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

by T. C. Rypel

  Gutch breathed a sigh of relief and leaned forward on the bar. “C’mere, jughead.”

  Klaus numbly shambled over the wreckage.

  “Rhine wine,” the stylish innkeeper said, pouring out two goblets. “These Slavs don’t know what’s good—here.”

  “Danke, Gutch.”

  “You got nothin’ to do, eh? I could use some help around here. Got a feelin’ this place is gonna be crawlin’ with swine pretty soon. And not the payin’ kind. Why don’t you stay and help get the place cleaned up for the customers?”

  “Sure, I’d be glad to,” Klaus offered solicitously. He set his goblet down. “Do you want me to start with the furniture or the bodies?”

  Gutch eyed him sidelong in haughty disapproval, trying to decide whether the buckle-maker was crazy or merely simple. He shrugged. “Finish your wine first.”

  Klaus offered his cup in toast. “It’s you and me against all of them. We can handle them, nicht wahr?”

  “Ja-ja—let’s not overdo the you-and-me business. It’s bad for Gutch’s image. Prosit.”

  An hour later the Provender had become a temple of foreboding. Corpses, propped in the windows and piled before the door, stared out onto Provender Lane with dead eyes. Tables, chairs, and broken casks were heaped at the windows, topped by oil-soaked rags. Thin lines of black powder snaked back from them to the rear of the bar, where Gutch and Klaus sat on stools, the buckle-maker emulating the posturing of his new compatriot.

  Torches burning in cressets behind them, weapons arrayed on the bar, they awaited the anticipated influx of business.

  * * * *

  Gonji had averted death in an instant’s twisting, two-handed overhead parry.

  That close...the shrieking wash of air from the great blade’s turning just barely skimming over Gonji’s skull; the flat of his own forte deflecting that colossal blade like the striking of an anvil—

  The impressions of this encounter, which lasted scant seconds, now expanded in his adrenaline rush to overlay one another in a frightening moment of double-vision from some concussion he barely registered: the mercenary’s enormous, rotating blade—swinging in whirling death, around and around, over the attacker’s head, an impossibly long defensive arc—Gonji darting, leaping, dashing in and out against the heavy sweep of whistling death from that massive steel weapon, a relic of antiquated British Isles combat; still lethal, still deceptively useful, intimidating in its daring invitation to close-quarter combat—the samurai’s final spine-chilling upward parry, springing lunge, and surging riposte with the lancing Sagami—the foe’s last pain-laced breath roaring into his face—

  Bounding over the body of the Scottish Highlander—seven-foot claymore beneath him in death—Gonji pounded on foot, breathless, dazed and freshly wounded, up to the wagon caravan escorted through the south central sector by mixed cavalry and foot soldiers led by Aldo Monetto.

  “The castle garrison’s on its way,” Gonji told him, hearing his own voice echoed through a chamber in his mind.

  To which Monetto replied, “We knew that would happen, eh? God, what a mess.”

  “Are any sectors cleared? Completely cleared?” Gonji seemed to be strangely oozing back into his own body. Sound and vision both came back into phase, as if emerging from under water. His heartbeat slowed, breathing regulated—

  “I think the whole north end is evacuated,” the biller replied, without a muffled echo in Gonji’s ears now. “They got moving fast once they understood what was happening. The explosions and fires woke them up pretty fast. It’s the damned center of town that’s the problem.”

  “Anton may still be stuck there, defending useless territory,” Gonji mused. His head still throbbed from the mild concussion, but he began to feel in the moment again. He sloshed water from a skin proffered by Monetto. Glancing around, he hit upon an idea.

  “What happens if the drain sluices aren’t opened in the south and east at the same time as those that admit the river water?” Gonji asked disarmingly.

  Monetto looked puzzled. “Well—we’d have a flood.”

  “Hai. Where?”

  The biller thought a moment. “The city sags at the center. The big culvert that splits Vedun would overflow first. What do you have in mind?”

  “Slow the pursuit. Get to Anton fast. Tell him to withdraw across the culvert spans. Collapse the wooden ones, blockade those of stone. Anything that will slow the big reinforcement troop. We need time to get people out. Then take a small party with you and open only the wash gates. Let the Little Roar pour through. Vedun could use a good cleansing anyway.”

  Monetto saluted and galloped off, and Gonji jumped aboard a wagon and led the caravan the rest of the way out the gate. They splashed through the small lake the bloated moat had formed, as it over-spilled its banks in the incessant rain, encountering little resistance once beyond the gates. Most of the occupation troops outside had fallen back toward the north to regroup, fearing the werewolf’s return.

  Gonji directed the evacuees to rumble on toward Austria, and then jumped down to aid in slowing any pursuit. He could hear the Beast’s—Simon’s—chilling howl in the forest as he leapt atop an overturned wagon with a hastily procured bow and quiver from a dead defender. He suddenly realized, then, that he couldn’t recall where he had left Tora, or his own bow. Shaking his head, he rapidly stuck the new shafts into the wagon’s wooden side.

  “Gonji!” Wilf called from down the street, cutting his mount across the trailing wagons’ path to reach him. “God, I thought we’d lost you! The garrison’s turned out of the castle—now’s the time to take it! Where is the siege party?”

  “Patience, Wilf,” Gonji urged, firing, now, at the swarming mercenary band that abruptly hit the escort defenders from the northern curve of the wall. Passing citizens and the cavalry escort cheered to see the samurai’s inspiring pose. He continued launching, dropping bandits into the muck, though each shot pained his injured side. Plenty of time for pain to be an annoyance tomorrow; tonight it was life-affirming.

  Mercenaries spotted him and began to angle toward him. He watched a woman drop a free companion from her wagon with a well-thrown dirk—it was Magda Nagy. She ordered her driver to slow before the samurai.

  “Go! Don’t stop here,” he cried, launching an arrow and tearing a Spanish rogue off his whinnying steed.

  “Gonji, you seen Nick?” Magda asked anxiously.

  “He’ll be along. Get out of here, with all godspeed!”

  He heard well-wishes in Slovak dialects, farewells from friends and strangers alike. And like their vain hopes of retaking the city, more militiamen streamed away with the caravan.

  “Make sure the valley people, from the south tunnel, are all aboard wagons,” Gonji reminded.

  An archer atop the wall cried, “The castle troops are at the north gate. Fight well, men!” One of the family men, he spotted the wagon his family rode and dropped aboard with a last farewell.

  Decimated and disorganized, the attacking mercenaries fell back from the wagons and moved to join with the reinforcements at the postern.

  Gonji was thinking how few Llorm seemed to be left in the city garrison when he heard the thunderous wash of water through the sluice gates.

  “Good,” he grated. The bellowing of the cretin giant came next from not far off. “Not so good. I was hoping he’d be dead by now.”

  “Hey, you men!” Wilf began chasing a band of unmarried bushi who were pounding out along with the wagon troops.

  “Let them go, Wilf,” Gonji ordered.

  “We need them later,” the smith roared over the distance between them. “Who the hell’s going to be around to attack the castle?”

  “Unwilling men are no good,” Gonji shouted in explanation.

  And then Gonji saw Tora, drinking from a pool of rain water not fifty feet off, and he gratefully reunited with his brave-hearted steed.

  Wilf kicked his mount to ride up beside the samurai. The young smith’s insides were in turmoi
l, his voice at near hysterical pitch. “Well, then how many troops will there be, to help us take the castle? We should be riding there now. Let’s go when these wagons are through!”

  “There are more people to be picked up. More wagons. I’ve seen them—”

  “Aw, the hell with those wagons!” Wilf railed anew. “They’ve got enough—!”

  “That’s enough of that, Wilfred,” Garth shouted at his son, riding up at the head of a small party of bloody and begrimed defenders.

  Wilf exhaled long and slow, raked his face with a sleeve. “I’m sorry, bitte. I’m tired, and when I see those cowards riding out—”

  “There are no cowards here today,” Gonji intoned firmly. He watched Garth and another man load the injured Captain Sianno aboard a stopped wagon, amazed at the smith’s blend of courage, compassion, and honor.

  “You just be still and lie there—” Garth was saying, chuckling at the enemy captain’s ill humor. “When Klann gets you back, he won’t know you. We’re going to make a real European out of you.”

  “How do we besiege the castle when it’s time?” Wilf was asking calmly, over Gonji’s shoulder. The last of the wagons were clattering through the gate, their wheels spewing sheets of water.

  “You’ll see,” Gonji told him absently. Tumo’s bellow was nearer now. “Nothing to do here. Time to start riding, men—”

  “Where?”

  Tora wheeled and tossed anxiously, catching Gonji’s tension and the scent of the giant. The samurai counted heads as the bushi gathered, shaking his own head as he did. “We’re going to comb the town for stragglers. Let’s go.”

  “Stragglers?” Wilf queried. “You mean warriors for the raiding party?”

  “I mean trapped innocents.” Gonji kicked into a gallop, the rest following apprehensively, twisting astride their horses to see the unleashed waters of the Olt River, which now rumbled through Vedun behind them.

  * * * *

  Mord grabbed General Gorkin by the shoulder. The castellan, seeing who it was, twisted free as if averting an alighting spider.

  “Forgive me, General Gorkin, but I believe it is time to begin the troops, and the Akryllonian people, on the chant ritual. Why don’t you gather the people in the castle’s chapel? I think that would be a fitting touch, now that I’ve prepared it.”

  Gorkin stared at him coldly, waiting a long time before replying. “When the king returns, I’m sure he’ll give the order.”

  “I’m afraid that won’t be soon enough,” Mord retorted, almost allowing the panic to seep through his tone. “You see—the full moon—it will drift from phase soon—it must be done now.”

  “The king knows your situation.” The castellan turned away.

  Mord grabbed his arm. “You’re in charge in his absence. Do you want to bear the responsibility for—”

  Gorkin snapped his arm free. “Go piddle among your potions.” And with that he marched off, his boot heels resounding in the empty corridor.

  A sibilant hiss, as Mord added still another name to the list of those to be dealt with. He hurried off for his tower to do what he must, though the danger of it far exceeded anything he had attempted before in all his centuries of arcane gramarye and dark invocation.

  Reaching the tower, he threw open the ground level iron door, and a rush of bodies tumbled past, lurching back from him so that they might avoid so much as a brush of his cloak.

  The hostages—all those still alive among the captives from Vedun. The experimental subjects for his work at separating the remaining personages of Klann. Freed from the dungeons. Mord laughed to see them scurry through the wards and into halls and towers like rats from a listing vessel.

  Fools. Where did they think they could run? And their panic was misbegotten: He had no further use for them. No more need for the deception, the pretense of working hard at undoing an ancient spell that was irretrievably binding. Tonight he would triumph. Even now the city was being laid waste. Later—King Klann himself. Then both Mord and the Akryllonian League of Necromancers would be satisfied in their age-old passions.

  Just as soon as he had received his new imputation of power. More power than he had ever dreamed could be his, as the Dark Master had promised.

  If Klann would see the people through the ritual....

  Yes. Yes, of course he would. He needed Mord. He wouldn’t fail him. There was no need to panic. The blunderer would bring about his own destruction. And if he was too slow? If the moon’s phase passed?

  Then human sacrifice would have to suffice for now. Much human sacrifice, starting with—

  The girl. He felt her enslaved presence and smiled, moving through the pitch-black corridors of his tower unerringly, descending into the dungeons, rife with the sounds of subhuman suffering. Past the cells of groaning half-men, pausing at the chamber where she tried to hide like a foolish guilty child.

  “Come out, come out, my dear. Dance for your master.”

  He manipulated with his gloved hand, as if pulling invisible puppet strings. She pirouetted out before him awkwardly, struggling all the while—

  And Genya glared at him hatefully.

  “Let them out, did you?” He smirked. “Valiant, to the last. But now you’re merely underfoot, until I need you. Come along....”

  He fluttered his fingers, causing Genya to shuffle along behind him like an automaton. “Have you tried to bolt the castle? Did you find it impossible to leave me, your new betrothed? An insubstantial, invisible membrane, you see. A womb—or a tomb, if you prefer. It restrains you from straying too far from me.”

  He walked her to the highest level of his tower, locking her in a tiny, barren chamber with a single narrow window grating, through which the plateau and part of the city could be seen, far off against the southern mountain range.

  Genya gasped to see the flames in Vedun. The misted night wind carried the fearsome sounds of conflict.

  “Such power,” Mord’s bass voice rumbled. “Would you have believed any single being could have wrought such a thing? A fitting finale to a life of minor enchantment. For soon I shall soar to greater heights. Transcendent. A new epoch lies in wait—so the Dark Lord has promised. And you shall help to bring it about.” He hung the keys on a hook just out of her reach through the door grating. “Practice the spell of levitation while I’m gone,” he taunted. “See if you can unlock the power that resides, latent within you....”

  He hurried down to the dungeons. In his chamber of spells and magick artifacts, he brooded momentarily over the ambitious invocation he would essay. It worried him. The Hell-Hound was not his to control. Not in his relatively weakened state. He could invoke it, give it substance in this realm, and set it on its relentless course. It would unswervingly track and destroy the enigmatic presence in the territory that so troubled both Mord and his Dark Lord. But it could not be destroyed by any power on earth; nor would Mord command it.

  His appeal to his Master for guidance fell on deaf ears. But he pushed on, disturbed until the huge, musty tome of spells began to move on its stand, the leaves flipping open of their own accord to land on the invocation he was uncertainly considering.

  But of course, he must....

  His evil mind smiled. From within the protective pentacle, he performed the difficult ritual. At its conclusion, the diamond-shaped glass within the oracle atop the blood-stained altar began to spin. Mord gazed into the netherworld, seeking, searching through that despondent realm where he had been told only the failed would ever reside. Never the competent servants, who would live on to serve, immortal.

  And then he saw it in the howling maelstrom of chaos, and he called it forth: Wolverangue, Spawn of Satan...the Hell-Hound. A sight to make these mortals curse their mothers’ wombs for having ever birthed them.

  Next—he concentrated on the glowing key that lay among the retorts. The object that radiated the aura of that tormented spirit. The glass clouded. In another facet, the being appeared, and Mord started, despite all else that he had been
permitted to witness. The Beast roared and bellowed through the forests to the west, running beside...the women and children of Vedun.

  Mord laughed insanely at the propitiousness of the timing. Surely the Dark Master rejoiced in his Palace of Awe!

  The facets merged, became one. Then the diamond crystal shattered, and Mord was thrown forcibly from the pentacle. He lifted himself up in shock and fear, trembling. And suddenly he felt the slow dawning of terrible betrayal. The mocking sensation of having been a pawn. Deceived and abandoned....

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Hour of the Hare

  “Holy Mother of God, Jiri—it’s a flood,” Greta observed needlessly, hands at her throat. “Look—all the trenches are overflowing.”

  Jiri Szabo seemed bewildered by it all. It was quite beyond comprehension, past anything they had prepared for. Jiri leaned against the window sill in the upper floor of the guild hall, feeling choked and helpless in the grip of his fear.

  “Look at all the troops coming,” he breathed in awe.

  “It’s King Klann,” she added, “riding at the head of them. Jiri—please—we’ve got to get out of here. I don’t think there are any militia people left.”

  “No—look,” he said, pointing. “Anton. That’s Anton down there. They’re—they’re blocking the culvert spans. Oh, good idea, old knight....” He felt for the sword at his back, snicked it out and gazed on it with passionate eyes as he had countless times during the night. “I’d better get down there,” he said uncertainly, yet again. “But what am I going to do about you? Damn, Greta, why didn’t you leave with your parents?”

  “I told you, Jiri,” she repeated again hoarsely, “I wanted to be with you. I couldn’t stand the thought of you dying alone somewhere. Not knowing....”

  “That’s the warrior’s lot, Greta, you’ve known that all along.... I’m a warrior now.” He made to move off for the stairs, grimly but tentatively, his face a mask of conflicting duty, concern for Greta’s safety, and just plain fear. When Greta tried to hold him back, he pulled away all the harder. When she surrendered in despair, Jiri would reconsider his battle eagerness and turn to comfort her and rationalize.