Hunter

chapter 2

I

Some bath that turned out to be!” the hoarse voice said as the Hunter’s steed started to trot away with the girl riding by his side. The voice seemed to issue from the vicinity of his left hand, which gripped the reins.

When D had mounted up to ride off, Iriya had chased after him. They were on a road less than a hundred yards from the hot spring baths. To inform the spa staff of the tragic turn of events that’d taken place there, Iriya gave them a note recounting the incident and a lock of her hair. DNA analysis of the latter would confirm her identity as a registered Hunter. At the next town she’d appear before the local sheriff, where she’d have to answer some questions, but if the identities of the characters she’d dispatched had been discovered, a little money under the table would see her acquitted of any charges.

“There’s no way around it. Work is work, after all.”

“So, you don’t intend to give up, then?” the hoarse voice asked.

“No.”

“You heard what this guy said. And I agree with him. I mean, like, a hundred percent.”

Iriya snorted. Apparently she’d realized the true nature of the hoarse voice. “Is that some sort of parasite?” she asked.

“I suppose it is,” D said in an uncharacteristic reply.

There weren’t all that many human beings around playing host to parasitic creatures. They sacrificed some of their blood, their energy, or in extremely rare cases their life itself, and in return they gained the abilities of the parasite. Through this hazardous form of give-and-take, a host could gain strength beyond that of normal men or take on special jobs, such as being a Hunter.

“Could I have a look at it?” Iriya asked, reaching for D’s left hand as she edged her cyborg horse closer.

“I wouldn’t do that,” D said. “It’ll just make you ill.”

“What are you talking about? You can touch me, missy. I’m fine with you rubbing me against your cheek, if you like. Or stuff me down between those bouncy, bouncy fun bags and—ouff!”

D gave his left fist another squeeze, then adjusted his grip on the reins.

For a while, the silence continued.

After about ten minutes had passed, Iriya ventured, “Say—”

She found no purchase there. No reply came from the gorgeous profile of the Hunter swaying in the saddle.

“Are you going to Wendover Gorge?”

“Well, it’s on our way.”

She didn’t even mind that it was the hoarse voice that replied. High in the saddle, Iriya clapped her hands together.

“What are you so happy about?” D inquired.

“That I can go with you. Traveling alone is so boring!”

“I don’t think it’s gonna be a very fun trip,” the hoarse voice remarked.

Iriya shrugged her shoulders a bit. It seemed like just the sort of thing any girl her age would do. It wasn’t the gesture of a person accustomed to taking lives.

“You think so? I suppose not. There’s no sense in moping about it, though. There’s still a good distance to go.”

“Been at this long?”

As her eyes shot to D, they seemed to say, Well, what do you know! It was a wonder that this young man should be curious about her.

Eyeing her suspiciously, he asked, “What is it?”

“Er, nothing. Let’s see—it’s only been three years. I’ve been on the road since I was fourteen.”

“Only?” D’s left hand murmured.

“And the two of you—you’ve been at this even longer?”

“You could say that,” D replied. And that was all there was to it.

After waiting a little while, Iriya seemed to reproach herself as she said, “Stupid. Here I was expecting more.”

“How so?” the hoarse voice inquired.

Looking a bit vexed, Iriya continued, “I just thought the great Hunter D would have all sorts of things to say to me. After all, he’s so mysterious.”

“Nobility Hunters are all that way, aren’t they? You wouldn’t really call this any sort of job for upstanding folks.”

“Well, I suppose you have a point.”

There was an iron rule for survival in this world, and every living creature knew it by heart: Humans are not on a par with Nobles. The only exceptions to that immutable philosophy were the men and women they called Hunters. They were highly skilled in combat, possessing the kind of unbreakable spirit, stamina, and recuperative abilities that were found in perhaps only one person in ten million. These huntsmen and huntresses felt none of the fear the Nobles had sown down through the millennia—they were the only ones who dared gainsay the iron rule.

As a result, Hunters were largely deficient in things other humans possessed. Since the violence, evil, and misanthropy they encountered in their daily lives left them unable to adapt to society, Hunters were kept at a distance by other people and also chose to keep their distance from others. So Hunters had no choice but to be nomads. With no spouses or children or settled family lives, their search for Nobles left them roaming the Frontier in an ambivalent existence in which they lived only to destroy the Nobility but couldn’t make a living without them. Often others didn’t know their real names or where they were from, and since Hunters didn’t talk about themselves, they often became legends of the Frontier.

“There are exceptions. But I wouldn’t call the exceptions all that exceptional.”

The hoarse voice’s remark made Iriya lean closer.

“Like who?”

“You.”

“Huh?”

“You look to be a far cry from a Hunter. It’s not just that you don’t seem suited to it, but I’m surprised the last three years didn’t see you dead a couple thousand times over. And yet, I’ll give you credit for having more skill than the average Hunter. And your resolve—”

The hoarse voice drew a breath. Its next words seemed to probe. “You destroy your own brother, and the very next day you’re going about your business as cool as a cucumber, ready to kill the next member of your—gaaaah!”

D took his balled fist away from the reins and gave it a few shakes. A cry of pain echoed from it each time.

“Don’t let it bother you,” D said. Coming from him, those words were practically a miracle.

Stretching her back in the saddle, Iriya let out a deep breath. Though her eyes were shut, there was no sign of tears. Her pained expression quickly left her, becoming a smile. There was still sadness in it, but it was a great improvement.

The pair of cyborg horses hit the main road and headed southwest.

It was quite some time before the girl could wring the next words from her lips. “How long has it been—that you’ve been on the road, I mean?”

“I don’t recall,” D replied.

“So you’ve been out here ever since you became a Hunter?”

“That’s right.”

“And Nobles—how many of them have you killed?”

“I don’t recall.”

His icy reply silenced Iriya. Then, she said, “Yeah. That sounds like it’d be for the best. Just forget everything.”

It seemed as if she were giving that advice to herself.

Sunlight bleached the road. It was nearly noon, and there was not a single gap or crevice in which to shelter from the light—it was the human race’s time. Travelers going the opposite way passed them from time to time, and while each and every one of them became enraptured, there was no denying that some also showed astonishment. While the gorgeous young man with an unearthly air about him and the young woman in the crimson cape seemed to be in the same line of work, the different moods surrounding each made it seem unlikely that they were even the same species.

Iriya only opened her mouth again when D put his hand to the brim of his traveler’s hat and angled it down.

“Is the light of the sun a problem for dhampirs?”

That was hardly the sort of basic question one would expect from a Hunter, but Iriya didn’t miss the way it made D’s cheeks go slightly slack.

“Yeah, I thought as much. In that case, why are you traveling by day? It’d be much easier to ride by night, wouldn’t it?”

Iriya caught D’s eyes shooting in her direction for a second. In that instant, she was frozen to the marrow of her bones. That was how the young man had succeeded in slaying Nobles for so long.

Immediately shifting his eyes forward again, D said, “People who’ve lost something become Hunters—only those who’ve lost something that can never be replaced. People like me, or you.” His low voice carried no emotion. It rang like iron.

Iriya zinged her reply right back at him. She was overjoyed that D recognized her as a colleague.

“What’s lost might not be coming back, but we can get new things. That’s what I think. You might not deal with the daylight so well, but I’ve heard that by night you’re invincible, and any wounds you get heal right away. That’s something new right there! I think it’s great.”

After allowing some silence, D, miraculously, spoke again to the naive girl staring at him. “What did you lose, and what did you gain?”

That question drew an odd reaction. Iriya’s eyes fixed on a point in thin air. She didn’t appear to have the least intention of replying to D’s question. It looked as though she’d suddenly slipped into a state of dementia.

“I—didn’t lose . . . didn’t lose anything . . . not a single thing . . .”

It was only after those words that a spark of consciousness returned to her eyes.

“Alucard . . .”

Returning to her senses, she gasped and shut her mouth.

“Uh, what I said just now—”

“You mean, ‘Alucard’?” D said in a low voice.

“Oh, damn. Please—just forget that.”

He didn’t so much as glance at the flustered Iriya, nor did he say another word, and Iriya laid a steadying hand over her own heart.

Just then, heaven and earth dimmed without warning.

“We’re in for rain!” Iriya said, and when she looked up apprehensively, the formerly blue sky was nowhere to be seen. They saw stark flashes at the edge of their vision. “Lightning on the plains? That must be—”

Her countenance utterly drained of color.

“It’s the Lightning Thicket of the Gods,” the hoarse voice told her with delight, speaking for the first time in quite a while. “Long ago there was an army of giants produced by the Nobility that rebelled against their creators, and somewhere hereabouts was the battlefield where the two sides clashed in final combat. They say the fighting went on for a whole month without respite. In all the history of the Nobility, the only other external threat they spent longer fighting was the alien invaders about two thousand years ago.”

Threads of white rained down while the voice spoke. And up ahead—where blue spread at the distant horizon—this time, unmistakably, there was lightning to be seen.

“Some say the lightning comes from an assault satellite up in orbit; others claim it’s a weaponized weather front. Whatever the case, once every seven days lightning runs between the ground and the sky, covering the plains like a forest. Just our luck to run into it.”

Looking at D, Iriya said, “My cloak is equipped to protect me from electrocution—how about your coat?”

The hoarse voice blurted out, “Sadly, no.”

“What’ll you do, then?”

Light swelled in the distance. Heaven and earth trembled. A roar that seemed to rock the world on its axis bore down on them.

The girl didn’t know what to say.

“That cape can’t protect you,” D said. “The giants were over thirty feet tall and armored in four inches of high-density steel, but it seems a single strike was able to kill them instantly.”

At a loss for words, Iriya touched the hem of her cape as she realized it couldn’t begin to compare to the giants’ armor.

“What are we going to do?”

“There’s a shelter constructed by the Nobility. Let’s go!”

“Where?”

“Try to keep up,” the hoarse voice told her irritably.

D cracked the reins, and his cyborg steed galloped forward in a cloud of dust.

Iriya couldn’t believe her eyes. Dark clouds eddied, the heavens issued the unsettling roar of thunder—and that was exactly the direction in which they were headed. Was he out of his mind?

“Just a second—isn’t that—are we—” Flustered as she was in the saddle, Iriya realized she had only one option. “What else can I do? Here goes nothing!”

Giving the flanks of her steed a kick, she started off in wild pursuit of the Hunter.

Pale streaks flashed to either side of them, and the ionized air prickled her skin. Numbness sank its slender fangs into the marrow of her bones. Though the lightning still looked to be almost a mile off, she could feel it keenly. Never mind a direct hit—a strike in their general vicinity would leave them burned to a crisp.

Iriya shuddered.

D galloped along fifty yards ahead of her. It was all she could do to stay on his tail.

Suddenly the ground to her left rose up. Mashing aside a mantle of black earth, an enormous creature appeared. It was less than a hundred feet away. As its shovel-like feet pawed at the air, the beast was struck on its round head by a bolt of lightning. Iriya could hear its death throes behind her. Just as she thought of how she’d probably be next, a flash of lightning put a dome-shaped form ahead of D into stark relief.

“That’s it!”

Hope vaulted over her fears, and Iriya mercilessly goaded her horse on. As she drew closer, she saw the same dome the light had picked out was over sixty feet in diameter. D had already dismounted, and leaving his steed where it was, he headed toward what looked to be the entrance.

When she halted her own horse, Iriya heard a scream. It was the cry of a man—or rather, a boy. Swiftly dismounting, she gave her horse a slap on the ass to drive it off, then followed D. Following the line of the dome for about thirty feet, she turned right and found him standing there. As Iriya blinked her eyes, another streak of lightning stitched together sky and ground, and the boy in front of D screamed again.

“Let’s get inside—quick!” Iriya urged D.

D crossed to the boy’s right and pressed his left hand to a red depression on the dome’s surface.

“Ah!” the boy exclaimed as he started to fall backward, but D wrapped his arms around him and immediately entered the dome through the door that’d suddenly appeared. Once Iriya had followed suit, D pressed the same hand to an identical depression on the inside, and the entrance closed. At the same time, all of them became tinged with blue from head to toe. The boy clung to D’s arm. He was scared to death.

He wore a jacket, shorts, and thick-soled walking shoes—the typical gear of someone from a family of moderate means on a journey. Likewise, the shoulder bag slung across his left shoulder was standard traveling equipment. While it didn’t seem conceivable he was on his own, he also didn’t seem to be lost. Neither D nor Iriya had seen any travelers who seemed to have misplaced a child. Had his parents gone too far before noticing his absence, or was it as yet unnoticed?

“Relax, kid,” the hoarse voice said. “It’s just a sterilizing light. The Nobility might be immortal, but when their human servants were with ’em, they couldn’t have ’em tracking in dangerous germs from outside. See, the Nobles did show some consideration for humans.”

After three seconds, the light faded and a door opened before them. The trio was greeted by a room so gorgeously appointed it would’ve made even the most jaded traveler cry out with delight. The shelters of the Nobility lacked none of their accustomed luxury.

As the boy stood dumbfounded in the white light, the girl coaxed him into taking a seat on the blue sofa, telling him, “I’ll have some tea ready in no time. In the meantime, I’m Iriya. What’s your name?”

“Meeker.”

It was probably thanks to Iriya that his voice sounded a little more composed, though his expression was still stiff and his cheeks trembled. Given that he looked to be only seven or eight years old, it was no surprise that an abode of the Nobility on a lightning-covered plain would inspire more terror than curiosity.

“You did great on your own. What a good boy you are! Did you get separated from your parents?”

He swung his head from side to side.

“What happened, then?”

“I was with Nadja,” he said suddenly, in a hazy tone. Tears welled in his eyes. “We came this far—then she ran off and left me.”

“Ran off?”

“She was supposed to take me to my uncle’s place in a town called McCrory, but she told me she was just taking the money and left me here. What am I supposed to do on my own?”

With this disclosure, his slight shoulders started to quake as if from a fit, and he hiccupped a few times. He only stopped talking when Iriya gently put her arms around his small form.

“It’s okay. You’re not all alone. No one in this world is. Everybody has somebody. It so happens McCrory is on our way, and I’ll see that you get there . . . D, could I take a shower?”

“Sure, but there’s no running water,” the hoarse voice replied. “Running water’s taboo for Nobles. As a result, the shower’s like what we got earlier. I hear if a human stands naked in it, it feels about the same as if they’d soaked in warm water. Though I doubt the Nobility would’ve gone to all that trouble.”

“It doesn’t matter either way—will you hop in with me?”

The boy nodded.

D got up, put his hand against a depression on a wall to the left, and once again a door opened—or rather, sprang into existence.

“Not surprisingly, no one but a Noble can make use of the amenities,” said the Hunter. “There’s no bathtub for humans. Food,however, is a different matter.”

“That’s great. As soon as I’ve had my shower, I’ll fix something up. And then we’ll have time to hear your tale at length.”

The boy nodded heartily at Iriya’s words.

The Nobility’s shelter was stocked with a sumptuous array of foods suitable for humans.

“Say what you will, but the Nobility didn’t cheap out on this, did they?”

On tasting the roast duck, which was on a par with the highest quality prepared by the very best of chefs, both Iriya and the boy were astounded.

“Making all this appear, dishes and all, with one flick of a switch—the Nobles really were incredible, weren’t they? These plates are made of gold!”

Once the meal was finished, Iriya began to ask the boy—Meeker—about his circumstances.

He had lived with his father in a fishing community called Coeverlan, but about six months earlier his father had died in a manufactured tornado, leaving the housekeeper, Nadja, to bring him to his uncle in McCrory. Once they’d come this far, however, Nadja had said, “I’ve had enough of this!” and nothing more, leaving the boy with only enough money to reach McCrory and taking off with the rest of it, according to him.

“She’s a backstabber. We always took care of her at home, but she left me high and dry here. I’ll get her for that. Once I’m bigger, I’ll find her and shove her around—just you wait and see.”

“Good thing he only wants to shove her around,” the hoarse voice chuckled.

With a dubious expression, Meeker looked around and asked, “Is there an old man in here with us?”

Iriya clapped her hands together as if she’d just thought of something, then took the boy’s face with both hands and turned it in D’s direction, saying, “Our friend over there is the culprit—he knows ventriloquism!”

After a moment of bewilderment, the boy gave a nod. The tension faded from his features. In his little head, a minor mystery had been solved.

As if to escape the gaze of intent curiosity trained upon him, D went to the wall and held out his left hand. The wall became a window.

The world was sealed in darkness. Eyes trained on its depths, the gorgeous and motionless young man looked as if he were pursuing some eternally elusive truth, like a statue that would muse until the end of time. Who could express how vain it was?

As Iriya watched him in silence, she heard a faint yawn beside her.

“Good night. Sleeping quarters for humans are at the end of the hall.”

Meeker got out of his chair and went over to the door. “Carp,” he said, raising one hand. Most likely that was a farewell phrase from his hometown.

Though Coeverlan was a fishing community, it wasn’t one of those seaside villages that always smelled of the tides. It was located in the lake region that spread across the northwest section of the Frontier. There they caught freshwater fish that rivaled those of the sea in their quantity, variety, strangeness, and danger. Meeker’s family probably also ventured out onto the lake in ships, selling the fish they caught in the Capital or in nearby cities and towns.

“Carp,” Iriya replied, and as soon as she’d spoken, the diminutive form disappeared through the doorway, and the door shut.

After a spell of silence, Iriya said, “Would you mind if I talked about myself?”

“Where the hell is this going?” the hoarse voice said, its remark directed at D.

“Suit yourself. It doesn’t matter either way to me.”

D’s reply was directed at Iriya.

“It’s kind of strange. I can’t believe it . . . This is the first time I’ve felt like doing this. Maybe it’s because you’re the one they call D?”

Outside the window, the world was bleached white. The lightning burned itself into Iriya’s eyes.

“You had a kid brother, didn’t you?” the hoarse voice inquired. Although it was swiftly silenced with a cry, Iriya’s far-off gaze never left D as she continued to spin her tale.

Her life, she said, could be divided into everything before age nine and everything after. Into heaven and hell. Her father, the huntsman; her mother, the housekeeper; her older brothers, Yan and Shezk; her older sister, Gia; her younger brothers, Pol and Chulos; and her younger sister, Maggie—nine of them all told had lived in the village of Paccilin in a valley in the eastern Frontier, where they passed their days together in peaceful poverty. Shadows were stronger than light in the valley, and the wind that blustered across the cold surface of the river glittered with white. There, in a house on the outskirts of the village, her mother awaited her father’s return, baking heavenly sweetened bread from her rations of flour and sugar. Iriya’s three brothers were charged with butchering the game her father took. The oldest boy kept aside the most nutritious parts for their parents, but he always saw to it that the littlest ones got the tastiest cuts of meat.

There was one thing the whole family looked forward to on summer evenings: Gia would sing traditional Frontier songs to the accompaniment of Shezk’s guitar. Villagers who’d heard about this would come too, and before long they were asked to give a performance in the village square, after which a man in the audience suggested they perform in the Capital. He was a researcher from the Capital collecting information on Frontier songs. Gia was open to the idea, but Shezk wished to remain at home. Gia left home that fall, at the age of fifteen. It was about two weeks later that they received word that her party had been attacked by bandits on the way to the Capital. The fiery attack had reduced the carriage to ashes. Iriya believed it was that event that gave rise to her parents’ silence.

And then one day in late autumn, when all the gorgeously colored trees stood against the shadows and the night was filled with the golden scents of the aging kegs of plum and apple spirits in the basement, they had come.

“They were dressed in pitch black . . . They knocked at our door. . . I thought, Who could it be this late at night? . . .”

Iriya’s voice began to crack, and she stopped.

“And then . . .”

There was a short pause.

“And then . . .”

D remained looking out the window.

“And then . . .”

Lightning flashed once more beyond the window. It was followed by the next sound from Iriya—a scream. There was something in it that was enough to make even D turn around. His right hand went for his longsword.

III

That awful scream seemed to trail on forever. Both her hands were over her mouth, and she looked out through bloodshot eyes full of madness. Slowly her hands came away again. Perhaps some sort of weird aura radiated from her form, because D’s right hand still gripped his sword’s hilt.

“No . . .” Iriya’s voice was like that of a withered crone.

She backed away. Her movements suggested there was something right in front of her she needed to escape.

“The door was shut . . . How did you get in here? Who are you? What are you?”

“She’s slipped back into the past!” the hoarse voice said from the vicinity of D’s left hand. “She’s reliving that night. Stay back. The Nobles’ structure is responding to the girl’s emotions. Do yousee it?”

D nodded. He’d discerned the overlapping figures in black that stood less than a foot in front of him.

“Well, what do you know! I recognize some of ’em,” said the hoarse voice. “The second from the right—that’s a Noble by the name of Langlan. He had a courteous nature, and his reputation with those in his domain wasn’t bad, but that was the word seven or eight millennia ago. Wouldn’t have expected to see him throwing in with this lot. The others are Viscount Albidozen, Count Zegreib, and two I don’t know.”

The man at the forefront closed his hand tight around Iriya’s throat. The illusion threatened to become reality.

“Keep away from me!” Iriya cried, her right hand darting to her hip before a stark flash mowed through the torso of a figure in black.

Reality threatened the illusion, as well. The attacker faded away.

At that same instant, Iriya turned toward D. There was definite madness in her bloodless face, and her burning eyes fired boundless animosity at the young man called D.

“There it is,” the hoarse voice said with apparent satisfaction. “There’s the face of a Hunter. Are you gonna give her a fight? If not, there’ll be no stopping her!”

Though the Huntress stepped forward, D didn’t go anywhere.

“Aren’t you gonna move?” the hoarse voice inquired.

“You, too.” Iriya raised her sword by the side of her head. “Die!”

Her stance was flawless. Energy radiated up from the earth through the soles of her shoes, traveling straight up her spine from her waist, racing to her shoulders, elbows, and wrists. The blade of her sword channeled it.

Beyond her wide arc, a smaller silvery one was sharply executed. Iriya’s blade was effortlessly deflected.

“Look at me,” said the hoarse voice.

Iriya’s eyes turned toward the Hunter’s left hand.

“No! The face—his face.”

Ripples of rapture spread through Iriya’s countenance.

Taking a step forward, D planted his left hand on the nape of her neck. Swiftly catching her as she collapsed, he tossed her onto the sofa.

“Couldn’t you be a little gentler with her? She only drew on you because she was out of her mind!”

“Anyone else she would’ve killed,” D said.

“That’s—well, that’s true, actually. Didn’t seem like a woman’s blow in the least. I can say with pretty much total confidence there’s no way she could’ve got that way through any amount of training. That said, it doesn’t look like the girl’s undergone any kind of upgrades for Hunting, either. That leaves what—hypnosis? If you were only average to start, that couldn’t possibly give you superhuman skill!”

“If you’re so concerned about it, try asking her.”

Holding his left hand out in front of him, D once again went for his scabbard with the right.

“W-wait a second!” The palm of his left hand turned to D, saliva flying from the flustered mouth that took indistinct shape in it.

The storm broke around dawn. As the morning sun rose in the east, the white steam above the drenched plains gave the air a comfortable humidity.

They left the dome in the early morning, and the steam had faded by the time they spotted a battered guidepost. McCrory 20 Miles, it read.

“It won’t even take us an hour,” Iriya said encouragingly to Meeker, who was seated right behind her on the steed.

The boy nodded, then looked down.

“We’ll see you safely that far. Don’t worry.”

There was no reply. After the horse had gone five or six paces, the boy said flatly, “I don’t wanna go.”

“What?”

“My uncle’s my father’s younger brother, but they didn’t like each other. Heck, the only reason he was taking me in was because my father left me a little money. Until the people from the orphanage told him that, he didn’t want me.”

“And you don’t have any of the money?”

“Nadja ran off with all of it.”

“That’s awful!” Iriya said, crinkling her lovely brow.

She knew that having lost the only thing of value he’d possessed, the boy would be branded a burden, and she could well imagine how he’d be treated.

“What does your uncle do for work?”

“He’s the mayor.”

“Seriously?”

“The mayor of McCrory.”

“And yet he was refusing to take you in?”

Though there were plenty of things Iriya wanted to say, she stopped herself. Even though she was on his side, she knew anything she’d say would wound Meeker.

“Everyone except family is dead weight. And when it comes right down to it, killing family’s not a problem either.”

Iriya shut her eyes. To her right, there was an oddly amused chuckle from D’s left hand.

“Even at his age, he’s seen nothing but trouble. Should grow up to be quite a realist.”

“Didn’t your family get along all right?” Iriya said to change the topic.

“Not really,” he said to the warrior woman, who was looking up at the heavens. “My father was in charge of the village treasury, and he and my mother didn’t see eye to eye. They fought a lot. My mother even shot him with a gun!”

“Sounds like a million laughs.”

“But everybody said that was to be expected. Since she was from the Capital, she should’ve known from the start she wasn’t cut out for living way off in a little Frontier village, they said. I think so, too. After all, whenever she had any spare time, my mother would sit by the window and sing songs from the Capital.”

Iriya let out a sigh, taking care that the boy wouldn’t notice.

What did Meeker make of his mother, who had no escape from reality but her songs? How did he feel when he heard her singing?

“So, your mother—”

The boy started speaking, cutting off Iriya.

“She took the village’s money and ran off. When I went to bring my father his lunch, there was no one in the room, but the strongbox had been left sitting on his desk. An official who came to my father’s funeral told me about it. I haven’t seen my mother since.”

“Do you hate her?”

“Not at all.”

Out of the corner of his eye, D saw the little head shake from side to side.

“She wasn’t cut out for that. She was more suited to the automated houses of the Capital and silk dresses and the fine food of expensive restaurants where the staff waited on you hand and foot—not keeping house in a deep forest where the sun never shines or by the lakes where the water beasts live, wearing heavy clothes and working in the fields till her hands were callused. We only get one life to live, right? So it’s clearly right to live in the world that suits you best. My mother made a mistake. She was wrong to marry my father and go back to a village on the Frontier, and she was wrong to have me. And the sooner mistakes can be corrected, the better.”

For a while, Iriya fell silent. “A mistake, eh?” she murmured after a moment. “I think there’s only one mistake your mother made.”

“Oh?”

“Leaving a kid like you behind.”

Meeker laughed sadly. “That’s nice of you to say. I like you, lady. But—”

“We have to put ourselves in her shoes?”

“That’s right.”

“You must take after your father, I’m sure.”

Iriya reached one arm back and patted the boy on the head. Immediately bringing it back again, she trained a trenchant gaze ahead. “D, you see that, don’t you?”

“It’s a stagecoach,” D replied.

Squinting her eyes, Iriya said, “It doesn’t have a driver. No one’s riding shotgun, either.”

“Wait here.”

As he spoke, D nudged his steed’s flanks. Quickly closing on the coach, he seized the reins and stopped the team of four cyborg horses drawing it. Quickly, he opened the door.

Seeing that he was looking in her direction, Iriya advanced on her horse. Pulling up alongside D, she peered in through the open doorway. The seats were empty.

“There’s no one inside! They weren’t attacked, either—there’s no sign anybody was onboard.”

“The horses somehow ran off with the coach.”

“Without anybody noticing? Hardly seems likely, does it?”

Stagecoaches would usually stop for about an hour for feeding and maintenance of the team—ninety-nine percent of which involved work on their legs—at specialized factories in town, as well as to allow the passengers time for a break and a meal. When the passengers were staying for the night, their departure would be put off until the following morning.

Aside from the Nobility’s teleporters and Mach cars, the predominant means of transportation on the Frontier was cyborg horses. There were more than a few cars powered by steam, gasoline, or other fuels, but in terms of range, performance, and dependability, they couldn’t compare to cyborg horses. As a result, horse maintenance was of the utmost importance. Large towns, of course, had factories for upgrading, inspecting, and repairing cyborg horses, while in smaller towns someone could be hired to do repairs, but the purchase of a new steed would usually entail paying a price far beyond legal guidelines. If, while out in the wilderness, someone should meet with an unexpected misfortune that killed their steed, they would have little choice but to walk however many hundreds of miles to their destination. The chance of running into a horse trader roaming the Frontier in search of such travelers was less than one in a hundred.

A full team of four horses with a coach attached didn’t just run out of any town where people were thinking straight.

“Something’s happened in McCrory!” Iriya said, training an even sharper gaze forward.

“I’ll go on ahead. You two wait here. Don’t go near the town.”

As D wheeled his steed around, Iriya protested, “No way. I want—”

D was already galloping away, but his left hand was pointed in her direction. On noticing what his finger indicated, Iriya stopped her right foot from prodding her horse’s flank.

It was Meeker.

As her eyes followed the black-clad figure of beauty rapidly dwindling in the distance, Iriya muttered to herself, “Are you cold blooded? Warm? I just can’t tell.”