Gonji: A Hungering of Wolves

by T. C. Rypel

  Iye—no. All is illusion, and as such can be overcome.

  Fight—

  (Pain—another measure! and another!—chest constriction—despair…)

  FIGHT—

  * * * *

  Gonji walked the cold and windswept lanes of St. Pons, refuse tumbling past his feet, the wind moaning through creaking rafters of upper stories, rattling shutters and roofing tiles. He could hear muffled voices in the gambrel-roofed houses, the clatter of hoofbeats and wooden wheels along the byways, occasional outcries of late-night roisterers in the festive quarters.

  He encountered no one, save for the odd scavenging dog or cat, the scuttling of a gutter rodent.

  The fiacre had been unleashed full gallop from some padded gate of Hell.

  Rapt in thought, he had crossed a darkened lane. There was no warning sound from the swarming black fastness of the alley at his left. Instinct…Instinct and the sudden flash of white splay teeth and blood-flecked eyes from the snorting horse were all that had saved his life.

  He spun away to his right and drew steel as the coach rushed past, still making no sound. Its eerie driver leaned out of his seat to leer back at the gasping samurai. Fulsome red eyes, bulging like the body of an engorged tick, peered at him from a ghastly pale visage.

  Gonji poised himself on one knee, the Sagami raised over his head in both hands, fingers damply working at the sharkskin wrapping of the hilt. In seconds the four-wheeled carriage was gone, disappearing into the void at the other side of the street. Silently.

  There had been a figure riding stiffly within. Gonji had not wanted to ponder, there, in that unsavory lane, the identity of the vaguely familiar outline. Fell memories swam up in his consciousness like trench offal in a flooded sewer.

  He felt the need to flee, to seek sanctuary! Espying the tall cruciform in the spire of the church not far to the north, he made for it at a trot, more circumspect now, his blade still at the ready. Even the senses could not be trusted; his stout blade was all he could call friend.

  Slowing when he reached the doors of the church, he lowered the Sagami at his side and gazed up at the symbol of Christian opposition to things evil and grasping, to the deadly and rapacious night-fiends that ran rampant on this troubled continent.

  The voice hissed at him from somewhere in the distant loft of the bell tower.

  “Quo vadis, samurai?” It was Simon Sardonis.

  “You—Simon-san,” Gonji breathed in evident relief. “Here at last! We must speak.” He glanced behind him, then put up his sword with a smart, two-stroke motion. The katana snicked into place in its sheath. “What have you seen in the streets this night?”

  “The streets about the church are quiet. There’s comfort here. I did fancy I espied a solitary heathen running from phantoms. But there would be little refuge in a Catholic church for such a one.”

  Gonji bridled. He turned partway round and scanned the darkened environs again, drank a deep breath of the clear, crisp air. Perhaps Simon was right. Perhaps it had been a phantom like so many other things he had seen that others had been mercifully unable to share.

  “Come down into the nave,” he whispered sharply up the stone facade of the church.

  “Are you certain you dare enter?” Simon rasped down at him.

  Gonji found the doors unlocked and ambled into the vestibule, moving with a respectful, rustling softness. In the light of pale votive candles he saw Simon glide through a dim sacristy archway to genuflect gravely before the ornate tabernacle. He was mildly surprised. Simon walked the night as a man now. He had evidently avoided killing during the last full moon.

  They faced each other at the left-center of the nave before a severe mural representing the Fall of Man.

  “You’ve laid the Beast to rest this moon,” the samurai declared simply.

  “Speak not of such things in this holy place. How go the preparations?”

  “Chaotically. How did you arrest…the Thing within you?” Gonji persisted.

  Simon made an impatient gesture that stirred the air currents. “A cave—a mountain cave—inset with chains.”

  “Another?” Gonji asked archly. “Have you infested all Europe with these shackling sanctuaries of yours?”

  “Enough of your misbegotten attempts at humor,” Simon fumed. “Tell me what’s afoot.”

  “Iye, first you tell me.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Already I’ve learned more from strangers about this mad venture than you’ve ever told me. Now, mon ami, I will have some clear explanations.”

  “What explanations?”

  “Specifics, Simon-san. Specifics about the Farouche Clan…and about this woman you’re enamored of.” The prickling of Simon’s coarse nape hairs was not lost on the samurai.

  The accursed wanderer turned his back to Gonji, seemingly struggling to control some seismic internal emotion. “So…you’ve heard their name.” Judging by his tone, some great catharsis might have washed him clean of an unspeakable burden.

  “I want to know your connection with these…usurpers, or power-mongers, or whatever they are. And the girl—”

  “What?” Simon whirled about, his eyes now slits of iridescent pearl.

  “Claire Dejordy—I want to know what her hold is over you. Why you’re so tormented over how to approach her. Is it some driving obsession you yourself can neither explain nor control—?”

  “What in God’s name are you implying—?”

  “Is it simply an immature, inexperienced attraction to a woman who inflames you with lust? Are you truly in love? What?”

  “Infidel! Heathen! How dare you speak of such things in God’s own house?”

  “I want answers, Simon-san—specifics. Or we go no further with this eccentric quest.” There was a firm finality in Gonji’s voice.

  Simon drew hard, angry breaths for a long moment. Then he tossed his head in the direction of the vestibule. A tense moment later they were outside, in the walled lane adjacent to the church. The brisk wind caressed them bracingly.

  Simon wrapped his long sinewy arms around himself. “Specifics, then. I shan’t ever repeat what I’m about to tell you. Listen well. You speak as though you consider me a lovesick pup who knows nothing of the ways of the heart or…the body. In truth, I’m not quite so naive or inexperienced as you’ve convinced yourself I must be. There’s a reason why I’m so cautious about this terrifying love of mine. Don’t you think I would have caught up this woman in my arms and fled to some place of—of pristine sanctity, away from the things that haunt me, if that were possible? I—I who crave nothing so much as to live as other men? It’s not that easy, friend samurai. Nothing in my world is ever that diamond-clear.”

  He swallowed hard, strolling in circles as he talked. Gonji’s eyes were riveted to him.

  “Once,” Simon breathed, “once there was a woman, who came to me in the prime of my youthful passion. She was beautiful. Quite the most beautiful creature I had ever seen, I thought. Beautiful, lusty, passionate. Full of life. I, on the other hand…I was young, still full of youthful ideals, the conviction that I could conquer the thing inside me. That nothing, no one, could control my destiny. Poor Father Dobret—how patient he was with me! How hard he tried to make me understand the power of evil, the almost incredible cunning behind its wiles…”

  Simon drifted into a reverie, recovering his concentration a moment later. His eyes shone as they refocused on the carven stones. “I was caught outside his influence, finally. I—submitted to my hunger for this…woman. God forgive me, I…I can only take refuge in my stupidity and weakness when I think of that time. And I’ve paid—oh, how I’ve paid! But I should have known. Should have seen through that enmeshing feminine artifice. The things she spoke of! The secrets she promised to unfold! I should have
seen through it all…”

  His voice had dwindled to a small, frightened whisper. He saw Gonji’s look and smiled balefully.

  “Non, monsieur le samurai—it is even worse than…whatever unnatural thing you imagine. I fell into her arms, you see, and in the morning, when I awoke, it was not she but—him who sat nearby, primping like a cat, grinning at me with Hell’s own damnable mirth.”

  “By all the kami,” Gonji intoned, lips drawn back against bared teeth, “you can’t mean—”

  “Oui—Grimmolech. The demon himself. He had seduced me in the guise of a woman cloaked in angelic beauty. Can you now understand why I’ve hunted him all these years? Why only his agony and death can help eradicate this hatred that eats at my very soul? Why I—I can never be certain of a woman’s love—mon Dieu! her very reality!—while these minions of Satan dog my steps? God, how they’ve twisted me…Is that specific enough for you?”

  Gonji glowered to know the full truth of the man’s onerous karma. “Your own father…”

  “No! Never say that!” Simon’s shout rang out, shattering the stillness, echoing down the narrow lane. “It was the father of the evil Beast that lives inside me. My father died by his foul hand!”

  “So sorry, my friend. Truly, your own God must forgive you your distaste for the company of others.”

  Simon emitted a harsh scoffing noise. “It is not even that simple, my…misanthropy. I cannot even trust my own distrust, to guide my actions. A few nights after the—the outrage, the woman returned to me—”

  “What?”

  “Oui—that same angelic creature, pleading in her eyes, fear of me. I—I asked no questions, required nothing of her, but…I killed her. Savagely. Slaughtered her with my own hands. My…barely human hands. There, in that very same village where now I’m whispered of in quaking prayers by night. Cursed in the deepest, darkest private moments of every villager who knew that lovely, innocent child—Yes! This time she was the real woman whose semblance Grimmolech had stolen in his perverted wish to humble me, to drive me past the edge of sanity, so that I might take my life by my own hand and thereby free his evil son, the Beast, to run at his side.”

  They stood speechless for a time, side by side, facing in opposite directions.

  “Simon-san,” Gonji began slowly, “I grieve deeply for you. No man has known your pain. But if your god be the merciful god you claim, then there must be freedom for you, somehow, from this curse. They conspire against us at every turn, Simon. They fear our alliance—these mysterious enemies who conspire in the shadow worlds. We must pose a threat to them in some way we don’t even suspect. Have we not won great victories together against those dark powers?”

  “Victories?” Simon repeated derisively.

  “Hai—victories.”

  “At what cost to those who fought with us?”

  “Victory is always won at a terrible price when the enemy is superior in cunning and force.”

  “How do I know that I can believe even in you anymore?” Simon slumped down onto his haunches, his back against the church’s foundation.

  “That’s a stupid, self-pitying remark,” Gonji replied with disgust. “I offer you no fresh evidence that I am what your instincts tell you I am. Why don’t you destroy me and then see whether my corpse rises to mock you?”

  The lycanthrope glanced up at him sharply. His gaze softened almost at once. And now Gonji could see that Simon had been crying. Half-dried tear streaks absorbed flaring rays of the waning moon.

  “I trust you,” he said in a weary voice.

  “Domo arigato. I think that wise since you’ve come to me for help. Now, dozo—please, the Farouche Clan—what do you know of them?”

  “They’ve turned Burgundy into an evil, withering land.”

  “I know that. What else?”

  “They’re his sons.”

  “What?”

  “Five of them—Grimmolech’s sons.”

  “Cholera,” Gonji swore, using his favorite Slavic imprecation. “Your brothers—the Beast’s brothers,” he corrected in a rush, seeing the other tautening for a snap again. “How can we know them?”

  “We can’t,” Simon said simply, scooping up a small stone and hurling it at the far wall. “You can’t. They could be most anything. They control…everything. Ahh, all right—one of them, whatever else he might become, bears a certain reminder I left him with, when last we tussled. I ripped out his right eye. He’ll always be missing that eye. You see—their evil sorcery can’t solve everything for them. Other than that, I suppose you could say they bear a certain…family resemblance to me. Losing your nerve, warrior?”

  Gonji stiffened. Gooseflesh had indeed cropped up along his spine, on his arms. With the keen senses of the wolf within, Simon had caught the scent of the atavistic fear. With an exercise of willpower, Gonji brought the center of his being under control again.

  “So we battle an enemy we can’t know for the sake of a woman we can’t trust,” Gonji said acidly. “I see little difference from anything else we’ve ever undertaken.”

  He pulled himself proudly erect, flexing his back muscles as he strutted away from Simon and toward the main street. But deep inside, a great compassion stirred for this man-Beast who had suffered such depravity at the whim of fate.

  Compassion. And profound disquiet. For now Gonji was thinking of Theresa again, and the memory of an old and alarmingly parallel experience…

  * * * *

  Dreams…

  Kuma-san—what are you doing here?—there will be fighting. Something you don’t approve of—

  “Forgive me, Gonji-san, but now I must do my duty…Sabatake Gonji-no-Sadowara, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the…”

  And of the Company of Lost Hope.

  Dreams…

  Hai…the Place of Lost Hope, marked by the foothills, the bloated, savaged bodies—the banks of the Saone—the screams of the dying—the voices—the horrible pleading voices—

  * * * *

  Goooooon-jiiiiii—

  Iye-iye! They know! We must turn back! No hope—

  “For God’s sake, do something—”

  “He’s burning up!”

  * * * *

  Luigi Leone returned to the company, a dashed, forlorn figure. The one-eyed mercenary offered little in the way of explanation, muttering only that he and the young widow had had to part company. Too many tears, too many memories, was all that Leone cared to say of it.

  Gonji could only be grateful for Leone’s reappearance. Trustworthy warriors and longtime friends came at a premium in those days. And even a debilitated fighter who had proven himself in action was a welcome sight.

  The morning of the departure for Burgundy, Buey and Orozco, fired by the memory of the latest attempt on Gonji’s life, at last succeeded in convincing the samurai to don a modern half-armor that had been guaranteed pistol-proof.

  The samurai strapped on the golden breast- and back-plate assembly with an indulgent sigh. The armor’s sheen had been dulled by verdigris to enhance camouflage in the field. It was somewhat more cumbersome than the cuirass he sometimes used.

  Gonji drew a single ironic satisfaction from the new armor: Its tightness abated the occasional effect of an old wound suffered in the Vedun campaign—a staved-in rib that pained him when he rotated his torso a certain way and inhaled deeply on bitterly cold days.

  Under the Spaniards’ smug gazes, he strapped on his swords and sallet and mounted a gray destrier. The horse tossed peevishly under his weight.

  “Why didn’t you find me a good horse instead of this god-cursed armor?” he grumbled to the chuckling soldiers.

  They rode toward the square, the French adventurers linking with them at a crossroads, their column in a disciplined f
ormation that would have done a drill team proud.

  Armand Perigor fell into a canter beside Gonji, clucking and shaking his head to see the new armor.

  “Bonjour, Gonji-san.”

  “Ohayo, Armand-san.”

  “That is the celebrated ‘bullet-proof’ armor the military raves about?”

  Gonji nodded, flushing a bit, though maintaining his dignity with an effort.

  “With all due reverence, that is dogshit of a most putrid order,” Perigor judged archly. “You best not place too great a faith in its claims.”

  “Hai.”

  “My men have done their best to separate the wheat from the chaff in your noble company.” Perigor flicked his head back toward the column. Gonji followed his gesture, saw bruises and black eyes, lumps and cuts on the faces that met his gaze steadily.

  “Ah, so desu ka? And the result of their judgment?”

  Perigor shrugged. “They may have chased off the most useless dregs. I suppose we’ll be hearing about it from the officious lieutenant. There was a nasty incident or two involving the garrison troops.”

  “Splendid.”

  “What a canaille you lead,” Perigor observed. “A pack of dogs. A rabble cloaking themselves in boasts and the comfort of numbers. Poor defenses against the Farouche Clan.”

  “They’re all we have,” the samurai replied. “Simon Sardonis is back with us, lurking somewhere on our fringe. There’s an urgency in his need that makes any further delay out of the question.”

  “But another week—a few days—just to organize this mad crusade—”

  “Iye,” Gonji said firmly. “You’ve no doubt seen, as I have, that too much preparation against an unknown enemy can often be purely a waste of time, neh? Useless speculation. I’ve seen many amazing conquests born of spirit alone.”

  To see the look in Perigor’s eyes, as Gonji pulled his mount out of line to allow the column to pass him, the samurai felt a mixture of pique and guilt. What he had spouted had been the most questionable blather, unworthy of any accomplished tactician who had it in his power to see that no such fatuous heroics were necessary.