THE FALLEN ONES

CHAPTER 7

—

I

—

Dcarried Elena’s limp form to Mama Kipsch’s place. The crone who’d come out rubbing sleepily at her eyes had performed an examination on the girl and immediately discovered the rose on her chest.

“This is much more serious than those flowers the other night. Based on what I’ve just seen, it looks like it goes all the way down to the bone.”

“Can you cure her?” asked the Hunter.

Looking at D with visible surprise, the old woman said, “Are you worried about her? I’d gotten the impression that the life or death of anyone else was a world away from you. You mean to tell me our cries actually reach your ears?”

“I just asked if you can cure her.”

Shrugging her shoulders, Mama Kipsch replied, “You should know a lot more about that than me. As things stand, there’s not a thing that can be done for her.”

“Well, I leave her to you,” D said, and then he turned and headed for the door.

“Hold on there! You’re the only one who can make her better.”

“I thought you said nothing could be done,” D remarked.

“I was talking about the way things are right now. With the right trappings, I should be able to do something.”

Although the woman truly expected some sort of response, she grimaced on receiving none and said, “On the western edge of this domain there’s a village called Zamba. In the Temple of the Inner Body, there blooms a single prismatic rose right about here—in what would be someone’s gut. And it’s been there for the last two thousand years. Bring it back here. The village and temple haven’t known human habitation for a good three centuries—the only things to get in your way would be monsters and evil sprites and the beasts of the plains. And that stuff should be minor league to you.”

“My job is to destroy the lady of the manor,” D stated flatly.

“Heck, I know that. At my age, I wouldn’t ask anyone to step into the jaws of death just out of the goodness of their heart. I’ll offer compensation. The princess has put that tattoo pretty deep on the girl. In trying to get the same result as biting her without doing it the old-fashioned way, she’s drained a lot of the life from her victim. Seeing how sharp the tattoo is should be proof enough of that. I could try to get rid of it, but the girl would just wind up an invalid. Of course, she’d be a Noble invalid, but even I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

Here the witch doctor gave a big belly laugh, but when D didn’t so much as crack a smile, she awkwardly continued, “At any rate, it doesn’t matter how good of a Hunter you are; getting rid of an invalid Noble must be a heck of a lot easier than taking out a healthy one. Here’s your compensation. What do you say?”

“You’ve got a deal,” D replied easily.

With a wry smile, Mama Kipsch said, “You know, you’ve got a very, very unfortunate character. At this rate, you’ll go through your whole life being chalked up as a cold-hearted brute. Granted, I’m sure you probably don’t give a rat’s behind about that. Count on no one but yourself—of all the folks I’ve ever met, only you and two others could honestly say they live that way. And I don’t think I’m likely to see another anytime soon.”

And then she stood up and placed her hand on D’s shoulder. For some reason, he made no attempt to avoid it.

“I know you think you’re doing this as a cut-and-dried business deal, but that’s just not the feeling I get. I was banking on that when I asked you. Do what you can for us.”

The crone suddenly realized she couldn’t feel anything under her fingertips. The youth of heavenly beauty had disappeared through the door—out into the darkness that suited him far better.

“D . . .”

The muttered name made Mama Kipsch turn.

Elena stood in the doorway of the examination room. One look at her eyes was enough to show that her consciousness was fragmented. In her present state, the only thing that could’ve carried her this far was the man whose name had just spilled from her bloodless lips.

“Please . . . don’t . . . leave me . . . ,” Elena mumbled as tears began to roll from her eyes.

—

It was dawn by the time D arrived in the village of Zamba. The kind of pony express that handled ordinary mail deliveries would’ve taken an estimated eight hours to make that run, but he’d done it in less than five. During the trip, a number of people had seen D and hidden themselves by the side of the road. Galloping along with a cloud of dust in his wake, the Hunter in black must’ve been a terrifying sight for the average traveler.

As Mama Kipsch had said, it was a desolate region of mountains and rivers, without a single timber remaining to mark where the village had been. But the Temple of the Inner Body still survived in the hilly region on the western extreme of the village, a building constructed with a technique that allowed stone and iron to be blended together. And yet, the parts with high stone content had been eroded by wind and rain, leaving great holes gaping sinisterly in the structure.

As its name suggested, the temple was the sixty-foot-high and hundred-foot-long image of a giant deity in repose carved untold ages ago from the heart of one of the hills—literally formed from the core of the hill, with an entrance in the head that allowed visitors to go inside. But in this case, “inner body” also had a second meaning. Similar structures dotted the Frontier—in the southwestern sectors they were particularly prevalent—but the fact was that none of them were very well-preserved, and almost all had become the dens of supernatural beasts or the lairs of criminals.

Leaving his overworked cyborg horse outside with its cooling systems on, D entered the body/temple of the gargantuan god with nothing save the sword on his back. His weapon was one of the blades he’d hidden around the ruins on the outskirts of Sacri. As he was leaving the village, he’d swung by the blacksmith’s place, and a woman who must’ve been his wife appeared to tell the Hunter her husband had gone off to a special site known to him alone to put a soul into the sword he’d been charged with making. He’d left the night before, she said, and still hadn’t returned.

A strange sight greeted D.

If an artist or sculptor of exceptional talent were to visit this place, the supreme heresy inherent in its design and the wealth of horrifying imagery—not the stuff of nightmare, but bald-faced reality—couldn’t help but drive them to lunacy. A human being couldn’t conceive of what the inside of a god looked like. If they wanted to find out, they had no choice but to come here.

Opening the door in the top of its head and stepping inside what must’ve been the brain of the deity, the Hunter found row upon row of pleats in a barely translucent wax-like alloy. The creases housed statues of this god or other deities with a rich patina, as well as talismans carved with unsettling pictographs. The passageway suddenly narrowed into what was apparently the esophagus, and once a visitor had passed from there into the torso, the human sense of direction could no longer be trusted.

Was this actually how the internal organs of a god were laid out?

The terribly flat floor suddenly became a series of wild grooves. At one point D was actually walking across the ceiling, and the passageways that’d clearly existed vanished when he took his eye off them for a second. Nothing here had been constructed in a straight line, and yet the curves didn’t really feel like they curved either. While he was certain he’d been advancing in a straight line, he also got the feeling he was going around in circles. The very fact that he could feel like he was going in a straight line and running in circles at the same time was truly bizarre.

Neither the human body nor its mind were meant to deal with this. As proof, the skeletons scattered at D’s feet had rusty red knives and swords poking from their chests—either wounds they’d inflicted on themselves or each other. The remaining human and monster bones were most likely left by creatures who’d wandered into this maze that defied Euclidean geometry and had fallen to exhaustion and starvation.

D advanced down that inhuman, maddening path without the slightest delay.

What manner of being had carved all this? As if to praise the greatness of their faith, the ceiling, walls, and floor were all engraved with secret incantations or covered with colorful murals.

Finally, D halted in a certain vast section. Apparently light from the outside world was somehow channeled into this chamber, as there was sufficient illumination. What D saw was a gaudily hued dais of a lumpy, misshapen material like cooled lava with a metallic altar set on top. The altar in turn was crowned by a clear, prism-shaped container enclosing a single rose that evinced the loveliest hues.

Reaching out for the bloom with his hand, D then stopped as if he’d had some portent. The mistress of a rose garden that bloomed in splendor on moonlit nights, and the prismatic rose that could be considered the symbol of the very deity around it—it didn’t seem likely these two could both exist in the same remote area and not be related. There had to be a common thread connecting them somewhere.

“There’s an awfully primitive trap built into the altar. It has the odor of machine oil,” said a hoarse voice.

“I’m aware of that,” D replied, once again reaching out for the container and touching it. Before he’d even raised the bloom, a switch must’ve been triggered, and there was the whine of a motor that then quickly died out.

“Looks like it’d be best to get out of here fast!”

Not appearing to have any objection to the hoarse voice’s suggestion, D started back the way he’d come without so much as a backward glance.

The walls warped abruptly, taking new forms, making different ridges and crevices, forming other passageways. Apparently the rule was that no intruder was to leave again.

“Oh, my! I guess the spirit of whatever built this thing still remains here,” the Hunter’s left hand groaned. “It’d be a discredit to the god to let its symbol be taken. Looks like getting out will be tough.”

D turned around.

The area around the altar remained unchanged, utterly fixed. Approaching the platform, D casually drew his sword. The blade he was about to sink into something was then crossed by a band of light that raced toward the altar. Split in two, the altar thudded to the floor.

Turning to the wall where the light had originated, D said, “Black Knight.”

It wasn’t a question. He could tell from the flash who’d cut through the altar. Still, there was no sign of his foe.

“A strange place this is, and this is one of its amusements,” the Black Knight said, his voice holding no surprise at the fact that his identity had been deduced. He’d understood from the very start that D was capable of as much. “Two foes, each trying to cut an opponent he can’t see—although in the case of you and I, we can see even if we can’t see. Shall we continue?”

“Very well,” D responded.

That was rare. This young man was more likely to meet such an offer from his opponent with a blow from his sword rather than a single word.

Not budging a step, D stabbed into a point on the wall. His sword moved with blinding speed. There was a sharp ching! of steel that seemed to bite right into the marrow of the listener’s spine—D had just parried another flash of light coming from a different position. But it wasn’t even clear when he’d had time to pull his sword out of the wall.

D ran along the wall—this was the path that led to the gigantic figure’s abdomen. It showed no further signs of changing.

Flashes of light raced from the wall in two places. The two streaks shot up, and D halted. His left arm came down, a stream of red spilling from his sleeve across the back of his hand. That was courtesy of the two streaks of light.

The air froze. It was taking on the very same nature as D’s body—every molecule could tell that the gorgeous Hunter had his concentration focused on his foe. If someone were to touch him just then, the merest contact would’ve literally cut them, and blood would’ve gushed from their flesh.

Despite being on the other side of the wall, the Black Knight had said that they could see each other. That being the case, was D trying to see something new? Or would he attempt instead to see things differently?

The Hunter’s right hand limned an arc. The second that same line was traced across the wall, D’s body dropped off to the left side.

A hole had opened in the ground. The floor had not rotted out—rather, this was one last act of resistance against the one who’d defiled this holy place.

With his mind brutally focused on other matters, even D couldn’t react instantaneously. A wide swath of light came from beyond the wall to slash deeply into his reeling form. Into the nape of his neck.

As vermilion stained the world around him, D plunged feet-first into the darkness.

—

II

—

It was pointless to wonder whether there could really be a never-ending hole within this gigantic effigy of a recumbent deity. The pit the Hunter had fallen into actually seemed to be bottomless. At least, there was no bottom that D’s eyes could detect.

“You’re okay, aren’t you?” a voice inquired in a tone that could’ve been taken as either lackadaisical or hurried—though it was probably the latter.

“I’m going up,” D replied.

Here were the recuperative powers of a dhampir in all their glory. Though his neck had been cut halfway through, the wound had already closed, and all that remained was a whitish line. He’d thrust the sword in his right hand into the wall to end his fall—and while that may have sounded all well and good, the fact of the matter was he was in an extremely delicate, horrific predicament. Less than four inches of his blade had gone into the wall, and the longsword was gradually levering lower and lower under D’s weight. If he were to fall again, it wouldn’t be a question of whether or not the Hunter would be up to another attempt, but rather whether his sword could endure it.

What’s more, true to the anxiety in the voice from his left hand, D himself looked to be in incredibly rough shape, despite the fact that his tone was as cool as ever. Though the wound had closed, the blow the Black Knight had dealt him had left damage that wouldn’t easily be repaired. Ordinarily, D would’ve kept one hand pressed to his ravaged neck while he used the other to climb up the wall.

A pale blue fire sparked in the Hunter’s left hand—flames of energy spilling from the mouth of the countenanced carbuncle that’d formed on the back of it.

“Looks like even this won’t work,” the face groaned in apparent amazement. Grimacing, it added, “It seems he gave you one hell of a cut. I’d say that knight’s not your average customer at all. Can you climb up?”

But even as the face on his hand questioned him, it felt D’s body beginning to rise.

Trusting all his weight to his right hand, which held the blade he’d driven into the wall, D pushed off the sword to lift himself up. His left hand reached out and caught hold of a slight projection on the wall. Pulling the sword out, he swung upward with his left arm and jammed the blade into the wall again.

From a human perspective, it was something only a superman could’ve done. Working without a break, he climbed more than three hundred feet in no time, and suddenly there was a circle of light above his head.

A shadow fell across D’s face. His countenance free of emotion, D looked up at the Black Knight, who stood at the brink of the pit.

The knight extended one hand, saying, “Although I don’t suppose you need it, I thought I’d offer it as a courtesy nonetheless. Even if you choose to take it, you shall owe me nothing.”

“What were you waiting for?” D asked softly.

The only thing supporting him was the blade of his sword. Under the circumstances, it didn’t seem possible that even D would be able to respond to a stroke from the Black Knight.

“To fight,” the Black Knight replied with refreshing simplicity.

“In that case—,” D said, sailing through the air an instant later.

The Black Knight moved further into the corridor, and D landed in the knight’s former position.

“I’ve returned your favor.”

The gigantic black tree of a knight nodded at D’s words–he had genuinely intended to pull D up out of the hole. As for D, his blade had been invested with an unvarnished will to kill as he leapt from the pit. If he’d brought it down then, the Black Knight would’ve been powerless to keep it from slashing him in two. What’s more, the knight hadn’t even known what D’s intent was.

D’s choice not to cut the Black Knight down when he had the chance was in repayment for the hand the knight had offered him in aid. However, to the handsome Hunter who’d come through fields of slaughter and storms of blood, this was essentially a business transaction—he did it the same way he’d fulfill the conditions of any contract.

“It’s a bit cramped in here. Perhaps it would be best if we settled this outside?” the Black Knight suggested.

D saw that his opponent’s voice and form were now shrouded in the unearthly aura of someone else entirely, for the knight was cursing himself for underestimating his foe.

“There’s an exit not far from here. Follow me,” the Black Knight said, and then he turned sharply. Was it because he figured D wouldn’t come at him until they were outside? Did he still trust D, or was there another reason?

The exit the pair appeared from was in the long, muscular swell of the deity’s thigh. There was a plaza in front of the temple for worship. The two of them squared off against each other in that relic of the past where now only green turf remained. Fifteen feet lay between them—one of the combatants would have to step forward at this distance.

The Black Knight remained with his weapon undrawn, and D held his blade out straight at eye level. The tip of his sword was pointed ever so slightly down. And it didn’t move. The perfectly natural pose of the Black Knight wouldn’t allow it to do so.

On the other hand, the Black Knight found his soul awash in admiration. For while D’s stance was a common enough posture, the Hunter himself had vanished—leaving the white glint of his sword tip alone to occupy the knight’s field of view. The instant D fell into the pit, the knight was certain he’d felt his blade make contact. For an ordinary person it would’ve been a critical wound, and even for a dhampir it’d take roughly six months to recover from such an injury. There was no way the Hunter was in top physical shape. And yet he was still so—

As if in synchronization with his own overawed thoughts, the knight’s field of view suddenly expanded. D had lowered his sword.

The Black Knight stepped forward. Part of his mind screamed, You shouldn’t have done that, and a shudder ran through him. But even as he warned himself it was an open invitation, his right hand reached around to his back with ungodly speed.

In point of fact, the Black Knight didn’t know exactly what the weapon on his back was. The next thing the warrior knew, it would be there in his hands, and he’d know how to use it and what to expect from it. Of course, to get to the point where he was now, he’d undergone hellish training that’d not only left him spitting blood, but had made the very flame of life gutter within him more than once. Nevertheless, he didn’t understand the principles on which his weapon operated. There was only one thing he did know—it was going to slay the Vampire Hunter right now.

A split second before he sent the blade of light flying from his weapon, the Black Knight saw that D had his arms impossibly extended above his head—in the high position. But his flash got off first in a horizontal swipe at the Hunter.

Splitting the band of light in two, D’s sword continued on to sink into the Black Knight’s helm. There was a silvery flash—and with a dull chung! the blade snapped off at the hilt.

The Black Knight fell to his knees. A thin crack split his helm from the crest to the forehead.

However, D slumped forward at the same time. For the blow he’d just delivered had required all the physical and mental strength he could muster.

Making its way across the wild plains, the wind fluttered D’s coat. Beneath the blue sky, the two black figures were both on their knees, motionless.

One of them rose, like a black mountain. It was the Black Knight. The fresh blood dripping from his head wound sullied his armor, stained the grass, and seeped into the earth.

“Ordinarily, you’d have defeated me. However, it looks like this time victory is mine. Farewell, D!”

Both the knight’s hands went behind his waist. There was no conceivable way the kneeling D would be able to guard against his next attack. The Hunter’s hands were empty.

Somewhere, the Black Knight heard a voice.

An elegant half-moon shape knifed through the blue sky over D’s head.

Howling, a flash of light sliced through the wind—slashing from the upper right down toward D’s carotid artery. The indescribable sound of steel making contact rang out and fresh blood shot into the air. Pattering against the ground like a driving rain, the blood actually sprayed from the left arm of the Black Knight.

Forgetting to even stagger, he stood dumbstruck, looking at D.

Still down on one knee, the Vampire Hunter had a black scabbard in his left hand, while a sword jutted from his right.

Strangely enough, the words that suddenly brought the curtain down on this deadly performance came from a third person.

“Like it?” asked the stout man who’d appeared from behind a rock.

“I do,” D replied.

Even though the Black Knight recognized the man at a glance as the village blacksmith, he never would’ve imagined that Blasko used these ruins for his purification rites.

“As promised, I got it done overnight. I had intended to be home by noon, but as I was hurrying back, I happened to see you. I sure am glad I was worried enough to come out here and find you.”

From what the smith said, he must’ve been one of the figures who’d hidden by the side of the road as the Hunter was on his way here.

“I, the famed Blasko, have never had as much confidence in anything I’ve ever crafted. It could cut through a thousand suits of their armor like it was nothing. Well, go ahead and finish him off now!”

Hearing the smith’s exuberant cry behind him, D got to his feet.

Though blood poured from the stump of the Black Knight’s arm like a waterfall, he still stood there proudly.

“Do it,” the knight said. There was strength in his voice.

“I need you to do me a favor,” said D. “I’m heading back to the village now, and after that I’ll go up to the castle. Tell the princess to make whatever arrangements are necessary.”

Not waiting for a reply, he turned his back to the Black Knight and walked off to where he’d tethered his horse. Looking at the blacksmith, he asked, “You coming with me?”

“You bet. You think I’d hang around out here with a creepy character like him?” the blacksmith replied, running over to where he’d secured his own horse behind the rocks.

As soon as D was astride his mount, a voice from his left hand remarked, “A message for the princess, eh? That’s a nice little loophole you thought of.”

But D paid no attention, and the smith following him didn’t even notice anything had been said.

—

The sun set.

In Mama Kipsch’s parlor, Elena was desperately trying to get a grip on herself. Not on her fear—that had faded with the arrival of the vast blueness of twilight. What she was fighting was the surpassing joy and rapture building within her; her pleasure at discovering how brilliant the night was.

After the mark of the rose had been left on her breast, she’d naturally felt a great mental shock, but physically she’d also fallen into a terrible languor, and her body temperature was dropping by the minute. Elena had been afraid that was what it felt like to become one of the Nobility. Now the village had surrendered itself to the mastery of the darkness, and her terror had vanished.

How sweet the night was. The sound of the faint breeze seemed to sweep across the heavens, the scent of the darkness was fragrant, and the moon and twinkling stars that lit the night she’d so often prayed would pass quickly were so beautiful they made her tremble. More than anything, there was the vitality that flooded every inch of her being. But it was Elena’s human sense of reason that resisted this. The same blood as the Nobility was coursing through her veins.

This isn’t good, she thought.

And in this manner, Elena’s solitary battle began at dusk.

A short time earlier, Mama Kipsch had gone out to see to an urgent patient on the edge of the village. The first thing Elena did was lock all the doors and windows in the house, and then she went and found two items in the back room—a massive crossbow and some rope. Heading back to the parlor, she moved a low cabinet in front of the door, secured the crossbow to the top of it with some of the rope, and then used the rest of it to tie herself to a chair. Obviously she took great care as she did this. Once she’d fastened the rope to the crossbow’s trigger, she placed heavy urns and books around the weapon and set it so that if she were to pull on both arms, the crossbow would put a quarrel right through her heart. Knotting the rope around her wrists with her teeth, Elena then felt more at ease.

Before leaving, Mama Kipsch had told the girl she’d be home before midnight. All she had to do was hold out until then against the sweet temptation.

And it was just after sunset that she learned exactly how sweet that could be. What a feeling of supreme bliss! How light she felt, in both body and soul! Of all the people sleeping there beyond her window, had any of them ever felt such rapture?

Those stupid little—, Elena thought before suddenly growing horrified. Was that how a Noble’s mind worked?

And there was one more thing she felt. The second Elena realized what that urge was, she decided she had to die. There was no hesitation as she pulled back with her hands. And with her pull came the sound of the springs letting loose. The string groaned out a thrum! The bolt whistled through the air, and its tip sank into her chest on impact.

Elena opened her eyes a crack. The bolt was buried deep in her. Apparently it’d hit a bit below the heart instead. It seemed her aim was off when she’d first set it.

Oh, if only D or Mama Kipsch was here, she thought.

Bringing the knot that bound her hands up to her mouth, the girl then realized there was a much easier way to do this. As she let the strength surge into her wrists, the ropes burst free. After that, she had only to put some strength into the rest of her body. The door to the parlor opened easily. One swipe of her hand was enough to send the cabinet and other furniture sailing clear to the other side of the room.

The second Elena stepped out the front door, a pleasurable sensation she couldn’t recall ever before experiencing seeped into the marrow of her bones, making her squat down right then and there.

“What’s wrong?” someone asked her, although she couldn’t tell when he’d put his hand on her shoulder.

“Just go. It’s nothing,” the girl replied.

“Well, I’ll be! Is that you, Elena?” the man spat. He was none other than Gary, the guard from the tent. “Well, we don’t have any obligation to help the embarrassment of the whole village. You can lie there in pain for all we care!”

The other man on patrol with him guffawed and then Gary started to walk away.

Something wet flew right by Elena’s face. Spit.

Elena smiled.

What fools! How dare they mock me now. I’ll have to punish them.

As the girl rose smoothly to her feet, the smile she wore was more liberated than any her fellow villagers had ever seen on her face.

Pursuing the torch-lit figures some forty or fifty feet ahead of her, Elena raced down the street without making a sound. Her movements were so effortless that it was more like skating. Her arms and legs moved with the merest thought, and it didn’t really feel like they were working at all. She could run a hundred miles or even a thousand at full speed.

When she was just ten feet away from them, the two men turned. A shocked expression on his face, Gary leveled his rifle and pulled the trigger. His actions were not only reckless but also patently illegal. He hadn’t so much as cautioned her to freeze.

A heated lump ripped into the girl’s solar plexus, but the sensation passed quickly. Euphoria engulfed Elena.

I can kill, she thought. I could kill this bastard. I’m stronger than he is.

As Elena reached for Gary’s throat, he batted her hand away with the barrel of his rifle. There was no pain at all from the blow for her and she didn’t feel the shock of the impact, but the man still tottered from it. Swinging the gun around, he slammed the stock into the girl’s temple. To her, it felt like a kiss from the wind.

Not seeming to mind in the least, Elena stuck to her original intent, grabbing Gary’s throat with one hand while the other locked onto his left shoulder. Her fingers sank into him as smoothly as if she were wringing a sponge. Some part of her mind screamed at her that this was wrong.

Driven by an outdated urge she no longer comprehended, Elena shoved Gary aside. His body sailed a good thirty feet through the air, a fair amount of his clothes and the flesh on his back then being scraped off as he skidded across the ground and blacked out.

The other man had been stock still as he watched this atrocity, but when he realized Elena’s attention had turned to him, he snapped back to his senses.

From various parts of the village, a crazy mix of shouting and footsteps could be heard.

Elena stepped forward. The other desire she’d felt earlier came into play. For an instant, she wondered what kind of look she must’ve had on her face.

“Keep away from me!” the man shouted, forgetting to reach for the gun on his hip.

No matter where I split him open, there’ll be blood, Elena thought to herself.

The man crossed his arms in front of his face, making an “x.”

Undeterred, Elena grabbed hold of his shoulders.

“Don’t!” the man cried as his upper body thrashed violently.

The “x” became a cross.

An awful shock seared through every nerve in Elena’s body. Although she didn’t cry out, she writhed as she tried to fight the pain.

“The shot came from this way.”

“Hey! There’s somebody over there!”

The approaching voices sounded familiar to the girl.

The weighted end of the chain flew from Elena’s right hand to wrap around the lightning rod on the roof of a house, and then her body swung easily into the air. Just as she was disappearing over the roof, she muttered, “D.”

Needless to say, there was no one up there to hear his name fall from her lips.

—

III

—

When D came back, he was met by hostility-filled glares from the people who’d gathered at the entrance to the village, and by a despondent-looking Mama Kipsch.

“You didn’t make it in time, D,” the aged witch doctor said sadly before going on to explain the situation. She’d only returned to her home a short while earlier.

“Neither you nor Elena is to set foot in the village again,” snarled the representative who’d replaced the mayor after his death at the hands of the Blue Knight. “That’s what the village assembly decided. The next time you show your face around here, we’ll kill you.”

“Where’s Elena?” D asked.

“At the manor, most likely.”

To Mama Kipsch he said, “Are you coming with me?”

“No, it’s my job to protect the village. Tonight I’ll lock myself away in my house and pray for you and Elena,” said the crone. Even with the malevolent gaze of the entire village focused on her, she was unshaken. “You be careful out there, D. May the Lord above watch over the both of you.”

D gave a kick to his mount’s flanks.

—

“D’s coming!” the princess declared.

She wasn’t inside. A gorgeous array of colors surrounded the princess and her companions—they were out in the rose-adorned garden.

“I just know it. Now, what should I do? Should I send tidal waves or mud slides, lightning or perhaps a dimensional tear to greet him?”

“If you think it for the best,” replied a voice that seemed to seep into the very ground. It came from one of the two figures who knelt before her—the Black Knight.

“What are you saying, Sir Black Knight?” came the astonished cry of the other—the Red Knight. “Are you not the one who stated that if the Hunter was to be struck down, we should do so fairly and not besmirch the honor of the Four Knights of the Diane Rose? He’s no slavering wolf out for blood money. When I could offer no resistance, he didn’t slay me or even injure me. What’s more, he didn’t try to open the door I guarded, but rather left through the skylight. He’s an extraordinary man. Under the circumstances, to do anything other than go and fight him to the bitter end would hardly manifest our respect for the princess and the Sacred Ancestor of her kind, would it? Or more than anything, our respect for the man himself.”

“Dear me, but you do have a way with words. Do you mean to tell me you’ve suddenly gone from feelings of hostility to amity?” the princess laughed in a voice like the tinkling of a golden bell. “And what do you have to say in regard to the opinion he’s expressed?”

His face still turned to the floor, the Black Knight replied, “At present, the defense of this castle and our princess is a more urgent matter than our pride. The Red Knight and White Knight together could probably best him. Nay, they must triumph. I’ll clench my sword between my teeth and join them, if need be. However, having lost my other arm battling him, I have to say that my instincts tell me you must stop. Even if there’s only one chance in a thousand, or even one in a million, we can’t allow him to reach you, Princess. Kindly take my opinion under consideration.”

“Very well. Red Knight—have at him.”

“Yes, milady,” the red figure jubilantly replied as he rose, while the massive black form behind him didn’t move a muscle—as if some colossal, invisible hand kept him pressed against the earth.

“Next it’s your turn, my Black Knight. If you’re so prepared to sacrifice life and limb for my sake, go after D with your sword in your teeth as you just pledged. Oh, I jest with you,” the princess said with a thin laugh.

If the Black Knight had looked up at her then, the resulting surprise might’ve very well left him deranged. For the smile that colored her rose-like lips was horribly kind.

“Your formidable skill not withstanding, it would be like throwing you naked to the wolves in your present state. Come,” the princess told him. “I’ll give you something to replace what you’ve lost.”

—

D halted his horse before the suspension bridge.

In the darkness lit only by moonlight, the flame-like hue of the other rider was striking. He was on the far side of the bridge.

“I am second,” the Red Knight called out as he drew a longsword. No doubt he meant that the Blue Knight had gone first. “Now I shall make you pay for both the Blue Knight and the arm you cost the Black Knight. Draw!”

He really didn’t need to ask. An ice-like blade glimmered in D’s right hand.

Though the Red Knight had been rendered unconscious by an agonizing blow from D in their first encounter, it was only because his orders from the princess had left him unable to defend himself. With a sword in his hands, he could be every bit as good as the Hunter. After all, hadn’t the Black Knight conceded their close duel when faced with the Red Knight’s draw?

And a voice that wasn’t quite a voice whispered to the Hunter, “Are you gonna be okay?”

D’s body hadn’t yet fully recovered from the wound he’d sustained in his battle with the Black Knight.

“Hyah!” the crimson rider grunted with determination as his mount tore up the earth. At the same time, the young man in black raced forward, scattering the moonlight. Each proceeded an equal distance to the center of the bridge—and then there was an angry shower of sparks.

As if propelled by the crash of that impact, the two figures flew into the air, once more clashing their blades together before they landed in the center of the bridge. Sparks rained down on the shoulders of both men, but didn’t linger long before fading. Their horses were still galloping away.

The Red Knight reached for a second sword with his right hand. Though it seemed like he might use two blades at once, he then took the new sword and drove it point-first into a floor board in front of him. Then, the knight’s upper body dipped. Perhaps the same deadly drawing technique the Black Knight had feared was about to be unleashed on D. But the Hunter was beyond the reach of a sword blade.

“Die!” the knight bellowed, his cry of resolve like the sound of tearing silk or shredding steel.

The glint that surged from his scabbard was crimson. It slashed through the wind, howling as it was slammed at D.

D’s response was nearly miraculous. While still unsure of the true nature of his foe’s technique, he had his blade held out in front of himself. It was true warrior instinct. Something struck his blade, flying off to either side of it, and a heartbeat later, the suspension bridge tilted wildly in D’s direction. The support wires to either side of him had been severed neatly, as if they were so much cheese.

Regaining his balance by merely shifting one leg, D said, “So it’s sound, is it?”

He’d seen through his opponent’s attack.

The secret of the Red Knight’s unseen sword was that it was actually the sound of his sword slicing through the wind. His technique involved changing that sound into a supersonic wave far beyond the audible range—a wave that could even slice through steel.

His blade went back. Before it could send a second supersonic blast out, D charged the knight. Though not quite generating supersonic waves, the Hunter’s sword did whistle through the air with an equally impressive sound.

As the Red Knight barely managed to meet the blow, he felt numbness shoot from his wrist all the way to his shoulder, leaving him no choice but to back away.

D besieged him with a merciless chain of attacks—angry blows against his high guard, thrusts at midlevel that came like machine-gun fire, sweeps that shot up from below like veritable springs. And every one of them was a work of beauty executed with perfect form, while on the receiving end, the Red Knight’s own stances were all being foiled.

“Damnation!” the Red Knight snarled, making a giant leap to the rear.

As he was resheathing his sword in midair, he saw D right in front of him. And the Red Knight realized that D’s blade was coming down at him far faster than he could ever draw.

“Remarkable!” the knight shouted as black steel split the top of his head in two.

Still with one hand reaching for his weapon’s hilt, the Red Knight sent up a gory mist as he fell on the bridge. But once more there was a flash of light in his hand. The sound of a slash through the wind was heard at the center of the bridge, and bright blood spouted from the Hunter’s left wrist.

D immediately scooped up the hand he’d lost.

The Red Knight lay motionless, having breathed his last.

A human face surfaced in the palm of the hand and said, “The lousy bastard banked the sound off that other sword.”

The blade the Red Knight had driven into the bridge solely for that purpose quivered forlornly in the moonlight.

“And it’s a hell of a cut he gave you. It’s not like a sword—reattaching your hand won’t be easy. Watch yourself!” A pained expression crossed the little face, and then it sank once more back into the hand.

Putting the severed limb into one of his pockets, D unfastened the scarf around his neck and used it to bind his wounded wrist. Then, wearing an expression like nothing had happened, he headed over to where his cyborg horse was waiting on the far side of the bridge. The combatants’ respective mounts had crossed paths on the bridge, each continuing on to the other side.

Once D was in the saddle again, he turned and looked back before riding off.

The Red Knight’s horse stood by its fallen master, nuzzling his now-still form. He must’ve loved that steed.

Turning forward again quickly, D galloped off toward his next battle.

—

“It would seem that the Red Knight has also been slain,” the lovely princess remarked, her smile seeming to become all the more radiant. “Only you and the White Knight remain. I wonder if I should make use of some of my traps?”

“If it pleases you, milady,” the knight replied gloomily, his face still turned toward the floor. All around him, the rose garden was in glorious bloom.

“No, I guess I won’t after all,” the princess said mischievously as she gazed at her loyal retainer. “After all, I did go to the trouble of replacing your arms, and there’s nothing you’d like better than to do battle with the Hunter. So don’t worry about me—go have at him to your heart’s contentment. ’I’ll be fine on my own.”

“Princess,” the Black Knight said, looking up. From his shoulders stretched new arms much thicker than the old ones. Rising to his feet, he bowed.

“Black Knight—didn’t you hear? What I asked D to do, I mean.”

“I should like to thank you, Princess,” said the Black Knight.

“Oh, really?”

“For being so kind as to give us a chance to die as true warriors. I shall fight the Vampire Hunter till the very end.”

“’As you should.”

“Princess, it would seem we have lived too long here in these lands, in this castle. The day has come at last. However, I hope you shall remain well forever.”

“Thank you. Well, off with you,” the princess said, bringing her hand up by her face and cupping her fingers in a busy little wave good-bye.

The Black Knight seemed to smile at the childlike action.

And as the warrior walked off toward the gate, the princess watched his departure until he finally disappeared.

“It really has been a long time, hasn’t it?” the princess murmured, as if she were whispering the words to someone.