Gonji: Red Blade from the East Read Online Free PDF Page A

descent.
    Gonji trotted to the edge of the escarpment and reined in. Below, the main body of knights had ceased pursuit and was falling back toward the command center, columns occasionally splintering off to lend aid in rooting out straggling mercenaries. Voices crying out in command or anguish and the rumble of hoofbeats now supplanted the din of combat. It was over. Gonji slapped his leg and cursed, shaking his head. He had arrived too late. The fighting itch prickled deeply as he considered a course of action.
    Then a pistol shot exploded somewhere beneath him, followed by another. Harsh cries rolled up the cliff face, punctuated by an occasional scream. He leaped off Tora and leaned over the ledge for a better look. A hundred yards to the east a band of mercenaries was trapped in a shallow, dusty canyon by a mixed company of Austrian cavalry and infantry. A single rank of lightly armored horsemen blocked the canyon exit, shields raised before them to deflect arrows and pistol balls. To their rear, longbows and arbalests launched volley after volley into the cornered bunch, who scrambled for cover behind horses, rocks, and brush. Their return fire served only to prolong the agony.
    Steeds dropped, kicking and screaming, under the Austrians’ insistent fire. Here and there a man would panic and scrabble uselessly up the crumbling shale prison wall, only to be bristled like a burr by a hail of arrows. At these the Austrians roared their approval, reveling in the thrill of an impromptu pheasant-shoot.
    A squad of infantry, some with crossbows, had flanked the mercenaries on the slope beneath Gonji—their one possible avenue to escape. These approached the ragged company’s desperate position, cautious only for the trapped men’s pistol fire. The last strands of the spider’s snare were immobilizing the fly for the kill.
    Gonji absently hummed a battle hymn he had heard while he watched with gritted teeth. The heat of battle readiness swelled in his gut.
    “Time to earn a living, Tora.”
    He leaped astride the charger and seated his swords comfortably, glancing along the cliff to calculate the swiftest path.
    “Which side do we choose this time, eh? Eeyahhh!” They galloped off, the question hanging in the humid air, as unintelligible to the horse as its answer was obvious to the man.
    There was no choice here. He had run up against Hapsburg power before. To them he was an infidel, a heathen savage. They would no sooner have him among their number than they would invite a plague into their camp.
    But mercenary armies always welcomed another skilled warrior, and there was always stolen gold aplenty waiting to reward the stout bladesman. Gonji had learned to abide the guilt, the samurai’s hatred for the crass life of the mercenary, for it was only by the hiring out of his battle savvy that he had been able to survive these long years in barbarian Europe. But this life had fixed him as ronin —masterless samurai. Knowledge of this unspeakable outrage would, he knew, cause his father to take his own life out of shame. Indeed, Gonji himself should have long since committed seppuku , the ritual suicide!
    The sun peaked in the burnished blue of the sky as Gonji strove to strangle off his thoughts. He began to concentrate. A plan, a battle tactic.
    Tora’s hide glistened with a light film of sweat as he loped easily sidewise down the breakneck slope, sensing the urgency that gripped his master. The noonday swelter washed over Gonji in undulating waves. As he approached the rear of the flanking footmen’s position, the trees thinned. Little cover here, but he had to get closer.
    Lightly quitting the saddle, he unhitched his bow and quiver. Stringing the bow in a single adroit, powerful motion, he left the stallion in a place of relative safety and scampered down to the edge of the tree line, a scant fifty yards from the backs of the nearest of the creeping foot soldiers.
    His eyes flashed brightly, squinted against the