Bligh bugged his eyes. Though he’d heard various anecdotes about the Nobility, this was a new one on him.
“Put out the sun? C’mon. Even for the Nobility, that’s going a bit far.”
“Why do you suppose they didn’t do it? A planet like this, where one side’s always sure to be facing the sun, has really got to be about the worst place in the universe for the Nobility to live. A permanent city was constructed for them on the dark side of the moon, and they say their exploration parties went as far as Alpha Centauri. After all, we’re talking about folks who’ve got immortality and indestructibility working for them. They don’t need any of the suspended animation chambers ancient humans dreamed up, and if a major accident were to happen, they could go outside and repair their ship without even wearing a spacesuit. And they’d be happy as a clam no matter how bad the radiation or cosmic rays might be out there. They could breathe a pure hydrogen sulfide atmosphere like it was fresh air, and a freezing cold planet would still seem like paradise to them. In all the vast universe, there couldn’t have been many creatures like that, so efficient at survival they needed no food so long as they had dehydrated blood.”
“Then shouldn’t they have gone out into the universe more?” Bligh asked. “From what I hear, anybody as sharp as the Nobility could’ve made a ship that’d fly at the speed of light. Though damned if I know what light has to do with any of this.”
“There are two theories about that. One is that it’s some kind of psychological taboo for the Nobility. The example I always hear is the fact that the city on the dark side of the moon was abandoned before a century had passed. In other words, the theory is that the Nobility actually love the light. That had something to do with the beginning of their mysterious decline a few millennia ago. The second one involves them—the OSB.”
“The outer space beings?”
“Yeah. Five thousand years ago a battle started between the Nobility and the first alien race they encountered, and it went on for two millennia. The theory goes that the war was a crushing blow to the core of the Nobility, and one they never fully recovered from. Just between the two of us, it seems the Sacred Ancestor’s personal interests picked up speed during that era.”
“What kind of interests are we talking about?”
“I don’t really know. But I’ve heard it involved dissecting humans and OSB.”
“Dissection? The guy some kind of freak?!”
Suddenly, the ground shook.
The cyborg horses were about to go wild, prompting the two riders to madly pull on the reins and stroke the beasts.
“See, what did I tell you? Speak ill of the Sacred Ancestor on the Nobility’s lands, and dead humans and Nobles alike will come out of their graves to tear you to shreds.”
“Whatever you say, ma’am.”
That was the last thing said, and the pair then rode through the forest in silence, reaching the foot of the hill in less than twenty minutes. The road twisted up a gentle slope all the way to the Nobles’ castle.
“The Nobles’ castle isn’t old at all—no chance it’s empty, eh?” Josette said, and when she moved her right hand, the minigun on her back slid down the rail on the right-hand side. Thanks to a remote-control firing mechanism and the flexible arm mounting, the weapon could target anywhere.
Josette’s body was trembling faintly. She knew all too well they weren’t going to be exploring a vacant house.
It was an easy enough climb up the stone-paved road. Raising a hand to shield themselves from the rain, each of them looked up at the towering stone walls. The first thing that struck them about the fortifications was how rough the outer walls seemed.
The so-called “nostalgic tastes of the Nobility” varied in different eras, but for the most part they could be grouped under the heading “elegant.” Many of their mansions were done in the baroque style of ancient times, and characteristically on the Frontier they were more properly called castles or fortresses. An interesting point was that even at their height, the Nobility built castles for battling those under their banner who resisted and collected weapons for wholesale slaughter, and these proved a great contribution to the later OSB War, considered a shining beacon of “foresight” in the history of the Nobility. During two millennia of fighting against the OSB, what had the most splendid results and checked the alien invasion were the fortresses and castles of the Frontier, as well as the factories there that produced weapons and facilities that ensured a constant power supply.
After the lengthy war, the lords of the Frontier took great pride in their ravaged castles, rebuilding them with even rougher, stronger walls. Also, rather than modernize the Frontier, they seemed determined to send it even further into the past, releasing even more vicious, primitive monsters, though that would later be taken as a symbol of their own “period of ebb” that followed. It was at this time that the fortresses that even now kept the Frontier a domain of fear were constructed. But history only considered those who moved forward as its legitimate children. In no time, the Nobles’ civilization had been swallowed up by the waves of their species’ decline, and at present they showed no signs of bobbing to the surface again.
However, the fortifications that the two humans now looked up at still retained the coarse image of Frontier Nobility, looming over the human race, not wavering in the least. There was a gate set in the ramparts. The rivet-studded, black iron doors were the first problem the pair would need to deal with. At any rate, all they could do was try giving them a push.
Bligh dismounted and reached out his hand for the gleaming black metal. The instant his fingers made contact, the doors swung back from the center, opening.
“Hey, there’s somebody here!” Bligh exclaimed after getting back in the saddle, and Josette nodded at his words.
However, they passed through the gate and went into the front yard without seeing a single person.
“They’re treating us like idiots. I ain’t about to let a castle screw with me!” the man growled. “So, in a castle like this, where would they put the graves?” the man asked, apparently having quickly reclaimed his reason.
“One of three spots. A graveyard on the grounds, in a chapel, or underground.”
“Ain’t got much time. Which has the highest chances?”
“The chapel, I suppose.”
“By chapel, you mean some kind of holy place for praying to God?”
“That’s right.”
“Why the hell would a nest of vampires have something like that?”
“It must suit their tastes.”
“Damned if I understand,” Bligh said, tilting his head to one side and driving away a question he’d had for many years.
The interior was rough and entirely rustic in feel, devoid of both the influence of gothic elegance and the style researchers had termed ultramodern. Apparently Josette was accustomed to this, and aside from one or two mistakes she guided Bligh to the door they sought. But there in the vast place for supplications to God, which was like an enormous hall, they couldn’t find a single coffin.
After checking the floor and walls—anywhere a coffin might be stashed-—Josette said, “In that case, it must be underground. If they were buried out in the cemetery, they’d be spotted right away. It would have to be the worst place of all.”
“Well, there ain’t much we can do about that. Can’t really turn tail ’cause we’re spooked after coming all this way.”
“That’s the spirit!”
The pair’s eyes were riveted to an iron door at the far end of the chapel.
“Well, look at that,” Bligh said, adjusting his grip on a long stake.
The iron door was open. But when they’d entered the chamber, he was certain it’d been closed.
After the pair had set out, the two girls’ conditions had become marginally stable, setting the minds of their caretakers Jan and Arbuckle at ease. The other one there—Brennan—didn’t help at all, but rather stared out the window into the rain.
&n
bsp; “If you’re so concerned, why don’t you go after them?” Arbuckle said to him.
Turning, Brennan said, “My wife’s got a bit of warrior in her, too. She calls her own shots.”
“You said at the outset she was just an ordinary woman. Was that because it was to your advantage to have everyone believe so? Looking at the two of you, you don’t seem all that independent.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“What indeed,” Arbuckle replied cryptically, turning away in a snit.
A shadow fell across his face.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” the warrior repeated, standing now by the plump man’s side.
“Hey! Knock it off!” an agitated Charlotte called over from where she’d been watching this develop. “This is hardly the time for squabbling, is it? If we don’t work together, we’re not gonna make it out of here alive!”
“I can make it out of here on my own,” Brennan said, his eyes giving off a weird gleam. “If trouble starts, you folks are the ones that’ve had it.”
“You’re right, so just stop this. Don’t go wasting your abilities like this—and you need to keep the peace, too.”
Jan, who was watching over his beloved, snapped to attention, saying, “She’s right. Please, just stop it. I saw something in a guidebook back in the Capital. These parts were once a battlefield where the OSB fought the Nobility. It might just be that both sides lured us to the village.”
“Huh?” the physician Arbuckle exclaimed, his expression changing. He was facing one of the windows. “What’s that out there?”
Beneath the leaden sky, they all saw a black streak descending at an angle. It was neither bird nor flying monstrosity. It was a manufactured flying machine.
“It can’t be—” Charlotte groaned. She recalled what Jan had just said. The OSB—outer space beings.
Minds blanked, they all saw the glittering silver craft at the fore of that black smoke.
“It went down behind the castle!”
A few seconds later, a fireball erupted from the very place Jan had said.
III
Although they didn’t see the flames from the chapel, the roar and the quaking of the ground reached the pair.
“What the hell was that?” said Bligh.
“It was pretty close to here!”
The two of them sped into action. Behind them, the door leading underground slowly closed. There was a certain sadness to it.
Not confident that they could navigate through the castle interior and out the back, the pair went back to the main entrance and got on their cyborg horses. Circling around the castle’s outer walls, they reached the back.
The first thing they saw hit them like a knife in the eye.
“Sheesh,” Bligh groaned, while Josette was left speechless.
Less than a thousand yards away—where the aircraft had apparently crashed—there were flames. However, the vast plain spreading before them was covered as far as the eye could see with the wreckage of countless machines. There were what had apparently been aircraft over a mile and a quarter in length; engines for tanks that were fifty yards in length, width, and height; the lower half of a titanic warrior that looked like it would’ve stood sixty feet high; the heads of stone men weighing five thousand tons each, as well as the primitive spears they used and dimensional blades—all of these things were half destroyed, melted, beaten by wind and rain for millennia, littering the plain and surrounding wilderness, but scattered among them were objects in shapes and colors clearly at odds with earthly physics.
“This was a battlefield for the OSB and the Nobility,” Bligh murmured in the tone of one who’d lost his soul.
“So it appears. The aircraft went down there,” Josette said, but her eyes were vacant too.
Feeling as if they’d wandered into a land of giants, the pair galloped through the rain. A shattered man of stone had his face turned toward them, the path ahead was blocked by the arms and legs of mechanized giants, and the wind whistled across this land of the dead. And then there was the rain. If not for the raging flames, the pair might’ve turned back along the way. From their first glance at the wreck, they knew there was no hope of rescuing anyone. Unless they’d bailed out on the way down, there was no way anyone could’ve survived the scorching flames and blistering hell that even now buffeted the faces of the pair. It was so bad that Bligh had to wonder if the scalding heat wouldn’t bring the dead who’d lain here for millennia back to life. Out of the Frontier, such things often went beyond the point of mere speculation.
“Think we oughta go?” Bligh asked.
“Yeah,” Josette replied, and she was just about to wheel her steed around when she suddenly jerked back on the reins. Pointing into the flames, she exclaimed, “What’s that?!”
Bligh was already facing the other way, and when he turned back the two of them witnessed a black figure slowly walking toward them through the swirling palette of blistering heat.
“No way—”
“No, he’s alive!”
Those were the only words they exchanged before the figure stepped from the flames. Actually, fire still enveloped him from head to toe. Advancing to within five yards of the speechless pair of spectators, the anthropomorphic fireball extended his left hand by his side. Suddenly the flames coursed across his body like a stream, being sucked into the palm of his hand while the pair stared with disbelief. Once the last tongue of flame had been swallowed, a man in black garb was laid bare to the pounding rain. In a wide-brimmed traveler’s hat and a coat the hue of night, he had an elegantly curved longsword across his back—and though it was incredible that none of his trappings showed any trace of the flames, what left both of them speechless and frozen in place was the man’s beauty. Here was the radiance of youth so many geniuses had tried to capture in paint, song, and prose. Ah, but none of them had been able to express it. Because the light of this beauty didn’t belong to the human race. It was the glow of angels and saints.
Without even realizing it, Josette had her hand pressed to her heart. She thought she should probably say something, but the beauty of his face was such that she couldn’t get out a word, and the man started to walk right past Bligh.
“Hey, wait!” the flustered Bligh cried out to him. “How’d you make it out of them flames? Were there any other survivors? If so, we’d better go save ’em!”
“It’s no use,” the figure in black said over his shoulder. The rain spattered off him.
Yeah, you’ve got a point, Bligh thought knowingly. But that being the case, he had a million things to ask the man. Swiftly wheeling his steed around, Bligh caught up with the man. “You’re lucky you survived, but you’re still in a world of hurt. This is a Noble testing ground. You splashed down in an old Noble/OSB battlefield. Did you know that?”
Before the man could answer, Josette said in a conclusive tone, “You—you’re a Hunter, aren’t you? And I don’t mean the garden variety. A Vampire Hunter.”
There was no reply.
Bligh’s eyes were bugged out.
Josette continued, “If so, you must’ve been sent from heaven above. The will of the Nobility lives on here. Or maybe the Nobles themselves are still hale and hearty.”
The young man in black halted. It wasn’t that he’d taken an interest in the pair’s words. He’d merely reached the crest of the path. To the left, the rear wall of the castle loomed. He was taking in the panorama of the rain-shrouded village below.
Something’s starting here, Bligh thought, certain of himself. His body trembled, and not due to the chill of the rain. Something intense is gonna happen, a lot worse than anything we could’ve done. On account of this guy.
Bligh realized it was already too late. From the instant the gorgeous young man had appeared, everything had started to flow in another direction. While he knew that wouldn’t necessarily be the way they wanted things to go, the realization that there was nothing they could do was pounded into Bligh the same way the rain ham
mered the ground.
“Bligh’s the name—I’m a drifter.”
“I’m Josette Brennan—a warrior’s wife.”
“D,” he replied with surprising speed.
Sensing something racing through every inch of Josette’s body, Bligh looked over his shoulder. Surprise was just spreading across her slim, lovely countenance. It was immediately consumed by admiration, which was in turn devoured by yet another emotion—fear.
“D . . .” the warrior’s wife parroted, a blank look on her face. She took off her vinyl covering. “Here—put this on.”
The young man who’d introduced himself as D just turned his face away a bit from the raincoat she proffered, saying, “No, thanks, but I appreciate the offer.”
Though Josette dazedly pulled the vinyl garment back, she made no attempt to put it back on.
“Hey, you don’t mean to tell me—” Bligh began to say in a perplexed tone.
Was she doing that as a sign of respect?
D started walking. He headed down the sloping path without even glancing at the fortifications. And the other two followed after him. They didn’t feel much like going back to the castle. After all, the strength had been entirely drained from them. They were like children playing with plastic swords when a swordsman with a real blade had suddenly shown up—the difference seemed that staggering.
When they were halfway down the slope, a dull sound reverberated from the backyard. A door had closed. A short time later, there was another.
“What the hell was that? We leave a door open when we came out here?” Bligh mused, twisting his upper body around for a look at the castle.
“No, they’re calling to us,” Josette replied. “Or perhaps cursing us. For getting away.”
“You mean they were waiting for us?”
“Yeah, probably,” she answered, and then she gave a hard and decidedly unladylike look at D’s back. “What do you think?”
She got an immediate reply.
“Better think about what comes next. This village is full of danger.”
Vampire Hunter D Volume 27 Page 4