Castle of Love and Hate

Castle of Love and Hate

chapter 4

I

The staggering weight was pushed off by a quadruped machine that called to mind an insect. The entire thing was colored gold, apparently in keeping with the tastes of Gilzen, who sat in the driver’s seat. Looking down at the group from a height of over eight feet, he said, “Under the laboratory was where I stored my mobile weaponry. What will you do, D? Care to tangle with this for a few laughs before we get to chatting?”

He coupled his taunt with abuse. But D wasn’t the kind of young man to walk away from a challenge. He stepped forward without a word. As a cold, eerie aura radiated from him, the Huntress and the shadow woman could only look on, frozen. The insectival weapon seemed to be crafted from special alloys. Even with D’s ungodly swordsmanship, it didn’t look like a very even fight.

“This isn’t necessarily a weapon I had intended to press into service. Using the knowledge and technology I gleaned from the miserable aliens, I put it together on a lark.”

When Gilzen’s voice was heard from the control pod of the machine, it failed to convey the usual deadly air of ambition. Now a heavy, languid air drifted steadily from the Noble called the most abhorrent in the entire history of the Nobility.

One of the machine’s front legs clanged forward. D didn’t move. His right hand was still reaching for his hilt. The instant his opponent betrayed its next move, that same hand would surely go into deadly action.

Perhaps confident of his overwhelming physical superiority, Gilzen said nothing as he advanced in the machine. As its front legs moved forward with motions more fluid than those of a human being, a silvery glint shot out, unaccompanied by any battle cry. The streak of light called to mind the arc of a supernatural blade.

Lilia cried out.

A metallic leg had been lopped off at the joint. Before the knee of the severely listing machine could make contact with the ground, a brownish ichor gushed from the joint, slapping against the floor.

D kept his sword low, not moving.

“You lousy piece of trash!”

The cockpit opened and a golden figure flew out, taking the form of Gilzen when it landed.

“You deserve to die.”

He kicked the nearest leg, and the gigantic machine rolled over with a rumble.

“What’s this?” Lilia said, amazed. This was supposed to be alien technology?

“Guess it wasn’t out of the testing phase, eh?”

Gilzen reacted to the hoarse voice, saying, “Applied technology, you see. A piece of junk from ten thousand years ago. I, however, am another matter!”

His scepter was extended toward D.

“Ah, that’s right,” Gilzen said, “beam weapons don’t work on you. Well then, tangle with this.”

He gave his scepter a swing. The opposite end grew over six feet, and from it appeared a spearhead over eighteen inches long.

Lilia stepped forward, saying, “D, leave this to me.”

“Sure thing.”

As the hoarse voice spoke, the Hunter grabbed Lilia’s right shoulder, and in a heartbeat her consciousness sank into darkness. Quickly scooping up the slumping figure, D artlessly tossed her onto the floor to one side and made a leap. The blade he had raised high whistled as it drove for Gilzen’s head. The spearhead parried it. A strange sound came from the palm of D’s left hand, making the Nobleman’s eyes go wide. Gilzen staggered. The spearhead broke in half, and the Noble it should’ve protected sprayed fresh blood from his head all the way down to his solar plexus.

Landing like a supernatural bird, D closed on Gilzen. After splitting his head, would the Hunter now deal the coup de grâce? Or would he—

There was a thunk! and D leapt back.

Lilia gasped out loud. The instant she’d regained consciousness, she’d witnessed Gilzen’s scepter piercing D’s chest. As D’s right hand held his sword in line with the Nobleman’s eye, trickles of red began to drip from the corners of the Hunter’s mouth. Gilzen’s blow had broken his ribs, and they in turn had punctured his lungs.

Putting one hand over the split in his head, Gilzen slid it smoothly down his face. When it came away again, the cut had vanished.

“When it comes to the life sciences, we’re slightly ahead of them,” Gilzen said. “Unlike our kind, they have a limited lifespan. As a result, they strove to achieve immortality through science, and to some extent they achieved it. I applied their science to myself. As you’ve just seen—your blows don’t affect me, D!”

As Gilzen’s massive frame took a tentative step forward, the air seemed to recoil.

“This is serious trouble,” the hoarse voice said from the vicinity of D’s left hip. “Run for it—or that’s what I would tell you, but it’s probably not going to do any good. Anyway, run for it!”

Naturally, D was unmoved by the cries from his left hand.

For her part, Lilia drew her sword. “Leave him to me,” she said, her eyes giving off a red glow. The glow of a vampire. “D, I was bitten by this clown. I gained his powers. His alien powers, too.”

She was about to leave without even waiting for the Hunter’s response when a silvery serpent stretched toward her chest.

“Stay out of my way,” D said.

If you don’t, I’ll cut you down—that was how Lilia read him. The sword tip against her chest pulled back far as the Hunter braced his longsword for action.

“Fine. You’re the competition. Let’s see once and for all how we should divvy up the take, okay?”

“A falling-out among colleagues?” Gilzen laughed. “Very well, I shall wait. Whichever of you wins, it’ll undoubtedly leave me with one less hindrance. However, let me say this.” The Nobleman’s eyes were the color of blood. “Woman, I decided something when I first laid eyes on you. You are to be my new guard. Now, use all the power at your disposal. Try to slay D. However, you do so by my will.”

As the Nobleman said that, every trace of emotion drained from Lilia’s face. Expression as vacant as a Noh mask, the Huntress and her sword were tinged with a terrific supernatural aura. It was a mix of Gilzen’s unearthly air and the aliens’ vitality. And now, it’d made a foe of D.

“More trouble, eh?” the hoarse voice could be heard remarking with disgust.

D’s sword swung back to Gilzen. Did he not know that Lilia was behind him and off to one side, her longsword raised high?

Before Lilia’s blade could enter the deadly fray, a troubled tinge surged into her face. As if an invisible hand were drawing back her sword, Lilia pushed desperately against the weapon, trying to back away.

“D . . . You know what’s happening, don’t you?” she said, iron words forged in her heart falling from trembling lips. “This . . . isn’t my doing . . . Gilzen’s blood is at work . . . you see . . . I’m begging you . . . D . . . Kill me . . . Quickly.”

Lilia’s fierce will must’ve allowed her to break the spell of the Noble’s blood. However, her face instantly went blank again. Her boots trod across the floor, one leg pushing the other forward. One step . . . then another.

D made no attempt to turn and face her. Was he completely focused on Gilzen, or did he have faith in Lilia? No, no matter what happened, he undoubtedly considered her not worth the trouble.

However, at that moment he coughed, and fresh blood spattered against the floor at his feet. Lilia closed on him. Her eyes were those of Gilzen. At that moment, Lilia put incredible strength into her lower body and was about to charge forward when she looked up and off to the right. Just then, Gilzen had turned in the same direction.

A klaxon was ringing.

“Display!” Gilzen commanded.

Where his eyes met the ceiling an elliptical area formed, depicting a scene of blue sky and a white peak. It was a view of the outside. Off in the distance, four aircraft that seemed to be helicopters were approaching.

“Ah, here’s something rare. They called these ‘helicopters’ long ago. The style has changed, but they’re still in use some ten thousand years later? Are they so very useful, or has there been that little progress?”

“They’re carrying real trouble,” the hoarse voice said.

“Nuclear missiles,” Lilia murmured absent-mindedly, but it was unclear whether that was the influence of Gilzen’s blood at work.

“Some fools, some human representative who no longer remembers how fearsome Gilzen can be, must have dispatched them on learning of my return. D, a truce for the time being.”

“No.”

Gilzen turned in amazement to find a stark flash of light right before his eyes. As his head was being split once more, he declared, “Sacred Ancestor’s freak!” Bloody foam erupted from his mouth, and just as it was about to hit the floor, the Nobleman suddenly vanished. He’d teleported.

Lilia opened her eyes wide and gave her body a ferocious shake. Gilzen’s spell had been broken. Apparently she could recall what’d happened, because she said, “D?”

When she turned, she found the young man in black had already sheathed his blade.

“But he—”

“Probably gone to do something about the missiles,” the hoarse voice replied. “Noble castle or not, it won’t be able to weather a direct hit from a nuclear warhead. If those are tactical warheads, one should be enough to vaporize everything. Oh, they’re closing on us. By the size of ’em, they’re about five hundred yards from a safe detonation range . . . four hundred . . . three . . . Oh, there it is!”

From the bottom of the helicopters that’d just become recognizable to the average human eye black objects dropped in unison. White smoke trailing in their wake, they impacted in the center of the midair screen.

Lilia balled her hand into a fist.

The screen glowed white. One million degrees of burning white light engulfed not only Gilzen’s castle, but the entire peak known as White Devil Mountain.

II

Lilia rubbed her eyes, saying, “We’re still alive, eh?”

Two shadows—or, to be completely accurate, three shadows—were cast blackly on the floor.

“The missiles scored a direct hit, right? And they didn’t misfire. So, how are we still okay? Did he have some sort of alien force field up?”

“Nope,” the hoarse voice replied. “The outside of the castle was toasted. Vaporized the instant they hit.”

“In that case, why are we—what’s the story here? Is this place made out of some special material?”

“No, but it’s the same as Gilzen. Even the stone has regenerative abilities, it seems.”

“Even the stone?”

“Probably thanks to alien technology or something. Otherwise they wouldn’t be able to travel across the universe from some distant star. The ship and its crew would’ve decayed before the forces of time, yet they conquered space. Oh, what’s this?”

From the bottoms of the helicopters on the screen missiles were once more closing, with white smoke trailing behind them.

“More nuclear warheads?”

“No, those are normal missiles. Do those idiots think conventional weapons are gonna work against someone who laughed off nuclear warheads?”

“Who are these clowns?” Lilia jeered.

“Clueless soldiers—sent by the Capital, I’m sure. They should get while the getting’s good. They won’t get off with just apologies—”

There was no need to say anything more. No missile impacts or flames were shown; instead, great black spears fired from the castle pierced the helicopters. Fireballs swelled from two of the aircraft and the remaining pair dropped listlessly, spouting flames.

“Iron against the assault from outside?”

Lilia nodded at the hoarse voice’s comment.

But D alone remained focused, asking, “Where’s Gilzen?”

His job wasn’t finished.

Lilia chuckled faintly. “This way.”

Tossing her chin in the direction of the ruins and starting to walk, she looked down at her feet and said, “Hey, where’s the shadow?”

D knew that Gilzen’s mother, Lady Carr, had left without a sign when the nuclear attack had occurred. Relegated to a life of creeping across the ground by her son, the woman undoubtedly still had things to do.

Saying nothing, D began walking in the direction Lilia had indicated.

–

Gilzen was satisfied. The attack by his foes without had been completely negated, and he’d seized a chance for victory over D. Though his mother remained a problem, that would eventually be resolved when he disposed of her. He assumed she wasn’t dead already. Mother or not, he wouldn’t allow anyone who’d crossed him to live.

Looking to the sky, he called out, “Jeanne!”

The figure of the warrior woman came into view. It was the same sort of three-dimensional image D had seen.

“I’m here,” she replied.

“Is Budges there as well?”

“Yes.”

“Anyone else?”

“Guhoro, Bayanjar, and Tovsk are safe, along with their subordinates. The rest—were slain,” she said, not sounding terribly sad.

“By D?”

“No, the aliens. The wounded have been flooding in, so, as you can see, we’re treating them at the moment.”

“Be done with them. They’re useless.”

Jeanne was at a loss for words.

“Did you hear me?”

“These are people who returned to life after ten thousand years of waiting. And the very day they came back, they were injured. More than two hundred of them have already been reduced to dust.”

“What of it? If a hundred are lost, I’ll simply bring back a thousand more. More than a hundred thousand are loyal to me!”

Again, Jeanne didn’t know what to say.

“I’m giving you an order now. Anyone who has lost so much as an arm or a leg is not to be treated; they’re to be disposed of!”

“. . . Understood.”

Once the floating image of Gilzen had vanished, Jeanne said, “Did you hear that?”

From the back, in a spot hidden from Gilzen’s view, came a reply: “I certainly did.”

“Even knowing that’s our liege Gilzen’s way of doing things, I can’t accept it.”

“Still, we can’t turn our back on him. We are servants who’ve sworn our allegiance to the duke.”

The last voice belonged to Budges. There wasn’t so much as a shadow to him. “What’s come over you, Jeanne?” he continued. “Never once have you gone against the duke’s way of doing things.”

The warrior woman looked down. “I—I was originally human,” she said in a voice that sounded like she was wringing blood from her throat.

Budges was speechless.

“Gilzen drank my blood, and valuing my skill in my human profession of warrior, he selected me for this. Budges, I have dedicated my new life to our liege, Gilzen.”

To be precise, it sounded like she was coughing up blood as she shouted.

“What’s wrong, then?”

Jeanne shook her head feebly. “Nothing. I am a faithful retainer.”

“That’s right,” said a threatening voice from the back, enveloping the other two. It came from a strapping man whose right arm hung limply from his shoulder. Set in his square face were equally square eyes that gleamed with a dauntless spark.

“Lord Bayanjar—oh, and General Tovsk as well.”

Although she bowed her head reverently, Jeanne’s tone carried thorns that suggested her deference toward the two armored warriors was sarcastic.

“Is it not our honor as fighting men to pledge our lives to Duke Gilzen, to the last bit of flesh and blood?” said a man covered in armor right up to and including his face—General Tovsk, apparently. Jabbing out a finger that seemed to be made of steel and pointing it in Jeanne’s direction, he continued, “It would appear to me from your every act that the two of you harbor defiance of and scorn toward the duke. Take care, lest you suffer for it later.”

Budges’s voice rained down on them, saying, “Yes, but if we comply with the duke’s wishes, Lord Bayanjar, we must also dispose of you, sir!”

His square face twisting with loathing, the man with the injured right arm looked up at the ceiling, but was unable to see the man who’d just spoken.

“My, but that human woman has done splendidly!” Jeanne said, her eyes turning toward the far end of the room.

The room appeared to be a kind of VIP lounge, and up by the ceiling floated an elliptical screen like the one that’d shown Gilzen. It depicted a scene that could only be described as ghastly. Blood-soaked soldiers stood in lines, slumped, or lay on the floor as they received medical attention. Their physician was Vera. Surprisingly, the rest of the doctoring was being done by less grievously wounded soldiers. As they weren’t doctors, it was only natural that their attempts at disinfecting their compatriots’ wounds, wrapping them in bandages, or stitching them closed were crude, but as they fervently attended their work, Vera watched over these quick studies, giving them pointers or reprimanding them, and the lone woman was an inspiring sight. For a while, Jeanne and the two military leaders could only watch her with fascination.

Before long, Jeanne said, “We were fortunate to have access to medicine and basic medical equipment.”

The two men nodded agreement reflexively.

This castle didn’t really have much in the way of drugs or medical devices for treating the gravely injured—in fact, it didn’t have any. As to why this was the case, Gilzen’s words minutes earlier had made that abundantly clear. Soldiers were completely disposable. When injured, their wounds would either heal eventually, or they’d be reduced to dust. It was a miracle they had the few medical supplies they did.

“This woman is only making matters worse,” General Tovsk said in a parched voice. “The duke has spoken. I shall go and dispose of the others.”

General Tovsk started walking toward the door. No one pursued him.

After several twists and turns of the corridor, General Tovsk halted just before the moving sidewalk.

“What do you want with me, Budges?”

From the stone ceiling a voice replied, “There’s just one thing I’d like to ask you.”

“What’s that?”

“Are you absolutely determined to deal with the wounded?”

“Those were the duke’s orders. Ordinarily you and she would’ve been tasked with it, but since I believe that might be painful for you, I shall do it in your stead. You should thank me for this.”

“They’re brave people injured in hard fighting against D and the aliens!”

“That is a grunt’s job.”

“They didn’t wait ten thousand years to be reborn just so they could die, sir.”

“You test my patience!”

A cylindrical device on General Tovsk’s right shoulder swiveled around, its end pointing up at the ceiling. There was a dull pop of compressed air, and an iron arrow pierced the source of the voice before jabbing into the ceiling.

“You think Tovsk needs advice from a formless wretch like you? Do you have any inkling how you’ve angered me? Begone. I shall discipline you for this later.”

As he walked forward without a glance back, above him the voice spoke again, saying, “I suppose there’s little point in asking you to reconsider, is there, sir?”

“Budges!” the general exclaimed, his right hand going for the gun on his hip. He made it look as if he were pointing it in the direction the voice had come from, and then with ungodly speed he spun around, letting off a crimson blast of light in the opposite direction—at the floor. As boiling steam rose from it, groans could definitely be heard.

So, the formless warrior could be injured by physical attacks?

“I can see you, thanks to the eyes in the special suit of armor developed for me using the alien technology. Of course, your psychic attacks are also the product of the aliens’ technology. Do you want to die by an alien weapon?”

“Not at all, sir.”

With that intrepid reply, General Tovsk’s body was tossed into the air. Shooting thirty feet down the corridor, he slammed into a stone staircase. His back arched across the edge of the steps. Just as he was about to slide down them, the general shot up to the ceiling, this time hammering flat against it. Comparisons to a pancake wouldn’t have been inappropriate.

From Tovsk’s insect-like mask, a solemn voice inquired, “Are you trying to kill me?”

“I have little choice in the matter. Unless I can get you to see reason.”

“That’s how it’s going to be? Then, I don’t suppose you intend to let me down from here, do you?”

“I do not, sir.”

“I shall have to let myself down, then.”

“Oh!”

Budges’s cry of surprise was pierced by a crimson light. It was a beam General Tovsk’s weapon had fired as he released himself. This time the flames that enveloped part of the ceiling were accompanied by a cry of intense pain.

Landing without a sound, the general hauled his head back and laughed. “This weapon responds to my will. Actually, it’s exactly like your psychic attacks. This is how the technology is meant to be applied, Budges. Well, there’s no point in letting you escape now. The murderous intentions you harbored toward me have earned you your death.”

It was not at the ceiling but rather at the base of a stone pillar to his right that he aimed the barrel of his beam pistol, but then the weapon spun in a wide arc to the left.

The tall figure coming down the moving sidewalk from the far end of the corridor was clearly an alien.

There were two flashes of light that looked like a single beam.

“Oh?”

The general looked down at his hand, and the alien did the same thing. Both held smoking pieces of melted metal in their hands. Miraculously, the deadly beams they’d fired off so quickly had each vaporized the workings of the other’s weapon.

“You lousy . . .”

Nothing from the alien.

The shoulder of each bore a crossbow that was aimed at the other. Iron arrows powered by compressed gas appeared to stab into the left side of each combatant’s chest—then ricocheted off.

“It surprises me not that the inspiration for my own armor should work so well. Is this what I need to finish this?”

The general’s right hand went for the sword on his hip, the blade singing as it slipped from its scabbard.

The enemy raised the long spear in its left hand into a fighting pose.

General Tovsk charged forward, making the ground tremble beneath him.

III

A long spear against a longsword—no matter how you looked at it, the sword seemed at a disadvantage. It was a matter of the difference in length between the weapons. The second the general stepped within range of the spear his sword would be next to useless while his body would be in range of a spear thrust.

It was unclear how General Tovsk could accept that, but his steps never faltered as he faced the long spear head-on. Without dodging the long spear when it stretched toward his chest like a gleam of light, the general hurled the sword he had in hand.

Two clangs overlapped. The long spear slipped across the general’s chest, and the longsword bounced off the enemy’s throat.

Grabbing the long spear with both hands, the general swung it to the right. Though he’d intended to wrest it from his foe, that didn’t go as planned. When he’d swung it, his opponent had gone with it. Paying no mind to that, Tovsk swung it again. The massive form of his foe slammed into a stone pillar, shattering it. The enemy fell to the floor.

“After an intensive study of your armor, I added strength-boosting technology to my own. It’s not surprising the original model doesn’t measure up to it in a test of strength. Before I take care of our own worthless lot, I shall do away with you. Here I eliminate one of the duke’s anxieties!” the general said, raising the long spear to strike with his right hand. “I can’t pierce your armor, but it would appear I can batter my way through it. I wonder if your next stop is a different afterlife from ours.”

The spear was flung. Just as it was about to pierce the enemy’s mask, it was cut in two, falling at the foe’s feet.

As the befuddled General Tovsk looked all around, a figure sailed down from where it had been clinging to the ceiling. Powerless to do anything, the general had his right arm taken off at the elbow. Staring at the fresh blood that spouted from it as if in disbelief, he then glared at the figure who’d landed before him. It was a man clad from head to toe in a lustrous black garment. An oddly shaped knife glittered in his right hand.

“This stealth suit doesn’t even trip your master’s sensors. And it seems like the power of my Deadman’s Blade has been boosted, too.”

“You . . . You’re human?”

“Nope. When I was human, I went by the name of Crey. It’s strange to meet like this—but hello, at any rate.”

“When you were human? You mean to tell me you were . . . by this thing?”

“Yep,” replied the man in black who’d identified himself as Crey, his voice carrying a mysterious hint of desolation. “I was bitten. All of their kind got bitten by ol’ Gilzen, as you probably know. So, this one should’ve been at Gilzen’s beck and call, but even though they’re bitten, seems these things are a lot more likely than humans to keep their own will. And my master, well, it’s one of ’em.”

The general still couldn’t believe it. More than Crey’s words, it was his own wound that shocked him. A horrible sense of humiliation burned in him worse than any pain. One of my arms taken off by a damned knife? The only way to lay that humiliation to rest would be to slay this opponent—an error in judgment caused by confidence in his own war record. Instead of calling on the crossbow on his shoulder, he rushed barehanded at the foe he was about to rend to pieces.

Though the general was still well out of range, Crey’s knife flashed out. It was unclear whether it was the material of the blade or Crey’s skill that did the trick.

The general’s body ran right by Crey after the outlaw had hastily stepped to one side. A now-headless body. Copious quantities of blood slapped against the floor once the general’s body had slammed into the moving sidewalk.

As the large body was slowly borne off into the depths of the darkness, Crey in his black suit watched it go for a while, but before long he turned to the still-prone alien and said, “Not too impressive of you, master. Just keep lying there. I’ll go get rid of Duke Gilzen and the rest!”

Perhaps the alien had recovered enough to understand the jibes, because its massive form rose like a swelling sea.

“Okay, we going now? Time to look for Gilzen!”

Crey led the way, with the gigantic alien following along behind him.

Once the two of them had gone from view, from the opposite end of the corridor the slightly impatient yet cool voice of a woman said, “I came out of concern for Budges, and what should I find but another troublesome foe. Not even I could move against him immediately. However, that one may yet prove useful. Budges, are you okay?”

Vera wanted to scream. There wasn’t enough medicine. It was something for which the Nobility, priding themselves on their ageless and immortal nature, normally had no use. What was stocked in the castle was probably kept there for the use of human servants, so it was in unavoidably short supply.

The wounded poured in one after another, some with arms or legs cut off, others with necks half-severed, some split open from the throat to the solar plexus so that their entrails hung out—all of them would’ve died on the spot if they were human, so it was incredible that Vera had maintained her sanity. Instead of simply passing out, she was able to treat their wounds out of a combination of fascination with the vitality of the Nobility that allowed them to survive in such a state and a sense of duty as a doctor. She treated not only true Nobles but also those they’d turned, and while there was some difference in healing ability between the two, even the latter exhibited regenerative powers no human possessed.

Wounds of that degree should’ve healed in seconds for the Nobility. However, this time they were left with horrible scars just as a human would be. When she asked one of the soldiers assisting her about it, Vera received a daunting reply that made her pursue the matter no further: “It must be some difference in the way they were cut.” Since she knew they’d faced either D or what were apparently aliens, she had no choice but to accept that. They could probably manage such a thing.

After about three hours, they were out of medicine. Cries of pain still filled the room, and the scent of blood eddied as if conducting a ghastly symphony.

“There’s nothing else we can do. Do any of you know someplace else there might be medicine?”

At the query from the sweat- and blood-soaked woman, her erstwhile assistants exchanged looks, and one of them replied, “We don’t know of any. But I’ve heard there are still some things packed away belowground that haven’t been opened yet.”

“Could you go down there and get them?”

He shook an anxious face from side to side. The aliens that’d defeated them still prowled the castle.

“I see. I’ll go, then,” Vera said, standing up. Her eyes were ablaze with determination.

“Why would you go to that much trouble?” asked a female soldier acting as a nurse, unable to conceal the surprise on her face.

Another soldier said uncertainly, “You’re a human, and we’re Nobility!”

“You’re patients, and I’m a doctor!” Vera replied flatly, and the soldiers gazed at her with an oddly placid look in their eyes.

“Please, stay here. I’ll go,” one of them told her, grabbing a laser rifle that was propped up against the wall.

“I’ll go, too.”

“Me, too,” said the female soldier. “It’ll be nice to get in on the glory for a change.”

Now it was Vera’s turn to stare at the Nobles. She was witnessing a quality scholars in the Capital unequivocally stated their kind did not possess—self-sacrifice.

“Stupid Nobility,” Vera heard herself say in a low but emotionally charged voice.

The bloodstained soldiers grinned thinly. They seemed to be mocking themselves. That was all they intended to leave as a parting gift when they stepped out on the road to death.

“See you later.”

“Hold the fort.”

“We’ll be right back.”

Turning their backs to her, the soldiers headed for the door.

The wounded were waiting in the adjacent room. At the moment, treatment had been put on hold. Leaning back against the iron door she’d just shut, Vera heaved a deep sigh. She didn’t feel like accepting any more wounded. Taking a seat in a steel chair, she found herself assailed hard and fast by sleepiness.

She awoke to the sound of an iron door creaking.

The soldiers are back, she thought.

The iron door was half-open. A glowing figure entered. She immediately realized who it was.

“Gilzen!”

“Don’t address me with such insolence, lowly human,” the Greater Noble in the golden cape said, showing stark fangs while the right half of his body remained shielded by the door.

Vera grasped for something to say but didn’t fare well.

“On awakening after ten millennia, I find the minds of my vassals have changed greatly. My command to dispose of the hindrance hasn’t been put into action. It would be simple enough to delegate this to machines or someone else, but I thought it best to use this opportunity to put the fear of me into their bones, so here I am.”

More than the disturbing nature of his grinning visage, more than the overwhelming air of the supernatural that billowed from him, it was what intuition told her lay behind those words that made Vera shudder.

“Hindrance?” she said, thinking, What in the world is Gilzen doing here?

“First, behold the fate of the traitors I encountered on my way here!”

Gilzen revealed the other half of his body. Something dangled from his right hand.

The breath caught in Vera’s throat. She could almost hear the blood draining from her own body.

“Look!”

Gilzen threw what he held. There were three objects, and they fell with a dull thud at Vera’s feet. They were the heads of the valiant soldiers who’d left a short time before, blank expressions still on their pale faces even as their mouths continued to open and close.

“Filthy turncoats!”

Gilzen swung his scepter. It grew like a long spear, shattering the three severed heads. The heads turned to dust and spread across the floor.

“But you . . . They were your own subordinates . . .” Vera said, shuddering with horror. Her voice quavered.

“My subordinates? They were worthless troublemakers from days long gone. Like the wounded in there.”

His blood-red eyes shot a glance at the neighboring room, and Vera felt her blood run cold.

“You . . . No . . . You wouldn’t . . .”

Gilzen stepped away from the doorway.

Vera got up from her chair. For a while she couldn’t move, and then she slowly took two steps. Sucking air into her lungs, she ran as she let it out again. Dashing past Gilzen, she slipped through the doorway.

There was nobody in the room.

Her foot stepped on something that wasn’t stone. She knew what it was then. For a hundred yards in all directions the floor was covered in gray dust.

It took her a while to bring her suspicions all the way to her lips.

“You . . . The people who were in here . . . All of them . . .”

“I shall soon raise new subordinates. This castle has ten thousand soldiers.”

“Everyone has just one life. That goes for humans and Nobles.”

“What an intriguing thing to say. However, there’s a difference. A human lasts at best a hundred years, while the lives of the Nobility are eternal!”

“That life is cursed!”

Gilzen suddenly tilted his head back and laughed. “Life, life, accursed life. Ha ha ha! Life can’t be cursed or anything else. In this world if you breathe, and eat, and survive, that is life! Although in our case that would be ‘drink blood’ instead of ‘eat.’ ”

“In that case, why are the Nobility facing extinction?” Vera said, her words cutting deeply.

For an instant, a tinge of pain spread in Gilzen’s expression. He thrust his scepter into the air.

“Before I was forced into that sleep, I knew this was coming. I knew it, and so did he. That is why we searched for a means of averting it. He sought it within the human race, and I in outer space. Which of us was correct will soon become clear. When I have slain D, that is.”

Vera convulsed as the red eyes slowly turned toward her.