Gonji: The Soul Within the Steel: The Deathwind Trilogy, Book Two (38 page)

Exhausted from the training, they ate and drank and sang lustily, pledged their fellowship and determination. Paille, as usual, threw himself into the toasting with gusto and soon was doing a reading, in his inimitable stentorian voice, from a novel excerpt sent to him by a friend in Spain. He was shouted down before long, Berenyi and his cohorts eventually binding and gagging the struggling artist, loosening his gag now and again so that he might sip from his goblet and blare an imprecation or two.

Wilf had purged his recent demon of self-doubt and emerged from Gonji’s shadow self-confident and zestful, as he formerly had been, now more anxious than ever to invade Castle Lenska in rescue of his lady fair. He and Karl Gerhard presented Gonji with a gift from the militia: a magnificent three-man longbow and a quiver of thirteen-fist war arrows with armor-piercer heads.

Gonji was stunned by the gift. He thanked them with a rare warmth of emotion and replied by presenting Wilf with Spine-cleaver, the spare
katana
he had been using in training. There was no disputing Wilf’s entitlement to the beautiful blade, for he had worked long and hard and improved by great strides in the art of the sword. Wilf sat down heavily in his place, goggle-eyed, cradling the sword, the only one of its ilk in Europe, save Gonji’s legendary Sagami.

Not surprisingly, the tenor of the conversation turned to swordplay.

“Gonji,” Jiri Szabo asked, “when it comes time for you to cross with that pompous ass Julian, you’ll be able to beat him, won’t you?”

Groans followed, the answer seemingly obvious to most of them, but Gonji’s look quieted them.

“Pointless speculation,” he declared, “something the warrior should avoid. Nothing works out as one expects. Concentrate too much on the stronger enemy, and you can be sure a lesser one will take your measure. It makes no sense, but that’s the nature of things in warfare....”

“Still...,” Jiri persisted, gazing up sheepishly, wishing some answer to his question.

Gonji chuckled gently. “He’s mighty fast. Just about the fastest feathering touch with a saber I’ve ever seen.”

“But you could beat him,” Nick Nagy stated flatly.

“Not with a saber, no,” Gonji disagreed, evoking gasps at the implication of Julian’s brilliance.

“But with the Sagami,
neh?
” Wilf said, grinning.

“Mmmm. I don’t know,” Gonji responded, surprising even himself with this humble turn. Uncertain looks passed around the gathering. “His is a lighter blade, better balanced for quick, one-handed motion, more—”

“But you
would
beat him?” Jiri fairly pleaded.

He drew a deep breath, held it, expelled long and pensively, rather disappointed that they still needed assurances no man could give. He scratched his stubbled chin.
Iai-jutsu....

“Hai,”
he said at length, “but I’d have to beat him out of the scabbard.”

Mutters of relief mixed with grunts of curiosity, as they pondered Gonji’s meaning.

“You boys yust get the baron’s castle back for him,” Hildegarde said, pointing with a staff for emphasis, her Nordic accent and cadence causing amused laughter. “Hildy will hold the city, no?”

“No doubt about that!”

A man named Tadeusz later voiced a fear that all the trainees yet bore:

“The sword practice is exhilarating, the sport of it all...,” he began, forming words with his hands. “But to kill a
man
with a sword, feel his flesh part—I—”

Gonji’s brow darkened. “Not
a
man—
many
men. The man among you who
cannot
kill—or can kill only
one
enemy and then lie back and stare at the corpse in guilt—that man is as good as dead.”

“God,” Tadeusz said weakly, head shaking. The others stared at the ground, shuffling uncomfortably. Some rose to go, the celebration now tarnished by the intrusion of grim reality.

Gonji regarded their faces, ghostly in the torch-lit cavern, wondering who among them might die in the days to come.

“If Flavio or Baron Rorka were here, they wouldn’t like to hear me say this, but...that’s the way a warrior must think, my friends. Think on heaven—or hell—the final resting place. Sooner or later death comes. You believe in the afterlife.
Embrace
your belief. You have loved ones to fight for. If the fighting starts, it will have been forced on you.” He rose and turned away from them, fists clenched. His voice grew small. “Blame Klann, if you need someone to blame...or blame me....”

He sashed the Sagami and strode off toward the tunnels.

* * * *

Heat lightning cracked in the late morning sky as Gonji entered the abandoned dwelling in the city’s southeast quadrant to confront Julian. Thunder boomed in the mountains.

“So the wayward one returneth,” Julian taunted, looking like a cat who had cornered some helpless prey. But Gonji’s confident pose would have ill befit a mouse as he bowed.

Julian ordered the mercenaries with him to leave them. “You know,” he said when they were alone in the dusty, cobwebbed dwelling, “I’ve been thinking lately about wasted gold.”

“You didn’t waste your money. Here’s what I’ve learned: It’s the craft guild—they’re the ones who’ve been planning an insurrection. They train in secret somewhere with their leader, Phlegor. Have him watched and followed, and you’ll keep them frustrated. They won’t do a thing. Or you could have Phlegor arrested on some pretense. Suspicion, I suppose.”

Julian’s arch air dissipated. “Are you sure about this?”

“Of course. I take my job seriously. It just took time. That Phlegor’s a distrusting lout.”

“Who is this Phlegor? What does he look like? Where does he live and work?”

Gonji described the volatile guildsman, discomfort churning in his gut at having had to turn on citizens in order to contain and redirect the army’s suspicions. But he had decided there was no other way.

“I wouldn’t arrest him unless he gives you good reason, come to think of it,” Gonji appended, egged on by his guilt. “He’s a rather popular fellow....”

Julian studied Gonji’s eyes, which were hard and flinty, revealing nothing of his designs.

“That’s all I have for now. I’m still looking into this Deathwind business. It’s very curious, and not a little frightening—”

“I believe there’ll be a
few
arrests here shortly,” Julian cut in, ignoring him. “More mercenaries on patrol have been slaughtered....”

Gonji nodded, affecting grave concern. Then he brightened, unable to resist the dig. “Oh, Captain—I hope you weren’t offended when I greeted you in so surly a fashion at the festival. You should have seen the looks on the young folks’ faces—it enhanced my cover,
neh?
”

Julian raised an eyebrow, his expression darkening when he recalled his similar words to Gonji once before. He eyed the samurai narrowly. “Where do you go for such long stretches? You seem to drop out of sight.”

Gonji looked sheepish as he scratched self-consciously. “Well, you see...I’ve got a woman—
two
, actually, and, uh—”

“I
know
about the one. How much time can a deaf-mute occupy?” Julian said, his tone more insulting than the insensitive words themselves. “What about the other?”

Gonji’s mind raced.
How did he know?
Oh,
hai
—the gatehouse guards on the festival night. But now what to—?

“That one had best remain my secret, so sorry. The wife of an official, you see...bad business, if it were known. As a matter of fact,” Gonji whispered, playing the conspiratorial clown, “I’m expected now. So, by your leave?” He bowed.

As he strode out the portal and into the humid mid-morning gloom, Julian called at his back: “You know, you’re quite as unscrupulous as one of my mercenaries, in your way.... Free yourself from your lovers’ embraces to do a little work for me now and again, won’t you? And don’t hoard those women—I have plenty of other men in need of their...tender ministrations.”

Gonji tensed to hear the man’s conceit and callousness voiced, more poignantly now that the women he alluded to were objectified in Gonji’s mind. But he strolled out into the gray light without response, to face the rogues’ gallery clustered about Tora. He ambled through them calmly and stepped up into a stirrup. A hand grasped his shoulder, and he glared into the pale eyes of the now un-helmed Armorer.

“Do you know me?” the brigand growled. “They call me Salavar the Slayer.”

“
Ah, so desu?
That’s interesting. Very formidable, but...
gomen nasai
—so sorry—never heard of you.” He pushed up and out of the grasp, alighting in the saddle. Luba stood on the other side, glaring up at him, his bald dome glistening in the irritating swelter.

Salavar growled, “You haven’t, eh? Well, maybe you haven’t traveled as widely as they say, Herr Red Blade from the frigging East—
ja
, I’ve heard of
you
—”

Gonji’s eyebrows raised at the strange irony. The only man in the territory who had ever mentioned the samurai’s widespread reputation....

“—and I’ve heard all they say you can do, with them swords and feet. I wonder if it’s all true...and what else you can do.” He had lumbered over to his own steed and spanked the deadly arquebus strapped to the armored destrier’s saddle. A broadsword and short feathered lance bristled from the giant charger’s other flank.

“Oh, not so much,” Gonji replied. “Anyway, I’ve done with that sort of thing. Too dangerous,
neh?
”

Luba grabbed Tora’s bridle as Gonji tried to spur off. The steed whinnied and lurched. “You making fun of Salaver, slant-eyes?”

Gonji caused Tora to demivolte, such that Luba was forced to stumble back before the threatening, side-swinging hooves. “Listen, baldy—”

“Luba,” Julian shouted from where he leaned in the doorway. “You have your duties.”

Gonji scowled at Julian, then at the slowly dispersing bunch. A rumble of thunder and a fierce bolt of lightning split in the valley. As an afterthought he swung Tora over to Salavar, who had begun tightening the myriad cinches on the bulky destrier’s saddle and armor.

“Best watch yourself when the storm breaks,” he said, pointing at the angry sky. “The fire god likes the taste of metal,
neh?
”

He cantered off, leaving Salavar nodding his head with silent resolve.

When Gonji was out of earshot, Julian stepped into the midst of the tethered horses. “Umberto,” he called.

A swarthy, bearded mercenary moved close, sword hilt and pistol grip protruding from behind his unfastened jack.

“Watch him, Umberto,” the captain said, still eyeing the samurai’s now vacant path, “watch him like he’s your next meal.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The night, the storm, the jagged peaks of the Carpathians cupped the province in a malefic hand. Rain and wind lashed the battlements as the lone figure made the treacherous ascent up the pocked outer bailey wall of Castle Lenska.

Rampart sentries strolled their miserable watch swathed in hooded cloaks. When the chilling shadow slipped past them, each man in turn reacted with the familiar stomach-knotting and throat constriction with which one investigated an unwholesome presence in a darkened room. They hesitated, failing their charge in a way they would later deny, licking dry lips and grasping at the cold comfort of rain-slicked weapons.

Dogs barked in the wards, and once the cretin giant Tumo, aroused from the flapping canopy under which he slept, crawled out and sniffed at the air with his tiny nostrils. Gurgling a low growl, he returned to his slumber.

When the shadow had departed the ramparts, each guard gave silent thanks in his own way and reasoned that his atavistic terror had been nothing more than an effect of the ravaging elements.

* * * *

“Oooh!” Genya cried, shocked by the thunderclap and flash of lightning. The tall windows of Klann’s receiving chamber flared like iron-veined orbs.

The king laughed. “Such a spirited lass as you, who’d brave the descent of a sword—afraid of a little storm!”

She held a hand over her bosom daintily. “I’ve always feared storms, milord.”

“Well, you needn’t fear them here. And do continue with your amusing tale of your beloved Wilfred’s antics. Wilfred, the son of Garth Iorgens—now
there’s
a man a king can count on! Alas! we can never ride together again...never again....”

Genya noticed the gloomy turn of the king’s mood and at once resumed her happy tales of life as a youth in Vedun. It was important to promote his good cheer. Dreadfully important. Earlier in the evening the odious sorcerer had placed him in an ugly state. She had hung close to the king’s private chambers, milking her tasks so that she might eavesdrop boldly on their heated discussion. More than once Mord had suggested that she be sent away, but Klann reassured him with the reminder that she spoke no Kunan.