by Rypel, T. C.
Gonji listened to the popping and crackling fire that punctuated Jocko’s words. He felt slightly better, the spreading warmth of the wine, the broth, the pulsing blaze cleansing the racking ague. And the old man’s harangue, intended to dissuade him from further involvement with the strange army of Akryllon, was having quite the opposite effect. He was more intrigued than ever.
“—that swaggerin’ whores’n! I hear you’re good, sonny, but don’t go matchin’ swords with that devil.”
This sort of comparison before the fact, this reputation blustering—which Gonji had come to call “penis-fencing”—was all part of a European game he had played many times before and had long since grown weary of. It no longer seduced him to enter the lists, but it did still arouse his competitive spirit, which frequently brought trouble and, he was sure, would one day see him dead. But with trouble came attention, and the wild Western child part of him, the part he could usually control but not dismiss, craved attention.
“Listen, sonny,” Jocko said, “just what is it yer lookin’ for here anyway?”
The question caught Gonji off-guard. He sipped reflectively at the white wine. A wistful sadness appeared on his face, and he bared his soul.
“Honorable duty. Maybe a good friend to help pass the time. And a name, something that’s—what’s so damn funny?”
With the first few words Jocko had begun to cackle in a high pitch, and by the end his mirth had swelled to knee-slapping proportions.
“Honorable duty!” the handler jeered, all joviality abruptly gone. “Who you kiddin’? The only honorable duty in this land, whipper, is the duty that fills yer honorable pockets. And nobody makes friends around here, and you sure got a funny way o’ tryin’!”
A knot of anger twisted Gonji’s belly to hear voiced the very cynicism that had corroded his own soul for years. Nobody has to tell me that, he thought. The restless spirit of a gregarious Nordic mother pulls me one way; the discipline of a coldly dignified, oh-so-proper father strangles my every impulse—who in hell am I? I sit in a wasteland somewhere in the middle where no one can approach, or cares to. No, that’s not so. I’ve had friends. There are those who care. It’s difficult, hai, but that’s karma. I try too hard, perhaps. I just try—too—hard. I know the pleasing things to say and do, I plan my actions, then I come in contact with someone and it’s as if I’m hearing and seeing someone else working through me. Three heartbeats later, swords flash....
“What else did you say?” Jocko was asking.
“Huh?”
“You were sayin’ what you were lookin’ for—uh, after duty and friends,” the old derelict minced.
Ahhh. Hai, the other. The mocking, haunting thing.
“Did you ever hear the name Deathwind?” Gonji asked evenly, watching Jocko over the lid of his tankard.
Jocko scratched his head. “Mmm. What’s that, some kinda plague?”
Gonji laughed aloud.
“Ye gods!” he cried, coughing and wheezing. “I hope, with all my heart, that’s not what it is. I should’ve known better than—How about the name Grejkill, a man who’s...not a man, not quite, or something, who stalks the northern lands? It may be the same thing.”
“Grejkill, eh? I dunno. Maybe, maybe.... But did you ever hear o’ the giant two-headed lion that—?”
The staccato patter of the rain tattooed the canopy, slapped and streamed off the sides and roofs of the village huts as Gonji slumped back into his melancholy. All human striving is useless and stupid. And I must be the whipping boy of the gods, neh? It could have been different—
“—so it wouldn’t let us pass till we made it a gift, y’know, a kinda sacrifice. Well, we was hardy lads, so we drew our swords—here, I gotta show ya old Kingslayer. It’s right over here—”
—I might’ve weathered it all, let it blow over. I’d be liege lord of all the Kenjo when Old Todo passed on. Hell, he’ll never die. And anyway I’m not fit to rule in his place. He’s the greatest daimyo in all Japan, and the others were right. Hai, it’s no good, only pure Japanese can rule a clan. It’s in the breeding, that must be it. I honor my mother’s spirit with all my soul, but—And I could still never have Reiko. Reiko.... By all the awesome mysteries, I can scarcely remember her face—
“—so we was done in, pilgrim. I don’t know when I ever been so worn out, beaten up, and screwed over than that time. Well, hell, this wench hadn’t been nothin’ but a whole lotta pain in the ass, so we gave in. We pushed her out to this beastie, and he commenced to—”
—I’ll weather this miserable ague, then I’ll have one more go at life, at meaningful existence on this godforsaken continent. Then—then—
“Hey, whipper, you listenin’ to me? God damn! You wanna swap legends or you just gonna sit there daydreamin’ and spillin’ that good wine all over the place?”
Gonji sloshed the nearly empty tankard aright as he heaved up achingly on one elbow. He had moved too suddenly, and his head began to pound so that he squinted against the throb.
“Sorry, very sorry—unhh—” He pushed himself into a cross-legged position and wrapped a blanket around himself. “I did want to ask you...something more of King Klann. Have you ridden long with him?”
Jocko grunted and belched, spat out the chaw of meat, pointed at it with the rusty cutlass he called Kingslayer.
“Ain’t fit fer saddle leather. Sure, I been with ‘im off and on fer years.”
“Off and on?”
“Don’t like the sea, whipper. I ain’t no soggy-assed sailor. When they take to ship and go chasin’ after that fairy island, me and Angelo just wave bona fortuna and wait fer word that they’re back—tails between their legs, as usual. Besides, Angelo gets to heavin’ on the high seas—”
“Then it’s true about Klann’s island kingdom?”
“Guess so,” Jocko replied with a shrug. “He thinks so anyway. Gonna make all these pirates filthy rich when he finds his kingdom—that’s if any of ’em are still alive by that time! They say he found it once. That was a bad time, pilgrim, bad. I seen ’em when the ships docked—what was left of ’em. This island, it’s supposed to be lousy with sorcerers and wizards and God only knows what other hell-bait. They come back lookin’ like....” He shuddered and stared at the plinking rain pools. “Bad time. They was talkin’ like men had been butchered by things outta nightmares, burned and charred like twigs right in their tracks—ughh! So it took a long time fer Klann to raise another mercenary army after word spread. Just the Llorm stuck with ‘im fer a while. Guess they have since before anybody can remember—you believe any o’ what I’m tellin’ ya, sonny?”
Gonji shrugged. “No, I suppose not.”
“Good. That’s real smart. Don’t pay to think about it too much. Makes it kinda hard to sleep, I’ll tell ya.”
“But you’ve stuck with him all this time, you and these others?”
“I have, sure,” Jocko said, “but most o’ the rest o’ these bandits are pretty new. What I said about the island, hell that goes back a long way now. But that all blows by, and pretty soon Klann raises enough gold to court more soldiers-of-fortune—always plenty o’ them around. Your kind, no? Young fellahs lookin’ to make an easy fortune off their shiny swords?”
Gonji rankled and threw him a scornful look, but there was certainly no ready argument to refute the observation.
“So we ride into one city, sack it, pay the boys, blame the local bandits. Hit another town, steal the gold, set them on a ghost hunt—on and on, buildin’ up the army as we go. The boys are happy, the pay’s good, and usually Klann’s got a real faithful following by the time he thinks he’s ready to take to ship again. All fer the greater glory o’ the king, no?” He raised his tankard in salute.
“Strange,” Gonji observed. “All very strange. That’s no life for the doddering old man he must be now. You’d think he would’ve just seized one of these little provinces and—”
“Ideas don’t get old, whipper,” Jocko said, a curious edge in his
tone. He seemed to be measuring Gonji for some bold pronouncement.
Gonji sipped, waited. “What do you mean by that?”
“I mean,” came the whispered reply, the old man leaning close on the cutlass, “I ain’t seen him in years. I don’t think anybody else here ever has—’cept maybe Navárez.”
Gonji’s brow furrowed. “And yet this army stays together, unified. They fight a running war against every force they meet, die savagely, plunder freely, and rally behind some mysterious leader who never shows his face?” He shook his head solemnly. “Uh-uh, doesn’t make sense at all.”
“The Llorm and the free company captains keep things runnin’ real smooth-like. You don’t ask any questions around here. But I’m gonna tell ya somethin’—why, I don’t know to save my soul—but I’m gonna tell ya anyway. And you take care to keep this to yerself, hear?” Gonji nodded, leaned forward.
“The last time I seen him,” Jocko whispered, “I don’t recall how many years back, but it was before Navárez—I don’t think I was supposed to, ya know what I mean? I was kinda pokin’ my nose around where I shouldn’t have, and I seen the king. At least they was treatin’ ‘im like the king, whoever he was, because it wasn’t the same king I seen before. The whole army was stayin’ at this villa down in Italia, just feastin’ and takin’ a breather before movin’ on. Now word spread that somethin’ happened to the king, and after that nobody in the free companies saw him again except fer far-off glimpses. But I saw him, and I tell ya it wasn’t Klann, not the Klann I knew.”
He sat back and expansively swilled the wine till he drained it off. Then he clambered over to refill it.
Gonji made small circles with his tankard, gazing deeply into the swirling liquid as he considered this. Angelo shuffled, perturbed by a new burst of thunder. The fire hissed as the wind changed direction and a fine spray laced the licking flames. Jocko sat down again and clicked his jagged brown teeth pensively.
“So your king is...,” Gonji began, fabricating as he spoke, “just someone’s idea of a king. A figurehead. A wild idea carried on by the magician and the commanders. Someone’s dream of empire that’ll last as long as there’s gold to feed it.”
Jocko snorted. “Think so? Some say that. Some say he’s a notion, just like you said. A notion that drives men to kill and conquer. But then there’s others who say he’s a lot of men...or one man who can change what he was.”
Gonji snapped alert. “What—?”
“Ever hear the legend about a king who’s cursed to wander the world forever, a king who never dies, just keeps roamin’ with army after army, an army that breeds just to follow ‘im from one generation to the next?”
Silence. Gonji sat stroking his chin reflectively, thinking again of the half-remembered tale.
“Hai,” he said, “I’ve heard.” He offered the man a skeptical sidelong glance.
Jocko produced a file and began to scrape at the verdigris-encrusted hilt of the cutlass, which was in less need of repair than the notched and pitted blade. He ignored the samurai for a space, then stopped at his work.
“Well, don’t go lookin’ at me like that! You expect me to make a damn fool o’ myself by tellin’ ya Klann’s that king? I ain’t no old peasant woman!” He resumed scraping. Then: “He’d be lucky, though, wouldn’t he? Never dyin’? Luckier than us, eh, whipper? Whaddaya say?”
“No,” Gonji said curtly, “he wouldn’t be.”
“Hah! Yer smarter’n ya look!” he blared, a scowl of distaste etched on his countenance. “He’d be just about the unluckiest bastard that ever squatted, I claim.”
Gonji smiled ever so slightly, a sudden respect kindled in him at the handler’s gruff trailside wisdom. He lay on his side and forced a breath through his stuffed nose.
“So a dream of empire—and a steady flow of stolen gold—keeps this army running, neh? That, and the powers of an erratic sorcerer. If he can do what you said, I’d think this Klann would’ve conquered some kingdom by now, even with this puny army of his.”
“That wizard ain’t nothin’ seemly to talk about, pilgrim. He’s pretty new around here. Got too much pull already with this army, I’d wager. Things happen that ain’t never happened before. Can’t see as we need it.” He looked up uneasily to the black, sifting sky. “Sometimes you’ll be ridin’ along and word’ll come that ya don’t look up at the sky—unless ya want yer soul ripped outta yer body. Then some big hulk rushes by over yer head—ya couldn’t look up if ya wanted to.”
A fleeting crop of gooseflesh, as Gonji remembered the dark shape on the horizon during the valley battle. He started to ask, but something caught their attention across the cultivated fields. Two riders pounded along the road that arced toward the farther end of the village.
Gonji peered at the approaching horsemen. He stiffened. Something was familiar about them, but what?
“Riders from Klann, I guess,” Jocko said, jerking a thumb toward them.
They watched them pound toward the village until they were out of sight, then Jocko asked, “Say, whipper, were you married before all this?”
Gonji was taken aback. He shook his head. “What makes you ask?”
“Oh, nothin’, nothin’...I was once. Prob’ly still am,” Jocko said, chuckling. “Most o’ these dung-eaters are, I fancy. That’s one good reason they’re on the run!”
“Jockooooo!”
The chorus of cries had come from the street. Jocko leaped to his feet and chugged toward the alley.
“I’m comin’, I’m comin’, dammit!”
As the son of the daimyo Sabatake Todohiro watched the old man go, a deep gloom settled over him, penetrating the sensory glut of the fever. And with it came the loneliness. His spirit hung heavy, bleaker than the darkly dripping night sky. How piercing, how complex were the feelings evoked by Jocko’s words. Like the others Jocko had spoken of, Gonji too was on the run from a woman. Only not from some despicable shrew of a wife; rather from a woman he both loved and respected. The woman who was honor-bound to kill him.
Being alone among companions is the most dreadful sort of loneliness....
Jocko returned momentarily with two horses in tow, one a roan, the other—Gonji breathed a silent oath as he took in the steed the handler was clucking over admiringly.
A white Arabian. Goodwin’s horse. The Englishman from the inn a few days back. He stared, his angry prophecy of doom fulfilled. Had he caused it by wishing it? Had those men suffered their fate through the stain of contact with him, the man of destiny who had brought death to so many by his passing?
“Muy bello, eh, pilgrim?” Jocko declared, wiping down the proud animal. “Guess we’re gonna be here awhile, according to what them messengers say. Holdin’ down the province. Stuck in the middle o’ nowhere again. Damn me fer a whores’n! What are we anyway—?”
—No, that’s foolishness. I’m not accursed. It’s just this stupid land and these stupid people and their god-cursed double standards. First they preach about the value of every inconsequential peasant’s life, then, just when they’ve got you believing it, they start killing each other with abandon. For a lousy pair of boots. Or a horse. Barbarians. If they could only see themselves through civilized eyes. Every gravedigger’s soul worth as much as every priest’s—
“—rider comes from Klann and says take that village as an outpost. Rider comes from Mord, says burn that monastery and string up them priests. King says, Do this; sorcerer says, Do that—what the hell are we, a weathercock? We do both, get paid all the same, though, no? Duty, eh?” Jocko said sarcastically.
—Duty. What is one’s duty in this land? Especially one who can’t even be true to himself—
“—seems to me there’s too many chiefs around here. Everybody’s a boss. You wanna be one, too, pilgrim? Everybody’s a big chief, and they all got titles, y’know: Klann the Invincible. Mord the Enchanter—Me?” Jocko removed his hat and struck a theatrical pose. “I’m Giacomo Battaglia, henceforth to be known as...King Jocko the Imposs
ible! Bona, bona, sí? You got a title, too, sonny?”
Gonji’s last morbid thoughts passed, and a sad smile tugged his lips. “Hai...Red Blade.”
“Que?”
“The Red Blade from the East, I’ve been called,” Gonji said. “I sometimes—”
Jocko laughed lustily. “Mama mia! Some fellahs are lookin’ fer you, pilgrim!”
Gonji lurched achingly upright. “Who? Where?”
“Back west. While you boys was at that monastery. Magyars, I guess. Mean-lookin’ bastards.”
“Big graying chieftain with a drooping mustache and—”
“Sure, sure, that’s the one. Jesus God A’mighty, what’d ya do to get ’em so mad?”
Gonji sighed. “What do I ever do? It was a family dispute. Clan trouble. They hired me to settle it, then decided they’d made a mistake after the job was done. So who gets the blame, eh? Hey, you didn’t say anything—?”
“Yer among friends, aintcha?”
Their eyes locked, twinkling, and they shared an ironic laugh. Gonji couldn’t help liking this bluff old fart.
Jocko took note of Gonji’s wheezing and went inside to fetch him another cup of broth. As he busied himself in the shop, the two men exchanged banter. Gonji’s eyes were heavy-lidded with fatigue and fever and burning from the acrid smoke of the dying fire. Jocko served up the broth and rekindled the flame as the samurai told him something of his youth in Japan. Gonji longed for sleep and hoped the weariness in his tone would convey the message.
“Another king’s son!” Jocko said gaily, plopping down on the stool with a cup of wine. “Now ain’t an old man lucky to meet up with so much royalty. That’s the great thing about life. There’s a piece of a kingdom fer everybody. I’m still waitin’ fer mine. Can I be yer—uh, retainer or counselor or somethin’, sonny? How about the court stud? I’d make one helluva court stud!”