Noble V: Greylancer (20 page)

The duchess did not answer.

“I was able to enter here undetected by the same trickery that caused the fools to
fire their missiles at a mistaken target. Neither your servants nor your surveillance
system could observe my coming. They were keeping watch over a different path, while
I quietly made my way inside this room.” Greylancer flashed a dastardly smile. “I
kept a rather incorrigible but skilled craftsman in my employ, you see. Now then,
I shall reduce you to dust peacefully if you reveal the name of the traitor who gave
you the incense used to produce that anesthetic.”

“Very well,” said Zeus, his voice strained. “I’ll tell you. But a peaceful death be
damned. I expect nothing less than a duel.”

Brash words, given that he was skewered to the ground by Greylancer’s lance, his co-conspirator
wedged beneath him. Zeus had thrown down a gauntlet that Greylancer had no cause to
take up.

Nevertheless, the great warrior said, “Agreed,” and drew out the lance from the chests
of the two Nobles. Was this the will or the fate of warriors?

“Do not interfere.” Rising to his feet, Zeus raised a hand toward the blood-smeared
Mircalla behind him.

A long black whip uncoiled like a serpent and cracked against the ground, sparks flying
in every direction. Zeus must have kept it hidden wrapped around his torso.

Another crack, and the whip was joined by another.

When Zeus revealed a third whip, Greylancer thrust his lance.

This was no prod to provoke the enemy, but a full-bodied finishing blow. One whip
wound its lash around the lance before the tip could reach its target. Greylancer
thrust the lance again. This time the whip unraveled and flew out of the handler’s
hand. The force of the blow sent Zeus flying backward.

Zeus groaned where he landed. “Twisted the haft, did you?” Although he’d been deprived
of one whip, the lashes gripped in his hand now numbered five. “That you can knock
me back so easily…you are a formidable warrior. Then how about this?”

Another whip shot out.

What appeared to be a spearhead glanced off Greylancer’s lance. His hands stung—the
whip was barbed with steel.

“What it lacks in power, it makes up for in dexterity!” The whip circled over Zeus’s
head and attacked Greylancer again. The Greater Noble repelled the spearhead again,
but the supple spear wrapped its tail around the lance like a serpent and tried still
to plunge into his heart.

The whip—no, the snake—will not stop no matter how many times I turn it back. How
do I kill it?

“Attack!” Zeus shouted and unleashed the five snake whips at the Greater Noble.

A flash of steel streaked through the air in a straight line.

The whips raveled around the lance and threatened to slither up the haft.

Zeus gawked in disbelief.

The whips had stopped.

“You will not have them back,” said Greylancer. “Unless my lance tires of them.”

With the whips fastened tightly around the haft, Greylancer raised the lance over
his head and swung it around. Just once. The five whips twisted around, went slack,
and were flung off in the blink of an eye.

“Damn you!” Zeus jumped back as Greylancer thrust his lance once again toward the
traitorous Noble’s chest.

Suddenly, a pale white figure caught the blade in her bare hands.

“What skill is this?” muttered Greylancer, furrowing his brow.

The duchess, who’d intercepted the deadly attack, let slip a sorrowful smile.

“Do not interfere, Mircalla!” barked Zeus. This was a battle between Noble men.

“Forgive me, Zeus.” The woman’s voice was barely audible and strained with tension.
Her entire body trembled, as she mustered every ounce of strength and tried to stop
the blade inching ever closer to her heart. “Quickly!”

Does she mean for me to flee?
Zeus bellowed, red-faced, “This is my fight! Stand back, woman!”

“No, my beloved!”

Greylancer gave away a look of amusement upon hearing a hint of affection in the words
of the cold-blooded woman. She was prepared to die for the man she loved.

“Your chest wound still bleeds. It will not heal without attention. Quickly, you must
escape. I will hold Lord Greylancer here.”

Greylancer recognized the meaning behind her words.

If the lance pierced her chest, blood would be spilled. The scent of her blood would
likely render Greylancer paralyzed.

“You dare allow a woman to secure your escape?”

Zeus’s face flushed. He put a hand on Mircalla’s shoulder and seethed, “Back, I say!”

“I will not!”

Greylancer had expected Zeus to push Mircalla aside, but then what?

What transpired next confounded his expectations.

Letting go of the lance, Mircalla lunged forward.

Greylancer retracted his lance, but not before the blade pierced the woman’s heart.

So unexpected was this outcome that Greylancer stood transfixed. The blood gushed
from Mircalla’s wound. Dark pearls of blood sprayed the left side of his face.

Greylancer pressed a hand against his cheek. Black smoke swirled up from between his
fingers, as the infernal pain shook his entire being.

“Those burns shall never disappear from your face…” gasped Mircalla. “But Lord Greylancer…the
same blood that has scarred you…my blood shall endow you with new powers…Spare him,
Greylancer…my spirit…shall remain…eternally grateful.”

Mircalla crumpled to the floor, her skeletal remains and white dress besmeared with
dust and blood.

Even as Greylancer continued to twitch in pain, he pointed the lance at Zeus’s chest,
only a jab away from certain death.

“Do it,” groaned Zeus. “My surviving by the hand of a woman is a disgrace on the Macula
name. Strike me down, Greylancer.”

The giant remained still, perhaps stirred by the death of the Noble woman. Beneath
the moonlight, a breeze blew around him. Strands of smoke rose up from between his
fingers and drifted away into the distance.

Zeus seized the lance tip with both hands and drew himself to his feet. Aiming the
blade at his chest, he lunged forward, plunging the lance into his heart just as Mircalla
had.

The blood-smeared tip pierced clear through his back.

Greylancer muttered, “Like husband, like wife.” As the gentle breeze caressed the
moonlight, the warrior suddenly found himself alone in the meadow.

†

Several hours later, a matronly servant left the farmhouse at the edge of the Western
Frontier and made her way down the steep hill toward the general store.

At the bottom of the hill, she came upon an uninhabited farmhouse. The moon shone
down upon the property, which still hinted at a life abandoned only recently.

The maidservant spotted a caped shadow standing at the gates and nearly fell on her
backside. Despite being called slow and dimwitted, she sensed a sinister aura that
made her hair stand on end.

Without bothering to turn to address the petrified woman, the shadowy figure asked,
“Where is the family that lived here?”

Perhaps some part of the maidservant’s heart warned her of the fate that might befall
her if she did not answer. Instinctively, her mouth opened. “They moved away three
days or so ago,” she answered, surprised by how easily the words came out of her mouth.

“I see. There was a blind girl and her brother, a skilled archer. What has become
of them?”

“Why, they left together. I don’t reckon I know where. The rumor is they headed for
the Northern Frontier.”

“North,” said the shadow in a low murmur.

The woman felt an imperceptible pang in her heart, though she knew not the reason
why.

“You have my thanks.” The shadow threw down several coins at her feet. It was enough
gold for the woman to live on for the rest of her days. “Tell no one of our encounter.
If you do…”

The woman shook her head vigorously, knowing well that this unilateral promise was
one both intended to keep.

The shadow strode off and disappeared around the corner of the abandoned house. The
rattle of a wagon echoed and soon faded into the night.

†

When the woman returned home, the other maidservants of the house took one look at
her blanched face and asked what had happened.

“Why you’re as pale as death!”

“Darn if you don’t look half Noble.”

“I’m all right,” said the woman to the others gathered around her and hid beneath
the tattered bed covers.

Her body glistened with sweat, and she shivered as if stricken by malarial fever.

Yet in her heart, she felt terribly at peace.

At least tonight, she felt strangely comforted that she had encountered someone lonelier
than she.

Two days passed. A band of Nobles boarded an OSB aircraft that descended upon the
grasslands north of the Capital, whereupon Greylancer and his vassals stormed into
the clandestine meeting, killing over twenty OSB—all save one—and capturing the traitorous
Nobles.

Greylancer hastened directly for the Privy Council with his captives in tow and demanded
the immediate assembly of a council board of inquiry.

The assembled members of the Privy Council examined Greylancer’s complaint and were
aghast.

The suit disclosed details of the cabal and demanded the dismissal or execution of
the current Privy Council members. Also included as part of the demands was the suspension
of the planned plasma attack on the Frontier.

Ten members of the Sub-Council gathered in the council chamber to conduct the inquiry.
On this night, those Nobles usually in the position of adjudicating such cases found
themselves playing the role of defendants.

With Greylancer, who wore a black and white mask over the left side of his face, before
them, the accused leveled a barrage of questions against the lone plaintiff.

“What proof do you have? Are you in your right mind? Are you not a suspect yourself
for the murder of Chancellor Cornelius?”

To which Greylancer countered:

“I come with evidence and witnesses. I am quite sane. The root of the suspicion against
me will become clear in the course of this inquiry.”

Then Greylancer’s vassals escorted the OSB captive, still in human form, and two members
of the Privy Council, who’d vanished days before, to the witness stand. At once, all
color drained out of the accused members’ faces.

After a medical adviser confirmed that the witnesses were not under the influence
of drugs, spells, or other method of supernatural compulsion, each of the witnesses
had a turn in confirming the conspiracy.

The testimony of the captured OSB, having no reason to lie, proved more effective
in corroborating Greylancer’s allegations than those of the two council members.

“In view of these facts, it is evident the current members of the Privy Council have
conspired to perpetrate the most heinous of betrayals—to relinquish control of the
planet to the OSB.” After concluding in a low but forceful voice that shook not only
the chambers but also the Privy Council Ministry, Greylancer called for the immediate
sentencing of the traitors.

It was plain to anyone that the plaintiff’s request was justified. Yet when one of
the Sub-Council members asked, “Are there any objections?” one of the defendants—Vice-Chancellor
Pitaka—offered a surprising rebuttal.

“Lord Greylancer’s accusations in this matter are either all a sham or nothing more
than a misunderstanding. No doubt my two colleagues here, much less the OSB, have
testified under coercion because they fear for their lives. We are capable of providing
ample evidence and testimony to refute the claims made here, but we require several
days. But I should think it a waste of time and energy to have to defend ourselves
against such preposterous allegations. Nevertheless, these charges, however flimsy,
are matters of grave importance that affect the very survival and honor of the Privy
Council. I propose, therefore, that our fates be decided by the Ultimate Mind, who
has guided us these four thousand years.”

Murmurs of surprise erupted from the Sub-Council and judge advocates. Several nodded
their approval.

The presiding members retreated to the inner chambers and returned from their deliberations
within a minute. “We would like to approve Vice-Chancellor Pitaka’s proposal. Lord
Greylancer, what say you?”

“I shall defer to your judgment.”

Within ten minutes, the Ultimate Mind emerged from an undisclosed location in the
bowels of the central government building and entered the chambers unaided.

Though this surrogate of the Sacred Ancestor was a machine comprised of enormous red
triangles stood on their points, it exuded a peculiar vitality like that of flesh
and blood. “I will hear your statements,” it declared.

After the plaintiff and defendants repeated their claims and statements exactly as
before, the Ultimate Mind fell silent.

Then, before a minute passed, it answered, “The plaintiff’s request is denied. I declare
the defendants not guilty.”

†

No one dared voice shock or objection. The word of the Sacred Ancestor, even in his
surrogate form, was absolute—it was a cardinal rule ingrained in every Noble’s bones.

Certainly not every Noble was capable of immortalizing his name in history. What Greylancer
did next, however, would cement his already well-chronicled reputation in the annals
of history.

“May I inquire the reason?” he asked calmly.

“That is hardly necessary!” shouted Vice-Chancellor Pitaka.

“That will not be necessary,” said the Ultimate Mind.

“But—”

“Enough, Lord Greylancer,” said the Sub-Council leader, stern. “The Sacred Ancestor’s
decision is final.”

The Greater Noble rose to his feet. “I should like to request another ruling. This
is a matter that concerns not only the Nobility but also humanity and the fate of
this world.”

“A second ruling will change nothing, Lord Greylancer,” the Ultimate Mind answered
fairly and evenly.