White Devil Mountain (29 page)

“You were the architect of this destruction, weren’t you?”

“Correct.”

“Was Gilzen destroyed?”

“Do you believe he would be?”

“No.”

It wasn’t D who replied. As the group turned their eyes toward the voice, a mountain of rubble weighing thousands of tons rose smoothly into the air.

Castle of Love and Hate

chapter 4

I

T
he staggering weight was pushed off by a quadruped machine that called to mind an insect. The entire thing was colored gold, apparently in keeping with the tastes of Gilzen, who sat in the driver’s seat. Looking down at the group from a height of over eight feet, he said, “Under the laboratory was where I stored my mobile weaponry. What will you do, D? Care to tangle with this for a few laughs before we get to chatting?”

He coupled his taunt with abuse. But D wasn’t the kind of young man to walk away from a challenge. He stepped forward without a word. As a cold, eerie aura radiated from him, the Huntress and the shadow woman could only look on, frozen. The insectival weapon seemed to be crafted from special alloys. Even with D’s ungodly swordsmanship, it didn’t look like a very even fight.

“This isn’t necessarily a weapon I had intended to press into service. Using the knowledge and technology I gleaned from the miserable aliens, I put it together on a lark.”

When Gilzen’s voice was heard from the control pod of the machine, it failed to convey the usual deadly air of ambition. Now a heavy, languid air drifted steadily from the Noble called the most abhorrent in the entire history of the Nobility.

One of the machine’s front legs clanged forward. D didn’t move. His right hand was still reaching for his hilt. The instant his opponent betrayed its next move, that same hand would surely go into deadly action.

Perhaps confident of his overwhelming physical superiority, Gilzen said nothing as he advanced in the machine. As its front legs moved forward with motions more fluid than those of a human being, a silvery glint shot out, unaccompanied by any battle cry. The streak of light called to mind the arc of a supernatural blade.

Lilia cried out.

A metallic leg had been lopped off at the joint. Before the knee of the severely listing machine could make contact with the ground, a brownish ichor gushed from the joint, slapping against the floor.

D kept his sword low, not moving.

“You lousy piece of trash!”

The cockpit opened and a golden figure flew out, taking the form of Gilzen when it landed.

“You deserve to die.”

He kicked the nearest leg, and the gigantic machine rolled over with a rumble.

“What’s
this
?” Lilia said, amazed.
This was supposed to be alien technology?

“Guess it wasn’t out of the testing phase, eh?”

Gilzen reacted to the hoarse voice, saying, “Applied technology, you see. A piece of junk from ten thousand years ago. I, however, am another matter!”

His scepter was extended toward D.

“Ah, that’s right,” Gilzen said, “beam weapons don’t work on you. Well then, tangle with
this
.”

He gave his scepter a swing. The opposite end grew over six feet, and from it appeared a spearhead over eighteen inches long.

Lilia stepped forward, saying, “D, leave this to me.”

“Sure thing.”

As the hoarse voice spoke, the Hunter grabbed Lilia’s right shoulder, and in a heartbeat her consciousness sank into darkness. Quickly scooping up the slumping figure, D artlessly tossed her onto the floor to one side and made a leap. The blade he had raised high whistled as it drove for Gilzen’s head. The spearhead parried it. A strange sound came from the palm of D’s left hand, making the Nobleman’s eyes go wide. Gilzen staggered. The spearhead broke in half, and the Noble it should’ve protected sprayed fresh blood from his head all the way down to his solar plexus.

Landing like a supernatural bird, D closed on Gilzen. After splitting his head, would the Hunter now deal the coup de grâce? Or would he—

There was a
thunk!
and D leapt back.

Lilia gasped out loud. The instant she’d regained consciousness, she’d witnessed Gilzen’s scepter piercing D’s chest. As D’s right hand held his sword in line with the Nobleman’s eye, trickles of red began to drip from the corners of the Hunter’s mouth. Gilzen’s blow had broken his ribs, and they in turn had punctured his lungs.

Putting one hand over the split in his head, Gilzen slid it smoothly down his face. When it came away again, the cut had vanished.

“When it comes to the life sciences, we’re slightly ahead of them,” Gilzen said. “Unlike our kind, they have a limited lifespan. As a result, they strove to achieve immortality through science, and to some extent they achieved it. I applied their science to myself. As you’ve just seen—your blows don’t affect me, D!”

As Gilzen’s massive frame took a tentative step forward, the air seemed to recoil.

“This is serious trouble,” the hoarse voice said from the vicinity of D’s left hip. “Run for it—or that’s what I would tell you, but it’s probably not going to do any good. Anyway, run for it!”

Naturally, D was unmoved by the cries from his left hand.

For her part, Lilia drew her sword. “Leave him to me,” she said, her eyes giving off a red glow. The glow of a vampire. “D, I was bitten by this clown. I gained his powers. His alien powers, too.”

She was about to leave without even waiting for the Hunter’s response when a silvery serpent stretched toward her chest.

“Stay out of my way,” D said.

If you don’t, I’ll cut you down
—that was how Lilia read him. The sword tip against her chest pulled back far as the Hunter braced his longsword for action.

“Fine. You’re the competition. Let’s see once and for all how we should divvy up the take, okay?”

“A falling-out among colleagues?” Gilzen laughed. “Very well, I shall wait. Whichever of you wins, it’ll undoubtedly leave me with one less hindrance. However, let me say this.” The Nobleman’s eyes were the color of blood. “Woman, I decided something when I first laid eyes on you. You are to be my new guard. Now, use all the power at your disposal. Try to slay D. However, you do so by
my
will.”

As the Nobleman said that, every trace of emotion drained from Lilia’s face. Expression as vacant as a Noh mask, the Huntress and her sword were tinged with a terrific supernatural aura. It was a mix of Gilzen’s unearthly air and the aliens’ vitality. And now, it’d made a foe of D.

“More trouble, eh?” the hoarse voice could be heard remarking with disgust.

D’s sword swung back to Gilzen. Did he not know that Lilia was behind him and off to one side, her longsword raised high?

Before Lilia’s blade could enter the deadly fray, a troubled tinge surged into her face. As if an invisible hand were drawing back her sword, Lilia pushed desperately against the weapon, trying to back away.

“D . . . You know what’s happening, don’t you?” she said, iron words forged in her heart falling from trembling lips. “This . . . isn’t my doing . . . Gilzen’s blood is at work . . . you see . . . I’m begging you . . . D . . . Kill me . . . Quickly.”

Lilia’s fierce will must’ve allowed her to break the spell of the Noble’s blood. However, her face instantly went blank again. Her boots trod across the floor, one leg pushing the other forward. One step . . . then another.

D made no attempt to turn and face her. Was he completely focused on Gilzen, or did he have faith in Lilia? No, no matter what happened, he undoubtedly considered her not worth the trouble.

However, at that moment he coughed, and fresh blood spattered against the floor at his feet. Lilia closed on him. Her eyes were those of Gilzen. At that moment, Lilia put incredible strength into her lower body and was about to charge forward when she looked up and off to the right. Just then, Gilzen had turned in the same direction.

A klaxon was ringing.

“Display!” Gilzen commanded.

Where his eyes met the ceiling an elliptical area formed, depicting a scene of blue sky and a white peak. It was a view of the outside. Off in the distance, four aircraft that seemed to be helicopters were approaching.

“Ah, here’s something rare. They called these ‘helicopters’ long ago. The style has changed, but they’re still in use some ten thousand years later? Are they so very useful, or has there been that little progress?”

“They’re carrying real trouble,” the hoarse voice said.

“Nuclear missiles,” Lilia murmured absent-mindedly, but it was unclear whether that was the influence of Gilzen’s blood at work.

“Some fools, some human representative who no longer remembers how fearsome Gilzen can be, must have dispatched them on learning of my return. D, a truce for the time being.”

“No.”

Gilzen turned in amazement to find a stark flash of light right before his eyes. As his head was being split once more, he declared, “Sacred Ancestor’s freak!” Bloody foam erupted from his mouth, and just as it was about to hit the floor, the Nobleman suddenly vanished. He’d teleported.

Lilia opened her eyes wide and gave her body a ferocious shake. Gilzen’s spell had been broken. Apparently she could recall what’d happened, because she said, “D?”

When she turned, she found the young man in black had already sheathed his blade.

“But he—”

“Probably gone to do something about the missiles,” the hoarse voice replied. “Noble castle or not, it won’t be able to weather a direct hit from a nuclear warhead. If those are tactical warheads, one should be enough to vaporize everything. Oh, they’re closing on us. By the size of ’em, they’re about five hundred yards from a safe detonation range . . . four hundred . . . three . . . Oh, there it is!”

From the bottom of the helicopters that’d just become recognizable to the average human eye black objects dropped in unison. White smoke trailing in their wake, they impacted in the center of the midair screen.

Lilia balled her hand into a fist.

The screen glowed white. One million degrees of burning white light engulfed not only Gilzen’s castle, but the entire peak known as White Devil Mountain.

II