Throng of Heretics Read online

  Black Easter

  Chapter 1

  I

  It had stood there for precisely three hundred years. According to the standard map of the Frontier drawn up by the Bureau of Geography in the Capital, it was located five yards above Point Z-444 and 424. All those years ago, there had been humans who could make use of the Nobility’s technology. Perhaps they’d worked in one of the Nobles’ science centers or an engineering plaza. All it knew was that precisely three hundred years had passed since it had gone into operation. Even among the descendants of those who’d built it or positioned it in its present location there were few who knew of its existence. Regardless, it rounded out its third century of service.

  Staining the edge of a chain of mountain peaks crimson, the sun sank in the west. Suddenly, it knew its task was over. The realization came just as the last remnants of redness vanished behind the mountains. Those long years of service were gone, and longer years of the same that should’ve been yet to come had disappeared as well. It activated the laser transmitter with which it was equipped, beamed a signal that’d been converted to electrical waves to its destination, and awaited the moment of truth.

  “Now, I should like to discuss your work, gentlemen, as well as some relevant background,” the hoary-headed, silver-bearded old man said to the five men seated before him in wooden chairs, his tone as unsociable as his expression.

  Since the town hall had burnt down two days earlier, the saloon that’d once been used as a meeting place had once again been pressed into service, with light flooding its interior. It was an hour past noon.

  Though the old man had expected some tension from them, two of the men merely shifted their upper bodies slightly, but the dauntless demeanor of all was unchanged.

  “Before we do . . .” The big fat man standing to the right of the older man spoke in a voice that sounded like he had something caught in his throat. The badge of a village sheriff caught the light from the cheap chandelier. “I’ve already told the mayor something about you, but at any rate, I’d like you to introduce yourselves.”

  And saying that, the corpulent figure stroked his badge with plump fingers.

  Not only did the men not look at the star, they didn’t even glance at the lawman.

  Turning to the aged mayor, the man on the far right practically groaned his introduction. “Leica Slopey.” Both of his ears were weirdly tapered, his mouth was disturbingly large, and the man’s exposed face and hands were oddly hirsute. His longsword had been removed from his belt and rested against his left arm.

  “Hiki.”

  The second man was terribly thin. So slight of build it looked like a strong breeze might blow him away, he was wrapped in a semitransparent film reminiscent of the wings of a mayfly. All he had for a weapon was the knife on his belt.

  “Barry Dawn’s the name,” said the youngest of the five. There was something off-kilter about this man, who had the gentle face of a woman combined with a ferocious physique. Those who saw his face alone would undoubtedly mistake him for a female. The longsword that rested against his left shoulder was longer than any of the others’, and it was in a scabbard that was 90 percent of his nearly six-foot-eight-inch stature.

  “They call me the Confessor.”

  On hearing the stocky man’s voice, the sheriff looked relieved. Since arriving at the village, he hadn’t said a single word. Had his likeness not been in the Hunter directory, the lawman wouldn’t have known what to do with him. His weapons were a run-of-the-mill short spear and a revolver he wore on his right hip. The bag that hung from his other hip undoubtedly contained ammunition.

  “Quake Resden,” the last one said, thick, beard-hedged lips forming a smile.

  Unlike the other four, he had an air of normalcy about him. His eyes as well as his lips were nearly hidden by his scruffy growth of whiskers. He wore a cotton robe that was like a potato sack, and as odd as it may seem, from the waist down it was strung front and back with weights the size of a child’s fist. Though it hardly seemed like the average person could even move with them on, he was such a mountain of a man it didn’t seem as if it would be an issue for him.

  “The lot of you are ranked the greatest Vampire Hunters in the southern Frontier. The fact that you’ve been at it for more than a decade is proof enough of that. The average life expectancy of a Vampire Hunter is four years in the eastern Frontier, three and a half in the west, two in the north, and in the southern Frontier—considered the most brutal of the bunch—it’s only a year and a half.”

  The corpulent sheriff checked on the mayor with a sidelong glance. It’d been his job to summon the strange collection of men before them. On seeing the mayor nod, he was satisfied.

  “Enough about us. Just as long as you know what you’re getting. Let’s get down to business.”

  The man named Leica twisted his lips. Though he brimmed with more wildness than any of them, he was also the most lacking in vigor.

  Barry Dawn and Quake Resden looked at him from the corners of their eyes and grinned.

  Outside, the weather was sunny.

  “Ahem,” the sheriff said, looking to the mayor. The mayor nodded.

  “Five days ago,” the old man began, “the regularly scheduled signal from Balsa Hill was interrupted, for the first time in three centuries. There have been no transmissions since. It is our opinion the surveillance system that’s been sitting up on top of that hill for the last three hundred years has been destroyed.”

  Mention of Balsa Hill sent a strange current swirling around the men. A cocktail of seven parts fight, two parts murderous intent. The remaining part they would never admit to. The smallest component, but also the heaviest and most stuporous—fear.

  “No one goes near the hill. Even if they did, the surveillance equipment was built using Noble technology. No human should be able to destroy it. I needn’t say any more, I suppose. I trust you can see well enough what your job will entail.” Here the mayor paused, running a wily gaze over the Hunters. “Don’t tell me some of you are afraid.”

  As if that were their cue, the five men rose in unison. The whole room rocked. Looking up at the ceiling, the sheriff mumbled something about an earthquake.

  The mayor’s expression swiftly grew severe, and he said, “I’ll be damned—who knew southern Hunters were all a bunch of cowards?”

  His scornful words inflicted no harm on the men, crumbling against their garb.

  “You know, we might be cowards, but we’re not stupid,” Barry Dawn said with a shrug of his shoulders. “The ruins of Viscount Xeno’s castle are at the top of Balsa Hill. The viscount had a wooden stake driven through his heart by the ancestors of your villagers, and his kin sleep their unholy sleep up there. Looking back on it, it’s surprising they could’ve done something so nervy. Legend has it your ancestors delivered poisoned drink to the wedding reception for the viscount’s daughter the night before, then burst in while they were paralyzed and slaughtered the lot. Women, children, servants—it didn’t matter. Everyone got staked through the heart and beheaded. It’s the one instance where history books in the Capital don’t call it a ‘battle’; they label it a ‘massacre.’”

  “Be that as it may, it was a long time ago,” the mayor replied, regaining his composure. “No one really knows the truth. The slipshod work of investigators from the Capital is well known. It’s my considered opinion that, while they may have been a little out of line and maybe slightly overreacted, the humans waged a just battle against the Nobility.”

  He ran his gaze over the group without trepidation. Here was a prime display of his authority and oratory powers as the community’s leader.

  Suddenly, his eyes opened wide. In those eyes of blue, other red ones glowed. His eyes
had met those of the man who called himself the Confessor.

  As if somewhat drunken, the mayor slurred his speech as he continued, “The villagers, led by my ancestor Dominic Krishken, forced their way into the castle of the Xeno clan. Dominic left a detailed account of that day in his journal. I’ve read it. As you just said, led by Dominic, the villagers put down Nobles weakened by poisoned drink, one after another, before they could flee to their graves. Apparently their blood pooled an inch and a half deep on the floor of the great hall. But the most fearsome of the bunch, Viscount Xeno’s son and his four cousins, narrowly escaped harm, fleeing to the crypts beneath the castle to slumber. Fearing their vengeance, our ancestors used mining equipment and vast amounts of explosives to level the castle and block the entrance to the crypts with tens of thousands of tons of rubble. They then set a sensor on top of that, to warn us should the five slumbering Nobles awaken. That was three centuries ago. That’s a long time. More than enough time for our ancestors to pass away and the villagers to forget all about the Xeno clan. But to the Nobility—to immortals—an hour’s probably no different from three centuries or a million years. They’re coming. I’m sure of it. Nobles never forgive human insurrections. Particularly one like this where they were blindsided and killed so underhandedly. There’s no denying it was a slaughter. Dominic wrote in his journal about how the castle was strewn with the heads and limbs of the Nobles’ children . . .”

  At that point the mayor put his hand to his brow, his upper body twisting theatrically. Straightening up again, he took his hand from his forehead and slapped it over his mouth in shock, groaning with disbelief, “I . . . er . . . What was I saying?”

  “Well, you just gave us proof it wasn’t a ‘battle,’ it was a ‘massacre.’” Barry Dawn got a thin grin on his lips. He then looked straight at the Confessor and said, “That’s one weird little talent you’ve got there. Whatever you do, keep it away from me, all right?”

  “The Xeno clan was legendary for their cruelty. Various accounts say his son and those four cousins in particular were so cold blooded even other Nobility were afraid of them. If they’re fired up for revenge, especially against someone who butchered their kin in such a dastardly way, this won’t be any ol’ vengeance,” said the man who’d identified himself as Hiki. With every word he said, the film he wore swayed like a mirage.

  “We’re not cowards, and we’re not idiots either,” Barry Dawn reiterated. “It’s times like this you just have to say, ‘He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day.’ They’re just too much to handle.”

  “Be seeing you,” Leica Slopey said, raising one hand lethargically as he headed for the door.

  The other four followed suit.

  “Wait!” the mayor shouted, holding out his hand. “If you leave now, I’ll spread word across the whole Frontier that this job scared you off. You’ll never work again!”

  Quake Resden shrugged. “Can’t work if we’re dead, either.”

  As the warriors shuffled away, behind them the mayor was so mad he could’ve stomped his feet, though he curbed his penury and said, “All right, then. I’ll double your rate—no, triple it!”

  The men didn’t halt.

  “Damn it, how about four times?”

  Leading the pack, Leica was almost to the door.

  “Five times?! No, make that—”

  “Ten times.”

  The men stopped dead. This was exactly what people meant when they talked about being in lockstep.

  The focus of the eyes of both the Hunters and the mayor, the sheriff sheepishly inquired, “How about it, Mr. Mayor?”

  It was the lawman who had offered them ten times their normal rate.

  Knowing there was only one possible answer, the mayor nodded. “Fine—ten times it is.”

  “Just one more thing,” said the taciturn giant—Quake Resden. “If one of us gets killed, I want his share to get divvied up between the survivors.”

  A strange mood swept over the group. They would benefit directly from the death of their colleagues. A simple and delightful economic facet had been added. It came as little surprise that the sheriff glanced over at the mayor, but the old man said nothing, merely nodding.

  The men noisily clopped back to their seats. From the look of things, these were true professionals.

  II

  “Five days have passed since the surveillance system was destroyed—that’s too long,” said Hiki. “In the interim, us Hunters have gotten no word of anything happening around Balsa Hill. How about you folks?”

  The mayor shook his head.

  The sheriff stepped in, saying, “Same here. Jagos is the nearest village to it, but just this morning we got word from their sheriff’s office that nothing was out of the ordinary.”

  “By comm bug?” Barry Dawn asked.

  “Yep. Why?”

  “We can tell just by their voice if someone’s a normal human or a Noble. Or a victim of the Nobility, for that matter.”

  “So can I!” the sheriff retorted, puffing his chest, but then his eyes went wide. It was a few seconds before he managed to say, “You don’t mean to tell me . . .”

  Comm bugs were insects that would repeat the words they were told. In that respect, they were like parrots. There was no way to tell anything about the person who’d spoken those words to them.

  “Don’t tell me the village of Jagos has been—”

  “It’s been five days. If those five Nobles set their mind to it, even the most tightly guarded village couldn’t fend them off for a single day.”

  “Then the comm bug . . . From one of the villagers they turned . . . ?”

  “No doubt. Jagos has a population of roughly two hundred and fifty. That’s more than enough to slake their thirst for blood and yearning for slaughter, and they’d go through them in a day. If they dawdled too long, nearby villages might take notice. We must assume they’ve long since taken leave of the village, leaving behind villagers they fed on. Reports that nothing was out of the ordinary probably came from villagers trying to lure in fresh victims.”

  The subject was so horrible, the sheriff made a choking sound.

  “Well, where are they, then?”

  To the sheriff’s quavering inquiry, Barry replied, “No idea. Could be they’re headed for another, bigger village. As I recall, about a hundred and twenty miles south of Balsa Hill there’s the town of Calico, right? There you’ve got flights to the Capital and regularly scheduled buses. But if I were a blood-starved Noble, the first thing I’d do is attack the nearest village. Once I’d satisfied my craving, I’d head straight out to exact my vengeance. I’d ignore Calico.”

  Suddenly the mayor sank. He’d been standing, but he settled into the chair behind him—well, not so much “settled” as “collapsed.” The twitch in his face that rocked his white beard and the vacant look in his eyes announced that he’d realized nothing short of his own fate. Nothing could be crueler.

  “My daughter . . . Annette . . . is coming home from the Capital . . . ,” he said as if delirious, squeezing the words through parched lips. “The university’s on holiday . . . This afternoon . . . she’ll be arriving at Calico’s airport . . . Tomorrow, she’ll head back here . . . And they know it . . .”

  “How?” the sheriff asked, furrowing his brow. He wanted to throw his badge in the trash at about this point.

  “Jagos . . . My daughter’s nanny lives in the village . . . I’ve heard she and my daughter still correspond . . . I’m sure she’d know about her vacation plans . . .”

  “I see. First, they’ll hit you where it hurts, eh? Tear the daughter of their hated foe limb from limb—no, they’ll probably make her one of them. That would be the ultimate revenge!” the Confessor said with relish, but the mayor didn’t even have the strength to rail at the man.

  “Set off at once. First, my daughter—you must protect my Annette. Once she’s safe, destroy them. Turn every last one of them to dust.”

  The mayor’s words had b
egun to spin from dazed to crazed, but they sounded like derisive laughter to Barry Dawn as he said, “The town of Calico’s a full day’s ride on a fast horse. We’d better get going. You happen to have a picture of your daughter?”

  “Come to my house,” replied the mayor, staggering to his feet.

  “She’s a hell of a looker,” Barry Dawn said, holding the photo up over his head and shutting one eye.

  “You can say that again. If I’d known that, I’d have told you to pay me half wages and throw in this little peach!” Hiki chimed in.

  The group was on the street in front of the mayor’s house. All of them were astride cyborg horses, and at first glance they just seemed to be hanging around chatting, yet an air of danger slowly emanated from them. The battle wouldn’t begin when they came into contact with the Nobles. It would begin sooner—right now, in fact. The chances of them cooperating seemed about as likely as an atheist believing in God. The instant they’d learned the deaths of their peers would increase their own compensation, they’d all become enemies—almost as much as the Nobility were.

  High in the saddle and looking as gloomy as ever, Leica said, “We’re all in the same boat. From here on out, we’re rivals! Godspeed to you.”

  And saying that, he gave a kick to his horse’s flanks and galloped off to the north.

  “Oh no you don’t!”

  “You won’t steal a march on me!”

  With those cries, the Confessor and Barry Dawn gave chase.

  Quake Resden was also about to gallop off, but he quickly pulled back on the reins to stop his horse, then craned his bull neck toward the last of the group—Hiki. He alone showed no signs of following after the pack.

  “Aren’t you going?”

  From the back of his steed, the slim seraphim of a man grinned faintly.

  “Sure I am. Last to leave, and first to arrive. Off you go, and don’t you worry about me. We’ll meet again after I’ve taken care of those lousy Nobles.”

  In response to those strangely confident remarks the giant raised one hand and rode off.