Once she’d swum to shore, Iriya, still coughing, confirmed that Meeker was safe. Something must’ve been done to him, because his eyes were vacant and showed no emotion at the sight of her.
“Got to get him back to D. I need a breather!” the Huntress said, seemingly addressing herself, before she turned to Al.
“Thank you.”
She wrapped her arms around him.
The boy became a stone statue.
“How did you call the fire dragons?”
“Er, um . . . with a flute.”
He seemed to be in a daze after watching his home burn to the ground.
“But they got here so fast. It’s almost as if they lived around here.”
“Well, my house is on the other side of the swamp. It just happened to be watering time for them, and—”
“And they get their water from the swamp.”
Once again, Iriya hugged the young man with all her might. Even after she let go of him, Al remained in exactly the same pose.
“Let’s get going.”
Taking the two boys by the hand, Iriya was leading them toward the village square when she heard something knifing through the air.
III
Arriving in the square, D and Gianne collided with the throng.
Desperate cries intermingled there.
“Carry him to Dr. Torres!”
“No, he’s past saving now.”
Pushing his way through the mob, D saw Al lying at its center. Darts impaled his heart and throat. It was clear at a glance that he’d received fatal injuries.
“What happened?” D asked a nearby farmer.
“Damned if I know. Just now, he fell to the ground as soon as he stepped from that alley.”
“What’s back that way?”
“The swamp. Nothing but that.”
To D’s rear, Gianne gasped. She said, “The waters are Kraken’s domain! But—” She drew a breath. “This dart belongs to Don J. Aside from me, he’s the only one left of those Langlan hired. If he’s here—”
The archeress stiffened. And it wasn’t just her—the surrounding villagers froze as well. The young man in black stood at the focus of a dead gaze.
“It’s just a coincidence. All of us . . . We were working independently . . . You have to believe me!”
The mysterious tableau Gianne had witnessed a short time earlier flashed into her brain like lightning. As the left hand that’d consumed the entire ceramic pitcher told D that water and earth should be enough, the Hunter’s sword had flashed out, and Langlan’s fold in space—something a nuclear weapon wouldn’t be able to scratch—had been broken.
What was this gorgeous young man? For the first time Gianne had felt true fear.
However, now the superhuman killing lust had vanished, and he pressed his left hand to the boy’s bloodied throat. The boy had already breathed his last. But then, with the murderous implements still stuck in him, Al squeezed out a faint thread of a voice.
The villagers pulled back like a sudden fleeing tide.
“The dart guy . . . from the festival . . . suddenly showed up . . . Said something about . . . taking Iriya and the kid . . . to Langlan’s castle . . .”
D stood up. As soon as the Hunter’s left hand came away, Al went to his reward.
On seeing how the young man of unearthly beauty put gleaming coins in the boy’s mouth in keeping with Frontier tradition, the villagers were stunned. Those five-thousand-dala coins were worth about the same as the village’s annual budget.
“Give him the best funeral the village can offer. What’s left goes to his family.”
No one needed to be warned against trying to pocket the money.
D turned to Gianne.
“Going to kill me, too?”
The whole village froze.
“Please . . .”
That was all Gianne could manage by way of a reply. And it took her eleven seconds to muster that much.
“Show me the way to Langlan’s castle.”
Gianne could only nod her consent to D’s demand.
The whole reason Gianne had called on D was to inform him of Count Langlan’s intentions and to get him to stop Iriya’s travels. Before Langlan let Iriya exact her revenge on him, he wanted to solve the riddle of why she remained physically human despite having been bitten. Toward that end, Iriya alone was to be led back to his castle. D was in the way. Gianne had orders to get rid of him. And now—they were riding their cyborg horses night and day in a five-day trip to Langlan’s castle, and she was staring at D’s profile.
From the very start, she’d known it was no use.
Two years earlier, as a newly trained archer, Gianne had been pursuing a group of five outlaws when she fell into their trap and was brought to the brink of death. Just as the pitch-black nothingness was about to swallow her up, D had come rushing in and laid waste to them. The keenness of his swordplay, along with his good looks, was enough to drive Gianne to rapture. She’d certainly been disappointed to learn that D had been pursuing the same outlaws.
When she’d first entered the Nobleman’s employ, she hadn’t known the Huntress had traveling companions. However, on learning that it was D that accompanied her, Gianne had given up the fight. Only partly because she was in his debt. Ever since, she’d burned as a woman. No, as a human being. In Gianne’s eyes, D was an object of adoration surpassing the ideal man—a being who would allow her to maintain her purity.
“What in the—?”
Far in the distance, a purplish light was rising from the desolate plain. At supersonic speed.
“. . . One thousand . . . One thousand five hundred . . . Two thousand . . .”
The afternoon sky was clear. When the light burst, the heavens darkened. Rain clouds. But they weren’t hanging over D and Gianne.
“Roughly thirty miles ahead of us,” the hoarse voice said. “Someone shot off a rain shell—and Kraken favors the water.”
The man—Don J—had taken great pains to avoid the water. It was the source of the opposition’s power. It existed everywhere. Though he had faith in the implements his employer had provided, the enemy was simply too powerful.
Don J also saw the point of light.
Oh, shit! he thought, because it’d been fired from somewhere terribly close by, and the instant those dark clouds spread overhead, rain began to pound down like a waterfall. However, he had no choice but to keep going.
The man advanced his wagon and its two-horse team beneath the dark clouds. Iriya had been injected with a hypnotic drug, Meeker seemed to have had his soul sucked out to begin with, and both of them lay in the cargo bed behind him. He’d had the foresight to purchase the wagon from a farmer in advance.
The rain intensified, and the horses and wagon seemed to give off white smoke. Don J was already soaked to the skin. The rain was bad enough, but water from the wagon wheels splashed him from head to toe, forcing him to hold his breath.
“To the east it’s all swamps and lakes—can’t go that way, not even by accident!”
The fight hadn’t gone out of Don J’s eyes.
Suddenly, the horses changed direction. They turned left—onto the road east.
“Idiots! Where do you think you’re going?”
Though he madly tugged on the reins and cracked the whip, the horses wouldn’t halt their crazed gallop in the one direction they weren’t supposed to go in. Almost as if they were receiving orders from some other, more capable driver.
“What gives? Whoa! Would you stop already?”
Shifting his gaze from the backs of the horses to their hooves, Don J widened his eyes.
The damp black earth held a reflection of the horses’ legs and the driver’s seat. He also made out a man cracking a whip. Too shocked for words, Don J fearfully turned his eyes to his right. There was no one there. And there was no way there could be. Yet—he looked down again. There was a man. Wasn’t he covered in bandages and sitting to Don’s right, working that whip?
D
on J lashed with the whip like a man possessed. The bandaged man struck as well. Though it was Don J’s whip that actually struck them, in his reflection in the water he had no whip in his hands, and the bandaged figure’s whip alone controlled the horses.
Rain surrounded him. Driving rain. And wasn’t the water Viscount Kraken’s world?
It was unclear just how much time had passed, but the world was sealed in darkness, while only the pounding of iron-shod hooves defied the sound of the rain—but they stopped unexpectedly.
Taking a repeating rifle from the weapon locker under the driver’s seat, Don J braced the weapon against his shoulder.
“Come on! I’m just waiting for you!”
His shouts were instantly obliterated by the rain. But look! Not thirty feet ahead of the wagon, an unmistakably human figure had taken shape. The instant Don J was sure it was a man wrapped from head to toe in bandages, he pulled the trigger on his rifle. The force of the large-bore rifle was evident in the way the nearly twelve-pound weapon kicked.
The bandaged figure’s head was blown to bits. Just like the rain, they were clear water. From the neck down the figure had collapsed, clothes and all.
“Did that finish him?” Don J said to himself, thinking he had an eternal mystery on his hands.
“Nope.”
The voice came from down at his feet.
Looking down reflexively, Don J saw on the water’s surface the figure in bandages sitting in the driver’s seat.
“Son of a bitch!”
Standing up and quickly firing a shot into the mysterious form, all he saw was a splash of water, and once that was gone the bandaged figure was in the driver’s seat again.
“You son of a bitch, you!” Don J shouted, so whipped up all he could do was adjust his hold on the rifle.
That same rifle was wrenched from his grip by a hand that’d suddenly reached around from behind him.
“What are you—?”
Was what Don J saw real? Or was it some dream reflected in the falling rain?
Grinning by Don J’s right side, the bandaged figure pulled the trigger of the gun now leveled by his hip.
Taking the kind of massive sixty-caliber round that would pierce a fire dragon’s armor to the center of his chest, Don J was blown fifteen feet from the driver’s seat, sending up a great splash as he hit the black ground.
Lowering the rifle, the bandaged figure let out a low laugh. “The water is Viscount Kraken’s domain! As soon as you were soaked in the rain, this fight was as good as over.”
He turned to the bed of the wagon.
“We may need the woman, but the brat’s of no further use. Here’s where you buy it.”
Not hesitating in the least, he turned the cruel barrel of the weapon on Meeker. The bandaged finger around the rifle’s trigger gave a strong squeeze.
A heartbeat later, there was an explosive flash.
Account of a Bloody Noble Battle
chapter 8
I
A blast had occurred between the wagon and its reflection on the road not twenty yards ahead. The blinding flash of white light carried enough heat to instantly vaporize the falling rain. It evaporated the moisture alone, not even singeing anything else. Iriya and Meeker were both unharmed, and while the pile of bandages in the driver’s seat was steaming, the cloth wasn’t charred.
The strange heat dart had been hurled by Don J, who’d since given up the ghost. As proof of his confidence in his ability to exact vengeance on his foe even on the brink of death, his face wore a rictus that was practically hysterical with mirth.
When D and Gianne arrived on the scene, the wagon carrying Iriya and Meeker had halted, along with the horses pulling it. Though remnants of the wondrous battle between fire and water still remained, D paid no attention to them, climbing instead into the back of the wagon. He immediately put his left hand to Meeker’s brow, and the hoarse voice informed him, “Nothing out of the ordinary.”
At the same time, Meeker opened his eyes. His hand reached out for Iriya.
A drop of water splashed against the back of it.
“Kraken,” Gianne said from the back of her steed, shaking free the bow she wore over her left shoulder. It wasn’t the repeating-fire kind. Hers was an old-fashioned half-moon bow that fired one shot at a time. Nocking the first arrow, she waited with four more sandwiched between the fingers of her left hand. The half-moon bow might not have repeating fire, but it could be shot in a manner so artistic and unholy no crossbow could match it.
The silky threads of rain from the artificial storm swiftly became a torrential downpour. Covering Meeker and Iriya with a waterproof tarp from the wagon, D stood tall and looked all around.
Gianne’s breath was taken away.
The rain-hazed stand of trees ahead unexpectedly blurred like a watercolor painting dropped in a puddle, the trees crashing down as if they were pillars of water. Next, a closer tree dissolved, then a second was transformed into water.
“D, at this rate it’s going to get us too!”
D didn’t respond to Gianne’s cry. When he saw the fifth tree away from them melt into water, he threw a rough wooden needle into the fourth. An unearthly cry of pain shattered the droning downpour. The stand of trees remained as it was, and the rainfall concentrated beside it.
Shrouded in what almost looked like white smoke, a colossal figure more than ten feet tall came into focus like an image in India ink.
“Viscount Kraken?”
It was unclear whether Gianne was cowed by his overwhelming size and his air of malevolence, but on the back of her rearing cyborg horse she kept her arrow unerringly trained on the giant’s heart.
Closing his massive hand into a fist and pulling something from the left side of his chest, he hurled it straight at D with a grunt.
Easily catching the rough wooden needle that’d pierced the giant’s heart in his left hand, the Hunter introduced himself, saying, “I’m D, and I have something to ask you.” Either he didn’t realize he was in no position to be making requests, or he was showing his confidence that his deadly skill could slay the giant where he stood.
“Ah,” said the voice that fell from ten feet high, carrying evident surprise. “I believe I have heard that name before. You are an exquisite man, I see. Now I can understand why Nobles could be so taken with the sight of you that they’re easily cut down.”
Striking the left side of his chest, he said, “You made me experience pain for only the second time in my life. You’re a man to be feared. However, if all that skill cannot slay me, then it matters not! See what it is to battle in Kraken’s watery hell—and then die.”
An arrow whined through the air, sinking into the Nobleman right between the eyes. Seemingly having no effect at all, the arrow came out through the back of his head.
“Did you imagine an arrow would have any effect on water? The man known as D is special!” Viscount Kraken declared in a voice like bubbles bursting. In fact, something foamy was actually spilling from his thick, toad-like lips. It didn’t fall to the ground, but rather rose high into the darkness.
“You know, there’s something I’ve been wondering about for a while now,” Gianne said in a fashion that was actually rather bold. “Isn’t water supposed to be taboo for the Nobility?”
“Correct,” Kraken replied without the least delay. “Before I became like this, I was a Noble living on dry land. That was four and a half millennia ago. However, one spring day a faulty setting on the aircraft carrying my wife and daughter caused it to crash in the lakes region. This is the result.”
Changing the subject, he continued, “What do you think are the ways to destroy a Noble? A wooden stake driven through the heart, decapitation, burning in fire? All will suffice, and all do a splendid job of reducing us to dust. All save drowning. My wife and daughter were ladies who placed more value on their Nobility than anyone I know. All their lives it was so. I know not how many times they scolded me for my own lapses. However, when the
two of them were fished from the lake, they were foul swine bloated with all the water they had inhaled. It was then that I swore I would master water. And it took me some three thousand seven hundred years to reach this point!”
“A Noble who wanted to be a fish—that wouldn’t even make a good routine for some comedian out in the sticks,” the hoarse voice spat venomously.
“I of all people can solve the riddle of this girl’s physiology. Why is it that time and again she has felt the fangs of Nobles, yet instead of being made their servant she raises her hand against them? This may very well be a boon to the declining Nobility. D, I shall take the girl now!”
A great splash of water bounced off the waterproof tarp. Focused rain. And look! The tarp, shrouded in gray, misty spray, lost its shape and color, and then began to disappear as if it were dissolving in the water—along with the two figures beneath it.
“That ain’t good!” the hoarse voice exclaimed from the Hunter’s left hand. D had just placed it on the tarp.
See how that veritable waterfall of rain became a single column of water that was swallowed by the mouth that opened in the palm of the Hunter’s hand.
In the darkness, the mountain of a Nobleman gasped.
Gianne’s bowstring twanged twice, sending its projectiles toward his heart. She knew full well the attack was in vain. However, when they pierced the heart of that colossal figure, they became scorching balls of flame.
“Gaaaaaah!”
Kraken—the great sea beast—doubled over, clutching his chest. Beneath his hands, it glowed crimson. Just then, fireballs and black smoke gushed from his mouth, nose, and ears, followed shortly by more from his stomach and crotch.
“Count Langlan was good enough to give me these flame arrows. He thought if there was any weapon that could slay Viscount Kraken, this was it.”
The giant jerked his head back and opened his mouth. Smoke still poured from his mouth like it was a chimney, and his whole body twitched.
D didn’t wait for the smoke to stop. The instant he saw that the rain on the tarp had diminished with the viscount’s spasms, the Hunter launched himself into the air. His legs were so powerful he easily sailed more than thirty feet, drawing his blade an instant later and swinging it at a neck as thick as a giant tree trunk.
Iriya the Berserker Page 13
