Gonji: The Soul Within the Steel: The Deathwind Trilogy, Book Two (25 page)

Ivar swung his steed to face him, and the Landsknecht renegade nearest him walked his horse into the crowd to approach Vlad, his enormous broadsword resting on his shoulder as he watched the farmers part reluctantly before the horse’s hooves.

Vlad gripped the pruning hook hard, and in that instant came the remembrance that he’d never killed a man before. And yet...he was certain that he could. Quite certain.

“All right, liver lips—come forward,” Ivar said with an evil grin, waving suggestively. “Let’s see how you sound from the stool—”

There came shouts from across the street. A pole-axe-bearing footman, who had turned his back on the craftsmen, took a shot to the back of the head that knocked off his lobster-tailed helmet. He fell to the ground, stunned.

Julian sent a mounted squad forward to drag out the attacker. The craftsmen formed a wall, tools held before them passively in an effort at blocking their passage. A pistol fired over their heads caused them to break in fear, but by now the attacker had melted into the crowd. The wyvern cried out and launched skyward, its battle shriek evoking peals of alarm from the crowd, erupting gooseflesh. It circled overhead, awaiting an isolated enemy it might strafe on Julian’s command.

And in that mad instant, when the Landsknecht trooper turned away to eye the pursuit, Vlad Dobroczy lashed out with the pruning hook, jabbing the soldier hard in the skullcap and throwing him from the saddle.

But then he saw the look in Ivar’s eyes, watched the high sweeping arc of the broadsword in the gloved fist, felt his heart racing, his breath catching, his feet turning to stone—
Oh no, they wouldn’t kill me—they couldn’t kill me—!

The sword slashed downward, but Peter Foristek’s scythe caught the blow and turned it aside. The gray mare was struck by the recoil, and she lurched back on her hind legs. Vlad stumbled backward, and then there were rough hands on him, punching him in the back and head, twisting his arm. He could hear—feel—scuffling and fistfights breaking out all around him. And then he was dragged, kicked, pushed into the square. Slammed down at the base of the Ministry steps, he heard hoofbeats approach. He looked up apprehensively into the face of that sonofabitch Wilf Gundersen. Beside him rode his slant-eyed barbarian crony.

“So now what, Gundersen, you sore on a dog’s ass?” Vlad heard himself cry out in the choking dust. “You and your friend riding with these bastards?”

But there was no one kicking him, or pushing him, or dragging him now.

* * * *

Wilf and Gonji had galloped through the tortuous walled alleys and back lanes toward Vedun’s northern quarter, twisting and turning their mounts seemingly with every other stride. The ashlar and sandstone canyons, as familiar to Wilf as his own bedchamber, still yielded a new surprise at each dizzying corner, now, at the height of daily life. Children screamed and darted out of their way; startled dogs barked and yapped at their horses’ hooves; men and women backed into doorways and cul-de-sacs, cursing in their wake, shaking fists. The alarm bell at the square began to sound.

Gonji yanked Tora hard left as they neared the market square. Wilf followed, guiding his steed surely and smoothly. But he saw the hanging laundry too late—

The samurai had ducked quickly enough to clear the clothesline, but Wilf had caught it full on the chest, snapping it, shock and discomfiture reddening his face as he slowed to tear away the nightshirts and undergarments that streamed from both him and his white stallion. He shook free the last of it, then snarled and launched after Gonji, catching up with him at the juncture with the Street of Hope.

Gonji slowed them to a trot as they neared the mad scene, urging Wilf with body language to assume a more dignified, less desperate posture. They clumped up to the Ministry as a band of footsoldiers struggled with a group of farmers. Wilf could make out the huge Foristek, brandishing his ever-present scythe defensively. Across the street mounted troops scuffled with another unruly crowd.

Shouts and screams, twisting bodies and lurching mounts in the eddying dust. Anatoly Gornick swung from a stool tied to the gibbet, Leo D’Amato’s dead Dane hanging beside him. People leaned from windows for a better view.

Above their heads, the flapping, sailing monster bird, angling its red-eyed nightmare head for a strike.

Wilf sucked in a breath and slowed, allowing Gonji to pass him by half a length. He was suddenly aware of how small and vulnerable he was as his cold, sweaty palm gripped the broadsword’s hilt. The soldiers in the square numbered about five and thirty. He had no idea what he would do next, what he was capable of doing. Gonji looked confident in his new armament, but Wilf saw the tremulous flicker in the samurai’s dark eyes when he craned up at the wyvern.

And then he saw Dobroczy spilled onto the ground before him. His rival rose, railing at him with confusing fury. But the soldiers who had collared him now backed off uneasily, looking from Wilf to Gonji.

* * * *

“What about Petrovna’s woman?” someone was shouting from the midst of the tumult. “Who’ll answer for her?”

Wilf eyed his fuming, hook-nosed rival narrowly. “What the hell are you babbling about, Hawk?”

“Whaddaya think I’m talking about?” Dobroczy growled, now realizing his mistake, the words spoken in frenzied anger. His nose and mouth were bleeding. He dusted himself off as he regained his feet. The knuckles of his right hand were raw and bloody; he drew them across his mouth in a dirty red swipe.

“What do you want with this man?” Wilf heard himself demanding.

None of the mercenaries spoke for a space. Two of them held back the fallen Landsknecht, who brandished his broadsword dazedly, muttering imprecations at Vlad. A mercenary in brigandines clutched a sky-pointed pistol next to his ear threateningly. Most of them watched Gonji, who sat impassively astride Tora and said not a word. A cold harbinger of quick death. By now everyone had heard the breathless tales of the deadly spell those swords could weave; those strange gently curved blades whose hilts now jutted from his back like twin devil horns.

“He struck down a soldier,” one of the men replied at length, indicating the angry Landsknecht.

Upon being addressed as an equal, one to be reckoned with, Wilf inhaled a prideful breath, his chest swelling, the fingers of his left hand massaging the sword hilt. But a sage voice within duly recognized that his new-found respectability was based on the company he kept.

“It seems to me he’s been repaid,” he spoke evenly.

Dobroczy cast anxious eyes about the grounds and, noting the decreased interest in him, began to ease back into the knot of cordoned farmers.

Wilf continued to sit aboard the white destrier, awaiting a reply, wishing for Gonji to do something to relieve him as the focus of the soldiers’ attention. Suppose he was challenged now—then what? Still the wyvern wafted overhead, describing its terrifying circles, primed for the order by which it would rain down its foul brand of death.

Behind him, Gonji dismounted. Wilf looked back to see Captain Kel’Tekeli canter halfway across the street to them. He saw the mingled hatred and curiosity in Julian’s eyes when his gaze met Gonji’s. But the captain remained silent, watching as the samurai began climbing the Ministry steps to the open doorway that was now guarded by sentries bearing pole-arms.

There came a clattering of hoofbeats through the postern gate: Captain Sianno, heading up a double column of four and twenty Llorm dragoons.

Wilf joined Gonji on the Ministry steps, both turning to watch as Sianno and Julian engaged in a curt dialogue that could not be heard but was clearly less than friendly. The Llorm garrison commander gestured to two of his men, who dismounted and cut down Gornick from the cucking stool.

Gonji looked sidelong at Wilf, and the young smith knew that his own face must mirror Gonji’s befuddlement over the occupation force’s inconsistency and disorganization. Both good and bad, he had heard Gonji say.

Then they were mounting the Ministry steps.

“No entry without permission,” grated a scowling German sentry.

Gonji stopped and stared icily. “I’m the Elder’s bodyguard. I’ve come to check on his well-being.”

“You heard him,” the second sentry added.

Gonji took another step, and the guards crossed their pole-axes before him. The samurai took a deadly step backward, and Wilf held his breath, certain that both guards would be dead in a second. And then—?

“Master Flavio,” Gonji called.

The murmur of voices within was choked off.

“Gonji?” came Flavio’s reply.

“Are you well, Flavio-san? Have they harmed you in any way?”

“No-no, I’m quite all right, quite all right. Please—no trouble, I pray you.”

“I’m coming in to see you for myself.”

The sentries tensed. The man who had spoken first, a tall, beefy Aryan in corselet and comb-cap snarled and tilted his head sideways in threat. Gonji stood stock still a moment, looking from one to the other.

Then a clattering of hooves sounded below. The sentries relaxed to see the garrison commander assume responsibility.

“Let them pass,” Captain Sianno said.

Wilf returned the stocky captain’s thin smile, recalling the man’s dignity and courtesy when he had come to search the smith shop, a more meaningful gesture now in view of the comradeship Wilf s father and Sianno once shared under Klann.

Gonji bowed to Sianno and entered the Ministry, Wilf following close behind, encouraged now by the comforting presence of Sianno. He emulated Gonji’s swaggering mien.

In the Ministry were Flavio and Lorenz, plus several minor officials employed by the city government. A tall, gaunt Akryllonian national with dark hair and the lancing stare of a tax collector stood over Flavio, who was seated at his desk in the antechamber at the rear of the hall. The official, a counselor of Klann, swung around to regard them haughtily when they entered. Three mercenaries, clamping hands on sword hilts and pistols warily, closed in on them. Lorenz pushed himself up from the business counter.

“Wilfred?” Lorenz said, puzzled.

Wilf nodded at his brother.

“The business office is closed for the nonce—
gentils
,” Klann’s counselor noted with undisguised contempt as he moved from the antechamber.

“Gonji—Wilfred—we’re fine here,” Flavio called over, rising. “Nothing to be alarmed about.”

Gonji appraised the counselor’s black-and-silver brocade doublet and feathered chapeau with disdain.

“So sorry—not to me, it isn’t,” he advised coldly.

“You’re the fencing fellow from the banquet, eh?” the counselor remarked. “The acrobatic oriental.”

Gonji ignored him. “What are they doing in here, Master Flavio?”

The three guards pressed closer as Gonji took two steps that brought him to the counter. They anxiously regarded the swords at Gonji’s back and, Wilf noted with satisfaction, the young smith’s broadsword.

“They’re questioning us. And the farmers,” Lorenz replied quietly. “Have you heard about the curious crop failure?”

“Something,” Gonji said, looking past the Executor of the Exchequer to study the crestfallen Elder.

“And we have other difficulties,” Flavio said.

Wilf turned at the new uproar in the streets. Two riders stormed up to the steps—citizens. One of them was Aldo Monetto, the loquacious biller, who was shouting something at the crowd.

“What do you mean, Flavio-san?” Gonji probed.

Lorenz answered for him. “A woman has been assaulted, in the early morning hours.”

The wyvern shrilled low over the street without. Wilf gasped in spite of himself to see its baleful shade cast gloom over the menacing crowd. Screams and curses rolled through the doorway.

“Master Flavio! Master Flavio!” Monetto was pushing his way up the steps, held back by the sentries. “They’re trying to arrest the prophetess!”

Wilf gulped and looked to Flavio, to his brother Lorenz. “The prophetess,” he whispered. He saw Gonji spin on his heel and stiffen an instant, eyes flaring, control lost for the first time during the entire incident. And he wondered fleetingly why Tralayn should be of concern to Gonji.

The samurai stalked to the doorway. “Monetto! What did you say?” The biller struggled in the grasp of the sentries.

“Gonji! It’s Tralayn—they’re trying to take her—there’s fighting at her house. Two men are dead already!”

“Who ordered her arrest?” Gonji demanded of the king’s official.

“I did,” he replied superciliously. “She’s to be questioned like the farmers. In some ways the local witch woman is more suspect than they are.” He pulled from a vest pocket a bulbous Nuremberg egg watch. “I’m wasting time here, I fear. I can finish with her at the castle. Remember, Flavio, no soldier of Klann, no Akryllonian national will ever know hunger because of the city’s treachery. Not until every man, woman, and child of Vedun has starved to death first.”

“As I have said,” Flavio replied with evident strain, “the granaries and warehouses are full.”

The official nodded brusquely and pushed past Gonji out onto the veranda, calling for Julian. The three guards trailed after him.

“Cholera,”
Gonji swore under his breath. “Wilfred-san—stay here with Flavio.”