Fortress of Lost Worlds Read online

  They sought sanctuary in a village. Two nights later they were turned out by the aroused villagers, who were being murdered in their own streets and stoops. Gonji and Emeric had become a pariah, accursed and shunned of men. They had further accepted the premise that their pursuers were supernaturally empowered, but in all Gonji’s encounters with sorcery and magic, he had learned nothing that could help him deal with these hellhounds.

  Ever did the ghostly army follow: silent, evil cloud shadow, rolling with inhuman implacability over the ivory night horizon.

  By this time they had adjusted their metabolisms to nocturnal habits, and the perspicacious Emeric, ever as optimistic as he was adroit with the saber, had begun to find reason for hope even in their present situation. He noted how the creeping rot of evil spreading through Europe in these days had been forestalled at several major engagements involving Gonji. Had not the Evil One himself become so vexed by his concern with this singular samurai warrior that he had set this Dark Company to confounding Gonji’s way? Either that or, according to Emeric’s meaningless but perversely pleasing cross-cultural concept, Gonji had become “karma’s whipping boy.”

  Emeric further noted how the Dark Company closed faster when the pair despaired most. The notion was sobering: Gonji had long ago noted the strength inherent in faith and conviction; the power of righteousness itself when arrayed against supernatural evil. But how long could one nurture a withering faith in goodness when nothing was gained save stasis itself?

  The revelation was noble Emeric’s own death knell.

  Not long after, the blizzard had descended. Pressed by the eerie hunters into the corner formed by the barren Mediterranean shore and the oppressive mountain range, they knew their alternatives were two: ascend the torturous snowbound passes or turn and face certain doom.

  Part of Gonji yearned for a savage end to his wanderings, but a nameless instinct told him to move on. There was more to know. There were matters to settle. He was yet needed in Europe.

  But Emeric could go no farther. Weakened by fever, starved by many days without food, Emeric had surrendered his spirit. Gonji could still feel Emeric’s dying clutch about his ankle after that impossible bowshot—intended, he knew, for himself. He’d had to pry the man’s fingers from his boot, and in his enraged flight up the storm-battered mountainside, he’d prayed until voiceless that the kami of war would send him something to kill and the power to kill it.

  And what of Simon Sardonis? Many times during the chase Gonji had imagined hearing the cry of the werewolf in the night wind, barely restraining a triumphant roar of vindicated hope.

  But no. The Grejkill—the Beast with the Soul of a Man—had long departed him, painstakingly avoided his efforts at renewed partnership and examination of the prophecies that linked them. And Gonji had tired of the pointless game of rejection.

  * * * *

  Tora stumbled and nearly pitched him headlong into the snow. Gonji had no idea what kept the steed climbing anymore, how it picked its way. Reference points were obscured. Gonji could not tell how close to the brink of the trail they staggered; the fear of a fatal plunge had diminished with the numbness and waves of hunger pain. He fancied that he was beginning to see spirits. Twice he reached for the Sagami with useless fingers when the taunting wind whipped cascading snow into almost palpable airy sculptures. Creatures out of white nightmare danced at his side, and he realized he’d best do something to forestall the demons that stole one’s sanity.

  He took stock of his weapons.

  His swords were frozen to his sash. His halberd was mounted imposingly from lance-cup through saddle-cinch, though he couldn’t feel its shaft. The splendid longbow bestowed on him by the militia of Vedun loomed over his shoulder—unstrung and useless, the rolled string probably ruined by the moisture that had by now penetrated through layer upon layer of winter-wrap. The pistols he had come to appreciate after years of resistance to the dishonorable nature of such a weapon still bulged from a sturdy, well-oiled pouch, but his powder had likely gone the way of the bowstring.

  Hai, Gonji-san, you’re in fine condition for a—

  Suddenly it consumed the narrow mountain trail before them—an outcropping brow of granite, encrusted with snow and ice, blockading their way as surely as any double rank of Austrian Landsknecht Lancers.

  “Tora! There before you!” he roared in a cracked voice, unsure whether the reins were conveying the message. “Halt, stupid beast!”

  Tora snorted and whinnied, momentarily disoriented. The horse swerved to the right, and Gonji gaped to see the brink of the escarpment over the animal’s armored crest. His withered stomach lurched once. Then they were facing the way they had come. It was as surely dammed by the banked and drifting snow as the way ahead. How had they gotten this far?

  Gonji waved at the obscuring white curtain, clinging to Tora with his knees against the wind’s buffet. He saw breathtaking whiteness, extending in mounds that stretched forever. Craggy mountain peaks—invisible only hours earlier—that speared the roiling night sky. A gleaming slickness in the eastern distance that might have been the sea.

  And below—an unguessable measure below on an adjacent slope—

  The Dark Company.

  Gonji could not draw the Sagami. Stretching himself tall in the saddle and resting his left hand on the pommel of the storied katana, he bellowed his clan’s war cry into the uncaring storm:

  “Sado-wa-raaaaaa!”

  The rumbling began near the permanent snow line, somewhat beneath them now. It was echoed and repeated from all directions, it seemed to Gonji’s ringing ears. It was, he told himself, a majestic, glorious sight, worthy of the attention of any such as he who craved experience of the endless wonders of existence.

  It was a fitting way to die.

  Even had he been able, Gonji doubted that he’d have used his seppuku sword first, in ritual suicide. He would ride the avalanche to oblivion and rebirth. He had found the only way possible of ending the Dark Company’s ineluctable pursuit of his soul.

  With glazed eyes he witnessed the magnificently orchestrated collapse of the lower slopes, reveled in the rolling vibration. When the first rush of snow pelted him from above, he steeled himself for the great plummet. Then, abruptly—as he’d heard told by mountain folk—the awesome event was over. All movement ceased below but for surface sifting on the reshaped landscape. Only the echo remained, and this, too, presently died.

  I remain unchanged.

  The world has turned to heaven a new face.

  Mountains tell the tale.

  Gonji mused over his feelings a long moment, resolving to turn the event into a proper waka poem one day. He scanned the slopes beneath the mountain trail, his senses quickening now, his manner more cautious. He could see no sign of the demonic hunters. Could nature have been so kind? Had Emeric missed witnessing the answer by a few scant nights?

  Tora nickered and edged left, up the trail again, pawing at the fresh drifts in their way. Something drew the horse toward the granite shelf that had barricaded their path. The vibration had shaken free the snow cover: It was a hollow in the cliff face. A concavity.

  Gonji’s breath hissed expectantly. He urged Tora forward, but the steed would not challenge the mounded snow before him. The samurai rolled down from the saddle with an ache-bidden groan. Once he had found balance, he began burrowing through the snow with almost childlike glee, dragging the reins behind him. When he reached the outcrop, he emitted an audible sound of relief.

  It was shaped like a great eye socket in the mountainside. And it was more than a cavity. It was a cave. Tall enough to easily admit the pair even if Gonji were sitting the horse.

  The samurai led his steed into the darkness, unconcerned with it, caring not at all how he might light a fire or feed them, savoring instead the respite from the storm, the solid feeling unde
r his returning foot circulation. He stamped his wrapped boots, both to enhance sensation and to test the solidity of the new environment. The ground sloped downward into the cave, the drifted snow giving way to smooth stone a short distance inside. Judging by the echo, the cave must be of appreciable size. Soft and indefinable sounds welled up from deep inside the mountain, placing him on the alert, but Tora’s impatient nudges at his shoulder kept him moving.

  He was about to halt then, to capitulate to weariness and drop to the ground to take careful stock of his parts, when he noticed the soft, enchanting glow in the indeterminate distance of the cave’s rear quarter.

  An almost misty sunset evanescence played over the stones at ground level. Tora snorted wetly behind him. He drew on the reins again and, encountering no resistance, led the horse toward the eerie display. Almost at once Gonji felt the lap of welcome warmth at his face. His soul flooding with relief—though his cold-fettered left hand instinctively pressed at the Sagami’s hilt—he quickened his stumblings toward the phenomenon.

  A shadow slithered before him where the darkness parted. Gonji’s breath hissed, and he nearly tumbled headlong in his tensed surprise.

  But the shadow was his. The waxing light, emanating from the rocks themselves, now seeped from cracks and fissures in the walls and floor of the cave, serving up his own wavering shadow. He began to fear that he had fallen too easily into some terrible trap when he noticed the behavior of the rock glow: When he moved his hand toward certain of the glowing rocks—for not all the cave’s substance acted this way—their buried light intensified, irradiated from a dull red to hot ruby to autumn flame, lending warmth and light in corresponding measure.

  Sorcerous fire—lava light—the foyer of Hell?

  It was invigorating, of that he was sure; and for that he cared only, in his present state. Gonji’s hands and feet tingled with life-affirming needles of pain. And Tora proffered no animal-caution against proceeding.

  They reached another doorway, the magical light suddenly flaring the way to a large antechamber that was the nexus of a series of tunnels and chambers that quite possibly honeycombed the mountain, judging by their size at the adits. Crossing through, Gonji again found cold stone responding to human need. Strange—the rocks behind him had ceased their glow—he could barely perceive the wind-lashed cave entrance; but the stones around him effulged their welcome as if stoked by an unseen frost giant’s forge and bellows.

  It must be, the samurai reasoned at last, that this place functioned as a complete refuge, responding to the need of whatever creature sought shelter here.

  Whatever creature sought shelter here.

  Gonji’s skin prickled. He glanced about the cavern circumspectly, but there seemed nothing to fear. He had crossed the Pyrenees several times, knew its lore, yet he could recall nothing about this.

  Still, something troubled him. There was a long-ago campfire warning. Whose? Concerning what?

  He shrugged at last and moved deeper into the system of caverns. Which was to be preferred: succumbing helplessly to the pitiless wrath of winter or matching strike for strike with some unknown, faceless terror?

  They crept deeper into the beckoning womb of the glowing cavern system.

  Hearing the gurgle of water, Gonji discovered a small cavern wherein bubbled a cool mountain stream. Wending down from the snowmelt high above them, it poured through a fissure and meandered along an eroded course that carried it into other caves beyond. Flowing like molten gold in the basking rays of the heat stones, it emerged clear and cold in the samurai’s scooping sallet. Tasting it gingerly at first, Gonji found it delightful and, abandoning all caution, slaked his thirst. Tora awaited no invitation, doing likewise.

  In this cave Gonji discovered shelves of rock, untouched by the light of the glowstones, in which sprouted mushrooms of a familiar, edible variety. These he wolfed down with audible appreciation, staying his eagerness after a while out of both discipline and common sense. For although his belly grumbled for more, it would be tender in its shriveled state; further, the warrior who glutted himself to bursting in the face of possible enemy action burdened himself with two enemies.

  Higher up on the cave wall—a short reach from Tora’s stirrups—there grew a curious dwarf tree that, upon close inspection, was found to yield small berries that were tart but edible. These Tora took a liking to, though his interest soon switched to the leaves of the tiny tree itself.

  The tantalizing thought occurred to Gonji: What else might I discover in this mount-of-plenty if I move still deeper? But he quickly remembered that his life followed no such serendipitous progression and dispersed the seductive vision of a cave in which table was set with trout, fresh bread, and French wine. Instead, he sat back and counted his blessings, then inventoried his fingers and toes.

  The layered weather-wrapping he slowly removed had barely preserved his digits against permanent damage, but indeed no serious harm had been done. When the prickling burn of frostbite had ceased, he rose and tried to make Tora as comfortable as possible while soothing and examining the faithful steed. Satisfied, Gonji was again drawn to the amazing heat stones.

  Gathering several of these into a pile, he scraped and chipped at them with his tanto knife. He learned that as he worked off outer layers of the rock—which crumbled readily under pressure—the stones grew both brighter and hotter. The core itself, he painfully discovered, would cook flesh or boil water in its blinding yellow or cobalt sear. He constructed a fine hearth and nodded with self-satisfaction.

  No more running. Here I make my stand this night.

  With deep reverence and measured movements, he sat cross-legged before the pulsing glow. Holding the magnificent Sagami horizontally before his vision, he drew its gleaming blade slowly from the scabbard. His eyes diminished to dark slits of flickering ebon as he studied the heavenly coruscations flashing from the wave pattern of the blade’s working.

  If any night fiend or cave-haunt dare disturb my harmony…

  Memories tortured his serenity. He ground his teeth when he thought of the gargantuan cave worm that had tried to eat its way through the militia of Vedun. Of the wyvern’s strafing flight, spewing missiles of filth; of the Black Forest dragon; the weeping vampire sisters; Wolverangue, the Hellspawn…

  Gonji smiled thinly and replaced the splendid blade. He laid it along his left side—the place of easy draw—and set about heating water for a ritual cleansing that was long overdue. This he pursued with many a thought, many a reworking of unfinished poetry, given to marking the events of an itinerant life of mystery and wonder. He laved each major body scar as though it were a shrine, pausing long at the cicatrix along his shoulder blade to recall a paean to lost love.

  Dressed again, he ate more of the mushrooms as he pored over an unfurled map.

  Hai. He nodded as he formed his resolution, there lies the next station of unfinished business.

  Without consciously acknowledging it, he had been drifting toward Spain—toward Aragon again—for a long time. Ever since, in fact, the lycanthrope had begun to take such pains to obliterate his spoor. In Aragon, Gonji would confront Duke Alonzo Cervera, explain at last, whatever the cost, the complete details of their wretched crossing three—was it four now?—years before. The full tale of Theresa’s horrible fate in Hungary during the Szekely clan war.

  Theresa’s—and that of Gonji’s unborn child.

  He nodded grimly to see the course he would have to follow if he were to be direct: To reach Zaragoza without delay, he must cross the Segre River. Must pass Barbaso and the dreaded Castle Malaguer. Must, perhaps, dare the hand of the Inquisition itself.

  Karma.

  * * * *

  The panic of disorientation.

  Gonji rolled away from the glowing mound and drew the Sagami with a sharp whine.

  He was sweat-drenched. His ey
es cast about wildly before fixing on Tora’s snorting muzzle. The chestnut stallion’s face looked slick, his eyes frenzied.

  The warmth had lulled Gonji into slumber. He had no way of knowing how long, what time of day it might be in the world beyond the mountain sanctuary. But what had awakened him?

  Ogros.

  The samurai licked at cracked lips. Ogros—what? The legend—now he remembered, at least partially. An old woman, smiling old woman, telling her Gypsy lies to a captive campfire audience.

  Beware Ogros. Ogros what?

  Something. The Hunters of the Night. Children of the ancient mountain. Older than man, and still more ravening.

  For endless minutes before he began gathering his belongings, Gonji listened to the chanting that rumbled up to his ears from somewhere—everywhere—in the cave system. Rhythmic, heavily accented, undeniably primitive.

  He was the invader. The interloper. He had used their mountain uninvited. The hunters—the Hunters of Night—he had arrived at night—invaded their home while they hunted—who?

  Ogros.

  It mattered not in these things whether fact followed supposition. Sanity demanded that the lurking shapeless terrors be named and objectified.

  They moved from the cave as warily and noiselessly as possible, Tora being little help there in his eagerness to find open air. The darkness seemed to part less readily before the quickening of the glowstones. Gonji fought back the gooseflesh that accompanied his sudden realization that the enchanted caves’ operation rendered him a conspicuous target.