Noble V: Greylancer
Read Noble V: Greylancer Online
Authors: Hideyuki Kikuchi
Noble V: Greylancer
Copyright © 2011 Hideyuki Kikuchi
Originally published in Japan by Asahi Shinbun Publications Inc.
English translation © 2013 VIZ Media, LLC
Design by Sam Elzway
All rights reserved.
Cover art © 2013 Vincent Chong
No portion of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means
without written permission from the copyright holders.
HAIKASORU
Published by VIZ Media, LLC
295 Bay Street
San Francisco, CA 94133
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kikuchi, Hideyuki, 1949–
Noble V : Greylancer / Hideyuki Kikuchi ; Translated by Takami Nieda.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-4215-5417-4
1. Vampires--Fiction. I. Title.
PL855.I3846N66 2013
895.6'36--dc23
2013008821
Haikasoru eBook edition
ISBN: 978-1-4215-6442-5
GREYLANCER
Overseer of the Northern Frontier sector
The Nobility’s greatest warrior
Overseer of the Western Frontier sector
Overseer of the Southern Frontier sector
Overseer of the Eastern Frontier sector
Longtime weaponsmith serving House Greylancer
Villager from Ardoz who comes to the wounded Greylancer’s aid
Country girl from the Western Frontier who happens upon the injured Greylancer
Marksman serving as Greylancer’s retainer after being captured
Swordsman practicing the Streda style
PROLOGUE:
A FRAGMENT FROM A HISTORICAL TEXT
CHAPTER 1:
GUARDIAN OF THE FRONTIER
CHAPTER 2:
EXTERMINATING THE INTRUDERS
CHAPTER 3:
THE PRIVY COUNCIL’S DECISION
CHAPTER 5:
THE ARCHER NAMED ARROW
CHAPTER 6:
THE BENEVOLENT OVERLORD
CHAPTER 9:
CONSPIRATORIAL PURGATORY
A FRAGMENT FROM
A HISTORICAL TEXT
In the vermillion-colored
tide of the Nobility’s proud history, no period illuminated their eminence more than
the three thousand years during which the Nobility contended against the enormous
boulder disrupting the raging current.
The Nobility magically manipulated science to their will and confronted this enormous
obstacle.
The enormous boulder was an enemy. An enemy from outer space.
Even the Nobles, endowed with eternal life, might let slip a mournful sigh at the
mere thought of the endless depths of the constellations. It was from there that the
enemy known as the Outer Space Beings—the OSB—came.
These three thousand years—tinted vermillion, stained crimson, marked by death shrouds
and bloodshed—glorified the Noble warriors. After enjoying five thousand years of
peace, with humanity held in servitude, for the first time, the Nobility engaged in
a daily battle that, aside from drinking the blood of humans, might appropriately
be called Evil’s calling.
I shall spare you the particulars.
Only to say that the Nobility pitched themselves into battle with a blood frenzy.
Black bats and pale-faced men tore across winter’s moonlit sky. Noble warriors stood
against OSB aircraft. The enemy’s thunder tanks and single-seated tanks, their gold-chromed
armor protected by some invisible energy force, clashed against the Nobility’s science
and magic. In time, traveling troubadours sang their reverence, not for the grand
battle, but for the vast wasteland turned burial ground.
The war took place in the Frontier, far from the Capital.
It was there the humans lived. The Frontier, a stark contrast to the splendor in which
the Nobility lived, was where these trifling beings had been consigned—nay, allowed—to
exist.
Ironically enough, it was because of humanity’s very helplessness that the responsibility
fell to the Nobles to protect the humans from the OSB invasion.
Many of the overlords—overseers of the Frontier—forfeited that responsibility, a fact
that later became the root of humanity’s distrust and the Nobility’s eventual decline.
Distrust joined with hate and turned into a rallying cry for revolt. Humanity left
few records of the Nobility during this period. Hatred elected to extinguish rather
than to chronicle.
However, humanity preserved the names of a select few in its annals.
Most of the names have already become legend and all but vanished, as if inscribed
into crimson-colored history by a zephyr wind. The Nobles were remembered only in
fragmentary verses of ballads and sagas. Yet some villagers in remote corners of the
Frontier, defying the winds of time, strove to pass on the meaning of these names
from generation to generation.
This is a story woven by their chapped lips and shuttered eyes, and also the first
name to be spun out of blood, darkness, and moonlight.
GUARDIAN OF THE FRONTIER
1
At the onset of
autumn in the year 7000 by Noble reckoning, two fears plagued the village of Ardoz.
One was the presence of the OSB—outer space beings that had been waging war against
Ardoz’s rulers, the Nobility, for over a hundred years. The other was the imminent
visit from their overlord and overseer of the Northern Frontier sector, Greylancer.
Were this a different sector or an inspection by a local overseer, the villagers would
not have much cause to fret. An overseer’s appearance in a human habitat zone was
exactly that—a ceremonious procession of auto-vassals flanking a G-coffin paraded
down the street, all accompanied by the solemn music of a robotic band. Nary a soul
believed that an inspector, much less a lord, was acting as the menacing eye of the
Nobility from inside the coffin as decreed in the missive from the Capital.
But the overlord of the Northern Frontier sector would surely come.
For over three thousand years, the Greater Noble Greylancer had ruled over this sector,
becoming a legend in his lifetime. His very appearance inspired awe in his subjects.
But the villagers were shaken by a peculiar kind of confusion and anxiety.
As the appointed time approached, they glanced up at the source of their confusion,
the sky itself. White clouds frolicked in the blue sky like kittens. Not even a shadow
of OSB aircraft, rumored to have come from the endless void to engage the Nobility
night and day in a fierce aerial battle, passed overhead.
No, it was daylight.
Lord Greylancer was expected to arrive at high noon.
In two minutes’ time. But just how was a Noble—a vampire—capable of visiting this
sun-drenched village?
“Are you sure this isn’t some sham, Chief?” the sub-chief, one of ten villagers standing
at the north entrance, asked Chief Lanzi. “I know he’s a Greater Noble and all, but
in the middle of the day? How do you reckon he’ll get here? And bringing with him
only one retainer?”
“I won’t pretend to understand the ways of the Nobility—of all the villages in the
Frontier, coming to a speck of dust such as this. I suppose you and I will go to our
graves never knowing.”
“But I heard he’d been here once before, when you were a boy.”
The wrinkled chief pried open his fissured eyes and blinked. “You heard right. I was
four. My mother and father forbade me, but I cracked open the window and snuck a peek
at the path in front of my house. I heard the sound of hooves clopping from a distance,
and soon enough, this towering shadow straddling a gargantuan horse passed before
my eyes. It felt as if a ghostly presence blew in through the window. I couldn’t sleep
a lick that night. That was the Noble Greylancer.”
“But that was at night, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, a brilliant moon shone down over the village.”
“He aims to come in broad daylight this time. Did vampires evolve somehow when we
weren’t looking?”
“Who knows what the Nobility are up to? At least he doesn’t need any more than three
delegates to greet his arrival. The rumor is that the Southern and Eastern overlords
demand a welcome parade costing villages a year’s revenue.”
“Nothing for you to be happy about.” The sub-chief bit a bent finger. “All I’ve heard
is how cruel and cold-blooded his lordship is, like a messenger from hell. And he’s
coming to this tiny village in the shining sun. I tell you, Chief, this is an omen.
A sign of bad things to come. Something beyond our imagination.”
“Shh!” The village treasurer tensed, his eyes fixed on a point in the distance. “I
hear hooves…he’s coming!”
The lingering villagers disappeared at once, as if scattered by an ominous black wind.
Only four remained.
The chief, sub-chief, treasurer, and…a redheaded woman. Though a hard life had aged
her, she was still in her early thirties. She was the chief’s wife.
It was obvious by the way her husband eyed her like a nuisance that her presence was
unwelcome.
After arguing with her husband much of the morning, she had joined the welcome delegation
against his wishes.
And when two shadows on horseback appeared in the path stretching down the miasma-draped
wasteland, the look on the woman’s face resembled one of enchantment, unlike the terror-stricken
faces of the men next to her.
One by one, the faces vanished from windows and doors of mud-packed houses made of
wood and stone. The threadbare curtains were drawn.
Though appearing to be shrouded by a dark mist from afar, the figure halting the black
cybernetic horse before them was blurred by a navy and gold-tinged haze. Navy was
the color of his cape, gold the color of the embroidery on his coat.
“We’ve been expecting you. I am Lanzi, Chief of Ardoz village. This is Sub-Chief Sdao,
and the village treasurer, Shijog.”
“Pardon the trouble. I am Greylancer.” The voice from atop the horse sounded terribly
distant, but packed enough force to send chills up the spines of the four villagers.
Long shiny black hair, a rugged face as if the bones underneath were forged from steel,
a neck thick enough to support that weight, thick brows, tall nose, his tightly drawn
lips red like blood. One bellow from those lips might fell birds in flight. As well,
his body appeared as if flesh and skin were stretched over a steel frame. His eyes
were as blue and deep as the ocean but would no doubt turn as red as his lips at the
first whiff of blood.
Greylancer jerked his chin toward the mounted figure behind him and said, “My retainer,
Grosbec.”
The man, bowing with his hands still gripping the reins, was narrow-chested and neither
as tall nor broad around the shoulders as his master. Chief Lanzi imagined his delicate
head popping off with a flick of his master’s finger and blowing away into the horizon
with a single breath. The mechanized armor beneath his cape appeared utterly useless
or rather, in eternal disrepair.
Thin, slight brows, half-lidded eyes that appeared shut, eyes like those of dead fish,
and finally a look of agony as if he’d taken his last gasp. Despite the sword hanging
at his side and the laser gun affixed to his right forearm, he hardly seemed able
to handle them. No doubt they were broken anyway.
Nevertheless, the expression that Greylancer directed at his only companion was one
of complete trust. “Anything?” Greylancer asked Grosbec.
The villagers stared at one another in confusion.
“No different than the other villages. Inevitable, I’m afraid.” Grosbec rubbed the
base of his nose, in the manner of the drug addicts in the village.
“Anyone?”
“I cannot say for certain. No one within earshot.”
“Good,” said the voice of steel. “Whatever they might feel for the Nobility cannot
be helped.”
“Yes, my lord.” The man with the voice and body of an invalid pinched his nose harder.
When Greylancer dismounted his horse, the villagers heard the earth rumble—a phantom
sound, of course. But no wonder—the Noble stood nearly two meters tall.
Greylancer’s deep blue eyes paused on the woman and reflected her smile before turning
to the chief. “Do you find it strange to see us walking in the sun?” he asked.
“Why, er…no.”
“You needn’t hide your shock. At present, only Grosbec here and I are capable of doing
so.”
“My lord,” said the chief, dropping his eyes in deference.
Greylancer’s gaze reverted to the woman. “A rare surprise seeing a woman to greet
our arrival.”
“Begging your pardon,” said the chief. “This is my wife.”
“My name is Michia.” The woman bowed, perhaps to conceal the forlorn look on her face.
“Do vampires not frighten you?”
“Why, not in the least.”
“Well now…” Greylancer smiled faintly. Awl-like incisors peered out from lips that
were blanched for a vampire. “Quite a woman. But rest assured. We’ll not stay long.
We have been traveling the sector, but this village was not one of our planned stops.
We’ve come because a surveillance satellite reported something falling from the sky
in this area.”
Though the villagers had heard of the existence of several dozen surveillance satellites
floating on the outer edges of the atmosphere, they were ignorant of the particulars
of their use. Nevertheless, it was enough to fill the village chief and the others
with apprehension.
Something falling from the sky
… The overlord had ridden his horse to investigate this
something
himself, in all likelihood, to dispose of it.
Chief Lanzi swallowed hard.
Greylancer towered over him like a giant. Unarmed. He carried neither lance, nor bow,
nor sword. No one doubted his ability to crush any enemy regardless.
“Are you speaking of the OSB?” the chief asked, fearing he would incur the overlord’s
wrath for speaking out of turn.
But Greylancer smiled faintly a second time. “Indeed,” he answered. “You know well.
A worthy subject. Any ideas?”
Chief Lanzi turned to the others. The sub-chief and treasurer shook their heads.
“Wait…” It was Michia whose face clouded. As the men’s gazes converged on her, she
continued, “I saw the woodcutter Beijrot this morning, when I went foraging for mushrooms
in the northern forest. He said something about watching a shooting star drop into
the forest last night.”
“When was that?”
“I…didn’t ask.”
“Hmm, do you know the approximate location?”
Michia’s eyes narrowed and her brows knitted as she searched her memory. Two seconds
later, her eyes opened wide. “The northern forest is about twenty kilometers from
this village. And then another fifty kilometers from Beijrot’s cabin to the deep forest.”
The Noble shot a look northward. “Is this woodcutter home now?”
“Yes,” answered the treasurer. “Someone saw him leaving the village not three hours
ago.”
“Any inhabitants near the impact point?”
“Yes, the homes of four woodcutters,” Chief Lanzi answered.
“Their numbers?”
“One family is expecting a child any day now, but including the child, seventeen.”
Greylancer nodded. “We will take our leave. You are all to stay inside your homes.
And—” He uttered something peculiar. “If the woodcutter and his family return, do
not let them into your homes. Should they attempt to enter, kill them.”
An air of unease besieged the four villagers. The Noble’s every utterance affected
the fates of humans living in the Frontier. Would this fistful of powder pitched into
the flames cause an innocuous gunshot or a blasting charge?
“What ever do you mean?”
Greylancer regarded the chief’s terrified visage and answered in a low bass, “Do not
fret. Do as I say, and you will be safe. Understand? Assuming familiarity with anyone
will instantly lead to your demise. Let us meet again.” Then he muttered, “Let’s go”
to Grosbec, and with a dark blue boot, kicked the cybernetic horse into a full gallop,
whipping up a whirlwind around them.
Watching the riders receding between the houses, Chief Lanzi remarked, “What skill
handling the reins and the horse. At their rate, it won’t take but a half hour to
reach the northern end,” after which he turned to his wife and said, “From the way
you were acting, I suspected you knew him, but perhaps I was wrong. His lordship didn’t
even bat an eye. What a relief.”
“Come now,” Michia said, flashing a disbelieving smile. But when the men began to
return to their homes, she looked back in the direction where not even a shadow of
the vampire remained. She stared down at the point where he had stood. It was obvious
that the thoughts swirling in her mind differed completely from those of the others.
†
The ride to Beijrot’s cabin did not take ten minutes.
Both Greylancer’s and Grosbec’s cybernetic horses had been custom built.
A tiny cabin slumbered beneath the shadow of a branch of a liza tree standing a hundred
meters tall.
Greylancer went inside the cabin and immediately came out. “No one inside. From the
look of the ashes in the fireplace, he must have gone out again as soon as he returned
from the village. No horse. Anything?”
The mounted Grosbec had taken on a different complexion. The color had returned, the
unhealthy stiffness was gone from not only his face but also his entire body, and
a faint smile flickered across his lips. “At present, I sense only animals within
two kilometers,” was the answer to his master’s query.
“We should have asked if the woodcutter is the curious type.”
“Indeed.”
“He seems to have a dog, but there is no sign of him. Let us go.”
They rode another ten kilometers, whereupon a cabin larger than Beijrot’s peered out
from behind a grove of trees on the right.
“Anything?”
“No.”
They repeated the short exchange another three times, once for each time they passed
a woodcutter’s house that Michia had spoken of.
When they came within a few kilometers of the edge of the forest, Greylancer pulled
up on the reins.
Clear of trees now, approximately two hundred meters ahead in the ochre-colored mesa,
there lay what appeared to be a blue metallic object that was clearly not of this
world. Its brilliant sheen accentuated the desolation of the treeless wilderness surrounding
it.
It resembled a saucer with three horizontal tail planes. A two-seater judging by its
ten-by-eight-meter size. The two open bulges on what appeared to be the cockpit corroborated
this. The body was split open diagonally from the rear of the cockpit to the tail,
such that it was difficult to believe the aircraft had crash-landed safely.
The landing had not put a mark on it. The enemy aircraft was not equipped with an
energy shield but was made of a super-dense alloy.
A human shadow stood in front of the cockpit.
Spiked leather vest and wool shirt. The wide-barrel hunting pistol was nicked and
well worn, but the hand axe stuck behind his belt was shiny enough to reflect one’s
face.