Record of the Blood Battle Read online

  Sipping from the glass the man brought him, the baron licked his lips and said, “It’s blood, isn’t it?”

  “I thought our Noble guest should have only our finest hospitality.”

  The baron was finally convinced the woman was crazy. She’d invited a Noble to her home, and offered him the thing he loved best. These were hardly the hallmarks of sanity. A smile naturally rose on his lips—the malicious grin of a Noble.

  Setting down the glass, he asked, “And in return for this hospitality, you desire something?”

  “Yes,” the lady said, nodding. “Please, save my husband.”

  “Ah!”

  The lady stood up. “Rather than tell you, I should first let you see him. My humble request can wait until after that.”

  —

  “We’re lost,” the left hand told the Hunter soon after they started down the road that led from town to Lady Millian’s chateau. They had crossed the brook and the bridge that were visible up ahead only a few minutes earlier. “If we keep going like this, it’ll just be more of the same. Could be something the Nobility set up, or a natural occurrence, or even some trick the humans are pulling—so, what do we do?”

  “Don’t you know?”

  “Hmph. Getting out’s easy enough, but I don’t think there’s any chance our short, bald Noble is having himself a grand old time. Serves him right. Why don’t we let things run their course for a while? It’d teach the little bastard a lesson for never listening.”

  “If it only taught him a lesson, it wouldn’t be a problem.”

  “Okay, okay! I’ll make us a path now.”

  Taking his left hand from the reins, D let it fall by his side, where it opened naturally. A tiny face appeared in the palm.

  “It’s one of the Nobility’s mazes, sure enough, but probably only for residential use. Wind alone should do, I suppose.”

  Before it could finish speaking, the air started to howl. The trees to either side of the road shook, their branches and leaves all bending in unison toward the Hunter’s left hand. Toward the tiny face in the palm of his hand—and its even tinier mouth. It was sucking in air with terrific force. The wind was so great, the scenery became distorted. The wooden bridge collapsed, the trees tore apart—and then even the colors drained from the scene as it became a fog swallowed by the mouth on the Hunter’s palm.

  The mouth closed.

  Immediately, the wind ceased.

  The cyborg horse whinnied. Rider and steed stood in the same spot as before, but the brook and the bridge had suddenly vanished. Only the road the cyborg horse was on stretched before them. In silence, without lauding the left hand for its efforts, D gave a kick to his steed’s flanks.

  A gunshot echoed.

  Bright blood and bits of his coat exploded in vermilion from D’s left shoulder.

  —

  II

  —

  D wheeled his horse around. Not a hint of pain colored the pale beauty of his heaven-sent countenance.

  Down the road, a voice called out, “Ha! You did it!”

  Just a hundred yards behind the Hunter, a man with a single-shot rifle was down on one knee with his weapon raised, while a number of men around him were slapping him on the back.

  “That’s what he gets for trying some funny shit.”

  “The carrier pigeon from the sheriff told us to set up the labyrinth, but look what happened to that. Well, this is what we do to anyone who wants to mess with the lady.”

  “Oh, he’s still alive. Put another slug in him!”

  Receiving another slap on the back, the man with the rifle slid back the bolt handle, ejecting a gleaming cylinder. A spent brass casing. Leaning the rifle against his shoulder, he pulled another large round from the ammo belt around his waist and loaded it into his weapon. Judging by how he had to focus on sliding the bolt back into place, he wasn’t a sharpshooter by trade. He merely happened to be the best shot among the group of men in the area assigned to operate the labyrinth.

  At the same time he put the stock against his shoulder, he drew a bead. A cry of fear choked in his throat. D had closed to within ten yards of him. The gunman could tell it was the Hunter’s unnatural speed that’d rooted his stunned compatriots, leaving them unable to even call out to him. Plus, they’d looked at him. They’d seen D’s face, so handsome it could steal even a man’s soul. Still, the gunman got off a shot. Where that bullet actually went he’d never know, and the instant the cyborg horse sailed over their heads, the gunman’s right arm came off at the shoulder.

  Startled by the cries that finally issued from their own mouths, the men plunged into the forest.

  As the writhing gunman’s blood stained the ground, D quietly walked over. He’d already dismounted. He stood beside the man. The wind tossed the hem of his coat, and the tip of his longsword was thrust under the nose of his foe, who groaned in a sea of blood—such a vision of beauty there in the stark sunlight. How well the hue of darkness, death, and bright blood suited this man. D.

  “If I don’t stop the bleeding, you’ll die.”

  His voice was cold—and telling the truth in such a tone should’ve made it unsettling. But forgetting even his own hellish pain, the man looked up at D with eyes clouded with rapture. “Please . . . save . . . me.”

  “I’ll fix you up. And then you’ll answer some questions.”

  The man nodded. His eyes never left D.

  Reaching out with his left hand, D touched the man’s wound. A second later the bleeding stopped completely, as if time itself had paused, and the man’s entire body felt at ease. His pain had faded.

  The Hunter’s blade flashed before his face.

  “Who is this Lady Millian? What’s her connection to the Nobility?”

  The man let out a deep breath.

  The room was swimming in light. It was a sight that surpassed even the guest room from which he’d just come. However, the light and the breeze that tossed the white lace curtains were difficult to reconcile with the shadow of death that hung over the room. In the center of the room was an opulent bed, and the baron looked down on what lay in it: a blackened, withered mummy, with scant hair remaining on its head, the skull pressing against the skin of the face, and teeth and gums exposed, all looking more unsettling in the light than they would in the darkness.

  “This is my husband, Jaoul,” the lady said, her voice brimming with a sadness that was all too genuine.

  “Hmm.”

  Not seeming at all afraid, the baron waddled closer and touched his child-sized hand to the man’s face.

  “Hmm.”

  His brow furrowed dubiously.

  “Come now,” he said, using both hands to pry the man’s jaw open. “What’s this?”

  He opened one eyelid, which was like a crack in a rock. Though his actions seemed like horseplay, the baron’s eyes were deadly serious, his expression that of a scholar deep in thought.

  “I see,” he said, striking the mummy in the vicinity of the abdomen through the bedcovers. “He’s still alive, isn’t he?”

  The lady and Totem looked at each other, and then her eyes grew warm and damp. “Yes . . . and now,” she began, her voice choked with emotion, “and now . . . you have come. You, who can restore him.”

  “Is he your husband, your boyfriend, or just a lover?”

  “He’s my husband.”

  “Why’s he such a mess?” the baron asked bluntly, but the lady didn’t display the least bit of anger. Her heart was already filled to overflowing with expectation and emotion.

  It was Totem who glared long and hard at the baron.

  “Ah, yes,” the lady began, nodding and wiping the corners of her eyes with a silk handkerchief. She appeared as nothing less than a widow who’d lost the love of her life. “You see, my husband was a researcher focusing on the Nobility. This chateau was once a Noble’s summer retreat. Five years ago, my husband borrowed the place from the town and began his research into the physiology and technology of the Nobility.
”

  As a result, he had uncovered certain techniques and learned how to use them. How to use space-warping technology to generate labyrinths, how to make photon weaponry, and how to give a body the superhuman strength of a Noble, among other things. He passed this information on to the populace, and received overwhelming support. He was even granted use of that chateau in perpetuity. The track Millian’s husband’s research took led him even further. Into a place deep in the bottomless darkness.

  “My husband wanted to become a Noble.”

  As he learned more about the Nobility, her husband’s interest had shifted from the civilization they’d built to their physical abilities. There were certain words that danced and tempted men like luminescent insects out in the darkness. Ageless and undying.

  “Firstly, my husband tried to obtain immortality without actually becoming a Noble. And once he realized he’d failed, he decided to become a Noble rather than give up.”

  “He was a fool,” the baron spat. “And this was the result? As a mummy, it takes almost nothing to sustain his life—he certainly could live a long time like that, I suppose. But he’d be no better than a motionless living corpse.”

  “Please, restore him.”

  “What?”

  “Please, restore my husband to his former self.”

  The baron responded to her doleful request with a simple, “Can’t be done.”

  “Why not?”

  “Though he was foolish, your husband actually lit on something rather good. I can’t fault his methodology or his practice. There wasn’t a single mistake—except for the fact that a human can’t become one of the Nobility without being bitten. What you have here is the logical conclusion. Leave him as he is now, and he should last another three centuries. But as a mummy that never drinks or eats, but merely breathes.”

  “But . . . But you’re a Noble who can walk in the light of day . . . As such, you should be able to restore my husband . . .”

  “Hmm . . .” The baron looked from the withered face in the bed to the beautiful woman, then suddenly took the husband’s jaw in hand and pulled back on it. “You’re quite an attractive woman. Come to mention it, unlike all the others of my kind, I have yet to taste the pleasures of a human female. I was always so absorbed in my research, you see. What the—”

  His rotund form leapt back a good ten feet. Where he’d been, a terrific killing lust had coalesced in human form. It was Totem.

  “I suppose I shouldn’t have insulted the head of the household in front of such a faithful retainer. However, you do get what I was driving at, don’t you?”

  Totem was about to step forward, but the lady stopped him.

  As she looked at the baron through half-closed lids, her eyes carried hatred—and a gleam of irrepressible sexuality. “I will comply. However, I don’t want my blood to be . . .”

  “Understood,” the baron said, breaking into a salacious grin. He purred like a cat, “Your mistaken human beliefs to the contrary, we have other ways of sating our desire besides the sacred act of drinking blood. We’re fully capable of enjoying relations between men and women just as humans do. Do you hear that, you big lug? Now, come to me, woman,” he said, beckoning to her.

  Eyes downturned, the lady went over to the baron and took his hand. “The bedroom is this way.”

  “Goody,” the baron exclaimed without any embarrassment. He even rubbed his hands together. Though a smile that could be described as less than innocent if not downright scornful flitted across the lady’s lips, he didn’t notice, stepping ahead of her and reaching for the doorknob.

  “Come with me, then.”

  The instant the door opened, the baron’s back was given an incredibly forceful push. Though a Noble, his weight was no greater than that of a normal human being. He fell forward with a shriek, at which point the door shut, and he only had time to shout, “Wait a minute!” before losing consciousness.

  Surrounded by an overpowering smell that would likely drive even a human mad, his senseless body writhed, convulsed, and vomited.

  Some time after his crazed movements had ceased, each and every window began to open without a sound. The room that the baron had entered had been filled with the smell of the only thing humans knew to be effective against the Nobility—garlic. When the door opened again, a pair of figures stood there.

  “That was easier than expected—who knew there were such stupid Nobles,” the enormous figure sneered.

  “Walking in the light of day—that’s the one thing a Noble shouldn’t be able to do,” the lithe figure laughed.

  —

  The chilly air of winter filled the room. The unconscious Nobleman lay in the placid sunlight. There was only the laughter of the lady of the house and her servant, hers ringing out high, and his low. The next thing he knew, his brain felt numb.

  Really did a number on my sense of smell. That was his first thought. Before he passed out, it’d been clear what’d been done to him.

  Though the Nobility were immortal and possessed regenerative capabilities, it took at least three days to recover from this traditional attack. His nerves would be paralyzed for a whole day. And yet, perhaps erring on the side of caution, they had secured the baron’s body to the bed with three straps. The lights and equipment in the rock-walled room told him in an instant that it was an operating room.

  A pair of figures looked down on the baron, one from either side. Despite the white gowns, surgical masks, and rubber gloves they wore, their eyes made their identities clear.

  “You bastards intended to do this to me from the very start, didn’t you? You’ll pay for this!”

  “Please forgive me,” the lady apologized. Both her voice and her gaze remained cool. “As my husband neared his final days, he wrote down what should be done to treat him. He said to give him a transfusion of blood from a Noble.”

  The baron bugged his eyes, gasping and struggling. “Then it was all a pack of lies, was it? Lousy humans! I was going to cure him!”

  “In exchange for me,” the lady said in a tone that cut as well as the scalpel she held. “To be honest, I was concerned about this, but you can see how smoothly it went. I thank you, dear Nobleman.”

  “It’s nothing, really. But you shouldn’t need a scalpel for a blood transfusion.”

  “His instructions were that after the transfusion, we were to feed him the frontal lobe of a Noble’s brain.”

  The baron began to shout. “Okay, that’s where you’re mistaken! That’s a huge misunderstanding. It’s the very zenith of quackery!”

  “Do you know what happens when a Noble loses their brain?”

  “Why, yes, I do. You see, some Nobles develop neuroses. I was given permission to perform various experiments on them on the condition that I euthanized them. The brain regenerates.”

  “Then I wouldn’t think there’s anything to get so excited about.”

  “But you’re in hell until it does grow back. Depending on how much is removed, it can be three days and nights of screaming agony. And afterwards, they’re not quite right. Not for me, no, thank you!”

  “But it’s for my husband.”

  “Hey! Stop it!” the baron cried, and he began to thrash in earnest.

  Listening to the creaking of his bed, the lady merely shook her head sadly. “Those bonds were made to withstand the unholy strength of ten Nobles. Please forgive me.”

  The blade of the scalpel was placed against the baron’s forehead. Just as her hand started to make the incision, there was a faint sound from the windowpane.

  —

  III

  —

  Even before she gripped her wrist, the lady backed away and her scalpel hit the floor. From between her fingers, a rough wooden needle jutted.

  Suddenly a shadow moved across the sun. The hue of darkness tinged the window that now was marred with a small hole. That darkness shattered the glass, taking the form of a young man in black who landed on the floor.

  “D!”
/>   The Hunter advanced without a word and the lady was frozen in place, but Totem stepped in between them. He threw a straight right punch at D’s face. D stopped it with his left palm.

  “Oh, my!” The cry sounded for all the world like it came from his palm. D had been physically knocked back to the window.

  “Watch it,” the baron shouted to him from the bed. “That thing’s a sorcerous machine man. He can’t be destroyed through physical means.”

  Totem went over to the wall to his right. A longsword hung there. Though it served as a decoration, it was a real weapon. Drawing it, he made a swipe in the air. The wind it created rattled the windowpanes. Lunging forward, he kept his left hand raised for balance.

  D’s sword whistled from the sheath on his back. Totem’s expression changed. D extended his right hand and raised his left. Neither made the first move, but their blades flashed into action simultaneously. The gleams crossed, with one of them slashing diagonally through the sunlight.

  There was a thud against the floor. Still clutching the sword, Totem’s arm had been taken off at the elbow. And as was normal for a blow from D’s blade, the stump exposed gleaming metallic bone and a silvery bundle of wire nerves. Those wires dripped down all over the floor and the severed arm. At the same time, silvery filaments also shot out of the arm on the floor. And then they connected in midair, swiftly melding together to lift the severed arm and align it with the stump. This thing could revive its very nerves, something even the Nobility’s indestructible nature supposedly didn’t allow. And weren’t these inanimate wires? It was magic. The Nobility had developed sorcery that could give life and regenerative abilities to even inanimate objects.

  “Looks like someone learned how to work sorcery on machines on the level of an overlord. If the woman’s husband found out how to do that, he was no ordinary—oh!”

  Totem charged at the Hunter. His steely arm thrust at D’s chest with a speed on par with the Hunter’s. Right before his eyes, D’s body spun out of the way. The tip of Totem’s blade met air by only a tenth of a second, and the spinning D caught him in the side with a blow from his left fist. Letting out a low groan, Totem staggered. It was unclear exactly when D had pulled out one of his wooden needles, but it was now driven halfway into the machine man.