The blacksmith nodded. His eyes were sparkling.
“It’ll be an honor. I’ll get to go to my grave as the smith who forged D’s sword.”
—
It wasn’t long after that D returned to his camp in the ruins. Elena was leaning back against one of the stone columns. A bike was parked close-by. Seeing D, she raised one hand and said, “Hey there, stranger!”
Her other shoulder was wrapped in bandages.
“Go home,” D said curtly.
“No way. There’s no one there, and Stahl’s folks will just force their way in. When I went by earlier to pay my respects, they stabbed me,” the girl said, and as she lightly brushed her bandages, they darkened slightly with blood. “And it’s not like anyone else is much happier with me. But relax. I’m not gonna ask you to let me stay with you or anything stupid like that. The fact is, I came out here before I even knew what I was doing. But I’ll be going soon.”
Tethering his horse’s reins, D took a bundle off the animal’s back.
“What’s the story with those swords?” asked the girl.
“Our friends will be coming out again tonight. I can’t fight them without weapons.”
The Hunter had borrowed the swords from the blacksmith. Although he had ten in all, none of them would last more than a single blow.
“Hey, let me fight, too! Alongside you,” Elena said in a forceful tone.
“The only reason you’re still alive is because the Black Knight went easy on you.”
“I know that. That’s why I wanna fight with you. On my own, I couldn’t so much as scratch the Nobles’ armor. But with you, I think we could get something done. After all, if they don’t kill me, the folks in the village probably will. So if I’m gonna go out, I wanna at least hurt those bastards some.”
“You’re rather tenacious, aren’t you?” D remarked.
“You got that right. See, I’ve gotta pay them back for this,” Elena said, grabbing her shirt with both hands and pulling it wide open.
She didn’t have anything on underneath it. Below the ample curve of her breasts, a pair of deep red lines formed an “x” that covered her whole belly. The wounds had clearly been left by a sword.
“When I was five, that bitch attacked my house. And that’s when she got my father and mother, and my little brother and sister, though they didn’t really die until the next day, when the mayor hammered stakes into the four of them. The little ones were only two and four. The princess had the White Knight with her, and he carved this into me when I was about to jump her. She was laughing as she said she should leave at least one of us alive. Even now, I can’t get the sound of that voice out of my head. And as I’ve grown, the marks have only gotten larger. She told me she wanted me to remember what’d been done to me, and said if I joined a freak show I’d be set for the rest of my life.”
Without malice or resentment, Elena’s tone had the stoicism of an old woman, but her emotions burned beneath the words like a blazing fireball. That she’d been able to cling to those feelings for a dozen years without going insane was surely a fearful accomplishment.
Closing her top, Elena looked down at the ground. The emptiness that came after her explosion of emotion gnawed away at her confidence.
With the bundle of weapons over one shoulder, D walked off into the ruins without saying a word, leaving Elena there alone. But as the figure was walking away, he then said something. “Come on,” was what it sounded like to Elena. Perhaps it’d been something else, but that was good enough for her. Delight coursing through every inch of her, the girl followed.
The bags D had unloaded a day earlier were still there.
“It’ll be night soon,” said Elena. “I’ll fix something to eat. You can’t very well fight those bastards on an empty stomach. So, where would your pans—,” she began to ask, then hastily cupped her hand over her mouth. “You don’t want any dinner, do you?”
“That’s right. If you want anything to eat, you’ll have to make your own arrangements.”
“You don’t even have any bacon or bread?”
“No,” D replied.
“I guess you never figured you’d have anyone else around. Sorry—I didn’t mean anything personal by that. I’ll go get some food and a pan and stuff. You do at least drink coffee, don’t you?”
“Weren’t you supposed to be going soon?” asked the Hunter.
“I can’t believe you could work as a Vampire Hunter if you’re so quick to believe everything everyone tells you.”
Carrying the bundle of longswords, D walked off deeper into the ruins.
“This’ll be ready in no time,” Elena called out to him.
“I’ll be back soon,” the Hunter replied.
True to his word, he returned less than ten minutes later empty-handed.
“What happened to the swords?”
“I spread them around.”
“You don’t say,” Elena remarked as she handed him a cup of steaming brew. “You know,” she continued, “I’m curious as to why you came to our village. Because I’d heard that usually even if a Vampire Hunter found a Noble, he’d just let it go unless he’d been hired.”
“I’ve been hired.”
Elena fairly bugged her eyes at his reply. “By who?!” she blurted out.
“Someone who asked me not to say.”
If that was actually the case, the young man’s lips would remain tight as stone. Elena quickly threw in the towel. All she knew for certain was that he was here with her now. That would have to be enough. Sooner or later, he was going to leave.
The girl swallowed her watery sorrows along with her warm beverage.
“You suppose they’ll come?” she asked as she wrapped both hands around her cup.
“Yes. I don’t know whether or not they’ll go after the village, but they’ll want to take care of me.”
“But that bitch asked you to kill her knights before!”
“And do you believe everything a Noble tells you?”
“No—so stop teasing me!” Elena cried, growing bright red. Although she didn’t think he was actually mocking her, she couldn’t really be sure—when he never smiled and was always such a stick in the mud, it was really hard to say for certain.
“If I’m going to kill them, I have to fight them,” said D. “Given their immense motivation, they’ll be ready to fight to the death. What’s more, they’ll have been punished for their unauthorized attack on the villagers.”
“I don’t get that, either. How could they go against the princess? I could understand the Nobility murdering villagers, but why would the knights? Is that supposed to be their idea of loyalty?”
“Perhaps.”
The Hunter’s terse answer made Elena forget what she was about to say. Silence descended, and the only thing she could feel was the wind that stroked her cheek.
“Are you scared?” asked D.
“Yeah,” she replied. She felt terribly meek. “But being here with you, I should be feeling pretty confident. Don’t look at me. I’m shaking like a leaf. I’ve been on my own for a dozen years, and I was never afraid of anything in all that time. I always planned on taking out the Noble and her knights, even if it meant I got taken down in the process. Nothing anyone in the village said ever bothered me. And yet now, I’m scared. I feel like a baby could whip me. Why did you have to come to our village? And why’d you make such a coward out of me . . . ?”
“There comes a time when everyone, man or woman, young or old, has to take up arms. Even the cowards. You’re out on the Frontier,” D told her.
An incredible scene drifted to the fore in Elena’s mind. It wasn’t her parents being attacked by a pale young woman. Nor was it herself being slashed by the White Knight. It was the very embodiment of beauty getting back up after the Blue Knight’s lance had pierced his abdomen.
“I was wondering—aren’t you in pain?” asked the girl.
“Pain?”
“From last night. That bastard put his lance clean thro
ugh you—even for a dhampir, that’s gotta hurt, right?”
“Does the thought of that bother you?”
“It might,” Elena replied, trying to be evasive. She suddenly felt she didn’t want him to see her as weak. Even she couldn’t fathom the turn her emotions were taking.
“The pain I felt when it stabbed into me was no different from what an ordinary person would feel,” D replied.
Elena remained gazing intently at him, but for a few seconds she couldn’t say a word. He bled. He felt pain, too. How many times over would this gorgeous man die in the course of his life? Elena shuddered—she seemed to shake with every bit of energy she had. And when the shaking subsided, her fear had gone. The intense nature of D’s answer had changed the very face of the girl.
“We’ve got a few hours until sunset. Take a rest.”
With those words, D set his cup down and stood up.
Not speaking as she watched him leave, Elena slowly counted to ten before starting off after him. Although she didn’t really think she could go unnoticed or even manage to trail him very well, she simply had to satisfy her curiosity. There had to be something to these ruins. It seemed to her as if D had been aware of that from the very start and had come out here seeking it.
In the center of the ruins, D knelt before one of the stone columns and ran his fingers around its base. Elena knew that ancient letters and symbols were inscribed there. When she was just a child, the wind and rain had already worn the markings away into illegibility, but she wondered if the young man would be able to decipher the past.
“Come over here,” D said, the abrupt command knocking the wind from Elena.
“You don’t believe in keeping much secret, I guess,” she said as she walked over to him. “What did this used to be? I mean, I can’t believe how interested you are in this place. Don’t tell me it holds some kind of secret about the Nobility.”
“That’s right,” the Hunter replied.
“Tell me, then. I’ll probably wind up dead tonight. I don’t wanna go out wondering about this.”
“These are the ruins of a fortress,” D said nonchalantly.
“A fortress?! Whose?”
“I don’t know. From what I could read of the remaining inscriptions, it belonged to humans. And it’s rather ancient—more than two thousand years old.”
“A fortress from two millennia ago—this area must’ve been a lot wilder back then. I wonder if colonists could’ve built it.”
“I don’t know any more than that.”
A question suddenly burst free of the girl’s brain. Elena made a desperate effort to recapture it, but before she could pop it like a soap bubble, it floated off her lips.
“When you came to our village, you headed straight out here. You knew about this place beforehand, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t think a Vampire Hunter would come all the way out here to investigate some ruins, so I have to wonder if you weren’t hired to do this, too.”
“It’ll be twilight soon,” D said as he looked up at the heavens.
The sunlight held a tinge of blue. Two shadows fell on the stone floor. One was vivid, the other faint.
“I guess so,” Elena said, facing the manor. Soon a light sparked in one of its windows. That was the call to arms. “I wonder if the princess and her three knights will all come,” she mused.
In her imagination, the ecstatic Elena painted a picture of herself and D fighting side-by-side, soaked in gore.
In no time, the moon came out.
—
II
—
“The moon is up,” said the Black Knight. He was in a room in the manor, and the royal blue of the night sky was visible through a spot where the ceiling had collapsed.
“Are you absolutely determined to go? The princess has given us no such mandate,” said the Red Knight, who’d been standing behind his stationary compatriot and watching him for some time.
“I realize that. And that is why I’ve waited until night. Given the circumstances, the princess may elect to send us out. Or perhaps she’ll give the order for us to accompany her. However, even if she doesn’t, I’m going. You yourself saw the way the Blue Knight died. The one who killed him must be made to pay, and those of us who yet live must exact that payment.”
“Even if that means disregarding the will of the princess?”
“Aye,” the Black Knight replied without a second’s hesitation.
Gazing at him with adoration, the Red Knight said, “I shall go with you.”
Now it was the Black Knight’s turn to ask the same question. “Even if it means disobeying the princess?”
“Yes.”
“You’ll meet the same fate that I have.”
“I don’t care,” said the Red Knight. Only now, his voice echoed with a certain something that was neither purely rage nor pity. The punishment that’d been carried out in the stained-glass chamber had been branded into his retinas. And the ghastly results of it were before his very eyes.
The Black Knight’s right arm had been taken off at the shoulder.
“Then you’re to follow my directions,” the Black Knight insisted as he turned to the Red Knight.
“I swear it.”
“Obey the princess’s instructions. I forbid you to disobey her. If you ever so much as harbor such thoughts again, you’ll be marked a traitor.”
For a moment the Red Knight was stunned, but a second later he began to say, “But I—”
“No arguments,” the Black Knight stated firmly. The steely gravity of his tone repressed the rebellious fervor in the Red Knight. “The princess’s tack now is different from that in the past. Perhaps the weariness I feel comes from her. However, I am no Noble. I can’t imagine what kind of thoughts might instill such feelings in her, or how those emotions might manifest. Most likely—”
Something hidden in the unfinished portion of that last sentence made the Red Knight grow tense.
“—it will bode ill for all involved? How right you are!”
At the sound of that echoing voice, the two knights looked all around in astonishment, and then turned back the way they’d been facing.
Beside a stone pillar on the point of collapse stood the princess. To her rear, the darkness was crushed beneath a spreading mass of roses, roses, and more roses. And their glow.
“Aren’t you the stubborn one,” the princess remarked, skewering the Black Knight with her smile.
The two fell to one knee.
“However,” the Noblewoman continued, “you won’t be going anywhere tonight. You’re to remain here.”
“If I might explain, Princess.”
“You needn’t bother,” the woman said with a sweep of the white rose in her hand. Leaving a trail of light behind it, the glowing bloom was swallowed by the darkness. “I understand how angry all of you must be. But that Hunter is a formidable opponent. Do you want to end up like the Blue Knight?”
“That shall depend on the Hunter,” the Black Knight replied with all due respect and fealty.
“No. I shall be the one to go see him.”
The two knights looked up at their mistress, and for the first time since entering her service they dared to voice their opposition, shouting, “You mustn’t!”
Although the Red Knight was shaken as the Black Knight glared at him, the princess didn’t seem at all perturbed by their outburst.
“Never fear. I shall have a different escort,” she said.
“The White Knight?”
“No. A group you’ve not seen these last two centuries.”
The Black Knight alone seemed to understand, as he looked up at her and said, “You don’t mean—them?”
“None other.”
“Princess, I say this fully prepared to accept any additional punishments. But that is one thing you simply cannot do!”
“Why is that?!” she inquired.
“As soon as you let them loose outside, it’ll be a scene
of bloody carnage,” the Black Knight replied. “I’m quite certain they could slay a dhampir. They could annihilate the villagers as well. However, the bloodthirsty beasts will forget your commands and leave your domain, completely indiscriminate in their unending search for blood. That cannot be. That is not what our wise princess would do. Oh, Princess—whatever has come over you?”
“Over me?”
“Once again, I ask this prepared to suffer a thousand deaths,” the Black Knight said, sounding as if he were coughing out blood instead of words.
Listening intently, the Red Knight hung his head without saying a word.
“Princess, you have changed over the last few years. Though I can’t describe exactly how, you seem like a different person. I cannot comprehend your thoughts or feelings, milady.”
“My, how you pry into my affairs,” the enchanting princess spat. “Red Knight, do you share his opinion?”
“I do, milady,” he replied, but the very second he spoke, a flash of black shot from beside him and knocked him to the floor before he could avoid it.
“How dare you say such a thing—Please overlook his insolence, milady,” the Black Knight apologized with a deep bow.
“Good enough,” said the princess. “But I said I would send them, and send them I shall. As for you, Black Knight—you’re to be incarcerated. Red Knight, lock him away.”
Either the Red Knight remained conscious when knocked to the floor or he’d since regained his senses, because he gazed at the Black Knight and responded with a troubled, “Yes, milady.”
Still holding a rose in her mouth, the princess said, “Do you intend to interfere with me, even if it means you must go through the Red Knight? Or will you turn your sword against me?”
“No. Your orders will be followed,” the Black Knight replied. His answer had a bitter taste to it.
The darkness grew denser and denser while the four-colored roses glowed stunningly.
—
Poised with his left hand resting against the pillar, D turned suddenly in the direction of the manor. There wasn’t a sound on the night wind. Nevertheless, the hand he had pressed against the pillar asked him, “Did you hear that?”
“They’re coming,” D replied succinctly.
The Rose Princess Page 14