“Don’t worry. D said it himself. You’ll be safe for two days. We’ll take your parents with us and get plenty far away from here.” “We can’t. My mother and father would never be able to leave their home.”

The lock came off. When he shoved the door open, Cecile stood just beyond it, her face a complete mess. As Lyle approached his sweetheart, she took a step backward.

Her warm body pressed against the grinning Lyle’s chest with an intensity that seemed to promise she’d never leave him again. As she hiccupped, Lyle gently stroked her back.

At any rate, he’d get Cecile out of town and come back tomorrow to fight the Noblewoman. He wasn’t too concerned about what would come after that. Though he couldn’t allow Cecile to be sacrificed, his own code of ethics as a villager wouldn’t allow him to just run off without taking some responsibility for what would happen in the village. He’d have to do something in return.

Too much strength went into the hand he had resting on Cecile’s shoulder. Noticing this, the girl looked up and gasped in a low voice.

But well within hearing of that cry stood the woman in the blue dress. And the deep red blossom on her chest was surely the work of D’s needle.

Pushing Cecile out of the way, Lyle readied the crossbow off his back. Once he’d switched off the safety mechanism, the hammer that’d strike the firing caps rose.

A blur of black streaked toward the woman’s face. The first arrow was snatched from the air by her hand. The second arrow was deflected.

The woman halted—Lyle’s third shot had gone through the back of her hand. As she stared at it with disbelief, a steel arrow whizzed toward the left side of her chest, and this time it sank into her all the way to the fletching. Surely the woman hadn’t been able to dodge it, since she’d appeared there despite the wound D had dealt her.

Reaching with her other hand for the arrow that’d just pierced her squarely between the eyes, the woman had no sooner taken hold of it than she collapsed on her back in the bushes.

“I did it! Those dark clouds are breaking!” Lyle exclaimed, putting all his feelings into his words as he gave a little jump for joy.

“It can’t be . . . You mean . . . I’m saved . . . ?” Cecile mumbled absent-mindedly as the boy pushed her up onto his horse.

“We don’t have to worry about anyone giving us any trouble now. Let’s head back to town.”

Astride the horse, the couple started down the road back to the village in high spirits.

As the rows of houses became dimly visible by the light of the moon, the girl said, “Someone’s coming!”

“No problem. We don’t have a damn thing to worry about anymore. To the contrary, I should get a reward for this.”

So full of confidence and joy, Lyle had forgotten something Cecile’s father had pointed out while they were locked in the jail. To wit, the possibility that there might be a second Noble involved.

“That’s great. Come with me,” Bazura replied. He was accompanied by his men.

Discovering the remains of the Noblewoman out in front of the sacrificial hut, D got off his horse. Not even glancing at the arrow that’d sealed her fate, he examined the wound left by his needle instead.

“So, she came out even though she hadn’t fully recovered? Guess she must’ve been mighty hungry,” a hoarse voice said, the latter remark coming in a sarcastic tone. It didn’t believe that for a second.

She’d gone after Cecile knowing full-well how weakened her condition had left her. The only possible explanation was that her mistress had ordered her to do so.

Entering the hut and confirming there was no one there, D then returned to the corpse. Pulling a dagger out of his coat, he pressed it between the woman’s breasts. Sinking into her flesh like a weapon of another sort gliding into a woman’s sheath, the blade gave off a glittering beam of light. No, it wasn’t the blade—the glow spilled from within the woman’s body.

The radiance adding new allure to his handsome features all the while, D split the woman open from her chest to her groin. The flesh buckled out with internal pressure, and in lieu of blood, a dazzling band of light was thrown up into the autumnal sky.

What D saw within her were a number of glass tubes filled with a crimson liquid that seemed to be blood and a chunk of machinery that resembled a heart. And beyond those things—oh, that was the source of the light. A tiny sun, and tens of millions of stars set in the blackness that surrounded it.

Like an illusion, D leapt back a good fifteen feet. Before his eyes, the dazzling luminescence consumed the corpse. No doubt this was the result of it coming into contact with the outside world. The extinction of this inner cosmos was so silent and peaceful it betrayed all expectations.

As one form faded away, a new silhouette came to the fore. “We’ve met twice already,” said the girl with autumn tresses. “Let’s make the next time the last. I’ll be by the edge of the pond. Come before dawn. I have the young couple.”

Light scorched D’s retinas, and when it quickly dimmed again, there was no trace of the mistress of fall.

Having been notified of Lyle’s escape by the sheriff, the mayor gave the lawman a ninety-minute tongue lashing before returning to his den alone. As the sheriff was leaving, he said he’d try to get in touch with Bazura and join forces to search for the boy, but at any rate they wouldn’t be able to start until after daybreak.

“That little idiot. If he runs off with Cecile, it just means some other girl gets put out in her place,” the mayor grumbled bitterly as he sank back in his recliner.

However, his voice carried an unmistakable element of relief. “Well, you just keep right on running. You’d best cross the Frontier to somewhere no one’s ever heard of, and make yourself a life together.” “Is that what you think?” a voice like iron was heard to say from the feeble darkness that collected by the window. The den was only illuminated by a single small standing lamp.

“If what you say is true, of course he will be. After all, there’s no greater service he could possibly render to the village. Where is he? And do you have any evidence of this?”

“Once day breaks, I’m sure he’ll be back. And don’t forget about Cecile and her parents, either.”

“Understood,” the mayor said, knowing in his heart of hearts what was right. “I’ll have to make amends to Helga as well. I do try to keep my job as a representative of the village in mind.”

Once he knew the Vampire Hunter had left, the mayor slowly stretched out in his recliner, this time truly relaxing. This was the perfect occasion to open that special bottle of wine he’d been saving. Of course, the mayor didn’t realize it was a little too early to be celebrating.

The night was filled with scents—the smell of the grass and foliage just about to head into a long slumber, the aroma of fruit—and that of the moonlight. Perhaps even the rising atmosphere could be numbered among the scents. Billowing up from the waters of the halfidrained pond, it was more like a miasma that choked the air and seemed to warp the very light of the moon.

A gnarled giant of a tree towered by the side of the pond, and among its roots a number of figures had gathered. There was no conversation. All kept their mouths shut. These shadowy figures were far removed from the raucous air that always seemed to spring up whenever people gathered. Though their hearts still beat, they weren’t breathing. And the blood that flowed through their veins was cold.

“Damn you—let us down!” an all-too-human voice shouted from a place that didn’t very well suit a human being—a spot halfway up the tree trunk.

Cecile and Lyle were hanging from one of the branches that protruded from the tree—and the cry had come from the boy, of course.

“You fucking stooges of the Nobility! You should be ashamed of yourselves!” he shouted, but the men who’d died and risen again didn’t even seem to notice.

Bazura alone glanced up at the pair, speaking in a tone that seemed to rise from the bowels of the earth, “Truth be known, we don’t really need you. We only brought you along because Cecile

threatened to bite her own tongue off if we laid a hand on you. We’ll finish you off soon enough, so keep your pants on.”

“In that case, tell me something. What’s the purpose of bringing us all the way out here?”

The question was one he’d asked repeatedly while they were being brought there, and it had never garnered an answer.

“I suppose it can’t hurt to tell you now. We’re here to destroy D.” “What?! You mean he’s not dead?”

“I killed him,” Bazura said in a weird tone. “But apparently he came back to life. That’s Vampire Hunter ‘D’ for you. He’s no ordinary opponent.”

“I’m not sure I follow you, but in that case, the battle’s as good as decided. There’s no way he’ll be killed by a bunch of instant Nobility like you jerks. Give up already and go hide in a grave. Once day breaks, I’ll find you and put you at peace.”

“We might have some trouble if it was just us, but we also have her.” Bazura’s words left Lyle shaken.

“Her? If you mean the Noble who bit the lot of you, I already took care of her.”

“You like to boast of such piddling matters. I suppose I should punish you. After all, once D gets here, we’re going to do away with you anyway.”

Taking a few arrows from the quivers on their backs, Bazura and his men planted roughly a score of them in the ground directly below Lyle and Cecile with the points facing up. Then aiming his rapid-fire crossbow upward, he fired a shot at Cecile before Lyle could even try to dissuade him. The arrow sliced halfway through the rope supporting Cecile, and the girl let out a scream.

“Well, I suppose that’ll do nicely. Now D has to race here and take all of us out before the love of your life falls onto the arrowheads— that’s the only way to save her.”

“You dirty bastard! Go on and shoot me, too!” “It wouldn’t be much fun if I did that,” Bazura said, laughing aloud for the first time.

Turning to the girl, he shouted back, “Don’t talk! You’ll only put more strain on the rope. Just hold still. Don’t move. We’ll get through this!”

“I don’t care anymore,” Cecile said softly. “Anything’s better than dying back in that hut. And I’ve got you by my side. If I fall, I don’t want you to grieve for me.”

Lyle couldn’t scold her for talking anymore. And though her words showed her resignation to this fate, no one could blame her. Twice set out to die, the sacrifice would’ve undoubtedly been a far crueler fate than to be run through quickly. The boy had done all he could possibly do.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be right behind you. After I’ve taken care of these bastards and the other Noble that seems to be around, that is.”

“What a lovely sentiment,” Bazura laughed mockingly from below. “You’d best pray D gets here before that comes to pass. Because that’s what we were chosen for.”

At that point, there was an owl hoot from the road sloping down to the pond—a signal from a lookout that’d been posted there.

At what truly sounded like a command from a former mercenary, the shadowy figures pulled heavy masks up over their noses and mouths and melted into the darkness.

The form of the horse and rider was at the crest of the slope, shimmering with moonlight. Without the slightest pause they cantered down.

Lyle didn’t even think about shouting out a warning. Though Bazura had vanished without saying anything to him, he couldn’t be sure the man wouldn’t put a steel arrow through Cecile at any moment.

When D reached the foot of the hill, black shapes came down around him from all sides. But they weren’t attackers. The things that fell around him broke open easily, sending a powerful stench into the night air. Garlic extract.

Ordinarily, Bazura and the others would’ve been writhing from the smell since they’d been made servants of the Nobility. But the heavy masks they wore must’ve helped to prevent that.

D raced ahead at full speed. Suddenly, his body and that of his mount were thrown forward. The tips of spears jutting from the ground had jabbed into his horse’s belly.

Midair, there were flashes from D’s left hand. Perhaps he’d seen the locations from which the foul-smelling packages had been hurled.

Men who’d been pierced in various spots by rough wooden needles appeared from behind the trees, weapons glittering in the hands of all as they charged at D.

Keeping his left hand over his nose and mouth all the while, D met their attack. All he had was the blade in his right hand—but every time it flashed out, it easily deflected whistling iron spears in flight or sent longswords falling to the ground along with the hands that gripped them. There were about ten men, and running them all through the heart or taking off their heads didn’t even take ten seconds.

“Incredible! Absolutely incredible!” Lyle exclaimed. He couldn’t help but shout at the exquisite display of skill by moonlight.

As D shot a quick glance up at him, an arrow shot out of the ground and severed Cecile’s rope. The girl plummeted, her screams trailing behind her.

While D stood motionless, a silvery flash shot up from beneath his feet. As he took it through the solar plexus, D drove his own sword into the earth and lifted his left hand. He caught the falling Cecile, and a groan that would’ve left most covering their ears rose from beneath his blade and Bazura sent black dirt flying everywhere as he sat up. D’s sword had pierced the man through the back of the neck and gone right through his heart.

Pulling off his mask with trembling hands, Bazura gasped, “You ... you damn freak ... Even with my blade in you, you stabbed me right back. ..”

With D’s sword still stuck in his neck, Bazura ambled away. The vitality of this vampire was a thing to be feared.

Though D should’ve given chase, he fell to his knees where he was. His Noble blood had reacted to the stifling aroma of garlic that wafted around him.

But it was a second later that Bazura’s silhouette lurched unexpectedly. The blank-propelled arrow jabbed into the ground, and his headless corpse toppled forward.

Behind him, still poised with her shoddy longsword from home at the end of its downward stroke, was the raggedly breathing Helga.

“I guess that settles it, doesn’t it?” Lyle said as he returned to the living room after putting Cecile to bed, but only the old woman nodded at his words.

“Well then, here’s the money you were promised.” Pulling a rough little pouch out from under the table, the crone passed it to D, saying, “You’ll be going soon, I take it. I sure will miss you.”

“You can’t! ” Lyle interjected hastily. “When I was talking about things being settled, I meant with Bazura and the first Noblewoman. There’s still another major player out there.”

“Just a hunch. But then again, I’m the one who called D here in the first place. Trust me.”

Up until then, D had been leaning back against the wall by the door like a winter’s night given shape.

Ignoring the seriously agitated Lyle, the old woman said in a cheery tone, “In that case, maybe I should get you to take me with you. At any rate, I can’t have much time left. I suppose that rather than staying here to decay all alone, traveling with you and seeing all sorts of things before I die would be a tad better. Oh, don’t even bother saying it. I’ll just follow along on my own anyway. And when I pass away, you won’t need to do a blessed thing for me.”

“What’s that you say?” the crone remarked, raising an eyebrow. “You said you were going to divine the Noble’s location, didn’t you? What was the result?”

“It was—” the old woman began to reply, but she quickly held her tongue and stared at D.

However, she seemed to give in right away. Turning her eyes to the floor, she continued, “—right in this house.”

“I swam down to the ruins,” D said without ever breaking his pose. “Is that a fact?” Helga replied.

For the first time, old Helga’s voice had been that of a young woman. Strangely enough, the very crone it had come from had her own eyes wide with surprise.

“You saw it, I assume. My ‘abode.’ But I thought I’d melted it completely. Were you able to figure it out just from the wreckage?” she said, her words and the old woman’s both coming from the same mouth.

Not replying, D asked instead, “Why did you appear now? And why was the handmaiden in the blue dress with you?”

“My father crafted the ‘abode’ for me. Actually, it would be more accurate to call it a ‘world’. So long as I remained inside it, I could live forever in a world of light. The blood synthesizers worked perfectly, too. A century ago, my father foresaw the fate of the Nobility and constructed that so I might live on without anyone ever knowing. However, ultimately, I was unable fight my blood. After more than a hundred years of denying myself, I finally couldn’t restrain the urge to drink human blood any longer.”

As she spoke with the stoic voice of the night, the old woman was deathly pale. She was finally learning the truth. And it was being told to her by herself.

“That’s ridiculous . . . Utterly ridiculous. If that were true, why would you call D here?” Lyle asked in a tone of mingled perplexity and fear.

Turning to the boy, she countered, “I—I didn’t do anything. I was just nervous.”

“But it wasn’t me that called you here. It was this ‘world,’” the crone said to the Hunter, thumping her chest coldly. “The world my father crafted was far too intricate, too ingenious. At some point, my ‘world’ knit itself into the human ‘world,’ developed a will of its own, and began to ‘live.’ Why, it even got a heart. And that was why it formed Lama—my lady-in-waiting—and set everything in motion. She was true to the spirit of the original right to the very end.”

“Do you understand, D?” asked the youthful voice. “In order to destroy me, you’ll have to cut down this tired old ‘world.’ There’s no other way to subject me to your blade. Inside her, I will live on forever, D!”

“Perhaps I’d have been better off never meeting you,” the old woman practically mumbled as a white line streaked down her forehead and along her nose. “I wanted to live with you from the first moment I laid eyes on you. I ordered the rabble to slay you so I might drink your blood a moment before your death and make you my servant—no, I never actually planned to make a servant of you. At the very least, I wanted to walk with you once through the autumn fields. It was my favorite season, after all.”

The two voices overlapped, and a second later, old Helga’s body split lengthwise.

D saw inside. The sun shone brilliantly over fall woods ablaze with leaves of red and gold, while a fragrant breeze carried the scent of apples and plums. And the light enveloped everything. In this scene there stood a girl in a white dress. Her hair was light green.

It was impossible to tell whether it was the voice of the old woman or the young that finished speaking in the end, saying, “—to go away with you.”

And then the girl split down the middle and dissolved into the endless white light.

The castle challenged the heavens. Although the way it had been constructed—by hollowing out a jagged mountain and pouring countless tons of liquid concrete—was startling, the reason the terrified scientists had their eyes open as wide as they possibly could was because a massive nuclear reactor set dozens of floors below the castle was still running.

“Yes, but just where is all that power going?” one member of the survey team asked as he tightened his grip on a garlic flower.

Not an iota of the energy was devoted to illuminating the castle or even opening and closing the doors of this massive structure that’d been carved from a whole mountain. It would probably take them more than a decade to learn every detail of this palace.

“And you mean to say the nuclear reactor has been going nonstop ever since?”

“In that case, you should be able to check what that power line is supposed to feed into.”

“No, that’s the only information that’s been lost.” “And you think that might’ve been intentional?”

The scientists fell silent. They were numbed by the thought of the vast energy that'd been pouring into this unknown thing for the last two thousand years—or perhaps even longer.

Terror then hovered over the group like an aurora. What was the thing? Why had it been necessary to hide its existence while enormous amounts of power were fed into it for two millennia?

It was two days later that they came up with an answer, when the linguist who’d been holed up in the library located in the castle’s annex madly deciphering ancient documents of the Nobility appeared before a scientist who’d stepped out onto the castle’s observation deck to enjoy the cool summer breeze.

Going over to the edge of the observation deck, the linguist peered down. There was nothing there. A foreboding precipice that was sheer and smooth, the castle walls dropped straight down for more than three thousand feet. The outline of a distant mountain chain curtained by fog and twilight caught the linguist’s eye, and he finally felt calm again.

“They chose a hell of a place to make a hell of thing, didn’t they,” the scientist said. “This isn’t merely a mountain stronghold; it’s an impenetrable fortress.”

“Precisely,” the young linguist replied bluntly. “As you say, this was something exceptional. It’s been here for roughly seven thousand years.”

“Well, isn’t that something,” the scientist remarked with admiration, but he wasn’t able to fully conceal his feelings that a mere seven millennia in and of itself wasn’t all that amazing.

“For the five millennia from its construction to its abandonment, the castle was at war continuously.”

“I suppose you’ve already seen how the castle is equipped. The whole place is bristling with armaments like a veritable porcupine.”

That remark cut the scientist to the quick. If the government back in the Capital ever saw the countless weapons of legend to be found here, they’d have the whole castle locked up tight. Needless to say, there were the basic armaments such as neutron missiles, atomic cannons, and lasers, but judging merely by the remaining structures, the place had almost certainly been equipped with dimensional vortex cannons, weather disruptors, energy lines, and other weapons of mass destruction. It was a level of fortification inconceivable in an ordinary castle of the Nobility.

“According to local folklore and what I’ve managed to decipher from the scant records kept in the castle’s archives, this was the center of an ancient battlefield twenty-five hundred miles in diameter—a place known as ‘The Armageddon Zone.’ And the conflict was an extremely personal one.”

As if on command, the fog broke like a curtain opening on the ravaged earth. An expanse of reddish brown soil without a single spot of green, the desolate scene would probably be enough to trouble anyone’s soul. Even though he only suspected that was the result of a nuclear war that’d showered the area with copious amounts of radioactive material, what the linguist had pointed out was undoubtedly the brutal truth.

“There was another family that was, in a manner of speaking, sworn enemies of the master of this fortress for several millennia. Currently, neither their names nor their crests are known to us, but there can be no mistaking the fact that they did exist. Receiving no assistance from the rest of the Nobility, these two families fought for five thousand years. And then one day, they suddenly vanished. Many Nobles have been wiped out without a trace, but this castle remains, and even now its reactor is feeding energy into something.”

“I wonder whatever became of the other family. Since this castle remains, its master must’ve won the conflict, right?” “We can’t even begin to guess.”

As the linguist lit a cigarette, the scientist eyed it enviously. The Capital did an extremely poor job of distributing them.

While he didn’t want to add to the other man’s sense of superiority, the scientist thanked the linguist anyway and took a yellow cigarette from him, asking him for a light at the same time. Filling his lungs deeply with smoke, he experienced a moment of supreme bliss. The ebbing of his tension actually gave rise to the most extraordinary thought.

“You think it was eventually settled?” the scientist said, but as he did, he felt a chill run down his spine. One of the possible answers was the last thing he wanted to hear.

“I don’t know, either. If it did reach a conclusion, then the fact that this castle survived would suggest that their foes lost, but since neither the records nor any other documents make mention of it, I can’t say for certain.”

“Yes. There’s a very strong possibility the conflict was never ultimately resolved.”

The scientist held his tongue. A specific thought arose in his brain with frightening clarity. It was supported by the Nobles’ nuclear reactor that even now continued its tireless activity deep within the earth and by the vast wasteland that surrounded the mountain fortress.

Looking at the linguist’s face and finding a hint of anticipation there, he decided not to indulge the other man any further. As far as the Nobility and their civilization was concerned, there was an unwritten yet ironclad rule: The less you know, the better.

The linguist knew it, too. The major difference between the scientist and him was the youthfulness of the latter. Although he was still free to choose whether or not to discuss his thoughts, his youthful overconfidence was so strong that it threatened to make him burst.

The gaze of the youthful linguist shot to the scientist. But the scientist had his eyes shut. Suddenly, the linguist realized that it was dusk.

The observation deck faced west. The vermilion-tinged outlines of a distant mountain struck at his heart with a wave of surprise. He got the feeling that the entire page of history penned at this castle was stained the very same hue.

When the scientist’s parched lips blew out a protracted cloud of purple smoke, a now unmistakable rumbling in the earth and the sounds of destruction rose from below them. And then—there was a roaring laugh.

From off to his left he heard the whistle of a spear thrust. Though the drive came with such speed the very air seemed to bend around it, the figure in black didn’t seem to make any special moves, but merely grabbed the spear just behind the tip with his left hand. As the spearman stumbled forward with an incredulous cry, he was met head-on by the casual swipe of a sword that dispatched him before the ink-black figure surveyed his remaining opponents.

There was a wind—a winter wind that seemed to make every cheek it buffeted swell to twice its normal size. And to the men, it seemed as if the same wind was protecting the other man. An outline like a wintry night crystallized, but with all the resulting sparkle crushed from winter’s true form. His face was gorgeous, and his coat absolutely mesmerizing as it billowed out elegantly.

We’re all gcmna die. That’s the price we’ll pay for trying to kill a man so beautiful and taking his gold.

“Give me some room, damn it!” one noticeably short man growled as he stepped out onto the frozen ground. It seemed like he was ready to make his move, but suddenly a pair of black wings opened noisily on his back. They weren’t organic. Rather, they’d been crafted from animal hide stretched over a skeleton of wire and wood.

Flapping his wings before the beautiful butcher, the man flitted into the air like some sort of unholy bird. The wings must’ve utilized a compact but powerful motor, and the flesh and bones of the man himself had to be awfully light.

His shouts rained down from the sky. “I’m gonna go after him, too. All of you hit him at once!”

And then the winged man rapidly climbed another fifty yards. That was the kind of altitude he’d need to launch his attack.

Naked steel glittering in their hands, his cohorts charged the butcher. They had no way of knowing that on his way down, the airborne figure had reduced his speed.

The second all the forms fused into a single mass, the bird man began to climb again with a brown rain pouring down from his chest.

Twice, cries rang out—once when the liquid made contact, and once more when the soaked bodies began to dissolve with terrifying speed. They’d been showered with a powerful acid.

When the bird man dropped thirty feet and turned for a look, none of the forms on the ground resembled a human being any longer. Descending another thirty feet and changing direction, he gasped aloud.

One of the figures who should’ve melted down into a pile of meat and bones had just stood up straight. Even from his present height, the heaven-sent beauty of the countenance now peering up at him was unmistakable.

It’s him! There’s white smoke coming off his coat—don’t tell me that shielded him from my rain of death!

Eyes glittering with malice, the bird man gained altitude. Though his opponent might’ve cheated death once, no lowly creature on the ground could possibly escape the speed and murderous intent of one who ruled the sky.

But before he could beat his wings to dive in an assault from the heavens, it looked as if the figure of beauty on the ground rose with exquisite weightlessness. In order to ensure his foe was now slain, the bird man had intended to swoop down to a mere ten feet above his opponent’s head. He never would’ve thought the figure in black would rise to his altitude as he was about to rain liquid death on him. The instant the man felt the silvery flash touch the top of his head, he realized the second round of screams that’d come from his compatriots hadn’t been prompted by the liquid death, but rather by their opponent’s swordplay.

As his body continued to glide through the air, its path was suddenly blocked by a figure that resembled a small mountain. Just as it looked like they were about to collide, the bird man split in two. A bloody mist spattered the giant as the pieces passed him on either side. After angling down through the hazy white of winter and slamming into the ground, neither half moved again.

While it was unclear whether or not he knew the massive individual who’d intruded on the deadly battle, the gorgeous figure silently turned his back on him to walk away.

“Wait just a second!” a voice boomed from ten feet in the air. It came from a pair of thick lips and a face larger than most children.

“Sweet lord!” the giant said with an appreciative whistle, his wide eyes going even wider. “My, but you are one good-looking fella! What do you go by, anyway?”

Giants weren’t completely unheard-of in this world. In the western Frontier there was a village of forty-foot-tall Cyclopes spawned by the Nobility. However, this nameless Goliath was extremely ordinary in appearance, clad from the neck down in a purple cloth that looked like velvet curtains, and at the end of the pole he had over his shoulder hung a cloth bundle that looked big enough to hold five grown men. A giant traveler was indeed a rare thing.

The smile didn’t fade from the giant’s face, no matter how long he stood there. D turned around.

“Hey! Wait a second!” the giant cried, hastening after the Hunter. The ground shook with every thud of his feet.

As he followed after D, he pointed to the earthen mound over which he’d come and said, “I was sleeping nice and peaceful-like back there. Not only did you and your playmates go and wake me up, but look what a mess you made of my only set of clothes. I’ll never get the stink of blood out of them. You’ve got to take some responsibility, buster!”

“Smashing one or two of those creeps into a pulp would’ve satisfied me, but you already took care of them all. So that only leaves me one alternative.”

Not even bothering to take the package of belongings from the end of his pole, he swung it straight down at D’s head like he was working with a hoe. The bludgeon was a foot and a half thick and over fifteen feet long. Judging by the jagged condition of either end, it was probably safe to say this was a log that hadn’t been cut with any edged implement but rather snapped off with sheer strength.

Its impact shook the earth, giving off a tremendous boom and sending cracks racing out in all directions—but the figure in black walked right by the fissures in the earth without the least concern.

This time it looked like the giant was going to bring down another blow from above, but he easily changed the direction of the bark-covered log for a horizontal swipe.

D moved with the flow of the log. Riding the wind caused by the great bludgeon and arcing up, he appeared unsteady for a second before bounding to the giant’s chest.

“Huh?” the giant cried, but before he could even get the words out he took a hard blow to the base of the neck from the still-sheathed sword and was knocked down.

“You’re pretty strong, aren’t you?” the giant conceded with clear admiration, though his face still held a grimace. “I’m no match for you. Okay, I give. I give already!”

And then he got right up, with blades of grass falling from his back—this after taking a blow from D.

“So, where are you headed anyway?” he asked, but D was already sixty feet away, mounting his cyborg horse where it’d been nibbling the grass.

“Oh, that’s perfect. I’m headed north, too. At this time of year, I’m sure it’s covered far and wide with icy blooms.”

“Say, why don’t we travel together? They say the company makes the trip, and I just love having someone stronger than me around. Makes it that much safer if we’re attacked by bandits, you know.”

D advanced on his horse without saying a word. Why the young man hadn’t done away with this person who’d intended to kill him was the real question.

Following him as far as the road, the giant then apparently gave up. With arms akimbo he shouted, “I know we’ll probably never meet again, so I should at least give you my name, pretty boy. It just came to me. I’m known as Dynus. I’ll thank you not to forget it. Dynus, you hear? Dynus the wanderer!”

His voice trailed off into the distance. By the time it faded completely, the rider in black had disappeared down the frozen road. The flavor of winter was strong that afternoon.

Snow had long since replaced the rain. The tiny white dreams that fell in disarray from the leaden sky made the sun show its dazzling smile for the first time in days. Even the village of Schlad that D was calling on belonged to the white world.

Though he took a room at the only inn in town, it wasn’t because he planned on being there for any length of time. Rather, it was because the fatigue of traveling by day had caught up with him.

A dhampir’s biorhythms peaked between sunset and daybreak. Although traveling was usually done by night, everyone knew that nocturnal journeys on the Frontier meant constant encounters with supernatural beasts and demonic creatures. A perfect example was the survey group that was traveling around the northwestern portion of the Frontier five years earlier. In the two hours following sunset they encountered five ghouls, a pair of demons that could suck the skeleton out of a man, a carnivorous blob, and a female specter—and half the party was lost in the process. D probably wasn’t the only one who’d rather take to the road by day instead of fighting through the night.

Lowering the blinds to manufacture his own darkness, D soon fell asleep. After waking about four hours later, he went outside.

The sun was down. Night air on the Frontier brimmed with the aura of nature. The strength that oozed from the soil, the invigoration that billowed from the trees, the vitality of the beasts of the field— for those who’d been born with one accursed parent, these things formed an irreplaceable fount of life.

D walked quietly down the white streets. All sounds seemed to be absorbed by the snow. Although it was only about supper time,

there were few people to be seen on the roads—snow was a perfect cover for certain dangerous creatures. Pedestrians carried sticks that they jabbed into the snow periodically, and about one time in ten the snow would tremble in response.

D entered a tavern. Doubling as a restaurant, the place swirled with the aromas of meat and liquor and cigarettes. The most dazzling glow in the whole rustic establishment came from the women.

Someone noticed D. Their coquettish chatter died instantly, and they concentrated gazes that beggared description on him. Even after he’d taken a seat at the end of the counter, the din failed to return.

Shutting his gaping mouth, the bartender with the handlebar mustache shook his head as if to rid himself of some thought and slowly ambled down to D.

“I’ll give you a glass of the best on the house, my treat,” the bartender said in a dim tone. “And once you’ve had your drink, I’ll thank you to leave. With you here, the whole joint will be out of whack.”

He gave the young man a tin cup full of vermilion liquid. When D touched the drink to his lips, a sound like a moan of passion shook the room.

“Would you folks mind behaving yourselves?” the bartender shouted. Apparently he was the owner.

And with that, the spell was broken. The women went back to stroking the bald heads of the nearest dirty old men or holding hands with the younger ones.

It was just then that the door opened. The reaction this time was slightly different from when D had entered. Fright and confusion— these emotions replaced any drunkenness in the gazes that followed the girl who came in carrying a wicker basket and walked all the way to the bar with her doleful countenance aimed at the floor.

“Please,” the young woman said with an equally modest nod. For some reason, she simply refused to meet the eyes that were trained on her. Her short red hair, the simple blouse and down coat, and even the long skirt were all those of an ordinary country girl.

“What’s the matter, Raya?” one of the young men said to her in a voice dripping with scorn. He was drunk. “Without an escort tonight, are we? Am I right, your majesty?”

“Knock it off,” the guy next to him said, giving his elbow a tug. Another friend of theirs said, “What happened to your big bad retainers, eh?”

There were three of them, all told—and each had the build and the look of a local hell-raiser.

“Would you knock it off already?” the bartender told them as he gave the girl a green bottle. “Don’t go starting trouble with Raya. It’s not like she called those characters here.”

“How are we supposed to know that?!” one of the three shouted back as he wildly waved a liquor bottle. “Three guys without any connection to her whatsoever show up one day and decide to stay. And when a local boy just grabs her ass a little bit, he gets both hands torn off at the wrist. Then someone who goes out there to collect on a debt—and gets a little mouthy—gets his bottom jaw ripped off and his tongue plucked out to boot. Is that the sort of shit a complete stranger would do?! It sounds more like bodyguards or loyal retainers protecting their darling princess.”

“Maybe, but from what I hear, both Corda and Adinas were in the wrong. Didn’t they both do or say something so bad Raya was trying to get away from them? So when they went after her to finish what they’d started, anyone who owed her family a favor would want to do something to help her, right?” said the bartender.

“So you think it’s fine someone’s gone and done that kind of damage to your fellow villagers?”

“Hell, everyone’s always going on about what a little saint she is for taking care of that rummy of a father of hers, so they can’t see squat through their rose-colored glasses. She’s not as good as everyone makes out! Three men, I’m telling you. She’s got three of them.”

A distasteful air hung in the tavern, and knowing just who bore the brunt of it, one of the young men said, “Sheesh. Let’s find a change of scenery,” as all three got up. Throwing some gold coins down on the table, they then went out of their way to stomp out of the tavern as loudly as possible.

“Worthless bastards. They’re the dregs of the damn village,” the owner grumbled as a single silver coin was slipped into his hand. By the time he realized what it was for, the figure in black was casually heading out through the door.

D turned left—back the same way he’d come. His face had a dim glow from the light bouncing off of the snow. No matter how gorgeous, every face had at least one part of it that served as a reminder of the human way of life, but the only impression one got from this young man was that of pure beauty. Even under the closest examination, it would always make things such as his conversing with others, or eating, or sleeping, seem like activities belonging to a completely separate world. Even as he walked away, not a trace of the tavern’s atmosphere remained on him. He was poetry in motion.

After a minute or two, D came to a corner. Towering warehouses stretched off blackly into the distance. Every village had a place like this for storing things such as food and agricultural equipment.

“Don’t be so stingy with your goodies. You must’ve let them give it to you, right?”

The figure in black kept right on walking. But five steps later he halted. The voices had undergone an incredible change.

The sounds that followed were something no one’s ears but D’s would’ve caught—the crunch of bones snapping, the sound of organs rupturing.

Before the long, thin scream had finished trailing through the air, D started walking again. He was a shadow with no relation to the events of this world.

When he’d gone about fifteen feet, a girl cried out in a distressed tone, “Someone! Anyone! Come quick!”

Sounding like the kind of farm girl you might encounter anywhere, it was the same young woman who’d left the tavern out of embarrassment.

Right after turning the corner, he saw several figures hanging around the door to one of the warehouses. One stood a head taller than the girl. He wasn’t one of the young toughs from the bar.

When D had closed to within six feet, the man turned and looked at him. A tinge of amazement raced through the man’s nondescript features, and the girl had a chance to slip free of his grasp.

“Help!” her round face cried as she clung to D’s chest. “Terrible things are happening to those folks inside. You’ve got to stop it!”

D didn’t even look at the girl. His field of view was occupied by the man who asked in a rusty voice, “What are you?”

Though the man was attired for work in the fields, an unearthly air inconceivable for any true farmer wafted about him.

The man’s body sank unexpectedly, but not like he’d just sat down. Rather, he disappeared from his ankles to his waist. No, actually he sank down into the snow right up to his head. But even though there’d been a lot of snow recently, the pile couldn’t have been more than a foot and a half deep. Strangely enough, it seemed he must’ve melted away.

D’s gaze was drawn to the entrance to the warehouse. One of the door panels was open.

The interior was packed with darkness, and a chilling cacophony surrounded D. But he’d probably already known to expect that.

The contents of the warehouse consisted of more than just the tractors and farm implements that’d been shoved into one corner. The wooden crates that filled the darkness were all cages fitted with iron bars. Within them, eyes glowed like red pools of blood atop furry legs or root-like tentacles while groans that might’ve been hexes or curses were vented. These were supernatural beasts and insects to be shipped to the Capital. Their uses varied. Speed spiders for feeding the poisonous insects that cured contagious diseases, doppelganger lizards that could be turned into guard beasts for a whole household through one simple operation—these were the kinds of creatures usually considered fit for nothing but slaughter out in the wild. Needless to say, even now they remained extremely dangerous.

On a fairly wide patch of ground in front of the towering heap of cages, three figures lay face down—the young men from earlier. From the low groans escaping their lips, they hadn’t lost their lives yet. They were probably fortunate to have gotten off with having their limbs left horribly twisted.

“Watch yourselves,” said the voice of the one from outside. “Even I didn’t notice this guy as he was approaching. What’s more, just having him near me made me flinch. He’s something from another world.”

“Is it him?” another one of them asked. It was a bizarre voice, seeming to come from both above and below. Anyone trying to locate him by voice alone was likely to quickly succumb to confusion, perhaps even forgetting about where they themselves were.

“No,” said the third and most solemn of the voices. “This is someone else. However—this one just might be even greater than the other...”

“Impossible!” “There are fearsome characters out in the wide world. That much I’ve always known, but when you actually see one in the flesh

“We’ll introduce ourselves. I’m Duran,” he said. The voice was that of the man from outside.

This wasn’t done to be nice—each and every voice had a ring of hostility to it. And yet, they didn’t let the tiniest sign betray their presence.

Then, for the first time, they showed some sign of being upset. D had just spun around on his heel. Could any act have matched that for sheer discourtesy—or for daring?

Having ascertained that the three young men were still alive, he was finished. After that, it would simply be a matter of summoning the villagers—that was reasoning that D alone could follow.

As if to show him his error, a black figure dropped down from directly above him.

A glint of white split the darkness lit till now solely by the light off the snow, and something thudded to the ground on either side of D.

“You’re good,” groaned the one who’d identified himself as Crumb. However, that voice came from the piece that’d fallen about six feet to D’s right—the man from the waist up. From the waist down, he lay to D’s left.

“My turn next,” Sabey said, his voice falling from the ceiling as he made no further efforts to conceal his presence.

“Hurry up and get out of here,” Sabey snapped back at him at the same time the sounds of destruction filled the entire warehouse.

Each and every cage had broken open in unison. No external force had undone the bolts or snapped the high-voltage lines— that had been done by the mindless fury of the accursed creatures within them.

At Sabey’s bidding, the bizarre monsters charged the gorgeous silhouette that stood there motionless. Anyone familiar with their respective species would’ve been startled by the ordinarily unimaginable swiftness and agility the beasts displayed.

But even more amazing was the speed that far exceeded theirs. The din of flesh and bone being hewn sounded like a single continuous sound. D moved in a circle with a diameter no wider than his own shoulders. Each flash of his blade dealt lethal wounds to several supernatural creatures, and after four glittering strokes the assault was at an end.

A hoarse and haughty laugh came from someone they didn’t even know was there. To the contrary, the impressions that radiated down from the ceiling seemed to indicate the three adversaries were so tense they might not have even noticed the laughter.

With the stink of blood beginning to pervade the chill air of the warehouse, the figure in black headed back to the entrance without a sound.

As he was about to cross the threshold again, Duran’s voice called out, “Wait—at least give us your name.”

“Those guys weren’t too shabby,” said a hoarse voice from the vicinity of the Hunter’s left hip. The same voice that’d laughed earlier. “The first one was in a great position to cut you. Ordinarily, that only would’ve been the start of things, you know. The second was a ‘beast master’—-but he’s capable of a lot more than what we saw. He was just testing the waters. And the third is the scariest of the bunch.”

“Please. I’d like you to get them to leave. At this rate, Papa and I won’t be able to go on living in the village much longer!” she said.

But the young man had taken a left at the corner, and her words never reached him.

CHAPTER 2

Blue light was just beginning to spill through the gaps in the blinds over the windows facing east when a monocled gentleman called on D’s room.

Through the door the Hunter asked, “What’s your business?”

While the voice froze him in his tracks, the man replied, “Brewer’s the name. Just a little while ago, I heard some talk about you at the tavern. I suppose the sheriff’s done with you by now. You’d best open up,” he ordered haughtily.

There was no reply.

Clearing his throat, Brewer then changed his tack. The voice that spilled from between his thick lips was coaxing.

“I’m sorry, please forgive my rudeness. The fact of the matter is, I’m a recruiter. The girl you’re said to have helped—Raya, was it? She’s already been paid six thousand dalas to take employment in the Capital. I even have the contract I drew up with her father. However, when I came back a week ago, I find three strange farmhands there who simply won’t let me have the girl. Worse yet, they’ve gone and left no less than five young men with all sorts of broken bones. As for Raya, she’s not shaking her head and refusing to leave her father or anything. I was at my wits’ end when I happened to hear about you, and I prayed the whole time I was running over

here. So, what say you? You’ll be handsomely rewarded. Would you be good enough to somehow deliver Raya to me . . . Mister D?” The last part of that was one of the aces he’d been holding. Not a soul in the village knew the Hunter’s name.

Looking quite dissatisfied, the recruiter fiddled a bit with his sharp little bow tie before saying, “Actually, I had the pleasure of seeing you from a distance once a long time ago. That’s when I learned your name and what you looked like. The dashing Vampire Hunter ‘D,’ famed throughout the Frontier. My, it truly is an honor to have another chance to meet you. I would appreciate it if you’d open up.”

Lowering his voice and bringing his mouth closer to the door, he said, “While I may be a bit imprudent, I certainly wouldn’t ask the greatest Hunter on earth to involve himself in mundane matters. Mister D, the girl—Raya—actually has the shadow of the Nobility hanging over her.”

A minute later, Brewer sat at a beat-up table across from D. His mouth hung open—a natural enough response—and it didn’t close for quite some time, as if leaving it that way were a form of courtesy. “You mentioned the Nobility, didn’t you?” asked the Hunter.

“I needn’t lie or conceal anything; not from anyone as stunning as yourself. Seeing you up close is almost enough to make another man melt like butter, you know. The government official in the Capital who wants the girl is actually a researcher studying the Nobility, and on checking some ancient documents, he discovered that she definitely has Noble blood in her. As a result, I was hired to bring her back in the utmost secrecy.”

“I’ve seen it personally. You may not be aware of this, but in the forbidden zone in the Capital, vast remains of an ancient city were discovered about three years ago. Particularly conspicuous among the theaters and halls was a massive library, which I believe was called Alexandria or something to that effect. The document in question was discovered in its subterranean storerooms. Bugs had eaten through it in places and it looked to me wholly illegible, but my employer is an expert in such things. He was remarkably successful in deciphering it. In it were detailed lineages of various Noble families scattered across the Frontier.”

“From what I was told, she’s probably not a pure Noble. He said she may be an abductee, although I’m not particularly well-versed in—”

“So you ain’t interested in anything but a payday from this government official?”

The reason Brewer knit his brow was not only because the hoarse voice was both like D’s voice and unlike it at the same time, but even more because it sounded like it was coming from the vicinity of his waist, which was concealed by the table between them.

“Only the official back in the Capital would know that for sure. Since I never expected to find myself in the current situation, I don’t have any proof with me. Of course, I’d be happy to send one of my young assistants to the Capital to fetch the document, but

I doubt whether the owner would allow it out of his possession.” “And what would you know about those other three characters?” “Oh yes, them. Well, you see,” the recruiter began, lowering his voice with great purposefulness, “before I left the Capital, what my employer told me was that abductees with Noble blood sometimes have these mysterious guardian-types looking out for them. Sometimes it might take the shape of a beast; other times, a sudden bit of good luck that protects the descendant of the Nobility. Now, my guess would be that they’re probably some variation on this.”

“What do you mean by that? I’ll have you know I’m a perfectly respectable mediator in matters of employment and—” The man then shut his mouth and rolled his eyes up to the ceiling as he said, “Thirty years.”

“If you’ve been out here three decades, you should know just how few abductees ever come back alive. Do you have any evidence of that happening to her?”

Taking an electronic recorder out of his jacket pocket, he flipped on the switch. On it was a recording of discussions between Brewer and the sheriff, the doctor, and various influential people around the village. In response to the flesh trader’s questions, each of them declared that in her infancy, Raya had disappeared for a whole year.

When the machine finished relating their testimony, Brewer said he wanted to hire D outright to take Raya back from those three characters, adding, “Two weeks ago, those three show up out of the blue. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if their boss—a true Noble—was coming, too. I want you to take care of all of them.”

The next day, Raya’s eyes bulged when she saw the highly unlikely pair that paid a call on her farm.

“When I got back from visiting the sheriff, they were gone. I haven’t seen hide nor hair of them today,” Raya’s voice bounced back to him.

But the departure of the mysterious strangers wasn’t the only thing that made her dark eyes glow with enthusiasm.

“That’s just dandy. Well, will you come along with me then, just like your father agreed to in our contract?” the flesh trader said, still trying to take the girl by the arm.

“I realize that. But please, just wait a little longer,” Raya beseeched him. “I have to give the matter of my father some thought, and I have to say good-bye to a few acquaintances. Give me another week at least.”

“I guess that can’t be helped. Oh, very well then,” Brewer replied, conceding easily.

Needless to say, that wasn’t how he really felt. But he’d promised D he’d wait at least a week to see if the Nobility showed up. He didn’t really intend to wait that long, and he kept insisting he wanted to head back to the Capital immediately, but the Hunter told him in that case he wouldn’t accept the job. Keeping any remarks about how ruthless he was for such a handsome man locked away in his heart, Brewer accepted the Hunter’s conditions. As long as he had this young man on his side, he was completely covered where those three weirdoes were concerned. If he just waited out the week, later he’d be able to keep playing up the Nobility angle and hopefully get the Hunter to come along as an escort all the way back to the Capital.

In his heart, he secretly stuck his tongue out at D. The whole story of abductees and the Nobility was a complete fabrication. The voices on his recorder were simply some local folks he’d hired to play along for ten gold coins. His sole concern was that the handsome Vampire Hunter was unlike so many others plying the same trade, but since he really couldn’t put his finger on what made D different, there was no point worrying about every little thing.

“Very well, I’ll stay in town for another week then,” Brewer told the girl. “But the damned hotel bills are liable to break me.”

Just then, the door to the next room opened roughly and the smell of liquor hit the noses of all. The middle-aged man who appeared with a ruddy face was Raya’s father.

“Go on and get the hell out of here already,” her father bellowed despite the fact he could barely work his tongue. “If Raya sticks around, there’s no telling when more of them freaky bastards will come barging in. That kind of trouble I can do without! Thanks to them, the whole village must think I’m the lowest of the low. When I heard you wanted to take my girl with you, I was genuinely relieved. So why the hell are you still hanging around?”

After Brewer had disappeared to try and get the father to go along with the story he’d told D, Raya remained staring sadly at the Vampire Hunter.

It was rare for this young man to show any interest in others— actually, it was more like an earth-shaking event.

“I realize that. He’s going to take me back to the Capital.” And then, as if cradling a certain expectation, she suddenly asked, “Will you be going with us?”

The color that’d suffused Raya’s countenance for an instant swiftly faded away.

As she got to her feet, she said, “I’m sorry. I haven’t even offered you tea.”

Disappearing into the kitchen, she quickly reappeared with a steaming kettle and a teacup. Pouring the contents of the kettle into the cup, she said, “Here you go.”

Taking the cup in hand, D said, “Could I trouble you to put some tea leaves in it?”

With a stunned look she peered down at the cup, her face swiftly growing more and more flushed.

Still looking straight down, she said, “There you are,” and then set the cup before him once again.

D looked down emotionlessly at the cup filled to the very brim with black leaves, then brought it to his lips without saying a word.

Her dumbstruck expression twisting, Raya covered her face with both hands and dashed outside through the front door. Her sobs streamed out behind her. Dashing down to the end of the porch, Raya cried out-loud. She didn’t know exactly why. Her tears spilled down into the snow that was piled as high as the floor of the porch, digging a tiny but deep hole.

Still in the same spot as before, D was just taking the cup away from his lips. The tea leaves had been left on the table.

“I’m glad,” she said, her eyes turning to D naturally. “I’m sorry you had to see me like that.”

Though the question actually had no bearing on what Raya had just done, it did serve to lighten her load.

“It’s not a problem,” she said as she took a seat. Her voice was flat, devoid of intonation. “I—Well, it just doesn’t matter. I could stay here and keep living like this, or I can go work in the Capital. Papa sold me, but I don’t mind. He’ll be able to live off that money, and it’ll be easier on me, too. Once I’ve gone to the Capital, there won’t be much point in me worrying about him any more. Tell me—how old do I look?”

Raya looked up at D as she said that. The earnest expression the girl wore seemed to have come completely out of the blue.

“I’m seventeen,” she told him. “Do I look it? Everyone says I look over twenty. And everyone’s always surprised when I tell them my real age. Does that sound right? Am I that much of an old hag? I can’t take it anymore. Having people ask my age, then getting that look on their face. I’ve had it with hauling water from the well day in and day out, tilling the fields with a hoe, and scorching myself trying to keep the electric fences up against the monsters. I was relieved when Papa sold me to that guy. If I go to the Capital, if I go anywhere but here, I’m sure it can’t be as bad as all this.”

D listened quietly as she confessed emotions she’d probably never shared with anyone before, but then he said, “It probably hurts your father to do this.”

All the strength ebbed from Raya’s body. The violent emotions of the moment had passed.

Looking down, the girl said in a flat tone, “I suppose you’re right. But he’ll forget about me soon enough. After all, that’s what happened when my mother died.”

“Perhaps he can’t get by without drinking. Not everyone can pick themselves up from any disappointment.”

“Are you sure you’re the only one who thinks it’s best for you to go to the Capital?”

Raya slowly turned to face the door to the next room. Her expression had grown stiff. Then she shook her head ever so slightly.

Three days passed. Snow fell relentlessly, reducing all the colors of the world to black and white. Some men who apparently worked for Brewer were at the house from sunrise to sunset, and since they took over the farm work, Raya was able to start doing needlepoint. As she listened to the sound of the snow piling up, she would suddenly look up and always find D in her field of view. And each and every time, the graceful black shadow was staring out at the snow-covered landscape. Raya couldn’t help but wonder if the young man was going to disappear at some point into the harshness of winter.

That night, something happened. One of Brewer’s young associates came back covered in blood and told them he’d been attacked by the trio on the northern part of the farm. His wounds were real enough.

After sending D out to investigate, the flesh trader had Raya loaded into a wagon.

“You’ll be fine without him. Those three freaks won’t be back again. You see, D’s off chasing his own tail. I’ll stay here and explain everything to him. You’d best go on ahead with these boys. See you later!”

“Wait!” she wanted to cry, but there wasn’t even time for her to say it before the wagon raced away in a spray of snow.

The world of white sped by as they left the farm and got on the road through the forest. Wind and white snowflakes lashed Raya’s face, but suddenly both ceased. The wagon had stopped.

The young man in the driver’s seat let out a scream. Back by Raya, the two others turned in his direction and gasped aloud.

The heads of both horses were missing from the shoulder up. As it dawned on the young men that the heads had been removed

without the sound of severed bone, a black form skimmed through the group for an instant. Though the headless torsos of the animals remained in the same pose they’d held in life, they toppled over to one side, spraying geysers of black blood.

On the snow to the right side of the wagon, Raya saw a black beast fling the three human heads it’d just bitten off.

And with that remark from the opposite side of the vehicle, Sabey climbed in to join the girl.

“We couldn’t get near that miserable flesh trader while he had D around, but fortunately, he was kind enough to do our work for us. Although you may not realize it yet, Miss, he will be coming soon. We must hurry and get you properly prepared.”

“You’ll find out soon enough,” Sabey said with apparent relish, baring his white teeth.

Throwing the corpses from the wagon, he settled into the driver’s seat. A mass of obsidian muscle whistled into the seat beside him. As the black beast licked its chops, Raya averted her gaze.

Despite the fact that both horses lay on their sides, Sabey took the reins in one hand and made a sweeping gesture with the other. A reddish powder settled over the horses like a mist. As the decapitated bodies staggered back up, Raya thought she must be having a nightmare.

“This isn’t part of my power, and it can’t do much more than make the horses run, but it should do for now. Off we go,” he said with a shake of the reins.

The stark'white scenery wasn’t moving. Actually, the wagon wheels weren’t even turning.

The scenery shifted. Vertically. As the wagon was incredibly hoisted into the air, Sabey and the beast alighted without a sound.

“Oh, it’s one of you guys,” said a voice that rained down on Sabey. The words fell from the head of the titanic figure that’d lifted the wagon and left the horses’ legs kicking vainly in midair.

“So, we meet at last,” he chuckled. “I just got into town, but I’m glad I came straight here instead of stopping off for a drink. See, I came out of the forest real quietly while you folks were going at it and hid myself under here. Did I surprise you a little?”

If what the giant—Dynus—said was true, then even the black beast had failed to note his presence.

Perhaps due to his surprise, Sabey stood there stock-still for a moment as if lost in his thoughts. Then his whole face flushed vermilion as he commanded, “Kill him!”

Moving at super-speed, the vicious beast had removed the heads of three people and a pair of horses in the blink of an eye, yet a gigantic hand had effortlessly closed around its throat to hold it at bay.

“This little pup of yours has a face only a mother could love,” Dynus said, but his words were accompanied by a harsh snap.

The beast’s body twitched for a few seconds before it moved no more, at which point Dynus tossed it back lightly over his shoulder as if he were discarding a little piece of trash. Limning a smooth parabola, the corpse sailed over a stand of trees that was eighty to a hundred feet high and disappeared in a testament to the unbelievable brute strength of the giant.

“Okay, now we’re getting down to the main event. Just relax and make your move. I think I’ll stick with this.”

And with these words, the giant took the hand he’d used to slay the beast and put it back against the bottom of the wagon.

Sabey’s expression was one of indignation for a heartbeat, and then his lips curled into a satisfied grin. At the same time, a deathly stillness radiated out around him.

It was a second later that a pair of gargantuan forms pounced on Dynus from behind.

“Whoa there!” the giant said, barely managing to keep himself from tumbling forward as grizzly bears more than six feet tall mauled him mercilessly with fangs and claws.

“What a joke,” the giant muttered shamelessly, adding a shout of, “Here you go!”

And with that, Dynus hurled the wagon at Sabey, horses and all. The impact caused snow to fall from the stand of trees, while Raya was thrown free of the wagon and struck her head hard against the ground, rendering her unconscious.

“Just watch this,” Dynus said to Sabey as he leapt away, then he wrapped one arm around the trunk of each of the massive bears.

Each weighed a good ton. But by the look of things, that was light for him. He quickly squeezed their torsos down into an hourglass shape, and then there was a hearty string of snaps as their bones shattered. The beasts were spitting up blood as the giant slammed their heads together to finish them off before he made an easy leap into the air.

Sabey didn’t even have time to run. Just as the giant landed, he struck the man in the head with a fist the size of a boulder, killing him instantly. Bright blood spattered across the snow and Dynus’s face.

“Well, that takes care of one of them. I guess that just leaves the one I’m here for. Ah, that should be a piece of cake.”

Dynus then turned around to face the way the wagon had come and added, “A handsome man against a snowy landscape? Talk about a freakin’ work of art!”

As he stood there book-ended by pure white forest, the young man in a coat blacker than the darkness looked like nothing less than a sculpture hewn in heaven itself.

You’ve been there a while, haven’t you?” Dynus said to D, but the Hunter advanced without speaking.

He didn’t race forward in a hurry. As the giant suggested, he’d been following the wagon from the very start. He’d seen Brewer’s scheme coming a mile off.

“Hey, there! Wait just a second,” the giant said as he stuck both hands out—although technically, he was sticking them down. “I have no intention of throwing down with you. Don’t wanna use up all my strength before the main event. I’ll give you back the woman safe and sound.”

“From the way you say it, the girl was what you were after.” “Spare me. I don’t wanna kill someone who doesn’t even know who they are.”

“That’s right. Because I don’t have that tingle running down my spine. If I were to fight her now, I’d just be tearing apart an innocent girl. Could you bring yourself to do something like that?”

“Wow,” Dynus replied, boldly baring his gleaming white teeth in a smile. “Knock it off. If you smile at me like that, you’re gonna make me all bashful. You lady-killer! Well, hurry up and take her back home so you can get her patched up. Huh?”

As he turned to where Raya had been thrown, his eyes went wide. An elliptical depression had been left in the snow, but the girl’s body had vanished without warning. And without D even noticing.

“I didn’t do it,” Dynus declared with a frantic wave of his hands. “And I’d say you didn’t, either. You suppose it was one of that guy’s cronies? Nah, I’d have noticed if it was one of them. Then it’d have to be—”

“Let me see,” the giant said, bringing his hand to his chin as he deliberated. “I’d say she’s at her castle.”

Turning toward the forest, D gave a whistle. Climbing onto the cyborg horse that came galloping out, he said, “I’ll show you the way.”

“You’re not exactly mister personality, are you? But I see your point. The girl’s in such rough shape, she could freeze to death out here. I guess I’m still half asleep. Just give me a second.” Dynus wasted no time in returning from the woods carrying the usual log with the cloth bundle tied to one end, quickly righted the wagon, and lashed the headless horses that even now kicked at the earth in hopes of fulfilling their role.

As they rode along side by side, D said to the giant, “I’d like to hear about this situation.”

“Yeah, sure—though to tell the truth, I don’t know much about it either. At any rate, that woman and I are apparently hereditary foes. We’ve probably been set up as proxies in a war between Nobles. Only, I knew where she was right away, but she doesn’t seem to have awakened yet. That’s why the flunkies got here first.”

“Why don’t you just stop the fight?” “I can’t do that. Or, to put it another way, I was made so I can’t even think that way. And once she comes around, she won’t be able to either.”

“That’s a thought. If possible, that’s the way I hope it’ll go. I’m made not to fight anyone I don’t view as a foe. So that’d probably be best for the girl, too.”

“There’s more to being a warrior than just fighting. There’s a little thing called fair play,” Dynus said, his voice rising in a laugh.

“Sure is pretty,” the colossal warrior said as he squinted his eyes. “The world’s such a beautiful place, but it’s just somewhere for me to fight. Something’s just not right about that. Why’d those bastards in the Nobility ever get it into their heads to make something like me? It’s tragic to be good for nothing but killing. I want to be of more use to the world, you know?”

The pair came out onto a plain. At some point the snow had stopped falling, and now the moon was out with a silvery glow. By its light, the snowfields glittered like a mirror that seemed to stretch on forever.

Suddenly the scenery changed. Blue light colored the pair as a desolate, snowless plain bare of even a blade of grass exposed itself.

Dynus drove the wagon through a region studded with one fantastic rock formation after another—they must’ve continued on for the better part of a mile. From off in the distance, rows of spacious buildings that certainly seemed to be ruins crept into view. The castle walls, the domed ceilings, the stone columns, the great foundation—and a huge reactor and electronic barrier larger than most villages made it seem as if there was still life in these ruins that were the size of a great city.

Not hesitating in the least, Dynus slipped into one particularly towering structure and found Raya lying in a room where only the central foundation remained. D had already dismounted and taken the girl’s pulse.

Oddly enough, the two of them seemed to be able to communicate without words. Neither mentioned how miraculous it was that even on foot, she’d managed to get there ahead of them.

Looking all around with fearful eyes, she said, “These are the ruins of Castle Sinestro, aren’t they? What am I doing here?”

In reply, Raya shrieked and clung tightly to D. But the reason she wasn’t really terribly afraid was because she hadn’t seen Dynus running amok. The wagon had been between them, with one in it and the other under it.

But just as Raya was about to get suspicious, the giant said, “Heck, I’m your new employee. I heard you needed help out at your place, so here I am!”

The next day, work began at Raya’s house with a change of cast. Dynus was truly adaptable in his activities. And the amount of energy pent up in his body was far different from what a human could store. He set the tilting roof of the main house straight again, then filled the nearly empty woodshed and water tank with a store that would last a good three years.

“You take it easy and leave all the heavy work to me,” the giant told Raya as he peered down at her and grinned. It was the sort of smile one couldn’t help but return, and though the girl’s features were stiff at first, they quickly softened.

“Let him do as he likes. These days, there are a lot of odd characters running around.”

“That’ll be great for our farm, but what should I do? It’s not like Mr. Brewer will let me stay here indefinitely.”

“Don’t worry about him,” D said softly. “We’ve come to an agreement.”

That evening, the three of them returned to her home and Dynus set the severed heads of the men who’d tiled to make off with Raya out in front of the speechless flesh trader.

As Brewer tipped over in his chair, D said to him, “You tried to pull a fast one, didn’t you? Leave Raya on the farm until he’s finished his business.”

A week passed peacefully, and after finishing repairs on the farm, Dynus turned his energy toward expanding the fields. The western edge of their land was a wild stretch of heavy undergrowth. With a tiny hoe in his hands, the giant worked from early morning at reclaiming the ground, and by late that night he’d succeeded in turning it into rich farmland. Even the girl’s alcoholic father couldn’t help but watch him work.

“Let me show you something interesting,” the giant said after hearing Raya complain about how difficult it was to use the snowy roads.

Gathering the whole group on the porch, he then went out to stand about thirty feet away in the center of the front yard. There was about a foot and a half of snow on the ground.

A summer breeze stroked Raya’s cheek. It was as if the very sun had landed in the yard as steam rose from the ground and the icicles fell from the eaves. If D hadn’t intercepted the icy spears, Raya and

Brewer—who was still around—probably would’ve been impaled by them. When Dynus presently appeared from the steaming mist in fine spirits, the whole yard was cleared of snow, leaving the black earth exposed. From this, it became clear that Dynus could control his body temperature and radiate heat at will.

D took that opportunity to escort Brewer back to town and sent off an express letter to the Capital. Naturally, it was to request data on any situations resembling Raya’s from the library. He’d known from the very start that the other story about Raya’s connection to the Nobility had been a fabrication . . .and he’d said as much when the severed heads were laid out.

“How did you know?” the flesh trader had asked, one eye bugging behind his monocle.

“So you knew from the get-go? Then why’d you come out here to the girl’s place? Vampire Hunter ‘D’ shouldn’t care at all unless the Nobility have shown their fangs. Yet you came out here anyway. Oh, I get it— you’re sweet on the girl, are you?”

Though ice water coursed down his spine, Brewer replied, “It’s true. By the way, you sure I’m not in the way here?”

“From time to time, you really sound like an old man,” Brewer commented. “I’ve already parted with the princely sum of six thousand dalas, you know. When the time comes, I have every right to take that girl to the Capital. But seeing the awkward incident we had earlier, I’m not saying she has to go right away.”

Of course, Brewer couldn’t very well stay at Raya’s house, but he showed up every day, grinning out in the garden or sitting inside enjoying the tea and cakes he brought just for that purpose. Oddly enough, neither Raya’s father nor the girl herself seemed to harbor any ill will toward this buyer and seller of humanity.

“You’re a strange fella, aren’t you?” Dynus said to him somewhat suspiciously.

The northern sky clouded heavily, as if spring’s eventual arrival were no more than a legend, and the snow continued to fall, stark and white, to freeze the hearts of humanity.

One day, as the white snow piled up on the colossal figure digging a new well, Raya walked up and held her umbrella over him.

“I find that hard to believe,” Raya said, training her probing gaze on the giant. “There must be tons of better jobs for you in the village. Any place would be glad to have someone like you through the winter. So, what are you doing out here at our spread?” “Well, it was love at first sight!”

“No, I don’t mean with you. I mean with the young fella.” “Mister D?” Raya said, putting her hand up to her mouth and making a gagging sound.

“Hey, what’s that all about? Whoever said there was something wrong with one man being smitten with another? I mean, look how gorgeous he is! The most beautiful woman in the Capital probably couldn’t hold a candle to him.”

“I wonder what kind of place it is,” Raya mused as she swung the umbrella to dislodge the snow that’d collected on it.

“It was the headquarters of the Nobility. That’s no place for humans to be living.”

“Yeah. You know, the Nobles weren’t good for squat. They completely ignored what anyone else thought or felt and made all kinds of monsters. I wonder how those bastards would’ve liked being one of those freaks.” Then scratching his head bashfully, the giant added with a wry smile, “You get what I mean?”

“You ... you were made by the Nobility .. .” Raya said, her voice carrying an unavoidable tremble. “So . . . why are you here?” “The Nobility might’ve made me, but I’ve still gotta eat to survive.”

Dynus brought the hoe down. His timing must’ve been perfect, because he scooped a three-foot'square section clean out of the ground. He’d already gone down ten feet—the top of his head was at the same level as the ground. The hole was more than fifteen feet in diameter, and was more like a pond than a well, Raya simply left everything to the silence of the falling snow. Though she wished the gorgeous young man were there, the figure in black had gone off to check the farm’s perimeter. This was a problem she’d have to solve on her own. The hand she used to clutch the umbrella trembled a bit.

Raya bravely began, “That day ... I had the strangest dream . . . On the day I met you, that is ... I went underground somewhere and got hooked to these mysterious machines . . . and then I understood everything. That I... I’m not the real me. The other me is a scary, scary woman . . . one who lives to do battle with someone.”

Taking another bite out of the ground with his hoe, Dynus asked, “You said ‘someone’—like who?”

Perhaps the giant sensed that at some point the volume of snow falling on him had changed. Raya’s umbrella was still open, but she held it with the tip aimed downward. The end of it was honed to a sharp point for use against monstrous beasts. The back of the giant’s head lay right before her.

Suddenly throwing down her umbrella, Raya ran back toward the house. A number of shadows drifted across her innocent countenance.

Flying in through the front door, she found her father in the living room. It wasn’t until she hugged up against his burly chest that she noticed he didn’t have a certain odor about him.

“I’m scared, Papa! Really scared. I’m your daughter, aren’t I? I was born here, right? And I had a mother and everything, didn’t I?”

“It doesn’t matter. Not so long as I know that. Just keep holding onto me.”

Not knowing exactly what was going on, the father gently supported his daughter’s form. He got the feeling that things were just like they’d been a long time ago.

“There doesn’t seem to be any reason for concern,” D said as his gaze fell on Raya breathing easily as she slumbered on the sofa. Beside her sat her father, protecting the defenseless silhouette with his own hard gaze.

“What’s this?” Dynus said as he took a sniff. “You given up the booze?”

“Yep,” the father replied. “After seeing how you were busting your hump out there, I realized how pathetic I’d become. So I decided to give it another go. And the first part of that was to swear off drinking and smoking.”

“That’s a nice resolution, I was hoping I’d be able to take it a little easier. Give it your best tomorrow.”

Clutching his belly and laughing for a while, Dynus then said, “Oh, you’re too much! By all means, show me how, sir.”

Turning toward the door, the father said to D, “Sorry, but could I have you stay with her? I’m sure she’ll be a lot safer with you than with me.”

One day, when the sun put in a rare appearance, D was notified that the book he’d ordered had arrived. Visiting the post office to claim it, he met someone there.

“Serna Nichol is my name. I’m the author of the book you requested,” the young linguist said with a smile, a volume containing his latest research in one hand.

But when the two of them arrived at the farm, Dynus and Raya were nowhere to be found, having vanished completely.

The father had gone into town with D and was still there trying to find a cultivator.

Mounting a borrowed horse, Serna said, “It may be they’re already going at it—where should we go?”

Before he’d pursued the Hunter for even a hundred yards, the linguist gave up. Though D’s cyborg horse was the kind you’d find by the dozen in any town, it raced off at twice the speed of his own mount.

“I’ll be damned. Things like this are why the Frontier scares me.” Dejectedly returning to the farm, Serna decided to stay put.

At a point a little more than a mile from the ruins, D saw a gigantic figure approaching from up ahead. Dynus had both arms out in front of his chest, and in them he carried Raya and his great log of a club. He was clad in armor, and his appearance and that of the girl were a stark testament to what had transpired. Each of them had fresh blood dribbling from their forehead down to their chin.

“She ain’t dead,” Dynus volunteered. “She picked the perfect time to switch back to normal. And the shock of it made her faint dead away. Yeah, it looks like she hasn’t fully gone over yet.”

The giant shook his head, saying, “I’ll bring her back. She’s my nemesis, after all. That’s just courtesy. I already put some of my special salve on her wounds.”

“Those clowns didn’t show themselves. But they’re definitely hanging around close by.”

That much D already knew—he’d been able to sense their presence in the vicinity of the farm constantly. Perhaps the reason they hadn’t attacked was because Raya hadn’t awakened to her potential, or because they actually feared Dynus’s power. And maybe they hadn’t come out to aid Raya when she lost consciousness because they knew that Dynus was only interested in doing battle with her in her warrior state.

“It’s a pity, I tell you. Why the hell does a good girl like her have to fight me?”

Dynus was out at the woodshed and Raya by the chicken coop a few hundred yards away, but she flew right to him.

“I was so happy. I’d finally met the very opponent I was always meant to fight, D. And I could tell Raya was delighted, too. Hell, she even said so.”

I’m so glad, Raya had told him. This is the real me. Consider that gentle little farm girl no more than a dream. I’ve been waiting for you for so long. Come!

D didn’t ask the particulars of their brutal battle, and Dynus didn’t offer them.

It was soon after she’d been placed in her bed back at the farm that Raya regained consciousness. The frightened look in her eyes belonged to the ordinary girl they all knew. Her gaze clinging desperately to D, she said with bloodless lips, “What’s happened to me?”

“Really? You mean to tell me I was dreaming or something? I think in my dreams I was fighting someone. I’m scared. I can still remember how I felt at the time. I—I was so thrilled by the battle, by the thought of slaying my foe.”

Nodding, the girl took a deep breath—and she quickly fell into the steady breathing of slumber.

“He hasn’t come back from town yet.” Tossing his chin in the direction of the house, D added, “I’m going back in to have a talk with a certain scholar. Care to join me?”

“Don’t bother then. At this point, finding out why we have to fight won’t accomplish squat . . . although I do still worry about her.”

“Here comes another man who wants to concern himself with her,” said the Hunter.

On seeing the motorized carriage coming in through the entrance to the farm flanked by riders, Dynus smiled wryly.

The carriage bore the mark of the “Frontier Garrison.” Troopers piled out of the vehicle like ants onto the white snow.

“That’s them! They’re the culprits who’ve interfered with my business,” screeched none other than Brewer.

A middle-aged man—the apparent leader—stepped forward from the pack of troopers. Though all the men carried gas-powered rifles, they still had the muzzles pointed at the ground.

“Pleased to meet you. Kevin’s the name. I’m captain of the Northern Eighth Division, Frontier Garrison. Fact of the matter is, two days back, we got a complaint from Mr. Brewer here. According to him, the two of you are infringing on his rights. Now, I don’t mean to—”

“So I take it the flesh trader told you we’re standing in the way of him buying a girl?”

“I resent that!” Brewer bellowed as his eyes bulged in their sockets. Holding up a sheet of paper with his right hand, he said, “Captain, this is the very same contract I showed you earlier. I have the right to bring that girl back to the Capital. Kindly drive these two off immediately!”

“—And that’s about the size of it,” the captain continued. “At any rate, the contract’s real enough. Would you be good enough to hand over the girl?”

“I’m afraid we can’t do that,” the giant replied. “See, I’ve got business of my own with her.”

The captain’s expression clouded as he said, “Then I guess you leave us no choice. We’ll have to use force. You’d best bring the young lady on out here.”

“What, you’re not gonna watch?” his left hand said with obvious dissatisfaction.

“I don’t want any part of that nonsense.” “Shit, it’d be such a good show, too! You’re no fun at all, you know that?”

Angry shouts and the sounds of a slugfest echoed from the yard. But they didn’t continue for long.

“He’s really going at it!” the linguist said, his hand balled into a fist. He was quite excited—he was still so young. “It’s incredible! He just knocked five of them down at once. The whole squad is out of commission now. Oh, he just caught hold of that other guy!”

“You may think it rude, but while everyone was out I took the liberty of investigating the house. And I just finished examining the girl in the bedroom, too.”

“In that case, there can be no mistake,” Serna remarked, rubbing his temple.

Serna recalled the tragedy that’d occurred three years earlier while investigating a certain mountain stronghold where a vast subterranean chamber had held rows of artificial human warriors. A section of the massive rock walls looming over them had suddenly collapsed, crushing ten scientists who were busy working down below. At the time, Serna was having a smoke with a colleague out on a deck that overlooked the mountain. Though the hole that’d been dug through the rock wall and the booming laugh that was left behind had done little to reveal the identity of whatever had been down there, at least it solved the mystery of where all of the power had been going. If the giant outside were to be set into that opening, it’d be a perfect fit.

“So it’s just as we thought,” D said, adding, “We’re looking for some way to keep the girl just as she is now.”

“What a waste. At least, that’s what I’d normally say if I weren’t afraid of getting my head bitten off.”

On the way back to the farm from the post office, they’d exchanged information on the connection between the giant and the girl. That was why D could speak so directly to him now.

“Six months back, several ancient manuscripts were discovered in the remains of a moving continent. They contained a record of another case like this.”

“Unlike Dynus, she’s just a regular girl. She was born right here in the village to ordinary parents. There’s a mountain of evidence in support of this,” said the Hunter.

“That may be, but in her case I believe it’s actually a matter of something that happened before her birth. One of her forebears, or possibly even both sides of the family, may have undergone some sort of genetic manipulation. The will and strength, the knowledge and superhuman powers of a warrior—all of these slumbered in their blood for uncounted generations until Dynus’s awakening called them to the fore. I’m quite certain that’s the case here.” “Why was it that she went out to the ruins?”

“I believe that even for someone with the power of the Nobility, it would be a monumental task to attempt to free the warrior consciousness that’s been in her family’s blood for thousands of years. There must be some sort of equipment wreckage somewhere around here that’s intended to aid in that process.”

“If the equipment remains. You said there were some ruins nearby?” “Care to go there?” asked D.

“I can handle a horse—” Serna began to say, but he shrugged his shoulders and gave up. He’d just recalled his humiliating performance earlier.

“Save me!” the blood-soaked Brewer cried as he raced in. Although he was trying desperately to take refuge behind D, at some point the young man in black had turned so that he was facing him.

“I took care of the others outside. Don’t worry—I only knocked them out. Just left one awake so he could drive ’em back in the carriage.”

A face three times as large as the linguist’s and only a foot away said, “That little girl hasn’t had it none too easy up till now. I’ll thank you to see to it that this is an exception.”

“Are you sure you won’t have a problem with this? You’ll lose your opponent.”

“Ah, what’s that to me? I’ll get over it. Hey, you bastard,” he added as he thrust out a hand and did a remarkable job of snagging Brewer before he could escape. “What do you figure I should do with this here flesh trader, D? Having his head part company with his body would be a gift to humanity.”

“I suppose we should be happy he brought the garrison instead of a bunch of hired thugs,” D remarked.

“That’s right!” the man with the monocle cried as he hung ten feet in the air with arms and legs flailing. “I’ve remained within the bounds of the law. Unhand me, would you? Let me go!”

“Well, I suppose I can forgive you. But I’m warning you: don’t even think about ever showing your face around here again. Hey, D—I’ll

leave the rest of it to you. I’m not so good with all that complicated stuff.”

Once the giant had left to the accompaniment of shrieks and jeers, D said to the still-rooted linguist, “Shall we go?”

Needless to say, he had to be talking about going out to the equipment that could save Raya.

As he was putting his arms through the sleeves of his insulated coat, Serna stiffened. A chill had raced down the length of his body. He’d seen D’s face— he thought the Hunter looked somber. Now he was afraid to look in the same direction.

The door between them and the back room opened, and Raya was standing there. She was in her pajamas. And though she clutched a long broom, she hadn’t come out to do any cleaning.

“I suppose I should thank you again for all you’ve done,” Raya said with a grin.

Though neither her face nor her voice had changed, the girl who stood there giving off a ghastly aura was no one D recognized.

“I have a favor to ask of you. Don’t interfere. This is our job, you know. Just lend your power to the person I am while I sleep.”

As she looked down from the porch, the giant stood on the snow-covered earth below with his club in one hand and stared back at her. Not far from him, a man’s legs jutted from a snow bank, kicking furiously.

Raya simply nodded. A second later, she pounced. As she swung her broom down in midair, her figure was swallowed by the sun to her back.

The whoosh of the broom coming down split the winter air, and with a tremendous roar, the log bowed under the impact.

“Whoa!” Dynus cried as he leapt back, his voice ringing with pain. His arms were both numb.

As he watched Raya close on him, her speed was incredible. Time and again she brought the broom down on him while he barely managed to parry each blow. It was a sight to see as she drove him down on one knee. Such was the force of her blows. The power of Raya—the warrior woman of Sinestro!

There was the sound of wood striking wood, and then the log club was finally knocked from the giant’s hands.

As Raya raised her broom for a triumphant blow, a colossal arm tightened around her waist and pulled her close. From where D stood on the porch, the two of them looked as if they were fusing together in a white-hot glow, and the hot wind that snarled by him carried moisture.

“Stay inside,” D said, reaching back to shut the door behind him as he stared at the core of the raging heat.

The vapor that arose churned at an intense rate. Doubtless the deadly battle unfolding within that cloud was beyond the imagining of even D himself. The white mist burst through the fence and rammed into the forest.

D raced down off the porch. Behind him, he could hear Serna shouting. His field of view was crimson. In the wake of the steam cloud, flames had arisen.

D got on his horse and galloped into the forest. Charging by one side of the vapor cloud, he said, “Go to Castle Sinestro!”

The steam buffeted his cheeks, and the cloud split in two. One half became a stark naked girl who took off into the forest, the other an armored warrior who bounded onto the road. Each of them glanced at D—Raya with a sad look, and Dynus with a thin smile. But these images soon disappeared, borne away by the winter wind.

Tugging on his horse’s reins, D returned to the road. To his rear there was the sound of hoofbeats.

“This is amazing! I managed to rescue Brewer, but if someone doesn’t hurry up and put that fire out, this whole area will be a sea of flames.”

D wheeled his horse around. His coat fluttered out against the wintry sky like something out of a painting. He wasn’t headed down the road—his mount was galloping off into the forest.

Perhaps there was some secret trick to the way he worked the reins, because the completely commonplace cyborg horse he rode performed like a peerless thoroughbred. Though roots and branches jutted out with utter disregard for the plans of passers-by, not once did they ever come into contact with D. His horse’s hooves merely pounded the ground, and the mount never showed a moment’s hesitation.

On glimpsing a plain of white between the trees, D tugged the reins to the right. The snow that fell from a massive branch sent up a spray of white to one side of him. A rough wooden needle seared through the air toward the branch in question.

“Oh, you’re good! ” a voice intoned from every possible direction. “It’s Crumb. Remember me? I figured you’d take the shortest possible route to these coordinates, so I set a trap. This time things won’t go as well for you as they did back at the warehouse.”

D’s body rose straight out of the saddle, like a dark blossom opening in a silvery white world. Beneath his feet, his mount met a powdery spray of snow as it was cruelly driven to its knees. But did D see the naked steel that sank halfway into his horse’s neck?

The instant he landed on the massive branch, D made a horizontal swipe with his sword. The blade thrust from the snow that’d collected on the branch changed direction of its own accord, leaving the right arm that grasped it exposed all the way to the shoulder as it became motionless on the tree limb. Although the Hunter had only struck with his weapon once, the awesome power was manifested in the wounds he’d dealt the arm, splitting the flesh wide open from the wrist to the shoulder.

“Fighting a disembodied arm is kind of creepy,” D’s left hand said in a sarcastic tone. “It’d seem the first guy you fought has the ability to do more than just split in two. Watch yourself.”

At the same moment D landed on the ground, three streaks of light pierced him . . .or so it appeared. A left arm and two legs—each wielding a sword—fell to the ground, split lengthwise.

Not even bothering to turn, D made an underhanded throw to his rear with his left hand. With only his head and trunk remaining, it seemed Crumb still planned on attacking D.

Having taken a rough wooden needle in a spot about three feet off the ground, the torso was left nailed to the very same tree trunk it’d just leapt out from behind. The needle ran right through its neck.

Not even bothering to look at it, D walked off toward the exit from the forest, and then unexpectedly spun his right hand around like a veritable top. The blob that flew into the iridescent blur cracked in two before falling to the ground. Lacking a head and all four limbs, the trunk now looked somewhat forlorn.

A miniature version of Crumb’s face poked out from where the old head had been. It had arms and legs attached to it, too. Its tiny hand clutched a knife.

A vermilion line suddenly ran from the tip of his head all the way down to his crotch, and this time Crumb really did split in half and fall dead in the snow.

“Seems they’ve been watching you all along. Were you wise to them?” the Hunter’s left hand asked, but its question was swallowed by the white winds that surrounded D as he dashed on. Lost in the snow.

CHAPTER 4

Occasionally the silently falling emblems of winter would be caught in an eddying wind and blown around like bubbles. The imposing castle and all its pillars were caked with white, their outlines left terribly indistinct. And beyond them lay the silvery world where the line between heaven and earth was no longer distinguishable.

The pair of figures that’d appeared without warning was quickly swallowed by the flowing whiteness, yet their colors faintly remained like a watercolor painting.

“Aren’t you cold?” asked the giant.

Raya was stark naked.

“Well, it’s all your fault, you know,” she countered.

“I suppose it is, at that.”

“This is my domain. I’ll thank you not to imagine you’re at an advantage.”

“I know,” the giant said as he took a quick peek over his shoulder.

“You’re thinking about him, aren’t you?” said the woman.

“You mean to tell me you’re not?”

“I’d like to see him once more.”

“He might not be very personable, but he’s a good guy,” Dynus remarked.

“He’s a sad man, though.”

“You can say that again—heh, I don’t think he’d care to have us empathizing with him. Compared to him, our fate’s not that bad. At least this can be concluded.”

“But why do we fight? We don’t know each other from a hole in the ground.”

“It’s a pointless question. You should know that,” Raya said, her voice tossed by the wind.

“You’ve got a point,” the giant said with a nod, and then he swung his club with one hand. “We still fight, even though both our masters are now gone. That’s a laugh.”

“We don’t hate each other. We’re just hostile. And even that emotion doesn’t really belong to us.”

“It seems you’ve gone soft on me. You’ll never be able to beat me like that.”

The wind whistled. There were no words for it to shred. There were only warriors.

Suddenly, the ground beneath the giant’s feet glowed as electric shocks ran in reverse. The few streaks of light that challenged the heavens formed a massive cylinder, giving the desolate white world a purplish hue. And in the center of that cylinder was the giant.

Even after the light suddenly disappeared, the ruins stood out sharply from the white of the snow for some time to come.

“Not too shabby,” the giant said as he clapped at all the smoking sections of his body with both hands. “This certainly is your domain, all right. But I still have a few tricks of my own.”

He brought his right hand up to his mouth, and his thick lips disgorged a shining ball. As he grabbed it and hurled it into the air, the winter was greeted by a miniature sun. Apparently the feverish globe was emitting a tremendous heat of its own, and wrapped around it was a fiery corona exactly like that of the real sun. It instantly reached a temperature of a hundred million degrees. Even the constituent atoms of the very ground were scorched, reduced to nothingness.

He was sent flying thirty feet, his arm still raised in a hasty block. As he rolled on the ground, snow caked around his body like a belt. And the belt was tinged with red.