“Is that your sick brother in the bed over there?” the youth inquired softly. He made
no attempt to look at Groveck.
“Yep. Fact is, he hasn’t even been able to walk or anything since the day he was born.”
“But it seems he can do something else instead.”
A look of astonishment raced across Leila face. Soon, her sober expression returned,
and she said, “You’re a strange one, aren’t you? Saving the competition twice and
all. Even though you had no qualms about killing one of my brothers. What, are you
afraid taking down a woman would bring shame on your sword?”
“If you come at me, I’ll cut you down.”
At D’s impassive words, Leila grew pale. She knew he was serious. Here was a young
man with the keenness of a mystic blade concealed behind his beauty. And yet, while
their eyes were locked, she wouldn’t mind being slashed so long as it was D who did
it. The thought that she’d even want him to kill her welled up in her breast like
an enchanted fog, turning the contents of her heart and mind into slush. That must’ve
been the power of a dhampir—the power of one descended from the Nobility.
“You’re a strange guy,” Leila said again. “You aren’t even gonna ask me where my brothers
went? If I hadn’t woken up, you’d have left, wouldn’t you? Like a shadow. Like the
wind. Are all dhampirs like that?”
“How long have you been a Hunter?”
Her own question unexpectedly brushed aside, Leila became a bit disoriented. “How
long? For as long as I can remember. Besides, I can’t live any other way.”
“This isn’t a job for women. When it gets to the point you enjoy stalking your prey,
that’s proof that you’re not a woman anymore.”
“How tactful of you to say so. Keep your opinions to yourself,” Leila said, turning
away. Any other man would’ve had the palm of her hand or a knife headed their way.
But because the youth spoke in that unconcerned tone of his—neither reproachful nor
teasing—there was something in his words that shook Leila. “I can’t very well change
my way of life at this stage of the game,” she continued. “I’ve got too much blood
on my hands.”
“It comes off if you wash them.”
“Why would you say something like that? You trying to put me out of work?”
The young man made his way to the door. “The next time you see me,” he said, “you’d
better forget the small talk and just start shooting. I won’t hold back either.”
“That’s just fine by me,” she replied. There was a grieving hue in Leila’s eyes.
“Your brothers wouldn’t make much of a stink over losing one little sister,” the shadowy
figure said as it faded into the sunlight. “Any girl who cries out for her mother
as she lays dying isn’t cut out for Hunting.”
And then the youth was gone. Like a shadow melting in the sun.
After he left, his words continued to ring in Leila’s ears.
The girl’s eyes bored into the closed door, and something in them blurred softly.
Just as she was going for the door, a thin hand caught hold of her sleeve.
“Grove?!”
“Leila . . . you’re not gonna listen . . . to what that guy said, are you?” The voice
from under the blankets sounded furtive and twitching. “You wouldn’t listen to that
guy . . .go off and leave me and the others . . . now would you, Leila? Don’t you
forget about . . .
you-know-what
. . . ”
“Quit it!”
The scrawny hand Leila tried to shake off held her entirely too tenaciously.
“Don’t you ever forget that, Leila,” Groveck rasped. “You belong to all of us . .
. ”
—
III
—
The shadowy figures of Kyle and Borgoff clung like geckos to the rocky face overlooking
the village of the Barbarois. The mountain, which was insurmountable to the average
traveler, hadn’t served as much of a deterrent against this pair.
Sprawled on a flat rock and inspecting the village through electronic binoculars,
Kyle raised his head and said to Borgoff, “Damn it, the carriage and whatever’s in
it went into the forest, but they ain’t come out. You think maybe they’ve already
slipped back out the same way they got in?”
“Don’t know.” Borgoff shook his head. “And it’s not like we can just waltz up and
ask them, now can we?”
Kyle fell into silence. Somehow they’d managed to climb partway up the mountain without
being detected, but even this pair of crafty devils were hesitant to sneak into the
village. In fact, their Hunter instincts told them it’d be dangerous to get any closer
in broad daylight.
Even though Barbarois seemed like a run-of-the-mill hidden village, with no sign of
watchtowers or lookouts, the fact was that in the nondescript shade of the rocks and
groves there lurked those with sight as keen as swords.
Conversing only with their eyes, the brothers decided to sneak in by night, when the
watch would slacken.
The Marcus brothers knew that the Noble who owned the carriage had called on this
village hoping to retain some guards. If possible, the brothers wanted to finish him
before he could do so, but, now that it’d gone this far, that was no longer an option.
The two brothers weren’t at all confident they could slip into this mob of freaks—who
were their equals or perhaps even their superiors in battle—and accomplish their aims.
Under the circumstances, there was no choice but to wait for the carriage to come
out, but they had misgivings about that, too. They couldn’t imagine how the carriage
had possibly been brought into the village, and the prospects of it slipping out unseen
were extremely good. They wouldn’t know it had left until it was gone.
If only they knew the Noble’s destination they could at least head him off, but they
didn’t even know their prey’s name.
At the rate things are going, we’ll never land that bounty
—the Marcus brothers grew impatient at that thought. And as they fumed, more of their
precious time slipped by.
When they’d first got up to their lookout, the carriage was being moved from the square
into a stand of trees. Even after they watched the people disperse from the area,
it seemed there’d been some sort of a discussion. Common sense dictated that the Nobility
slept by day, but then common sense didn’t seem to have much say about matters in
this village.
So what had they discussed? Well, the Marcus brothers actually had a pretty good idea
what’d been covered. They could guess how many guards the Noble had employed and what
kind they would be, and maybe where they were headed, too.
The sun was nearing noon. The rocky surface went from warm to searing, and yet the
brothers still lacked a good plan. A hue of impatience was just beginning to show
on Borgoff’s face when he heard a sudden cry.
“Bro, is that who I think it is?!”
Checking Kyle’s surprised outburst with his firm, silent gaze, Borgoff felt the same
shock as his brother. Off to their left, a figure had just leisurely slipped into
the black cavern leading to the village—and it looked like it was D!
“That bastard should’ve drowned! What, ain’t he a dhampir?”
Borgoff didn’t answer Kyle’s question. He was having enough trouble believing it himself.
“Then, I reckon that means . . . Nolt’s had it.”
Turning to his older brother for only a second, Kyle’s face was instantly colored
by hatred. “That bastard . . . Killing off Nolt . . . He’s not getting out of this
alive,” he growled. “Ain’t that right, bro?”
Though he nodded, Borgoff kept his silence. Difficult as it might be to accept, Borgoff
knew that Nolt had to be dead and that D must have killed him. But killing a Noble
with an escort of Barbarois would entail risking their lives. This young dhampir possessed
an unearthly intensity even they couldn’t match, and making an enemy of him as well
would be utter madness.
“I bet that bastard’s here to scope out the village, same as us. This is our chance.
I’ll take him down from here with my crescent blades.”
As the younger brother was about to stand, Borgoff’s hand took a firm grip on his
elbow. “Hold your horses, okay? Look, he’s headed straight for the gate. He ain’t
staking it out. He plans on parleying with them directly.”
“You’re kidding me! Dammit, ain’t that even worse? If this keeps up, he’s gonna beat
us to the punch!”
The words of the wild youngest brother held some truth.
As Borgoff glared fixedly into space, his face grew more and more sad, and sweat started
to blur his brow. When his eyes opened, there was a ghastly hue to them. “We got no
choice then. I didn’t wanna do this, but we’ll have to call on Grove,” he said.
“Wait just a minute there . . . ” Kyle said, his voice rigid. This was the same brother
who’d earned a glare from Borgoff for suggesting they send Groveck to scout around
the village of the dead they had entered two days earlier.
What kind of power lay in that shriveled mummy of a youth that could offer a solution
to their problems?
“I’ll keep watch here, Kyle. Once you’ve given Grove a seizure, you come right back,”
the older Marcus said.
“Good enough.”
Why was it that a lewd smile arose on Kyle’s face as he answered? Whatever the reason,
it only lasted an instant. Flipping himself over atop the rock, his leather garments
sparkled blackly in the gleaming sunlight and he came down the mountain with the light
gait of a super-natural beast. Down he went, over extremely dangerous rocks—not one
of which could be tread upon without setting off an avalanche. —
Coming within fifteen feet of the eerie gates, which looked to be wood and stone wired
together and strung with hides, D halted his steed. As he looked up at the towering
palisade ahead, his expression was redolent of a dashing young poet or philosopher.
The air swished to life.
Where on earth they’d been hiding was a mystery. No one could be seen or even sensed
a moment earlier, but all of a sudden a number of people appeared among the rocks
and trees. They surrounded D. The face of each was darkly intrepid, but some among
them were pale to the point of transparency, or armored in ghastly scales. They were
a band that would no doubt cow any traveler encountering them for the first time,
yet, for some reason, with D they kept their distance. Once they had him surrounded,
they made no move to approach him. On realizing that it was fear and wonder that arose
on their inhuman faces, the Prince of Hell himself might’ve doubted his own eyes.
With a sharp glance from D, they staggered backward.
“I’m the Vampire Hunter D. I have business here. Kindly open the gates.”
At his bidding, the mysterious gates swung silently inward. Without another glance
at the guards to his fore and rear, his left and his right, D rode leisurely in on
his horse.
As soon as they were inside, a terrible aura enveloped D and his steed. Triggered
by the eerie emanations D himself radiated, all the eldritch energies in the air seemed
to shoot toward them as one. D’s expression didn’t change in the least, and his horse
never altered its stride.
When they had gone a few steps, the strange roiling energies disappeared. The men,
who remained positioned around D, exchanged startled looks. The Hunter’s unearthly
aura had just beaten down their own disturbing emanations.
The village and its inhabitants flowed past D as he rode. The village had been established
in a vast wooded region that’d sprung up in the middle of the mountains, and the homes
were fashioned from timbers and stone. Most of the residents were self-sufficient
as far as food and weapons went, and a building that looked to be a factory could
be spied tucked silently among the trees.
While they were rather antiquated, there were high-caliber laser-cannons and ultrasonic
wave-cannons visible within the palisade, indicating that the Barbarois were perfectly
prepared to deal with their enemies in the outside world.
But what was truly astonishing was the appearance of the inhabitants of the village.
Their clothing was the ordinary farm wear or work clothes found in any hamlet, but
very few of the arms and legs and heads that protruded from said raiment had the form
of anything human. A glimpse of red tongue could be seen flickering from what must’ve
been lips on a face scaled like a serpent’s, while another visage was mantled in thick
fur like a veritable wolf. Way in the back, an innocent young boy splashed water up
from his pool. From the neck down he had the body of a crocodile, and the limbs to
match.
There existed things in this world that weren’t entirely natural, the offspring of
couplings between fiendish beasts and human beings. All who dwelled in the village
of the Barbarois were the fruit of those abominable relations.
Most humans from the world below would’ve fainted dead away at the sight of these
demons, but D rode past them silently, arriving at what seemed to be a central square.
At the center stood the black carriage, along with a hoary-maned old man.
Halting his horse at the entrance to the square, D stepped to the ground.
“Oh,” the old man exclaimed, stroking that ground-sweeping white beard of his. “You
dismount? I see you know enough to show respect for your elders. But you have me sorely
puzzled. How did you ever manage to climb our mountain on horseback?”
Whether the words that seemed to slither along the ground reached him or not, D took
hold of the reins and started walking towards the old man. He stopped six feet shy
of him and gestured to the black carriage with his right hand. “I’d like you to hand
over the two passengers in that carriage,” he said.
The old man smiled broadly—or rather, all the wrinkles on his face twisted up into
a smile—but in the laughter that followed there was a hint of scorn. “Young man, you’ve
come into our village in a way no one else has ever managed. I wish I could tell you
the passengers in that carriage were yours, but it’s too late, too late. We’ve already
sided with the carriage, you see. The contract is drawn, and we’ve been paid in gold.
Paid with the fabled ten thousand-dala coins—ten of them. Could you afford that much?”