Gonji: Deathwind of Vedun: The Deathwind Trilogy, Book Three

by T. C. Rypel

  Milorad blustered. “Ignace was with me the whole time, and then he was to sup with Anna and me. But surely you didn’t mean for us to stay together...all the time, did you?”

  Gonji snorted in exasperation. “Of course. Isn’t that what I said? Where is he?”

  The adviser scratched his head. “He...went to his place. I left him there. Then he was going to have Paolo bring him over.”

  “So where is that cocky Neapolitan?” Now Gonji had directed his peevishness at Vlad.

  Dobroczy threw his hands up. “How should I know? He was with me for part of the list. Then he just decided he had other things to do. He’s a big-time warrior, now that he’s got a kill. Figures he doesn’t have to listen to anybody. Anyway, I’m not his master.”

  “You’re nobody’s master, hook-nose,” Wilf called from the table.

  Vlad bridled and seemed about to pursue the insult when Gonji stepped before him. “Drop it. Both of you. I’m speaking. Listen, Dobroczy, when I give an order, I expect it to be carried out explicitly. There is no room for error and no allowance for private interpretation of my meaning. I don’t care what you feel about me personally. We are either in this together now, with you under my command, or you are my enemy. Verstehen Sie?”

  Vlad nodded sullenly. “He’s hurting, you know. That might’ve had something to do with his leaving.”

  Gonji frowned. “What do you mean? Hurt how?”

  “His side.” Vlad Dobroczy patted his ribs.

  Pounding at the door. The room fell silent, but Gonji beckoned them to act naturally and slipped into a rear chamber. Zarek opened it and admitted a shivering clutch of wet souls that included Jiri and Greta, as well as the Benedettos. Gonji was mildly discomfited to see that Lydia had come along when he reentered the parlor. Greetings were hastily exchanged.

  “They’re all reporting back now,” Michael apprised him. “Everything’s going smoothly.”

  “They’re dragging people out of their homes again,” Lydia told Gonji in a flat tone. “Looking for you.”

  “So desu ka? If you like, I’ll go out and throw myself on their tender mercies.” He regretted his tone at once as she withdrew icily.

  The alert teams dropped their checked-off lists of homes on the table and accepted Zarek’s offer of beverages.

  “Garth’s on his way back,” Michael said. “Someone saw him riding in the hills.”

  “In the hills,” Gonji repeated petulantly. “What the hell is he doing up there? Doesn’t anyone do what’s expected around here? Or what they’re told?”

  “Why so angry at Papa?” Wilf griped.

  “We’d all like to know what happened at the castle, nicht wahr?”

  Wilf shrugged in concession.

  “At least you two are still together,” Gonji remarked to Jiri Szabo and Greta.

  “Ja,” Jiri answered brightly, “her father says too much. Hey—what are those?” He walked over to the window sill and palmed Gonji’s handiwork.

  “Darts,” Zarek replied, making a throwing motion. He laughed his gravelly, unsmiling laugh.

  Greta spoke in a sudden rush. “Oh—Gonji, my mother asked me to ask you if it would be all right if she could take along a chestful of family heirlooms in the evacuation. It really isn’t so very big—”

  “Greta, I don’t care,” Gonji replied, sighing over the triviality of the request. Then he asked the representatives of the craft guilds who were present how the work on the wagons progressed.

  “Slowly,” Jiri responded, “at the metal foundry, but all right, I think. The plates they’re fitting inside the wagons take time, and there are a lot of soldiers passing by because it’s so near the garrison.”

  “Poorly, at the woodcraft shop,” another followed. “That madman Paille’s acting like he owns the place. Got everyone all worked up. Hell, it’s not easy, this business of cutting gunloops in coffins, and fixing wagons with fittings so they can just be slapped into place when it’s time.”

  “Will it work?” Gonji asked.

  “I doubt it.”

  They discussed the incident one of them had seen, when Salavar the Slayer had accosted a funeral procession and demanded the opening of a sealed casket. Somber looks passed around the room.

  A soft rapping came at the door, and a single Moldavian woman entered for the sole purpose of telling Gonji, through Greta’s translation, that she believed him to be a good man who would protect her sons through the holocaust to come. Through it all Gonji stood with eyes downcast and head hanging humbly on his chest. His hands were clasped behind his back, and he sighed and lipped a gentle “domo arigato” when she had finished.

  The old woman stood on tiptoes and kissed Gonji’s cheek in matronly fashion, crossed herself, and slipped out, stifling a sob. The room was struck dumb.

  Greta was the first to speak. “Do you know who her sons are?”

  “Iye, and I don’t want to,” Gonji replied.

  An aura of understanding and sympathy for their military leader permeated the room.

  Gonji scratched his chin impatiently and sipped at his water cup while the others exchanged listless small talk awhile. Michael and Wilf seemed similarly plagued by an itch for action, but neither spoke.

  “My capote?” Milorad said in dismay, for the first time noticing the battered garment slung over a chair back.

  “Hai, gomen nasai, Vargo-san,” Gonji replied sheepishly. “So sorry. It went through certain...misadventures with me.”

  Milorad clucked and sputtered. “My best coat.”

  “I’ll buy you a new one, neh? Whom are we still waiting for, Miko-san?”

  Michael thought a moment. “Wilfred’s brothers, and Anton and Roric—oh, what about Nagy and Berenyi?”

  “No,” Vlad replied. “They’re busy at the caravanserai. Lorenz and Strom worked their list.”

  “That’s right,” Michael agreed. “So just two teams, then.”

  “And Garth,” Gonji appended.

  “Si, of course—Garth.”

  There was a rash of startled gasps as Lorenz Gundersen appeared like a specter in the archway from the rear of the house.

  “Well,” he said, brushing the droplets from his hat and wiping his feet on a well-worn mat, “good evening, everyone. You made yourself scarce, sensei, but I found you.”

  He and Gonji exchanged curt bows.

  “Took you long enough,” Wilf chided without looking at him.

  “We had more than one list, dear brother,” Lorenz reminded.

  “Where is Strom?” Gonji asked sternly.

  “Where does Strom ever go?” Lorenz replied, chuckling. He tossed his alert lists onto the table. “Out in the hills with his flock.” With a courteous gesture he accepted a cup of wine from Greta, who had taken to attending on the needs of the guests when Zarek retired to a corner chair, where he sat with his cheek propped on a fist, sipping distractedly and dozing.

  “And were you not told to remain together?” Gonji fumed. “Does anyone do what he’s ordered in this territory?”

  “Surely you didn’t mean that I should keep him by my side for every trip to the chamber pot!” Snorts and titters attended Lorenz’s arch reply. But Gonji’s brow darkened, and the Exchequer went on more seriously. “Oh, come now, sensei. You don’t suspect Strom of treachery, do you? One can carry this security business a bit too far.”

  “Really, Gonji,” Lydia added in support. “I myself could think of people who might be worthy of suspicion, but Strom?”

  Milorad chortled. “Ja, with all due respect to your security measures, Gonji, I’m afraid I must agree. Treachery presumes a certain...cunning, which I think we’d have to agree Strom doesn’t—”

  “All right, then there is no traitor,” Gonji stormed. “Tell me that when you awake in the night with soldiers hovering over your beds.” He modulated his angry tone. “You alert-plan people—what did you tell the citizens as you went?”

  “Shi-kaze,” Lorenz answered at once, offering his cup in
toast.

  “On the night after the full moon,” Jiri finished in a voice just above a whisper.

  Downcast looks beset the group at the reminder of the grim business that lurked on the horizon.

  A soft rapping at the door. Much like the knock of the mama-san who had come to speak with Gonji earlier. The samurai seated himself at the table. When the door was opened, the stoop-shouldered, bearlike silhouette of Garth caught the low light that crept out onto the stoop. And when the smith lumbered inside with a wet slap of his cap on a thigh, the whole gathering lurched to its feet with many a greeting and anxious query.

  “First be aware,” Garth said, “that I bear no good tidings. Tralayn is dead,” he muttered into his beard.

  Prayers for eternal rest and several anxious signs of the cross followed the bleak, though not unexpected, declaration.

  Then Garth continued: “And I’m afraid that she was right all along. Mord is our enemy, and King Klann cannot be persuaded of it, though he may even believe it himself, in his heart. But the sorcerer confounded my effort. He is hateful and evil, foul beyond all our imaginings....”

  “You let nothing slip concerning our rebellion?” Gonji asked.

  “Nein!” Garth seemed mildly offended. But he was forced to concede: “However...he does seem to know that there are subversive plans afoot—may I have some wine or ale, Miklos?”

  Zarek consented in an apologetic rush, and Greta poured him a goblet.

  “You’re convinced that it was Klann you spoke with?”

  “It was Klann,” Garth confirmed, “though a different personage. There was indeed a new Rising after the tragedy here.” He went on to describe the physical appearance of the new Klann personage and the brief personality impression he had obtained from their audience. “He seems desperate. Yet I am convinced he wishes for peace almost as much as we do. He needs the respite here, for the winter.”

  Lydia spoke. “Then we must drop this mad plan and proceed with our normal lives. Stoically. Surely that’s true now, isn’t it, gentils? Gentils?” There was no scorn in her censure of the violent planning now, only entreaty.

  “Iye,” Gonji disagreed, “I’m afraid nothing is changed.”

  “But what would happen if we just—didn’t—do it?” she asked imploringly.

  Garth exhaled sonorously. “The king is, unfortunately, unable to see the evil he has allied himself with. He is out of touch with the workings of the sorcerer, of his own hired troops. And the Foul One would find some way to assure our destruction. It’s that simple. Evil has come. We must flee it, if we can. Fight it, if we cannot.”

  Lydia’s eyes narrowed. “Even you too, now, Papa Garth?”

  Gonji also regarded the popular smith’s reversal with suspicion. And he had the sudden conviction that Klann’s former general again was withholding information. He never seemed to tell all he knew.

  “Why did you take so long returning?” Gonji probed.

  “I rode alone for a time.... I was troubled. I needed time. Time to think.”

  “Even when you carried such potentially important information?”

  Garth cocked an eyebrow at him. “What have I really learned, Gonji, apart from Klann’s new presence, that we haven’t already known or suspected?”

  Gonji sighed glumly and went to the shutter. The streets were deserted, dismal. Here and there lights could be seen penetrating the gloom from seams in the dwellings along the Street of Charity. Two mercenary riders clopped past Zarek’s house, one of them the Scottish highland rogue Gonji and Wilf had seen weeks before. His monstrous claymore stretched from just above the ground at his mount’s hooves to a point nearly level with the man’s head.

  Not long after them came the last alert team, Anton the Gray knight and Roric Amsgard.

  “Well—the prodigals,” Vlad pronounced, drawing a scowl from the bald-pated Anton.

  “There’s trouble,” Roric told Gonji and Michael. “Old Gort was found dead. Run through with a sword.”

  Gasps of shock. “When?—where?”

  “In his gatehouse,” Anton furnished, “about an hour ago.”

  “God Almighty,” someone swore.

  “But why?” Lorenz asked with a perplexed frown. “Why should they kill him? He was a harmless old man.”

  “Just the kind of viciousness they deal in,” Wilf said through ground teeth.

  “Iye,” Gonji said, “he must have seen something...someone. I had him watching—I’m afraid it’s my fault. It was too well known that he was watching for me. Cholera....”

  Ten bells rang at the square. Many would be going to the chapel for memorial services, practicing their calm movement for the evacuation to come.

  Gonji sat heavily, hands on knees. “Poor Gort. If only we had the assistance of a medium now, to ask him who it was he saw. Oh, Tralayn...if ever you exercised powers granted by the spirit world....”

  Michael cleared his throat and gained their attention. “Well, who isn’t here among the captains of the evacuation procedure?”

  “Nagy—Monetto—a couple of others—” came voices in reply.

  “Let’s get on with the timing plan and the route maps,” Michael urged, and they began to pull up chairs around Zarek’s oval dining table.

  “Ten bells,” Gonji mused, stroking his nose. “Roric, when was Gort’s body discovered?”

  “About...eight.”

  “Herr Vargo,” Gonji said, “when did you leave off Ignace Obradek?”

  Milorad lifted his palms and shrugged. “Six? In any event, well before sunset—Gonji! Not Ignace!”

  The samurai waved him off, and Vlad Dobroczy chimed in: “Paolo left me a lot earlier than that.”

  Gonji rose and retied his sash more snugly, then seated his swords in his ominous fashion. “Our wagoners have much to answer, and I’ll not wait any longer.”

  Wilf and his two helpers pushed up from their seats. “We’ve got work to do at the shop, too. We’ll go with you. We’re not needed here.”

  “Wait a moment,” Roric cautioned. “If all our plans are known at the castle now—I mean, let us assume it was a traitor who dispatched him. Won’t Klann know the identities of all the leaders of the militia—?”

  “And here we all sit, most of us,” Anton added in sudden realization.

  Jiri and Greta looked to each other fearfully, and she reached out a hand to the young bushi.

  Gonji thought a moment. “Hmm. Possibly. But it’s more likely Mord still withholds more than he tells Klann, or the garrison would have descended on us in hordes by now. Still, it’s probably a good idea for some of you to leave. I’ll see the rest when I return. I won’t be gone long.”

  More crazy unknowable factors, Gonji thought as they loped through the rustling mist and shadow-loomed darkness, his stiff knee aching a bit but the pain now forgotten.

  When they reached the empty corral, the other three split for the other side of the street and kept moving at a casual pace to the smithshop’s dripping canopy. Gonji waited until he saw lamps flare alight in the Gundersen home. Then he ran in a crouch to the wagonage, a short distance past the corral.

  Creeping past the drays, he caught the distant, muted sound of hacking, as of a hatchet, followed by soft sweeping patters. They issued from the closed and shuttered rear work area behind the wheelwright’s office. The place was totally darkened.

  A loud bang, and a spill of metallic objects.

  Gonji surveyed the environs. No soldiers in sight. He tested the seating of his swords, his eyes growing accustomed to the darkness. Squaring his shoulders, he scampered to the rear door of the wagonage. More noise. He tried the knob slowly, quietly. Locked.

  He took three steps backward, balling his fists, and launched at the door. His stamping front heel kick shattered the bolt and slammed the hardwood door full open.

  He drew steel and called for the dim figure in the middle of the workshop to halt. A hint of ashen-gray cheekbones and a gleam of eyes. The figure emitted a strangled c
ry and ran for the front of the shop, Gonji in quick pursuit. The man—for it was a man’s voice that gibbered words of terror in an alien tongue—stumbled against an A-frame and fell, still scrabbling uselessly. Spinning onto his back. Holding up a warding hand—

  Gonji stared down into the sweating face of Boris Kamarovsky.

  “You! You little ferret! Stand up!”

  Boris obeyed, cringing, jabbering in Russian. Pleading.

  “Speak German,” Gonji growled. “What are you doing here? Where are Paolo and Ignace?”

  “I—I—I don’t know, bitte—” he wailed. “I’m working—waiting—waiting for them, that’s all—”

  “Keep your voice down, fool,” Gonji hissed.

  Boris scrambled up and dashed toward the open door, but Gonji anticipated it, tripping him from behind. The wood craftsman tumbled full length on the floor, yelping as his head struck something in the dark. The samurai closed the door and blocked it.

  “I’ll ask you again. Once only. What are you doing here?” His tone simmered with menace, but he sashed the Sagami.

  “I, uh, I—I was helping out. I brought a hitch, a wagon hitch the old man ordered. They-ey-ey weren’t here. So I waited.” His eyelids flickered madly, his knees quivering like jelly.

  Gonji appraised the condition of the shop as his vision sharpened. It was a shambles.

  “Why did you do this?”

  Boris shook like the last leaf in winter. “I didn’t—I—uh—” He glanced about at the ruin he had wreaked of valuable harnesses and traces. Many of these were to be used on the crucial wagons. “I just—I didn’t want to die—!” On the last word he began to sob in sporadic fits. “I’m—I’m afraid to die. I—I don’t want to go away from here on a wagon—I—I don’t want to go down there—the catacombs—with those worm-things—”

  “So you destroyed other people’s chances....” Gonji, too, was trembling now despite his effort at control. “You had no courage to fight for your city and your people, but you found it in your gut to commit sabotage, didn’t you? You disgusting little vermin—you betrayed us to Mord, didn’t you?” Gonji began advancing on him.

  Boris backed away, fending Gonji’s accusations with fluttering hands. “Nyet! I didn’t—God’s truth. Not you. Not the militia.... Only Phlegor.”