Gonji: The Soul Within the Steel: The Deathwind Trilogy, Book Two (37 page)

It was a dangerous exercise, endorsed by Gonji and Roric but opposed by Rorka and Garth. Klaus was clad—indeed, concealed—by his seventy pounds of armor, the buffe of his burgonet helm clamped shut. The head of his battleaxe was swathed in burlap to blunt the edge, a leather thong lashing the handle to Klaus’s wrist to prevent him from dropping it. Paolo wore light half-armor and a low-brimmed sallet. The object of the bout was to strike a punishing blow. Klaus had entered the contest willing but apprehensive, anxious to do his
sensei
proud. Paolo had been confident and arrogant.

Fifteen long minutes before....

“Swing, Klaus!” Gonji cried. “Leave no opening!”

The buckle-maker whirled the heavy axe, failing arm strength beginning to tell as the arc’s radius shrank. Sauvini, drenched in sweat, his every clever trick repulsed, now turned to jeering and taunting. Klaus’ groans of agony could be heard through the breath-holes of the buffe as his aching arms worked.

In the midst of a taunt Paolo sprang, timing the arc, everything he had left galvanizing his deep thrust. It struck Klaus’ breastplate and glanced off with a steely whine—an instant before the axe-head crashed into the wagoner’s shoulder, knocking him off his feet, his pauldron shattered.

Three-hundred fifty voices roared in approval.

“Decision!” Paolo screamed as he scrabbled to his feet, clutching his throbbing shoulder. “My decision—I struck first!”

Gonji strode forward, the crowd noise diminishing in response to his hand signal.

“
Hai
, I see you’ve dented Klaus’ armor,” Gonji observed, rubbing his chin, “but I’m afraid
you’ve
lost an arm—the
victor!
”

As the cheering rang in the catacombs, Klaus fell to his knees, unable to rise. Several people helped him to his feet, raised his arm in victory. They opened his buffe to reveal a drenched red mask, grinning in happy anguish.

As for the look that washed over Paolo’s face as he drew away, only the wagoner himself knew the source of the ugly spring that fed it.

But this moment belonged to Klaus, and while he was yet far from a seasoned warrior, Gonji beamed with pride over the simple man’s achievement. The city’s oaf had shown what might be done out of simplicity and sincerity, desire and practice.

Belief in the impossible.

* * * *

Despite Gonji’s having again fallen out of favor with Rorka and the Grays, things went fairly smoothly during training in the few days following the Festival of St. Stephen. It wasn’t until the morning session of the third day thereafter that Helena again came to the catacombs, at which time matters took a definite turn for the worse.

She pattered in quickly from the chapel tunnel with scarcely a glance to Gonji and took up her place among the Ladies Hospitaler. Her eyes were red and swollen as she brushed away the tear stains. There were looks of concern and a few questioning signs to her that she ignored. Only Lydia and Greta thought to look toward Gonji for an explanation.

Wilf silently indicated Helena’s sudden presence to Gonji, who cast her the merest glance from across the cavern, swallowing back the pang of guilt. He nodded sharply once, then continued with the training. He was teaching
karumi-jutsu
, the samurai’s litheness technique for leaping and dodging, running along the top of the agility scaffold while militiamen speared and swung at him with staffs. Leaping and parrying with Spine-cleaver, his concentration was totally on his work, so that he didn’t notice Helena’s mother, Sophia, enter the cavern until her raging display had captivated everyone else’s attention.

Sophia charged into the training ground, sputtering and swearing in Polish, shaking her fist at Helena once she had singled her out among the women. She pointed to the tunnel, still cursing, and when one of the other women had pointed out her mother’s presence, a look of horrified embarrassment lit Helena’s face and her tears began anew.

Gonji leapt down from the scaffold when the irate woman surged toward him. He felt hundreds of eyes boring into him. Perplexed and utterly shocked, he had no idea what to do as she approached. He could feel his embarrassment flaring through his neck and ears as his astonished friends backed away to give the wrathful woman space. She still shook her fist, livid with rage, railing at the samurai. Of the hot words she spewed he could make out only
“cholera”
and
“swinia”—
pig.

He just stared, stoically absorbing the anger of the offended mother, for once impotent even with a sword in his grasp. For an instant he thought she would strike him, and he was prepared to accept it, knowing the justice of her fury, the shame the satiating of his passion had brought on both mother and daughter in the ethos of these people. But then two things happened: Sophia’s ire was spent; and as she backed away, tight-lipped and shaking, Paille rushed up to her, tongue-lashing her in an absurdly idiotic manner:

“Get out of here,
fishwife!
How
dare
you so address the leader of the militia, the Liberator who will spare you from a fate worse than any you could imagine—!”

It was all foolish blather, Gonji knew, but he was grateful for it, for the filling of the breathless void in the cavern.

Helena ran into the tunnel, streaming tears. Her mother followed shortly after, militiamen parting to give her wide berth.

An ugly, leering moment. Feet scuffling softly. The muted tinkle of steel. Eyes casting about for private spaces—One woman’s private concern had shattered the purpose of hundreds.

Gonji said nothing but marched off to a dark grotto, where he sat cross-legged for a long time, alone.

Plucked the little lotus....

Roric and Garth began shouting orders, resuming the training. But after a time some of Gonji’s closest friends came to the grotto and wordlessly knelt or sat with him, a tight circle of men forming, their stomachs in nervous knots, as they were unsure of his mood and how his inner feelings might manifest themselves. He appeared to be meditating, staring at a space on the ground, his back against a mineral-veined rock wall. Those who joined him were shirtless like him, their heads bound with the
hachi-maki.
Wilf was among them, and Jiri Szabo, Aldo Monetto, and a few others. There were looks of surprise when, a while later, Michael Benedetto also entered the grotto to stand at the rim of the circle, looking on with an expression that beggared analysis.

Then, trancelike, Gonji began to speak, first in Japanese. Later, with a suddenness that startled and unnerved them, in High German. He spoke of his tortured soul, of the peculiar tragic karma attendant on the efforts at love in his life. He told them of his beloved Reiko, with whom he shared a compact of deepest love from adolescence. Of how his hated half-brother Tatsuya, second son of his father but firstborn of full Japanese blood, desired Reiko and lusted after Gonji’s heritage. How his father was manipulated by Tatsuya’s secret machinations to cement a clan rift by pledging Tatsuya as Reiko’s betrothed, the union being completed despite all Gonji’s desperate efforts. Reiko—the helpless pawn, pledged by
giri
to uphold her new, detested husband’s honor by her samurai heritage. The secret tryst, the last kiss of ill-starred love, the entrapment and discovery by the triumphant Tatsuya—

The duel. Gonji’s killing of his lifelong sibling rival. His resultant disaffection, the death of his broken-hearted mother, the vendetta sworn by Reiko’s family. But worst of all...Reiko’s duty-bound effort at killing him with her downed husband’s sword, resulting in the ugly shoulder scar, the eternal reminder.

Then the words of a dying Shinto priest, his teacher-confidant, and the bizarre quest across mad Europe by the forlorn and dispossessed child of unsalutary birthing. The quest for the
shi-kaze
, the Deathwind.

And now Vedun....

After a long quiet space, his companions began to leave, one by one, until only Wilfred and Michael remained with Gonji. Then the samurai emerged from his somber meditation and rose.

“Come,” he said, sighing. “There’s much to be done.”

* * * *

They had ridden out of the catacombs under cover of night and wind and rain, the moon blindered by inky clouds, their horses’ hooves muted with burlap. Fifty men on an exercise of stealth—discovery meaning unwanted engagement with Klann’s troops; training in cavalry skirmish in the forested southern foothills; and finally, in the militia’s grumbling estimation, a problem in misery and frustration.

They charged and clashed, far from the city and the reconnoitered Klann outposts, launched volleys of arrows through the cold and drizzle, slipped and flopped, slamming in the mud with spates of shouting and curses, the wincing jangle of armor and whinnying of steeds. Gonji, Roric, and three Gray knights led them through their paces again and again, dashing each renewed hope that the exercise was ended with fierce orders to engage still another imaginary battle line or monstrous foe.

Gonji knew that he was testing not only their battle skills but also their loyalty, and now was a good time to do so, with the memory of the recent shameful scene in the catacombs still fresh.

He watched with curiosity the whispers passing along the line, Berenyi and Wilf being the initiators, whenever a halt was called. Roric had no idea what was on their minds, nor did the Grays know what was transpiring.

When the final halt to the exercise was sounded, it was greeted not with the anticipated cheering and relief but with a confused shuffling and clumping of riders, Wilf and Berenyi calling out low commands, as the fifty formed a single long rank. The two leaders rode to the rear and center of the line that faced the five surprised instructors. Rorka’s Grays looked at one another uneasily, but they all held their ground beside Gonji and Roric as the militia advanced by twos, pouring into a double column beginning at the middle of the line. When they were twenty yards distant the pair at the head of the column broke off in opposite directions, the lines following the leaders until the troop had formed a sort of flabby V, flanking the five instructors with the V’s concavity. Wilf and Berenyi sloshed up from the point, side-by-side, rain dripping from helms, armor, and mounts, bearing a banner between them. It was white, with the Rorka crest sewn into the left half, a representation of a
katana
on the right. Below the sword, a Latin inscription:
“There is nothing that a man need fear/Who carries at his side this splendid blade.”

Gonji smiled as he read it. It was the motto he had translated for them from the ideograms carved on the hilt of his Sagami.

Wilf and Stefan bowed and saluted. “First Rumanian Hussars reporting,
sensei
,” Berenyi said, suppressing his ever-present sly smile.

Roric and the Grays laughed, and their humor quickly infected the “Hussars.” Gonji bobbed his head repeatedly, rainwater streaming off his sallet and down his back.

“All-recht, mein Hussars,”
the samurai declared, “let’s return to the catacombs and celebrate the commissioning of this...new detachment.”

There came muted shouts of enthusiasm, and they started back immediately, scouts being sent ahead to survey the road through the valley which they must cross again to reach the tunnel. One rider soon returned with the message that a patrol of four mercenaries traveled the road. The festive mood subsided, replaced by wariness.

When they arrived at a rise overlooking the road, they assumed a corporate phantomlike presence, employing the darkness, the trees, the rain rustle as armor against prying eyes, hiding virtually in plain sight. The four mercenaries rode by within a dagger-throw, clearly feeling watched but too threatened to dare rousting out the watchers. Instead they spurred ahead, whispering and ceasing to peer about them into the looming forest.

Gonji watched his troop’s confident smiles, felt their corporate thrill at the psychological victory, the vindication of a principle they had doubted. Had they failed in the joint effort, he, Roric, and the three Grays had been poised to launch themselves after the patrol and dispatch them as quickly and quietly as possible. But the militia had meshed as a unit; they’d been a single entity, a stealthy coiled serpent that had warded off an enemy via sheer projected menace, a metaphysical curiosity of aggression which Gonji had never failed to marvel at in practice. For an instant the invading army had had the tables turned; their fears of the province had been stoked, and the lesson to the militia had been far more valuable than the violent deaths of an outnumbered enemy patrol.

Gonji swelled with pride. Vedun’s militiamen were beginning to resemble soldiers.

At the cavern they broke out wine and ale. Roisterous cheer was the order of the day. Gonji keenly appreciated the camaraderie. He spoke to them of
giri
and
ninjo
, the battling forces of duty and inclination within the samurai, and of how for the first time in a long time these forces had found unity in the matter of freeing Vedun from the invaders’ stranglehold. Despite all that was unsettled in his life, he felt relatively at peace and lacked only the fulfillment of his quest and his destiny in order to die happily and willingly.