by Rypel, T. C.
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.
But she did. She spent her days assiduously learning what she could of the difficult tongue, mainly from the chief steward. She gleaned great satisfaction from her ability to manipulate even that venomous old soul in the furthering of her purpose. And she knew enough now to learn from the conversation that Klann lived in fear of some predatory thing in the province that lusted after his blood. Mord seemed convinced that there was in fact such a creature hovering near but that it was something he should be able to enlist in their support. He seemed obsessed with the large key he carried at all times, which he insisted had something to do with the presence.
The idea of the spectral presence was new to Genya and terrifying in a way she couldn’t describe. She had never known such fear in Vedun, and she couldn’t understand Mord’s assertion that it was in some way connected with the captive city.
And there were other things that gnawed at her. Things that troubled sleep: the scary murmurs among the servants, talk of mysterious crop failure in Vedun; of soldiers slaughtered by invisible things; of rebellious action by the citizens; and worst of all, the disappearances of the two servant girls who bore on their foreheads the red mark placed there by Mord, the mark they could not remove despite all tearful, frantic efforts.
“My men are killed in the forests at night,” King Klann had told her when she brought him his mutton and wine. “Why do they do these things?”
But her winsome way had calmed him, and for once none of the ladies of the court had intruded. Soon she had allayed his suspicions of the people of Vedun with her stories of their happiness and brotherhood. She was feeling clever and sure of herself. Sure that she was on her way back to Vedun, whether by lubricious guile or outright deceit, the way paved by the controlled seductiveness that had never failed her. For if the king’s paternal favor was withheld much longer, she would find another way to escape. Perhaps through the miller’s gate, whose steward she had already dangerously approached about that very subject, though she was not desperate enough to pay the price he demanded....
“I’m tired now, and I have much to ponder,” Klann told her at last. “Leave me now.” He patted her face in the kindly manner he reserved for Genya alone, then turned his back on her and began to pace.
She left via the chamber’s double doors, out the vestibule’s heavier paneled door and past the sentries. The corridors were cold and dank, empty but for an occasional passing Llorm guard or scurrying dog or cat. The cresset lamps had burned low, some extinguished altogether. In the gleam of every licking flame she saw the burning eyes of Mord, remembered the way he had looked at her now and again, thought of the missing servant girls.
They say he does the unspeakable with ’em, Yola the chambermaid had said....
Genya pulled her collar close about her throat and hurried around the second turn on her course to the scullions’ chambers. She stopped when she heard the muted clanking sound behind her. She couldn’t tell how far behind or in what direction. Her hands were clamped over both her mouth and nose as she leaned against the chilly stone wall, listening. She tried not to breathe, fought off a spate of shivers.
Nothing. Silence. No...breathlessness. The sound that followed her stopped just after she had.
Emitting a single hot breath, she steeled herself, annoyed by her fear of the familiar fortress surroundings. She moved off again, hoping to pass someone, glad for the rustle of her skirts that filled the too-complete stillness of the corridor maze.
There—a soldier. Good....
She smiled more sweetly than usual when the Llorm dragoon passed and touched the brim of his helm. Grinned to herself and whispered a few scolding words over having behaved like a child, hearing the comforting boot-slaps diminish behind her—
And vanish altogether with a single scrape, as if the soldier had been swept off his feet by something above him.
Genya gasped and trembled, pausing again to listen. Again the sounds abated just when she strained to hear. She lipped a fervent prayer and hurried on, her brows knitting as she clutched the front of her bodice, the fear within gripping her heart still tighter.
She turned righ
t into the corridor that led past storage pantries to the servants’ quarters. She gaped, open-mouthed: all the lamps had expired. But there was nowhere else to go. Now she heard the soft, loping footpads echoing in the halls...where? behind her? before? She couldn’t tell.
Forward. She must run for the chambers—run! She hurtled onward into the darkness, her slapping footfalls and rustling skirts masking all other sound. The thing might be behind her, grasping, reaching out to touch her at any second. She had to look back—no! Mother of God, no!
Then she stumbled over a bucket in the darkness and sprawled on the floor. She barely felt the ache in her shin as she scrabbled into a seated position and...heard the laughter. She peered back flinchingly into the darkened corridor she had run through and saw the dim light from the intersecting hall. Then heard the comforting voices of soldiers.
“Uh—heeelp!” she cried out tentatively in a soft whining voice that made her feel foolish. She laughed when she saw them turn into the corridor and jog toward her, calling out. Two Llorm sentries, their sword hilts and burgonets glinting until they were enveloped by shadow....
By the huge, hulking shadow that loomed over them and laid them both low. They fell to the stone floor almost as one.
The clatter of a helmet, bouncing against the wall. And the shadow approaching her, reaching out, piercing her soul with its inhuman eyes.
She tried to scream, but the sound caught in her throat. She lay across from the linen pantry. All she could think to do was run for the door, bolt herself within, and then scream and scream until she woke the dead, if need be. And if the pantry were locked—?
But it wasn’t. It yielded at once to her frantic jiggling of the handle. She pushed inside and slammed the door, reached for the—There was no bolt! She dropped down like dead weight with her back to that slender portal and began to sob even as she pushed against it, digging her feet into the floor with the superhuman strength of the doomed.
“Hsssst!” the voice grated harshly under the crack. “Silence. Don’t fear me, girl. I haven’t come for you. Raise no alarm.” It spoke in Hungarian. A voice she had never heard before but found strangely comforting.