Part 41 (1/2)

”Wait,” Polidori hissed harshly. Gonji betrayed his surprise, for none of them had heard any of the undead tormentors speak before. ”You are a man of honor, are you not?”

”Youre afraid,” Gonji said evenly, flooded now with confidence. He hopped down from the embrasure, katana held in middle guard. Polidori set his blade point down in cavalier fas.h.i.+on.

”So what if I am?” the duellist grated, watching as Simon and the temple cat spoiled for combat, in their standoff. Both backed away cautiously to await the outcome of this exchange. ”You would shun the grave, too, if you knew what lay beyond it.”

”The karma of some is worse than that of others,” Gonji replied.

”Let this be you and me,” Polidori proposed. ”I, too, am curious as to which of us would triumph in a match, whose fencing is superior. Let us cross swords, and let the victor live.”

Gonji c.o.c.ked his head to indicate the nearness of the arenas implacable, crus.h.i.+ng center. ”We all die soon.”

”Then why fight at all, if thats your belief?”

Gonji spat on the stone floor of the turret. ”If you cant answer that, then theres no use in further discussion.”

He crept forward, smooth as a stalking tiger, mayhem barely contained in the flash of his dark eyes.

But Polidoris delay had been a ploy. A bolt whickered down from above to shatter at Simons springing feet. He had glimpsed the attacker-Fernandez, and his instincts galvanized his thews to evade the shot. Simon snarled up as the second familiar cat launched down to join Polidoris against Simon.

Now all three raging beasts tore into one another in frenzied animal fury, as Fernandez, too, landed in their midst from his looming ruin.

Gonji circled Polidori and Fernandez, feeling out their attack with silver-lick parries, stringing them out to avoid landing between them in the confined s.p.a.ce. He knew the renegade Spanish troopers schooling, had seen his style countless times before. But Polidoris storied technique was a legitimate threat and would require scrutiny.

Gonji drew his ko-dachi and lashed out in a sudden burst of twin-fanged fury, feeling them out, turning away their relentless alternating lunges, inflicting several futile wounds. Neither feared death, though Polidori guarded his back carefully, where his death-blow had been delivered. And Fernandezs mode of death was still unknown.

Polidori seemed to lay back, to allow Gonji to wear himself out, as the clash wore on, fatalistically.

Angered by their confidence, knowing that Simon might succ.u.mb at any time in his battle with those phantasmagoric cats, he beat aside Polidoris blade, backed him against the merlons with a whirling, scissoring a.s.sault, and then abandoned him suddenly to tear into the weaker fencer, Fernandez. In a split instant, Gonji disarmed the Spaniard with a twisting double-bladed snare. His fanning return hacked off one hand and sliced deeply into the corpses knee.

He spun to catch Polidoris deep lunge at his back, driving the blade up over his head and slas.h.i.+ng the a.s.sa.s.sin across the belly to no avail. Gonji could hear the snarling and raging howls of animal fury behind him, along with Fernandezs cold laughter, as the revivified, severed hand slid back to the killer in its necromantic magic, the ruined knee reconstructing itself.

But Polidori suddenly contorted in pain and jammed an elbow into his ribs. Simon had stabbed his familiar, wounding it deeply. Gonji leapt forward, swept the duellists blade wide to the left with his seppuku sword, and sliced horizontally with the Sagami, bursting both of the dead mans eyes.

An instants hesitation-Gonji looked back to Fernandez, who reacted like a jolted puppet as Simon caught up enough smoky substance to slam the killers temple cat against a crenellation-and then the samurais series of lightning circular slashes brought the blinded Polidori low, with a furious series of dismembering chops. Dead body parts landed about him, and Gonji cursed the futility of it all.

He stood back, teeth gritted in hatred, sucking in a whistling breath filled with impotent fury, unsure how to apply that rage against these undying fiends. But then he remembered- Before Polidoris parts could rea.s.semble themselves, Gonji kicked him over p.r.o.ne and drove a foot into his back. Poising the katana high overhead, the samurai poured his loathing of this abominable a.s.sa.s.sin into a parting thought.

”Take this to h.e.l.l with you, dead man: Youre the poorest excuse for a legend Ive ever encountered. Good fencing-” With both hands, he plunged the razor point of the katana through the killers back, feeling the life driven from the reanimated body by the clean edge of forthright steel.

But then he regretted his momentary indulgence of vainglory.

Fernandez and his familiar had leapt down to a safe haven on the chunk of ruin that pa.s.sed below. Gonji pounded the merlon in frustration, then went to Simons aid. The lycanthrope had reverted to humanity again, and he seemed in a bad way. He tried to rise, blood seeping from dozens of wounds. For an instant Gonji grimaced, believing one of Simons eyes had been gouged out. But only the eyelid had been sliced, for the eye was intact, though it fluttered in irritation at the blood that filled it.

The samurai steadied his breathing, forced Simon to lie back, for the first time wondering whence had come the sorcery that allowed the partial transformation into the werewolf, which should have been denied him. He decided that Simons n.o.ble spirit had somehow found the way under the pressure of their dire need.

He was watching the revolting dissipation of Polidoris dead temple cat when Orozco shouted above him, jabbering what he knew, asking their condition. On the next pa.s.s the sergeant was low enough to drop down with them.

”Bueys gone,” Orozco was saying, his voice unsteady, full of emotional and physical anguish.

”We all will be soon,” Gonji noted. ”You-youve been a fine friend, Carlo-san. A great bus.h.i.+.”

They eyed each other with shared respect. Orozco nodded. ”A h.e.l.luva fine friend,” he said, chortling, finding inside himself a last spark of humor. ”Good for a loan of silver anytime. You got away with it, you j.a.ppo devil. Look-”

Gonji peered down. He could see Fernandez, huddled with his cat under the roof of an airborne redoubt.

”Cholera-have you any powder left? My bow is-somewhere. No shafts anyway.”

Then they saw the figure suddenly appear on the carven stonework of the redoubts floor.

Soiled caftan. A woman...

”Valentina!”

She heard Gonjis shout, looked up languidly and seemed to smile. But she gave no reply. The undead killer and his temple cat went into motion. Gonji slid along the embrasures to see, losing composure, his mind racing with concern, making no sense of it. Then they were out of view.

Gonji saw that his turrets next pa.s.s would take them into the center of the sorcerous battleground, to be enveloped by its mystery.

”Valentina!” He couldnt see her, as the redoubt sailed past the floating walls of a fragmented dungeon.

Gonji turned, whirled about helplessly, leaning back against a wall, an agonized sound escaping his throat. Then: ”Carlos!”

It took him a moment to realize that he was alone.

She remembered him now, the memory seething with hatred. He had been one of the first to take her after shed become aware of her curse. She abided her disgust and threw back her caftan to reveal her nakedness. She forced a smile that melted into a sneer as he came toward her, his eyes briefly reflecting the revived memories of l.u.s.t.

The temple cat recognized her first, for it could sense the secret it guarded slipping from its time-suspending sorcery, eroding like sludge before a driving rain. The ghostly animal backed away, head lowered, for it could not perform its protective duty in the presence of the executioner.

Fernandez looked to his guardian cat, and realization dawned agonizingly. He began to tremble as she approached him. Her very proximity had triggered the onset of the process. He stumbled backward a pace, then another. The affliction that had laid him low overwhelmed him once again, this time at an amazingly accelerated pace. In moments he had lost control of his faculties, his entire left side falling prey to paralysis. In panic over the imminent loss of the life hed killed so many to keep, the escape from the glimpsed fate that had filled him with horror, he raised his blade to strike her.

But something prevented him. He could not strike at his executioner. He dropped the sword and staggered back, ever back, with failing control over his undead nerves and muscles.

When he reached the brink he teetered an instant, reached out to her, fending, imploring. Valentinas eyes were like icy spikes when she reached out and took his hand, caressing it with the other. And he recoiled from her touch as if struck by a battering ram.

The evil renegade lancer fell over the brink with a choked outcry, floating in death, pa.s.sing through the spheres outer barrier and swiftly reappearing on the farther side, to take his place amidst the debris that gradually drifted toward the dreadful, crus.h.i.+ng center of the s.p.a.ce distortion. He was rigid in death, as hed been at the moment Balaerik had given him back his foul shadow-life.

Valentina watched the temple cat curl into a ball of shadow, shrinking, flitting off on the air currents, its charge and its existence summarily canceled.

She shuddered and fell to her knees, gathered the caftan about her and hugging herself. She began to sob, then to vomit convulsively. When the terrible moment pa.s.sed, her lips spouted a torrent of prayers, in thanks. Unutterable grat.i.tude that her touch alone was enough to negate the necromancy that had revived the evil Fernandez.

For Valentina knew she could not have survived, had her unspeakable fear come true.

Her fear that, in order to save her friends, she might be required to submit to the l.u.s.t of an evil, putrid corpse.

CHAPTER THIRTY.