Seeker of the Four Winds: A Galatia Novel (20 page)

“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.

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.