Gonji: Red Blade from the East (26 page)

They sipped their wine. A stiff mountain breeze rolled through the city from the west, whistling around cornices, flapping awnings, overturning loose shingles here and there that exploded on the streets below.

“Well, friends, I’ll offer you this,” Gonji said, leaning forward, the Sagami propped against his knee. “It isn’t going to work. Living side by side with this invading army. Take my word for it. I’ve seen it happen—hell, I’ve been in the middle of it—many times before. Some self-styled bandit chieftain buys a horde of renegades and proclaims himself a king. Then he preys on soft towns like this, makes the people dance to his piping, and lives high off their sweat and blood.”

Garth had been shaking his head all the while. He spread his meaty hands on the table. “I’ve heard something of this Klann. I’ve heard he was once a noble king, fair to his charges. Maybe it won’t be difficult to live under his rule once the people have...adjusted.”

“And I’ve heard things about him, too. None of them good,” Gonji said. “Some say there is no Klann.”

“For God’s sake, Papa,” Wilf cried, “he killed some of our neighbors, kidnapped others. Who knows what’s happening to the prisoners at the castle?”

“Listen to me,” Gonji cut in, low and conspiratorial. “Do you know who delivered the killing blow to the boy, Mark? It was Ben-Draba—Klann’s field commander! Now what does that imply about his choice of comrades?”

“And what do you propose we should do, friend samurai?” Garth queried, pain and confusion seasoning his voice in equal measure.

“I know what I’d do.”

“And that is?”

“Fight.”

“I’ll toast to that,” Wilf bellowed. “Who’ll join me?” Only Gonji did, but more to amuse Wilf than to exacerbate his father’s evident torment.

“We’re primarily a Christian community,” Lorenz said calmly. “We believe any authority is ordained of God. Do you come to us spreading insurrection as you would to some heathen land?”

Gonji felt his cheeks redden. Before he formed his answer, Wilf jumped in, the subject sobering him rapidly.

“God doesn’t tell us to submit to evil rule, or to those who won’t let us worship our way. Isn’t that one reason Flavio founded Vedun? You said they knocked down the cross at the square, Papa. What did the prophetess say about that?”

“Tralayn did threaten them against incidents like that,” Garth replied reluctantly.

“And did our fire-breathing soothsayer also advocate suicidal rebellion?” Lorenz asked wryly.

“We’re not fighting men. We’re peaceful people,” Strom added, leaning against the window.

“And have you no former fighting men in a city this size?” Gonji countered. “How many people live in Vedun?”

They looked one to the other, and Garth finally estimated, “Perhaps...two or three thousand.”

“And of those few thousands,” Gonji said, “a third to a half are men, eh? If such a force could be disciplined to unified action—”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Lorenz interrupted. “They’d be fighting already trained and seasoned troops, probably just back from some battlefield. Those my father described sound formidable. Rorka’s whole castle force was defeated in a single night.”

“Ahh,” Gonji growled, “there’s more to that than what you suppose, I’ll wager.”

“And if they’re mercenaries,” Wilf added, “wouldn’t they lack organization? You’ve told me that many times, Papa.”

“Exactly, Wilf,” Gonji said. “That’s my point. They look formidable, all right—they have to. Intimidation is their stock in trade. They seldom mesh well as a unit in battle. They’re used to individual conflict, and even then they’re wild flailers, for the most part. I could train any one of you to best any of their number in single combat—” Gonji’s voice had risen in pitch, and as he paused he lowered it dramatically. “—and if I had one samurai for every five of Klann’s rogues, I could take that castle back from them.”

The atmosphere in the room grew heavy. All eyes were on Gonji, and no one spoke for fear of the glint of black flame that lit the depths of his eyes like beacons of hell on a molten sea.

After a long pause Garth intoned quietly, “There
are
many regulars.”

Gonji sighed and leaned back in his chair. One hand clutched his wine cup, the other rocked the killing sword gently between his knees. The three sons began to argue the city’s chances in an open rebellion against Klann, Garth steering clear except to warn them now and then to lower their voices. Most of what they said was lost to Gonji. He reflected on what he had been urging them to do. Silly. Why get them pondering a course that’s obviously beyond them? Hell, it wasn’t even clear yet
what
sort of force Klann commanded, who or whatever Klann was. Lorenz was likely right; it probably would be suicidal for them to try anything. This damned fool Rorka had fixed them, all right, with his lousy lack of vigilance. And who cared? The smith was a nice fellow, but his sons were certainly no bargain, and he’d met no one else in Vedun that seemed worth worrying about, save for the children. But it was this damned oppression—that was it. His revulsion of oppression had already gotten him into more trouble than it was worth.

But what man can change what he is,
neh?
Sheep. That’s what these people are. They’ve got trouble, oh, very so. Deep trouble. If there’s anything these dung-eating mercenaries know how to do, it’s grind the heel.

For the first time Gonji noticed the crucifix above the door. That ugly scene was reprised: the monks in the valley.... For an instant his mind’s eye framed the Gundersens, each in turn, in the attitude of the crucified Christ....

“Boris!”

Strom bounded from the window to greet a short dark man, roughly in his mid-twenties, who strode up to the open door. From between his unruly thatch of greasy hair and the large birthmark on his cheek, opaque black eyes swept the room. He anxiously greeted the family, clutching his cap in both hands. His ferret-like features twisted when he spotted the samurai.

“Welcome, Boris,” Garth called warmly, “and what brings you here so late?” But before the man could respond, Garth added with embarrassment, “Oh, forgive me—Gonji, this is Boris Kamarovsky, one of our wood craftsmen. Boris—Gonji Sabatake, a traveler from—”

“
Pan
Gundersen,” Boris appealed in a Slavic tongue, the samurai freezing in his bow, “this is an urgent matter. May I speak to you outside?”

“Of course,” Garth said with concern.

The smith stepped outside and closed the door, reentering a few minutes later to reach for his long cloak. “Come, Lorenz, we have business. Gonji, please excuse us. It seems a smith’s work is never done.”

“Quite all right. I should be leaving anyway.” Gonji rose from the table, but Garth halted him.

“No, no, finish your wine,” Garth directed. “And where would you stay tonight? The inn probably wouldn’t be pleasant. It’s likely filled with drunken soldiers. Why not stay here?”

“You’re too kind, and I’m afraid I’ve already imposed on your hospitality.”

“But I insist! Please stay. There’s an extra cot in Strom’s room, and it’s been too long since we’ve had a guest.”

Gonji caught the shadow of gloom that darkened Strom’s face and was about to decline. But Wilf plunged in thickly, “Strom can move in with Lorenz for the night. Then we can talk soldiering, eh, Gonji?” He sloshed noisily from his now refilled goblet.

Gonji considered it a moment. “That arrangement sounds fine with me, Wilf,” he said with a smile and a bow.
If
, he thought in private amusement,
you don’t heave all over me.

Garth chuckled and made for the door. “It’s done then.”

“Papa,” Wilf called, “is it a council meeting?”

Lorenz shot him a piercing glance. Garth looked to Wilf, then to Gonji, and said with a shrug, “I suppose there’s no harm in telling.
Ja
, it’s a council meeting.”

“Let me come along—and bring Gonji. I’d like to know what the others have to say about this Klann.”

“You know better,” came Lorenz’s sharp censure.

“
Nein
, my son, this is a closed session.”

Wilf began to grumble, and Gonji tried to still his tiresome protestations. But then something happened.

No one who experienced it ever forgot it, yet none ever discussed that living-death stillness that, for one ghastly moment, sucked the very life from Vedun. It was as if they all sensed that to speak of it would cause it to return. Perhaps forever.

Without warning there came an almost palpable blanketing, a smothering of all sound, natural and man-made. Like a noiseless depressurization, a sound-sapping vacuum. As if the city had come alive to suck the life-breath of every creature therein and hold that breath for an indeterminate space of eye-popping horror.

There was not a sound in Vedun. And every living thing felt the moment of death at hand....

Then—a whooshing gasp of wind, desperate and searching, rushing and seeping and filling every crack and crevice of the city’s ancient stone underpinnings. The six men in Garth Gundersen’s smith-shop home breathed in unison, said not a word, but only waited for some sky-splitting pronouncement of doom.

It came...in a fashion.

“Oyez! Oyez! Men of Vedun, crawl from your holes and fight!”

The voice bellowed over the wind from far away.

“Cowards! Have you no pride?”

The men in Garth’s home looked from one to the other.

“Paille,” Garth said, recognizing the voice at last.

“Ah,
that
drunk,” Boris added scornfully, the fear leaving his eyes.

Shouts from still farther off—soldiers—came in answer to the bawling drunkard’s accusing cries. Gonji, overcome by curiosity and anxious to shake the tension brought on by the deathly stillness, moved to the door. The others followed slowly.

“The avenging Furies mark you, invaders of Vedun!”

Shouts and laughter in the east, then:

“Go home and sleep it off, tippler, before I have your head for a trophy....
”

The party at the Gundersens’ moved out into the street, Gonji and Wilf in the lead. The samurai peered into the darkness down the cobbled avenue from which the shouts emanated. He strained to listen. Garth and Lorenz had shrugged on their cloaks and now made to hurry off with Boris for the council meeting. The haunted gibbous moon—a hunter’s moon—shone down as if marking the city for a target. The chill wind soughed through the streets.

“That crazy Paille’s going to cause trouble,” Strom said. “Right, Papa?”

“Someone ought to do something about him,” Boris said in mincing threat. His lips were pursed intensely, and Gonji noted how he wrung his hands nervously.

Just as Garth, Lorenz, and Boris began to move off, with a warning from Garth to stay indoors, a rumble of voices approached from near the western gate by which Gonji had entered that day. A gaggle of confused shouts and cries, hushes of warning. Animals mewled and clattered along, and a huddled crowd of whimpering folk pushed and shoved and half-ran in their midst, coming into view as they turned a corner and neared the stables. Crying children and barking dogs seemed in the lead as they came near enough to identify.

“Rorka’s people,” Wilf whispered.

Gonji turned to him.

“And servants—servants from the castle!” the young smith cried. He dropped his cup and ran into the center of the rushing pocket of humanity.

Then Garth moved toward the pushing throng, concern clouding his face. Gonji watched them a moment, wondered what this bode. He came closer, to hear what was being said.

“Is Genya with you? Has anyone seen Genya?” Wilf was shouting. But those he confronted merely stared through him, elbowed past. Weeping women clutched at their little ones. Children sobbed to see their parents’ tearful frenzy.

“Sanctuary!” a man cried. “Give us shelter!”

A spate of screams as a jostled horse whinnied and bucked, falling sideways and narrowly missing a knot of blanket-wrapped children. The rider yowled in pain. Gonji and Garth hurried forward to give assistance. The wind, now a great rushing breath from the nostrils of some ice giant, swept over and through them. It brought renewed screaming from the crowd.

“Families of the baron’s troops,” Garth shouted to Gonji. “And some servants from the castle.”

“Genya!” Wilf persisted. “Where is Genya?”

Wilf grabbed a man and spun him against the corral rail. The horses within began to kick and bolt. The young Gundersen held the man fast at the rail, leaning on him for leverage. The captive, a middle-aged man in a gray woolen traveling cloak, stopped struggling, his eyes bulging and trancelike. Wilf eased his grip.

“Genya,”
Wilf breathed. “Where is she?”

“There—with him—with Klann,” the man jabbered. “He’s taken her for his servant—
let me go
!”

Wilf blinked and groped for words, but none came. The man stared past him, then pointed back the way they had come.