by T. C. Rypel
“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.”
“You don’t even know where they are, Wilf!” she exclaimed. “You don’t know whether they’re still alive. Be reasonable. The last time they were among us we lost our homes—”
“That’s not fair, Lydia,” Monetto said. “You think about what you’re saying now. You can’t keep blaming Vedun for Michael’s afflictions.”
“We’ve been over all this a thousand times,” Anton said, gesturing placatingly. “Vedun was no one’s fault—agreed? We’d all have been dead instead of…legendary heroes, if Gonji hadn’t taken such interest in people who distrusted him. He fashioned a passable militia in a fortnight.”
“I’m sorry,” Lydia replied on a gentle, breathy note. “I’m just afraid of all this fighting business starting again. Look how many we lost before. The broken families we’ve all wept with. It’s just—I can’t help thinking that if Gonji wanted our help, he’d have sought it long ago. Himself. Not by sending some…” Her words trailed off, her scorn for Claire evident.
“Gonji may not be involved in this at all,” Salguero reminded. “That’s Simon’s woman.”
“Oh, you know they’ll be together,” she said glumly.
“They may both be dead by now,” Salguero offered for grim consideration.
“I can’t believe that,” Wilf breathed. “If Gonji were dead, we’d have heard. Wasn’t it rumored that they returned from Africa bearing some terrible knowledge? That they’re mixed up with some secret of the old Templars?”
“They’re rumored to be everywhere, for Christ’s sake.” Nagy scratched his matted hair and winced at an ache in his arthritic knee as he shifted position.
“We’re not long for this place, you all know,” Wilf said. “Dear old Emperor Rudolf keeps raising the taxes on the province—some say because of us. Anyway, the Neriahs want us out. They blame it on us. This place hasn’t been exactly a paradise. Look what it’s done to Michael—”
Some of them averted their eyes from Lydia. Michael was their council Elder, assuming the job for which he’d been groomed in Vedun before the death of the community’s venerable founder, Flavio. But Michael had taken ill in Noricum. Some blamed old wounds; others, the evil spirits of the territory.
“Does he still see that old wizard?” Anton asked.
Lydia nodded, looking defeated. “I don’t know what to do. He plies my husband with roots and herbs and God knows what foul spells. I can’t get him to church. That old hermit has more influence on him than I do anymore.”
“I may as well speak plainly, Lydia,” Wilf said. “This attachment of Michael’s to that old wizard—it’s bothered a lot of us more than we’ve ever told you. Something nasty afoot there. I don’t trust that old shaman, and it’s as if hostility toward us has grown since he came. I’m damned sick of it. We’re oppressed on every side, getting nowhere, and all we do is sit here, entertaining pilgrims who come to us because we’re supposed to be the great heroes who started the Wunderknechten—well, let’s be those heroes!”
A few ayes were served up in response. Lydia shook her head.
“What are you going to do, pack up everyone tonight and haul them off on this mad quest?” she asked. “Your children?”
“Nein,” Wilf responded calmly. “Of course not. Just a hand-picked fighting force from the old militia.”
“Count me in,” Monetto said, leaping d
own from the shelf. “God knows how bored I am here, and the thought of fighting beside Gonji and Simon again is…well, better fortune than I’d ever hoped to see.”
“I’m afraid the years—and a few too many wounds—have dulled my enthusiasm for questing,” Anton related.
“Your leadership is needed here,” Salguero told him. “I go along, of course. And the warriors of my old company. Last I heard, there were other good fighting men still under Gonji’s command.”
“I got nothing better to do,” Nick Nagy advanced. “My old lady’ll toss me right out on my ass if she hears this came off and I didn’t go along.”
“Gentils,” Wilf said, raising a cup in toast.
“Oh, Wilfred, this is ridiculous,” Lydia grumbled. “Your wife is pregnant. Do you think she’ll let you do this crazy thing?”
Wilf swallowed. The thought of not being with Genya when her time came stung him. He hadn’t considered it before in the flush of the night’s events. “That’s…the way it will have to be. The decision must be mine.”
“Where will you men ride?” Lydia pressed. “You don’t have any idea—”
“But we do, senora,” Salguero said. “Simon swore to return to his lady love.”
“His lady love,” she repeated scornfully. “Why do you think you owe this to Gonji, Wilfred? He never even bothered to see what’s become of us these past few years.” There was a curious trace of bitterness in her tone. Though she doubted the others knew, her cheeks reddened a bit when she recalled Gonji’s attraction to her in Vedun. He had admired her from an honorable distance, respecting both her marriage to Michael and the warding shield of propriety she staunchly projected. And yet, since that last cataclysmic night in Vedun, she’d regretted stopping Gonji from declaring his love in the face of imminent death.
And she was never sure whether that had indeed been his intent. Yet she was curious, in spite of herself.
