The Rose Princess Read online

  “See—it’s starting already,” the voice said.

  At the round exit from the sheltered pathway stood a crimson horse and rider.

  The air was tinged with omens of combat.

  This was enemy territory—and D would be at a tremendous disadvantage. Yet the gorgeous huntsman advanced as if that was the way he’d always gone, without hesitation or fear.

  The Red Knight remained just as he was, too.

  An irresistible force and an immovable object—what would happen when the two of them met? Even the leaves on the branches interlacing overhead seemed to listen intently with their eyes open wide for that moment.

  However, the Red Knight quickly stepped to one side.

  D went right by him on the covered path as if were completely natural. He didn’t even glance at his formidable opponent.

  “I’ve come to meet you and serve as your guide,” the Red Knight said in a voice like grating metal after the Hunter had gone several steps past him.

  “I don’t need one,” D replied.

  “I’m afraid I can’t allow that. We’ve known for some time now that you would come. I have orders from the princess to meet you, but to do nothing else.”

  The sun was still high. Although this was the time when the Nobility should be slumbering, there were some who merely entered their coffins but remained awake.

  Giving a kick to his mount’s flanks, the Red Knight galloped over to D. “Regardless of your wishes,” he continued, “I will serve as your guide. That is my duty to my liege.”

  Still facing forward, D asked, “What would you do if I came at you with my sword?”

  Rarely did the Hunter pose a question like that.

  “I would have no choice but to stand and be cut down. I’ve not been told to fight.”

  Those were surprising words coming from the mouth of a knight whose ferocity was unrivaled.

  “Then your lady must be quite important to you.”

  “Correct.”

  “And if you were ordered to do so, could you stand by and watch as I cut down your princess and the others?” asked D.

  “In that case, I would take my own life after killing you,” the Red Knight replied. “However, there’s no need to worry on that account.” In a tone of unassailable confidence he continued, “If you think the princess could be killed by the likes of you—well, once you’ve met her, you’ll understand.”

  Saying no more, he continued on for another five minutes, and the two of them came to the bottom of a wide slope. At the top of the nearly sixty-degree incline, the manor and the walls that surrounded it were visible.

  “This slope is the last line of defense,” said the Red Knight.

  His ordinary voice was enough to make children go pale, but now it had an even stranger ring to it—that of nostalgia.

  “In times past,” he continued, “we came down this incline to meet our foes in battle. Forces that vastly outnumbered us have pushed in this far. However, not even the mightiest of foes ever gained the top of this slope. We formed an iron wall where wave after wave of attackers broke until the enemy eventually retreated. Though, that was all so very long ago.”

  His voice cut out. And when he quickly started speaking again, his tone had changed once more.

  “What we did then and do now has always been prompted by the spirit of our princess, who defends this solitary outpost. In the world below, they are quick to speak of the end of the Nobility, but we recognize no such occurrence. We shall not allow such talk in the domain of our princess, for here the Nobility are still resplendent in their glory.”

  The crimson horse set one hoof on the steep slope. The way it climbed so easily seemed to defy the laws of gravity.

  After ascending roughly a hundred fifty feet, the knight asked, “Having trouble keeping up?” But when he turned around, what he saw made his eyes go wide within his helmet.

  D was less than three paces behind him.

  The soil covering the slope would collapse with frightening ease—this was to prevent foes from advancing any further. Climbing it at a steady pace required equestrian skills far greater than most possessed.

  As they sent black earth sliding downward, the pair finished ascending the slope and soon came to the gate. The towers that adorned all four corners of the manor, the passageways linking all of the smaller buildings, and the very manor itself all had a stately air, but those who beheld this structure were bound to get a far different impression. Thousands of cracks formed spidery webs in the towering stone walls, the spires of the towers were on the point of collapse, and the masonry was riddled with little holes that gaped like vacant eye sockets. And while the crossed antennas for harnessing both the power of the wind and the electrical energy in the air continued to turn, they only served to make the rest of this place seem dead by comparison.

  These were clearly ruins.

  “Open the gate!” the Red Knight bellowed. His voice was loud enough to blast away the air before his mouth and create a vacuum. “On orders from the princess, I’ve brought D,” he added. “Open the gate!”

  Before the echoes of his voice had faded, there was the sound of iron scraping iron and a black shadow dropped across them from above. Between the two of them and the gate lay a deep, bone-dry moat. The door that barred the gate was actually a drawbridge.

  While such an accessory was appropriate for a fortress, it hardly suited a manor of such simple but elegant design. Two thick chains stretched from either side of the drawbridge to disappear into the castle.

  After the bridge touched down with an earth-shaking thud, the pair crossed and entered the castle.

  A desolate sight greeted D. They had entered the front yard of the manor.

  The mounds of brush and dead leaves that had accumulated called to mind the random peaks left by eroding soil. The roof of each and every bower had collapsed, and in part of the main manor, all that remained were white pillars. When mercilessly exposed by the sunlight, the scene didn’t have an iota of the grace the term “extinction” might imply, and the light only served to emphasize the lurid nature of the surroundings to a spine-chilling degree.

  “Don’t let any of this mislead you. This is merely its daylight form,” the Red Knight told the traveler as his horse advanced toward an outbuilding that was fairly undamaged by comparison. One room that D passed through seemed to have been maintained by someone, as it still retained the luxurious gold and crystal appointments from its construction long ago.

  “As you are no doubt aware, you shall have to wait until night.”

  And with that final remark, the Red Knight headed toward the door. He then stopped in his tracks. When he spun around, D was standing right behind him.

  “Why, you . . . ,” the knight groaned as the most unearthly aura blasted his face—and for the first time he realized what the gorgeous young man actually was. “Only once in the past has anyone ever angered me so,” said the knight. “Are you one of those, too—a Vampire Hunter?”

  “Yes, I am,” said D. “Where can I find the princess and all others?”

  As D asked the question, both of his arms hung idly by his sides. He didn’t have a single muscle tensed, and it was truly disconcerting. This was but one reason why he was someone to be feared.

  “Do you actually think I would tell you?” the Red Knight finally replied with a mocking laugh. “Will you cut me down? So be it. I should love to fight you. However, my princess has ordered me not to raise a hand against you even if you take your blade to me. At the very least, you will not pass this way. D, I shall see you again in the next world.”

  The knight stood tall in front of the door, his chest thrown out with determination. He was a veritable Cerberus guarding the entrance to Hades.

  “Aren’t you going to run away?” asked D.

  The Red Knight roared with laughter. “I don’t believe I’ve ever even heard that expression before.”

  Even if it might mean his own death, he seemed intent on watching e
very last movement of D’s blade. But as the knight’s eyes opened wide, their depths reflected a sudden flash—a flash of black.

  Seeing the giant lose consciousness from a thrust into the thinnest part of his armor—the gorget around his throat—D returned his sheath and the sword it still held to his back.

  “My, but he was a patient fellow,” a low voice said with admiration from the Hunter’s left hand.

  The Red Knight didn’t fall. He’d lost consciousness, yet was still standing there like a wrathful temple guardian.

  “Well, that’s that. Mind if I ask you a question?” said the disembodied voice. “Are you gonna knock him over, or did you have something else in mind?” The voice cackled, but its laughter ended in a muffled cry.

  Clenching his left hand tightly enough to nearly break his own fingers, D kicked off the floor. The hem of his coat fluttering like wings, he soared like a mystic bird to the skylight fifteen feet above him.

  ROSE MANOR

  CHAPTER 2

  —

  I

  —

  Several minutes later, D stepped into a hall in the manor proper. Even with the Red Knight unconscious, he still had at least three foes here. And although he had yet to see the last of the quartet, the fourth knight would be no common opponent if the skill of the others was any indication. The entranceway had been mostly intact, but the ceiling was crumbling in places, and pillars of sunlight slid down to the floor.

  Needless to say, D’s destination was the grave of the woman everyone referred to as “the princess.” In many cases, a Noble would have a solitary grave at the edge of some garden, while it was also common to find such resting places in the basement of the main building. So it only stood to reason that the Hunter would search the manor before circling around to the gardens. Looking all around at the hall, D then proceeded to the door at the far end.

  Behind him, a voice like the tinkling of a golden bell said, “I’m so glad you could come.”

  When D turned, his eyes were greeted by a hazy figure that glowed and shimmered. Although it was clear that it was a woman in a white dress, the flickering light seemed to be passing through some sort of polarizing prism, and the woman’s face was left indiscernible. But even before D faced her, he knew what he would find. A hologram. It was unclear if her face was obscured because she thought this image quality would suffice, or because she didn’t wish to be recognized. Perhaps it also meant that the princess was unsure what to make of D.

  “I’m the lady of the manor,” she told him. “Call me ‘Princess.’”

  Anyone who’d heard the reputation of the lady of the manor from the villagers in Sacri would’ve been thoroughly perplexed by her voice. Although she had a tone as refined as any woman in her twenties, she talked like a little girl.

  “The Black Knight tells me you didn’t draw the sword from your back, but you still intimidated the Blue Knight and Red Knight. I like strong men. Be a dear and wait there a bit until I can meet you in the flesh. You can leave that room if you like, but even by day, this is a dangerous place to wander. I’ve had another room prepared for you further in. Go there if you like. Of course, if you’re anything like I heard, I don’t expect you to behave yourself at all.”

  “As you ordered, the Red Knight didn’t draw his weapon,” D told the projected image. “If I’d taken my sword to him, you’d have lost a valued retainer.”

  Laughing haughtily, she replied, “So, you take me for some cold-blooded villain who doesn’t care a whit about the lives of my subordinates? As I just said, I think I know you. If you’re the sort of man I think you are, you wouldn’t cut down a defenseless person.” The glowing image of the woman laughed loudly. “You can look for me, but you won’t find me. And the Red Knight would die before he’d tell you anything. Walk around all you like. Soon our world will be here. I can hardly wait till then.”

  And with her final word, the light winked out of existence.

  “Oh, she’s good,” the voice that rose from the Hunter’s left hand said with obvious interest. “She may talk like a dingbat, but she knew what you really were just from what her servants told her. She’s a real wolf in sheep’s clothing.” Chortling, the voice added, “I’m really looking forward to meeting her, too.”

  D didn’t reply to that, but headed for the door to the back of the hall. Apparently he had no intention at all of abandoning his search.

  “I thought I told you to quit that!” a voice called out from behind the Hunter, stopping him.

  The light burned a faint shadow of D on the door.

  “You’re a bit too insistent for such a good-looking man. Women don’t like you peeking into their bedrooms. Wait until night. That’s when beds get put to use anyway. But if you’re going to keep at this—”

  Her words became a brief shriek. A small hole had opened in the chest of the glowing female form, but it immediately closed again. Her light-sculpted face turned and looked behind her.

  Quickly facing D once more, she asked, “What was that?”

  Apparently she couldn’t even imagine that D would hurl a wooden needle at her.

  Seeming to recompose herself, she added, “To give me such a fright when I’m composed of no more than electrons, you must be an incredible man. I suppose I could kill you countless times.”

  “You seem quite sure of yourself,” D said when he turned.

  “Oh, how sweet. You’re finally speaking to me. I was beginning to wonder if you even had a tongue.”

  “Where’s your grave?”

  “Think I’d tell you?”

  The light flickered. She’d smiled. Yet only seconds earlier she’d been chilled by D’s attack.

  “Well,” she continued, “since you asked nicely, I’ll tell you. It should be quite exciting to see if you can get the lid of my coffin open before my time arrives. There.”

  A beam of light shined from the tip of one glowing finger. It guided D’s gaze out to the center of the ruined courtyard. But there was nothing to indicate a grave.

  “Go see for yourself. I’ll keep you company,” she said, her tone buoyant. And knowing as she did what D was capable of, it took incredible audacity to show him her own resting place in broad daylight. However, there was a sort of innocence in the woman’s voice that made it seem she was neither arrogant nor stupid.

  Standing at the spot she’d indicated, D looked all around.

  “You don’t see at all, do you? My coffin is buried in the earth. And you’ll need more than brute strength to dig it up,” the light figure laughed.

  Kneeling without so much as a word, D put his left hand to the ground.

  “Fifteen feet, give or take,” the left hand told him after a moment.

  Hearing that, the light figure gasped, “Oh, my!”

  D raised his left hand high. In the sudden rush of air, the woman’s glowing image flickered wildly. It was as if the Hunter’s left hand wasn’t sucking in the air, but rather the very roar of the heavens. But did the glowing woman see the tiny mouth that’d surfaced in his palm? Did she catch the blue flame blazing deep in its throat as if fanned by the wind it consumed? Had anyone else been there to see it, they would’ve surely been left feeling that the Hunter’s hand had swallowed the blue sky itself.

  And then, after a few seconds—the sound simply stopped. The mouth had shut. Having lost its destination, the rush of air tossed D’s hair and slammed into the grassy ground.

  “What in the world was that?” the phantasmal woman asked, making no attempt whatsoever to hide the astonishment and childlike curiosity that tinged her voice as she leaned forward.

  Once more, D brought his left hand down to the ground. His arm easily slipped into the dirt up to the elbow. Moving it to another spot, he did the same thing again. After repeating the strange action a number of times, he’d made a hole roughly three feet in diameter. If D were to get into the hole and continue what he was doing, he’d be able to burrow down fifteen feet in less than five minutes.

&
nbsp; “You’re tricky,” said the glowing woman. “I didn’t think you had anything like that up your sleeve. How handy.”

  “You’re a regular comedienne,” the hand in question spat.

  “But I can’t bear to see you reach my resting place so easily. I’m afraid I’m going to have to interfere. Come out, I say!” she cried in a voice as clear as crystal.

  But even though the woman spoke, nothing appeared. Stillness settled once more over the desolate ruin of a garden where the sunlight shared its blessings with the Noblewoman without prejudice.

  D stood up straight once more. He alone could sense something coalescing in the stillness. It had no lust for killing. In fact, it didn’t seem to have any emotions at all.

  “Holograms?” he said as almost a dozen figures surrounded him. Each was about twelve feet away. Warriors. And all of them were clad in lightweight metal alloy armor. With finlike blades shielding their shoulders and underarms, their armor was a style used exclusively by the Nobility in the northern Frontier. Furthermore, every one of the warriors was translucent. Although no more than black outlines could be seen through their chests and thicker parts of their faces, stone pillars and trees showed quite clearly through places like their abdomens and shins. These warriors were not flesh and blood, but were mere conglomerations of electrons.

  “Behold my castle guards! Cut them and they won’t die. But they can kill their opponents well enough. See for yourself.”

  And as the glowing figure spoke, her armored knights passed right through her and bounded for D. The two-handed great swords they swung down at the Hunter had blades of more than six feet. Originally, the weapons had been intended for use against armored chargers and tanks.

  Waiting until the whining swords were just about sink into the top of his head, D drew his blade. Although he definitely bisected the knight’s torso, a pale line ran through the area in question and there were two or three ripples of what seemed to be electromagnetic waves, before even that faded away.