Gonji: Fortress of Lost Worlds Part 31

And at the end, by way of dramatic punctuation, Corsini opened his s.h.i.+rt and displayed the marks of the vampires fangs on his neck and torso. Gasps of shock, as he explained that the scarred flesh around the raised pits of the bite marks were caused when Gonji burned away the Evil, purging the wounds with firebrand and holy water, even as Corsini was himself fighting the samurai off, transforming into one of the undead.

Gonji felt his head swimming with the memories, averting his eyes from the others that sought him out in wonder. He returned the thanks and the toast Corsini tearfully offered him.

"Monsters," Klank LoPresti grunted. "People dont believe in em anymore. Only those of us whove lost buona amici-"

Simon Sardonis, seated at the stairs, rose quietly and climbed to the deck, pus.h.i.+ng past Cardenas.

A pall blanketed the crowd, broken by a few whispers.

"You talk too much, LoPresti," Corsini said.

Gonji pushed up onto his feet and refilled his cup, then another. He moved up the stairs after Simon.

"Seems like a good idea," Cardenas observed as he pa.s.sed. "We may need him."

"He needs us, too," Gonji said, narrow-eyed, "whether he wants to accept it or not."

Gonji found Simon at the prow guardrail.

"Let it drop," Simon said without looking back at him. "Im beyond being offended by drunken faux pas."

"Why dont you rejoin us below, then?" the samurai asked. Simon shook his head to see the extended cup. "Another hour," Gonji went on, judging to see the lowering sun, "and you may need this. Did you ever try a good-"

"When I want your quaint diagnosis of my needs, Ill ask for it," Simon snapped.

"Speak German, bitte," Gonji replied. "Im afraid I didnt understand you-again." He still held out the cup of rum.

Simon eyed him peevishly, then grabbed the cup out of his hand, slos.h.i.+ng rum over the rail. "All right, monsieur le samurai, I can play at being-human, just as you sometimes can." He tipped his head back and slugged at the rum.

"Good," Gonji said, smiling.

"Lower the dinghy. Its my time."

The samurai bowed shallowly to him, watching him amble off toward the deck. But stopping on a companionway, Simon turned and cast him a skewed glance.

"Do you think you could...burn me with firebrand and holy water, should the need arise?"

Gonji stared at him evenly. "Hai."

Simon rumbled out a low laugh. "I think youre probably the one who could, if it comes to that."

"Would that stop you?"

"Nein," Simon replied. "I am not a vampire." He began to climb the creaking steps again, but Gonji halted him.

"Whats on your mind, Simon?"

The accursed warriors face twisted.

"The full of the moon."

He bounded over a rail and descended to the deck. Gonji called out to the men on duty to lower the dinghy for Simons lonely anguish. Then he saw Ahmed Il-Mohar crouched under the crowned roof of a gun port, tapping the fuse of a cannon with an unlit taper. The dark-skinned Morisco smiled enigmatically and made a small gesture at him.

Gonji abruptly felt uneasy in the way he always did to see Ahmeds complacent smile. He wondered what was on the Moriscos mind.

"What is it?"

The renegade lancer on stern watch shook his head slowly. "Its very small, whatever it is. Doesnt seem to threaten us. Its just sitting there."

"Not sitting," his partner corrected. "Keeping pace with us."

"I dont see how," the lancer replied. "The sails are furled."

"How long has it been there?" Gonji asked.

"About an hour."

"An hour?" Gonji grated. "Why wasnt I told sooner?"

The lancer shrugged. "Sergeant Orozco-he said not to awaken you unless we were certain of danger."

The werewolf growled deep and sonorously in the dinghy below them, drifting to starboard. Gonji peered down. The small boat bobbed like a toy at the end of its long mooring line.

"Was it bad tonight-for him?" the samurai asked earnestly.

"Si, senor, for awhile, I think. Then-he came out from under the canopy-and laughed at me." The soldiers brow crinkled anxiously as he searched Gonjis eyes.

"Laughed at you?"

Another doglike growl from the boat. Gonji saw a glint of huge fangs as Simon opened his gaping jaws to full extension and hissed up at him in the moons straying rays. A mans head might be bitten off in those jaws, with room to spare.

"Simon," Gonji whispered, "are you all right?"

Something gleamed in the werewolfs taloned hand. There was a strident creaking sound as of a metallic vessel being crushed. Then Simon hurled the object up onto the deck.

The second watchman retrieved it: It was the rum goblet, twisted now into formless sc.r.a.p.

Another gurgling half-bark from the dinghy, and one of the men laughed breathily. "Your friend lobis homem-I think he is drunk, senor!"

"No," Gonji rasped sharply. "He had only one cup of-" His attention was drawn to the tiny boat illumined by the cloud-bound glow of the waxing moon.

"Simon," he called down, pointing out to sea.

The lycanthrope turned slowly to see where Gonji indicated, and it seemed to the samurai that his grotesque friend sported what could only be described as a canine grin. Simon crawled to one side of the dinghy as he peered at the small shape. The dinghy listed to starboard such that the watchers aboard the galley thought it would capsize. Then- Simon drew back, his wolfs head and humanoid shoulders striving up toward the sky as he howled at the moon. His keening note diminished to a long-drawn baying.

"Jesus-Maria-"

Much of the crew was awakened, pounding feet clattering on deck in response. Some of the rudely startled women in the stern cabin began to scream hysterically despite Valentinas efforts at calming them. Half of them moved below decks, refusing to sleep so near the werewolfs nocturnal station again.

When Gonji arose in the morning, it was to see Simon hovering over him in the dim s.h.i.+ps hold.

"Never again," he said firmly.

Gonji groaned and rolled upright, beginning his stretching regimen. "Hai-what was that all about last night? Everyone thought youd turned on us."

"Dont make light of it."

"Were you...drunk?"

His swept-back silver eyes blinked rapidly, and he seemed to consider his answer carefully. "I...I think so. It was very strange. I think it put the thing-the energumen-the possessed spirit I host-it put it to sleep?" He seemed dazzled, like one discovering for the first time something wonderful, yet commonplace and not a little embarra.s.sing.

"Thats good, neh?"

"Non, au contraire-its very dangerous. You see, the Beast-it-I-seemed to lose control of it. Not in a savage way. Not so that it would climb the rope and rip your filthy little yellow heart out. Its just that I couldnt make it speak. I could only growl."

"And howl," Gonji reminded archly.

"Oui," Simon allowed sheepishly.

"One cup of rum-very poor control, neh?" Gonji needled. "No samurai would lose his faculties so eas-"

"I seem to remember a samurai in Vedun who got so drunk he had to be rolled down the street in a pickle barrel to save his heathen a.s.s-uhh...so they said."

Gonji was about to take up the gauntlet when Orozco hobbled halfway down the ladder, calling as he clambered. "Gonji-get up here. Hurry."

"What?"

They followed the sergeant up to the deck to find the entire s.h.i.+ps complement at the port rail.

"Cholera," Gonji breathed. "The little s.h.i.+p from last night?"

"Not unless it sprouted one h.e.l.luva hull-"

"Thats a gallea.s.s," a mercenary declared. "A G.o.dd.a.m.ned gallea.s.s!"

The huge wars.h.i.+p was unmistakably tacking in their direction.

"Six-seven hundred men on a s.h.i.+p like that?" Orozco was speculating with awe.

"The Golden Fleece Knights-catching up with us so soon?" Gonji wondered aloud.

Panic began to spread through the s.h.i.+p.

"Well, what now?" Cardenas asked as he moved up to them, his face lined with fear.

"Big cannon b.a.l.l.s, Id imagine," Gonji ventured quietly.

"Were going to take them, no?" Corsini asked, eyes aflame with the flicker of antic.i.p.ated conflict. "We tack around and take them."

"Are you crazy?" someone was shouting. "Our five guns against-what? Eighty?"

"Were fighting a righteous battle, arent we?" Corsini challenged. "Look what G.o.ds seen us through so far."

"Were not fighting it like lunatics," Gonji cautioned. "Thats why were still alive. Simon?"

"What?" He looked as if hed just been accused.

"Isnt there something you can do?"

Simons angular face warped as if hed been addressed by a lunatic. "We outrun them, thats what we do," he said.

"Impossible," Orozco said, shaking his head and scowling. He began charging his pistols.

Simon was backing away, eyes flickering as the samurai approached him imploringly.

"Orozcos right," Gonji said. "We cant outrun them."

"So we put our backs into the oars. That plus the sails will-"

"Think, man, think what youre saying," Gonji argued, his voice rising.

"Three-hundred-fifty rowers on that vessel," Orozco observed, gazing across the waves.

"Get our rowers to their stations," Gonji told Orozco. "Every man to an oar. Dont-let them-panic. Simon-"

"Ill take my place at the oars like the others-"

"Simon-"

"What else can I do? Tell me what you want."

People began looking toward them fretfully now. The undermanned rowers put their backs into the hopeless task, the women taking up places alongside the men.

"Will you help me control these people?" Gonji said through clenched teeth.

"What is it you want of me? That I should swim out there and kill as many of them as I can until they destroy me? What do you think I am, some kind of murdering monster?" When he realized what hed said, he turned his back on Gonji and stalked to an unattended oar. Its shaft creaked in the oarlock as he began to row.

Gonji took up the oar behind him.

"Simon-the storm," he whispered as they rowed.

The first booming of the pursuing s.h.i.+ps mighty guns tore shrieks of terror from the rowers. One ball crashed into the sea off the port bow, sending water cascading over the rails and scuppers.

"Remember when you raised that wind over Vedun," Gonji went on, "when you first came to the militia in the catacombs? You frightened our enemies then-"