by Rypel, T. C.
Very stupid, he thought hazily. I’m circling back toward the Magyars’ territory. I’ll probably awaken to see them huddled over me, stropping their swords.
He scratched his beard, and the sound seemed to echo in his head from someplace far away. There was a merciful quality to the dullness of his racked senses this night. The wind carried in its wake an evil howling. Somewhere, men were dying. Or worse. There was a ravishing elemental power and beauty to the storm, but under it crept an awful eldritch purposefulness in the night’s hungry blackness. To be a man alone this night was to be as one hunted. Like the kami His Augustness the Male Who Invites when pursued by the Ugly Female of the Land of Night.
Only I am a man, not a kami, Gonji mused.
There was no choice but to surrender to sleep. As he drifted off, Gonji heard again in his head the eerie chanting of the soldiers that had wafted up to him as he left the valley. The invocation. At least he hadn’t had to deal with that. But his brush with the 3rd Free Company, Royalist Force of the Isle of Akryllon, had left him feeling unclean. He had an overwhelming sensation of running from unfinished business.
He drew a shuddering breath as slumber stole over him, a half-remembered prayer on his lips for the protection of a good kami. The words seemed hollow and futile as they flitted past. And then the thought came: Maybe the old man was right.
Maybe I’ve caught The Deathwind....
CHAPTER EIGHT
Gonji lurched upright, suddenly aware of the heat. He sucked in a gasping breath, pawed for the Sagami. He blinked, disoriented in the harsh light. Blinked again.
“Tora,” he called hoarsely.
The chestnut steed clopped up and peeked in at him around the jutting rocks. Gonji smiled, relaxed a bit. Unsteadily, he rose to his feet and took stock of his gathering senses: All parts seemingly intact. Nasty pain in shoulder. Dull aches. Weak knees....
Alive! I’m alive!
Seized by euphoria, he raised himself to his tiptoes and drank deeply the breath of life, almost tottering backwards. He lumbered into the open and surveyed his situation. Silver-white clouds clung to the underbelly of the sky. The glaring disc of the sun, blazing through the haze low in the east, seemed a blinding drain that sucked light from the heavens. To Gonji, it was a wonderful orb that signified life and warmth and health. He stood on a ledge and let his eyes scan the rolling vista beneath him. Lolling under the steamy mist was the vast sea of pine. Beyond, grassy foothills on which herds of sheep—just tufts of fleecy fog at this distance—grazed contentedly. On the horizon rose the cool blue peaks of the Carpathians as they swept back west along their great horseshoe course.
Tora snorted on his right. The animal had found more appetizing forage farther along the ledge leading down to the road. A wave of nausea passed through the samurai as he was reminded that he was famished. He sighed. Right now he wished fervently that food would come to him. As he moved toward Tora he worked off his kimono. It would be a sultry day. Good. Perhaps it would dry out the stuffiness that remained from the ague. The fever had broken, and with it departed some of the damnable muscular aches.
Gonji drank from his water skin until his thirst was slaked, then poured half the remaining liquid over his head. Gingerly he tried to work off his blood-stained tunic, but the blood had coagulated to the fabric and tearing it free would lay open the wound again. Washing and redressing it would have to wait until he found the nearest water source.
Then he remembered that the water skin should have been near empty; that is, it had been yesterday afternoon. He noticed a bulging pouch—not his—at the left rear of the saddle. Quickly he worked loose the straps and reached inside—fruit! Apricots, apples, grapes...and a slab of dried meat—the same leathery beef Jocko had been gnawing at last night. Good old Jocko! Gonji smiled and shook his head at the antics of the gruff old relic. He attacked one of the apples straightaway, then took notice of the piece of faded linen in which the meat had been wrapped. Markings on it. He unrolled the material and read the sloppy charcoal script: “Sicilian pheasant.”
He chuckled aloud.
Finishing his meal, he treated Tora to one of the apples, then gathered his belongings and led the horse down the narrow path to the road. A warm breeze lilted over the land, clearing some of the matted clouds. To the south, islands of blue had already shot through the gray. Birds twittered in the brush, and the merry song of a lark broke in the treetops as Gonji and Tora clambered through a gully and onto the packed earth of the road.
Drifting Tora west along the road for a space, consciously suppressing any immediate plans, Gonji felt his sense of well-being begin to melt gradually. Illusion. All life is illusion. Now what to do?
The cool metallic tinkle of running water trilled from the forest, and they ambled off the road to its source, an effervescent brook, tiered like rice paddies, that runneled down to a waist-deep pool at which a family of deer watered. The animals darted for safety at the intrusion, and Gonji allowed Tora to drink his fill. Then he refilled two skins and set to the painful task of cleansing the stab wound. He patched the shoulder with fragments of his tunic. Then he scrubbed his soiled kimono and set it out on the rocks to dry. This done, he relieved his full bladder and reclined for a while.
The glade was lovely and fragrant, a lush mixture of radiant wildflowers and thick verdure, the heady aroma of blossoms and fruits, of rich, moist, life-giving soil. Gonji embraced the beauty of it all, glad to be alive. He possessed the poet’s appreciation of the wonders of nature and the Buddhist’s awe at its mysteries.
Life is good, whatever its sorrows, he found himself thinking, his mood having again shifted for the better.
A while later he again found himself riding west. And now for the first time he allowed the real reason for this casual detour to surface: He was heading back to the monastery.
I must be insane, he mused, shaking his head incredulously. Why am I doing this? Why do I do anything I do anymore? First I do the work, then I undo the work. I got paid for riding with those jackals, helping them crucify the priests; now I go back to see whether any are still alive! Hell, what’s it been—fifteen, eighteen hours? Probably all dead by now.
Gonji saw no one as he rode, and by the time he had reached the narrow defile that issued into the valley of the monastery, he had begun to wish that something would have happened to steer him from this morbid course.
Over the jagged peaks black smoke coiled upward, spread thin in the muggy air currents. The sky was clearing, and the sun lanced through scattering shards of gray.
The stench of death wafted up in waves, penetrated Gonji’s stuffed nasal passages as he mounted the rocky cleft. And then his eyes framed a ghastly vignette that knotted his stomach and ignited a rush of emotion.
Burned, burned beyond recognition....
No, not all of them—even from a distance he could see that the orchard wasn’t smoking. Maybe some of them—gods!
Closer. As in a dream, drift closer and stare like a transfixed child....
Scorched like gutted animals—nonononono! Melted. Sonofabitch, they’re—they’re—
Ride closer. The clip-clop of the skittish horse. The heat, oppressive heat. Acrid wisps of smoke, but not so pungent as the stench of crisped flesh and spewing viscera....
Cholera....
Gonji reined in about fifty paces from the bailey wall, his breath coming in gasps. He thought he would vomit. The priests were dead, all dead. Burned, melted by heat or flame or—But no, it hadn’t been any fire wrought by man that had tortured them.
The keep had held in the blazing inferno set by Navárez’ men. He could see the charred limbs and blackened heads projecting from the third story windows, welded to the grating on one side in incendiary relief. Flames had never crossed the ward to reach the bailey wall. Something still more foul had done its work on the crucified monks, something that seared away the outer flesh to reveal bones and organs. The power of the cross and their magick gramarye had failed them.
Gonji grimaced. Lips quivering, he gritted his teeth and led Tora to the orchard. The trees were burned in spots, withered and discolored as if by some intermittent shower of acid. Much like the effects of Greek fire. Several corpses had fallen to the ground, their hempen lashes burned through. They were jammed to the yellowed grass in pools of melted flesh that had run like tallow. Brains oozed, limbs ran like goo, hellishly reduced to the consistency of molasses.
What in the name of all precious gods—?
The samurai’s gut churned. To vent his rage at the sight, Gonji seized the hilt of the killing sword. The Sagami whined as he unsheathed it.
As if in reply, a pitiable moaning came to his ears.
A shiver coursed Gonji’s spine. A monk, still lingering on the bailey wall, had begun crying out mindlessly in his agony as tormented consciousness returned. Gonji breathed in measured gulps as he guided Tora to the dying man, fighting the urge to tear his eyes from the sight.
“Penance!” the priest cried through swollen, blubbering lips. “Culpa! Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa—”
Halting, the samurai stared under beetling brows, mesmerized by this victim of unearthly savagery. The priest’s raw and partially skinless face bobbed back and forth convulsively.
“Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa—ooohhhh!”
Gonji could stand no more.
You did this.
He dismounted and approached the pathetic soul, his blade angled for the killing thrust that would swiftly end his misery.
“My God, my God—what sin have I done—?”
You and the beasts you rode with.
His belly churned as he raised the Sagami.
“No,” came a plea to the priest’s left.
Gonji stopped, looked, felt the blood rush from his cheeks. For he was fixed by the single eye in what remained of the face of the white-maned priest he had spoken to in this very spot. Was it only yesterday?
Gonji was chilled by a terrible thought: Maybe these priests had come alive again through some dreadful magick to seek vengeance. But the pale blue eye seemed to soften as it focused on him, and Gonji’s guilt-driven fear was replaced by a strange comfort as he watched the tortured mouth strain to smile.
“Thou art,” the priest began in Latin, his voice labored, “a man of compassion? That...is not our way. He shall be at peace...soon. For thee—” A wet hacking cough choked off the words.
Gonji lowered his sword. “What”—he said haltingly—“what did this to you, priest?”
The man only shook his head as if to say it was of no consequence. “I have,” the priest resumed, “a charge for thee. Would thou lay my fears to rest—it—it—I—” He gasped, and the eye blazed with a new surge of pain. The effort was taking its toll. Gonji felt a tingle of vague apprehension. Something odd had passed between them when he had first seen the man yesterday, something mystical, like a tacit bond between weary travelers passing in the night.
The priest’s face gradually relaxed. He seemed to look through Gonji, seeing the end of his ordeal approaching.
“It is...a small thing I ask of thee...friend. In...Vedun...in Vedun seek the woman...Tralayn. She must say to Simon Sardonis...Simon Sar—donis that”—a long, wheezing breath—“that he must continue...alone. But not...alone—with God. Always...with God. This thing...was meant to be. The evil...that has come...will pass away. Vengeance—vengeance is an evil thing. She must tell him...this thing...was ordained...of God. Simon...must...not—”
The priest shuddered and coughed up blood. His breath caught in his throat, and when it finally escaped it came so long and sighingly and his chest sank so deep that Gonji believed him finished.
Confused, Gonji considered the man’s words. A very bad business indeed. The charge of a dying man—especially a priest—was not to be taken lightly. Hadn’t it been the urging of a dying priest that had fixed his course for these ten wretched years?
After what seemed a long time, the priest’s breath returned in a series of shallow gasps and his head lolled in such a way that Gonji saw the hideous candle-drip pattern of melted flesh that had layered the base of his neck. Gonji winced, quickly reestablished stoic control.
“Thee—will thou help...me?”
And with that, he died. His sightless eye rested on Gonji, whose jaw worked at forming words that never came.
The valley grew still, save for the great rush of wind that swept down from the mountains, swaying the trees mournfully, rustling a dirge in their foliage.
And Gonji was so consumed with emotion, so deep in thought, that he heard nothing, saw nothing, sensed no danger at all as the monstrous winged shape hurtled over his head in a slanting arc.
Gonji hunched his shoulders impulsively, flinching as the massive shadow passed over. Then he was nearly fried. He flattened against the bailey wall, cursing his carelessness, as a thick wet mass splatted to the ground scarcely two paces from him. Tora shrieked and reared, barely evading the reeking substance from the skies.
Gonji glared. A sickly green ichor bubbled and seethed on the greensward, burning the grass in a quickly spreading circle of brown and yellow ruin.
Excrement! he thought, horrified. The damned thing’s loosed its bowels on me!
Eyes flaring wide, he scanned the air overhead. The great flying creature disappeared, wailing, over the tree line where the orchard met the forest. It flew low, brushing treetops so that Gonji could catch the merest glimpse of the broad wingspan, the gray-black vermin fur, an undulation of the barbed tail, branching antlers, like those of a moose.
It was circling back. The hair at his neck bristled.
Fast—ye gods, it was fast....
Gonji cursed and ran for Tora. All he could think was to flee this place, bolt into the forest without a backward glance, before the beast could return. He was nearly stomped by the frantic horse’s hooves as he wrestled with the reins. He leaped astride and roared in Tora’s ear, spurring and lashing the steed into the orchard and hard toward the surer protection of the tall pines. Primitive panic gripped him at the thought of sharing the monks’ fate.
A rush of enormous bat wings and a stirring in the trees—the beast crossed his frenzied path and spat wetly. The trees overhead crackled, the searing fluid cutting a swath through yellowing branches.
“Cholera!” Gonji cried, fisting the Sagami in blind rage, clinging tightly to the straining horse’s neck. He beat a path up a rise and angled for the thickest fastness of cover he could see. The creature’s keening shriek of challenge echoed in the valley. It swept overhead again, and the foliage a score of yards behind sizzled.
Gonji and Tora shuddered as one. Their breaths came in heaving gulps as they cowered in a thicket. “By all the gods, what in the name of hell is that? It’s an obscenity. Nothing in nature ever produced that.”
The beast soared over the hills again, then once more, each time widening its radius. Then its piercing cry and soughing wingbeat receded in the distance, and its final mocking almost-human laugh diminished to an echoed memory.
Gonji sat unmoving aboard Tora for a space of half an hour, besieged by angry, indignant thoughts. He was deeply ashamed of his panicked flight. There was scant relief in the fact that no one had been there to see it; it had still happened. He had fled a challenge like a frightened hare. He patted the snorting war horse and sought to bring peace to his unsettled wa, his harmony of spirit.
No longbow, he told himself. If I hadn’t left my bow in that damned valley, that monster would be draped in the trees right now. Hai, right—damn it all! What’s happening in this place? I’ve never seen anything like that. A monster like that has no place in the world of men. Someone’s called it forth from the unholy places. And someone had best send it back. Me? Hah! Hai, you’re a big brave one, all right! Lucky you didn’t break your neck scampering away from it! But that was then. I was surprised, neh? Be different next time.
Next time, hell.... It’d be well to pray you never see that thing again.
Deep in thought, for the first time feeling his confidence in his chosen course shaken, Gonji rode slowly back through the pass by which he had entered the valley. He kept an eye on the heavens but saw no sign of the foul beast. In no particular hurry he clopped along the main road toward Vedun. He passed a band of peasants with two rickety drays laden with fresh produce and thought to ask them of the flying beast and news of Vedun. But on approaching him they gave so wide a berth and cast such anxious stares that he disdained engaging them and moved on with a sigh.
In a broad, flat plain south of the road, Gonji saw encampments of gypsies, and some distance beyond, on the dim horizon, he thought he could make out the disciplined movement of cavalry. Whether Turks or Magyars or Klann’s own army he couldn’t tell.
Then he arrived again at the defile that led to the ill-fated village where Gonji had parted ways with the 3rd Free Company. Seated on the rocks at the crest of the pass a few hundred yards distant was one of Navárez’ men. Gonji strained to see the sentry better. The fool’s drawing a bead on me!
He laughed and, with his usual aplomb, turned fully sideways in the saddle and spread his arms wide.
“Here I am, dimwit!” he called in Spanish.
The shot fell well short and its echoed report reached Gonji’s ears just as he offered the guard an obscene gesture. He kept laughing and bowed expansively.
The mercenary next tried out his bow, and Gonji stretched up tall and motioned for him to let fly. He pulled the spare katana and waved it at his behind like a pheasant’s tail. By the time Gonji had cleared the man’s coign of vantage, the quiver had been emptied and the roadside was decorated with errant shafts.
“Nice shooting, asshooooole!” Gonji cried out through cupped hands, and his surge of laughter at the fine sport took a long time to subside. It had made him feel better, laid his troubled thoughts to rest for a time.
Soon after he came in sight of the jagged peak he had been told to watch for: a huge granite formation hunched over the road in the shape of a stooped crow. He sat and admired its natural wonder for a space. The sun beat at his back in shimmering waves as afternoon spent itself. Birds soared lazily from their nesting places in the crow’s beak. Gonji slapped absently at the biting insects that attacked in their heat-induced madness.