Finding Valor (51 page)

Hunter kept his gaze focused on his GPS locater to guide them past the misdirection spells hiding the battle from empties. When they broke through the final magical barrier, the sounds of war hit Josh like a punch to the gut. He simultaneously cast his shield over his entire group and shoved Channie to the ground.

A hailstorm of bullets pinged off his shield. The assault lasted for a full minute then stopped.

A blast of raw power slammed into Josh’s shield. But just like before, instead of draining him, it gave him even more energy. “Everyone stay close and whatever you do, don’t fire your weapons inside my shield.”

Josh locked his fingers through Channie’s then ran forward into the fray. The enemy continued to fire, but without success. One by one, Josh and his men gathered what remained of Zen’s team into the safety of his shield.

Zen was the last one they found. He laid, curled up on his side, clutching his stomach.
 

Channie knelt beside him and covered his bloody hands with hers. She closed her eyes, obviously focused on healing Zen.

A bullet whizzed by Josh’s ear and splintered a branch next to his head. He hit the ground, pulling Channie down with him.
What the hell?
He wasn’t pouring any less energy into his shield. Why had it failed?

More bullets rained down on them, but these ricocheted harmlessly off his shield.

Channie wriggled out from under Josh and went back to work on Zen. A spray of bullets shredded the leaves on a bush next to her. Josh grabbed the waistband of her jeans to yank her back under him, but as soon as his fingertips brushed the bare skin of her back, the bullets started bouncing off his shield again.

For some reason, his shield couldn’t stop bullets unless he was touching Channie’s bare skin. He splayed his fingers across her back.
 

“Stop that. You’re distracting me.”

“Channie, I have to touch you.”

“If you don’t want Zen to die, you need to let me focus.”
 

“You don’t understand. My shield can’t repel bullets unless I’m touching your bare skin.”

She shot him a quick glance over her shoulder then went right back to work.
 

Josh wanted to help heal all the wounded, but he’d already promised everyone that he would focus all his energy on maintaining a bulletproof shield until they were out of danger.

Channie sagged against Josh’s side. “He’s stable, for now. Let’s go.”

Tim ordered everyone that wasn’t wounded to slip outside Josh’s shield. “We’ll hold ‘em off as long as we can while y’all evacuate the wounded.”

“No!” Josh wasn’t going to leave his entire team behind, unprotected.

“We can’t let them sons-a-bitches get close enough to fire at the chopper.” Tim squeezed Josh’s shoulder. “We’ll be a lot faster without all the wounded.”

Josh didn’t like it, but he understood Tim’s reasoning. He grabbed Hunter by the back of the neck and pulled him closer. “Be careful and keep your head down.”

He nodded. “I will.”

“I’m serious. Put a leash on that huge ego of yours. Don’t be a hero.”

Hunter grinned then punched Josh’s shoulder. “Don’t you worry ‘bout me.”

The trek back to the chopper took three times as long as the hike in. Those that could still walk, helped carry those that couldn’t. The entire time, Josh worried about the men he’d left behind…especially Hunter.

They’d just loaded the last wounded man on the chopper when the distant sound of gunfire raised the hair on the back of Josh’s neck. He grabbed Channie’s hand and extended his shield over the helicopter. He stretched it out as far as he could and still repel bullets. He counted off the men as they crashed through the underbrush. They leapfrogged each other, taking turns running towards the chopper and firing into the forest behind them.

When the last of Josh’s team entered the safety of his shield, he contracted it, keeping his men safe, and the enemy out.

Several of Dominance’s men charged the chopper, firing weapons and curses as they ran.

Hunter stood in the door of the chopper and yelled at the enemy as they lifted off. “Take
that
you ugly mother truckers!”

~***~

Miraculously, Zen was the only one of Josh’s men that sustained any injuries. His wounds were serious, but thanks to Channie’s healing skills, he pulled through. He insisted he was ready to go back out on patrol after just three weeks, but Wisdom didn’t clear him for duty until the end of September.

Josh and Channie went on every patrol and won every battle they fought. His shield withstood everything Dominance’s men threw at it, including grenades.
 

As Josh’s men grew more confident in his shield, they grew more daring. They stood at the very edges of the shield so they could poke the barrels of their guns outside to fire on the enemy. They were invincible. And lethal.

Hunter carved so many notches in his rifle’s handle it looked like a pit bull had used it for a chew toy.
 

Between the casualties of war and Dominance’s policy of killing her own soldiers for the smallest offense, she had to be running low on men. It was increasingly difficult to find enemy bands to pick a fight with.
 

In spite of the Book of the Dead’s prophecies, Josh couldn’t help but hope Dominance would surrender before their fated show down on December twenty-first.

As summer turned to fall, life at Freedom Ridge improved for everyone. Log cabins replaced tents. The emaciated faces of the children grew round and plump. Their laughter filled the camp and echoed off the cliffs. The community garden yielded a bountiful harvest that required a special shipment of canning supplies. Everyone pitched in and helped bottle tomatoes, beans, carrots, potatoes, spinach, chard, and blackberries. But Josh’s favorite was possum grape jelly.
 

As the days, and more importantly, the nights, cooled down, Channie became more interested in sex. There were no drug stores, gas stations or convenience stores nearby, so Josh asked Hunter to explain “magical” birth control.
 

“It’s not a hundred percent reliable, so don’t blame me if it don’t work.”

“It’s better than nothing.”

“Actually…nothing is better than nothing…if you get my drift.”

“You better not be suggesting abstinence.” Josh gritted his teeth. They’d been abstaining all summer.

“all right, all right, don’t get your skivvies in a bind.” Hunter pointed at one of the simple, but beautifully made, wooden chairs at his kitchen table. The set was obviously one of Carver’s. “Have a seat.”

Hunter grabbed a chair, spun it around and straddled it, resting his arms on the back. “How much do you know about how babies get made?”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Well there’s two types of birth control. The easiest is for the woman to suppress her cycles.”

“Channie’s already done too much damage to her reproductive system, casting moon curses on herself to keep from…” Josh paused. He didn’t like the way Hunter arched his eyebrows. This conversation didn’t need an explanation of the effects his shield had on Channie, and girls in general, when she’d first made it for him.

“Oh, yeah. I forgot about that.”

“You knew?”

“You told me about it when we was living together in Vegas. Remember?”

“Vaguely.” Some of Josh’s less important memories were still a little hazy.

“Okay, so no moon curses.” Hunter scratched the back of his head. “You need to disarm your swimmers.”

“Say what?”

“Different fellas do it differently, but basically, you just need to be sure you’re shooting blanks.”

“I get that.” Josh sighed and rolled his eyes. “But how?”

“I use a heat spell. But you gotta be careful or you could wind up sterile.”

“What’s another method?”

“Shep used to…” Hunter clenched his jaw and swallowed then took a deep breath and started over. “Shep used to dehydrate his boys, but that’s a bit risky, too.”

“Channie and I want kids some day. I guess we can wait a little longer.”

“I can’t believe y’all already went through your ration of rubbers.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know…condoms?”

“I know what a rubber is!” Josh ran his fingers through his hair. “They’ve got condoms in camp?”

“Well, yeah. The last thing a refugee camp needs is a bunch of newborn babies.”

Josh stood up. “Where are they?”

“Intimidation keeps them in his cabin, with the other limited supplies.”

Josh never accepted a full ration of any of the “limited supplies”—saving things like dried fruit, powdered milk and peanut butter for the kids—but he sure as hell wanted his fair share of condoms.
 

He felt like Christmas came early when Tim handed him four boxes of Trojans.
Christmas…
Josh couldn’t help but wonder if he’d be alive to celebrate it.

~***~

Dominance kicked the dead empty out of her way. The stupid man landed right at the base of the old fire tower, blocking the stairs. She gave his head an extra kick for inconveniencing her. She didn’t need to kill him, but he
was
trespassing. The old fire tower was no longer in use, and closed to the public, which made it perfect for her purposes.
 

She’d come to see for herself whether or not the rumors of elemental mages and bulletproof shields had any substance to them. At first, she’d assumed these wild tales of elemental mages were nothing but excuses, but when every single cowardly mage that crawled back to her on his belly told the same fantastical story…well, it had begun to shake her confidence. And that was simply unacceptable.

The distant sound of gunfire gave her a rush of pleasure. The added adrenaline gave her the boost she needed to climb the final set of stairs.
 

She cast a bright-eyes spell on herself and ran to the southwest corner of the structure to watch the battle. She’d specifically ordered her men to lure the enemy into the open so she could see this so-called elemental mage and his super-shield in action.

The guardrail dug into her palms as she clenched her fists around it. It was true.
 

Magic churned in her belly. She wanted to hurl every curse she knew at the impudent couple standing in the middle of a huge, bulletproof shield. But that wasn’t part of the plan.
 

She strengthened the spell on her eyes to get a better look at them. “No! It’s not possible!”

She took a deep breath to clear her mind. Even if Vengeance had survived, he’d be much older. This young man could have been his double twenty years ago. She dug her fingernails into the arm of the latest coward that had come crawling home to beg for his life and shook him. “Is that the man they call Valor?”

“Yes, my queen.”
 

Dominance didn’t want to believe that Vengeance had survived, but there was no denying the fact he’d lived long enough to father a son. The timing was about right, too. And the fact that he was calling himself ‘Prince Valor’ meant he knew his bloodline.
 

She regretted killing the man that had first brought him to her attention. He’d claimed that Valor was a double spy—loyal to her. If he was, he was absolutely brutal in maintaining his cover, he and his bulletproof shield were responsible for killing hundreds of her men. She needed to know more about him. She needed to meet him. Only then could she determine if he were truly one of her own…and if he’d bow to her authority.
 

She tapped the two-way device in her ear. “Surrender and swear fealty to
Prince
Valor.”

“Yes, my queen.”

As part of her plan, she’d had microphones, antennas and batteries implanted in the bodies of all the men on the field. Anything they heard would be transmitted to her spies—as long as they could stay close enough to pick up the weak signals. At the very least, she’d be able to find the rebels’ hidden camp.

~***~

It’d been three weeks since anyone had gotten so much as a whiff of the enemy. The previous two groups of cowardly raiders they’d come across had dropped their weapons and run without firing a single shot. So Josh was surprised when a band of stubborn marauders lured him and his men into an open meadow.

He suspected it was a trap. This bunch fought hard for ten minutes then surrendered. They were the first to do so. Josh had no idea what to do with them.

Tim suggested they just confiscate their weapons and turn all the prisoners loose. But they fell on their knees and begged to be taken prisoner, claiming Dominance would torture and execute them for surrendering.

 
Josh didn’t have the heart to refuse.

He marched them back to Freedom Ridge then pardoned Wisdom and kicked her out of the cage. His compassion only went so far. Now that Dominance’s men knew the way to Freedom Ridge, he couldn’t risk letting any of them escape.

~***~

Josh tried to live in the moment, treasuring every second he spent with Channie. But a vague sense of impending doom tainted everything. Time slipped through his fingers like sand. He tried not to dwell on his rapidly approaching date with destiny, but he couldn’t help it. Every night, as he lay awake in bed, his traitorous mind crossed another day off his internal calendar.

As Thanksgiving approached, Josh grew even more anxious. He could no longer fall asleep unless Channie cast a be-calm spell on him. And even then, he dreamed of fighting Dominance. He’d win occasionally, but more often than not, the dream ended with Channie sobbing over his lifeless body.
 

Josh begged the Book of the Dead to give him a new message, some hint of what he needed to do to prepare, but it remained dormant. He practiced dueling with the master mages in camp, and by the middle of November, he could defeat them all, five against one. It was a great morale boost for most of the camp. The only ones that seemed worried at all over the coming showdown were Josh, Channie and Vince. Everyone else acted as if Dominance were already dead.

Wisdom, Vince and Hunter celebrated Thanksgiving with Channie and Josh. There was barely enough room to turn around in their tiny cabin, but it was the first time in a long time that Josh felt somewhat normal. Hunter even provided a wild turkey. Wisdom plucked and roasted the bird while Channie made something she called ‘fried mush.’ It looked, and tasted, exactly like polenta.