THE TIGER AND THE WOLF

CHAPTER 3

I

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Dreached the colossal tree about thirty minutes after he first began following the tracks. After carving his way through the harp strings that’d assailed him like so many tributaries running to a common stream, he’d been able to advance through the rain. And in the vast and well-lit hollow in the tree he found the leader waiting alone to meet him.

“Rumors of your beauty can’t do you credit—you’re D, I take it. I am Galil, leader of Lord Balazs’s Dark Water Forces.”

“Where are the two women?” D asked, keeping his question short and sweet. There was no murderous intent in him now. But when it came out, only his dead and buried foes could say what fate lay in store for his opponent.

“Not to worry. We haven’t laid a finger on the girl. But whether or not that continues to be the case will depend on discussions between you and myself.”

“Where’s the other one?”

“If you mean the Noblewoman, we put her in a cell after having a bit of fun with her. We couldn’t destroy her, but she’s in no condition to escape.” With a cruel smile the leader—Galil—added, “If you wish, I can show you to her at any time. But first, I have two or three things to ask you. Why would a Vampire Hunter, of all people, take a job guarding a Noble?”

“Because his aim is to slay a Noble.”

“How about the Noblewoman, then?”

“She stays per orders of my employer.”

“I’m amazed that humans have been traveling with Nobles without anything happening to them. But they’ll bare their fangs sooner or later. D, which side are you on?”

A naked blade pressed right against the base of Galil’s neck. And no one there had even seen D draw it.

“I’ll give you five seconds,” said the Hunter. “Bring the women. If I have to wait a minute, I’ll take your ears off. At two minutes, it’ll be your nose, and after three, I’ll carve your eyes out.”

“Are you out of your mind? If you do any of that to me, they’ll do the same to those two,” Galil countered, but his eyes were certainly swimming with terror.

“Five,” D counted off coolly. “Four . . . Three . . . Two . . .”

There was neither a lethal intent nor an unearthly air about him. Anyone who didn’t know the Hunter would’ve sworn he had the blade out in jest.

“One,” he finally said.

“Okay,” Galil said gravely, raising his right hand.

Without the slightest delay, the sound of pulleys echoed from the ceiling and two basketlike objects were lowered. The gigantic birdcages and the thick iron bars that surrounded them were red with rust. And sure enough, May and Miska were inside them. Once they’d reached the floor, the doors opened naturally and the two of them stumbled out. Without a second thought they took shelter behind D.

“Take them and go,” said Galil.

“No, not yet,” D replied.

It was at that moment the eyes of the Dark Water Forces’ commander lit up with true fear. As he leapt back, a flash of white light pursued him.

D’s blow was true, and his sword bisected Galil’s torso. But what did the Hunter make of the mysterious sensation his blade met?

When Galil’s torso landed ten feet away, it had indeed been sliced straight through just below the chest.

“Do you find this strange, D?” he asked, trying to laugh or smile, but his lips were too stiff for either. He had, after all, just taken a stroke from D’s sword.

“So, he’s a water warrior?” said a voice from D’s left hand that he alone heard. “He’s one of those liquid humans they say the Nobility made to supervise their synthetic soldiers in battle. There weren’t many—maybe a dozen every thousand years—but I hear they were the death of ten million of their foes. This could be . . . bad.”

“Not even your sword can cut me,” said Galil. “This is the body I was given when I became the Nobility’s pet, so I might destroy Nobles. D, it’s still not too late. Join forces with me. Go back to being a real Hunter. Together, the two of us can destroy Baron Balazs and the woman.”

Without a sound, a writhing blackness spilled from the entrance to the chamber and inched toward D’s feet—water. Galil had referred to them as the Dark Water Forces. Rising from a flow that couldn’t have been more than a fraction of an inch deep, a number of lumps flowed determinedly toward D.

Leaving the two women there, D kicked off the ground. His coat sailed out like a pair of wings.

While it was unclear what he made of the Hunter hanging there like a supernatural bird about to descend on its prey, Galil commanded his men, “Get him!”

A number of the shadowy figures bounded to D’s rear. In the time it took them to bring down their axes, a far swifter and more dazzling light zipped through them.

D landed some fifteen feet from Galil’s subordinates.

“The three of them have also been given ‘water warrior’ abilities. Although not as perfected as myself, I dare say mere steel can’t cut them down,” Galil laughed snidely. His subordinates stood there arrogantly—the man had witnessed D’s blade mowing through their torsos.

Without so much as looking at the opponents that surrounded him, D stepped forward. The trio was poised to follow after him. And at that moment, something incredible happened. Black water spurted out of the torso of each in all directions and the trio quickly lost their forms, reduced to a mysterious liquid that spread across the floor.

“My water warriors—have you cut down my water warriors, D?!”

D’s blade slipped into the face of Galil, who was now as still as death, but the resistance it met only felt like water.

“You’re wasting your time,” Galil sneered, but he quickly abandoned this attitude.

Pressing his right hand to his face, Galil reeled backward. Black water was dripping through his fingers.

D’s sword had sliced the impervious body of the liquid human.

Sensing another blow about to descend on him from above, Galil exclaimed, “Look behind you!”

The young man wasn’t the kind to turn around at such a remark from an opponent. What stopped him in his tracks and stayed his blade was May’s cramped cry of, “D!”

Both women had been seized by the head from behind, and the sharp blade of an ax rested against the throat of May and the heart of Miska.

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May had been returned to a room in the old board-covered jail—a tower that hung out in the middle of the hollow—about twenty minutes after Galil summoned her to his room. The cells were side by side. While the Dark Water Forces member who’d brought her there was busy opening an antiquated lock, May took a look at Miska. The Noblewoman was slumped against the wall with her back to the girl.

“Are you okay?” May asked.

The acid may have only had an effect on the flesh of the Nobility, as there was no change in the clothes Miska wore.

She soon got her reply.

“What . . . what did you tell them?”

The way her voice tapered off at the end like someone dying terrified May.

“Nothing at all.”

“You’re lying . . . Surely you told them all about myself and the baron . . . you little traitor! Human beings . . . especially ones like you . . . are nothing but vulgar cretins . . .”

“No! I just listened to what the guy who caught us had to say—that man Galil.”

“Galil . . . So, that’s his name?”

The second May heard the Noblewoman’s voice, she backed away.

“At present, my body is melted, and regeneration will take quite some time. However, when that has come to pass, I shall tear off his arms and legs and head with my own two hands.”

“Stop it! If you do that—if you just keep the hate going back and forth, nothing will ever get any better!”

Once she’d spoken, the door to May’s cell was opened.

The synthetic person quickly left again.

May tried desperately to get Miska to talk to her. Though she went over to the bars to make her entreaties, there was no reply. Muttering and pounding the wall, she’d already given up when one of the bricks her little fists hit seemed to slide back into the wall. On closer examination, she found that it could be removed without disturbing the mortar around it, and once the brick had been put back in place, no one would ever notice it. No doubt long ago, some prisoner confined to this cell had used it as a means of communicating with a friend in the adjacent cell, or had started it as part of an escape attempt.

“Are you okay? Are you in pain?” the girl inquired in a low voice so as not to be heard by the guards wherever they might be, but there was no reply.

Removing her locket and clutching it in one hand, May crept across the ground. The hole left by the removable brick was down at the same level as the floor. Her hand barely fit through it. Just for good measure, she put her arm in up to the elbow.

Suddenly something latched onto her wrist. More than the viselike pressure, it was the bone-chilling cold of those fingers that horrified May.

“That hurts . . . let go!”

“Such a warm hand you have,” Miska remarked, a shadowy echo to her voice.

“So, you can still talk. That’s good,” the girl said with relief, and at the same time she got the feeling that the pressure on her wrist eased.

“What have we here?”

“There’s medicine inside it. Hugh and I put it on when we take a spill doing our acrobatics. I don’t know whether it’ll work on your wounds or not—but that’s all I have on me.”

Silence descended.

A short while later, Miska said, “Do you not hate the Nobility?”

“Of course I do! My mother and father were both killed by your kind. It’s only natural that I would.”

“That being the case, is this medicine a poison?”

The Noblewoman’s jeering tone enraged the girl.

“You’ll find out just as soon as you put some on! I’m not the sort who could let a hurt and crying human—er, person—no, that’s not right either . . . Anyway, I couldn’t just stand back doing nothing. When a Noble finds one of their own kind in pain, I suppose they run right over and drain them of blood. But human beings aren’t like that!”

Her wrist was gripped so painfully tight it seemed her hand would be torn off. But before she could let out a scream, the pressure vanished, and May reflexively drew her right hand back.

As if following it, the locket also slid across the floor.

Anger made her forget all about her pain.

“I’m only trying to help out, you stubborn goat! Just take it already,” the girl said as she slid it back through.

It came right back.

“I can’t believe this!” May said, and she slapped it through again.

It was a bizarre game being played through the wall.

“You’re a stubborn little snip of a girl, aren’t you?”

This time, it was a laugh that came through rather than the pendant making yet another trip.

“Hell, you’re a lot more pigheaded than I am.”

“Then I think perhaps I shall simply discard it over on this side,” Miska said, her voice the very embodiment of cruelty.

“Do whatever you like, you idiot!” the girl shouted in a vexed tone, turning her face away. “You’re wounded pretty badly. If you don’t do anything about it, I’m sure it’s gonna hurt, Noble or not. Why would you throw medicine away?” May said with a sudden sob as she wiped at her tears with one hand.

Just then, there was the sound of approaching footsteps.

Madly scrambling to put the brick back in place, the girl then leaned back against the wall and tried to look natural. And it was just in time, as several figures stood on the other side of the bars. The door was unlocked. Having heard the same sound from the next cell, May knew they must be calling on Miska as well.

“Wh—what do you want?” the girl asked, instinctively bracing herself while before her, a pair of Galil’s froglike subordinates stepped to either side. The one on the right reached out to the left, the one on the left in turn reached out to the right, and a grayish membrane spread between their outstretched arms. Across its glistening wet surface crept a streak of watery fluid.

“Don’t try anything funny with me. Just let me out of here!” the girl bellowed at them, though it seemed like even her words were going to be swallowed by the spreading grayness that approached her—but a split second before that could happen, the diminutive figure vaulted right over the thin membrane with unbelievable litheness. By the time the two subordinates had turned, she was already out through the cell door.

May turned left. Even at this point, she was still thinking about saving Miska.

A wall of black rose before her very eyes, and something came down with an intense strength on both the backpedaling girl’s shoulders, stopping her dead.

“What a busy little heroine you are.”

Looking up at the source of the words raining down on her, May felt all the strength drain from her body.

“Be still for a while. We merely need to take a mold of the two of you,” Galil said calmly, the breath rasping noisily from his throat.

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II

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Glancing at the blades poised against the two women, D lashed out to the rear with his left hand.

Pierced through the wrist and eye by needles of unfinished wood, the water warriors reeled backward. Even Miska had been run through the heart!

“Have you lost your mind, Hunter?” Galil bellowed, his words like a curse, while May made a mad dash over to D. In her right hand she held a weapon that had belonged to their foes.

“D!”

Two streaks of light whizzed through the air, crossing paths.

May was split from the head to the crotch. Naturally, the Vampire Hunter knew that her blade had been aimed right at his back.

“How—how did you know?” Galil groaned as he retreated to the far side of the chamber.

There was no reply. But if D had answered him, it probably would’ve gone something like this: No Noble still physically intact would ever stand there like a statue, even in the grip of a water warrior. The reason D had left May for later was because he had not been able to tell whether she was the real thing or not. But once his opponent had shown her true colors, sneak attack or not, she was no match for D with his sword already drawn.

Galil’s scheme had failed miserably.

“Come here, D!” Galil called out, his voice inviting the Hunter into the back room. “I have an opponent in here just for you.”

The floor all around the Hunter was already covered by black water. The figure that leapt up from it to attack him was cut in half without so much as a sideward glance as D dashed along soundlessly.

His senses alerted him to a strange reaction. His blood flow was swiftly stagnating, and his limbs were growing heavier. Bubbles were rising from his gorgeous lips. Although nothing had visibly changed, D’s surroundings had suddenly been transformed into water.

In his swaying field of view, there writhed a whitish shape. Some might’ve called it a gigantic jellyfish. Beneath an essentially flat umbrella was a blob of a body, and from that, hundreds or even thousands of threadlike tentacles swayed and wriggled as if in search of something.

“No matter how outstanding a Hunter you may be, being part Nobility, your offensive and defensive capabilities will come down a notch underwater,” Galil’s voice laughed aloud, though the man was nowhere to be seen. “This synthetic creature is able to alter any environment into the one that suits it best—water! You would do well to remember the name of the Kenlark. Say, if you don’t hurry to the surface, you’ll drown. This creature was originally developed with the baron in mind, but it would seem equally useful against dhampirs.”

The tentacles reached out. Blue streaks ran through the creature’s white, semitransparent core. Veins or nerves, dozens of them floated up like threads as they were severed by D’s blade.

Through a painfully slow process, D finally worked his way under the Kenlark. The tentacles were roughly forty-five feet long, with the entire creature measuring over sixty feet in all.

The Hunter kicked off the floor hard. As he rose, it was just like he was floating to the surface.

Without warning, the resistance from the water vanished. The Kenlark had turned the area around D alone back into normal space.

Stopping for a second, D began to fall, but his hand caught hold of a tentacle.

“That’s not good!” the same hand shouted.

In the blink of an eye, the hand let go.

The fall back to the floor should’ve been graceful, but his whole body twisted into a strange shape. Or rather, it was compacted. D got right back up again, but his proportions were strangely off.

“Can you keep hold of it?” he asked his left hand, but it wasn’t clear exactly what he meant.

“Oh yeah,” it replied, but before the reply had even finished, D jerked down with his left hand.

“Oh yeah!” the hand exclaimed once more, this time with astonishment.

Above D’s head, the monster was pale and quivering like a veritable full moon beneath the sea, but its tentacles dropped off its torso with a rubbery snap.

Avoiding the falling tentacles without seeming to dodge them at all, D then heard someone call his name. Turning, he saw a tiny face peering down at him from the top of a lengthy spiral staircase.

“Up here! Come this way!”

A number of shadowy figures leapt at May from the black water, but struck by the rough wooden needles flying from D’s left hand, they fell back into the depths from which they’d come.

Hurrying to the foot of the stairs, D raced up to where May was.

The Kenlark’s head and torso were vanishing into the upper part of the chamber.

“Mr. D!” the girl cried, trying to give him a warm hug before he stopped her.

“Where’s Miska?” he asked in a strangely heavy tone.

“Over there!” the girl replied, her cute little finger indicating one of the towers that hung in space like some sort of gourd or melon. “She’s been burned and melted all over. Save her!”

“You’d better come with me,” said the Hunter.

The two of them reached Miska’s prison without any of their foes giving chase.

The door to May’s cell was ajar.

“How did you get it open?” D inquired. This was rare for him.

“Earlier, when they were taking some weird kind of mold of me, I pretended to put up a struggle and lifted the keys off the guy that had them,” May told him, her chest puffed with pride.

Though the keys were used to open the cell doors, they automatically locked again when closed. So it stood to reason that as they were leaving, her captors never even noticed the keys had been stolen.

“Oh, that’s right. I got wrapped up in this odd membrane thingy. When I finally freed myself, there was a perfect impression of me left inside it. I don’t know what they’re gonna use it for, but be careful.”

The copies of May and Miska created from that membrane had already fallen to D’s blade.

D put his left hand to the iron bars—this prison was intended to hold humans. Miska had been put in it because Galil reasoned the horrible torture had left her with neither the physical strength nor the will to escape, and they must’ve planned on moving her to some other prison or destroying her later. As soon as the Hunter pulled with his left hand, the door flew off. The flying screws hit a distant wall, making a number of melodious sounds.

“Let’s get out of here,” said D.

Miska had her back to them, but she quickly got to her feet. She covered her face from the nose down with the sleeve of her dress. Even with the regenerative powers of the Nobility, her recovery would take a long time.

“Let’s go!” May said, taking hold of her wrist.

The Noblewoman’s hand was melted and misshapen with keloid-like scarring.

Miska batted away the girl’s hand, snarling, “Unhand me, you filthy little beast!”

“Okay, you pigheaded jerk! I’ll never bother saving you again.” Face swollen indignantly, May then turned to D and said, “Let’s go.”

With D leading the way, the trio ran toward the stairs. It was only a second later that a roar echoed up below their feet.

Taking a peek out the door, D gauged the situation. The lower sections of the massive spiral staircase had broken off and fallen into the black water. The twisted wreckage was reminiscent of a gargantuan skeleton.

“Up!” D said, placing one foot on the remaining portion of the staircase. It was sixty feet down to the bottom. That wasn’t too far to climb back down carrying two women. Not for D, anyway.

May shrieked, her cry flowing downward.

The floor of the prison undulated like a liquid, and the girl’s legs sunk into it up to the knees.

Reaching out with his left hand to grab the girl’s arm and pull her back up, the Hunter told her, “We’ve got to hurry.”

D started to dash up the stairs. Although it was unclear just how old this staircase was, it ran up through the cavernous chamber in the tree, hanging from ceilings and walls, and with skinny passageways and rope bridges running off it.

“I can’t do this anymore,” May said, slumping back against the handrail after they’d climbed about three hundred feet.

“She’s little more than a burden. I say leave her here, unless you fancy carrying her on your back,” Miska spat.

Ordinarily, that’s what D would’ve done. Instead, he asked her, “Can you stand?”

“Let me rest a bit. All I need is a minute,” May replied, her answer broken by heavy breaths.

Looking down, Miska said, “Everything is rapidly turning into water. At this rate, we shall only have another thirty seconds.”

She sounded amused. After all, she was indestructible.

“Okay. Let’s go, then.”

May stepped away from the railing—and stumbled. D was right by her side. She reached out for him, but as her hand touched his hip, it sank all the way into his solar plexus.

“Huh?!” May exclaimed, pulling her hand back a bit too forcefully. Once again she fell back against the handrail, but then there was the loud crash of something breaking, and her body suddenly sank.

That section of the antiquated handrail hadn’t been able to bear the impact.

A cry rose from her—and was quickly cut short.

Grabbing the girl’s belt to hoist her back up, D set her back down on the stairs.

“This is intriguing. It would appear you’ve been turned into water,” Miska commented as she stared at D with blazing eyes.

So, the gorgeous Hunter’s battle with the Kenlark had had fearsome consequences. Perhaps the secret of how the Kenlark could transform its surroundings into water lay in the tentacles D had seized. Surely the only thing that allowed D to retain his human shape was the Noble blood that flowed in his veins.

“But you were able to carry that brat with your left hand. Why is that?”

Ignoring Miska as she knit her delicate brow, D turned to May and gave a toss of his chin in the direction of the staircase leading upward.

Swaying weakly all the while, the girl began to climb the stairs. Although it had only been a brief rest, her steps were steadier than would be expected due to the way her acrobatic training had strengthened her heart and lungs. However, her feet had already turned to lead, and her heart was forgetting to beat. Before May had climbed another sixty feet, she threw in the towel.

“Oh . . . I can’t do this anymore. Leave me . . . and go.”

True to form, D neither replied to that nor offered her any encouragement, but he looked from the girl at his feet to a nearby catwalk.

At the other end of the walkway was a three-story building that jutted from the interior wall of the tree. So weathered that it seemed to have become part of the wall, the wooden door had a sign above it written in what appeared to be ancient symbols.

“We’ll go in there,” D said, making not only May’s eyes go wide, but Miska’s as well.

“What, are you kidding?!” the girl began to say, but the figure in black had already started across the catwalk.

Crafted of thin planks laid across a collection of logs, the walkway creaked disturbingly. Something that was either dust or sand rained from the bottom of it.

Halfway across, D turned to the women and said, “All three of us can’t do this together. Once I’m across, you two can come.”

And with that he took another step, but at that very instant there was the snap of a board breaking.

“Ah!” May gasped, but it was unclear whether it was a cry of disappointment at the way the walkway had broken in two, or one of admiration at the way the gorgeous figure had flown to the building’s entrance like a black wind.

Breaking the door in with his left hand, D called out, “Head up, and I’ll be right behind you,” before he vanished into the darkness.

“You worthless cretin—saving your own skin,” Miska snarled, her body quaking with rage.

“He wouldn’t do that. Let’s get going,” May said as she looked up at the giant spiral that continued above them.

D must’ve found some definite form of salvation for them in that building. If not, he’d risk his own life defending them. When the catwalk gave way, he’d have undoubtedly sprung back to them instead of over to the building.

Unexpectedly grabbed about the waist, May found herself hoisted into the air.

“What are you—”

“What a nuisance you are! By rights, I should probably drop you to your death right now.”

With the girl’s face reflected in eyes ablaze with hate all the while, Miska began to climb the vast staircase with the light step of a Noble. And the stair her feet had just left collapsed into a shapeless mass.

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III

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Once D had left, the Nobleman had relocated as per his instructions, and another ten minutes after that, Taki had regained consciousness. The baron had taken a sound-dampening fluid from his carriage and squirted it into her ears, as the sounds of the water harp continued.

“I was just—what happened to me?” Taki asked as she lay on a blanket that’d also come from the blue carriage.

The baron explained to her about the water harp and where D was. He then added, “It was me that our foes sought. I’m sure they’ll come again. And I don’t imagine merely changing our location will be enough to give them the slip.”

“Are you talking about the same enemies that’ve been after you all along?”

“Yes. Assassins sent by my father.”

“Your own father?!” Taki said, the breath knocked out of her. “How could he do such a thing?”

“Because I’m on my way to kill him.”

Taki was at a loss for words.

“Get some rest. If there’s any problem, give this a squeeze,” the baron said as he handed her a cylindrical ultrasonic transmitter, and then he headed out of the room.

The second he closed the door, ultrasonic waves pierced his eardrums like a needle. Flying into the room in amazement, he found Taki standing bolt upright in front of the bed.

Eyeing the transmitter in her hand, he said, “Triggered it by mistake, did you?” and was about to leave again.

“No,” Taki told him in a brooding tone.

The baron turned around.

“Then you did it on purpose?”

“Yes.”

“There may be those among my enemies who can hear ultrasonic waves. No more playing around.”

“I wasn’t playing. I want to speak with you.”

“With me?”

“You’re not like any Noble I’ve ever heard of. Mr. D is a dhampir. However, you’re pure Nobility. And yet, you try to defend the weak and the small, almost like you were human. I find that very puzzling.”

“Wouldn’t your fellow humans do the same?”

“No. I mean, you’re trying to save a human child. We don’t go around defending bugs.”

“In that case, I suppose it would mean the Nobility truly created a higher civilization.”

“What they needed wasn’t ships capable of interstellar travel, element-converting contraptions, or buildings with half a million floors. It was something much simpler—a heart,” Taki asserted, and then she wet her lips with her tongue. She was horribly thirsty. “The Nobility face an inevitable decline. If they’d had, say, thirty thousand more people like you, it might’ve been avoided.”

The baron remained silent and motionless. From the window, the melody of the water harp could be heard.

“What’ll you do next? After you’ve killed your father, I mean. Or perhaps you’ll be the one who’s destroyed,” Taki said in a feverish tone while staring into the baron’s eyes, as if both he and herself were melting in them.

The baron was just about to say something when the young woman’s warm body was thrown against his chest with unexpected speed.

“I don’t want you to die. Don’t die, for my sake!”

“For your sake?”

The baron stared at the pale nape of Taki’s neck, then raised one hand and touched his fingertips to the left side of her throat.

“Ah . . .” Taki gasped, her body trembling slightly.

“Though I may defend human children, I am still a Noble. I am no different from the other bloodsuckers your kind abhors. Do you know what kind of temptation I battle now just having you here before me?”

The Noble’s fingertip was as cold as ice against her skin, and it made Taki fearful for the first time.

“The thought has crossed my mind before. Perhaps it would’ve been easier had I been an ordinary Noble. Why did I have to be this way?”

Taki said nothing. Her body had suddenly constricted—the baron’s breath had fallen on her. And it was every bit as frigid as his finger.

“Your throat is so warm,” said the baron.

When the Noble’s lips pressed to her flesh, Taki fainted. Easily supporting the woman’s form with one hand as all the strength drained from her, the baron took his lips away. Taki’s throat didn’t have a single mark on it.

There was a doleful cast to the baron’s expression as he said softly, “I’m not to drink human blood. And on account of that, my father banished my mother and myself. If possible, I would’ve liked to have been an ordinary Noble.”

Scooping Taki up in his arms and putting her back down on her bed on the floor, the baron then heard a knock at the front door.

Travelers? he thought. My foes wouldn’t have made a sound.

It wouldn’t have been unusual for travelers to take refuge in this house of worship until the downpour had stopped. But they posed a serious problem nonetheless.

A heavy bolt was across the door. In two or three minutes’ time, they’d probably give up and leave.

The Nobleman’s expectations proved correct. The shades were drawn on the windows. There was no need to worry about any light leaking out.

Checking to see that Taki was still sleeping, the baron was just about to leave the room when his ears caught another sound coming from a different direction. From above.

The house of worship was a three-story building. On the first and second floors, the windows were covered by iron bars to keep out the Nobility. But the uppermost floor had none. After all, no Noble would go to all the trouble of flying into the air to get to the aged priest who would’ve been the building’s sole caretaker by night.

For upstanding travelers, this would also be an odd method of getting inside.

Partway up the staircase to the third floor, the baron halted. A man’s voice echoed across the hallway above.

“Everyone’s supposed to have fled this village. There shouldn’t be anyone to bar the door from inside. So there’s definitely gotta be someone in here.”

“It sure would be nice if it was dancing girls out on tour or something like that. They could give us a topless show tonight,” another man replied with a vulgar laugh, but it was suddenly cut short. The baron had shown himself, and no human could fail to recognize a Noble.

“No—Noble!” one of them shouted. The man’s face and body were both quite angular.

The other was the exact opposite, flabby and round.

Both were covered from head to toe by vinyl rain gear, and they had knapsacklike devices strapped to their backs. They were individual flight packs—a means of transport even humans who lived in the Capital didn’t see every day. Various types were available, such as jet engines, rockets, or ion-powered fliers, but from the look of things, the ones these two wore worked on magnetic force.

“Where did you come from?” the baron asked, and as soon as he did, the men both reached for their hips.

Once you came face to face with a Noble, no amount of running would help you get away. The only way for humans to defend their dignity was to fight and slay their opponent or to take their own lives. This rule of the Frontier lived in the hearts of the two men.

Looking at the fear-stricken faces and the sizable muzzles pointed in his direction, the baron said to them gently, “I’m not going to do anything.”

His field of view was stained a burning-hot crimson. The two men had simultaneously discharged the contents of those muzzles—homemade firebombs. Right in the baron’s face.

With one hand shielding his eyes, the Nobleman was instantly transformed into a man-shaped inferno. Based on kerosene and petroleum jelly supplemented by a number of chemical fuels, the firebombs sent seamless sheets of flames across the corridor and the wall.

The baron took a step forward. His blue cape spread like the wings of some demonic bird and struck a window. There was a loud explosion, and then the majority of the flames vanished without a trace.

Not surprisingly, the baron still had black smoke and little flames rising from various spots on him as he closed in on the two men, seized them by their throats, and hoisted them off the floor.

“Good Lo—”

“S-S-Save me!”

Lacquered with a mixture of despair, fear and cold sweat, their faces were only inches from the baron’s when his charred visage swiftly reclaimed its beauty and the luster of the night.

“I believe I said I wasn’t going to do anything. Those flight packs—where did you get them?”

In an instant, the life returned to the men’s utterly hopeless expressions—they’d been reminded of the power of the mechanisms they wore on their backs. The remote-control switch was set in the right side of the harness.

It was as if the bodies of all three had lost all weight as they floated up to the ceiling.

“Split up!” the man on the right shouted.

By doing so, they’d leave the baron no choice but to let go of them. If he didn’t, his arms would be ripped from his shoulders.

Thin smiles rose on the men’s lips.

Who would’ve suspected the Noble would jerk both men back as they were about to go in different directions?

Fire seemed to shoot from the Noble’s eyes. Slamming the backs of the men’s heads together with terrific force to render them unconscious in midair, the baron then quickly snatched their remote controls and made a graceful landing.

On more intense questioning, the two explained that they’d come from the air terminal to the north of the village. The taking of the departure and arrival terminal had been the decisive blow in getting the Lesser Nobility that’d overseen the area to flee, and because of this, leaders at the revolutionary army’s headquarters had ordered that nearby villages make an inspection and maintenance call on the facility once a year. This year, it was their village’s turn, and after a month out on the job, today they were finally on their way home.

Constructed by the Nobility, the terminal continued to be automatically inspected and maintained, so their job consisted of merely checking to make sure the systems were still operating. There were even aircraft still stored in the hangars, and according to the machines that checked them, they were in perfect shape. If the group were to take to the skies, they could reach their destination far faster than by traveling overland.

With rain blowing in through the window as he gazed out at the darkness, the baron had a faraway look in his eye as he muttered, “Hurry back, D.”