Gonji: The Soul Within the Steel. T. C. Rypel

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СКАЧАТЬ face. Its body was a great mass of rolling layers of blubber; its weight beggared the imagination. It was naked and hairless, but for knotty tufts on its head and arms and genitals. The overall impression was of some unholy mutation of an idiot child, a perverse mockery of human misery that caused one to flinch in terror and repugnance.

      Gonji recalled that Jocko and Jacob Neriah both had spoken of a giant traveling with this army. He had been hoping the tales were exaggerated. Then he remembered the words of the drunken soldier at the inn: Hey, Cap’n, he reminds me o’ Tumo.... He felt the anger over the insult working up inside him.

      “Tumo will be feasting tonight, too, only he likes his meat raw, don’t you, Tumo?” Julian said portentously. The giant ground out a few subhuman syllables that sounded like reproductions of the captain’s speech. Milorad shuddered and whispered something to Flavio.

      On Julian’s command the cretin giant turned and waddled away toward the drum tower, issuing a final warning bark to the prostrate soldier.

      “Pathetic creature,” Flavio said as they clopped to the middle bailey gatehouse.

      “Indeed so,” Milorad agreed.

      “I hope that’s not the king’s brother,” Gonji jested, leaning toward them. But no one had found it amusing, save Garth, who tsked and cast him a sidelong glance. Gonji shrugged and looked once more after the departing giant, wondering what other marvels, strange and sinister, this day might unveil.

      The gatehouse was a heavily guarded checkpoint at the entrance to a long tunnel cut completely through the central keep’s lower level. Its flanking towers were enormous defensive outworks of the middle bailey wall, which rose like a mighty curtain of stone twice the height of the outer wall and rendering the outer ward a broad killing ground for any besieging party that might breech the outermost obstacles. The towers were cut through with arrow loops and croslets. Archers manning these and walking the ramparts above peered down lazily. At the southeast drum tower far down the wall, Gonji could make out the barrel of a bombard or mortar.

      Gatehouse guards saluted the captains and admitted the party. Gonji had just passed through when he was halted by a fierce command at his left hand. He pulled up.

      “Remove your weapons and leave them here.”

      The Llorm guard had spoken in German. His white-knuckled fist gripped the hilt of his sheathed broadsword. Hot eyes glared up at Gonji from under a burgonet helm.

      “I’m the Council Elder’s bodyguard,” Gonji replied evenly. “My weapons go where I go.”

      “You heard the commander of the guard!”

      A pole-arm probed dangerously close to Gonji’s ribs.

      Gonji turned slowly to face the soldier on his right. His eyes narrowed menacingly. The Llorm lancer was an ugly man whose bulbous nose looked as if elven troops had late used it as a training prop.

      “Careful with that pike, fig-nose,” Gonji said.

      Flavio, sensing imminent trouble, began to intercede. Gonji and the pikeman glared at each other. The samurai, remembering his promise to Flavio, felt the dull pang of helpless capitulation rising. But Captain Kel’Tekeli dismounted and strode back to the hold-up.

      After a brief explanation, he said to the guard, “I think we can trust the Elder’s bodyguard to behave himself, can’t we?”

      Gonji bridled at the other’s patronizing tone but smiled thinly and nodded.

      They continued through into the central ward, which was a frenzy of activity, last-minute preparations being attended to by scurrying servants and scullions. The ward was large enough for cavalry practice to be pursued simultaneously with archery and swordsmanship, and Gonji admiringly appraised the training facilities. Only a handful of troops, mostly Llorm, plied their weapons on the grounds now, and the samurai observed their techniques with great interest.

      They dismounted, hostlers attending at once to their horses. Garth paused to speak with them awhile. Flavio approached Gonji, an admonishing set to his pursed lips.

      “Remember your promise now—no trouble,” the Elder said affably, smiling and waving to anxious servants who rushed by in their duties.

      “Not unless I’m provoked, of course.”

      Flavio’s concern creased his brow. “Gonji, I would be more at ease if you told me you could extend the limits of your tolerance somewhat...at least for this important occasion.”

      They walked across the ward, Milorad and Garth following.

      Gonji sighed. “I am sometimes too easily provoked by effrontery, I suppose. And you are my master.” He smiled at the Elder. “As you would have it.”

      “Good!” Flavio grinned and picked up his step toward the great hall across the ward. “Now let us meet with our new liege lord and find out precisely where we stand—hello, Frantisek!” He greeted a bubbling servant who nearly tripped over himself as he bobbed his head and walked backward with a heavy ewer.

      Gonji was not surprised to find himself a popular attraction. Soldiers and civilians alike scanned him closely as he passed. He wondered what most fascinated them: his fighting reputation? Or had Julian spread the word so quickly that Gonji had become his secret operative?

      He took careful note of the Llorm regulars and their people. The Akryllonian nationals were a dark, pale folk who looked drawn, worn by their nomadic life. Lean and hungry. Desperate. Such qualities translated into ferociousness in battle, he well knew. The children, especially, seemed a pathetic lot; scrawny and hollow-eyed, weak and sickly. But the men, the Llorm regulars, were hardy enough, and if their will to live, to preserve their people and ease the burden of their families, ran deep enough, they’d not be leaving the province after the winter. Not this winter, nor many winters hence.

      It was all absurd. Could this really be the remnant of some lost island kingdom and not simply the camp following of a bandit chieftain? Perhaps they’d have answers soon.

      The delegates were led through the portals of the great hall and into a massive groin vault with egresses into three corridors. They turned left, armed guards before and behind them, passed noisy chambers and anterooms, and entered through a broad archway into the hall proper.

      It was a cavernous place, richly appointed, alive with the chatter and laughter of soldiers and civilians, servants and animals. Dogs barked and begged, scurried underfoot, awaiting handouts to come. Roistering mercenaries bellowed and clanked their armament, called out ribald jokes; some, already drunk, grabbed at scampering, yelping servant girls.

      Gonji sniffed distastefully. He had been expecting a more sedate and august display, something akin to courtly decorum. But this was the epitome of decadence, a scene freshly cut from the Judgment Day perdition paintings he had seen.

      Oil lamps and cresset torches blazed in the hall. The only windows were tall, slender affairs set high up on the walls, which admitted a network of murky gray twilight swirling with smoke and dust motes. Halfway up the walls, running its course around them, a canopied gallery bulged out over the hall, supported by ornate ivory columns. Dozens of chamber doors gave egress from the gallery, and at one side sat a group of musicians. Lute and recorder, flute and cymbal valiantly strove against the babble and din.

      Stately and heraldic arras hung about the walls, gazing down somberly on the wassail. СКАЧАТЬ