“They as tough as all that?”
“In the old days, they couldn’t do anything more than dig up graves by day and hammer stakes into their occupants. However, more recently they’ve taken the Nobility’s weapons and copied them as well as developing armaments of their own, making them someone not at all to be taken lightly.”
“Hmm. Heard talk like that in the south and west, and it’s the same here, too, eh? The rebel armies had competent leaders in both those places. How about here?”
“The best leader the rebellion’s had since its inception. His name is Gilshark, it seems.”
“Hmm.”
“Villages near the borders of our domain frequently come under attack by bandits. They used to take whatever they wanted, but since Gilshark came to power, I hear they haven’t come around much lately.”
“Must be a hell of an opponent. No doubt he runs a tight ship, too. And the duke doesn’t go out to mop ’em up?”
“He often did, until a decade ago. However, he never could catch their leader, and lately his heart really doesn’t seem to be in it.”
“But it ain’t as if they’ve suddenly started behaving themselves.”
“No, they seem on course to overrun the capital of the northern Frontier sectors.”
“And he’s just letting them do it? That doesn’t sound like a man they’d call the Tiger.”
The two were conversing in hushed tones. Because they were hardly the only ones onboard.
“What about an heir?”
The voice had suddenly changed. A dark delight spread across Shyna’s face.
“If his three children are gone, ordinarily he’d bring someone else in and adopt him,” the Hunter continued. “But he hasn’t done so?”
“That is correct.”
On hearing her reply, D said something.
“Tigris Rex?” the hoarse voice inquired. “Oh, you mean the Tiger King? Well, this king seems awful tired to me!”
At that point, the voice of Duke Van Doren, who occupied the cockpit’s single seat, rang through the airship. “We’re beginning our descent,” he said. “We shall be landing in a minute.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hideyuki Kikuchi was born in Chiba, Japan in 1949. He attended the prestigious Aoyama University and wrote his first novel, Demon City Shinjuku, in 1982. Over the past two decades, Kikuchi has written numerous horror novels, and is one of Japan’s leading horror masters, working in the tradition of occidental horror writers like Fritz Leiber, Robert Bloch, H. P. Lovecraft, and Stephen King. Many live-action and anime works in 1980s and 1990s Japan were based on Kikuchi’s novels.
ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR
Yoshitaka Amano was born in Shizuoka, Japan in 1952. Recruited as a character designer by the legendary anime studio Tatsunoko at age 15, he created the look of many notable anime, including Gatchaman, Genesis Climber Mospeada (which in the US became the third part of Robotech), and The Angel’s Egg, an experimental film by future Ghost in the Shell director Mamoru Oshii. An independent commercial illustrator since the 1980s, Amano became world famous through his design of the first ten Final Fantasy games. Having entered the fine arts world in the preceding decade, in 1997 Amano had his first exhibition in New York, bringing him into contact with American comics through collaborations with Neil Gaiman (Sandman: The Dream Hunters) and Greg Rucka (Elektra and Wolverine: The Redeemer). Dark Horse has published over 40 books illustrated by Amano, including his first original novel Deva Zan, and the forthcoming Yoshitaka Amano: Beyond the Fantasy—The Illustrated Biography by Florent Gorges.
Vampire Hunter D Volume 27 Page 19
