Ballad of the Wilderness

chapter 4

I

The sun went down. The curtain came up on the “Time of the Nobility.”

D chose not the forest for their camp, but rather the middle of the plain. There was no guarantee that this location would be entirely safe, but being out on the plain gave an unobstructed view on all sides, which was clearly better than being in a forest, where supernatural creatures crawled under cover of bushes or lurked behind trees. Collecting some dead wood and dry grass, D made a fire. Before the sun had sunk they’d had their meal while still on horseback. The smell of cooking would be just the thing to draw vicious supernatural beasts. However, there was nothing the travelers could do to cover their own scents, nor could they stop the sound of their heartbeats. They could only take the chance that they’d be able to escape the ultrakeen senses of famished monsters and demons.

“So, it’s been two days—tomorrow we should hit Clements, right?” Iriya said in a somewhat relieved tone, even as her eyes remained trained on their surroundings.

She was referring to the time they’d been traveling since they’d left McCrory. For someone expecting relentless pursuit and ambushes, it wasn’t surprising she would hope the last two days of peace would carry over into the next day. The difference between towns populated with humans and the endless expanse of wilderness was truly like comparing heaven and hell.

“Don’t go dropping your guard,” the hoarse voice said. “Around these parts, the things that live out on the plains change so fast it’d make your head spin. No telling what’ll pop up. Though it still beats the woods or a forest, I guess.”

“It’s okay,” Meeker said as he laid out his sleeping bag. “From the look of the stars, we’re at the northern end of Sector Ninety-Six. Not many dangerous things up here.”

“Oh, aren’t you well informed,” Iriya said playfully, giving him a look of admiration.

A broad smile of satisfaction spread across his face.

It was always at times like this that something had to interrupt.

“Heh, heh! Interesting. This is the same squirt who can’t do anything ri—gaaaaah!”

The hoarse voice was immediately muzzled.

D sat silently by the fire, feeding it branches.

“Thank you,” Iriya told him. She was grateful he’d cut short the snide remarks.

“Sorry—I know I’m useless,” Meeker apologized weakly.

Though Iriya had spent the last two days coaching him in how to take care of the horses and how to use knives and guns, Meeker showed zero aptitude for these things. On the other hand, Iriya’s skill drew praise from the hoarse voice. “No one’s born that good!” it’d said. “The girl’s had magical instruction. Maybe that’d start to explain how she could take down Mitterhaus, eh?”

D had given no reply.

“No problem. Don’t worry about it at all,” Iriya told the boy, giving him a pat on his little back.

Stammering, “O-okay,” the boy smiled at her, but immediately looked down at the ground. Apparently the scrutiny made him uncomfortable.

Iriya glared at D—or rather, at his left hand—then looked up at the Hunter’s face as he tossed something out into the wilderness, saying irately, “Can’t you do anything about that thing?”

“Would that I could.”

Once he’d finished throwing things in all four directions, D squeezed his hand into a fist. Every time he did, a tiny death rattle pierced the night. Ten times it rang out.

As the night deepened, the air grew colder. Meeker had been right: they didn’t encounter anything dangerous. At least, nothing that lived out in the wilderness.

The only thing this strategy could be likened to was waves breaking on a beach. So long as the coast was in the distance, they went on forever, closing without a sound. They made a noise when other waves followed after them. But a single wave was silent. The same went for this “wave.”

He’d spread it three-quarters of a mile wide, then closed in on the group. So they couldn’t escape. So it could swallow up every last one of them and digest them all. It was fifty yards from its target, and the man controlling it was confident of his success.

Three miles away, this spot was beyond even a dhampir’s sight. Through a pair of the Nobility’s binoculars procured from a curio shop, he could see the three figures sleeping around the campfire. Just another fifty yards to go—now he let his stomach pounce.

However, a second later the master of that stomach was gripped by a feeling that something wasn’t right. A feeling akin to fear. Though he’d discharged the contents of his stomach and taken every precaution, his stomach had begun to devour something. It didn’t seem possible anyone could detect its presence, its movements. Except for D, perhaps?

“Go!” he bellowed, his cry carrying despair.

His stomach shot up like a colossal cloud—and then a vicious pain turned him into spasm-racked stone.

Did he finish it off?

At the same time he felt the death tremors of his stomach, he drew his dagger and cut off the esophagus that protruded from his mouth. He was three miles off. More than enough distance to make his escape. However, as he got to his feet again, his body was racked by a huge—and final—tremor. When he thudded to the ground, the arrow that’d diagonally pierced his throat from above gleamed faintly and deeply silver in the moonlight.

“Don’t move,” D told her, but as soon as he’d got up and left, Iriya heard the voice of a woman in the distance. At first she tensed at the thought that it was Lorelei, but she quickly remembered that the sorceress was dead. Besides, this sounded like shouting. She didn’t think to call out for D. Her warrior’s blood raced through her.

Making sure that Meeker was asleep, she concentrated her gaze in the direction of the voice, and there something like a white mist hovered in the depths of the darkness. On realizing that it was drawing closer, Iriya went for the hilt of her longsword.

In less than two seconds’ time, a woman in a long white robe took shape. She had a countenance so lovely it made even Iriya sigh in spite of herself, and it seemed as if the moonlight illuminated her face alone.

Come.

The sweet, sad voice that echoed in the Huntress’s ears was indeed that of a woman.

Come to me, and I shall make you forget all the pains of this world.

Sight and sound—her brain must’ve been devastated by the alluring beauty that crept in through those two of her senses, because Iriya rose unsteadily to her feet.

The woman was right before her. Her arms were spread, the sleeves of her robe flowing down like the Milky Way.

Come to me, and I shall make you forget everything and anything. Like so.

Looping her arm around Iriya’s back, the beautiful woman smiled. It was at that very instant that the lovely countenance split in a cross shape. The rent portion was a noxious hue and had patterns that called to mind a nose and eyes. They were unquestionably the petals of a flower. But the petals had the luster of steel. And then the bud that’d been her head reared back, preparing to assail the blank-faced Iriya.

Though it probably intended to swallow not only the Huntress’s head but also her entire body, it was unable to do so. When the woman put her arm around Iriya, the Huntress’s hand had never left her weapon’s hilt. And the instant the demonic blossom reared back its deadly head, a horizontal slash mowed through its torso, cleaving it in two.

Falling to the ground without a word was the upper half of the gorgeous woman, which quickly became a bizarre tangle of roots, and the lower half—spurting something that could’ve been either blood or liquid nutrients—also quickly transformed into a weird stalk and several ambulatory roots.

Leaping ten feet away to avoid a fountain of digestive fluid, Iriya landed and let out a deep breath. That was all it took to return her breathing to normal. A second later, Iriya was gazing down at the bisected remains of the monstrous plant as she returned her blade to its scabbard.

No sooner had she turned her back than there was a cry of “Look out—behind you!” Even before Iriya caught Meeker’s words, she was swinging her blade behind her. It was instinct. Before the sword had stopped moving, she leapt off to one side.

Slashing down through the spot she’d occupied and slicing a stone on the ground in two was a whip-like filament that stretched back to the wound in the stock-still lower half of the creature. As its severed portion writhed on the ground, Iriya made a bound for the gravely wounded creature pulling back its deadly whip, this time splitting it lengthwise. The lower half of the creature collapsed in a heap, transforming into the beautiful woman as if that were its swan song, then immediately resuming its true form as it ceased moving.

“Are you okay?” her savior asked, racing toward her, yet the warrior woman seemed ungrateful as she shouted at him to stay back, continuing to glare down at her foe.

“It’s dead. You cut its roots off,” she heard Meeker say.

“You’re right—but how do you know about this thing?”

“Well, it’s something called a thrice-split baron. There’s not many of them, but they’re one of the dangerous creatures found in these parts. Humans rarely run into them, so you don’t hear much talk about them, but when they find their prey, they take a similar form to it in order to get closer. I didn’t realize that’s what it was until it had its arm around you . . . She sure was pretty. I’m surprised it didn’t fool you.”

“Yeah,” Iriya replied with an embarrassed grin, and then she turned to the right. D was just coming back. What remained in Iriya’s brain of the beauty of that transformed plant monster now melted away like ice.

Giving her head a shake to push the gorgeous new countenance out of it, Iriya said to Meeker, “You saved me. Thank you. You sure know a lot about Frontier creatures, don’t you?”

“Only what I’ve read in books,” Meeker replied bashfully, rubbing the back of his head with a bit of pride.

“Well, thanks to that I’m still alive. You remember that: you saved my life. And I’ll be grateful to you for as long as I live.”

As the boy nodded, the two of them noticed that D was looking at them. Though there was no change in his fierce beauty, the two of them had to smile. They’d gotten an impression of a different sort of expression.

An hour later, D found Nogia’s corpse. His stomach had gone for the pieces of jerky D had scattered around, and within days that stomach would be filling the bellies of other creatures in the wilderness.

Iriya and Meeker exchanged suspicious looks.

“A falling-out with his partners?” Iriya murmured, but Meeker shook his head. Memories of the incident with the demonic insects, which he’d managed to repress until now, rose to the fore. He described what’d transpired to Iriya.

“In that case, I wonder if it means we’ve got an ally? D, any idea who it could be?”

Although there was no reply, the two of them got the distinct impression a cry of pain had once again risen from D’s left fist.

II

It was late afternoon when they arrived in the town of Clements. With a chain of mountains for a backdrop, the small town sat alone in the wilderness. The remaining light colored the peaks to the west and created a brief world of vermilion before the evening would be enveloped by blue.

“Everyone looks so red. It’s incredible!” Iriya exclaimed.

“Yeah, it’s like everything’s soaked in blood!” the hoarse voice added.

And how did D look in that crimson world? The people on the wooden sidewalks, the men driving wagons, the travelers high in the saddle, the crane operators, the miners with their carts of ore, the prostitutes who might as well have been naked—all of them were drawn at first to his gorgeous visage but pulled back again with looks of horror on their faces. In fact, a traveler’s horse and one of the miners’ carts collided, knocking all parties involved to the ground.

When they were halfway up Main Street, Iriya turned to a building on their right and said, “If you’re looking for the hotel, it’s right here.”

All D said was “I have somewhere to go.”

“Where?” she asked, but then she caught sight of Meeker’s face as the boy rode on the horse next to hers. He was utterly crestfallen. Before they’d reached the town he’d spoken less and less, and since entering he hadn’t said a word. That told Iriya all she needed to know.

“You’re going to put him in an orphanage?”

The Hunter nodded slightly.

“You know where it’s at?”

“I saw it on a map once.”

Iriya was just about to tell him not to, but then she held her tongue. She considered the trio’s respective futures.

“I suppose it’s the only way,” Iriya said, returning to the boy’s side. That was all she could do for him.

Presently, D turned right off Main Street. The road of packed earth stretched like a thread to a distant forest. Five or six hundred yards up ahead stood a simple yet elegant building hardly befitting a mining town. An orphanage.

Iriya snuck a look at Meeker out of the corner of her eye. His little face was turned toward the ground, and tears welled in his eyes. In her heart the woman heaved a sigh, and just as she was about to turn her eyes forward again she heard him say, “I don’t wanna go there!”

Iriya shut her eyes.

“I wanna stay with you, Miss Iriya! I wanna travel with you forever and ever.”

She couldn’t hear him. She mustn’t. Iriya vehemently reminded herself that it was in the boy’s best interest to have a settled existence. Three hundred yards to go. If he said nothing the rest of the way, it would be done. All she had to do was hold out that long.

“D?” she said when they’d closed to within a hundred yards, her brow furrowing.

D had got there first, but he didn’t turn. Catching up to him, Iriya looked closely, then in spite of herself she said, “What—it’s closed?”

In the vermilion light, they could see the building’s doors were boarded up, and the curtains were drawn on every window. Naturally, there was no sign of anyone. All they found was an uninhabited ruin.

Turning to Meeker, Iriya whispered softly, “Lucky for us, eh?”

“Not very smart, are you, girlie?”

Once again the destroyer of tranquility started to hiccup.

“You mean to tell me you still don’t know whether the squirt would be better off with a peaceful life here or continuing on the road with us? You might be used to a life of hardship, but thinking the same holds true for everyone else is about as arrogant as you can get! Besides, there’s gotta be a pretty good reason for a place this size falling out of use. Give some thought to that before you start talking about anyone being lucky. Idiot.”

“What did you say?” Iriya snarled, the corners of her eyes rising.

“There’s something odd about this building.”

And saying that, D wheeled his steed around. Iriya asked D what was wrong, but naturally the young man didn’t answer. He turned in silence back to the road that’d brought them there.

The next place they called on was the sheriff’s office, where the group’s questions were answered.

Until seven years earlier, the Saint Golderday Orphanage had truly flourished. And then the children and staff had suddenly vanished. One autumn day, what sounded like an enormous key turning in a lock had echoed through town. It wasn’t until later that people noticed the disappearances, though not a single soul could provide an adequate explanation for the pair of bizarre occurrences. The staff of ten and the thirty-seven children never did return, so the institution was boarded up, and seven years later it still stood there in the red glow of autumn.

“If you wanna put him in a specialized institution, head on over to Asnow,” said the sheriff, who was tottering on the ass end of middle age. Although he kept his eyes averted from D’s face, his voice was dripping with rapture. “If you leave him here in our town, you’d best brace yourselves. Mining towns are rough. There ain’t a man jack around here who’ll cut you any slack on account of being a kid. To be honest, someone could grab him at any time and make him work in the mines for the rest of his life, and there ain’t a thing I could do about it.”

“A hell of a place this is,” Iriya said, pinching the bridge of her nose. Her tone wasn’t critical. She knew as well as anyone that this was the Frontier. “But there’s not much we can do about that, right? So, what’ll it be, D?”

“Do as you like. Here’s where we part company.”

“Hold on,” the flustered Iriya said as, out of the corner of her eye, she looked at Meeker sitting in a chair in the corner of the room. “How can you be so cold? We can’t leave the kid here!”

“Look after him, then,” D replied curtly.

“How can you do such an inhuman”—at that point she remembered that D was a dhampir, but regardless, she continued—“thing like leaving him here? He’s been with us all this time! Why not consider letting him stay on?”

“I can’t say which would be easier: traveling with us or staying here. You come up with the answer.”

“But I . . .”

“You have a priest around here?”

D’s sudden query had the sheriff bewildered. “Nope. Oh, but he’ll be one soon.”

“The teacher?”

The sheriff nodded.

In many cases, teachers doubled as religious figures. Since the two vocations had but a few similarities, such ventures often ended in disaster, though the fusion of the hand that scrawled equations on the blackboard and the mouth that extolled the existence of God sounded tempting enough to make many give it a shot.

“Yeah, our teacher-priest might take the kid. Mr. Lazlo’s single, but lucky for you, his sweet old mother lives with him.”

Having said that, the sheriff stopped as if he’d just remembered something, turning his eyes toward a memo pinned to the side of his desk. There was a date scribbled on it.

“Oh, that’s right! Tomorrow’s the wall-raising ceremony for the new school. See, the old one went up in smoke about six months back. Mr. Lazlo’s always out there. Go have yourselves a look-see. It’s on the northern square. His address is . . .”

Beyond the window, blue darkness was already lurching closer.

The trio went straight to Mr. Lazlo’s house. The young teacher had only to answer a pair of questions before the matter of him taking in Meeker was decided.

“It won’t be luxurious, but I should be able to give him an ordinary upbringing. Leave him to me.”

As the teacher showed his pearly teeth, D said nothing, but he extended his right hand.

“At twelve, I have to go to the school for the wall-raising ceremony. If you like, please join us.”

Bidding him farewell, the two Hunters headed for the door. Iriya turned in the doorway. The boy was in a back room, apparently enjoying a game with Lazlo’s mother. His cheerful voice brought a smile to Iriya’s lips.

Saying nothing to the boy, the two Hunters stepped outside, accompanied by Lazlo.

“Pardon my asking,” the teacher said to Iriya, “but it’s my understanding that the two of you have no connection whatsoever to the boy—Meeker. Is that correct?”

Iriya gave a small nod.

The teacher continued, “From what I’ve had the pleasure of seeing, that doesn’t seem to be the case at all. I must apologize, but to be perfectly frank, for a while I had my doubts that you weren’t in fact his older brother and sister trying to get rid of him. If it’s possible, why don’t the two of you stay here and live with him?”

“Live?” Iriya said the word as if she’d just heard it for the first time.

“Yes—if you like, for the rest of your days. If that’s not possible, then at least until he’s old enough for the two of you to go off without hurting him. What do you think of that? I know you must be traveling for some purpose, but . . .”

“Are you so thick you can’t tell just by looking at ’em?”

“Excuse me?”

D squeezed his left hand into a tight fist.

“I appreciate the offer, but I’m in a hurry,” he said.

“Is that so? And how about you?”

When the teacher’s quiet eyes gazed at her, Iriya grew agitated.

No. There’s no particular hurry. I’d like to stay here in town and live with Meeker.

Although those words resounded in her heart, Iriya shook her head.

“I’m sorry. I’ve also got important business to attend to.”

“Is that so?” Lazlo said, a smile rising on his lips nonetheless. “In that case, when your business is done, by all means—come back.”

“Come back?”

“We’ll be waiting. No matter what happens, please—come back to us.”

Iriya gazed stupidly at the proffered hand. Something made her take hold of it and give it a shake.

“D?”

The teacher gripped Iriya’s hesitant hand between both of his. “We’ll be waiting here, however long it takes,” he told her. His eyes were focused firmly on Iriya’s face.

III

“That’s a relief,” Iriya said, finally speaking once they were back on Main Street.

Darkness was falling. All the gates around the town would be shut now.

“Now all he has to do is grow up good.”

“Maybe he’ll be screwed up.”

“What?”

Feeling less like someone had just rained on her parade and more like a horrible sadness had washed over her, Iriya pulled tight on the reins.

When she heard the sharp whistle of the wind, Iriya felt cold steel against the nape of her neck. D’s quick draw. She hadn’t been able to react to it at all.

“Before we went to Lazlo’s house, you would’ve parried that.”

Iriya couldn’t refute what the Hunter said.

“It’s not your fault. But you’ve started thinking about your own future.”

In her heart, Iriya nodded agreement. Lazlo’s calming voice came back to her. We’ll be waiting. No matter what happens, please come back to us. It was an incantation for reclaiming what had been lost. She would return to this town and live with Meeker. She’d lead a new life. For Iriya, it was just like the days of old that’d been taken from her in that valley. Something she’d thought forgotten had begun to give off a golden glow. And it was starting to quietly dissolve the iron will that kept Iriya focused on her mission.

She shouldn’t have gone there. The teacher’s house had possessed a glow that was poison to Iriya in her present condition.

“You’re exactly right,” Iriya said, nodding. “I’ve gone soft. Stay your blade. I can’t die here.”

There was the sound of D’s sword rasping into its sheath.

“I’m going.”

Before the Hunter’s icy words had ended, Iriya suggested, “Wait until tomorrow.”

D started off.

“If you’ve got business to settle with those guys, you’re better off sticking with me. I’m convinced they’ve got more in mind than just a preemptive strike against the one hunting them. The fact that Mitterhaus tried to kidnap me instead of killing me is proof of that. Don’t you want to know why? Besides, you’re the one who took me to that house just now! If that’s what’s thrown me out of whack, you should at least help me get back to normal, shouldn’t you?”

D halted.

“Until noon tomorrow. I don’t think it’ll kill you to wait that long,” Iriya called out to his back, which was still turned to her.

Had he turned around, D would’ve found that a hitherto-unseen earnestness clouded the girl’s face in the darkness.

Mining towns, like any community centered around a given occupation, were filled from first light with unique sounds. The tolling of bells, the creak of wagon wheels, the whinnying of horses, shouts, screams, the whine of swords slicing through the air, and gunshots. To these common noises the sounds of boat engines would be added in a fishing village, or the clamor of feeding and training and the cries of supernatural beasts crated up for sale in a town where guard beasts were raised—and in a mining town, the drone of gantry cranes, jackhammers, and backhoes in operation was an irreplaceable part of the environment.

However, today things were a little different. From early in the morning, speakers concealed around town had been playing a hymn that’d been unearthed in the southern Frontier sectors about a century earlier.

We shall not veer from Thy path

The path Thou hast shown us

Even though strangers

May reject Thy guidance

We shall draw them to Thy path . . .

Shortly before noon, the hotel message boy came up to D’s room and handed him a note from Iriya. Come to the west end of Main Street at 12:00, it instructed him. Though ash-gray clouds covered the world, a golden glow leaking through them was proof that the sky above was clear.

At ten minutes to twelve, D left the hotel. The eyes of pedestrians were drawn to him as if they were possessed, and on more than a few occasions there was trouble as people or wagons bumped into one another. Prostitutes clad in the scantest possible traces of garishly hued clothing fell over themselves in front of their bordellos, while upstanding women and their daughters reeled, assailed by dizziness and forced to sit and rest in chairs lined up on the front porches of various buildings.

As Main Street fell into a panic, D reached its west end. A woman in a white dress stood there. Her hair was pulled back in a bun, held in place by a hair band ornamented with crystals, and the white veil over her forehead fluttered in the wind. In her left hand she gripped a longsword, both inappropriate and horrifying.

As she came closer, the faint aroma of perfume wafted around her. The girl was Iriya.

“Been to the barber?” D inquired.

Iriya grinned wryly. What else could I expect from a man like you? her expression seemed to say. “Oh, you! It’s called a beauty parlor.”

The hoarse voice chortled, but that ended with a pained groan.

“Well, how do you like my outfit?”

Taking hold of her skirt, Iriya spun around in an easy circle for him.

Nothing from D.

“We’d better go to the school for the wall raising. That’s the whole reason I picked this up at the used-clothes shop.”

Oddly enough, mining towns like Clements didn’t have many stores that sold brand-new, ready-made clothes. When there was call for such finery, a person had to wait for the merchant wagons to arrive from the Capital or make a special order. If not for that, life on the Frontier wouldn’t be possible. Inevitably, new clothes would make their way into secondhand shops. And that was where Iriya had made this purchase.

The gloves that came all the way up to her elbows were embroidered with flowers, and the dress itself was also covered with them. Roses.

“Well?” Iriya asked again. She was clearly expecting compliments.

“It looks good on you,” D said in a voice of iron.

“How sweet of you to say that!” Iriya replied, shaking with joy. This wasn’t the callous warrior woman who’d slain her own brother, but an ordinary country girl.

“But—did you know when you bought it?”

“Know what?” Iriya furrowed her brow. With a look on her face like she’d made some terrible mistake, she ventured, “I just picked out the prettiest thing they had in the window . . .”

D immediately gave her the answer. “It’s a wedding dress.”

Iriya was speechless.

“Good thing we’re not going to a groundbreaking for a church, eh? People might get the wrong idea.”

“Oh, no!”

With desperation on her face, Iriya looked down at the outfit she wore.

“I . . . I’d never so much as been to a wedding in the nearby village . . . I must look like an idiot. I’ll go change.”

Just as she was about to run off, a black-gloved hand caught her by the elbow.

“What?”

“It looks good on you,” D told her once more, turning east.

The hymn continued.

Though we may walk

Through the valley of the shadow of Death

We shall fear no harm

For Thou art with us . . .

“Hey!”

Reaching for the longsword that’d been effortlessly snatched away, Iriya looked at the culprit.

“A sword doesn’t suit a bride,” D said.

Sighing, Iriya blurted out something that was hardly appropriate, given the way she was dressed: “You’ve left me completely naked!” Quietly gazing at D, she slipped her hand under his left arm. “As a result—you’ll have to protect me.”

As the two of them started to walk down the sidewalk, a trio of beauticians popped out of the beauty parlor, and they could only watch in stunned silence as the pair went by.

“That’s just—beautiful!” they said in voices that were practically sighs after the backs of the pair were only a distant blur.

The hymn rang out up ahead. It was borne on the wind.

The boards of the sidewalk creaked beneath the pair’s feet, and every time there was a step up, Iriya had to lift the hem of her dress.

When they came to the end of the sidewalk and stepped down to the ground, the clouds broke apart, sending a single beam of light down on the pair.

The crowd stirred. Voices clamored in admiration. For an instant, they dreamed of beauty. They didn’t awake from that dream until the pair arrived at the site of the groundbreaking. A platform had been set up in front of the framework for the schoolhouse, and Lazlo’s mother was leading the choir.

Headed for the platform to the left, Lazlo was the first to notice the pair. He let out a gasp as he froze stiff. On noticing his reaction, about thirty people in attendance turned one after another in a chain reaction, with Lazlo’s mother the last to be stunned.

After not moving a muscle for almost ten full seconds, finally the teacher began, “Everyone . . . On this auspicious wall-raising day . . . we have another cause for celebration, due to the arrival of this lovely pair . . . My . . . How gorgeous . . . It’s like a dream, isn’t it?”

No one noticed the sadness in the teacher’s tone.

“So kind of you to come. Congratulations to you both. Have you ever seen such a powerful groom or lovely bride?”

He clapped his hands. The sound spread through the crowd, with the applause of countless pairs of hands rising in the light that spilled from between the clouds.

Something glistened in Iriya’s eye.

Just then there was an angry shout of “Stop your damn clapping!”

A rough-looking man on the other side of fifty had stepped in front of Iriya. Though many of the participants were just passing through, by the look of his clothes it seemed he was from town. The man jabbed a knobby finger toward Iriya’s face, shouting, “A bride? Don’t make me laugh! See, I know her. I seen it with my own two eyes, when she lopped the heads off three guys even younger than she is in one go!”

The man’s voice quavered, and even his finger shook.

“You remember that, missy? It was about six months back, in a town in the western Frontier called Trinidad. I was in the bar having a drink when you followed them kids in! They were covered in blood, and you were clean as a whistle. The three of ’em asked the bartender and the customers for help. Some folks tried to step in, but you just pummeled ’em like it was nothing. Then you beheaded two of the boys. And the third was on his knees, begging for his life. Had his hands folded together like this, asked you to spare him, said it’d break his parents’ hearts. He was even engaged to be married—but you didn’t show him no mercy. So then, get this, you walked out of there carrying the three heads. Blood was still spraying from the damn bodies!”

There the man paused his accusations to catch his breath.

Iriya didn’t say a word. There was neither pain nor conflict to be found in her pale, beautiful features. But the raggedly breathing man and the sword scar on his right cheek seemed to be in strangely sharp relief.

“Wait just a minute, Caleb,” Lazlo’s mother said. “I’ve heard this woman’s a Hunter. Isn’t there a chance she had good reason for slaying those three boys? What do you have to say about it, Miss Iriya?”

Smiling, Iriya said, “Thank you.” She immediately turned around. “It’s a common-enough tale, D—let’s go.”

“Are you going to run?”

“Listen, you mustn’t run,” Lazlo called out to her. “You should address these charges. If you’re clear of them, we won’t stop you. However, if you had a reason for fighting them—if it was justified—you need to tell us about it. Isn’t that the duty of any upstanding person?”

“That’s right,” his mother said.

“Justified,” Iriya murmured. “If I had to say one way or the other, there’s more toward me being in the clear. But too much talking tires me out.”

Iriya was about to walk off, but she halted. D’s hand was on her elbow.

“D?”

“It seems she was justified—though that’s a word I haven’t heard in a very long time.”

For a second, Iriya made a move as if to jerk free of D’s hand while she glared at the Hunter’s face, but then she relented. Giving D’s hand a light tap so he’d release her, she headed toward the man named Caleb. The man averted his gaze. He hadn’t expected a return volley.

“Those three were frauds,” Iriya said clearly. “They’d rough themselves up and then go around asking people for help—and they’d already got two Hunters killed that way. But if I’d explained that to everyone back then, you think they would’ve believed me? Though that’s hardly what this is about, is it?”

Iriya aimed her finger at the man’s cheek.

“You were waiting for me on the edge of town, weren’t you? Told me that if I didn’t want you spreading rumors about how I’d murdered them that day, I was gonna be your bitch. Wasn’t that scar on your cheek your reward for trying to jump me?”

“Sh-shut your damn mouth! Who the hell would believe you? All of you—you know me! I’m from right here in town! Don’t listen to no damn Hunter vagabond.”

“Stop it, Caleb,” said a strong female voice from atop the platform. “Now you’re the one under suspicion. Is what she said true?”

“C’mon, Mrs. Lazlo!” He pointed at Iriya, preparing fresh abuse.

“Enough, Caleb,” said the sheriff as he stepped from the crowd. “It so happens we got word from the Trinidad sheriff’s office about that incident. It’s like the girl says. Okay, back to your home. You two get going, too.”

Taking Iriya by the arm, D turned around. As they started to walk away side by side, behind them a voice shouted, “Screw with me, will you, bitch?”

Drawing the revolver from his hip, Caleb steadied the weapon with both hands as he took aim.

“Stop!” the sheriff shouted, going for the gun on his hip.

A horizontal glint of silver split the field of view of those present. A hiltless blade thin as a willow leaf had mercilessly slashed through Caleb’s carotid artery. The Huntress had kept a concealed weapon.

Blood spurted out forcefully to assail Iriya’s dress—and a wall of black intercepted it. D’s coat. It stopped the bright blood, protecting her spotless outfit.

“D . . .”

“Let’s go.”

Iriya’s right hand was still extended toward the man. Without even bothering to look at her, D gave her a tap on the shoulder.

The crowd was frozen. Facing them, Iriya bowed her head.

“Goodbye—and thank you.”

No one responded to Iriya’s parting words. The crowd saw only death.

As they left, D said, “It was self-defense, sheriff. No need to take a statement.”

The light was once more concealed behind the clouds. As the pair of melancholy figures walked off into the gray world, the hymn continued to echo from on high.

We shall not veer from Thy path

The path Thou hast shown us . . .