RUINS ON AN ANCIENT BATTLEFIELD

CHAPTER 3

I

__

The armored giant pressed his left hand to his fist. Pale sparks shot from between his fingers, and tendrils of electricity snaked out.

“Impressive. This is what you can do when you can’t see? You’re not an average person after all. This suit is made of superdense dupronium. Ah!” he gasped, as D bounded, looking like a haunting black bird as he descended in the twilight. His blade flashed out. However, this second attack struck the right arm the Nobleman had raised to shield his head and was deflected.

“That’s what happens when I’m ready for you. It’s dupronium to start with, but it’s been treated so that I can will it to be even stronger. And I won’t let my guard down again.”

And then the duke dashed into action. Over five tons of armor closed on D with all the speed of a swallow in flight. His left hand threw a hook. When the punch was halfway to impacting on D’s face, a three-foot blade slipped from the duke’s arm from wrist to elbow and the hook became a horizontal slash. There was a sharp cutting sound in the air—and in a copse far beyond the reach of the blade, five or six neatly severed trees fell across the road. The speed was so great it created a vacuum, and anything that touched it would split open like the famous slice of the monstrous Kamaitachi.

The bottom of D’s coat suddenly opened like a mouth. The duke’s blade was coming back—but a split second before it did, the Hunter kicked off the ground. Becoming a bolt of black lightning, he flew at Roland’s chest.

“Aaaargh!” the giant bellowed, his cry accompanied by blue electrical discharge.

The enormous armored combatant staggered back smoothly. Perhaps the thrust at his chest didn’t suffice, as the Hunter’s blade came around for a second attack.

Roland’s massive, five-ton form sailed easily through the air. A great branch thirty feet up in an enormous tree by the side of the road bent under his weight as he stood straight up on it. Undoubtedly this exoskeleton could walk across a damp sheet of paper without tearing it.

“So, does this mean your own will’s grown stronger, too?” the armored figure asked, pressing a hand against his chest. There were no streaks of blood to be seen with the pale sparks. “Perhaps I’d have been better off going with a regular metal suit of armor after all. At any rate, I’ll take my leave here. But my daughter’s life depends on this. You’ll see me again, and soon.”

The gigantic form left the branch—and as the Hunter stood there, his foe flew off into a stand of trees in a manner that suggested nothing short of antigravity. He hadn’t made a single sound.

“Capitalizing on your injury—or should I say, your blindness? The only reason you were able to block his attack was because you couldn’t see!” the hoarse voice said, its tone carrying a sigh of relief.

In a battle to the death, combatants used their own two eyes to follow the movements of their foe. But even D wouldn’t have been able to follow the speed of the exoskeleton. Only by relying on blind instinct had he deflected the swift and deadly blow, then counterattacked.

“You really gonna be blind like this for a while? I suppose it’s better for that guy, at least,” the Hunter’s left hand said to him in all seriousness while, moving as if he could actually see, D went over to where he’d set Rosaria down by the side of the road and scooped her up.

__

The exoskeleton was equipped with automatic repair circuits. They would work to restore not only the armor, but also the person using it.

D’s sword had narrowly missed Roland’s heart, instead piercing his right lung clean through to his back. The laws of physics said it was impossible to penetrate the armor, yet the swordsman had come within a fraction of an inch of skewering the man within it—thanks to his peerless skill with a blade. What’s more, Roland’s cellular tissue wouldn’t knit back together. An injury from an ordinary sword or spear—or even from a bullet—could be healed by the ageless and immortal flesh of the Nobility in the blink of an eye, with the wound closing immediately. Even nerve-cell damage that human beings never recovered from could be repaired by an ability on par with the mythical Hydra. It wasn’t a special sword. And this hadn’t been some bizarre sword technique that could bend three-dimensional space. It was just an ordinary thrust. And yet, the ravaged cells gave the duke searing pain, and the lifeblood gushing out required immediate medical attention.

“That damned monster.”

Coming from a Noble’s lips, it seemed like a joke. However, shock and fear supported the truth of his words. The medical systems had told him it would take a full year for him to recover completely.

“I can’t wait that long. At any rate, just give me makeshift aid. Once repairs to the suit are finished, I’m moving out.”

Thirty minutes later, the computer gave him the okay.

__

For travelers on the Noble-infested Frontier, transfusion equipment was an absolute necessity. In addition to bites from vampires, wounds from the teeth and claws of monsters required quick treatment to staunch the bleeding, disinfect the wounds, and replace the lost blood. From kits even a child could use to the artificial blood synthesizers normally carried by large-scale caravans and transport parties, there were easily several hundred varieties crafted by businesses in the Capital and out on the Frontier or even by private physicians. The procedure Sergei had performed on Gordo had involved one of the simple kits, but it had kept him alive, at any rate.

After putting him to sleep in the wagon along with Juke, Sergei went over to the villain lying in the grass. Seeing the innocent face with a crimson flower sticking out of her forehead, Sergei got the feeling he’d become a merciless killer.

“So, what do I do now?” he mused, head tilting to one side as he looked down at the girl.

The ironclad rule of the Frontier was that monsters were to be disposed of, by burning whenever possible. There was no need to dig them a grave.

“Out of my own interest, I’d really love to keep this one alive and bring her with us, but I’ve got those two and all our cargo to look after. Even supposing D came back, we’d still be too short handed to do it. I guess I’ll have to get rid of her after all, won’t I?”

A hoarse voice said, “Bring her along.”

“What?”

Turning in amazement, Sergei saw D emerge from the depths of the forest.

“Did you just tell me to bring her along?”

What had become of his cyborg horse? There were a million things the man wanted to ask, but the second he saw Rosaria over the Hunter’s shoulder, none of them mattered anymore. She’d been saved.

As usual, D didn’t reply to Sergei’s question but said instead, “That girl has a father. A Noble of preeminent skill even among those summoned by the general.”

“What, take her as a hostage? That’s underhanded, and I want no part of it.”

“Staying alive is your primary concern,” D said. “You can think about what’s right or wrong later. If you survive, that is.”

“But as long as we’ve got you along, we’ll be okay, won’t we?”

“The sky’s getting stormy again,” D said, putting one hand to the brim of his traveler’s hat and looking down at Lady Ann.

The Hunter probably knew how badly he’d wounded Roland, as well as his recuperative abilities and the effect of the automated repair system.

“He’ll be coming soon. To correct his daughter’s mistake.”

“Huh?”

A rumble from the earth swallowed Sergei’s cry of surprise—it was a violent quaking. Though the man reached out in desperation, there was nothing to grab hold of, and he was down on his ass in less than a second.

D made a great leap back. In the spot where he’d been, the ground rose up. And what appeared in a shower of black earth was the same gigantic exoskeleton that D had wounded a short time earlier.

“He sure does hustle,” the Hunter’s left hand remarked with admiration.

“I’m in a hurry, you see, D.”

“You said you were concerned about your daughter, didn’t you?” D asked, the quaking of the earth having already given way to calm.

“Precisely. My daughter was one of those summoned. And if I don’t slay you, my daughter will be the next sent out here.”

“Is that what Gaskell said?”

As D spoke, both his hands hung easily by his side, making no move toward the hilt of his weapon.

“Yes.”

“Your daughter’s right there,” D said, pointing down by the feet of the toppled Sergei.

The electronic eyes set in the exoskeleton pivoted around in that direction, and Roland let out a little startled cry of “Lady Ann!”

Hurrying back to his feet, Sergei took what looked like a nail from his belt and pressed it against the girl’s forehead.

“Stop—or you’ll pay the price!”

“That’s no way to speak to the Nobility.”

Sergei shouted, “Get the hell out of here, and be quick about it! If not, I’ll drive this thing smack into the middle of your daughter’s brain. I know exactly how you mourned your daughter before.”

“How could you?” Roland said, his tone heavy.

“Because I’m the best damn archaeologist on the highways! This is where you fought Gaskell’s army. Which is why—”

Eyes that were supposedly lenses gave off a red glow, but the crimson beams of light were intercepted a foot shy of striking Sergei right between the eyes. D’s blade had been thrust out horizontally to deflect them.

The beams assailed the armored figure, who narrowly escaped them with a move at ungodly speed, suffering no more than some melting to the top of his head.

“You’re quick, D!”

Before the giant finished speaking, the figure in black seemed to be drawn right into his chest. The giant dashed to the left. D swung his blade whistling through the air in the same direction. His hand had grasped it up at the guard, but slid all the way down to the end of the hilt. But wasn’t he blind? What allowed him to move with such speed and attack with such precision?

The arc limned by his blade followed the leaping giant closely, making contact with the abdominal plates. And in a frightening display, the steel shredded like paper.

His fluid movements showing their first disruption, the giant landed some twenty-five feet away and fell to one knee, his balance thrown off. The earth shook. Ordinarily, he landed as light as a feather. As he looked upward with his electronic eyes, he caught a handsome form flying through the air. With his sword raised to strike, he looked so beautiful, so deadly. When that blade came whistling down, it would effortlessly cleave the heavy head in two, and bisect the rest of the unit as well.

With a mellifluous sound, D’s body bounced upward. All of the power he’d put into that blow had been channeled back at him. Twisting his body lithely as he landed and raising his blade to eye level, D realized that the giant was holding a long spear straight out over his head. Bracing it with both hands, Roland, the Duke of Xenon, had managed to parry D’s sword. But where in the world had he kept the more than twenty-foot-long weapon? What’s more, D’s blow had been calculated to kill. Given the Hunter’s location, his power, and his force of will, what kind of weapon could resist being cut by him?

“This spear is special. It’s a combination of ions and suspended molecules. When it materializes, it has five thousand times the strength of dupronium steel. Even the man known as D can’t cut through it,” Roland said, his words crafted of pure confidence. “What’s more, I have this little trick—watch!”

The armored figure raised the spear by his side. It promptly vanished. Only the armored hand stretched toward D. It was a second later that the long spear pierced the figure in black through the chest and out the back. No, it didn’t actually pierce him—where D’s chest and back were impaled, they eddied as if space had been distorted. Nuclear fusion—the long spear had suddenly appeared, occupying part of the same space as D’s body. Accordingly, rather than pierce him, it was more accurate to say it grew out of him.

As D tumbled forward, he braced his sword against the ground, clinging to it as he breathed his last.

__

II

__

“There are plenty of suspended molecules, you see.”

Roland’s right arm rose in the air, and a spear appeared in his hand. His left rose, and there was another one. A third appeared and he made a swing of the bunch, following which they vanished in an instant.

“As you can see, I can make as many as I like wherever I like, and make them disappear whenever I wish. So,” the giant said, swiveling his head to focus on Sergei’s location, “are you going to give me back my daughter?”

“Not a chance,” Sergei replied, wiping once at the cold sweat on his face. “You’d kill me as soon as I returned her. But I’ve taken precautions against that.”

He thrust his right hand into his coat.

“You and General Gaskell fought on this battlefield. The records say so. Everything was recorded, about the way you fought, how you looked for each other’s weak points, and what you discovered. I found this earlier not far from here. I don’t know which of you left it in the repository, but it’s sure gonna come in handy.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the massive armored figure said as he drew closer.

Once the duke was about ten feet away, Sergei pulled his right hand out of his jacket and raised it high. It held a tiny, withered leaf. But it had a startling effect.

The armored figure backed away, shielding both eyes. Its ungodly weightlessness was lost. Its heels dug at the earth, and the ground quaked ferociously.

“You little bastard—I can’t believe you . . .” Roland said, nearly panting the words.

“This is no time to stand around threatening me. Here you go!”

Sergei threw the leaf, and while it hung weakly in the air, the exoskeleton spun around and dashed off into the woods. More than the dwindling rumble, the movement of the falling trees told Sergei that the threat had passed.

Sinking right on the spot, he said, “I wasn’t really sure that would work—I must’ve been out of my mind!”

And the second he spoke, his brow was covered with sweat. For the next full minute he took deep breaths, slowly picking himself up and collecting the leaf in question from a spot on the ground about six feet away. The way he stared at it said quite clearly he still couldn’t believe it.

“This is it, eh?”

The short stalk he grasped between two fingers and held up to quiver in the wind was aconite—more commonly known as “wolfsbane.”

__

“At any rate, I guess I’d better bury D,” Sergei said, turning around.

Slumped forward on the ground, D did indeed have a long spear running through his chest and out his back. Despite the fact that dhampirs were as close as possible to the Nobility, or perhaps precisely because of it, everyone on the Frontier knew that a stake right through their heart was a hopeless situation.

“You know, I thought D was this incredible freak, but I guess there’s always someone tougher. And to think that guy’s weakness is one little leaf. The world’s just full of contradictions, I suppose.”

“Damn right it is.”

That familiar hoarse tone made Sergei tense up. Though he looked around in astonishment, there was no sign of anybody. So who’d been speaking with that voice all along? As ridiculous as it sounded, Sergei had figured D had been using ventriloquism all that time. Needless to say, he didn’t know why the Hunter would do such a thing. However, D had expired, but the voice was there.

“What are you standing around for? Hey! Pull the spear out!” the voice ordered him as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Looking around him, Sergei inquired in a tremulous tone, “Wh-where are you?”

“Don’t ask stupid questions. Are you gonna hurry up and remove this thing or not?”

“Wh-why don’t you do it yourself?”

“I could, but I’ve got other, bigger things to attend to. So, are you gonna pull it out or what? If you don’t, I’ll tell D you refused to cooperate!”

“Tell D—what do you mean?”

“He’s coming back to life.”

“What?”

Sergei was stunned. What quickly brought him back to normal was something he’d read in a book while boning up on archaeology. The third volume of Domitius Browning’s Lore of the Nobility described exactly the situation that was before him—among the Nobility, there were rare individuals who could be pierced through the heart with a wooden stake yet come back to life again if that stake were removed.

“Pull it out.”

This time he walked over to D’s corpse like a man under a spell and grabbed the shaft of the spear protruding from the Hunter’s back. It was a fearful undertaking. The spear was gripped by the unnatural strength of D’s muscles, and even pulling with all his might, Sergei couldn’t free more than an inch of it at a time. Out of breath and dripping sweat, Sergei was half dead by the time he jerked the last inch free. As he let out a sigh that was close to a death rattle, he told the disembodied voice, “I got it out.”

“Good for you.”

Even on hearing this snotty reply, he didn’t feel angry. Discarding the spear, Sergei collapsed on the grass, but he still kept a watchful eye on D’s condition. Nothing had changed about the way the Hunter was slumped forward. The way his left hand was positioned under his chest suggested a natural reflex he’d had to try to pull the spear out the instant it’d been put through him.

“Huh?”

From the area where the left hand vanished under the Hunter the man saw something strange. It had glowed. A pale light was shining by D’s chest. Though he was curious to see what it was, at the same time an unsettling feeling had come over him that left him unable to move. After this, he saw no more of the blue light. Silence continued to stain the twilit forest a dusky blue.

Just then, the hoarse voice rang out, saying, “Hey, come over here.”

This time, Sergei didn’t have to be told twice. He was curious to start with—all he’d needed was an opportunity. He crawled over on his knees. When he reached D’s side, the left hand came right up from the corpse’s chest to rest on Sergei’s right knee.

“Shit!” he cried, but not because the hand that came to rest on him was palm up. Rather, the surface of the palm had rippled and twisted, and what could only be described as a human face had risen to the surface.

“Y-y-you . . .”

“What about me?” the countenanced carbuncle spat back at him from its tiny mouth. Seeing how pale blue flames blazed in the depths of its maw, Sergei almost fell over backward. Its fingers closed tightly on Sergei’s fingertips.

“You wanna see this? If so, give me your blood.”

“Wh-what the hell?”

Human beings couldn’t help but be horrified by the word blood—it was inextricably linked to the Nobility. This was particularly true when something was asking you to give it your blood.

“You damn sissy! Have you forgotten he’s a dhampir? To him, it’s just like you eating bacon and eggs. So hurry up and open a vein. He needs a lot of it.”

“I, uh—I can’t do that!”

“Oh, what a pain you are.”

Before Sergei could avoid it, D’s left hand had seized his right, and a sharp pain shot through the underside of his wrist. As he cried out, the warm fluid flowed from him. Or rather, what he felt was it being sucked out! His body was swiftly overcome by an indescribable floating sensation. Everything faded into the distance, and he fell at a terrific speed.

Just as his consciousness was about to be swallowed by the darkness, he clearly heard the hoarse voice say, “Okay, that’ll do.”

And when Sergei opened his eyes less than ten seconds later, a strapping man in black stood by his side looking down at him.

“D!”

“It seems I’m in your debt.”

“No—don’t be silly.”

“I’ll repay you for this sometime. We’re leaving the forest!”

“But it’s getting dark now,” the man started to say, but then he recalled D’s heritage. This was his time. That he recalled—and one more thing.

“D—your eyes . . .”

The Hunter had his eyelids shut.

“Not to worry. With my instructions and his instincts, we’ll manage somehow.”

Sergei decided to put his trust in that hoarse voice.

“Just so you know, I’m the only one who’s still mobile,” the transporter said.

A bunch of plants was tossed down at the man’s feet.

“That herb is the antidote. Make a tea with it and have them drink it. And here’s one more for you,” the hoarse voice said.

__

As Sergei boiled the herbs, D came over to him. His movements were so smooth, he didn’t look blind at all. Around them hung a stench to turn anyone’s nose up.

“I’ll thank you not to get in the way now since this is the trickiest part.”

“Where’d you get the transfusion equipment for Gordo?” D inquired.

“Huh?” Sergei said, his suspicious gaze wandering through space for a second, but he soon understood. “Oh, that? As you probably know, pretty close to here there’s a buried supply depot that the Capital’s forces used during their campaign against Gaskell. That’s where I appropriated it. And the flower I stuck in that little girl, as well.”

Drained to the brink of death by Lady Ann’s vampire bloom, the fallen Gordo had been saved by the Noble device that rested next to him.

“You know where it is, right?”

“Sure,” Sergei replied, bringing a spoonful of the medicine he’d just brewed up to his lips.

“Jeez,” he sputtered, spitting it out again. “That’s some potent stuff!” he said with a grimace.

Looking right at him, the blind D told him, “Then after you’ve had the other two drink it, you’ll have to show me the way.”

The medicine had a dramatic effect—one or two mouthfuls was all it took. Sergei held their mouths closed so they were forced to swallow it instead of spitting it out, and as he watched, the flushed hue left Juke’s face and his agonized expression faded. Sergei’s eyes nearly popped out at the way the man’s incredibly shallow breathing instantly returned to normal.

After the medicine had been administered but before the Hunter and his guide could leave, Juke sat up on his cot. On hearing from D what they were up to, he told them, “Yeah, I’ll look after things here. Get going already.”

__

With Sergei in the lead, D headed further into the forest. After advancing about three hundred yards, Sergei halted. “There it is,” he said, pointing at the towering accumulation of rock and soil up ahead. It looked like a high, sprawling fortification.

“But then you can’t see it, can you?”

“No, I see it,” the hoarse voice replied. “Yes, indeed.”

“Getting through it’s a little tough, but the entrance is over here,” Sergei said, though for some reason he looked somewhat jaded as he guided D over to the crack running up the right side of the door. From where the two of them stood it looked like no more than a thin thread of a crevasse, but circling over to the right showed it to be wide enough that an adult should be able to fit through it.

“It was originally sealed up, but at some point it cracked open. The Nobility sure are a strange race,” Sergei sighed.

D, after his habit, said nothing. And he was still blind.

__

III

__

In a sense, Sergei’s observation was correct. The contradiction most vividly demonstrated by the actions of the Nobility was their love of all things medieval. Their architecture, clothing, decorations, paintings—every field of artistic endeavor had a Gothic flavor. The Nobility were so immersed in it, it occasionally caused them to do the strangest things. Although they could probably erect a metropolis along the lines of the Capital anywhere if given three days’ time, they left the desolate mountains, wild rivers, and shadowy forests of the Frontier just as they found them, raising old-fashioned castles covered with pinnacles and gables instead of modern buildings and domes. All of their roads were paved with stone, although highways were occasionally built exclusively for ultra-high-speed transportation.

And here was a prime example of this contradiction. This installation could easily withstand a direct hit by a hydrogen bomb, yet its entrance was sealed not by doors of some supersteel alloy but instead by a colossal stone slab. Long years had weathered the great stone and cracked it. And that was an open invitation to intruders.

“I’ll go first,” Sergei said, turning sideways to slip through the crack. The giant slab was a good thirty feet across.

The place he managed to enter was a spot left scarred by the legacy of a horrible destruction. The ceiling and walls buckled in as if they’d taken a great blast from outside, and Sergei actually trembled. And yet, thanks to a light that radiated from nowhere in particular, he had no trouble seeing. He sensed D behind him.

“When I first saw this, I was heartbroken, but I went in a little further anyway. And then—”

After they cut through an area where pillars that looked to be as big as buildings supported the crumbling walls, the passageway took a hard right, and Sergei then led the Hunter to a golden door. There was a switch for it. Once Sergei pushed it, the door opened with a grinding sound.

The only way to describe what lay inside was to call it an enormous warehouse. Innumerable metal shelves stretched in rows for as far as the eye could see, and on them objects of various shapes were systematically laid out so they might be seen from afar. Devices large and small, wooden boxes, iron crates, things that seemed to be metallic containers—some of these were only the size of a ring box, yet they were grouped together with enormous machines that looked like construction equipment and towered to the heavens. Off in the distance, there even lay a multicolored field of flowers with what looked like leech grass. It seemed like it would take more than a thousand years to try everything here.

“According to some data, there’s enough synthetic blood stockpiled here to sustain a million Nobles for a millennium. And that doesn’t even take into account the million blood synthesizers here.”

Satisfied at finally having someone with whom he might share his knowledge, Sergei had become quite garrulous.

“This one machine alone could supply enough blood for ten thousand people indefinitely. Incredible, isn’t it? Apparently it tastes like muddy water, but if that’d been enough for them, things might’ve gone better between them and the human race.”

Going over to the nearest shelf, Sergei slapped one of the machines on it. It was the same kind of transfusion device he’d got for Gordo. A small blood-synthesizing tank and the transfusion equipment were combined in a single unit.

“Convenient little sucker, this.”

Sergei threw a switch at one end of its base, and the complicated-looking device instantly folded in on itself, compacting down to the size of a lunch bag.

“At this size, you can haul a whole bunch of these out at once. It’s just like the pictures in the account I read. Leave it to the Nobility to have these closest to the door—that sure came in handy.”

D remained silent, listening to the man.

Perhaps overwhelmed by the sheer volume collected here, Sergei felt surprisingly good.

“I mean, out of all this stuff, not even you could—”

The man turned around. On realizing that it wasn’t D who stood there, it took about a second for the expression to leave his face.

So thin he called to mind a scarecrow, the man wore a helmet and combat suit. Even without seeing the bloodless visage, eyes dim and cloudy as a dead fish’s made his nature clear. He was one of the Nobility’s warriors. Nearly as immortal as the vampires themselves but like mindless automatons, these creatures had been chosen by the Nobility as highly valued soldiers.

“The living dead . . .”

How long had he mistaken it for D? And where had D disappeared to?

Without time to ponder these questions, Sergei stared at the ghostly pale hand stretching toward his throat. Its fingers sank into his neck. The flesh snapped open under its nails. Sergei was conscious of the blood trickling from him. His throat was seized roughly. Terror seared his brain, but at that instant, the undead soldier before him convulsed for a second, then stood bolt upright. Sergei had seen a gleaming white tip burst through the creature’s heart.

The soldier crumbled, helmet, clothes and all, but without looking at the blue-gray detritus it left, Sergei turned his gaze instead to the handsome youth who was sheathing his sword.

“What the hell happened?”

At the question he’d finally managed to pose, D raised his left hand and pointed to a relatively close shelf.

“That urn? Sure, I opened it.”

With the transfusion equipment over one shoulder, Sergei had taken a white china urn from the shelf and opened its lid. However, nothing had appeared. The urn had been filled with what looked like white salt crystals. Spilling some on the floor, Sergei had watched it for a while, but after there was no change he’d just let it be.

“Impossible. That’s what was inside it?” said the astonished Sergei.

“Fifty of ’em to an urn,” the hoarse voice responded.

Sergei looked all around them.

Where they’d been or what they’d been doing was a mystery, but from between the shelves and from the far reaches of the room pale figures were now closing on them with swaying steps.

In ancient times, some had thought the essence of a human being was salt. The Nobility had probably pursued that line of thinking with a savage diligence.

“What’ll we do, D?” Sergei asked, his own face growing as pale as those of the undead soldiers as he drew the rivet gun from his hip.

“I’ve got what I came for. Get going.”

Now that he mentioned it, D had a silver container dangling from his left hand. Though a curiosity was building in him that threatened to make him forget all else, the faces of the pale undead that’d started to come into view brought Sergei back to reality.

“Down,” D said just as soon as the man had decided to do whatever the Hunter told him. He hit the ground as fast as he could, and a wave of crimson raced overhead, scoring a direct hit on the wall with the door. It was a particle cannon. The wall took the blistering ray of accelerated particles without even changing color.

The air whistled; an undead soldier in the back collapsed. D’s needle of rough wood had pierced him through the heart.

Apparently, none of the other soldiers carried weapons. Unconcerned by their compatriot’s demise, they mutely closed on D and Sergei.

Sergei had been about to run for the door, but he’d twisted his ankle. If he couldn’t stand, he was finished. He fell over.

D had already reached the door.

When Sergei got back on his feet, cold fingers clasped his shoulder.

“Waaaah!” he screamed as he spun around. One of the faces was right in front of him.

It was pure reflex and survival instinct that brought his rivet gun up to the soldier’s forehead.

Blam! The pressurized gas cap burst, firing off a three-and-a-half-ounce iron rivet at a thousand feet per second and blowing the whole back of the dead man’s head out with it. Long ago, Sergei had been in a similar situation and dispatched a zombie in the exact same manner.

I did it, he thought.

But the dead man didn’t fall.

Feeling like he could actually hear the bones creaking under the pressure from the fingers digging into his shoulders, Sergei let out a scream. Unexpectedly, the pain abated. Wildly shaking his shoulder free and leaping forward, Sergei turned and spied the naked blade that protruded from the chest of the undead soldier.

D had come back.

“Go,” the Hunter said, pointing toward the door, then squaring off against another of the approaching soldiers. He was a placid figure with his sword lowered.

The living dead didn’t know what fear was—it was just the way they’d been created. And that was why they were the ideal soldiers. However, before this powerful man standing there, quiet and beautiful, the dead grew tense. Perhaps they glimpsed in the figure of D something more fearful than death. Nonetheless, they prepared to advance.

Sergei had just reached the door and was turning back for a look. He saw D’s right hand paint a gleaming arc. It mowed right through the neck of the nearest soldier and went on to remove the head of another behind him before sliding back into its sheath. The crisp clack of its guard against the scabbard seemed poorly matched to the sound of those heads rolling around on the floor. Was that the power of the source of the hoarse voice, or skillful swordsmanship based on D’s superhuman instincts?

As D came running over to him, Sergei got the feeling the Hunter might lop off his own head as well, and he dove out through the open door. Crossing the rubble-strewn chamber, he squeezed out again through the crack in the giant stone. But just before doing so, he saw D lob a silver cylinder into the center of the chamber.

No sooner was he through the suffocating bottleneck than he was grabbed around the waist and carried a good fifteen feet. And as his feet touched the ground, a rumbling in the earth shook him.

Fire spouted from the giant stone. Virulent, oily flames split the rock, and the earthen fortification itself started to swell out. The instant the molecules lost their cohesion, flames shot from the ground, and stones and earth were broken into even finer pieces that erupted into the void.

Having made two more leaps that carried them into the depths of the forest, D and Sergei were soon cloaked in the dark shadows of trees cast on them by the pale glow.

“Don’t tell me the whole warehouse is gonna—” Sergei began, breaking off but gazing at D with terror-filled eyes. “If you did that, it’d blow this whole neighborhood sky high!”

“I sealed the entrance,” D replied, drawing a sigh of relief from Sergei.

And soon enough, true to what he’d said, the light faded and the rumblings dwindled in the distance.

“Let’s go,” D said, spinning around.

“Huh?”

“Before everything comes back down.”

“Oh!” Sergei said, his eyes opening wide with fear and surprise.

Roughly forty seconds later, white hot rubble and other material sent up by the flames from that atomic grenade came back down in the section of forest the pair had fled, instantly transforming it into a sea of flames.

__

Arriving at the campsite, Sergei found D, who’d gotten there just a little bit earlier.

“What’s the story? There’s nothing here!”

Wondering if they had the wrong spot, Sergei looked all around, finding tracks from their wheels on the ground and signs of their camp. Nearby, a chunk of scorched stone fell, sending up white smoke. Little flames sprang up here and there.

“That bastard Juke’s run off on us. Damned coward!”

“His job is transporting that cargo. He only did the natural thing,” D said, sending the hem of his coat fluttering out as he deflected a piece of burning iron.

“Which way did he go?”

“That way,” the hoarse voice responded, but Sergei didn’t notice anything weird about its tone. With all the swiftness of a wild beast he started running in the direction D’s left hand had pointed.