Gonji: A Hungering of Wolves (26 page)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Gonji’s whirlwind crossing of the Alpine passes left both him and his valiant black mare Nichiyoobi haggard and fatigued. But once the western slopes were left behind, there was no time to rest, to recoup lost strength.

The myriad menaces of oppressed Burgundy immediately made themselves apparent.

On his first night in the province, searching out a village on the maps which might afford him sanctuary, the samurai was drawn by a cacophony of human screams and unnatural sounds wafting up from a shallow valley between two sparsely treed hills. Cresting a knoll, he scowled to witness the scene below: Two haunters of night, borne on pointed black wings, were assaulting a lonely farmhouse. The house appeared to be on fire.

Gonji steered Nichi into the valley as he calculated the best approach. Unlimbering his longbow, he brought the steed to a halt and dismounted at about three-hundred yards. The creatures squalled and flapped madly as they beat at the front and back doors with some sort of bludgeons. Gonji could hear children’s voices, shrill with terror, within the house, and the desperate bellowing of a man.

The monsters’ hovering kept them fairly stable in his aim. He nocked, rotated through an overhead Zen draw, and fired. His first shaft missed high, slanting over the creature at the front of the farmhouse. The second did likewise, this time passing over the second bat-winged horror. And the latter creature took note of the war arrow’s errant hiss. It squawked in warning. By the time its fellow had taken heed and searched out the human attacker, a fourteen-fist clothyard shaft had whistled down from the sky to rip through its wing, shredding it.

It wailed and launched into a tipsy flight, gaining height with great difficulty. The pair seemed to converse in the sky above the corral, where two horses stamped and bucked. Gonji readied for the impending strafing attack that never came. The hideous creatures, rather reminiscent of the stone gargoyles set atop church ramparts, chose to decline, beating a petulant, squalling northwestern retreat.

Gonji realized what this might bode as he watched them disappear into a cloud-mounted night sky.

He took to the saddle and pounded down to the farmhouse. Saw that the fire within had diminished, likely under control now, though inky smoke belched from a window on the far side. He called out to the people within. No reply came. He tried another dialect, uncertain, cursing the French language that always caused him such trouble.

Again no response. He dismounted and thumped on the front door. It burst open, and a man launched out at him behind a pruning hook on a long pole. Gonji swore and parried it aside with the hilt of his
katana,
not drawing the weapon in his eagerness to display friendly intent.

It was several minutes before he could cajole the family outside, calm them, and make some sense of their caterwauling. The farmer’s wife and young son were unreachable, crying and babbling incoherently. The man himself and his daughter, who was about thirteen and bore the longest mane of hair he had ever seen, soon were settled enough to attempt a lucid exchange of information.

The dialect was nigh impossible to follow, but the samurai was able to piece together the story that these “bat-men” had come to scare the children, ostensibly because of something the Wunderknechten had done. They’d killed a wolf, or something like a wolf, that was the property of the Farouche. Now no children were safe. That was their punishment.

Gonji decided his course. One room of the house had been burned pretty badly by an overturned lamp. The farmer possessed no useful weapons against such creatures, and Gonji doubted he’d be of much assistance in any case. He made it clear to the family that they must flee their home at once and seek sanctuary with friends or relatives.

He finally saw them off in a wagon, sending them in the opposite direction from the one the winged monsters had taken. The first boom of thunder sounded in the hills as he began preparing for what must come.

He familiarized himself thoroughly with his defensive ground, set things up in the house. Then he ruefully placed Nichi with the two frenzied draft horses in the corral, as decoys. This done, he turned his attention to his weapons.

His motions were spare and efficient, his mien cold and grim as in days of old, when he’d first challenged this continent as a young
ronin.
He’d often allowed too much compromise, too many distractions, in the time since. The fine edge of combat readiness had been dulled, and many had died who had trusted him to see them through. There must be an accounting. And to assure that he would be around to enjoy the final tally, he must experience a renewal. He must do things correctly now. Purify himself. Reckon with his karma. He needed this time on the road of death…alone.

Gonji gave his longbow and quiver of war arrows a thorough check for moisture, then tested his powder flask. Never caring for guns, he nonetheless acquiesced to their necessity in the days to come. His powder was a bit wet, so he extracted a sieve from a saddlebag and forced the powder through, salvaging a good quantity of hard-grain corned powder. He’d learned the technique from Le Corbeau and found that the extra time spent was well worth it. He tested a small amount, saw that it flared truly.

Next he worked at camouflaging himself in the
ninja
manner, darkening his skin and wrapping his scabbards against chance reflection before harnessing his swords on his back.

As the rain began to fall with steady, driving force, the samurai climbed to a loft in the barn and knocked out a board, affording him a good view of the darkening distant reaches toward which the bat-men had flown. It occurred to him that the rain might be his best ally—the creatures likely would have trouble keeping aloft in the gradually intensifying rain. He took up a sturdy piece of wood and passed the time whittling
ninja
darts with his
tanto
knife.

When the armed band rumbled toward the farm from over the hill to the northwest, Gonji shook his head at the curious wonder of it. In the past it had always been
men
who set
monsters
after him; this time it had been reversed.

He counted helmed heads. Fourteen. Heavily armed. He grunted as he decided on a quick alteration in planning. Bounding down from the loft, he set ajar the doors to both the barn and the outbuilding used for storage, placing his pistols inside the latter.

Hunkering behind a trough with his bow, shielding its string from the rain, he glared at the splashing troop, watching them split into two columns as they bore down on the farmhouse.

The mercenaries chattered brusquely amongst themselves as they pulled to a halt before the house. Muddy water sluiced up in all directions under stamping hooves. The heavy grain sacks Gonji had suspended inside the house twisted slowly from their hempen fastenings. Two pistols cracked wasted shots at the moving silhouettes in the windows. A third fizzled in the rain. Three guns that could not be reloaded to trouble him.

He saw the outline of an arquebus, kept dry under a billowing cloak, as four men dismounted, pairing off to attack the front and rear doors at once. The two heading for the rear passed not ten paces from him without detecting his presence.

Performing a quick, shallow draw, he launched a shaft high into the air. It dropped straight down into the corral near the three brigands who were eyeing the horses. The men shouted in surprise, wheeling about and searching the hills; it was impossible to determine the arrow’s point of origin.

While the three were thus preoccupied, the samurai nocked and fired two rapid shots, felling both mercenaries who kicked and pounded at the rear door. He broke from cover and plunged across the ground, sprinting in a low crouch. He gained the corner of the farmhouse, stashed his bow and quiver in a dry niche behind a woodpile, and drew steel from his back harness an instant before two mounted men’s steeds skidded around the corner to the back of the house.

Gonji’s whirling blow cut the forelegs out from under the first horse. It shrieked and spilled its rider over its plummeting head. The samurai never stopped moving, gaining the second steed before the warrior could fix on the skittering dark form. Gonji’s arcing slash tore through brigandines and rib cage, downing the second rider in a shower of dark redness.

Gonji heard more hoofbeats coming round the house on both sides as he doubled back, a mighty sword cut half-beheading the first bewildered rider as he tried to stagger to his feet.

Gonji grabbed a rock and pitched it through the open barn door to bash into the wall at the far side. Then he dropped flat in the mud, nothing more than a patch of shadow to the bellowing troopers who galloped past, four from one side of the house, two from the other.

Gonji peered up, caked in mud, saw four men dismount and furtively creep toward the barn. As the two stragglers warily climbed off their horses, uncertain pistols angled into the weeping sky, Gonji crept backward with the silky litheness of a nocturnal hunting cat. He melded with the shadows under the eaves as the four entered the barn to engage the now threatening silence therein, where the rock had struck.

The nearer pair glanced about them circumspectly. Gonji could see them swallow back their fear of the unknown enemy as they spotted the rain-spattered corpse of their former comrade, head hanging askew by strands of bloody sinew. When both looked away from the house at the same time, Gonji silently glided through the open door of the barn’s outbuilding.

He enfolded and reshaped himself at the center of the outbuilding floor, by
ninja
artifice, now resembling the mounded bales and piled mantuas, the casks and covered farm implements. He clutched a pistol low at each side as he hugged himself motionlessly. His swords lay at his feet, unharnessed now.

Gonji listened to the curses and challenges from the barn as the brigands demanded surrender. Then he heard the soft slap of soaking boots just outside his own door. He remained rigid, stayed his breathing. The door creaked on warped hinges, then swung wide and slammed open.

A thunderous commotion inside the farmhouse—

“It’s a goddamn trap!” someone was shouting in French from the house front.

A footstep—scraping along the ground just behind him—

Gonji’s pistols exploded in the staccato rain patter. He fired once from under each armpit, his back to his foes, a quick twist of his head to either side presaging leaden death. His guns spewed white smoke. Through it he could see one man clutching his belly; the other, blank-faced, his chin split wide open under a tossing morion helm.

Then Gonji was flinging away his pistols, grabbing up his blades and sashing them. He rolled out the door in the muck, to the concealed side of the outbuilding. He heard a shout from the barn door—a name called—

Then he nearly ran headfirst into a mercenary slinking along the back of the farmhouse, naked sword at the ready.

The brigand barked out a throaty syllable and raised his saber for a strike. Gonji drew his
katana
and slashed in a quicksilver motion, the saber slicing by harmlessly as the mercenary’s head lolled forward onto his blood-sprayed chest.

Before the dead enemy’s body splashed down into the mud, Gonji leapt to a ladder-work fixed to the rear of the house. He scrabbled up to the roof amidst more confused shouts, two more riders pounding around to the back of the house. A shot rang out in the barn—another pistol rendered useless as the men therein hysterically tilted with phantoms.

Gonji gained the roof’s peak and swung over, scanning the environs. The rider with the arquebus under his cloak sat alone now at the front of the house, gaze flicking about him. Nichi hadn’t been bothered, though she ran about the corral with the work horses, eager to join in the fray.

The samurai’s eyes flashed with battle-fury as he slid down the roof, the Sagami extended behind him. He hit the edge and pushed off, launching himself into the air. The mounted mercenary gasped to see the hurtling form descending on him like one of his own gargoyle allies.

The arquebus came up under the cloak—a tremendous explosion blew tattered fabric into the rain—

Gonji roared, un-hit, and landed on him with both feet, belting him off his mount. The horse whinnied and reared, clopping away from the tumbling men. Gonji rolled with the fall, came up onto his feet with blade held low. The big mercenary staggered up to face him, clawed for a weapon, blared one whining curse. Gonji slashed from ground to sky, keen-edged steel spinning the shrieking man into a half-turn. A second sword cut downed him in a semicircular fanning of blood.

The samurai extended his blade behind him like the single poised fang of an adder as he raced around to the rear of the farmhouse again. He reached the woodpile and caught up his longbow as all six remaining brigands bore down on him from the barn, howling maniacally.

A pistol shot splintered wood behind him. He saw steel glisten in the rain as they came on, two steed-borne, four on pounding feet. They bellowed curses and death-promises.

He gritted his teeth and fired. A clothyard shaft ripped a man backward over the saddle, and down into the mire. Gonji nocked and aimed. The second mounted warrior lurched his steed sideways to evade the shot. The animal bucked, and the war arrow caught the horse full in the neck. Horse and rider slammed into a rain pool, water cascading about them as the wounded horse kicked and thrashed.

Gonji flung away his bow and raised the Sagami in high guard, hurling himself into their midst, roaring his clan’s ancient war cry. Gonji’s fearless death-defiance, his strange appearance—perhaps their recognition of who he must be—
something
gave them pause. They slowed their charge, skidding in the mud, and in that instant advantage shifted to the oriental fencer.

A scything slash spilled one man’s hot, steaming innards before he could bring his sword into engagement. The second foe’s broadsword raked downward to clang against Gonji’s stiff overhead block, and the samurai released to a one-hand grip that cut deeply into his thigh. His scream had hardly pierced the rustling rain when the third brigand, sensing an opening, lunged at the samurai’s side only to have his blade bound and twisted down into the mud. A two-handed spearing stroke of the
katana
skewered his belly.

The fourth man grimaced and came to
en garde,
his rapier quivering
.
Gonji eased forward, blade cocked arrogantly into the air like a scorpion’s sting. The bandit tried two lines of attack in rapid succession, grunting with exertion and the passion to have done with this eerie assassin. Their blades clashed twice, spanking off each other. The brigand threw all his strength into a furious lunge. Gonji’s circular parry sent his rapier rasping off into the darkness. A sizzling stroke dropped him, and two rapid downward cuts ended his life. Crimson rivulets streamed away from the twitching body.

Gonji peered up quickly, saw the mercenary aim a pistol over the carcass of his neck-shot horse. He sucked in breath and plunged forward into the darkness, teeth gritted, feinting and weaving as he ran.

“Bloody bastard!”

The pistol cracked off a shot that whistled past ineffectually. The brigand brought out his sword, flourished it from a kneeling position. Two blades sang in the night. The mercenary’s sword arm swung wide, opening him for the death stroke. The Sagami snaked out in a two-handed lick that began over Gonji’s shoulder and ended deep in the foe’s upper chest.