Gonji: The Soul Within the Steel: The Deathwind Trilogy, Book Two (32 page)

“I don’t think so,” Tralayn replied, a far-off look in her eyes. “But it’s possible that could be for the worse.”

“Why don’t you let me try to talk with him—warrior to warrior?”

“I’ve already told you, he won’t see you. No one can pin him down without his wishing it.”

“Really, Tralayn—” Gonji scoffed.

“Remember his fight with Ben-Draba, my friend. And didn’t Klann’s troops look like so many children when they tried to bring him down?”

“
Did
bring him down,” Gonji corrected, a bit uncertainly.

“He
was
struck—but not downed, I assure you.”

Gonji grew impatient with her doubletalk. “This is absurd, all this importance attached to a single man. And why won’t so
valiant
a warrior join in your cause? He
is
in your debt in some way,
neh?
And he’s obviously antagonistic to Klann anyway.”

“Ah, but that would be telling too much, wouldn’t it? Remember our bargain.”

“And I’ve kept my half already,” Gonji responded with annoyance.

“Patience,” she said firmly. “There’ll be more to tell soon.”

* * * *

Wilf clashed with Dobroczy, closed with him, slashing his
bokken
with the economical fury, the controlled passion Gonji belabored. But Hawk was a slippery bastard. His parries were quick and strong, and his classic European style would occasionally find him darting in to skewer Wilf. What mattered now was not Vlad but Vlad’s blade and style; he must fight this man dispassionately—the passion was in the achieving of his purpose, not the feelings fostered for the enemy. And against a swordsman of similar style and skill, he soon realized, he would have to be quicker, more patient. He would have to favor
iai-jutsu
—defensive swordsmanship—over the more aggressive
ken-jutsu.

Then they slammed together suddenly, grunting and cursing, and Dobroczy drove his knee up into Wilf’s groin. Wilf shifted and caught the brunt of the blow on his thigh, but his breath hissed between his teeth, and he lost his head. He let go the
bokken
with one hand and swiped the wooden weapon upward, cracking the hilt against Vlad’s jaw, knocking his sallet off.

Now Hawk lost his own temper, and Wilf froze in shock an instant to gauge the damage he’d done to his opponent—
oohs
and mumbling among the band that watched—Roric called out words of restraint—Vlad slammed his wooden sword down sharply, binding Wilf’s awkwardly held
bokken
against the rocky cavern floor. Wilf’s eyes bulged as Vlad brought his sword up—its arcing sweep would take his head off.

Clack!

Both men were disarmed with a single vertical slash of Gonji’s
katana.

“All right, tough men,” Gonji declared in High German, “you have all this anger to spend,
neh?
Then spend it on a common enemy—hit
me
.”

They stared at him, unmoving. He sheathed Spine-cleaver and tossed it to Roric, who threw him a
bokken.
Sweat glistened on Gonji’s shirtless upper body. He snapped off a vicious wrist-twisting blow that struck both men in their midsections, knocking the wind out of them even through their thickly padded jacks.

“Hit me! You want to play at childish fury, and I need the defensive training. Let’s see how good you are. When you can strike me a blow, you’re good enough to tilt with brigands.
Shiai!
” Gonji took a low-guard “invitation” stance, his sword pointed downward at his right side.

Wilf looked at Vlad. Their shared apprehension mingled in their eye contact, their mutual hatred abated. Vlad grinned at his rival and replaced his sallet, fastening the catch.

The watchers’ excitement rumbled through the echoing cavern as they backed away to give them room. All other activities gradually ceased, an arena atmosphere prevailing.

Wilf charged, howling a
kiyai
, and slashed at Gonji’s open belly.

* * * *

The old Master Oguni exercise occurred to Gonji just about the time he saw the practice duel turn into a campfire brawl. It was time to add spice to the training, time to become for them the emotionless fighting machine they needed to test their new skills.

Wilf’s telegraphed slash was batted aside, the circular, upward return driving Dobroczy’s lunge up and over his head.

“Jaaa!—Hey-hey!—”
came the cries from the audience as the pair resumed the attack with renewed vigor, but Gonji’s seemingly effortless, lightning parries flicked their blows aside with a driving force that belied the magical grace of his small motions. Again and again they attacked and were rebuffed. They soon wore themselves out in their efforts. Their blows slowed. Gonji disarmed Vlad with a curling snap of his wrists like the sudden tautening of a rope, blocked Wilf’s overhead slash with a breathtaking high parry, executed with his back to him, then with a blurring half-turn, still fighting almost totally with his back to his opponent, stabbed Wilf full in the chest with a short one-hand thrust under his armpit, his left hand pressed forward to lend reaction force to the blow.

A great cheer rocked the catacombs as the young smith stumbled backward, off balance. Dobroczy knelt on one knee nearby, shaking his head in frustration.

“All right,” Gonji called out, waving down the cheering, “it looks as though these heroes need help! Who else would like to try to strike a samurai without fear of being unlimbed for it? A rare opportunity—come forward!”

Paolo Sauvini stepped forward with a
bokken
, working his jaw nervously. He removed his jack, eyes gleaming. And a moment later
three
men tried to deliver a blow to Gonji’s unprotected torso and head. Without success.

“Hey, Hawk!” Berenyi called, leaping atop a boulder as they paused to catch their breath again. “Stab him with your nose!” A chorus of laughter at the hook-nosed farmer’s expense, which he waved off exhaustedly. “Why don’t
you
try it, Nagy, you old fart?” Stefan taunted his partner.

“Why don’t you get off my back, you young stud!” Nick Nagy retorted from the crowd below.

Jiri Szabo joined the attack, and now there were three
ken-jutsu
students arrayed against Gonji, but it was the single European-style fencer, Dobroczy, who landed the first blow, a glancing shot to Gonji’s right shoulder after a deep lunge. Cheers rang out on the training ground. Vlad dropped to his knees out of weariness and gratitude, a crooked smile on his face.

Gonji sidled over to him and bowed. Dobroczy rose and returned it. “Everything OK now?” Gonji asked.

“Igen, jo,”
Dobroczy answered.

“I don’t speak Hungarian.”

The farmer’s eyes became questioning slits, then softened.
“Ja—gut,”
he repeated in German. Gonji smiled, and they exchanged bows again.

The exhibition resumed later, and Gonji proved to be, if anything, still more elusive. He broke his own
bokken
and Jiri’s with vicious parries. But the militia had trained hard and well and were improving daily, and by the end of the exhausting match, both Wilf and Jiri had struck Gonji with clean slashes.

A festive mood took hold, and Gonji and the other leaders sensed that it was a good time for a break in the grueling training. The meal break was taken, and the usually disdained wine casks spilled their contents. Camaraderie and good cheer reigned. Even Rorka’s Grays were warming to Gonji, if not the baron himself, as fully half of them came forward to share a laugh and a few words, either in a common language or a cobbled together
lingua franca.

It was a warm, affectionate celebration, the first the militia ever shared. And even Gonji didn’t shrink from the hearty back-slapping of well-wishers, as he usually was wont to do.

* * * *

Klaus had studiously avoided the wine, as he always did, in his sincere effort at improving himself physically. It hadn’t helped.

He clumped forward on a gray roncin, oversized burgonet jouncing comically on his head, and reached out with his broadsword to engage Lorenz, who stood his ground with a long, sharp
guisarme.

“Just bat it aside, Klaus, that’s all,” Gonji muttered under his breath in Japanese as he watched.

Klaus swung his arm in a wide arc, Lorenz disengaged his pole-arm with a simple drop of the point, and the rider overreached, leaned too far—and spurred the roncin hard by accident.

“Look out!”

Horse and rider crashed to the ground in a jangling tumble. Klaus limped away, miraculously unhurt. The roncin had shattered a leg and had to be destroyed.

Gonji separated Klaus from the rest of the men. “Klaus, listen to me—have you any money?”

“A little,” Klaus responded, face brightening. “Why? Do you need some,
sensei?
”

“
Ja, I—nein, dummkopf.
Not for me, for
you!
I have a new idea.”

“New idea?” Klaus looked perplexed already.

“Armor, Klaus.
Lots
of armor. I want you to see the harbisher and the foundry people. They’ll tell you their orders for armor are backed up, between Klann’s needs and the secret work they do for the city. But I’ll speak with them, and they’ll squeeze you in. Put all your money down on account, and don’t worry about squaring up with them. That can wait. You just get yourself armor that covers you from head to toe,
verstehen Du?
”

The samurai squared his shoulders and strode off but, remembering something, turned and called out, “And a bigger horse, Klaus! A big strong one,
neh?
”

And the slow-witted buckle-maker stood scratching his head, watching him march off.

* * * *

Then a bad turn of affairs occurred: A tanner named Danko lost an eye in a staff-training accident. The hard-working Nick Nagy had delivered the blow during a rapid exchange, and he dropped his staff and roared for help as Danko hit the ground, writhing and screaming, holding the gouged eye tightly with both hands.

A crowd of their peers gathered quickly to stare in horror, ashen-faced, as Dr. Verrico pushed through them. The younger members of the militia seemed especially struck, for although they had learned to live with daily pains and some serious accidents, this was the first permanently debilitating injury sustained during training. Their sense of imminent mortality was aroused.

Nagy surged around the crowd, jabbering nervously, crying out for forgiveness, trying to exonerate himself to any who would listen. Roric tried to calm him with gentle firmness, but he seemed inconsolable, and Gonji rushed forward, at once sensing the descent of an enervating new enemy—demoralization.

“Nagy! Nagy! Get hold of yourself!” Gonji snarled in a low, snapping tone. He pushed the babbling hostler away from the rest, guiding him into a recess along one cavern wall. “Stop it now—”

Nagy kept whining something repeatedly in Hungarian.

“—control yourself. Can’t you see what you’re going to do to them? You’re older than these others, and you were a soldier once. You knew there was always this risk—and more! People may die in the coming conflict. They
will
die. But more will die without the training. Danko knew the chance he was taking. A slip the other way and it would have been
you.
”

Danko’s screams had dwindled to a soft moaning. Nagy relaxed, though he still stared over at where the man was being attended. At length he nodded that he was all right, but Gonji ordered him out of the catacombs for the rest of the session. Training resumed shortly, but with a notable lack of zest.

Danko took to wearing an eye patch and became a minor local hero, albeit one who provoked uneasiness whenever he would drop in on the training ground. He never again hefted a weapon. To the occupying troops he became nothing more than a curiosity, the occasional object of a cruel jest or insult. For none of them could interpret the black eye-patch as the ominous mark it was on the horizon of their boorish aggressions.

* * * *

(from the
Deathwind of Vedun
epic:)

“...and the people of Vedun bore all injuries willingly and stoically, accepting all pain, embracing all hardship in the name of their noble purpose...and they laughed in the faces of their complacent
oppressors, and went singing to their tasks, joined in heart and in spirit....