The Tiger in Winter

by Hideyuki Kikuchi

  For a brief time, the collapse had stopped.

  The cyborg horse galloped on. Part of a gigantic building loomed up ahead. The ruins were in their death throes.

  The duke stood at the brink of the hole.

  When D got off his horse, another shock hit the world. The ruins were sinking. However, that was of no interest to the two who stood there, side by side.

  Behind all the dust shooting up from the earth, the ruins sank, and from the depths something else was lifted. It called to mind a plinth more than a hundred and fifty feet wide as it rose. Atop it stood a shadowy figure who was glaring down at the ground.

  “That’s Vulcan, eh?” said the hoarse voice. “Seems like everybody and his brother heard voices from heaven telling ’em to go below.”

  It was just cursing him as a power-hungry bastard when the bandit leader leapt into the air. He landed midway between the two—about ten yards away, where he straightened up impassively.

  On seeing that, D said, “You’re a dhampir, aren’t you?”

  “That’s right. A pale imitation who’s lost his guardian angel.”

  “I’m surprised you were able to get that thing up from the depths of the earth,” the duke said, staring at Vulcan intently.

  “Don’t play dumb with me, old man. You already know the story, don’t you? Does our handsome friend here know, too? The first time I laid eyes on you, old man, it struck me. There really is quite a resemblance. To me—and to my dad.”

  Silence enveloped the three of them, though the quaking of the earth and its rumbling resisted. Behind them, the plinth rose blackly, now three hundred feet high, and boards had appeared that seemed to run through it horizontally.

  “And it was my dad who taught me how to operate the weapon buried underground,” Vulcan continued. “Someone destroyed him when I was ten, but he hated you right up to the very end. Said your stupid pride made you kill one son, and you gave up another like a gutless coward. Dad and I swore to each other that one day we’d bust in on you and drive a stake through your heart. You know, Granddad, you made a big mistake by not killing me. Look! The ultimate weapon you built is out in the open again, and that’s not a good thing, is it? It’s the ultimate weapon against all Nobility, isn’t it?”

  The crossbeams were out now. They were thirty feet wide and a hundred and fifty feet long. And the thing was still rising.

  Vulcan charged forward. The sword he had braced by his side went right through his grandfather’s heart. The duke didn’t move. A small item Vulcan pointed at him with his right hand had immobilized the Nobleman. It was the same item Valerie had forgotten had been taken from her—a small cross.

  “I . . . drank the villagers’ blood . . . Granddad,” he whispered, and something seemed to glitter in his eyes. “And then I came here to destroy you. You understand, right? That’s the only way I could beat you. I had to become just like you . . .”

  The old man patted him gently on one trembling shoulder. I know, it’s all right, you can rest at ease.

  “Granddad.”

  That was all Vulcan said, and then he shuddered. Fresh blood spilled from his mouth and nose, soaking both the duke’s chest and his own. The duke had driven his long spear through his grandson’s heart from behind, piercing himself as well, and letting out a breath, Van Doren then extracted it. First, Vulcan dropped to his knees, then the cross fell from his right hand. Next, his upper body fell away, his hands slid from the hilt of his sword, and he breathed his last while hugging the earth.

  Looking down at him for a short while, the duke then turned back toward D. He no longer wore the expression of an exhausted old man. His was the face of a tiger ready to slay the enemy he faced and roar long and loud.

  “You have my thanks, D,” the duke said, smiling. Vulcan’s sword jutted from his chest. “You were most kind to refrain from interfering as I did away with the traitors. However, now it’s your turn.”

  “The Tiger has returned,” D said softly. “But you’re not the Tiger King, you’re the Orphan King. Make your move.”

  The gleam off the blade the Hunter had just drawn caught the duke’s eye as he said, “D, this morning I drank the blood of a girl in a nearby village.”

  The world glowed with white. Lightning. And then thunder followed it like a laughing sneer.

  Something enormous was stretching up into the heavens. Its shadow was creeping toward the two of them.

  “I have returned now. The Tiger is back in the northern Frontier. Everything shall be as it was. The benevolent lord charade was just nonsense done for Sirene’s sake. The lowly humans will tremble before Julius Van Doren, and offer up their lovely daughters every night and every day.”

  D ran. His body glowed white. The aircraft overhead had irradiated him with moonlight energy.

  The duke, who was about to start running at the same time D did, stopped and shouted something toward the sky. The light vanished.

  Just as the duke was poised to advance, his body was enveloped by shadow. The shadow of a huge cross.

  D leapt at the chest of the Tiger, now frozen in his tracks. With a new stark blade running through his chest and out his back, the duke vented a cry of agony that was swallowed by the rumbling of the earth.

  “I could withstand Vulcan’s blade, but not yours. You truly are the great one’s—”

  The duke looked up. Bloody foam bubbled from his lips. He addressed someone who wasn’t there, saying, “As you bade me . . . I have served you . . . O great one . . . and saved . . . your . . .”

  Lying in the shadow of the cross, his face wore a terribly serene expression. Managing to maintain it, the duke said, “D, kindly tell the people of my domain something . . . Tell them the Tiger returned.”

  “You have a deal, Tiger King.”

  But those words were heard by dust scattering on the wind.

  D sheathed his blade without saying anything.

  “He’s gone. The Tiger,” the hoarse voice said, its tone carrying a rumble of thunder.

  After looking up at the titanic cross that still towered there, D started walking toward his cyborg horse.

  “They say the sight of it destroyed tens of thousands of Nobles.”

  Pale people of the night reduced to dust, their bodies burned by the shadow of that colossal cross.

  “Seems there are accounts on the human side that in death, they had real peaceful looks on their faces. But what would humans think when they saw that? You know, D, I have to wonder if that wasn’t what he really wanted to find out when he had it left there underground.”

  Not replying, D got up in the saddle. Just before he galloped off, he turned his eyes to where the duke had fallen. Something small streamed out of his right hand, landing on the Nobleman’s cape and what little dust remained. Vulcan’s cross.

  “He really was the Tiger King—that’s what I think.”

  Only the hoarse voice’s words remained.

  Three thousand feet tall, the gigantic cross towered over the region for the next six months, but because the people in surrounding villages said there was something about it they couldn’t fathom and children found it disturbing, part of it was carried home by villagers for use as firewood. It’s said that nearly a thousand homes in the area had no trouble keeping warm for an entire year. Even after that, the cross loomed in the air for a long time. One wintery night, lightning struck and it was engulfed by flames. Lighting up the darkness, the enormous flames from the cross continued to burn for six months, making people tremble with fear, but then it was quickly and completely forgotten.

  END

  Postscript

  Here’s the next new VHD novel after “Nightmare Village.” This time, I’ve dealt with the power the Nobility control. The fact of the matter is, up until now I’ve consciously avoided touching on the Nobles’ life cycle. The reason for this is that, once I open that particular can of worms, there’s no end to the new questions it’ll bring.

  D looks young, but how old is he? Wha
t determines how old a Noble appears to be? Won’t artificial blood suffice? With their science being so advanced, why are they still fixated on horse-drawn carriages? And on and on it goes.

  Some of these things I’ve prepared answers for, and some I haven’t. Which isn’t to say that I couldn’t answer all of these questions. But if I did, I’m afraid it would greatly change the atmosphere of the VHD story. So I’ve elected to avoid it.

  Director Yoshiaki Kawajiri made an exceptional anime film in “Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust,” but it has one flaw. At the very end, it deals with the matter of D’s age that I’ve kept secret for so long. From D’s first appearance to the writing of this book, twenty-eight years have passed. However, in the series, perhaps only a few years have passed. On the other hand, it might span a millennium.

  This time out, I handled the Nobility in a way that didn’t delve too deeply into their way of life. You can look forward to reading more about their everyday life in the second Greylancer novel planned for November, 2011. And I intentionally leave some mysteries unsolved. For example, why did D put a needle through his own heart? Someday that will be explained.

  At any rate, I’ll keep penning D’s tale by the light of the moon but like the breeze in the deepest, darkest night.

  July 6, 2011

  While watching The Insatiable (2006)

  Hideyuki Kikuchi

  Dark Accord

  Chapter 1

  The sixteenth, 11:06 a.m. Eastern Frontier Time

  Though the room was simple, it was here that the village’s decisions were made. Nearly an hour had passed since his visitors had left. Behind a battered desk, the old man finally lifted his drooping head. He had a gray beard, and his wrinkled face wore a look of distress. Grabbing the intercom tube that hung from the ceiling over his head like a black-and-silver serpent and giving it a decisive tug, the old man commanded, “Jacos, come in here in fifteen minutes.”

  Immediately returning the intercom tube to its original position, he took care not to bump into it as he rose from his chair.

  His little window gave a view of the village lying quietly in the sunlight.

  “Though darkness may come, the light visits us. Why can’t we be happy with that? No need to make a deal with the devil.”

  Returning to his chair, the mayor took some stationery from a drawer and began scratching away on it with a quill pen. When he’d finished writing, Jacos came in. Though tall, the secretary was thin as a toothpick.

  “Take three days off, starting tomorrow,” the mayor ordered in his usual mild tone.

  His secretary, a competent veteran, nodded.

  “Our visitors from the Capital said they’re going to have a look around the village,” the mayor continued. “Leave them to it.”

  “Understood,” Jacos replied, but only after some time had passed.

  “Be careful on your vacation.”

  “Thank you.”

  Once his secretary had left, the mayor leaned back in his chair and turned his eyes to the west end of his office. Darkness hung there. It was the one spot in the room the light from the window wouldn’t reach.

  “The light alone isn’t everything,” he said as if reciting a curse. “We need the darkness, too. But what this world really needs is—”

  His voice broke off there. But though the mayor said no more, his eyes were tinged by the one spot of black in the light-filled room.

  The sixteenth, 12:00 p.m. Eastern Frontier Time

  At lunchtime, Jacos started eating his boxed lunch at his desk. All his coworkers at the town hall had left for the lounge that doubled as a cafeteria. There, they probably had plenty of bad things to say about the stubborn secretary, who was constantly fighting the mayor. Making sure that the two other employees who’d remained there on urgent business had dug into their lunches and weren’t looking over at him, Jacos opened the folded stationery the mayor had handed him and began reading it as nonchalantly as if it were a letter he’d brought from home.

  When he finished reading it, he let out a sigh, then returned to his lunch, finishing it in less than three minutes. And he didn’t even forget to remark on how bad it tasted. Jacos then opened a drawer, took out a vacation request form, and after spending five minutes filling it out, he left it on the desk of Oohe in General Affairs.

  The sixteenth, 1:03 p.m. Eastern Frontier Time

  When Oohe came back and saw the paperwork on his desk, he muttered, “This is rather sudden,” in a low voice, then stamped it as approved.

  The sixteenth, 5:11 p.m. Eastern Frontier Time

  With the chiming of the bell that marked the end of the workday, Jacos began his preparations to go home. He didn’t seem in any particular hurry. Saying good-bye to those around him, he left the town hall at about the usual time. Circling around behind the town hall, he got on the cyborg horse tethered to the post and rode straight down the road home.

  The sixteenth, 5:12 p.m. Eastern Frontier Time

  Once Ann Dadorin from Family Records had made her own preparations to go home, she headed to the deputy mayor’s office.

  “What is it?” asked the deputy mayor, who was rumored to be twice as sharp as the mayor, staring at the forty-six-year-old widow with the eyes of a hawk.

  Ann replied impassively, “It’s nothing major. But earlier, you did say you wanted to be informed if there was anything out of the ordinary.”

  Having lost her husband in her thirties and raised four children all on her own, the woman didn’t seem to fear anything.

  “Indeed, that’s what I said. So?”

  “The mayor’s secretary suddenly put in a request for three days’ vacation. He’s always given at least three days’ notice.”

  “When did he put in for it?”

  “At lunchtime. He and I both ate at our desks.”

  Before that, Jacos had been called into the mayor’s office.

  “And you confirmed this paperwork?”

  “After folks in General Affairs went home, I saw it with my own two eyes.” Meaning that she’d snooped around in their files. Such documents wouldn’t reach the deputy mayor until the following day.

  “The mayor gone home yet?” asked the deputy mayor.

  “No.”

  After Ann left, confident in the knowledge that each piece of information earned her a dore (a tenth of a dala), the deputy mayor stopped checking petitions from villagers and made his own preparations to go home. Just as he stepped out the door, the mayor appeared from the office across from his. The light from the window was already blue.

  “Hello there,” the mayor said, raising a hand in greeting.

  “Those folks from the Capital give you any trouble?” he asked.

  “Yeah. It’s a bit of a sticky situation. Had a feeling it would be as soon as they got here, but this is idiotic.”

  “It’s not often I see you all worked up, Mister Mayor.”

  “You see, they don’t realize that darkness and light mean different things out on the Frontier than they do back in the Capital. They were talking utter nonsense.”

  “Don’t tell me—was it about Castle Bergenzy?”

  “That’s right. Seems they’ve decided to ignore us completely and strike a lousy bargain with the lord of the manor.”

  “You mean human sacrifices?” the deputy mayor said, his expression stiff.

  “We can talk about it tomorrow,” the mayor replied, clapping the deputy mayor on the shoulder before walking away.

  The sixteenth, 5:43 p.m. Eastern Frontier Time

  Once he’d checked that no one else was around, the deputy mayor circled around to the back of the town hall. From behind him, a voice asked, “Something happen?”

  “The mayor had his secretary put in for three days’ vacation starting tomorrow.”

  “That all?”

  “That’s it. The two of them don’t get along very well. His secretary’s been known to give him grief, and been docked pay for it.”

  “Where’s he intend to go?
”

  “I don’t know. He wasn’t required to put that on the form.”

  “Where’s the secretary’s house?”

  “Number four Zossa Street.”

  “Good enough,” the voice said before fading.

  Though the man turned and looked, there was nobody there.

  “He might say he’s from the Capital, but the guys he’s using are a match for anything we’ve got on the Frontier,” the deputy mayor said to himself, cold sweat rolling down his cheeks.

  The sixteenth, 5:59 p.m. Eastern Frontier Time

  There was a knock at the door of number four, Zossa Street.

  “Who is it?” a female voice cautiously inquired. For after the sun went down, it was “the Nobility’s time.”

  “Valen is the name.”

  “And just who are you, Mister Valen?”

  “I work for the Noble Ruins Survey Office in the Capital, and I paid a visit to the town hall today. I should like to discuss today’s business a bit.”

  “Is that so?” the woman said, her tone now relieved. “Well, unfortunately my husband’s not in now. He’s taken three days off, starting from tomorrow. And he didn’t tell me where he was going.”

  The way the caller fell silent was proof of how disappointed he was at her reply. After a moment, he said, “How interesting—pardon the intrusion. I shall be on my way, then.”

  The sixteenth, 6:07 p.m. Eastern Frontier Time

  The caller left.

  The sixteenth, 6:19 p.m. Eastern Frontier Time

  In a room at the village’s sole lodging house, the Silver Lion Inn, a gray-haired and gray-bearded old man who was undoubtedly a scholar nodded. There were three men around him, and another stood before him.

  “I see. This is probably a move to get out of this without accepting our demands. The mayor seemed amiable enough, but it seems he’s got some backbone to him.”

  “What’ll we do, Professor? We can’t do anything till we know where the secretary’s gone.”

  “Leave it to me. I’ll find out where he’s gone. Just sit tight until then.”

  “What’ll we do about the mayor?”