Read Online Gonji: A Hungering of Wolves by T. C. Rypel - Free Book Online
Authors: T. C. Rypel
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more I long to be purely Japanese. To embrace bushido. Yet, the farther from my grasp the pure way seems to drift. I’m a helpless pawn of two worlds…”
* * * *
Had he really made such an admission?
Hai…
Age had o’ercrept him on stealthy feet. He was looking back now, seeing change as only one can who has bowed to the indomitable siege of time…
Iye— no. All is illusion, and as such can be overcome.
Fight —
(Pain—another measure! and another!—chest constriction—despair…)
FIGHT—
* * * *
Gonji walked the cold and windswept lanes of St. Pons, refuse tumbling past his feet, the wind moaning through creaking rafters of upper stories, rattling shutters and roofing tiles. He could hear muffled voices in the gambrel-roofed houses, the clatter of hoofbeats and wooden wheels along the byways, occasional outcries of late-night roisterers in the festive quarters.
He encountered no one, save for the odd scavenging dog or cat, the scuttling of a gutter rodent.
The fiacre had been unleashed full gallop from some padded gate of Hell.
Rapt in thought, he had crossed a darkened lane. There was no warning sound from the swarming black fastness of the alley at his left. Instinct…Instinct and the sudden flash of white splay teeth and blood-flecked eyes from the snorting horse were all that had saved his life.
He spun away to his right and drew steel as the coach rushed past, still making no sound. Its eerie driver leaned out of his seat to leer back at the gasping samurai. Fulsome red eyes, bulging like the body of an engorged tick, peered at him from a ghastly pale visage.
Gonji poised himself on one knee, the Sagami raised over his head in both hands, fingers damply working at the sharkskin wrapping of the hilt. In seconds the four-wheeled carriage was gone, disappearing into the void at the other side of the street. Silently.
There had been a figure riding stiffly within. Gonji had not wanted to ponder, there, in that unsavory lane, the identity of the vaguely familiar outline. Fell memories swam up in his consciousness like trench offal in a flooded sewer.
He felt the need to flee, to seek sanctuary! Espying the tall cruciform in the spire of the church not far to the north, he made for it at a trot, more circumspect now, his blade still at the ready. Even the senses could not be trusted; his stout blade was all he could call friend.
Slowing when he reached the doors of the church, he lowered the Sagami at his side and gazed up at the symbol of Christian opposition to things evil and grasping, to the deadly and rapacious night-fiends that ran rampant on this troubled continent.
The voice hissed at him from somewhere in the distant loft of the bell tower.
“Quo vadis, samurai?” It was Simon Sardonis.
“You —Simon-san,” Gonji breathed in evident relief. “Here at last! We must speak.” He glanced behind him, then put up his sword with a smart, two-stroke motion. The katana snicked into place in its sheath. “What have you seen in the streets this night?”
“The streets about the church are quiet. There’s comfort here. I did fancy I espied a solitary heathen running from phantoms. But there would be little refuge in a Catholic church for such a one.”
Gonji bridled. He turned partway round and scanned the darkened environs again, drank a deep breath of the clear, crisp air. Perhaps Simon was right. Perhaps it had been a phantom like so many other things he had seen that others had been mercifully unable to share.
“Come down into the nave,” he whispered sharply up the stone facade of the church.
“Are you certain you dare enter?” Simon rasped down at him.
Gonji found the doors unlocked and ambled into the vestibule, moving with a respectful, rustling softness. In the light of pale votive candles he saw Simon glide through a dim sacristy archway to genuflect gravely before the ornate tabernacle. He was mildly surprised. Simon walked the night as a man now. He had evidently
* * * *
Had he really made such an admission?
Hai…
Age had o’ercrept him on stealthy feet. He was looking back now, seeing change as only one can who has bowed to the indomitable siege of time…
Iye— no. All is illusion, and as such can be overcome.
Fight —
(Pain—another measure! and another!—chest constriction—despair…)
FIGHT—
* * * *
Gonji walked the cold and windswept lanes of St. Pons, refuse tumbling past his feet, the wind moaning through creaking rafters of upper stories, rattling shutters and roofing tiles. He could hear muffled voices in the gambrel-roofed houses, the clatter of hoofbeats and wooden wheels along the byways, occasional outcries of late-night roisterers in the festive quarters.
He encountered no one, save for the odd scavenging dog or cat, the scuttling of a gutter rodent.
The fiacre had been unleashed full gallop from some padded gate of Hell.
Rapt in thought, he had crossed a darkened lane. There was no warning sound from the swarming black fastness of the alley at his left. Instinct…Instinct and the sudden flash of white splay teeth and blood-flecked eyes from the snorting horse were all that had saved his life.
He spun away to his right and drew steel as the coach rushed past, still making no sound. Its eerie driver leaned out of his seat to leer back at the gasping samurai. Fulsome red eyes, bulging like the body of an engorged tick, peered at him from a ghastly pale visage.
Gonji poised himself on one knee, the Sagami raised over his head in both hands, fingers damply working at the sharkskin wrapping of the hilt. In seconds the four-wheeled carriage was gone, disappearing into the void at the other side of the street. Silently.
There had been a figure riding stiffly within. Gonji had not wanted to ponder, there, in that unsavory lane, the identity of the vaguely familiar outline. Fell memories swam up in his consciousness like trench offal in a flooded sewer.
He felt the need to flee, to seek sanctuary! Espying the tall cruciform in the spire of the church not far to the north, he made for it at a trot, more circumspect now, his blade still at the ready. Even the senses could not be trusted; his stout blade was all he could call friend.
Slowing when he reached the doors of the church, he lowered the Sagami at his side and gazed up at the symbol of Christian opposition to things evil and grasping, to the deadly and rapacious night-fiends that ran rampant on this troubled continent.
The voice hissed at him from somewhere in the distant loft of the bell tower.
“Quo vadis, samurai?” It was Simon Sardonis.
“You —Simon-san,” Gonji breathed in evident relief. “Here at last! We must speak.” He glanced behind him, then put up his sword with a smart, two-stroke motion. The katana snicked into place in its sheath. “What have you seen in the streets this night?”
“The streets about the church are quiet. There’s comfort here. I did fancy I espied a solitary heathen running from phantoms. But there would be little refuge in a Catholic church for such a one.”
Gonji bridled. He turned partway round and scanned the darkened environs again, drank a deep breath of the clear, crisp air. Perhaps Simon was right. Perhaps it had been a phantom like so many other things he had seen that others had been mercifully unable to share.
“Come down into the nave,” he whispered sharply up the stone facade of the church.
“Are you certain you dare enter?” Simon rasped down at him.
Gonji found the doors unlocked and ambled into the vestibule, moving with a respectful, rustling softness. In the light of pale votive candles he saw Simon glide through a dim sacristy archway to genuflect gravely before the ornate tabernacle. He was mildly surprised. Simon walked the night as a man now. He had evidently
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