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

by T. C. Rypel

  “And look—more Llorm! Coming from the north garrison!” warned another militiaman.

  Roric assessed their status. They were barely twenty. “Leave the rest,” he commanded. “Let every God-fearing soul run like the wind. We’ll deal out weapons as we go—”

  And then crossbow quarrels and war arrows were lacing the armory area from far-off rampart sentries and approaching dragoons.

  Two men fell from atop the wagons, across Roric’s field of view. He helped Anton into one wagon, tossed up an arquebus. Then he mounted and spurred off beside the wagon’s cover, calling out to his dogs, who pranced along beside him dutifully. The heavy coaches were slow to accelerate, but valiant archers provided cover fire, while men within the coffin-cupolas and gun ports began firing.

  Roric and Anton escaped with barely half their tiny command, some men falling from the rear as they departed; others, the less fortunate, being unhorsed by enemy fire and bad footing to await, with glaze-eyed shock, the rumbling juggernaut of pincering troops.

  * * * *

  Leading an ever-diminishing band of bushi, Gonji and Wilf drummed through Vedun on a harrowing timed route designed to view strategic checkpoints and assess the rebellion’s progress.

  Fighting from horseback as they made their way, hastily ushering non-combatants toward the chapel when they could and hustling them into safe havens when the streets were impassable, they wove through the city on a scythe-like path that would supposedly parallel the timed sequence of action and provide them with an overview.

  Gonji experienced a foreshadowing of doom.

  The refugees moved too slowly, too tentatively. Disorganized, and sometimes without military escort. The cavalry and armored wagons were too slow in reaching the escalating combat at the square. And for some reason the wagons from Wojcik’s and the Provender had never arrived. Without their transport, the women, children, sick, and elderly would be on foot in the uncertain territory or, perhaps worse, trapped in the ominous catacombs.

  The militia fared best in the mazes of canyon-like back lanes, the alley killing grounds, and in the blockading of selected culvert spans. Hildegarde’s pikemen were especially efficient, exacting a toll of troops attempting shortcuts. Yet the main roads were still firmly in the grip of the well-armed and heavily manned garrisons.

  And now, a new threat: One sector’s innocents had already reacted to spreading rumors that the evacuation plan had been abandoned!

  The traitor’s cankerous work had begun to rot the core of their planning.

  “Over here,” Gonji yelled to his men in Spanish, indicating an alley off the Street of Charity littered with dead men and mounts. “Let’s see what gives. Let the horses rest a moment, and you can reload your guns.”

  They picked their way over the carnage, wincing to see dead defenders, and made a tight turn to the right. The alley seemed quiet, deserted, their hoofbeats echoing sharply up the walls.

  A surreptitious slapping of feet preceded their leftward swing, and they hefted their weapons cautiously.

  A creaking of ropes—then a swift rush of wind from the ponderous bulk that fell across their path, slamming down in the alley with a boom of timbers and a great splash.

  A rustling of several figures moving as one—Wilf’s steed whinnied keenly and threw him over backwards in the mud—

  “Hold it—hold it!” Gonji shouted.

  “That’s Gonji—and Wilfred! Hold your fire, everyone!”

  “God damn it, Janos,” Wilf swore, reclaiming his equipment and steadying his skittish horse before climbing back astride. “You knew that was us.”

  Janos Agardy moved out of the shadows with his ungainly stride, using a wicked-looking guisarme in lieu of his cane.

  “On the contrary, friend Wilfred,” he said, “we must be ever on the alert for deceptions. Your battle guise gave us pause. Are you hurt?”

  “I think I broke my back,” the smith answered, twisting delicately.

  Archers and polearm-wielders stationed in every window and niche of the alley laughed and relaxed. Gonji scanned their faces. Many women; several old folk; some, like Janos, crippled from birth—these were the stubbornly valiant and high-spirited citizens who had refused to be dismissed from action out of prejudice.

  Janos was their leader. Undaunted by his club foot, the shy and gentle poet had surprised everyone by demanding to remain in the city and fight along with the other young bushi.

  Surprised everyone, that is, but Gonji. For the samurai had learned to recognize the courage and anger that grew out of a lifetime’s subjection to the mean spirits of the insensitive. He looked up to the windows. A toothless old man winked and grinned at him over the steel-tipped bolt set in a tightly gaffled crossbow.

  Wilf walked up to the great wooden barrier that bristled with foot-long sharpened spikes and shivered. Two mercenaries were still impaled on the spikes, the timbers stained with blood in roughly human patterns.

  “We, uh, thought it was a properly ghoulish touch,” Janos offered by way of apology, some of his people chuckling. “That is the way these things work in warfare, nicht wahr? Intimidation?”

  Gonji nodded. “Hai—very wise. Where’s Laszlo?”

  “His party has the far end. No one passes this alley, unless, of course, the sensei orders otherwise.” Janos grinned.

  Gonji’s ears seemed to perk, his brow furrowing. “Mount up, Wilf.”

  “What is it?”

  “Just mount and ride.”

  “Where to?”

  Gonji had already spurred back toward the main street: “Back to the square!”

  Janos gestured for luck. “God go with you.” He shuffled back into the shadows, motioned for the block-and-tackle crew-to again raise the spiked barrier. Then he saw the girl peeking down through the second-story shutter thirty yards down the alley. Janos swallowed, paling.

  “Go on,” a man said at his side, nudging him. “Tell her.”

  “I can’t, Bela. She’s a queen. A goddess.”

  “And you might be a dead poet by tonight.”

  He looked at his friend, knew the truth of what he spoke.

  Janos moved out of the shadow into the center of the alley. Heart galloping, he breathed in short pulls through his nose while he found his voice. The girl peered down, half-smiling. Curious over his strange expression. She waved weakly. Long golden hair lapped her shoulders, curled about her white throat. Her eyes widened.

  “Giselle—Giselle, I love you!” Janos called out in French, louder than he had expected. His friends chuckled excitedly over his boldness and whispered encouragement. “Giselle,” he went on, pushing himself up with the pole-arm in his waxing confidence, “I’ve worshipped you from afar for too long. Now I’ve come to beg your love before you—”

  Giselle registered surprise, half-turning. Then she was shoved aside. A scowling, unshaven face appeared where Giselle’s had been.

  Like a thunderhead masking the radiance of the sun, his poet’s soul told him. But Janos held his tongue.

  “What in hell are you blaring about down there, cripple? Do you want to bring the whole goddamn army on our heads?”

  Janos blanched, but he stilled the trembling of his jaw and spoke again. “Sir, were it in my power I would send a holy angel to whisper on sweet, silent breath—”

  “What is this rot? Shut up and get out of the street!”

  Janos cleared his throat and puffed his chest. “Your daughter’s hand, sir—my time may be short. If she will have me to spouse, then I shall ask of you her hand in—”

  “Are you out of your mind, lead-foot? Get all these crazies out of here before we’re all murdered in our homes.”

  “Sir, when next the bell tower sounds, this sector will be evacuated, according to plan. You must have heard. Are you prepared to see your daughter safely to chapel?”

  “She’s not going anywhere, and neither am I. Now stop this before I—”

  “You have a duty to perform,” Janos said earnestly. “As
do all family men here.”

  “I don’t need a cripple to tell me my duty.”

  “Sir,” Janos persisted with gentle firmness, “I will have an answer from you with respect to Giselle’s—”

  Janos almost didn’t see the clay pot descend through the gathering darkness. He leaned out of the way at the last instant. The pot whizzed by and shattered on the cobblestones behind him, as the second-story shutter banged back into place.

  Janos Agardy stood up, tall and dignified.

  “Passing fair aim, sir....”

  * * * *

  Klaus gaped through the grating at the horrifying sight approaching up the road from the castle. In his shock, he stumbled backward and fell. He started to run from the gatehouse, but his fascination caused him to call out to Paolo instead, first softly in a cracked voice. Then louder, a nasally bellow.

  He inched up to the grating again and stared without.

  Klaus had not been near the square when the cretin giant Tumo had last done his savagery in Vedun, and for Klaus’ part, the tales of destruction and mutilation had done his appearance scant justice.

  A slavering, loping behemoth. A spiked ceiling beam cradled on the giant’s cattle-hind shoulder. Beside him rode the king himself! And behind—a long, long column of crack Llorm troops from the castle garrison.

  Before anyone came in response to Klaus’ alarm, the embattled rebels atop the wall spotted the relief troop. Soon the cretin giant’s clanking plate armor could be heard as he bounded toward the walls ahead of the column.

  On the square, the rebels were finally giving ground. The Hussars had not arrived in sufficient numbers to help, and the wagons had been waylaid. Only a third of the evacuees had reached the chapel.

  The defenders fought valiantly to hold the square, but it was useless. Their spirits flagging, their numbers thinned, dissension spreading over the crumbling of the plan, many now left their posts and bolted for home. Dispirited warriors—frustrated, confused, and fearful—now called out accusations of incompetence by the war council, especially Gonji. This, despite the steadfastness and bravery of the majority.

  Garth Gundersen had done wonders to hold the chapel grounds against increasing opposition. Wielding his broadsword and battle-axe in a manner none would ever forget, he inspired his charges to lofty heights of heroism. And Karl Gerhard had continued to fire his four-man longbow with telling effect even after his hands and arms had begun to cramp from the strain, such that every volley caused him considerable pain. And Aldo Monetto’s lithe squad of athletes had managed to keep the Llorm rampart sentries pinned and preoccupied all the while.

  But it had not been enough. Because of losses, confusion, unforeseen difficulties, and failed courage, the Hussars had been unable to link with the bushi holding the square. The backup of the evacuees had caused many married militiamen to lose heart and refuse to turn out.

  The crushing blow was the mortally wounded messenger who told Garth on a dying breath that Klann had known their plans: occupation troops had cordoned off the wagons in all three locations even as the rebellion had begun.

  Only the armored wagons rolled in the city. Of these, two remained at the square, immobilized, their draft teams dead in the harness, their ammunition gone. A third had been captured by Llorm. Another had caught fire inside and gone up like a lightning ball in the central city. Still another had fallen victim to militia confusion. The harassment squads had weakened the supports of a culvert span, but instead of a column of occupation troops, a steel-plated wagon now lay in the trench muck. The final armored wagon, with Anton aboard, fought its way across town to finally reach the marketplace, only to find the militia slowly giving ground at the square.

  And now the death kiss to their costly efforts: Tumo clambered over the wall with a bloodthirsty bellow, sending Monetto’s rampart-defense team leaping and scrambling for their lives. The rebels fled the gatehouse area, and Klann’s troops rushed along the wall base to open the portcullis and drawbridge.

  While half a hundred Llorm dragoons threw a cordon around the great wall that stretched to the west gate, the rest poured into the city, Klann himself, his imposing winged helm looming like a standard of doom, riding at their center.

  Tumo tore into the fleeing defenders, crushing everything that moved. Monetto narrowly missed a sweeping arc of the massive spiked truncheon, diving beneath its swing as the man who ran beside him froze an instant too long. His shriek was scissored by the gouging blow that impaled him, then flung him, lifeless, into the fountain wall.

  Tumo roared in glee, bounding through the square, stomping and smashing, amidst the scurry of terrified men on the blood- and rain-soaked flagstones; the yelping of dogs and neighing of maddened steeds. Cattle and sheep broke from their pens nearby and scattered through the city.

  While hurtling bodies surged past them for cover, Karl Gerhard and his archers held their positions and launched their volleys now at the giant and the king. But Tumo’s armor admitted few shafts, and the beast’s rapid movement made picking the small vulnerable areas impossible. A ring of Llorm regulars threw shields up around Klann.

  The clash of steel, screams of the wounded, and outcries of women and children at the chapel filled the air. The dragoons began to run down the rebels who fled on foot.

  The crews who manned the immobilized armored wagons abandoned them just as Anton’s wagon rumbled into the square after its perilous battle run through Vedun. Only Roric and three horsemen, plus the butcher’s dogs, still rode in escort. They pulled up from the west, assessed the situation. Roric met their eyes, nodded somberly, and gave the order to press an attack.

  They headed straight for Tumo, firing from wagon and saddle as they charged, howling.

  The cretin giant turned and awaited them, braying in expectation.

  A flanking attack by Llorm dragoons, harried though it was by the archers’ alert cover fire, hit Roric’s berserker attack broadside in full charge. All four horsemen went down almost in concert in a cacophony of gunshots, clacking arbalests, screaming voices and metal, and tumbling carcasses.

  Roric’s deep voice could be heard, urging them on, until the trample of hooves and falling bodies silenced him.

  Only the missile-spindled armored coach and Roric’s faithful dogs hurtled on.

  A lead ball fired from the wagon tore through Tumo’s unprotected jowl, blood coursing his cheek, and the heavy thuck of a steel-tipped quarrel penetrated his breastplate. He screamed like an injured titan child and ripped the bolt from the corpulent flesh of his chest.

  Most of the fighting ceased in the square, save for that of Garth’s hemmed-in faithful, as Roric’s snarling dogs tore into the giant, almost human in their directed wrath, as if avenging their downed master. They opened vicious wounds in many places where Tumo’s blubber oozed between his armor couplings, on his porcine hands and the backs of his legs.

  But in the end the brute’s monstrous size won out. Whining in pain, he whirled one dog by its tail, dashing it to pulp against the Ministry steps. When the second dog had been rent, hind limbs from body, its head bitten off in rage, Tumo turned his attention to the rumbling wagon.

  The startled draft team veered sharply in fear of his charge, lurching the heavy coach over a pile of bodies at a redoubt. The wagon leapt in the air and snapped an axle when it struck the ground, sending it swerving out of control in the rain, shaking up the men within.

  Anton ordered them out the rear while Tumo pounded the team of horses senseless. The men broke across the broad street, dragoons bearing down fast. Tumo swept up the last man out, as Anton’s roaring arquebus sent down two Llorm and mounts at once, throwing the pursuers into scattering disarray. But their continued firing dropped the running rebels one by one, until only Anton, skipping desperately on his bad leg, reached the cover fire in the alleys.

  Tumo shouldered the wagon over onto its side on the third try. He tossed away the dead militiaman and began battering in the sides of the armored wagon, more insis
tently as the steel plate interior resisted.

  The materiel within, bought at such great cost, clattered around inside, useless to the militia.

  * * * *

  Paolo and his band admitted Monetto and his surviving men behind their pitched position on Alwin Street.

  “Look at it,” Paolo said excitedly, pointing at the cretin giant. “If it keeps punching like that....”

  “What are you talking about?” Monetto asked.

  “There must be black powder in that wagon.”

  Monetto’s eyes widened in understanding.

  “Watch that big lumbering ass ignite it,” Paolo said through gritted teeth, tittering in a high pitch.

  They watched breathlessly, awaiting the explosion that never came. Captain Sianno arrived and called Tumo off. The idiot beast sulked away, disappointed to have its sport ended.

  Paolo ground out a curse, echoed by the ragged men behind him.

  “What do we do now, Paolo?” came Klaus’ voice.

  The wagoner sneered, his expression altering when he felt his reinjured side wound. The old saber cut dealt by Julian bled anew.

  “Why don’t you go out there and feed the giant,” he said, cruelly shoving past Klaus.

  “I will if you will,” Klaus replied with unaccustomed indignation.

  Paolo ignored him. “Let’s fall back,” he said in frustration. “It’s all over here, for now.”

  * * * *

  Gonji and Wilf arrived at the market area. Blood-spattered, their armor rent and gouged in spots, at least one of their men hors de combat though he clung gamely to his mount, their spirits sagged to see the militia in full retreat. Many warriors passed them, rabbit-eyed, nostrils flaring.

  There was little pursuit through the streets, Klann having wisely held most of his command at the square. There would still be killing grounds and snares extant in the maze of the city interior. Plenty of time for the occupation force to clean out pockets of isolated revolutionaries later. For the nonce, all that mattered was that the gates were held, and the entire north wall arc.

  Gonji spotted Gerhard’s archer squad running madly southward, chased by a mounted knot of mercenaries with whirling blades. Shouting to his men to dismount and scatter in the alleys, he bounded off to intercept the pursuit.