Gonji: Red Blade from the East (28 page)

Groans of discontent swelled in the humidity.

Until now Garth and Lorenz had sat quietly and observed the ebb and flow of the dispute. The smith, hands clasped between his knees, stared at the floor in silence. Lorenz, tugging at his chin thoughtfully, now turned and addressed the standing militants over his shoulder.

“Shall we mount an attack tonight, then, Dobroczy?” the Executor of the Exchequer taunted. “Will
you
be the brave soul who leads the fight against the wyvern?”

The farmer sneered and balled his fists in defiance, but he could find no words to answer.

“What’s that flying monster called?” someone shouted. He was ignored.

“What about the magician?” joined Boris. “Who can say what he might be capable of?” The wood craftsman’s beady black eyes darted at his peers.

Low grumbles at the mention of Mord, but Phlegor ignored them and addressed Flavio.

“How much further can we go with this tyrant, Elder?” Phlegor protested. “I hold the Church’s teachings sacred, but I tell you this: I’ve fought beside bishops against the Church’s enemies, and for less cause. I’ve seen demons and serpents blasted and evil sorcerers driven back into the Pit they crawled from. These bandits have leveled the image of the Christ in our square, and they mean to have an end to our worship.
I
say we should drive them out. Seek help from the bishopric, if need be. But I know that
I’ll
not produce goods for these devils unless it’s on our terms.”

Shouts of assent mingled with groans of objection to charge the atmosphere in the catacomb, rank with the odors of sweat and mold and burnt oil.

Roric Amsgard, a butcher and provisioner and a former Austrian cavalryman, succeeded in gaining the floor. He was tall and lanky, but his frame hinted at a deceptive strength. Long-faced, sad-eyed—homely as a bloodhound—Roric was a friendly, popular man who wielded much influence. Frankly uncommitted to either side in the dispute, he posed a disquieting question:

“All right, you bold fighting men, so if we’re to attack the occupying troops and defend the city against the siege to follow, what do we do about the innocent ones—our women and children, the old people? It’s easy for you, isn’t it, Phlegor? Your wife has passed on—God rest her soul. But I have a wife and three little ones. Now, I don’t know about the rest of you, but while I’m out...having a go—” He suggestively patted the jagged scar that coursed along his jawbone. “—I know I’m not going to like seeing my family starved out. In my opinion this isn’t a very defensible city. Half our backside’s hanging over a cliff, and for the rest there’s too much low wall to weather a siege—and that’s against
human
forces. We’re sitting ducks for....” His hand swept overhead. A shudder coursed through the gathering.

Phlegor tugged at the coarse red hair that tufted like scrub over his freckled arms. He knew a serious issue had been raised, and for the first time he felt his supporters taking stock of the consequences, wavering in the winds of responsibility.

“We have the system of catacombs,” Phlegor advanced. “We can secure them below ground with provisions. They’d be safe from action. And as for defense, you seem to forget that we outnumber this land grubber’s army.”

“So we just leave the innocents to starve or be buried alive if we lose, eh?” Roric probed.

“Have you forgotten the flying monster?” came an accusing voice. “What do you—?”

“How can you be so sure that we have more men than Klann does? Anyway, he has an awful lot of hardware.” The speaker was Paolo Sauvini, the wagoner, apprentice to the blind wagon master, Ignace Obradek. An unpopular man in his twenties and something of a bully as a child, his entering the conversation would usually key an unpleasant turn.

Phlegor laughed harshly. “We probably saw the backbone of his ‘mighty’ army in the square today. What leader doesn’t show off his shining best to intimidate the ignorant, eh, Garth?”

With this last Phlegor had searched out the quiet smith, who snapped out of his reverie and faced the speaker. The council hushed, for Garth’s soft-spoken opinions were greatly respected.

“It’s hard to say, Phlegor,” Garth said slowly. “Snap judgments are most often dangerous in such matters.”

“What about this flying beast?” Paolo queried. “How many men do you figure him to be worth?”

“I say don’t be concerned with monsters and magicks,” Phlegor said. “It’s
men
we should aim to drive from our midst. That creature likely frightens more by illusion and fear-mongering than by what it can really do. How big do you think it is? It’s an old sorcerer’s trick to intimidate by illusion. When it alights that thing’s probably no more than half what it looks. I can’t believe—”

“Have you ever really seen what a wyvern can do?” Garth interrupted. A buzzing of low voices.

“Garth, I don’t want to hear it!” Phlegor shot back, the buzzing stilled. “Whose side are you on? Do you want to keep these people under this Klann’s heel? I said before, I’ve never seen anything on wings that a rain of shafts couldn’t fell, and magicians—those who really can claim mystical power—they don’t align themselves with small-timers. Besides, as Flavio says, we’re a Christian community. We can count on God’s help in our cause.” He tossed off this last statement as an afterthought, no conviction in his voice.

“From what I’ve heard, the Lord didn’t seem to help Witold Koski this afternoon,” Lorenz observed trenchantly.

The recollection took its toll. Most of them had witnessed the ghastly event. The vision of the dismembered arm and gushering shoulder would remain forever in grisly memories of that day. The prospect of violent death, heretofore remote in the placid environment of Vedun, now lurked uncomfortably near.

Flavio had waited for just such a moment to appeal once more to his peers’ sensibilities.

“Not a very pleasant proposition, my friends,” the Elder asserted. “And the Almighty may indeed withhold His strength from us if our course of action is impetuous and unsound. But since the arguments, pro and con, are tending toward a military viewpoint, I should like Garth’s opinion. Garth, could we succeed in such a plan—
if
that were the course we decided on?”

The smith rose reluctantly in response to his old friend’s gesture. Garth wasn’t fond of public speaking, and he met the eyes of the onlookers sheepishly. But he was perhaps the best-loved man in Vedun, an affable and generous soul in whose debt was every man in that catacomb. His mighty frame and boundless mirth made him the sort every man liked to boastfully call friend. Yet there was a tinge of sadness in his eyes that their eternal twinkle couldn’t hide.

His ears reddened a bit as he addressed the attentive group. “I know something of Klann, from many years ago. There was a time when he was a noble and fair and idealistic ruler. He
was
a king, I believe. And if what I heard is true, then whatever his army looks like on the surface, he’s probably chosen and tested them to his satisfaction. Now, granted, Phlegor, the mercenaries likely aren’t much of a fighting unit. But I’d bet that what they lack in discipline they’ll make up for in ferocity. Don’t underestimate them.”

“What about this slant-eyed barbarian Boris tells us you’re feasting tonight?” Vlad Dobroczy asked. “Isn’t he one of them?”

Garth’s brow creased at the hostile murmurs this disclosure brought. “He’s a lone traveler from the Far East, and for God’s sake, he brought in the body of Michael’s poor brother. You all saw that.”

“This would seem to be a bad time to be entertaining strangers, Garth,” Phlegor advised.

“I think it’s my right to entertain who I please in my house,” the smith replied quietly. “Anyway, he’s not the sort who would join a brigand army.”

“I think Garth’s right,” someone piped in. “The oriental had a run-in at the inn today with some of the soldiers. Almost got himself killed.”

“Well!” Lorenz said with some satisfaction. “Wouldn’t Wilfred be disappointed to hear that his hero was nearly skewered! It seems my brother’s become fast friends with this...odd fellow.”

“Well, I don’t like it,” Dobroczy stated. “You’d better tell Wilf to keep his trap shut about the city.”

“I’ll tell him you said so,” Lorenz replied sarcastically. Vlad muttered an unconvincing assent. Wilf had taken the farmer’s measure on more than one occasion.

“Michael,” Roric called out gingerly, causing the protege to blink self-consciously. “This is a time of sorrow for you, I know. But we need to hear—what’s your opinion on our course of action?”

Michael gazed across a panorama of faces etched with doubt and fear, anger, bewilderment, compassion. His thoughts leapt and eddied as he rose, groping for the right words, choosing among those he wished to speak and those his station demanded. But he was spared the choice.

The heavy oaken trap door to Flavio’s cellar suddenly sprang open. The council members gasped and jerked up from their seats. All stared in the dim luminescence at the figure that descended the stone stairway.

“Perhaps I can help illuminate the way, butcher.”

All eyes focused on the bearer of the compelling voice known to all in Vedun. On the hewn staircase stood the prophetess Tralayn, she of the sparkling emerald eyes and ever-shifting raven hair. She descended with a soft rustle of jade robes and stood before them, gazing at each man in turn, her fathomless eyes aglow. Tralayn never attended council meetings, and her presence now bespoke the gravity of their situation.

“You have been choosing a course of action,” she said matter-of-factly. “What has the council decided, Flavio?”

Flavio recounted the night’s debate. Tralayn listened with keen interest, and several other council members, again caught up in the moment of the portentous meeting, added their feelings to the account. At length Tralayn halted them and spoke.

“It would seem that both sides are right, Flavio—and wrong. Sacrilege and murder have been committed in our city. The practice of our faith has been threatened. And the creature which even now plies the night sky is a familiar demon of the sorcerer Mord. The Lord God would not have us countenance such outrages. That should be enough to determine our
direction
.”

Whispers crept among the council members.

“Then we must fight!” Phlegor announced triumphantly.

“Yes...but not as you would have it, Phlegor,” the prophetess cautioned. “As these others have said, it would be suicide to rebel ill-equipped and untrained. For the nonce we must be patient.”

“You speak in riddles!” Phlegor cried.

“Listen to me, all of you,” Tralayn said, her eyes of emerald ice flashing. “Listen, and I will tell you the tale of an accursed city, a city seated on the ledge of an escarpment, shunned of men, hunting ground of benighted horrors....

“How often have you wondered, Flavio, at the discovery of this citadel, intact yet unclaimed for centuries. Whence came such a magnificent work of the hands of men? Was it not, then, a gift to you from the Almighty? Nay, I say to you that twice before did God-fearing men dream as you dreamt. Twice since the time of Christ did the worshipful seek to build a stronghold in these mountains....”

The prophetess stepped closer to her rapt audience, lowering her voice to a whisper.

“
Twice
did the god of this world—the Despondent One!—swallow them up without a trace! These mountains are a bastion of Satan! Did we not see his very image in the sky? The simple folk of neighboring regions fear to tread in these environs. Even the heathen Turks fear to exact tribute here. We thought to be free from dark intrusion because of our faith. But the powers of evil are strong....”

She raised her voice to conversational level. “Flavio, those who hewed the stone of Vedun, who shared your dream of a holy citadel, were destroyed in a single day and night by winged things which preyed on them from above!” Gasps and whispers. “And centuries later another community of the Lord’s children, pilgrims even as we—overrun and slaughtered by rakehells who swarmed over them; driven to frenzied madness by possessing wraiths!”

Tralayn paused, her features contorted by fervor. Most watchers—wide-eyed and breathless; others—clucking and shaking their heads skeptically.

“And at each tragedy,” she continued, “there presided the Dark Enchanter, henchman of the Fallen One....”

The council members looked from one to the other with terrible apprehension. It was Roric who crystallized their grim thoughts into words.

“Didn’t the magician say that he’d been to Vedun before?”

“Do we live under a curse, Master Flavio?” Boris fretted. “Why weren’t we told before?”

“Your Elder knew nothing of this,” Tralayn said, “for it was revealed to me of the Lord this very night. For the rest I can only speculate. These are the times of manifest evil. Such epochs are cyclical. I surmise that in each of these far-flung times the Lord God inspires the devoted with the need for a righteous stronghold in the very midst of darkness. Our community is the rampart which stands against evil in the present time!”

Flavio rose, painfully aware of the shift in thought from local disturbance to cosmic evil.