Vampire Hunter D 16: Tyrant's Stars

by Hideyuki Kikuchi

  “What the hell is this?” the leader said, chilled.

  “This Capital is overflowing with energy. Our bodies are getting attuned to it. If we press on like this, we might end up turning into something else entirely.”

  Staring at the old huntsman intently, the leader asked, “You mean to say if we turn back now, we won’t change into anything?”

  “Hell, I don’t know.”

  “In that case, let’s keep going.”

  A white glow lit the faces of the pair: lightning that had fallen from space. It was then swallowed by something beyond the cluster of enormous buildings, forming a blinding dome of light. There had to be something back there. After all, that was where the tiny star had fallen, where a colossal metropolis had been created, and from where the vast expanse of silvery terrain had spread.

  II

  As the pair pressed forward, their bodies underwent changes. Their skin flaked off like thin bits of paper dancing in the breeze, and the

  flesh that was left exposed became flecked with silver. By the time the two men reached the point of impact, they were no more than living corpses with a scant amount of flesh and innards left clinging to their bones.

  Each of the blue lights that had massed there must have been easily fifty yards in diameter. Naturally, the pair couldn’t see beyond the mountainous chain they formed.

  “What’s that?” the leader asked, his voice no longer a voice at all. “I don’t know,” the huntsman responded in the same tone. The two of them were conversing with an unprecedented clarity.

  The old man continued, “It’s probably a mass of energy. It’s filled with the life force of all our guys—the ones they killed.”

  “With this much collected life force—what in the world do you think they’re trying to do?” The leader’s tone was soft. Shifts in emotion no longer existed for the two men.

  “I don’t know. But even if everything in the area got wiped out when that meteorite fell, there couldn’t have been that many living things out here. That energy is not from Earth.”

  “Then it—along with the meteorite—came from space?”

  “No doubt about it. Either that, or it might’ve been whipped up inside that building.”

  The old man’s words made the leader turn around. He was a bare skeleton. Having turned transparent, his bones allowed the other man to see through him to the expanse of silver and the building in the distance. Lightning made a stark connection between the heavens and the earth, but in reverse—from the ground up to the heavens. The pair of skeletons looked up to see the mountainous chain of lights rising into the air. They were soon swallowed by the darkness, disappearing into space devoid of even a single star.

  The leader heard the huntsman mutter, “There’s a light.”

  A few seconds later, the glow that formed in the blackness had spread its growing light, bleaching the heavens white. The silvery terrain reflected it, causing the pair of skeletons to dissolve into its shine. And then the sky was robbed of its light in an instant. The light converged into a single streak that came down to earth but created no new dome of light. The streak was swallowed up by a small, black depression on the ground. It was the very spot where the meteor had fallen and where all this had begun.

  The leader looked up into the sky to his left, the bones in his neck creaking all the while. A red point of light was approaching. A dimensional missile, launched from an unknown location, carved a hole three miles wide in the air five hundred yards above the target point. The silvery terrain and colossal buildings rose up as if they were papier-mache miniatures about to be devoured by the hole. It seemed someone knew what the meteorite was and intended to get rid of it. In the hands of the Nobility, time-space circuits could be altered to eliminate space and fuse it back together again in ten seconds flat. This was time enough to make the entire northern Frontier disappear.

  However, the insane climb stopped abruptly. A heartbeat later, all the rubble that hung in the air rained down upon the earth . .. and then it was sucked up. By that little black depression.

  “The hole!” the old huntsman heard the leader scream. He sounded a million miles away. “It’s been turned inside out!”

  The dimensional hole that had opened in space had begun to extend a black pathway, stretching into a threadlike tendril that connected it to the depression in the ground. As the pathway was absorbed, the hole was drawn down and pulled narrower until it became a single streak that was swallowed by the earth. How much energy had it taken to tear that hole in space?

  Once it was gone, stillness lay over the depression that had swallowed it and the rest of the world. Lightning flashed in the distance. No one could say how much time had passed before a black form rose from the same spot. It was clearly a human head, followed by a neck. His golden hair fell in gentle waves that swayed around his ears and his nape. His shoulders emerged, then his chest. His pectorals were thick and powerful; they had to be part of an impressive physique. Put a sword in either hand, and he could

  probably hold his own against thousands of soldiers and horses. The boundary between his upper and lower body was held by a tight waist and sculpted abdominal muscles. From the hips down to the thighs he was the pinnacle of savage grace. If he were to kick off the ground, he could soar up to the very heavens; and if he were to step onto the crests of the waves, he’d undoubtedly be able to race across the sea itself. Such spirit, such bearing, such grace—he’d make anyone want to arm him with sword and spear and bow, give him a million troops, and send him off to war.

  His eyelids gradually opened. His eyes were crimson. They seemed to cry, Give me power! Do so, and I’ll create mountains of corpses and rivers of blood as I exterminate every living creature on this world!

  The man howled. The heavens and earth rumbled. Lightning struck down at him. The wind groaned. Not even bothering to brush the golden locks out of his eyes, the man cried out a phrase. Repeating it time and again, he swung his right hand around. It was like a gesture someone might make while delivering a speech.

  Perhaps the longsword that suddenly appeared in his fist was the reward for those gestures. A straight blade over three feet long and eight inches wide, it had the luster of black steel.

  “This is the enchanted sword Glencalibur. Nothing can withstand its edge. Sacred Ancestor, I have returned after five millennia. And from this moment forward, Nobles and humans alike will fear the night. I swear it on the name of the Ultimate Noble driven off to the stars along with my entire domain by none other than the Sacred Ancestor—as sure as my name is Lawrence Valcua, third master of the house of Valcua.”

  The world melted into white—it was a massive bolt of lightning. In its stark luster, the naked man raised the enchanted sword Glencalibur high and smiled most impressively.

  “First I have some respects to pay to the humans and Nobles who helped the Sacred Ancestor banish me to space. And now I’m off!”

  The last thing he said was lost to the thunder. Lightning flashed

  incessantly, and both the words and the form of the “Ultimate Noble,” Lawrence Valcua, melded starkly with the white light that seemed to last an eternity.

  A pitch-black vehicle raced across the plains, leaving grass and whitish steam swirling in its wake. With eight great wheels—four on each side—the massive frame of the fifty-foot-long and fifteen-foot-high horseless carriage was driven by the huffing of its steam turbine. Black curtains were now drawn across its windows all day—or while there was daylight, which spoke most eloquently about the nature of its occupant. Even without seeing the golden crest flanked on either side by proud lions with fangs bared, it was clear that this car belonged to Count Braujou.

  After nine or ten days on the move since he’d left his castle in the southern Frontier, he was now in an agricultural region near the center of the western Frontier. What was it that he searched for day and night without respite? This same question concerned the mounted figure that looked down from the crest of a hill at the
speeding black vehicle and its trail of white smoke. It was D.

  “My, but we’re in a hurry. You’d think his kid was under the gun,” a hoarse voice said with amusement from the left hand D had wrapped around the reins.

  “Where’s he going?” D asked. It must have been a painful ordeal for him, a dhampir, to be out in the sunlight, but there wasn’t a hint of anguish to his handsome features as they glowed like a corona around the moon.

  “If you mean what towns lie up ahead, there’s Shilgoddum, Warhalla, Somui—nothing special about any of them. All characterless hick villages. However,” the hoarse voice said, pausing for a breath, “there’s something that concerns me more than that. Why’d you stay your blade? You always slay your opponents. I can’t imagine why you’ve turned your back on that principle this time. You’re not the kind of softy he could dissuade with a tender little

  tale. You know, the way that pissant from the Capital stopped his bellyaching and froze with one sharp look from you must have been the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. Oof!”

  D had given a sudden kick to his steed’s abdomen. The cyborg horse, which had been equally tireless in its pursuit of the vehicle, once again galloped up the hill with terrific force.

  About ten minutes later, the unmistakable roar of flowing water up ahead could be heard.

  “Wow! I’ll be damned. I knew the damage caused by that meteorite extended all the way here, but not that it’d made a whole new river.” Rather than a river, it would’ve been closer to the truth to describe it as an expanse of madly churning water. From what they could see at the top of the hill, it had to be at least six hundred feet wide at the narrowest point. And there was no sign of a bridge.

  “Well, looks like we’ll have to detour until we can find a shallow spot or a bridge. It’s not like Braujou’s ride could—what in the world?”

  Not slowing in the least, the long black vehicle had gone to the water’s edge and then plunged into the torrent without ever stopping.

  “Damn! You mean to tell me that thing’s got a submarine mode?” the hoarse voice exclaimed in disbelief.

  Gazing calmly at the violent flow, the gorgeous young man in black soon saw the vehicle burst from the water near the opposite bank, flames licking from its rocket boosters as it hit the shore and raced inland. He wheeled his horse around, saying, “There’s a place to cross to the west.”

  Though the crossing was too far away to be discerned with the naked eye, the young man saw it with no trouble.

  “Well, if you knew where the landing was, why didn’t you say so sooner? Or better yet, why didn’t you go there? You’re just letting him get more of a lead on you!”

  Completely ignoring the din from his left hand, D galloped down the hill and into a dark forest of colossal trees. Racing over and

  around the snaking roots as if he were on flat ground, he reached the ferry landing in about ten minutes. Count Braujou’s vehicle had been traveling across the plains to avoid meeting travelers, but the highway ran straight to a hastily improvised crossing point. The road had already been there; it was the passage that had been fashioned on short notice.

  In front of the dangerous and disturbing bridge—which was just a collection of ropes strung across the river—seven or eight travelers had gathered. Oddly enough, all of them had their backs to the bridge and the violent torrent as they stared at a massive blue oak that towered by the side of the road. Each and every one of them looked appalled. D rode to a spot where he could see what they were looking at before halting his steed.

  “What’s this?” the hoarse voice said, conveying a surprise that was all too real.

  Pinned against the trunk of the blue oak and drawing the eyes of curious travelers was a partially decayed corpse, its head hung low as if dejected by the way it had been left on exhibit. The corpse was no stranger to D.

  “General Gaskell,” the hoarse voice said in a strangely soft tone.

  One had to wonder who could’ve done such a thing to the only Noble who’d crossed swords with D and still managed to flee upon defeat—a fiend beyond compare.

  A sort of white thread wound about the body and the tree trunk, and around the heart of the deceased the clothing had been stained with black blood, dried in a bizarre pattern. However, any human who knew about the vital points of the Nobility would’ve cocked her head and wondered if that was really the cause of death. The brutally crushed head’s right eye dangled over the chest by its optic nerve, the lips and nose had been turned inside out, and every last tooth was missing. A dry substance that appeared to be brains spilled from the ears, and the ends of broken ribs jutted out in all directions through the chest and sides. The whole body gave the impression of having been compacted; and on closer inspection, it became clear this was because after being torn out, the shattered limbs had been forced back into place and secured there. Gaskell hadn’t merely been killed. He’d been butchered in the most brutal manner imaginable.

  “The great, indestructible general ... It must’ve taken an army to do this. Hell, even thousands of average warriors or lesser Nobility couldn’t have destroyed someone like him . .. What kind of freak, with what kind of power, could do this?”

  “He was dropped,” D stated plainly.

  “Dropped?” the hoarse voice inquired, its brow surely wrinkled. “You mean to tell me someone dropped this immortal Noble from above, and then finished him off while he was still reeling? He could’ve been dropped three thousand feet and he still would’ve completely recovered from the impact in two seconds.”

  “How about from thirty thousand feet?”

  “What?”

  “How about one hundred sixty thousand feet?”

  “First thirty thousand, now one hundred sixty thousand—damn, you don’t mean to tell me he got dropped from the stratosphere? Now I get it. Even the great General Gaskell would be ripped limb from limb by that, and it’d probably take him days to recover. But who could do something like that? From the look of him, he’s been dead a good two days. What happened two days ago?”

  By this point the curious people had apparently wearied of the thing that, upon closer inspection, was revealed to be just a corpse, and they’d all turned around. Those who were relatively unencumbered had started across the rope bridge.

  D walked over to the tattered corpse. Naturally, the callous young man wasn’t moved to bury him. However, as the lone figure gazed quietly up at his former enemy, his expression revealed more than just remorse for the deceased. After gazing at him for several seconds, he did something strange. He called out, “Gaskell.”

  It wasn’t an emotional outpouring. He was just speaking to him. And the corpse answered, “Is that you, D?”

  III

  A lone traveler had come back to look for something he’d dropped, but when he saw the two of them he must’ve known dangerous business was afoot, because he forgot all about what he was looking for and hurried back toward the bridge.

  “Who did this to you?” D inquired in a disinterested manner of the man who’d died two days earlier. The great general was indeed dead—he’d been destroyed. If not, he’d never have remained there in such horrible shape. Despite that fact, his parched and split lips moved.

  “S-S-Speeny . .

  “Just who’s that?” the hoarse voice inquired.

  “D . . . you must go ... to the home of the Dyalhis family . . . Valcua . .. will come after them . . .”

  “Dyalhis? Who the heck are they?”

  “On the northern edge ... of the village of Somui... Help them ... though it probably won’t do any good ... He has seven servants .. . and it only took one of them ... to destroy me.”

  “So, what’s your connection to these Dyalhis folks anyway? Hey!” the hoarse voice said, as his question was drowned out by D’s voice.

  “Do you know Count Braujou?”

  The crushed head seemed to nod.

  “When Valcua was driven into space ... five thousand years ago . . . on the Sacred
Ancestor’s orders ... it was by him . . . and me . . . and Duchess Miranda . . . And at that time ... we had help . . . from a certain human . . . Valcua made a declaration . . . Said he’d come back . . . and take vengeance ... on us all.. . And we believed him ... So we took an oath . . . When Valcua came back to Earth ... we swore we’d protect Dyalhis’s descendants . . . On learning that Valcua had returned ... I headed as fast as I could ... to where Dyalhis’s descendants were ... And look what became of me ... D . .. Go ... Go to them. . .”

  General Gaskell may have intended to ask him to protect the descendants or to destroy Valcua, but he spoke no more, and something no eye could detect fled his body.

  “Holy!” a voice called out in the distance. It belonged to one of the travelers from earlier, who’d been watching the whole affair with trepidation. Not only had he been terrified by the sight of a talking corpse, but on seeing the head and limbs suddenly drop off and the body vanish into the air like some kind of mist or haze, the traveler had collapsed on the spot.

  “So, he survived for two days after his death?” the hoarse voice muttered. It sounded impressed. “Looks like he was pretty worried about Dyalhis’s descendants. I’m warning you here and now: don’t get any funny ideas, D.”

  D turned his gaze to the flowing water. “Count Braujou will also be there.”

  “Hmm,” the hoarse voice said, and then it sighed with woe. “Once the sun goes down, that Speeny character will be on the move, too. Let’s go.”

  The black horse and rider broke into a gallop that left the wind swirling in their wake. Easily bounding over the heads of travelers who turned to look when they heard the echoing hoofbeats, they landed spectacularly at one end of the rope that swayed in the slight breeze. Considering that the bridge was nothing more than five ropes zigzagging back and forth with eight-inch gaps between them, this was a display of ungodly equestrian skill. A number of people who were just finishing the crossing lost their footing, barely managing to catch hold of the rope handrails and cursing D as a damned fool. But the young man in black rode across the precarious bridge at full speed, the hem of his coat fluttering in the wind.