Gonji: A Hungering of Wolves (31 page)

Simon took heart, sensed a turning. He could not deliver Serge a killing blow, but he could strike him, hurt him. He’d seen that much. And now he changed his approach, switching from eroding defensive posture to all-out attack. He spread his hands farther apart along the post to gain leverage and control, then launched into a series of whirling circular blows he’d seen Gonji teach and employ many times—arcing, uppercutting, alternating lines of attack while always completing his circles, one blow ever melding into the next.

Now Serge growled in animal fury as he was forced to give ground, deflecting blows, sometimes failing, such that his furred arms and sinewy hands took punishing ripostes from the splintering wooden rail.

Serge was nearly backed to the alley where they’d begun, the mercenaries lowering their weapons to watch in awe, when Simon took him by surprise.

The golden Beast leaned back, as if declining further combat, dropping the post into the low guard that invited attack—another
ken-jutsu
technique taught by Gonji.

Serge roared and raised the lamp post for a mighty strike. Simon anticipated him, twisting the wooden rail up under the rising lamp post and stunning Serge with a hard lunge that struck him full in the chest. His breath
whuffed
out of him with an animal growl, and Serge staggered backward.

Simon tripped him with a ground-scraping circular blow—and then bounded off into the alley. He heard the pursuit behind him, gladdened to catch the scent of horses and men in advance of Serge’s own; he’d obviously hurt the monster enough to slow him.

He sprinted left at a crossing lane—a dead end. He stopped, caught his breath, and then ran full speed for the stone wall at the dead end. With a great leap and scramble of taloned hands and feet, Simon clawed up the twelve-foot barricade in a shower of loose rocks and stone-dust. Up and over—to land near a huddled party of freedom-fighting rebels, who turned weapons on him.

“Get out of here!” he rasped at them as he bounded over their heads, evoking outcries of shock. One or two fired errant shots before realizing who he was.

Simon kept sprinting, nearing the eastern limits of Lamorisse, taking stock of his wounds as he departed with long, loping strides, never pausing even so much as to gnash his teeth in bitterness over the dishonor and frustration he felt.

Jacques Moreau, in the bell tower of the church, watched him flee, the last hope of Lamorisse apparently leaving with him. His own resolve now cemented, Moreau turned to retrieve Guy from the church storm cellar.

The cries issuing from several points in the town froze him.

“The children!”

“Mon Dieu
—
my children!”

* * * *

The fighting men of Lamorisse had served their purpose, and now Serge Farouche revealed his own. While the Wunderknechten fought for territory and honor and self-preservation, the wolves began to burst through windows and shutters throughout the city and drag the town’s horrified children from their beds and hiding places.

The great canine jaws that could crush the neck of a full-grown stag now caught up the children with nefarious skill. Utilizing the soft-bite learned at play during their days in the litter, they firmly but gently controlled the children’s flailings as they carried them off.

For they were needed unharmed. Whole.

So diabolically had Lamorisse been manipulated that there were few available to save the children.

* * * *

Marie Ault, wife of Wyatt, the tanner and ex-mercenary, knelt with her two children in the parlor. They prayed for the deliverance of all the fathers of Lamorisse.

The devil-eyed intruders threw themselves against the barred shutters repeatedly until they gave way. So swiftly did the three wolves gain entry that the children’s first startled outcries had hardly died away in Marie’s ears before the beasts were inside in an explosion of kindling.

She gathered the shrilling boy and girl close to her and went for a fireplace iron, for the gun Wyatt had left her was half-a-room away on a tabletop that might as well have been in Paris.

Marie bellowed in rage to see her little girl dragged away by the leg, wailing and vainly grabbing at handholds. A second snarling beast crouched before Marie to hold her at bay. But she grabbed the iron and charged it, cursing and flailing. The startled wolf scrabbled back for a far corner. The third wolf turned its attention from her son to Marie just as the little girl had reached the window in the jaws of the first.

Marie snapped up the pistol in a wavering grip.

Which one?
Which one?

She blurted an oath and shot the creature at the window. The lead ball crashed into the wolf’s side in a spurt of blood. The creature fell slack at the sill, kicking and howling, letting loose her screaming daughter.

The other two wolves leapt at Marie.

She still clutched the iron. A wolf howled in pain as she jabbed it hard in the rib cage. But the other beast’s jaws caught her about the throat.

The door burst open. A shot rang out, a wolf yelping in death agony. The last predator released Marie Ault and spun about to snarl at Yvonne Dusseault, framed in the doorway with smoking pistol.

“Come on,” she grated breathily at the threatening wolf.
“Come on, you hairy bastard!”

It shot into the air. Yvonne drew her dirk and slashed in the same motion, her rage imparting furious energy to her stroke. The wolf slammed against Yvonne and the doorjamb at once, knocking her down. The predator’s yowling cries trailed off into the night as it limped away, streaming blood.

Yvonne moaned as she entered the house. She drew the terrified children close to her, shielding them from the wretched sight of what had befallen their mother.

* * * *

The rebel warriors of Lamorisse watched the troop of Farouche Clan minions and its accompanying wolf pack storm off to the north, leaving death and misery in their wake. Vengeful cries and wails of mourning wafted into the night sky from all points of the town. The people cast about in shock and confusion, some at the limits of emotion, some listlessly attending to the dead and injured. In their thwarted fury, they began to fight amongst themselves.

Recriminations were directed at Jacques Moreau, for he had been singled out as the cause of the horror in his stubborn defiance of the provincial lords, as leader of the local Wunderknechten. Those who had resisted joining that arcane movement inspired by Gonji were particularly aroused against Moreau, for their children were well represented among the twenty-seven young ones who had been spirited off by the evilly directed wolves.

As Moreau was hemmed-in and threatened by a knot of angry citizens, Wyatt Ault surged into their midst and crashed his fists into the faces of two of the outraged men, at the last drawing his sword and daring the others to test his hand.

The controversy was stilled, the people slowly dispersing to deal with their private tragedies.

“Merci, mon ami,”
Jacques said quietly, laying a hand on Wyatt’s shoulder.

But Wyatt twisted away from him. Unable to control his feelings any longer, Wyatt began sobbing piteously between rancorous words:

“Leave me alone, Moreau. I don’t want your thanks. What in God’s name did we do to deserve this?” Cocking his arm, Wyatt Ault threw his sword through a shop window in a shower of crashing glass.

“Where is God’s so-called mercy?”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“Why did they take our children? Why the children?”

The great hue and cry rose amidst the carnage and misery of Lamorisse. The citizens began to gravitate toward the town square, the leaders gathering at Chabot’s Inn.

“Because they’re
evil,
that’s why,” an old woman declared. “And what greater evil is there than that done to little ones?”

Henri Chabot had his wounds bound even as he opened his stores of food and drink to any who entered the
auberge.
Gabrielle hurried about, helping with the injured who were brought in from the streets. The square had been the scene of the main conflict.

Praised for her valiant effort in the fray, Gaby shrugged it off airily, though pleased with the attention. “Hell, anyone can fire a gun. It just makes me sick to see the blood squirt out of people’s bodies and the—Christ, Vatour, what happened to
you?!”
She
hurried to attend on a groaning man who was carried through the front door, his arm and leg both badly rent and bloodied.

“All right, then it’s confirmed?” Jacques Moreau was asking the messenger again. “The garrison’s gone—all of them?”

“Oui
—men lying everywhere—
mon Dieu,
it’s gruesome to see.”

“So they set us up good,” Darcy Lavelle said. “The Farouche will blame us. They’ll have a million witnesses.”

“So do
we!”

“Of course, but
they are
the lords of the province. Who do you think Paris will believe?”

“Well, I say we stop this now and appeal to the king,” an irate man with a scalp wound argued. “Let the aristocrats fight this out. They can’t prove any individuals among us had anything to do with this. And what about the children who were kidnapped? What are they going to say, that we kidnapped our own children to implicate the Farouche?”

“Non,”
Darcy said, kicking over a chair, “we fight this thing out ourselves, whatever the outcome. We dig in here and get ready for the next siege. Look how many we killed out there. You’ve all seen the proof of our worth in battle.”

“That’s easy for you to say, Lavelle—you have no kids of your own—”

“All right, stop this now,” Moreau ordered, standing on a table in their midst. “You’re all free to do as you will. As for me, I’m off to alert the towns and villages to the south that rebellion has been forced on us. Those of you who remain here do so under martial law. Darcy is in command. If you can’t see your way through another round of fighting, then get out now. Take your children and flee until this madness is over.”

“How do we get them
back
, you—!”

“Where?
Where do we take them? We don’t all have relatives in the south as you do, Moreau.”

“I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is. Simon Sardonis has said that we must prepare the province for war, and I believe he’s right. There may be more help coming from—”

“And what about
him?
This beast-man Simon? He had Serge Farouche at bay, and then he ran like a whimpering dog! I saw the whole thing—”

“He was overmatched,” Yvonne Dusseault broke in sharply as she laved her own facial wound. “Serge Farouche is almost twice as big when they…” She couldn’t finish, nor could anyone else, rational words failing them when it came to discussing the lycanthropes. The fear and disorientation attendant on seeing such creatures of lore fighting in the flesh still seemed like a nightmare from which they might presently be jolted.

“A pox on
all
these monsters,” someone hurled up in conclusion.

“Where can we hide our children, Moreau, those who are still safe?”

More arguing broke out over the need to seek the little ones who’d been abducted.

Jacques’s head hung with the burden of command. At last he called out over the frantic bickering: “I don’t know. I’m just not sure yet what we can do. We need help, that’s certain. Those of you whose children are safe,
keep
them that way, however you must. My own will be on the road with me, and you already know how safe
that
is. I will wait for dawn and then ride southward. Seeking aid, alerting other towns. That’s the only advice I can offer, for now. Ride off on a similar course, seeking help and safe distance…or remain, dig in defensively…and face what comes.”

“Well, that’s a real comfort,
magistrate…
”

* * * *

At dawn, Jacques Moreau departed Lamorisse with Guy in tow, but his intended flight for safe harbor was complicated by the presence of Yvonne and two other Wunderknechten, who had argued incontestably that the magistrate should not travel alone with his son, especially on so vital a mission of military preparedness.

They traveled the main roads throughout the day, keeping to the plains and skirting the foreboding forest domain of Belial Farouche as much as possible—for they had no knowledge of the satyr’s death at the hands of Wilfred Gundersen’s band. Moreau alerted two villages of the events in Lamorisse and the imminent danger. His party gained the outskirts of a third town just as darkness began to fall.

Jacques Moreau was seized by a growing sense of panic. He had no idea how he would shake his escort, nor did he care to deal with his guilt-ridden thoughts or the need to face his fears. Guy’s safety was all that mattered. Or so he had told himself.

That was why his plan, now complicated by the presence of his unbidden companions, had been to flee France altogether, leaving all grim responsibility behind.

Young Guy seemed tight-lipped and tense, looking to his father repeatedly for a sign of comfort Jacques was unable to tender.

As Moreau’s mounted band swung wide of a murky stand of pine, intending to gain the village before night blanketed the territory, their spines turned to ice and their horses panicked as they were strafed from above by a squalling flight of gargoyles, who launched bolts from their small crossbows while in full swoop.

Cursing, kicking their steeds into a wild charge, they found that they could not outdistance their winged attackers. The gargoyles cried out in triumph, as one of Moreau’s escorts was struck, shrieking, by a crossbow bolt, and he tumbled from his mount.

The creatures now tightened their circling attack, spiraling down in a maneuver that kept the humans in easy firing range.

Yvonne shouted for them to halt and tend to the fallen warrior. Moreau was torn between desperate flight and compassion, the former shamefully tugging at him harder. But only Yvonne had dismounted to lend aid. The rest all broke for cover.

“Moreau—get Guy off the road, for God’s sake!” Yvonne bellowed.

Moreau nodded and swallowed hard as he caught sight of the bleak barricade of the thickening tree lines at either hand. There was no sense of sanctuary in the forest’s gathering darkness.

Two bolts whizzed down. One struck Guy’s mount in the hindquarters. The animal whinnied and bucked, throwing the yelping boy backward. Guy hit the ground and scrambled to his feet at once, limping. Electrified into action by his son’s plight, Moreau scooped him up from the saddle and broke for the forest murk, heedless of fear now.

“Moreau!” came the cry behind him.

There was a scream. The other rebel, who had doubled back to Yvonne, was struck in the thigh by a quarrel.

“Get
out
of here—he’s dead!” Yvonne yelled, indicating their downed companion. She regained her steed’s saddle and galloped for the trees. The wounded man followed, gasping in pain, stanching the blood that lapped from his upper leg.

They rejoined Jacques and Guy and pounded into the wooded fastness.

“There’s a chapel—” Yvonne cried breathlessly. “—that way—outside the village—a chapel with a graveyard.”

They rode for it with all good haste, hearing the eager cries of the winged hunters who kept pace above the treetops, though they could not be seen. Now and again a leathery bat-wing would flash across a ragged patch of moonlit night sky.

Yvonne led them on an uncertain, tortuous path, sometimes quitting the trail for a rough ride over rooted clumps and treacherous underbrush. She reined in once, then sent up a shout of thanks: Her memory was vindicated; the chapel loomed before them in a large clearing, the headstones of the cemetery eerily limned in the bulbous moon’s jaundiced glow.

But they’d have to cross the clearing, and their foes were aware of their intention. Two gargoyles broke from their fellows and streaked for the chapel spire ahead.

“Let’s go! Split up. Don’t give them a good target—
wait!”
Yvonne halted them again.

First she saw it, then they all did. A huge, black slithering form, waist-high to a woodsman. Sinuous and scaly, its locomotion making their skin crawl. And it was long. Endlessly long.

The great serpent that had caught Simon Sardonis helplessly in its coils now cut a swath across the forest floor, crushing foliage in its directed path toward the chapel. It would intercept their own.

“Let’s get out of here,” Moreau commanded.

“Non!”
Yvonne shouted back. “I’m tired of running. We need a defensible position. Out of this forest. They
own
the forest. God knows what else lies in wait here. Take Guy that way—wide around the serpent. Edouard—can you fight?”

The stricken rebel assented dazedly, sweat droplets pouring off his chin.

“Go!”

Moreau clutched his whimpering son before him on the saddle. The next several moments were a blur to him. He heard gunshots, the clacking of crossbows. The horrible sibilance of the enormous snake, and then its hideous sight—as it rose up out of the churned earth, reconnoitering, and then bore down on the pair who covered the escape of Jacques and Guy.

“Papa—I’m afraid!” Guy called out, sobbing.

“We’ve got to reach the church. We’ll be safe there.”

“I’m
afraid
of those devils!” Guy’s voice hitched with tears and the jolting action of the ride.

“The
church,”
Jacques assured. “They’ll fear the church.”

They crossed the graveyard and tumbled from the snorting horse’s saddle, gaining the side door to the nave in a desperate, stumbling run. Moreau pushed Guy with one hand and carried his rapier in the other. A crossbow bolt from a screeching gargoyle struck the lintel above their heads. Guy screamed and grabbed his father tightly about the waist.

The door flung open—a rail-thin old country
cure
admitted them.

“Hurry, my son,” the priest said, slamming the door. He was half dressed, his clerical collar undone, eyes still tight with interrupted sleep, hair pressed in a tangle.

“I have seen such monsters before,” the priest said fretfully. “Heard them. The villagers have exchanged shot with them. But they have
never
attacked the chapel before.”

“They grow bolder,
mon pere,”
Moreau replied.

Moreau was more deeply disturbed now, suddenly wondering whether they’d been set upon him personally, to torment his craven soul.

A rose window burst as a quarrel sleekly lanced through and embedded in the pine flooring. Guy screamed again.

“Courage, little man,” the old priest told Guy. “Lie down there beside the altar. God will protect you. You,
monsieur
—help me place the crucifixes at the windows while I anoint them with holy water.
Come now.
We haven’t time to waste on fear!”

Moreau stumbled through the placing of the sacramentals, wondering what good their spiritual efficacy would do against the all-too-tangible horrors outside. He helped the
cure
light candles, then absently charged the two pistols he scarcely remembered bearing, as he sat beside his trembling son.

At least the boy had stopped crying. He was kneeling on a prie-dieu, clutching a small wooden crucifix to his breast and whispering an infantile prayer of protection against evil that his mother had taught him.

“That’s good, Guy,” Jacques told him. “You just keep repeating Mama’s prayer. We must be strong…” He pondered the wisdom a moment before deciding to hand Guy one of the pistols. “You know how to shoot this, right? Use both hands. Aim carefully. The pull is very heavy. You’re a Wunderknecht now,
n’est-ce pas?”
He smiled, then sighed, a somber set to his face. “Guy, I—”

“Monsieur
—a moment,” the priest whispered harshly from a window.

Moreau joined him.

“May God have mercy on their brave souls,” the
cure
intoned.

Outside in the darkness there sounded a terrible male scream of anguish. They saw flapping movement. A frenzy of unnaturally hideous wings. Heard Yvonne’s desperate bellow of defiance. Then her own scream. Moreau winced, as he could see her now. Two gargoyles struggled with her on the ground, piping shrill sounds at her. There was a wild flash of valiant steel—

One of the creatures keened a piercing note and lurched backward, clutching at its belly. The other also drew back. It seemed that Yvonne was rising, but there was something unnerving about her gait as she strove to run from the cemetery toward the chapel.

And then two more gargoyles swooped down at her, joining their monstrous kin.

Abruptly, Yvonne was forgotten—

The watching men gasped in horror and fell back from the window. The huge slithering mass of the serpent coiled about the circumference of the chapel as if it would crush the walls themselves. Its shining back oozed past the sill, carrying an oily rodent-like stench mixed with the smell of plowed earth.

A gray gelding cried out as it was swarmed over, out in the yard. A bacchanalia of hellish feasting ensued in the churchyard, as the gargoyles slaked their unholy thirst and hunger on the horse.

Moreau grimaced and whined a pitiful note, grabbing the priest’s arm. He looked back to his wide-eyed boy.

“Father…
s’il vous plait
—say a prayer for my coward’s soul. I—”

“Faith, my son,” the
cure
breathed, grasping Moreau’s other arm. “Muster your faith. In that alone is there deliverance from these fiends. That…and your goodly weapons. Give me something to use, my son.”

Moreau handed the old priest his sword and squeezed his own moist fists about the rough, knurled hand grips of his pistols. His creeping fear of tight spaces began to eat at him as he listened to the scraping of the serpent’s undulating mass against the chapel’s creaking outer walls.

Faith…

Moreau peered over at Guy, who was staring back with eyes full of childlike faith in the dim light of a votive candle.

“Wait,” the wiry and wizened priest said, scowling at the rapier Moreau had handed him. He tossed it aside.

At once he hurried into the sacristy. When he returned, Moreau was strangely cheered to see the infantryman’s pike and sturdy broadsword the old holy man brandished with a surprising deftness and a self-satisfied snarl.