III

Footsteps of “The Nameless”

Chapter 2

I

It was Jacos who took charge of the conversation.

“Just two days ago, someone calling himself Professor Chaney and claiming to be from the Noble Ruins Survey Office in the Capital showed up at the town hall without any previous notification. He was accompanied by four “nameless.” I only learned what brought them here after returning to the village from contacting you, when the mayor told me. From the way he was acting, I could tell he’d intended to keep it all bottled up inside, but he just couldn’t help but confide in someone.”

Professor Chaney had come there with one-sided demands. The human government in the Capital was focusing on the Nobility’s science and technology, and had decided to make humans’ using and applying them their first priority. And pushing their blind ambition was the Noble Ruins Survey Office, with Professor Chaney as its director.

The desire to make the Nobility’s science and technology their own had existed long before the human government was ever established, promoted by ambitious individuals and a subset of the revolutionaries. Talented people were put on the problem, and results were achieved. Indeed, a portion of their technology fell into human hands. According to scientists’ calculations, it only amounted to a ten-quadrillionth of the Nobles’ technology.

For a long time that horrifying statistic had flown above the collective head of the human race like a flag of surrender, but for those of indomitable spirit it became a source of incredible hope. If humanity could access ten percent—no, even one percent—of Noble technology, their civilization would grow by leaps and bounds. They dreamed not merely of controlling everything on their world but of conquering space as well, and were convinced this was possible.

However, the Nobility’s technology was such that something as simple as how to switch it on was beyond human comprehension. On seeing their enormous facilities, humans would think, This device apparently has something to do with energy, or I’m not sure whether it’s powered by subterranean magma flows or galactic energy, having nothing but conjecture to go on. The human race remained at the feet of the Nobility. When the people saw the gargantuan devices constructed in the center of the Capital, they heard the mocking laughter of the dying race.

There was only one way to remedy the situation—that was the conclusion the human government quickly reached. In order to master the Nobility’s technology, they would need the guidance of a Noble.

“The mayor wasn’t informed as to why our village had been selected,” Jacos continued. “Professor Chaney said that he’d been privately in negotiations with Grand Duke Bergenzy for some time and had obtained his consent. And in exchange for his technical guidance, Grand Duke Bergenzy demanded a human offering once a week from our village.”

Ever since the existence of the Nobility had come to light, their predations to quench their thirst for blood had to be taken into account. To protect themselves, people barred their doors and spent the night with wooden stakes, crossbows, and stake guns in hand. Who’d meekly hand their friends and loved ones over to the fiends? That thought alone kept them going. The demands the Capital was now making of them virtually trampled their pride and dignity into the mud.

“Any comment from the grand duke?” D inquired.

“Not a word.”

“The message from the mayor asked me to get rid of the grand duke for seeking human offerings. But it seems that this time, there are many in opposition to the mayor’s cause. Is there anyone who’s likely to bend to the Capital’s will?”

“Deputy mayor Bezo and his supporters.”

“There’s the folks in the Schwartzen Rejuvenation League, too,” said the boy, Puma. “For a good long time, they’ve been saying we should work with the grand duke to get the village booming. The bastards talked about doing the same stuff as the guys from the Capital. My dad quieted them down once he became mayor, but I can already picture them singing that tune again.”

“So you mean to tell me people here would offer up their fellow villagers as a sacrifice?”

“Afraid so,” the boy replied, looking down. More than anger, he felt fear that this would sour D’s impression of the village. He looked up again right away, though, and said, “But we can’t let that happen. It’s not right that somebody be sacrificed so that others can profit. This is just a little village, but there’s an inscription on the stone marker at the entrance. Together, in life and in death, it says. Those words are what’ve kept this village going. We’ve all gotta keep that in mind!”

D said nothing as he gazed at the boy. Once Puma had finished speaking, he was heard to say, “You really are your father’s son, aren’t you?”

“Huh?”

Though the boy looked up at him, D continued on as if he hadn’t said anything, asking, “When does this Bezo person officially become mayor?”

“Officially, tomorrow—there’ll be an inauguration over at the town hall,” Jacos replied, heaving a sigh.

“And what are those from the Capital doing?”

“Lurking around town and gambling in the bar. I don’t know whether they’ve been to see the grand duke or not.”

“When the new mayor’s sworn in, what do you think he’ll do?”

“He’ll get right to negotiating with those fellows from the Capital, no doubt about it.”

Jacos bit his lip. Though the man had constantly butted heads with the mayor, he’d also been his most loyal subordinate.

“Then he’ll accede to all their demands, and probably use the remuneration to enrich no one but himself. And everyone knows it. The mayor’s wife insists she wants to avert further bloodshed, but there are good, strong people both inside and outside the town hall that hate the deputy mayor’s personality and his way of doing things. No one will be able to stop them. I can as much as guarantee you, lives will be lost. And when they are, my only hope is that their blood won’t be spilled for nothing.”

The room was about to sink into heavy silence—but didn’t get the chance.

“Is there someplace for me to stay?” the traveler in black asked.

“You mustn’t do this,” the mayor’s wife said, shaking her head dumbfoundedly. She didn’t even seem to realize she was doing it.

“You’d be up against Nobility and the ‘nameless.’ You’ll be killed for certain.” Jacos’ eyes said he was looking at a dead man.

D replied softly, “I took the job. Short of a request that I stop from my employer himself, I stay at it.”

The three villagers exchanged looks. Astonishment spread through their eyes—and a look that they’d been deeply impressed. The gorgeous young man wasn’t called the greatest Hunter simply because he was the strongest.

“If you won’t tell me where I can stay, I’ll look for someplace myself,” D said, starting toward the door.

“Just a moment, please. I’ll show you the way,” Jacos said gravely. “The group from the Capital is staying at the inn. I’ll bring you somewhere else.”

As the two of them headed for the door, a voice called out, “Um . . .”

It was the boy, Puma.

D didn’t stop.

The boy stepped forward, as if to follow him. Seemingly no longer able to resist, Puma said, “Thank you, D.”

D turned his head. There was no smile on the face looking back over his shoulder. However, the boy grinned. And his grin didn’t fade until after the door had closed.

Jacos led D to a farmhouse near the northern forest. The secretary explained that the owner and his entire family had vanished about six months earlier and never returned again. Since all their furniture remained, there was nothing to keep anyone from living there. You could say it was an ideal hideout.

“I’ll bring some food and water by later. If there’s anything else you need, feel free to let me know about it then.”

“I won’t need anything,” D replied.

“Don’t drink water, either,” he said, his voice suddenly hoarse.

But it wasn’t the tone that made Jacos freeze, but rather the import of those words. The gorgeous young man was a dhampir.

“Don’t tell anyone about this place,” D said, his voice back to normal.

“Of course I won’t,” Jacos replied, his voice quavering.

“That includes any of the mayor’s sympathizers. And especially his son.”

“Understood. I’ll be sure to tell the younger folks not to do anything.”

“Let them do as they like.”

Jacos was just about to nod in reply, but then his eyes went wide. For he’d grasped the terrifying import of what D was saying. The gorgeous young man was telling him they were free to do what they would, but if they got in his way, they’d be cut down. His job was to eliminate Grand Duke Bergenzy. Toward that end, he made no distinction between friend and foe. Whose blood would spurt beneath D’s blade remained to be seen.

“The sun will be down soon. Then they’ll be out,” D told the secretary, who then left the farmhouse.

When he was only two minutes’ ride from his house, Jacos halted his cyborg horse and let out a sigh of relief. The sky had turned to black, and houses had their doors and windows shut. There was no sign of anyone. Once he turned the corner, he’d be home.

Suddenly, figures charged around the corner, blocking his way.

“What do you want?”

Before he could reach for the multipurpose knife on his hip, the barrel of a gun had been thrust in his face. The size of its muzzle reminding him of the deputy mayor’s enormous nostrils, Jacos closed his eyes and sighed.

“We’ve got company,” a hoarse voice called out in a darkness devoid of even a scrap of light, a yawn accompanying its words.

Lying on an old leather sofa, D asked, “How many?” It was like a query from the dead. Even his voice was that of a gorgeous corpse.

“Three of ’em. Stride’s none too steady—they’re heavily armed.”

D didn’t move.

“Just so you know, they’re still freaking kids—”

“I’m aware of that,” D replied, returning to the calmness of the dead.

Its words fitting its grating tone, the hoarse voice continued, “Who the hell are they, though? They’ve got heartbeats, and warm blood running through their veins, but still, they gotta be a little weird coming out to a house of the dead like this.”

The darkness outside the window intensified, and that inside the house seemed to almost have a perfume to it. The intruders didn’t know that in a world like this, even a whisper was like a cacophony of destruction. They trod the earth lightly, the ground ringing as they pressed toward the house, where they kicked off the surface, moving like cats across the roof with sounds that were like explosions. The roof creaked in protest. It was a two-story house. They moved over the second-floor storeroom as quiet as thunder, and one of them pulled out a silvery object that seemed to be metal and began to cut through the roofing material at an intense pace. In less than three seconds, there was a hole three feet in diameter. His strength was far from that of an ordinary human.

Another one looked down at the front yard and waved his right hand. Each time he did, the air snarled. A pebble arcing from behind a tree struck the door. It made a sound like the roar of a cannon.

“They’re here!” the hoarse voice cracked wryly, and D got off the sofa and headed toward the front hall. He opened the door, looked around, and immediately closed it again.

“The one behind the tree was keeping an eye on us and sending signals. Oh, they’re coming down, but through the storeroom—sure ain’t making it easy for themselves!” the hoarse voice remarked, with special emphasis on “sure.”

D went back into the living room to lie down on the sofa.

It was a dozen seconds later that three shadowy figures came down the staircase without a sound—except for a creaking that was like a giant grinding his teeth. They wore grotesque devices that were like glasses. From what could be seen of them from the nose down, they were still young. Probably in their early twenties. One was clearly female.

The long-haired one at the fore indicated D with one hand and the woman—or girl—raised a pistol-like weapon. What the other two held were far more streamlined than the pistol or their goggles. Undoubtedly they were weapons of the Nobility.

“Sure is a casual one, isn’t he?” the girl said, sounding disappointed. Her tone also carried a relief born of what they’d confirmed. It looked to them as if D were sleeping.

“Stop,” the long-haired man said, halting them. “We’re dealing with the greatest Hunter of Nobility here. Don’t let your guard down.”

“We’ll be fine, so long as we’ve got that,” said a youth who stood a head taller than the man with the long hair, his eyes gleaming at the sight of the streamlined weapon. “Take aim from there, Elsa,” he continued. “Me and Habaki will do the rest.”

“Don’t move,” the long-haired youth called Habaki said, and then after a moment’s consideration he returned his pistol to its holster and drew the longsword from the scabbard he carried in his right hand. He probably wasn’t wearing it on his belt because it would be in the way going in through the roof, or because it’d make too much noise.

“What’s the deal?”

“I’m going to throw down with the Hunter now. Ranged weapons wouldn’t be very sporting. If it looks like I’m gonna lose, take off without me.”

The girl, Elsa, replied that she understood even before the taller youth could.

“I’m going, too,” he said.

“Stay back.”

“I’m not gonna touch him, okay?” the taller youth said, lining up beside Habaki.

After closing to within six feet of D with silent footsteps, the two of them got a prickling sensation on the soles of their feet that told them something wasn’t right.

“What should we do?” the taller one asked. “Wake him up?”

“Yeah. I can’t just walk over and stab him out of the blue. Hey!” Habaki called out in a low voice, and he finally realized what was so incongruous.

D’s position was strange. The whole sofa was sinking.

No, that’s not it! he realized with amazement. It’s not that he’s sinking. Are the two of us being raised up?!

“Best you don’t look down,” a hoarse voice said, but before that, Habaki had already turned that way.

II

The soles of his boots and those of his tall compatriot were supported by D’s blade. And the sword wasn’t lying on its side. They were resting on the cutting edge of the blade.

When in the world had that happened? And how did he do it? At present, D’s arm was indeed extended at an angle with his sword in his grip. However, they’d never taken their eyes off D until they’d been lifted up. They could’ve sworn that the longsword the Hunter had clenched to his chest hadn’t moved an inch.

“Make a move, and you’ll be sliced in two from the feet up.”

Even without the hoarse voice telling them that, the cold, sharp sensation from the soles of their feet gave them the message. That, despite the fact that the sword’s blade hadn’t yet sliced into the soles of their boots.

“Come back when your balls drop.”

A second later, the two of them were flying through the air, crashing into the wall by a window that was across from the sofa.

Elsa didn’t move a muscle. The next thing she knew, the two men were floating into the air, then a heartbeat later they’d been slammed against the wall. Though she understood the phenomenon, she didn’t know the cause. For she hadn’t even seen the blade. There was only one thing she knew—that a tall figure was standing right in front of her. His lengthy sword was back in the scabbard draped across his back.

The weapon the girl held steady with both hands was still aimed at his original location. She had to raise it higher. But she couldn’t move. Seemingly robbed of her nervous system, she’d become a stone statue.

“Better not fire that thing, missy,” a hoarse voice said. It sounded to her like it came from the vicinity of the figure in black’s left hand. “This guy doesn’t go easy on anybody who turns a weapon on him, woman or not. If you’ve got a family that’d be heartbroken to lose you, don’t do it.”

Even without being told all that, she knew she couldn’t do it. Just being near this Hunter drained all the strength from her—not only that, but an invisible net of eerie emanations seemed to bind her down to the very bone.

“Don’t move, Elsa!” a voice called from behind the shadowy figure.

“Leiden?!”

It was the tall one.

“Hey, I’m the one you’ve gotta tangle with. Turn and face me.”

D responded.

The tall one—Leiden—stood there as bold as a guardian deity. From the neck down he was covered by a black suit of some sort of armor covered with bumps and pits.

“Oh my,” said the hoarse voice. “Got yourself one of the Nobility’s powered suits, have you? Ain’t exactly built for humans to wear, but have you learned how to work it?”

“I’d say so. This is the same sort of reinforced armor the Nobility used. It’s more than a match for your average Hunter. See, we came here to see just how good you really are. On account of how there seems to be tons of Hunters around who are nothing but a lot of big talk. So first we’ve gotta see whether or not you might be of any use to us.”

“Of any use to you? Oh, that’s rich!” the hoarse voice cackled. “So, I don’t suppose I need to ask you how you heard about this place, do I? What’d you do with Jacos?”

“Relax. He wouldn’t tell us anything. We had no choice but to use drugs on him. A little something called ‘spill pills.’ We brought Jacos home high as a kite.”

“Those drugs from the Nobility, too?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Hell, we made the stuff. Got a buddy who’s real smart, you see. He whipped these night-vision goggles up based on something the Nobles used.”

“A regular genius languishing out in the boondocks, eh?” the hoarse voice said, its laughter becoming even shriller.

“You son of a bitch!” Leiden snarled, kicking off the floor.

“Don’t!” Habaki said, trying to stop him, but it only gave him an extra push.

The Noble combat suit could fly and leap at Mach 10, and dash at speeds up to Mach 8, and a shoulder hit from it would shatter a block of granite. If it got its fingers into a fire dragon, they could tear right through its armored hide. However, it was intended for a Noble’s muscles, and when used by a human it performed at much lower levels. But more to the point, merely operating it was difficult enough. If power was misapplied even slightly—

Going straight into high-speed mode, Leiden intended to barrel into D. It didn’t go well. His left and right sides thrown out of balance, he pitched forward just in front of D, angling off to the right and slamming into a wall. Bursting through the plaster as if it were paper, he tumbled into the corridor beyond.

“Leiden?!” Elsa cried out, stiffening.

“Shit!” the young man growled, getting to his feet and bursting his way back through the same wall. A split second before he broke through, a helmet and face shield had emerged to cover his head, then returned to the spot in his armor that housed them.

This time he decided not to count on his speed, but to try to land a punch to D’s head.

“Don’t let that make you cocky,” Leiden growled menacingly. “Sure, I still make some mistakes, but scrapping I’ve got down to an art. I learned how to fight from a former warrior who was in the village.”

“Oh, nice stance. But I don’t care how hard you punch, it won’t knock anybody out if it doesn’t land!”

The hoarse voice fueled Leiden’s humiliation and his urge to fight. His punch came at Mach 10—ten times the speed of sound. But in the split second before it became an exquisite hook aimed at D’s jaw, no one saw the flash of light that sank into the man’s armpit.

His punch sliced through the air. D moved the slightest bit to the left.

“Damn it!”

His left whooshed around in an uppercut—or so he made it seem, and then he lashed out with another right hook. His upper body twisted around from the speed. His lower half managed to support him, quickly turning him back—at least, it should’ve, but Leiden did a remarkable full turn. Not just one turn, but two—and then yet another.

“Wh-what the hell is this?” he cried out in spite of himself. His body continued to spin. “Make it stop!” he screamed as he kept throwing the same perfect punch in exactly the same spot.

In a tone of disgust, the hoarse voice suggested, “What do you say we stop him? It’s not like you could sleep with him going like that. He’d twirl the rest of his life away.”

A steely voice replied, “You should worry less about learning what I can do and more about learning how to handle yourselves.”

Elsa and Habaki’s expressions changed. A kind of madness had occupied their minds. For the hoarse voice really hadn’t suited the gorgeous young man before them. That gap had pushed their minds out of whack, driving them toward the watery depths of insanity. Now, D stood before them as himself.

“I apologize for our rudeness,” said Habaki. “You’re clearly someone we could never handle. So I’m begging you. Please help Leiden out.” He bowed his head.

At the same time, D’s right hand flashed out. The Hunter had known that the combat armor had a weakness in the armpit—where it met the shoulder joint. His earlier strike had not only hit the joint with matchless precision, but had also severed part of the mechanical nerve fibers that ran through it, forcing the mechanized armor to repeat the same action for all eternity.

What had his latest strike cut, or what had it connected?

Leiden was frozen in the midst of throwing a hook.

“What are you doing? Get out of there,” Habaki said, pantomiming the act of removing the armor.

There was the sound of switches being thrown repeatedly. Looking like he was about to cry, Leiden said, “It’s gone haywire. I can’t get outta it!”

“Couldn’t be helped. That’s what you get for trying to knock somebody’s block off. We’re gonna leave you there for the time being.”

Once the hoarse voice had finished saying that, D gave the other two a silent look. That was enough to extinguish the fire in their eyes.

“Did you say something about using me?”

Habaki shook his head frantically. “Don’t be absurd. We were a bit full of ourselves. Please, forget we said that. But by all means, we’d like you to aid us.”

“I don’t come cheap.”

“We know that. We’ll reward you as best we can. But the fate of the village hangs on our actions.”

“So, you want me to do something like eliminating Grand Duke Bergenzy?”

“Exactly,” Habaki said, hope swelling in his voice.

“In that case, stop screwing things up,” D replied, crushing those hopes with his words. “I’ll get rid of him. If the lot of you are hanging around, you’ll only get in my way.”

“Don’t say that,” Elsa interjected. “Our skills are nothing compared to yours, but I think we could cooperate on some of the finer points. The Noble’s castle might look antiquated, but inside it’s full of technology it’d take the human race tens of thousands of years to comprehend. If we could get our hands on just the tiniest scraps of it and get it to work, the world of man would expand by leaps and bounds!”

“And I told you, you can’t understand it.”

“No, maybe not all of it. But we could manage with some of it.”

“The Nobles’ things were made for the Nobility. Not one of them is intended for human beings. You’re dreaming if you think you’ll manage to use them.”

“But just look at these,” Habaki said, thrusting a pair of night-vision goggles against D’s chest. “They were based on a broken pair from the Nobility. We all worked together to collect the parts for them. I don’t know what the old kind could do, but what we’ve got works fine for us.”

“This is something you made for yourselves, so it has nothing to do with the Nobility,” D said after just a glance at them. “Is this the first time you’ve used those suits?”

“Yeah. But we’ve tested ’em a few times.”

“If you’d screwed up when you did, the suit might’ve gone on destroying whatever was in front of you until the end of time. Like you saw it do just now. What do you think would happen if it got stuck like that while it was moving forward? You’d smash your way through forests and mountains on a path of endless destruction. And it’d still be going a hundred years later when you were nothing but bones.”

The three of them fell silent.

D said, “Go ahead and destroy the Nobility if you like. But for your own sake, don’t ever get it into your head to try and understand them. Not even their accessories.”

“But . . .” Habaki started to say, and then he relented.

“Get going. I’m heading out.”

After a moment’s pause, the three of them exchanged looks.

“Don’t tell me you’re headed off to Castle Bergenzy? You going there to get rid of the grand duke?” asked Leiden. Only his face was left exposed by the combat suit. As he looked at D, his eyes were aglow with envy and worship. Not even waiting for the Hunter to answer, he continued, “Um, could you please get me outta this thing? I’ll go with you. I swear I won’t get in your way. Just to watch. C’mon, I’m begging you!”

“Get going.”

“No!” a voice countered sharply.

“Elsa?!”

Before the very eyes of her two compatriots, and D, the girl took the weapon she’d lowered and pointed it straight at the Hunter’s heart.

“D-don’t do it!” Leiden stammered, his face gone pale, but there was nothing he could do trapped in that armor.

“That little speech of yours didn’t leave me convinced,” said Elsa. “This is one of the Nobles’ weapons, isn’t it? And I can use it just fine.”

“There’s a difference between using something and understanding it.”

His cold tone only served to make the spirited girl’s blood boil.

“We can worry about how it’s made and what it does later. At any rate, a blast from this will destroy a Noble, too. See, I can use this weapon that was intended for Nobles. I think it all starts with this.”

“A weapon intended for Nobles,” D said softly.

“Overconfidence is a scary thing, missy,” the hoarse voice said, making the three of them flinch. “That weapon was intended for Nobles, eh? Ha ha ha. If that’s really the case, why don’t you try blasting this guy with it?”

A puzzled “Huh?” escaped Elsa’s lips.

“No need to be shy. We’ll see with one shot what that pea-sized brain of yours is good for. Go on, fire away.”

“One blast can burn right through eight inches of iron plating!” Elsa said, looking by turns at D and the weapon in her own hand. “It’ll melt an eighteen-inch-thick iron beam in ten seconds flat. There’s no way he could take that.”

“I don’t care—fire away.”

“No. Wha—?!” Elsa screamed because D had taken a step forward and grabbed hold of her right wrist. He pressed down on her index finger.

A crimson beam of light pierced D’s heart.

III

The six-thousand-degree beam fulfilled its purpose. The youthful trio saw it bore through the wall behind D.

It was the hoarse voice that freed Elsa from the tension. “How was that? Not even a full-blown Noble, and he can laugh off a weapon intended for Nobles. Or to put it another way, that weapon ain’t intended to be used on Nobles.”

“It was meant for shooting our kind?” Habaki asked, his expression growing bitter.

“Of course so. To keep the humans scared outta their wits, it’s a lot more effective to roast a hundred in one go instead of draining the blood from ’em one by one.”

“That’s it? Doesn’t it have any other uses? What about cutting iron or something?”

“Can you picture a Noble working as a blacksmith? If it were you, what would you use it for?”

Though the three of them looked at each other, no words were forthcoming.

“You’ve got nothing, do you? Well, considering what the weapon’s made for, murder, extortion, robbery, safecracking, knocking over stage coaches—that’s about the size of it. Think about something like digging a ditch for irrigation or burning down a forest to clear room for more farmland or houses. If you’re looking for a tool to do that, there are more options than you could shake a stick at, and they work about a thousand times better. If you wanna destroy Nobles, the old ways are the best. Namely, drive a stake of ash through their hearts.”

“What the hell?!” Elsa cried, sounding on the verge of tears. “I thought we had something that’d help us get rid of the Nobility, and it’s really just a toy that only works on humans? And I’ve been waving that thing around?”

“That’s it in a nutshell. And that’s why I say forget all that wasteful nonsense about understanding the Nobles’ civilization, and just go home and give your all to the real work at hand. For a girl, that might mean helping in the kitchen, sewing, baby-sitting, and having babies of your own when you’re older. For a boy, tending crops, chopping wood, hunting game—there’s a million things to do. You guys talk about destroying the Nobility—but that’s just a pipe dream. Live your lives in peace.”

D started to walk away. The trio cleared a path for him. Not that they’d accepted what the hoarse voice had said. Rather, the Hunter’s eerie aura had pushed them out of the way. Here was a man even one of the Nobles’ weapons couldn’t slay. And the fact that it’d been intended for use on humans all along robbed their hearts of something great they felt could never be replaced.

As the Hunter got on his cyborg horse and it began to walk away, his left hand jeered, “Snot-nosed little punks. Gonna have to find ourselves a new house. Well, I just hope I’ve straightened them out now.”

“Think that’s the case?”

“Eh?”

“You think the three of them will just go back to farm work?”

“Hmmm,” the hoarse voice replied, a laugh escaping. “More than a few people hate the Nobility and wanna see ’em destroyed. But those who stand up to do it personally are few and far between. And even then, most either can’t even find the Nobles’ resting place, or they’re so afraid of their vengeance they’ll go their separate ways the very same day. You think those guys are any different? You ain’t much of a judge of character, are you?”

Moonlight cast the shadow of the horse and rider on the ground. D’s shadow was terribly faint.

“Of course they harbor vulgar thoughts of catching the table scraps from their betters. Now that they understand they can’t handle anything more than a toy for the Nobility, they’ll settle down and be back to giving the farm work their all tomorrow. And that’s for the best.”

The Hunter didn’t respond, and his cyborg horse started to gallop. Castle Bergenzy was at the edge of the wilderness that stretched from the northern edge of the village, sitting atop Glasden Hill.

Generally, the western and southern Frontier regions were considered picturesque lands with mild climates, while the eastern and northern regions were said to be desolate, ugly places. While that didn’t hold for every single locale within them, the black plateau that spread before D at present was so wild and forbidding it would negate any opinions to the contrary. There was a road. There was a forest, too. The sound of running water could be heard. Moonlight made the dark green stand out starkly. However, devoid of so much as the chirping of insects, it was a world of death.

Knifing through the wind, the rider in black looked like a gorgeous Grim Reaper on his black steed.

Rising like the back of an enormous dragon, Glasden Hill came to fill D’s field of view.

“Wow, the lights are on in every stinking window in the place. They throwing a ball tonight or something? Everybody’s so focused on themselves, and screw whatever’s become of the world. Oh, those punk kids would get a laugh out of this!”

Before long, the cyborg steed had ridden within range of the strains of an orchestra spilling from the castle.

They galloped straight up the hill, at which point the hoarse voice remarked, “Oh, some ruffians to deal with before there’ll be any waltzing for us.”

A moat more than thirty feet wide flowed in front of the main gate, and naturally the drawbridge wasn’t down. Three mounted figures were clustered on this side of the moat.

D didn’t stop.

Turbulence swept through the shadowy figures. Not making a sound, their horses pulled away.

A heartbeat shy of passing through the newly made path, D pulled back on the reins. To the other riders, it probably looked as if he’d broken the very laws of inertia.

“Now this is a surprise. I’m surprised you could stop,” said a cheery voice. It was that of the man dressed most inappropriately in a T-shirt and a pair of shorts. The strange objects he had looped over either shoulder continued to circle his body. They were iron rings.

“You the one they call D?” asked a low voice. Wearing a coat, the speaker was as thin as baling wire, and his fingers were long.

The third sat astride his horse saying nothing, but perhaps it should’ve come as no surprise that he didn’t speak. His entire face and head were hidden beneath a riveted iron mask.

As was the custom on the Frontier, they all had longswords and rifles in cases hanging from the sides of their saddles, but the only other weapons they wore were a pistol on the hip of the one with the rings and a longsword on the back of the masked one. The man with the long fingernails was unarmed.

“Damn, but you are one good-looking fella,” the man with the rings murmured in rapture.

Apparently the other two weren’t about to gainsay him, and at that moment something heavy left them. Murderous intent.

“You know who we are, right? You split our colleague’s belly open. Fella who goes by the name of Lascaux.”

“That fatty?” the hoarse voice laughed, stunning them all.

“You know, that don’t really suit your face. At any rate, allow us to introduce ourselves. I’m Ringard,” said the man with the rings. “The toothpick is Valen, and that’s Mask in the iron headgear. We’re working for Professor Chaney.”

“What do you want?” D inquired.

The three men looked at each other.

“Now that’s more like it. That’s what your voice sounds like!” Ringard said, breaking into a grin.

D fell as silent as an exquisite statue. Perhaps it was the work of the moonlight.

“See, we heard you’d come to town. And we figured we’d see about meeting you once—before we had to tussle, that is.”

“What, we ain’t gonna tussle now?” the hoarse voice asked.

Ringard’s eyes seemed to rattle in his head. “Nope. The Professor hasn’t given us the word yet. He said he’d pay, but taking on the man they call D for that price is plumb stupid. The only reason we’re out here tonight is because we wanted a look at your face.”

“You can’t get across here,” Valen said with a toss of his chin toward the moat. It was filled to the brim with black water.

Advancing on his horse, D stopped by the side of the road. The pendant he wore on his chest gave off a blue light.

Out in the darkness, there was a faint electronic sound from the vicinity of the drawbridge. The three warriors seemed astounded when the bridge slowly lowered.

“How’d you swing that, mister?” Ringard inquired, his eyes wide.

The bridge came all the way down. D immediately started across it. He acted as if the other three hadn’t been there from the very beginning.

Once he’d vanished into the castle, Ringard remarked, “That’s one hell of a pretty boy—just off the chart.”

“Just what I’d expect from D.”

“We’d better hurry back. I don’t wanna stay here too long and wind up getting some kind of weird proposition from the grand duke.”

The three of them wheeled their horses around and galloped off. Overhead, bats flitted.