Gonji: The Soul Within the Steel: The Deathwind Trilogy, Book Two (46 page)

Gonji made no answer. Suddenly Paolo was Gonji’s equal, full of tactical questions, his sullen introversion gone.
Proven yourself, have you?

“Let’s restore order,” Gonji called out over his head. “See to our men. I want a head count. Check the perimeter. Someone start a body count of the—”

The shouting from the stables cut him off.

“
Kami!
—I—”

Gonji bolted to the stables, the curious and concerned following him. He arrived there to find four of his men holding the crusty old cook and hostler Jocko at bay. In a manner of speaking....

“Pilgrim!” Jocko shouted to see Gonji. “Sonofabitch! Ya told me you’d be back like a conqueror, and goddamn if ya didn’t do it! Hee-heeeee!” He rushed forward, past the now relieved band at whom the apparent madman had been waving his rusty cutlass, “Kingslayer,” and embraced Gonji like a son.

“What a grand night it is! How ‘bout some wine fer you an’ yer pals? Say, y’know,” he said in a low voice, “I don’t like ta say nothin’, but ya better get yerself some good boys. Why, if an old codger like me can hold off four of ’em, well—”

They were speaking in Italian, some of the men at a total loss to know what was going on.

“I told them not to hurt you, you old relic. But go ahead, break open the wine casks. Later we’ll reminisce. My friends, this is Giacomo Battaglia—”

“Just Jocko,” the old man growled.

“—who saved my life from these brigands a while back.”

Angelo, Jocko’s mule, began braying and kicking in the smith shop.

“Awww, shut up, Ange! I’m comin’, I’m comin’, dammit!”

“All right,
bushi
,” Gonji said, “let’s see what we’ve done.”

They moved off to sort out the village, voices in translation relating tales of the fray. It had been a new experience for most of them.

Anton’s leg was patched. He wouldn’t be fighting on foot for quite a while. And Stefan Berenyi had come forward clutching a bloody rag, pale as the harvest moon. When the rag was unwrapped, it was found that he’d lost a finger. “Oh, is that all it is?” he joked to stave off his nausea and a fainting spell. They quickly got him drunk so that the old woman who served as village physician could cauterize the wound. All the while Berenyi sat in a cold sweat, shivering, telling jokes that Nagy for once suffered in silence.

But that was the extent of the militia’s casualties—not a single death, and most of them seemed encouraged, if a little unnerved, to have seen Gonji’s savagery in battle for the first time. And the samurai, for his part, understood that some of them failed altogether to take part in the exercise, these having at least gained something from the grim sight of it all, he thought.

“I didn’t do very well today,” Jiri said to him when no one else was around to hear.

“Forget it, Jiri, that’s the way it is sometimes.”

“Don’t give up on me, eh? I feel more comfortable about it now. All I need is some extra work in
ken-jutsu
—”

“Jiri, this isn’t a competition to please me. This is war. Do what you must to feel good about yourself.” And with that Gonji left him to ponder what he had said.

Later Gonji stood alongside Wilf, watching as the bodies of the last fifteen members of Klann’s 3rd Royalist Free Company were loaded onto wagons for burial. The samurai cleansed his
katana
blade with a silk bandanna taken from the dead Esteban. He saw Wilf staring at the man he had killed. “Are you
all-recht
, Wilf?” he asked gently.

“I think,” Wilf breathed.

The wrapped corpse of Navarez was the last to be brought, Paolo carrying his head, which no one else would touch. The manner of the captain’s death still evoked terror and revulsion among some of them, Gonji knew, and he decided to probe them about it.

“This man did me grave insult and offense. He tried to kill me—”

One of the grimacing militiamen spoke his mind in a way that brought the band to tense silence:

“Who are you?
What
are you? Are you a god or a spirit or a demon, that you can fight like that? So...coldly.... You—you—”

“I’m both very good, and very lucky,” Gonji replied evenly, “but still a man. When my time comes, I’ll fall like any other. Maybe I’ll fall a little more gracefully....”

His arch tone on the last word brought a few chuckles, but his detractor continued, impassioned now:

“You make light of it! I’m talking about the way you kill. You kill men like—like—like you’re gleaning in a field. Like they—”

“I’m sorry that you don’t approve, friend. Battle is like that. I didn’t make the rules. I just survive, that’s all. Just because men die when I strike them doesn’t mean I don’t believe in human dignity. I’m sorry that I’m so good. I’m what my father expected me to be. Can you say the same? What were you hoping—that I’d die back there? That one of those bandits would be better? Your hope was misplaced. Better to start hoping that none you meet on the field are better than you—”

“It isn’t going to matter, because I’m not going to be on any battlefield.” With that he turned and walked away, and another followed him. They left the village and returned to their horses.

“Shouldn’t we stop them?” Paolo asked.

“
Iye
—it’s their right. Maybe they’ll turn out to be smarter anyway.”

A new magistrate was appointed in Zarnesti. Gonji recognized him as a burly villager whose life the samurai had spared when he had helped the mercenaries take the village. The man thanked Gonji through an interpreter, relating that he had felt the samurai was a noble man when he had seen how the bunch had tried to kill him on that miserable night. The militia left the village leader several edged weapons and half the bandit pistols, with which to help defend his village in the future.

Gonji went alone to the widow of the smith he had killed to try to convey his deep sorrow, but she would not receive him; nor would she even hear him out through an interceding villager, saying only that she wished he were as dead as her husband and would pray that he would soon end up that way.

Gonji was profoundly pained by this, his heart heavy with guilt. But there was nothing he could do. It was his karma.

When the militia mounted to leave Zarnesti, deep in the night, Gonji said his farewells to old Jocko, having tipped a few cups to their mutual good fortune. “And what will you do now, old sourface?” Gonji asked.

“Well...seein’s how ya made me unemployed....” He shook his head.

“You won’t go up and tell Klann what we’ve done?”

Jocko’s grating laughter blared forth. “That’d be pretty stupid—I saved yer cursed life fer ya! No, I think it’s kinda funny, one li’l bugger like you givin’ Klann’s whole army an’ monsters and God knows what-all else the fits! Only you be careful now. These’re small fry ya done-in here. As for me...I kinda think I’ll stay around here a bit. Ya killed their only hostler, ya dumb ass! But that’s work fer me. And then, I dunno...I got this notion I ain’t too long fer this world, and I got a grandson I ain’t never seen. Maybe I’ll spend some o’ that time with him. Who knows?”

“Take care, my friend, and may the spirits of your ancestors guide you to a place of gentle respite, when your time comes.”

“Well, now, I don’t know about that, sonny, but you just watch yer arse. Y’hear, pilgrim?”

“
Sayonara
, old man.”

They rode out of Zarnesti exhausted, wounded, but in high spirits. Anton clopped up beside Gonji when they slowed. He didn’t look well.

“My cousin, in the village, is well. Thought you might want to know.”

Gonji glanced at the balding knight. “I’m pleased for you.”

For a time they rode on in silence, something on Anton’s mind besides his pain. Finally he phrased it: “They lost something back there, your
bushi
, no?”

“Eh? What’s that?”

“Their innocence. They won’t be the same now that they’ve spilled blood. The war has begun.”

Gonji nodded, but it was not of the militia that he was thinking.

If he killed, the transformation would occur each night....

CHAPTER TWENTY

They rode into Vedun early in the evening, King Klann under heavy Llorm guard but apparently in good spirits. The main town hall had been decorated to celebrate the event, and the citizens had even fashioned a modest effort at pomp and ceremony, a band on the rostrum striking up a military tune as Klann rode by. People cordoned along the sides of the streamered Street of Hope watched, with general decorum, in their best attire. Some even threw blossoms in the column’s path, a symbol of hoped-for peace.

We’ll see
, Captain Sianno thought. He sat aboard his destrier in dignitary array but with weapons at the ready. He mopped his brow discreetly and licked his beaded lip as they pulled up before the city meeting hall, liking this not at all. The king was being very foolish, and what could be accomplished? The farther he stayed from these people, the better off he was.

The troop dismounted, and Sianno ordered the bearers to set down the palanquin so that Mord could disembark. Damned sorcerer postured as if
he
were king. If Klann weren’t counting on Mord’s aid during the spring voyage after Akryllon, the aides might be able to talk him into dispensing with the conjurer. There was something terribly wrong about him, the way he divined things in advance.

Sianno stayed at Klann’s side during the entrance and seating ritual. The banquet aromas hung appetizingly about the hall. The Llorm quietly but efficiently inspected the environment for evidences of deceit, any possible threats to Klann’s well-being. A network of Llorm dragoons and footmen patrolled the area without, surrounding the hall. No one—nothing—could get in or out.

The greetings were long and tedious. Sianno scanned all in attendance closely for concealed weapons, any kind of trick, the slightest twitch that might reveal anxiety over a hidden threat to the king.

Flavio; Milorad; the protege, Michael; their holy woman, Tralayn, looking subdued for once; Garth Iorgens and his son, the Exchequer—a wearying parade of local dignitaries. And only Garth had aroused a flicker of real interest in the king.

“A splendid display of goods for the castle,” Klann was saying to the crowd. “You’ve done well, indeed. This crop failure, whatever caused it, has been overcome by your diligent efforts and, I’m sure, some belt tightening.” Strained laughter. “It’s all well appreciated, I assure you.”

The leaders seemed anxious to have the festivities done with so that they might speak. Klann, in turn, seemed eager to talk with Garth, frequently casting him nervous glances. Whatever he had to say to him must be important, for him to risk coming among these devious people. Could he be planning to offer him a commission again?

No. Never. Their alliance was precluded forever.

Gaily clad women who had prepared the food now fussed about the king, trotting out their concoctions for the head table at which sat Klann, his retainers, and the local leaders. Bright-faced, freshly scrubbed children from the city were employed in the tasting ritual that assured no threat of poisoning to the king. During this time Sianno excused himself and moved to Garth’s end of the table, where he engaged the ex-Field Commander in a muted chat.

“Iorgens, for past favors, I’ll advance you this: His Majesty comes principally to see you. I think he’ll want to ask you what’s afoot in Vedun. Will you answer him true?”

Iorgens looked mildly miffed, Sianno thought, as he responded: “What’s afoot is that people are dying inside to know what’s become of their loved ones. Those taken without provocation and held as hostages. What’s happening to these people, Sianno?”

The captain was stung. He suspected, as did all at the castle, that they were being foully used somehow by the accursed sorcerer. Yet it was for some purpose that was to benefit the king, and with his sanction. And they had their allegiance to Klann—all there was to live for, to a people without a land to call their own.

“They’re needed,” he answered sternly, “for the king’s service. That’s all a conquered people need know. The king’s will is law, and his followers will die to uphold it. You used to believe that, Garth. Once
you
were willing to die for Klann’s will, isn’t that so?”

“That was a long time ago...another king...another me.” Garth turned away, the strain of time and other burdens—things Sianno cared not to probe into—knitting his brow.

The captain returned to his place.

“...my mother made it herself!” a freckle-faced red-headed boy was telling the king as he took his seat.

Yes, that’s wonderful, child
, Sianno was thinking,
but let’s get on with it, shall we?

Even the sorcerer seemed on edge as he surveyed the hall. As usual there was no place-setting before him. What did he eat?

Sianno banished the thought.