future course. Some of the men had colored to hear her unaccustomed use of vulgarity. She, for her part, was unflinching. Gonji felt a pang of warmth over her graceful combination of beauty and self-assurance.
Deep inside, he found himself shaking off the effect of her charm.
“All right, then—gowno sie przed dam sie, old man,” Gonji said, haltingly. The crude battle cry, coupled with his peculiar accent, evoked additional laughter.
“Why must such things happen?” Milorad wondered aloud, grimacing behind his fleecy brows and beard like the wrathful spirit of the north wind. “What will posterity make of all this?”
“Why did we allow ourselves to be swept along into this madness?” a man seated behind him asked similarly.
But Gonji could make no answer that would satisfy either the city or himself.
“God must have some purpose in it,” Michael ventured in reply.
“It is our destiny, good people,” Paille declared, moving nearer now.
Lydia rose with stately grace and addressed the leaders. “You’ve set our course, so I ask you men only one thing. Why can’t we appeal to Klann to allow the innocents to leave the city without harm to them? Surely the king is not so barbaric that he would wish to see children harmed.”
Gonji smiled sadly through the mixed murmurs of agreement and objection. “I’m afraid, dear lady, that you continue to miss the point. There are none who are exempted from danger now. Mord is the enemy, and he wishes for all to be destroyed, so it would seem, even as Tralayn has said again and again. If there is any hope of success, then some semblance of secrecy and surprise must be preserved.”
“How can there be any secrecy with a traitor among us?” The questioner was Vlad Dobroczy, his tone filled with scorn.
Gonji’s brows knit, a grim shadow darkening his features. He began strolling, speaking as the argument slowly crystallized.
“Point: if security is maintained,” he began, “the coward may yet be prevented from reaching Mord with the new intelligence. Or the traitor may take one too many chances and find my sword lying in wait. Point: if Mord does learn of our plans, he may delay telling Klann, since the sorcerer seems to wish for rebellious action. His arrogant complacence will provide us just the advantage we need, and then the stupid enchanter will wind up at the end of my blade....” He grinned mirthlessly, allowing time for the insults to penetrate the listeners, more certain than ever that the one they were intended for was among them. Taunt the enemy. Cause him to lose control of his center. “Point: if Klann does learn our plans, I believe his position is tenuous enough that he will be forced to try to stop our action bloodlessly, perhaps....”
“Perhaps,” Lydia repeated tellingly.
“Perhaps,” Gonji said firmly, “but we must assume that he wants no more trouble. That he can ill afford it.”
“Bravo,” Paille said, simple and quiet. He produced a wineskin and slugged at it. “The dream of liberty is well served by you, sir.”
Gonji eyed him sidelong, stroking his stubbled chin and exhaling through his nose. Ignace crowed and chattered to himself in Polish again. The samurai glanced at him warily, fearing the blind man’s senile outbursts. Security seemed only a fool’s hope.
“Or Klann may find out and decide to crush us,” Jiri Szabo muttered on a quaking breath, at the last appending a nervous laugh full of false bravado.
“Then, Jiri,” Gonji said gravely, “we’ll have to show them all what fools they’ve been to underestimate us, neh?”
Slumped over, face buried in his hands, Galioto the dairy stockman fretted, “It’s really happening, isn’t it? We can suffer through it. If we’re to die, we grit our teeth, shut our eyes, and bear up until it’s done. But the little ones—the children—how do we make them understand?”
Gonji’s stomach churned to hear the very real concern voiced. He thought of little Tiva, and of Eduardo and the rest of his band of urchins. Of Monetto’s children. Roric’s. Of the children of a hundred other fighting folk of Vedun whom he’d come to know and care for.
Karl Gerhard ambled up to him. “This is insane, of course,” he sighed. “But we’re with you, Gonji.”
He extended his hand to clasp Gonji’s, and then all the other training leaders began to shuffle forward to similarly pledge their lives, if only tentatively, some with pale faces.
“Domo arigato,” Gonji said gratefully when they had finished.
“Do itashimashite,” Wilf replied for all, grinning. “You’re welcome.”
Gonji was proud to have the determined young smith for a friend and sword-brother.
But then his entire demeanor altered. His eyes became hooded as if some private thunderhead crossed his brow. The crowd watched as he turned away from them and tied about his head once again the hachi-maki—the headband of resolution—he had frequently worn during training sessions.
Death before failure at his purpose.
He vaulted atop the table again, glowering like some hostile stranger. He rotated in a complete circle, saw the menacing shadow beyond the unhinged catacomb door, then the anxious faces arranged around him.
“Does none of you ask the nature of the assistance I’ve spoken of?” he inquired cryptically. The bewildered murmuring had barely begun when he smothered it—
“You—traitor!” He passed an arm over the audience. “Listen to me....” There followed an unendurable minute in which the samurai leveled a withering gaze at every man and woman in the cavern. Some could not meet his eyes, though a few held them with vapid innocence. Others quailed and shrank back, though their cheeks were reddened more by indignation and insult than a sense of guilt. Some angled defiant, scornful stares at his oriental insolence. At length—he spoke again.
“Do you believe I have no suspicion of your identity, you contemptible wretch! Or of your means of communication to Mord? Do you think I bluff when I speak of my operatives, who also know what I’m watching for? Then behold—!”
Screams and outcries of alarm. People jumped to their feet as the frigid blast of demon wind roared into the cavern, fluttering the torches, extinguishing some of them with its searching force.
And then they saw the huge figure that appeared out of nothing behind Gonji...a limp body slung under one arm—
“It’s the—it’s the killer!”
“Ben-Draba’s killer!”
“Simon!” Michael called out, eyes shining with recognition. Beside him, Lydia stared in abject terror, all her fears of the rational world gone mad embodied in this charmed being whose presence had disturbed her sleep for the past year.
“Be seated, all of you,” Gonji said. “There is nothing to fear.”
Gradually they resumed their seats. The wind stilled, and the torches were re-lighted. The sentries gaped at the catacomb doorway, amazed that the eerie apparition had passed their posts unnoticed, though Gonji had challenged them that it would happen.
Behind
