by Rypel, T. C.
Julian steeled himself against an angry tremor that afforded Gonji some small sadistic pleasure out of its rarity. He wheeled back to the arresting party.
“Pick up the dead man. Disperse them,” he told the squad leader.
“And the witch?” the man asked.
Julian eyed Gonji, his lip curling. “Leave her for now.”
“But the adviser’s order—?” The soldier’s eyebrows arched in surprise.
“I’ll take it on my responsibility,” Julian snapped. “I’ll answer to His Majesty. Get it done and report back to me.”
And Julian rode off for the square with his party. Gonji watched him go, stifling his satisfaction, breathing a long sigh of relief. There were screams wafting up from the square. He cursed softly at their portent and shuffled Tora but decided to see about Tralayn first.
When he dismounted, it was to much back-slapping and expressions of gratitude, which he growled at and waved off. But they saw through his facade, recognizing the shared sense of triumph, and lavished their praise and thanks.
Gonji and Roric mounted the steps and knocked at Tralayn’s door while several men turned to the grim task of removing the dead and apprising their families.
“This will get worse,” Gonji said tellingly, indicating the two dead men. He studied Roric closely for a reaction.
The homely provisioner, an ex-cavalryman in Austria, nodded gravely. “And we shall be ready,” he replied.
Gonji caught the sincerity and determination in Roric’s words, judged that they were backed by the same courage implicit in the saber scar that marred the man’s face.
“This was a fine display of teeth and claws today. But your people will need a lot of bravery and solidarity to weather what may come. Not to mention training...planning...organization....” Gonji rubbed his stubbled jaw thoughtfully, then he hammered at Tralayn’s door again. “How do you know she’s in?”
Roric looked puzzled. “She entered just before this started. Told us not to worry about her.”
Gonji scanned the milling, buzzing crowd again, saw the exhilaration in their quick gestures and sharp whispers that even their morbid task couldn’t dampen. They bore away the bodies of the two dead citizens with grace and dignity. Julian entered his thinking again. It occurred to him that the captain always sent subordinates out to do the dirty work, ever careful to sidestep a fray. He had never seen Julian less than spotless except at the castle touch-duel, where he had evidently expected to win with ease and had displayed considerable loss of composure when victory had proven hard won.
I wonder how the dashing captain’s courage holds up on the field? How does he comport himself under fire and sword? Common engagement too plebeian for him? Mmm. And Klann...? Another mad outbreak of violence, apparently at his order. Seemed like a jolly enough sort who wouldn’t be given to this kind of terrorism. Kami, but he’s an unpredictable bastard! Can Garth’s strange tale of enchanted linking be true? Does Klann obey the caprice of several minds? Cholera—the flying beast again...the square!
His thoughts dissipated like smoke. Roric had pushed open Tralayn’s creaking door: the house was empty. The butcher called her name. No response. They entered. Her parlor felt warmed as if by recent habitation but deadly still now. Dust and cobwebs whirled and floated in the newly stirred air.
“Your sanctimonious soothsayer has fled,” Gonji said in Japanese.
“Was—what?”
“Gone, neh?”
And then they spotted the weapons: the monstrous battleaxe and broadsword suspended above the fireplace in symbolic reminder of the terrible annihilation curse that o’erhung Vedun. Their eyes locked in an instant of chilling awe, a shared sensation of momentary insignificance. And whether by their apocalyptic portent or their presence in the prophetess’ home—neither man could have said—the weapons assumed an almost religious import.
Gonji moved forward gingerly and stood under them. He reached out and cupped the hilt of the sword, and with a great push he was able to raise the piece perhaps a span above its cast-iron mooring.
* * * *
His name was William Eddings, and he had come to Vedun with his father, his brother John, and John’s wife, Sarah, after his mother’s death in England. They came seeking sanctuary from strife and religious intolerance, surcease of the rigors and heartaches of a peripatetic life that allowed no roots to be sunk; these were trying times for Catholics in England, and they were descended from a former Earl of Lancashire who had been an opponent of mad Henry.
Three days in Vedun had been enough to convince his kindly brother John that “this is our home—this is the place we’ve sought.” Sarah and father Stuart were quick to assent, but William hadn’t been sure. Indeed, still wasn’t. The cosmopolitan populace was overtly friendly enough, but William, ever the cynic, ever mindful of the bleak turns of fortune that had dogged the Eddings name throughout history, was far less sanguine. He could not share brother John’s sentiment that “mother might yet be alive had we come to Vedun long ago.” His mother had been much like William; she too would have been suspicious of the multiplicity of languages that made daily commerce a chore. There were few who spoke French, and the English-speaking population was practically nil. They were outsiders, plain and simple, living on the fringe of the ethnic cliques.
The self-styled aristocrats who postured as the city leaders were no easier to chum up to. They would as lief hobnob with poor cobblers and sundriers like the Eddings family as they would mix with these bloody invaders. And there was talk now that they were soliciting recruits for a militia to oppose this savage army and its enchanted minions.
Indeed. That would bloody well be the day when William of Lancashire would send his high-born arse to this kind of fate on their account.
They were all there now. Representatives of the council leadership; the syndicalists from the trades, provisioners, and commerce, who really controlled Vedun. All standing hollow-eyed and slack-jawed, staring down, beyond horror now, at the revolting apparition in the streets before the chapel.
There were six dead, a dozen or so more, wounded. And this one. In which category did they place this one?
The soldiers had stormed into the crowd, singling out more hostages for the blasted “King Klown,” or whatever he called himself. When the roughshod brigand had cornered the pack William was running with and his smoldering eyes had met William’s own, the sundrier’s knees had turned to butter. He had prayed earnestly that it would not be he who was chosen. So terrified had he been, that he feared he would wet his breeches. But it was not he; another had been shackled and dragged off, kicking and screaming—as William himself might have done; they’d all heard tales of what was becoming of those conscripted “servants.”
Then it was over. The square looked like a crushed ant hill. Five dead by pistol and sword and trampling hoof, one more seared beyond recognition by the gruesome wyvern’s terrible saliva, and this one.... Befouled by its abominable excrement.
Dead? Alive? What?
Flavio was there, as was Michael Benedetto. And Wilfred and Lorenz Gundersen, the haughty Exchequer. And Phlegor, the loud-mouthed guildsman at whose urging the resistance had begun. Even he was beyond words now, all the fight wrung from him.
The man lay quivering, reeking of the filthy waste that slowly melted him away. His eyes rolled heavenward, all the pain emptied from them. What was he feeling? Thinking? He trembled so. Dr. Verrico bent over him and muttered to himself helplessly, poking with a tool at the awful ruin of what had been a man. He had ceased asking for help to move the victim. Not a man among them would aid him; all were paralyzed, staring with childish ambivalence, crossing themselves, lips curled behind rags held up to their faces to filter the ghastly odor.
William felt cold and numb and somehow inhuman and unclean to be in that place, empty now of monsters and soldiers, given over to the mourning and the dispirited, the dead and the maimed and the befouled. And he alone spoke the words any one of them might, if
he were true:
“I’ll never die like that. Not for anyone....”
PART TWO
THE SURE, THE
STRAIGHT, THE BRAVE
There is nothing that a man need fear
Who carries at his side this splendid blade
—motto engraved on Sagami
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Kiyai! Kiyai! Kiyai!”
The double line of men swung their wooden blades. Over the crashing and splintering tumult they shouted their kiyai—the energizing cry of the warrior, though some cried out in pain, their partners having missed their marks, winces and sudden contortions all along the line betraying erring efforts.
Gonji and Roric watched one line closely; Garth and a Rorka Gray knight, the other. Again and again they clashed and clacked, lunged and parried, advanced and retreated, sweat, blood, and curses marking their progress in the echoing din. The leaders corrected errors, demonstrated proper techniques, then pushed them through the monotonous repetitions that rendered fencing techniques second nature. Those who displayed an aptitude for edged weapons, along with the previously experienced, were soon shunted off into more advanced training groups. Many of these men grinned and postured pridefully; their glee was short-lived. They presently realized that their reward translated into better odds at suffering bloody death. A creeping lassitude now could be seen to affect some of them. And yet another psychological demon had to be exorcised: Those who blustered with a dangerous overestimation of their nascent skills now trained side by side with those who grumbled that their hard work would surely bring them death.
But they worked on, diligently, if not always in perfect accord, doubling their shifts so that they could work their normal jobs. Their leaders strove to cope with their fears and shortcomings, to understand each individual’s needs and bring them into harmony with the needs of the group. There was no room for the weak link that might sunder their resolve and their ability to achieve their purpose.
In secret conclave Vedun’s military council had been selected. It was composed of Baron Rorka, Michael Benedetto, Roric Amsgard, Garth Gundersen, and Gonji. The latter pair were held in disfavor. The revelation of Garth’s former commission under Klann had shaken the popular smith’s esteem, though it was obvious that the step down from his pedestal had been a minor one, and he was gradually restored to the people’s good graces. Gonji, on the other hand, retained his enemies and antagonists: Phlegor and many of his craft guild followers, for instance, had refused to join in training under the samurai. And Gonji and Rorka found their personality differences irreconcilable, their disagreements over planning and policy many and deep.
The general plan was to prepare for an evacuation of non-combatants to the catacomb system, followed by a two-pronged assault against both the city occupation force and the castle, the latter facilitated by the tactically advantageous tunnel dug through to the castle dungeons themselves.
The catacomb system was amazing: the combination of natural cavern formation and persevering sapper toil by forgotten ancients. The main cavern, in which most training was pursued, was hundreds of yards across, flat at the center and cleared of boulders and rubble by Rorka’s surviving knights. Jagged stalactites and stalagmites depended and jutted in places like craggy teeth. The rock walls were veined with mineral deposits that illuminated the cavern with a natural phosphorescence. The training ground could be reached from two points within the city and two without. The former two were Tralayn’s fireplace and the sacristy behind the chapel’s altar. Disguised levers in these two locations activated intricate series of pulleys, counterweights, and clockwork mechanisms that swung open mantel and closet, permitting entry into torchlit tunnels that descended in clammy, claustrophobic switchbacks to the caverns. The latter pair of entrances lay in the northern hills and at the base of the cliff beneath the city, in the southern valley.
Gonji and Rorka repeatedly argued over the intensity of the training. The baron favored a slow, steady process akin to the ascent of a squire to knighthood. Gonji, addressing the immediacy of their need, urged speed and vigor in bringing the militia along. His system was the one adopted for the nonce, the people being motivated by their frustration and terror over the occupation force’s outrages. The leaders agreed that the fears of Mord’s supernatural minions should be minimized, Gonji declaring that he would assume responsibility for the neutralization of Mord’s monsters when the time came. The subject of the Klann multiple-personage legend was wisely not broached at all to the militia at large.
But when Gonji advanced the proposal that the castle assault team should have as an objective the firing of the treasure room, thus rendering the precious gold and silver unusable to Klann and unhinging his mercenaries’ primary source of loyalty, Rorka vehemently disagreed. As he likewise did over Gonji’s suggestion that the castle’s gunpowder magazines should be detonated.
Worst of all, from Gonji’s standpoint, the baron continued to hope in futility that his lost patrols or Holy Word Monastery would deliver them via allies or Church intervention.
Sooner or later, he knew, there would have to be an accounting of what Gonji himself had done to help shatter these groundless hopes.
* * * *
By the third day of training, patterns were developing; a new order was becoming established. The logistics of the secret training, still vexingly laborious, were accepted with resignation. Supplies were brought to the caverns slowly and with nerve-wracking apprehension. Beverages, foodstuffs, and medical supplies were the easiest to move inasmuch as their discovery could be explained away. These were commonly brought via the catacomb entrances at Tralayn’s home and the chapel. The latter proved the most useful, since citizens entering the chapel were never questioned about their purpose, and it was rare that a mercenary would slip in for a few moments of soul-searching or a Llorm regular would make a routine check. So the vital supplies were laid in with a minimum of risk, some being employed in the training, others stocked in the tunnels for use during the evacuation of non-combatants.
Gonji found the aforementioned tunnels—tens of them, snaking off from the great cavern in every direction—rather unsettling. Some simply dead-ended, evincing unfinished work. Others, bored pointlessly toward the bowels of the earth, appeared to have no end at all. Scouting parties sent to explore them would return hours later covered with grime, exhausted, and complaining of foul stenches that made deeper exploration unsavory. And more than one explorer would complain of an indefinable unease that gripped one the farther he ventured into their black depths.
The smuggling in of weapons was a stickier problem. Edged weapons—swords, knives, axes, and such—were legally and commonly carried; so their accumulation was a simple matter. The founders worked long and hard shifts, their forges ever fuming, in the production of blades. The well-carburized steel was kept for Vedun, while the brittler grades were used for Klann’s ordered weapons.
Long-range weapons—bows and pistols—and pole-arms were a different story. Since the restriction on them, bows were in short supply, and for the first few days of training, there was not a gun to be had. Such long-range weapons would be crucial to their plans. Half the Rorka knights still possessed crossbows, but they were far outnumbered by the Llorm bowmen. Karl Gerhard, the dour hunter and fletcher, joined with Vedun’s only two skilled bowyers in producing longbows of the English design and stockpiling clothyard war arrows with several different tips, in which craft Gerhard was a true master. But it was tedious work, and soon all three had smuggled down their tools and taken to spending all their hours in the catacombs. The bowyers presently abandoned their training altogether in favor of their vital trade, but Gerhard insisted on putting in twenty-hour days so that he might train the archers, over whom he was quickly placed in command.
Horses were needed in the cavern for cavalry practice. Much of the anticipated battle for possession of Vedun would necessarily be fought on horseback. And there was only one entrance that would admit the large
animals—the concealed shaft in the southern valley, at the base of the cliff. When Gonji had first proposed their need for horses in the training, Baron Rorka had flatly rejected it, Michael and Roric supporting his contention that it was simply too risky an undertaking. But Garth had agreed with Gonji, and their arguments had ultimately won over the others. A corral was hastily erected, and horses were brought through the valley tunnel by ones and twos. Some by riders out for exercise, who avoided the patrolled southern trail and clumped down treacherous bramble-and-vine-covered slopes to the valley; others by small game hunters who dutifully returned their bows to the armory after their hunt. The Llorm armorer cared only about the weapons, and the mercenaries who guarded the gates kept no record of whether citizens passed through their bailiwick on foot or on horseback. And one night, under heavy cloud cover, an entire string of horses was daringly led the long way around the city—to the east and across the river—by the Provender’s hostlers, Stefan Berenyi and Nikolai Nagy, in a carefully timed operation involving the opening of the sluice gates that cleaned the city’s gutters and sewers, the torrential wash of river water covering their hoofbeats along the cliff base, lest they be heard by sentries on the walls.
But the most difficult problem of logistics, one that would plague them for the duration of training, was the movement of the militiamen themselves. The entrances to the catacombs seemed terribly inadequate at first. Those entering through Tralayn’s house—the fewest number were assigned here—did so with bated breath, for the free companions’ garrison in the converted granary was close at hand. Likewise, the hill and valley tunnels’ critical tactical positions caused them to be reserved only for those with legitimate reasons to be traversing the gates on a daily basis.
By far the greatest number of trainees was assigned the chapel entrance to the catacombs. Thus, new daily services were established at the chapel, presided over by Tralayn, and if the troops who constantly passed by the place of worship ever had taken stock, they would have been struck by the curious fact that all the women who entered the services at eight bells of evening and six of morning left an hour later with different husbands than those they had come with.