The man with the hexagonal staff struck the first blow. His movements were sheer magic.
An instant after he staved in the hoary head of the old man to his right, the old woman before him went sailing through the air with her bottom jaw knocked clear off. With almost no delay, the two to his left and behind him were both speared through the heart by the tips of his staff.
What kind of strength did this ungodly display demand? Actually, the man with the hexagonal staff had his right arm stock still up around the shoulder. To all appearances, his right hand from the wrist down didn’t quiver or move, and the staff seemed to spin of its own accord, giving the impression of smashing the villagers all by itself.
It wasn’t humanly possible.
Still, the villagers numbered five hundred. Even with the skills this pair had, they couldn’t keep the vampires from attacking the bus. In fact, the other vampires ignored the two of them and pounded across the ground in a dash for the vehicle.
And every time the wind howled, a number of them screamed and dropped in unison. The wind roared, and villagers fell like beads from a string, only to be skewered together again by arrows from the giant’s bow.
The bow itself wasn’t the kind of finished good you’d find for sale in city shops. It was a savage thing, just a handy low-hanging branch that’d been snapped off and strung with the gut of some beast. Even the contents of the quivers strapped to both of the giant’s flanks and his back were no more than simple iron rods filed to a point.
But in the hands of this giant, they became missiles of unrivaled accuracy.
The giant didn’t use them one at a time. Drawing back five at once, he released the arrows simultaneously. The acts of both getting the arrows out and then nocking them off seemed to be simplicity itself. Judging from his speed, he seemed to just be shooting wildly, without taking aim.
And yet, not a single arrow missed the mark. Not only did they not miss, but each arrow pierced the hearts of at least three villagers. This was only the natural way to attack, given that vampires wouldn’t die by being run through the stomach, but the question was, how could the giant choose a target and move his bow in less time than it took to blink?
This remained a mystery even as the villagers left corpse upon corpse heaped before the bus.
It was then that a small shriek arose from behind the mounted men. They heard a woman’s voice coming from inside the bus.
“That ain’t good. Fall back!”
Before the giant had shouted the words, the men were whipping around toward the bus behind them.
With a bestial snarl, the villagers started to run. When the rapidly dwindling distance shrunk to a mere fifteen feet, the ground-pounding feet of the fiends came to an unexpected halt.
A lone youth suddenly stood between them and the bus, blocking them.
But it was not that alone that stopped the rush of these bloodthirsty creatures. For starters, there was the question of where this youth had appeared from.
With the gentle wave in the forelock touching his brow, the youth’s face was strong and had a healthy tone, and, from the center of it his innocent eyes gazed at the hell-spawn without a hint of fear.
The villagers, who’d hesitated due to the way the youth unexpectedly appeared, must have deemed him the most desirable of prey. An instant later they were pressing forward toward him, as a single tide.
And then something happened.
Into the darkness were born a number of streaks of light.
Like silvery fish that burst flying through the waves, the lights looked as chaotic as cloth whipped by a high wind, but their accuracy was truly peerless, for each individual flash lanced through the hearts of countless villagers. Five hundred vampires hit in an instant . . . Flames spouting from their chests, the villagers fell. Writhing, then stiffening, the peaceful faces that came with death were surely the ones they’d had until dusk of the day before, returning to them now as serene masks.
From the cover of the bus, the man with the hexagonal staff slowly showed his face. Seeing the corpses lying in heaps, he said, “Wow, pretty damn intense,” then gave an appreciative whistle. Once he’d whistled, he looked up at one of the windows on the bus and asked, “Is good ol’ Grove doing all right?” His expression showed concern.
He didn’t even glance at the young man who’d done all this. That man had already vanished. Every bit as mysteriously as he’d appeared.
“It couldn’t be helped, and what’s done is done,” the man in black said, coming around from the other side. “We’ve got bigger fish to fry. The geezer said the Noble that grabbed his daughter took off to the north, right? If we go now, we could definitely catch up to ’em, bro. We could track ’em, run ’em down. Ten million if we bring her back safe. Sure he’s probably already had his way with her, but what the hell, we’d be dealing with a woman on the other end. We could threaten her, tell her we chopped the girl’s head off along with the vampire’s, and turned her back into a human. She’d keep her trap shut and pay up.”
Behind him, the giant muttered, “That’d all be well and good, if he’d been talking to us.”
“What do you mean?”
The man in black looked at the giant’s face, then followed the giant’s line of sight toward the thicket ahead of them and off to the right. Earlier, that was the same spot the old man had addressed when he spoke.
“Come on out!”
As the giant said this, a crescent blade in the man in black’s right hand gleamed in the moonlight, and the hexagonal staff ripped through the wind.
They, too, had known that this unearthly miasma hadn’t belonged to the old man. The one responsible for it was in the woods. Their hands went to their weapons. The aura coming from the thicket gave them the same chill that radiated from the Nobility. They grasped their weapons fiercely, wanting to conceal their humiliation at not having uncovered the source of those emanations.
“If you don’t come out, we’re coming in, but from the way that old man was talking to you, I’m guessing we’ve gotta be in the same line of work. Hell, it seems you’re even more dependable than we are. If that’s the case, we don’t wanna do nothing stupid. What do you say we talk this ten million deal out all friendly-like?” The giant waited a while after finishing his proposal. There was no answer, nor any movement. His thick, caterpillar-like eyebrows hoisted up quickly.
“Bro, this way’s a lot quicker.”
The crescent blade flew from the hand of the man in black. While it wasn’t clear what it was constructed of, it wove through the trees, speeding to the spot at which the giant glowered. It was an assault devoid of ceremony, but steeped in murderous intent.
There was a beautiful sound. A silver flash of light coursed back out between the trees.
Behind the two men who yelped and jumped out of the way there was the sound of steel cleaving darkness.
What the giant now grasped in his right hand was the same crescent blade the man in black had just unleashed. A red band was slowly running down its finely honed surface. Fresh blood poured from the giant’s hand. The emotional hue welling up on that rock-like face was one of fury, and also one of fright.
“Not bad,” said the man with the hexagonal staff, giving a kick to his horse’s flanks.
The horse didn’t move.
Once again he kicked. His boots had spurs on the heels. The hide on the flanks broke, and blood trickled out. And yet still the horse didn’t move.
When he noticed it was thoroughly cowed, the man with the hexagonal staff finally stopped giving the horse his spurs.
The door of the bus opened. A girl stuck her head out and asked, “What’s going on, guys?” Acutely sensitive to the presence there, her beautiful face turned automatically to the depths of the woods. Imitating her older brothers.
In the depths of the darkness, the presence stirred. The clop of hooves drew steadily closer.
Suddenly the youth was before them, bathed in moonlight. It was as if the darkness i
tself had crystallized and taken human form.
—
II
—
Mysterious as the sparkle of the blue pendant shining from the breast of his black coat was, it ranked a distant second to the gorgeous visage that showed below the traveler’s hat.
Astride his horse with the reins in his fist, the beautiful youth seemed as calm as any traveler passing through by happenstance, but one look at him and it was clear he was far from being a mere traveler.
“What the hell are you supposed to be?” the man in black asked in a thick, lethargic tone. The traveler’s good looks were enough to send chills down his spine. That, combined with the knowledge that this guy had just batted back his lethal attack, made him speak in this strange voice.
The shadowy figure didn’t answer. He moved forward, seemingly intent on casually breezing past them.
“Hold up,” the man with the hexagonal staff shouted in an attempt to stop him. “Look, buddy, you might be one of the Hunters that geezer called, but so are we. Sure, we might’ve been in the wrong flying off and taking a poke at you like that, but there’s no harm in us all introducing ourselves. We’re the Marcus clan—I’m Nolt, the second oldest of the boys.”
The shadowy figure halted his advance.
“This here’s Kyle, the youngest brother,” Nolt continued.
Eyes gleaming with animosity, the man in black made no attempt at a greeting.
“The great big fella is our older brother Borgoff.”
Just as his brother finished introducing him, a sharp sound came from around the giant’s thigh. The crescent blade, now in two pieces, fell to the ground with a shower of glittering silver flecks. The unusual break in it was not from folding. It was from squeezing. The giant wiped his bloody palm on his horse’s ear. Blood stuck to the creature’s coat, forcing the hair to fall in a mat.
“We’ve got another brother, but he’s sick and doesn’t get out of our ride. And finally, there’s Leila, our baby sister.”
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Tight-lips.” Behind that oh-so-amiable voice, Leila’s bright feline eye burned with flames of hostility. However, when the face of the traveler made a rapid turn in her direction, those flames suddenly wavered.
“The Marcus clan—I’ve heard of you,” the traveler said, speaking for the first time. Without inflection, his voice was like iron, devoid of all possible emotion. The voice didn’t match his incredibly good looks, but then again, no other voice would have been more appropriate.
However, the fact that he spoke in such a tone even after learning the names of these men . . .
The Marcus clan was the most skillful vampire hunting group on the Frontier. Consisting of five members, the family from oldest to youngest was Borgoff, Nolt, Groveck, Kyle, and Leila. The number of Nobles they’d taken care of reached triple digits, and word of how, miraculously, none of the clan had been lost in the process circulated far and wide among the people of the Frontier.
At the same time, so did tales of the clan’s cruelty and callousness.
Nowhere did it say only one Vampire Hunter or group of Hunters could be hired for a given case. Considering the vengeance the Nobility would wreak in the event of failure, it was perfectly normal for the person concerned to employ a number of individuals, or even several groups.
The Marcus clan always lasted until the very end. They alone. No individual or group that had worked with them, or against them for that matter, had ever survived.
Due to the fact that none of the other Hunters’ corpses had ever been recovered, there was no choice but to believe the Marcuses’ claims that the Hunters were slain by the Nobility, but rumors spread like wildfire, and now an ominous storm of suspicion swirled over the clan members’ heads.
Be that as it may, no one doubted their abilities as Hunters. After all, the number of Nobility their group had single-handedly destroyed was staggering.
Still, when other Hunters heard the Marcuses’ name, the abhorrence felt was always coupled with a sense of aweover the threat the other killers felt from the clan’s clearly demonstrated ability, and their willingness to use their skills for harm.
In all likelihood, this was probably the first time the clan had ever heard a man say their name so calmly.
“Look, jerk—” Unexpectedly, the giant—Borgoff—made a strange face. “—er, pal . . . I’ve heard about someone with your looks and a blue pendant. Ten years back, this one village elder told us there was only one Hunter in all the Frontier that was a match for us. That alone he was probably tougher than all of us put together or some such thing . . . But you couldn’t be . . . ”
Giving no answer, the young man turned away, as if completely unconcerned by the bunch of fearsome villains in front of him.
“Uh, hey, wait up,” the man with the hexagonal staff called out. “We’re going after the Noble that grabbed the geezer’s daughter. If you’re not with us, that makes you an enemy, too. Is that the way you want it?”
There was no response, and the horse and rider’s silhouette was swallowed by the darkness.
“We’re not gonna let him go, are we?” Leila asked indignantly, but Borgoff didn’t seem to be listening,
“A dhampir . . . is that what he is then . . . ?” he muttered with an imbecilic look on his face. This was the first time the younger siblings had heard the man speak in such a tone.
Or say a certain, mysterious name.
“I’ve finally met a man I actually fear . . . D.”
—
The spot was thirty miles north of the village of Vishnu, where wholesale slaughter followed tragedy in just two short days.
A lone black carriage rushed along the narrow road through the forest. The six horses that pulled it were ebon, too, and the driver in the coachman’s perch was garbed in black. The whole vehicle seemed born of the darkness.
Showering the horses with merciless lashes, the driver occasionally looked to the heavens.
The sky was so full of stars it seemed to be falling. Their light seemed to flicker on the face gazing up at them. The graceful visage of the driver clouded suddenly.
“The stars moved. Those giving chase . . . to me . . . Six of them.” There in the darkness, his eyes began to give off a blazing light. “And no mere pursuers at that . . . Each possessed of extraordinary skill . . . One of them in particular . . . ”
As if unable to contain his agitation, he stood upright in the coachman’s perch, shaking the jet-black vehicle beneath his feet.
“I won’t let them have her. I won’t let anyone take her away.” Light coursed from the eyes he opened wide. Blood light.
There was a sudden discordance in the monotonous drone of the carriage wheels.
When turbulence had raced into that graceful face, one of the right wheels slipped off the axle with a crash. The wind groaned and the carriage lurched wildly to the right, kicking up a thick cloud of dust as the carriage rolled over.
What was truly unbelievable was the acrobatics of the driver. Releasing the reins of his own accord, sailing through the air, and skillfully twisting his body, he regained his balance, landing like a length of black cloth a few yards from the carriage.
Anxiety and despair filled his face as he dashed to the vehicle.
Throwing the door open like a man possessed, he peered inside. His anxiety was replaced by relief.
Letting out a deep sigh, he approached the special metal-alloy wagon-wheel that lay some thirty feet away.
“So, misfortune has decided to put in an unfashionably early appearance,” he muttered glumly, lifting the wheel and walking back to the carriage. He looked to the sky once again. In a low voice, he said, “Soon the day will be breaking. Seems I shall be walking to the Shelter, and repairing this when it’s night again. That’s more than enough time for those dogs to catch up to us.”
—
Around the time the mountain ridges were rising faintly from the darkness like the edges of so many jigsaw pieces, the pair halted
their horses. They were atop a fair-sized hill.
“Ol’ Borgoff’s got us doing some crazy shit—riding hard in the middle of the night like this. I tell you, he’s all worked up over nothing,” the man in black said, giving a light wave of his right hand. The green grass below him was shaken by a dye deeper than the darkness.
In the pale, panting darkness of daybreak, this man alone seemed blackly clad in the remnants of night. In a black shirt and pants, it was Kyle—the youngest of the Marcus boys. The ebon flecks that remained like stains not just on his right hand but on his chest and shoulder as well were splashes of blood from all the nocturnal beasts they’d cut down during their ride.
“I thought he told you to stow that talk. That punk—he’s no garden-variety Hunter. You must’ve heard about him, too,” the man said in an attempt to settle his wild younger brother, a black staff looming on his back. The man speaking was Nolt, the second oldest.
“Ha! You mean how he’s a dhampir?” Kyle spat the words. “A lousy half-breed, part Nobility and part human. Oh, sure, everyone says they make the best Vampire Hunters, don’t they? But let’s not forget something. We slaughter real, full-blooded Nobles!”
“Hey, you’ve got a point there.”
“If he’s a half-breed, he’s more like us than the Nobility. Nothing to be afraid of. Not to mention, we even rode all night just so he wouldn’t lose us, but if you ask me our big brother’s lost his nerve. Who besides us would race through a Frontier forest in the middle of the night on horseback?”
Out on the Frontier, the forests were thick with monsters by night.
Though it was true the beasts’ numbers had decreased with the decline of the Nobility, to move through the woods before dawn you still either had to be a complete idiot, or someone endowed with nerves of steel and considerable skill. As the brothers were.
It was for this reason Kyle was repulsed by the oldest of the boys, who’d ordered their charge by night so that the youth they’d met earlier wouldn’t get a lead on them. Even he would be set upon by numerous creatures before he made it to this hill. The only reason they’d somehow managed to get there before daybreak was because they’d passed through the area before and knew a shortcut through the woods.
Demon Deathchase Page 2
