by Rypel, T. C.
Table of Contents
BORGO PRESS BOOKS BY T. C. RYPEL
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
DEDICATION
EPIGRAMS
MAP OF VEDUN
WHAT HAS GONE BEFORE...
PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
PART TWO
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
PART THREE
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
THE DEATHWIND TRILOGY CHARACTER INDEX
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BORGO PRESS BOOKS BY T. C. RYPEL
THE DEATHWIND TRILOGY
1. Gonji: Red Blade from the East
2. Gonji: The Soul Within the Steel
3. Gonji: Deathwind of Vedun
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Copyright © 1982, 2013 by T. C. Rypel
Originally published under the title, Samurai Steel
Published by Wildside Press LLC
www.wildsidebooks.com
DEDICATION
In loving memory of
my most honorable parents,
CHESTER and GENEVIEVE RYPEL
—domo arigato
EPIGRAMS
Breathes there the man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned
From wandering on a foreign strand?
—Sir Walter Scott, The Lay of the Last Minstrel
In looking on the happy Autumn fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more...
...O Death in Life, the days that are no more.
—Alfred Lord Tennyson, The Princess
MAP OF VEDUN
WHAT HAS
GONE BEFORE...
It is the sixteenth century in Central Europe. A time when sorcerous power, enchanted men, and the haunting things of darkness are receding to the fringes of human concern as men become increasingly urbanized and enlightened. Belief in the eldritch things wanes, but like a dying beast that rears its head for a last plunge at its conqueror, the powers of darkness combine for a final onslaught on a microcosm of humanity.
A half-breed samurai named Gonji Sabatake, son of a powerful Japanese daimyo but cast by circumstances in the role of an itinerant ronin, a landless wanderer, travels through Europe in search of the legendary Deathwind, the Beast with the Soul of a Man. He encounters primal horrors in the dreaded Carpathians, then rescues and joins a company of mercenaries in the employ of a mysterious nomadic king, Klann the Invincible. The king’s origin and purpose are cloaked in half-understood tales and legends; few can claim to ever having seen him, though they pledge him their undying loyalty.
Riding with the 3rd Royalist Free Company for a space of days, Gonji learns much of the strange wandering army and its erratic and evil sorcerer, Mord. He grows disgusted with the apparently meaningless outrages he helps them perpetrate and soon falls into disfavor. Gonji is ultimately forced to flee the company after a deadly clash.
Doubling back to a scene of earlier carnage, the samurai is charged by a horribly disfigured priest to convey a message to someone named Simon Sardonis, whom he will find in the city of Vedun. Attacked by a wyvern, a vile flying beast, he is shamed beyond words by his panicked flight. He commits himself to its eventual destruction.
Bringing with him the body of a boy beaten to death in the forest by mercenaries in Klann’s hire, Gonji enters the ancient walled city of Vedun, a citadel perched on a Carpathian plateau-aerie. He finds the city already occupied by Klann’s army, the magnificent castle of the Lord Protector of the province, Baron Rorka, successfully breached by Klann in a single night’s siege.
Gonji learns that the dead boy was the brother of an important council member, Michael Benedetto, and thus becomes immersed in political intrigue from the outset. Although initially uncommitted to either side, he gradually comes to side with the citizens, who are divided over a course of action. The pacifist faction is led by the Council Elder, Flavio; the militants, by the volatile guildsman Phlegor and a fiery, iron-willed prophetess named Tralayn.
As enmity between Gonji and Klann’s forces, human and inhuman, increases, so dawns his affection for the city and some of its inhabitants, notably, the blacksmith Garth Gundersen and one of his sons, Wilfred. A lovely deaf-mute girl named Helena becomes enamored of him; and he, in turn, of Michael Benedetto’s wife, Lydia.
Through a series of wild adventures and curious circumstances, the half-breed oriental swiftly rises to a position of influence in the city, though it is, to be sure, a tenuous position, weakened by distrust and bigotry. In a fit of pique, obeying the dictates of his moody disposition and the cry of his empty purse, he hires on as a spy for Klann with Captain Julian Kel’Tekeli, whom he has come to hate. But ever the seeker after noble duty, he also contrives to enter the employ of Flavio, as his personal bodyguard. His love of control, attention, and military game-playing thus satisfied, and characteristically mistaking serendipity for fate, he sees himself committed (in his compromising, half-Western fashion) by the bushido code to following the situation through to the conflict he feels is inevitable. Furthermore, the key to his Deathwind quest—and the now more intriguing mystery of Simon Sardonis—seems to be withheld from him by certain fearful city leaders.
As RED BLADE FROM THE EAST closes, Gonji manipulates himself into the city delegation to the castle banquet being held by the legendary King Klann the Invincible, who has suddenly decided to break with his reclusive tradition.
PART ONE
“VIVE LE ROI!”
CHAPTER ONE
General Gorkin, the castellan, marched through the dank corridors toward the king’s chamber. He cradled his helm under a burly arm. His face had an anxious set, jaw muscles rigid.
The general turned into an arch that flanked a shadowed stone stairway, and the huge form jumped him from behind with a fierce battle cry. Gorkin uttered a broken outcry as he was wrestled to the ground. Thick arms squeezed him mightily, stole his wind. He gritted his teeth and strained to break the locked fists at his belly. Then he recognized the labored laughter at his ear.
He tautened and looked back, bewildered, into the face of King Klann.
“You’ve gone soft on us, Gorkin,” the king jested as they sorted themselves out and pushed up onto their feet.
“Sire?” Gorkin said, red-faced.
“We weren’t able to take you so readily in the past. But, then, it’s been a stretch since we’ve tilted.” The king mopped his brow with a sleeve. “But no more! Things will change around here. Yes, indeed. We’re feeling marvelous this morning, Gorkin! And how is our castellan?”
“Fit, sire,” the general said, breathing hard, “but troubled. I’ve just been out in the ward, at the practice ground. I found the—”
“Yes, so you d
id—you saw the free companions enjoying the run of the place, that’s what’s bothering you, eh?” Klann smiled. “Yes, it was on my order. The mercenaries have need of training just as the Llorm do. More so, no doubt. And it will keep them out of mischief. They may have the run of the ward, just so there are no firearms.”
“All right, my liege, if that is your wish.”
“That is our wish, old friend. It’s time for some changes. Time for us to shuck our reclusive image. Yo, but I’m feeling grand this morning! Tonight’s the banquet, you know.” Klann amiably slapped Gorkin on the back.
(don’t be so familiar with subordinates—it ill befits our state)
Two scullions, drawn from their tasks by the clatter in the corridor, peered around a corner at them. They goggled to see the king and castellan in such a scruffy, soiled state and hurried back to work.
Klann and Gorkin walked through the maze of corridors toward the outdoors, toward Castle Lenska’s expansive wards. They passed chambers jammed with common folk, with the thin, pale dark-haired people who were all that remained of the once proud Akryllonian island race. Hollow-eyed children of Klann’s Llorm regulars, worn and wearied by the travails of their nomadic life, wandered about the halls. Listlessly, for the most part. Of late they had seemed to be looking worse. They bowed or knelt at their beloved king’s passing. Some were yanked out of his path by scolding mothers, who were in turn admonished by Klann to let them be. He patted young heads affectionately, warmed to see them smile.
“Look at them, Gorkin,” Klann said. “They’re looking better already, I think, to be relieved of life on the road.” He sighed. “These are the important ones. They’re us...our hope and legacy...all that remains of the glory that was Akryllon.”
“Akryllon will again be glorious, my liege.”
“I wonder,” Klann responded gravely. “When was the last birth in the army?”
“Why—just last month, sire, isn’t that so?”
“It was four months ago. Think back. It was during the severe spring storm in Austria. Remember now?”
The general’s shoulders slumped. “Yes, yes, I think you’re right, sire. Time does thieve away the days of a man’s life.” He brightened. “Ananka Kel’Gana is heavy with child. Perhaps within the present moon she’ll—”
“And the child will be fatherless.”
Gorkin gulped, recalling the dragoon trampled in a recent cavalry engagement. “You’re right, sire, I had forgotten.”
They walked in silence for a space toward the inner ward behind the central keep. The general respectfully fell a half step behind his king, who walked with hands clasped at his back. Servants scurried past under the heightened attention of stewards as the king ambled by. They were in an area honeycombed with myriad chambers and living quarters, stuffed to overflowing with the families of the hereditary army. Children skittered underfoot and jostled scolding servants. Barking dogs scampered and sniffed. The banquet preparations had set the castle bustling.
Gorkin kicked a yelping hound out of the king’s way only to be reprimanded by a chuckling Klann. They broke the fixed gazes of numerous stone-faced sentries, and the general removed two of these from their posts to serve as a personal guard when the king moved out into the ward. Near a sun-drenched exit arch, Klann entered a common garderobe to relieve himself.
Then they were out in the central ward, the sun glaring off flagstones still slick from the recent rains. The ward was alive with activity and noise. At one side soldiers practiced in the training ground before the long, low dormitories that housed them. Steel and wood clashed and clacked as combatants tilted; squeaks and creaks of pulleys and quintains marked the quarter where men trained in strength and agility, attacking spinning wooden man-forms and climbing scaffold ropes.
King Klann watched the activities with informed interest, arms crossed over his chest. General Gorkin’s apprehension showed in the tight crinkles around his dark eyes; allowing the free companions so near the king was a new experience. They were encamped between the outer and middle baileys and outside the barbican, but now the king had granted them access to the training ground and castle halls with but few restrictions, and this was a dangerous practice.
As Klann himself should be the first to realize.
The king breathed deeply the arresting cooking and baking aromas issuing from the kitchens and bakehouse across the ward. Tonight they would feast as had the monarchs of old. And this place, this Transylvania, was going to be the beginning of the end of the long, weary quest. Home was in the wind. Yes, soon they would be home.
“Yes, Gorkin,” Klann began in a voice edged with resolve, “one final thrust. One more sally after Akryllon, that’s all we need. And these poor people will be home at last. Home to the land none of them have ever seen—that’s rather silly, isn’t it, Gorkin?”
“Milord?”
“To call a place home when you’ve never seen it—really seen it, lived in it?”
“No, of course not, sire. Home is home.”
“Do you see those mountains?” Klann said, sweeping an arm over the peaks of the Transylvanian Alps. “Such beauty. Such...insular comfort. We feel good about this place, Gorkin. Yes...this will be a nice, pleasant hiatus for the troops, for the families. We’ll winter here, gather strength, and—” He smiled, his eyes narrowing to twinkling slits. “—I think we’ll be reliving some past glories, if our intelligence is accurate.”
A little boy scooted past behind them. Klann, noticing the motion, halted him in Kunan, the Akryllonian common language.
“Come here, little scalawag. Your king commands you.”
The boy was about five, dark-haired and anemic like all the others. Mouth agape, eyes large and liquid and guilt-tinged, he approached the king tentatively, hands behind his back.
“What have you there?” Klann asked. “Come now, let’s see.”
The boy held forth his hands. There was a large, freshly baked tart in each.
“So you’ve snitched these from the bakehouse, have you? Come up here, and we’ll consider your punishment.” Klann scooped him up into his arms with a grunt. “Yes, such fine tarts could wither the integrity of a holy hermit, I should think. But your king is feeling magnanimous today. We’ll pardon your crime for the price of a bite from one of them.” And he exacted his price, grinning and nodding at the tiny fellow, who could but stare.
Klann set the boy down and sent him off with a pat on the rump, shaking a scolding finger at his popeyed retreat.
“These children will want for nothing anymore, Gorkin, be sure of that,” Klann said, tight-lipped. “This land is bounteous and secure—”
There came a sizzling of powder and a whump! from the ramparts at their right, followed by a pounding crash in the hills below the outer bailey. The castle troops had begun practicing the use of the mortars mounted in places on the allures. Klann surveyed the castle’s defenses: the formidable bombards, the mangonels for hurling stones into any siege party; the enormous cauldrons which could spew boiling oil and molten lead over whole companies. He walked through the middle bailey gatehouse, guards trailing behind him, and appraised the thick ashlar blocks that comprised the high walls, now displaying his coat-of-arms; observed the Llorm bowmen walking their posts behind the battlements’ croslets and arrow loops and atop wooden brattices, cut through in spots with holes for firing down onto besiegers; the sturdy casemates built into the base of the walls like bunkers; the nearly completed repair work being done on the drawbridge, torn loose during the castle occupation.
The bombard on the opposite wall blasted its charge in a high arc over the hills. From beyond the outer bailey came the bellowing roar of the cretin giant, Tumo, frightened by the blast. Soldiers on the walls laughed and pointed. Klann looked at the guards, and Gorkin chuckled nervously. Before a word was spoken a deep shadow stretched over the ward: They all looked up, breaths hitching at the sight of the wyvern, unfurling its massive wings in the tower battlement above their heads.
(don’t be so sure of yourself)
(never relax your vigilance never)
Klann shut his eyes and a trembling coursed through him. It passed presently.
“What do you think about our prospects, Gorkin?” he asked without looking at his edgy castellan.
“I believe you’re quite right, sire. Next time we’ll—”
“Stop agreeing with me because it’s what you think I wish to hear. Tell me what you think.”
Gorkin rolled his eyes groundward. “The astrologers have consulted the stars, and prospects are good for finding Akryllon next spring—”
“A plague on the astrologers!” Klann stormed. “Tell me what you think about our decision to stay here!”
The general’s form sagged visibly. “I—I must admit to some apprehension, milord. I don’t like this place. It masks something...foreboding. Already there’s been trouble—the Field Commander’s murder—the city seems restive—Have you seen the arrow stub? In the flying monster’s hide?” His voice had shrunk to a whisper.
Klann laughed. “Yes—and that’s good! Don’t look at me like that—I’m making good sense. I understand the guilty have paid the price. But this should be a grand territory for recruiting the kind of men we need, eh? Men who sally forth against monsters? No, you’re wrong, Gorkin. This is a fine place to stay, and here will come a turning point for us.”
He grew pensive, an ominous shadow darkening his features, moving the soldiers with him to unease.
“One more thrust—and we’ll be home—and nothing, nothing must stand in our way—”
(don’t pay it lip service do it pursue it)
(what else can be done?)
(nothing it is gone forever)
The king shuddered in such a way that Gorkin reached out to catch him lest he fall, but Klann waved him off.
A retainer appeared, seeking the king’s attendance on business broached by his counselors. But Klann dismissed them all, wishing to be alone—to the extent the mocking term could apply to him. Against his better judgment, General Gorkin sent the guards back to their duties and himself reluctantly turned to go.
