“Before we do this . . .” the general began, dropping the tip of his sword as he assumed a low position. His tone was strangely composed. “The way you got in here just now tells me something—it’s actually quite a surprise, but it doesn’t bother me that much. After the first time I met you, I think I must’ve realized it. However, there’s something I don’t understand. Why did the Sacred Ancestor order us to destroy you?”
A breathtakingly beautiful darkness spread over Gaskell’s head—a darkness known as the man in black.
Gaskell barely managed to parry the silvery glint that came down from that darkness. The clang of steel meeting steel seemed to become a numbness that raced through every part of him. His head grew fuzzy.
Incredible! He really must be the Sacred Ancestor’s own—
Without warning, the general was thrown off balance when D pulled away the sword that was locked against his. As the general staggered, the Hunter’s blade streaked toward his waist. However, his prodigious form rose above the sword like some demonic bird, and he landed behind D. The great sword sped toward the Hunter’s back in a slash aimed to cut him from the right side of his neck to the left armpit, but the blade was knocked back by a terrific impact accompanied by a shower of sparks. Without even turning, D had thrust his sword back over his shoulder to parry the blow.
Overcome for a moment by anger, the general brought his great sword back for a thrust instead. “Hyaaaah!” the general yelled as he made a lethal thrust that could pierce iron—and it did a perfect job of running D right through the neck. The instant Gaskell realized what he’d seen was only an afterimage left in empty space, the thrust D made with his own blade while falling backward jabbed cleanly into the left side of the great general’s chest.
Though he trembled and was unable to speak, Gaskell made a giant leap away. Continuing on for a second bound, then a third, when he’d jumped over to a door to a corridor into his castle, he shouted, “Sorry, D. My heart’s on the right side!”
Clots of blood spilled from his mouth.
Before D could kick off the ground again, the general shouldered his way through the passageway. The steel door closed, and a split second later a needle of rough wood bounced off its surface.
D didn’t go after him. Turning around, he headed for the rear courtyard. There he should find Lord Rocambole and one of the two women.
—
III
—
With the unconscious Lady Ann over one shoulder, Lord Rocambole returned to the castle. The great general had told him where to find the other woman—Rosaria. Traversing a labyrinth of stairways and corridors, he finally came to a steel door, behind which Rosaria lay on a plush crimson bed. Brushing the hair from her face to compare it to Lady Ann’s, Lord Rocambole donned a vicious grin. The vermilion lips unique to the Nobility gave a disturbing glimpse of white fangs.
“I see. Each is quite a beauty. At any rate, it would be a shame to take this girl’s life just now. Perhaps I should wait for General Gaskell.”
And saying this, the lord threw the girl down roughly, braced his sword against the floor, and leaned back against its hilt. His eyes shut—then opened again.
“An incredible presence is approaching,” he murmured to no one in particular. “It’s not Gaskell. Which would only leave . . . D. If he’s going to be here soon, I shall have to arrange something to throw him off his game.”
His eyes rested on Lady Ann, then shifted to Rosaria on the bed. Suddenly, he crinkled his brow.
“This woman . . .”
The way he said the words, they seemed to spill from someone else. Yet seemingly unable to be sure of something that filled his heart, his expression grew a bit more suspicious.
“Might you aid me in my battle against D?” he said, a devilish light in his eyes.
—
D stopped in the middle of the staircase. He sensed something was wrong. While he was certainly heading down, all five of his senses told him he hadn’t advanced a single step.
“You’ve fallen into a maze,” D’s left hand informed him in a tone brimming with curiosity. “If you’re not attuned to Gaskell’s castle, you could keep going around and around on these stairs forever. Well, earth and fire will be too much trouble. What say we give it a try with just water and wind?”
It was unclear whether it was D or the source of that voice who put the Hunter’s left hand out before him. A disturbing little face had surfaced in his palm. And it pursed its tiny, wrinkled lips.
Sticking out his right hand, D ran his left forefinger across its wrist. Although his fingernail didn’t seem particularly long, the flesh split open and fresh blood dripped out. All of it fell into the left hand he’d positioned below—to be swallowed by that tiny maw. Continuing this for about three seconds, D then placed his left palm against the wound. There was a sucking sound, and the bleeding stopped.
Taking his left hand away, D raised it high above his head. From the vicinity of the palm there was a faint hiss of wind. In less than two seconds’ time, it became the howling madness of a tempest.
The tiny mouth was sucking in air. And in the depths of that maw, a pale blue flame was rising.
D’s eyes gave off blood light. Black hair rose, one strand banging against another like needles. A pair of trenchant fangs grew out of his gnashing teeth. The blood that flowed in his veins had been made manifest—D had turned into a true vampire.
“You know what you have to do, right?” the hoarse voice inquired.
There was no reply. All that escaped D’s lips was a yell.
—
In an underground chamber, Lord Rocambole suddenly perked up his ears.
“Such a vicious cry. Such a powerful cry. Such a beautiful cry. And such a sad cry.”
At his feet, Lady Ann said, “I know. I can hear it. It’s a cry from my love. Which means he must be close.” Perhaps the girl had wakened on hearing D’s yell.
After speaking, Lady Ann stared intently at Lord Rocambole’s face and said, “It can’t be . . .”
There she broke off.
“Are you . . . crying?”
—
“Okay.”
When the hoarse voice said this, D’s cry halted. Like a gorgeous black statue on the brink of collapse, he swayed but did not fall. His trembling right hand reached over his shoulder for his longsword. Drawing the blade, D made a crude jab into the stairs beneath his feet. The stairway below him melted away like a swirling ammonite. D turned around—not a trace of the stairs remained behind him, either. The walls to either side had vanished, leaving him floating in the darkness on that one remaining step. A heartbeat later, he took to the air. There was no hesitation whatsoever. His coat spread like the wings of a mystic bird challenging a black abyss.
—
His body told him that zero time elapsed before the soles of his boots were back on solid ground.
D stood in a subterranean corridor. To his rear was the staircase.
How long had it been since he’d finished coming down those stairs?
A long cut from a sword remained clearly on the floor at his feet. To the right lay a dead end. D started down the corridor in the opposite direction. An iron door appeared. When he pushed against it, it creaked open.
There was no need to examine the situation. Rosaria lay on a crimson bed, and beside her an armored knight stood, as vigilant as a temple guardian. At his feet was Lady Ann, propping herself up with one arm.
“So glad you could come, D,” Lord Rocambole said softly in greeting. There was something calm about his tone.
“You can’t win like this,” D said.
A weird and invisible aura gushed from every inch of the Hunter and assailed Rocambole. Rosaria shook from head to toe, and Lady Ann let out a little groan as she wrapped her arms around herself.
“I’ll be damned,” D’s left hand moaned. For the instant the Hunter’s unearthly aura had touched Rocambole, it’d disappeared completely. “I guess that’s wha
t you get with Gaskell’s ultimate weapon. He’s a real danger to you.”
Given the distance between the two men, these whispered remarks from his hand shouldn’t have traveled to the other’s ears.
“That’s right,” Lord Rocambole said with a nod. “I’ve taken on the life force of three warriors. Even at that, I’m still only equal to you. But now, I shall claim another life. D, if you were me, which would you choose?”
His cape was closed in front of his chest, but a hand in black slipped out of it. In it, Rocambole held a longsword. The tip of it touched Lady Ann’s left breast.
“Would it be this girl? Or—”
The blade moved darkly, pressing into the chest of Rosaria.
“—this woman? To tell the truth, I’ve already decided. Gaskell was brought back to life along with seven compatriots to help slay you—and I choose this girl, the last of them!”
Once again his blade jabbed at the swell of Lady Ann’s bosom. Perhaps the reason Lady Ann didn’t even look scared when he did so was because she was under the spell of Rocambole and the three lives he’d already claimed.
“Ordinarily, I would’ve taken this girl’s life a long time ago. Do you know why I’ve waited, D?” Rocambole asked, and there was a strange emotion to his query. Under most circumstances, it would’ve been natural for his tone to be triumphant and mocking. Yet his question was perfectly serious.
D didn’t answer.
Lord Rocambole continued, “I heard your voice earlier. It was beyond a doubt the voice of a Noble. It wasn’t even that of a dhampir. An honest-to-goodness, full-blooded Noble—D, who are you? If your Noble blood is that strong, why are you out to get us? And another thing, D. Why have we each been given a new life to slay you now?”
His voice rang so mournfully that it nearly became a component of the darkness. By Providence, the person he put this query to would have to respond.
D’s lips parted, allowing a voice like steel to escape. “I wouldn’t call it a new life.”
“What?”
“It may be a new destruction. Perhaps a permanent destruction.”
Rocambole fell silent. Beneath his visor, there was a definite turbulence in his eyes. In the mere seconds it took for it to pass, he came to his conclusion.
“A new and permanent destruction. Could it be that we were—”
So despairing even his surprise had paled, Rocambole’s tone made Lady Ann suddenly look up at him.
—
As he gazed up, his eyes met an enormous, towering stone statue. You might say it dominated the heavens, or that it was glowering down at the earth. Standing at its feet like a wrathful deity, the great General Gaskell had a strange glimmer in his eyes as he looked up at the distant stony visage.
“The new life you’ve given me, Sacred Ancestor, seems likely to meet the unhappiest of ends.”
From this statement, it was clear the statue depicted the Sacred Ancestor. Why would the great General Gaskell—a man who’d opposed him and proved the worst traitor in history—have a statue of the Sacred Ancestor in his own castle?
One look at the statue made the reason clear. The dignity that radiated from the ordinary stone figure overwhelmed all who beheld it, searing their minds with an unmistakable sense of terror. Having fought him once, it wasn’t surprising that General Gaskell kept the statue of his sworn foe in a room in his castle known only to himself.
“Six of the original seven have been slain, and only Rocambole and the girl remain,” Gaskell continued. There was something defiant about his tone, but a hint of sadness crept into it. “Once he’s taken the girl’s life, chances are very good that he shall triumph. That was the mission you gave us. It was carved into the stone tablet I have no recollection of placing in the hands of this statue I crafted of you. And along with that order were the names of seven assassins. The last name alone was so weathered I couldn’t make it out, but it must’ve been the daughter of the Duke of Xenon—”
The statue of the Sacred Ancestor still held a stone tablet. On it were carved seven names that were now worn into illegibility.
“All I had to do was assemble the seven of them. Their brains, too, had been impressed with the order to slay D, like a brand that wouldn’t fade for all eternity. However, six of them have been destroyed, and I myself have been grievously injured. Surely it wouldn’t have been impossible for someone with the Sacred Ancestor’s power to give them strength surpassing D’s. After five were slain, I noticed the truth, and at the same time I was captivated by a hair-raising conjecture. Sacred Ancestor! Could it be that’s what was intended for us? No, it couldn’t be—yet it seems to be the case. Not even the Sacred Ancestor would do something like that . . . We were merely assembled to slay D. If not, there’s no point in even trying to destroy him.”
From Gaskell’s hip, a streak of black lightning ran in reverse. Gaskell waved the sword he’d drawn at the stone statue as if threatening it.
“Such must be the case, O Sacred Ancestor. State it plainly. Tell me we were resurrected to slay D, not reborn to be slain by him. No, I shall prove as much soon enough—once Rocambole has carved out D’s heart and lopped off his head. The man has gained three lives. Not even D is a match for him. By now, he’ll have taken the last—absorbed a fourth life—and become a fearsome, invincible swordsman.”
At some point, his tone had become desperate. Was this the voice of one of the generals feared as the most ferocious in history?
He kept his silence for a moment before crying, “Sacred Ancestor!” His words were nearly a prayer.
Above him, he sensed a movement. Looking up, Gaskell gasped.
The statue’s hand came down, its worn fingers still tightly grasping the stone slate. As if to say, Read it.
SWORD OF DEVASTATION
CHAPTER 7
—
I
—
It was said that in regions where one of the Nobility’s castles remained, whether there were still Nobles in it or not, the darkness was that much deeper. On one of their few festival days, the dancing people would be terrified to see lights burning in a castle’s windows, telling them their revelry was at an end—they inspired such fear. One theory was that on the nights when Greater Nobles were troubled, the darkness would split itself open, sink teeth into itself, and let flow an even denser darkness as its blood. If so, the darkness that surrounded Castle Gaskell this night was unbelievably thick.
A certain notion had turned a fearsome Noble into a tortured ghost. He’d already asked himself this question: Why am I here?
“D!” he called out to his foe. “D, if you know, please tell me. Were we brought back to life not to slay you, but rather to be slain by you?”
The air suddenly froze solid. D didn’t answer. However, the whole world knew. Rocambole knew. So did Lady Ann. Even the still-slumbering Rosaria knew the reply.
That’s it exactly.
“It’s just as I thought, then,” Rocambole said with a nod. “Earlier, while I was waiting for you, it suddenly came to me. What did all of us who were called back from the long sleep of death have in common? Our skill in combat? No, there were others who were our equals. It seemed the seven of us were completely separate, without any connection—except where you were concerned, that is. And that made me think. Gaskell brought us back, but he was revived and bidden to call us together by the Sacred Ancestor. What was similar about our relationship to the Sacred Ancestor? That required no thought at all. In life, each and every one of us rebelled against him. And it goes without saying that General Gaskell was the very worst in that respect. He, too, was destined for destruction but was brought back to life. So far, my theory holds water, D.”
Rocambole’s eyes were crazed with a horrible despair. He bent backward and laughed, and his howls were so fiendish that Lady Ann covered her ears in spite of herself.
“Living to be destroyed? Okay, so be it. If that’s the will of the Sacred Ancestor, any resistance is useless. But, useless or not,
resistance is resistance. And the one who offers it, even if he’s no better than a bug, must make his will known. D, I may be destroyed, but I won’t let you leave here alive. Or the girl you came here to save.”
Lord Rocambole’s sword rose and pointed to Rosaria, still lying on the bed.
“Wait!” Lady Ann shouted, and, seeing that she hadn’t stayed Rocambole’s hand, she continued, “That woman—by all means, allow me to kill her.”
“Oh, what’s this?” D’s left hand murmured, but apparently no one noticed; nor did the group seem to show any surprise at Lady Ann’s sudden request. The girl had a blind love of D—and in light of this, her reaction was considered perfectly natural.
“D—are you determined to save this woman at any cost?” the girl cried out, waving one arm in Rosaria’s direction after desperately struggling to her feet. “By my oath, that woman doesn’t love you in the least. In all the world, no one loves you but I. And yet you would forsake me and save her, so I’m going to finish her here and now. D, I don’t ask you to say that you care for me. However, you could’ve at least chosen me over her. Now you can stand there and watch as I kill her.”
Lady Ann’s cries were dripping with malice and grief. Her sweet little hand rose to her lips, caught a red rose, and came away again.
“Put this through her chest—”
Ah, what would happen if one of the same lethal blooms that had brought Grand Duke Mehmet, Dr. Gretchen, and the Dark One, Major General Gillis, all to the brink of death were to be stuck into an ordinary human?
“—and within two seconds, she’ll be a mummy. Watch this, Lord Rocambole.”
The girl raised the hand that held the rose she’d disgorged and prepared to hurl it toward the bed. A white needle pierced the flower, only stopping when it sank into the stone wall. A second after it was pierced, the rose fell to pieces, with Lady Ann staring down absentmindedly at the two petals resting in her hand.
“Oh, you truly aren’t the sort of man to be moved by a woman’s feelings,” she said, eyes like black gemstones filling with tears. “In that case, I shall have to be as insistent about taking this woman’s life as you are about saving it.”
Vampire Hunter D: Dark Road Part Three Page 12