by Rypel, T. C.
At this moment he knew he was finished. Karma. Honor would be his. He worked his fingers around the hilt of the seppuku sword.
Looking over his shoulder cautiously, Gonji saw the sneering Esteban and two others, pistols still smoking. But one man was angrily knocking the damp charge from his priming pan. The rain was taking its toll.
“This peasant, he was very good with the sword, no?” Navárez said in amusement. “It took two—two of our company to kill him. That does not speak so well for us, does it?” He chortled, and the others took it up.
Gonji’s queasiness began to lift in the moment’s cold urgency. Nerves and muscles reawakened. But a racking chill coursed through him.
“But, amigos, one of them was a coward anyway, no?” He kicked Julio’s mud-streaked corpse. “Vaya con Diablos, pox-ridden scum!”
Navárez squelched through the ooze to the supine body of the villager. His family sprawled atop him in a sobbing heap.
“A very fine stroke. Clean.”
Gonji ground his teeth in disgust. The Spaniard then regarded the fallen man’s rusty sword, toeing it carefully. He peered up sidelong at Gonji. There was no blood on the blade, and both knew that it wasn’t because it had been washed away by the rain.
Gonji tensed, eyes narrowed.
“It’s done now,” Navárez said airily, “and I’m rid of a nuisance. Now I’m cold and hungry and Jocko should be along with the wagons soon. Tonight we feast and relax before we rise for the invocation. The magician will need our help. Meanwhile, let us see what hospitality we can find here, mi amigos.”
Esteban brayed. “I think I’ve seen an inn or two I’d like to try out, Franco!”
The pack laughed and retreated through the alleyway toward the main street. Then Navárez called as he followed them, low and seething: “Riemann, what happened there?” This was the tall, lean Aryan who had been a friend of Julio and was a member of the Mongol clique.
“Wet powder, mi capitán,” Gonji heard Riemann say.
Navárez grunted. “Stupid of you to let that happen, no?”
“Sí, mi capitán.”
“Ahhh, we’ll be plagued with this until the storm blows itself out....”
Their voices diminished until they were eclipsed by the moaning winds and pattering, slapping droplets. And Gonji was left alone in front of the blacksmith pavilion with its mournfully drooping canopy. Alone with the shuddering, bereaved family of the man he had just killed.
And a thought came: Of what consequence was the pistol that had failed to fire?
Unless, of course, the ball had been intended for him.
CHAPTER SIX
Pain is good. Yes, that is very so.
It is karma. It is a most apt purge of poisons and a strengthening of the flesh which the warrior must learn to endure. The tanning of the hide; the forging of stout steel. A discipline. A necessary discomfort. The down cycle of life’s pleasure/pain vicissitudes. The body can stand a tremendous onslaught of pain before it has surfeit, and as long as one is able to grit his teeth and say, Still another measure, and still another!—he is yet pain’s master.
Well, thought Gonji, shaking his head at the piping of this philosophical satyr, what the hell else can I make of it?
The rain slanted steadily across his field of view. He lay shivering, swathed in horse blankets before a roaring blaze under the smith-shop canopy. As usual, perversity and conviction for its own sake had seen him eschew the relative comfort of a peasant hut; he refused to recline unbidden in someone’s home. Worse, the shame of his malady hung heavily on him. He was far too embarrassed to let the amused eyes of the wastrels see him like this.
So he bundled his raging fever against the elements and lay exposed like a turtle before a stampede in the village back lane. He exchanged blank stares with the crumbling masonry of the low encircling wall that stuttered around the village perimeter.
“Dumb!”
The coarse appraisal came from Jocko, who had just brought his grating presence back from the livery. The mercenaries’ horses had joined the villagers’ own in the long, low slouch-roofed stables, and the old burr of a handler had tended their feeding and wipe-down. He proffered Gonji a snarl as he passed and entered the smith shop. Another fire crackled in the forge inside.
“Really dumb!” he roared as he half-turned in the archway. Gonji closed his eyes and willed him to turn to stone.
The musty smell of damp hay assailed Gonji’s nostrils as he sucked in a deep breath. His nasal passages reclogged at once. Perhaps it was just as well. He wished for the purgative effect of a good heave. His soul moaned. At this moment he fancied himself the most forlorn of men. What must I have done in some previous life to bring such karma on myself? What would Old Todo say if he saw me like this? Ohhh, forget that! I shudder just to think of it. And Kojimura—faithful friend. What’s he doing right now? Probably running at the head of some mighty regiment. I’d like to seethat big grin of his, hear just one clever poem, one ribald joke. Great and true friend—
“I ain’t never heard nothin’ so crazy,” Jocko said, plopping down on both knees in the wet hay. Gonji slammed his eyes shut, narrowly avoiding the splash. “Here, drink this. Get them covers off and open up yer shirt there.”
He plunked down a cup of steaming brown liquid and began to pull back Gonji’s blankets.
“What is that?” Gonji inquired weakly.
“You wouldn’t wanna know. Just drink it. It’ll get yer cursed strength back—yer gonna need it, I figger.”
Gonji raised up on an elbow and took a tentative sip. He coughed and spat out the brew, bug-eyed.
“What in hell—!”
“Ain’t gonna do you no good on the ground, pilgrim—now, drink it!” Jocko ordered, tilting the cup toward his mouth again. Gonji winced and gulped it down, fending off the alarm that maybe Navárez had ordered Jocko to poison him. The old man’s poorly timed chuckle of satisfaction made the thought seem a trifle less unlikely.
Farther up the narrow back lane harsh firelight streamed from windows, and here and there shadows flitted across the pencil-thin shards cast on the ground. A woman shrieked from an open doorway on the main street, and gruff laughter drowned her out. A dog snarled and barked at a teasing voice. Drunken strains of a salty tune lofted over the housetops. Slapping footfalls and clinking metal along the avenue. In the dead smith’s hut: the small whimper of a child.
Gonji growled in frustration and suddenly grabbed Jocko’s hand, which had been probing at his throat.
“Easy there, signore, I only wanna rub some o’ this—mama mia! Somebody try to hang you, pilgrim?”
Gonji’s hands pressed against the sides of his neck instinctively, as if his fingertips could see. Yes, it was still tender. He could imagine the dark bruises and felt rough skin growth over the scratches. An involuntary shudder accompanied the memory of the vampire’s clutch.
“No,” he said absently.
“Well they shoulda done a better job,” Jocko growled. Gonji stared through glazed eyes. “Sí, amigo, you’d probably be better off. You know what they’re sayin’? They’re sayin’ you killed Julio. Did you?” He paused and regarded Gonji closely. “Well, did you?”
“No.” Not a shred of conviction.
“Hah! You did, all right. You know, you’re really dumb fer a Sicilian!”
Gonji smiled wanly and shook his aching head. Jocko pushed the kimono flaps aside and began to rub a greasy compound on Gonji’s chest and shoulders. The ointment’s pungent aroma wasn’t altogether disagreeable, so he lay back and allowed the gnarly fingers to work their therapeutic magic, wondering vaguely at the old man’s solicitude. The compound fired his chest with a soothing heat, and the warmth of the foul broth seemed to be working wonders with his innards. He began breathing deeply and evenly. The grizzled wretch smelled rank, and his sour, soggy garb clung to him like a decaying outer skin. He wore a wide, flop-brimmed hat that dripped rainwater while he worked.
“Hey,” Jock
o exclaimed, “there’s a mighty fine little tattoo.” He had found the hideous shoulder scar, its thin white lips in their perpetual frown. Jocko pushed himself erect and yanked up his jerkin, riffling his long shirt out of the side of his breeches. “Ya think that’s somethin’, though—look here.” A jagged black scar cleft the old man’s ribs, a poorly tended old wound that Gonji couldn’t help staring at ambivalently.
“Pretty good, eh? I seen my share of action, I did. Sí, that’s a fact.” He cackled aloud, then his smile faded and his voice waxed serious. “Listen, it ain’t no good fer you to be makin’ enemies here, not with this bunch. Prob’ly too late to be tellin’ you this already, but if I was you, I’d be thinkin’ about clearin’ out o’ here. Real soon. There’s some people who really got it in fer you. Only thing stoppin’ ’em now is they’re too drunk to know what a sick pup you are. That, plus the gunpowder’s fouled by this rain. Guess nobody wants to test them swords o’ yers. I never seen you use ’em, but they talk real respectful about them swords, they do. And I suppose Navárez figgers he owes you somethin’ fer savin’ his cojones in that valley. But he’ll get over that real quick—he can be a sonofabitch, take my word. Why, if he wasn’t so short of riders right now....”
Jocko shook his head gravely and made a slashing gesture across his throat. He sighed and stood up, tucked his shirt back in and adjusted the broad belt around his corpulent waist. Then he shuffled into the smith shop.
The rain slackened a bit, dwindling to a fine spray, but the chill wind rushed past with increased force. The old duffer returned with a small stool and a deep bowl of the same broth he had fed Gonji. This he slurped between crunching pulls at a dark wedge of what might have been dried meat—or wet bark, judging by its coarse surface.
Gonji felt for the katana along his side and the seppuku blade that lay under the rolled blanket he was using for a pillow. He covered himself to his neck again and lay his throbbing head back gently, wishing that Jocko would go off and leave him to his thoughts. Still, there was comfort in his presence, and he might be able to answer certain nagging questions.
“So what are they planning?” Gonji asked, gazing up at the dripping underside of the canopy.
“About you?”
“Sí.”
Jocko grunted. “They’re drunk as slugs right now. How much can they plan? Too busy havin’ a go at the women here. But they’ll be thinkin’ about you soon enough, sonny. Them furry Chinamen’s been grumblin’ about you since you rode in. They were friends o’ Julio, y’know. Lucky fer you Navárez wasn’t.”
Thunder boomed in the mountains and echoed as a blinding spear of lightning split in the hills and flared the village alight. Startled horses whinnied and beat their hooves in the stables, and an irregular pounding thumped the livery wall.
“Jesus God A’mighty!” Jocko bounded off toward the stables in his waddling gait. He came back a moment later with a peevish mule in tether.
“C’mon, Angelo, I gotta keep a vigil over this dyin’ man here.”
He led the beast through the archway into the shop and tied him off. “This is Angelo. He’s kinda, well—kinda sensitive about storms. I fergot. But he’s no trouble at all, are ya, Ange?” The mule’s ears flicked together. “Now, this man’s a foreigner. He don’t understand no sign language. Tell him you’ll be no trouble, ya damned—”
The mule blared like a company of heralds, and a melon-wedge grin spread across Jocko’s weathered face.
“There, y’see?”
Gonji rolled his eyes back and wiped the sweat from his brow. Some Churchmen spoke of a place called Purgatory....
Jocko stroked the mule affectionately and removed his battered hat. Matted gray hair clung to his scalp and, with the tangled fringe of mangy beard, lent him the appearance of a man pushing his face through the hole in a discarded carpet.
“So what’re your plans?” Jocko asked brusquely.
Gonji thought a moment, cleared the phlegm from his throat. “I’ll be moving on to Vedun. That’s where I was headed in the first place. Now things should be more interesting. That is where Klann’s headed, isn’t it?”
“Might be. Can’t say fer sure. Some big walled city up in these mountains that’s watched over by a castle like they say nobody’s ever seen.”
“Castle Lenska. That’s got to be it, then,” Gonji mused. “Klann expects to take it by force?”
Jocko shrugged. “Guess so.”
“Then he must be leading a large and well-equipped army.”
Jocko snorted and pulled his stool nearer. “Oh sure, it’s big all right. Must be four—five hundred men.” His eyes sparkled mirthfully.
“Que?” Gonji said, incredulous.
“Hah-hah, that’s right, whipper. Mighty big, eh? Makes ya shiver just to think of it, don’t it?”
“How in hell did they storm that Church treasury in Bratislava with—?”
“I don’t know,” the old handler shot back. “I wasn’t there. But I know what I heard...and what I seen after.”
Another peal of thunder, and Gonji pulled the blankets close about him against another siege of chills. Jocko rose and drew himself and Gonji each a tankard of wine from the provision wagon, selected a stout piece of dry kindling from inside the shop, and sat down by the fire to whittle. Far down the street a door slammed open and a woman mewled pitifully, then was drowned out by a man’s voice. The door banged closed again.
Through it all, as the rain patter came more heavily, the hoary brigand spoke:
“T’was the sorcerer done it. Sí, amigo, you can believe it or not as you please. But that’s the way they say. They come into Bratislava in the night. They wait. Mord comes forward—that’s the sorcerer, y’know—Mord. He comes forward, goes into some kinda...magical fit, says some o’ his crazy words—wham! This big ogre comes out o’ nowhere, rips the doors right off the big cathedral—rips ’em off their hinges! Knights come out all sleepy-eyed—”
“Wait a minute,” Gonji said. “An ogre? What kind of—”
“I told ya I wasn’t there. This is what I heard. So they come out, and this thing stomps all over ’em, chews ’em up and spits ’em out in less time than it takes to tell. And Klann and the boys are in and out and the priests are screamin’ and it’s goodbye, gold, eh? Hee-hee! Well that was just the big shots, y’know, the shit-faced aristocrats—Klann and Mord and the Llorm and the”—he paused, breathless—“and the 1st Royalist Free Company. Hell, a pox on ’em all! First Free Company—they ain’t nothin’ but a bunch o’ bandits like this scum here, only meaner.” His eyes burned with loathing.
“Well,” he continued, “they make off with the treasure, and the priests and the knights—they stay way back and think about it awhile. Then they call on God A’mighty, I guess, and give chase. And I never did see a madder swarm o’ hornets. So this company, a coupla others, they’re supposed to cover the escape, and Mord’s power is supposed to be with ’em. So they’re whoopin’ and howlin’ and full o’ pluck and pretty soon the Archbishop and his whole damn army and—hell, fer all I know—all the souls o’ the faithful departed, well they catch up to ’em in that valley where you came in.
“At first I guess Mord’s power was workin’ real good, ‘cause I turn around and look down the low end o’ the valley and—mama mia!—a whole company o’ knights, maybe a hundred men—
“Their horses—they just—died.”
Gonji’s wine cup stopped halfway to his lips.
“Died?” he echoed. “How? Gunfire?”
Jocko snorted. “What—from a coupla dozen pistols that were outta range anyway? Hell, no, they just dropped, that’s all. Just fell out from under their riders. Was the kinda thing made ya start prayin’ to yer Maker, that was.” He shuddered, gazed down hollowly.
“That didn’t stop them, though?” Gonji asked.
“No, pilgrim, I guess it didn’t. Oh, it did fer a time. That’s when Navárez and the other captains decided to show how tough they were. Big mistake. T
hem knights just kept comin’ and....” He shrugged and spread his hands.
“The sorcerer’s power ended?”
“Navárez says the boys didn’t have enough faith. Now ain’t that too bad—faith! You gotta believe in that charlatan before his powers work—hah! What the hell kinda magick is that? Believe.... Me? I believe in me! That’s good, sí?”
Gonji recalled the crumpled paper in his pocket.
“What about this invocation we’re supposed to say?”
“Ahhhh, that’s just a lotta jibber-jabber nonsense. Monkey language. Only you just mind that you say it real loud when they tell ya to,” he grated, pointing at Gonji with the whittled stick. “You don’t say it and that sorcerer gonna track ya down and turn ya into a lizard.”
Both men sipped their wine distractedly for a while, and Angelo poked his muzzle around in the hay at his hooves.
“Say, young fellah,” Jocko asked finally, “yer not plannin’ to go pokin’ yer nose into the king’s business up there, are ya?”
Gonji twisted painfully to face the man and curled an arm under his head for support.
“I was traveling there anyway, as I said. Only now—” An impish smile perked one corner of his mouth. “Maybe I’ll enter as a conqueror, neh?”
Eyes bulging, Jocko burst into a wild fit of laughter that startled Angelo, whose ears stiffened.
“Pilgrim, ya got real spunk. And I’ll tell ya, it’s gonna get ya real dead. Fancy yerself some kinda hero, do ya? Gonna ride right up to Klann and tell ’im, ‘Here I am, milord King, yer new champion!’ Whaddaya think—they’re gonna be waitin’ for ya with open arms up there? Ya gonna tell ’em what a mess ya made o’ things here? Sure, just tell ’em ya got tired o’ the 3rd Free Company so ya killed a few of ’em and decided to move up in the world.
“Let me tell you somethin’, whipper. You better get no big ideas around here. Ambition’s the biggest killer o’ young hotheads with this army—remember that. I seen a lot, I have. Don’t go crossin’ that Navárez; he’s a mean sonofabitch. And the Field Commander o’ the free companies, well, I ain’t never seen such a brute. He’d pick you up and twist you till yer innards popped, he would. That’s a fact. Ben-Draba, that’s his name. Ben-Draba. Big, arrogant bastard. Likes to rough up new recruits, playful-like. So playful that sometimes they don’t get up again. Sí, he’d like you, all right! And then there’s Julian—Captain Julian Kel’Tekeli, Commander o’ the 1st—”