Out in the middle of the flames a good sixty feet from the rocks, D tried to see where the carriages had gone, but even with eyes that could see through the black smoke as if it weren’t there, he could find no trace of the two vehicles anywhere.
“Oh, that baron should do just fine, I’m sure. Even if he can’t get out of his carriage by day.”
Flames blew into the left hand as it spoke.
“The village is on the other side of this,” the left hand continued. “If we don’t hurry up and go, the fire will spread here, too. There’s no telling when the wind might change.”
A mass of flame shot up by D’s side.
“Oh, looks like there’s a nest of firebugs or something down there. One false step onto that baby and that’ll be the end of the story.”
The voice was moving forward. Stepping right through the flames, D broke into a run. The ground was spitting up fire, and the air shimmered in places from the heat. A mass of flames went up. The hem of the Hunter’s coat flashed out, and the flames dispersed feebly in all directions.
“Wow! I thought without a horse you’d be in a bad way, but it doesn’t look like it makes any difference at all on flat ground. You’re something else!” the hoarse voice remarked.
As D ran, he turned and looked back. There were footsteps following him. And more than just one set—the quaking of the earth testified to that.
A terrific force struck the ground, echoing like a tremor.
D’s eyes caught a shadowy group rolling forward like a fog beyond the flames. It was spearheaded by a massive swarm of giant black caterpillars covered by needlelike bristles. Behind them was a pack of ten-foot-long plains rats, followed in turn by three-headed boars and burrowing pythons—and this mob of plains-dwelling creatures stretched as far as the horizon in a wild stampede. Fearing fire, they raced off in search of someplace safe, and if caught in their path, even a fire dragon would be crushed by the hoard. One giant black caterpillar already engulfed by the flames couldn’t help but slow down, but in a heartbeat it was caught up in the stampede and crushed underfoot before it even had time to let out a scream.
It was only another three hundred feet to D. Even he didn’t possess the speed necessary to outrun them. There was only one thing to do.
“You’ve got no choice but to get up on their backs,” said his left hand.
Two hundred feet.
A hundred fifty.
However, when they had closed to within a hundred feet, the strangest thing occurred. Perhaps it was something they saw, perhaps something they sensed, but the caterpillars in the foremost rank tried to halt en masse. Sparks flew madly, but of course they couldn’t stop the stampede. The force of those behind them surging forward promptly crushed those in the vanguard, and those responsible then suddenly tumbled forward.
D leapt backward. From midair he saw it.
Between himself and the rampaging beasts, the earth had split open in a straight line. The sight of the creatures falling one after another into that black abyss resembled nothing so much as the dead being swallowed by hell. The chasm continued to grow. It even stretched to where D would land.
“This is incredible!” the left hand exclaimed with misplaced admiration as D drifted, right toward the black and bottomless abyss.
THE DESTROYER AND THE PRINCESS FAIR
CHAPTER 2
-
I
-
It was just then that a black streak of whip came seemingly out of nowhere. Winding tightly around D’s waist with a crisp snap, the whip carried him from the edge of the abyss out onto the burning land. As he came back to earth, D didn’t stand, but rather rolled with a shower of sparks. The earth was still breaking open.
And from the abyss there loomed a vivid wall of pink. Looking wet as a heat shimmer in this world of flames, it rose up to a height of over thirty feet, then fell to the ground, crushing grass and fire beneath it. D was already sixty feet ahead of it. And while it was a flat, thick slab of meaty tongue, it nevertheless began to pursue D in inchworm fashion, only at a daunting speed. In no time it closed the distance to thirty feet.
Just as the great wave of flesh was about to come crashing down, there was a flash of white light. Bright blood billowed out like a snowstorm.
Without a backward glance at the crazed spasms of the ten feet of tongue he’d carved open, D dashed on. Behind him, another wave was closing. Another beefy tongue had lolled from the pit.
The tongues seemed to be those of the earth itself. Now there were three of them after D—seizing some sort of small animal, one of them swiftly dragged it back into the abyss.
One above him and the other below, the pair of undulating waves of flesh were once again ready to consume D when a band of light mowed through them. The fleshy tongues that even D’s blade hadn’t been able to sever were easily sliced into four pieces, and ignoring the death throes of the tips flopping around on the ground, the main portions were drawn back into the abyss.
The shadowy form of a carriage appeared in front of D. Beside it stood the baron, but once he’d seen D, the Nobleman quickly opened the door and climbed into the vehicle.
“Looks like he was waiting for you. So, was that flash of light just now his too? For a full-blooded Noble, he sure holds up well in the sunlight,” a hoarse voice remarked.
Without replying, D raced over to the carriage and swiftly climbed into the driver’s seat. The second he took up the reins, the whole world tilted violently. Fifteen feet to the right of them, another maw had opened in the earth. The vehicle’s wheels tore into the ground and the carriage raced forward. The crevice was right behind it, instantly swallowing the same ground the vehicle had just covered.
“Wha—what the hell is all this?!” the Hunter’s left hand bellowed.
“An earthwyrm,” D replied. Apparently his interest had been piqued as well.
The left hand muttered pensively, “An earthwyrm? Then there’s nothing we can do.”
Inhabiting regions more than fifteen hundred feet below the planet’s surface and reaching lengths of up to thirty miles, these enormous creatures had been considered mere legend until a scant four thousand years earlier. When certain circumstances forced the Nobility to construct a subterranean city, a team of their scientists came into contact with an earthwyrm in a spot ten thousand feet under the northern Frontier, and as soon as they struck part of its enormous body, they were simultaneously writing new pages in the histories of both biology and biological warfare. The titanic earthwormlike creatures dubbed “earthwyrms” were endowed with what was an ideal system for an organism to remain alive—they drew the very soil into their bodies and converted it to energy. In a manner of speaking, they were like holy men who were said to live off the dew.
Already ageless and undying and hindered only by their inability to operate by daylight, the Nobility harnessed the creatures’ energy, creating soldiers that were not only as immortal as their creators, but that could also continue to fight outside any time restrictions. The Greater Nobility who controlled the Frontier and the polar regions worked on making their own personal armies of the creatures without notifying the central division, while others among them were more overt about raising the flag of rebellion. After three centuries of fighting, the central executives who’d somehow managed to kill or contain the Greater Nobility prohibited for all time the production of immortal soldiers and sealed all information about their life-sustaining processes in the core of a superdense star far out in the Milky Way. In order to keep their secrets completely safe, the rest of these earthwyrms would need to be exterminated, but where that was physically impossible, a special concrete material they couldn’t penetrate was poured from the surface of the earth almost all the way down to the magma in regions where they were suspected of dwelling. The one that’d been prodded into activity by the waves of heat now scorching the surface world had either broken out of whatever had sealed it away, or else it had managed to remain free from the very beginni
ng.
This was just one? The body of each individual earthwyrm had innumerable energy intakes—in other words, mouths and tongues. If they moved their body, they could destroy everything on the surface and send it all falling into the depths of the earth. They were like a kind of living Armageddon.
“We’re not gonna make it. We’ll be swallowed!”
As if in response to the cry from his left hand, D reached out with his right and grabbed the wooden lever next to the brake—something that hadn’t been there until two days earlier. From a compartment on the underside of the carriage a pair of black globes were released, disappearing into the crevice that pursued the vehicle.
How far underground was his foe? A thousand feet, by D’s estimation.
It was three seconds later that a new rumble traveled up through the spinning carriage wheels. A dull explosion could be heard off in the distance.
“It’s stopped! Looks like that did the trick.”
As he listened to the voice from his left hand, the Hunter’s ultrakeen senses did indeed tell him the crevasse was no longer pursuing them, but his exquisite face was emotionless as he stared straight ahead, as if everything had gone according to plan.
Two days earlier, the group had encountered a traveling blacksmith in the middle of a forest. A traveler could ask for no stauncher ally. The last remnants of a band of craftsmen trained in secret techniques passed down from antiquity, they could use the very latest electronics technology that puzzled even the Nobility. Serving travelers and villages on the Frontier, they could upgrade their customers’ tools and weapons, doing conversions to the hardware or even crafting new items on the spot when necessary.
D had requested that the blacksmith augment the carriage’s armaments within half a day’s time. But there was more to the vehicles of the Nobility than mere elegance. Their sleek bodies were layered with panels that could disrupt three-dimensional radar and ultrasound systems, and many of the intricate carvings concealed equipment that would unleash laser beams or ultracompact missiles, spearheads or iron arrows. Once the doors were closed, the entire carriage was transformed into a fortress sealed tight. And that was merely the standard equipment. The higher a Noble’s rank, the more enemies they had, and their vehicles would be adorned with the staggering array of armaments and defensive equipment dreamt up by their personal teams of scientists.
In the entire human world, the only ones with the technical skill to match the Nobility and even scorn those accomplishments were the tribe of traveling smiths. The vibrating body that had deflected the enemy’s insectoid incendiary missiles and the weapons compartment on the underside of the carriage were both the traveling smith’s handiwork. The work had been done by a man who seemed to barely be in his twenties.
After taking his payment, he’d rapped on the body of the vehicle, saying, “Now she’s a match for your average Noble’s tank or even a pillbox. Part of that’s my skill, but of course, she was pretty solid to start. Well, the folks riding inside will be able to tell when they see it, I wager.”
Traveling blacksmiths didn’t discriminate in their trade. Humans and Nobility were treated equally, and because of that, they were distrusted and despised by a portion of mankind—a situation not unlike that of someone else there.
Finally, he gave D a clap on the shoulder and said, “Looks like someone worked on it once before I did. That’s okay—I kicked the offensive and defensive capabilities of that up a notch, too. My treat. Godspeed to you.”
“You have our thanks.”
The young man’s eyes went wide, and he said, “That’s not what I’d expect to hear from you, but don’t mention it.”
D had watched in silence as the steam-driven truck raced off into the distance.
-
It was about twenty minutes later that the wildfire reached its denouement. An automated plane dispatched from parts unknown had scattered vast amounts of firefighting chemicals.
“That’d be the Nobility’s fire-prevention systems, I guess,” the Hunter’s left hand muttered.
Even with all the Nobility’s scientific skill, it was impossible to anticipate every disaster or fluctuation of nature. Due to this, in regions where an area of a certain size was recognized as having artistic or scientific merit, a fully automated firefighting system was sure to be installed, and this was perhaps the most positive factor in the Nobility’s legacy. The people needn’t ever be deprived of the beauty of lakes that reflected the setting sun, windswept prairies, and life-giving forests that rang with endless birdsong. But those who’d managed to create that system were fading with the setting sun, while those who appreciated that accomplishment the most were the same ones who’d destroyed its creators. The firefighting plane just now must’ve been driven by some remnant of the software for such a system.
“We seem to have made it through,” the baron’s voice remarked.
“Where’s Miska’s carriage?” D asked.
“There’s a little river and a linden tree about a dozen miles from here. That’s where she is.”
However, when they arrived less than ten minutes later, the linden tree cast a supple reflection on the glittering water of the river, but Miska’s carriage was nowhere to be seen.
“Do you think someone spirited her away?” the baron inquired as D stared off at the far edge of the plain, as if to suggest that was the source of those responsible for the abductions.
“Your father?” the Hunter inquired.
“Probably,” the Nobleman replied, and by that he included those working for Lord Vlad.
“If they headed straight into Krauhausen—” D muttered before falling silent.
“—Miska is in danger,” the baron continued. “All will be well so long as they don’t wake the Destroyer that slumbers within her. But if she were to be subjected to some cruel torture, the Destroyer might awaken to protect its host.”
“What do you think they’ll do with the girls?” the Hunter asked in a voice like ice.
And for the first time, the baron may have noticed the fundamental difference between D and himself.
“They won’t kill them right away,” he replied after a short pause. “I know how he is. He’s certain to use them to try to destroy us. But even I’m not sure exactly what form that will take.”
With gravity to his tone, he called out, “D, I don’t suppose I could get you to extend our arrangement until the three of them have been rescued?”
“No,” he replied frostily. For the gorgeous Vampire Hunter, they were no more than an unnecessary factor that had come up while he was performing his duty. As was Hugh, who was still among the missing.
“I thought you’d say that.”
Unable to think of anything else to add, the baron let his voice peter out.
A short while later, he remarked, “Come to think of it, the two girls would’ve been better off riding in my carriage. Why did you have them in with Miska?”
-
II
-
It was Zanus and Sai Fung that had made off with Miska’s carriage. While fleeing the danger zone and heading back toward Krauhausen, their curiosity ultimately got the better of them, and they were watching the wildfire when Miska’s carriage came along. Needless to say, the traveling blacksmith had also worked his magic on the lady’s vehicle. Had the men tried to test just how firm its defenses were, they wouldn’t have come away unscathed. But they were able to easily make off with it after hearing a voice from within the stationary carriage say, “You there—well, if it isn’t Sai Fung!”
Sitting cross-legged on the end of the steam engine, the man almost fell off from sheer surprise.
“That voice—Lady Miska?”
“Indeed, it is I, Miska. How have you been?”
“Er, as you can see, I’m fit as a fiddle,” he replied with a hasty thump to his chest.
Exiting the vehicle, Zanus looked up at him suspiciously and asked, “An acquaintance of yours?”
“Yeah. As yo
u know, I used to be a mercenary, and before that I was actually a bodyguard in this place called Winslow. This is the granddaughter of the lord of that region, who took care of me back then. Imagine meeting out here like this!”
“I was aware that you’d relocated to this area. So, are you now a retainer to the lord of Krauhausen?”
“No, nothing of the sort,” Sai Fung replied, because he had an inkling of how Miska’s journey here had gone.
“Splendid. And just what are you doing out here?”
“Well, at present, my job is keeping an eye on the plains. Oh, this is my partner Zanus.”
“And do you swear you have no allegiance to the local lord?”
“On my oath.”
“Very well. Then, could you kindly tell me how to get to Fisher Lagoon’s establishment?”
“What?!” Sai Fung exclaimed, his eyes going wide.
Zanus followed suit.
“Lady Miska, that place is actually—well, are you certain you’re not somehow mistaken?”
“No, that’s the place. Grandfather left word that something of great importance to me had been entrusted to the owner of said establishment.”
“Your grandfather—excuse me, I mean the good duke—is he well?”
“He died. Betrayed by the villagers. And that’s what brings me to this region.”
“I see. But if you’re headed to Fisher Lagoon’s, Lady Miska, have you nowhere else to go?”
“No,” she replied flatly, her tone colored by an anxiety that was like a draft under the door.
“In that case, why don’t you come and visit the home of one of my acquaintances? Needless to say, he’s not a Noble, but someone extremely close in position to the Nobility.”
“And who is this person?”
“Er, a scientist by the name of Dr. Brosmen. He lives in a splendid mansion. Of course, it’s still the home of a lowly human, but if you can stomach that, it should prove rather pleasant.”
Vampire Hunter D: Pale Fallen Angel Parts Three and Four Page 3