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

by T. C. Rypel

  “But I knew. Deep inside, I knew what they had done. That was why I wished to avoid the banquet. I hoped that Klann’s invitation to the chief blacksmith had been made in ignorance, out of some need for service. Then when I saw it was a new Klann personage, I began to hope that he would not know me. And most of all I hoped and prayed that I had been wrong all those years, that my suspicions were unjustified—That she—was—dead.” He sighed raggedly. “It seems all my hopes and prayers were in vain.”

  “You could have brought your suspicions to light before,” Gonji advised gently.

  “What man enjoys admitting to himself that he’s been a cuckold, much less to others?”

  Gonji nodded forlornly.

  The smith stared off into empty space. “I just can’t believe they would conspire to cause such misery. Fratricide. Klann wouldn’t endorse such—”

  “You forget,” Gonji reminded, “it seems it was Mord they conspired with.”

  Garth grimaced and cast him a look of disbelief. “Maybe she did it all out of vengeance. But can one woman carry in her heart so much hatred? And Lorenz? I must know,” he said softly. “I will have an answer. Leave me now, bitte, to bury my son.”

  Gonji bowed to him, heartsick to see his renewed grief, and backed away to rejoin Tora. His face bore a repugnant set. He felt numb. Unsure of whether his feelings had died or were merely rallying for a new onslaught.

  When he returned to the north tunnel, he found the others eating and drinking in sullen silence. Zarek’s body was gone. Monetto tended a cooking fire. Gonji avoided their eyes as he obtained some of the salted beef and fruit, steering clear of the concoction Aldo was stewing. He was glad that Wilf kept to himself, offering not so much as a greeting his way.

  The samurai sat cross-legged apart from them and ate quietly. His swords were laid along his right side in a minute effort at peaceful respite.

  William Eddings suddenly charged for the pile of pistols Gonji had brought from Vedun. Seizing one, he cocked it and aimed at Gonji.

  “Hey, what are you doing, you fool?” Monetto shouted, leaping at him. He wrestled the pistol from his grasp, the hammer clicking uselessly. It hadn’t been loaded.

  Gonji watched without reaction.

  “Flavio would not want that!” Eddings roared in Spanish, mimicking Gonji’s pronouncement from the inspiring speech he’d given them at the alert meeting. Then he began stalking Gonji, railing at him in English, his sword drawn in tearful wrath. Monetto tried to stay him, but Eddings threatened him back with the saber.

  Arvin sat nearest Gonji, slumped forward on his bent knees. He was the only one among them who understood English.

  “God damn you to hell, you bloody yellow devil!” Eddings cried in his wrath. “My father is lying back there with a broken skull because of you. I never even had a chance to bury him. Hundreds of people dead. And all because of you. You and your swaggering bravado—Flavio would not want that!”

  He postured before Gonji in imitation of his well-known strut, grasping his saber in the manner of a katana, flourishing it mockingly through a few techniques Gonji had taught. “Hold your blade higher—stiffen your arms—complete the circle.... I don’t even know what became of my brother and sister-in-law. I’ll never see them again. All because Flavio would not want that.”

  “Take it easy, Eddings,” Arvin said sternly. “I saw your brother and his wife leave with one of the wagon lines.”

  “Who asked you?” Eddings fumed. “You lousy Français—you’d bloody well hang yourself as soon as tell an English subject anything close to the truth.”

  “You’re not an English subject anymore, Eddings,” Arvin replied. “You gave that up, remember? It’s no use blaming him. He told us often enough what the cost of freedom would be. After that our destiny was in our own hands. Sometimes there’s nowhere left to run to find freedom. Sometimes you just have to find the courage to stay, each man for himself, somewhere inside him—”

  “What the hell are you trying to say?” Eddings demanded.

  Arvin shrugged and looked away. “I don’t know.”

  “You—Jappo!” Eddings continued, poised to spring like an adder. “Yoi-suru—ready! Just like in the catacombs, eh, sensei? Stand up and cross with me. I’m bloody mad enough now. You didn’t like my form, then. Well, try me now. Stand up.”

  Gonji continued to sit, staring at a point before him, emotionless. Eddings began to tremble. An angry puff of breath whined from his throat. Wilf was rising slowly to move behind him. Monetto stood by, breath held in check.

  Eddings blinked back tears and turned. “Give me those pistols!” he cried. But Monetto lithely bounded over to them and dropped the satchels on the other side of the spiked redoubt.

  The distraught Englishman cast about, back and forth, irrational. Then he charged Gonji with a mighty roar, saber held high. Wilf tripped him as he went by, and he and Monetto fell on him, holding him down until he had surrendered in a sobbing heap.

  “You should have let him finish,” Gonji told them.

  Monetto rose, chest heaving. “Now what in hell is that supposed to mean? We’ve got enough problems around here without you wallowing in self-pity, sensei.”

  Arvin saw Gonji stiffen, wondering how the warrior would take to Aldo Monetto’s audacity. But the hard line of the oriental’s eyes softened as if with relief.

  Monetto bobbed his head. “You told us what to expect. There were no surprises. No one twisted our arms to stay. Even you can’t anticipate everything. So stop acting like you’ve...disappointed a bunch of children or something—I don’t know,” he finished in a rush, turning away in embarrassment.

  Arvin lay his head back, eyes closed. “That’s right, Gonji,” he said in French. “What happened would have happened even if you hadn’t come. Maybe worse, n’est-ce pas? No one fought more courageously than you. You frightened me out of the fear of death, I’ll tell you. There’s no scarier sight than that sword of yours in....” He was hardly aware any longer that he was speaking loud enough for the others to hear. “You see, it’s always been like that with me. I’ve never had the courage to deal with the ugly things in life. My wife was dying, you know. There was nothing anyone could do. No one but me. She lay on her deathbed, calling out my name, begging me to stay at her side during the final ordeal...squeeze her hand....

  “I couldn’t even do that, you see. I—I just slunk off and drank myself into a fine painless stupor until—until word came that it was safe for me to crawl out of my little hole—” Arvin broke down in waves of gasping and tears. And the others looked away, trying to distance themselves from his unfettered burden. But at length Arvin recovered and spoke again.

  “Merci, monsieur,” he thanked the astonished samurai. “I can only wish you had come sooner....”

  * * * *

  Garth returned, pale and dour of countenance from his ordeal, and the others looked from him to Gonji and back again for the explanation that was not long in coming.

  The valiant blacksmith sat on a stone and called Wilf to him. Speaking low but making no effort at excluding the others—save for Eddings, who could not understand and seemed not to care—he recounted to Wilf the tale of woe he had told Gonji. The rest listened in grimly.

  He finished, and there was not a sound for a time.

  “I’m so very sorry, Garth,” Aldo offered in earnest sympathy.

  But all at once, Wilfred became outraged. “How dare you? How dare you keep this from us all these years?”

  “Wilfred, I—”

  “I know why,” Wilf bellowed. “It’s because you wanted nothing to tarnish your image—the pious and humble smith. Don’t worry, everyone—I’ll survive—I’ll crawl away from those who’ve cuckolded me and change my name and dig a hole somewhere and drag everyone I can in there on top of me—”

  “Wilfred, that’s not fair,” Garth shouted, lurching toward his son with florid cheeks.

  “Don’t tell me what’s fair, old man! Have you been fair to me
? To poor Strom, God rest his soul? Nein, you’ve been too busy turning both cheeks to make God smile on you by pampering the bastard son you loved more than your own, who went on to murder my brother and my city. Here is Strom, my idiot shepherd son; ah, and Wilfred, my thick-headed apprentice—aren’t they lovable? But this—this is Lorenz, my shining star, the brainy one in the family.” He spat noisily. “Son of the madman who screwed my wife!”

  The tunnel echoed with the sharp slap that snapped Wilf’s head. The others winced.

  Wilf turned to his father slowly. Garth’s face shook, flushed with anger and regret.

  “Don’t ever hit me like that again,” Wilf said, deep and minacious. “Why, Papa?” he accused, scowling with angry confusion. “Why did you give Lorenz the best of everything? Privileges, education, encouragement to advance himself in the world. Strom was happy in his simple world, but you knew what I wanted. You knew how I chafed to be out on my own, to try my hand at so many things. I know that I am nearly Lorenz’s equal in learning ability. Yet you kept drumming into me all those years that I would somehow be sinning against you and God, if ever I aspired to anything more than the forge and the livery trade. You wouldn’t even allow me to love as I wished to. Why?”

  Garth clenched his fists before answering. “Because you are too much like me. I see in you the headstrong, ambitious young scalawag that I once was. When I saw how you wanted so many things I had wanted, I just didn’t want you repeating my mistakes.

  “I admit that I feared my hatred of what was done to me so deeply that I thought it might be kindled against Lorenz; so I...went too far.... But I didn’t love him more than you boys. You must believe that. I was selfish. I can see that now. Lorenz would outgrow us, outgrow his position in Vedun. He would leave, and the ledger would be clean. But you and Strom, you were all that I had to call my own. Maybe I feared that if I allowed you to grow, you would outgrow me, and I’d be left all alone. A broken old man.

  “Wilfred, I ask you....” Garth swallowed hard, his whole being seeming to sink, “...and I ask Strom, if he be capable of knowing, to forgive me for all the ways you’ve found me wanting as a father.”

  Wilf seemed dumbstruck. A second later they were embracing and weeping, apologies and words of affection forming in the emotional maelstrom.

  “Garth,” Gonji said as he rose very deliberately, “I commend you above all other men I have known. There are times when you exhibit the finest qualities of both my land and yours. I am honored to call you friend.” He bowed deeply.

  Garth blushed and returned the bow self-consciously, though he seemed preoccupied by the joy of reconciliation to Wilf.

  “Well, gentils, I’ll drink to that,” Monetto said, hefting a cask from the catacomb stores, “and I trust that our accusations and self-torment are spent.”

  * * * *

  They rested, ate, meditated and prayed, each man wrapped in his own thoughts, seeking his own sphere of peace.

  And when dusk arrived and the night wind carried the stark sounds of merriment from the castle in the distant hills above them, Gonji rose beneath the flaring cresset and began to arm himself. He harnessed his swords and strapped a dirk inside a thick woolen sock, facing the exit tunnel.

  “Mord,” he lipped barely above a whisper. “I’m coming for you, Mord....” He moved to the firearms and selected two pistols, loaded and spannered them, stuffed them into his obi, feeling the twinge of pain in his injured side from the pressure, and the sting of the long cut along his lower back.

  Wilfred was beside him now, charging a wheel-lock. “Everyone knows why I’ve got to go.”

  “I must ask Olga,” Garth joined, belting on his baldric and heavy broadsword, “why she has done this. And Lorenz—”

  “Ja,” Wilf took up, “my half-brother has a lot to answer for.”

  “Why aid the filthy sorcerer?” Gonji offered in example.

  Wilf nodded. “And why kill the little guy? Poor Strom always looked up to him so.”

  “Wilfred, I must ask you,” Garth said with concern, “to use sound judgment, should you encounter your brother. Temper your anger with mercy.”

  “God’s will be done,” Wilf said without rancor.

  Arvin rose. “Amen to that.” He fended off their curious looks with one of his own. “Well, I don’t suppose you all mind if I...see this through? I need to know. To know myself.”

  Gonji smiled at him and tossed him a wheel-lock. They began stringing longbows. Then William Eddings was standing before Gonji, staring somberly. He looked at Arvin, flicked his head toward Gonji, and then spoke.

  At length Arvin shook his head and raised an argument. But Eddings shouted him down and again tilted his head at Gonji.

  “He says he’s going along because he wants to be there to see you die,” Arvin translated. “There, I told him.”

  Gonji thought a moment. “Tell Eddings he’ll have to stay alive to do that.”

  Eddings cast the samurai a fell grin to hear Arvin’s translation. Gonji handed him two pistols, and the Englishman spoke again.

  “He says he promises he will. Blasted Anglais....”

  “That one’s mine,” Monetto said when they had strung Gerhard’s legendary longbow.

  “So sorry, my friend, but you’re not going along.”

  “Now wait a minute, Gonji—how are you going to do it? The tunnel to the dungeons? Who’s going to dig your way through—Tumo? I assure you we did a thorough job of collapsing it. The main gate of Castle Lenska? Highly unlikely, unless the garrison dies of fright to see you still alive. So what’s left? And who’s the best climber here, eh?”

  Gonji scratched his head. “Oh, Aldo, I don’t know. We’ve enough good men to mourn. You have a wife, and kinder—”

  “If Karl had lived, that bow of his would be with you. He’d want it to be. Sylva would want it to be. For one shot. One last shot for Karl—that’s what she’d say—and I won’t give it up. So?” He met the samurai’s impassive stare firmly. “Look—I’ll get you up on the battlements, that’s all. I promise. For Karl. Then I’ll leave....”

  At length they reluctantly assented. They moved out to the horses, where they sat awhile in the gathering shadows, armed to the teeth, listening to the distant revelry in silence.

  “Let’s go for it,” Wilf said finally. And Gonji could not help remembering those same words coming from another Wilf. So long ago, it seemed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  There was celebration at Castle Lenska, but its tone depended on where one looked. And its opposite, mourning, was no less in evidence.

  The drawbridge was down, the portcullis raised, and the gates were thrown open to the encamped remnant of the mercenary companies, those soldiers-of-fortune who hadn’t already decided to grab their fortune where it lay and flee this forbidding territory. The free companions’ carousal was wild and vulgar, watched over by grim Llorm sentries. Weary and bored, they manned the ramparts over the gatehouses to police the mercenaries’ drunken revelry and make certain that no firearms passed inside the walls in defiance of King Klann’s orders.

  The free companions drank and cavorted in bleary triumph. They staged mock duels and feasted in the wards, still soaked from the long rain. The outer halls were filled with bawdy songs and ribald humor; no servant girl was safe outside her chamber.

  Even Tumo was drunk. The cretin giant was an awful caricature of a battlefield casualty, with an eye patch fashioned of a large pair of pantaloons, and bed sheets bandaging half his naked body. Soldiers cracked open kegs of ale for him, with which he washed down the raw slabs of meat he masticated. He bawled and slobbered, tottering about the outer ward and slapping at mercenaries who prodded him with pikes. The brawling drunkards wagered on escalating feats of daring. Some paid dearly, when they struck Tumo in tender areas.

  Only the towers and gatehouses of the battlements were manned by Llorm sentries now, these from the portion of the garrison left back during the counterattack at the city. The rest were
relieved of duty in order to recuperate, to recover from wounds amongst the overflow of human suffering in the hall sequestered for the sick and injured, or to comfort the families of the many dead.

  Private chambers were given over to mourning; to troubled Akryllonian families huddling against the bleak promise of the future for those dwindling nomads; to expressions of concern for their king.

  Klann sat brooding on his dais in the great hall, the restrained merriment about him a blur. He was heavy-lidded and sullen as his vision served up shattered hopes and dreams of futile keeping, the cruel light of events confirming the pessimism of the years. It was really coming to an end. All of it. The dream of returning to Akryllon....

  The Llorm, and the few survivors of the trusted 1st Free Company who sat near him, sensed his mood and drove themselves into hedonistic wastreling, the sensory glut that allowed brief, merciful forgetfulness. They slowly drifted farther from the dais when they heard the multiple voices of the remaining Klann personages, loosed by the king’s heavy drinking—

  The caustic, accusing counsel of the rational pair who suffered within. And, now and again—more often as he fell deeper into his cups—the mouth-gaping guttural noises of the Tainted One.

  Hatred bloomed anew, in Klann, for the sorcerer he had so trusted. The magician had failed him. Then he saw Lady Olga Thorvald sidling through the crowd, her vain, persistent hope still in her eyes. When he saw her now he wondered at the mad folly of his dead brother’s heart, he who had chosen her fleeting warmth over the vision of sweet return. For so this Klann sibling had marked the onset of the collapse of the dream of a reclaimed Akryllon; it had begun with their brother’s surrender to Thorvald’s seduction.

  He thought then of Garth Iorgens, the mighty and faithful general she had brought low. And then of Iorgens’ words.... Mord works against you. He gazed about at the citizens in the hall with sudden clarity, saw their sickliness, their pallor. As if they’d been bled of life essence....