Scenes from an Unholy War (2 page)

D’s eyes were open. Though he was still perspiring, his skin had reclaimed some of its former tone.

“Are you sure? If someone were to make a move on you now, you’d be in a bad way. This might be one of the deputy mayor’s flunkies.”

His left hand made no mention of the nose the Hunter had lopped off.

“If that’s the case, he’s bound to come sooner or later. But just like this hotel, the sheriff might be a little different.”

“Hmm, interesting. Okay, come in,” the hoarse voice said through the door.

The young man’s height rivaled D’s. Though it was summer, he wore a coat. The gold badge affixed to the chest of his shirt was so polished it reflected D’s face. Naturally, the combat belt around his waist had a pistol in its holster. He also sported a smart purple bandanna around his neck. With closely cropped blond hair, he had manly features graced by a grin.

The hoarse voice gasped.

“This makes three times, doesn’t it?” D said in a low voice.

Sheriff Rust’s grin deepened.

“I’d heard there was a Hunter in black here so handsome he could make even men faint. I had a hunch it might be you, and sure enough, it is.”

Having passed on a wintry highway, neither bothering to look at the lights in the windows, D and the sheriff remembered each other.

“Doesn’t really suit me, does it?” Rust laughed, pointing with some embarrassment to the badge on his chest.

“It is rather unexpected,” D said, his face devoid of emotion. It was unclear whether or not the sheriff realized the words were sincere.

Rust bared his teeth, saying, “No, I’m sure it wouldn’t matter much to you, would it? Damn, you’re so good looking; it’s just throwing me right off balance.” Noticing the Hunter’s condition, he continued, “Sorry. How are you feeling, anyway?”

Not replying, D asked instead, “Are you the one who taught the bellhop what to do?”

“That’s right.”

“It was a great help,” D managed to say.

“Glad to hear it. You go on and get some rest now.”

“Isn’t there anything else you’d like to discuss?” the Hunter asked, his query likely to freeze the blood of anyone who knew what’d transpired at the town hall.

Grinning wryly, Rust replied, “Seems you took off the deputy mayor’s nose. Just before you checked into the hotel, one of his toadies came and filed a complaint, but before I headed over here, the same guy came back to retract it. The mayor probably talked him out of it. That old man’s still got a backbone of iron. Odama would like to grab his position right away, I bet, but he’s got about thirty years to wait. At any rate, now no one has any problem with you. Just rest up now.”

“How long’s it been?” asked D.

Squinting a bit as he pondered the question, Rust replied, “Since I’ve been in this village? A half year, give or take. Haven’t really settled in yet, have I?”

“You can say that again,” the hoarse voice concurred.

Rust’s eyes fired off a quick look of suspicion, and then focused on D again.

The gorgeous patient asked, “Is the woman with you?” As he spoke, it was unclear whether D recalled the sight of the woman in the crimson cape executing a bizarre trick with her sword in a bar in autumn while the leaves were falling.

The youthful face reflected in D’s eyes grew distorted for a moment. The sheriff had nodded.

“I can’t part company with Lyra. We’ll be leaving town soon.” Once he’d finished saying that, a weight seemed to have lifted from him, with his amiable expression returning. “Nice meeting you. See you later.”

Turning his back to the Hunter, he got all the way to the door before he turned again.

“I absolutely won’t have any trouble in town. Save it till after I’m gone.”

Snapping a two-fingered salute from the side of his face, Rust left.

As soon as the door had closed, the hoarse voice said teasingly, “He’s like a whole new man. I knew from the start he wasn’t cut out for the road. Look how settled he’s gotten in just six months. He was built for a life with his feet firmly on the ground. He said he’s hitting the road, but it looks to me like he wants to live here. In which case, I wonder if he can’t find work if he stays.”

“Why does he travel?” D mused. Was the Hunter curious about the young man?

“Damned if I know.”

“Then there’s the woman.”

“Yes, indeed. Now there’s one you won’t find playing sheriff. The look in her eye, the way she moves, and that trick with her sword—that’s a warrior, through and through. And they’ve been traveling together for years. Are they lovers who can’t go home? Nope. I’m sure you’ve noticed, too. When she looks at Rust, it’s with tension and a lust for blood.”

Rust had said he couldn’t part company with her. What sort of fate was this woman leading him to?

“Of course, if those bandits are headed this way, they’re gonna need people to help. Are we gonna wait around for that gig?”

“Can we set out tomorrow?” D inquired.

“Most likely. But you won’t be a hundred percent. Let’s stay here till you’re fully recovered. If they find out what condition you’re in, every Hunter and warrior in the Frontier out to make a name for himself will come gunning for you.”

“I’m fine with that.”

“Hey, don’t get me wrong. I’m not worried about what’ll happen to you. I’m talking about the guys you’ll take out. Wipe out all the Hunters and warriors on the Frontier, and there’s always the danger that the remaining Nobility might regain power. Based on past experience, it’d take the Capital at least a year to dispatch specially trained troops. In the meantime, folks out in the villages would have to live with the fear that their brothers or sisters, children or parents might pop a pair of fangs at any minute. The number of victims would probably be up in the tens of thousands.”

The explanation his left hand offered wasn’t far fetched; it was absolutely correct. It was said there were hundreds of people in the same line of work as D on the Frontier, and even sick and weakened, he would leave them all dead if they came after him. The left hand had no doubt that such would be the case.

“At any rate, I recommend staying here till you’re better,” the hoarse voice declared, adding after a momentary pause, “What the hell? It’s the door again.”

From the way D actually looked over, it appeared he was recovering from the sunlight syndrome, but it also supplied proof that he still suffered greatly from the malady. His ears hadn’t caught the faint creak of the door opening, nor had his skin or any other senses detected the presence beyond it.

Just as he grabbed the longsword leaning against the left side of the bed with his right hand, something was lobbed into the room. It was a black sphere about four inches in diameter. There was nothing nimble about its movements as it sloppily rolled twice in the Hunter’s direction, then halted. At the same time, the world filled with flapping black wings.

—

III

—

“Bats!” the hoarse voice cried. “If these are vampire bats that’ll attack a dhampir, this has gotta be some kind of mutated biological weapon. Watch yourself!”

In the time it took to say this, the room had filled with hundreds of flitting black shapes. But just listen closely. The flapping sounds suddenly vanished in one spot, a new shape filled the void, and then it too disappeared. It was right over the bed.

D’s right hand held his sword. Every time he swung it, the shapes bearing down on him were cut in twain, carpeting the floor and bed. However, one narrowly slipped past the tip of the blade and clung to D’s right shoulder—only the sunlight syndrome could have made such a thing possible. Twin streams of blood coursed from the tiny fangs of the bat when the left hand wrested it free.

The bellhops who came running after a call through the speaking tube were cleaning up the dead bats when D went down to the lobby. As he recovered, his skin was even drier than the sunlight syndrome had left it, yet he was sweating profusely. He was so emaciated that when he told the man at the front desk he was checking out, his words took the man’s breath away. The fangs of those bats secreted a toxin that would kill a normal human instantaneously.

Naturally, D left the hotel to avoid any other assassins. Everyone who worked there said they didn’t know anything about any bat expert. And the Hunter knew just from looking at them that they weren’t lying. It almost seemed as if the assassin who’d come to their door without D or his left hand noticing had flown away just like a bat.

On stepping out the front door, he was greeted by stark sunlight. Neither the grass nor the ground could possibly soak up all the sun’s heat, and the Hunter’s nose was assailed by what seemed like the odor of them burning. The smell of the dirt was even stronger than that of the grass. Down an otherwise deserted street, a wagon loaded with modified barley rolled on creaking wheels.

Hotels were vital to Frontier villages. The bare dirt road, empty even of gravel, bore the hoof prints of horses and cattle and ruts from tires, and across the street from the hotel a general store and a saloon of weathered wood stood shoulder to shoulder. Nevertheless, the hotel must’ve been rather important to the area, as it had a nice large neon sign to draw attention. When the season came, the market at the edge of town would host merchants hoping to attract customers from dozens of surrounding villages for a bustling summer trade.

Going into the stable that stood beside the hotel, D put the saddle on his cyborg horse. Someone’s shadow stretched in through the doorway, melding with those of D and his steed.

“Heading out?” a woman inquired in a voice that rang like a bell. A bell made of iron.

D didn’t even glance at her crimson cape or the gentle waves of her black hair.

“Never in one place long, are you?” said Lyra.

After checking that his saddle was properly secured, D put one foot into a stirrup.

“Would you help us out?” D heard Lyra say as he settled into the saddle. On the left side of her chest, a gold badge was pinned against the curve of her breast. Her star was a little different from Rust’s because she was only a deputy.

“With what?”

“Come on, you know. It’s what you came here for. Seems there was a ruckus over at the hotel. You must know who was gunning for you.”

D tugged on the reins.

Lyra stroked the horse’s neck.

“See, someone fed the mayor’s office a load of horseshit. Somebody with links to the Black Death gang. They’ll be coming soon. And when they do, we want people on our side that we can count on. Rust just wants to hold them off with the locals who are up to a fight, but I’m sure you know how bad these villagers can be about switching sides.”

D said something strange: “The sheriff told me you two would be leaving at some point. Seems like the sooner, the better.”

Lyra’s expression changed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

The Hunter’s cyborg horse started forward. The woman in the red cape stood in front of him. D’s steed kept going.

“Why are you in the way?”

Lyra’s eyes narrowed. She’d suddenly heard a hoarse voice, but there was no one there save D.

“Because we need you! We can’t trust the villagers.”

“Then hire yourself some traveling warriors, eh? There were a bunch of ’em in the hotel and out at the campground for the down on their luck.”

Giving a suspicious look to the vicinity of D’s hip, the woman in crimson said, “Let me rephrase that.
People
can’t be trusted. Not upstanding people, anyway.”

“You can say that again,” more than one voice concurred.

The cyborg horse halted.

Not even bothering to turn, Lyra asked somewhat distastefully, “What can we do for you, Mr. Mayor?” In some respects, her tone was even colder than D’s.

“Well, I’ve been giving some thought to what we discussed,” the gray-haired old man said to the Hunter, giving a toss of his chin at the girl to his left wearing a striped jacket. “On my daughter’s recommendation, I’ve decided to appoint you as deputy. I’m sure you’ll be happy to accept, won’t you?”

It was an extremely shortsighted offer. Given D’s present condition, he’d be as likely to lop off someone’s head as their nose. The Hunter merely advanced on his steed.

“Pardon my father’s rudeness,” the girl—Sheryl—said as she stepped forward. Her eyes needled D with a look of sincerity. “I’ll admit that as a mayor, his personality leaves something to be desired. However, he’s absolutely correct in this case. Lend us your aid. You’ll be properly compensated, of course.”

“Oh, no!”

The hoarse reply made Sheryl’s eyes go wide. “You won’t do it, then?”

“No, that’s not it,” Lyra said, her cape flaring as she started toward the cyborg horse just as D’s body slowly pitched to the left and fell to the ground.

Everyone raced over, but one of them stopped in her tracks and turned toward the entrance. Darkness had laid claim to the stable. The thick wooden doors had slid from either side and slammed together.

Lyra had leapt forward with incredible speed, but they’d shut right in front of her with a crash that shook the whole stable. Just as she was about to collide with them, Lyra twisted around and stopped before glaring at the doors. She didn’t punch or kick at them—there was no sense wasting the energy. That wasn’t what a professional did.

“What’s the meaning of this?” the mayor inquired. Though the doors had closed, there were plenty of windows, so it was still more than bright enough to see.

“We’ve got hostiles outside. How’s he doing?” Lyra asked, turning to Sheryl, who had her hand against D’s brow.

“He’s really running a fever. We’ve got to get him to the doctor right away,” she said.

The medical center in town was operated by a circuit physician. The village had no permanent doctor, but they would periodically employ a traveling one. Circuit physicians included independently operating individuals, members of small Frontier medical associations, and doctors dispatched from the Capital. They might provide treatment in a given village for as little as a few hours, or for as long as six months. The third such doctor to come to the village had already been there for more than three months.

“Who in the world is outside?” asked Sheryl.