HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE

CHAPTER 5

I

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The group raced on without respite until nearly noon.

The forest scenery to either side of them suddenly changed—a vast expanse of earth and sky that greeted their eyes. If one looked hard enough, a number of brownish dust clouds could be seen in the distance, but like heat shimmers, they would waver and fade.

It was dark. Even though the sun was shining, it was somehow gloomy.

“I bet this is an ancient OSB battlefield,” Taki muttered, her tone seeming shadowy.

Looking around from the driver’s seat, it was easy enough to find harshly glinting spots here and there in the yellow earth. These days, there weren’t many travelers that knew those were places that’d been struck by heat rays in excess of a million degrees and fused into glass.

As the carriage advanced, bizarre remnants appeared like mirages in scattered places across the vast landscape. A structure with ramparts and towers on the brink of collapse. A robotic figure with titanic arms that looked like they could easily level entire mountains. Some sort of aircraft that had obviously gone up in flames.

Even dozing May opened her eyes wide at these sights, staring at them without moving a muscle. From time to time, a purplish light glowed in the recesses of her eyes. Streaks of lightning linked heaven and earth.

“What are those?” asked the young woman.

“OSB groundsweepers. By the look of it, they’re still alive after five thousand years.”

From D’s tone, it was easy enough for even Taki to get an idea of how mind-numbingly long that actually was.

It may well have been fortunate for the human race that when the OSB—Outer Space Beings—came to invade, the planet was under the Nobility’s rule. Fueled by a super-science some would only term sorcery, the conflict covered the entire face of the planet—land and sea alike—and it was said that this was one remote cause of the Nobility’s decline. The OSB offensive grew fiercer in the latter half of the fifth millennium, their attacks founded on a science entirely unlike that of the Nobility, and due to that they proved extremely effective. A number of continents sank into the sea, and Noble bases across the solar system were reduced to ash. Following that, the Nobility began a thousand-year counteroffensive, and after another millennium of stalemate, the OSB then suddenly left the galaxy. “The reason for this is unclear,” said the Nobility’s historical accounts. The surface of the world was left with the ruins of an atomic war and the remnants of great mountain chains, but in time those were buried by wind and sand. This plain was one of only a few such spots that remained. Even many among the Nobility didn’t know of those locations.

The girl shuddered in Taki’s arms.

“It’s horrible, just horrible!” said May. “I wonder if they’re gonna come and attack us.”

“It’s okay. They’re all just remnants of the past. Just stuff that rotted away ages ago.”

But even as Taki tried to console her, the girl continued to quake.

D, the baron said, his voice resounding in the Hunter’s brain. Be careful. This plain is dangerous. They’re still alive.

“I realize that,” D replied.

As usual, neither Taki nor May was privy to their singular conversation.

Ultimately, we never did learn the reason for the battle between the OSB and the ancient Nobility. Until they pulled out of our galaxy, the fight went on out of pure malice.

“And now malice alone remains. For all eternity,” D said as he looked up.

High in the blue sky—judging from the size, it must’ve been up about a thousand feet—a bi-wing aircraft flew at a leisurely pace.

“You see that?” D asked.

I see it, the baron replied, his answer every bit as astounding as the Hunter’s question was bold.

D noticed that it was exactly the same design as the phantom aircraft the magician had used to lure away Hugh. The assassin must’ve decided to let his wounds heal from his battles with D and the baron and race on ahead instead.

“Why, that’s—that’s Lord Johann!” Taki exclaimed.

She’d noticed the aircraft as well after following D’s gaze. From the bottom of her field of view, a flash of blue light shot up. Before she could even gasp, the aircraft had been run through and was quickly engulfed by flames, its nose dipping badly as it began to come down.

A pillar of flames went up from a spot that couldn’t have been much more than half a mile from the road.

Ordering Taki and May to get in the carriage, D wheeled his mount around.

As the horse and rider departed, Taki watched in silence. She was sure D wasn’t headed off out of concern for Hugh’s safety. He would see whether or not Lord Johann had survived, and if the old man still lived, the Hunter intended to rectify that situation.

“That scares me . . .” the young woman muttered.

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D arrived at the ruins of an enormous installation—what seemed to be the remains of a factory. Ages had passed since its decay. The wind that blew by told him so. It was impossible to say if the pillars tilting off at angles and pointing to the sky had originally been round or square. And from D’s position, there was no telling how long they were—three thousand feet at the very least.

Half of the aircraft that’d fallen in the valley formed by these enormous columns had already burned up.

Up on his mount, D looked out in all directions. Aside from the wind, there was no sound at all. D closed his eyes. He had no choice now but to try to sense some presence.

Something moved off in the distance on the left-hand side. At the base of one of the columns, a circular maw gaped. It was a good fifteen feet high, and darkness filled its interior. From there to a spot about fifteen feet away the ground was littered with black spots. The pilot had fled even though he was bleeding. The reason for this went without saying. He feared his pursuer.

D rode his horse into the darkness.

What sort of twisted psyche had made this nightmare? Although it was clearly a piece of machinery, at the same time, it was also a creature that had expired.

The perfect fusion of organs and machinery in a living being—this was how the Nobility had responded to their foes from the stars. They created a superior life form imbued with both their own indestructibility and the power of a machine.

Who would’ve believed that the transparent tube that ran across the wall some fifteen hundred feet ahead of D was actually a human blood vessel? Made of dozens of three-foot-wide tubes woven together, it served the same purpose now that it had in the distant past, a little dusty but otherwise unharmed. The tube ran horizontally for fifteen hundred feet before it suddenly became a hard pipe. The way the two were connected without a joint was a secret of the Nobility’s science. One theory had it that in their laboratories, there were even human beings who had white blood corpuscles in their body that’d been fused with the molecules of diamonds.

But D didn’t spare the mind-numbing machinery so much as a glance. All he sought was the blood trail on the sand- and dust-covered floor. It led D through the mechanism fifteen hundred feet ahead.

Lord Johann lay before a great mountain of a machine that seemed to be some sort of quantum transformer. He was quite a sight, his outfit and the flesh beneath it charred, his right arm torn off at the shoulder, and his left knee twisted nearly eighty degrees. Certain death was spreading its wings across his face, which had a lifeless, waxy hue.

As he saw D approaching, the magician said, “You came . . . did you?”

His voice was an odd mixture of surprise and resignation.

“I’m already dying . . . D . . . You wouldn’t cut down an old man . . . with death right before him . . . would you?”

The cyborg horse halted right in front of the magician. As D looked down at the ruthless old man from the back of his mount, he was so stern, and so beautiful.

While Lord Johann begged for his life without any thought of reputation or shame, even his eyes melted with rapture.

Still gripping the reins and making no move to dismount, D inquired, “Where is Hugh?”

“He . . . he was inside . . . the aircraft . . . Poor thing . . . I’m sure he must’ve burned to death.”

No sooner was there a flash of white light than Lord Johann’s left ear fell to the floor. Such brutality toward someone who was already as good as dead.

“Next, it’ll be your right ear, followed by your left arm.”

Lord Johann might’ve been telling the truth from the very start. The Hunter had no basis for making this threat. And it was the cruelest threat imaginable.

“One of the bounty hunters . . . that’s after you . . . will be coming along later . . . I went on ahead to get the jump on you . . . and this is what it got me . . . I beg you . . . please don’t cut me.”

“What’s the name of this bounty hunter, and what can he do?”

“I believe it was . . . Vince. And his power . . . he can’t be killed . . .”

Without saying a word, D split the aged magician’s head open down to the chin. Not bothering to look back at the body as it fell and spewed brains everywhere, he went back out through the entrance.

Fresh death and destruction reigned over the interior as the bizarre mechanism settled once more into silence.

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Twenty or thirty minutes passed.

A faint sound was heard. If human actions could be mapped into a machine, it would’ve been like a yawn on awakening from a long sleep. Another followed right on its heels. And then a light came on in the supposedly dead mechanism. Its massive blood vessel was quivering. Joyfully. But what was the vermilion liquid flowing sluggishly through it? Was it blood?

The ceiling couldn’t be seen. Perhaps it ran up straight through the three-thousand-foot-high tower. From somewhere above, blue lightning came down to tie heaven and earth together.

Lord Johann’s corpse was on the ground. As his remains were pierced by the light, they twitched a bit. That wasn’t an uncommon occurrence in a body that hadn’t been dead long. However, the army of silver cords that stretched from nowhere in particular and tapped into every inch of the old man with ends that were neither plugs nor needles was no trick of death. Even now fresh blood surged noisily through the gigantic blood vessel, carrying life back to all manner of machinery.

The cords pierced Lord Johann’s body without respite, their numbers in the thousands as they buried the magician’s torso within a twisting silver serpent.

What was happening? What could be driving the cords? Who had brought the machinery back to life?

Something still lived in this wasteland.

Another three hours went by.

Somewhere, a special switch was thrown in the electromagnetic circuits. If it were a human voice, it might’ve said, Finished!

Death came suddenly. The lights, the electromagnetic waves, the blood flow—all activity ceased instantly and in unison with a complete disregard for momentum or inertia. Once more the crushing weight of silence filled the air.

In the murk, something rose unsteadily. It was the army of lifeless cords. A storm was unleashed at its center. Thousands of cords were knocked loose with a single blow. And in their center, standing like an angry god, was black steel in human form. The person retained his original shape—scrawny, burned, arm missing and leg twisted, veins standing out on his forearm, a long, flowing beard—only now all of it was steel. Black and glistening. And his face—it was clearly that of Lord Johann, his head still split open.

__

What’s the matter? the baron asked.

“I may have made a mistake,” D replied from horseback, adding, “How can you tell?”

It’s not that I read your mind or anything. I just get a sense. Are you referring to Lord Johann?

“You said those ruins almost seemed alive, didn’t you? From sheer hatred.”

Exactly. A machine can feel neither anger nor hate. A living machine, however, is another matter. But did you know that what could be called the ultimate mechanism in those ruins never really went into operation?

“No.”

The Nobility actually defeated the OSB in battle. It’s theorized that the OSB suddenly pulled out after contemplating the damage that would be done if that weapon were put to use. And the only ones capable of operating that device were a few individuals of the Sacred Ancestor’s bloodline, or something to that effect.

“That’s good,” the Hunter remarked, the wind that struck him broadside deflected by his handsome features.

It was just then that a low rumble spread across the plain.

Wheeling his horse around, D raced over to Miska’s carriage. As his eyes peered in through the window, they reflected her quaking coffin.

Was Miska trying to get out, or was it something else? Whatever the case, something was clearly out of the ordinary. Unlike the baron, the woman was supposed to sleep by day.

“What is it?” D asked.

I can’t tell. I’m trying to talk to her, but she’s in a frenzy. Surely she must’ve had some portent of danger.

Something that would prevent a Noble from sleeping by day.

The ground rocked again.

D asked, “Is it actually Miska that’s responding?”

Silence descended.

After a short time, the baron replied, No, it’s whatever is inside her. I thought she was acting strangely after she got back last night, but whatever didn’t awaken while she was with us might be active now—the Destroyer, perhaps?

“Do you think she’s up to controlling it?”

The baron fell silent once more. Not that he didn’t know the answer to the question. It was D’s mindset that left him at a loss.

I don’t know.

“Well, if she can’t keep it in check, the best thing to do is dispose of her right now. If whatever’s coming out of the ruins is another one of the Nobility’s creations, there’s a chance it might join forces with the Destroyer.”

Then they’d face twice as many foes . . . and foes of the most extreme nature at that.

The far reaches of the plain had a bluish glow that came from a spot where there was some sort of facility. Never fading, the light spread further, becoming an impossibly large canopy of cerulean.

“Something just bought it. It’s started now,” D said as he hit his mount’s flanks.

Perhaps already having caught something with its animal senses, the cyborg horse instantly started to gallop at full speed.

As he raced along, D looked back.

From the distant reaches of the road, a pair of glittering spheres headed in the Hunter’s direction. The air was swiftly ionizing. The spheres were glowing balls of plasma.

Grabbing hold of the lead horse’s harness, D gave a hard pull to the right. The madly dashing team turned out onto the plain. As Miska’s horses followed suit, one of the spheres was absorbed by the road. It looked as if light were gushing up from the bowels of the earth. A section of terrain roughly one hundred fifty feet in diameter sank into the ground.

D jumped over to the driver’s seat. His eyes had an intense light to them, and the horses’ speed quickly exceeded all their limits, as if the animals were possessed.

“I’m scared,” May said, gnawing her lip inside the carriage.

“It’s okay,” was all Taki could say. But she wasn’t the only one.

“It’s okay,” a crisp, clear voice declared as the two girls saw the coffin’s lid open.

A pure-blooded Noble couldn’t possibly be coming out in broad daylight.

“Look after the girl.”

All Taki saw then was a figure in blue being sucked out through the ceiling.

“I’m heading over to Miska’s carriage!”

And saying this, the baron launched himself from the roof of his vehicle toward the carriage behind his.

Such recklessness! Though his arms were clad in long blue gloves and they in turn shielded his face, the Noble experienced white-hot pain merely by exposing himself to sunlight. The flesh beneath his clothes would’ve already started to melt.

Not even looking at the other glowing sphere that was closing in on them, the baron took a silver sphere from the lining of his cape and hurled it to the rear.

The earth was tinted blue.

The ring of light closed in on the back end of the carriage . . . and was intercepted by an unseen wall! The light rebounded, pressing forward once more, but by the time it finally shattered the force field, nothing could be seen of the two carriages but a distant blur through a cloud of dust.

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II

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Up ahead, the ruins were like a shadowy blur, and D aimed the carriage straight for them. Though incredibly vast, the ruins were less than thirty feet high. This facility had surely been meant to accommodate some device that covered a large area. Inside, both the ceiling and the floor had the gleam of crystal. The holes that had been blown in various spots actually ended up looking like minor accents.

Climbing down from the driver’s seat, D called out to the baron, “Get back in your coffin.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that. This time, I think it would be best if both of us were around.”

Jumping down from the other carriage, the baron staggered. A chop from D’s hand had raced down at the base of his neck, but it bounced back again with a heavy thud. The baron had raised one hand to easily fend off the blow.

“You needn’t show any undue concern for me,” the Nobleman said. “If it becomes absolutely necessary, I’ll get back into my coffin on my own. You should try to act the part of the employee a bit more.”

“In that case, hold down the fort here,” D said, now having taken the exact opposite tack. His flexibility was a frightful thing.

“And where will you be?”

“Up top,” said D.

The building had no higher levels. However, D’s gaze was indeed turned toward the sky.

The baron began setting out cylinders in a row some distance from the carriages. The alacrity was gone from his movements.

Climbing out of the carriage, Taki covered her mouth with her hand and let out a cry of surprise. It looked as if the baron’s body was shrouded in a white mist. Actually it was white smoke pouring out of his cuffs and collar.

“You should stay in the carriage,” the baron turned and said.

“But your body’s . . .”

“I can still handle it,” he told her before he called out, “The enemy is coming, D!”

When the baron twisted around, there was no sign of the Vampire Hunter. Not even bothering to ask where he might’ve gone, the baron turned instead toward the entrance as the wind buffeted his face. His blue cape spread, and his hair fluttered out.

Taki was lying flat on the ground.

What had entered the room was a black iron statue encapsulated in a glowing sphere—it was easy enough to make out Lord Johann’s features on its face. Within the sphere, iridescent bands of light eddied. One such streak shot at the baron. Deflected a foot shy of him, the streak changed its target to the ceiling. Without making a sound, it opened a gaping hole there roughly thirty feet across. Not even a speck of dust remained. The material had been broken down to its constituent atoms.

The baron took one of the cylinders that sat at his feet and knocked it toward the magician. From the end of it, green flecks of light sped at the magician’s brow. The second they struck him right between the eyes, countless points of light winked on in every pore on his body.

The magician’s iron face formed a toothy grin.

In the blink of an eye, the points of light vanished. Only two remained—one between his eyes and the other in the vicinity of his heart—and when the light on his chest went out, the one on his forehead began to drift aimlessly across the surface of his body.

In a manner of speaking, the cylinder was a sensor for detecting vital points. The luminous dot was a scanning device that traveled across a target’s body in search of weaknesses and crucial areas, which it would then relay back to the assault components in the cylinder itself. However, this time it had failed to find any vital points, or even any defenseless spots. In response to this lack of communication from the scanning system, the main computer elected to engage free attack mode, selecting the most likely vulnerabilities from its existing store of humanoid data and connecting to extradimensional power circuits.

A particle beam surged out at the speed of light, and the green spot that had formed between Lord Johann’s eyes took on a blinding glow. Lord Johann’s smile grew wider as the luminous point quickly faded in hue, and then unexpectedly vanished. Not a single mark was left on the glossy blackness of the magician’s brow.

With Taki taking shelter behind him, the baron backed away. To his rear, he heard a scream.

Having turned to face the carriages, Taki had found a woman in white standing right in front of her. Though Miska was out in the sunlight, nothing at all had changed about her pale skin. There was only a piercing golden light to her eyes.

This was what D had been talking about—they might have made foes of two threats created by the ancient Nobility.

Miska opened her mouth. The sigh that spilled from that maw called to mind the chill of some frozen hell.

There was no sign of D, and formidable as Baron Balazs was, it didn’t seem the least bit possible that he could take on these two horsemen of the apocalypse and win. And yet as the baron kept Taki safely behind himself, his eyes were so tranquil they would’ve taken the breath from any who saw them.

The upper portion of the sphere surrounding the magician glowed with all the colors of the rainbow. Its bands of light were sinking into Miska.

As she reeled backward with them piercing her chest, Miska opened her mouth. With a loud gurgle a semitransparent sphere rose from her. It was an enormous bubble filled with water.

It wasn’t until the iridescent band pierced the bubble that a look of terror spread across Lord Johann’s black countenance. Giving off a tremendous amount of steam all the while, the watery bubble went on to envelop the magician’s entire body without slowing in the least.

Lord Johann shouted something. But the words weren’t from any human language.

“So, he was an OSB?” the baron said, finally realizing the truth.

Lord Johann’s transformation hadn’t been effected by the ancient Nobility—it was the work of OSB machinery meant to make warriors to combat the Nobility. It had probably remained there in the ruins as something the Nobility had confiscated from the OSB. D had also mentioned something—the malice alone would live on eternally. The enmity that remained in that device had been enough to take Lord Johann and make him one of their own.

However, that same malicious aura had also been sensed by the Nobility’s ultimate tool of death and destruction—the Destroyer. And that was why the baron muttered as he watched the pair’s eerie battle, “It’s just as we thought, then.”

Inside the bubble, the sphere protecting Lord Johann’s form melted away pitifully, leaving the magician trapped in the water. And water was the very thing he feared.

The OSB had no concept of fluids. Their species’ fatal flaw was the relative ease with which their minds succumbed to “the fear of the unknown.” The Nobility had been able to hold the high ground for quite a long time once they managed to discover a number of the aliens’ fears.

Lord Johann went mad.

The iridescent band that surrounded the magician spun wildly in the bubble of water, losing more and more of its color all the time. Then it shone. A sizzle rang out like a drop of water falling on a hot skillet, and the watery mass vanished.

As the magician glared at Miska and the baron, his eyes were all white and his whole body trembled. Every hair on him stood on end, and his muscles and veins bulged. Leaning back wildly and pitching forward again, he disgorged phlegm. His target was the baron.

The figure in the blue cape dodged, the phlegm sailing over his head to fall at Miska’s feet. With his cape shielding his face, the baron collapsed. Light had bleached his form white. Miska had both hands out in front of her face.

Now this was truly one of the OSB’s deadliest weapons. There could be no disputing that what the phlegm on the floor gave off was sunlight.

The vampiric Nobility could move about freely under artificial sunlight. What they feared was natural light alone. So what would happen if they were to be exposed to sunlight on another celestial body—say, the surface of the moon? They would have no problem at all with it there. Whether there was some psychological or even spiritual force at work in that regard remained unclear even now. Even with all of the scientific might they possessed, the Nobility didn’t understand why exposure to sunlight would reduce them to dust only on Earth. But the OSB’s unusual science had solved that riddle. They had more or less artificially manufactured natural light. The phlegm that’d fallen to the ground had given birth to a sun.

The baron had already lost consciousness, and Miska was driven to her knees. And the light that fell on them continued to shine remorselessly.

“Ha ha ha!” the old man suddenly began to laugh aloud. It was crazed, mindless laughter. But seeing the condition of the baron and Miska, it wasn’t difficult to imagine that his insane mirth came from the joy of victory.

The iridescent light stabbed into the far wall, reducing it to nothingness. This ultrawarrior created by the OSB—the same aliens who’d plagued the ancient Nobility for so long—had begun to run amok. And it seemed as if he wouldn’t stop until these ruins—or perhaps even the whole planet—had been completely destroyed.

Something suddenly blocked the light, and the sun on the floor lost its color. Though the light shining in through holes in the wall was as bright as ever, darkness had begun to slowly cover the region.

As Lord Johann looked to all sides, a heavier darkness spread above him. Or so it seemed, and then it took the shape of a gorgeous young man who split Lord Johann’s iron head in half lengthwise. Despite this, the magician raised his right hand. The iridescent band that sprang from his shoulder seemed to twine around his right arm as it assailed D.

A flash of white light bisected the magician’s torso. The glint reversed directions, making a second pass through his upper body as it slowly came free of the lower half, sending his head flying.

By the time D rose from a near squat and returned the same blade that had first split the magician’s head to its sheath, the baron had also gotten up. Miska alone had gone from being on her knees to being slumped across the floor.

“You certainly took your time,” said a voice in the darkness.

Gleaming above their heads like a silver platter was the sunlight now held at bay. D looked up without saying a word.

“Could it be that this was the control room for the entire installation?” the baron asked.

“I suppose you could say that.”

Were the control systems set in some space that couldn’t be seen from this floor? And had D entered that space and created this? Created darkness?

“The OSB’s secret weapon against the Nobility was natural light they could manufacture. So, did the ancient Nobility create natural darkness to counter it?”

“They did indeed,” the Hunter replied.

“But there’s no record of anything like this ever being used in battle.”

“That’s because it was locked away,” D said as if it didn’t mean anything at all.

“By whom?”

“Perhaps by the one your kind holds in such esteem.”

“The Sacred Ancestor? But why?”

Before the astonished young Nobleman, D looked up into the void. Darkness filled the light, while here and there the light tinted the darkness like droplets of paint spreading through the water.

“Darkness or light—which of them won the battle?”

To the baron, D’s question sounded worlds away.

After a bit, D said, “Go on out ahead. I’ll be out once I get rid of this darkness.”

“Get rid of it?”

“Don’t you see? It’s still spreading. Within a year, this whole planet will be enveloped by artificial night. If nothing were done, it would blanket the entire universe.”

“Is that a fact? So, is that why the Sacred Ancestor . . . why the exalted one was loath to use this darkness?”

The Nobleman sensed D moving away.

“Who or what are you?” the baron asked, but there was no one there to answer him. “You brought forth the great darkness sealed away by the Sacred Ancestor, and now you say you’ll get rid of it. Wouldn’t that be the work of the Sacred Ancestor’s blood? D—who are you?”

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As the pair of carriages raced down the main road a dozen minutes later, the crystal control center behind them flickered like a mirage and was obliterated. Inside their vehicle, Taki and May couldn’t help but look out at the young horseman riding along beside them with newfound awe and fear. For they had overheard the baron’s question.

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III

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As D and the others reached the end of the great plains and the blue of twilight had begun to color the air, a lone man sat wistfully on a boulder in the Shabara Canyon. He was one of the surviving members of the group that’d already lost three of their number to D and the baron—Crimson Stitchwort. Though this man had come out of countless perilous scrapes before, he now did nothing to conceal the childlike fear and impatience that surfaced on his face. Above him, a sheer rock wall loomed like a great canopy that hid the heavens, while below, there was the incessant sound of a steady flow of water. If he were to look down, he probably would’ve even been able to make out the bits of white where water dashed against the rocks in the vast river three hundred feet or more below.

This eighteen-hundred-square-foot outcropping of rock halfway up the cliff was the very place where the disk with their employer’s voice told them they would find “interesting devices.” Ordinarily, Crimson Stitchwort would’ve been only too happy to look for the items in question. Though a good number of his colleagues had died, he undoubtedly reassured himself that his own share would be all the greater. However, he was scared . . . but not of dying. When he’d chosen this line of work, he’d basically thrown his life away. And yet, he was still scared. After attacking a woman called Miska in a white dress back in the forest, Mario had never come back, and Vince had also fallen out of contact. Yoputz the priest had made himself scarce, and there’d been no news from him. Of course, the death of his compatriots only boded well for him. That was why when he’d rushed here all alone, his spirits had been high.

But when no amount of searching had located said devices, a certain anxious feeling began to rear its ugly head. After a full hour of looking, he’d given up ten minutes earlier, and although he’d intended to take only a short break, he was so exhausted that an all-encompassing fear overtook him, leaving him with no desire to do anything. The air in the canyon grew cold faster than that on level ground. The sound of the water tempted him with sleep and a mysterious sense of relief. Suddenly, he wanted to die. For no particular reason, he thought about leaping to his death. Getting to his feet somewhat unsteadily, he walked to the edge of the cliff. Without any hesitation at all, he put one foot out into space.

Something grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. In the blink of an eye, the cruelest of Hunters was left rolling on the ground unceremoniously.

“You?!”

The old man looking down at him was the same person who’d met with the group to explain the terms of their employment and their remuneration in place of their actual employer.

“I imagined this might happen, but it’s a little too early to be turning on each other. You’d better show yourself too,” the old man said to the rock face behind him.

After a while, the priest appeared from behind a pile of odd-shaped stones.

Crimson Stitchwort then realized what had happened.

“Yoputz—you son of a bitch!”

As the man got up with a wrathful visage, the old man checked him, saying, “You two are it, you know.”

“Oh, then all the rest are—”

The old man shook his head at Crimson Stitchwort’s words.

“There’s one other who chooses not to come. Now, let’s get those devices ready.”

“What do you mean, get them ready? There’s no sign of them anywhere, and I’ve checked everywhere. And it looks like that asshole was probably spying on me the whole time!”

As Crimson Stitchwort’s search had ended in failure, Yoputz saw him as no longer being of any use and had utilized his powers to throw him into a nihilistic frame of mind.

The old man looked like something of a philosopher, and there wasn’t a trace of emotion on his face as he said, “They don’t appear until the appropriate number of people have assembled. That’s the way it’s set up.”

The old man gave a toss of his jaw, indicating the center of the outcropping.

It seemed impossible that they’d appear in such a manner. But what fell from the sky was a wooden box that wasn’t very large at all. As it slammed against the ground, the box was smashed to bits. Since this sent chunks of wood flying that the two assassins had to dodge but the old man didn’t, the box must’ve been thrown from quite some height.

Though Crimson Stitchwort and Yoputz both looked up, they saw no one at the top of the cliff.

“They shall be entering the canyon soon. Use these to finish them off,” the old man said as if making a declaration.

As the two Hunters looked at him, their eyes weren’t exactly filled with endearment.

“What the hell is all this?!” Crimson Stitchwort said, his gaze trained on the contents of the box. “I don’t get it at all. They’ve gotta come with some sort of directions, right?”

“If you need any sort of instruction, I’m sure each item will supply it to you itself. Now fight, and destroy the baron. That’s what you’ve been hired for, is it not?”

Completely disregarding the old man, who vanished as soon as he’d finished speaking, the two turned to one another. Having seen something so incomprehensible, the look on their faces was sheer bewilderment.

__

Before entering the canyon, D halted the carriages.

“What is it?” asked the baron. The darkness was already heavy, and he could be seen up in the driver’s seat.

“This is a perfect place for an ambush. Essentially, once we get through here, it’s less than thirty miles to Krauhausen. You could say this is the last redoubt for our foes. An attack will be coming.”

“I realize that.”

“Wait here,” said the Hunter. “I’m going to go see what the enemy is up to.”

“I see. Please do.”

On this matter, the two men were in perfect agreement.

D rode his cyborg horse into a bottleneck formed by the cliffs that jabbed up at the sky to either side.

__

Beside the road the Hunter took there flowed a wide river. Though the water was clear, it ran deep and dark. A person’s head popped up right in the middle of it, and the sturdy figure that then arose with water dripping from every inch of him was none other than the Dark Water Forces commander Galil. Needless to say, the countless blobs that surfaced from the fluid coursing slowly around him wore the faces of his subordinates. It appeared they’d been lying in wait here for D. Though the bottoms of Galil’s feet rested on the water’s surface as he stood there defiantly, there was no white spray around them, and he didn’t move a muscle.

“Our master Vlad will not tolerate another failure. This is a do-or-die situation for us. Our preparations have been made. D! Baron! This time, you shall find your opposition a bit more of a threat.”

And then he seemed to melt as he became one with the water.

If the flow of the stream was considered as a kind of network, then the water it contained could share any information with every location almost simultaneously. Galil had already passed D and was undoubtedly preparing to catch him in an attack. What’s more, Crimson Stitchwort and the weird priest Yoputz had bizarre new weapons as they lay in wait for the group. How would D and the baron fight them? How could they defend themselves?

In order to get a view of the entire canyon, one would have to go to a height of at least six thousand feet. At that altitude floated a cylindrical tube about a foot and a half long. As it manipulated a quartet of thin wings to ride the air currents and maintain its position, a “macro eye” set on the bottom surveyed the entirety of the canyon while simultaneously zooming in to capture ultra-close-up images—in other words, the device was a highly maneuverable three-dimensional camera.

As he watched the images it relayed to a thin membranelike monitor, Crimson Stitchwort knit his brow and said, “Looks like we’ve got some strange company. But I don’t care who it is, we’ll take out anyone who gets in our way. Before we go after D and the baron, should we wipe them out first?”

“That doesn’t sound like a bad idea,” Yoputz replied, his deeply creased lips shaking as if with a palsy. “I’ll leave that part to you. After all, we’ve got all this equipment. It should be child’s play.”

“What’s that you say?!” Crimson Stitchwort snapped back.

But the priest didn’t even seem to catch the venom in his voice, saying, “Lend me your ear. I’ve got an idea of my own. It came to me back in that village when I got cut in half. It goes something like this—”

Bringing his mouth closer, he whispered for a while.

“I like it!” Crimson Stitchwort said, readily consenting.

But what kind of bizarre plan could Yoputz have that would unify this acrimonious pair in the blink of an eye?

__

After the Hunter had followed the river for over a mile, his attention was drawn to the cliffs ahead and a strange item hanging from them. It was an iron chain covered with rust. Formed from metal four inches thick, each link was a good three feet long. Like the summit of the cliff, the end of the chain couldn’t be seen.

For D on his mount’s back, it wouldn’t be terribly difficult to catch hold of the lowest iron link. Raising his arm just a bit, he easily reached the link, and a second later, he was sailing through the air. When he landed smartly without making a sound, it was on the nearly vertical face. He was standing perpendicular to the cliff and parallel to the flowing water.

What was he trying to do?

Grabbing the link with both hands, he gave it a powerful tug. What resulted was a sound wave that rippled out like its more liquid kin. On striking jagged rocks much taller than D that rose like little hills, the sound wave then came bouncing back up with tremendous force.

What was the chain? And what did D want to do with it?

From far, far up in the sky there came a dull roar like thunder. This somewhat subsonic wave fell like rain on the ground, on the surface of the water, beating down, creeping into caves and filling the space between stones like a gas. And while this was happening, D clung to the chain with his left hand, motionless. For the sound waves would bounce off every living thing in the valley, coming back to the chain like some kind of sonar. D could hear the buzz of a drifting insect the size of a molecule of air. The breathing of massive armored beasts that lay all over the canyon, the beating of a butterfly’s prismatic wings, and the whispers of lovely poisonous mushrooms that were a pale shade of purple all reached his eardrums. And that wasn’t all.

“The main threats are a pair and one other—and that one’s got followers with him. Like, thirty of them,” D’s left hand explained. “The pair would probably be the surviving Hunters, while the other would be Galil with his Dark Water Forces flunkies. From what I’ve seen, these jerks aren’t in cahoots. Well, I can hardly wait to see who tries what!”

D said nothing as he reached his left hand around to his back.

“Hey, what the hell are you doing?!”

The instant that panicked cry was heard, the left hand was severed at the wrist, left clinging to the link of the chain in true agitation.

“What’ve you done to me?!”

“Deal with it,” the Hunter replied, the blade his right hand had held already back in its sheath. Pulling what looked like a ball of woolly black thread from an inner pocket of his coat, D took hold of one end of it. There was a sharp fishhook tied to it.

“Hey, you’d better knock this off!” his left hand cried, still protesting vehemently as the hook sank ruthlessly into its open wound.

__

IV

__

Where the team of D and the baron differed from the normal employer/bodyguard relationship was that both of them were highly capable—the one being protected was every bit as powerful as his defender. Due to this, there was no reason for the bodyguard to constantly stick to the baron; instead, he was free to leave his employer when he wished to seek out his foes and destroy them. No bodyguard in the world did a better job of embodying the expression, “A strong offense is the best defense.”

After letting go of the chain that stretched up to the heavens, D rode his horse up onto a steep stone staircase that was another six hundred feet away. While it was unclear who had fashioned these stone stairs in the distant past, the cyborg horse finished climbing the ten thousand steps in about twenty minutes.

They came to an open space that seemed to have been carved from the side of the mountain. It was with good reason that the first human explorers to discover this place were so awestruck that they couldn’t move for three days or three nights, until they ultimately dried out like mummies.

At the far side of the carved-out mountainside, more than a hundred stone statues over three hundred feet high had been sculpted. Was it gods the mason had tried to carve with his chisel in days of yore, or something else? Some of them glared down at the earth, others scowled at the sky, their hands with fingers curled as if to seize something, or balled in fists, or laid flat to deliver a chop. Their looks were fearsome. The impact they had was far beyond the scope of good and evil, robbing those who saw them of their will and tearing away their minds.

At the feet of the foremost sculpture D could make out the form of Crimson Stitchwort.

“Glad you could make it, D!” the most atrocious of Hunters said as he blinked his eyes.

As intimidating as D was, his beauty was almost enough to make the other man utterly collapse.

Mustering his strength, the assassin said, “However, don’t delude yourself that you made it all this way without being noticed. I’ve got an eye in the sky.”

The brief upward glimpse made by D’s eyes left Crimson Stitchwort satisfied.

“One of the Nobility’s toys?” D muttered. “Where did the other guy go?”

Crimson Stitchwort was shaken.

“How did you know about Yoputz? Well, I don’t suppose it matters. It’s only fitting that you take on the toys. You can go to your grave being happy to have made it this far. The baron and the woman should be joining you shortly.”

He had a strange object by his side—rolled-up parchment scrolls etched with some unknown designs. Drawing one of them from the bunch with his right hand, he shook it up in front of his face. There was a crisp snap, and the parchment unrolled like a wall hanging. Veinlike lines ran across its surface. Suddenly, one of the squiggles glowed with a blue light.

At the same time, the vanguard of the stone statues threw its chest out powerfully. Its stony biceps swelled, and its abdominal muscles rippled. What manner of technology had been used to give it such flexibility? The earth shook as if from a thunderclap. The stone statue had taken a step forward.

At its feet, the figure in black was replaced by the sound of iron-shod hooves at a gallop. Hadn’t the Hunter been at all surprised by this?

“Holy shit!” Crimson Stitchwort shouted as he leapt out of the way.

Whether he was just fast or had intended to do so from the very start, D made a horizontal swipe of his blade that was accompanied by the harsh sound of breaking stone.

The stone statue staggered. A colossus three hundred feet high, its ankle had been split by that one blow from D. And at that point, all of its weight had been resting on that leg. Both hands clutching at thin air, the colossus bowed to the laws of physics.

As its body was falling back against the ground, D galloped right under the statue to close on Crimson Stitchwort.

“Hey, keep away from me!” the assassin shouted as another light sparked to life on the surface of a parchment he held.

The second D bounded into the air, something that could only be described as titanic pierced his cyborg horse through the back and out through the belly. The beast was pinned to the ground by a stone arrow more than a hundred and twenty feet in length. It was also more than three feet thick. The power born of the projectile’s size and velocity instantly tore the cyborg horse to pieces.

At the far edge of the clearing, a stone statue was readying a second arrow. From midair, D lobbed a silvery cylinder at its feet. It emitted a ruby red light that enveloped the lower half of the statue—it was a Stein atomic grenade the baron had given him. In the crimson flames, the statue’s ankles, knees, and thighs all collapsed like feeble clay, and then the upper body was consumed as well, bow and arrow still in hand.

Part of the flames landed on the ground midway between the airborne D and the earthbound Crimson Stitchwort. D came down in the midst of the flaming mass, but a second later, it was Crimson Stitchwort who cried out. As D was hemmed in by the fire, his sword had taken the other Hunter’s right arm off at the elbow. One more swipe of his blade and the number of pursuers would most definitely be decreased.

However, at that point, D audibly heard a hoarse voice tell him, “I sense someone moving toward where the carriages are parked. Someone tough.”

Crimson Stitchwort narrowly managed to leap out of the path of the sword while his opponent’s concentration was broken.

Instead of giving chase, D spun around. The words “someone tough” prompted him to dash to the edge of the cliff. Now without a horse, he couldn’t spare the time it would take to run back down the stairs. But he couldn’t possibly be thinking of throwing himself from a height of nearly fifteen hundred feet. Below, the river flowed like a thread.

His coat billowing out around him, the figure in black dropped toward the water’s surface like a magical bird.

__

As D confronted Crimson Stitchwort, the baron was checking on Miska. Her coffin had been transformed into a stylish bed, and the beauty that lay on it in a white dress stared off into space. In the process of coming to the surface, the Destroyer entity within Miska had forced her ego deep into her subconscious. The shock of that still lingered.

As the baron turned his back to her without offering any words of solace, Miska called out, “What—what do you think I am? I know now,” she continued. “Inside my body, nay, inside my psyche there is this entity called the Destroyer.”

“That’s—”

“It shall take control of my body again at some point, and there is nothing I can do to stop it! It will rain destruction on every last thing in this world. Even on you.”

“There is a way to deal with this.”

The baron’s reply made Miska knit her brow.

“Is there truly?”

“In the village of Krauhausen is a physician who served the Frontier’s Central Controller. His name is Jean de Carriole. I’m sure he of all people could cure you.”

Miska was at a loss for words.

“This man received his instruction in the field of magical surgery directly from the Sacred Ancestor. And he delivered me when my mother was pregnant.”

“He delivered you, Baron?”

Miska had never seen this tragic cast to the baron’s features. She was moved.

A strong hand touched her cheek.

“It may be that I am no longer a Noble. Can you understand what that means?”

“And is it to learn this that you go to Krauhausen?”

“The night is passing swiftly. If you’re feeling up to it, why don’t you step outside for a bit? The canyon is brimming with moonlight and life.”

And leaving her with that, the baron stepped out of the carriage. Above him, the moon glowed. The sharp look he gave to the far reaches of the valley was the complete opposite of the gaze that had rested on Miska. Even back here, the ultra-keen senses of the Nobility had allowed him to catch the sound made by the chain. He alone knew of D’s deadly battle.

A scent utterly unbecoming the stillness assailed his nostrils. Covering his mouth and nose with his cape, the baron turned his eyes toward a spot in the darkness. He couldn’t sense anyone. Suddenly all the strength left his body. More accurately, he’d actually lost the very will from which that strength sprang. A feeling of ineffable futility filled his being. His cape came down.

The next thing the baron knew, he was a slave to a desire that made his flesh tremble. He wanted to drink. To suck the warm blood from a human. The baron fought desperately to restrain the longing that swelled within him. But the vortex quickly pulled him in, sucking him down. Putting one hand to his forehead, the baron sat up. And as he was doing so, the scent of blood that hung in the air only grew that much heavier.

“No!” he groaned. His whole body shook.

Reason reclaimed what had been a somewhat perverse expression. His mental faculties were wrestling with the craving that set his blood ablaze. He then lowered his face.

A minute passed. Then two.

There was the sound of a door opening back at the carriages. Having glimpsed the baron through the window, Taki had noticed he was acting strangely and opened the door. While the Nobility had a special knack for sensing the aroma of blood filling the air, Taki didn’t have the slightest inkling about it. She took a step toward the Nobleman, and then another.

“Stay back!” the baron told her, his words stopping the young woman in her tracks.

Assailed by an instinctive fear, she turned to go back to the carriage.

“No, come to me,” the baron said. He had turned in Taki’s direction.

“No!” Taki cried, shaking her head.

“Turn and look at me,” he told her in the same mannered tone he always used.

A cold wind struck the nape of Taki’s neck.

You can’t turn around, she thought. You absolutely mustn’t do it!

Slowly she turned.

The baron was on his feet, his cape covering his mouth. As the breath was knocked out of the girl, the baron’s face approached the nape of her neck. His cape had come away from it.

Letting out a scream, Taki fainted.

His face still pressed to the girl’s pale neck, the baron held the senseless form for some time, and then laid her gently on the ground after a short while.

Somewhere in the heavens there was a sharp clang.

__

When D raced back, the wind swirling in his wake, the baron stood slumped back against the carriage, and a thicker aroma of blood hung in the air. Halting, D stared down at the baron’s feet. Two figures lay there. Taki and May.

Walking over and examining their necks, D said, “We had a deal.” His tone was soft.

A shadow suddenly scudded across the moon.

He’d plunged fifteen hundred feet into the river and then run all the way there. Yet due to his incredible strength, the young man wasn’t even breathing hard. He was gorgeous. Simply gorgeous.

“What happened to your left hand?” asked the baron.

Only a stump protruded from D’s left sleeve.

The baron made a mighty leap backward. Just a heartbeat later, D’s blade mowed through the darkness. The baron limned a graceful arc to the left, and D raced right after him.

The baron’s cape expelled a flash of white light.

Batting it away with one stroke, D made a bound. His blade sank deep into the left side of the baron’s chest, coming out through his back. The baron’s body collapsed, and the blade remained in D’s hand as it naturally slid out again.

“What are you doing?” Miska was heard to say from the vicinity of the white carriage.

Apparently the Noblewoman had just been coming out, with one of her feet resting on the ground and the other still on the steps. Her pale and beautiful visage was warped by surprise.

“Baron!” she cried as she dashed over to him, and after looking down at his death mask, she soon stared at D. Her eyes glowed with red tears. Tears of blood. Her elegant expression instantly began to change into that of the devil himself. From hatred—and the scent of blood.

“You shall pay for that, D! I can’t believe you would do this to him!”

Standing tall in her white dress, the Noblewoman looked so alluring, so elegant.

“Now the Destroyer wishes to come out. Do you want me to set it free?”

Saying nothing, D readied his sword in the low position.

Taki was dead, May had been slain, and the baron was destroyed, leaving only D and Miska out of the whole group. With the two of them now locked in deadly combat, the utter annihilation of their party wasn’t inconceivable.

The moon remained hidden by dark clouds even now, and the sounds of the water were so distant as to be of no comfort.

Could D take on the Destroyer and win?