Mysterious Journey to the North Sea, Part 2

by Hideyuki Kikuchi

  The waves shattered into pieces, and the woman disappeared into the sea headfirst.

  D alone ventured to the shore. Gazing straight ahead, he quickly walked in up to his knees. There was a splash of water somewhere, and then there was no other sound to challenge the rumble of the surf.

  Suddenly D felt a warmth on his cheeks. The air no longer had the same snap. The weather controller had ordered summer to call on the North Sea, and most likely it had also opened the door for strange visitors.

  Behind the Hunter, cries of delight rose from the villagers.

  SUMMER FESTIVAL

  CHAPTER 3

  .

  I

  .

  Because it always arrived so abruptly, even those who eagerly awaited the summer found it hard to believe that it was actually there. As they listened to children who couldn’t wait a moment longer shoving open doors and running outside, the people let the zephyr blow over them, warming them body and soul. At last, they were stepping into the light. But they were ever so cautious, as if it were all no more than a momentary dream they’d awake from the second they tried to step out into it.

  However, if they listened closely enough, a melody that rang to the high heavens was coming from the forest, while the aroma of summer grasses and the smell of candy and wine wafted through the air. And finally they knew this season was more than just a dream and let its name rise to their lips. Summer. Only a week of it, but summer nonetheless. The days of feasting and merrymaking were about to begin.

  .

  It was that morning that the sheriff called on D—although it was actually Su-In he wanted.

  “The lady of the house is supposed to be on the crime-prevention team for the festival,” said the lawman. “But since Su-In’s not here, there’s not much else we can do. We’ve got no one else to substitute for her, either. Since you’re in her employ, you think you could stand in for her?”

  D agreed. Su-In had explained the situation to him—she’d even asked him to go if he could.

  At nine o’clock Morning they arrived at the clearing on the edge of town. This was the heart of summertime. Magicians and acrobats were just some of the traveling performers who mingled with the crowd. Mobs of children formed around an assortment of vendors, and young men and women took part in jubilant line dances. But as D walked through the area, all commotion and cries ceased, and the feverish gaze of all crept over the Hunter. No cheers would ever go up at the sight of this young man. Everyone had the wind knocked out of them.

  “Come now—step right up!” a lively voice called from the center of a square surrounded by trees on all sides. Wearing a silk hat and a morning coat over silver tights, it was clear at a glance the man was a traveling master of swordplay. A slender, straight blade dangled from his belt.

  While warriors made a living renting out their swords and even their lives, this kind of performer only took on amateurs. In terms of ability, they were only about half as good as warriors, engaging in an entertaining pastime with little or no chance of physical harm.

  But this man’s weapon wasn’t the sword on his hip. Removing his silk hat with a fluid motion, he thrust one hand into it. When it came out again, he held a pair of throwing knives between each finger, for a total of eight blades. Each was eight inches long including the hilt and only three-quarters of an inch wide. Both edges were dull, and the tips were blunted.

  “Four in each hand, eight in all,” the performer declared. “But rest assured, the tips and blades have been rendered harmless. Even if they should hit, they’ll do no more than simply sting a bit. And anyone who can block all eight of my throws, or even dodge them, is guaranteed to receive a shiny gold Pegasus coin!”

  That last statement proved highly effective, sending a stir through even the women and children who’d been listening spellbound. The Pegasus coin was the highest denomination in either the northern or southern Frontier. In a village like this, it would be enough for a family of five to live off of for six months.

  Someone immediately called out in a breathless voice, “I’ll do it!” Not only was the tone eager, but it brimmed with confidence, too.

  There was a burst of applause. Like so many others, D turned to look at the speaker, although there were actually more women regarding the young Hunter than there were people looking at anyone else.

  A young man of twenty-one or twenty-two stood across from the swordmaster—or rather, the knife thrower. Judging from the bulging muscles left exposed by his shorts and short-sleeved shirt and the way he carried himself, he seemed to have some experience with the fighting arts.

  “Fine. Put your ten demis in the box right there then. I’ll get you set up with a weapon. What do you favor?” the knife thrower asked, taking a half step backward and indicating the items behind him. A leather cylinder there contained everything from longswords, spears, and javelins to brass knuckles and gaff hooks. It looked like the whole lot must’ve weighed at least fifty pounds. Though all of the weapons were polished, the hilts were damaged and the blades were nicked, making it quite clear each had seen a great deal of use.

  Dropping his copper coin into the designated box, the young man chose a javelin. The way his hands tightened around it like a pro and his feet settled into an easy stance were something to see.

  “All set, are we?” the knife thrower asked.

  “You bet!” the young man responded.

  “Very well, then.”

  Holding his right arm across his chest, the performer made a gentle bow, and as soon as he straightened up again, a flash of silver streaked right to the young man’s chest.

  “Oh!” the crowd gasped, and at the very same time, there was a mellifluous ching! as the throwing knife careened off in the sunlight to return to the palm of the thrower’s right hand.

  “Well done!” the man in the silk hat cried out, his praise making the young man throw back his shoulders with self-importance. “Let’s go on.”

  “You got it!”

  Once again the silvery flash flew and was knocked away with the same sound. And again, the knife landed back in its owner’s hand.

  “Perfect! Let’s continue.”

  “Sure thing.”

  The third time went exactly the same. Seeing how the deflected blade went back to the knife thrower’s hand in exactly the same way every time, the spectators had stopped clapping. Everyone there had realized it had nothing to do with the young man’s ability, but was entirely the knife thrower’s doing. Like a puppet and its master.

  “Throw it with everything you’ve got,” the young man finally cried. He’d realized what was going on, too. And he didn’t care to play the buffoon any longer.

  “I’m sorry you feel that way,” the knife thrower said with a grin. “I’m already doing my very best. But have it your way. I shall see what I can do to accommodate you.”

  “Great!” the young man replied. Gritting his teeth, he braced himself.

  A flash of silver whirred at his throat. At the dull thud, the young man reeled backward, and three throwing knives fell from his throat to the ground.

  Several seconds actually passed before a murmur of surprise rustled through the onlookers. The knives had literally flown faster than the eye could follow. While no one could actually see the knife itself, they’d all thought but a single blade had been thrown. Seeing how several people rushed forward and helped the young man up off his back, it didn’t look like he was wounded, though he seemed to have been dealt quite a hard blow.

  “Okay, who’s next?” the knife thrower asked, but there were no takers.

  Smiling wryly with the realization that he’d overdone it, he looked around with his elongated face, and then stopped cold on a new target. Directly ahead of him stood D.

  “My goodness! Pardon me for saying so, sir, but you seem quite out of place in a village like this. Moreover, on a—”

  The knife thrower’s voice petered out. His face went pale. If nothing else, he could at least discern how powe
rful the man who stood before him was.

  “I seem to have used an uncharacteristic bit of power that last time,” the knife thrower continued. “It’ll be quite some time before I’ll have another contender. If you’d like to help me while away the time, you’re welcome to try your hand free of charge.”

  No one in the crowd moved. There were no shouts, no applause. Everyone realized that if the handsome young man agreed to participate, this would be more than just a simple diversion to pass the time.

  While his thoughts remained a mystery, D stepped forward. Of course, the knife thrower’s invitation was no challenge to battle. And this young man wasn’t the kind to take part in mere games. Yet he still advanced.

  “I’m obliged to you for consenting so readily to assist me,” the knife thrower said with a bow. “I suppose you’ll be using your own weapon. If you manage to deflect my knives, I’ll give you the gold coin. Very well, then.”

  They were fifteen feet apart. For someone as skilled as the knife thrower, that was essentially no distance at all.

  “Have at you!”

  D stood there without even drawing his blade. The scene seemed to be taking place in an entirely different season from their all-too-brief summer.

  The single flash of silver scorching through the air was in fact four blades. But the spectators only realized that when a prismatic slash flowed out from the man in black’s shoulder in what could only be described as an effortless sweep, and knocked them all to the ground.

  Before anyone could even gasp with surprise, D dashed forward. As the pale knife thrower backed away, the remaining four blades in his left hand raced out. People saw a cross-shaped flash of light. The horizontal swipe batted away the throwing knives, while the vertical stroke caught the man as he tried to jump back, splitting him in half from his silk hat down to his jaw.

  But the man who’d been instantly killed didn’t fall to the ground. Something else fell instead. A doll in a silk hat and morning coat.

  Shadowy figures leapt at D from all sides—the cook who’d been roasting chickens, the candy vendor, men who’d been playing chess by the sidewalk. And while their movements were human enough, their course of action was anything but.

  The blades they brought down at the Hunter all met thin air. Before the men could launch a second attack, their torsos were bisected, turning them into tiny dolls that fell on the grass.

  The tip of D’s blade dipped ever so slightly—the blades of grass were being crushed to the ground. Only one person D knew had the power to control the gravity in a given area.

  “So, we meet again, D!” Shin said, his voice rising with scornful laughter from somewhere in the area. “I’ll have you know the sheriff who called on you was one of my puppets, too. But this time I’m not alone. I take it you’re familiar with Egbert and his ‘kingdom.’”

  The tip of D’s sword rose—then fell again. But no matter how much a dhampir’s strength surpassed that of an ordinary man, this was bound to happen when the Hunter was subjected to five times the ordinary force of gravity. One on one, he’d beaten all the warriors’ tricks. But going up against them in tandem would be another matter.

  “Egbert’s kingdom covers this whole section of the woods. Why, I suppose it’s nearly a mile across. And everything in it is under his command. What’s more, it’s populated entirely by my puppets. Let’s see you try and get out of this.” Shin stopped there, but after a moment’s pause he continued, saying, “But it seems you were wise to my puppets even before you tangled with the knife thrower. Care to explain why that was?”

  D barely managed to hold his sword horizontally. But in a voice that didn’t betray an iota of strain, he said, “I suppose I have Glen to thank for that.”

  On the ferry on the way over, Glen had taken one of Shin’s arms. But if that wound had proved the puppet master’s downfall, surely only this young man would’ve been up to the task of noticing it.

  The Hunter sensed something surging forward. And it was more than just one person. Several ranks deep when they came together, they advanced on him from all sides. D had probably seen through their guise already. They were the same young people who’d been intent on dancing, mothers and children who’d licked their lips over watermelon, and men who’d been competing at the ring toss game. The people here in the woods—or, according to what Shin said, everyone for more than a half mile in all directions—were all puppets. And unlike D, they were immune to the effects of Egbert’s kingdom.

  Steely blades glittering in every hand, the mob surrounded D. Stark flashes of light were coupled with the sound of severed bone, and in no time at all a number of people in the foremost rank vanished.

  “Keep going! He’s only flesh and blood! He has to get tired eventually!”

  With Shin’s howl as their signal, the bizarre charge of the puppets continued, and then, when they’d been reduced to half their previous number, a voice cried out again.

  “This is unbelievable—he’s simply incredible,” said Shin. “He must be under ten Gs out there. There’s no use pressing him any further—you’ll only be throwing your lives away,” he told his minions. “Back! Fall back! We’ll take him out from a distance.”

  The crowd backed away. Several people who’d remained to the rear held weapons that looked to be old-fashioned gunpowder rifles. But before they could raise them, much less fire, their heads were flying through the air—where they became doll heads. Faster than the group could retreat, D had advanced and raked his blade through the opposition. The only reason he’d remained rooted until now was to keep himself from being trapped by the chaotic movements of his foes.

  “Oh my!” someone cried out in surprise, and there was movement perceptible in the woods off to the Hunter’s right.

  Without a moment’s hesitation, without even looking, D hurled a needle of unfinished wood. Glistening briefly in the sunlight, the missile was swallowed by the forest, and then a cry of pain rang out.

  The group of villagers that was about descend on D stopped moving.

  D looked down at his feet. On the grass before him, countless dolls lay frozen in the same poses they’d held a split second before their transformation. At the same time, D realized he’d been released from the insane bonds of gravity.

  “I’m impressed. But then, I should expect no less from the Vampire Hunter D,” the Hunter heard Egbert say. But even with his highly perceptive hearing, D couldn’t tell from where the voice originated. It sounded as if it was coming from both the heavens and the earth.

  “Aren’t you coming?” D asked calmly. If he were ever to invite someone to have a cup of tea with him, that was undoubtedly the same tone he’d use. To him, an invitation to tea or a challenge to the death were one in the same.

  On careful inspection, the Hunter’s shoulder was torn open and gushing blood, and his chest and back were covered with long, thin gashes. Given that he’d been taking on dozens of opponents at the same time and the gravity had been about ten times as strong as normal, it was something of a miracle he’d gotten off with so few wounds.

  “I think I’ll pass,” Egbert replied simply. His tone was refreshed, and he sounded somehow greatly satisfied. “I was against the whole notion of teaming up from the get-go. After I was wounded throwing down with you before, I figured we might not have any choice but to gang up on you,” he remarked. “But sure enough, it just doesn’t set right with me. Next time, it’ll be mano a mano. With King Egbert. See you later.”

  As soon as the man finished speaking, D walked off toward where he’d hurled the needle, not even pausing to catch his breath.

  Drops of red spattered on the well-trampled grass. There was no longer any sign of the vendors or performers—all of them were now puppets that lay hidden in the grass. Even the fragrant woods had vanished, leaving D surrounded by gnarled beach shrubs. No doubt he’d been tricked into entering Egbert’s “kingdom” while the sheriff was supposedly leading him to the real clearing. But any spell that could meddle
with the sense of distance, direction, and time for someone like D was a fearsome power indeed.

  Beyond the twisted bushes, a wrinkled old man lay on his back in a depression, his eyes glaring blankly at the heavens. A slender wooden needle ran into his windpipe and poked out through the nape of his neck. This must’ve been Shin’s true form.

  Perhaps D decided that if he left the corpse here to be discovered, it was bound to upset the summer festivities. Sword still clasped in his right hand, he bent down and grabbed the old man’s armless shoulder with his left.

  There was a thunderous roar to one side of the Hunter. As if blown away by the very sound itself, D’s left hand snapped off at the wrist and flew more than ten feet away.

  “Don’t move,” a voice shouted from behind another tree in the direction the roar had come from, but D had already turned.

  Armed with a fire dragon rifle—a massive gun with a barrel bigger than a man’s thumb—the figure who’d just appeared was the spitting image of the old man who lay dead on the ground.

  “Looks like you fell for it,” said the old man. “Not everything I manipulate necessarily seems to be alive. That right there’s a puppet of a corpse.”

  Down at D’s feet, the body of the old man had become a doll with a wooden needle stuck through it.

  “To be perfectly honest, I thought it’d be enough just to take out your left hand today,” the old man continued. “See, I heard from Egbert that it was a talking hand that got the better of his kingdom before. But now my greed’s really kicked in. I don’t care if you are the great Vampire Hunter D—at this range, there’s no way you’ll be able to stop a projectile. And if I get you right through the heart, you won’t be getting up again. So unless that’s what you fancy, you’ll answer me. Where’s the bead?”

  D was silent. Thanks to his dhampir nature, the bleeding from his shoulder and all his other wounds had long since ceased, but a stream of red twisted like a serpent from where he’d lost his left hand, and he didn’t seem to be doing anything to staunch the flow.