James Galloway - Honor and Blood

He watched absently as Sarraya conjured forth a few large blackberries, which seemed to be her favorite. She rarely used her Druidic magic, and because of that, he only understood a few of the things that it could do. He had seen her Conjure many times, to cause to appear small objects and materials, seemingly from thin air. Related to that was Summoning, the apperance of a specific object by bringing it magically to the Druid's hand. That had been what he had used against the Demon in their battle, Summoning his dropped sword to his paw after the Demon had grabbed him and was threatening to crush him. He had seen her heal, a curious healing that was affected by magically accelerating the subject's own healing mechanisms. Aside from those and the fact that Druidic power had a controlling influence on the Weave and Sorcery, he had never seen her do anything else. He knew that she could use Druidic magic to send messages to other Druids, who were distant from her, and Triana somehow used her Druidic magic to cross an entire continent in the span of a day.

He wondered how Triana was doing. She was with his friends now, taking care of Jula. Jula had been his enemy, a human female Sorceress who had been secretly working for the ki'zadun. She had betrayed him, locked a magical collar around his neck to enslave his will. He had escaped, and in retaliation, had ripped out a section of her spine and left her to bleed to death. But she had managed to procure a vial of his blood, and used it to escape death, to drink it and become a Were-cat herself. But unlike him, she could not control the beast within, and it had driven her mad. The ki'zadun had sent her to Dala Yar Arak, a mindless, rampaging beast, to have her wreak havoc and cause the populace to turn against him and slow him down as he searched for the Book of Ages. He could have killed her, but he didn't. He had had something of a moral epiphany, looking down at her filthy, naked body, and had found it in himself to pity her. He took her for his own daughter instead of killing her, separating her instincts from her conscious mind with Sorcery, giving her a second chance. She had been loyal to him after that, because she understood that her only hope of finding balance within herself was to listen to him. He'd only had her for a few days, before all the insanity with Shiika had turned everything on its head. But even in that short time, he'd seen marked progress. Triana had come to complete her training, and he felt more than confident that his aged, wise bond-mother could be as successful with Jula as she had been with him. Not that Jula would like it very much. Triana didn't know Jula, and she knew that Jula had once betrayed him. Triana could be a bit rough with people she didn't like, but he wasn't afraid that Triana would just give up on his bond-daughter. She would do her best to help Jula find her inner peace, to keep her from going insane again. He knew his bond-mother, knew her well.

He hadn't felt anything from Jula's bond for a few days now. When he decided to take her for his own child, he had taken her bond, a mystical connection to her brought about by taking her blood. It was something that all Were-cats could do, probably an extension of their affinity for Druidic magic, and he used it to gauge Jula's mental state and her general location. He could feel it when she experienced powerful emotion or physical pain, something that hadn't happened for a few days. He had known when Jula had met Triana for the first time, judging by the panic that roared through her. She had felt several other episodes of powerful emotion since then, but nothing that compared to that first tidal wave of fear.

Tarrin's feelings for Jula were rather complex. He still didn't like her very much, but his parental duty to her overrode his distaste. She had proved herself to him during those short days, by fighting with him against Shiika's minions, by doing as she was told with no argument. His dislike for her had eased during those days, but his dislike was overshadowed by his powerful, instinctual impulse to protect who he considered to be his own offspring. Jula was his daughter by choice and by bond, and he had a responsibility to her that superseded his own personal feelings. Even among the males, who had little to do with the raising of a child, the instinct to protect the young was powerful, nearly overwhelming. Shiika had come to discover just how far Tarrin would go to protect his child, a lesson that had cost her a few thousand of her Arakite citizens and more than a few buildings. Were-cats were deeply based in their instincts, and the rages that could be spawned when those instincts were excited or outraged could be extreme.

He felt… incomplete. Now he knew how Jesmind felt when he had run away from her, a feeling that made what she did afterward much more lucid to him. He had a daughter out there, a daughter that was not ready to be on her own, and he could not be there to teach her, to guide her, to protect her. It was infuriating, something that ate at him every time he thought about it. He trusted Triana to continue where he left off, but it wasn't the same. He'd be almost insane with worry if Triana wasn't there, and would probably have abandoned what he was doing to seek her out and reclaim her. That was how powerful the instinct to protect her was within him. It would be worse if he felt constant negative feelings through her bond, but the lack of those bad feelings allowed him to more faithfully lay his trust in Triana.

Sarraya finished her breakfast of berries, then stood up and tugged at her dirty skirt. Both of them looked like they were in desperate need of a bath, and Sarraya's clothes were starting to tear in places that would compromise her modesty. Not that he cared very much. The concept of nudity was a very loose one among Were-cats, who weren't all that impressed by the gratuitous display of things humans preferred to conceal. That change in him from human to Were had been a bit confusing at first, but he had completely shed his human conceptions about it very quickly.

"Looks like they're getting ready to move," Sarraya said, shading her eyes against the morning sun and looking back to where their pursuers were arrayed. "Some of them are moving, coming this way at a walk."

"They're waiting for me to reveal myself to their magic," Tarrin replied sedately. Some of them had mounted up and were slowly moving forward. They knew that Tarrin was somewhere ahead of them, and they were trying to get closer to run him down before their mounts tired. They just didn't realize that Tarrin had kept moving after changing into cat form, nearly half the night, to put them several longspans behind. He doubted that very many of them understood the nature of their quarry. He doubted that even a few of them knew very much about the nature of Were-cats. If they did, they would have abandonded their vain pursuit long ago. They simply would never catch him on open ground. And even if some fluke did allow them to catch up to him, he would turn and attack, and that was something that they would not surive. A Were-cat was as strong as five fully grown human men, even the weakest of their kind had that kind of inhuman power, and he was blessed with the dexterity and agility of the Cat to which he was bonded. In a fight, Tarrin was an absolute nightmare, using his Were gifts with his extensive training in myriad forms of combat to destroy any who challenged. No single human could ever hope to defeat him, and even a large group would have to be lucky to even lay a weapon on him. Even if they did, his Were immunity to any weapon that was not magic, silver, or a raw natural force or unworked weapon of nature would protect him from a vast majority of his pursuer's weapons. Their only true weapon against him was magic, and the fact that Tarrin was a Sorcerer, who could control the very arteries through with their Wizard magic travelled, made their Wizard magic a mere shadow of its former might. Against a Sorcerer, a Wizard was powerless. Without their magic, they had no chance. Tarrin knew that. It didn't make him arrogant or vain, it was more of a simple acceptance of truth. He had fought against Jesmind when he was human, so he understood how powerful a Were-cat could seem to a human in a fight, and he had himself been overwhelmed by Sarraya's Druidic magic, so he could appreciate how having one's magic taken away could turn the tide of a battle.