“Open up. You’re safe now,” the Noblewoman said with a rap on the window. “We can’t wait here for the good baron to arrive. Let’s head back to him. If we don’t, there’s no telling when those villains might come. You shall have to turn your horses around yourself.”
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That last remark won Taki’s confidence.
“Gladly,” the young woman said as she opened the door.
Damp night air blustered in. Leaning out the door, Taki grabbed hold of a special handrail and climbed up into the driver’s seat. Both the handrail and the seat were soaking wet.
The young woman took up the reins. While working as Lord Johann’s assistant she’d learned how to handle horses. But the horses weren’t at all inclined to turn back the way they’d come. The road was quite narrow.
“That looks tough. Allow me to help,” someone said as a black glove reached over from beside Taki and took the reins.
“Huh?!”
The name Galil didn’t immediately spring to mind.
The young woman instinctively looked down at the carriage door. It was open—a pale hand held it that way.
Turning in the young woman’s direction and twisting her vermilion lips into a nasty grin, Miska still had the vacant look of someone utterly lacking in free will glazing her eyes.
Instead of hearing the breath being taken from Taki, the sound of a chain’s impact rang out in the distance.
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After his black subordinates had led Taki and May away, Galil walked over to where Miska stood like a pale blossom and ripped the front of her dress wide open. The breasts that spilled out were even fuller and smoother than they’d appeared through her clothing. Even when his black-gloved hands insolently gripped her, fingers sinking into her flesh from the force, Miska remained expressionless. For the haughty young woman’s will was completely under the sway of Galil and his spell.
“We have a use of sorts for those other two. Not that I’m terribly taken with using women and children like that. But when it comes to Nobles, I’m more than happy to get just as rough as it takes!”
Galil then turned to the base of the waterfall.
“Neither D nor the baron will know about this place. Prepare an attack to welcome them with the utmost speed,” he ordered in a stern tone.
Twenty minutes later, a gigantic star shone in the night sky over the valley. A flare to lure D and the baron.
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Needless to say, the two girls were aces up the sleeve of the Dark Water Forces. And what had they done with them? Incredibly enough, the pair was hanging upside down partway up the waterfall—at a height of roughly three hundred feet. The rope around their legs was held by a member of the Dark Water Forces who was hidden in the cataract, the powerful curtain of water posing no obstacle at all to his kind. While the two girls hung outside the actual falls, they were naturally subjected to its spray. In order that they might continue breathing, Galil had wrapped them from head to toe in a thin transparent membrane. Not a drop of water would penetrate it, but they could still breathe freely. While it may have seemed an unnecessary and even bizarre bit of concern on his part, it was clear that his true motivation wasn’t merely an evil desire to keep his prisoners from dying too quickly.
And so they waited. Some of the warriors concealed themselves in the pool at the base of the waterfall; others took cover behind damp boulders with weapons in hand while a deadly determination churned with the roar of the cataract.
And finally, the time came.
The first to notice was the one in the curtain of water who held up Taki and May. The instant he sensed something other than water not quite behind himself but rather in the deafening torrent that fell from above, he took a terrific blow to the head before he could alert his compatriots, and his unconscious form was caught and held fast by a pair of arms like steel.
As the water battered their backs, Taki and May twisted around and saw a hazy but gorgeous countenance peering out at them from the dark torrents. There was scarcely enough moonlight to make out who it was.
“D!” they cried in unison, but thank heavens for small favors—the sound wasn’t heard by anyone due to the membrane that surrounded them.
After making sure that they were fine, D then slowly began to climb the falls with the rope in one hand. The group below didn’t notice. It was beyond their comprehension that the hand of deliverance would reach down from so incredibly high overhead—from thousands of feet above!
D had indeed come for them, and once he had rescued the pair he made a sure and powerful climb to the top. However, even a little consideration made it clear what an incredible amount of strength this labor entailed. It wasn’t just the two girls he was carrying—over one shoulder he also had the Dark Water Forces member who’d held the rope around the girls’ ankles. The man hadn’t been slain to guard against his blood spilling into the pool at the base of the waterfall, but he added greatly to the load. What’s more, there was the force of the water dropping from so high above to consider—it felt hard as steel when it struck.
After climbing about a thousand feet, D sensed something odd off to the right. A rock jutted out roughly into the water. Ordinarily, water would chisel and smooth the rock walls flat over the ages. This rock was an impossible occurrence. Perhaps D had noticed it on his way down the falls, because it was there that he set down the two girls and the unconscious Dark Water Forces member. It was more than wide enough to accommodate them all.
Without cutting through the membrane, D wrapped the thin rope he held in his hand around the outcropping and told them, “Stay here.”
The reason went without saying. He intended to finish off the Dark Water Forces.
But how had he gotten there in the first place? Without a horse, it would’ve taken D a few hours just to reach the top of the falls. Had he discovered some other trick from antiquity like the chain? Or had he known something?
“Well, I’m off.”
And with no more apparent concern for the two girls, D took his foe under his arm and dove toward the pool at the base of the waterfall. He plummeted twelve hundred feet. With several tons of water falling per second, no one could distinguish the presence of the Hunter or the Dark Water Forces member he had with him.
Allowing the water to carry him where it would, D then struck out with his blade whenever he came into contact with his foes. In no time at all the dozen opponents who’d concealed themselves in the basin and flow had been slain, each dying instantly, and by the time the soldiers by the wet boulders noticed their losses, D had already leapt up onto the rocky surface to the left and cut into wet stone—or rather, he cut the film of water that covered the boulders. A number of shadowy figures fell without so much as a groan, tumbling backward and sinking once more into the stony ground.
The Hunter attacked almost as if he knew where every last one of them was hidden, even killing the foes who appeared from the looming rock wall with a single blow each, until finally D faced Galil, who stood at the edge of the basin.
“Just what I should’ve expected from you, D!” the commander of the Dark Water Forces said with admiration, his pearly teeth bared. Taking a quick glance at the falls behind him, he added, “It would appear I’ve lost my hostages as well. Are they still alive?”
D nodded.
“Good. If there’s one thing I didn’t like about all this, it’s what I had to do to those girls,” Galil remarked, the smile on his face horribly serene. “But I’m afraid the other woman was a completely different matter. See for yourself.”
Galil raised his right hand and gestured to the black water at his feet. Although the spray fell like a heavy downpour where the two of them were positioned on the outer rim of the waterfall basin, the pair of strange black boulders that loomed to either side of Galil formed a perfect shelter from the rain. What he pointed to was a spot where the rock had been worn down deep to form a small pool with a placid surface. Something pale drifted into view like a specter. Miska.
“The baron’s companion. I don’t know whether she’s a client of yours or not, but it seemed like she’d serve as a hostage. That makes it a little more difficult to fight, doesn’t it, D?”
The blade of the sword D held in his right hand glittered in the moonlight.
“Before we do battle, there’s something I’d like to know. Did you come from the top of the falls?”
“Yes,” he said, though it was rare for this young man to reply to a question from his foes.
“And the way you dispatched my men—it was almost as if you knew precisely where we were all positioned. Did you get someone to tell you?”
“This canyon was home to a race of people in greatest antiquity whose rule rivaled that of the Nobility,” said D. “They hung a chain from the rock face in order to determine the number in their tribe or to uncover invaders. It’s said that when it strikes the rock wall, the chain sends a very special sound wave out across the canyon that makes the number and position of every living thing clear. It even reaches into caves in the rocks or the flowing water.”
“I see. I wasn’t aware of that. So, would that be the echoes I heard? Though in terms of the timing, I don’t see how you could’ve been the one ringing it.”
D raised his left hand.
Seeing that the Hunter was missing everything from the wrist down, Galil then squinted his eyes.
“My hand rang the chain. And that’s enough talk.”
“Not quite. How did you manage to get to the top of the falls without us noticing?”
“I took the elevator.”
As Galil’s brow crinkled, a silvery flash of light sank into his face. D’s stroke split open the very same place he’d cut in the past, sending the man reeling backward.
Galil’s right hand stroked the mark where the blade had run from the top of his head down to his chin. The line vanished.
“Last time, I let my guard down. I’m much better prepared tonight.”
Galil’s finger pointed toward the submerged Noblewoman, and then a tiny spark flew from between his fingers and hit Miska’s right shoulder. Her pale shoulder burst out from the inside. The spark had been an ultra-compact missile.
“That’s a strange weapon for the commander of the Dark Water Forces to be using,” D remarked.
“Lay down your sword, D. Join us.”
Once again, the sound of water droplets began to ring out.
“With you and her under our control, slaying even the offspring of Lord Balazs would be a simple task. D—drop the blade.”
The simple yet deep melody might’ve sounded like a lullaby to the Hunter. D’s knees buckled. He didn’t have anything plugging his ears now.
Galil succumbed to a grin, but it was summarily wiped from his lips. He’d seen a caped figure gracefully closing from behind D, moving in the moonlight with a blueness reminiscent of the bottom of the sea.
“Milord Baron Byron Balazs,” Galil called out to him.
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III
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“I’m—”
“—a filthy assassin sent by my father. And that’s all I need to know,” the baron said in a tone that called to mind ice.
The sound of the droplets persisted. But with his ears plugged, the baron was reading Galil’s lips.
“If you insist.”
“Will you destroy me, or will you and yours die?”
“I must accomplish what I was sent here to do.”
“Is my father well?” the baron inquired.
“He is the very picture of health.”
“I should’ve liked to talk with him at length at least once more, but that’s no longer possible. As soon as I arrive, I shall slay him.”
“No—I can’t allow that.”
“I suppose even now my mother’s grave never wants for flowers, does it?”
Galil said nothing.
“What’s wrong? Answer me.”
“Lord Balazs had it destroyed.”
Despite the darkness, the man could see how the baron’s complexion had changed.
“He feels the need to defile even the dead, does he?” the Nobleman muttered.
Galil backed away, driven by a fear greater than any even D had inspired in him.
“My dear baron—if you move, her life will be forfeit,” Galil said, indicating Miska with his right hand.
“Nonsense,” the baron laughed. “Nobles are dead from the very beginning.”
The light that flashed from the hem of his cape caught Galil between the legs and shot up through him. As it flew out through the top of his head, the line it’d left in him vanished.
“My father always did have an eye for talent. How about this, then?”
The flash of light changed direction.
Blasting a missile into Miska as he went, Galil leapt for the enormous boulder to his right.
In midair, the light bisected his torso. Such an attack would be ineffectual against flowing water, but the streak of light that entered the man’s torso grew thicker for an instant. The liquid cells that were about to join and close the wound were blown asunder by the sheer force of that light. Unable to rejoin, Galil’s body was reduced to a pair of bizarre objects that fell into the same dark pool as Miska.
A column of water shot up.
Swiftly throwing himself into the pool, the baron pulled Miska out. The flesh around her shoulder and heart was torn open from the blast of the missiles.
“D—” the baron began, but seeing how the beautiful Hunter stood there silently with sword in hand, he decided against saying anything more.
The sound of the water droplets continued.
“Were you lulled into taking a nap? Or did you just want to see what I could do?” asked the baron.
Without a word, D turned his gaze to Miska.
Perhaps taking this as concern, the baron told him, “She’ll be fine. After all, she harbors the Destroyer.”
The Nobleman’s face suddenly turned to the heavens.
D was already looking up at the sky.
What both of them had felt was a quaking—a grave tremor that seemed to rumble from the very deepest bowels of the earth.
“Get in the carriage,” D said as he pointed in that direction.
Now the rocks and the falls—in fact, the whole canyon—were shaking. This must’ve been Galil’s final contingency. Capable of putting even the Nobility to sleep, the rhythm of the droplets had shifted to sonic waves resonating in a destructive range, and the canyon had begun to collapse as a result.
As the baron ran with Miska cradled in his arms, chunks of the rock face fell and rebounded all around him, while the disturbance they caused in the flow of the water sent angry waves crashing over D. Turning and looking back as he opened the carriage door, the baron saw the waterfall writhing like a serpent and the blackness of the shattered precipice, which made it seem as if the very sky were falling.
After about three minutes of this energy running amok, the great canyon that had witnessed tens of thousands of years of history was destroyed, and order returned. Now only a few dribbles of water fell from the rock walls, which were adorned by the dull gleam of metal. With the rocks that had covered it now gone, the true nature of the cliff was finally laid bare. It was a massive metallic rampart. Most of the fortress had been lost in antiquity, leaving this section alone. Ultra-ancient technology had triumphed over the contemporary forces of destruction.
The ramparts hadn’t been the least bit rattled by the power that had brought about the collapse, and on what appeared to be a radar site protruding from the lower region of the wall, the two girls remained safe and sound. Seeing the gorgeous man in black far below them in the wreckage of what had once been the waterfall’s basin, they waved.
The light of morning had begun to take stock of the world.
“That was a hell of a racket,” a hoarse voice called out from D’s feet as the Hunter made his way over to an entrance to the rear of the ramparts, where he could take a hi
gh-speed elevator up to retrieve the girls.
Bending over and picking up the severed limb, D then put it against his left wrist. And in the blink of an eye, his left hand was reconnected.
D had tossed the needle and extremely fine thread down at his feet before reattaching his hand. Even with the swift reflexes of a dhampir, it must’ve been quite an undertaking to wind up more than three miles of thread.
The left hand had interpreted the supersonic waves released when the chain struck the cliff and conveyed the number and location of the Dark Water Forces members to D—and knowing that this thread had acted as a go-between, D’s action might’ve been described as ungrateful. The only way he could’ve known where the bizarre priest Yoputz was hidden was through that very thread.
Somewhere off in the distance, there were signs of movement. Apparently the baron and Miska—and their carriages and horses—had survived.
“Brawling in an ancient battlefield, smashing a whole canyon to bits—this sure has been a lively trip!” the voice said with exasperation. “That takes care of all the assassins that’ve been after Balazs till now, but there’s still time. New trouble may come looking for us. Don’t get sloppy.”
D walked off toward the ramparts without addressing the remark. And as he did, the air of solitude that hung about him seemed perfectly complemented by the frigid light of dawn.
POSTSCRIPT
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I’ve been to Transylvania twice. The first time was in 1987 on a personal trip for sightseeing purposes, and the second time was in 1996 for the production of a documentary program for NHK (Japanese public television). Between the first and second visit lay nine long years. And that’s just another name for change.
The first time I visited Romania’s capital, Bucharest, all the buildings and everyone’s clothes were the same color, with the occasional garment in red seeming to glow in contrast. Needless to say, there must’ve been other colors as well, but that’s the only one I can recall now. The president in that time was Ceausescu—the very same person who, along with his wife, was later executed by a firing squad of his own soldiers. Growing tired of steak and salad and carbonated drinks, I went to a Chinese restaurant I’d learned about from a guidebook. They didn’t take our order there, but rather pointed to just two of the countless items on the menu while informing us that this was all they had. On seeing a long line of people, I was curious as to what was going on and went over for a closer look, where I saw a small vehicle selling sherbet. I believe each person’s serving was smaller than the yolk of a fried egg.
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