Gonji: The Soul Within the Steel: The Deathwind Trilogy, Book Two (43 page)

Gonji and Roric stood before them, along with Wilf, already posturing like a leader, Spine-cleaver proudly angled from the sash he now wore. About two hundred men shuffled uneasily in the ranks, nervous snickers and jests issuing from them as, for the first time, their confidence in new fighting abilities was to be put to the test. Several former military men were turned back for a time, first priority being given to those with no soldiering experience.

Baron Rorka stood nearby with some of his Grays, eyeing the proceedings imperiously, smugly amused at the initial difficulty they were finding in culling the thirty men Gonji sought. Michael was with him. Flavio’s protege had shown up with a curiously different deportment this morning. He had declined to go on the foray, to Gonji’s relief, admitting that he would indeed be expected at the meeting with the king. Yet he refused to change his vote, having cast the deciding one, and he seemed at ease for the first time Gonji could remember.

“All right, so who’s going?” Gonji called in German, the other leaders translating his words as he strode before them with hands clasped behind him.

Paolo Sauvini was the first to step forward. He spoke not a word, just looked at Gonji squarely, his hand on his sword hilt. Gonji studied him a second, then nodded and indicated that he should stand with the leaders.

“Oh, what the hell...you guys are going to need
somebody
to lighten it up.” Relaxing laughter accompanied Stefan Berenyi’s strut forward and the deep bow that so precisely imitated Gonji’s own.

Gonji smiled wryly. “Well, we have a man who can fix wheels and one to laugh at him! Keep coming.”

Jiri Szabo came next, looking wide-eyed and expectant. Ready but nervous. Gonji welcomed him. A few more men followed in a slow trickle. It was obvious that few wished to risk death so far from the city.

“What about me,
sensei?
” Klaus asked.

“Not this time, Klaus,” he responded gently. “Soon,
neh?
”

Wilf approached Vlad Dobroczy and spoke to him quietly. The farmer stood at the front of the ranks, arms crossed, but made no effort to join the band.

“What about you, Hawk?” Wilf asked. “You’re always spoiling for a fight.”

“Oh, sure,” the farmer replied, sneering, “works out just right, doesn’t it? He takes out the best fighting men, comes back alone, says they were hit before they knew what was happening—No, thanks. I’ll sit this one out and see what comes of it.”

Wilf glared at him. “You haven’t been listening. He’s not asking for the best, just the ones who need it most.”

Vlad stiffened as if he would jump at the smith, but then eased up, a look of surprise on his face to see Pete Foristek stride past, the huge farmer joining the raiding party.

“Welcome, big man,” Gonji said, grinning. Pete shook his hand firmly and took his place beside the others.

When they were about twenty, Nick Nagy came forward. “I fought with Magyar cavalry in my younger days, but you better let me come along or that young smart-ass Berenyi will never let me hear the end of it.” Gonji laughed and assented.

Berenyi broke wind. “Uh-oh—mark
this
sortie down as a defeat.” He and Nagy began to argue, and their comical jousting eased some of the tension out of the assembly. A few more men came forward.

“I’m going, eh?” Karl Gerhard asked, leaning on his deadly four-man bow.

“
Hai
, we’ll need your shooting eye to help overcome the pistols. We’re not taking any.”

“Well, then you’ll have to take me along, too,” Monetto advised, shaking his head, “for the same reason Nick’s going—unless you plan to lose Gerhard and Berenyi somewhere in the mountains!”

“All right,” Gonji declared, “get to your mounts and saddle them.”

Thirty-one volunteers ambled off across the cavern with mixed pride and apprehension.

“Why so many for only—what?—fifteen bandits, maybe?” someone called up from the assemblage.

Gonji rubbed his neck. “We’re going after victory, not valor. Battle plans aren’t formed on the basis of fairness to the enemy. You produce a couple of giants, and I’ll cut the raiding party in half!” There was much good-natured laughter.

When the raiders had been armed, mounted, and briefed, goodbyes and well-wishes were passed around. Many loved ones mingled with the mounted party to lend them encouragement and pledge their prayers. Brief group prayer was offered, including the one Gonji had composed for them.

Hildegarde came up beside Tora and slapped Gonji on the thigh. “You know Hildy would go along, Gonji-Gunnar,” she said in her thick Nordic accent, “but I don’t waste my time on these little skirmishes!” They shared a hearty laugh.

Wilf rode up alongside him and guided his horse through a prancing complete turn. Gonji had made him change steeds, declaring his favorite white roncin a too easily spotted target. The new horse was a jet-black gelding. Gonji nodded.

“Bona fortuna,”
Flavio offered, standing before them with Garth. “And ride with God.”

Gonji bowed to him. Wilf and Garth exchanged strained farewells as the people were guided back to the tunnels for the cautious return to the surface.

“And the best to all of you,” Gonji called, “in your efforts at establishing peace with Klann. My wish is for you to pick up the pieces of your dream, Master Flavio.”

The samurai had Roric form them into a double rank. He walked Tora back and forth in front of them, looking them over carefully, seeing the tension that manifested itself in twitching and itches, sweating palms and faces, skittish mounts. Most of them wore armor and helmets of one sort or another. A wide assortment of weapons was on view. Gonji wore his cuirass, pauldrons, and vambraces, but no helm, only his
hachi-maki.

“When the sluice gates open and we hear the water rush down the cliff, then we go. Mute everything that makes noise as best you can.” They were again using the opening of the waste-clearing sluice gates to cover their noise from the city-wall sentries high above their heads.

A Rorka knight named Anton, a middle-aged man with a balding pate, clopped over to Gonji, clad for battle in half-armor and his gray surcoat with the baron’s crest.

“I go along,” he said gruffly. “I have kin in Zarnesti—
had
, the last I heard.”

Gonji met his smoldering eyes, nodded. “You do so under my command, then, and you respond to my orders.” Anton shrugged sullenly but cast Gonji a salute and joined one end of the front rank.

The wash of water came to them from outside the tunnel entrance, the fetid waste gully splashing nearby with the day’s offal.

“Let’s go—quietly.”

They were off into the daylight, under the concealment of heavy foliage. Scouts were sent ahead to watch for patrols along the southern road. A small party of mercenaries approached from the south not long after they had begun their ride. The raiders split and broke into the forests on either side, waiting breathlessly until they had passed.

“The relieved outpost sentries, probably,” Gonji said when they had reassembled. “From Borgo Pass. They’ve just been granted a stay of execution.”

Some of the men gulped and wrestled with private fears to hear the words. A few were beginning to have second thoughts, if their lack of color was any indication. But they rode on.

They reached Borgo Pass in the early afternoon, stopping within sight of it to share a meal in silence. Even Berenyi’s light-hearted gesturing and mugging seemed forced, and evoked only the merest polite smiles. Gonji sat apart from them in the lotus position, arms folded, watching their anxiety without expression.

Tethering their horses in the swampy valley, they came near to the pass on foot. From their concealment on the eastern side they could make out the enormous rock formation that resembled a leaning crow. Three mercenaries in jacks—open in the midday heat—lounged on a rise tucked between boulders, a cooking fire serving up heat waves in their midst. Their armament could only be guessed at over the distance. One bow could be seen protruding from a saddle, unstrung.

Gonji pondered a while, crouching at the rim of the tangle of brush. Gerhard scrambled up beside him.

“We could drop them with shafts from here, no?” the long-faced archer posited.

Gonji grunted. “No good. If they have pistols, they could squeeze off a warning shot that might be heard for leagues. Anyway I want to involve a novice, if possible.” He watched as one of the brigands removed his jack to slump down shirtless against a boulder façade with his meal. “Come on.”

They scurried back to the others. “Someone get me a horse—not Tora!” Gonji commanded. A man hustled off to comply. “I want one volunteer to work with me on eliminating those guards. Someone to—” Paolo Sauvini rose and stepped up to him. Gonji looked him up and down, then gazed past him, at the others. “—someone who can climb well and doesn’t fear a drop from that boulder. You’re going to land on top of one of them while I engage—”

“I’m your man,
sensei
,” the swaggering wagoner interrupted. His forte was the bow. He had never shown any special agility.

“I think not,” Gonji countered in a low voice. “Anyone?”

Paolo swallowed hard, not liking the taste of rejection. He rubbed his nose rapidly and shuffled off, apart from the others.

“Jiri?” Gonji questioned hopefully. A sheepish grin broke on the young athlete’s handsome face. He shook his head with a tiny fluttering motion that denoted embarrassed unwillingness.

“Not just yet,” he replied, gulping and looking down with a nervous rolling of his shoulders.

Gonji fingered an ear pensively, frowning.

Monetto bounded up. “Better let it be me, I suppose....”

Gonji eyed him sidelong. “Ever kill before?” he inquired softly in Italian.

“Did you have to ask me that?” Monetto replied quietly. He winced, averting his face from the others.

The horse Gonji had called for was brought to him, a roan mare. “I may have to use your beauty here for cover,” he told its owner. “So sorry, but Tora is too valuable to me. Don’t worry, though. My plan is to avoid endangering her.”

Gonji removed his swords from their back harness and seated them in his
obi
, which was still cinched about his middle. They moved ahead stealthily as a group to watch the operation from concealed vantage. Monetto circled behind the rocks and scaled the boulder behind the encampment. When he was above the brigands, he waved a signal. The sun strobed the raiders’ faces through the brush, causing them to squint from its glare in the peaks, as Gonji led the mare back through the trees a few hundred yards, finally emerging onto the road and leading her by the bridle toward the outposted sentries.

“Come on, damned horse!” Gonji was calling petulantly to her as he dragged her along, leaning forward, panting and wheezing. “Come on!” He jogged with her now, twisting and turning back to shake his fist at her muzzle, then pausing either to rub his buttock or relieve the friction of a feigned heat rash.

When he had about reached the sight line of the concealed raiders, the mercenaries heard him, two of them moving out to investigate.

“Sonofa—!” Gonji gasped, waving to them and half-smiling as he fought for breath, clutching at his throat, his chest heaving.

The lead mercenary drew a pistol and spannered it tight, checked its charge and load. Replaced it in his belt. The second sentry palmed his belted sword’s hilt. The watching raiders held their breaths. The seated man had set his plate down but remained in place, watching his fellows’ backs from the rocks, somewhat out of Gonji’s sightline. He leaned over and hefted another pistol, readied it, then stuck it behind him.

The raiders witnessed that and sucked in their collective breath.

“They’ll blow him a new asshole,” Anton whispered harshly.

“Hssst!” Roric ordered, the knight scowling in response.

Gonji waved to the sentries affably, still panting in affected exhaustion, and drew near to them.

“Julian—I—he—” he rasped, holding his chest, “—damned horse—Julian—”

“What do you want, slopehead?” the pistol-wielder demanded. His partner gripped his sheathed broadsword suspiciously.

“Ohhhh!” Gonji dusted himself off, two yards away, his breath still choppy as he bent over. “I’m—supposed to—”

“I said
whaddaya want?
”

“To relieve you,” he said, looking up. The bandit cocked an eyebrow and leveled his pistol.

The raiding party gasped as one and lurched forward.

In the instant Gonji swept the Sagami out of its scabbard, Monetto dropped down on the seated mercenary. With a slash right off the draw, Gonji sliced his opponent’s arm off at the elbow, blood spouting from the wound, the pistol and severed arm still in the air while the returning glint of steel tore open the second sentry’s belly before his blade was half drawn. They lay on the ground writhing in agony, Gonji’s finishing strokes silencing them. He turned at once and peered at Monetto, who rose shakily from the slumped sentry at the boulder. There was blood on the biller’s shirt. Not his.