Noble V: Greylancer (18 page)

Blue shadows descended from the ceiling, intercepting Greylancer’s advance.

Four men and two women dressed like farmers. Given how they had swooped down from
a ceiling beam a hundred meters high, they were not human.

“Half-humans.” Greylancer’s eyes burned crimson. “Who alerted you to my coming?”

Their answer was an all-out attack.

The four men attacked with swords, while the two women took aim with stake guns. The
half-humans had chosen not to open with a projectile attack, knowing Greylancer’s
lance was fast enough to strike down their bullets. They held back, waiting for an
opening, as the four men charged headlong into what would certainly be their deaths.

One half-human woman aimed for Greylancer’s companion standing next to his master.

But the gunpowder in the flash pan of the companion’s flintlock rifle ignited first.

A report from the woman’s gun followed, sending a stake whizzing toward the target
at five hundred meters per second. If neither could evade the other’s bullet, they
would both surely be hit.

Neither shooter had time to react.

The gunner’s bullet hit the stake in midair and shattered it.

In the next instant, the gunner drew the flintlock gun from his waist and drilled
a bullet between the woman’s eyes.

The woman’s head was thrown backward as she fell on her back, smoke smoldering from
the bullet hole dead center.

The second woman aimed at the gunner next. The sharpshooter dove to the ground and
rolled several times even as he took aim with a four-barreled pepperbox. A more developed
weapon than the flintlock, this gun had a percussion cap.

The hammer ignited a charge. When the gun fired, however, the woman had already taken
cover. The bullet missed her by meters.

Meanwhile, Greylancer, casually parrying the four swords arrayed against him, beheaded
two of the men with a single swing of his lance.

The third man had leapt over the sideways swing of the lance and threatened to strike
down Greylancer from above, while the fourth had ducked and now skittered on his knees
toward the Noble.

Neither had expected the lance to reverse course.

Rather than continuing its sideways trajectory, the lance sprang back in the opposite
direction and skewered the half-human bearing down overhead and plunged into the fourth
man’s back, pinning him against the floor.

Greylancer fixed an amused look on the man thrashing and screeching like an insect
on the ground, and called out, “Gallagher.”

“I have disposed of the rest.” The gunner finished reloading his gun and rifle and
rose from his knee. This man, giving Greylancer a curt nod, was none other than the
gunner whom Greylancer had captured after foiling his attempt to assassinate Mayerling
only several days ago. “But these are not half-humans…”

The half-human attackers, save the barrel-chested man skewered by Greylancer’s lance,
had melted into puddles of glowing pale blue ooze. After giving up their human hosts,
the OSB had returned to their original forms.

“I detected no one, much less the likes of you, following us. You must have been waiting
for us here.” Greylancer twisted the lance. The OSB still keeping the form of the
barrel-chested man writhed in agony. “Answer. Who told you of our coming? Why do you
wish us dead?”

The man did not answer. The Noble gave his lance another twist.

“Beats…me…” the man finally sputtered. “The boss…told us…to ambush you…here…is all…”
he answered in the rustic manner of a farmer. The OSB always borrowed the memories,
and thus the language, of the beings it possessed.

“Who is this boss you speak of?”

Silence.

Greylancer twisted the lance.

And then a scream.

“Rafa … I … don’t … zunzun … know … shiga … ri …” So unbearable was his pain that
the OSB had forgotten its adopted memories, its words no longer of this world.

Its screams, too, ceased to sound human.

Do you continue to twist and plunge the lance into the victim’s stomach to divine
the truth, dear Greylancer? The Noble smoldered with a look of rapture, relishing
the sight of the man struggling to swallow its last breaths.

“That’s quite enough.”

Greylancer whirled in the direction of the voice. He had not sensed the arrival of
a new presence. Gallagher remained down on one knee and jerked his rifle up to his
shoulder, shaken.

“What brings you here, Chancellor Cornelius?” Greylancer asked coolly. The figure
in white robes and dark gown standing before him was indeed the bearer of that name.
Since the councilors had not taken part in the counterinsurgency, the chancellor’s
presence confirmed Greylancer’s suspicions. “So you are behind this intrigue.”

“Sadly, no. There is another,” answered the old chancellor as he untied the strings
of his gown. “My part is to drive the stake that will send you to your death.”

“I had not considered that you were capable of manipulating the OSB. I must ask—what
ties do you have with the invaders?”

“The Nobility’s defeat is inevitable,” said Chancellor Cornelius, stone-faced.

“Odd.” Greylancer arched a brow. “It is true that their science is superior to ours.
However, we are in possession of a more fundamental and decisive advantage. We possess
eternal life.”

“Provided that a stake is not driven into our hearts,” added Chancellor Cornelius.
His voice spread over the chamber like a curse. “But we are also hampered by what
you call a fundamental and decisive disadvantage, which the Privy Council and Ultimate
Mind have pointed out will lead to our eventual downfall for hundreds of years—the
degeneration of the Noble race.”

A certain sound reverberated inside Greylancer’s mind.

An indescribable yet certain echo of destruction.

“On the second day of the war against the OSB, the Ultimate Mind prophesied our defeat.
That is to say our degeneration will be the cause of our fall three thousand years
from now. Those are the words of the Sacred Ancestor himself, Lord Greylancer.”

During the dawn of the Noble civilization, with which Greylancer was unfamiliar, the
Sacred Ancestor had vanished, leaving behind an enormous computer to advise the Noble
leaders in his place. Kept inside the inner chamber of the Privy Council Ministry,
this Ultimate Mind continued to bestow the Nobility with the words of the Sacred Ancestor
to this day.

Greylancer sighted a gray swirl churning before his very eyes. A chaotic vortex that
threatened to swallow the hollow wills of all mortal creatures great and small. Nay,
even the wills of the immortal.

“A decision handed down by the Sacred Ancestor cannot be overturned,” the chancellor
continued. “So we contacted the OSB through back channels and initiated negotiations.
The aliens proclaimed that their interstellar conquest was the will of their god.
That this conflict was about shedding a ray of civilization onto the ignorant masses
whom understood nothing of their god.

“It was for this reason the OSB rejected our offer of truce, and so the war continued.
But five days ago, a faction occupying a stronghold vital to the OSB conquest secretly
declared their willingness to negotiate a cease fire. We reached a tentative peace
agreement on the same day, one in which this planet will come under OSB rule.”

“That’s absurd!” The warrior’s cry thundered across the corners of the chamber.

“Exactly right. The Ultimate Mind had predicted that you would utter those very words.
As well as another—Mayerling.”

“…”

“Of course, Mayerling knew nothing of our negotiations with the OSB. He had gotten
wind of the plasma attack to exterminate the OSB enclaves and of the demand that the
Frontier would be made to submit to the Privy Council’s control. Had he learned the
truth, Mayerling would no doubt have said and acted in much the way you have. In that
sense, his subjugation in accordance with the central government’s decision was a
stroke of good fortune. And now, Lord Greylancer, you will follow him in death.”

No sooner had he said the word
death
than Chancellor Cornelius’s head detached from his body and shot up in the air. Kicking
off the ground, the rest of his body followed.

Greylancer took aim and plunged his lance past the old man’s flowing robes and into
his headless body.

The chancellor’s body reunited with his head some twenty meters in the air, despite
the lance piercing clear through the chest.

Chancellor Cornelius smiled. “Do what you will, Lord Greylancer. This body is nothing
more than an illusion with physical substance, which is why you do not see me submerged
in my usual eutrophic fluid. Your lance is useless against me.
This
, on the other hand—” Sticking a hand in a pocket of his robe, the chancellor produced
a small glass bottle.

A shot rang out. The bullet blew off the chancellor’s wrinkled hand holding the glass
bottle, sending it skittering across the floor.

“Well now, this is a skilled servant,” said the chancellor, glancing at Gallagher
with his rifle at the ready. “Alas, such shallow wit. Did you not see that the glass
bottle was real? Now you shall go to hell, smelling the pleasant scent contained within.”

Greylancer felt his knees go weak. He crumpled to the ground, losing his grip on his
lance. A sweet nectarlike scent began to fill the cavernous space. The scent brought
down even the half-human Gallagher.

The liquid that had been sealed inside the bottle emitted the sweetest, most evil
scent. One that would cause any Noble to fall into a stupor.

“Now then.” Chancellor Cornelius righted himself and, after withdrawing the lance
tip from his chest, sidled next to where Greylancer lay. The chancellor, of course,
was but an illusion.

He took out a white wooden stake and hammer from his pockets. Having physical substance,
he was capable of handling solid objects.

The old man pressed the stake against Greylancer’s heart and raised the hammer high
over his head. A spike driven into the heart would surely send a Noble, even Greylancer,
to his death. Who would have guessed that such a mighty warrior would meet his end
in this way?

No doubt Greylancer was as amazed. He was still conscious. It was his body that could
not move. One Greater Noble would soon vanish from this moonlit world.

The chancellor brought down the hammer with all his might and suddenly stopped in
mid-swing. With an elegance defying his wizened face, the old man leapt five meters
and landed in a low crouch, shooting a suspicious look at the stone coffin resting
on the bronze altar.

Stone grinding against stone, slowly the heavy lid of the coffin slid back.

The lavish sarcophagus was supposed to contain only Mayerling’s mortal remains.

But surely a corpse turned to dust had no hands with which to grip the sides of the
coffin, nor a body to raise to a sitting position. The shadowy figure alighted from
the coffin and fixed its gray eyes on the old Noble.

“Mayerling?” shouted Cornelius in disbelief.

“Regretfully no,” answered the man. “I am Shizam, a swordsman only recently serving
under Lord Mayerling. It is an honor, Chancellor Cornelius.”

“How dare you appear before me, human! Begone!”

“That will not do, I’m afraid. My master has tasked me with protecting the Noble Greylancer,”
said the swordsman, glancing down at the warrior struggling still to regain his senses.

There was a sound of steel rattling against steel as Shizam gripped the hilts of the
two swords strapped behind his back and lunged. The illusory Cornelius produced a
sword of his own.
Clang! Clang!
the swords rang out.

“The sound of your sword betrays your skill,” said the swordsman. “Best you leave
your head at my feet.”

“Shizam, was it? Just how do you propose to behead this illusion before you?”

The swordsman answered quietly, “Streda…”

“No!” Cornelius flinched. “You practice—” The old Noble leapt back and hurled a stake.
The second flash of steel—the sword in Shizam’s left hand—struck down the projectile.

Chancellor Cornelius landed on his feet and threw back his head. Actually, his head
fell away entirely. The first flash of steel—the sword in Shizam’s right hand—had
sliced across Cornelius’s neck before Cornelius could even see the blade.

While the fall echoed across the cavernous chamber, Shizam plunged his sword into
the old Noble’s heart.

After watching the man’s body swirl and dissolve into thin air, like paint mixing
into water, Shizam ran to Greylancer’s side.

“Are you all right?”

“I will live…The effects of the evil incense is wearing off.”

“I am glad you will recover.”

“What has happened to Chancellor Cornelius?”

“The Chancellor has met his doom,” answered Shizam.

“But the man before you was an illusion.”

“I possess the Streda skill.”

Greylancer arched a brow. “I have heard of this skill developed to kill Nobles. Is
it effective against apparitions?”

“Yes. The moment I struck down his apparition, his physical form—wherever it might
have been—also took its last breath.” Shizam answered quietly, though with no small
hint of pride. Suddenly, he felt two icy daggers penetrate his body.

Still lying on his side, Greylancer stared at the swordsman. “Perhaps you wish to
match swords with this Noble.” When Shizam did not answer, he growled, “Speak.”

Even in this circumstance, nay
any
circumstance, Shizam was never one to refuse a duel. Take on all comers—it was the
cardinal rule of swordsmen.

Seconds passed before he finally answered, “I accept.”

“Never mind,” said Greylancer, shaking his head. “You have already lost the battle
of wills. Damn that Mayerling. Why did he order you inside the coffin? Surely he did
not harbor a vendetta against me.”

“That I do not know. Only that he was sure you would come and that I was to come to
your aid if something should go awry.”