The instant his foe brought his sword down, D’s right hand flashed into action. With a mellifluous sound the blades bit together. As he parried his opponent’s blow, D stood perfectly straight. D then easily reversed the force that traveled from his waist to the soles of his feet. Adding just a tad more power to it, he sent his opponent flying.
By the time the hooded figure made a desperate bid to regain his posture, D was already overhead, transformed into a mystic black bird. He swung his blade down. Beneath it, his foe’s face warped with despair—though D saw something a split second before he struck. His opponent’s miserable look had become a smile.
As he felt his sword cleave the man from the left side of his neck all the way to the right lung, D experienced a blistering pain in exactly the same location and staggered backward. His foe was also reeling. But look at his foe as he just barely managed to stay on his feet—the black coat, the wide-brimmed traveler’s hat, the longsword he carried, the blue pendant that swayed against his chest. He was exactly like D. However, while blood gushed like a waterfall from the gaping wound on the real D, this one was calmly smiling.
And then the foe adjusted his footing and launched a vicious attack. Narrowly blocking it, D leapt back, hurling a rough wooden stake as he did so. It pierced his bounding foe through the base of his throat, and blood then spilled from the throat of the real D. D was down on one knee as his double walked over to him and raised his blade to strike. The tip of it shook ever so slightly.
A streak of stark light skimmed along the surface of the ground. A futile blow—but while D was unaffected by it, his foe received a deep gash to his right knee. Tumbling forward without a sound, the Hunter’s opponent barely managed to turn himself around.
As he listened to the sound of his foe fleeing with a trail of blood behind him, D used the sword he’d jabbed into the floor to steady himself. The agony surging through his body didn’t draw so much as a single cry from him.
“They made another you,” the hoarse voice said in amazement. “And he was the real thing, too. As a result, when this real one gets cut, the other real one is cut too. Hmm, there’s a certain logic to that.”
And after relating this, the hand followed the trail of blood across the floor, saying, “He might’ve become you, but he couldn’t keep the face. That’s why he took off in the middle of your battle.”
The voice flowed upward—D had gotten to his feet. While he’d sustained life-threatening injuries in two places, the bleeding had stopped. He didn’t seem to be in any pain at all as the hem of his coat fluttered out around him and he turned to walk away. At his back, there was the sound of his hilt clicking against the scabbard.
-
“This is a hell of a place we’ve come to!” Jan said, swinging the broadsword in his right hand. He wanted to cut into their enemies so badly he could hardly stand it. The sound of his weapon knifing through the wind was unusually sharp, proving that he’d braced his hips for added power.
“We’ve got a castle that houses a monster, and a ghost army from ages ago laying siege to it. It’s like a play you’d see at some Frontier festival!”
“There’s not a lot we can do about it. After all, we’re the ones who followed the Hunter here. Now, if you’re really a man, why don’t you pull yourself together? You swinging that shiny toy all over the place isn’t exactly what I want to see.”
“Shut up, you slut—a woman’s not worth shit when the going gets tough. Keep flapping those lips of yours, and you’ll wind up crying yourself hoarse!”
“What’d you say, you petty thug?” Maria said, getting up from her chair and slowly heading toward Jan.
“Hey, knock it off,” Officer Weizmann called over to them.
Bierce leaned back against the wall and remained silent.
“Keep your nose out of this, delivery boy!” Jan shouted, thrusting the tip of his broadsword toward the chest of the approaching Maria.
“Wow, pretty impressive. You feel like a big man, waving a blade at an unarmed woman?” Maria said, not a speck of fright in her expression. Looking Jan square in the eye, she continued, “Go into any bar in the Frontier and you’ll find a heap of guys like you. You think you’re special, different from everyone else. Now you’re just a mobster or a drunk, but if you set your mind to it, you could make something of yourself anytime you like. That’s the kind of self-serving pipe dream you idiots believe. Those are the very same guys who’re the first to turn tail and head for the hills when the going gets tough. All you’re good for is acting like a big man in front of women and children.”
“You bitch!” Jan snarled, his whole face stained vermilion. As it gripped the hilt of his broadsword, his right hand trembled with rage.
“What’s the matter? If you’ve got a problem with me, go ahead and make something of it with that pig sticker of yours. If you can’t even manage that, then drop the tough-guy routine!”
“Why, you little—”
Jan’s field of view clouded with rage. It was pitch black, like the middle of the night.
Bierce pulled away from the wall.
“They’re coming,” said a voice. It was faint, but it speared through the deathly silence to pound against their eardrums.
Turning in the direction of the voice, Maria suddenly looked surprised as she said, “Kid?”
Standing in front of the door to the recovery ward with the bed sheets wrapped around him was Toto. He didn’t have a change of clothes. But his damp things would be dry by now.
Glaring at the frozen Jan, Maria walked over to the boy. His little face was flushed as red as an apple. Touching her hand to his forehead, Maria looked like she was going to cry.
“You’ve got a terrible fever. Hey, one of you, locate the storeroom on that map and go find us some medicine. Well, what are you waiting for, you lazy slobs? If you don’t wanna go, I’ll go do it myself!”
Once again, that tiny voice returned to the earlier topic. Moving lips made dry by his fever, Toto said, “They’re coming.”
“Who are?” Maria asked, and it came as little surprise her tone was somewhat unsettled.
The others all listened intently from their respective locations.
“Three people—really scary ones—from outside.”
“Scary people? Who are they?”
The small head shook from side to side. “I don’t know. But there are three of them. And they’re almost here.”
Everyone looked at the door and the window. There was no sign of anyone. Outside, it was evening. From that place of jostling darkness and night, there could be no doubt that three disturbing figures had slipped into the fortress.
“Assassins?” Weizmann asked Bierce.
“Probably. After the rumbling, the enemy didn’t pull anything else. You couldn’t see it from here, but this side counterattacked. The hand of their god reached out and slapped them right back. They must’ve seen that a hard push would leave them at a disadvantage. If you can’t conquer from without, destroy from within—that’s the first rule of laying siege.”
“Then those three came in here to put down the god all on their own?”
“Can you think of another reason they’d be here?”
“What happens if they run into us?”
“Try explaining our situation to them, and they’ll probably say what a shame that is, forget all about what they’re supposed to be doing, and save us all,” the warrior remarked snidely.
“Just perfect! Killers from outside. They’d better pray they don’t run into me,” Jan said, breaking into a grin as if he’d forgotten all about the earlier incident. His broadsword sliced through the air again.
In a completely emotionless tone, Bierce said, “These are three guys who were considered up to the task of disposing of a god. You’d do well to watch out. Maria, if you value your life, don’t go outside.”
“Oh, of course I won’t—or I wouldn’t, but I don’t have a choice,” Maria said, her low, urgent tone drawing the atten
tion of the entire group. The boy rested in the woman’s pale arms. It was clear that he’d passed out from his fever.
“Put the kid back into bed for me. I’m gonna go find some medicine,” she said, but even though she held out the boy, no one took him from her. “Oh, you’re all worthless! Here, he’s all yours!”
Walking over to Jan, who was closest, she thrust the diminutive form against his chest.
“Wh—what the hell? Why’re you giving him to me?”
“Because you’re at the bottom of the pecking order.”
“You—you stupid bitch!”
The pair of them were about to start round two—but then another voice interrupted. A laughing voice. It was the evil cackle of an imp that relished no morsel more than the suffering of others—that was the only way to describe the malevolence of the laughter.
Everyone looked in its direction. This time, even Bierce turned slowly.
A figure squatted next to a ravaged data-processing unit. The suckling. The same man who was bound by a rope to the leg of the unit. The man who up until now hadn’t said a single word. A man who, having received the kiss of the Nobility, ordinarily would’ve long since been killed by his countrymen. This man was laughing. Not from lunacy. It was laughter underpinned by reason, as if he understood everything—all that had happened up until now, and everything that would come next. That is, supposing a devil could possess reason.
ASSASSINATION
CHAPTER 5
-
I
-
Although there was no storage area for food or anything else labeled on the three-dimensional schematics, Maria intended to search high and low until she found what she wanted. When she thought about it, she realized the ageless and immortal didn’t need a constant store of cold medicine. However, the fact that they had a medical facility for human beings gave Maria hope. The army that had destroyed this place had also consisted of Nobility. As a result, there was a possibility they wouldn’t even bother to get rid of any medicine for humans. In light of the devastated equipment in the treatment center, that possibility was extremely remote, but Maria wouldn’t give up.
“No way is there any of that,” Jan had jeered, while Weizmann had also told her it was no use. Neither of them volunteered to go with her, but Maria remained determined. The knowledge that strangers were outside robbed transport officer and mobster alike of the nerve to go wandering about. Bierce had gone out to survey their floor just a little while ago, but even if he’d been there, his answer probably would’ve been the same.
Getting off the elevator in the third subbasement, Maria found that storerooms took up the entire floor. Though there’d been a pharmaceutical storeroom on the same floor as the treatment center, it’d been thoroughly destroyed. On this floor, too, each and every door was melted, and the rooms beyond them were choked with the decay of millennia of desolation. Still, Maria walked the vast rooms from corner to corner. Who could say that a single vial of antipyretic hadn’t rolled under one of these scorched and fallen walls? That’s why she needed to explore every possibility.
She searched a number of rooms, and had a number of things to show for it. There was a container of extremely compressed rations that remained unburned. A cylinder a foot in diameter and three feet long, it contained enough to feed a hundred people, yet weighed less than five pounds.
We just might be in luck, the woman thought, a satisfied look on her face as she headed into the next storeroom . . . but this one was an utter disappointment. When she came to the last chamber, she slumped to the floor out in the corridor, exhausted. However, after looking at the door, she got a new fire in her eye. Though a little scorched, the door was still intact.
We just might be in luck, she thought again.
Next to the door was a switch to open and close it.
“Hang on, everyone. This one’s gonna have medicine for sure.”
Her finger pressed the triangular switch. At that moment, the switch spread like paint dissolving in water. Her breath caught in her throat and her body pulled back a bit as before her eyes the switch was swallowed up by a silvery surge, which then formed a stain on the wall in the shape of a person, swiftly growing in thickness. As she watched the shiny silhouette emerge from the wall—though to be more accurate, it seemed to be coming out of the water—Maria’s eyes were rendered vacant holes by her surpassing fear. A nose grew from it, and eyes formed. A straight crack became a mouth, and lips took shape. As for the face that it finally formed—
“Why, it’s me!”
If it had spoken at the same time, Maria herself would’ve questioned which of them was real.
Finally, her exact duplicate donned a different expression. A smile. And a particularly sinister one, at that.
“What . . . what in the world are you . . .”
The silvery Maria responded to her frightened tone. In Maria’s own voice it said, “I came from outside. I don’t know what you’re doing here, but this works out perfectly for me. I’ll simply take your place.”
A pair of glittering hands came to rest on the woman’s shoulders. As she dipped down, Maria didn’t say a word but swung her right hand for all she was worth. It held something else she’d scavenged earlier—a dagger with a blade that was less than eight inches long but preeminently sharp. Not meeting any particular resistance, it cut through both of the silvery arms just above the wrist. The pressure on her shoulders fell away as the hands dropped to the floor, where they became a shiny liquid. The other Maria writhed and twisted backward. As it did, its body began to crumble from the toes up, quickly sinking into the floor.
“I did it!” Maria cried out with delight, and with that she dashed over to the door. The switch was in precisely the same location as before. There was no longer any need to be frightened.
The floor rose up in front of her. Maria didn’t manage to scream, both because of her surprise and because the rippling surface of the ground crushed around her torso like a serpent, squeezing the breath from her. It would take her less than two seconds more to suffocate.
Only one of those seconds remained when her savior appeared in the form of a gleam that split the silvery serpent’s body in two. Thrown to the floor when her bonds loosened, Maria saw D unleash another attack on his foe. Twitching all the while, the serpent undulated, flattened out, and dissolved into the floor.
Maria watched intently. D had his eyes closed. Some fifteen feet behind him, part of the wall bulged outward, and then stretched right for D. At the tip of it a human head and torso formed and arms took shape. Its hands didn’t end in fingers. They were sharp scythes. Without a sound, these weapons zipped at the Hunter’s neck from either side.
“Look out!” Maria shouted, but even before she did, D had spun around. His sword was the first thing to make the turn. Maria saw the pair of scythes being severed and sent sailing through the air. Though the attack that immediately followed split the shoulder of the retreating foe, it still managed to smoothly sink back into the wall. Not wasting a second, glittering figures rose up around D. More than a dozen in number, they represented his opponent’s ability to assume multiple forms at once. Now D faced more than two dozen scythes and swords.
Maria backed away without realizing it. Her back hit the wall. Letting out a scream, she pulled away—she’d been gripped by the fear that some new form would spring from it. Nevertheless, her eyes remained riveted on D and his silvery opponents. If D fell, she’d be next, and if he won—but she wasn’t in the proper state of mind to think about such things. She got to watch as this gorgeous young man determined whether they lived or died. A mysterious excitement left Maria swooning.
However, the scene that unfolded next was a betrayal of all Maria’s expectations. The silver foes unexpectedly sank into the floor and walls, leaving D alone. The Hunter turned toward the stairs, and then quickly came over to Maria.
“Are you okay?”
Though Maria knew he merely asked in lieu of a greeting, her heart
raced strangely.
“I guess so. That thing said it came from outside.”
“I heard.”
“Why’d it run off? I figure maybe it thought you’d kill it.”
“Something happened to its colleague.”
“Wow!” She tried to imagine what that might’ve been, but nothing came to her. She quickly gave up. “Well, not that it matters. All this talk about gods and assassins is more than my head can process.”
“But you still came down here alone to look for medicine.”
“Oh, how’d you know?”
Not replying, D walked over to the intact door and pushed the switch Maria had wanted to, this time without incident. The iron door slid off to the right.
On taking one look inside, Maria exclaimed, “Yes!”
Though it was much smaller than the other storerooms, its shelves were filled with what were unmistakably pharmaceuticals. Maria ran over to the closest shelf, then cried out in despair, “Hey, I don’t get it! None of these labels have anything written on them.”
Instead, each label was a different color. Apparently that was how the humans in the fortress had told them apart.
“I could take one of each, but there are just too many different kinds. Damn it all! Which one should I get?”
“This one.”
A black-gloved hand reached over to Maria from one side. The bottle that rested in its palm had a lime-green label on it.
“Wh—what’s this?”
“It’s an antipyretic,” D said. “What else do you need?”
After collecting the medicine they required and putting it in a cart, Maria gazed intently at D. At his profile. When she looked at him head on, she didn’t last a full second. Her eyes immediately glazed over, as if she were in a fog. Maria didn’t realize that this was less a problem of her eyes and more one of her brain trying to assess D’s handsome visage. After rubbing her eyes countless times, she realized it was no use and gave up. Even his profile was apparently more than she could take.
Vampire Hunter D Volume 18- Fortress of the Elder God Page 8
