Gonji: The Soul Within the Steel: The Deathwind Trilogy, Book Two (35 page)

Helena’s face shone with childlike innocence as she slept.

Plucked the little lotus....

He sighed restlessly. Something dug into his side. Feeling under him, he found the lump in the sewn-in kimono pocket. Curious, he fumbled out two objects: the crucifix of the late Hawkes, the mercenary who had befriended him while they rode with the 3rd Free Company; and the folded parchment containing the foul “faith chant” of Mord. Gooseflesh erupted on his arms when he beheld the paper—the crucifix had seared its shape cleanly through its folds.

Throwing both objects onto the ground, he lay Helena down gently and dressed. From Tora’s saddle he obtained a blanket with which he covered the girl and flint and tinder he used to build a fire. When the blaze was strong, he unfolded the hated parchment and lay it on the fire.

It refused to burn.

He poked it with a stick, turned it, plucked it out and replaced it—It seemed impervious to the cleansing flames.

Then on an impulse he dropped the crucifix of his dead friend onto the magically-endowed parchment. A loud
whuff!
and an orange burst of flame that nearly singed his hair—

Both objects instantly disintegrated into the kindling. And Gonji was left to ponder the eerie event’s portent.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

A traveling oblate arrived in Vedun the next day, and the city leaders prevailed upon him to stay for a time and minister to their spiritual needs in the absence of the visitants from Holy Word Monastery. By now the fate of the monks was suspected by all but the very young, and there was no more discussion of it among the grim populace. They took confession and communion gratefully at the chapel, Mass being celebrated there for the first time in a month, and those needing the last sacrament were attended by the itinerant priest.

When Gonji saw the sincerity of their faith and the depth of their spiritual need, he recognized the centrality of worship as the rallying point for the vast majority of the militia. Thus, to reconcile their spirituality with the militant thinking they would need to oust the invaders from Vedun, and to indicate his respect for their mode of worship, he gave them the following prayer of his own composition:

“From all manner of wretched death and savage wound, Lord, protect me; but most of all suffer me not the death of a coward.”

They recited the prayer thereafter at the beginning and end of each training session, though there were those who cared little for its content and some who would not say it at all.

* * * *

The leaders converged in the boulder-strewn tunnel area with the excited militiamen.

“Now what is so important—” Rorka began.

“Look!” several men cut in.

Jiri Szabo unfolded the bundled rag he carried. A new pistol lay within, polished and gleaming. Greta was with him. From a pouch lashed to her leg under her skirts she produced powder, pistol balls, and a spanner for the wheel-lock firearm.

“
Yoi!
Good!” Gonji said, hefting the gun.

“Where did you get it, Jiri?” Roric Amsgard asked.

“My father. He bought it last night from one of the traveling merchants, who smuggled it in concealed in his wagon.”

“You’ll need a lot more of these, I’m afraid,” Gonji said.

“I thought you didn’t approve of firearms,” Michael observed.

“I don’t care for them, it’s true. They’re unreliable and ignoble, and one day fighting men of honor will abandon them for the elegance of sword and bow, the strong arm and stout heart.”

Rorka snorted. “Are you really so naive, my friend?”

“
Iye
, but I can dream, can’t I?” He chuckled mirthlessly. “No, men with money who crave power will see that they’re made better, and someday wars will be won by the rich. A sad fact of our time. I’m an idealist, you see, and the world has passed me by. A relic before my time—not so different from yourself, Herr Baron.” He returned to the archery ground.

Rorka stroked his chin thoughtfully and pondered the samurai’s words, admiring his aptness of observation.

In the next two days, three more pistols turned up in the catacombs.

* * * *

By the middle of the second week, over three hundred men and forty women could be counted upon to attend any given day’s training sessions. They were now past the attrition caused by frequent early injury, poor conditioning, fear, disillusionment, and disagreement over principle. Even Strom and Boris had by now returned to train, if half-heartedly, under Garth with the staff, though they steered clear of Gonji.

Now, too, the number of men swelled daily due to defections from Phlegor’s guild, who had grown discouraged with their leader’s shaky efforts at preparation with poor equipment and inadequate facilities; they had been training in small numbers in cellars and at a secret weapons cache in the hills. Phlegor was generously offered a command post on the military council, but still he refused, insisting that the action they trained for was too far in the future to do any good.

“He says he won’t produce goods all winter for these bastards while they pick the bones of Vedun clean,” said the guild courier who took him the message.

Their fears intensified. What was the guild leader planning? Gonji found the situation vexing. The only sure answer was Phlegor’s elimination, which he tried to make them understand via circumlocution: to broach the subject head-on was, he knew, dangerous to his tenuous position with some of the city leaders. The suggestion would be morally repugnant and unacceptable, and again Gonji would appear the barbarian savage in their eyes.

Thus was another dilemma added to Gonji’s growing list.

* * * *

Michael took a sharp crack to his morion helmet and went down on one knee. Paolo withdrew as several people rushed forward to check on the stunned young leader, who staved off their anxious ministrations.

Gonji scratched under his harness, but the nervous itch wouldn’t abate. Michael had flinched again, reacting to a feint, thus opening the line of attack that might have crushed his skull. Lydia peered over at her downed husband from the grotto of the “Ladies Hospitaler,” as the support group had dubbed itself, but she remained at her place, laving a gash on a Squire’s thigh.

The samurai blew out a long breath. “Paille, what’s that story of David,
King
David, from the Christian bible?”

Paille looked up from his diorama of Vedun, where he had been placing a figure of himself painting atop the Ministry building while a battle raged in the streets below.

“You mean David and Goliath? Are you planning to engage Tumo with a slingshot? I’m not sure God would so favor you, you heathen,” the artist said jestingly.

“
Non
, I mean...about the woman,” Gonji replied, his gaze distant, taking in something beyond the limits of the cavern.

Paille cast him a wily glance. “You mean Bathsheba, the one he married after first sending her husband out to be slain? That’s one of the—What are you thinking,
monsieur le samurai?
”

“Nothing,” Gonji responded, refocusing his eyes and moving off.

“Nothing good, I can tell you that,” Paille shouted after him, a worried frown creasing his brow.

* * * *

Patterns of armor and dress were taking shape in the training ground.

The men who chose to rally around Rorka and his knights emulated their dress, slowly accumulating, through purchase or improvisation, light field armor of steel, morion helmets, and shields or bucklers. The armor was worn only during full field exercises, and its emphasis was on protection. For normal daily training they wore tunics, jupons, or quilted gambesons, many of which sported Rorka’s lion-and-cross coat-of-arms. These militiamen came to be called Squires.

Those who chose Gonji’s
kendo
—the Japanese “way of the sword”—acquired still lighter armor of leather, scale, and thin steel plate, covering mainly the front of the body, and emphasizing maneuverability. They trained shirtless like the samurai, learned much of the Japanese language and manner, and took to wearing what Gonji called a
hachi-maki
—“headband of resolution.” The leather sword harness for the back became a popular item of equipment as well, inasmuch as a great deal of mounted fighting was practiced and anticipated. These trainees came to call themselves
bushi
—“warriors,” and there was keen competition between
bushi
and Squires.

Near the end of the second week, the militia held its long-awaited archery contest, the Gray knights showing their prowess with the crossbow at shorter distances, but the magnificent English longbow rising to the forefront as the targets receded from view.

Shot groups of three shafts at each distance were launched, the targets then moved back twenty yards. Eliminations were swift, and soon only Gonji and the splendid Karl Gerhard remained on the shooting line. They matched each other nearly shot-for-shot, miss-for-miss, the watching throng breathless. Gonji would score a perfect round, and Gerhard would follow in kind, his endearingly doleful countenance displaying no thrill of triumph beyond a curt nod with each hit. One man would miss a shot, the other would similarly fail. Then at 190 yards Gonji could manage only a rim hit, missing rather handily on both other shots. He unstrung his bow and bowed to Karl, but Gerhard declined the resignation and shot his round, missing narrowly on the first, hitting the second, and launching his worst shot of the day on the third, which skimmed the ground well short of the target.

“Are you toying with me, Sir Archer?” Gonji asked.

“Nein,”
Gerhard replied, “but we could do this all day, and I’m bored. Let’s go for it all.”

The militiamen stirred excitedly as the pair bowed and the target was moved back to the farthest wall, scarcely in view to some, the nearsighted among them waving their hands in surrender and walking away amid laughter and jests.

“Hey, old man,” Berenyi yelled to Nagy, “why don’t you go squint in front of the target so you can see?”

“Get off my back, you young stud, or you’ll be wearing one of those arrows where it’ll do you the most good.”

Berenyi farted, and his companions roared and broke for cover.

“
Da
, you know where I’m talking about!” Nagy roared.

Wilf helped Gonji restring his bow.

“One shot per round, first hit wins,” Gonji declared. Gerhard nodded and bade Gonji begin.

The samurai missed, planting his shaft high on the far cavern wall. Gerhard’s shot wrung a hopeful groan from the audience—the spotters relayed that he had missed by a scant foot to the left. Gonji followed with a sleekly arcing, beautiful drop shot that hit a yard too high. An electric thrill ran through the audience as they groaned, shaking their heads. Gerhard’s third volley caused the spotters to leap into the air, an action that transferred itself through the cavern in a gradual wave that lost its immediacy as it gained distance from the target. But the cheering was thunderous.

The target was rushed forward—Gerhard had missed the bull’s-eye by a hand’s width. They measured the distance the pair had been shooting: 340 yards.

* * * *

(from the
Deathwind of Vedun
epic:)

“...and the stalwarts did learn well under the Red Blade’s direction, at the last striking targets with their unerring bows at distances in excess of six hundred forty yards...and the Red Blade did dispense his sublime battlefield wisdom....”

* * * *

“What about the monsters?” a voice whined from the seated tactics-briefing crowd.

“
You
‘what-about-the-monsters’!” Gonji yelled archly in reply, spinning and pointing in the direction of the voice. “Don’t let them catch you, and they won’t hurt you!” A spate of nervous laughter.

“Seriously,
sensei
,” Jiri Szabo spoke up, “do you have a plan for the wyvern and the giant, for anything else Mord might bring against us?”

“Of course,” Gonji replied firmly, “I’ve told you as much. Next question!” He averted his eyes from Wilf, with whom he’d discussed the “plan,” whose simple reality was all too apparent to any who cared to reflect on it.

The skeptics who already had shook their heads sullenly.

* * * *

“Remember that an enemy who regards you too casually probably has accomplices stropping their swords and leveling their guns just out of sight. Be wary....”

* * * *

“Remember: They outnumber us, but we’re better than they are. And we’re fighting for your loved ones, your homes, your way of life. They don’t rattle easily, but like you they freeze for an instant when something growls at them. So growl!” Gonji stalked before them, sword bared, as he lectured. “Eye contact!” he shouted. “Stare through them. Posture yourself like a champion, carry yourself like you’ve already beaten them.
Kiyai! Kiyai! Kiyai!
—
Howl
when you strike! They can be intimidated.”