THE LURKING SHADOW

THE LURKING SHADOW

chapter 8

I

—

Daybreak came, the enemy didn’t, and Lyra remained sleeping.
The guards in the watchtower kept silent.

“Looks like we have you to thank for this.”

D shook his head at Rust’s remark, saying, “It could be they’ve become something that can’t strike by day.”

“You can’t be serious,” Rust replied, allowing his eyes to go wide. He didn’t want to know what D meant.

“Not that I know for sure. It’s just a hunch.”

“And how accurate is that?”

“Never been wrong,” said the hoarse voice.

“Oh,” Rust said, shrugging his shoulders. “But humans bitten by pseudo vampires only turn into pseudo vampires. They shouldn’t have any trouble attacking in broad daylight.”

“I’ll go find out.”

“I couldn’t have that. What would we do if they struck while you were gone?”

“You’ll think of something.”

“Hey!”

“Lyra will be up soon. You two make a good team.”

Rust capitulated. “I don’t suppose there’s much sense in thanking you. Get right back here when you’re done.”

—

Shortly after D’s departure, Lyra woke up, just as the Hunter had predicted. Rust told her what D had said. Closing her eyes, the warrior woman said, “Just as I was about to black out, he touched his left hand to my chest. Suddenly, it wasn’t so bad.”

“There might be something to that left hand of his, don’t you think?”

Lyra didn’t answer, asking instead, “So, what about that girl?”

“She got better,” Rust replied. He’d heard from the physician attending Sheryl that the second the huntress’s bullet pulverized Gil’s head, the girl had awakened from the Noble’s sleep. “The wounds on her neck have vanished, and the smell of garlic doesn’t bother her. We really caught a break.”

“Maybe I should’ve waited until after she turned into a fake made by a fake before slaying Gil, eh?”

“Hey!” Rust said reproachfully.

Though he couldn’t recall ever telling Lyra how he felt about Sheryl, the warrior woman had long since guessed. Her behavior wasn’t terribly conspicuous, but anyone who gave it a little thought would realize why the mayor’s daughter personally delivered flowers and food to Rust. Even when she claimed that her father had told her to do it.

“Enough about that,” Rust continued. “Last night, I heard the damnedest thing from D and Old Man Roskingpan. Seems we’ve got a murderer right here in the village.”

Surprisingly enough, Lyra wasn’t surprised at all. “Yeah, I thought so,” she said with resignation.

“You knew about it?”

“When we first came to town, you only checked the case reports for the last two years, but I read them all from the last decade. I also heard villagers talking about disappearances. Now, every village has folks who get fed up with the hardship and take off, but around here a disproportionate number of missing people were merchants and travelers who were just passing through. Kill someone from the village, and they’ll do a thorough investigation, but they don’t do the same in the case of outsiders. Really, no village does.”

“But there have been disappearances every year for a decade!”

“It probably goes back even further than that. There just aren’t files for it. Besides, missing persons aren’t murder cases.”

Folding his arms, Rust nodded. Sometimes it helped getting a second opinion. “But if there is a murderer, we can’t just sit back. If he lays low while we’re fighting the Black Death, that’ll be fine, but if he uses the confusion to go on a real killing spree, we’re screwed.”

“Then we’d better pray that doesn’t happen.” Climbing out of bed, Lyra started getting her things together.

“Where are you going? Get a little more rest.”

“I can’t leave you with all the work. Besides, there’s something you’re forgetting. It’s my job to finish you off. I’m not about to leave that to anyone else.”

“Hell, I know that.”

The warrior woman’s stern look was met with a look of equally cold resolve by the sheriff. Apparently it wasn’t friendship and trust that bound these two, but death.

—

When D was five hundred yards from the Black Death’s encampment, the hoarse voice groaned, “Well, it’s just like you said. The whole place is lousy with an air of the supernatural. It’s the aura of real Nobles, too. There are some fakes mixed in there as well. Seems they’re up to something.”

Opening his left hand, D pointed it toward the encampment.

“Whatever it is, I bet it ain’t gonna be pleasant for the village. We could go smash it up, but I’ve gotta wonder where those clowns got the material for it in the first place.”

“Don’t you know?”

“Nope,” the left hand said flatly. “You mean it was him?”

D wound the reins around his left hand.

—

Leaving his cyborg horse, the Hunter entered some dense brush. His steed would return with one whistle.

There was no indication of anyone around him. The bright, sunlit ground wasn’t the world of true Nobles. After entering the brush, D proceeded for about a hundred yards before the echo of wood banging against wood reached his ears.

“They’re building something,” the hoarse voice said with relish. The parasite had as much courage as its host. “I don’t know about this, but if they’ve got defenses set up, it’ll be up ahead. Do you remember? It looks kind of like where he lived.”

It was unclear how D took these remarks, but his gait never faltered.

Suddenly, a shadow moved across the sun. Or rather, his surroundings were unexpectedly plunged into darkness, like sundown on a winter’s day. Such a sudden, drastic change in the weather was impossible. The density of the darkness, its physical and temporal characteristics were all that of the night itself.

“Oh, here we go!” the left hand laughed with pleasure. “Watch it. Someone else is coming!”

They came out suddenly. About twenty yards ahead of the Hunter, the ground bulged and five figures rose up, covered with clods of dirt. D recognized their faces. They were members of the Black Death gang he’d cut down two nights earlier.

“These clowns have been bitten by the real thing. Good luck.”

D knew that, too. The way they held their swords and spears was different, as was the eerie aura that wafted from them. What stood there wasn’t fearless beasts that’d tear into their prey and chew it up, but rather demons who wanted nothing more than to bite through flesh and bone and drink every last drop of their victims’ blood.

“D?” one of them asked. The other four lined up to either side of him, fanning out in a crescent around the Hunter.

At that instant, D’s battle began. As the figure in black kicked off the ground, his left hand flashed into action. The man on the left tip of the crescent managed to stop a rough wooden needle that was zipping toward his heart, but a second one went through his hand, jabbed into his chest, and protruded from his back.

That was how D started the fight, without even replying to the cries of his opponents. Making not a sound as he dashed forward, he drew his glittering blade, and bright blood gushed out with the first strike. The figure who stood before him was definitely a man he’d dealt death to that night. When D’s blade passed through his neck, the man put both hands on top of his head, pushing it back down against the cut. The vermilion line disappeared.

The man laughed without making a sound. “We’re no longer what we used to be. We’re the chosen ones, given new life by the Great One. And with that life, D, comes power!”

Long spears cut through the air from either side. Hearing only the sound of them whistling through the wind, D lashed out with his flashing steel. The spears he’d supposedly knocked down collided in midair, zipping at D once more from impossible angles. As the Hunter batted both of them down, his side was pierced by an iron arrow that came flying from his right. Now off balance, his body was the target of more spears and arrows, but D deflected them all.

“It’s just as the Great One said. You’re good. But when fighting those who possess the same power, four are stronger than one! Your sword can’t reach us, and it keeps our weapons from doing any good. All that remains is pure power.”

A knowing laugh spilled from the mouth of the man whose throat had been cut. It became a chorus. The men around him were laughing, too. Little by little, their voices changed—becoming something inhuman. Beastly howls rocked the night.

“Die, D! You’re prey for the wolf!”

The men no longer retained human form. They had joined to become an object like an enormous, wriggling mass of clay, colored the same hue as the darkness. Part of the mass opened, and the instant a titanic, beastly head shot from it, it was split in two by an oncoming slash of D’s blade. Sliced down the middle, the face melted together again, closing around D’s head and the left side of his chest. There was a terrible sound. Once more the red maw opened and the beast swallowed the rest of D. Chewing noises could be heard in the darkness. They were followed by an explosion of mocking laughter.

“What an easy battle! So, this is the power of the Great One? Is this the strength of a true Noble? This is wonderful, truly wonderful!”

Four men stood in the darkness.

“The man they called D was a gnat. Well, that’s all finished. Let’s get some sleep. We’ll leave the work of smashing down those feeble village walls to the slaves.”

The four of them went over to the spot where they’d burst from the ground. Their eardrums then trembled from a laugh. There was something so unsettling about it—it made even the true vampires they’d become freeze right to the core.

“Heh, heh, heh,” it chortled. “You punks think getting a little pity blood from a Noble gives you the right to call a Hunter who’s slain thousands of Nobles a gnat? Playtime’s over, kiddies. Now it’s time for hunting!”

As the men stood rooted in disbelief, one of their heads burst apart like a pomegranate. The arm in black that poked from it was covered with blood and liquefied brains.

Is that D?

Even though the remaining men realized it was, they were powerless to do anything. Another man’s head exploded, and a right hand appeared, gripping a sword. From the head of the third came a traveler’s hat and an inhumanly gorgeous face.

“This is how a vampire fights!” D’s left hand laughed aloud.

With fear on his face, the fourth one spun around. It was the same man who’d pushed his head back together. Behind him, the bodies of the other three tottered, holding each other up. Flesh split, and bones snapped.

The sword flew from the hand that’d appeared. Spinning horizontally, the blade took the fleeing man through the back of the neck. Once again, the man held his head down, and the line of the cut vanished.

Turning, the man shouted, “You’re wasting your time. I’m—”

“—one of the chosen?” the hoarse voice sneered.

The man tripped over his own feet. It wasn’t that the hoarse voice had scared him. The vermilion line around his neck had returned, and bright blood had gushed from it all at once. A bloody mist enveloped his upper body—and no sooner did it, than the man dropped his head. Accompanying it were the arms that held it, taken off at the elbows.

As the sword came spinning back, D caught it with his left hand. His body, which could only be described as exquisite, had already regenerated completely, and the other three men had been reduced to some unknown viscous substance that spread around his feet. By the time he sheathed his sword on his back, the world had a stark glow to it—the night had faded, and day had returned.

“Revenge in the sunlight—is that what you wanted?” the hoarse voice inquired. It sounded mocking and amused.

There was no reply. Seeming to have no feeling about this battlefield that’d spawned five corpses in such a short time, the figure in black started forward once again.

—

II

—

The huntress had just finished putting a hundred rounds of fifty-caliber ammunition into bandoliers and another thousand replacement rounds in a tin box when the sheriff stopped by.

“Oh, to what do I owe this visit?” Miriam inquired somewhat cautiously.

“I came to thank you,” Rust said after taking a sip of the coin tea she’d offered him.

“You sure you should be wasting time like this?” the sharp-tongued Miriam asked. Clearly she found this a nuisance.

“Don’t be like that. I’ll be on my way soon. I just came to say thanks—and to ask a favor of you.”

“I’m not gonna sleep with you.”

Rust laughed. “That hadn’t even crossed my mind. Maybe next time.” Eyeing the rifle that Miriam had leaning close at hand, he ventured, “Would you go up in the watchtower as a sniper for us?”

“Got anyone else for the job?”

“We do, but they’re not in your class. You could probably pick off the opposition’s whole front line while they were still a thousand yards off.”

“I could do it at two miles.”

“So, you’ll do it, then?”

“Sure.”

“I really appreciate it.”

Watching Rust as he bowed to her, she said, “For someone who’s not even from around here, you sure are going all out for this village.”

“It’s my job. That’s what I’m paid for.”

“To defend something that’s not worth defending?”

“Huh?”

“Never mind. See you,” she replied curtly, seeming like an entirely different person as she showed him to the door.

Rust seemed slightly wounded as he said, “This might be none of my business, but isn’t it about time you stopped living alone like this?”

The huntress said nothing.

“You know the Schaunepps who live out by the west woods, right? Their boy turns eighteen this year. Seems he’s been sweet on you for some time.”

“Don’t do me any favors!”

“Don’t be like that. Having a man be in love with you is pretty nice. Just think it over.”

Once Rust had left, Codo appeared from the bedroom doorway. “The sheriff sure likes getting mixed up in people’s affairs. That could be a pretty good offer. Why don’t you take them up on it?”

“Even though they’re all going to die?”

Codo smiled cruelly. Placing a hand on Miriam’s shoulder, he said, “You’re going with me.”

“The hell I am!” Miriam snapped, roughly tossing her shoulder to knock the man’s hand from it. “Once your buddies wipe this shithole of a village off the map, I’m heading out of here. I’ll go up in the mountains and hunt for a living.”

“And live just like your parents? Well, you can’t fight your breeding.”

Miriam’s hand shot out with lightning speed. When Codo went for the silver disks on his hips, the muzzle of her fifty-caliber rifle pressed against his forehead.

“The deal was you’re never to talk about my parents.”

“You were born in the western Frontier sector,” Codo said, not seeming at all frightened. “And you only lived with your parents for five years. They said they hunted for a living. Your parents were good to you.”

Miriam’s finger cocked the hammer. There was a loud click.

“But one day, a posse came looking for the thieves who’d hit a transport plane, and making no bones about it, they shot your parents dead right before your eyes. Your father had shot that transport down from an altitude of more than sixteen thousand feet with an old-fashioned rifle, and then looted it.”

“I’ll shoot!” Miriam said, the finger she had wrapped around the trigger turning white.

“Your father was guilty, but your mother hadn’t known anything about it. And the posse violated you, all of five years old, before they left.”

Nothing from Miriam.

“You left the house and headed into the mountains. All you brought with you was a gun and ammunition. You intended to work on your marksmanship, and then take your revenge on the posse. But you forgot to bring along food. If we hadn’t saved you, you’d have starved to death. Until the age of ten you practiced shooting with us, and you got damned good at it. Who’d have thought you were such a little ingrate you’d take off without leaving us so much as a note?”

“And write what? Thanks for taking turns on me each and every night?”

“That was unfortunate. So, then you went out and tracked down your parents’ killers and gunned them down. Since you nailed them from a thousand yards off, they never even knew who did it. And then you learned that the last of them lived in this very village. But unfortunately, he was missing. You must’ve decided to settle here to wait for him to come back. When I got here four years ago to establish my cover, I’m surprised you didn’t plug me.”

“It was because you were the only one out of the whole Black Death gang who never laid a hand on me.”

“Looks like how we live from day to day can make all the difference, eh? But seeing you like this now, it kind of makes me want to—”

A thunderous report shook the room. In the cloud of smoke, Codo put his hand to his right temple. His hair was singed in a straight line. A black hole loomed in the wall behind him.

“Get out!” Miriam ordered him.

At that moment, a man’s cry rang out.

“Did he overhear us?” Codo said. He was just about to dash outside when Miriam stopped him and opened the door.

By the woods across the street, a diminutive figure was fleeing, nearly tripping over its own feet in the process.

“It’s Old Man Roskingpan!” she said.

“Are you gonna kill him?”

“No, I’ll pass.”

“Okay, I’ll go, then. Stay out of my way.”

As soon as Codo had raced out, Miriam shut the door and returned to the table. Grabbing the bolt handle of her rifle, she slid it back and put in a fresh fifty-caliber round.

She’d had no real need nor any intention of listening to what Codo said. So, in a manner of speaking, it could be said that she had accepted his assignment. When Codo had appeared, a phantom from her past she didn’t want to see, she hadn’t considered their meeting as fate. Miriam’s psyche was filled with the bloody death throes of those she’d killed while avenging her parents. Everything else was just phantoms to her. If she couldn’t conclude her revenge, she didn’t care who she shot. If Rust or the mayor asked her to shoot Codo, she’d probably pull the trigger without hesitation.

“The sheriff, the mayor, and the warrior woman—that’s bound to be trouble.”

The way she said these words, it sounded like she was referring to more than just how formidable they were.

—

I should be okay now, the old man thought. His back was to a colossal tree, and he couldn’t hear any footsteps in pursuit.

He’d headed over to Miriam’s to invite her to join him for a drink. Not even Roskingpan knew whether or not he, an old man who lived alone, was really a friend of the huntress who guarded her solitude, but they were drinking cronies nonetheless. However, when he’d arrived at her house, he’d heard a man’s voice. He was curious and decided to listen for a while. The old man couldn’t make out much, as he’d grown a bit hard of hearing the past few years. It all seemed pretty ridiculous to him, and he was just about to head home when he heard a gunshot. Suddenly, he was assailed by a savage feeling radiating from within the house that made him cry out. His instincts as a Frontier native told him to flee, so he’d jumped into the woods.

He halted—not because he thought he was safe, but because he was out of breath. Silently, he dropped to the ground. A breeze skimmed over his head, and the old man saw a silvery disk flying above. It carved into an enormous tree some fifteen to twenty feet away, and suddenly the tree’s thick trunk yawned open, sliced clean through. Almost as if it had eyes, the tree fell toward the old man.

Covering his head, Roskingpan rolled into a ball. One misstep while trying to run away and he could impale himself on a branch and be killed instantly, assuming he didn’t get pinned under the trunk. There was a terrific thud as it struck the ground. Five-lobed leaves slapped the earth in front of him.

“Where do you think you’re going, old man?” a voice called down to him. Codo Graham stood at one end of the fallen tree. Silver disks dangled from his hands.

“I-I-I was just gonna have me a drink out in the woods,” the old man sputtered. “You the one that took this tree down? That was mighty impertinent. I’m gonna tell Ranger Patou on you!”

“It wouldn’t do to have you telling people other things. Old-timer, you hear pretty well, don’t you?”

“Don’t be daft. What’d you say just now?”

“Well, not that it matters. Just consider yourself unlucky.”

“Oh, hell!” Tossing the bottle he carried at the man, Roskingpan madly scrambled to his feet.

“You don’t leave me any choice.” Codo flicked the disks he held with his fingers. With a whirring sound they flew into the woods to either side of them and slashed through two enormous trees, which fell with a sound like the beating of a giant eagle’s wings. As if by design, the two trees had fallen to either side of the old man, only about a foot and a half from him. His scream was swallowed by their crash.

Roskingpan couldn’t run anymore. The impact had robbed him of all his nerve. “Ohmygodohmygodohmygod,” he cried. One of his neighbors, a man he knew well, suddenly seemed to have transformed into a homicidal fiend.

“Okay, old-timer. See you in the next life!”

The disk spinning on the tip of Codo’s index finger rose weightlessly into the air. It approached the old man with a speed that seemed almost leisurely.

The wind whistled. The instant that the sound struck it, the disk was deflected with a lovely ting!

Stunned, Codo turned around. From the trees to his rear came the rumble of an approaching engine. Though he couldn’t see anyone, he had to wonder who could’ve shot down his deadly disks. Codo looked at his feet. An iron arrow was stuck in the fallen tree.

“The sheriff?”

—

III

—

The night stretched on. A strange activity was being conducted at a fevered pitch. Actually, it would’ve been more correct to call it an assembly rather than an activity. The object being constructed, resembling both a gigantic tank and an armored car, was made entirely of wood. Boards as broad as the stones of a building’s foundation, beams ten feet wide and sixty feet long, and logs twice as big as a man could reach around were fitted together to form a bizarre vehicle. There wasn’t a single nail or bolt in the whole thing.

The assembling was done by six figures. From time to time, they looked down at the ground. Red circles, dots, lines, and rays had been etched all over the black soil. Standing on the drawings, the figures grabbed boards that looked like they were for constructing a house for a giant. And then they moved their upper bodies as if striking a pose, easily lifting the massive boards into place and securing them, fixing the logs together as if they were enormous pairs of chopsticks wielded by some god in the heavens, and combining the respective materials. This bizarre labor didn’t seem like something even those who’d been given the blood of a genuine vampire could achieve.

From the brush about twenty yards away, D watched them conclude their work. Once the last piece had been fitted into a groove, the six figures leapt onto their creation. Lacking wheels or tank treads, the vehicle crushed its way across the grass nonetheless and sped off.

D came out of the bushes. He rapidly closed the gap. His eyes and handsome features showed no murderous intent as he gazed at the scene before him.

“Wait,” he heard a voice say. It came from the sky.

D turned around. Something enormous loomed before him, deeper than the darkness. It was clearly a giant. D could make out boots the size of a house, firm ankles, and muscular calves. The kneecaps and thighs that should’ve been above this were one with the darkness of the distant void.

D! it called out. It’s been a long time since I saw you last. No, strike that. After all, time means nothing to us, doesn’t it?

What are you doing? D called back. What are you up to out here? Is this another one of those “experiments” you like so much?

The titanic figure chuckled. It was a laugh that would shake mountains. Perhaps. You are my only success. I find that sad.

So, you gave those guys your power?

Yes, that plus “the night.” They’re stronger than you are, at present. Leave without engaging them.

That’s fine, D replied. As long as you’re destroyed along with me.

So long as light expels darkness, I won’t leave this place. So long as darkness threatens the light, you can’t go anywhere.

D took the rough wooden needle he’d pulled out and threw it overhead. It rose like a shooting star in reverse, vanishing from sight. In no time, the giant shuddered. His cry of pain was like the ancient winds gusting down from the mountains in winter. Before D could draw his blade, the giant backed away.

D sprang. The colossus wore a jacket the color of darkness. His chest jutted out like a massive crag, and D made another bound off of it. The hem of his coat spread. It fanned out like the black wings of a bat, flapping only once. D continued his ascent. A powerful jaw came into view. The lips looked like crudely hewn gravestones. Above a repulsive hooked nose, narrow slits of eyes ran off to either side. The dark irises and pupils had a luster like crystal, reflecting the gorgeous young man who’d come on the attack.

The altitude was ten thousand feet. Night spread in all directions up here as well. The giant’s hair rippled like waves, and D swung his sword low in the center of it.

Suddenly, D was enveloped by complete tranquility.

“You’ve gotten better,” the voice said with satisfaction. “However, you can’t slay me yet. Until you can, your journey is likely to continue.”

D was standing on the ground. The sunlight cast his long shadow across the earth.

“So, it really was him,” the left hand groaned. “It’s daylight here. But those clowns can walk around as they like in the manufactured night.” 

D turned around, as if rejecting the daylight that suited him and the situation so poorly.

—

“Freeze, Codo!” Rust called from his skeleton vehicle. The sight that greeted the lawman said everything. “So, you’re a spy?”

“I’m surprised you figured it out,” Codo said with admiration.

“Well, I heard the rifle go off.”

“The rifle?” Codo said, his voice rising with the question. “You heard that? That was inside the house, and a good while after you’d left!”

“It doesn’t matter. At any rate, I need you to come with me to my office.”

“Try and make me!” Codo spat, this seeming to be the thing to say, and he swept his right hand out without turning around. Even if the footwide disk didn’t strike the target, the eighteen-inch blades that sprang out on all four sides would allow it to cut through an enormous, ten-foot-thick tree trunk.

Rust met it with his short bow. The two arrows that flew from it rose and dove, bearing down on the disk they were meant to destroy. The disk turned up at a right angle. As it went from flying perfectly horizontally to vertically, the two arrows zipped right past it. However, the arrows changed direction and gave chase, and the disk swerved far off course, cutting through a gigantic tree to the left. Trees fell one after another, the crashes pitching all three men into the air.

Trying to avoid a colossal tree trunk about to fall in front of him, Rust cut the steering wheel hard. Disks flew at him. There wasn’t enough time to get off an arrow. Rust’s life now depended on his skill behind the wheel.

The disks spread their deadly wings. Kicking up dark soil, the vehicle spun around. One of the disks was deflected, but a second zipped toward Rust’s shoulder.

From Codo’s position, he couldn’t tell whether his attack had succeeded or not. This caused him a moment’s hesitation in dealing the final blow.

Two black arrows streaked out, rising vertically from behind the fallen tree.

The stunned Codo cursed, taking cover behind another huge tree, but the second he did, one of the arrows burst through the trunk to pierce his lung, while the other scored a direct hit on his heart with a loud clang!

“There’s such force behind these arrows—you . . . no, you couldn’t be!” Codo said, raising high the disk he’d barely managed to hold out as a shield. As blood flooded his lung, he swung his weapon down. With that one chop he lopped off the arrow poking from his chest. The reason he didn’t pull the arrow out was because he feared the resulting blood loss. As Codo ran off between the trees, his gait was somewhat unsteady, but still rather swift.

Instead of firing a third arrow, Rust went in search of Old Man Roskingpan. His right arm was as red as if it’d been immersed in a sea of blood. Rust kept strong pressure on the jagged wound. Codo’s disk had taken its toll.

The old man lay flat on his back among the fallen trees, which looked like a pile of beams from an old mansion or castle. He’d hit his back hard.

On guard all the while for an attack by Codo, Rust carried the howling old man on his back as he continued on foot toward the nearest house—Miriam’s. His arm had already healed.

—

Fortunately, Miriam was home, and Rust asked her to boil some water to warm the old man’s aching back, at which point Roskingpan finally settled down. The sheriff told her what Codo was, and urged her to be careful.

“I’ll go with you,” Miriam said, grabbing her gun and a leather satchel of ammunition. From the back room, her great eagle took to the sky.

Once Miriam and Roskingpan were in his skeleton vehicle, the sheriff started the engine. Overhead, the great eagle wheeled in circles.

“If we gave them what they wanted, couldn’t this all be over without anyone dying?” Miriam inquired.

“No, what the pseudo Noble wants isn’t goods or even blood.” Turning to Miriam with an odd look on his face, Rust continued, “What he wants is slaughter itself. See, the means are the end. He wants to kill—that’s all there is to it.”

“You sure know a lot about it, don’t you?”

“Well, there’s a reason for that.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s nothing. At any rate, I’m going to protect these people. That’s enough to satisfy me.” After this, the lawman said no more.

They’d gone another five or six hundred yards when a horse came galloping toward them from up ahead. It was one of the mercenaries. Leaning over from the saddle, he said, “The enemy’s coming, it seems.”

“It seems?”

“Hell, I don’t really know myself. From the watchtower I saw a black darkness only about six miles off, and it was coming this way. You wouldn’t believe the speed of it. Why, it’s like the night itself!”

Quickly scooping up the old man, Rust set him on the back of the man’s horse, saying, “We’ll go on ahead. You take Roskingpan back to his house.”

The sunlight shining down on the group suddenly dimmed.