CANYON OF BLOOD

CHAPTER 6

I

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Something strange suddenly occurred at the scene of the deadly conflict. All of the strength rapidly drained from Miska’s body. No, not her strength, but rather the will that created that strength. As the stupefied Noblewoman drew back, the blade of D’s sword slid in between her breasts far too easily.

Miska fell . . . and she wasn’t the only one. D had also been driven to one knee. Struck by a powerful loss of psyche—they’d been robbed of their drive.

A different voice drifted out in the moonlight, saying, “I was going to have the woman slay you, but when I cast my spell on both of you, it turned out you resisted it better than she. Well, that’s not a problem. By now, you should be finding it bothersome to even draw breath. You’re in no position to feel any hostility toward this humble holy man.”

D looked up dazedly toward the source of the voice. On the roof of a black carriage a shape the same hue was moving. A man in priestly garb rose from the carriage. It went without saying that the old man who’d suddenly stood up was Yoputz.

“Surely both you and the baron were searching for some sign of me. But it was no use. Before you is a man who was but one short step from attaining the highest level in a secret faith. The power to replace one’s body with nothingness is something not even the senses of the Nobility could see through,” the old man said, his stony face crumpling. He’d just smiled.

And then he jumped easily to the ground. Looking at the baron’s corpse, he said, “It occurred to me to try this approach after he had to fight the urge to drink the blood of a village girl due to his agreement with you. No matter how powerful his will might’ve been, he was still a Noble, and after being inundated by the scent of blood, this was the only thing that could happen with two hot-blooded girls so close at hand. D, you did well to fight the urge. Dhampir though you are, I’m impressed. Ouf!”

The cause of that cry at the end was a plain wooden needle that had sprouted from Yoputz’s left shoulder. It looked like the reason that this shot aimed for his heart had missed the mark was because even the great D was still to some degree suffering from the effects of Yoputz’s spell.

Before D could get to his feet, Yoputz moved smoothly to the entrance to the canyon, where he once again let out a scream of pain as he toppled backward. A flash of light had split open his right side—it had shot out of the baron’s cape.

“You . . . you bastard! You’re still alive? Oh . . . so it was all an act, was it?”

“Precisely,” Baron Balazs replied with a nod as he slowly got to his feet again. “I dealt a blow to each of the girls to knock them out, but I didn’t suck their blood. D’s eyes were sure to note the absence of teeth marks at the base of their necks. He narrowly missed my heart in order to lure you out, since we couldn’t tell where you were. Due to my wound, I may have been wide of the mark just now, but that won’t happen this time.”

His cape released a flash of light. It went right through Yoputz’s body and hit the boulder behind him before flying back.

Yoputz had suddenly vanished.

As the baron’s body stiffened with tension, behind him D dashed over to the boulder on his left and drove his blade into its rocky surface. A beastly moan of pain rang out, and as the moon peeked between the clouds, it palely illuminated the form of Yoputz as he appeared on the surface of the rock.

“How . . . did you . . . know?” the old man sputtered, a mass of blood spilling from his mouth as he reached for the blade that pierced the base of his throat. And then his head lolled to one side limply.

Pulling his sword back out, D went back to the carriages.

As he scooped Miska up in his arms, the baron said, “That was an impressive thrust. She’s unconscious, but otherwise unharmed. But I would like to know the same thing. How did you know where the old man was?”

“The chain rang out,” D replied as he walked over to Taki and May.

Not even the baron noticed the incredibly fine thread that hung from the Hunter’s left arm and ran off deep into the canyon.

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The pair of carriages traveled through a canyon lit solely by moonlight. Strange as it was, those who owned the vehicles, male and female, could see right through the dark of night. The carriages raced down the road alongside the river that cut through the canyon.

“That just leaves one individual and one group,” the baron up in the driver’s seat said to D, who rode right next to the carriage.

“Don’t get careless,” said D. “As long as one of those is in the water, and the other is somewhere in the canyon, they are forces to be reckoned with.”

“I’m well aware of that,” the baron replied, now fully recovered from their deadly encounter with Yoputz.

Here was a man who’d not only kept from sinking his fangs into Taki and May while the stench of blood surrounded him, but had even had the presence of mind to pretend he was feeding on them. He was made of sterner stuff than the average Noble.

“Are you wondering about that?” the baron asked out of the blue.

D merely shifted his eyes to look at him.

“No, you wouldn’t have an interest in anyone else’s personal affairs or their motivations, I suppose. To the contrary, it is I that am curious. You are no ordinary dhampir.”

“Rumor has it that Vlad Balazs was happy to receive the Sacred Ancestor,” D said, changing the subject. “With the help of Jean de Carriole, a doctor the Sacred Ancestor took under his wing, it is said they conducted mysterious experiments night and day. Their subjects were said to be very young girls and infants.”

The baron said nothing.

“I can imagine what sort of experiments they must’ve conducted. So, was one of their results you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” the baron replied, his denial vehement. “But coming from you, I don’t find the conjecture that hard to accept. I have met other dhampirs—one or two rather skilled individuals out on the Frontier. But their intellect, their strength, their skill with weapons—none of them were even close to you. You’re in a completely different class. D—weren’t you the result the Sacred Ancestor was after?”

“Once we’re through the canyon, it’s just two more days to Krauhausen,” said D. “Are you prepared to slay your father?”

“Yes, and I have been ever since I decided to make this journey.”

Something suddenly occurred to the baron, and the musings of his heart became speech.

“Miska, what have you come all this way for?” he muttered to himself.

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After they’d gone about a mile and a quarter, the road came to an incline. The running water that had D and the baron most concerned was quickly sinking further and further below them.

“Now one of your fears has been laid to rest,” Miska called out from her carriage.

When the baron turned to look, the Noblewoman in white was sitting in the driver’s seat.

Ordinarily, anyone would’ve agreed with what she’d said, but the two men said nothing. They knew exactly how powerful the Dark Water Forces were.

Just then, a strange susurration reached the ears of all three of them, the sound doubling over itself time and again as if it’d bounced off every single rock in the valley. It was the sound of a water droplet falling.

At that, the trio grew so tense and acted so decisively that it actually seemed quite strange.

The whips cracked in both the baron’s and Miska’s hands. The hooves of the horses tore at the soil roughly.

D brought up the rear. The horse he rode was one that had been pulling the baron’s carriage.

The sound drew closer. Though actually quite lovely, it wasn’t just a single sound. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of them pursued the two vehicles.

“Get in your carriages,” D ordered them.

The Hunter was slowing down. Suddenly, his horse’s stride was broken, and the same was true for the animals drawing the carriages. Partway up this steep slope, the horses bent their legs, lay down where they were, and began to snore quite comfortably. Of course, the carriages had come to a dead stop.

D swiftly got off of his horse and went over to the baron and Miska, saying, “Put these in your ears.”

They were earplugs fashioned from hardened wax. Although the baron took a pair and promptly put them in his ears, Miska’s fell from her hand. Slumping over the driver’s-seat railing, the Noblewoman had fallen into a deep sleep.

“Used the water, did they?” D mused as he got Miska down out of the driver’s seat and put her into her carriage.

Basically, the sound of falling water droplets tended to induce sleep. And the Dark Water Forces had taken this simple phenomenon and applied it on an enormous scale throughout the entire canyon. While the reverberations that surrounded the two men sounded rather discordant to their ears, there was actually an extremely refined rhythm to them.

“Well, we can’t move now. What will they try next?” the baron asked as he looked down the incline.

In the depths of his ears, the rhythm changed.

An aura of murderous intent enveloped every inch of the two men like a fall frost.

Just then, the horses that seemed to have fallen into a deep sleep rose in unison, twisting around before they began a mad gallop back down to the base of the cliff.

The sound of the water could do more than simply entice someone to sleep—it was a form of hypnotism that could even gain control of the minds of animals.

Caught off guard by the horses’ swift and spirited flight, the two men didn’t even have time to leap back on, and they could only watch as the carriages dwindled in the distance.

“I’ll go after them,” the baron said with a glance at D.

“Stay here,” said D. Though it was for the protection of his employer, his manner was rather blunt, but the baron didn’t seem to take exception to it in the least.

“There’s no point in staying. If I were to remain here alone and be attacked and injured, it would be your fault.”

“There’s Lady Miska to worry about, too.”

“If I were in danger, I’m sure you’d say that to get me to flee. And once you’d brought me to a safe location, you’d no doubt return to the battle alone.”

“If you’re not going to listen to what I tell you, then I’ll nullify our agreement. Stay here,” D said, his tone as quiet as ever—and like steel.

While it was unclear what the baron made of him as he gazed intently at the Hunter’s face, he then raised his right hand and said, “Very well, then. I leave it entirely to you. Good luck.”

D spun around.

As he watched horse and rider gallop off for the bottom of the valley like a black wind, the baron muttered, “I’m counting on you.”

Counting on D to save whom? Miska? Or someone else?

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II

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Taki and May were awake from the very start. They’d had plenty of time to sleep and, shut in the carriage as they were, the sound of the droplets hadn’t even reached them. Although they noticed the horses galloping out of control, there was nothing the two of them could do but stare at the darkness flying by outside their windows.

When the carriages reached the bottom of the canyon, they raced along the riverside for some time before a full roar began to draw nearer.

Out in the flow, bumps rose by a sandbar like the backbone of some giant monster. Sending up a silvery spray, the carriages rode over them and began to fight the current.

The roar grew louder, until it began to shake the very air. Covering the rocky road, it also coated the trees and grass with its dampness.

After about ten minutes, cliffs suddenly sprang up on either side of them. The flow here was wider and wilder than the actual river, and it raised a steady snarl. But even the clamor of those tumultuous waves was put in its place by the sound of water coursing over a sheer six-hundred-foot drop. A waterfall.

The width of the curtain of water was more than sixty feet, and the top of the falls must’ve been up more than a thousand feet. The spray that fell where the carriages had stopped was a mere mist, but another thirty feet ahead were actual droplets of water. If you were to approach the bottom of the falls any closer than that, it would’ve felt like standing in a downpour.

The road before the carriages gleamed damply in the moonlight, but no sooner had a few black blobs formed on its surface than they swiftly rose and took human form. Nothing could’ve risen from the thin film of water coating the rocks but the warriors of the Dark Water Forces.

“Don’t go out there!” Taki said as she held May tight. D had told them that as long as they remained in the carriage, they’d be safe.

The shadowy figures stood still in the moonlight, staring at the carriage without saying a word or coming any closer, and then they unexpectedly sank back down into the rocks.

As the two girls swung between relief and anxiety, their ears caught a knock at the door. The face that hung outside the square of glass like a pale bloom was that of Miska. Although she wasn’t exactly the ideal person to make them feel at ease, she was better than the Dark Water Forces, and the two girls put their hands to their hearts with relief.

“Open the door,” they heard Miska say. The girls weren’t sure if there was some sort of microphone out there known only to the Nobility.

May reached for the doorknob, but Taki stopped her.

“No, not until the baron or D gets here.”

“But those other guys took off. It must’ve been because Miska came out!”

“But I—”

The two of them hadn’t seen Miska fall asleep. And Taki for one couldn’t fathom why she alone would’ve come with them.

“Open up. You’re safe now,” the Noblewoman said with a rap on the window. “We can’t wait here for the good baron to arrive. Let’s head back to him. If we don’t, there’s no telling when those villains might come. You shall have to turn your horses around yourself.”

__

That last remark won Taki’s confidence.

“Gladly,” the young woman said as she opened the door.

Damp night air blustered in. Leaning out the door, Taki grabbed hold of a special handrail and climbed up into the driver’s seat. Both the handrail and the seat were soaking wet.

The young woman took up the reins. While working as Lord Johann’s assistant she’d learned how to handle horses. But the horses weren’t at all inclined to turn back the way they’d come. The road was quite narrow.

“That looks tough. Allow me to help,” someone said as a black glove reached over from beside Taki and took the reins.

“Huh?!”

The name Galil didn’t immediately spring to mind.

The young woman instinctively looked down at the carriage door. It was open—a pale hand held it that way.

Turning in the young woman’s direction and twisting her vermilion lips into a nasty grin, Miska still had the vacant look of someone utterly lacking in free will glazing her eyes.

Instead of hearing the breath being taken from Taki, the sound of a chain’s impact rang out in the distance.

__

After his black subordinates had led Taki and May away, Galil walked over to where Miska stood like a pale blossom and ripped the front of her dress wide open. The breasts that spilled out were even fuller and smoother than they’d appeared through her clothing. Even when his black-gloved hands insolently gripped her, fingers sinking into her flesh from the force, Miska remained expressionless. For the haughty young woman’s will was completely under the sway of Galil and his spell.

“We have a use of sorts for those other two. Not that I’m terribly taken with using women and children like that. But when it comes to Nobles, I’m more than happy to get just as rough as it takes!”

Galil then turned to the base of the waterfall.

“Neither D nor the baron will know about this place. Prepare an attack to welcome them with the utmost speed,” he ordered in a stern tone.

Twenty minutes later, a gigantic star shone in the night sky over the valley. A flare to lure D and the baron.

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Needless to say, the two girls were aces up the sleeve of the Dark Water Forces. And what had they done with them? Incredibly enough, the pair was hanging upside down partway up the waterfall—at a height of roughly three hundred feet. The rope around their legs was held by a member of the Dark Water Forces who was hidden in the cataract, the powerful curtain of water posing no obstacle at all to his kind. While the two girls hung outside the actual falls, they were naturally subjected to its spray. In order that they might continue breathing, Galil had wrapped them from head to toe in a thin transparent membrane. Not a drop of water would penetrate it, but they could still breathe freely. While it may have seemed an unnecessary and even bizarre bit of concern on his part, it was clear that his true motivation wasn’t merely an evil desire to keep his prisoners from dying too quickly.

And so they waited. Some of the warriors concealed themselves in the pool at the base of the waterfall; others took cover behind damp boulders with weapons in hand while a deadly determination churned with the roar of the cataract.

And finally, the time came.

The first to notice was the one in the curtain of water who held up Taki and May. The instant he sensed something other than water not quite behind himself but rather in the deafening torrent that fell from above, he took a terrific blow to the head before he could alert his compatriots, and his unconscious form was caught and held fast by a pair of arms like steel.

As the water battered their backs, Taki and May twisted around and saw a hazy but gorgeous countenance peering out at them from the dark torrents. There was scarcely enough moonlight to make out who it was.

“D!” they cried in unison, but thank heavens for small favors—the sound wasn’t heard by anyone due to the membrane that surrounded them.

After making sure that they were fine, D then slowly began to climb the falls with the rope in one hand. The group below didn’t notice. It was beyond their comprehension that the hand of deliverance would reach down from so incredibly high overhead—from thousands of feet above!

D had indeed come for them, and once he had rescued the pair he made a sure and powerful climb to the top. However, even a little consideration made it clear what an incredible amount of strength this labor entailed. It wasn’t just the two girls he was carrying—over one shoulder he also had the Dark Water Forces member who’d held the rope around the girls’ ankles. The man hadn’t been slain to guard against his blood spilling into the pool at the base of the waterfall, but he added greatly to the load. What’s more, there was the force of the water dropping from so high above to consider—it felt hard as steel when it struck.

After climbing about a thousand feet, D sensed something odd off to the right. A rock jutted out roughly into the water. Ordinarily, water would chisel and smooth the rock walls flat over the ages. This rock was an impossible occurrence. Perhaps D had noticed it on his way down the falls, because it was there that he set down the two girls and the unconscious Dark Water Forces member. It was more than wide enough to accommodate them all.

Without cutting through the membrane, D wrapped the thin rope he held in his hand around the outcropping and told them, “Stay here.”

The reason went without saying. He intended to finish off the Dark Water Forces.

But how had he gotten there in the first place? Without a horse, it would’ve taken D a few hours just to reach the top of the falls. Had he discovered some other trick from antiquity like the chain? Or had he known something?

“Well, I’m off.”

And with no more apparent concern for the two girls, D took his foe under his arm and dove toward the pool at the base of the waterfall. He plummeted twelve hundred feet. With several tons of water falling per second, no one could distinguish the presence of the Hunter or the Dark Water Forces member he had with him.

Allowing the water to carry him where it would, D then struck out with his blade whenever he came into contact with his foes. In no time at all the dozen opponents who’d concealed themselves in the basin and flow had been slain, each dying instantly, and by the time the soldiers by the wet boulders noticed their losses, D had already leapt up onto the rocky surface to the left and cut into wet stone—or rather, he cut the film of water that covered the boulders. A number of shadowy figures fell without so much as a groan, tumbling backward and sinking once more into the stony ground.

The Hunter attacked almost as if he knew where every last one of them was hidden, even killing the foes who appeared from the looming rock wall with a single blow each, until finally D faced Galil, who stood at the edge of the basin.

“Just what I should’ve expected from you, D!” the commander of the Dark Water Forces said with admiration, his pearly teeth bared. Taking a quick glance at the falls behind him, he added, “It would appear I’ve lost my hostages as well. Are they still alive?”

D nodded.

“Good. If there’s one thing I didn’t like about all this, it’s what I had to do to those girls,” Galil remarked, the smile on his face horribly serene. “But I’m afraid the other woman was a completely different matter. See for yourself.”

Galil raised his right hand and gestured to the black water at his feet. Although the spray fell like a heavy downpour where the two of them were positioned on the outer rim of the waterfall basin, the pair of strange black boulders that loomed to either side of Galil formed a perfect shelter from the rain. What he pointed to was a spot where the rock had been worn down deep to form a small pool with a placid surface. Something pale drifted into view like a specter. Miska.

“The baron’s companion. I don’t know whether she’s a client of yours or not, but it seemed like she’d serve as a hostage. That makes it a little more difficult to fight, doesn’t it, D?”

The blade of the sword D held in his right hand glittered in the moonlight.

“Before we do battle, there’s something I’d like to know. Did you come from the top of the falls?”

“Yes,” he said, though it was rare for this young man to reply to a question from his foes.

“And the way you dispatched my men—it was almost as if you knew precisely where we were all positioned. Did you get someone to tell you?”

“This canyon was home to a race of people in greatest antiquity whose rule rivaled that of the Nobility,” said D. “They hung a chain from the rock face in order to determine the number in their tribe or to uncover invaders. It’s said that when it strikes the rock wall, the chain sends a very special sound wave out across the canyon that makes the number and position of every living thing clear. It even reaches into caves in the rocks or the flowing water.”

“I see. I wasn’t aware of that. So, would that be the echoes I heard? Though in terms of the timing, I don’t see how you could’ve been the one ringing it.”

D raised his left hand.

Seeing that the Hunter was missing everything from the wrist down, Galil then squinted his eyes.

“My hand rang the chain. And that’s enough talk.”

“Not quite. How did you manage to get to the top of the falls without us noticing?”

“I took the elevator.”

As Galil’s brow crinkled, a silvery flash of light sank into his face. D’s stroke split open the very same place he’d cut in the past, sending the man reeling backward.

Galil’s right hand stroked the mark where the blade had run from the top of his head down to his chin. The line vanished.

“Last time, I let my guard down. I’m much better prepared tonight.”

Galil’s finger pointed toward the submerged Noblewoman, and then a tiny spark flew from between his fingers and hit Miska’s right shoulder. Her pale shoulder burst out from the inside. The spark had been an ultra-compact missile.

“That’s a strange weapon for the commander of the Dark Water Forces to be using,” D remarked.

“Lay down your sword, D. Join us.”

Once again, the sound of water droplets began to ring out.

“With you and her under our control, slaying even the offspring of Lord Balazs would be a simple task. D—drop the blade.”

The simple yet deep melody might’ve sounded like a lullaby to the Hunter. D’s knees buckled. He didn’t have anything plugging his ears now.

Galil succumbed to a grin, but it was summarily wiped from his lips. He’d seen a caped figure gracefully closing from behind D, moving in the moonlight with a blueness reminiscent of the bottom of the sea.

“Milord Baron Byron Balazs,” Galil called out to him.

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III

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“I’m—”

“—a filthy assassin sent by my father. And that’s all I need to know,” the baron said in a tone that called to mind ice.

The sound of the droplets persisted. But with his ears plugged, the baron was reading Galil’s lips.

“If you insist.”

“Will you destroy me, or will you and yours die?”

“I must accomplish what I was sent here to do.”

“Is my father well?” the baron inquired.

“He is the very picture of health.”

“I should’ve liked to talk with him at length at least once more, but that’s no longer possible. As soon as I arrive, I shall slay him.”

“No—I can’t allow that.”

“I suppose even now my mother’s grave never wants for flowers, does it?”

Galil said nothing.

“What’s wrong? Answer me.”

“Lord Balazs had it destroyed.”

Despite the darkness, the man could see how the baron’s complexion had changed.

“He feels the need to defile even the dead, does he?” the Nobleman muttered.

Galil backed away, driven by a fear greater than any even D had inspired in him.

“My dear baron—if you move, her life will be forfeit,” Galil said, indicating Miska with his right hand.

“Nonsense,” the baron laughed. “Nobles are dead from the very beginning.”

The light that flashed from the hem of his cape caught Galil between the legs and shot up through him. As it flew out through the top of his head, the line it’d left in him vanished.

“My father always did have an eye for talent. How about this, then?”

The flash of light changed direction.

Blasting a missile into Miska as he went, Galil leapt for the enormous boulder to his right.

In midair, the light bisected his torso. Such an attack would be ineffectual against flowing water, but the streak of light that entered the man’s torso grew thicker for an instant. The liquid cells that were about to join and close the wound were blown asunder by the sheer force of that light. Unable to rejoin, Galil’s body was reduced to a pair of bizarre objects that fell into the same dark pool as Miska.

A column of water shot up.

Swiftly throwing himself into the pool, the baron pulled Miska out. The flesh around her shoulder and heart was torn open from the blast of the missiles.

“D—” the baron began, but seeing how the beautiful Hunter stood there silently with sword in hand, he decided against saying anything more.

The sound of the water droplets continued.

“Were you lulled into taking a nap? Or did you just want to see what I could do?” asked the baron.

Without a word, D turned his gaze to Miska.

Perhaps taking this as concern, the baron told him, “She’ll be fine. After all, she harbors the Destroyer.”

The Nobleman’s face suddenly turned to the heavens.

D was already looking up at the sky.

What both of them had felt was a quaking—a grave tremor that seemed to rumble from the very deepest bowels of the earth.

“Get in the carriage,” D said as he pointed in that direction.

Now the rocks and the falls—in fact, the whole canyon—were shaking. This must’ve been Galil’s final contingency. Capable of putting even the Nobility to sleep, the rhythm of the droplets had shifted to sonic waves resonating in a destructive range, and the canyon had begun to collapse as a result.

As the baron ran with Miska cradled in his arms, chunks of the rock face fell and rebounded all around him, while the disturbance they caused in the flow of the water sent angry waves crashing over D. Turning and looking back as he opened the carriage door, the baron saw the waterfall writhing like a serpent and the blackness of the shattered precipice, which made it seem as if the very sky were falling.

After about three minutes of this energy running amok, the great canyon that had witnessed tens of thousands of years of history was destroyed, and order returned. Now only a few dribbles of water fell from the rock walls, which were adorned by the dull gleam of metal. With the rocks that had covered it now gone, the true nature of the cliff was finally laid bare. It was a massive metallic rampart. Most of the fortress had been lost in antiquity, leaving this section alone. Ultra-ancient technology had triumphed over the contemporary forces of destruction.

The ramparts hadn’t been the least bit rattled by the power that had brought about the collapse, and on what appeared to be a radar site protruding from the lower region of the wall, the two girls remained safe and sound. Seeing the gorgeous man in black far below them in the wreckage of what had once been the waterfall’s basin, they waved.

The light of morning had begun to take stock of the world.

“That was a hell of a racket,” a hoarse voice called out from D’s feet as the Hunter made his way over to an entrance to the rear of the ramparts, where he could take a high-speed elevator up to retrieve the girls.

Bending over and picking up the severed limb, D then put it against his left wrist. And in the blink of an eye, his left hand was reconnected.

D had tossed the needle and extremely fine thread down at his feet before reattaching his hand. Even with the swift reflexes of a dhampir, it must’ve been quite an undertaking to wind up more than three miles of thread.

The left hand had interpreted the supersonic waves released when the chain struck the cliff and conveyed the number and location of the Dark Water Forces members to D—and knowing that this thread had acted as a go-between, D’s action might’ve been described as ungrateful. The only way he could’ve known where the bizarre priest Yoputz was hidden was through that very thread.

Somewhere off in the distance, there were signs of movement. Apparently the baron and Miska—and their carriages and horses—had survived.

“Brawling in an ancient battlefield, smashing a whole canyon to bits—this sure has been a lively trip!” the voice said with exasperation. “That takes care of all the assassins that’ve been after Balazs till now, but there’s still time. New trouble may come looking for us. Don’t get sloppy.”

D walked off toward the ramparts without addressing the remark. And as he did, the air of solitude that hung about him seemed perfectly complemented by the frigid light of dawn.