Vampire Hunter D Volume 18- Fortress of the Elder God (5 page)

The next thing they knew they were going down a gentle slope, and when they reached the bottom, all they could see was sheer cliffs. To their left ran a broad, silvery flow. The stream through the valley coursed rather swiftly, baring foamy tusks when it struck the rocks along its banks. When walking close to it, the members of the group found not only their legs dampened by the droplets of spray but their faces as well.

“Come on, let’s take a little break already,” Maria called up to Weizmann, who was at the forefront of the party. “Mr. Stow can’t keep this up, and the kid’s not doing so well, either.”

She was actually helping the old woman by lending her a shoulder to lean on. For the last hour, the elderly man and the boy had also been showing signs of exhaustion.

Jan, who’d been covering the rear, ran over and caught Toto by the shoulder as the boy began to wobble then dropped down into a squat.

“Damned kid. That’s what you get for playing tough. Okay, climb up here,” he said, presenting his back to the boy.

Turning his face away in a snit, the boy started to walk off. Time and again Jan had offered to help, and each time the boy had refused with the same attitude. After two or three steps, he fell.

Racing over, Jan scooped him up and said, “You should’ve said something. Look, I know you don’t like me, but having you falling all over the place will just slow us down. We’re bringing you along, whether you like it or not. Now climb up here.”

No sooner had he forced the boy onto his back than Franz, who was standing right in front of him, collapsed.

“This ain’t good. Hey, delivery boy!” he yelled to the officer, but Weizmann was in charge of the suckling. He was in no position to lend a shoulder to the elderly man.

Merely glaring back at the mobster, he shouted to the blurry figure up ahead, “Hey, D—I need to talk to you!”

This accomplished nothing. The figure of unearthly beauty grew fainter, dwindling in the fog.

“Officer, do you have any money?” Bierce asked.

“Money? I’ve got some to cover expenses while I bring this clown in.”

“How much?”

“A good five thousand dalas.”

“I can’t say that it’ll be enough, but it’s better than losing our guide. Hey, D!” the warrior called into the mysterious fog. “It seems Officer Weizmann wants to hire you.”

The man in question, shocked, was about to say something when the warrior told him, “Well, you don’t want that suckling to get away, do you?

“Your pay will be four thousand dalas. We want you to take care of a Noble lady in waiting who’s after the transport officer. Apparently she’s gonna try to bump him off.”

The warrior finished saying this before Weizmann could interrupt him, and then focused his gaze up ahead. Apparently the others had heard as well, because they all had the same intent look in their eyes.

The fog continued to eddy, and there was no response from D. It looked as if the fog had swallowed the warrior’s words up, and weariness and discouragement spread across the faces of all.

Just then, D appeared less than five yards from Bierce. A stir went through the group.

“Okay, time to talk business. Make this work,” Bierce said, giving the officer’s back a push. “I’ll take this guy from you.”

Though the warrior reached for the suckling’s rope, Weizmann knocked his hand away. He didn’t want anyone else doing his job.

“The state of affairs is just as he described. Will you take the job?”

“On two conditions,” D said.

“What?”

“I have work up ahead. That gets taken care of first.”

“I suppose that’s okay,” the transport officer replied with an unenthusiastic nod.

“One other thing—payment in advance,” D said.

An expression of relief skimmed across the officer’s face. Still gripping the suckling’s rope, he took a purse from his pocket and put four of the thousand-dala coins in D’s left hand. “Wha—” the officer exclaimed, eyes bulging.

“What is it?” Bierce asked, an inquisitive look on his face, but the officer replied that it was nothing and put his change purse away.

Letting out a breath, he said, “The sun will be going down soon. We’ll have to camp out. Watch over all of us.”

“I signed on to slay a Noble maidservant out to get you,” D replied.

“Yes, but she said she’d kill everyone around me. They’re all in danger.”

Bierce had to fight the urge to grin. He found it a very clever plan.

“The deal’s off,” D said, putting his hand into his coat pocket. Four thousand dalas wasn’t nearly enough.

“Wait! If you get us safely to the Capital, you’ll be paid more. From the state treasury. Guaranteed.”

D held his arm out, and glittering bits fell to the ground with a mellifluous sound. Gold coins. He turned his back to them without another word.

“Wait!” Weizmann called out to him, but there was nothing more he could do.

“Excuse me . . .”

Though the voice sounded as if it might’ve been obliterated by the wind, it seemed to have reached D’s ears.

The Hunter halted and turned.

“Hey, now!”

“Now, just a—”

Jan and Maria had called out in surprise. Squatting, Jan let the boy Toto climb down. He’d started squirming on the mobster’s back. His frail legs still seemed exhausted, and they looked terribly unreliable as he began to walk. The boy went a step closer to D than the transport officer.

“Here—add this to the payment,” Toto said, raising his little fist.

Gorgeous dark eyes of unfathomable depth caught the copper coin that rested on the boy’s soft palm.

“Sheesh! Ten dalas!” Jan remarked with disgust, but his words became a cry of pain. Maria had driven her elbow into his solar plexus. Her face was tinged with strong emotion.

The black-gloved hand overlapped with the small, pale one. When it came away again, the copper coin was gone.

“And for that—take care of everybody,” the boy mumbled. He was a little tongue tied. He hadn’t opened his mouth enough.

“You have a deal,” D replied.

None of them understood the miracle that had just occurred.

“Kid . . .” Maria muttered in a low voice. A silvery-haired figure left her side and gave Toto a hug. It was Mrs. Stow.

“This child . . . asked him to look out for us . . .”

Tears streamed from the old woman’s eyes, dampening the boy’s hair. Quickly touching his hand to the spot, their little savior looked up into this strange rain with an expression that suggested he was about to break down and cry. The old woman hugged him again.

D said, “This path doesn’t lead to the road to the Capital.”

It was a surprising remark.

“Th—then why the hell are we headed this way?” Jan sputtered, but there was really no point in complaining, since they’d taken it upon themselves to follow D.

“I thought I made it clear I had business out here. If you have a problem with that, we can call this off.”

“Okay, okay, you’ve made your point.”

“Can I ask you something?” Bierce inquired, raising one hand. “What’s out there?”

“An old fortress.”

“A fortress?”

Apparently this was news to Bierce, who cocked his head to one side. The rest of the group exchanged glances, but of course they didn’t know anything either.

“So tell us about it,” Officer Weizmann said, leaning forward. Essentially, he was the Hunter’s employer, and that accounted for his arrogant tone.

“Once, this whole region was a ‘playground’ for the Nobility,” D began to explain. The name had survived into the present day, but all who knew how it’d actually been in antiquity had since turned to dust. All that remained of the original Playground was part of a research facility that was also a shrine. Ten thousand years earlier, the Sacred Ancestor’s troops had come down on the Nobles who controlled the region. They smashed through the net of defenses, until about three hundred surviving Nobles were left holed up in some ruins. Though they were outnumbered and outgunned, they had something else on their side: faith.

“Don’t imagine that the Sacred Ancestor was the only god the Nobles worshiped,” D told his rapt audience. “They believed in their own personal deities. But the ones who sought shelter out here worshiped a god that was unlike anything else. Against these three hundred or so Nobles was a force of thirty thousand—yet it took them thirteen months to take the fortress, thanks to that god. The Sacred Ancestor’s army destroyed all who’d found refuge there and, it is said, laid utter waste to these lands and the fortress, but for some reason it seems the fortress remains.”

“And that god—was it destroyed along with the Nobles?” Mr. Stow inquired with great trepidation. His face, covered with wrinkles and age spots, wore an earnest expression. When a person was this close to the end of his days, he became interested in any kind of god.

“I don’t know,” D replied. “But part of the Playground that was supposedly annihilated remains operational.”

“Would that be that thing—the thing that made itself look like you?” Jan asked, snarling like a beast.

In a hopeful tone, the complete opposite of Jan’s growl, the old man said, “Then, the Nobles’ god is still . . .” His body quivered.

Jan didn’t seem to like this one bit. “What are you sounding so happy about, old-timer? You saw that last monster, didn’t you? The god is that thing’s boss. Something like that might still be around. It’d gobble us up in a second.”

“Even with that god on their side, the besieged Nobles couldn’t win?” Bierce asked while rewinding his crimson scarf.

“Not in the end,” D said.

“So, what are you going to do there?”

Not responding to Maria’s question, the Hunter said, “The sun will be going down soon. I know you’re tired, but we have to set up camp.”

-

Setting up camp consisted of lighting the portable atomic lamp they’d taken from the aircraft and staying huddled around it; that was all they could manage. The fog lifted, and they could see each other clearly. Fortunately, the atomic lamp generated sufficient heat in a fifty-yard radius.

Noticing Bierce sitting against a rock with his eyes closed as she came back from washing her face at the riverbank, Maria walked over, stealing a glance at D standing in the distance.

“Say, you know something about that Hunter, don’t you?”

Without looking up at her, Bierce replied, “There’s nobody in my line of work who doesn’t know about him.”

“He’s that famous?”

“He’s a dhampir, with human and Noble blood—so he’s both human and Noble, yet neither human nor Noble.”

Maria looked surprised. She said, “That sounds pretty deep.”

Her tone was rather pensive, and she quickly donned an unsettled look and asked, “When he came out of the fog earlier, did you notice something? The fog parted right down the middle.”

“He’s that sort of man. Even the fog would want to do what she could for him.”

Maria gave the warrior a look that seemed to ask, What are you talking about, you idiot? as she said, “I never thought of the fog as being a woman.”

“I saw something weird, too.”

“Oh?”

“Weizmann must’ve seen it as well. When he gave him his advance, D took it with his left hand.”

“You’re right—does that mean he’s a southpaw?”

“He keeps his right hand free so if anything comes up, he can go for his weapon fast,” the warrior said, giving Maria a cold glance before he crinkled his brow. “But it looked like the palm of D’s hand smiled.”

“What?”

“A human face formed in it and grinned—I’m certain of it.”

-

III

-

The elderly couple, Toto, and Maria nodded off, in that order. Jan and Transport Officer Weizmann were fast asleep. The suckling’s head drooped—D alone stood some distance from the glow of the atomic lamp, but down by his feet someone called out to him.

“Well, that’s a dhampir for you. The night’s your element,” said Bierce the warrior, his upper body propped up against a smallish boulder. “I haven’t thanked you yet for saving us today, have I?”

D was silent. Perhaps that was his way of saying such pleasantries were unnecessary.

“Well, I’m saying it now. Thank you.”

Staring at the man as he bowed his head a bit, the Hunter remarked, “You’re ready to call it quits, aren’t you?”

After his stunned look, a wry grin surfaced on Bierce’s face. “You mean because it’s not like a warrior to go thanking people left, right, and center? Yeah, you’re right.”

Bierce chopped at the back of his neck with the edge of his hand.

“I’ll be forty this year. A cyborg horse is more my style, but I got on that skybus because I’d taken a job as a guard in the Capital. It’s nice having your freedom, but that’s a young man’s game. When you get older, it’s best to settle down to some quiet pasture. Hmm . . . I don’t suppose a dhampir like you could understand that, though.”

“There are old people and a child,” D said. “They’re asleep now, exhausted. But they’ve all been depending on you, haven’t they?”