"There's a pond just over that hillock there," Tarrin pointed. "Go take a bath."
"Bath? What is that?"
"Take off all your clothes and get into the pond, then wash off," he replied. "The water may not be very warm, but it'll be a new experience for you."
Denai gave Var a roguish look. "Let's try it," she said with an eager smile.
"Go into water? It sounds unnatural," Var said dubiously. "Will it be very deep?"
"I have no idea," Tarrin said. "Just go slow and be careful."
"Well," he hedged.
But Denai would have none of that. She jumped up and grabbed him by the wrist, then dragged him to his feet. "Come on," she said brightly. "Or does the mighty Scout fear a little water?"
"He won't if the cunning obe goes first," he challenged.
"Done," she accepted with bright eyes.
Tarrin moved to the top of the hill to watch over the pair as they played. Denai seemed to be absolutely fearless, shedding her clothes and marching right into the small pond without hesitation. The water seemed cold, from her reaction to it, but she was quickly submerged to her waist and haraunging Var for not moving fast enough. The Scout shed his clothing and moved into the water tentatively, step by step, and it was obvious that the cold water didn't suit him. But Denai just laughed and splashed him with that cold water mercilessly.
Now he understood why he saw Denai as a child. She acted like one. She was a mature adult, but she still had the adventurous mindset of a teenager. In some ways, she was like Sarraya. They both shared that adventurous spirit, but Denai was utterly fearless, even beyond the scope of good sense, where Sarraya was much more careful. If Denai were human, she'd be the child in the village that got everyone else in trouble with her adventures and her goings-on, taking them where they weren't allowed to go and doing things that they'd been forbidden to do. Not in acts of defiance, but in the search for what was new and interesting, what hadn't been done before. And she had the charisma and natural charm to lead her cohorts down the path of disobedience, using her natural affable nature to charm her subjects into submission.
He made that conclusion, and an actual affection for her suddenly appeared inside him. Denai was just too cute, both in appearance and personality. He couldn't help but like her. It had taken her a little time to shake off her fear of him-that he could incite fear in someone like Denai was a statement in and of itself-but now that she had, her true personality had emerged. And he found that he liked it. And he liked her. She may have made overtures to him, but it took seeing her at total ease, torturing Var, to understand what he felt.
Of course, he had no intention of telling her that he liked her. She was annoying enough as it was. To let her know that would make it worse.
Strange. Selani were another race, yet there were commonalities in their basic personalities that were similar to humans. Watching Var and Denai was much like watching a pair of human younglings playing in a pond, with Denai being the younger, more aggressive party, and Var the older, more reserved one, having to be baited into letting go by his more carefree companion. Then again, he had no idea what Var's real personality was like, because he was always very careful to remain as unthreatening as possible around Tarrin. Tarrin couldn't fault him for that, but now he was getting curious to know what Var was really like. Judging from watching him with Denai, he was a rather serious young man with a very firm sense of responsibility. But he wasn't above a little bit of fun now and again.
Tarrin had to chuckle ruefully. He kept thinking of Var and Denai as younglings, people much younger than him, when the truth was that he was only eighteen, while Denai was probably in her twenties, and Var was probably in his late thirties. Selani lived on average to be one hundred and fifty years old-some had lived as long as two hundred and fifty-so Allia told him, so those ages corrosponded to someone in her late teens for Denai, and someone in his mid twenties for Var. He was much younger than them, but his experiences and his trials had aged him mentally, made him feel much older than he really was. Not two years ago, he would have been in that pond with them, splashing and carrying on and acting foolish. Now it seemed very foolish to him, a waste of time and energy.
A lifetime ago.
Maybe Shiika's draining touch had aged him more than physically. Maybe it truly had aged him, in body and mind, giving him a mental state to match his unnaturally accelerated years. Or maybe it was just the Cat in him. The Cat wasn't above acting the fool in play, but that was for kittens, or when the Cat felt totally at ease. The rest of the time, it felt proper to act in a dignified manner.
Tarrin crossed his arms and watched as the play died down, and the business of cleaning off got under way. A scent on the wind caught his attention, a rocky, earthy smell that he knew was a kajat, and that turned him away from the Selani. It was faint, but the faint wind hadn't scattered it, and he could tell from the texture of it that it was moving in his direction. He couldn't see it yet, but the kajat was probably smart enough to stay off the hills, to not give away its position. He had little experience with kajat, but it was probably a good bet that Var and Denai's carrying on had made enough noise to attract the predator. He had had enough experience with them to know that they were so heavy that their steps made shivers in the ground, so he knelt down and put his sensitive paw on the ground, feeling for that telltale quivering. If he could feel it, then the kajat was close.
There it was. And another, and another. It was moving slowly and carefully; it was stalking, moving in for the attack. He couldn't tell direction, but a change in the wind made the scent much stronger, and he realized that the monster was approaching from along the canyon wall, and it was coming more or less right at him. He was between it and the pond, meaning that it would have to go through him to reach the Selani. That was a good thing. Var and Denai were still washing, and he let them go on without telling them. If they changed their patterns of behavior, the kajat may alter its path or plan, and Tarrin didn't want that. As it was, the Selani were safe, and that was really the only issue here.
He saw it. It was a huge kajat, so large that it peeked up and over a small hillock about five hundred spans from Tarrin's position. It looked right at him, and stared right back at it defiantly, his eyes erupting from within with their baleful greenish radiance as soon as it made eye contact. He'd been charged by a kajat twice before, so he already knew exactly what the animal was going to do. It had lost the element of surprise, but it was close enough to make a run at a meal. So it would abandon stealth and attack.
And that was exactly what it did. The reptile was about twice as big as the one that bit off his leg, much larger than the first one he encountered, and the entire land shook with each of its rapid footsteps as it quickly accelerated to a full run and came around the small hillock behind which it was hiding. Tarrin rose up to his full height and reached behind him, drawing his sword slowly, easily, as Var and Denai noticed the rippling of the water and concluded quickly that a kajat was on the move very close to them. They started scrambling out of the water, calling out in alarm, but Tarrin kept his eyes locked on the reptile as it charged right at him. He was curiously without fear, watching a monster that weighed more than a house bear down on him with a speed that was shocking, given the raw size of this monster. Tarrin simply stood his ground on the crest of that hill, and he waited for it to come to him.
It didn't disappoint him. With an ear-splitting bellow, it opened those massive jaws and showed him a virtual forest of pitted ivory teeth, then started up the hill. Tarrin crouched down and lowered his weapon, ears back, eyes watching the monster intently for the little signs that would tell him when it was going to lunge at him. The other two had done the same thing, lunged when they got close and turned its head sideways enough to catch its prey in those huge jaws. This one would do the same, he was sure of it, and he knew how to counter that move, counter it and turn it into a fatal mistake.