Noble Front

by Hideyuki Kikuchi

  “Huh?!”

  The old man got a shaft of steel down his spine. For the young man had finally answered in a voice befitting his appearance. Generally, the difference between that and the earlier voice was so great that most were left unable to respond for some time, so in that respect the old man was pretty resilient.

  Madly scrutinizing their surroundings, Old El asked, “Do all you dhampirs rest in empty crypts?” The sun was still high in the sky. He continued, “I came running as soon as I heard you were in this here village, but then you weren’t at the hotel. Weren’t in any of the vacant houses, neither. When I heard you were out here, I didn’t believe it at first.”

  “Depends on how we feel,” the Hunter replied, his voice changing back once more, plunging the old man into confusion. “Graveyards echo with the voices of the dead. Their thoughts get woven into clumps of trees and pool between the tombstones. Apparently, they like to listen to them from time to time.”

  I guess dhampirs really do lean more toward the dead side, Old El thought.

  “But you can do the job okay, right? I can’t have you off gossiping with ghosts when I need you the most!”

  “First off, you’d best watch your step unless you want us talking with your ghost. Noble assassins are serious business!”

  Old El was at a loss for words there.

  The handsome figure casually walked right past the old man and down the dirt path toward the exit from the graveyard.

  Heading after him in a fluster, Old El said, “Oh, I almost forgot. I was hoping to see just how good you are. Cut something for me.”

  “And if you don’t like what you see, you’ll reconsider hiring me? Just so you know, I never listen to the same job offer twice.”

  “Uh-huh,” the hoarse voice concurred.

  The two figures with three voices were approaching the graveyard’s exit. One section of the stone wall, which was strictly ornamental, had an iron gate that was also purely for show.

  D halted. He looked straight ahead.

  In the lazy afternoon sunlight, a clump of trees was moaning. It was the wind.

  The village lay directly in front of them. With a population of about three hundred, it was the kind of village you’d find anywhere in the western Frontier. Still, the roofs were painted red, blue, orange, or green. Even on the Frontier, people were mindful of staying fashionable.

  From somewhere among those roofs, a silvery object was headed their way.

  “Take cover,” D commanded in a low voice. Soft and calm though it was, it had a power that would brook no debate.

  Old El quickly assayed his surroundings, then made a dash for the largest tombstone.

  D didn’t move. For this young man, anywhere could be a battlefield. And anytime was a good time to fight.

  The thing had the shape of one of the oldest flying objects. The body of it was reminiscent of an oversized walnut, with two six-foot-long rectangular wings projecting from the bottom of it, one to either side. Seemingly set with glass, those wings, as well as the tail fins, made minor adjustments to their angles, which in turn seemed to change the direction of flight.

  A bird flying into the wind, it halted at a spot about three feet in front of D. The front of it had been carefully painted with a pair of eyes and a mouth. The eyes had a hard gleam to them. That was probably due to the compact camera lenses they contained.

  The broadside of the wings turned to face D.

  D’s right hand made the faintest of movements.

  Suddenly, the bird started a steep climb, as if it’d had a change of heart.

  “Here we go!” said the hoarse voice.

  The shape of the bird dissolved against the sun.

  D dashed to the right.

  The sun seemed to explode. Stark white light enveloped the world. Centered around the gate, the ground in a thirty-foot radius boiled and bubbled. Iron, stone, and soil all melted, eventually turning into a glassy substance.

  At a spot about thirty feet from the outer edge of the blistering hellhole, D’s eyes sought out Old El.

  “Did they get him?” asked the Hunter.

  “He hopped in the shower,” the hoarse voice replied.

  Eleven hundred feet above the surface, the murderous flying machine was preparing for its next assault. Exposing the energy-absorbing side of its heat beam panels to the sun, it waited five seconds. Since the cameras were in a fixed position, the machine had to be pointed nearly straight down to acquire a target.

  Though the twin lenses detected an object rising from the ground at terrific speed, the person controlling the flying machine couldn’t tell exactly what it was. And before the controller could grow concerned enough to move the machine, the object became a stark wooden stake that pierced the faux bird.

  A blossom of electromagnetic waves flowered in midair. That, in turn, was swallowed up by an even more massive blossom of white.

  “You did it!” the hoarse voice exclaimed without a trace of surprise. In light of the miraculous way a wooden stake weighing less than an ounce had fought its way through crosswinds and risen eleven hundred feet to penetrate a metallic target, foil or not, such a response might’ve been something of an outrage.

  “Oh, nicely done. Very nice, indeed.”

  This pleasant praise from the old man sounded slightly distorted.

  Beyond the heat shimmer, a vestige of the blistering flare, there stood something silvery and vaguely cylindrical. It resembled the kind of portable shower tents used by long-term expeditionary parties. The surface of it split vertically, and Old El appeared. Touching his hand to the cylinder’s surface, he quickly pulled it back again with a yelp about the heat, adding, “I don’t know just what it was you threw, but to score a bull’s-eye on an enemy flying way up there with just one shot, damn, that’s really something. That had to be a thousand feet!”

  “That wasn’t Marquis Verenis, was it?”

  “Oh, you could tell, could you? There’s only one person who’d use a rig like that. A killer who goes by the name of Machete. He was hired by Julas-Han Toba—another deadbeat bastard. I’d heard rumors he was gunning for me, but it looks like he’s finally making his move.”

  “How many defaulters do you have?” D asked in his own voice.

  “At the moment, four. That’s including the marquis, just so you know.”

  “I can’t cover the other three.”

  “Why not?” asked Old El.

  “They’ve got nothing to do with the Nobility.”

  “You—you can’t be serious. They’re gunning for me while I go to collect from a Noble. That there’s plenty to do with the Nobility!”

  “The deal is off.”

  “H-hey! Wait just minute, please!” the old man plaintively pleaded with D from behind as the Hunter started to walk away, avoiding the gate still withering from the blast of heat.

  It was a heartbeat later that his cries bore unexpected fruit.

  He shouted, “I’ve met the Sacred Ancestor, you know!”

  D halted and looked back.

  The instant the old man saw his expression, he felt like he’d been stranded in a wintry wasteland.

  II

  “When and where?” D inquired.

  And if I don’t answer— That thought filled the old man’s mind with terror.

  “It was better than fifty years ago,” said Old El, “back when I first got into the business, and we met at this old castle in the eastern Frontier. Back then, who’d have ever thought I’d run into the man known as D someday?”

  “What did you discuss?”

  “That’s a secret. I’ll tell you if you finish this job out with me.”

  “Fine. But it’s four times the usual rate on account of all them humans to contend with,” said the hoarse voice.

  “That your negotiating voice?” the old man cried out in rage. D ignored him.

  “If you don’t like it, call it off.”

  “I could say the same to you. Don’t you care what the Sac
red Ancestor had to say about you?”

  “Who’s to say whether you ever even met him or not?” the hoarse voice protested.

  “Oh, you still doubt me? Okay, I’ll show you proof, then. I mean, I’ll tell you it.”

  “Oh, yeah? Well, speak away. Come on! What’ve you got?”

  “Success.”

  The air froze. The speaker fell flat on his ass. Cradling his own head, Old El bit down on his finger, trembling like he’d been in a major earthquake. He was certain that saying that one word was the worst mistake of his life.

  “You’ve got a deal,” D said.

  “Huh?” the old man replied, thinking, I ain’t sure my ticker can take this. “And your wages?”

  “My regular rate will be fine. But in return, you’d better not lie to me at all.”

  “O-o-o-of course not,” he stammered. How the hell could I? You’d probably rip me limb from limb, Old El thought as he looked through a rain of fearful sweat drops at the young man of unearthly beauty before him. He wasn’t even sure whether his trembling was due to fear or how gorgeous the Hunter’s face was.

  The old man’s wagon was parked a short way from the graveyard. It was a cargo wagon drawn by a team of four cyborg horses. The wagon was divided into a living compartment and a cargo compartment, and in total it was about fifty feet long and more than ten feet high. By its side, D whistled. A cyborg horse came galloping over like a black gale.

  Once one man was up in the driver’s seat and the other in the saddle, the hoarse voice asked, “What was that cylinder thing earlier?”

  “A ‘personal fortress,’” the old man replied. “They say it was developed using Noble technology. There was this broke scientist who couldn’t pay back the five hundred dalas he borrowed to cure his wife of a real bad ailment, but I tell you, he sure knew his stuff.”

  Having cooled from the heat, the cylinder had been quickly folded up and stored on the back of Old El’s belt.

  The old man swished the reins and the horses broke into a run, and soon after that he turned to D, riding right alongside the wagon, and said, “I’ve got something I’d like to ask you, too. What were the dead back in that crypt talking about?”

  “The things you’d want to talk about.”

  Old El didn’t know what to say to that.

  “Living or dead, it makes no difference. Life ends, death comes around—they want to talk about things like that.”

  The old man said nothing more. When he talked to the young man, everything he saw seemed to take on a new appearance. And that was a truly horrifying thought.

  The two of them didn’t return to the village, but rather continued straight on to the highway that headed south.

  Before long, the highway ushered the wagon and the cyborg horse onto the plains. The washed-out brown hue of the ground extended as far as the eye could see, and from time to time, semitransparent shapes resembling the sails of ships would form. They were clouds of dust.

  There was a sound like a beast somewhere letting out a bass growl or echoes of a drum.

  “There’s a storm getting close. Just like the weather bureau predicted. Better haul ass to the next way station,” Old El murmured, looking up at the heavens glumly. But he glanced over at D, galloping right alongside him to his immediate right and said, “You mean to tell me it don’t make no difference to you either way, storm or shine? Nothing matters to you except killing Nobles—no, strike that, you ain’t interested in the Nobility either. Just what is it you see?”

  Still, the old man got no reply.

  Flustered that he was ready to strike and no one to lash out at, the old man continued again, “We’re heading into a mess of killing, and you don’t even ask me about who we’ll be up against—though I reckon I should fill you in.”

  He waited a bit for some response, but wasn’t prompted for more information. With a shake of his head, Old El said, “I’ll give ’em to you from oldest to most recent. First up, there’s Galkis Thomas. He’s the boss of a mob of flying bandits called Quetzalcoatl, and he came to borrow money for repairs on the airship they use as their main base of operations. Three million dalas. But when I went to collect, he took off right in front of me and flew away. So in return, I found out where Galkis’s mistress lived and started putting the screws to her for info. Hell, I started out with the light stuff, and she went and bugged her eyes and keeled over then and there! Had a bad ticker, don’t you know. That got the son of a bitch all pissed off at me in turn, meaning he sends killers after me wherever I go! And they’re a bugger to deal with, coming at me from above. Plus, they use these artificial wings, huge aircraft, long-range fighters, and a crew that’s the cream of the crop. I’ve got no problem with him sending ’em after me, but the least he could do is pay me back my damn money!” the old man said with a hint of rage, and then he shut his eyes. He was calming his mind.

  Soon, Old El continued, saying, “The second one’s Julas-Han Toba, from earlier. He’s a beastmaster. Uses hypnotism to control monsters and supernatural critters. He was bringing ice beasts back from the Frozen Wastes beyond the northern Frontier sectors when an accident left him unable to use that hypnotism of his, so I sprung for his transport costs. And like the rest, he acted like he didn’t owe me a thing. I hit the storage facility where he keeps his beasts out of the blue and moved ’em all somewhere else as collateral. In other words, he’d have to pay me to get ’em back. Well, apparently that hit the bastard where it hurt, and he sent word he’d pay back the money, but this murderous virus ran through the place I’d stashed his beasties, killing the lot of ’em. Seems he went to a hell of a lot of trouble training ’em, so the bastard tells me he’s gonna get me and hires Machete. Now, Machete can’t control beasts, but he uses a lot of gadgets. Like that flying machine earlier, or a runaway train, or a submersible craft that fires torpedoes from underwater. Almost did me in a couple of times. I was relaxing this one time with a smoke because the only thing around was a kid playing with a toy, and then the damn kid exploded. His stuffed bear had a bomb stuck in it. Thanks to that, I had the kid’s parents and all his relatives after me, too, for a good stretch!”

  “Sounds like real trouble,” D said. It was probably enough to leave anyone stunned.

  Old El went into overdrive. “The third one is a puppet master. His name’s Langen Tupperman. He came to me saying his wife and kids were starving and he wanted to borrow fifty thousand dalas, but he paid me back on the due date, sure enough. Or rather, it looked like he paid me, but a month later I realized they were just leaves with drawings like real money on ’em. That sly old fox! I searched high and low for him, finally tracking him down to a show he was doing at a club called Jealousy in the eastern Frontier. As luck would have it, he used his powers to turn the hostesses into dolls, and the lot of ’em kept me from getting him. They were fixing to kill me, so I busted up every last one of ’em, I did. But it so happened one of ’em was Tupperman’s girlfriend. And Tupperman swore he’d keep after me as long as I lived.

  “They borrow money and default on their loans. Try to collect from ’em, and they hold a grudge without fail. These are the kind of scumbags you have to deal with in this job. They’ve started making my hair go gray, I tell you!”

  “Bet they’d say the same,” the hoarse voice murmured.

  “What’d you say?”

  “The lightning’s getting closer,” D said, streaks of blue still reflected in his dark eyes. “It’s a thunder beast. Ground yourself.”

  No sooner had the old man pulled back on the reins than D dismounted and got his horse to lie on its side. Taking a black protective cover out of one of his coat pockets, he placed it over the steed. As cyborg horses were electronic devices, there was some concern that electrical discharge could cause them to malfunction.

  In addition to radar, there was a veritable forest of sensors and antennae on the roof of the wagon, but now it was time for the lightning rod to come into play. A cord was connected to the ground, and then t
he preparations for dissipating discharges from the electrical lifeform were complete.

  Viewed dispassionately, it was no more than a black cloud floating a scant fifty yards off the ground. Every few seconds the entire thing was lit from within by a prismatic glow, and then nearly a hundred bolts of lightning would hammer the ground. Many were the poets who loved that glow to a fault.

  “Here it comes!” the old man bellowed into a microphone, watching an image from the surveillance camera from beneath his shielding. His shout reached D through a speaker mounted outside.

  Darkness and light covered the two of them. A high-voltage discharge of half a million volts scored direct hits on their respective shields.

  The hoarse voice immediately remarked, “Persistent sucker.”

  A normal thunder beast would discharge electricity over and over again as it moved along. There was no chance of it stopping anywhere. But over ten seconds had passed since D had come under fire. Fire spouted from the shields. D twitched from head to toe. He’d taken a direct hit to the head from one of the electrical blasts.

  “What’s this—one of the assassins after the old man?” the hoarse voice mused.

  Apparently D had the same thought. He raised his slightly twitching body from the ground.

  “Don’t be crazy! I don’t care who you are, you’ll be in real trouble if you keep getting electrocuted!”

  D raised the shield before he’d heard everything the old man had to say. He stood there like a wrathful guardian deity, his body wrapped in rain and wind and light. Lightning lashed his form without pause.

  But a different kind of flash shot out in the opposite direction. Though he’d drawn it from the sheath on his back and shifted it to the other hand faster than the eye could follow, the Hunter had hurled his blade in the blink of an eye. It had literally been with lightning speed.

  Run through in a vital spot with remarkable skill, the monster quivered in midair. The foreign substance that’d been introduced into the thunder beast’s body ravaged its electrical nervous system, preventing the transmission of information. It no longer had control of its bodily functions. Its ability to discharge electricity destroyed, it released the charge into its own body.