“See, this guy’s human.”
Before the hoarse voice had finished its reply, Rin’s body opened like a folding fan, the halves arcing to either side to hit the floor.
Iriya gazed intently at D as he sheathed his sword. She’d held Meeker’s face against her belly so he wouldn’t look, but now she relinquished her hold on him.
“Don’t look,” she told the boy, turning his head the other way before she continued. “You’re even better than I’ve heard—you don’t have a drop of blood on your blade! I get the impression you could slice someone open, and they might not even notice for two or three days.”
“You familiar with Vinmel?” D asked flatly.
Iriya somehow managed to adjust her tone, saying, “I’ve heard about it. I’m pretty sure it’s what they call ‘The Village of Those Who Wait.’ ”
“Oh, so that’s where that is?” the hoarse voice suddenly said, and Iriya stared at D’s left hand. She gave an unsettled nod.
“That’s right. One of the last ‘mystery spots’ left on the Frontier. There was a village there once, but they say no one knows what it really is.”
“Well, that Noble mustn’t value his life much if he’d pick that place for a meet-up. Probably planned on getting rid of the bounty hunters,” the hoarse voice declared in a tone so crusty its face, if it’d had one, would have been wearing a look of skepticism. “First Mitterhaus—and now this one seems pretty stuck on you, too. Any idea why?” the hoarse voice inquired.
“Nope,” Iriya replied, looking D straight in the eye. “I’d sure like to know, too. But all that aside, what are we supposed to do about the kid?” Staring down sadly at the little boy, who was still looking the other way, she continued, “If we were to bring him back to Clements, we’d be a good half day late getting to Vinmel. Whoever hired these two might try a different tack. If I want to kill him, I’d better set out on time. Or would you be willing to bring the boy back to Clements for me, D?”
Two pairs of eyes were trained on Meeker.
A few minutes later they were off. The boy had responded to the warrior woman’s query with a grin that made it clear there was only one possible answer: “I’m going with you.”
“Well met,” said the shadowy voice that flowed from the darkness. It had the ring of a man who’d known the pride and privilege of a ruler since the day he was born—the voice of a Noble. “So good of you to bring the woman. I shall give you your reward. Come.”
He was brief and to the point.
The mounted figure beside Iriya rode forward.
“Your attire has changed, has it not?” said the Noble.
“It got sliced up,” the figure replied.
“Remove your scarf.”
Even in the darkness, the Noble’s eyes could make out the other figure distinctly.
Without a moment’s hesitation, the figure pulled down the gray scarf that covered his face from the nose down.
“Rin Shikou was the name, was it not?”
The figure nodded in the depths of the darkness.
“There can be no mistaking the voice or the face. Bring me the girl.”
A black-gloved hand seized the reins of the cyborg horse Iriya was on. The two horses started forward as if they were harnessed together.
They were in the central square of the village. The cobblestoned ground fifty yards in diameter was illuminated by moonlight, and lights burned in the surrounding houses.
Lights? But this was the Village of Those Who Wait. Hadn’t its residents long since vanished, leaving a disturbing area where no one lived?
That night, lights burned there.
When they were still a good six feet away, the Noble told them, “Right there.”
Both steeds halted.
In the light from the houses, the gorgeous carriage drawn by a team of four horses stood out. Its black body was ornamented with gold, and it glittered with jewels just as Mitterhaus’s carriage had.
“So, your partner was slain? Well, that matters not. You were pitted against the man known as D. Was he slain as well?”
The source of the voice stood on the right side of the carriage. Wearing a black cape and a hat that resembled a beret, he held in his hand a walking stick topped by a gold tiger with blazing rubies set in its eyes.
The mounted figure shook his head.
“Oh, you failed, then? In that case, you did well to make off with the girl.”
“At the cost of Gathlin’s life,” Rin’s voice replied.
The caped figure shook. On realizing that he was laughing, Rin shifted in the saddle and asked, “Something funny?”
A thread of insanity linked the two shadowy figures.
He was cut off by a different voice.
“What do you plan on doing with me?” Iriya inquired. All her weapons had been taken away, leaving her completely unarmed.
After a brief silence, the Noble replied in a surprised manner, “Do you not know? Then I suppose Mitterhaus died for nothing.”
“I’m avenging my parents and searching for my brothers and sisters who were taken. You don’t need to take me alive, do you, Viscount Albidozen?”
The golden crest that adorned the front of the carriage wasreflected in Iriya’s eyes.
“How right you are. Had we not left you alive that night, we wouldn’t need to go to all this trouble now. That damnable Langlan had to display all the compassion of a human. He alone thought to play the saint, but we would not abide that. At our insistence, it was Langlan himself who drank your blood.”
“Drank?”
Two voices said the same word reflexively. One was Iriya’s, the other—a hoarse one—was so low that even Viscount Albidozen’s ears didn’t catch it.
“Yes. Did you not know? Careless as it may seem, we left you there in the knowledge that, having been bitten by a Noble, you would likely be disposed of by your fellow human scum. To be honest, even now I am astonished. It appears not a mark was left upon you. On hearing rumors of this, we decided to capture you!”
“That’s a lie . . . You’re lying!” Putting her left hand to her neck, Iriya murmured absent-mindedly, “No one drank my blood. I wasn’t bitten by any Noble. See for yourself—there isn’t a mark on me!”
Exposing her pale throat, Iriya thrust it forward. There was a mysterious desperation on her face.
III
“We know your fate far better than you yourself,” Viscount Albidozen laughed. But despite his laughter, doubt was unfurling its black wings in his voice. “Because that is the fate we bestowed on you. You, however, did not accept it. Why? That is what we would learn. Come.”
The viscount beckoned to her.
As if strung with invisible wires, Iriya climbed down from the saddle. Then she paused, closing her eyes and shaking her head.
“Come.”
Once more he beckoned, and Iriya’s resistance broke. This time she approached the viscount with smooth steps, pressing right up against his chest. A cry of surprise rang out. Iriya backed away. Within his cape, a dagger was buried to the hilt in the viscount’s chest. The cry had come from Iriya. The resistance the dagger had met had told her this wasn’t the body of a Noble.
The viscount smiled without a sound. “I considered myself well versed in the ways of humans, but your stupidity truly leaves me at a loss for words. I have seen through your act, your ploy. D, though that is a remarkable disguise, it is all for naught. No matter how you might cover yourself with makeup, you shall fool no one—as you are too beautiful.”
“D!”
Iriya extended her left hand. The instant she caught the sword tossed by the man who wore Rin’s face, her blade whizzed from its sheath in a silver flash, sank into the viscount at the nape of his neck, and exited through his right side.
“Though you display remarkable skill in putting a spell on yourself to resist my control, for the past three millennia it has been my general policy not to appear in public. Particularly when dealing with humans; merely breathing
the same air as them makes me feel dirty. Child, you said your goal is to have vengeance and to search for your siblings, did you not? I did, in point of fact, take in one of your brothers. And out of admiration for your skill and bravery in piercing the heart of the great Albidozen, proxy or not, I give you fair warning: It would be best that you not meet. For your elder brother, and for you.”
“Where is he? Where’s my brother Yan?”
“You have been warned. If you still desire to see him, remain here. He shall be along presently.”
As the viscount said that, the upper half of his body slid off along the diagonal cut and dropped to the ground. The lower half, with its firmly planted feet, soon buckled at the knees and fell. Iriya bent over and touched it.
“It’s a doll made of organic cells!” she exclaimed. “I’ve heard busy Nobles used them as stand-ins at party or government meetings.”
Iriya’s blade flashed out in an arc again, and then the gorgeous carriage collapsed, too.
“Both copies—cheap, but effective,” said the hoarse voice in aleisurely tone.
Its words were overlaid by a voice of iron.
“Mount up. We’re going,” D told the girl. “We’re the ones Those Who Wait are waiting for. Hurry up.”
Iriya bounded into the saddle, and the two steeds started to gallop off. Behind them, a low, doleful chorus arose.
“Come back!”
The horses halted. No, their legs actually continued to pound the ground. They definitely seemed to be moving forward. They must have been. And yet, in opposition to the most basic laws of physics, the two steeds didn’t advance in the slightest. Why, not only had they stopped advancing, but they were actually moving backward!
D had already noticed the figures behind them standing at front doors and windows, beckoning to them.
“What the hell?” Iriya cried, desperately working the reins and kicking her steed’s flanks as she ground her teeth together.
Five thousand years ago, all the men in the village had vanished, never to return. The remaining women could do nothing but wait, and before long stories of the travelers who passed through Vinmel but didn’t come back began to reach city offices and sheriff’s departments. Though Vinmel was no more than the ruins of a village by that point, the investigators who went there were left breathless by the scene that greeted them: much to their surprise, life went on as normal in the rotting, collapsing homes. The men from that party found themselves waking up with, breaking bread with, and even chatting with wives, daughters, and mothers who’d been reduced to bleached bones or mummified remains. Of course, these men weren’t their real husbands or fathers, and their days spent with the dead left them as emaciated as corpses, and it’s said that only a combination of physical and magical treatment finally got them to speak the truth.
For more than a century after that the village of Vinmel had been behind barricades, off limits permanently. Nevertheless, travelers continued to disappear in its vicinity. Families who’d lost their men waited for them still.
“Come back to us!”
The cyborg horses galloped on, yet they were clearly moving backward.
“We’re in trouble here,” the hoarse voice insisted. “We’re up against a whole village. I don’t know what the focal point is!”
“Let’s try burning down the houses!”
Iriya’s right hand dipped into her saddlebags. Pulling out a cylinder roughly the same size as a conventional clip of bullets, she grabbed the ring on one end of it and yanked it off. Slowly counting to three, she twisted around on the horse and let the cylinder fly.
She had considerable strength. A house more than sixty feet behind them erupted in spiteful, oily flames. Iriya’s aim was right on the money. Without pausing, she set four buildings gloriously ablaze.
The scenery began flowing past them normally again.
“We did it—we’re getting out!”
But Iriya’s hopes weren’t sustained for more than ten yards.
“We’re moving backward again! How come?”
“It’s the other houses,” said the hoarse voice. “Seems like the whole village must want us to stay.”
“I don’t have enough incendiaries for that!”
As Iriya cried out, her eyes caught a black form sailing into the air.
“D?”
When the figure in the black coat landed, he slammed into the houses behind them like a demonic gale. As the wind passed the figures standing by the doorways, they lost their heads or were split lengthwise, vanishing.
“That’s some incredible swordplay!” Iriya exclaimed, hot blood racing through every inch of her body. “I think I’ll—”
Iriya leaned forward, about to dismount—and then she noticed something. She was already in front of a house. Less than three feet away, what looked to be a middle-aged housewife was holding the hands of two small boys, and they were all staring at her. The instant Iriya saw their pale, wasted faces, her heart was filled with an indescribable feeling of relief.
Oh, that’s right. She’d returned home. After a long, long journey. She should never leave again. They would all—
“We’ll all live together,” Iriya said, and the other three hugged her.
“You came back, didn’t you?” the woman said, rubbing her cheek against Iriya’s. It felt like ice.
The children joined hands around her waist. The woman clung to her neck.
“But—” the three people began in unison, staring at Iriya. Their eyes were bloodshot, their lips dried and cracked. “You’re not Daddy!”
Their bizarre cries were enough to make Iriya want to cover her ears, but the sadness in them woke the Huntress from her daze. No doubt the wives and children had cried that way the day they’d lost their husbands, their fathers. Every bone in her body creaked. The trio’s six arms—and even some of their legs—began to squeeze Iriya in an attempt to shatter her bones.
“Fake!”
“Impostor!”
“Get out of here!”
The curses that shook her eardrums were even more pathetic. Iriya didn’t feel hatred. Without warning, her mind started to slip away.
Suddenly, the pressure faded. As she drew oxygen into her lungs, she leapt for the opposite side of the street.
The family had turned their backs to Iriya. She could make out a diminutive figure standing just beyond them.
“Meeker?”
Iriya’s startled exclamation was rivaled by cries of delight.
“You’ve come back, my dear!”
“Daddy . . .”
“Daddy . . .”
That was how he appeared to them.
“Miss Iriya, smash the village cornerstone. It’s in the middle of the square! I tried doing it myself, but I’m not strong enough.”
Iriya didn’t need to hear another word. That would be the only way to destroy the evil that infested the village. There was no choice but to get rid of everything, village and all.
The family tried to pounce on Meeker. The boy’s tiny form dashed about, skillfully evading their grip.
“Hurry, Miss Iriya—I’ll be okay!”
As he said that, Iriya kicked off the ground. “D, keep Meeker safe!” she shouted as she ran off.
Her eyes pierced the darkness. She reached the center of the square unmolested.
When a village was formed, a stone monument with the community’s name and the date of its founding was always erected at its center. It was the life of the village, so to speak—some might even call it the place’s soul. Neither Iriya nor D had thought of it, yet the boy had told her to strike at that stone.
“That’s one hell of a kid.”
Iriya raced toward the easily recognizable gravestone-like plinth. Perhaps it was on account of how focused her attention was that she didn’t notice the figure crouched by the village flagpoles a short distance off.
An incendiary charge, she thought, but on reconsideration, her right hand took hold of her sword.
�
�Don’t!”
The threadbare tone of the woman’s voice stopped the Huntress’s arm.
Iriya turned around.
People filled the square. Hoary-headed crones, weary middle-aged matrons, young ladies, little toddling girls—all female. Women abandoned by their men, left behind to die while waiting for them.
“Please, stop,” a crone said, her body quavering. “If that breaks . . . we’ll . . .”
“We’ll lose even our waiting place,” implored a mother holding a baby.
“My papa won’t be able to come home!”
“Forget them already!” Iriya cried out to the wall of women. “Forget any man who wouldn’t come back—”
Her words broke off there. Forget it. What’s lost is gone, and it’s never coming back. Wasn’t that something Iriya herself refused to do?
“If it were you—could you forget?” asked a pale-faced woman of middle age. “Have you ever lost anything? Anything precious?”
“Yes, I have!” Iriya nodded vehemently. “My mother and father were slaughtered by Nobles. Their throats were torn open. My brothers and sisters were bitten, then carried off. Made into servants, I hear. I need to release them all! To drive a stake through their hearts with my own hands!”
“But didn’t you tell us to forget?” a little blond girl said, smiling. She clutched a battered doll. “You should forget them, too. And . . .”
“. . . become one of us,” said the woman cradling an infant. Hers was a gentle voice. “Wait with us—wait for your loved ones to come back.”
Sweet voices filled Iriya’s heart with warm peace, like a false sense of healing. Her sword dropped.
It’s easier this way, Iriya heard a distant voice say. It bore a startling resemblance to her own.
The crowd suddenly contracted. Arms beyond numbering reached out to Iriya.
And then—far off, she heard someone call out, “Miss Iriya!” It was Meeker’s voice.
As the sense of relief started to swallow up Iriya’s mind, the boy’s voice formed a hot, focused mass.
I have things to do.
Turning her back to the approaching thicket of pale hands, Iriya moved forward and struck her blade against the stone monument before her.
Iriya the Berserker Page 9
