Noble Front Read online

  VAMPIRE HUNTER D 29: NOBLE FRONT

  © Hideyuki Kikuchi, 2020. Originally published in Japan in 2012 by ASAHI SONORAMA Co. English translation copyright © 2020 by Dark Horse Books.

  No portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the express written permission of the copyright holders. Names, characters, places, and incidents featured in this publication are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events, institutions, or locales, without satiric intent, is coincidental. Dark Horse Books® and the Dark Horse logo are registered trademarks of Dark Horse Comics LLC. All rights reserved.

  Cover art by Yoshitaka Amano

  English translation by Kevin Leahy

  Book design by Jen Edwards

  Published by

  Dark Horse Books

  A division of Dark Horse Comics LLC

  10956 SE Main Street

  Milwaukie, OR 97222

  DarkHorse.com

  First Dark Horse Books edition: April 2020

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Printed in the United States of America

  Mike Richardson President and Publisher - Neil Hankerson Executive Vice President - Tom Weddle Chief Financial Officer - Randy Stradley Vice President of Publishing - Nick McWhorter Chief Business Development Officer - Dale LaFountain Chief Information Officer - Matt Parkinson Vice President of Marketing - Vanessa Todd-Holmes Vice President of Production and Scheduling - Mark Bernardi Vice President of Book Trade and Digital Sales - Ken Lizzi General Counsel - Dave Marshall Editor in Chief - Davey Estrada Editorial Director - Chris Warner Senior Books Editor - Cary Grazzini Director of Specialty Projects - Lia Ribacchi Art Director - Matt Dryer Director of Digital Art and Prepress - Michael Gombos Senior Director of Licensed Publications - Kari Yadro Director of Custom Programs - Kari Torson Director of International Licensing - Sean Brice Director of Trade Sales

  Noble Front

  Dark Accord

  Chapter 1

  I

  The sixteenth, 11:06 AM Eastern Frontier Time

  Though the room was simple, it was here that the village’s decisions were made. Nearly an hour had passed since his visitors had left. Behind a battered desk, the old man finally lifted his drooping head. He had a gray beard, and his wrinkled face wore a look of distress. Grabbing the intercom tube that hung from the ceiling over his head like a black-and-silver serpent and giving it a decisive tug, the old man commanded, “Jacos, come in here in fifteen minutes.”

  Immediately returning the intercom tube to its original position, he took care not to bump into it as he rose from his chair.

  His little window gave a view of the village lying quietly in the sunlight.

  “Though darkness may come, the light visits us. Why can’t we be happy with that? No need to make a deal with the devil.”

  Returning to his chair, the mayor took some stationery from a drawer and began scratching away on it with a quill pen. When he’d finished writing, Jacos came in. Though tall, the secretary was thin as a toothpick.

  “Take three days off, starting tomorrow,” the mayor ordered in his usual mild tone.

  His secretary, a competent veteran, nodded.

  “Our visitors from the Capital said they’re going to have a look around the village,” the mayor continued. “Leave them to it.”

  “Understood,” Jacos replied, but only after some time had passed.

  “Be careful on your vacation.”

  “Thank you.”

  Once his secretary had left, the mayor leaned back in his chair and turned his eyes to the west end of his office. Darkness hung there. It was the one spot in the room the light from the window wouldn’t reach.

  “The light alone isn’t everything,” he said as if reciting a curse. “We need the darkness, too. But what this world really needs is—”

  His voice broke off there. But though the mayor said no more, his eyes were tinged by the one spot of black in the light-filled room.

  The sixteenth, 12:00 PM Eastern Frontier Time

  At lunchtime, Jacos started eating his boxed lunch at his desk. All his coworkers at the town hall had left for the lounge that doubled as a cafeteria. There, they probably had plenty of bad things to say about the stubborn secretary, who was constantly fighting the mayor. Making sure that the two other employees who’d remained there on urgent business had dug into their lunches and weren’t looking over at him, Jacos opened the folded stationery the mayor had handed him and began reading it as nonchalantly as if it were a letter he’d brought from home.

  When he finished reading it, he let out a sigh, then returned to his lunch, finishing it in less than three minutes. And he didn’t even forget to remark on how bad it tasted. Jacos then opened a drawer, took out a vacation request form, and after spending five minutes filling it out, he left it on the desk of Oohe in General Affairs.

  The sixteenth, 1:03 PM Eastern Frontier Time

  When Oohe came back and saw the paperwork on his desk, he muttered, “This is rather sudden,” in a low voice, then stamped it as approved.

  †

  The sixteenth, 5:11 PM Eastern Frontier Time

  With the chiming of the bell that marked the end of the workday, Jacos began his preparations to go home. He didn’t seem in any particular hurry. Saying good-bye to those around him, he left the town hall at about the usual time. Circling around behind the town hall, he got on the cyborg horse tethered to the post and rode straight down the road home.

  The sixteenth, 5:12 PM Eastern Frontier Time

  Once Ann Dadorin from Family Records had made her own preparations to go home, she headed to the deputy mayor’s office.

  “What is it?” asked the deputy mayor, who was rumored to be twice as sharp as the mayor, staring at the forty-six-year-old widow with the eyes of a hawk.

  Ann replied impassively, “It’s nothing major. But earlier, you did say you wanted to be informed if there was anything out of the ordinary.”

  Having lost her husband in her thirties and raised four children all on her own, the woman didn’t seem to fear anything.

  “Indeed, that’s what I said. So?”

  “The mayor’s secretary suddenly put in a request for three days’ vacation. He’s always given at least three days’ notice.”

  “When did he put in for it?”

  “At lunchtime. He and I both ate at our desks.”

  Before that, Jacos had been called into the mayor’s office.

  “And you confirmed this paperwork?”

  “After folks in General Affairs went home, I saw it with my own two eyes.” Meaning that she’d snooped around in their files. Such documents wouldn’t reach the deputy mayor until the following day.

  “The mayor gone home yet?” asked the deputy mayor.

  “No.”

  After Ann left, confident in the knowledge that each piece of information earned her a dore (a tenth of a dala), the deputy mayor stopped checking petitions from villagers and made his own preparations to go home. Just as he stepped out the door, the mayor appeared from the office across from his. The light from the window was already blue.

  “Hello there,” the mayor said, raising a hand in greeting.

  “Those folks from the Capital give you any trouble?” he asked.

  “Yeah. It’s a bit of a sticky situation. Had a feeling it would be as soon as they got here, but this is idiotic.”

  “It’s not often I see you all worked up, Mister Mayor.”

  “You see, they don’t realize that darkness and light mean different things out on the Frontier than they do back in the Capital. They were talking utter nonsense.”

  “Don’t tell me—was it abo
ut Castle Bergenzy?”

  “That’s right. Seems they’ve decided to ignore us completely and strike a lousy bargain with the lord of the manor.”

  “You mean human sacrifices?” the deputy mayor said, his expression stiff.

  “We can talk about it tomorrow,” the mayor replied, clapping the deputy mayor on the shoulder before walking away.

  The sixteenth, 5:43 PM Eastern Frontier Time

  Once he’d checked that no one else was around, the deputy mayor circled around to the back of the town hall. From behind him, a voice asked, “Something happen?”

  “The mayor had his secretary put in for three days’ vacation starting tomorrow.”

  “That all?”

  “That’s it. The two of them don’t get along very well. His secretary’s been known to give him grief, and been docked pay for it.”

  “Where’s he intend to go?”

  “I don’t know. He wasn’t required to put that on the form.”

  “Where’s the secretary’s house?”

  “Number four Zossa Street.”

  “Good enough,” the voice said before fading.

  Though the man turned and looked, there was nobody there.

  “He might say he’s from the Capital, but the guys he’s using are a match for anything we’ve got on the Frontier,” the deputy mayor said to himself, cold sweat rolling down his cheeks.

  The sixteenth, 5:59 PM Eastern Frontier Time

  There was a knock at the door of number four Zossa Street.

  “Who is it?” a female voice cautiously inquired. For after the sun went down, it was “the Nobility’s time.”

  “Valen is the name.”

  “And just who are you, Mister Valen?”

  “I work for the Noble Ruins Survey Office in the Capital, and I paid a visit to the town hall today. I should like to discuss today’s business a bit.”

  “Is that so?” the woman said, her tone now relieved. “Well, unfortunately my husband’s not in now. He’s taken three days off, starting from tomorrow. And he didn’t tell me where he was going.”

  The way the caller fell silent was proof of how disappointed he was at her reply. After a moment, he said, “How interesting—pardon the intrusion. I shall be on my way, then.”

  The sixteenth, 6:07 PM Eastern Frontier Time

  The caller left.

  The sixteenth, 6:19 PM Eastern Frontier Time

  In a room at the village’s sole lodging house, the Silver Lion Inn, a gray-haired and gray-bearded old man who was undoubtedly a scholar nodded. There were three men around him, and another stood before him.

  “I see. This is probably a move to get out of this without accepting our demands. The mayor seemed amiable enough, but it seems he’s got some backbone to him.”

  “What’ll we do, Professor? We can’t do anything till we know where the secretary’s gone.”

  “Leave it to me. I’ll find out where he’s gone. Just sit tight until then.”

  “What’ll we do about the mayor?”

  “Find out what he’s up to, then we’ll decide how to handle him. Compared to deciding what to do with a student right at the pass/fail line, this is easy.”

  The group exited the room.

  Putting his ear to the door to listen to their footsteps and be sure that they left, the old man then scurried from the living room to the bedroom. He knew he had to hurry.

  The plastic case he pulled out from under his bed held a black box twenty inches square and two inches high, which he took out and placed on the desk. When he opened the lid, it became a screen. The blue sphere that hung between it and the lower panel was the Earth. It was a three-dimensional image.

  As tension turned his whole body to iron, the old man started running the fingers of both hands across the bottom section of the case. Part of a huge nebula appeared next to the earth.

  “Oops, that’s Andromeda.”

  Erasing the great nebula his overanxious fingers had called up, he spent a few minutes adjusting before finally getting the desired clarity to the image of the Earth.

  “Display everything currently moving within a thirty-mile radius of the eastern Frontier village of Schwartzen!” he said.

  II

  The sixteenth, 6:40 PM Eastern Frontier Time

  The bartender/proprietor of the village saloon found it hard to believe the four patrons were actually from the Capital as they claimed, and he was on edge over the question of how he could possibly handle them if they acted up. Usually his sexy hostess would smooth things over, but she was off today.

  The one seated at the counter was of medium height and build, and had closely cropped red hair. Though the other three were all wearing coats, he was lightly dressed, wearing a t-shirt and shorts. But that wasn’t what drew attention. The average temperature was almost eighty degrees, and even the slightest exertion was enough to work up a sweat. It was the other three that were strange. The problem with the redhead was the black rings eight inches wide and two inches thick that he had looped over his shoulders. They were wrapped around the man as if to protect him, and they slowly rotated without ever touching his body.

  As the man on his left was as skinny as a knotweed plant and had a wild jungle of a beard, he looked as if he were trying to pass for a derelict, but it was his fingers that were sure to grab anyone’s attention. They were over a foot and a half long. Add the four-inch-long nails, and they came in around two feet long. What’s more, the nails were curved like talons. The bartender was clearly trying very hard not to look at them.

  The other two were seated at a rustic-looking round table, where they were engaged in a game of cards.

  “Two pair, queens up,” said an obese giant of a man with thick lips, a pug nose, and round spectacles, spreading his cards on the table. The belly of the faux leather jacket he wore beneath his coat rippled with confidence. It looked like you could’ve pushed any part of him and fat would’ve oozed from his pores.

  “Three twos,” his opponent countered, and it may have been that his voice alone was youthful. The face that was turned toward the obese giant was hidden by a rivet-studded mask of iron that covered his head all the way down to the chin. Holes had been roughly cut in it for his eyes and mouth alone, revealing blue irises and bloodless lips.

  The old man came in with such force he nearly wrecked the batwing doors. The bartender just said, “Howdy, Professor,” but no one else even turned to look.

  “Go west on Vivant Road,” the old man—the Professor—ordered, displeasure covering every inch of his face.

  Two seconds of silence followed.

  The most unlikely candidate—the obese giant—said, “Okay, then—that’s me,” and stood up.

  “Wait just a second, Lascaux,” the man in the iron mask told him irritably. “You’re in for fifteen dalas. Lay your money down.”

  “I know, I know. I ain’t about to embarrass myself over a lousy fifteen dalas!” Flinging two coins at the man in the iron mask before he left, he said, “I’ll win it back from you next time, Mask.”

  Though he acknowledged the professor on the way out, there wasn’t the tiniest bit of respect in it. It didn’t look at all like an employer/employee relationship.

  Clucking his tongue, the Professor walked over to the counter. He ordered a whiskey.

  “For humans? Or for Nobles?”

  “Whaaat?” the Professor asked in an exaggerated manner, his expression shifting from one of surprise to delight. “Do you actually have anything like that?”

  “Yes siree!”

  “Then of course I’ll have the kind for Nobles.”

  The bartender finally showed a genuine smile, opening an iron door on the shelf. The fearful manner in which he took out the precious commodity made it seem more like a bomb, but it was a cut crystal bottle in a vivid shade of green.

  “I’d heard they had other kinds of spirits besides wine. Who knew whiskey would be one of them? Never thought I’d run into some in a saloon out in the s
ticks like this, that’s for sure. Is it the real deal?”

  “Go ahead and ask anybody in town. Ask ’em if they’ve ever once been ripped off at Den’s Place. We’ve been playing it nothing but straight here for thirty-five years. Once every ten years, Grand Duke Bergenzy offers some stuff for sale, which is where this bottle came from. Only four bottles like this were mixed in with a thousand bottles of wine, and I bid a pretty sum to get it. That’s why I only offer it to special guests. Five hundred dalas a glass—but a scholar would pay a hundred times that for a drink of this!”

  “You must be joking!” the Professor roared, his rage manifest. For less than a hundred dalas, he could have ten glasses of the very finest wine at any of the best bars in the Capital.

  Though he pounded on a table, the bartender didn’t even flinch.

  “If you’re not interested, forget I mentioned it. But I ain’t got all day.”

  “Okay. Here.”

  The flash and clatter of money on the counter made the bartender happy. Reaching for the bottle with an exaggerated motion, he gave it a powerful twist, all of which the Professor watched bitterly, but with eyes aglitter with expectation.

  The sixteenth, 11:09 PM Eastern Frontier Time

  Riding as hard as he could, Jacos arrived in the neighboring town—Velis.

  The sixteenth, 11:12 PM Eastern Frontier Time

  Jacos rushed into the wireless office. On the Frontier, there was one such office every sixty miles, on average. There, the various town halls and government offices in the Capital could send and receive messages. He’d been handed the text of this message by the mayor.