down at them imperiously.
An overseer. An accuser.
Some among the massed citizens glared back to hear his tone.
“Fight or die,” he reiterated. “Or perhaps there’s another way. One that nonetheless involves fighting...and dying.”
His gaze lofted over their heads as he turned slowly on the table. Stopping when his glance fell on the iron door that leaned against the rock wall, he peered into the gloom of the catacomb. Knew that his posted guards would be on watch within—faithful bushi who stood on duty at the tunnel exits. He had told them what to expect.
He rolled his vision back again over the audience, arranged in a semicircle of rough-hewn tables. No one dared sit too near the vestibule doorway, the portal through which Baron Rorka had so recently fallen in unnatural death.
Long faces and hollow eyes looked up to meet his stolid gaze. They were all here. All those he had called for. Those Gonji trusted the most—and the least. Few had known that he would be presiding over the conclave. For now whatever secrecy and surprise he could muster would be necessary.
Front and center sat Michael and Lydia Benedetto. The young heir apparent to Council Elder Flavio’s position cradled a crutch at his side. Flanking them were Garth Gundersen and his three sons on the one side; Milorad and Anna Vargo on the other. On Gonji’s left Roric Amsgard sat, an arm around the shoulders of his oldest son. Near them were Jiri Szabo and his betrothed, Greta. On the opposite side were Aldo Monetto, the lithe axe-wielder, and his ever-present companion, the dour archer Karl Gerhard. Deeper in the crowd were the sullen faces of Vlad Dobroczy, heading up a small contingent of farmers; and Paolo Sauvini, accompanied by his master, the blind wagoner, Ignace Obradek. Paolo seemed uncomfortable this night, withdrawn. It was rare indeed when the swarthy, ambitious Neapolitan eschewed the front ranks. Behind him Gonji could make out the hateful black eyes of Boris Kamarovsky, and Gonji wondered what those eyes would register to see the state of his late boss, the ill-fated Phlegor. Berenyi and Nagy sat at either hand of Nick’s wife, Magda. Nary an insult passed between them, for the moment. The bald pate of Anton, last surviving Rorka Gray knight, reflected the lambent torchlight from where he sat near one wall, at the end of a bench on which the entire Eddings family was ensconced, the faces of the men like facets of the same gem: father Stuart, brooding son William, brother John. John’s petite, fair-haired wife, Sarah, seemed dwarfed and frightened by it all. All on that side of the cavern appeared comically tugged as if by invisible strings, their ears cocked toward the cold, red-veined wall, where Alain Paille leaned with hands behind his back. Vedun’s quirky genius, the city’s most versatile translator, snapped out impatient interpretations in any language needed.
“What do you mean, sensei?” Monetto queried tentatively. “About...another way?”
Supportive murmurs.
“I mean that it is like this,” Gonji clarified. “We can foster no more hope of surprise, and time has failed us as an ally. There will be no more training. Every one among you must trust to what he has learned in the training thus far. All Garth’s efforts at seeing Klann have been rebuffed, so sorry. Even I had great hope for such a meeting. For Garth was supposed to make it clear to Klann that we suspect Mord of treacherous and evil designs against both Vedun and his liege lord, Klann.” Gasps of surprise at this disclosure, but more at the samurai’s next: “And that is not the worst.... The fact is that there is a traitor in our midst, who has compromised all our secret endeavors, revealed our plans to the sorcerer.” He waited for the exclamatory hissing to subside.
“You see, my friends, we tread now on the backs of turtles. Never knowing when the ground will shift under our feet. We cannot tell how much of our preparation is known to Klann. Only that Mord knows, and that he can use that knowledge against us whenever he wishes. Add to this burden the fact that the baron and his knights are dead—all save the worthy Anton—and with them died all hope of allied intervention on our behalf. No army will come in rescue of you. You must do what you must as an army unto yourselves. We must do what we must. I am committed to your cause unto death. Many of you know the burden I carry, the stain of failed duty. My burden of karma. Now I must die in this place, if necessary, to make amends. And a man committed to acceptance of death can accomplish much....”
Many eyes tilted groundward under his level gaze. No one doubted his sincerity. Thus fortified by their tacit understanding, Gonji continued:
“But those are the things which weigh against us, and I have not accounted the factors in our favor. We shall yet have unexpected help in our cause—”
“The Wallachians and Moldavians,” a man in the rear shouted, standing and raising a clenched fist. “They’ll come to our aid!”
“Quiet now!” Michael shouted, pushing free of Lydia’s helping hand and leaning on the crutch. “Gonji has the floor.”
He moved up to the table and turned to face the gathering.
“It’s all right,” Gonji objected. “Let him speak.”
“Ruman unity will see the territory freed of invaders,” the man added.
Gonji shook his head morosely. “Iye, the Ruman independence movement is still too disorganized, too concerned with internal problems. No effective leader has arisen who can command the loyalty of all the provinces. There is simply not enough time. This place has gone rotten for you. It crawls with greed and evil on every hand.”
“So what can we do?” Vlad Dobroczy hotly pleaded.
Gonji knew that he could delay the issue no longer. He clasped his hands behind his back and sighed as he paced around the table top.
“Evacuation,” he rasped in High German, the word echoing in half a dozen translations amid head-shaking and confused hand-waving.
“But—but I thought—” Aldo Monetto stammered. “You said that we’d have to abandon that idea after—” He weakly indicated the portal leading to the huge training chamber, wherein lay the torched carcass of the great worm.
“Hai,” Gonji agreed, “that’s true. We can no longer risk hiding the non-combatants down here for the duration. Not with the filthy sorcerer’s knowledge of the place.”
“So what then?”
“I mean that everyone must evacuate.” A hushing bled off their breaths as they stared, disbelieving what they had heard. “My friends, you must leave Vedun behind until it can be cleansed.”
“That’s lunacy!” someone cried.
“Leave our homes? Everything we’ve worked for all these years?”
“Flavio’s work of a lifetime?” Lydia spoke in unwonted dismay.
“For a time only, perhaps,” Gonji answered gently.
“Never!”
“We’ll not be driven from our homes!”
“What will we do?”
Gonji scowled. “Hey—is this the only world you can conceive? The only one you’ve ever planned for? A life of oppression and stoic acceptance of death, without raising a hand in your defense? You’ll do what you must, take up new lives elsewhere, if need be, until you can return to Vedun.”
“It’s madness! All of it.”
“How would we even escape? Klann will stop any mass movement of—”
“That’s only part of it,” Gonji snapped. “This isn’t to be a stampede of rabbits. The non-militant will be moved swiftly through the catacombs under heavy armed escort of married militiamen and brought out into both the valley and the northern hills. Those tunnels are fortified but unblocked. Meanwhile, up above, the bulk of the fighting men will be locking horns with Klann’s occupation troops, securing the city, and then defending against the reinforcements from the castle garrison, along with...whatever Mord raises against us. Once they’re engaged and thus preoccupied, we rush every wagon in the city—fortified as best they can be—rush