“After an intensive study of your armor, I added strength-boosting technology to my own. It’s not surprising the original model doesn’t measure up to it in a test of strength. Before I take care of our own worthless lot, I shall do away with you. Here I eliminate one of the duke’s anxieties!” the general said, raising the long spear to strike with his right hand. “I can’t pierce your armor, but it would appear I can batter my way through it. I wonder if your next stop is a different afterlife from ours.”
The spear was flung. Just as it was about to pierce the enemy’s mask, it was cut in two, falling at the foe’s feet.
As the befuddled General Tovsk looked all around, a figure sailed down from where it had been clinging to the ceiling. Powerless to do anything, the general had his right arm taken off at the elbow. Staring at the fresh blood that spouted from it as if in disbelief, he then glared at the figure who’d landed before him. It was a man clad from head to toe in a lustrous black garment. An oddly shaped knife glittered in his right hand.
“This stealth suit doesn’t even trip your master’s sensors. And it seems like the power of my Deadman’s Blade has been boosted, too.”
“You . . . You’re human?”
“Nope. When I was human, I went by the name of Crey. It’s strange to meet like this—but hello, at any rate.”
“When you were human? You mean to tell me you were . . . by this thing?”
“Yep,” replied the man in black who’d identified himself as Crey, his voice carrying a mysterious hint of desolation. “I was bitten. All of their kind got bitten by ol’ Gilzen, as you probably know. So, this one should’ve been at Gilzen’s beck and call, but even though they’re bitten, seems these things are a lot more likely than humans to keep their own will. And my master, well, it’s one of ’em.”
The general still couldn’t believe it. More than Crey’s words, it was his own wound that shocked him. A horrible sense of humiliation burned in him worse than any pain. One of my arms taken off by a damned knife? The only way to lay that humiliation to rest would be to slay this opponent—an error in judgment caused by confidence in his own war record. Instead of calling on the crossbow on his shoulder, he rushed barehanded at the foe he was about to rend to pieces.
Though the general was still well out of range, Crey’s knife flashed out. It was unclear whether it was the material of the blade or Crey’s skill that did the trick.
The general’s body ran right by Crey after the outlaw had hastily stepped to one side. A now-headless body. Copious quantities of blood slapped against the floor once the general’s body had slammed into the moving sidewalk.
As the large body was slowly borne off into the depths of the darkness, Crey in his black suit watched it go for a while, but before long he turned to the still-prone alien and said, “Not too impressive of you, master. Just keep lying there. I’ll go get rid of Duke Gilzen and the rest!”
Perhaps the alien had recovered enough to understand the jibes, because its massive form rose like a swelling sea.
“Okay, we going now? Time to look for Gilzen!”
Crey led the way, with the gigantic alien following along behind him.
Once the two of them had gone from view, from the opposite end of the corridor the slightly impatient yet cool voice of a woman said, “I came out of concern for Budges, and what should I find but another troublesome foe. Not even I could move against him immediately. However, that one may yet prove useful. Budges, are you okay?”
Vera wanted to scream. There wasn’t enough medicine. It was something for which the Nobility, priding themselves on their ageless and immortal nature, normally had no use. What was stocked in the castle was probably kept there for the use of human servants, so it was in unavoidably short supply.
The wounded poured in one after another, some with arms or legs cut off, others with necks half-severed, some split open from the throat to the solar plexus so that their entrails hung out—all of them would’ve died on the spot if they were human, so it was incredible that Vera had maintained her sanity. Instead of simply passing out, she was able to treat their wounds out of a combination of fascination with the vitality of the Nobility that allowed them to survive in such a state and a sense of duty as a doctor. She treated not only true Nobles but also those they’d turned, and while there was some difference in healing ability between the two, even the latter exhibited regenerative powers no human possessed.
Wounds of that degree should’ve healed in seconds for the Nobility. However, this time they were left with horrible scars just as a human would be. When she asked one of the soldiers assisting her about it, Vera received a daunting reply that made her pursue the matter no further: “It must be some difference in the way they were cut.” Since she knew they’d faced either D or what were apparently aliens, she had no choice but to accept that. They could probably manage such a thing.
After about three hours, they were out of medicine. Cries of pain still filled the room, and the scent of blood eddied as if conducting a ghastly symphony.
“There’s nothing else we can do. Do any of you know someplace else there might be medicine?”
At the query from the sweat- and blood-soaked woman, her erstwhile assistants exchanged looks, and one of them replied, “We don’t know of any. But I’ve heard there are still some things packed away belowground that haven’t been opened yet.”
“Could you go down there and get them?”
He shook an anxious face from side to side. The aliens that’d defeated them still prowled the castle.
“I see. I’ll go, then,” Vera said, standing up. Her eyes were ablaze with determination.
“Why would you go to that much trouble?” asked a female soldier acting as a nurse, unable to conceal the surprise on her face.
Another soldier said uncertainly, “You’re a human, and we’re Nobility!”
“You’re patients, and I’m a doctor!” Vera replied flatly, and the soldiers gazed at her with an oddly placid look in their eyes.
“Please, stay here. I’ll go,” one of them told her, grabbing a laser rifle that was propped up against the wall.
“I’ll go, too.”
“Me, too,” said the female soldier. “It’ll be nice to get in on the glory for a change.”
Now it was Vera’s turn to stare at the Nobles. She was witnessing a quality scholars in the Capital unequivocally stated their kind did not possess—self-sacrifice.
“Stupid Nobility,” Vera heard herself say in a low but emotionally charged voice.
The bloodstained soldiers grinned thinly. They seemed to be mocking themselves. That was all they intended to leave as a parting gift when they stepped out on the road to death.
“See you later.”
“Hold the fort.”
“We’ll be right back.”
Turning their backs to her, the soldiers headed for the door.
The wounded were waiting in the adjacent room. At the moment, treatment had been put on hold. Leaning back against the iron door she’d just shut, Vera heaved a deep sigh. She didn’t feel like accepting any more wounded. Taking a seat in a steel chair, she found herself assailed hard and fast by sleepiness.
She awoke to the sound of an iron door creaking.
The soldiers are back, she thought.
The iron door was half-open. A glowing figure entered. She immediately realized who it was.
“Gilzen!”
“Don’t address me with such insolence, lowly human,” the Greater Noble in the golden cape said, showing stark fangs while the right half of his body remained shielded by the door.
Vera grasped for something to say but didn’t fare well.
“On awakening after ten millennia, I find the minds of my vassals have changed greatly. My command to dispose of the hindrance hasn’t been put into action. It would be simple enough to delegate this to machines or someone else, but I thought it best to use this opportunity to put the fear of me into their bones, so here I am.”
<
br /> More than the disturbing nature of his grinning visage, more than the overwhelming air of the supernatural that billowed from him, it was what intuition told her lay behind those words that made Vera shudder.
“Hindrance?” she said, thinking, What in the world is Gilzen doing here?
“First, behold the fate of the traitors I encountered on my way here!”
Gilzen revealed the other half of his body. Something dangled from his right hand.
The breath caught in Vera’s throat. She could almost hear the blood draining from her own body.
“Look!”
Gilzen threw what he held. There were three objects, and they fell with a dull thud at Vera’s feet. They were the heads of the valiant soldiers who’d left a short time before, blank expressions still on their pale faces even as their mouths continued to open and close.
“Filthy turncoats!”
Gilzen swung his scepter. It grew like a long spear, shattering the three severed heads. The heads turned to dust and spread across the floor.
“But you . . . They were your own subordinates . . .” Vera said, shuddering with horror. Her voice quavered.
“My subordinates? They were worthless troublemakers from days long gone. Like the wounded in there.”
His blood-red eyes shot a glance at the neighboring room, and Vera felt her blood run cold.
“You . . . No . . . You wouldn’t . . .”
Gilzen stepped away from the doorway.
Vera got up from her chair. For a while she couldn’t move, and then she slowly took two steps. Sucking air into her lungs, she ran as she let it out again. Dashing past Gilzen, she slipped through the doorway.
There was nobody in the room.
Her foot stepped on something that wasn’t stone. She knew what it was then. For a hundred yards in all directions the floor was covered in gray dust.
It took her a while to bring her suspicions all the way to her lips.
“You . . . The people who were in here . . . All of them . . .”
“I shall soon raise new subordinates. This castle has ten thousand soldiers.”
“Everyone has just one life. That goes for humans and Nobles.”
“What an intriguing thing to say. However, there’s a difference. A human lasts at best a hundred years, while the lives of the Nobility are eternal!”
“That life is cursed!”
Gilzen suddenly tilted his head back and laughed. “Life, life, accursed life. Ha ha ha! Life can’t be cursed or anything else. In this world if you breathe, and eat, and survive, that is life! Although in our case that would be ‘drink blood’ instead of ‘eat.’ ”
“In that case, why are the Nobility facing extinction?” Vera said, her words cutting deeply.
For an instant, a tinge of pain spread in Gilzen’s expression. He thrust his scepter into the air.
“Before I was forced into that sleep, I knew this was coming. I knew it, and so did he. That is why we searched for a means of averting it. He sought it within the human race, and I in outer space. Which of us was correct will soon become clear. When I have slain D, that is.”
Vera convulsed as the red eyes slowly turned toward her.
Winds of Flame and Blood
chapter 5
I
Can you sense which of us was correct?” Gilzen asked the doctor. “Me, or him? The boundless potential of the universe? Or a tomorrow propped up by those who crawl upon the ground like insects? Well, it matters not. There’s little point in asking you this. But why not let you slake my thirst?”
When Gilzen faced her head-on, the impact was intense. Vera got the feeling the whole world was going to pieces.
As Gilzen took a casual step forward, he reached out his left hand.
“Stop . . . Don’t come near me!”
Everything around Vera became an illusion. Skewered as she was by fear, only she and Gilzen were real.
“Stay back . . . You can’t! I just knew it . . . You Nobles . . . You really are the devil!”
“No, I am the messiah.”
As Vera retreated, her back hit a stone wall. There was nowhere else to run now.
Gilzen’s hand came to rest on her shoulder.
“Oh, what’s this?” the duke exclaimed with surprise, pulling his hand back.
The doctor’s body was a blur, and the Greater Noble’s fingertips had felt a blistering pain. When Lilia had been about to give Vera the kiss of the Nobility back in Jeanne’s quarters, the doctor had undergone this mental and physical transformation—and now it was happening again.
Gazing with satisfaction at the doctor as she lost her human form, Gilzen said, “Fascinating. I can only recall witnessing this once before, and after the transformation the psyche also changed in extremely odd ways. How will she be changed, I wonder?”
It must’ve interested Gilzen greatly, but he didn’t get a chance to see for himself. Perhaps noticing something, the Greater Noble of the darkness spun around in a fashion that left the air swirling in his wake and proceeded to the door of the room where he’d just perpetrated that cruel slaughter.
Two figures stood there, one on either side of the corridor: an armored alien warrior and Crey.
“So, you’ve come after all, have you? You know where to find me. Because you have my blood mixed with yours.”
Gleaming with an unnatural light, Gilzen’s eyes reflected the pair.
“Aliens don’t react the same way humans do,” the Nobleman continued. “However, they are still my servants. Shall we see who is the master and who the slave?”
“Me first,” Crey said, stepping forward. The weapon in his right hand might’ve been an alien knife. Pointing to the alien, he said, “My master’s power has changed me. Now I can fight you on equal terms. Face me—and my Deadman’s Blade.”
“Foolish insect!”
And with that tired epithet Gilzen’s scepter stretched. Its beam caught Crey in the chest, which absorbed it the way sandy soil sucks up water.
“Hmph!” Gilzen snorted. “So, you’ve been coated to absorb beam weapons? That’s certainly something their technology could accomplish.”
The scepter in his fist grew even longer. Swinging around neatly, it sped down at Crey’s head. It only appeared to be swift—yet the blow was also powerful enough to shatter a boulder. As the scepter slashed down at Crey, the outlaw’s body darted out of the way like a fish swimming through the rapids.
The scepter came back with a whine. Gilzen was in no hurry. His opponent had backed off.
The Nobleman’s neck was split halfway through. Fresh blood gushed from it like a fountain. Making no effort to close the wound, Gilzen tilted his head back. His own blood poured down on him like rain. Mouth open wide, he let it soak him. And look at the rapture on his face! The way he smacked his lips. He was drinking. His own blood was a fountain, and he was drinking it dry.
Both Crey and the alien were rooted in place by this most unsettling scene, but only for a moment, and then Crey’s right hand flashed out. Gilzen’s neck was cut halfway through on the opposite side.
“Ha ha ha!” the Greater Noble laughed, but how he produced the sound was a mystery. Grabbing his own hair, he jerked his head up, pulling it clean off with only a few bits of muscle and vein still trailing from it.
“This ‘Deadman’s Blade’ of yours is impressive,” the head dripping lifeblood told Crey. “Is its edge thanks to the aliens? At any rate, if it doesn’t slay me, it’s all rather pointless—as long as you’re bound by the musty old legends that all you have to do is cut off a Noble’s head.”
Gilzen returned his head to his shoulders. A streak of black lightning slammed into his face, blowing brains out the back of his skull. Pulling back the long spear that had been driven through the Noble’s head, the alien never took his eyes off Gilzen. The misshapen mass of flesh and bone began to swell. Flesh formed flesh, veins knitted together, and red blood pumped through them.
Clicking his tongue in disappointment,
Crey shut his eyes. He was focusing his concentration for another go with the Deadman’s Blade—with the alien technology on his side, he might’ve stopped Gilzen’s regeneration.
However, he wasn’t able to do that. Behind him, he heard a voice say, “Let go of me, you idiot!”
When Crey turned in astonishment, his eyes were greeted by two figures. One looked exactly like his “master,” and it held Lourié—who was thrashing his limbs in an attempt to gain his freedom! Deep beneath the castle the boy had seen the alien mother ship, and after being pursued by an alien who’d returned to it with Crey he’d been captured by another alien—but why had he been brought here, of all places? The reason went without saying. This alien had been bitten by Gilzen, and unlike its compatriots, this one had become his servant.
As Crey stood still, rooted with amazement, the black scepter pierced his abdomen. Shuddering with an agonized death rattle, the outlaw’s body was hoisted into the air.
“Oooh,” Crey groaned, the sound causing spasms in the gloom, while Gilzen’s laughter hammered the stone walls.
Using just the strength of one arm, Gilzen dashed the assassin’s body against the stone floor. He fell right at the alien’s feet, but during all this time it had been paralyzed, offering Crey no help at all. Needless to say that was due to tension and shock at the fact that Lourié had been captured by one of its own kind. This was what happened when someone was forced to fight another that knew all their secrets.
“He’s beyond saving now. Child, is there something you wish to say?”
“Yes, you bet your life there is—let me go!”
“Very well, you may have it your way. As for the other one,” the Nobleman said, turning an intense look on the enemy alien, “I shall dispose of it now. Wait just a moment.”
Without delay the alien foe backed away, and a heartbeat later it had vanished in the distance.
Lourié ran over to Crey. When he dropped to his knees by the outlaw’s side, tears flew everywhere.
“Mister! Don’t die on me. You can’t!”
Vampire Hunter D Volume 22 Page 20