by T. C. Rypel
He passed the Vargos, greeted them. Lottie Kovacs sat between them, almost catatonic. He wondered whether anyone had told her of Karl’s fate yet. Two wagons farther back, Wilf was embracing Genya’s parents in the bed of an open dray. Gonji sighed deeply, felt the pain at his ribs, briefly wondering whether one was cracked.
Screams of children. A quilt, struck by a fire arrow, sprouted in licking flames. The children were grabbed by helping hands, the fire smothered.
“Those are children, you bastards,” a man’s voice bellowed at the enemy on the walls.
“No—let it burn,” Gonji said, running alongside. “We’ll send it back to them. Just cut it out of line.”
They led the burning wagon to the head of the line, its small flames spreading slowly to the damp wood, the draft horses becoming aware and skittish. The armored wagon pulled up behind, and people brought up casks of oil for fueling the flames when they were ready. Others tied loose horses at the rear of wagons. Every manner of transport would be needed.
As the wagon line closed up, Gonji saw Helena, seated beside her mother, who held the reins of a coach. The girl gazed at him anxiously. He strode in front of their team, and her mother, Sophia, saw him and tried to lurch the wagon past him. The samurai seized the harness traces and glared at the stiff-necked old woman.
Helena sat trembling, lips quivering as if she would find the speech long lost to her. Gonji swallowed, felt the eyes on him. He fancied that he signed, Maybe I’ll see you again. But as soon as he saw the warmth her eyes radiated, he knew he had unintentionally pandered to her wishes. He could not recall how one conveyed the concept of maybe, and he was increasingly certain that I’ll see you again had come out as the more positive I’ll be back.
Helena touched her lips with her fingertips, reached down to touch Gonji, but Sophia lashed the team forward to tighten the wagon line. The samurai leaped aside, annoyed at the old woman’s intractability, vaguely wondering whether he hadn’t secretly wanted to sign to the girl just what he had.
“The refugees are assembled in the valley,” a relay man shouted from the walls.
Simon bounded toward Gonji, growling in defiance at the animals and citizens who reared back from him. “Stupid fools!” he grated in his intelligible, doglike voice. “I’ll help them past the north road. That’s all I’ll do.”
Gonji held his gaze steadily, though the sight of the Beast’s multitude of wounds caused others to turn away.
“And Mord?”
Simon hissed. It might have been a laugh. He looked down at his blood-matted fur. “I’ll do all I can to fulfill the sensei’s wishes,” he snarled, bolting away with a howl that needled the innards of the onlookers.
“God’s curse is on him,” a woman fretted.
“For what?” Gonji challenged without singling out the accuser.
Then the flaming wagon was doused with oil, flaring it anew. The now panicking draft team was guided through the gates, the driverless, rolling bonfire parting the marshaled troops. Simon retrieved his weapons and charged into their number, bowling over an entire squad. A few city archers fired down at the encounter in rapid volleys, lending the werewolf aid. The armored coach rumbled out next, dispensing death from cupola and gunloops.
The evacuation was on. The married militiamen shouted their goodbyes and pounded out in determined escort.
“Pick up those valley people,” Gonji shouted. “Leave none behind. Don’t look back—don’t look to the forests—the Death Angel runs with you! Keep looking ahead! Don’t stop until you burn the bridges of Buda and Pesth!”
He mounted again and rode toward the gate, taking up his longbow, caring not to ponder what now lay ahead.
When half the first party of wagons was through, Tumo tumbled from a side lane, bellowing in pain and primitive anger from his many wounds. He ran riot among the wagons, overturning the first he chanced upon, slamming down horses and men, smashing and killing any he could reach, gouging and biting like a titanic enraged child. His forearm and hand, where the werewolf had bitten him, were coated with blood and grime. The flayed flesh was bound with a woman’s nightdress.
The family men’s desperate volley of shot and shaft drove the blaring idiot-giant back, to where he neared some abandoned oil casks. Miklos Zarek and Gonji locked eyes in a sudden tacit inspiration.
Zarek rode dangerously past the giant, who turned and reached, missing him—but he didn’t follow. Passing the casks, Zarek slowed and arced his double-edged axe down hard on a lid. It shattered, oil leaking and swirling over the wet ground. Then he shattered another. The samurai followed shortly with a torch, guiding a wild-eyed Tora even nearer, this time taunting the monster into giving chase.
Gonji swung wide and pulled up at the far side of the oil spill. When Tumo’s hog-sized feet reached the lapping oil slick, he skidded and slammed down comically, with a great thud. Gonji flung the torch into the midst—
The cretin giant hooted a pathetic animal cry. Parts of its armor caught in the blaze—its hide boots, the leather and hemp fastenings. And its exposed flesh was seared in spots before its frantic, gargantuan rolling, and subsequent thunderous whale-dive into a flooded sewage culvert, at last snuffed the tormenting flames.
Tumo’s beady eyes sought out Gonji. And then his mercenary escort party pounded up to rejoin him. Together they bore down on the lone samurai.
Gonji stamped backward astride Tora, unleashing his bow. He had time for one poor-angled shot that caromed off the giant’s breastplate. Then he became aware of his sudden vulnerability.
A pistol cracked off a shot that burned through the air very near him.
“You men—come with me,” he called to three bushi nearby. They anxiously guided their steeds in his wake, fearing his intent.
Gonji heard Wilf call his name from far down the street. But the smith was on foot. No time to wait for him to mount and join them. So Gonji galloped off at the head of his squad. His last impression of the west-gate area was a dismaying one: Some of the unmarried militiamen had already abandoned the rebellion plan and fled the city with the first wave of the evacuation.
* * * *
Gonji had no idea where to lead the cretin giant. But the farther from the west gate, the better. There would soon be more wagons pulling through, and cover fire was dwindling fast.
They rode in circles through the lanes, at first, Gonji and the other bowman in his band looping back and hitting the giant and his small mercenary escort with harassing volleys. One free companion was jolted from the saddle, and an occasional clothyard shaft pierced Tumo’s armor, giving rise to a yelp that did little beyond further stoking his rage.
Cutting through lanes and alleys, across gardens and courtyards, they were dimly aware that they were spiraling toward the north quadrant. The square—and its uncertain situation.
A pistol ball felled the man to Gonji’s left as they emerged into the square. Gonji and the others now split off in three directions, the samurai making for the rostrum and fountain. The giant’s companions took after his men.
Small skirmishes sounded in the environs, but the main concentration of fighting had by now moved far down the Street of Hope, well past the quiet chapel.
He heard his name called here and there, as he clumped past to guide Tora up onto the rostrum that had once served as a boxing palaestra. He wheeled. Very bad. Soldiers clattering through the gatehouse on his right. And roaring straight at him, out of a dark lane, on all fours—the slavering cretin giant.
They bounded off the rostrum in a clatter of hooves, rounded the fountain and made for the now silent bell tower. Gonji unloosed his bow and quiver and threw a leg over Tora’s crest at the run, scampering for the tower entrance. Gained entry to the ground floor. Slammed the oaken door and barred it.
He heard Tora’s whinny and the giant’s roar. A stamping and sudden gallop. Dammit, horse—save yourself!
The door burst inward with an ear-splitting explosion, a huge meaty fist pummeling through, then
retracting, raw and bleeding.
He meant business. Well, Gonji-san, you’ve never had trouble making enemies....
He took the steps three at a time to the second landing. The stairway spiraled upward toward the belfry. A barred grating admitted moonlight at the far side of the landing. Tumo’s face appeared in the aperture, straining to peer through the darkness.
Gonji froze. Nocked swiftly and silently. Hai—The grating blasted inward from the strike of an enormous palm heel—Gonji’s shaft tore into the base of Tumo’s thumb, shearing through the soft meat to plunge out the back of the colossal hand.
Tumo shrieked insanely and withdrew the hand. Gonji sucked a breath and tried to pass the grating to climb higher—the hand and blubbery arm speared through, becoming entangled in the bell ropes as Gonji stumbled back and lost his bow somewhere down the black, sooty stairwell. The bells clanged in a broken chiming now. Gonji covered his ears against the echo and skipped downward. He found the bow as Tumo’s massive arm disengaged itself, then surged back up the stairs.
The Sagami whined from the back harness as Gonji ran—sliced bone-deep into the giant’s forefinger.
Tumo’s scream electrified the night.
Clambering up past the window, now, hugging the wall with fisted weapons, sure that he’d be squashed like a beetle—
Silence for a moment. The third landing. He calculated his height—good. It could not look in now without climbing.
A scraping below. The giant thrust the corpse of a woman through the broken grating. He used her grisly form as a shameful flail, slapping about a short while. Gonji’s lip curled in disgust. He wiped away the sweat from his brow.
He had narrowly bounded past the third grating, when it gave way under the force of a thrust-in hitching rail. Tumo gouged and scraped it inside the bell tower like a cook mixing batter. The bells vibrated with discordant half-clangs from the snaring ropes.
The rail was jammed in hard and abandoned. Then a thumping concussion rocked the tower, followed by an ascending abrasive sound that came from everywhere at once. A whale-fat arm bulged against and through the hole that had been a window, past it—
Tumo was shinnying up the bell tower in undulating rolls of quivering fat. A growling, maddened humanoid slug.
The pulpy flesh of a thigh suddenly bulged a foot inside the third level grating. Gonji bounded over the boards and plunged the Sagami eight inches deep, ripping a gory arm’s-length gouge across his vision. The giant bellowed in infantile anguish and squeezed the tower with all its might.
Masonry crumbled and stone caved inward, spidery cracks shooting up the walls.
Gonji scurried up the curling stairwell, passed the hideous, bloody face. Its cavernous mouth blared like a demon herald through another grating, blocking his ear. He kept running upward, notching another war arrow, kissing the stole as he reached the belfry.
The samurai’s heart beat at battle tempo. A section of wall caved in just below him, and a great bleeding fist punched through and slammed about. He stumbled, righted himself, glanced down—back up—past the now clamoring bells—a giant hand gripped the belfry portal—peering in: that terrible torn face, red tongue lashing across malodorous splay teeth—
Gonji pulled back mightily, grunting with the pain, and fired.
His clothyard arrow penetrated the cheek just below the left eye, the head emerging through splintered bone at the eye socket with a sick tearing sound.
Tumo’s mouth gaped as he howled and fell, shaking the tower’s foundation at the street below. Gonji roared in triumph at the arch, peering down as the screaming beast whirled about in the darkened square like a sun-stroked scorpion. It tore the shaft from its ruined eye and bowled over and over in its pain, scattering horses and men.
With any luck, Gonji thought, the arrow had struck the brain. Death would follow.
But now he pushed off his self-congratulation, gathered his shaken wits. His ears were blocked, his head ringing. He assessed the situation from his vantage: Many more wagons rumbled through the city; Anton and his doughty souls had disappeared altogether from view; mounted skirmishes could be seen; flames consumed several dwellings and shops; the armory was a smoking hole. To the east, the river, swollen to overflowing by the long rain, now engulfed its banks, swirling around the engorged moat that cleansed sewage.
He turned and looked to the north, to the mountains and the distant battlements of Castle Lenska. A sinuous line of troops descended toward the city. The castle garrison had been turned out, as expected.
But what could be done about it? How many bushi remained alive in the city? And how might they be assembled?
He cursed his lack of foresight, then dismissed it. There would have been no sure way to plan. With a despondent notion—his friend Wilf in mind—he skipped down the stairs to the hole the giant had broken high up the tower wall. He dropped through to the cobblestones at the rear of the demolished bell tower, racing through the shadows. Already, inquisitive soldiers were ambling toward it, not altogether eager to discover what creature might have dealt so rudely with their giant—if not the werewolf itself. For all had seen its work.
Gonji found himself alone in the north quadrant. The postern gate was in occupation hands again, with many troops milling about in the relative comfort of numbers. And soon the castle garrison would be here, as well.
To his great relief, Gonji found Tora pawing near the chapel. He gave thought to descending to the catacombs, then recalled at once that he had given the order to seal the tunnels from the surface. At any rate, Tora couldn’t have passed through, that way.
“Shit,” he whispered, rolling astride the Spanish stallion. “Looks like you and me, old boy—hyah!”
Clinging low, never turning in answer to the shouts behind him, Gonji rode with a vengeance toward the shambles of the market stalls.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Hour of the Tiger
They stood in the middle bailey ward of Castle Lenska, the officers and advisers breathless, the Llorm messenger slumping in a state of exhaustion, his helm slipping from his grasp.
All awaited the king’s reaction.
Klann paced slowly before them, still in his armor. His hands were clasped behind his gleaming backplate. A terrible calm beset his long, bearded countenance.
“There’s no end to their defiance, is there?” he said quietly in Kunan. He turned on them suddenly, the serenity driven before his rage. “Has the whole world gone mad? Monsters, you say? They’ve raised monsters against us? Have we not monsters of our own, Mord?”
The sorcerer’s golden mask angled down at his feet. He offered no reply in his defense. General Gorkin, standing beside Mord, moved away a pace, contemptuous of him, as if to divorce himself from association with Mord’s failure.
Rain pattered about the king as he gestured vigorously. “Turn out the garrison. Hold back one Llorm company to man the battlements. Get those lethargic free companions moving—”
“Only two mercenary companies left here, milord,” an officer reminded him.
“Where’s Julian during this madness?” Klann grumbled. “Where is my fine new Field Commander?”
“I fear he’s...dead, sire,” the messenger reported somberly.
Klann ground his teeth. “And Sianno? Send for Sianno. I want an accounting of how—”
“Captain Sianno has been reported...missing in action.”
The king drew his sword and rifled it across the stone courtyard, striking a horse’s hoof, sending it clattering away. He marched toward his own waiting steed, his personal guard falling in around him. Mord, too, fell into step.
“Sire, you’re distraught, but there’s no need to take the entire garrison into Vedun—”
“Get away from me, Mord. It’s your erroneous intelligence as much as anything else that allowed this. You said their action was planned for the morrow.”
“Yes, I admit they deceived my...operatives. They advanced their schedule. Possibly to cause just the so
rt of precipitate action you’re pursuing.”
Klann slowed and became more attentive. “Why?” he asked suspiciously.
“The chant. The Dark Lord’s faith rite. They know I’ll be imbued with fresh mana this night. That I’ll have the power to put an end to their insurgent ways, as soon as we’ve essayed the ritual. You see, I have just the demonic agency with which to stamp out their little rebellion, to send them prostrate with awe. All you need do is direct the garrison and your people to join me in the ritual in the next hour and—”
“I don’t trust you, charlatan,” Klann interrupted. “Where is your moronic giant? And the wyvern—whatever became of it? Still on its pleasure flight?”
“Grumble you may, sire, but please recall all I’ve been able to do for you in the short time since we’ve been associated. You know that Tumo was raised unto me in the full of the moon last winter. Only the conjunction with the solstice caused his...curious imperfection. You know, too, that the quality and number of the faithful is vital in this matter. And when have we had more believers in our community than now?”
Klann thought about his words, shook his head. “Speak to me of it later. For now I ride to Vedun.”
Mord raised his voice to an insolent forcefulness that evoked frowns from the elite guard. “We need to perform it now—I shall be useless to you without it, if the moon passes from phase.”
The king swung into the saddle. “You’re useless to me now,” he said. “Later, Mord. Trouble me later.”
The sorcerer folded his gloved hands inside his sleeves, shoulders relaxing as if in resignation.
A band of mercenaries marched across the ward, pausing to bow before the king. Among them was the man they’d brought with them from Vedun.
“Ah,” Mord observed with obvious satisfaction, “our informant.”
“That one?” Klann inquired, perplexed.
“Yes, milord. More faithful to you than his sire, eh?”
A sour look crossed the king’s face. “You’ve been deceived again, Mord....”