The Rose Princess (20 page)

As the girl rose smoothly to her feet, the smile she wore was more liberated than
any her fellow villagers had ever seen on her face.

Pursuing the torch-lit figures some forty or fifty feet ahead of her, Elena raced
down the street without making a sound. Her movements were so effortless that it was
more like skating. Her arms and legs moved with the merest thought, and it didn’t
really feel like they were working at all. She could run a hundred miles or even a
thousand at full speed.

When she was just ten feet away from them, the two men turned. A shocked expression
on his face, Gary leveled his rifle and pulled the trigger. His actions were not only
reckless but also patently illegal. He hadn’t so much as cautioned her to freeze.

A heated lump ripped into the girl’s solar plexus, but the sensation passed quickly.
Euphoria engulfed Elena.

I can kill,
she thought.
I could kill this bastard. I’m stronger than he is.

As Elena reached for Gary’s throat, he batted her hand away with the barrel of his
rifle. There was no pain at all from the blow for her and she didn’t feel the shock
of the impact, but the man still tottered from it. Swinging the gun around, he slammed
the stock into the girl’s temple. To her, it felt like a kiss from the wind.

Not seeming to mind in the least, Elena stuck to her original intent, grabbing Gary’s
throat with one hand while the other locked onto his left shoulder. Her fingers sank
into him as smoothly as if she were wringing a
sponge. Some part of her mind screamed at her that this was wrong.

Driven by an outdated urge she no longer comprehended, Elena shoved Gary aside. His
body sailed a good thirty feet through the air, a fair amount of his clothes and the
flesh on his back then being scraped off as he skidded across the ground and blacked
out.

The other man had been stock still as he watched this atrocity, but when he realized
Elena’s attention had turned to him, he snapped back to his senses.

From various parts of the village, a crazy mix of shouting and footsteps could be
heard.

Elena stepped forward. The other desire she’d felt earlier came into play. For an
instant, she wondered what kind of look she must’ve had on her face.

“Keep away from me!” the man shouted, forgetting to reach for the gun on his hip.

No matter where I split him open, there’ll be blood
, Elena thought to herself.

The man crossed his arms in front of his face, making an “x.”

Undeterred, Elena grabbed hold of his shoulders.

“Don’t!” the man cried as his upper body thrashed violently.

The “x” became a cross.

An awful shock seared through every nerve in Elena’s body. Although she didn’t cry
out, she writhed as she tried to fight the pain.

“The shot came from this way.”

“Hey! There’s somebody over there!”

The approaching voices sounded familiar to the girl.

The weighted end of the chain flew from Elena’s right hand to wrap around the lightning
rod on the roof of a house, and then her body swung easily into the air. Just as she
was disappearing over the roof, she muttered, “D.”

Needless to say, there was no one up there to hear his name fall from her lips.

—

III

—

When D came back, he was met by hostility-filled glares from the people who’d gathered
at the entrance to the village, and by a despondent-looking Mama Kipsch.

“You didn’t make it in time, D,” the aged witch doctor said sadly before going on
to explain the situation. She’d only returned to her home a short while earlier.

“Neither you nor Elena is to set foot in the village again,” snarled the representative
who’d replaced the mayor after his death at the hands of the Blue Knight. “That’s
what the village assembly decided. The next time you show your face around here, we’ll
kill you.”

“Where’s Elena?” D asked.

“At the manor, most likely.”

To Mama Kipsch he said, “Are you coming with me?”

“No, it’s my job to protect the village. Tonight I’ll lock myself away in my house
and pray for you and Elena,” said the crone. Even with the malevolent gaze of the
entire village focused on her, she was unshaken. “You be careful out there, D. May
the Lord above watch over the both of you.”

D gave a kick to his mount’s flanks.

—

“D’s coming!” the princess declared.

She wasn’t inside. A gorgeous array of colors surrounded the princess and her companions—they
were out in the rose-adorned garden.

“I just know it. Now, what should I do? Should I send tidal waves or mud slides, lightning
or perhaps a dimensional tear to greet him?”

“If you think it for the best,” replied a voice that seemed to seep into the very
ground. It came from one of the two figures who knelt before her—the Black Knight.

“What are you saying, Sir Black Knight?” came the astonished cry of the other—the
Red Knight. “Are you not the one who stated that if the Hunter was to be struck down,
we should do so fairly and not besmirch the honor of the Four Knights of the Diane
Rose? He’s no slavering wolf out for blood money. When I could offer no resistance,
he didn’t slay me or even injure me. What’s more, he didn’t try to open the door I
guarded, but rather left through the skylight. He’s an extraordinary man. Under the
circumstances, to do anything other than go and fight him to the bitter end would
hardly manifest our respect for the princess and the Sacred Ancestor of her kind,
would it? Or more than anything, our respect for the man himself.”

“Dear me, but you do have a way with words. Do you mean to tell me you’ve suddenly
gone from feelings of hostility to amity?” the princess laughed in a voice like the
tinkling of a golden bell. “And what do you have to say in regard to the opinion he’s
expressed?”

His face still turned to the floor, the Black Knight replied, “At present, the defense
of this castle and our princess is a more urgent matter than our pride. The Red Knight
and White Knight together could probably best him. Nay, they must triumph. I’ll clench
my sword between my teeth and join them, if need be. However, having lost my other
arm battling him, I have to say that my instincts tell me you must stop. Even if there’s
only one chance in a thousand, or even one in a million, we can’t allow him to reach
you, Princess. Kindly take my opinion under consideration.”

“Very well. Red Knight—have at him.”

“Yes, milady,” the red figure jubilantly replied as he rose, while the massive black
form behind him didn’t move a muscle—as if some colossal, invisible hand kept him
pressed against the earth.

“Next it’s your turn, my Black Knight. If you’re so prepared to sacrifice life and
limb for my sake, go after D with your sword in your teeth as you just pledged. Oh,
I jest with you,” the princess said with a thin laugh.

If the Black Knight had looked up at her then, the resulting surprise might’ve very
well left him deranged. For the smile that colored her rose-like lips was horribly
kind.

“Your formidable skill not withstanding, it would be like throwing you naked to the
wolves in your present state. Come,” the princess told him. “I’ll give you something
to replace what you’ve lost.”

—

D halted his horse before the suspension bridge.

In the darkness lit only by moonlight, the flame-like hue of the other rider was striking.
He was on the far side of the bridge.

“I am second,” the Red Knight called out as he drew a longsword. No doubt he meant
that the Blue Knight had gone first. “Now I shall make you pay for both the Blue Knight
and the arm you cost the Black Knight. Draw!”

He really didn’t need to ask. An ice-like blade glimmered in D’s right hand.

Though the Red Knight had been rendered unconscious by an agonizing blow from D in
their first encounter, it was only because his orders from the princess had left him
unable to defend himself. With a sword in his hands, he could be every bit as good
as the Hunter. After all, hadn’t the Black Knight conceded their close duel when faced
with the Red Knight’s draw?

And a voice that wasn’t quite a voice whispered to the Hunter, “Are you gonna be okay?”

D’s body hadn’t yet fully recovered from the wound he’d sustained in his battle with
the Black Knight.

“Hyah!” the crimson rider grunted with determination as his mount
tore up the earth. At the same time, the young man in black raced
forward, scattering the moonlight. Each proceeded an equal distance to the center
of the bridge—and then there was an angry shower of sparks.

As if propelled by the crash of that impact, the two figures flew into the air, once
more clashing their blades together before they landed in the center of the bridge.
Sparks rained down on the shoulders of both men, but didn’t linger long before fading.
Their horses were still galloping away.

The Red Knight reached for a second sword with his right hand. Though it seemed like
he might use two blades at once, he then took the new sword and drove it point-first
into a floor board in front of him. Then, the knight’s upper body dipped. Perhaps
the same deadly drawing technique the Black Knight had feared was about to be unleashed
on D. But the Hunter was beyond the reach of a sword blade.

“Die!” the knight bellowed, his cry of resolve like the sound of tearing silk or shredding
steel.

The glint that surged from his scabbard was crimson. It slashed through the wind,
howling as it was slammed at D.

D’s response was nearly miraculous. While still unsure of the true nature of his foe’s
technique, he had his blade held out in front of himself. It was true warrior instinct.
Something struck his blade, flying off to either side of it, and a heartbeat later,
the suspension bridge tilted wildly in D’s direction. The support wires to either
side of him had been severed neatly, as if they were so much cheese.

Regaining his balance by merely shifting one leg, D said, “So it’s sound, is it?”

He’d seen through his opponent’s attack.

The secret of the Red Knight’s unseen sword was that it was actually the sound of
his sword slicing through the wind. His technique involved changing that sound into
a supersonic wave far beyond the audible range—a wave that could even slice through
steel.

His blade went back. Before it could send a second supersonic blast out, D charged
the knight. Though not quite generating supersonic waves, the Hunter’s sword did whistle
through the air with an equally impressive sound.

As the Red Knight barely managed to meet the blow, he felt numbness shoot from his
wrist all the way to his shoulder, leaving him no choice but to back away.

D besieged him with a merciless chain of attacks—angry blows against his high guard,
thrusts at midlevel that came like machine-gun fire, sweeps that shot up from below
like veritable springs. And every one of them was a work of beauty executed with perfect
form, while on the receiving end, the Red Knight’s own stances were all being foiled.

“Damnation!” the Red Knight snarled, making a giant leap to the rear.

As he was resheathing his sword in midair, he saw D right in front of him. And the
Red Knight realized that D’s blade was coming down at him far faster than he could
ever draw.

“Remarkable!” the knight shouted as black steel split the top of his head in two.

Still with one hand reaching for his weapon’s hilt, the Red Knight sent up a gory
mist as he fell on the bridge. But once more there was a flash of light in his hand.
The sound of a slash through the wind was heard at the center of the bridge, and bright
blood spouted from the Hunter’s left wrist.

D immediately scooped up the hand he’d lost.

The Red Knight lay motionless, having breathed his last.

A human face surfaced in the palm of the hand and said, “The lousy bastard banked
the sound off that other sword.”

The blade the Red Knight had driven into the bridge solely for that purpose quivered
forlornly in the moonlight.

“And it’s a hell of a cut he gave you. It’s not like a sword—reattaching your hand
won’t be easy. Watch yourself!” A pained expression crossed the little face, and then
it sank once more back into the hand.

Putting the severed limb into one of his pockets, D unfastened the scarf around his
neck and used it to bind his wounded wrist. Then, wearing an expression like nothing
had happened, he headed over to where his cyborg horse was waiting on the far side
of the bridge. The combatants’ respective mounts had crossed paths on the bridge,
each continuing on to the other side.

Once D was in the saddle again, he turned and looked back before riding off.

The Red Knight’s horse stood by its fallen master, nuzzling his now-still form. He
must’ve loved that steed.

Turning forward again quickly, D galloped off toward his next battle.

—

“It would seem that the Red Knight has also been slain,” the lovely princess remarked,
her smile seeming to become all the more radiant. “Only you and the White Knight remain.
I wonder if I should make use of some of my traps?”

“If it pleases you, milady,” the knight replied gloomily, his face still turned toward
the floor. All around him, the rose garden was in glorious bloom.

“No, I guess I won’t after all,” the princess said mischievously as she gazed at her
loyal retainer. “After all, I did go to the trouble of replacing your arms, and there’s
nothing you’d like better than to do battle with the Hunter. So don’t worry about
me—go have at him to your heart’s contentment. ’I’ll be fine on my own.”

“Princess,” the Black Knight said, looking up. From his shoulders stretched new arms
much thicker than the old ones. Rising to his feet, he bowed.

“Black Knight—didn’t you hear? What I asked D to do, I mean.”

“I should like to thank you, Princess,” said the Black Knight.