“We would have never made it this far without you,” Josie replied. “You have done more than anyone to help Galatia and I am eternally grateful.”
“Me, too,” Lindsey added.
“So, this is where we part ways, my friend,” Dante said, crawling over to shake the prince’s hand.
“It is been an honor to serve under your command,” Rolf added.
“And it’s been an honor to lead the Red Squad. Someday soon, if the fates should allow it, I hope you will be my guests in Regala D’Nora. I would enjoy giving you a personal tour of our finest city among the trees. There’s nothing like it in all of the world.”
The men shook his hand, but Josie made the prince give her a hug. Lindsey wheedled a hug from the prince as well and took her time letting go.
And with that, Prince Loyl of the House of the White Rose slid feet-first over the edge of rise. Josie watched him climb down the steep crags, a feat no human would dare try without serious rock climbing equipment.
“Now what?” Lindsey asked to nobody in particular. “How are we going to get the map to the mayor?”
“First things first,” Dante said. “Loyl would never purposely give away our location, but when his fellow Regalans see him again after such a long absence, especially if they have gotten wind that he was on a mission for Mayor Wakeland, they might get suspicious.”
“Then we better lose ourselves,” Lars said, peering down the cliff. “Two Regalan scouts have already spotted Loyl and are coming toward the cliffs.”
“Sweet mother of mercy,” Dante said, “With their night vision, they’ll have seen us too.”
Dante motioned for the rest of the squad to follow him. He led them along the cliff’s edge until they came to a lazy stream dotted with brown boulders. They stopped on a rocky knoll, about two hundred yards behind an army.
“We’re going to have to sneak through the line somewhere,” Dante said. “We’ll be less conspicuous among a Commoner army, so let’s find where they’re camped.”
“We’ll never get through the lines dressed like this,” Lindsey pointed out. “Maybe we can take down a few stray spear chuckers and take their uniforms.”
“You’ve watched too many movies,” Josie replied.
“What if we Mind Wander into the city?” Lars suggested. “There’s a chance we could run into someone else in a wander who can give us an update, help us decide what we need to do next. If that doesn’t work out, at least we’d be gathering intelligence as to the path of least resistance.”
“That’s a great idea,” Dante said. “But that’s more than a hundred yards and only a handful of people can manage that distance. I know it’s out of my range.”
“Don’t look at me,” Rolf said. “Twenty feet is my maximum.”
“I’m good,” Lindsey said. “But not that good.”
“It’s not out of my range,” Josie said. “Nor Lars’s. He can go for miles.”
“Really?” Dante’s eyebrows arched.
“Really,” Lars said. “But Josie is the better choice out of the two of us. She’s the only person I know that can reach through the Mind Wander to tap someone in the physical world.”
“Red Wakeland can do that,” Lindsey and Josie said simultaneously. “The entire unit heard him speak while he was in a wander.”
“Well, he’s in there, and we’re out here.”
“It has to be you, Lars,” Josie said. “I fade too fast and go comatose.”
“With enemy soldiers everywhere,” Dante said, “anything that makes you immobile is out of the question.”
“I can handle a Mind Wander of that distance—no problem,” Lars said.
“It’s worth a shot, kid. But let’s plant your body in a safer spot before you go in.”
They moved downstream away from the Hunterdon army and took refuge behind a set of large boulders. Lars sat down cross-legged behind the largest one and loosened his cloak from around his neck. Like Josie, despite having purchased a change of clothing at the port of a small fishing village, in a fight he preferred the armor given to him by Mr. Bayloo. His ruminating dark eyes stared straight ahead into nothing as he went into a mystical state, preparing to slip away from his body. A faint glow flared behind the whites of his eyes and she knew that he was traveling that space between the physical world and the spiritual.
Knowing Lars was floating up there above their little gathering, able to see the squad while invisible to them, Josie glanced upward and whispered good luck. She felt a flutter of energy, like the buzz of an electric back massager, touch her lips—Lars stealing a kiss at a time like this? That rogue. She tossed her head to the air, spinning around in the vain hope of catching a glimpse of his spirit floating off to the city.
“Good luck, Lars,” she whispered into the breeze. “God speed.”
..............................
After ten minutes of waiting, Dante began to pace. Josie assured him that ten minutes in a wander was nothing for Lars. By twenty minutes, Lars’s body had slumped over. Josie gently eased him into a reclining position in the grass.
“At thirty minutes, even Dr. Steelsun begins to fade,” Dante said nervously, going to shake Lars out of the Mind Wander, but Josie stepped in front of him.
“I don’t know what Lars’s father is capable of, but Lars and I have gone over thirty minutes lots of times. Be patient.”
“Go find him,” Dante ordered.
She had just sat down beside Lars, and slipped out of her body, when she saw a bright blue star like a spotlight floating toward the squad over the western troops. Lars. She noted that even the humanoids carried a faint glow in their chests, but none so brilliant as her boyfriend. When she reached Lars, she wanted to throw her arms around him in thanksgiving, but one look at his careworn expression told her something was terribly wrong. What could have disturbed him more on an already disturbing night?
She clasped his spectral hand and led him back to their bodies behind the boulder. Dante, Rolf and Lindsey were not in Mind Wanders, but to Josie’s eyes they appeared as lovely neon blue against the night. After she and Lars returned to their flesh, they both revived bleary-eyed, sluggish, but coherent.
“So,” Dante hovered over them, wringing his hat, “what did you find out?”
“I don’t know where to start,” Lars said, shaking his head.
“Give us the bad news first,” Dante suggested.
“It’s all bad news.”
The members of the squad sucked in simultaneous sharp breaths, to exchange anxious glances.
“Give us the worst first,” Dante said.
“Red Wakeland is dead.”
“Wh-wh-what?” Josie asked.
“The mayor of Galatia is dead.”
A moment of silence followed. Josie finally blurted out, “How did it happen?”
“A mob threw him into the Mouth of God.”
“A mob of what—” Dante asked, “Commoners, Bulwarks, what?”
“No—a mob of Galatians.”
Josie’s hands slapped her cheeks.
The color drained from Rolf’s face.
“No,” Lindsey said, holding her stomach. “You must be mistaken.”
Dante punched the nearest boulder, knocking a chunk of it away with his charisma, and let out a string of swear words. Unfortunately, Lars wasn’t through. He quickly filled them in on recent events in Zena City. After he was finished, nobody spoke for a couple of minutes.
“Who am I supposed to give the map to now?” Josie finally asked, tears of frustration prickling her eyes.
“How did you come by all of this information, Lars,” Dante demanded to know. “Is the source reliable?”
“Elizabeth Wakeland.”
“You can’t get more reliable than that,” Lindsey replied. “We’ll give the map to her.”
“Not possible.” Lars shook his head. “Elizabeth was poisoned by Feenie. Her body is in a comatose state as we speak, which is why I was able to communicate with he
r. She’s been roaming around the city and battle grounds in a Mind Wander. I tell you, that woman knows more about what is going on than anyone. The peace between the allied nations is hanging by a thread. She told me that if the map should turn up, King Doyl has ordered Prince Gerard to destroy it.”
“See,” Josie replied. “I was right not to give it to Loyl.”
“If Chief Krom gets his hands on it—same outcome,” Lars continued. “Elizabeth wants us to bring the map into Zena City and give it to the Council of Elders so they can present to the nations simultaneously. That way none of the other nations can try to suppress its presence.”
“Which brings us back where we started,” Rolf said. “How are we going to get the map into the city?”
Everyone looked at Lars for the rest of the plan.
Smiling weakly, he said, “Uh, I think Lindsey’s idea about stealing some uniforms had merit.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.” Dante’s dark eyes smoldered with irritation. “I expected something better than that from the Dread of the West.”
Lars shrugged, but Josie was pissed.
“Don’t you dare use that name around here! And that goes for Bitch of Galatia, too.”
“Turn down the drama,” Lindsey said, stepping between them, and poking a finger into Josie’s chest. “He didn’t mean anything by it. Why do you insist and making everything about you?”
Josie grabbed her wrist and gave her shove. “I’m so sick of you, and how you always think the worst of me, I want to projectile vomit in your face.”
Rolf crawled up to the knoll to escape the bickering. As he ascended the slope, the ground began to shake. Pebbles rolled down the knoll, bouncing at their feet.
“Earthquake,” Lindsey said. “Everybody get into a doorway!”
“That’s only if you’re indoors, you nit,” Josie harshly reminded.
“Guys,” Rolf interrupted, “Get up here—something weird’s happening in the city.”
Lindsey and Josie followed Dante and Lars up the incline. They peered over its peak to see a mound of golden clouds covering the city. Flashes of light illuminated them from within. Billowy edges expanded and began to unfold like an enormous angel spreading out its wings.
Meanwhile, the armies had fallen quiet as every face was turned upward toward the mountain of white and gold forming over Zena City.
“Sweet mother of mercy,” Dante said. “What on earth is happening?”
Indescribable wonder pierced Josie’s heart, washing away all the fears and cares of the evening.
“What’s happening in Galatia isn’t of this world,” she whispered. But a sadness descended. She was missing out on something fantastic, something holy. This must be what it felt like to be locked outside and looking through the window at your own birthday party.
“It’s the breath of God,” Rolf said, rising to full height, eyes dreamy as if he wanted to float down the knoll toward the city. The others stood, eager to join him.
The call to go to the Mouth of God was so strong, Josie contemplated walking through the enemy troops to get there.
“Get down,” Dante angrily ordered the squad, snapping them from their hypnotic fixation on the city. “I feel the call too, but we can’t give into it. We have come too far to throw away the map and our lives now.”
“My hands ache for the sword, the sword of swords,” Rolf said, uncharacteristically formal, “but the one forged for me shall never be mine.”
The shockwave of an explosion, like a hundred thunderbolts, bowled the armies to the ground. A whoosh of hurricane force wind whipped over the squad, sucking Josie’s breath from her lungs, knocking her back. When she pulled herself to her feet, the cloud was gone.
The enemy soldiers below were woozily finding their footing.
“Is everybody okay?” Dante asked, standing up and brushing himself off.
“Shit fire and save your matches—what in blazes was that?” Josie gasped.
“Some kind of bomb,” Dante suggested. “I wonder if it was meant for the alliance, but went off prematurely in the city.”
“That was no bomb,” Lindsay said, shaking her head. “It was God.”
“If it was God,” Lars replied, “He seems to have left in a big hurry.”
Excited voices rose up from the battlefield. The Hunterdons, and every other enemy soldier, had been just as transfixed by the cloud as the squad, unsure and unnerved at the sight of it. Now that it had dissipated, leaving the armies of the Alliance unharmed, it appeared that the Galatians weapon, whatever it was, had failed.
The soldiers were now moving into attack positions.
“This is it,” Lars said. “I can feel the anticipation, the blood lust, and the fear. Hold tight to your swords guys—the battle is about to begin.”
Chapter Forty-Eight
(Chief Krom: He Who Rules With An Iron Fist)
Chief Krom: He Who Rules With an Iron Fist sat at his planning table, smoking from the hollowed-out horn of an old rival he had killed in a head-butting match. His thoughts kept settling on the leader of the Galatians—Mayor Wakeland. In other circumstances, he might have a drink with a guy like that, because delusional people were so damn entertaining.
Chief Krom had been laughing ever since he’d met the leader of the Galatians. Wakeland had tried to tell Chief Krom that the Bulwark gods were pesky ants compared to the God of the Galatians, and that their God had promised them the a large plot in the Northlands, but that was just a big pile of moosalope shit. The mayor talked big as the sky, but his breath was a bag of dry bones. Crazy as a drunken Gargo bitch in heat—that one.
The fool and his Wittelsbach 32-carat blue diamond would soon be parted. And those sparkly 24-carat cushion-cut diamond earrings, the Golcondas, too.
Since handling the jewels in the mayor’s brother’s kitchen, they were all Krom could think about. They would be a shining testament to Shaldoah’s wealth and power. Wakeland had bragged that these pieces were just the tip of the mountain of riches hidden in Galatia’s vault. Didn’t the fool know that bad things happen to people who show Bulwarks their treasure? The way the economy had taken a downturn, Chief Shaldoah was burning to refill his depleted coffers. Only the Galatian vaults could satiate him.
Now that he had met the leader of the Galatians, Krom was no longer worried about them being a new force in the West. The Regalans and Tectonians were the Bulwarks’ only real competition. Surely King Doyl and King Elrod were scheming together, given how they’d colluded in the latest meeting, planning to rob Shaldoah of the spoils of the impending battles.
“We’ll see about that,” Krom fumed. “One way or another, Shaldoah will get the best loot.”
The concern over getting his fair share had grown exponentially since the day Wakeland had let him fondle the Wittlesbach in his very own hands. His stomach turned to goo when he contemplated snooty Regalans, shifty Commoners, and even those damn silly Deermas beating him to the treasure vault.
“You don’t send a prince to do a king’s job,” he had told his senior warriors in the war room back in Glandorf Hall. The fact that the Chief had personally come to Galatia, instead of some still-suckling-his-mother’s-titty prince like Gerard or Valdor, was an extra ring on the horn for the Bulwarks. In the game of war, the spoils go to those who say to hell with the rules. He wasn’t going to wait for no stinking Summer Solstice. A two-minute jump on the competition would make all of the difference.
He sent the word down his chain-of-command, warning them to prepare to charge the fence before sunup. The Bulwarks had been mocking that strand of flimsy wire since they first saw it. One blow from a metal hammer and its puny little wires would snap in two. Might as well surround the city with sewing thread for all the good that fence would do.
The chief’s only nagging doubt came from information brought back by the Bulwarks that had helped build Zena City. Don’t underestimate that Red Wakeland, they said. Don’t underestimate any of his people. We have seen unimaginable
things—pictures that move, barrels that propel metal balls into an enemy quicker than the eye can see, thin wafers that capture songs and play them back again. Just more fairytale shit to muck up the truth as far as Krom was concerned.
“I ought to know better than to trust the word of building contractors who spend too much time on hot roofs with the sun cooking their brains,” the chief grumbled as he sat down at his planning table. He was unrolling a map of the terrain his cartographer had drawn for him, when his best warriors came storming into his tent, trembling and breathless.
“I said no interruptions.” Chief Krom’s nostrils flared.
“But the God of Galatia has risen!”
“What nonsense is this?” Chief Krom yelled, while his warriors looked down at the ground in submission to his authority. Bowing out of the tent, he stepped into the dewy morning air.
The sky span was black with deep purple around the edges. A cloud burning with golden light had engulfed the city. Chief Krom’s normally fearless troops were huddled together, their eyes filled with trepidation. His stout legs wanted to stampede out of Galatia, but pride held him fast. A chief didn’t run from man, beast, or gods.
The cloud suddenly exploded, bowling over his troops. Chief Krom tumbled as he was blown backwards. Bright light pouring out of the city pained his eyes. The wind howled over him and the land like the souls of the damned, turning his flesh into bumps.
“God of the Galatians, spare me!” He covered his head with his arms and trembled.
But when the world went deathly quiet again, he dared to look up. The cloud was gone. Everything looked as it always had. Embarrassed at having given in to stupid fear, Chief Krom grunted his annoyance as he found his feet again.
“Their God has run away,” Chief Krom said loudly, rocking back on his heels, pointing at Zena City with his sledgehammer hand. “The Galatian God is all bluster and no brawn.”
The Bulwarks snorted like bulls ready to charge. With an upward sweep of his arms, Chief Krom commanded his troops to line up and ready their swords and war hammers.
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