Seeker of the Four Winds: A Galatia Novel (3 page)

“Sacred human duty, my ass,” Lindsey said,
turning to Loyl. “She’s just being selfish. Make her give someone
else a turn.”

“It is not my decision,” Loyl replied.

“C’mon, Josie. Just for a couple of
hours.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“If you must know, I can’t get it off.”

Lindsey guffawed. “You mean it’s stuck on
your arm?”

“Back in Galatia, I tied the cord around my
wrist and made the most horrendous knot I could manage.” Tears
welled up in Josie’s eyes. “Red, Michael, and even Prince Loyl
tried to cut it off me, but the Celerun was right—nothing on Earth
can cut the sunmurtain material the chain’s made of. I’m either
going to have to cut off my hand or wear this thing forever.”

“She speaks the truth,” Loyl confirmed. “No
weapon in my arsenal could break it.”

“What if the chain gets tighter?” Rolf’s eyes
widened. “Aren’t you worried about it cutting off your
circulation?”

“Yeesss, I’m worried,” Josie said, the
vexation growing in her voice. “But I thought I’d be able to untie
my own knot!”

“Be glad you didn’t tie it around your neck,”
Hogard said. “Tis better to lose a hand than a head.”

Josie looked to Lars for help as if he were
the only sane person in the area.

“Can’t you see it’s upsetting her?” Lars
chastised the group, wrapping an arm around her waist, pulling her
to his side, giving a reassuring squeeze.

She nuzzled against him like a warm kitten,
arousing him. That wasn’t what he had intended. Why did she have
that effect on him at the most inopportune moments?

He was glad when Prince Loyl immediately
ordered them to hit the trail again.

..............................

That evening they camped
under the cover of fragrant blue spruce trees with red-tipped
needles. Nocturnal butterflies flitted among the branches, wings
faintly glowing in shades of phosphorescent greens and blues. Using
her
Scouring Pad
charisma, Josie sped up the surface molecules of a stick she
held. Within seconds, it started to smoke, a flame appeared, and
she handed it over to Lars who was in charge of tonight’s
fire.

“That’s cheating,” Lindsey complained.
“Prince Loyl said you need to learn how to make fire the regular
way. It’s for your own good.”

“Mind your own business,” Josie retorted.

“Out here we depend on each other. Ineptitude
among any of the squad members is all of our business.”

“She’s right, you know,” Prince Loyl said
from above in the tree top, startling the three of them. He
regularly climbed tall trees with his claws to take in a bird’s eye
view of the area, but ten minutes earlier he had climbed one thirty
or forty feet away. That’s when Lars realized that the Regalan must
have leapt from tree limb to tree limb to land in this one. “Even I
know that Galatian charisma isn’t always reliable. It’s wise to
learn the natural ways of making fire.”

Lindsey sent Josie a smug grin, prompting
Josie to roll her eyes.

Later, after Lars had coaxed a flame made the
old-fashioned way to grow a little bigger, he set up the tripod and
stew pot for Rolf, who added a sack of dry beans. Loyl’s skillfully
placed arrows provided them with squirrel meat. Well, the yellow
beak was a dead giveaway that it wasn’t squirrel per se, but they
jumped like squirrels and they chittered like squirrels and they
flicked their fuzzy puffball tails like squirrels, so that’s what
the Galatians called them.

When the meal was finished, Prince Loyl had
Josie sit on a log while he tried to free her wrist from the
Seeker. Working the blade of a dagger beneath the sunmurtain cord,
sawing back and forth while being careful not to break her skin, he
worked at it for a long while. Unfortunately, all he managed to do
was scratch his blade.

“I’ve never seen nothing but a diamond
scratch a Regalan blade before,” Hogard marveled, while he lifted
up his hammer to strike the cord. “Let me see that.”

Jumping to her feet, Josie screamed and held
her wrist protectively against her chest. “Get back, you crazy
s.o.b.! You’ll break the stone and my bones along with it!”

Hogard belched in her face.

“EEWW, gross!” she shrieked, pinching shut
her nostrils. “Get a breath mint, why don’t you?”

He shrugged and waddled away.

Lindsey took a more civilized approach,
spending a full hour plucking at the knot with her delicate fingers
to unthread it, but eventually gave up.

“Sorry, Albright,” she shrugged. “That knot
is not coming out, but try to look at from the bright side.”

“What bright side is that?” Josie said
despondently.

“You don’t have to worry about losing
it.”

“Well, that’s true,” Josie agreed. “And at
least it’s pretty.”

“Lars,” Rolf came from his post at the edge
of the camp. “Your turn for watch.”

After everyone else fell asleep, Lars was
wide awake leaning against a tree about six yards away from the
smoldering fire, thinking about his family, wondering how they were
doing, hoping that Mom had forgiven him for leaving without saying
goodbye. What would they think if they could see him now? Learning
to start fires without a lighter, hunting small game, defending
defenseless women from angry Bulwarks. He chuckled at the
thought...Josie was about as helpless as a hungry river croc. There
she was just a few yards away, sleeping next to Lindsey, looking
like a lovely pixie from one of Gracie’s cartoons. As he
contemplated Josie’s sleeping form, he longed to kiss those
luscious pink lips. But the Regalan prince, even in his sleep,
seemed to have a sixth sense whenever Lars tried to make a move. So
for now, Lars had to be content to hold her in his dreams.

(Larsen Drey Steelsun)

The next week, on a cool morning that
smelled of rain, sunrise painted the sky in intense hues of
magenta. The foliage below was vastly less impressive—a wide meadow
choked with thorns and scrubby black pines. Loyl took the lead
position through it with Josie riding next to him if space
allowed.

When the mission had first began, Lars
expected the hunt for the Blood Map to nourish their budding
romance, not to kill it. Unfortunately, things were not working out
as expected. He wondered if she shared his frustration about never
having a chance to be alone together.

No matter how the path
wound, the Seeker always pulled to the south. Josie complained that
the cord dug into her wrist more whenever the Seeker was in
float mode
, so she held
it down with the leather bracelet whenever she
could
.
Sometimes
Loyl asked her to take the bracelet off and let the pendant float
free, when he needed to confirm the direction, usually before they
set out on a new leg of the journey, and more often if the terrain
forced them to do a lot of backtracking and course
corrections.

Just ahead of Lars, Lindsey rode along with
a solar charger on her head, secured in place by a stretchy green
headband. The faint sound of techno music from her MP3 player
drifted back to him. Occasionally, he caught Loyl thumping his head
to the beat, which for some reason Lars found amusing.

“Who’s in charge up there?” Hogard growled at
Lars from behind for allowing Bolt to stop and nibble at a strand
of leafy clover. “You or your horse?”

In the evening, all the work involved in
preparing camp for the night—finding dry wood, starting a fire,
finding fresh food to conserve their rations, checking perimeter
security, feeding and watering the horses, checking their coats,
removing burs, checking each other for ticks, and personal hygiene,
left little opportunity for interacting with Josie in the way he
craved. His mind frequently went back to Galatia’s founding day,
how they wandered their new homeland hand-in-hand, danced in the
meadow, and later shared the sweetest kiss down by Spitfire Creek.
But out on the road there was less opportunity for that kind of
socializing. He had never spent more time with Josie, but felt less
able to reach her.

“Halt.” Loyl held up a hand.

The squad had come to a deep ravine obscured
by heavy brush at the top of the rise; less experienced riders
might not have seen it until it was too late. Everyone in the
squad, but Josie and Lars cleared the ravine with ease. Now Josie
clung to Buckwheat’s reins, shaking her head vigorously, refusing
to let the horse take her over. Under the guise of giving morale
support, he remained by her side, but the truth was his riding
skills weren’t up to the task either.

“I can’t do it,” Josie said, echoing Lars’s
unspoken sentiments, jaw set firm. “I’ll find another way
around.”

“That could take weeks,” Loyl said. “You must
jump it.”

“No way on God’s green earth am I going over
that thing!” she hollered back to him.

“Get your frilly hide over here,” Hogard
joined in. “And quit wasting everybody’s time, ya stubborn
cow!”

The prince held out his hand, indicating that
the Bulwark wasn’t helping.

“Remember, hold tight, heels down, toes up.”
Rolf offered. “Keep your body centered and upright. Buckwheat wants
to live as much as you do. He’s not going to do anything stupid.
Trust him to carry you over.”

“Are you going to let Lindsey Burning show
you up again?” Lars appealed to her sense of pride.

“What do you mean
again
?” she
snarled.

He didn’t say another word, but he could
almost see the vitriol spreading behind her eyes.

“What’s the matter?” Lindsey called from
across the ravine. “Little Josie Rosie’s scared to ride with the
big boys?” Josie held up a middle finger. “Classy, Albright,”
Lindsey mocked. “Real classy.”

“The only comeback in this situation is to
jump this ravine,” Lars said quietly enough that only Josie could
hear it.

She bit her lower lip and glanced at the
ten-foot-wide crevice. A creek had cut into the earth like a razor
blade, creating a three- or four-story drop-off.

“And Lars?” Rolf called to him from across
the ravine. “Remember what I told you about keeping Bolt’s head up.
Don’t let him eat whenever he feels like it. Show him who’s
boss!”

“I know what I’m doing,” Lars said,
confidently. “Bolt knows who’s in charge.” A moment later, Bolt
reared up. Lars found himself flat on his back in the brambles,
gasping for air. “Damn, horse!” he groaned through his teeth. “I
swear he did that on purpose.”

“Of course he did,” Dante yelled through his
cupped hands. “And it was hilarious!”

“If that’s how you ride when you know what
you’re doing,” Rolf razzed. “I’d hate to see what happens when you
don’t!”

Seeming to forget her troubles, Josie was
laughing so hard she snorted a few times, while the rest of the
squad told jokes at Lars’s expense.

“What did Bolt say when Lars fell off his
back?” Lindsey yelled across the ravine. “The dweeb has fallen and
can’t giddyup!”

Lars’s cheeks burned as he found his footing.
As he looked for his fallen dignity, Josie seemed to have found her
courage. She backed Buckwheat a little way from the ravine to get a
running start, and
closing her eyes, dug her
heels into the horse’s flanks. Horse and rider soared over the
ravine. Everybody whooped when she landed safely on the other side.
The way her face beamed with the thrill of accomplishment made Lars
go to mush inside. God, she was pretty. Now, Josie was looking at
him from across the divide, expecting that he would join
her.

Crap.

If he hesitated to make the jump, everyone
would know that he was using Josie’s fear to mask his own. He
climbed back on Bolt and circled around once to prepare for a
running start, but it was really a guise to gather his nerve.
Digging his heels into the horse’s sides, he let out a loud, “Yah!”
Bolt leaped forward into a gallop and in three strides had reached
full stride. By five…they were up and over…

He glanced at the creek passing beneath
them. Bad idea. His stomach felt like it had dropped out of the
soles of his feet, but before he could fall, Bolt had landed safely
on the other side. Heart pounding furiously in his chest, Lars
struggled to play it off as if jumping the ravine hadn’t scared him
at all.

“See, Hogard,” Dante said smugly, as Hogard
placed a silver coin into his palm. “I told you Galatian men are
tougher than that. You weren’t afraid for one second—were you,
Lars?”

“Nah,” Lars said nonchalantly, trying to hide
his shaky limbs. “Nothing to it.”

“Good job,” Loyl said. “That was a dangerous
jump for inexperienced riders, but you had to learn some time.”

“On my first mission,” Lindsey said with a
toss of her auburn curls. “I didn’t hesitate on my first jump and
it was twice as wide as this one. Dr. Steelsun said I was a natural
equestrian.”

“You want a gold medal or something?” Josie
retorted. “Oh, wait, you have plenty of medals—stolen and
otherwise.”

“I have never stolen anything in my life,”
Lindsey said with a gasp.

“Two words:
talent show.
Five more
words:
you stole my
trophy.
”

“That’s only four words.”

“My mistake. You stole my
trophy,
bitch.
”

“If I stole your trophy, Albright, then why
did the school put my name on it?”

“It should have been mine and you know
it.”

“You’re just a sore sport. My dance and
tumbling team won three years in a row. Did you really think a
silly children’s song about country bumpkins and frosty pumpkins
could beat us?”