The OSB Era

chapter 4

I

They’re here!” Brennan told them in what was almost a groan, but Bligh still eyed him distrustfully.

“You sure this bastard ain’t one of Nobles’ lackeys?”

“I guarantee it. And my word is D’s word,” said the hoarse voice.

“D?” Brennan made a puzzled face. As if he’d suddenly suffered amnesia, he murmured, “D? Did you say ‘D’? As in that D?”

“Yes—that D,” Josette reassured him.

“I—I just tried—to kill D . . .”

The house shook. And then it was rocked again. And while it wasn’t on account of those tremors, Brennan got weak kneed and slumped to the floor all the same.

Turning to face the front door, Josette said, “I wonder if that’s the price for forgetting your place—anyway, hang in there. I’ll be right back!” And then the woman dashed off.

Bloodied short spear in hand, Bligh followed after her.

As they charged into the front hall there was a crash, and off to their right an east-facing window shattered, giving a glimpse of a black hand between the boards that’d been hammered over it.

“Get lost, asshole!” Bligh shouted, hurling the short spear from ten feet away. Its wrist bones shattered, the hand pulled out again.

Josette was aiming at the front door.

Just as he picked up the fallen short spear, Bligh heard the sound of breaking glass from a western window and turned to look. A different hand appeared, breaking its way through the boards. It was black, too.

“Son of a bitch!”

Charging over, Bligh jabbed out with his weapon. He slipped past the side of the hand, taking aim at the intruder’s face. It made contact. A low voice rang out, and the hand pulled back.

“How’s it going over there? There’s just no end to this shit!”

“The door can’t take much more of this. Look at it.”

“All right,” Bligh said, gripping his short spear as if it were his last friend in the world.

 

Brennan managed to get to his feet, then lay down on the sofa, groaning, “Shit, I can’t stop the bleeding. That goddamned thug.”

“It’s a freaking scratch. Lie on your stomach and get a load of the face.”

Though Brennan searched for the source of the hoarse voice, he found neither hide nor hair of it.

“D’s face—look at it!”

Feeling that he couldn’t fight that command, the warrior complied. The instant that gorgeous visage entered his field of view, the hardened combatant forgot the piercing pain. He learned then for the very first time that beauty could strip away all sensation and emotion. He didn’t even notice that something cold had been applied to his back. Nor that the pain there had vanished.

“I know you’re not a servant of the Nobility,” the hoarse voice whispered in Brennan’s ear. “But that poses a new mystery. How come you’re still okay?”

“That was the deal we had. I’d stay human. And they’d leave my wife alone, too. In return, I was told to kill the man who’d come here today.”

“Hmm, so they knew he was a formidable foe? You’d better forget about assassinating D. Or he might end up having to get rid of you and your wife both.”

The hoarse voice harbored a certain intent. It robbed Brennan of his voice.

“Now, would you care to tell me more about who ‘they’ are?”

The warrior shook his head vehemently. “Can’t do that. If I talk, they’ll kill me for sure. That was the deal.”

“Hmph,” was all the hoarse voice said, but apparently it’d seen in an instant that the man wasn’t lying. It continued, “Well, we’ll just have to see what you do, then. I’m not gonna tell you to keep away from D, but you’d better not try anything funny. I have eyes everywhere!”

And the second it finished saying that, there was a maddening explosion of pain from the wound on Brennan’s back, and he passed out.

“That should be enough of a threat,” said the hoarse voice. “And now—”

There were indications of something turning toward the front hall, and then the sound of a brisk burst of fire whistled that way like a wind.

The front door fell inward—or was about to, but at that moment Josette unleashed a fusillade. The thick oak door was reduced to splinters sailing through the air. Two bursts of fire had sufficed.

Letting the power out of the finger on the firing button, Josette shook her head to throw off some of the tension.

A pair of black figures leapt in. Though she blew the upper body of the one on the right to pieces, the one on the left stayed low and kicked off the floor, bounding right for Josette’s heart. She slammed the barrel of her gun into the attacker’s face. Though it fell to the floor without saying a word, it immediately got up again. That was more than enough time for the woman to take aim.

Marked by the line of fire ripping up the floor, it was cut in two at the waist. The lower half bounded for Bligh where he fought by the window, and the upper half pounced on Josette’s chest, wringing her neck with furious strength. A metallic sound assailed her eardrums, and darkness closed over her field of view. The diagonal thrust of the minigun she’d had down by her waist took the last of her strength. The instant it struck, she fired without regard for anything else.

Suddenly the grip on the woman’s throat weakened, and something warm splattered her face and upper body. The light returned.

Coughing violently all the while, Josette looked over at Bligh. She thought she must be dreaming. Bligh was trying his best to block kicks from the severed lower body. Both his short spears lay on the floor. No doubt they’d been kicked out of his hands.

“Get back!” Josette shouted, and once she’d seen him spring away, she unleashed a burst of fire.

“Think you could make a little less mess with that thing?” Bligh said, turning a blood-spattered face toward her as he slumped back against the wall.

“We’re about even there,” she spat. Having been sprayed with gore from the upper half of their foe, Josette was every bit as dirty as Bligh.

For a while, neither of them moved. They realized the enemy had gone.

“Did we fight ’em off? You did pretty good for a woman.”

“You didn’t do half bad yourself, for a man.”

The exchange of ribbing between horribly gore-soaked compatriots was an unsettling sight.

“Think they’ll be back?”

Josette shook her head from side to side. Her golden hair swayed like something from a dream. Oddly enough, that alone had been spared so much as a drop of blood. “But let’s make preparations in case they do.”

The eyes of the pair fell on the hammer and the boards that’d been torn free.

 

Once their carpentry work was done, they decided that would have to be good enough, and Josette headed for the bath. Bligh, for his part, went into the kitchen and turned the faucet at the sink. He had his doubts, but water came out. It wasn’t even rusty. Washing his face, he stripped off his shirt and used a rag next to the sink to wipe down his upper body, at which point he finally felt like himself again.

No longer feeling the need for a bath, he headed toward D’s room. On seeing Brennan sleeping peacefully on the sofa, he was rather surprised. He’d figured the man had long since expired.

Why the hell’s he still alive?”

“I treated him,” said the hoarse voice that drifted through the room.

Look as he might, Bligh couldn’t tell where it came from.

“Well, you shouldn’t have. He’s the enemy!”

“And I told you you’re wrong about that. Looks like the attack’s over, eh? As soon as it’s daybreak, I’m going up to the castle to talk things over.”

“Talk things over? Hey, where are you, anyway?”

“Don’t you worry about me. I’m a messenger of the gods.”

“The hell you say! You’re useless. Do something about that stud over there.”

“That and everything else will have to wait until daybreak. You and the lady better keep watch and make sure nobody else comes to attack us.”

After Bligh left indignantly, Josette, who seemed like she might’ve been listening in, came in with a wry grin. Apparently she’d washed off her armor, and now beads of water clung to it instead of a film of blood and guts.

“I’ll head out there in a moment,” she said flatly before asking, “Will my man be okay?”

“He got treatment pretty soon, so he should pull through. Seems he somehow managed to escape. See if you can get more details out of him yourself later.”

“I’ll do that. I wonder what’s become of the others.”

“Seems he isn’t talking about that.”

Going over to her husband and gazing down at him intently as he took deep, stable breaths, Josette said, “He’s tough in battle, but he breaks pretty easily on other fronts.” Her words sounded as if she were peering down into the depths of the water. “Lately, those he killed in battle seem to haunt his dreams, so he hasn’t been sleeping well at all. He’s probably better off now. He can just forget everything and sleep. Or perhaps—”

“Perhaps what?” the hoarse voice inquired.

Josette just gave a little shake of her head and said, “It’ll be quite some time before we can leave the village, right? I need him to stay well that long. If you’re the one who patched him up, then I’d appreciate you helping with his recovery, too.”

Bowing her head, she left the room.

After a short time, in this room where light and dark intermingled, a voice said, “We’d probably be better off if we could sleep until the end of time. And so would this warrior.” Turning toward D, the presence continued, “And this man most of all.”

His tone was strangely tranquil. Perhaps that was just the sort of mood he was in. However, the voice soon headed for the doorway.

“How’d you get in here?”

The question was directed at a tall figure standing there in lavish attire. He stood taller than D. Six and a half feet at the very least. His shoulders and chest were scaled in the same daunting proportions. The deep blue fabric of his cape had Gothic patterns embroidered in gold thread, and though he wore no jacket, he had on a gold double-breasted vest with jeweled buttons—diamonds, no doubt. The long gloves that went all the way up to his elbows were also embroidered in gold. And yet, the mood he cast in all directions felt mysteriously profound due to his inborn grace. His eyes, nose, lips, the contours of his face—all were, in a word, elegant. Yet for all that, he was cheery—by human standards, he gave the impression of being a resolute and generous man, and certainly no villain.

Gripping a very long spear, his right hand rose, pointing the head of it—which was still sheathed in a vermilion cover—at the sleeping Hunter.

“I would have your name.”

“Feel free to introduce yourself first,” the hoarse voice replied.

“I am Lord Greylancer.”

The air rocked with indications of surprise.

“I know you. But it can’t be . . . I mean, it’s an honor to meet you.”

“The honor is mine.”

This man who spoke of being honored to the hoarse voice that accompanied D was a Noble who appeared to be in his midtwenties, and, having said that, he gave a smile that was equally elegant.

II

“To the man known as Lord Greylancer, my shields wouldn’t count for shit. Are you here to take D’s life?”

“Ah, it is he, then?!” Greylancer said, and now it was his turn to widen his eyes. There could be no doubting it was deep emotion that swayed his towering form. “When I saw the sensor readings, I judged it could not be this man, yet his dignity, his beauty—verily, he is the one called D.” Greylancer backed away. “My guess would be this is ‘sunlight syndrome.’ I believe I shall settle with him once he awakens. Kindly give him my regards.”

“Wait—you’re supposed to be . . .”

Disregarding the hoarse voice, the shadowy figure departed. Though the lights were on, he headed off into the darkness framed by the doorway.

“You fought the OSB three millennia ago, slew any Nobles in opposition—and you were supposedly destroyed,” the hoarse voice murmured.

For the Nobility, there was no “death.” They could merely be destroyed. And only those who were certain to shine even at the very moment of their destruction were called “Lord” by the Nobility.

“Lord Greylancer.”

Something rested on D’s chest. His severed left arm.

“D will probably regret for the rest of his days that he wasn’t awake to meet him on his first visit.” Then, the left hand added, “Oh, I remember the sound of the rain. As if it were to fall forever, in darkness and in light. Is that where a man deserving of the title Nobility returns?”

 

The next day the rain didn’t abate, and the houses looming beneath the leaden sky and the people were all reduced to vague shadows. Shrouded in a white spray of rain as he rode through it on a cyborg horse, a figure climbed the sloping road to the fortress.

On reaching the summit, the rider remained facing straight ahead but said, “We’re there.” It was Bligh.

“Okay, head back,” the hoarse voice replied in the epitome of ingratitude, and something somewhere seemed to move away from the horse. Indeed, there was a sound like something wet had struck the road.

However, by the look of Bligh, he apparently didn’t spot anything. Quickly tugging on the reins to wheel his steed around, he made his way back down the road without a backward glance.

“Good job, scaredy-cat,” the hoarse voice said from somewhere down on the rain-beaten ground, and there was a sound as if some small object were gliding like the wind across the brick-paved road, bound straight for the main gate to the fortress.

 

“What’s this?” the left hand blurted out.

At the main entrance to the fortress—the same one Bligh and Josette had used to get in—it had spotted four figures.

What are they up to? it thought without drawing any nearer, but the quartet sent up splashes as they drew closer.

“Lord Greylancer has sent us. Please, come this way. If you would be so kind as to come out of there.”

In addition to the aged steward in a tuxedo that hardly seemed to suit the rugged fortress, there were three younger stewards. They held elegant umbrellas. The aged steward was addressing the trunk of an enormous tree planted by the ramparts.

“You’re not gonna get rough with me, are you?” a voice inquired suspiciously from behind the tree trunk. The hoarse voice.

“Don’t be absurd. Were we to do any such thing, our master would erase us from existence.”

“Okay, then. I’m gonna trust you.”

“Thank you,” the steward said, bowing his head respectfully, and the source of the voice appeared sheepishly at his feet.

Had ever a single hand blended hardness and elegance so perfectly? It was a left hand that’d been severed cleanly above the wrist. There wasn’t a trace of scorn, or suspicion, or surprise—nor was there any hesitation to hold out their umbrellas for it, and the four stewards surrounded their guest on all sides almost protectively and began to walk toward the front entrance with a gait that suggested they were ascending to the heavens themselves.

As soon as they set foot inside, they were greeted by rows of women in maid uniforms on either side. There was no way they’d be human. They had to be synthetic people or illusions.

“Nothing but cuties here, eh? They don’t really fit with a castle like this, you know.”

“The one we serve is, in a manner of speaking, coarse.”

“What, Lord Greylancer?” the hoarse voice murmured nonchalantly.

“No.”

“Not him?”

That was a surprise. A man like him was sure to have a domain and a castle of his own. Was he a visitor, then? No, in light of the reason the village had been created, someone of his station wouldn’t be staying here.

As the left hand was bewildered, the aged steward asked it, “Which would you prefer, the elevator or the stairs?”

“What are we talking, time-wise?”

“The elevator takes precisely ten seconds, and the stairs approximately two hours.”

“Elevator it is.”

“Very good, sir.”

The steward was speaking in all sincerity, their conversation rooted in the Nobility’s “nostalgic tastes.”

Although the Nobility had undoubtedly reached the highest pinnacle of scientific inquiry in the planet’s history—and used that to fight on equal footing with the OSB—they were slaves to an almost unfathomable love of antiquity. While they’d developed spaceships that could travel at light speed, the craft that crossed the Earth’s skies were enormous dirigibles sporting countless propellers, or single-seater flying machines with gasoline-driven engines operated by pedals. Though the continents were linked by gravity-powered roads that could propel cars sixty thousand miles per second, the Nobility’s favorite mode of transport were opulent carriages like those in days of old drawn by living horses. Nobles headed toward the moon were first greeted with the question, “Shall it be the Lightspeed Express, or Traditional Rocket?”

So, the left hand had chosen the elevator.

They arrived in ten seconds, on the dot. They were five thousand stories below the surface—thirty miles underground. With stewards young and old to either side of it, the left hand went down the transparent corridor, while scenes that were a compromise between super-scientific civilization and nostalgic tastes appeared and disappeared, one after another.

An assemblage of enormous stone gears seemed to go on forever, each gear three-quarters of a mile in diameter and every tooth on them as large as a house, so it seemed it wouldn’t have been strange for them to have a window from which residents might peer. Antigravity aircraft that were the pinnacle of aerodynamics were clustered there to repair a cracked gear. A portion of the energy they emitted became a crimson lotus blossom of flame, with more welling up from down below, threatening to broil the strange group of pedestrians.

“How far down does it go?” asked the left hand.

“More than four thousand miles.”

“Nearly to the outer core, eh? What’s the big idea of making a facility in a place like this? Granted, they’re cursed to live in a world without light anyway.”

The aged steward turned right. Straight ahead, a thirty-foot-tall iron door covered with rivets came into view. Their surroundings remained the same, but the way the door opened to the sound of creaking hinges was jarring to an almost supernatural degree.

Suddenly, the scenery that’d surrounded them was gone. A vast chamber greeted the visitors. The left hand crept across the white floor, where bizarre devices loomed to either side. No engineer could’ve guessed their function from their appearance, but every time one of the stewards was about to bump into one of the devices it would reposition itself or, on occasion, change its shape. Up high off to the left were rows of what looked to be wooden coffins, stretching as far as the eye could see and seemingly numbering in the tens of thousands. From the gaps between coffins and lids that were ajar, pale hands wormed and pale faces peeked. All had eyes that were burning red.

There was no saying which direction they traveled or how much ground they’d covered.

About ten yards up ahead, a pair of figures stood. On the right was a lovely woman in a white dress, and on the left was Lord Greylancer with spear in hand.

The aged steward halted about ten feet shy of the pair and bowed his head, and, once both of them gave him a nod, they then respectfully greeted the left hand down on the floor.

It was most unusual that these dignified Nobles had salutations for a hand creeping across the ground.

The beautiful woman opened her mouth, saying, “My name is Duchess Heldarling. I serve the Noble Medical Association as its highest ranking member. His Lordship has told me about you. You’re a part of the man they call D, are you not?”

“Yes, your grace,” the left hand replied in a dignified manner. Though nothing existed of this being from the wrist up, it possessed a certain grace.

“In that case, we shall welcome you as we would D. It is on that account you’ve been permitted to pass this far.”

“What are you folks doing here?” the left hand inquired.

“This,” the duchess replied, eyes gleaming.

A stark naked woman floated up from the floor. She was followed by a creature that was clearly not of this world. It looked to be composed of tens of thousands of bluish-black strands or worms. Although it possessed a head, neck, torso, and four limbs, each of those parts looked weak and undependable because of their composition, as if even the normal force of Earth’s gravity would be enough to flatten it so badly it might be reduced to two dimensions. And deep within that amalgamation of strands, packed so tightly there was no space between them, red eyes were visible. Those eyes might have held all the justification the Nobility needed for waging war against their kind.

“Is that an OSB?” the left hand asked, standing bolt upright on the floor. A tiny human face complete with eyes and a nose had risen on its surface.

It was Lord Greylancer who replied, “Yes, it is.”

III

A disturbing air of danger pervaded the house. It was generated by the three humans and single dhampir that currently occupied the building.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Brennan asked, repeating a query he’d made a dozen times before. “I’m human. D even vouched for me!”

“Are you an idiot or something? How’s someone with a face like that supposed to have a voice like a dying old frog? Whoever it is, it ain’t got nothing to do with D.”

This reply came from Bligh, naturally.

“I’m still human. The fact that I can move around in daylight and work with the rest of you is proof of that.”

“That thing D cut down was out there walking around, too, and all but humming a tune!”

“That thing was a monster. You’ve gotta see that, don’t you? Isn’t that right, Josette?”

“Yeah. I believe you.”

“Oh wow, now that’s the kind of love between a man and his wife that brings a tear to my eye,” Bligh said in a tone that would convince anyone he was obstinate. “But that don’t count for a damn thing. Does the love between a couple let a woman know if her hubby’s a servant of the Nobility? You can say, ‘I believe you,’ till you’re blue in the face, but if he puts the bite on you later, that’ll be the end of that.”

“You son of a bitch!” Brennan growled, reaching for the longsword on his back, but Bligh leapt out of range of the blade and stood with a short spear at the ready.

“Stop it!” Josette cried, her minigun quivering violently as she tried to decide which of them to point it toward. For the warrior woman was equally befuddled.

Brennan was put at a disadvantage by his inability to tell her the truth of what had happened while he was missing or how he’d managed to escape. He’d explained the situation. Though Josette seemed to accept it, Bligh took him for a liar from the very start and would hear none of it. Josette probably didn’t trust him entirely, either, so her attitude had inevitably hardened.

However, where attacks from outside were concerned, Brennan remained completely calm, saying, “They promised that as long as I was here, they wouldn’t raise a hand against you.”

Yeah, Bligh would say, but what about last night?

They hadn’t broken off their offensive. Brennan had to have been part of an undercover operation to slay D. That much was true, and Brennan didn’t protest very strongly, he just grew agitated and went outside. Interpersonal relations were growing increasingly strained. But even given that discord and the fact that rain continued to come down in buckets, once the sun came up, the world was full of light. The minds of all three couldn’t help steeping in relief and relaxation as if they were in a tepid bath.

“I wonder how the others are,” Josette finally said.

“They’ll be back safe and sound soon, just like me. Stop harping on me about it.”

“That’s not what I—”

Oh, a domestic spat! This oughta be good, Bligh thought, feeling the tension slack around his lips.

Suddenly, an explosion rocked his eardrums.

That’s not gunpowder. What, then? the three of them suddenly wondered.

“It’s outside!”

They raced over to the western windows and peeked out. There was a row of farmhouses on that side.

First, Bligh focused on the scene. “The last one in the row ain’t there,” he said.

“Huh?” husband and wife asked in unison.

“It’s gone, clean as a whistle. Not a damn trace. No fire, no smoke pouring out. It sure wasn’t gunpowder they used. Come to think of it, since D’s asleep, all they’d have to do is blow us to smithereens. The bastards have upped the stakes. That was a threat!”

“If they just have to blow us to smithereens, they wouldn’t need to threaten us,” Brennan countered. “In that case, they wouldn’t bother with any needless destruction. They’d just come straight here. Something’s strange about this. Get ready to pull out.”

“What about D?”

“Leave him.” Brennan didn’t say the rest: If we do that, they won’t have a problem with us.

“But . . .”

“I’ll carry him,” Bligh said, looking back at them.

“He’ll just slow us down.”

“Shut your trap, hired gun. I got saved myself once already. I’ll be damned if I won’t even the score.”

“Do what you like, then, weirdo.”

“Someone’s coming!” Josette shouted, looking out the window.

A stark figure was coming from the direction of the vanished house with a wobbly, uncertain gait. Apparently, his clothes were white—that was all they could tell. On reaching the house next to theirs, he didn’t seem to do anything, yet there was the same explosive sound as before, and that farmhouse, too, vanished. It exploded from the inside out—or so it appeared, but it was utterly reduced to a dustlike substance.

“What the hell was that? The whole house just vanished!”

Bligh’s cry prompted Brennan to say in a badly frayed tone, “What is he, some kind of walking bulldozer? I hear a dozer went out of control and beat the hell out of an entire village in the eastern Frontier.”

“It’d be more accurate to say it crushed the hell out of the place,” Josette interrupted. “But he just made it disappear, without lifting a finger. It’s completely different. Even if we leave, I’m not sure we could get away from him . . .”

“I’ll be damned if I’ll go out quietly,” Bligh snarled, baring his teeth. He didn’t lack fighting spirit. “Hey, lady. Give that thing a blast with your peashooter. Maybe you can punch his ticket.”

“Roger that.”

“You’re out of your mind. And you—what are you trying to get my wife to do? We’re falling back! Josette, get ready to move out.”

“Okay.”

“Hey, just a minute. You gotta do everything hubby says?! I thought I’d run across a woman of quality for a change, so don’t go disappointing me. You sure the two of you ain’t out to get D?”

“Shut up. Let’s go!”

Dragging the baggage behind him, Brennan headed for the back door. The cyborg horses were tethered out there.

Putting her saddlebags over her shoulder, Josette looked at Bligh and told him, “You’d better pull out, too.”

“That’s what I had in mind, but now I’ve reconsidered. The village’s too small to run far. They’ll find us right away. On top of that, there’s something strange about that character just now. Hurry up and go. Your hubby’s gonna blow his top.”

As the woman gave him a mournful look and lowered her head, Bligh gave her a light clap on the shoulder and told her, “Staying alive’s the most important thing. Your hubby’s right. Get going already.”

Pressing her lips closed tight, Josette stared back at the rough man. It wasn’t the kind of look you gave a stranger. Not saying a word, the warrior woman turned and vanished through the doorway.

With a weary expression flitting across his face for just a heartbeat, Bligh reached for the weapon through the back of his belt, then tightened his grip on the short spear.

“But now that I’m on my own, I do feel kinda helpless. Hey, say something.”

He was talking to D.

There was another bang. The color swiftly drained from the man, who got a desperate look on his face and mustered his strength.

“We’re gonna be in real trouble soon, I think. But I’ll be damned if I’ll stay cowering here so we get taken out with the whole house. I’ll take the fight outside. You stay here, okay?” he said, looking down at D, but then he suddenly thought of something.

“That might just be our chance. My head’s still good for something after all.”

Taking a knee on the floor by D, Bligh raised his right hand.

“Namu Amida, amen, grazie—wake up, D!”

There was a thud against D’s chest. Once more raising the fist he’d hammered against the Hunter, Bligh swung it down again. He repeated the brutal CPR nearly a dozen times.

D didn’t move a muscle.

“Shit, was that too much to ask? Well, this time it’s really goodbye. Godspeed till your left hand gets back, stud.”

And leaving the Hunter with that, Bligh headed for the front hall.

“What the hell?!”

The thing was out in front of the house—standing not ten feet away.

“You’re a little early,” he said to the opponent who bared his teeth, someone garbed in white, top and bottom. While not as gorgeous as D, he was still stunningly handsome. The only thing that kept Bligh from losing himself in that beauty was the fact he’d been looking at D all this time.

“I’m the one you want. Okay, come at me,” the man blustered out in the downpour, brimming with fight, but it didn’t seem he had a chance in the world of winning. Rain streamed into his eyes, bringing with it his already-soaked hair.

This couldn’t get any worse, Bligh thought, and he wanted to cry.

 

“It would seem the Sacred Ancestor saw some possibilities in the OSB.”

Duchess Heldarling put her hand on the OSB’s left arm and wrenched it off with the monstrous strength of the Nobility. Blood the same hue as its skin spouted wildly, soaking the floor. The duchess raised the limb high, catching what dripped from it in her mouth—ostensibly, blood—before shuddering in a way most unbecoming a Noble and spitting it out again.

“I never tasted it before, but the rumors are true. Sulfuric acid or molten lava would be preferable to this. However, it carries within it all of the civilization that allowed them to cross the untold vastness of space and attack this world. Both the Sacred Ancestor and I thought so. We believed that mixing their blood with that of the Nobility could give birth to new possibilities. The Sacred Ancestor built this experimental facility from scratch while ‘The Great Battle’ yet raged. No small number of test subjects were produced. Most were gravely wounded patients. Perhaps it was on account of that, but all of the results were lacking. And so, about a millennium after the conclusion of the OSB hostilities, this facility was abandoned.”

“So, why’s it back up, then?” the left hand asked, getting right to the heart of the matter.

“Yesterday, one of the humans we later abducted—a woman—was bleeding. Her blood permeated the ground, where the core sensors took note of it. How great is the power of the Sacred Ancestor! A few drops of blood were enough to revive this facility. And myself, and our sturdy friend.”

The duchess shot a quick look back at Greylancer, an ironic grin rising on her lips that he wouldn’t see from that angle.

“Hmm, I see,” the left hand replied. It continued, “To be frank, you’re making trouble for folks up there. What’d you plan on doing?”

“Since the facility is back, there’s naught to do save work until I accomplish the task for which it was created. It was toward that end that I captured them.”

Though the duchess didn’t move, four humans appeared to her right stuck in semitranslucent material that seemed to serve as containers—Jan, Emily, Beth, and Arbuckle.

“They still alive?”

“We wouldn’t kill them without cause,” Lord Greylancer replied.

“Indeed. At the moment, they are being examined. As advanced as our medical knowledge is, even now there are things about human beings we don’t understand.”

The duchess made an easy wave of her right hand. The four captives vanished from sight.

“Don’t intend on letting ’em go, do you?” the left hand inquired.

“They are vital experimental subjects. However, I might consider exchanging them for D.”

“Oh-ho, you wanna use him in your experiments, too?” the left hand exclaimed in surprise. That was followed by a chuckle. “You think we’d go for that deal?”

It was Greylancer who answered, saying, “I’ll see that you do. We desire D most urgently, so that we might fulfill the aims of this facility.”

“At the start, you tried using Brennan to nail D. Change your plans?”

This time it was the duchess who replied. “I still intend to kill him. It was only Lord Greylancer’s proposal that stayed my hand.”

“Why experiment on D?” the left hand asked, its words directed at the tall man.

A strange tension and cries short of actual words rained down from the air.

Changing its position, the left hand turned its palm in that direction. A tiny face arose on its surface.

Those who stood in midair staring in the hand’s direction had to have numbered at least ten thousand strong. All of them were misshapen.