by Rypel, T. C.
Above their heads, the flapping, sailing monster bird, angling its red-eyed nightmare head for a strike.
Wilf sucked in a breath and slowed, allowing Gonji to pass him by half a length. He was suddenly aware of how small and vulnerable he was as his cold, sweaty palm gripped the broadsword’s hilt. The soldiers in the square numbered about five and thirty. He had no idea what he would do next, what he was capable of doing. Gonji looked confident in his new armament, but Wilf saw the tremulous flicker in the samurai’s dark eyes when he craned up at the wyvern.
And then he saw Dobroczy spilled onto the ground before him. His rival rose, railing at him with confusing fury. But the soldiers who had collared him now backed off uneasily, looking from Wilf to Gonji.
* * * *
“What about Petrovna’s woman?” someone was shouting from the midst of the tumult. “Who’ll answer for her?”
Wilf eyed his fuming, hook-nosed rival narrowly. “What the hell are you babbling about, Hawk?”
“Whaddaya think I’m talking about?” Dobroczy growled, now realizing his mistake, the words spoken in frenzied anger. His nose and mouth were bleeding. He dusted himself off as he regained his feet. The knuckles of his right hand were raw and bloody; he drew them across his mouth in a dirty red swipe.
“What do you want with this man?” Wilf heard himself demanding.
None of the mercenaries spoke for a space. Two of them held back the fallen Landsknecht, who brandished his broadsword dazedly, muttering imprecations at Vlad. A mercenary in brigandines clutched a sky-pointed pistol next to his ear threateningly. Most of them watched Gonji, who sat impassively astride Tora and said not a word. A cold harbinger of quick death. By now everyone had heard the breathless tales of the deadly spell those swords could weave; those strange gently curved blades whose hilts now jutted from his back like twin devil horns.
“He struck down a soldier,” one of the men replied at length, indicating the angry Landsknecht.
Upon being addressed as an equal, one to be reckoned with, Wilf inhaled a prideful breath, his chest swelling, the fingers of his left hand massaging the sword hilt. But a sage voice within duly recognized that his new-found respectability was based on the company he kept.
“It seems to me he’s been repaid,” he spoke evenly.
Dobroczy cast anxious eyes about the grounds and, noting the decreased interest in him, began to ease back into the knot of cordoned farmers.
Wilf continued to sit aboard the white destrier, awaiting a reply, wishing for Gonji to do something to relieve him as the focus of the soldiers’ attention. Suppose he was challenged now—then what? Still the wyvern wafted overhead, describing its terrifying circles, primed for the order by which it would rain down its foul brand of death.
Behind him, Gonji dismounted. Wilf looked back to see Captain Kel’Tekeli canter halfway across the street to them. He saw the mingled hatred and curiosity in Julian’s eyes when his gaze met Gonji’s. But the captain remained silent, watching as the samurai began climbing the Ministry steps to the open doorway that was now guarded by sentries bearing pole-arms.
There came a clattering of hoofbeats through the postern gate: Captain Sianno, heading up a double column of four and twenty Llorm dragoons.
Wilf joined Gonji on the Ministry steps, both turning to watch as Sianno and Julian engaged in a curt dialogue that could not be heard but was clearly less than friendly. The Llorm garrison commander gestured to two of his men, who dismounted and cut down Gornick from the cucking stool.
Gonji looked sidelong at Wilf, and the young smith knew that his own face must mirror Gonji’s befuddlement over the occupation force’s inconsistency and disorganization. Both good and bad, he had heard Gonji say.
Then they were mounting the Ministry steps.
“No entry without permission,” grated a scowling German sentry.
Gonji stopped and stared icily. “I’m the Elder’s bodyguard. I’ve come to check on his well-being.”
“You heard him,” the second sentry added.
Gonji took another step, and the guards crossed their pole-axes before him. The samurai took a deadly step backward, and Wilf held his breath, certain that both guards would be dead in a second. And then—?
“Master Flavio,” Gonji called.
The murmur of voices within was choked off.
“Gonji?” came Flavio’s reply.
“Are you well, Flavio-san? Have they harmed you in any way?”
“No-no, I’m quite all right, quite all right. Please—no trouble, I pray you.”
“I’m coming in to see you for myself.”
The sentries tensed. The man who had spoken first, a tall, beefy Aryan in corselet and comb-cap snarled and tilted his head sideways in threat. Gonji stood stock still a moment, looking from one to the other.
Then a clattering of hooves sounded below. The sentries relaxed to see the garrison commander assume responsibility.
“Let them pass,” Captain Sianno said.
Wilf returned the stocky captain’s thin smile, recalling the man’s dignity and courtesy when he had come to search the smith shop, a more meaningful gesture now in view of the comradeship Wilf s father and Sianno once shared under Klann.
Gonji bowed to Sianno and entered the Ministry, Wilf following close behind, encouraged now by the comforting presence of Sianno. He emulated Gonji’s swaggering mien.
In the Ministry were Flavio and Lorenz, plus several minor officials employed by the city government. A tall, gaunt Akryllonian national with dark hair and the lancing stare of a tax collector stood over Flavio, who was seated at his desk in the antechamber at the rear of the hall. The official, a counselor of Klann, swung around to regard them haughtily when they entered. Three mercenaries, clamping hands on sword hilts and pistols warily, closed in on them. Lorenz pushed himself up from the business counter.
“Wilfred?” Lorenz said, puzzled.
Wilf nodded at his brother.
“The business office is closed for the nonce—gentils,” Klann’s counselor noted with undisguised contempt as he moved from the antechamber.
“Gonji—Wilfred—we’re fine here,” Flavio called over, rising. “Nothing to be alarmed about.”
Gonji appraised the counselor’s black-and-silver brocade doublet and feathered chapeau with disdain.
“So sorry—not to me, it isn’t,” he advised coldly.
“You’re the fencing fellow from the banquet, eh?” the counselor remarked. “The acrobatic oriental.”
Gonji ignored him. “What are they doing in here, Master Flavio?”
The three guards pressed closer as Gonji took two steps that brought him to the counter. They anxiously regarded the swords at Gonji’s back and, Wilf noted with satisfaction, the young smith’s broadsword.
“They’re questioning us. And the farmers,” Lorenz replied quietly. “Have you heard about the curious crop failure?”
“Something,” Gonji said, looking past the Executor of the Exchequer to study the crestfallen Elder.
“And we have other difficulties,” Flavio said.
Wilf turned at the new uproar in the streets. Two riders stormed up to the steps—citizens. One of them was Aldo Monetto, the loquacious biller, who was shouting something at the crowd.
“What do you mean, Flavio-san?” Gonji probed.
Lorenz answered for him. “A woman has been assaulted, in the early morning hours.”
The wyvern shrilled low over the street without. Wilf gasped in spite of himself to see its baleful shade cast gloom over the menacing crowd. Screams and curses rolled through the doorway.
“Master Flavio! Master Flavio!” Monetto was pushing his way up the steps, held back by the sentries. “They’re trying to arrest the prophetess!”
Wilf gulped and looked to Flavio, to his brother Lorenz. “The prophetess,” he whispered. He saw Gonji spin on his heel and stiffen an instant, eyes flaring, control lost for the first time during the entire incident. And he wondered
fleetingly why Tralayn should be of concern to Gonji.
The samurai stalked to the doorway. “Monetto! What did you say?” The biller struggled in the grasp of the sentries.
“Gonji! It’s Tralayn—they’re trying to take her—there’s fighting at her house. Two men are dead already!”
“Who ordered her arrest?” Gonji demanded of the king’s official.
“I did,” he replied superciliously. “She’s to be questioned like the farmers. In some ways the local witch woman is more suspect than they are.” He pulled from a vest pocket a bulbous Nuremberg egg watch. “I’m wasting time here, I fear. I can finish with her at the castle. Remember, Flavio, no soldier of Klann, no Akryllonian national will ever know hunger because of the city’s treachery. Not until every man, woman, and child of Vedun has starved to death first.”
“As I have said,” Flavio replied with evident strain, “the granaries and warehouses are full.”
The official nodded brusquely and pushed past Gonji out onto the veranda, calling for Julian. The three guards trailed after him.
“Cholera,” Gonji swore under his breath. “Wilfred-san—stay here with Flavio.”
“Gonji, where are you—? I want to go along.” Wilf trembled, heart hammering, but he craved an outlet for his anxiety and frustration.
“Stay,” Gonji commanded. Then his harshness became tempered with compassionate understanding. “You’ll have your time in battle, sword-brother, make no mistake. But for now do this for me, neh? It’s no mean charge I give you. If you fail to protect my employer, it is I who must forfeit my life.”
Wilf swallowed and nodded, not fully convinced. They exchanged a bow, and Gonji clamped Wilf’s right hand with his own—a rare gesture for him. Wilf followed him halfway down the steps, to where the king’s counselor spoke with the stern Captain Kel’Tekeli. He saw Gonji glare at the captain hotly before bounding aboard Tora to pound away from the square.
Seconds later Julian remounted and, calling over two other soldiers, clumped off with them in Gonji’s wake. Wilf felt a thrill of alarm, realizing Gonji’s grave peril both before and behind. What would he do—what would the city do—if Gonji were to die now? He shook off the thought.
Without him they would do nothing. They would submit to the invaders’ every whim.
Or would they?
“All right, Captain Sianno,” the king’s official ordered, “get the magician his...assistants.”
The bells began to clang discordantly. The wyvern roosted atop the tower, shaking its head inside the belfry and battering them. The creature croaked out a jubilant cry that was chilling in its almost human anticipation. And even from this distance Wilf could see that its red eyes were no longer red.
Now they were diamond-black and shining with cruel promise.
Captain Sianno raised his arm in a reluctant direction to the troops. And madness reigned in the square.
* * * *
Needled by the galvanic urgency of Tralayn’s peril, Gonji pounded a zigzag path through Vedun’s carven alleys, retracing his recent route with abandon, if not with surety. He clung close to Tora’s withers as they wove through the impromptu equestrian maze, the samurai trusting to his Spanish stallion’s patient training as he shouted warnings ahead of him to playing children and curious adults.
Tora stumbled once on loose paving stones but righted himself adroitly just as Gonji heard the first pistol shots and the wyvern’s strident war cry. He reined in sharply near the wagonage and patted the shuddering horse reassuringly. Looking back toward the square, he saw the flying beast’s vicious hell-dive, made out the jet of saliva it spewed earthward, heard the uproar beneath its strafing arc.
“Spirits of my fathers,” he breathed, visions of the monastery outrage dancing in his head.
An unseen rider stormed through an adjacent street. “The dragon’s attacking! Get to your homes!”
Gooseflesh broke out on Gonji’s arms and neck. The scruples of giri—the sense of duty—beckoned him to return to the square. Flavio might be in danger, as well as young Wilfred. And he had an account to settle with the blasted horror that claimed Vedun’s skies. But ninjo—the warrior’s moral impulse, his natural conscience, whose frequent conflict with giri was a well-known source of woe to the samurai—assailed him with thoughts of the rightness of his quest, of the need to remain on his fated path in the solution of the Deathwind mystery. His karma was to seek the Deathwind; and Tralayn might well hold the knowledge he needed.
Decide.
But he already had. Spurring Tora onward with a snarl, he galloped off toward the Gundersens’ livery and smith shop, cursing his cheerless thoughts.
He spotted Garth at the corral and stamped up to him, dropping to a canter. Tora snorted and tossed, now assimilating Gonji’s tension and spoiling for action.
“Garth! Where is Tralayn’s house?”
“Gonji!” the smith replied with a terrified grimace. “What of Wilfred and Lorenz?”
Gonji waved it aside impatiently. “At the Ministry—they’re all-recht. Tralayn’s, Garth!”
“Straight down that lane, all the way to the walls,” he called, pointing, as Gonji spurred off at a gallop. “It’s the tumbledown place with sagging eaves—a bolt-shot from the foundry—”
“Danke,” Gonji yelled into the wind, leaning hard into the lane.
His heart pounded and sweat stung his eyes and healing wounds as he approached the broad southern lane that abutted the bailey wall. He swung Tora to the right, and immediately the mob scene at Tralayn’s dwelling came into view. A small band of mounted mercenaries were held back from the house by twenty or thirty grim-faced citizens. Among the latter were Roric Amsgard, in bloodied apron, a meat cleaver at his side; and Karl Gerhard, his hunting bow nocked with a clothyard shaft.
Three men lay on the ground, at least one of them a Klann hireling. There was no sign of the prophetess.
Gonji reduced Tora’s gait to a trot and set his face into a mask of self-assurance while his mind examined and discarded one course of action after another. He drew near the battle line, marked by the dead or injured, heads turning at his approach. Someone called out his name among the townsfolk. He restrained the impulse to draw the Sagami; no cause for that yet. The citizens seemed encouraged by his appearance. The small detachment of free companions shrank back a bit in implied warning, blades and pistols held at the ready.
The samurai rode up close, gingerly stepped Tora over the bodies of the dead—two citizens and a side-skewered soldier.
“What’s going on here?” Gonji growled in Spanish, displaying the swaggering confidence of a personally involved high official.
“The prophetess—”
“These pox-ridden scum want to arrest her—”
“They shot Gyorgy and—”
Gonji waved them to silence. “Roric?” Gonji called to the provisioner, who moved forward to speak, but the mercenary leader spoke first:
“We have no quarrel with you, barbarian. We’re here by order to escort the witch woman to the Ministry. And now we’ve got rebels to arrest, as well!” He clopped ahead and pointed his saber at Roric, and the townsmen roared at him in defiance.
“You’ll take no one, scoundrel!”
The mob pushed forward. Gerhard half-drew his longbow and pointed his shaft at the leader.
“Stop this now—all of you!” Gonji commanded, calming the outburst. He picked over his thoughts, trying to choose the right words by which he might sort out the deadly situation. Still the prophetess had not appeared outside the house. But more citizens were gathering in the street, hefting staffs, clubs, and axes, threatening an escalation of violence. Now was not the time.
In the northern distance: the wyvern, shrilling and diving down at the square.
Cholera, it’s all happening so fast, and so disorganized....
Then there was a clattering of hoofbeats along a nearby alley. Shouts of alarm, as people spilled to the sides of the lane before the charge of
Julian and his cohorts. The captain brought them to a halt. To his rear rode the recent arrival whom Gonji had nicknamed “The Armorer”: the sullen-eyed bandit aboard the armored black Turkish gelding who bore enough military hardware to open a battlefield stall. Blades at his waist and back, pistol half-hammered and aimed overhead, arquebus lashed to a weathered saddle, the mustached warrior sneered at Gonji under a sallet festooned with throwing daggers.
Four pistols now in evidence. Damn the devisers of these blasted firearms!
Julian walked his steed to the leader of the arresting party and obtained the clipped and biased account of the resistance incident. And although his situation was precarious, Gonji knew that he must attempt to prevent the arrest of Tralayn by whatever means necessary.
“Well-met, good captain,” Gonji said, smiling blandly when the mercenary had finished his account. “If you will pardon me, I believe you are just in time to—”
But Julian ignored him and clopped past to face the mob. “Who killed the free companion here? Step forward.”
No one responded. The commander of free companions rose up tall in the stirrups and scanned them.
“You, there!” he called to Gerhard. “What are you doing with a bow?”
He had spoken in Hungarian, and someone muttered a German translation.
“I’ve drawn my bow legally this day from your armory. For the hunt. The captain may check, if he wishes.” The hunter and fletcher looked around him at his countrymen, and if he had been fearful before he was past fear now, Gonji noted. “But I’ll use it here if our holy woman is threatened—” His final words were drowned out by the assents of the angry mob that shouldered together and raised their motley weapons in agreement.
Julian clenched his teeth and looked them over sullenly.
Gonji ambled over beside the captain, their eyes meeting levelly. Both their horses snorted in the prickling air. “The captain will do well to recall that this woman is sacred to them.”
“I didn’t generate the order,” Julian spat defensively, and Gonji was emboldened to witness the captain’s crumbling purposefulness.
“They’ll not surrender her, I think, without much bloodshed. And the king would appear anxious to preserve the peace. Their dead currently outnumber yours,” the samurai continued gently. “Perhaps....” He let the suggestion fill itself in.