Gonji: The Soul Within the Steel: The Deathwind Trilogy, Book Two (14 page)

Julian’s eyes bulged as he pulled back and lashed across his front with a tight parry that Gonji caught, binding his blade, circling it twice—

A fast
croise
, Gonji’s
katana
squealing along the saber’s forte, forcing the blade down hard toward the floor. A quick light step forward and an upward flick of Gonji’s wrists—

Julian stumbled backward.

Another long, lunging step, an overhand turn of the wrists that sent the Sagami slashing left to right—

Gonji froze. The crowd shrieked and stamped, flinging their cups into the air, applauding wildly. A thin red line trickled across Julian’s bare chest, just above the nipples.

Gonji spun briskly in the tumult, nerve ends prickling like porcupine quills as he stepped three paces away. Blood thrummed at his temples; adrenaline rushed through his veins. He turned again and faced Julian, bowing, dimly cognizant of the stinging pain in his left wrist and the aching of the shoulder on the same side. He wrestled back the grin that strove to twist his lips and bowed to the captain, sweat flinging to the floor as he did so.

“Touché,”
Julian grated in a strangled tone, the word raking his tongue, spilling over his outthrust jaw. He was unaccustomed to its use.

The second
phrase d’armes
had tied them. Bout point to play. Julian mopped the blood oozing from the shallow wound.

They bowed and saluted to the king and audience, to each other. Gonji tested the left hand on the Sagami’s hilt, squeezing. A numbness, but less pain now. He’d pay for the workout on the shoulder tomorrow.
Now, Gonji-san, let’s see what you’re made of....

Both men lunged, blades sliding against each other up to the handguards, bringing them
corps-à-corps,
swordpoints angled at the vaulted ceiling, faces scant inches apart. With a grunt they pushed off, Gonji renewing his attack at once.

Now their roles were completely reversed, the samurai carrying the attack to his backing, deftly parrying opponent. Steel whined and shrieked with increased intensity, sword blades pushed to the limits of pliancy. Julian played a waiting game, probing, lunging now and again with deep, sizzling thrusts. Gonji abandoned caution, seeing at once Julian’s new tack. It would be impossible to create an opening with a bind or beat again, for Julian slipped or deceived every such effort with a derobement or passive withdrawal. The captain’s reach was superior. Gonji would have to press to find an opening with sheer ferocity, wearing the captain down, fighting inside his blade when the time was right.

Then—Julian suddenly lashed out with a deceptive lunge that started low and changed direction incredibly in mid-thrust to whiz at Gonji’s face. The samurai was caught in mid-step and lurched backward, parrying breathtakingly at the last instant. The crowd sucked in a collective breath—Julian had meant to skewer his head.

Again Gonji wondered at the man’s intent and could only reason that Julian was committed to padding his reputation whatever the expense to Gonji. He growled and attacked with irate vigor, rotating his blade with now failing arm strength, the prolonged, constant motion taking its toll. Several forces were at war within him: fatigue and a sense of futility over this pointless touch-duel weakened his resolve, urged him to quit; this, in turn, suffused his soul with fury over his frustrated efforts and the desire to have vengeance against the captain; but through it all whispered the memory of his promise to Flavio that he would cause no trouble, no violence that might redound to Vedun’s oppression....

Julian taunted him, first with arrogant twists of his swordpoint. Then verbally.

“Come on, samurai. Be done with it. Come after me. Come get it.”

Gonji raised the Sagami high overhead along his right side, his right elbow cocked parallel with the floor, ready for a blazing strike. Slowly, gracefully, he stalked. Julian retreated with equal grace, waiting, mocking. A dance of death, their eyes smoldering with mutual hatred, the audience crowding in, bunched on one another’s shoulders, eyes and mouths agape with expectation, no cups tipped for fear of missing the fulfillment of blood promise.

Like a scorpion with upraised sting, his whole body seemingly open to attack, Gonji closed. Then Julian lunged.

The saber lanced out, and Gonji’s sword arced in a blurring flash that sang off the captain’s steel and drove it far to his right, opening him to the death slash....

“Nooooo!”

Flavio’s cry registered only faintly, and in that instant Gonji knew he might have riven Julian in two. Instead he brought his hilt close and shot out with a two-handed lunge that was not deep enough to catch the quick-stepping captain, too shallow even to force him into a tight parry. The saber’s parry came fast and clean, and the slashing wrist-snap followed even faster.

Gonji swung his hips up and out in an evasive move, but the cleaving blade homed in. And Gonji winced at the searing pain at his ribs.

Gasps and screams, then—a general uproar. The bout was over—

Julian had won.

Gonji stared in disbelief at the dribbling red line at his side. He eyes narrowed as he clutched at it with his left hand, the fingers coming away slickly wet with the blood that coursed down to his breeches’ waistline.

Genya rushed up with a linen cloth to wipe the blood, but he brushed her aside gently and faced Julian. The captain saluted him with a cavalier gesture, his smile smug and carrying an air of finality, as if the business between them was settled. Gonji bowed, forcing an impassive blankness upon his facial muscles. Both men’s chests heaved, their skin glistening with cooling sweat that ran into Gonji’s wounds, stinging fiercely.

But not so fiercely as his pride. His mother’s spirit cried out for satisfaction, but its cry was muffled, for to do anything now would only add breach of etiquette to loss of face. And now his confidence had been shaken. He needed time to think, to get away from this noisy crowd, who tomorrow would be retelling the details of the duel in a hundred ways.

They bowed to king and crowd and returned to their tables.

“A wonderful duel, both of you!” King Klann called out, though Gonji scarcely heard him.

Flavio was offering his thanks to Gonji for his self-control, and Milorad and Genya, too, were speaking, but Gonji was watching the hated captain, sitting at his table, being ministered to by the courtesans, who were filling a cup for him and bandaging the dark crimson slash on his chest. The mercenary Luba sat near him, grinning Gonji’s way.

The samurai sipped his wine glumly as his wounds were dressed, answered questions laconically.

“Now let us return to our revelry,” Klann announced. “Eat, drink—musicians, let us have a merry tune! Bring meat and fruits and bread from the kitchens—there are still unsated appetites out there! The jugglers and the clowns—where is that happy troupe? Let us make merry. Tonight Transylvania salutes the god of wastrels!” Klann slammed his goblet on the table to punctuate his jest.

“The king was right, Gonji,” Genya said before she hurried off to her duties. “You were wonderful.”

Gonji smiled thinly. His wounds burned, and his shoulder ached with the promise of a miserable tomorrow.
Karma.
All karma. His thoughts reeled with kaleidoscopic visions of mocking faces, and pearly teeth, and the broken ceremonial sword. And it suddenly became clear to him why he had hired on as a spy for Julian. At the time his motives had been unclear. Of course he liked the idea of taking the captain’s money, but he had believed that his act was partly motivated, too, by his anger at the city for failing to understand him, his code, his actions. But had he ever truly intended to sell out the city’s secrets to these invading jackals?
Iye.
No. Not at all. He had done it to place himself in a position to confound the bastard captain, and to keep himself near him, to keep Julian always at the fringe of his thinking in preparation for the day when they would have their crossing. Now they had done so, and the first tilt had gone to Julian. There would be another. Oh, very so.

Then he began to rationalize his defeat. He could count on one hand the practice duels he had lost in the past. None had ever come in Europe, in all his ten years of journeying here. Some
kami
had engineered this, perhaps to humble him in his pride. His control had been poor, and the
katana
was not meant for game-playing. His recent illness had cost him more strength and stamina than he realized. The shoulder wound suffered in the fight with the Mongols had weakened his left side. And, he had to admit at last, Julian was without doubt the finest fencer he had ever encountered in all the western lands.

But he should have won. He should have come out the best. Tomorrow he would begin practicing anew. He would strive for perfection of his skill and conditioning. It was his solemn duty to himself, to his masterful warlord father, to his clan and the Land of the Gods.
Hai....

Food platters, held on high, poured out of the kitchens. Fresh wine and ale casks spewed their contents.

Gonji accepted a refill of wine and sat back, sipping and sighing deeply. He nodded repeatedly with resolve. Drink now, for tomorrow begins a renewal of too-long neglected training.

Music wafted overhead, and the drunken revelry rose to fever pitch. Gonji tired of the decadent scene. He washed from a ewer and budget, dressed, and re-sashed his swords. He relieved his full bladder in a garderobe just off the hall. Returning, he asked Flavio to guide him on a tour of Castle Lenska. Flavio, similarly bored with the decadent festivities, eagerly seized upon the suggestion, Milorad reminding him that there were many conscripted servants they had yet to see.

They obtained Klann’s permission, and guards were assigned to each of them. Klann and Garth also took the opportunity to depart with certain other officers to the king’s private chambers, late those of the deposed Baron Rorka. Garth looked sheepish, smiled crookedly, now deep in his cups.

The two parties left the hall together in different directions, Gonji resolving to commit to memory the layout of the fabled fortress and its troop disposition. Before he exited the hall, he caught a stealthy movement up on the gallery. A door had been cracked ajar, a shadowed figure peering down from the small aperture. But when he strove to look through the smoky haze and the glare of the firelight, the chamber door was abruptly closed.

For a moment he wondered who the skulker might be. And whom the object of surreptitious interest.

* * * *

Outside the king’s heavily guarded private chambers, Klann drew Julian aside, the others having preceded them into the receiving room.

“This Gonji, then—he’s the one, eh?” Klann inquired.

“Yes, sire,” Julian replied, half-scowling, “that’s the barbarian who’s selling out his master for gold.”

“A shame,” the king averred, shaking his head. “All this rotten treachery and intrigue. How we hate it. The days are gone, Julian, when wars were fought nobly. Now the fortunes turn on the squealing of eavesdropping curs and...worse.
Sorcerers.
And their filthy magicks and monsters.”

“We’re fighting no war here, milord,” Julian said, anxious to curb the dark leaning of his liege’s humor. He thought of the vacant Field Commander position, hungered after it. “But it’s wise to maintain a sound intelligence outreach, to stay abreast of the city’s thinking.”

“I suppose.” Klann sighed. “Such a brilliant swordsman, though. Why would he lower himself to...slinking about for profit?”

Julian’s jealousy was aroused. “Oh, he’s not really as good as he looks, milord. He’s just a dancer or acrobat, an exhibitionist who’s worked the swords into his act.”

Klann raised his eyebrows and chortled. “Just an acrobat? It took you a while to dispose of him. We never saw a man stay that long with you in a bout before.”

Julian felt his ears redden. “Yes, I’m afraid I overdid it. You see, I felt compelled to carry him for a time—for the benefit of the audience. They would have felt cheated if—”

“Hah!” Klann took him by his shoulders. “Oh, Julian, how like your gallant sire you are! Your father’s vain streak finds its mother lode in you!
Carried
him indeed! Since when has a Kel’Tekeli ever disdained the quick, effective kill, eh? Come—there’s drinking and reminiscing to be done—oh, and remember to hush us up should we broach any—forbidden subjects, eh?” Klann leaned a hand on Julian’s shoulder as they walked toward the chamber door, which was flanked on either side by a Llorm pikeman. “And do they know their duty?”

“Of course, sire. No one enters these chambers while we’re here.”

“It’s the glory days we wish to recount tonight, Julian. No offenses, no...guilt—nothing to upset this grand reunion. Do you understand my meaning?”

“Everything will be fine, sire. You’ll see. Anyway, as I recall you and my father saying many a time, Iorgens won’t be lucid very long once he gets to the serious toasting.”

“Oh, what days those were! You must remember something of it from childhood memory, Julian—how you used to beg to sit with us deep into the night, how you were passed along from one officer’s knee to the next....”