Seeker of the Four Winds: A Galatia Novel Read online

  “They look bright to me—” he began to say but realized what was happening. “It’s The Fading. We got to go.”

  She tried to stand, but collapsed back to the ground of the island. Her eyes closed and the flame in her chest began to fizzle out. Lars scooped up her specter form into his arms. He leapt into the air and skimmed the side of the cliff like Superman carrying a limp Lois Lane. Speeding through the forest, past the house with the chimney, he saw the arena ahead. Her form tensed up and she lifted her head groggily to let out a moan.

  He brought Josie’s spirit to her cell and set it on top of her body, where it absorbed back into its corporal form. Her two cellmates were sleeping in opposite corners of the room. One was a mixed breed—part Commoner, part Gargo—a real ugly specimen more muscular than any Commoner man. The other was a tall slender gossamer-winged woman named Willow.

  “Even though I can’t see you anymore, Lars.” She reached into the air toward him. “I know you’re there. Thank you for a wonderful night.”

  In spirit form, Lars kissed her lips of flesh. Her fingers caressed the spot he had touched, so Lars knew that she had somehow sensed him.

  “Good night, Josie Rose,” he said wistfully. “Until we meet again.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  (Larsen Drey Steelsun)

  The night of the Mind Wander left Josie in a coma that lasted two days. The trainers brought Lars down to her cell where Mr. Bayloo himself was waiting. They wanted Lars’s opinion on what might be the matter. He used the opportunity to try to make things better for her.

  “Galatian women’s bodies shut down when they’re under too much stress. She needs more food, new clothing, a brush for her hair and for god’s sake, don’t let her sleep on the cold floor anymore. Get these women some benches like the men have in their cell.”

  The next time she appeared in the arena, her hair was combed smooth. She was wearing a pair of brown trousers, a white tunic with crisscrossing strings that went halfway down to the hem and a new pair of black leather boots. She looked at him and mouthed the words thank you. Then she rubbed her belly in indication that it was full and gave him the thumbs up sign.

  As much as they wanted to repeat that magical evening together, Josie and Lars decided to limit their Mind Wandering visits to once a week and to limit their traveling radius to the areas just outside of the arena. Neither wanted to ruin their time together by talking about the training and especially the upcoming shows; mostly they dwelled on better days back in the bunker.

  This afternoon, a hot breeze twirled dust around the practice field as the chief trainer, a humorless amphibious humanoid of uncertain race, marched out into the arena. He had a spiky fin that went down the middle of his hairless blue-green head like a Mohawk. His yellow eyes were hard and hateful. His heavily scarred face reflected years of experience earned the hard way.

  He promised to make the cast members work until they bled. And he was good on his word. The other slaves called him Slaughterhouse for good reason. Unfortunately, he seemed to have taken an instant dislike to Lars and Josie. He called Lars out to the center of the arena for a warm-up while the actors and trainers watched. Tossing a sword at Lars’s feet, he ordered the “Filthy Galatian” to spar with him.

  They warmed up with a few jabs. As the sun beat down, both of them glistened with sweat, which caused the dust from the arena to stick to their skin.

  “Concentrate on your footwork first,” Slaughterhouse said, swinging out a leg in an attempt to knock Lars over. Lars jumped over it and as his trainer sprang back up to a full stand, Lars found an opening in his opponent’s defense. Immediately, he placed the tip of his sword against Slaughterhouse’s neck.

  “En garde,” Lars said, having watched too many Three Musketeers movies.

  “Never wait for your opponent to make the next move,” Slaughterhouse said. “Once you have the upper hand, don’t wait and see if wants to fuck you in the ass. Finish him off straight away.”

  “But this is only practice.”

  “Of course it is. If it weren’t, you’d be dead. I gave you that opening on purpose, wanted to see if you’d see it and use it. Unfortunately, you fight with honor—like a Regalan.”

  “Thank you.”

  “That wasn’t praise, stupid.” Slaughterhouse knocked the sword away with his own blade, then raised his palm, indicating for Lars to stop fighting for a moment. “As your trainer, I’m telling you honor will kill you faster than this sword.”

  “But…”

  “On the stage, you fight for your life—” Slaughterhouse threw his sword to his assistant, and motioned for another weapon. The assistant sheathed the sword and tossed Slaughterhouse a dagger, which he caught effortlessly by the hilt, “—not some phantom notion about honor.”

  “Honor is real.”

  “No,” the trainer snapped, running his finger along the blade of a dagger. “Only what you can see and touch is real.”

  “Defeat is real,” Lars pointed out.

  “Now you’re learning,” the trainer said calmly. “Victory is the only true honor the world of the arena has to offer.” With a flick of his wrist, the trainer threw the dagger across the arena into the back of one of the new actors—a young Commoner that had come off a slave ship just a couple of weeks ago.

  Lars gasped in shock.

  “One person becomes worm food,” the trainer said. “The other one gets honor. Is it skill or dumb luck? I say a little of both.”

  “You killed him for no reason!”

  “I had a good reason: worked with him for weeks, but the boy had no potential.”

  “Damn you to hell,” Lars’s nostrils flared, “Slaughterhouse.”

  “Anger,” he encouraged impassively. “Keep it. Sometimes it’s all you have.”

  Slaughterhouse turned out to be the one of the meanest son-of-a-bitches Lars had ever known, but there was no denying his skill as a trainer. He taught Lars and Josie more skills than they dreamed possible and how to sum up their opponents at a glance. Each species had their strengths and weaknesses, but so did each individual. He also showed them how to prolong a kill so the spectators felt like they got their money’s worth, how to go for the joints first instead of the vitals, and if Mr. Bayloo should break the stick, how to slit a man’s throat ten different ways.

  Lars respected him a lot, but hated him even more. The feeling was mutual.

  “If we should ever meet outside of the theater company,” Slaughterhouse promised Lars during practice one day. “I will very much enjoy killing you, filthy Galatian.”

  “And I’d very much enjoy seeing you try, you half-breed asshole.”

  Lars played it like he enjoyed thinking about the prospect, but in reality the threat left him cold. He knew Slaughterhouse meant it and was capable of carrying out his threats.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Two Months Earlier

  (Prince Loyl of the House of the White Rose)

  After they’d been driven out of Blue Junction, it had taken Prince Loyl two days to find the magic slayers, who turned out to be elderly Spritzes—two sisters and a brother. They lived with the brother’s son, the son’s wife and their large brood of energetic children. No bigger than a seven- or eight-year-old Regalan child, the adult Spritzes came in skin hues ranging from birch bark, to mahogany, and deepest umber, though all had purple eyes with bright red pupils. The property had a dilapidated but spacious barn that had been converted into an infirmary, though it had seen little use since the banning of magic. Cobwebs hung from every corner and a thick layer of dust covered the beds, tables, and floor.

  Despite the slayers having passed the two-century mark, their eyes were clear and minds sharp. The oldest sister walked with the assistance of a cane, but the other two ambled around without even that assistance. They seemed almost exuberant to have a barn full of patients again, tottering briskly about airing out the ward and whisking up the dust and debris.

  While Loyl could barely move by
the time they arrived, Dante was the least affected. Even so, he said his hands felt like they were being eaten away by acid, which left him almost as helpless as the rest of them. Rolf was in the second best condition, which wasn’t saying a lot—all he could do was lie in bed and groan from the pain.

  By now, Loyl’s rash covered his arms and entire torso. His skin burned so badly, all he could think about was the relief ice water might bring. The slayers said that water wouldn’t help. Had he mentioned the ice water out loud? The pain scattered his thoughts.

  Lindsey Burning was raging with fever when they arrived. “You’re not real slayers,” she said to the slayers upon meeting them. “I want Buffy—not a bunch of dried up old prunes. Giles. Somebody, get Giles.” In her delirium, she was speaking in English, so the slayers didn’t understand a word as they eased her into bed. “How are we going to fight the vampires without the Scooby Gang?”

  “There is only one kind of cure for this kind of curse,” one of the old sisters announced. “Fasting and prayer.” Loyl’s face fell. “No, not you, big baby fur-face!” she replied in exasperation. “We slayers pray and fast. You get ointment rubs and bitter drafts.”

  “Stake it through the heart!” Lindsey cried out. “Dust to dust!”

  ..............................

  Tragically, fasting and prayer wasn’t enough for Hogard. Three days after the slayers had taken in the Red Squad, he let out a long burp, then slipped away without making another sound. Snow now covered the ground outside and his friend’s grave, while the drafty barn made Loyl’s unbooted toes go numb. Where was the Spitz child who kept the wood burning stove stoked?

  “Make haste,” Loyl commanded weakly. “More wood for the stove.”

  “Yes,” a pretty little girl with large purple eyes, shiny black hair, and coal black skin bowed respectfully. “Fire for the prince of the cat people.”

  He watched her lift the board from the double doors and leave the barn. A cold wind tore through the building and a tear came to Loyl’s eye as he thought about Hogard, how they had weathered winters much worse than this one. Having campaigned together half a dozen times over the course of their lives, more than once they had saved each other’s skins. They had broken bread together, gotten drunk together, and at least a dozen times over the years, they had battled foes side-by side. Once they had fought on opposite sides, yet they had managed to unite again under the banner of a common cause.

  “Goodbye, old friend,” he whispered as he stared through the slit of the wood burning stove, watching the dying flames flicker. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you this time.”

  Like most of his kind, Hogard’s greatest desire had been to die in battle. In a way, he had gotten his wish. The curse had eaten away his horn, his flesh, and then etched through the bones of his skull. He had held on valiantly to the painful end, but Hogard wouldn’t have considered his death an honorable way to go. However, Loyl did. In the end, his friend had looked death in the eye, unafraid to join his Great Chief’s army in the sky.

  If only I could pass on as honorably as Hogard, Loyl thought with a heavy heart. Alas, I will die a failure, having lost a noble friend, the Galatians under my charge, and the Seeker of the Four Winds.

  Loyl’s watchful eyes followed the young Spritz as she returned with an armful of logs. Whistling as she added them to the iron stove one at a time, he wondered how she could be so cheerful in such a dreadful world. Did she not know that death was coming for her, too? As it came for everyone regardless of gender, species, or status?

  He watched as the old slayers went from bed to bed, rubbing a cold black ointment onto the squad members’ spreading wounds three times a day and had them drink a bitter brown liquid for the pain. Lindsey could barely get it down. The Regalan prince worried that she would follow Hogard to the grave.

  “I should have known the pouch was cursed,” he lamented, half out of his head with fever. “I am so sorry. How am I going to tell my best friend that I let his eldest son get swept away by the rapids? When Simon asks me how long I searched...how can I look him in the eye and say half a day? Only half a day because I had a rash?” He clutched the male slayer’s collar. “Why did Mayor Wakeland place his trust in me? I’m just a minor prince, fourth in the line for the throne, nobody of importance.”

  “Half a day with this rash is three-eights of a day more than most could manage,” the brother slayer replied, not trying to pull away from the claws hooking into his beige tunic. “From small to great—all important to Grand Maker,”

  With a despondent sigh, Loyl collapsed into his pillow.

  “You doing it again,” the slayer said.

  “Doing what, kindly Spritz?”

  “Letting despair take you to dark places.”

  “I have failed my friend and those under my protection,” Prince Loyl snapped. “Why wouldn’t I despair?”

  “Told you many times—curse work not just on body, but on spirit as well, eh? The creep of evil magics disease both body and soul. Must fight the sadness, Loyl. Uh-huh, yes?” The old Spritz grinned encouragingly, showing a row of crooked teeth. Age had yellowed them darker than dandelions. It was a nice smile nonetheless. “Uh-huh, yes?”

  “Yes, I know, I’ll try not to give into it anymore.”

  “Good, good,” The male slayer rested a gnarled brown hand on Loyl’s pale one. “Think gentle thoughts now. Of baby’s laugh, wife’s cuddles, spring’s spendor—god’s gifts, so many happy things. Uh-huh, yes?”

  Loyl nodded, thinking of his wife’s black mane, her dazzling green eyes, and the way she purred in his arms after a night of lovemaking. “Happy things.”

  Each week the old slayers fasted for three days. They regularly gathered in the barn to read from the loose pages of a book with a broken spine. At one time the book was longer, they explained, but over the ages most of it had been lost. All they had left were sections of books titled Leviticus, the Gospel of Mark, and the Psalms of David. The Galatians glanced in surprise at one another and Loyl sensed these names were familiar to them. The language was what the slayers called Old Commoner. Dante gasped, “I thought the slayers were speaking Latin and they are, wow! Makes me wish I would have studied up on it in the bunker.”

  After the slayers finished anointing the sufferers, they sprinkled everything in the room with hyssop-infused water, flicked from an evergreen branch, especially their patients, while they chanted from the Psalms.

  Every day, the slayers fed them broth, the juice of carrots, crushed up greens, and what Loyl suspected was pureed liver. After the second week, the fevers still lingered, but the spread of the curse had stopped. At the end of the third week, the fever was gone and the black ooze began to retreat. At the end of the second month, Dante was completely healed. He helped pay the old slayers back by working with their nephew out in the field. Loyl had no qualms about giving them one of Michael Penn’s rings as additional payment and the slayers were delighted to take it, saying they had rarely been paid so well.

  Winter had settled in by the time Rolf was up and about, helping out around the farm. Loyl’s torso had turned into a big scab, so healing was proceeding, but whenever he moved around a lot, the scab would break open and bleed. Still limited to slow walks around the barnyard, Loyl felt useless, but overall his gloomy mood was lifting.

  Watching Dante out in the field, lifting rocks and hauling them away in the wagon, he continued to marvel at the Galatians’ work ethic. As educated as they were, they didn’t feel that manual labor was beneath them. If they could lend a hand, they seldom hesitated to get dirty.

  His memories went back to his first mission with Simon. They had stumbled across an entire household suffering with the chipth—a parasitic disease that caused the intestines to swell until a person could no longer keep food down. After doctoring them back to health, as the family struggled to regain their strength, Simon organized his people to tend to the household’s livestock and fix their leaky roof.

  As Simon, Loyl
and the crew crawled around on the rooftop replacing thatch, Loyl said in passing, “I admire your people’s industrious and helpful nature. No matter the species, you give help where help is needed. We see so little of it between the humanoid societies. No wonder your civilization used to be the greatest the world has ever known.”

  Loyl would always remember Simon’s reply.

  “If you want to measure the greatness of a civilization, don’t start at the top with the leaders and wealthy, start at the bottom with the sick and needy. How the orphans, the elderly, and the poor are treated is a testament to the state of a nation’s soul.”

  If only he could convince his father that they were the kind of neighbors the Regalan kingdom needed. With all the Sliven trouble, not only would Galatia be a geographical buffer between the East and Regala D’Nora, its inhabitants would be there to help in time of need. Of that, Prince Loyl was certain. Even though the number of Galatians was small at the moment, their potential was tremendous. Loyl sighed again, realizing his father knew that—hence, the reason he was worried about the newcomers becoming rivals.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  (Chief Krom: He Who Rules With An Iron Fist)

  Mining was the lifeblood of Shaldoah, land of the Bulwarks, home of the greatest warriors to ever to walk the Earth. Its location east of the Kalida River hadn’t stopped Shaldoah from becoming a member of the Western Alliance, nor did the fact that many of the other kingdoms had resisted its inclusion. That was centuries ago, but Krom would never forgive the Regalans for their historical vote against Shaldoah’s membership. The Bulwark political and economic philosophies aligned more with the West than the East, and more importantly, Bulwarks had human ancestry. Their children were born—not planted in the ground or hatched from eggs like the eastern races. And that had been the deciding factor.