Throng of Heretics Read online

  With that spiteful declaration of war, the baron urged his horse forward. His obsession reduced the lashing rain to steam as he closed on the rider ahead of him. He covered thirty feet in a heartbeat.

  Lightning flashed. Annette saw a different gleam.

  The baron and his steed had passed the rider in black on his right, stopping in front of him and turning to face him. Rain bounced off the strange weapon in the baron’s right hand. Though its blade was more than a foot long, it was so thick it seemed it would easily slice even the body of an armored beast in half. If an ancient human had seen it, they might’ve found it resembled a Japanese pole arm called a naginata. The Noble had either kept it hidden beneath his robes or on one side of his saddle, but it didn’t seem the sort of thing a mere mortal could wield with just one hand.

  Not moving a muscle in the saddle, the baron said, “Identify yourself.”

  “D.”

  At that same moment, the top half of the baron’s torso slid off at an angle and fell to the ground. Black blood fountained up, raining down on both the half still in the saddle and the one on the ground. Naturally, Annette hadn’t known that the Nobleman had been cut in two from the left base of his neck to his right hip in the instant he and the Hunter passed each other.

  The black horse and rider began to walk off. Only then did Annette notice the longsword the figure in black gripped in his right hand.

  The Long, Dark Night

  chapter 2

  1

  With a soft rasp of steel, the rider in black returned his sword to the sheath on his back. To Annette’s utter astonishment, he seemed ready to keep going without so much as a glance at her. His black cyborg horse was about to pass right by the coach.

  “Wait!” she shouted, running toward him, but as soon as she did, she reeled. The rider was so handsome, he was like some lovely dream from which she couldn’t awaken, and she was paralyzed both in heart and mind. Her fear of death had been lacquered over with fascination. Shaking her head to clear it, she shouted, “I’m Annette Krishken. My father is the mayor of the village of Krishken. See me home. You won’t regret it.”

  Annette figured paying him twice the usual rate would probably suffice.

  The horse and rider continued off in silence.

  “Wait. No! Wait!”

  Sending great splashes up from the ground, which had largely been reduced to mud, Annette dashed out in front of the horse and grabbed hold of its bridle.

  “I’m in trouble here! Would you just leave a woman in a place like this?” she said, her angry tone jolting to the fore. She was being jerked forward with each step the horse took. “Stop! Please—just stop.”

  “You’re headed in the wrong direction, princess.”

  The hoarse voice swiftly drained Annette of her strength. It was simply too much at odds with the face the lightning had shown her moments earlier.

  “Do something! A few minutes ago, that villain said his friends would be right behind you, didn’t he? They’re after me! The Nobles of the Xeno clan were supposed to have been exterminated ages ago. And now they’re back—I can’t believe this!”

  “Xeno, eh? If they’re back, it’d be the five that were said to have fled to somewhere in the castle—Grand Duke Xeno’s son and four of his cousins. They’re real trouble, to be sure.”

  Annette got the feeling that hoarse voice was neither addressed toward her nor engaged in soliloquy.

  “There is something you could do,” the voice continued.

  “What?!”

  “You can hire us. Whatever money you’ve got on hand will do for a down payment, with the balance due once you’re safely home.”

  “How much?” Annette asked, regaining some of her calm even as she was dragged along.

  “Given the distance to the village of Krishken and the fact that it’s in the opposite direction, plus the strength of the opposition—that’ll be a hundred thousand dalas.”

  “You must be joking!” Annette snapped, and in her anger she let go of the steed’s bridle that she’d latched onto. There in the rain and mud, she stood like a defiant deity. The road was just beginning its downward slope.

  “For someone so good-looking,” she said, and, beginning to drift into infatuation she desperately fought to regain control enough to continue, “you have the heart of a loan shark, you know that? A hundred thousand dalas to bring me home—why, that’s enough to run a small village for half a year. Five thousand should more than suffice!”

  “Oh, and where do you get that?”

  Donning a perplexed expression, Annette gave the question some consideration. After advancing five or six paces down the slope along with the horse, she continued, “A long time ago, I was kidnapped by a band of outlaws, and the warrior who rescued me got five thousand dalas. What’s more, he had to deal with twenty of them. You’re only up against five—no, make that four now. You’re quite proficient at your trade, aren’t you? You simply have to take care of the other four.”

  “I did that one just now because he came at me.”

  The hoarse voice had been replaced by one of steel. So lovely, but with a sternness radiating from its depths—Annette thought the blood was freezing in her veins. It wasn’t fear alone that froze it.

  Was that supposed to mean he wouldn’t simply take care of the rest? Not knowing for sure, Annette was almost like a sleepwalker as she extended a pair of fingers and called to the leaving rider, “Twenty thousand dalas,” and even managing that much was something of a feat.

  No reaction.

  “Thirty thousand.”

  Though she was sure there was no point in further negotiations with the rider, just to be on the safe side she said, “Fifty thousand.”

  “Okay, princess—throw in the towel already.”

  The hoarse voice had returned.

  Damn it, she thought.

  “Fifty-three thousand.”

  The hoarse voice laughed. Mockingly it said, “Oh, look at that. His friends are coming. They’re making their way up the pass. They’ll be here in three minutes.”

  “Fifty-five thousand.”

  The hoarse voice fell silent. Through the now louder pounding of the rain, Annette thought she could hear the sound of iron-shod hooves climbing the pass.

  “Extortionist—okay, I’ll pay you a hundred thousand. But I only have ten thousand on me, so you’ll receive the balance once I’m home!”

  “Good enough,” the hoarse voice said, sounding relieved. “So, do you wanna ride this horse, or would you prefer the coach?”

  “And meet the same fate as the driver? No, thank you! I’ll ride with you. Wait just a moment, and I’ll go fetch my luggage.”

  “Just bring your purse.”

  “Oh, I don’t believe you! Okay! Okay!”

  Collecting the hem of her skirt in both hands, the girl returned to the coach and pulled a compact raincoat from the same bag that held her purse. Pulling it over her head, she came back with bag in hand.

  Grumbling all the while about how he didn’t offer her a hand up and that they didn’t have time for this, she climbed on behind the rider and wrapped her arms around his waist. That made her feel safer—or it should have, but through her arms his body felt hard and cold as steel.

  “God,” she murmured in spite of herself.

  “What’s your problem now?” a hoarse voice inquired. “It ain’t bad enough you’re a tightwad?”

  The horse had already turned around and begun traveling in the direction Annette desired. When they’d passed the stationary cyborg horse and the bisected corpse of Baron Hayden and had come alongside the coach, Annette heard the rasp of a sword being drawn from the back right in front of her.

  Reaching out one hand, the rider grabbed the reins to the coach. He tied them to his saddle horn, and as soon as he let go of the reins they stretched like a rope, with one horse following along behind the pair. Logically, the girl knew that the rider must’ve used his blade to cut the traces between the coach an
d the horses drawing it in the blink of an eye. It’d literally been faster than the eye could follow.

  After advancing another five or six paces, the horse stopped.

  An indescribable air of weirdness enveloped Annette. It had billowed up the road from the slope. At the same time, she heard something. The sound of hoofbeats, like a spectral steed galloping out of the depths of the earth. And there was more than one horse coming.

  The unearthly air of evil billowing toward them grew denser and more unsettling, seeping into the very flesh.

  Despair sapped Annette’s will. She couldn’t get away. They had come back from Hell to pursue her, and she was fated to fall victim to their fangs. They would drain the blood from her, making her a demon of the night who would seek the lifeblood of humans just as they did. Oh, why did she have to come back here? She could’ve stayed back in the Capital, enjoying her comfortable life as a student on the sizable allowance she received. What about her life? And look—now this guy couldn’t even move a muscle.

  The approaching hoofbeats halted. They’d completed the climb.

  They were coming. They were going to attack. Her consciousness rapidly began to dwindle. She was so afraid, she was about to pass out.

  And at that very moment—they started forward. Their horse and its riders.

  The road to the top of the pass wasn’t wide enough for two wagons to travel abreast, so every so often spaces had been set aside where someone going in the opposite direction could pull out of the way. The enemy blocked the center of the road, making it impossible for the young man and Annette to pass. Nevertheless, the rider in black and his steed pressed on.

  The flashing lightning picked out dark silhouettes halted up ahead. Try as she might to see them, Annette couldn’t even make out their outlines in the instant before they faded back into the darkness.

  Illuminated by the lightning was “the Glittering Gates to the Land of the Dead.” The two of them headed right for it. Was it that the rider didn’t fear death? Or did he not even know what death was?

  Arms still wrapped around that waist of steel, Annette shut her eyes. Her body trembled abruptly. It was a result of the supernatural aura that came from up ahead. But that air was suddenly shaken. As the unearthly air and her own trembling dwindled, Annette focused her gaze to the fore.

  Look. Were the shadowy figures ranked like a threat against the very darkness not pulling off to the right? Like vassals bowing before their king. Like fiends cowed by a hero.

  The rain still lashed the pair viciously, the wind still harangued their mount and the horse that followed them, yet the young man rode on into the night with the girl and the horses, not so much as drawing his blade.

  Annette caught a sound she’d heard before. It was one her father often made the night before the village financial reports were presented as he studied the documents in his office. It was one condemned criminals in the Capital tried to choke back as they climbed the thirteen steps to their place of execution. The sound of grinding teeth.

  Hating. Cursing. Regretting. As the pair passed right by them while they could only watch in silence, the Nobles hated themselves so much they could die. Cursed themselves. Regretted what they were. Oh, how many times over that would grow, becoming malice when they assailed the pair.

  However, as they rode through the pass, Annette’s heart was pounding with excitement. For she had seen the shadowy figures’ faces etched by a flash of lightning. She knew the legends of the Xeno clan. The power and cruelty of its true heir and his cousins was also established to a shocking degree. She’d even come to accept that they had returned. But at present those demons were unable to lift so much as a finger to prevent the pair from making good their unhurried escape.

  Almost impressed, Annette called out the young man’s name.

  “D.”

  Annette was surprised to discover she wasn’t the one speaking.

  “I must have heard your name a hundred and one times in the village of Jagos,” someone said to him. “I asked a hundred and one people who the most powerful Vampire Hunter was. Oh, the look of bliss on the idiots’ faces as they spoke of you. How they went on about your beauty, your physique, your sword, and the unearthly air about you—and not once in a hundred and one times did they fail to mention your name.”

  His tone suddenly shifted to gloom.

  “We shall let you go for the time being. However, next time our swords will pierce you. Know that there shall never be a third meeting between us.”

  A flash of light picked the speaker out starkly. Beneath a head of blazing red hair was a pair of blood-hued eyes brighter than flames that reflected the two riders.

  “I am Xeno Gillian, son of Grand Duke Xeno Don.”

  White light picked out a second face. It was a young man with an aquiline nose, wearing an ornate jacket reminiscent of formal attire.

  “Xeno Gorshin. I’ll be seeing you.”

  The third face glowed starkly. Unlike the first two, the long-haired youth almost seemed like a monk in his threadbare cape and horribly worn clothing. He had a giant scythe across his back.

  “From generation to generation, the Grim Reaper has been called ‘Benelli’ by the Xeno clan. And that is my name.”

  The fourth one squinted in the light. With a pair of crossed longswords strapped to his back, he had a youthful visage, but was still colored by the nihilism of the horribly aged.

  “Xeno Braylow, and don’t forget it.”

  Though he didn’t lift a finger, the sound of his voice alone was enough to raise a clang from his back. The pair of blades had slid up and down as if writhing about.

  With the fifth gone, that left these four. When their eyes gave off the death light, and their hands took up swords, and their fangs were stained with blood, how many souls would be taken from their Creator?

  Lightning flashed, and thunder followed.

  On hearing a hoarse voice from the vicinity of the black rider’s left hip, Annette bugged her eyes.

  “Well I’ll be—there are two people up in the sky mixing it up. Oh, one of them got whomped, I think. They’re going down. But—run for it! Something else is coming down, too!”

  Before the hoarse voice could even finish speaking, the four vampires and the horse with two riders were racing off. D and Annette were headed for the bottom of the slope, while the four from the Xeno clan made for the top of the pass.

  It was seven seconds after the silvery cylinder dropped that a million degrees of blistering heat vaporized the entire pass.

  II

  The world of darkness seemed to watch spellbound as the blast spread. That tiny flash of light, virulent napalm flames swallowing just over five thousand square feet, was a simple but effective way of dealing with the invaders. D and Annette watched from the summit of a mound on the plains as the light was assimilated by the darkness.

  “It’s gone!” Annette said, lowering the collapsible night-vision goggles she held. “What was that just now? It blew the entire pass to smithereens.”

  She looked terrified. Rain mercilessly pelted her thin vinyl raincoat.

  “We had an enemy in the sky,” said the hoarse voice that issued from a little ahead of D and off to the left—and the hand that gripped the reins.

  Strain her eyes as she might, Annette still didn’t see anything. There was only his left hand.

  The voice continued, “I suppose it’s necessary that we answer our employer’s question. You see, there was an enemy in the sky above us. And another foe attacked them. One of those other four, I suppose. As a result of their battle, one of ’em was shot down. That explosion would’ve been a napalm bomb they were carrying.”

  “Which one was taken out?”

  “We’ll know soon enough.”

  “If one of them is in league with those four, who in the world could the other one be?”

  “That I don’t know. To be flying in weather like this, it could be a smuggler or something, only that wasn’t any flying machin
e. There was no sound of engines from it, either. In which case it’d either be some stray demon bird, or else a bodyguard for you.”

  “For me? Then my father might’ve hired them?”

  “They were up there either watching over you or looking for you. Judging from the weather, probably the latter. You’d best pray the one that got shot down wasn’t guarding you.”

  “Oh, I don’t care for this one bit. All this killing and dying.”

  Annette furrowed her brow, shaking her head from side to side as if to deny the truth of any of this. Not that she was mourning the dead. Her tone and expression made it clear she found it revolting and bothersome to have others dying around her.

  “Eighteen years I’ve lived in peace, so why did these musty old Nobles have to climb out of their graves now? And why are they after my family? This sort of trouble we could do without. Do you suppose it’s too much to hope that explosion wiped out the lot of them?”

  “Since we’re safe and sound, it’s safe to assume the same goes for the enemy. I think they converged here to either snatch you or butcher you. They’re probably already headed this way.”

  “Oh dear. After a short rest, you must take me home posthaste.”

  “A short rest?”

  “Well, we can’t go any farther in this downpour. My clothes are soaked, and the strain has left me exhausted. Let’s take a break somewhere.”

  “We press on.”

  The shriveled voice had suddenly been replaced by one of iron. Low and soft, his tone still made it clear he would brook no objections, yet Annette listened to it like a dotard while glaring at the man’s black back.

  “And I’m telling you that your employer is tired and we need to rest. Try to remember your place in this equation.”

  “Change horses,” said the owner of that broad back.

  At the bottom of the pass D had intended to put her onto the extra horse he’d taken from the coach, but the incident with the napalm had forced them to gallop away at top speed, so that Annette was still riding double on D’s cyborg horse.