Gonji: A Hungering of Wolves (29 page)

“Nein, mein Freund
—you do well,” Albert assured. “And as for strength, you command all the villages along the Saone. I can vouch for that.”

“That’s good. But they’re too spread out. Too vulnerable. Each individual village—” Wilf shook his head sadly. “I could wish for a solid rallying point.”

“What about that castle I heard ‘em talking about?” Nagy asked, scratching an itch in his beard.

“Ja,”
Monetto agreed from astride his new steed, “the old Frankish castle.”

Albert’s jaw worked thoughtfully. “I…don’t know about that. Local legends speak ill of that place. Bad things are heard there at night. The people fear it.”

“That doesn’t sound like your folks,” Monetto countered amiably.

“Well,” Albert responded sheepishly, “we still have our superstitious beliefs.”

They looked at the dead satyr again and shared a spontaneous laugh.

“Ja,
here lies one of them,” Monetto joked.

“Anyway,” the French hunter went on, “I’m afraid it’s not much of a fortress anymore. Battered-down walls…”

“Still, it’s situated well, isn’t it?” Wilf asked. “In the mountain gorges?” He pressed the issue as he saw Albert’s expression allow for the possibility of what he suggested. “We need coordination of effort and a useful base of operations. We could easily take flight from there into the Alps or back to the Empire, if need be. It might be—what do you Frenchmen call it?
Pis aller
—a last refuge if all else fails?”

Albert nodded in agreement.

Wilf sighed and bobbed his head resolutely. “Aldo, take a small party there and scout the place. If all seems well, then set up a headquarters and fortify it with all good speed. Oh, and—take Claire Dejordy with you. Make sure she’s safe. These villages could become hot pretty quickly. You know, Albert, we may face the possibility of evacuating these villages, if…” His words trailed off dismally.

“The people are prepared for a siege. God’s will be done.”

Wilf clapped the Frenchman on the shoulder appreciatively.

“Where are you bound?” Monetto asked critically.

Wilf cleared his throat. “I’m going to try to find the local Wunderknechten leaders, tell them what we’re about.” He mounted his shivering stallion, patted its withers. “We’ll need the help of the big towns. Especially the ones where they’re already organized in resistance. Lamorisse…some others…”

“You’re not going
alone,
are you?”

“I’ll take a small escort. The fewer who go the better. Fighting men are wasted on this trip, and they just call attention to themselves.”

Monetto laughed. “And you don’t?”

Wilf smiled and seated his swords comfortably, then began loading a pistol. “You can keep my longbow with you,” he replied archly, “and then no one will notice me.”

“You should leave that damned Japanese sword behind, too,” Monetto advised, indicating the sharkskin hilt of Spine-cleaver.

“You know, Aldo,” Wilf said wistfully, “I dearly wish Gonji were along on this venture.”

“You’re doing
all-recht, ‘sensei’
…”

At that moment their amusement was dashed and all heads craned upward, their collective vision straining to pierce the entwining pine branches.

“There
—
”

One of the villagers had spotted it as it crossed the pale golden face of the glowering moon.

The gargoyle they’d missed, flapping northward with a steady beat of powerful wings. Its masters had promised it fresh hunting grounds on a sphere that would offer no challenge. Now, its fellows brutally slain at the hands of the supposedly subdued denizens of this land, the gargoyle sped off to complain of the outrage.

And to report what these men had similarly done to another of the Farouche lords’ own kin.

* * * *

Two days later, there was no cheer in Dijon.

The scheming necromancer Anton Balaerik commanded his death-stayed personal guards to remain without as he entered a drawing room in Blaise Farouche’s private wing of the palace. The marchioness’ husband sat in an ornate chair, steepling his long fingers. He nodded to the operative from the hidden, concentric spheres that paralleled this invaded world. Blaise’s brother Roman bowed to Balaerik, while their hulking sibling Serge merely scowled in greeting.

“Brothers,” Balaerik said simply, “there must be an accounting.”

“What do you suggest?” Roman asked quietly, arms crossing over the lapels of his brocaded waist-length jacket.

“I know what
I
…suggest,” Serge growled.

“Belial is dead?” Balaerik inquired wanly. “Can there be—?”

“He’s
dead,”
Serge shot back. “I’ve confirmed it. That’s that. Now we
move
—”

“Patience, Serge,” Roman said.

“Patience my ass! They’ve killed another of us. What do you want—?”

Balaerik held up a hand. “May we at least proceed in a fashion that marks us as superior to these…ambitious little beings? Imagine their impertinence—they
defend
themselves!”

Blaise laughed from his chair. “I love your…quaint way with words, uncle.”

Balaerik emitted a long sigh, then went on as Serge cast Blaise an ugly look and slumped against a wall in sullen detachment. “Now…it seems that
two
of your brothers are dead, and your father, Grimmolech, will hold me at least as responsible as you. He’ll want swift, effective retribution, of course. But he’ll be most impressed if retribution is pursued in such a way that we don’t lose our foothold on this sphere…

“Now, what do we know? We know that we’re being attacked repeatedly, perhaps randomly, by opponents of unknown origin—”

“Unknown origin—” Serge began disagreeably. But Balaerik cut him short.

“Unknown origin
—Serge,
I
am
speaking now—though it is quite likely they’re associated with the irritating Wunderknechten meddlers. These enlightened resistance fighters. They have begun to understand who we are and from whence we come, thanks to this entity our League has anticipated with anxiety for an age: Gonji…that
samurai singularity
favored by Destiny itself. And we now also know that Simon Sardonis, his deadliest complement, is free again—
Blaise.”
Balaerik glared at the one-eyed marquis accusingly, and Blaise replied with the merest shrug of unconcern.

Balaerik continued: “And that is bad, very bad, though he is
sanguinolent
now, and thus no personal threat to any of
you.
Yet there is no doubt in my mind that he will seek to rejoin his cross-worshiping fellows. Now, it also seems likely that the
samurai
himself is about, judging by certain evidences of…skillful slaughter we’ve seen. This man leaves a trail of carnage any blundering idiot should be able to follow, and
that
is what disturbs me most! He continues to evade us, and believe me when I say that you all take him too lightly. He possesses powers of evasiveness rarely witnessed in this land, and there’s a willfulness about him that often confounds the subtleties of ancient earth magic. I have witnessed that.
He
is more troubling to me than Simon Sardonis, your captive brother’s spirit-jailer. This lone half-breed warrior Gonji is somehow favored by powers beyond even
our
ken! Though he may not be aware of it…”

He drew up a chair and seemed to reflect a moment before continuing. “I cannot understand these cross-worshipers. We offer them life in the here and now. Life surpassing the quality of anything they can imagine, for longer than those wayward imaginations can grasp. For as long as there is energy in the cosmic spheres…”

Silence, punctuated by Serge’s sonorous breathing and an occasional warble of private mirth from Blaise.

“So,” Roman probed at length, “what shall we do?”

“Use force,” Balaerik replied softly. “Terror. Violence. And death. The three principles they understand, in ascending order of apprehension. Summon the…remnant of the hired human free brigades from all parts of this province. There will be duties to dole out. New orders. It’s time for a fresh power appropriation. A new faith rite and sacrifice to the Unknown Lords of all Cosmic Energies.”

“The
saturnalia,”
Blaise said, brightening and leaning forward in his chair. “It will come early this year?”

“Yes,” Balaerik agreed, “but the spheres are nearly in proper conjunction for a summoning, a conjuration. We will of course need
sacrificial offerings,
as these people are wont to call them.”

“And I know just the town to cull those from,” Serge added boorishly. His eyes began to flicker portentously.

“Yes, I thought you might,” Balaerik agreed. “We must show them their idea of Hell-come-to-reaping, one last time. The rebellious will be stamped out, and we’ll repair the damage to the Grand Scheme.”

But Roman was shaking his head. “All I can think is what father said about the entropy we stirred last winter. Even he seems to be re-thinking this present occupation. Perhaps we’re not sufficiently entrenched here to utilize such sublime manipulations of—”

“Roman,” Blaise interjected, “your parlor illusions haven’t exactly set these creatures to cowering. It’s time for a new tack.”

“We’ll plan things more carefully,” Balaerik assured him. “Have no fear. I shall take responsibility this time. No offense to your considerable abilities.”

Roman seemed about to demur further but backed down resignedly.

The sinister Balaerik stood and ambled about the room as he spoke, charismatic as an iron-willed minister before his congregation.

“Resistance must be crushed before these rebels can open enough minds to the truth of the Interspheric System, the knowledge of Arcadia, and then attract the attention of the Church and the Crown. We must discredit them, heap scorn and ridicule and distrust upon them, and especially upon their insidious leader, Gonji. Discredit them, and then destroy them, such that their memory is nothing more than idle myth…

“And
thus
do we remain in the shadows…with our hands on the levers of cosmic power. Achieve that, and we will be strong enough to both defend ourselves
and
conceal our purpose of ruling and fully exploiting this chaotic sphere.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The commander of the regular troops garrisoned in Lamorisse admitted the mercenary envoy who bore sealed orders from Dijon. Attracted by the scuffling sounds and muffled outcries in the corridor, he pushed past the brigand and entered the staff headquarters.

His subordinates still moaned and twitched in their death throes.

The commander turned to the mercenary leader, who grinned at him portentously to see the mixed terror and perplexity on his face.

“Oui—
all dead. And the rest of your command with them. The patrol searching the Saone Gap—all of them.” The surly killer was shaking his head in mock mourning. “It’s the rebels, you know. You just can’t trust them—”

He raised his pistol and blasted a shot that split the commander’s skull.

* * * *

“Faye,” Reynald Labossiere asked fretfully, jogging now to keep up with his wife’s hurried steps, “what is this madness you’re spouting?”

“Just come along, Reynald. For God’s sake, will you just trust me and come along?” Her expression was crinkled with lines of fear, her eyes flashing from shadow to shadow in the gathering twilight. “I know it’s not easy, but trust me.”

“Where are we going?”

“To see Jacques Moreau.”

They found the magistrate packing saddle pouches as they burst into his home unannounced. Young Guy sat near his father, clutching a bedpost.

“Jacques—” Faye began as Moreau turned, a curiously guilty set to his face.

“Faye—Reynald?”

“I’m sorry about this, Moreau,” Labossiere said. “I don’t know what she’s got—”

“Perhaps your son had best leave before I say what I’ve come here for,” Faye urged.

“We were just getting ready to leave,” Guy declared innocently.

Moreau ran a hand through his moist hair.
“Oui,
we are—on a Wunderknechten mission. What
is
this?” He knew Faye as a woman who couldn’t be trusted but no longer cared for security.

“Jacques, they’re planning something dreadful,” she said. “The Farouche—their men…”

“What?”

“How do you know this, Faye?” Reynald asked suspiciously.

“Look,” she replied sternly, “I know there isn’t a reason in the world for the people of this town to trust in me anymore. I’m not begging anyone’s forgiveness, just a bit of indulgence. I’ve been snooping—that’s all I’ll say about it. I’m still a French citizen and—God damn it!—still a human being. These people, the Farouche Clan, are
not
. I don’t care what happens to me anymore. I’m just telling you to prepare for the worst. This town is going to be used as an example to the rest of the province. Something bad is afoot. They’re ordering their full mercenary complement to Dijon, all save those under the marshal’s direct command. Serge Farouche’s troops. You’ve
got
to muster your Wunderknechten—”

“Faye,” Reynald pronounced almost mournfully, “why should anyone believe this?”

“Shut up, Reynald,” she said spitefully. “It’s time you girded for a fight like every other man in Lamorisse who cares for what he has. Long past time…”

They shared a telling look.

Moreau shambled about the room an anxious, confused moment. He cast a fearful look at his son, who’d been nervous and taciturn ever since he’d had the
nightmare
while staying with the Lavelles. Moreau saw Guy’s eyes widen apprehensively. For a moment he was indecisive. Then:

“Go and see Wyatt Ault and Darcy Lavelle. Tell them to spread the alert, according to plan, then to meet me at the guildhall…”

* * * *

Simon Sardonis began to stir in the taper-lit darkness of the inn’s cellar. His fever had broken, and his wounds were beginning to display the effects of the remarkable speed with which his body healed itself. He cut his groan short when he heard the female voice.

“Bonjour, monsieur
—it is good to see you moving. I started to wonder—”

“Who are you?” he asked sharply. “Where do they have me now?”

“Chabot’s Inn,” she said with a lilting tone. “I am Chabot.” She tittered and leaned forward from her stool. “Gabrielle Chabot. You may call me Gaby. Do you know that you have the most wonderful eyes? Not at all like those of the Farouche, like everyone else says. Yours are—”

“Um-hmm,” he rasped in annoyance. “What have you got there?”

“Oh—Henri sent down some wine. Henri—
mon pere.
I told him strong drink is no good for a man in your condition.
I
brought you some food. It’s over there, if you’d care to—”

“Give me the wine bottle.”

She smiled sweetly and handed him a bottle of claret. He removed the cork and began to guzzle, choking at first, and grunting with the pain of his effort at drawing himself up onto an elbow. Gaby’s mellifluous laughter chimed in the stuffy cellar again.

“Don’t you want a glass?”

“What’s happening up there?”

“Nothing. I remember seeing you last year when you were here. I remember everything. You probably don’t remember me. I was a lot younger then.”

“I’d remember you,” Simon replied bluffly. “How much younger could a girl like you ever have been?”

She
tsked
. “I was a girl
then
. I’m a woman now. Do you mind?” She tilted the glass toward him, and he thought a moment before pouring a small amount of wine into it.

“Merci, mon cavalier.”
She drained off the wine at a single gulp. “Do you know that Austrian Wunderknecht—Wilfred?”

“Oui,”
he concurred in a questioning tone.

“He’s very dashing, isn’t he? Is it true that he is the bodyguard of your betrothed, Claire Dejordy? She’s always been nice to me—”

“I only know as much as—”

She cut him off again. “Do you know what I’m famous for? My dreams. People tell me I have the power of prophecy. And sometimes my dreams do come true, but I think it’s silly. Nothing is ever quite as I dream it. Stupid to believe in telling the future through dreams,
n’est-ce pas?”

“Well…perhaps,” Simon allowed, his irritation increasing. He wished the girl would go away.

“You think so, eh? Then how do you explain away all the other acts of sorcery we’ve witnessed around here? Tell me that,
monsieur le loup garou
—and
then
I’ll believe what they say about your ability to change your shape. More,
s’il vous plait.”

She tipped her glass at him again. Simon’s head began to spin, and he wasn’t altogether sure that it was from the action of the wine alone.

“Merci,”
she
said as he reticently complied. “Do you know what I’ve dreamt? I’ve dreamt of
you
. And about the castle. The old castle in the mountains. I think—I think we’re all going there soon, but I don’t know why. And I’ve dreamt…other things. Henri tells me I’m a mooncalf when I tell him my visions. Do you think so? Like when I told him about the storm—”

“The storm?”

“The
snow
storm. It’s going to snow very soon.”

Simon cleared his throat. “It’s barely autumn.”

“The snowstorm,” she went on, heedless of his objection, “and the water—the flood—the—”

“Flood?” By Simon’s look, she might have just grown another nose.

“Non,
not a flood…a wave…a tidal wave.” Her reverie dissolved. She shrugged and smiled pertly. “I tell you these things because I need to tell someone, and you are a man of sorcery. I mean, of great spiritual power. Favored by God, they say. But I don’t believe any of it myself, of course.”

A slow, mirthless smile creased Simon’s lips. “Favored by God…”

He jerked suddenly, spasmodically.
“Leave me.”

“Ooh!”

Gabrielle watched the eruption of the flesh along Simon’s arm for just a second. Then she excused herself and darted from the cellar.

* * * *

Yvonne Dusseault heard the Wunderknechten message while returning from dinner with friends. Her face was a mask of intensity as she hurried home to do what she must.

She was shocked to enter the small stone dwelling in the southeast quarter of Lamorisse and find the witch curled atop her own bed.

Smiling with feline cunning. The picture of narcissistic satisfaction.

“Where is my husband?” Yvonne demanded coldly.

“Your husband? He has no use for you. Perhaps you didn’t know, but…he never really did.” Her voice purred tauntingly.

Yvonne took a menacing step forward, her heart pounding.

The witch flashed a handful of long, dark nails. “Careful. These can be used to deal out pleasure…or pain.” She drew a long, slender leg from beneath her reclining form and extended it. Already, with the impending nightfall, her toenails had grown, hardened, curved into talons. “One for Jean, and one for you—”

Yvonne’s lips drew back in revulsion and loathing. She reached down into her boot for a dirk. And sprang.

* * * *

Jean Dusseault strode inside the house purposefully. He’d received his orders to report to Dijon, and it wouldn’t do to keep the lords waiting.

He lit a cresset lamp from the hearth fire and moved into the bedchamber. Failing to recognize his wife at first, he nearly dropped the lamp, raising a balled fist defensively.

“Damn you! Are you crazy, sitting in the dark like that? I might’ve killed you. What the hell are you dressed for? What—what happened to you…there?”

Anxiety crept into his eyes, along with dawning realization. Yvonne was armored like a light infantryman: brigandines with mail sleeves and a morion helmet. The long haft of a halberd lay across her lap. Three long gashes scored her cheek.

“I want to talk with you, Jean,” she said gravely. “But first—” She indicated the corner behind the door.

Her husband gasped to see the witch—now a half-transmuted black leopard—lying on her back in a pool of blood. Her throat was sliced open, and several knife wounds attested to Yvonne’s late rage.

“You…
bitch!”

“Listen to me, Jean,” she said evenly, meeting his emotional gaze with the deadly calm of her own, “I know the Farouche plan to attack Lamorisse. And I also know of your allegiance to them. There’s nothing left between us now except a few precious memories. But it was all wrong nearly from the start. We both knew that. I’m not asking you to be my husband again. In God’s own eyes, that marriage must have been abolished a long time ago—”

He knelt before the dead cat-woman, quaking with anger. His hands were shaking as his betrayed wife went on.

“All I’m asking now is that you prove yourself willing to seek God’s mercy and forgiveness. Will you rejoin us? We humans who seek to overthrow these invading monsters?”

“You—must—be—
mad!”
His lower jaw jutted wildly, as though he were regarding some vile mass bubbling before him. “The Farouche will see you all
dead.
You want me to give back things you can’t even understand.”

“Oui.
I am asking you—pleading with you, Jean—to trade back all those things they promised you in exchange for your eternal soul.”

He rose ominously. “If you could hear yourself the way I do. It is as the Farouche say—you are all stupid children who have no knowledge of the true eternal realities.”

Yvonne glanced at his right hand, which now gripped his rapier’s hilt. “Would you kill me over our differences, Jean?”

“I should have killed you when she first told me it would be necessary…”

A single tear fled the corner of Yvonne’s eye. “I’m sorry, Jean. There’s nothing left to say—”

She reached behind her and drew the pistol belted against her spine. Its flash exploded in the room as Jean’s rapier snaked out of its scabbard.

For a space, Yvonne sat alone in the dim light cast by the waning lamp glow, shedding bitter tears and baring her soul to her God. Then she collected herself and moved out to do her duty.

* * * *

“O mon Dieu!”

Gabrielle’s hand went to her mouth and she gnawed at her knuckles, as she watched the enormous golden form gradually, painfully burst from the body of Simon Sardonis. Few had ever witnessed the eerie phenomenon.

Blood matted the Beast’s fur where Simon’s wounds had again been traumatized in the metamorphosis.

“I didn’t realize—” she prattled on.

But Simon halted her. “No one ever does. You should not have watched. Spare me your shocked platitudes and tell me the news. What is the commotion above?”

Gaby caught her breath and quickly adjusted to the awesome apparition and the bizarre quality of its semi-human voice, laced with just a touch of wine-fuddling. There was no disguising it to her practiced ear.

“There is something going on at the far side of town. It’s the garrison, I think. Something’s happened to the troopers.”

Simon held up a great black-taloned hand. Her eyes were drawn first to the white cross in his palm, then to the corded muscles and tendons under the golden fur of his arm, which seemed to pulsate with raw energy.

“Do you hear that?” he whispered with a sound like dry leaves rattling through a gutter.

“Non
—what?” She clutched at her throat.

“Wolves.”

* * * *

The wolf pack poured out of the side lanes and massed along the main street at the center of Lamorisse, spoiling for mayhem, directed by a powerful, evil will. They arrogantly prowled stoops and shop fronts, red eyes searching out victims who were slow to seek cover, their powerful jaws slavering, seeking to slash at anything that moved.

The overture to the rape of Lamorisse was a display of the directed savagery of the unearthly hunters, disciplined to commands from their master that were beyond human hearing.

The mercenary company followed, astride snorting chargers. They splintered off into small squads that randomly broke down doors and searched for rebels bearing weapons. Their battle cry was echoed on the night air: Someone had slaughtered the garrison, and there’d be the Farouche to pay.

At their rear came the horrible hulking shape of Serge Farouche. Lord of all wolves. A black-furred bipedal monster, nearly eight feet in height. The silver tinge to the coarse hair of his ruff looked like a smoky aura about his neck. It stood rigid in his battle-frenzy.

Serge hung back and observed, now and again issuing commands to both wolves and obedient brigands. He took no action himself until the Wunderknechten resistance finally showed its defiance. Pistol and bowshot broke out sporadically from windows and behind cover, felling unsuspecting wolves and mercenaries.