence,” Tevar said at last, in a calmer tone. “it’s true, when I’m off duty or doing boring border duties, I can be, well, somewhat of a slut, but this is different, Jhan. I am in command. We are in enemy territory. I wish that you thought better of me than that I would forget my honor and stoop to such behavior!”
“I’m sorry,” Jhan whispered again and turned away. “Kile and I had troubles, you see. I had to... I had to tell him no. It hurt. When I thought... it made me angry. I SHOULD have known better.”
Kile came from the trees. He looked deep in thought. He wandered the perimeter of the camp and then bedded down by the mercenaries. He didn’t once look Jhan’s way.
Jhan almost turned to lay down as well, feeling the pain in her heart growing, but at the last minute, she saw Alidae walk from the trees. He had on his usual expression; preoccupied superiority. Jhan saw Deverel look at him and try to hide that satisfied smile again behind his hand.
Jhan was stunned. “Tevar,” Jhan said softly. Tevar grunted at her, miserable and wanting the relief of sleep. “Can Alamien men have sex with Humans?”
“No,” Tevar grumbled. “They have a hook at the end of their manhood. They’d rip a woman apart.”
“Not women, Tevar. With men,” Jhan clarified.
“Like women?” Tevar considered it. “I don’t know. They have a slit, but what’s inside, that’s the question. Why would they bother? The women do it, because its considered scandalous and daring. They don’t derive any physical pleasure from it. Are you suggesting the men do or are you saying...,” he lowered his voice even more, “or are you saying our dear Alidae likes the same sport I do?”
It was Jhan who turned red now. “I don’t know. It would help to have something on him to defend ourselves with, don’t you think? If he’s breaking his own rules...”
“You don’t know that.”
“Maybe I do.”
“What’s it worth?” Tevar sighed. “I have my own rules and, dear Jhan, so does Kile. You can’t be raising your skirts out there in the trees for Kile when he’s supposed to be watching for the enemy. Jhan grew even more embarrassed. “It’s been so hard for him. For both of us. We need to be together.”
Tevar was blunt. “You can’t, Jhan. Don’t do that to him. I know how damned irresistible you can be. If I didn’t like things the way I do, and if you didn’t so obviously lack certain anatomy, I would probably be trying to get you out into the trees too. You have to be the one to be strong and deny Kile the pleasure. We both know he can’t do it on his own. He’s too much of an imala in rut.”
Jhan’s face soured. “I wish everyone would stop saying that about him. He’s the sweetest, kindest, most gentle man-”
Tevar began to reply, to say some anecdote from past experience from Kile, but then he bit his tongue and shook his head. “Go to sleep. We’re speaking of a subject I’ve been trying to avoid.”
“So have I,” Jhan replied bitterly. She curled up and closed her eyes. She needed sleep as much as she needed food. She cleared her mind with an effort and allowed exhaustion to drag her down.

“Little Lady,” a soft voice pleaded. “Wake up.”
It was like coming back from Hell, Jhan thought distantly. She remembered blades and blood and Dagara, a mingled confusion of images of herself, no himself dancing his dance of death and then being caught up in his tormentor’s arms. Jhan had been born down and down while Dagara had bit and clawed at his perfect body, lost in lust and cruelty among the corpses of Jhan’s victims.
“Perfect. Without fault,” Dagara had said around mouthful’s of Jhan’s flesh. “You are my masterpiece. I have never wanted anyone as much a I want you. I will make you pay and pay for that.”
The nightmare was ended. A loved voice was calling Jhan back to safety. She struggled to heed it, gasping on sobs and moans as she bent all of her will on escaping a Dagara that was only alive in her mind. When she succeeded, it was a rending, like being reborn.
The world was moving. Jhan blinked and struggled upright, panicking until she realized that she was astride an imala and tied hand and foot to its saddle. Her mouth was full of cloth. A gag that had been bound there by cords to keep it in. Panic set in again.
“It’s all right, Jhan,” the beloved voice again.
Jhan turned her head and saw Kile riding beside her. When he saw sense in her eyes, he pulled his imala up close to her and took off her gag.
Jhan tossed her head and gasped, “What’s happening?”
Kile started in on the cords that bound her hands. Alidae rode up close. “No, you should not have taken out the gag! If he’s going mad-”
“Jhan isn’t mad,” Kile retorted and then lowered his voice. “She was just exhausted, that’s all, and had a bad dream.”
“Is that what you call what happened to five of my men?” Alidae barked back, “A bad dream?”
“What did I do?” Jhan demanded, going cold with fear.
Kile’s jaw clenched and unclenched. His blue eyes were troubled. “I saw you get up. You began walking towards the forest. I thought you were just going to relieve yourself, but then I saw how you shook and how wild your eyes were. Yunij chose the wrong time to try and bother you. He grabbed you up as if you were a whore on a street corner and put his hands... It was a joke, The men were all laughing. Yunij was laughing. You brought your knee up into his groin. He gasped and shouted, letting you drop. You spun faster than I could see and well, if Yunij hadn’t been bending over just then to grab himself you would have taken off his head! You brought the heel of you hand up under his chin after that and he fell, knocked out completely.”
“When my men tried to stop you from killing him, you turned on them,” Alidae finished, seething. “One of my men has a broken arm, another broken ribs, and three more less serious wounds. Raveni stopped you in the end. He threw a blanket over your head and brought you to the ground. You’ve been out of your mind and tied up ever since. We had to gag you as well. You kept screaming.”
“I had a terrible dream,” Jhan admitted and shuddered. “I don’t remember doing any of that. I’m sorry, Alidae.”
“My men are worth more than Darkai’s plans for you,” Alidae told her, rejecting her apology utterly. “We will be in Amberglass at nightfall. You will leave us then. I will expect Captain Tevar and his men to escort Avrilla, if Darkai manages to release her from the Bhuntay, home to the Alamien without you accompanying us.”
Kile stiffened, but he didn’t utter any defense or argument for Jhan. He simply nodded and Alidae rode ahead. Jhan stared at Kile in shock and then she became angry.
“You can finish untying me,” Jhan grated.
Kile was hesitant, further infuriating Jhan. “I’ve never seen you fight someone in your sleep, Little Love. You’ve run. Screamed. Tried to crawl and hide, but never anything like this. Bheni was afraid that you were upset after the battle. You still are, I think.”
Jhan was on the edge of tears. She fought them and tried to reason with Kile. “You know these ropes can’t really hold me, Kile. I assure you, I am in my right mind. I-I don’t know what happened either, but please, untie me.”
“You shouldn’t have pushed me away, last night,” Kile told her as he slowly, almost reluctantly, complied. Jhan flexed her wrists and rubbed them There were red marks, signs that she had struggled. “You needed me.”
“Not like that,” Jhan replied. “You know it would have ended with that.”
Kile nodded, but he admitted, “I needed you too.”
Jhan looked around them. They were far behind the long line of mercenaries. Rehn was a short distance to her right, staring ahead and trying not to eavesdrop.
“It wasn’t not being with you that made me dream,” Jhan told Kile. “I- I’ve been having a lot of dreams. They seem very real; a memory, but I don’t remember them actually happening. There’s...,” Jhan hesitated, swallowing, “There’s a man in them. He called himself Prince Hajian. He was Dagara Ku Ni’s brother.”
Kile sat bolt upright, his hand going to his sword hilt as if there was someone to use it on. Rehn saw his motion and stared, bewildered.
Jhan gathered the courage to go on. She felt sweat on her brow and her heart was pounding with inner dread as she pieced the memory of the dreams together. “In my dream, Hajian hated Dagara. He wanted revenge on him. He- He used Power to change me, make me irresistible somehow. He wanted Dagara to fall in love with me, I think, and forget himself enough for me to kill him. If it’s true, Kile, if it is a memory and not a dream, it would explain why, despite what I am, despite what they know about me, every man I meet wants to... Most overcome it with disgust; thinking strongly enough about something else, but some can’t. Some don’t want to. It may be, after all, my fault I keep getting attacked.”
Jhan watched Kile think about it, his face suddenly becoming shocked as he realized what that could mean to him. He denied it in the next instant. “I’ve desired many women, Jhan, but I’ve never loved any of them. I know the difference.”
“But I’m not a woman,” Jhan countered, staring deeply into Kile’s eyes. It was sheer pain to pursue it, but she knew that it had to be faced. “You aren’t a thekling. You shouldn’t want me at all. You do though, and you can’t explain it, can you?”
Kile frowned and looked away. “Your argument is ridiculous! You don’t look like a man, Jhan. You didn’t even when you were one completely. I think that you’re still frightened and still on the edge of your sanity to start taking such nightmares seriously. Men want you for the same reason that I want you. You are beautiful and desirable, but it’s because of yourself and your personality, not because of anything some imaginary brother of Dagara’s did to you.”
“Dagara made me,” Jhan reminded him. “Jhanian Kevelt wasn’t born looking like this.”
Kile wouldn’t pursue the argument further. He said, instead, “I’m returning with you to Pekarin after we reach Amberglass with the others. You are a princess of Kevelt and Pekarin. Tevar won’t let you be tossed aside in a strange city by a mercenary captain. He’ll agree to let me go.”
Jhan looked towards the mercenaries with trepidation. “I attacked them. What do they think about that? I have to know what I might face if I’m going to be spending another day or two with them.”
Kile’s jaw tightened, his thoughts clear on his face of what he would do to someone who dared to try and hurt her. “I think they respect you. Yunij hasn’t said anything since he came back to his senses, but he has a bad temper. Stay with our people for safety.” Kile saw Jhan rubbing her wrists. “How are you? I didn’t see that Yunij or the others hurt you, but Alidae didn’t give me long to look.”
“I heal fast,” Jhan replied, shrugging off his concern. “You should ride ahead. We still have to keep apart.”
Kile said decisively, “I’ve had enough of that! You were right when you said that it didn’t matter. The men still think we’ve been together. They haven’t accepted it, but I proved my worth in the skirmishes we had. They’re willing to overlook an eccentricity.”
“Alidae-” Jhan began, but Kile cut her off, angry.
“He’s already determined to see you gone. He won’t leave you in the wilds a day away from a city. He’s not a complete bastard.”
“Maybe not,” Jhan replied, stubborn and determined to make him see reason,” but you don’t know that for sure. One more day. We can wait, Kile. Please, ride ahead.”
Kile became angry with her in his frustration, not having any other target. He kicked his imala into a gallop and left her behind in trail dust, not trusting himself to speak. Rehn protectively closed the gap between Jhan and himself at once.
“Don’t worry,” Rehn said, thinking Jhan needed reassuring. “Bheni’s scouting behind with some of Alidae’s men and Jaross is a little ahead with Tevar. All of your enemies are a good length ahead. We have to avoid them for one more day. Once we’re in Amberglass, we’ll ask for an escort back to Pekarin, giving the Alamien and the Bhuntay a wide berth.”
“It can’t be that easy,” Jhan muttered, looking after Kile. Her heart was aching in time to her bruises. “It never is.”

Yunij was rubbing his bruised chin and staring at Jhan when they stopped at midday for a rest. He said something aside to his brother Rufar and Rufar nodded, not looking up from a bridle he was trying to mend. The men Jhan had injured were glaring at her as well. Jhan stayed close by Bheni and Bheni’s firm stance, hand on sword, was a powerful deterrent if Jhan’s skill had failed to convince them of her deadliness.
Jhan felt like apologizing to them, begging them to forgive her. She could have easily killed them all. Jhan felt sick and worried, wondering if the battle HAD unhinged her mind enough to do such things in her sleep. Would it happen again? She was glad that she had made Kile see reason and keep his distance. What would she do if she accidentally attacked him in her sleep? Would she try and kill him as well, thinking he was some enemy from the past?
Jaross handed Jhan some strips of meat. Sitting on a fallen log, Jhan gnawed on them thoughtfully as Jaross settled beside her. Kile and Tevar were speaking with Alidae, the strain of staying alert for so long plain on their faces. Rehn was pacing, hands in pockets and open face anxious to continue. The other men weren’t any calmer, despite their experience.
“You look terrible,” Jaross said suddenly.
Jhan looked up into his brown eyes sourly. “You’ve always been in love with my face. I’m sorry I can’t keep it beautiful for you.”
Jaross frowned, but he looked hurt too. “You aren’t getting enough rest. Your skin is so red, it looks like raw meat. Your eyes are enormous and your hair has blood matted in it. Your expression... you have the look of a lunatic; desperate and wild. It frightens me. After last night, I begin to wonder when you will snap.”
“Haven’t I already?”
Jaross quirked an eyebrow at her. “If you had, you would still be tied up.”
Jhan looked past him at Yunij and the others. “They’d like that.”
“Don’t worry about them.”
“I have to.”
Jaross sighed and wiped a hand across his face. “When you firm your chin like that, you remind me of who you used to be; my cousin.”
Jhan frowned. “Don’t say that.”
“Why not? He was a cruel man. He molested my sister, remember? I can still see that cold look he gave me when I tried to stop him.” Jaross rubbed at his chin now. “He almost broke my jaw. He enjoyed it. I could tell that he liked hurting me. I can see why he found kinship with Dagara. Still, he kept his honor in the end. His people meant something to him. Enough to try and save them from Dagara.”
“Why tell me any of this?” Jhan demanded, distracted now and puzzled. “I’m not Jhanian Kevelt.”
“He was Dagara’s general at eighteen,” Jaross went on doggedly. “He was a big man for his age, seasoned by Kevelt’s incessant wars with its neighbors. He was an expert swordsman and an expert tactician. His father had been going to make him king instead of his brother because of those qualities.”
“Is there a point to this?”
“Only that I can’t understand, even now, why none of that is left to you.” Jaross shifted, coming a little closer to Jhan. “You’re temper is certainly the equal of his, but... I’ve never seen you pick up a blade. When ever I’ve heard you discuss strategy it’s been little better than something a naive child might think of. Bheni said that you ran from battle, that you were terrified by the slaughter as if you’d never seen it before. Dagara broke you, it’s true, and made you mad for a time Rehn’s told me, but did he take all of your memories too?”
“You know what he did to me,” Jhan said shortly.
“Made you his toy, his woman; the plaything of his soldiers, yes,” Jaross replied cruelly, too eager for knowledge to know that he was torturing her. “Was that enough to wipe all memory clean? If you had to choose between remembering his foul torture, his obscene use of you, and the memories of your home, family, and what you had been, then why did you choose the torture? It doesn’t make any sense. Was it better than remembering your pride and your manhood? To have a man use you so, and to submit to other men your body as you have, willingly, was it necessary to forget who you were?”
Jhan looked down at the hands in her lap, twisting them into a knot. “Jaross, why now? You could have asked me this long ago and I would have been in a better mood to answer you.”
“We are in danger of battle again,” Jaross said. “It brings such things to mind. It makes a man think of bravery, cowardice, and the choices we men make in our lives. I was only curious about your choice; being a woman instead of a man and choosing not to fight...” he stumbled trying to make himself clearer.
Jhan laughed, on the edge of hysteria. “My choice to be a coward, you mean? Is it a choice? I didn’t think when I ran. I just did. Cowardice was something I was taught when they kidnapped me and took me to the desert.” Jhan’s eyes dilated at the memory. “You don’t know what they did to me on the way to that desert, Jaross. You don’t know how they made me feel like nothing and ripped my mind until I WAS nothing. They raped me until I almost died, Jaross. They passed me from man to man and Kile, even Kile took his turn all unknowingly. If I had any courage then, they ground it under their heels until it was gone.” Jhan drove her point home with a ragged voice, her face taking on an even more lunatic cast. “I ate food out of people’s hands, Jaross Ke Nava. I sucked water off of their fingers and let them pat me on the head. I didn’t choose that. They simply broke me until I couldn’t think of doing anything else.”
Jhan weighed tortures in her mind and came to a realization that plumbed the depths of her horror as she was forced to admit, “Dagara at least cherished me while he tortured and tormented me. The men who took me to the desert hated me.”
Jhan blinked at tears and she grew angry and bitter. “Why ask me any of this? Did you expect me to stand and fight like Jhanian, hero of the Kevelt? You’re wondering where that man has gone. He died, Jaross. He slit his wrists and bled to death. He wasn’t like me, your tall, strong Jhanian. He couldn’t stand the pain, you see, or the humiliation. He took his mind with him, his memories, and even his soul into the dark. I am something completely different and I have to make the best of this mangled body that I was left. I have to overcome, somehow, all that was done to me. I have to not cringe when I’m touched, not crawl under a table or a bed to hide when someone raises their voice, and not- not allow someone to rape me when the fancy strikes them. All of that, and especially the last, consumes all of my attention, Jaross, not fighting wars or trying to be what everyone thinks I should be. I’m not a man. I’m not a woman either. There isn’t a place for me, so stop trying to force me into one!”
Jhan’s voice had become loud in her agitation. Jaross was very pale, his mouth set and tense. Yunij and the others had heard as well. Yunij was frowning. Raveni spat aside in disgust. Some of the men were turning away, shaking their heads and hiding a sympathy they didn’t want anyone else to see.
“I wasn’t trying to do that, Jhan,” Jaross replied with a gentle distress. “You are a woman, mind and heart. I know that. Jhanian IS gone. Dagara cut the man out of you,” he winced, not having meant to be so literal. “I only... my damn curiosity, that’s what it was, and nothing more. I am still a fool, Jhan, and I did not mean to hurt you with my babble!”
Jaross groped for a way to explain. “We can’t protect you, not in battle. I keep hoping that you can find it in you to protect yourself. I saw you fight those mercenaries. I saw you fight Jhalel. That little, delicate body of yours is deadly, Jhan, but I know, in a pitched melee with hundreds of men, it’s not any better than mine. If you could lift a weapon... If you still had some skill, but that’s ridiculous isn’t it? You’re tiny wrists couldn’t bear the weight of a blade. Even if you could, you don’t have the stamina. If I had just thought about those things, before opening my mouth-”
“You still don’t think first, Jaross,” Jhan choked out as she wiped the stinging tears out of her eyes, “but I don’t have the strength to shout at you.”
“We have to go,” Bheni said briskly as she strode up, purposely cutting off their conversation. She motioned to Rehn and Rehn brought up their imala. Bheni gave Jhan an appraising once over and was of the same opinion as Jaross. “You need rest.”
Jhan didn’t reply, only turned her shoulder to it as she mounted her imala. It was restive, flicking long ears and snorting the breeze that blew through the trees. That was unusual for a battle trained imala.
Bheni looked around tensely. “Alidae!” she called anxiously, but he was already making curt hand signs to his men. Kile was just drawing his sword and saying something to Tevar in question, when the enemy broke over them.
Jhan felt a hand grab the material of her dress. She was pulled down from her imala and shoved behind Kile in one motion as the beast bolted away. Metal clashed against metal. Jhan had a kaleidoscope view of men scrambling to defend themselves, animals bolting, and uniformed men pouring from cover to crash against the swords of the mercenaries. Blood and gore flew. Jhan saw a man’s head receive a mace and break open, brains and thick, hot blood spilling as he toppled with a stunned expression. An arm flew wide of the struggling men, minus its owner, and the screaming began.
They were surrounded. They were outnumbered. Bows were drawn and orders to cease fighting were shouted over and over again above the deafening sounds of battle. One of the voices was Alidae’s. His men obeyed reluctantly, breaking from their opponents and backing slowly inward like the center of a flower. Jhan was a part of that circle, pulled along by Kile.
Kile was wild eyed. He sought out Tevar and their friends. Bheni was holding her side. Blood was staining her leathers. Rehn had a cut along his forehead. He looked dazed, his knife bloodied to the hilt. Jaross was calm, still in the stance of a fighter, his sword angled downward but ready to lift and fight again. Tevar was furious and tight with shame.
The bowmen advanced. A man with a plumbed helmet was sitting on a speckled imala. “I am Captain Poltrane,” the man shouted, “I am in service to Amberglass! I order you to lay down your arms!”
Alidae didn’t ask for terms. He knew that they could all be cut down at the bowmen’s leisure. Most men on that world considered the bow the weapon of a coward and they didn’t use them. Knowing that some cultures weren’t as scrupulous about such things, they should have had a better defense, yet they didn’t. Even the armor they wore was all intended to stop a blade, not an arrow. They didn’t have any choice but to surrender.
“Disarm!” Alidae shouted at his men, repeating himself forcefully when they were reluctant.
Everyone began putting down their swords and knives in a heap. Jhan watched in trepidation behind Kile. It took some time. The seemingly endless clatter and clash of metal on metal made Jhan want to scream with the tension. Jhan waited for Kile to take his weapons to the pile. He had two. His long sword and his sharp dagger. He held one in each hand, knuckles white. When the last clatter died and there was only the sound of men moving and the far off honk of imala, still Kile didn’t move.
“Captain Kile!” Tevar barked, his voice sick with his failure of command,” You will disarm at once!”
The bows leveled at Kile. Poltrane, his plumb bobbing, edged his imala closer. He had a craggy face and the level eyes of a man used to command. He wasn’t going to give a rash order, instead, he gave Kile a last chance.
“Disarm, soldier!” Poltrane ordered. “Your bravery does you credit, but disobeying orders does not!”
“Princess Jhanian of Karana is under my protection,” Kile snapped back. “I will not disarm. No one will touch her!”
“No one will touch her,” the man agreed. “My oath on it, soldier! We may not be as sophisticated as the cities you are from, but we do not stoop to the rapine of women. You will be imprisoned until our council hears your case, but your women will be kept in comfort until then.” He eyed Bheni, “Even the one who raised a weapon against my men. Surely that satisfies you?”
“No, it does not,” Kile grated back. “I will not be separated from her.”
“If I have to fill you with arrows, I shall,” Poltrane threatened. “You will separate from the woman.”
Kile sheathed his sword, as if he were going to comply, but then he suddenly stepped back, pulled Jhan against his chest, and placed the edge of his knife against her throat.
“Kile!” Jhan choked, afraid to move.
Kile’s voice was peppered by sobs. “I’m going to keep my promise this time!” Kile shouted. “They won’t hurt you again! I’m the only one- the only one who can stop that from happening!” Jhan felt him shaking against her.
“What are you doing?” Tevar demanded in shocked amazement. “They’ll kill you both!”
“It might be,” Poltrane agreed regretfully and began to lift his hand for the order. “I don’t relish taking the life of a woman. Please aim for his head.”
“Kile!” Rehn shouted, horror on his face. “Don’t do this!”
“Do you want to see them have her?” Kile shouted back. “You know they will! He can promise all he wants, but I see him looking at her already!”
“You are insane!” Bheni exploded. “He has given his oath to us!”
Jhan felt Kile shake his head sharply. “What’s an oath? You know what that’s worth where Jhan is concerned!”
“Kile.” Jhan tried to be calm. Her hands touched Kile’s arm, slid up to the hand with the knife. “What are you going to do?”
“End this for us both,” Kile promised. He kissed her ear tenderly and whispered into it, “I’ll make it quick. You won’t suffer. They’ll make you into their whore. You see them looking at you. Even at this distance, they can’t resist. They can’t fight what Dagara did to you. You drive men- you drive me crazy from wanting you. Decent men can talk themselves out of it, but look- look at them. Even if Poltrane is telling the truth, how long until someone snatches you away and does what he wants? You know this has to be done. We can’t escape.”
Jhan slid her hand over Kile’s and touched the knife blade. It caught one of her fingers and blood flowed. Jhan hissed a little and sucked on the finger. She stared at the soldiers all around them. Kile was right. She knew, even better than he did, what might happen to her. She met Poltrane’s eyes and she saw the light in them that she knew all too well.
Jhan swallowed hard and weighed the possibility of a horrible future against the certainty of death on the edge of Kile’s knife. She could see his knuckles turning white as he gathered the courage to do the deed. Bows were being drawn back. Poltrane blinked, realizing that Kile wasn’t going to back down. He sighed and began to finish the motion. He stopped when he heard Jhan speak, clear and loud enough to carry.
“I don’t want to die, Kile.”
“I know,” Kile breathed. “I know.”
Jhan tried again. “I mean that I don’t want you to kill me.”
Jhan could feel Kile’s consternation. “What?”
“I told you before,” Jhan reminded him. “Don’t try thinking, especially for me. I’ve suffered through a great deal so that I can go on living. I might have to suffer some more, but, I DO want to go on living, Kile. It’s my decision. Don’t make it for me. Put down your weapon.”
“No,” Kile’s voice chilled Jhan’s blood. “You’re only saying that because you’re afraid. I’ll be brave enough for the both of us.”
“Don’t make me hurt you, Kile,” Jhan warned steadily. “I will, if I have to.”
Jhan felt the blade at her neck tense. She shoved it away just as it began to slice across her jugular. Jhan twisted with an impossible flexibility and sank her booted foot into Kile’s mid drift. It drove the air from him and he collapsed onto his knees, dropping the knife as he grasped at his pain. The knife slithered in the leaf mold and Tevar caught it up.
Kile regained his senses and went for his sword. The prick at his neck stopped him. Jhan stepped away and saw that Jaross had been standing behind them all of that time with his sword poised to strike Kile down. His hand trembled on his sword hilt, but his eyes didn’t waver in their determination.
“Don’t, Captain Kile,” Jaross warned through gritted teeth. “Jhan has said what she wishes. You will respect that.”
Bheni was clapping a piece of cloth to Jhan’s neck. Rehn was wrapping another around Jhan’s hand. Both were sliced, but not deep enough to be dangerous. Jhan trembled under their ministrations, her eyes still on Kile. He had been willing to kill them both, Jhan thought numbly, to save her from abuse and himself from the knowledge that, once again he couldn’t protect her. Jhan didn’t know whether to be outraged or overwhelmed by love. Her perception of the moment was on a teeter totter and she didn’t know which way her mind was going to tip.
It was Kile who weighted it down on the side of love. He sank down on his heels and wept into his hands. He allowed himself to be helpless as the enemy soldiers of Amberglass tied him with ropes and disarmed him completely. Only then did Jaross lower his sword. He looked ill. He must have felt like a Judas at that moment.
Poltrane had the discarded weapons collected and then he had each man tied with their hands behind their backs. He didn’t trust them on their imala and only allowed the very wounded to ride. Bheni was one of those. Poltrane approached her and Jhan, looking very serious.
“I will keep my oath,” he assured them. “You will ride beside me. Any man,” and he said this loudly, “who offers you even a rude word will answer to me.”
“Captain Poltrane!” the man looked aside to see several of his men dragging Trey towards him. Trey was bound tightly and redly furious as he continued to struggle. His sleeve had been ripped. His slave brand was clear to any eye. They were pulling at his clothes, looking for other ones to see who he belonged to. One of the soldiers found the one on his hip and squeezed as he smiled.
“That kind of slave, eh?” The man leered. “Pretty, red head! Since we can’t have the women, you might do instead.”
One of the other soldiers scowled. “You think that flat faced savage is pretty? You’re eyes are getting worse, Kival!”
“It wasn’t his face I was speaking of,” the first man retorted good naturedly and squeezed Trey’s hip again. The stitched wound there must have been giving Trey agony. He went white and fell. The men bore him back up and waited for Poltrane’s orders.
“He looks half dead,” Poltrane muttered. He squinted at the brand. “I have a few of that man’s slaves myself. He’ll know where this one belongs. Bring him, but don’t take any liberties,” Poltrane warned. “We’re oathed to protect the property as well as the lives of the citizenry of Amberglass and Blue Sky. If he comes to harm, I’ll have to dock your pay.”
Alidae had waited patiently to speak, watching his men being tied with an expression that wasn’t indifferent, but could have been used by a man having his prized beasts taken away from him. Tevar, in contrast, was pale and stricken, anxiously watching as his men, and himself, were bound.
“Your honor is without reproach,” Alidae said smoothly, but there was a prickly undertone to it. “We are mercenaries on a mission. We did not intend to do battle with your people, but to enter peacefully into Amberglass. Men on both sides have been killed when it could have been avoided. We only defended ourselves. I ask that you consider that.”
“That’s something you’ll have to take up with the council,” Poltrane replied dismissively. “We are at war, Captain. Everyone is the enemy. You should know that.”
“You will speak for us?” Alidae persisted.
Poltrane nodded as he turned his imala. “I will tell them of your cooperation.”
It was a borderline reply that could have meant insult or honest answer. Alidae thought it over, eyes narrowing, but he didn’t have the luxury of being offended. He only nodded in return and fell in with his men.
“Ladies,” Poltrane commanded, “Come with me.”
Jhan mounted the imala led up to her. Bheni, hand to her side, was slower mounting hers. She hissed, but straightened almost at once as she settled in the saddle. She wasn’t going to show any weakness before the enemy. Jhan wished for some of that bravery. She was cringing, making herself small while her blue eyes darted about nervously. Despite Poltrane’s presence, men leered at her when they caught her eye. One rubbed the front of his pants. Jhan was relieved when Poltrane took the lead and she didn’t have to look at them any more.

CHAPTER EIGHT
( Whispers in the Night)
Poltrane set an easy pace, with many stops to rest the wounded. It should have made Jhan feel less afraid, knowing that he was capable of that sort of kindness, but Jhan huddled close to Bheni at every stop and couldn’t bring herself to look for Kile.
Bheni had bound her wound with strips of her undershirt. It wasn’t bad, but she explained, ruefully, that Rehn had been the one to give it to her. At Jhan’s shocked expression, she managed a rough chuckle.
“Rehn is not a warrior,” Bheni said in way of explanation. “He tried to protect me by stabbing my opponent. When the man sidestepped, he sliced me instead. I managed to avoid the force of the full thrust or I would be dead now.”
Bheni gave Jhan a long look. “Are you angry with Kile?”
“Angry?” Jhan only mouthed the word, her voice failing her in her misery.
Bheni touched her breast surreptitiously. “I have my own escape, if they should try to lay hands on me.”
Jhan felt ice grip her insides. “I wasn’t given a choice about living or dying when I was with Dagara Ku Ni. I was forced to endure. Afterwards, I did make a choice. I’m making one now. No, I’m not angry with Kile, but I won’t let him make my decisions for me.”
“And you say you are not brave,” Bheni said softly. “Even I am not that brave Jhan. I will not suffer their hands on me.”
“I know I can endure it,” Jhan replied bleakly, “as long as Kile is there waiting for me at the end of it.”
“That’s for the enemy to say,” Bheni pointed out, unintentionally cruel.
The men weren’t even looking at Bheni, Jhan noticed. Something in her demeanor dismissed her from their minds. She looked strong, confident, and though beautiful, unappealing in a sexual way. There was nothing erotic in the set of her mouth or the piercing light in her eyes. She was almost mannish in the way she held her body.
Jhan remembered her bluff and squared her shoulders. She turned a cold eye on the men about her. She saw them frown and she frowned back, trying to give herself the appearance of a deadly animal about to spring. She thought of killing and how many ways she could do it before they could bring her down. Those thoughts showed on her face and made the men uncomfortable enough to look away.
Jhan didn’t fool herself into thinking that she had won. She had only given them pause; something else to think about. That, and not looking helpless, were the keys. Since it was almost impossible to do the latter, she had to make certain of the first. Gathering every scrap of courage she owned, Jhan stood and relieved herself where they all could see.
There was shock. Bheni exclaimed in protest and looked ready to strike Jhan for her foolishness. “Now you don’t have any protection!”
Word went to Poltrane and he came striding up to Jhan. “What is this I hear? You are a man disguised as a woman?”
“I’m both, as a matter of fact,” Jhan told him, trying not to tremble.
Poltrane had to think about that for several long moments. His eyes slowly looked Jhan up and down, his swarthy skin turning darker as if he were flushing with unsavory thoughts. “Why did you reveal this now? You were under my oath of protection.”
“I want to be with Captain Kile,” Jhan replied. “Now that you know I’m not, entirely, a woman, you can forget everything and tie me up with the rest of them.”
“Ah,” Poltrane nodded curtly. “You are in love with this Kile, are you not? And he with you? Is that why you are endangering yourself? For him? Or are you doubting my oath and attempting to escape the abuse you imagine is going to be meted out to you?”
“Both, actually,” Jhan replied shortly.
“You should leave strategy to someone else, boy, girl, whatever you are. You are not very good at it. Are you truly a princess?”
Jhan’s heart was sinking and her fear was rising. She had made a mistake. Poltrane had been going to keep his oath. Now, Jhan wasn’t certain what was going to happen.
“I am a princess of the Kevelt,” Jhan acknowledged, needing that title more than ever at that moment.
“And a prince?” Poltrane interjected with an arched eyebrow. “More prince or more princess?”
Jhan could see Poltrane’s intense interest in the answer. Jhan took a gamble. “Prince.”
The brow didn’t stop arching. “Still trying to get back to your captain? I wouldn’t recommend it. It isn’t a disgrace in Amberglass or Blue Sky to be a lover of men. There’s enough in my company to endanger a tender morsel like you. Keep your skirt down and I’ll forget what you’ve just said. Hopefully, my men will remain confused enough to pass it off. I’ll get you to the council with your legs closed, Highness. I don’t relish a war with the Kevelt if they should take offense that we played with their deviant Princeling.”
Jhan didn’t thank him, she just stared until he turned and mounted his imala. He shouted to everyone to mount up and the prisoners were forced to their feet. Jhan felt Bheni take her arm hard.
“Little fool! Why did you do that?”
Jhan blinked at Bheni as she disengaged herself with an effort. “I was trying to get back to Kile. It would be better for me if they didn’t consider me a woman, or better yet, if they knew what had happened to me. I have to distract them, Bheni, make them stop wanting me.”
“He gave his oath,” Bheni stressed.
Jhan almost laughed at her naivete, but the pain of memory was too great. She gathered up her reins and fell in behind Poltrane when he began to move. Bheni wasn’t slow in joining her, but her attitude was cold and angry.
They rode into Amberglass near dusk. It was a sprawling city, reminiscent of some roughshod town out of a western. Everything looked crude and stressed, the forest hacked back, the ground bare and unpaved, the buildings rough hewn wood and mud dab. Board walks led everywhere in a crazy crisscross, presumably to keep people out of the mud when it rained.
The people were dark skinned, not as dark as Bheni, but dusky colored with a reddish tinge. The few lighter skinned people Jhan noticed were all marked with slave brands or were merchants trading their wares on the street. The streets were busy, everyone taking the cooler evening air. When their troop started down the street, everyone stared and pointed, cheering their soldiers like heroes.
The men were taken off to a stockade. Jhan saw them being chained to posts in a long line that bordered a trench latrine. Despite that, she could see that the place was clean, strewn with hay, and that there were barrels of water for the men to drink from. That made Jhan feel less terrified for Kile and her friends. Now she only had to worry about where Poltrane intended to take her and Bheni.
“You will stay at my home,” Poltrane said after he had dismissed his men with a spate of orders. “My women will enjoy the diversion and show you proper hospitality until the council meets and decides your fates.”
Bheni only nodded, but she was giving Jhan a look of triumph, believing that she had been right and Jhan wrong about Poltrane.
They stopped in front of a sprawling series of buildings connected by covered walkways. Male slaves came up to take the imala. Poltrane didn’t give them a glance or a greeting as he dismounted and motioned Jhan and Bheni to follow him.
Jhan fell in behind Bheni as they entered one of the buildings. It was like a rabbit warren, long, narrow hallways with small, thick doors on each side. It didn’t speak of wealth, but Poltrane certainly wasn’t poor either.
“My sisters and my mother reside here as well,” Poltrane told them over his shoulder. “Mistress Bheni will find them adequate companions. You, Prince Jhanian, will have to stay apart. I don’t know how much of a man you are, so it wouldn’t be proper to set you among my women, even the slaves.”
Jhan knew the trick and she felt a shiver go up her spine. Divide and conquer. When he opened the door to a very small room and motioned her in, she knew she didn’t have a choice.
“I will stay with Jhan,” Bheni announced.
“That also wouldn’t be proper,” Poltrane objected. “You are wounded and need attention. My women are very skilled. I am a soldier. I had them trained to heal my wounds.” He met Bheni’s eyes. “I give you my oath that Prince Jhanian will not be harmed.”
Bheni thought too much of honor to question that further, but Jhan could see that her face was troubled.
“Your Highness.” Poltrane gave Jhan a curt bow and motioned once more to the room. “I will send a slave along shortly to see to your needs.”
Jhan wrapped her arms about herself and entered without a word to Bheni. Poltrane closed the door behind her and she heard the solid, metallic turning of a lock.
The room was stifling in its narrowness. There was a bed, large enough for two, along the short wall at the back. The thick carpeting on the floor had a flower pattern. That let Jhan know that she was in a woman’s room. A small table had a pitcher of water, a basin, and towel for cleaning. A very narrow wardrobe, along one of the long walls, was echoing and empty. A chamber pot with a lid let Jhan know the state of the plumbing; primitive. She used it, covered it, and then sat on the bed as stiff as a block of wood to await her fate.
Jhan didn’t have to wait long. The bolt slid back and a woman entered with downcast eyes and a tray balanced in one hand. There was a guard behind her. He didn’t enter. He gave Jhan a long, once over, and then took up a position outside.
The woman closed the door, doing a graceful balancing act with the large tray, before she approached and kneeled at Jhan’s feet with it. Her eyes still downcast, she waited Jhan’s orders.
A pretty, young, woman, she was tall and slim, her breasts rather small buds in a sheer tunic that displayed their white tops, yet hid the nipples just barely. Her long, creamy neck flowed up to an oval face and a clear complexion. Her eyes were almond shaped and green, like Bheni’s. Her lips were small and pert, a rosebud under a long, aristocratic nose. Her hair was coiffed elaborately atop her head. A brassy bronze, it was held in place by jeweled pins artfully arranged.
Jhan noted the sheer tunic, the gold embroidered corset, the sheer skirt layered in shades of blue. Her legs were hidden by a silky petticoat and her feet were bare and well shaped. The last thing Jhan saw was the delicate, oval slave brand on her upper arm.
Jhan felt ill as she tore her eyes away from the woman and looked down at the tray. There was a small flask of some drink, bread, vegetables, and slices of meat. None of it was hot or looked freshly cooked. On such short notice, the cook must have brought out the leftovers from the night before.
“Thank you,” Jhan managed to say. “You can go.”
The woman bowed a little as she raised the tray and placed it on the bed. She didn’t leave though. She remained kneeling, eyes still on the floor.
“What is it?” Jhan wondered tightly.
“I am at your service,” the woman said softly. “Master has commanded me. He has told me that you are a prince and that I must be most obedient."
Jhan’s sickness grew. “I thought he didn’t want me endangering his women.”
“I am not his woman. I am from the street market.”
“You can go,” Jhan told her, ready to weep. “I’m not a man. I don’t need you.”
“It was explained to me,” the woman replied carefully. “I am trained to serve many needs. I am also to be your body servant. Master does not trust his men with you, nor you with his women.”
Jhan was relieved. Maybe she was going to get out of this after all, she thought, but then her emotions went dark again. She still refused to be optimistic. “You can be my body servant, but I don’t need much.” Jhan pulled at her filthy, ripped dress. “If I could have a bath and a change of clothes...”
“That is already being arranged. We have time before they arrive. Will your Highness eat?”
Jhan was very hungry. “You can go,” she attempted once more.
The woman bowed again submissively. “I would be whipped, your Highness, but I will go if that is your-”
“Whipped?” Jhan was appalled. “Why?”
“I have been commanded to serve you. I must obey.”
Jhan glanced nervously around the small room. “For how long? This room isn’t very big.”
The woman smiled, suddenly, “Only until all of your needs have been met. Then, I shall leave you until morning.”
Jhan sighed, knowing she had to accept this. “All right. What’s your name?”
“Omai, your Highness.”
“Omai,” Jhan repeated and then wondered how she was going to get the woman off her knees. Oman relieved her of the difficulty. The woman rose and began serving Jhan from the tray. Jhan had grown used to servants, but she still couldn’t help feeling uneasy about it.
The food was good and Jhan managed to get more into her stomach than she thought possible, before it gave a telltale twinge of warning. There was a strong wine in the flask and Oman seemed reluctant to get Jhan anything else. Jhan sipped cautiously. It was sour, but drinkable.
More slaves arrived. Men, this time. They carried a tub made out of wood and began the laborious task of filling it with steaming water. Oman threw in some sort of musky scented soap and some soothing salts.
Jhan watched as fresh towels were laid out and several items meant for scrubbing. She sipped distractedly at the wine, needing something to do so that she wouldn’t panic and try and run out the open door. She drank far more than she intended before the task was done. The men backed out with bows, closing the door behind them.
Jhan set her wine cup aside. She was feeling very warm and relaxed. It was the last thing she wanted at that moment, she thought, and then reconsidered. If Poltrane was cleaning her up for something later on, being drunk might help her suffer through it. That easy acceptance of her fate, hardly shocked Jhan. She had already made up her mind to endure it, to live through it, and to be with Kile afterwards.
“I will help you bathe,” Oman announced.
“I don’t need help,” Jhan muttered as she rose and began pulling off her dress. She wasn’t afraid of Omai, but the thought of being touched by anyone at that moment was unendurable. She wanted to protect her body from that as long as possible.
Oman was looking at Jhan. There was only a small lantern hanging from the ceiling. It highlighted Jhan’s healing bruises cruelly. The scar along her belly and the corresponding one on each side of her arm, intrigued Oman the most. “Battle wounds,” she said softly and appeared to be satisfied about something.
Jhan didn’t correct her. She didn’t want to remember the pain of the wound or the visions of the battles she had been in. She closed her mouth on any reply and slowly climbed into the tub. She sank gingerly into the steaming water and let out a long sigh of contentment. Being small, the tub was deep enough for the water to reach Jhan’s chest.
Oman picked up the soap and began using it on Jhan. Jhan started away.
“I told you, no,” Jhan snapped.
Oman gave her an innocent look of hurt. “How will you clean your back and your hair? Please, allow me, your Highness. I will be gentle.” Oman handed Jhan her cup of wine and Jhan sipped at it again as Oman began washing her without waiting for consent. Jhan was at once robbed of any will to resist. Oman was an artist.
It was wonderful, Jhan thought guiltily, to have Omai’s hands smoothing over her sore bruises and cuts as she washed them with the scented soap. When she began on Jhan’s curly hair she admired it and stroked it appreciatively as she soaked out the dirt and dried blood. Her hands were soothingly female and Jhan didn’t even experience a twinge of trepidation as she found herself sinking into the water contentedly and sipping distractedly at the wine.
The world became blurred and Jhan felt a pleasant lethargy. The wine was taken out of her hand. She smiled at Omai as the woman smiled into her eyes.
“I please you,” Omai murmured and it wasn’t a question.
“I don’t usually,” Jhan’s tongue was thick, she tried again. “I don’t usually like servants. It bothers me to be waited on. It’s worse now. You’re a slave.”
“A woman is a slave as soon as she is born,” Omai replied without bitterness. “I was just given a brand besides.”
“That isn’t true!” Jhan protested, but Omai was smiling more warmly now and she had a dimple at the corner of her lips. She was bending over Jhan and her sheer top was hanging to show her white, soft breasts.
“I am content with my life,” Omai told her in a sultry whisper, “but your concern warms my heart, Highness.”
Jhan was being helped out of the bath. She was very warm and languid. A towel dried her off in a slow dance about her body. She found herself looking down at the top of Omai’s head as she kneeled to dry Jhan’s feet. Again Jhan saw her breasts and Jhan felt something... A warmth in her groin; a fluttering shadow of something that she couldn’t understand. It was far too small and impotent, that stirring.
Jhan felt dizzy. She put a hand to her head as she tried to find her balance. Omai’s hands were on her, helping her reach the bed and lie down on her back. Jhan covered her eyes with an arm and tried to breathe through a wave of disorientation. She was, she realized distantly, drunk. She shouldn’t have continued drinking that wine.
Omai was studying Jhan as if she were a problem she had to solve. Her eyes were lingering on Jhan’s small breasts and then on her smooth curves down to her belly. She was blushing ever so slightly. Jhan saw it as she came out from behind the shelter of her arm, the world steadier.
Omai was sitting very close to Jhan on the bed. Jhan couldn’t help looking at her soft breasts again. She was drawn to them as if they were infinitely fascinating and she didn’t know why. When Omai gracefully opened her sheer top and let them free, they hung enticingly by Jhan’s face. They weren’t as small as Jhan had thought. They were full handfuls, she found out, as she put her hands on them.
Jhan was too drunk to question herself too deeply. The room had narrowed and blurred and her mind couldn’t encompass any thoughts. Some inner, long buried part of Jhanian, a handful of hormones that Jhan had kept bound and suppressed until the wine had relaxed her, were stirring and making themselves known.
Omai murmured happily as Jhan played with her nipples, pulling gently on them as if she were a baby and they were irresistible toys. When Omai leaned forward, it seemed totally natural to capture one in her mouth and suckle it hard. Omai sighed in pleasure.
The wine pulled Jhan under a little more and she stopped her drowsy play, smiling foolishly as she let Omai go. When the breasts retreated, the odd stirring inside of Jhan subsided. Through the wine, Jhan began to feel wonder at herself and to begin to be embarrassed. She wanted to apologize, fumbling drunkenly for some explanation. She blinked as Omai’s face disappeared. There was a darkness over her instead. It took Jhan a moment to realize that Omai had straddled her head and to understand what part of Omai’s anatomy she was looking at. It was hairless, not because Omai was that young, but because she had shaved it. Pink and swollen with desire, Jhan felt a hot flush run through her body like fire as she stared at it.
A mouth captured Jhan between her legs. Jhan started. She was stiff and ready for those talented rosebud lips of Omai’s. Omai, in turn, was very pleased, saying softly. “Yes, this is beautiful. You are beautiful, Highness. Small, delicate, and both. You are a treasure beyond price.”
Jhan wanted to protest, she tried to swim out of the haze, but her body grew warmer and warmer and that stirring inside of her was rising and taking control. It wanted as she had never wanted anything before. It wasn’t a shout. It was a whisper as soft as a breeze, crying piteously, begging relief; taking full advantage of the fact that the wine had stripped Jhan of inhibitions.
It was complete relief to give in to that desire. How long had it been? Jhan had grown used to Kile’s rough hands and his controlling, dominate desires. This was gentle fantasy, silk and sheerest fluff in a wine haze. Warm, skilled hands teased out Jhan’s shadow of manhood and made it sing, maddening it into stiffness with tongue and lips and the softest skin in all the world pressing against her. Jhan was the slave all in an instant. She reached up to Omai’s ample hips and drew her down, her tongue finding the center of Omai’s pleasure and lapping like a cat with cream. Pungent, heady like the wine, Omai’s scent and taste set Jhan on fire.
It quickly became confusing and Jhan couldn’t remember most of it except that it was tremendous pleasure and comforting love at the same time. She blushed and blazed as if she were trapped in the heart of the sun, dazzled and blinded by passion; doing things that she never wanted to remember, but wanting to remember the feeling of it forever. They tangled and coupled with tongues and fingers, writhed about each other in a tumble of sheets. At one point Omai playfully mounted herself on Jhan. Jhan didn’t have enough to give her any pleasure in that position, but Omai made the motions all the same, driving Jhan to a pinnacle of frustration in her hot tightness. That pinnacle rose to a fever pitch and then Jhan cried out, shocked and overwhelmed to climax in that position despite what she lacked. Omai laughed, soft and throaty, wrapping herself in Jhan’s arms and nuzzling warmly along her side. Jhan fell asleep smelling the faint perfume of her hair and feeling Omai’s hand close about that bit of flesh that she had so despised, caress it, and then lean down to give it a long, passionate kiss. The last word Jhan heard before she slipped away totally from consciousness was, “Beautiful.”

CHAPTER NINE
( Into the Darkest Dreams )
“It is him,” a voice muttered. “Get out slave! Your service is done!”
“Majesty,” Omai’s voice replied, frightened and servile.
Jhan tried to drag her eyes open. A hand lay over them and she found herself frozen, every muscle lax and out of her control. She whimpered, remembering the touch on her mind from her dark days with Dagara Ku Ni, but this mind was cool and professional, not the ravening beast mind of Dagara’s.
“Trying to get between women’s legs even now, Jhanian?” the voice said acidly. “You have far more nerve than I ever gave you credit for, and far more strength. I could scarce believe my eyes when I saw you with Poltrane. Alive, somewhat sane, and dressed as a woman, of all things! Is that how you think of yourself? As a woman? I suppose, with what Dagara left you, you’ve had little choice, hmm? Yet still,” he seemed grudgingly respectful, “trying your manhood even now. It’s more than I can do after what Dagara did to me.”
Jhan felt her body searched, prodded, probed. The mind controlling hers seemed to sink down inside of her, looking inward where fingers couldn’t reach. Jhan groped for a name to this man, tried to remember where she had heard that voice. A dream? A nightmare? Was she dreaming now?
“Someone has been playing with you,” the voice was irritable. “Not safe even away from us, hmm? Not a good job either. What did this fool intend? Ah, I see. Dagara thought of mating you to one of his Alamien commanders at one time, to see the spectacle of the man ripping you up inside while he planted his egg and seed in you. I told him it wouldn’t work. You would need female Alamien hormones for that, but he was quiet insane and wouldn’t listen. When it failed, he devised the mad plan of mating you himself, making his young general carry his child. Another bit of madness. It didn’t work either. Now someone else has been cutting and sewing I see. Trying to make you viable for Alamien again. Curious. How could he not know that it would kill you? You are too small to bear even if the other difficulties were surmounted.”
Jhan felt the mind sink down into the depths of her DNA. “You still make men mad, I see... and I feel,” the voice continued as if the man couldn’t get enough breath. “I can’t have that. You don’t need it any more and I don’t want to fall under my own spell.” the mind twisted and Jhan gasped as something inside of her changed.
The mind withdrew, the control becoming very light.
“I’m not here to take you back,” the voice assured her, maybe having felt Jhan’s soul deep terror, “I don’t have any use for what you were made to be. I was drawn to you by my own spell, you see, and I wished to see, once again, some of my old work. I am now free of both curiosities."
Jhan felt fingers brush the tears flowing from her eyes. The touch was light and gentle. When it withdrew, Jhan saw a blurred image of a man bending over her. Dark hair, handsome features, eyes like wells of darkness. Jhan felt a scream try to erupt from her throat. The mind controlling hers stifled it and shunted her into deeper sleep. The terror and the memory blurred and faded like her eyesight and Jhan allowed herself to accept it wholeheartedly, wanting to escape the horrifying ordeal of reality in dreams.

Jhan awoke, naked and shivering on chilled stone. There was an awful stench... acrid, cloying... something burning. Screams rang out, moans, and pitiful pleas. The sounds grew and grew and then shattered abruptly into shrieks of pain and terror.
Jhan rolled to her hands and knees, her head throbbing and her stomach clenching and threatening to vomit. She ignored both sensations, as her heart hammered in her chest and the hairs stood up on the back of her neck. She sat up, blinking through a gloom that was only penetrated by a red glow from the small opening in a stout door.
Jhan was in a very small cell, barely five feet square. Straw was strewn on the floor and a clean bucket , it’s purpose obvious, was near the door. Her mind screamed along with the audible shrieks of someone in agony. The sound cut off as abruptly as it had begun and someone muttered. “Screams like a girl.”
Jhan dragged herself up, ignoring a large part of her mind that told her to try and hide in a corner, and walked staggering and stiff legged to the door. She inched up on her toes and looked out.
There was a forge fire being tended by a sullen slave. Two men were talking softly as they worked over someone strapped to a table tilted at an angle to the floor. One of the men tossed something aside into a bucket and then threw a sharp knife into another bucket of hot water. He scrubbed the knife diligently while he nodded to another slave.
“Take him.”
The slave unstrapped the victim. Jhan had a flicker of a view of a sickly pale face, slack jaw, and the glazed eyes of a young boy in shock before the slave hefted him onto one shoulder and carried him away.
The other man was consulting a sheaf of papers in his hand. He made a mark on one. “That’s two for Lady Grethor. A good profit for the day. We’ll do that odd one next and then begin branding the men after. I wish we made more on mine slaves, but they just won’t pay for men who’ll be dead in a few moons from hard labor. At least it goes quickly.”
“That little Prince will go quickly as well.” the other man said as he pulled his hands and the knife from the bucket and grinned. “Doesn’t have much to cut off to make him a whole woman.”
“Poor thing,” the man with the papers said with a shake of his head. “Who ever did him that young should have been hanged. Even a slave should have a chance to be a man before he’s cut.”
“Why say that?” the man with the knife wondered. “Can’t miss what you never knew. Besides, he should thank us. Right now, he’s jut a freak no one will pay money for. Once we slice that bit off he’ll command some gold for that face, I’m thinking.”
“And those breasts,” the other man agreed. “Do you think, cutting a boy so young, makes them grow like that?”
“Who knows. The law is the law and we can’t profit from it if it does.” The man tested the blade with his thumb and then turned to sharpen it. "Better get him.”
Jhan knew they were speaking of her. She cringed, but stood, frozen with fear as the man with the papers came and opened the door. He stared at her, not with the open lust she had always received, but with real sympathy.
“Come along, Blue Eyes,” the man commanded. “Fighting will only make us botch the job.” When Jhan couldn’t move, he took hold of her elbow with his free hand and pulled her along behind him.
Horror made Jhan numb, her mind a leaden thing. The nightmare of someone controlling her mind again, doing things to her, and this promise of knives, shrieks, and blood, was transporting her back in time. The dark shadows, the mold covered stone of the walls and floor, the crude table and the blood crusted straps attached to it, were too much like dejavu or a place she was beginning to doubt she had ever really left.
Figures moved against a wall. Deep in shadows, they clanked with chains. The men waiting to be branded? Jhan saw a flash of gold in the light of the forge, a pale face with light blue eyes seen through a handful of branding irons glowing among the hot coal. She tried to put a name to that face, and the sensation she felt at the sight of it, but she couldn’t drag herself out of the horror enough. She was riveted by the knife in the one man’s hand.
“No!” It was a miserable moan from the shadows, hopeless and impotent.
Jhan was made to sidestep a bucket. She was staring at her feet now, mind withdrawing inward. When she saw what the bucket contained, shriveling bits of flesh, it wasn’t hard to escape and leave the two men with her empty shell. She would feel the pain and she would know the horror, but it wouldn’t touch her where it counted most. Her soul would still be hers.
“The small brand, I think,” the man with the papers said, signaling to the slave at the forge. “We don’t want to mar that perfect skin too much.”
“No! Don’t do this!” the moan from the shadows said. There was the sickening sound of a blow landing on flesh and a grunt of pain.
A slave stepped forward and put Jhan against the table. He pushed her legs apart and strapped them down to the table at the knees. The wood was black with blood and it stank of cautery and burned, branded flesh. Next he strapped down her waist, neck, and wrists and then turned the table so that it angled up from the floor but was still slanted to let blood and whatever she might pass in shock down to another bucket that he placed underneath.
Why she was there when she had been an honored guest of Poltrane’s wasn’t a thought in Jhan’s mind. She was used to treachery and cruelty. It seemed only right that he should allow her to know pleasure and contentment, lulling her into vulnerability, before revealing this torture and ripping her down to the mental bone. So Dagara had played with her over and over again. Jhan had eagerly fallen headlong into each well laid trap, wanting peace too much to ever not believe in it when he mockingly gave her a taste of it. A taste, and nothing more.
The man with the knife turned to Jhan with the sharpened blade. “Poor child,” he sighed. “The council’s getting hard hearted to condemn a thing like you to such a fate.”
“I wouldn’t say a word against them,” the man with the paper’s warned. “One of them might be the buyer.”
The man with the knife nodded, once, but his jaw tightened. “I’ll be quick,” he promised Jhan. “Not much there to do. Open you up enough to make water and give a man his pleasure with you. Two for the price of one, I’m afraid.”
“Three,” the other man muttered darkly.
That observation was chillingly obscene enough for the man with the knife to blink and scowl. “Times like this,” he glowered, “I hate my job.”
“Get it done or I’ll relieve you of it.”
Jhan was looking down the length of her body, watching as the man with the knife took hold of her firmly. He glanced up at her, made uncomfortable by her glazed stare. “Don’t look,” he warned. “Just close your eyes and brace yourself.”
“Get on with it!” The man with the papers barked. “We do have a schedule.”
Jhan did close her eyes then, sinking into the depths of her mind to escape the pain she knew was coming. She felt it, the cold touch of the blade and the first sting as it broke skin. Then, Jhan heard a man’s scream, Kile’s scream, break through the near silence. It was agonizing, heart rending, shaping itself around a word... a name.
“Jhaaaaan!”