by T. C. Rypel
When he turned Simon was already far along the brook, wending northward at a vigorous pace.
The hours passed in aching silence and weariness of foot.
CHAPTER THREE
“Kommen Sie—schnell! Hurry up!”
Curses and grumbling snapped out below, amid the rain rustle, as Wilf wiped his eyes and peered back down the path. The peevish snorting of horses and the splashing clump of many hooves rolled up the hill, toward the old Roman road. A mile to the west, soldiers would be posted at the main southern trail into the valley. But there were none here at the summit of the twisting bramble path a half mile outside the city’s western gate.
“Take it easy, Gundersen,” Vlad Dobroczy complained as he lashed the barebacked steeds up the treacherous slope. The last ten surviving horses from the caverns were urged upward to the road. Among them was Gonji’s prize Spanish chestnut, Tora.
“That’s right,” Nick Nagy agreed. “What’s your rush?”
“Shut up, you crusty old buzzard,” Stefan Berenyi snapped from the darkness. He broke from the deep brush, riding with the reins in his right hand. His left was heavily bound to protect the healing wound of the severed little finger.
Nagy hissed at him, turning his mount.
“Shhh, all of you.” Jiri Szabo’s urgent plea came through the rain.
A horse fell in the mud at the side of the path, whinnying fiercely. Tadeusz leapt to the ground at the rear of the party and spoke comfortingly to the startled animal.
Two horses broke up onto the road, prancing freely, their reins dangling. Wilf guided them back, cursing, one hand gripping two tethers. He wore Spine-cleaver under the sash that bound his waist. The others were similarly armed, but there were no bows among them. They could ill afford a scene if they were stopped and questioned. Their only long-range armament was the pistol Dobroczy had belted beneath his heavy cloak in defiance of Wilf’s order.
They nearly had the skittish horses in hand on the road when the clatter of a wagon and the pounding of hoof-beats sounded through the rain-dappled forest behind them. The curve of the Roman road hid the approaching band from view.
Jiri went pale in the dim light. “What do we do, Wilf?” he breathed.
“Ja, now what?” Vlad added. “This was your stupid idea, junior Japper.”
“Sei still—shut up!” Wilf commanded. “You know the plan. Move the horses nice and easy. Show no fear or worry. Answer what they ask, if it’s soldiers. That’s all. Now let’s move.”
They led the horses at a walk toward Vedun, Berenyi singing a silly drinking song at the rear but peering back furtively now and again. Every man strained to listen for the unknown party approaching their unguarded backs. The wind changed direction, grew stronger. The rain became a slapping wet hand from the south. Their eyes burned in the stinging cold, and a rash of itching spread through their number.
Behind them the wagon rattle and hoof-beats closed fast. Now voices could be heard. Gruff voices, calling out to them.
Wilf halted them with a heavy exhalation, gazing down onto the muddy track.
“Turn easily. Show no surprise.”
Under his cloak, Dobroczy cocked the loaded and spannered wheel-lock piece.
“Whoa, there!” a voice ordered. Three of Klann’s mercenaries cantered up to them, leaving the wagon and its driver stopped behind. Two brigands unbuttoned their jacks, revealing belted pistols. But the rain rendered the weapons little more than a soggy threat, Wilf thought. “What are you up to? Get down off your horses.”
Wilf waved for the uncertain rebels to remain mounted and walked his black gelding toward the three, smiling wearily. The leader, a hollow-eyed man with pocked cheeks and sallow skin, reined in and faced him. The other two rode past to confront the rest of the party. Wilf’s mount snorted, its muzzle a hand’s width from the other steed’s. The bandit placed a fist on his hip, sweeping back the flap of his jack. The silver filigreed pistol grip glowered at Wilf.
Too wet, Wilf prayed quietly, too wet to fire? Please, God....
“Horses,” Wilf said, pointing a lazy thumb over his shoulder. “Lost during that crazy fighting two nights ago in the city. We’ve been chasing them all day. Now we’re—”
“Hey, Karel—” one of the others called from behind Wilf, guiding in among the shuffling horses and pointing at Tora. “I know this stallion. It’s that crazy Mongol’s.”
Alarmed, the brigand nearest Vlad Dobroczy drew his wet pistol. The rebel farmer’s reaction was instantaneous. Vlad’s cloak tore open in an eruption of flame and smoke, as his hidden hand triggered his weather-protected wheel-lock.
The soldier’s face imploded in a slick black fracture.
The confrontation became a jostling chaos, as if flames had belched from the soaking ground beneath their feet. Horses shrieked and reared, broke in all directions. Wilf caught a fleeting glimpse of the silver filigreed wheel-lock in the leader’s hand and kicked his gelding hard in the flanks, drawing Spine-cleaver in the same motion. His horse whinnied and leapt at its opposite number, which shrank before the flailing hooves and then itself tossed and bucked so that the mercenary leader squeezed off a poor shot—the pistol had fired, after all—
The brigand swayed sideways and lost his hat and the smoking pistol. Righted himself and clawed at his sword hilt.
Too late. Wilf, electrified by his close call with death, swept past, slashing the mercenary backward off the neighing steed.
The third soldier, who bore no firearm, bared his teeth and growled in desperation, swung his mount from side to side, naked blade cutting at wet air. He spied an opening and charged for it. His flight would carry him past Jiri.
Jiri slipped his sword out of its back harness and raised it high over his head. His eyes shone like beacons in a tempest to see the mercenary charge him astride the snorting warhorse. His own mount stamped backward uncertainly under Jiri’s flagging guidance. The enemy bore down to engage him.
They slashed as one, a shower of golden sparks igniting the darkness as their swords clashed. Jiri’s eyes clamped shut at the impact, and he withdrew from contact even as they met. But the brigand’s following blow split the jaw of Szabo’s horse, and the screaming steed lurched over, spilling Jiri in the mud and slamming down next to him to kick and flail in its agony. Jiri scrabbled away on hands and knees in the mire, panting but unhurt, as hooves splattered all around him.
Tadeusz intercepted the mercenary in his flight, engaging him with sparking steel. As he drew alongside, the young bushi missed parrying a desperate lunge that sprang out of the gloom. His mouth gaped upward at the sky like the jaws of a moon-baying wolf, blood gouting in his throat and strangling him as the soldier’s sword-point snapped off clean in his breastbone.
By now Nagy and Berenyi had run the mercenary down. Old Nikolai roared to hear Tadeusz’s mortal cry. The swing of his powerful sword arm sliced open the brigand’s capote and jerkin, cutting into his spine. The man fell into the muck, stunned and gasping, paralyzed.
Nagy rode a few paces off and dismounted. His younger partner, Berenyi, bounded down from the saddle, wild-eyed and vengeful, hurling imprecations at the downed enemy. He darted forward, feinting unnecessarily once with his broadsword before lunging deeply and stabbing the groaning, fallen man through the chest, withdrawing his sword with some difficulty.
Wilf’s gelding jolted and kicked under him through it all, biting at other horses stamping near, its natural enjoyment of a fray aroused. The young smith tossed the reins from side to side, assessing the fight.
“Damn you, Hawk!” he swore. Vlad Dobroczy stared down with eyes like an owl’s above his great nose, pistol still smoking from the tattered hole in his cloak. He seemed dazed by the shattered face that glared up in grisly ruin.
But now Wilf saw that the lone survivor aboard the wagon had wheeled his team and was lashing them back west. If he could recognize any of them and reach the outposted sentries at the southern valley road....
“Hyah!�
�
Wilf stormed after the jouncing wagon, traces held in his left hand, the gleaming steel of his katana trailing behind him in his extended right arm. He reached out with his will to restrain the fleeing dray, mentally cleaving the distance even as the gelding’s hooves pounded onward through the rain and the puddling ruts in the ancient road. The heavens opened wider and shed their anger in slanting waves that obscured his vision.
The dray disappeared around a black bend like a skittering groundhog. Wilf’s nape hairs prickled, a chill coursing his spine. Beyond that bend a whole company of mercenaries might lie in wait. Or a replacement column of Llorm regulars. He was one man with one sword that had been his for a mere handful of days. The knowledge of its use had been burned into him during the life of the waxing moon. And the teacher of those nascent skills—Gonji—was not with him now. Yet his spirit was his own, and its yearnings were his master.
He rode on harder and gained the bend in a minute that aged him by days.
Half the distance had dissolved between Wilf and the surging wagon when something remarkable happened. Wilf saw a tall figure leap from the brush at the side of the road and out before the wagon team. The figure raised his staff before him, and the draft horses neighed and swerved, slipping off the wet stones to tumble into the ditch at the right.
The dray overturned with a crash and the driver’s high-pitched scream.
Wilf pulled to a halt, the gelding stumbling but righting itself quickly. He steadied the tossing steed and peered over its snorting muzzle. His unknown ally had descended on the fallen driver. There was a sudden movement behind the spinning wheel of the upset wagon. One horse broke from its harness and galloped off; its partner’s legs could be seen, twitching spasmodically on the ground.
Who in hell could that be?
Wiping his eyes on a sleeve, Wilf pushed his mount toward the wreck, Spine-cleaver cocked warily along his right side.
Another figure joined the first, giving him pause. This one was smaller and hooded by a mantelet. Carrying a longbow. But even through the haze, Wilf recognized him almost at once.
“Gonji,” he breathed, breaking into a trot.
The young Gundersen reached them quickly. Gonji ignored his relieved greeting, but Wilf was of no mind to take offense, for his astonishment at the sight of the samurai’s companion caused him to gape like a speared fish.
This was Wilf’s first glimpse of Simon Sardonis, who looked like no man born to walk the paths of auspicious men. Wilf gazed with ambivalence at the eyes, the ears, the long pale hands—curling now, and alive with sinew; the spiky bristling of the doglike hair, even in the matting rain.
Wilf tore his eyes away, gulping down the hot constriction in his throat. He returned Spine-cleaver to its scabbard. Rubbed at the nervous tic in his right eye. There was a tension in the air that undid Wilf’s sense of relief at Gonji’s return.
Simon poked at something in the wreckage with his staff. Within the hood of the mantelet, Gonji’s eyes narrowed. He stood with folded arms and stared.
In the wreckage, something moaned like a tortured calf with nothing left of life but the final agony.
Gonji shot Wilf a look and beckoned to him. Wilf could see the driver, dead, several feet off in the scrub. The unearthly moaning sound came again, and the smith dismounted, his breathing tight, gooseflesh flaring his skin.
He reached the end of the overturned wagon and peered down. The dray’s ribs were caved in on the side that faced the sky, the burlap torn and askew. And when Wilf’s eyes focused on what moved inside the wreckage, his hand shot to his mouth in shock, muffling his unseemly outcry.
“Jesu—Maria—”
It crawled out of the blanket that had shrouded it with an ungainly dragging motion of one arm, its groans now reduced to a strange liquid trilling that fluttered from its partial mouth.
The half-man—Mord’s wretched victim. Severed and sealed vertically along his entire horribly sectioned human fragment. One-armed, one-legged, half-headed—the body-length wound coated with a pallid substance resembling tallow, leaking now in spots; oozing dark, nearly black, blood.
Its life-source unknowable, the pathetic creature was all that remained of the combative craft-guild leader, Phlegor.
A flash of steel, as Gonji yanked the Sagami free and raised it high overhead.
Wincing at the sight, Wilf turned his head and stifled a spate of gagging to hear the sounds it evoked, upon its descent.
* * * *
Jiri Szabo wiped himself as best he could, rubbing his mud-streaked face on a soaked shirt sleeve. He retrieved his downed blade and gathered his horse’s reins, all the while watching Wilfred’s mad ride of pursuit.
“God, I hope he catches it,” the young athlete said. “Maybe we should go after him, to help.”
His words dispelled Vlad’s fascination with the corpse of the man he had shot. The eagle-beaked farmer looked toward his departing rival.
“Forget it. He’ll never catch them,” he replied grimly. He belted his spent pistol and swiveled his mount to view their situation. “Better help me collect the horses, Jiri. There’ll be more trouble than we can handle here soon.”
Szabo turned to remount, stopped when he saw the twisted body of Tadeusz.
“Shouldn’t we...pick him up?”
“Igen,” Hawk agreed curtly in Hungarian, “you do it.” He moved off after the scattered horses.
Grimacing at the twisted, mud-splashed remains of his dead friend, Jiri cast about for assistance. There seemed to be none forthcoming. He swallowed back his grief and brought up Tadeusz’s mare, began to roll the militiaman’s body in a blanket.
“All he ever worried about,” he mumbled to himself, “was whether he could go through with killing a man in battle.” Jiri Szabo shook his head sadly, knowing all the while that the ironic eulogy had drifted up from the well of self-doubt in his own soul.
* * * *
Rubbing the back of his neck for a restless moment, Nikolai Nagy studied the troubled young hostler. Stefan had acquitted himself well; his deed had been a valorous one for a man still pained by a fresh war wound.
But Berenyi exhibited a new injury now. An internal one whose scar, Nagy knew, marked every man differently. He gave Berenyi space for as long as he thought wise, watching him glance from the corpse of the man he’d dispatched to the blood-stained sword in his good hand and back again. Berenyi’s lips moved silently, and he licked them repeatedly as if their dryness defied the rain.
His first battlefield kill, Nagy realized. No smirk, no jest from the jocular Stefan Berenyi now.
Then Nagy’s usual impatience finally got the best of him.
“Old man’s still got what it takes, eh?” He cuffed Berenyi’s shoulder playfully, breaking the morbid spell.
“Hah,” Berenyi sputtered out of the corner of his mouth. “I had to finish him, old man.” His voice quavered, though he’d tried to sound bold.
Nagy allowed him that concession to his self-confidence, bobbing his head.
“Let’s get this place squared away, young pup.”
* * * *
His brief talk with Simon finished, Gonji climbed aboard the gelding behind Wilf, and they started back toward the squad of militiamen. He was fatigued from the long walk. Cold and benumbed internally.
What monstrous things are yet in store—?
“That man—” Wilf said over his shoulder. “He’s...Simon Sardonis, nicht wahr?”
Gonji nodded. “Hai.”
“The one who beat Ben-Draba to death at the square?”
“The same.”
“Is he...also...the one?”
“What do you mean?”
“The one you’ve sought—the Deathwind.”
Gonji pondered the question as they jounced along. Finally shook his head.
“I don’t know, Wilf. It doesn’t seem to matter. Why do you ask?”
“It’s just that he’s....”
“Hai,” Gonji filled in, “a s
trange one, all-recht. Tralayn would have us believe that he’s your Deliverer. One man,” he appended for no reason in particular.
“Well, I don’t doubt her,” Wilf said seriously, mopping the rain that slanted into his face. “Having seen him, I’d believe just about anything.”
Gonji cocked an eyebrow, his memories spinning with the details of Simon’s sorcerous origin, as told by Tralayn. The tale of what he would become in two nights.
Werewolf....
“One shouldn’t be too gullible, my friend,” Gonji cautioned. “On the other hand...the world never ceases to surprise me. Expect nothing, accept what happens.”
Like a reviving agent, Gonji’s words seemed to awaken Wilf from a paralysis. He began to tremble.
“Some things you don’t accept.” Wilf’s words came thick with emotion. “Like a loved one—”
“You have no choice, Wilfred.”
“Ja! I do—that thing back there that used to be Phlegor—it came from the castle, didn’t it?”
“Hai, I suppose—”
“What the hell is happening at the castle by now? How many more people are like that? Gonji, I’ve got to get inside Castle Lenska—now!”
“Quiet,” Gonji commanded softly. “Now think: What good could you accomplish going off half-cocked and trying to rescue Genya from an entire castle garrison? Have you forgotten the giant?”
“I don’t care about—”
“Shh! How would we even get inside right now, with Klann’s force on the alert against insurgent action?” Gonji thought of something, his face clouding. “Did you have the tunnel to the castle collapsed as I ordered?”
Wilf sighed. “Ja, they did it, though I tried to make them leave it clear, in case....”
“Listen, Wilfred, your need is no more important than that of everyone else. We are either united in this effort or we are fodder for the invaders. If you compromise our unity of purpose, then you’re as expendable as Phlegor.”
Wilf blinked. “Sure,” he replied bitterly, “then you’d probably turn me in to Klann’s army, like you did Phlegor.”