Mercenary Road (2 page)

“When you say
ruins
on Mercenary Road—you mean
that place
?” Stanza asked, a terrible gleam in her eye.

Strider whistled.

Both of them were surprised—and afraid.

“And communication after that?”

“None whatsoever. To be honest, we don’t know if there are any survivors or not. So, it might be a complete waste sending you folks out there. Nevertheless, we’re willing to pay. Fifty thousand dalas apiece.”

Whistling again, Strider remarked, “Well, that’s most generous.”

“Double it.”

The mayor stared at Stanza. This time, he was practically glaring at her as he said, “Pardon me, but that’s well above the going rate.”

“Not for dealing with something like this. The mercenaries who appear from time to time on the Florence Highway are evil beings created by the Nobility and even feared by the same. It’d be hard enough to sneak by them and make it to the ruins, but then we’d have to make it back again. And I’ve only got one life to lose.”

“There’s no proof that these attackers are the same mercenaries,” the mayor protested in a beastly growl. “They’re just a legend, and died out long ago—some five millennia ago. You think they’d come back after all this time?”

“You do know the Nobles’ lives are eternal, don’t you? It wouldn’t be all that strange for them to breathe new life into these creations of theirs. At any rate, I expect to be paid a hundred thousand dalas. If you don’t like that, I guess I’m done here.”

Shifting the longsword she held to her left hand, Stanza got to her feet.

“I won’t work for peanuts, either,” Strider said, stepping away from the wall.

“W—wait! Just hold on,” the mayor stammered, hurriedly trying to stop them. Beneath a receding hairline, his brow glistened with sweat. “Innocent people are in need of your aid. As a human being, don’t you want to help them?”

“A human being?” Stanza said, a thin smile chiseled on her lips—a smile made of ice. “I used to be one of those, I suppose.”

“I’m with you. See you around, Mr. Mayor.”

“W—wait!”

“Are you gonna pay the hundred thousand?” Strider asked, leaning forward.

“I’ll have to consult our accountants. Digging a tunnel through the mountain chain to our west has left the town strapped for cash.”

“Then you’ll just have to sit back and live within your means, I guess,” Stanza said, turning toward the door.

“That’ll never do. Maintaining and safeguarding the highway is part of our town’s mandate.”

“That means you get special subsidies from the Capital, doesn’t it?”

The mayor gave the smirking Strider a look like he was calling him a third-rate swordsman.

“Ten million dalas a year, as I recall—and you wouldn’t wanna blow that, would you? Just pay out the hundred thousand dalas.”

As Stanza headed for the door, she said, “Talk to your bean counters. I’ll be at the hotel or in a bar.”

“Same goes for me,” said Strider.

After the two of them had left, the mayor said, “This was supposed to be a mission of mercy we were organizing. Money-grubbing bastards!”

Finally able to release his rage, he stomped his feet in anger.

—

Though the town’s finances might’ve been strained, things were hopping in the Silver Castle Saloon and everywhere else in the entertainment district. This particular establishment operated three separate businesses: a bar, a casino, and a whorehouse.

The scent of alcohol, drugs, and nicotine hung in the saloon like an iridescent haze, the coquettish voices of women jostled with the angry tones of men, and when the door to a gambling parlor that echoed with the sounds of roulette and cards and the cries of beasts opened, a bouncer hurried toward the exit with a bloodied patron who’d apparently lost his temper after a streak of losses, while a traveler or speculator who seemed to have won big climbed the stairs, accompanied by a bevy of women. Exchanges of gunfire rang out from time to time, but they soon died away, swallowed by the eddying mire of lust.

In one corner of the gambling parlor, a terrible cry of pain went up. An enormous figure that was green from head to toe had just clapped a bear hug on an indigo individual every bit as large as himself. Green muscles swelled like balloons filling with water. The sound of snapping bone rang out, but it immediately drowned in the sea of cheers that went up. Stark bone jutted conspicuously from the indigo body that fell to the floor.

“And green is the winner! Step that way to claim your winnings,” the referee of the cruel spectacle that was “monster dueling” called out in a loud voice, pointing to the cashier in the back. Naturally, he was an employee of the Silver Castle.

Covering about seventeen hundred square feet, a third of the staggeringly large gambling parlor, this game took place in a cage fifteen feet tall and fifty feet in diameter. The cage was electrified, and it set off a fierce shower of sparks every time it was touched by one of the modified beasts—captured fire dragons, rock demons, or heavily altered bio-men. Both the house and the customers made these modifications and trained their monsters to fight in order to collect bets. With greater financial resources to draw on, the saloon usually fielded the winning altered beast, though recently some patrons had banded together into project teams that invested a fair sum of money into the monsters they entered, meaning the saloon couldn’t rest on its laurels.

“Hey, there!”

Stanza didn’t even turn when she was slapped on the shoulder.

In the cage about six feet in front of her, saloon staff armed with electrified whips were driving the green bio-man to one side of the cage while the dying bio-man was carried out.

“Aren’t you the little ice queen. You mind?” the resplendent warrior Strider asked, grinning all the while.

She hadn’t been kidding when she said she’d be at the hotel or in a bar.

“Suit yourself,” Stanza replied, not because she cared for him, but because it really didn’t matter either way.

For all his complaints about warriors leaving their backs open, Strider was only too happy to leave his back exposed to the other patrons now. After ordering an absinthe from an ass-wiggling waitress connected to the whorehouse, he looked at Stanza’s glass and commented, “You’re drinking the same? You’re a tough one.”

He couldn’t have been any more pretentious in his compliment.

The absinthe served out on the Frontier wasn’t the real stuff like they had in the Capital. Intended for humans who’d been modified for heavy manual labor, the synthesized drink was five times stronger than the original. A flame would not only ignite it—it’d make the stuff explode, and one glass was enough to cause immediate alcohol poisoning and possibly death in the average person. No one in their right mind ordered it, but then, warriors were some kind of monster.

“Anyway, earlier, you had no problem turning your back to me. What’s the story with that?”

“For the same reason you’re doing it now.”

“You mean because anyone who can’t tell when someone’s creeping up on him can’t really be called a pro? When you pull that, it kinda undermines my bluff, you know.”

“Sorry.”

Stanza’s insincere reply was suddenly buried beneath vicious cries and screams. One of the employees bolted from the cage clutching his shoulder, while a few others raced over and shut the door. The cage shook. The bio-man had slammed up against it. Disproportionately long and thick fingers wrapped around the iron bars and began to rattle them violently. Patrons screamed, and some of the women even got to their feet.

“The big guy’s pretty pissed, eh?”

“They must’ve shot him full of drugs to keep him riled up.”

“You can say that again,” Strider agreed, taking the blue glass that’d just been brought to him and draining it in one gulp.

A pale arm wrapped around his neck like a snake. It belonged to a waitress with bare shoulders and a lot of thigh showing.

“Hey, how about you buy me one, too?”

Grinning at her cloying tone, Strider pointed to his empty glass and said, “You want some of that?”

“Yeah. Passed to me mouth to mouth.”

“I see. You say the damnedest things, don’t you? I like you, missy.”

“Same here—this might be L-O-V-E,” she replied, a delicate finger prodding Strider’s cheek.

“But this drink’s not really the thing for you,” Strider said, making a wry face.

“Oh, why not?”

The woman’s right hand began to inch across Strider’s chest. Bringing lips smeared with bright red lipstick to Strider’s ear, she whispered, “The woman next to you—she scares me.”

—

III

—

“It’s that obvious, is it?”

“Just now, when I walked behind her, I got chills.”

“I’m not surprised.”

Nodding and grinning, the warrior stared at Stanza’s profile and said, “We got some interesting guests here.”

The two warriors were seated in the foremost row of seats on the north side of the rocking cage. Stanza’s unblinking gaze was focused on a spot on the east side. Finding her complete lack of movement somewhat unsettling, Strider followed her eyes but found nothing save ordinary hick customers. But in his ear, he heard the female warrior say in a tense tone, “That guy.”

Her tone of voice made the waitress clinging to Strider gasp aloud.

Stanza stood up. The three copper coins worth ten druids each that she dropped on the table scattered noisily.

“Hey!” Strider called out to her, but her lithe form weaved through the patrons as she headed for the door.

“This should be interesting. Well, I’ll be going too,” the warrior said.

Clinging to Strider as he tried to get up, the woman told him, “No, you can’t go.”

“I have to. You’ll just have to settle for this little magic trick I’ll show you.”

“Huh?” the woman said, knitting the brow of what was actually a rather mean visage.

A gout of flames whooshed out in front of her, and she shrieked and leaned back as the flames licked at her heavily made-up face. Screams of a kind rarely heard even in an establishment frequented by misfits and scoundrels rang out, and the other patrons turned all at once in her direction.

“Pardon me!”

“Hey, get outta my way!”

The saloon staff who weaved and shoved their way through the patrons had already gone pale.

The woman writhed on the floor, the outer layer of skin peeling off her face, and the same man who gave the orders to pick her up and bring her into the back room said to the warrior, “Sir, don’t you think you took your joke a little too far?”

The eyes that glared at Strider already swirled with a malice that would not be contained. In addition to the two who took the woman away, there were five more men behind him—all tough-looking guys who didn’t appear to be simple bartenders. They were bouncers.

“Funny, I was just about to say the same thing,” Strider sneered.

“Come again?”

“Look at this,” Strider said, kicking something up from the floor by his feet with the tip of his boot. Remarkably, it flew straight up, and he caught it in the palm of his hand.

“It’s my wallet, which she just lifted from me. As for getting her face burned, well, I guess that’s just divine retribution.”

“So, now you’re gonna lie to us?” the man said. He must’ve been used to this sort of thing, because he didn’t back off. “At any rate, you just burned the face off some of our valuable merchandise. You’re not getting off that easy!”

The gambling-parlor patrons began to relocate. Aside from the noise from the saloon, there wasn’t another sound.

Once the hired muscle had surrounded him, Strider asked, “So, what do you propose?”

“That you come along quietly with me back to my office. And if you have a problem with that—”

“—that’s where these guys come in?”

Strider opened his mouth. Pale blue flames spouted from deep within—it went without saying they were from the absinthe. Strider must’ve known a special trick to ignite it. Turning, he swept around a full 360 degrees. The man from the saloon, the bouncers, and even a distant section of the floor were engulfed in flames.

The saloon was ruled by shrieks of agony. Thrown into a crazed panic by the bouncers rolling all around like human torches, the customers pressed en masse for the doors, with a number of them being trampled to death when they tripped and fell.

And the insanity those flames unleashed sparked another sort of madness . . . in the bio-man in the cage. His mind longed for slaughter, and the flames now compelled him to go berserk. The iron bars that had barely contained him twisted like taffy as he forced his way through. Once out, he was a bloodthirsty beast on a rampage. Countless people and flames danced in his eyes.

—

She’d watched her target leave the Silver Castle. But even though she passed through the door not two seconds later, there was no sign of him. Entertainment district or not, the night was the world of the Nobility and monsters. Nobody walked around; people could be seen hustling toward different venues in groups, weapons in hand.

“Where’d he get to?” the female warrior mused, looking around, and then there was a dull sound to her left as a figure came flying through the air to slam against the ground. Judging from the thud he made, he must’ve been punched with terrific force.

Before Stanza could take another step, three more followed the first in succession, piling up on the ground—all in exactly the same spot. It was a work of art, the way each was struck with such precision that they landed in the same place and in the same pose as the first.

By the time the fourth one toppled over, Stanza had reached the turn into the alley from which they’d so mysteriously come. The alley ran down the side of the Silver Castle.

She halted. She’d heard a hoarse voice remark, “Using ranged weapons just isn’t right.”

Her right hand reached for the longsword on her hip—no, for pencil-like darts stuck through her belt. But before she did anything, her left hand drew a small mirror and held it around the corner.

Reflected in its surface was a giant of a man with both hands raised, and in front of him with a gun leveled was a skinny man with the look of a ne’er-do-well about him. The giant looked to be about six foot eight and nearly 450 pounds, with a beard draped across his triple chins. Neither of them looked particularly charming, and in light of the four men lying in the road, this wasn’t a friendly exchange. With a longsword hanging diagonally across that great continent of a back, spells to ward off supernatural creatures scrawled all over his leather vest, and an oversized pair of pants that would allow easy movement, the big man had to be a warrior. Most likely some drifting thugs had come after his money, and he’d underestimated the opposition—but it should be noted that those who’d set upon him must’ve been feeling quite sure of themselves. Though four of his compatriots had been put out of commission, the skinny man with the gun had more wrath than fear in his eyes.

“If you want my wallet, I’ll give it to you,” the giant said. His tone was calm. He was used to such situations.

However, this statement seemed unlikely to remedy matters.

“I’ll take it off your corpse. Then me and my friends will get the hell outta here. Okay, start crying and pleading for your life.”

Apparently that was why the skinny man hadn’t shot him right away.

“Stupid amateur,” Stanza suddenly muttered. Clutching a dart, her right hand rose.

It was at that very moment that the wall of the saloon beside the robber and his victim shattered with a terrific crash. Before any of the three knew what was happening, an enormous figure nearly ten feet tall and of inhuman proportions bounded out into the street. It was the same bio-man who’d broken through the cage and escaped—but before this dawned on them, the two men and Stanza noticed something on the creature’s misshapen face. There was a huge lump wriggling under the bio-man’s nose—actually, it was arms, legs, and a torso. He had a person in his teeth.

Flames shot out in the darkness, followed by a roar. The robber had fired his gun at the bio-man. Striking him squarely in the temple, the three-and-a-half-ounce lead slug bounced off.

The bio-man reeled, and the saloon patron dropped from his mouth. His right hand rubbed at his temple. Beneath the bullet hole, protective iron plating could be seen. That wasn’t an infraction—it was completely in keeping with the rules on upgrading combatants.

Confidence in the efficacy of the slug kept the skinny man from moving sooner. The speed of the bio-man’s movements was a factor as well. When he raised his fist, it looked like a lump of clay. But the instant it made contact with the skinny man’s head, it became a hammer. The man’s head and neck were neatly driven down into his torso. It was amazing how the rest of his body remained standing perfectly straight.

Saloon employees raced out through the hole the bio-man had knocked in the wall, armed with cattle prods to subdue him. Other people spilled into the street.

The bio-man howled. Pale blue waves of electromagnetism from the prods assailed his titanic form. There were sparks from short circuits in a number of places on his gigantic form. Though the voltage was high enough to render a lesser dragon unconscious, in the case of the enraged bio-man, it only served to whip him into more of a frenzy.

One sweep of his arm mowed the saloon staff down like bowling pins. The body that hit the wall of the hotel across the street was a corpse by the time it sailed through the air.

“We’ve got no choice—gun him down!” commanded a man in a white shirt and bow tie, apparently the one in charge.

However, before they could concentrate their fire on the gigantic figure, the bio-man extended the fingers of his right hand and drove them into the ground. His arm went in all the way to the shoulder, as if he were plunging it into water.

A saloon employee came at the bio-man with a raised longsword. Catching the gigantic creature at the base of the neck, the blade halted when it struck the iron plate, and the waves of electromagnetism that still surged through the bio-man coursed into the man holding the sword, killing him instantly.

By this point, the robber’s cohorts who’d been knocked into the street had picked themselves up and moved as a group to the entrance to the Silver Castle. Not that they were trying to get away. They were looking for a victim in the chaos.

Just then, someone behind them shouted, “Hey, what do you think you’re doing?”

Turning, they found a dazzling light pulling away from the crowd at the entrance to the street and heading in their direction. It was Strider.

The four thugs exchanged glances that seemed to say,
What’s this clown all gussied up for?
But at the same time, there was a malicious gleam in their eyes.

What’ll we do?
one whispered.
That stupid getup is flashy, but by the look of him, he’s a warrior.

Kill him,
another whispered.
Just open up on him without any warning.

Nice,
said a third.
Don’t give him a chance to draw his blade.

They all reached for their guns in unison.

A sharp roar echoed down the night street.

Just as they were drawing the pistols from their holsters, the four thugs froze.

It was said that a genius at the art of war could knock a bird from the sky with a moment of concentrated resolve. Strider’s roar was equally powerful.

Leisurely walking over to the four thugs who’d become veritable statues and checking that no one else around was watching him, Strider reached into the coat pocket of the foremost robber with his right hand and pulled out his wallet. Quickly examining the contents, he said, “Sheesh, that’s just pathetic. I can see why they blew into town.”

Ignoring the fact that his own actions were equally immoral, he checked the wallets of the remaining three. With each of them, he spat in disgust.

“Well, not much I can do about this, I suppose. Guess I’ll go back to my room and have a drink.”

Saying this, the warrior spun around—and stopped cold.

At that moment, the bio-man was running amuck in the alley, and a giant of a man had stepped in front of him. The vicious beast raised his right hand. Onlookers began to flee, and Stanza was about to put the right hand she’d raised again into action—and then everyone stopped. The bio-man, the giant, and Stanza.

Darkness was what they knew then. And the true nature of the unending terror that lay within it.

Strider’s ears caught a peculiar sound. The bio-man, the giant, and Stanza all heard it too.

The darkness was coming. Riding death’s black steed, with its iron-shod hooves.

Don’t look!
their souls ordered them.
Don’t look, don’t touch, don’t smell.

What was coming now, humanity was never meant to see. What was a human being? Something that had a soul. And that was why their souls commanded them,
Just let him pass
.

The horse and rider passed directly in front of the four thugs. They also went right by Strider’s side. None of them turned to look. Everyone else nearby had paused, as well—including Stanza. Darkness in the form of a rider and mount passed immediately behind her. Only the bio-man turned and watched. He alone bucked the rule of the darkness, for he and the darkness had touched ever so slightly.