Gonji: A Hungering of Wolves Read Online Free PDF Page A

What’s wrong with King Henry? Has anyone appealed for his help? It is his land. Has he decided what Christian sect to embrace yet? He reminds me of my noble father in his machinations!”
    A rasping sigh hissed out behind him. “He’s been Catholic again for a span of years now. So spare me your infidel sarcasm. He’s been a boon to the people. The Burgundians did approach him once—two years ago—for help in their trouble.”
    “And?”
    “No satisfaction, naturally. Evil employs many clever misdirections, many disguises when threatened. A certain…family, a clan of demons, rules in Burgundy. They cannot be defeated by simple direct assault of a cavalry column. Only a band experienced in battling evil in all its abominable wiles stands a chance. Such challenge was made, and the result was a clear warning to the people against soliciting aid through the normal channels. You see, a column of the king’s troops was deployed against the tyrant clan. They were never seen again—alive. I found them some time later, frozen into blood-caked statues in the drifts of an unnatural passing blizzard. Hardly recognizable as men anymore. Memorials, you see, to the work of the arrogant fiends you must help me deal with.”
    Gonji knelt before the ominous creature and drew his sheathed swords from his obi, laying them on the ground between them. He bowed shallowly. Then he withdrew from a pocket his hachi-maki, the headband of resolution. This he tied about his forehead.
    “All right, Simon-san.”
    The Beast stood. “Domo…arigato.”
    The samurai’s lips pressed into a thin line. “Simon, why didn’t you just take the woman with you when you left?”
    “How could I know her heart? Expect her to leave her homeland, to run with me, perhaps under pursuit that might last us all our days?”
    “All you had to do…was ask her.” Gonji’s look reflected his perplexity.
    The lycanthrope shook its great canine head. “It’s not that simple. Believe me.” It turned away, shunning Gonji’s piercing gaze.
    Again Gonji was certain that Simon was concealing something, but there was no penetrating his stubbornness, and the samurai was weary of probing him. “I envy you,” he said finally, “having someone who so inspires you. To fight for.” He slowly drew the Sagami halfway out of its scabbard until he espied the nick on its edge. “I must repair this reminder of your berserker rage before ever attempting to return home.”
    “It wakes,” Simon growled in sharp warning.
    And when Gonji peered closely at him, the eyes of the tortured soul trapped within Simon’s sphere of existence bore into Gonji’s own, lancing him with crimson tines of hatred.
    * * * *
    Wolves be a-hungering, on timbered trails…
    He could not recall where he had heard the words; nor, in fact, whether they had been spoken or read or sung beside some dream-stirring campfire. But he associated the memory with the grim winter they’d spent in France.
    They’d left behind them a docile Genoese clime, and Gonji wondered whether their first mistake had not in fact been the decision to decline Simon’s chosen path through Savoy and over the rugged Alps in favor of taking ship to the southern French coast. Gonji and Simon had argued the samurai’s decision to proceed with caution. Simon refused to ride the sea again, striking out alone on the bowshot course through the rugged mountains, impatiently reminding Gonji of the place where they would rendezvous. To Gonji the lycanthrope’s insistence seemed a foolhardy, enervating effort at making up time best conceded to karma. But from the outset Gonji’s crusading party was beset by myriad difficulties.
    Too many wild-eyed, blustering young adventurers had joined the company, most of them not yet blooded by combat. They represented a new faction among the Wunderknechten—young idealists on a nebulous quest after glory, seeking to establish reputations based on close association with the samurai. Still