Flora's Fury: How a Girl of Spirit and a Red Dog Confound Their Friends, Astound Their Enemies, and Learn the Impo (15 page)

I had no intention of either going on to Cuilihuacan or returning to the City. But my plans were none of Sieur Wraathmyr’s business. Our only business was my map. Now, more than ever, I wanted it back. And when I got it back, I would know where I was going.

“I hope you remembered to bring my map with you when you jumped ship,” I said.

“Our deal has not changed. Only the details. When we get to Cambria, I shall give it to the postmaster there, with instructions to hand it over to you once I am gone.”

“Why don’t you give it to me now and we can go our separate ways? I will trouble you no more. You have my word on it. And I will accept your word for the same.”

He puffed on his pipe, considering, and then shook his head. “No. We had a deal and I like to stick to my deals.”

And with that I had to be satisfied, for, even armed, I wasn’t sure I could take the map by force. He was big and he had a punch like a hammer blow.

I stood up, saying, “Then let’s quit lollygagging and get a move on it.”

While Sieur Wraathmyr kicked out the fire and buried its embers, I made a big show of checking my revolver, making sure that my rounds were dry. He watched me with a vague tinge of amusement, as though he was thinking I’d never have the nerve to shoot him. Well, let him try me.
Me or you
, Nini Mo said.
I fit comes down to it, I’m gonna choose me, every time
.

At the edge of the beach, we found a narrow trail through the blackberry bushes and sea grass. Hidden in the brush to the left of us was a creek; I could hear the water. The foliage gradually closed in overhead, and the warmth of the sun faded into a moist chill. The grade up the hill was steep and rocky. But compared to marching up and down the Barracks’ parade ground with a forty-pound knapsack and a twenty-pound rifle, trying to chant the quickstep cadence without puking, this was nothing but a stroll.

Sieur Wraathmyr took the lead and I took the middle, leaving Snapperdog to close up the file. We didn’t talk, just marched, and this silence gave the previous night’s events plenty of room to roll around unhappily in my head. Despite what the Dainty Pirate had said, I couldn’t believe that Nini Mo would ever have endorsed his actions. She never hurt the innocent. He was a pirate, not a ranger, and I wanted no part of piracy If that made me against him, well, so be it. I would always be against cruelty and violence. I hoped that Captain Ziyi, Theo and Elodie, and their sailors had managed to retake the
Pato
and had kicked the Dainty Pirate into the ocean to drown.

And Udo. After all those years of friendship, after I had risked my life for his, saved him from Springheel Jack, done his homework for him, he had let me believe he had become a fancy boy, let me believe he had been captured by pirates, let me believe he might be dead. When actually he was swooning around with the Zu-Zu, pretending to be the great hero, having a good ol’ time. Well, fike him. I was done with Udo Landaðon for good. Let him be a pirate laddie, dally with the Zu-Zu, and good luck to them both.

And Buck. Here she had been planning for revolution all along, in league with the Dainty Pirate, but she hadn’t trusted me enough to tell me. Even though it mattered as much to me as to anyone, she had let me believe I was trapped in secrecy forever, had let me believe that Udo might be dead. She had lied to me again. Betrayed me again.

No, actually, she’d done me a favor. Officially I had been captured by pirates. She would not dare advertise otherwise; she would not dare search for me. To do so meant admitting she was in league with the pirates. Her plan had backfired. Instead of handing me over to another keeper, she had set me free.

I was on my own. No parents to tell me what to do. No drill sergeants or company commanders full of orders. No pushy butlers or high-hatted best friends. No scheming adepts or nosy fathers. No one in the world, except Flynn and Sieur Wraathmyr, knew where I was or what I was doing. At long last, I was me myself alone.

I knew exactly what to do. As soon as I had that map, I would know where Tiny Doom was. And wherever she was, that’s where I was going.

After an hour or so on the trail, we came to the top of the ridge, and there we stopped for a potty break and a short rest. With an ominous warning about snakes, Sieur Wraathmyr disappeared into the brush on the left side of the trail, and I took the right side, nosy Flynn trailing behind me. I found a sheltered spot and once again was glad I had my hankie.

“You are an impetuous girl, aren’t you, Nini? Just like your mamma—both of them, actually!”

I almost fell out of my squat. “Pigface Califa—do you mind?” I said, scrambling to my feet.

The ghost of Hardhands loitered behind me, grinning. “Oh, I don’t mind. And you shouldn’t, either, not if you are going to be a campaigner. There’s no privacy on the trail.”

“Get out of here! Go home!”

“Home is where the heart is, honey, and you are the heart of the House Haðraaða, so I am home.”

“You know what I mean. Go back to Bilskinir,” I said, exasperated.

“Now that you have run off with that boy, you need my protection more than ever, I think. I wouldn’t dream of abandoning you now.”

“I haven’t run off with Sieur Wraathmyr. And I don’t need your protection.”

“Well, you have run off and you both seem to be going in the same direction. I daren’t let you run alone. If it hadn’t been for me, the pirates would have gotten you—”

“Are you all right, Lieutenant?” Sieur Wraathmyr hollered from the path.

Flynn left off sniffing at Hardhands’s bloody white feet and scrambled back up toward the trail.

“I’m coming—” I hollered back. Then, to Hardhands, “Look, I appreciate what you did for me, I really do. But the last thing I need is a bloody corpse following me around.”

The ghost was unimpressed. “Don’t try to teach me bitchy, Almost Daughter. I am the king of bitch. After your impetuous actions of last night, it is abundantly clear that you do need my help. Ah, the Fyrdraaca temper! Also, look, that scrying the other day”

The horrible green eye in my mirror. I remembered with a shudder.

“What about it? Did you find out who it was?”

“No, I’m still working on it; my sources are rusty But look, someone’s looking for you, and it’s best they not find you. I’m not sure if it’s the magick they smell or the Haðraaða or both, being as they are somewhat linked together. You’d better cut with the magick. Swallow those Words down, no matter how they burn.”

“I try,” I said. “I really do try, but sometimes they just pop out.”

“Control yourself, my girl, or the Gramatica will control you. And that is a very, very bad thing. Understand?”

“Are you sure you are all right?” Sieur Wraathmyr’s call interrupted the lecture, for which I was grateful. I didn’t need Hardhands to tell me what I needed to do.

“You go—right now!” I hissed to the ghost, and climbed back up to where Sieur Wraathmyr, actually looking slightly anxious, was waiting with Flynn.

“There’s a panther in the area,” he said. “We should stay together.”

“A panther!” I reflexively looked up into the trees. “How can you tell?”

“I can smell it, but the smell is not too strong. It is not close by. I will be on guard, and surely the dog will set up the alarm if he catches a whiff of cat.” The only smell Flynn ever set up an alarm for was the smell of frying bacon, but I didn’t embarrass Flynn by pointing that out.

The track soon joined a wider road that followed the edge of a cliff; a long way below lay the foamy surge of the ocean. I thought we were out in the middle of nowhere, but the trail turned out to be as heavily trafficked as the Slot. We passed two farmers hauling hay, their burros almost invisible under their grassy loads. A small girl with a long stick herded a gaggle of geese, and then, not long after, two black-and-white collies herded a flock of sheep, no human beings in sight. Flynn ran forward to greet the dogs, the sheep scattering in fright. I whistled him back, and the collies regrouped their charges, ignoring Flynn completely, and continued on their way.

I had to admit that Sieur Wraathmyr was a pleasant traveling companion. He kept up a steady pace and never once complained about getting too much sun like Udo would have. Two years ago Buck had taken Udo and me on a School of the Soldier encampment; Udo had spent the entire time worrying about bug bites and fretting because he couldn’t wash his hair. Sieur Wraathmyr was refreshingly free of such vanities.

Once, we heard the jingle of tack and the sound of approaching horses, and before I could protest, Sieur Wraathmyr pulled us into the brush. Two riders, rough-looking and well armed, rode past our hiding spot, and I was glad for Sieur Wraathmyr’s caution.
There’s no point in looking for trouble
, said Nini Mo.
It will find you eventually, anyway
.

Toward midafternoon the track turned inland, meandering through a twilit grove of cypress trees. We forded a rocky stream by balancing on a fallen log and then scrambled back up into the brilliant sunshine. We found ourselves traversing a grassy hillside, where small goats rushed toward us, bleating and pawing. As soon as they saw Flynn, they rushed away, and we continued on the track unmolested until we came to a long, low adobe building with a sign painted in bright red paint:
THE SEQUOIA GOAT CHEESE COMPANY
.

A weather-beaten lady in an apron and high muck-splashed boots came out of the barn and sold us a pound of goat cheese, a quart of goat’s milk, a loaf of bread, and a basket of figs. I wanted to sit and eat, rest for a while. But Sieur Wraathmyr fussed over the delay Afraid he (and my map) would leave us behind, Flynn and I gobbled our lunch while the goat lady gave Sieur Wraathmyr directions to Cambria.

“How long will it take to get there?” I asked when she was done.

“A day, depending on how fast you can walk,” the lady answered.

“Some of us do not walk fast,” Sieur Wraathmyr said pointedly.

“Some of us have short legs,” I said. “Is there a place around here where we can hire some horses?”

“I do not ride,” Sieur Wraathmyr interjected. “Is there any other way? A shortcut, perhaps?” He really was in a hurry to get rid of me. Well, the feeling was mutual.

The goat lady said, “There is. It’s more a track, not a real road. But on foot, you should be fine. Here, I shall tell you the way.” We listened carefully and when she had finished with the directions, she added, “Even that way, though, you shall not make Cambria tonight. But you may spend the night at the Valdosta Lodge. It was built as a hunting lodge for the Valdosta family, when they held all this as a land grant. Now the grant is split, and the only Valdosta left is Cecily, who runs the lodge as a hostel. It is plush.”

“I could use some plush,” Sieur Wraathmyr said. “I’m too old to sleep rough; my bones ache.”

“Too old!” the goat lady scoffed. “And you less than twenty, I’ll wager. Wait, kiddo, until you are my age and then you’ll know what aching is!”

I glanced at Sieur Wraathmyr, surprised. His attitude had been so aloof and his face so scowly that he had seemed to me middle-aged. Thirty, at least, maybe more. Now; with a smile still hovering around the edges of those glinty gray eyes, I saw that he was probably not much older than me. Well, so what? That didn’t make him any less of a disagreeable snapperhead.

We thanked the goat lady for her directions and set off The walk was no longer pleasant. The track was steep and slippery with rocks. The air grew chill and the sunlight vanished, hidden behind the tangle of branches. The brush was thick with spider webs and probably crawling with ticks. My feet were beginning to burn and my back ached. Sieur Wraathmyr, if he was tired, didn’t show it. I guess bears have a lot of stamina, even when they are part human. Well, if he could keep pace, so could I. I marched on.

In the late afternoon, we came down into a valley where the air was so thick with moisture, it felt like walking through soup. The trees here were so tall that their tops were hidden in the mist high above; their trunks were enormous, some as wide around as a small house. Redwoods, the tallest trees in Califa, maybe the world.

The redwood grove was majestic, awe-inspiring, and ... wet. Drops drummed on my hat brim, and the path beneath our feet squelched. My clothes felt clammy; my waterproof boots didn’t stop the chill. The trees blocked out most of the sky, but I could tell that somewhere high above was twilight. The path was vanishing into the murk. I was about ready to give out, and Flynn already had. He flopped onto the mud and lay there, wagging his tail apologetically.

Sieur Wraathmyr bent down and scooped him up, slinging him over his shoulder like a side of beef. “Shall I carry you, too?”

“I can manage,” I said. “But thanks for hauling Flynn.”

“He doesn’t weigh much. I can carry you, too. It is no trouble.” In the gloom, with his hair wild from the wetness, his face in shadow, Sieur Wraathmyr seemed even more bearlike. I had no doubt he could carry me. And eat me, if it came to that. No one would ever know. A thrill of fear ran through me, along with a line from an old nursery rhyme:
It isn’t very good in the dark, dark wood..
.

“I’m fine, really” I hastily stepped back.

He frowned, then shrugged and went on. I trudged behind him through the wet dusk, wishing for hot coffee, wishing for dry socks, wishing for a very long nap. Once, I stumbled on a root, twisting my ankle and almost falling headfirst into the creek. Sieur Wraathmyr didn’t look back. The murk faded into the gloom, and the gloom was rapidly becoming night when up ahead I saw the twinkle of yellow lights. We crossed a narrow wooden bridge over a stream and came to a little yellow house with three pointy gables and a second-floor balcony over the front door. The lights in its windows were cheerful and warm.

We had arrived at the Valdosta Lodge.

A
T THE FRONT DOOR
of the lodge, a small, round, cheerful old lady introduced herself as Cecily Valdosta, cooed over our bedraggled condition, and divested us of our soggy outerwear and boots. While we registered—I gave my name as Nyana Romney, just in case Buck was already looking for me—she poured us hot ginger toddies and rubbed Flynn dry with a towel. Then we followed her down a narrow low-ceilinged hallway and up a narrow flight of stairs. As we went, Madama Valdosta kept up a welcoming patter, but I was too tired to focus on her words.