“We’re transporters,” Juke called out.
Raising one hand, the man said, “Just a second.” His tone was youthful but coarse. Perhaps moving over to the communications system, the young man stepped back and disappeared from the group’s field of view.
A minute passed . . .
“He should be here by now. Why the hell hasn’t he come over to check us out?” Gordo spat from the roof of the wagon.
Frontier villages never let visitors in without inspecting them first, especially in the case of things like wagons. They couldn’t be sure there weren’t robbers and bandits hiding in the vehicle to get at the wealth of the village.
Five minutes passed—and no one came. There wasn’t even a sign of anybody on the other side of the gates.
“Weird,” Juke said, eyeing the lookout tower.
“Hey, you up there!” he called out.
There was no answer. No one showed themselves.
After calling out repeatedly, Juke muttered in an entirely different tone, “This is really weird. Did something happen?”
“What, in all of five minutes? The guy in the tower acted like everything was fine,” said Sergei. “Huh?”
D had climbed down from the wagon. Swiftly walking over to the great gates, he placed his left hand against one of them. For some reason, this gave the three men the creeps. D pulled his left hand away, and then took a big step back. Before he’d finished taking a second one, there was a silvery flash. The gates opened naturally.
Without waiting for the group, D pushed against the gates. As they opened easily right down the middle, the village came into view. Beneath the cloudy sky, quiet had settled over the houses and stands of trees.
“Weird,” Juke said, his eyes gleaming. “It’s midday, but there ain’t anyone here. I don’t even hear a single woman or kid.”
“What’ll we do?”
“Wait here,” D told them.
“Okay. Pardon us if we leave the checking to you, then. We can’t afford to let any harm come to this wagon.”
Before the man could finish speaking, D whistled softly. The cyborg horse tethered to the wagon tossed its head to free the lightly wrapped reins, and then galloped over to D. Getting into the saddle with a riveting grace, D rode through the gate without so much as a glance at the other men. The eight-inch-thick beam that’d barred the gate had been cleanly cut in two.
It wasn’t a terribly large village. At this hour, it should’ve been filled with people’s voices.
D headed straight for the square.
The scents of daytime filled the air. Fresh-baked bread, warm milk and coffee, fruit and vegetable juices, salted beef and pork steaks, the odor of vinegar in salad dressing, freshly ground pepper, white stew with a healthy dash of fennel—at the very least, the village had been alive a few minutes earlier.
To his rear, men and women talked, right behind his horse. D turned. There was no one there. Ahead, there was the laughter of children. He faced forward again—but there was nothing. There was no sign of anyone in the gardens or farmhouses he passed. Spades and sickles lay in the fields. White steam rose from lunchboxes left open . . . as if someone had just now opened them.
He was almost to the square when there was the sound of footsteps closing on him from behind. Restless panting became a voice that called out, “D!”
It was Rosaria racing over to him. “I waited for a chance—and then I ran off. I wanna see, too. I hate just waiting around to find out what’s going on.”
Grabbing the pommel, Rosaria was up on the horse’s back in no time. The steed didn’t seem to mind at all.
“Used to it, eh?” Rosaria muttered, wrapping her arms around D’s waist exuberantly, as if it were something she’d always wanted to do.
They soon came to the square. Beneath a cloudy sky and without a single soul, the square had become perfectly still. Nothing was out of the ordinary, and there was no sign of anyone strange. There was simply no one and nothing there. They couldn’t hear anything. But that in itself was most unsettling.
“Oh, my—I’m scared,” Rosaria said, holding D tighter.
“I’m getting down,” D said.
“What?”
“Listen closely to the town meeting hall.”
That was the two-story building that stood to the right of the square. Rosaria closed her eyes, and then quickly opened them again.
“I hear people’s voices! You mean to tell me everyone’s hiding in there?”
Not answering her, D got off the horse. Rosaria followed suit. D made no move to help her, and Rosaria wanted no such help.
The door to the building wasn’t locked. The instant D opened it—
“It stopped,” Rosaria said, the phrase coming from her like a bursting soap bubble. But then she said, “Say, D.”
D halted.
“I hear voices behind us. There are dozens of people. Talking, pulling wagons, drawing water. So, are they really there?”
“Look for yourself.”
“I don’t want to!”
Pushing the door open, D entered the meeting house. A dim light illuminated a hall filled with nothing but chairs—here was another empty building. Though the pair looked in every last room, they didn’t encounter a single person.
“What happened to this village?” Rosaria asked in a somewhat unsettled tone.
And D responded with an odd question: “What was the name of this village?”
“It’s Krakov, right?”
“It’s Krakow.”
“No, it’s Krakov!”
Not disputing the matter any further, D stepped outside. The village that’d been filled with people ten or so minutes earlier was turning into a monument to chest-tightening horror that threatened to envelop the pair.
“It’s not the same,” Rosaria muttered behind D. From the sound of her voice, you could tell she had goose bumps. “This isn’t the same square as before!”
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II
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When they reached the horse, D said, “Climb on in front.”
“Huh? I—I’ll ride in back of you.”
“No, in front.”
“Yessir.”
Under the circumstances, she had no choice but to do as D said. As Rosaria straddled the front of the saddle, an arm in black that was like steel wrapped around her waist. In addition to surprise, Rosaria felt a slight excitement that she couldn’t fight.
D raced back the same way they’d come.
“It certainly is odd,” said a hoarse voice from the end of the arm wrapped around her waist, making Rosaria’s body tense. “This is the village of Krakov, not Krakow. It’s Krakov, yet it’s also Krakow.”
“Hmm—then it’s just as I thought,” D said in a low voice, which Rosaria heard through a blissful haze.
“It was on that chip. The Sacred Ancestor gave Gaskell the right to take all his neighboring lands. But there was a condition. The total area of his territory was fixed—in other words, all he could do was shift his domain wherever he liked. People tried to flee the accursed lands, but that became impossible.”
“That would mean he—” Rosaria began, her own voice sounding distant.
“He’s come back to life.” It was the same thing the hoarse voice had said.
“Why?”
“Ask him.”
“Maybe I will.”
Just when her tone had apparently grown serious, D turned his back to her.
From beyond the palisade that encircled the village, a number of black streaks came flying, painting huge arcs against the backdrop of the sky. Having taken a kick to its belly, the horse galloped like mad. There was the sound of something flying overhead . . . and dropping toward them!
D’s blade carved a horizontal path above her head. Rosaria heard a strange sound as the merciless slash cut the air.
“Wh-what was that just now, D?”
About a foot from the end of the terrified girl’s nose was a jutting black tree branch. The
branch was a weapon.
It was a common ploy—the average sorcerer could turn a tree into an attacker easily enough. However, Rosaria was shocked when she realized the branch had come flying from beyond the palisade. And the fence wasn’t protecting a small fort, but rather the entire area that several hundred people called home. In the narrowest part, the community still had to be at least two miles across. Tree branches were striking at them from thousands of yards away.
When would the next attack come?
The gates came into view.
“Yippee!” the girl exclaimed unconsciously. “Once we’re through there, we’ll be safe!”
“Oh, really?”
“What? You little—” Rosaria said, latching onto D’s left fist.
At that moment, a tremendous impact struck them—D had activated the boosters. Almost simultaneously, the cyborg horse spun around, dispelling the shock stream. Rosaria held onto D’s arm for all she was worth. Surprisingly enough, she didn’t scream. The steely arm wound about her waist lent her support.
Turning his steed once again to the right, D spotted an obstacle lying across the road. It was a black coffin. Could D halt his steed?
Rather than leap over it, he chose to stop. Forestalled by an ordinary black coffin. Who was inside?
There was a rasping noise. The sound of hinges. With a peerlessly stern gaze trained on it from high in the saddle, the lid of the coffin slowly opened.
__
There wasn’t just one coffin. The inky black space was vast, unfathomable, and occupied by black shapes.
“Open up, everyone.”
If the room belonged to anyone, it might’ve been gloom itself. At some point, a figure in black suddenly stood in the middle of the room—or rather, at the center of the coffins. Although it seemed impossible, his head reached as high as the unseen ceiling, and his shoulders were so broad they stretched to the unseen walls. The darkness seemed like an air that seeped from every inch of him.
“One of the coffins I sent is impeding him,” said the figure in black.
Who was there to hear him? The dead in their coffins?
In their midst, he continued to speak stoically, saying, “I don’t know how formidable this stripling may be, but it was insolent of him to run off with a woman I’d taken as my own. The occupant of that coffin is the least impressive of all those summoned to my domain. If that is enough to stop him, then, dhampir or not, he is nothing great. Or so I would assume.”
Other voices agreed with the first.
“Indeed, milord!”
“Indeed, milord!”
“Indeed, milord!”
Those cries echoed from every coffin surrounding the figure in black.
“Here I am, back among the living. So, what shall I do now? No, I know this, thanks to the memories bestowed on me by the Sacred Ancestor when I escaped my humiliating death. Well then, off I go. Off to claim that young lady for my clan. You should all take up your posts and wait once the sun has set.”
His black cape billowed out as he began to walk off. Solid as a wall, light as a breeze. As he climbed a spiral staircase that was like a vortex through the darkness, no one heard him mutter, “But why take the girl?”
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Darkness filled the interior of the coffin.
There were Nobles who could walk about in cloudy weather. Although it wasn’t an astounding phenomenon, Rosaria’s heart was pounding like a steam piston going full blast.
Giving a final creak, the lid finished opening, and darkness like black water choked the coffin right up to the brim. Perhaps the corpse inside it had died by drowning. A shadow packed the occupant’s lungs and belly.
The darkness rose. Moving its head slowly, its movements weren’t those of a dead person who’d been given life, but rather those of a corpse merely imitating life. The darkness didn’t spill out. Instead, it hid its occupant like a robe as he or she rose from the coffin and stepped out onto the ground. Inside, it was still night. The Hunter’s foe was concealed within that night.
“Is that one of the general’s tricks?” D asked.
Light flashed out, for a sharp blade had erupted from the lower part of the darkness—approximately where the knee would be on a human being. It was about to sever the legs of the cyborg horse D was riding, and then double back for another swipe that would bisect its torso. It slashed—through empty space.
D was in midair, horse and all. A split second before the blade sprang from the darkness, he’d made his steed leap with but a single tug on the reins. However, his mount hadn’t taken even a step back, so the movement was impossible to predict. A gleam zipped after the Hunter. In midair it clashed against D’s sword, ringing out with the most glorious sound and giving off sparks before it bounced back.
The darkness didn’t move. The cyborg horse landed to its rear—if that was even the proper way to describe it—and D flew down from his mount like a black wind.
“Go!” he said, striking the horse on its hindquarters and sending it racing for the gates.
Fifteen feet separated him from the darkness. At this distance, one of them would have to take a leap before either could make an effective strike.
The gleam of light grew longer. Just as it looked as if it would go straight into the left side of the Hunter’s chest, another streak zipped at the right side of his neck.
Effortlessly deflecting the attacks, D kicked off the ground. Made without a sound, the leap seemed to surpass even stillness. Perhaps enthralled by the beauty of it, the darkness—or the person within the darkness—was motionless, as if paralyzed. Like an angry wave crashing home, D’s blade slashed down through it from the top of its head all the way to the crotch. Bright blood exploded like fireworks.
D leapt away. The silver blade that pierced him through the solar plexus and out through the back stuck with him like a curse, stretching to match his movements.
D’s deadly swipe had met with no resistance at all, as if he’d split the darkness itself, but the blade that’d shot from the darkness at the very same instant had dealt him a lethal wound. D retreated, and the blade followed him further still. It twisted wildly, making D convulse. A new blade followed after it. D’s sword met it in midair, locking together with it and stopping it cold.
“Here comes number three!” the hoarse voice said.
Undoubtedly this one was intended to remove D’s head.
Making a bizarre sound, the flash of light stopped by D’s shoulder. The tip of the blade had gone into the palm of his left hand . . . and into the tiny mouth of the little face that’d popped up on it. Teeth like grains of rice had locked onto the blade. Now D had no way left to defend himself.
“Number four,” the voice declared.
As the gleam shot right at him, D moved his head, narrowly avoiding it. A fog of blood erupted from his right cheek.
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The darkness disgorged its flashing coup de grâce. D made a great spin of his body. All of the dark one’s swords snapped in two, with one of them deflecting the blade headed straight for the Hunter.
As D turned to face the dark one once more, it saw that fresh blood streamed from his cheek to his lips—and for the first time, the surface of the darkness was visibly disturbed. Licking at the blood around his mouth, stark white fangs poking from his lips, D pulled the blade from his abdomen and hurled it at the darkness. D wasn’t the same person he’d been as the blade he hurled pierced the darkness and left it standing still.
A cry of agony that transcended speech rang through the air, and the dark one staggered. As soon as the shadowy figure collapsed into its coffin, the lid shut. A needle of rough wood pierced the top as it grew clear as glass, leaving the missile stuck in the ground.
“Gaskell’s giving it help, eh?” the hoarse voice groaned. “But he won’t raise a hand against you. Of course, that’s a trick he was given by the Sacred Ancestor. But why would he come back to life now? After all, there was nothing on that chip but the program for revivi
ng him.”
Just then, they heard the sound of hoofbeats from two steeds approaching from the rear. It was Juke and Sergei.
As the pair got off their horses and approached him, D told them, “Keep away.” Like the edge of the wind, D’s voice made them stop. His back still to them, he wiped his lips with the back of his left hand. Whether or not the pair knew the reason why he’d stopped them, they halted.
“You all right?” they asked, but as soon as they spoke, they noticed the fresh blood splattered on the ground.
“Are you okay?”
“More or less.”
On hearing this, there really wasn’t anything else to say.
“Okay,” Juke said with a nod. “What about Rosaria?”
“She didn’t come back?” D asked, still facing the other way.
“No. All that came back was your horse.”
“She vanished. The same thing with the guy from the lookout tower. Everyone in the village did, I bet,” Sergei muttered uneasily as he surveyed their surroundings.
“There’s something funny about this, D,” Juke said, rubbing his left bicep with his right hand. The face of the stouthearted Frontier man was pale with naked fear. “Actually, I can recall visiting this village a number of times—but it’s different. This isn’t Krakow.”
“No, Juke—it’s the village of Krakov,” Sergei corrected him, suddenly adding, “Fog again.”
Arising from no distinct source, a silky white gauze was beginning to shroud the world. In it, the familiar houses looked the same as always and completely different at the same time.
“This is General Gaskell’s domain,” D said.
“It can’t be—”
“We checked the maps and everything!”
The voices of both men crumbled before they reached D’s back.
D was no longer looking the other way; he was gazing straight ahead. Into the far reaches of the fog—and the castle that loomed on the side of a rocky mountain that hadn’t existed up until now, jagged as the back of a fire dragon. There was no cause for surprise. After all, this was the domain of General Gaskell. Deep within the haze, devoid of an iota of beauty, towered the foreboding fortress that was Castle Gaskell—the stronghold of a vampire lord second only to the Sacred Ancestor.
Vampire Hunter D: Dark Road Parts One and Two Page 13