Gonji: A Hungering of Wolves (17 page)

It was a sham: the Church hierarchy had long since decided that the movement was merely another heretical cult.

And as they departed Italia, much good-natured fun was made of the ironic discovery that Gonji had indeed become a
cult
figure among the young. The exotic, eccentric stranger, hero of countless legendary adventures, had spawned a fad. Topknots sprouted among the young men; some women painted their eyes in bizarre imitation of
geisha
fashion they had heard of. Two-handed sword techniques came back into vogue.

“Proof,” Gonji declared, “that the world isn’t ready for the wisdom of the East. Behold the superficial aspects of
bushido,
of my race and my culture, that they cling to. Soon they’ll tire of my novelty. I’ll cease to be an amusing diversion, an intellectual riddle. Just as Simon once said…”

“Si,
and then it’ll be
my
turn,” Luigi Leone called up from the column. “They’ll all start popping out one of their eyeballs.” The gregarious young adventurer patted his eye-patch, to the gruff laughter of his fellows.

* * * *

The former Austrian Landsknecht returned from his scouting of the armed party encamped ahead.

“Old enemies of yours,” he told Gonji, confirming their suspicions. “Do you have any old
friends
? Anyway, they wanted me to join up. They were boasting about their toughness—”

“Isn’t that just like mercenaries?” Orozco asked archly, honing his broadsword.

“Interesting,” the Landsknecht went on with raised eyebrows. “It seems one of their points of pride is that some of them once rode with King Klann the Invincible.”

His words hung in the still night air. Gonji’s smile spread slowly. He shifted his swords from his sash to his back harness.

“You’ll be rejoining them soon,” he told the scout.

“We take them?”

“They hold the road to Noricum. They’re in our way.”

An hour later, Buey and Kuma-san rode with the small squad set in rear guard as the main body of the company, thirty-three strong, descended on the bandit encampment in a long, howling skirmish line. The din of clashing steel and hurtling human-animal war machines exploded amidst sporadic gunshots.

The engagement was short. Gonji’s party pounded over the grounds, pulses racing as they sought worthy steel to test. None remained. The crucibles of oppression and combat had melted the samurai’s company down to a lean, tough fighting unit.

With a single nod of satisfaction and a last withering glance toward the Alps, Gonji wiped down his blade and led the thundering band eastward.

CHAPTER FIVE

Three months before the resolution made by the Wunderknechten of Lamorisse at Henri Chabot’s inn, a party of strangers sought out the source of the militant
bushi
movement in its base in Austria. They were directed to the old Roman province of Noricum. There, in a placid country town virtually owned by the prosperous Neriah family of merchants, these pilgrims encountered the remnant of the population of Vedun, that storied and embattled ancient city in the Carpathians.

They sought out the council Elder, Michael Benedetto. His wife, Lydia, received them into her home. Explaining that her husband was in ill health, Lydia warily inquired as to their business.

Moments later, she was pulling on her capuchin, calling for the nursemaid who sometimes cared for her young daughter, and sending runners out to gather certain of the settlement’s leaders.

With the visiting strangers in tow, Lydia Benedetto hurried to the blacksmith shop of Wilfred Gundersen.

* * * *

“You gentiles have been nothing but a bane to us since your arrival,” Isaac Neriah was saying. “I say that with no particular rancor. I merely state a fact. Remember,
I
am the one who rather enjoys your company. My brothers would throw you to the wolves, if not for my dear father’s wishes. But now that he’s gone, well…I just think it would be wise for you to…consider alternatives to remaining here.”

“I expected this day would come,” Wilf replied, “long before your father’s death. The funny thing is, none of us likes staying here, living off your family’s hospitality and largesse. Squatters, that’s all we are, as far as you’re concerned. We know that. We just don’t know what to do as a community, for the moment.”

Another axe-head crashed into the splintering rail near the forge. Aldo Monetto retrieved the two deadly throwing axes he’d been practicing with. Vedun’s former biller and a hero in the city’s evacuation action under Gonji, Monetto found little demand for his skills, so near the larger cities. More than any of the others, Aldo chafed for a fresh direction in which to steer his considerable energies, though his wife and children seemed content in Noricum.

“Some of the others know what to do,” Aldo said. “They’re leaving for their homelands. The old cosmopolitan spirit is dwindling, Wilf. Since Gonji never rejoined us…” His voice trailed off in despair.

“What about you, Aldo?” Genya asked. Wilfred’s wife leaned in the doorway uncomfortably, heavy with child as she was.

“Me? No, I can’t see going back to Italia. I’ve more life behind me in Hungary than there—”

“We all have,” Wilf concurred.

“—I’m too antsy,” Monetto continued. “Crazy, eh? Do you know where some of them are going, Wilf? They’re taking the old Vedunian ideal of fortified peace and setting sail for the Americas. Now there’s a place for heroes such as us,” he said forcefully, beaming with enthusiasm.
“Monsters
roam the plains in America, I’ve heard—plenty of adventure! Why not take a chance, Wilf? Think what that would do for your Nordic bloodlust!”

“Now wait a moment, Signore Monetto,” Genya interrupted, patting her belly in gentle reminder.

Aldo shrugged and threw another axe, the head ending in an explosion of wood chips. “All I do is train—for what?” He had been one of Vedun’s finest athletes and warriors. Even at forty, the old ways had not palled for him.

Isaac Neriah sighed, shook his head, and excused himself. When he left he nodded to the just-arriving Anton, the Gray Knight, a balding soldier who was the last living retainer of Baron Rorka of Transylvania. Anton had curiously parlayed his age, reputation, and temperament into the position of the father-confessor of the Wunderknechten, sought out by pilgrims from faraway lands.

“So what’s this all about?” Wilf asked.

Anton looked puzzled. “Thought
you’d
know. Lydia sent a message to come here. Sounded important.”

A moment later, the grumbling old ostler Nikolai Nagy, a stalwart militiaman during the siege of Vedun, fairly battered down the door to Wilf’s shop. “What the
hell
is goin’ on, young fellah?” Nagy scratched petulantly at the timeworn silver-gray rug that burst, more than grew, from his head.

“I know as much as you, Nick,” Wilf replied. “This is Lydia’s party. Might as well leave the door open—”

A few others arrived. Monetto began rubbing his hands in the hope of impending action, trouble—tragedy, even—anything to chase his unrelieved boredom. He twined his arms about a support post and raised his body into perfect horizontal alignment. Training for action had become an almost unconscious habit for Monetto.

Hernando Salguero, a former captain of lancers from Catalonia, framed himself in the doorway a moment, face pale and eyes shining. “I told you,” he said. “I said not to give up hoping…”

Someone gasped expectantly. Lydia Benedetto rushed in behind him, throwing off her hood and holding out a hand in a gesture indicating that the others should welcome the three French strangers—a woman and two men—who accompanied her.

“Wilfred—” Lydia said curtly, nodding at the travelers as if the smith should have known them.

Introductions ensued. Salguero folded his arms over his chest knowingly.

The French woman, whose name was Claire Dejordy, stepped forward lightly, beaming an expression of cautious hopefulness. Wilf bade her sit, but she declined. She was young, perhaps in her mid-twenties. Pale and blonde like Lydia, enough so that they might have been kinswomen. Serenely pretty, but with features too sharply drawn to call beautiful.

“I know our names mean nothing to you,” she said. “But we need your help. So the best way I know of winning your confidence is to tell you that I—I am in love with the man named Simon Sardonis…”

* * * *

They sat talking deep into the night, a few other Vedunian militiamen joining them as the session wore on, galvanized by word of what this French party boded for the possible future of all of them. Genya wearied at last and quit their company, seeming unsettled by it all. She had good reason, Wilf knew, considering her condition and the tenor of the conversation.

“What was it Jacob Neriah kept saying when your company came here from Spain, Hernando?” Wilf strained to recall the late lamented merchant’s words exactly. “He said we should expect Gonji’s coming with an eye to the strange way he works and the even stranger ways of the Lord God.”

“I told you they’d get word to us,” Salguero repeated smugly for the hundredth time.

Claire Dejordy seemed at once exhausted and relieved. Glad to have found this company of legendary fighters her beloved Simon had spoken of with an uncharacteristic fondness.

“I have never met Gonji,” she said. “I only know his legend. The things Simon said. And the activities of the Wunderknechten…”

“Be glad that damned Paille isn’t around anymore,” Nick Nagy grumbled, “or you’d really get an earful.”

“This is amazing,” said the old knight, Anton, his eyes shining with the glow of legendary memories.

“Well, this is what we’ve been waiting for, isn’t it?” Monetto asked from the high shelf where he’d vaulted up to take a seat above the rest. He had spoken in Hungarian for no apparent reason. “Simon,” he breathed. “What a fearsome sight he was when we assaulted Castle Lenska…”

But gradually the reason for his caution
became
apparent. Claire’s pronouncement of the love she shared with Simon was still a shocking revelation they had been avoiding.

And thus it was with the most guarded interest that they all leaned forward to receive anything Claire might wish to say about the relationship.

For Simon Sardonis was, of course, the monstrous golden werewolf whose terrible valor had ingrained itself in the minds of friend and foe alike, in the Battle of Vedun.

“I think that Simon came to Burgundy at first on a mission of personal vengeance,” Claire said. “There seems to be a definite kinship between him and the terrible Farouche Clan, who hold dominion over even the king, it seems. He denied this horrible suspicion. But I believe he came back to Burgundy to seek revenge for something that happened to his family. Something involving the Farouche. But then…
we
met, and he began to worry about me, about my people. Our town, Lamorisse.

“You see, a man came to us a few years ago. A very frightening man. Some said he was not a man at all. He was tall, swarthy, bearded, with a face that made you think of the perdition paintings in the old churches. And he had such eyes—cold eyes that looked into your own and made you wish you hadn’t looked. He had such control over people. Made them do things they wouldn’t normally do. Soon after him, the Farouche came. Five evil brothers who are said to transform themselves by night…”

The listeners glanced warily from one to the other as Claire continued, her hands moving toward her throat. She was shaking. Captain Salguero brought her a cup of rum, which she accepted gratefully before continuing:

“Then the misery began. The horror. Night murders, abductions. People were assaulted in the streets. Cutthroats roam the province now. And worse. Ravening beasts inhabit the forests where children once played. Evil things. Now the children aren’t even allowed beyond their own doorsteps for fear that—This evil man—a priest, some claimed he was. A
priest.
He arranged for one of the Farouche to wed Duke de Plancy’s daughter, and now there is
no
protection. No recourse. The Farouche control everything. All the high offices of government are corrupted in Burgundy.”

Anton the Gray Knight grunted, then advanced cynically, “Sounds pretty typical since the Bourbon king took over in France.”

Claire’s two male companions had stood in the background in quiet awe of the survivors of Vedun, whose battle against evil oppression some said had spawned the Wunderknechten movement in Europe. But now one of them stepped forward, his rancor aroused.

“It is not a matter for humor, monsieur. When your children stop smiling,
all
laughter ceases.”

“I’m sorry,
mon ami,”
Anton replied. “I meant no disrespect. We can appreciate your strife. I am just sick to death of the common people’s suffering under the noses of effete monarchs.” His lips curled into a scowl.

“It is not King Henry,” Claire countered. “Our king has plenty of trouble elsewhere. To him, Burgundy pays its taxes on time, and to all appearances in Paris, there is thus no need to look to us for trouble. And once he even sent a detachment from the Order of the Holy Ghost in response to our appeal. It’s said they were destroyed, to a man, by a freak winter storm. But we knew better. It was the Farouche.”

“They can raise storms?” Captain Salguero asked incredulously.

“That’s horseshit,” Nick Nagy sputtered. “Superstition.”

“So was everything we lived through in Vedun, eh, Nick?” Wilf Gundersen offered wryly. “Isn’t that what the enlightened say about Paille’s Deathwind epic?” He spoke in Hungarian so as not to disturb Claire: “Do you remember the storm Simon himself called down once, in his rage?”

Nagy shrugged and shot him a cantankerous frown. The other Vedunian heroes stirred, their expressions altering at the reminder.

“Go on, Claire.”

“Storms like that have been common since Blaise Farouche married Aimee de Plancy. Nothing is the same. Strange creatures have been seen by night. Great birds of prey. Slithering monsters devour the cattle. The cows seldom yield anymore. No one leaves a shutter unlocked in the night, lest she…” Claire swallowed with difficulty. “It’s as if the whole order of life in Burgundy is being remade. Prepared for some…unthinkable invasion. The people cry out for deliverance. Simon said he would provide help, though it cost him his life. Now I only want him safe, though I might pay the same price myself. I love him so…”

An uncomfortable silence fell. Lydia Benedetto’s eyebrows raised imperceptibly. Wilf’s eyes narrowed as he viewed some distant apparition that caused his jaw to work fitfully.

“I’ve come to beg you to help me find Simon. I don’t know where else to turn. One day he bid me farewell. I knew he was under duress. I think he’d been discovered, but he would tell me no more. He spoke of you and of the samurai, Gonji. And then he left me, swearing he’d return. I haven’t seen him now for so long. I fear the worst. He was so tender, so calm in my presence. I feel I might…” She swallowed.

“When did you last see him?” Salguero asked suddenly.

“A long time,” she said, shaking her head and rubbing her arms to steady herself. “Maybe…a year.”

“Then I can put your mind at ease, lovely lady,” the captain assured. “
I
was with him less than
half
a year ago, when we were last with Gonji—” He smiled to see Claire’s apprehension relieved. Tears began to stream down her face as he went on. “No man ever bore a curse more bravely than Simon. Nor was there ever a mightier ally in battle.”

“Except Gonji,” Wilf reminded. A few goblets were lifted in accord.

“Where?” she asked.

“The shores of Spain. He and Gonji were…caught up in some pressing business that…likely detained them a goodly while, by the sound of it.” Salguero hesitated to detail the strange quest that had taken Gonji and Simon to Africa, not wishing to upset Claire now that she’d had her hopes lifted. But the others knew, and he noted their half-hidden anxious expressions. “You and your party will stay with my family tonight while these gentlemen and I discuss this further.”

Claire and her companions thanked them repeatedly before being escorted to the Salgueros’ home.

“Wherever this leads you,” Simon’s beloved said as she left,
“I
must go.”

“If I’m not mistaken, young fellah,” Nick Nagy said upon espying Wilf’s expression in the excitement that swept through the smithshop, “you got a case of the old fever again. And that ain’t good. You best mind your own business.”

But Monetto was speaking, ignoring Nagy’s half-serious appeal to caution. “Right in keeping with Gonji and Simon’s natural inclinations, eh? Another tilt at the Devil’s handiwork!”

“Something’s strange about that girl,” Lydia said quietly, gazing down the street at their departing backs.

“It’s bizarre, all right,” Anton agreed. “Simon’s woman.
A werewolf in love
—what in God’s name could come of that?”

“So, gentils,” Wilf said earnestly. “What do we do about this?”

Monetto grinned. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I step up my training immediately, and this time with good reason. Hell, I don’t know what I’m going to tell Sylva—”

“You men aren’t serious about what you’re proposing,” Lydia said, moving into their midst. By her tortured look, she might have been addressing lunatics.

“What is there for us here, Lydia?” Wilf argued. “God knows we owe Gonji and Simon our lives a dozen times over.”