THE DEADLY AGREEMENT

THE DEADLY AGREEMENT

chapter 5

I

—

Still strong, the sunlight bleached a bizarre little area just off the highway. It was a patch of green land that seemed to drink up every last sound—a world made up of grass, moss, and stands of trees. There, it was easy to see millennia of decay. There were crumbling castle walls and corridors, stone stairs, statues gazing up at the heavens, and golden rails that formed bizarre intersections—probably the remnants of a four-dimensional transport system. What Noble had it belonged to? Everything was green with moss, covered with vines, and decaying with the quiet cruelty of the passing years. The only intact piece of the Nobility’s nocturnal grandeur was a realm of crystal-clear water—a large fountain and pool, and D and the baron were at the edge of it.

An hour had passed since they’d left the town of Nieto. Traveling in daylight had left the baron exhausted. “I can’t do this anymore,” he cried. “I’m dying. I’m going to burn away to nothing. Help me!”

Finally the baron succumbed to dehydration and fell off the horse, so D brought them to a shady spot that they were fortunate to be passing by. Grabbing the Nobleman by the collar and dunking him in the water, D put him in the shade of a hundred-yard-high monster elm, where the baron sprang back to life like a freshly soaked sponge.

“As I thought, I’m not quite used to moving around in the daylight yet. D, how long did it take you?”

There was no reply. D was on the marble rim, gazing at the blue water’s surface.

Shrugging his shoulders, the baron continued, “Been that way since the day you were born, then? Hmm. By the look of things, it seems you’re the only success of my theory and techniques. Actually, at that time, I hadn’t even perfected them yet. It’s just like him to manage it, much as I hate to admit it. Right now, my body is beat to hell, but the sunlight doesn’t seem to bother you any more than piss on a frog’s back.”

“What a vulgar little creep you are.”

The baron bugged his eyes. “Was that you? No, it couldn’t be,” he said, eyeing D intently, but avoiding his face. “Well, my research concerned pure Nobility, but you’re a different case. You’ve got human blood in you. That’s why you can walk in the light of day without it bothering you. An advantage of being a half-breed freak, in a manner of speaking. He certainly did some impetuous things. Ah, yes! That reminds me—” The baron’s lips curled evilly. “Your relationship—”

D turned around. To face the baron.

At the same time, the baron looked behind him. There was the thunder of iron-shod hooves coming down the road that led back to the highway.

“What, is it the sheriff from Nieto and his goons?” the baron said without trying to conceal the uneasiness on his face, rising to his feet and waddling around behind D.

They counted ten cyborg horses. Armed more heavily than the sheriff and his men, these riders were all white with dust. They must’ve come quite a distance.

“We’re a patrol from the Capital,” said the rider who pulled up alongside them. “I’m the leader, Captain Smith. Is it true that one of you is a Noble who can walk in daylight?”

“No, that’s a lie,” said a voice from behind D’s back. Half of the baron’s pudgy face peeked out from behind the Hunter.

“Where did you hear that?” D asked.

The men looking down at him from horseback already wore entranced expressions.

“On our way to the village of Satori. We got word by carrier pigeon.”

“What do you want?”

“Oh, that? We want you to turn that Noble over to us.” The thick finger Smith extended was aimed at the baron, who’d promptly ducked his head again.

“Why?”

“A warrant for Baron Macula was discovered in the archives of the Capital’s Legal Affairs Bureau. He’s to be hauled to the nearest court within a hundred days of his revival and placed on trial there.”

“What’s the charge?”

“Mass murder.”

“Oh my!”

The sudden hoarseness of D’s voice made the men exchange glances.

“Also, confidence schemes involving fraudulent offers of marriage.”

At this point, D shut his eyes. He appeared speechless.

Clearing his throat, Smith continued, “In the summer of 5051, Baron Macula was charged with the crime of capturing and killing approximately half a million people, male and female, young and old, during the period from the autumn of 3022 until the spring of 5049. The plaintiffs are ninety-three villagers from the La Nuvall region. Roughly seven thousand years ago, in that district—now known as Nuvell—the baron not only slaughtered five thousand children, but he lured a good six hundred widows to his mansion with promises of marriage before killing them.”

“If that don’t beat all,” said the hoarse voice.

The men’s expressions changed, and their horses whinnied, backing away. Though the weather was unchanged, the air suddenly seemed to have taken on the bite of an autumn frost.

“That’s not right!” came a scream from behind D. “I didn’t kill anyone! Those children were all used in experiments for a lofty goal!”

“Five thousand of them?”

At that question from D, the baron seemed to shrink to half his normal size. “That’s right,” he said. “But I don’t recall ever forcing anyone to do anything. I explained the purpose of the experiments to them at length, then left it to them to decide for themselves! So, do you understand now?”

“According to the accounts, you used hypnotism.”

The baron glared at Smith. “That, er—that was just for expedience, to make negotiations go smoothly, and—”

“What was your purpose?” asked Smith.

Fixed in every gaze, the baron seemed fidgety, looking around in all directions before steeling himself to the task. “To turn humans into Nobles, and Nobles into humans—and there you have it,” he said, puffing out his chest.

There was a gleam in D’s eye. That was all. Smith and his men couldn’t grasp the fearful implications of the baron’s words.

“Save your defense for the trial. At any rate, seven thousand years ago, a civil court heard the complaint. As the defendant is a Noble, any statutes of limitations don’t apply. The closest courthouse to here would be Darlitton, but it’d take a month to get there. Instead, Zappara is to the west of here, and the circuit court is due to arrive there in seven days with the whole works. You’ll have to accompany us there. You have any objection to that?”

His last remark was directed at the gorgeous Hunter.

“I certainly do!” came a resolute cry. The baron. Looking up at D as if to say, Right? You do, don’t you?, he grabbed the hem of the Hunter’s coat and tugged on it.

The men looked at each other. There were expressions of disbelief all around.

“Nope,” D said.

“Whaaaaaaat?” It went without saying who screamed that. “D-d-d-don’t you want to meet up with him?”

“Take him away,” was D’s callous reply, as if he’d already forgotten all about the baron—or as if the Nobleman had never existed in the first place.

“Very well.”

Smith gave a toss of his chin, and a number of his men dismounted. The baron ran around like an escaped piglet, but they quickly caught him, slapped plastic cuffs on him, and loaded him onto a cyborg horse that served as their pack animal.

“Sorry to have taken your time,” Smith said, finally smiling.

“No need to thank me. I’ll be coming along with you,” D told him, surprising the lawman. “I’ll stay out of your way.”

“But . . . why would you do that?”

“This is a dangerous area. Every man you can get should make you feel that much safer.”

“That may be true, but . . .” Smith deliberated. It was tough being the leader. Looking at D for a few seconds, he shook his head. “No, I think I’ll pass. We can’t be relying on the strength of a drifter. Or would you care to share with us the reason why you were traveling with the baron?”

D was silent. The silence stretched a good distance.

Backing up about four paces, Smith turned his cyborg horse back the way they’d come. A hint of relief streamed into his features. The steeds all broke into a run in unison.

“Help! Murder!” the baron cried, and the man riding close at his right flank dug an elbow into him. “How long do you people hold a stupid grudge? Help! Save me! They’ll kill me!”

The cries of “Watch your mouth!” and “Damned Noble!” faded into the distance with the whinnying of their horses.

Once all sight of them and the echo of their iron-shod hooves was lost behind the castle walls, the hoarse voice inquired, “You’re fine with that?”

Saying nothing, D got back in the saddle and wheeled his steed around.

“Ah, I see. They can’t very well complain if you follow along behind them, eh? So, we take it nice and slow and tail ’em?”

At that instant, all four hooves tore into the ground.

“Wow—what’s wrong?” The voice of surprise quickly faded.

From the same direction the patrol had gone, gunfire now echoed.

“Bandits? This should be interesting. I wonder how they’ll handle that bald little Noble this time.”

As the hoarse voice was still cackling, a figure came into view up ahead. The Hunter was on a part of the highway hemmed by rocky mounds on either side. The sounds of gunfire had already died out.

“Halt!” one of the men on the road said, training a repeating rifle on the Hunter. Though he wore a harsh expression, no killing lust emanated from him.

“Hey, they’ve got on the same uniforms as those guys we just saw,” the hoarse voice whispered.

Lowering his gun, the man said, “We’re a patrol from the Capital. We encountered a group of bandits who were impersonating us to make off with an important figure, and then eliminated them. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to make a detour.”

The sight that spread before the Hunter’s eyes suggested that a detour might be the best idea. Horses and riders lay on the ground, some covered in blood, some burnt, a number of the beasts still twitching. The legs that kicked vainly at the heavens were nothing short of an attempt to push away the approaching reaper.

—

II

—

“Hey, D!”

An egg-shaped figure was halfway up the rocky hillside to the left, waving his arm. It was the baron, but because a six-and-a-half-foot-tall giant of a man had him by the hand, he looked more like a chubby child. Several uniformed figures stood on the rocky hills to either side of the road with firearms in hand, looking down at the Hunter.

The heavily bearded giant came down to the highway with the baron, then went over to D. “I’m Captain Smith, head of this patrol,” he said, touching his hand to the brim of his hat in greeting. He had an affable smile, and the baron was looking up at him amiably. “From what the baron just told me, it seems their leader was using the same name, eh?”

D maintained his silence.

Smith looked away.

“You used explosives to kill them all?” asked D. True to his nature, the young man said nothing about the brutality or cruelty of the action.

“They resisted arrest. Fortunately, we were able to take this Noble into custody without injury.” The new Smith showed them pearly teeth. Black cylinders hung from the belt around his waist. Hand grenades. “We’ll take charge of him and escort him back to the Capital. Okay, on your way, now.”

“I’ll bring him there,” D said softly.

Smith’s mouth dropped open. Eyes narrowing to bug-like specks, he asked, “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” His manner of speech had changed completely.

The lawman raised his right hand. It was unclear whether or not D knew that the men on the slopes brought their guns to bear in unison, but the Hunter said, “A patrol’s duties don’t include transporting Nobles. It’s quite a distance to the Capital. Do you intend to abandon your mission so you can go there?”

“Why, that’s . . .”

. . . None of your damn business, Smith thought, but he swallowed the rest of those words. This young fella—he’s got such a look in his eyes. You can see all the fires of hell in them! The only things that beautiful are angels, or else . . .

Blinking repeatedly, he tested the firmness of the ground beneath his boots, then continued, “That’s the orders we got from the Capital.”

“What did the orders say?”

That really was none of his business. However, Smith didn’t fight him. “Actually—”

Silence fell.

The hoarse voice was heard to say, “Pulled a switch, eh?”

At that instant, the spell was broken. Either that, or the men were purposely set free.

“Kill him!”

The second Smith shouted, he felt a burning-hot sensation pierce his chest. His feet dangled in the air.

The six-and-a-half-foot giant still impaled on his sword, D flipped around on his horse’s back, piercing the first man he encountered through the chest as well and easily lifting him off the ground.

A heartbeat later, the man’s back caught a hail of bullets from either side. Twitching madly in his death throes, the man expired. Smith’s body shook, too—he’d been struck by bullets that went clean through the other man. Using others as a shield. Two of them, at that, and impaled on his sword. There was no way to describe D’s strategy except callous, if not impossibly cruel.

As Smith jerked backward, taking one bullet after another as they passed through the first man, D looked at him. At his rictus. Its look of infinite hatred was trained on D.

“We have to make a break for it . . . but you’re not doing that. You idiot,” the Nobleman cried, “you’ll die here, too!”

“Go on ahead,” D replied. “I’ll follow along later. If I can, that is. You’d do well to wait for me.”

The baron didn’t know what to say to that.

“Besides me, there’s probably a lot of other people after you. Good luck.”

D’s left hand went for one of the grenades on Smith’s belt. When he pulled the pin out of it, Smith’s muddied eyes filled with incredible horror.

The shooting had stopped. The men on the rocky slopes had begun shifting into spots that would offer a clear shot at D.

“Stop . . . Are you trying . . . to blow me to bits?”

“Oh, looks like we’ve got a follower of the plains faith here,” the left hand said, sounding intrigued. “In which case, he believes he can’t move on to the next stage of existence if his body is left in more than ten pieces. I can see where that’d get him worked up.”

“Please, don’t do this . . . You can cut off my head . . . tear me limb from limb, even. Just . . . don’t blow me to pieces . . . Please . . .”

“Get on,” D ordered.

The baron had taken cover behind a rock a short distance away, but he dashed over and hopped up on the steed behind D.

The pin was out of the grenade. The striker inside it would hit the percussion cap and ignite the fuse. D had also activated the grenades on the corpse behind Smith.

A bullet whizzed by just above his head. It came from the side. Apparently his foes had successfully repositioned themselves.

D’s right hand went into action. He made a swipe of his sword—or rather, made the short, flicking movement of throwing a knife—and the impaled corpses slammed against the rocky hills to either side. Right in the middle of the men. By the time they’d realized his intent, his cyborg horse had broken into a gallop.

There was only the slightest difference in the timing of the explosions. As dirt and chunks of rock rained down, D raced through them. The baron, who had his arm wrapped around the Hunter’s waist, continued to wail.

Once the road was clear of the rocky slopes, D halted his cyborg horse and looked back. Rough piles of stone from the embankments blocked the road, while the rumbling of the earth echoed far behind the rubble.

“So, you killed them all?” the baron murmured in a dumbstruck tone. “You’re a bloodthirsty one, too, aren’t you? It’s a degenerate world we live in. Hey, what are you doing?”

D had wheeled his steed around and was now approaching a rocky slope. The reason soon became apparent. There was an opening between the ground and one of the massive crags. And a figure was trying to crawl out of it.

Getting down off his horse, D stood in front of the man. It was the first Smith. His face was strangely pale. At the toe of D’s boots, he stopped moving. His bloodied body seemed to suddenly shrink.

“I’m begging you,” he groaned at D’s feet. “Get that Noble . . . to the . . . circuit court . . . Make him pay . . . for his sins . . .”

“What are you talking about?” shouted the baron, who’d come up behind D. “That was seven thousand years ago! The statute of limitations has already run out.”

“Crimes . . . have no . . . expiration date . . .”

When Smith said that, bright blood spilled from his mouth. On seeing the unbelievable quantity that soaked the ground, the baron swallowed expectantly.

Smith’s face turned upward. His eyes met D’s. “I need you to do this . . . D.” His voice was clear.

Smith’s head dropped, and he moved no more.

“My fee will be paid by the court?” D asked, and then he said, “I see.”

“Hey!” cried the baron, recoiling.

“Mount up,” D said, pointing to the cyborg horse.

“You don’t seriously intend to let one of your own kind be put on trial by humans, do you?”

D’s firm lips broke for a moment. The expression one of your own kind had drawn a wry grin from him. “Well, it’s a job.”

“What do you mean? He’d already croaked. All that business about your fee, you came up with on your own.”

“That’s one interpretation, I guess.”

The baron was about to leap away when a stark flash of light zipped out. His Achilles tendon severed, the Nobleman fell to the ground and writhed in pain.

“You’ll be good as new in five minutes.” Looking down at the blubbering “one of his own kind,” D gave a toss of his chin to the cyborg horse.

—

Once darkness had fallen, the cyborg horse picked up speed.

“Indeed, you really can’t fight your blood, can you?” the baron jeered. D ignored him, but the Nobleman continued, undaunted. “Night rather than day—this is best for every course of action. But one thing has amazed me. You don’t sleep by day, so when do you rest? The average dhampir could never manage this. You really must be his—”

There he shut his mouth and gave a grunt of admiration.

“He never gives that mouth a rest, does he?” whispered the fist that gripped the reins. “What do you say to strangling him before we get to Zappara?”

“What are you mumbling about?” the baron snapped. “Talking to yourself is one of the warning signs of madness. Talk to me. No, you needn’t talk at all. I’ll tell you about the Sacred Ancestor. Okay, first of all, he stands six and a half feet tall—what’s that?”

Whatever the baron had perceived, D, too, sensed it. Two pairs of eyes pierced the darkness ahead.

“Why, it’s a kid.”

A small figure seated by the side of the road had come into view. It was a boy around ten years old. Though he wore a shirt and pants so filthy the dirt was evident even at night, there was a certain determined look to his features. When the riders had closed to within ten yards of him, the boy noticed them and got to his feet, then jogged over to them.

“Please, help!” he cried, looking up at them.

The cyborg horse went right past him. Even a boy seeking help in the darkness of night was nothing to D.

The boy followed after them. Even through the darkness, the desperation of his expression was clear.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” the baron called out to him. Not because he was concerned. He was merely curious.

“We were on our way to the Capital to work when my sister went missing somewhere around here. Please help me find her!”

“Oh, my, that is quite a predicament you’re in. Hey, D, aren’t you going to help him out?”

Of course, the Nobleman didn’t mean what he said. And knowing that, D rode on in silence.

“Oh, I feel sorry for you. Poor little kid! This fellow here, you see, doesn’t care a whit whether anyone else lives or dies. So sad. Farewell!”

There was no one there to reprimand the baron as he cackled and waved goodbye, but suddenly a female scream was heard, drawing a little shriek from the Nobleman. The scream didn’t come from the forest. It came from above.

D’s right hand shot up. A single glint of reflected moonlight zipped up in the air.

Gasping, the baron turned around, and at that instant, not ten feet up ahead, a girl landed on the ground with an unpleasant thud.

After a brief silence, the stunned boy said, “Sis?” and broke into a run.

“What in the—”

The baron never got the chance to finish that rhetorical question.

D’s left hand reached over his head. A silver arc shot up into the moonlight.

An indescribable cry shook the night air: a scream of agony. His second wooden needle hadn’t missed its mark. As the cries of its victim’s pained convulsions echoed, the baron heard the clamor dwindling in the distance.

“You did it! It’s gone. Won’t be showing itself again, eh?” the baron chortled. His expression soon grew deadly serious. “But, I say, I had no idea such strange monstrosities had proliferated while I slumbered. How rude. What in the—”

As the Nobleman was grumbling, D had gotten down off the horse. He walked over to the two children without making a sound.

The boy had already run over to the girl. Truly a child of the Frontier, he didn’t grab and shake his sister, but rather merely called to her. “Sis, what’s wrong? It wasn’t supposed to be this way. You’ve gotta be strong, and get up!”

The girl lay there utterly motionless, like a doll, as black-gloved hands reached out and lifted her up. The boy’s eyes might have caught the bizarre thing in D’s left hand as the five fingers spread. The girl was dressed in a filthy shirt and shorts just like the boy, and D ran his hand over her head, neck, chest, hips, legs, and toes before saying, “She’s alive.”

He wasn’t addressing the boy. He’d merely confirmed it for himself. Nonetheless, the boy’s eyes gleamed with wonder.

“Really? But she fell so far—”

“No internal or external injuries. Was she being protected?”

“By what?” The boy’s wide eyes gazed at D, then immediately shifted to the skies above.

“Tonight, we’ll just let her sleep through the night,” D said, then told the baron up on the horse, “We’ll take a break until morning.”

“Oh, now this is interesting. You seem so stalwart, but you’re really quite a soft man. Have a weakness for kids’ tears, do you?”

“Amen to that,” the hoarse voice agreed.

“That thing was a ‘human taker’ made by the Nobility. It evolved further on its own,” D said.

“What are you getting at? I don’t recall ever making anything as disgusting as that,” the baron protested.

“In your time, human takers were already in use. I’ve heard every last Noble worked on coming up with machines to abduct humans. It’s not all that surprising there’s something like that around.”

—

III

—

The group went into the depths of the forest—back to the clearing where the boy and his sister had made their camp. The wreckage of a wagon and a cyborg horse lay there.

Turning in the direction in which the creature had vanished, the Hunter said, “We’re dealing with one of the Nobility’s machines here. It may come back.” Facing the boy, he then asked, “Do you want to hire me?”

Without even a moment’s thought, the boy nodded. “But—what’ll I do for money?” he asked, turning his eyes toward the ground.

“How much do you have?”

“I’ve got fifty dalen, and my sister’s got about two dalas.”

There were a hundred dalen to one dala.

The boy raised his face. He shouted, “But if you take it all, we’ll—”

“You’ll earn more. It beats dying, doesn’t it?”

The boy had nothing to say to that.

“You’ve got ice water in your veins,” the baron said, snorting in utter contempt.

“Sure does,” a voice said to him, causing him to look all around once again. The baron seemed rather dim.

Ultimately, the boy agreed. He was more concerned about his sister, now wrapped in a sleeping bag D had provided, than in arguing about money.

“I’m D,” the Hunter told his employer.

Smiling, the boy said, “I’m Piron. My sister’s Leda.”

Watching them with a gloomy look in his eye, the baron remarked condescendingly, “Isn’t this a heartwarming reconciliation. But, D, were these ‘human takers’ really as prevalent as you say they were? I don’t know anything about them!”

“Where were you back in those days?”

“Where else would I be? I spent three hundred and sixty-five days a year focused on research, never setting foot outside my castle. Why, in those days, I once went a record three years without sleep or rest. And of the times I holed up in my castle, the longest was for a period of three centuries. Ha, ha, ha!” After about ten seconds of boastful laughter, he noticed that D didn’t seem impressed. “But my goal was a lofty one. I can’t imagine any other Nobles ever undertaking anything similar. What did they use those things for?”

“Sport.”

“Why’d your voice change all of a sudden? Are you a master of mimicry or something?”

“Your fellow Nobility took the captured humans and transformed them into various creatures. Humans combined with lions, humans with fire dragons, humans with snakes—they made every last thing your moldering brains could imagine. And if that wasn’t enough for them, your kind performed vivisections on men and women, young and old, just to pass the time.”

“What stupidity!” the baron spat. In a doleful tone he continued, “There’s no more interesting research specimen in all the world than human beings. You say they used them as the basis for chimera, or chopped them to pieces like dolls? The idiots! He was right about them all along.”

“He?” D said softly, looking at the diminutive figure.

“That’s right. Him. He said the Nobility were not long for this world. And he was exactly right. Who needs the damned Nobility?”

“Do you really feel that way?”

“Stop changing your voice back and forth, would you? Do you make a hobby of spooking old people, you creep?”

“Are you serious?” D asked, a quiet light in his eyes.

The baron suddenly grew flustered, saying, “I sure am. I’m all the Nobility this world needs. The rest of them are just in the way, so let ’em turn to dust. The next time we run across a Noble’s grave, I’ll tear the thing apart! Let ’em have a baptism of sunlight,” he cackled.

The people he cursed were his own kind. The flames of the campfire threw shadows on his round face and bald head that were exceedingly disturbing. Looking as if he were about to cry, the boy—Piron—inched closer to D.

“He’s sick, that one is,” the hoarse voice whispered.

“Where are you from?” D asked. Piron was his employer. A certain amount of conversation was required.

“The village of Kibiaji. About four months back, our mother and father died in an accident, so Sis and I were going to the Capital to work.”

“Do you know anyone there?”

“We heard our mother had a much older sister there.”

“Oh, you poor little things,” the cackling baron said, a disagreeable grin rising on his face. “How would you like to be part of my experiments? I guarantee your older sister will be taken care of for life.”

Something whizzed by his nose.

“Oww!”

Jumping to his feet, the baron clutched the end of his nose, the blood seeping between his fingers lent a crimson hue by the flames.

As D sheathed his blade with a clink, the boy stared at him in amazement. Apparently he’d thought D and the baron were compatriots.

“I have to warn you: he’s a Noble,” the hoarse voice said.

Eyes bulging, the boy looked at the baron and D. There were the two of them, plus that hoarse voice. It came as little surprise he was confused.

“I’m a Hunter. I’m taking this Noble to Zappara. There should be scheduled flights to the Capital from there. You can catch one of those.”

Nodding, the boy said, “That Noble is a bad guy, isn’t he?”

“Yes, from the human point of view.”

“Is the Noble point of view any different?”

“That’s a good question.”

“Don’t the Nobility have any bad guys?”

“I’m sure there probably are.”

“Well, how about good guys?”

“There are probably those, too.”

The boy’s expression changed. He’d caught a strange timbre to D’s voice. The Hunter sounded happy.

From a short distance away, the baron laughed mockingly. “What a fanciful load of tripe. You think there’s good or bad Nobility? Nobles are Nobles—they’re all one and the same beast.”

—

With the coming of dawn, the group set out. During the night, D had used branches and slim tree trunks to fashion a sled, which Piron and Leda now rode on.

“You’re quite the handyman,” the baron remarked in a tone dripping with venom.

For a while, Piron continued to stare at the baron in mute surprise. He couldn’t believe there was a Noble who could be out in daylight.

“What are you staring at? Haven’t you ever seen a Noble before?”

“No.”

“Hmm, I suppose you haven’t, have you?” the baron said, unamused.

“You’re moving around in daylight, and you’re a Noble?”

“What’s wrong with me moving around? I’m special. A unique specimen singled out from all the Nobility. I’ll thank you not to lump me in with all those other idiots.”

“Who singled you out?”

The baron fell silent.

“Stay just as you are,” D ordered sharply.

Both Piron and the baron saw his left hand rise into the air.

“That same bastard from last night?”

The baron bugged his eyes at that hoarse remark, while Piron tensed even more.

At some point, the land to either side of them had become vast plains. D turned around. The forest was no longer visible.

“Lie down on the ground,” D said.

“What’s this all about?”

The baron’s eyes followed D’s left hand, and his pudgy face suddenly paled. At the same time, a black shadow fell across them. The blue sky’s sunlight had suddenly changed to darkness. But there weren’t any clouds. To be precise, it wasn’t actually darkness. The road and the plains, the distant rocky mountains and forest could all still be clearly discerned. But there was no way to describe it except to say the whole sky had suddenly seemed to cloud over. And everyone knew the reason.

A single streak of blue light connected the sky to the distant plain. The light rippled across the ground’s surface like waves. Without a second’s respite, a streak of black vividly linked heaven and earth. In an instant, it was pulled back into the heavens. In its wake, an enormous crater remained.

“It’s a lightning sucker. Stay under this.”

A blue cloth fell over the group. It was a blanket from the saddlebags on the Hunter’s cyborg horse. Almost completely resistant to fire, water, cold, and heat, it was just one example of an item that took advantage of the Nobility’s technology. It was also resistant to electricity. It was the great rise in travel to the Frontier some eight millennia earlier that’d provided the impetus to develop this sort of blanket.

“What, you’re not getting under it, too?” the baron asked, his face poking out from under the blanket, looking at where D lay on the ground beside his steed. His face was tinged with blue light. This time the bizarre streak stretched out, and there was a flash of lightning in a spot several miles away.

The term “lightning sucker” was used to refer to something that lurked in the sky. No one had ever actually seen one, and it was known only by its savage manner of eating. First, darkness would spread across the sky, electrical shocks would flash, and then a colossal tube would suck up all the living creatures on the ground.

Just look. From far off in the distance, the long, thick tube had closed to within six miles of D and his group. The tube of dark red flesh that sucked all the electrocuted creatures a good six miles up into the darkened sky had to be at least fifty yards in diameter. Against something on that scale, a shockproof blanket seemed like it’d be about as useful as a wet tissue. But D had chosen to use it because of a strange habit the lightning sucker had.

“You intended to take the thing’s electrical shocks without any protection? Even a Noble couldn’t withstand that. It’ll make a corpse of you and suck you up!”

The lightning sucker first blanketed the ground with electrical shocks to exterminate the living creatures, then sucked them up with its enormous tube. As it did so, any creature that still drew breath was ignored. How it told the living from the dead was a mystery, when it sucked everything up with such force it carved great craters in the earth.

Its electrical shocks ran as high as fifty million volts. There was some question of whether the blanket could take that much, to say nothing of D out in the open.

The air turned blue.

“Here it comes!”

At D’s cry, the baron gave a squeal and pulled the blanket back over his head. The blanket, D, and the plains were all tinged blue.

“Ah, I’m going numb!” the baron shrieked under the blanket.

“And you call yourself a Noble,” Piron growled. Ordinarily, he should’ve been afraid of the Noble even if D was there with him, but this boy not only wasn’t troubled by the baron; he actually mocked him. Though the boy’s personality may have played some part, surely the baron’s display of cowardice was to blame.

“What are you talking about, you little bastard? Once D out there’s been sucked up, I’ll drain the blood from you and your sister.”

“Screw you! Go ahead and try it, if you like. I’ll drive a wooden stake through your heart before you get that far.”

“N-now you’ve gone and said it!” the baron sputtered.

“Yeah, I did. You bastard scumbag piece of trash!”

“Why, you little—”

The Nobleman was just about to pounce on the boy when D’s voice was heard beyond the blanket. “Direct hit incoming.”

“What?”

Even the inside of the blanket was tinged blue.

“Gaaaaaaah!” the baron shrieked, writhing. Electromagnetic waves had passed through, conducted by the metallic ornaments he wore. “Help me!” he cried, trying to latch onto Piron.

“Keep back!” the boy said, planting a kick of his youthful foot square in the middle of the baron’s face. The numbness assailed Piron, too. The boy, and his older sister as well, twitched violently.

A blue fog rolled out. No, not fog, but rather smoke. Under the ferocious electrical assault, the blanket had begun to burn.

“Oh, no! We’ll be burnt to a crisp! Heeeeelp!”

The electromagnetic waves were coursing through his body, the fire was scorching him, and he was suffocating from the smoke. Suffering from a triple threat beyond imagining, the baron finally threw the blanket off.

“Huh?”

Light had returned to the world. Though various spots on the plains had enormous, fifty-foot-wide holes, the lightning sucker had apparently left.

“Oh, that’s right—what about D?”

The cyborg horse still lay on its side, and the baron looked beside it. He swallowed so hard, Piron got his coughing under control and poked his head up, asking, “What is it?”

There wasn’t a trace of D.