Gonji: The Soul Within the Steel. T. C. Rypel
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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.
“No enemy shall ever assail us here,” Klann said at last. But his voice had quaked ever so slightly.
(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.