Mercenary Road (6 page)

—

I

—

Strider and Stanza both curled up to escape the blast, then spread their arms and legs against the ground on landing. That was the best way to distribute the force of the impact. Above them, white-hot shrapnel, shards of melted glass, and globs of silicon flew through the air. A number of them landed on the armored plates on the warriors’ backs, which managed to protect them.

As soon as the blast and the threat of falling debris had passed, Strider and Stanza picked themselves up. Shielding their eyes against the still-eddying dust and wind, they looked for D and the motorcar. Off in the distance, the hem of the Hunter’s black coat fluttered. D was already beside the toppled vehicle.

“He got the drop on us again? I hate it when that happens!” Strider growled.

Glancing at the factory that’d been reduced to flaming wreckage as they broke into a run, they finally reached D just as the girl was crawling out from under the toppled vehicle. Though the face framed by her golden hair had gone pale and a trickle of blood came from her left temple, there was no disguising her youthful vigor.

The first thing Stanza asked was, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” the girl answered in a faint voice, staring at the three of them. The emotions coloring her face were hardly suited to someone who’d just been rescued. They showed distrust and suspicion.

“You folks—are you Hunters?” This was the second thing she said.

“The smirking bastard behind me and I are both warriors. But the guy in black’s a Hunter.”

“Thank you—I’m glad I came back.” Though she’d finally gotten around to thanking them, she didn’t sound particularly grateful. “You came from Bossage, didn’t you? Get me back there as quick as you can.”

“Well, aren’t you the impatient little lady! Fill us in first. You know, you’re not the only one we came out here to rescue.”

“That’s right,” Strider said, grinning at the girl whose expression had turned to stone. “I’m Strider, and this scary lady is Miss Stanza.”

He noticed a change come over the girl. Her blue eyes opened wide, and her expression seemed to melt with rapture. It went without saying that it was the young man in black that was reflected in her glazed eyes.

“And you’re . . . ?” she asked in a voice that sounded as if she could weep.

“D,” he simply replied. “Tell us everything you know. Then you can head back to town.”

“Okay . . . if it’s for
you
.”

“Hey!” Strider snapped. “I’ll have you know he wasn’t the only one involved in rescuing you, missy!”

Grabbing his arm to restrain him, Stanza said, “You’re wasting your breath. He didn’t use hypnotism or anything, but the girl’s soul belongs to him. You’ve got us beat there, D. But you’d better share her intel with us.”

“Not a chance.”

“
What
did you say?”

“We’re not partners.”

“Hey, wait a minute!”

“Yeah—don’t push your luck, D!”

The Hunter told the flustered pair, “Right now, the two of you have formed an alliance. But you’re not allied with me. That’s all there is to it.”

The pair fell silent, and D didn’t seem to even see them anymore.

“Get on,” he said, indicating his cyborg horse.

The girl gave a meek nod. Apparently staying with the gorgeous Hunter would be even better than going back to town.

“Just a second!” Stanza said, making the girl halt in her tracks. “You’re not even going to tell the people who saved your life what your name is?”

The warrior’s hands hung easily by her sides. But it went without saying that she had deadly darts concealed behind her extended fingers.

“We’re not going to let you hog all the glory, D!”

“Damned straight!” Strider added, circling around behind D. As the warrior reached for his longsword, his face was filled with a dark and unconcealable will to kill.

They were both ready to follow through. If D responded in kind, there would certainly be a breathtaking battle to the death. And D was almost certain to respond.

In a part of the wasteland where winds of death gusted clouds of dust, all the figures were frozen solid by an overwhelming killing lust. But it was one unexpected word that brought them back to the world of normalcy. “Okay,” someone had said. And that someone was D.

Stanza looked puzzled. Strider’s eyes were wide. The killing lust had vanished without a trace—in part because the two warriors were reluctant to fight D.

“For the time being, we’ll stick together.”

Strider gave a hearty nod at D’s words, hiding how shaken he was. “Fine, as long as we’re clear on that. Now, let’s go somewhere and hear her tale.”

“I already told you to take me back to town!” the girl said in an exasperated manner. Apparently the killing lust had broken D’s spell over her.

“How about introducing yourself first?” Stanza said, glaring at the young woman.

“I’m Irene. Irene Slocum.”

“You’re part of the farming family that sent word to the mayor about the mercenaries coming back to life?”

“That’s right.”

At this point, the same thought popped into all three heads: Wasn’t the girl concerned about her family?

“At any rate, we should get moving,” Strider said, looking at the smoldering remains of the factory.

“Not far from here, there’s an emergency bunker in case of things like tornadoes or volcanoes. I don’t think anyone would have any complaints if we let ourselves in.”

—

The high end of the bunker where the entrance was located was a pile of cyclopean stones. Its door was an iron plate. A heavy lock hung on it.

“We’ve got trouble. The lock is keyed to fingerprints,” Strider clucked.

Such locks weren’t extremely rare, and they were used from time to time in important places like storehouses for a village’s food or treasure. The fingerprint that opened it would belong to the acting mayor, and if he or she died, the fingerprint would be updated.

“This chain’s too heavy—I guess we’ve got no choice but to blow it, eh?” Strider continued. “The combat jeep’s a loaner from the town of Bossage, but it’s carrying some dynamite.”

An exquisite hand reached out in front of the warrior—D’s left hand. The other three saw it close around the lock. Their eyes were saying that he was an idiot and this would never work. Even after they heard the lock click, the gleam of doubt didn’t immediately fade from their eyes.

Ignoring the dumbly staring trio, D took off the lock and chain, and then effortlessly opened the iron door.

“Are dhampirs freaking monsters or what?” Strider could be heard muttering behind the Hunter’s back.

The bunker had a central chamber large enough for a good three hundred people to sleep there, plus stores of food and water, and toilets. While this was the Frontier, assistance from other towns or villages would still reach them within ten days.

In the central chamber, Irene began to tell them her story. Although it was obvious that she wanted to go back to town right away, she hadn’t been able to sway the other three.

According to the girl, about thirty minutes before he sent word to Bossage, her father was making his morning rounds when he spotted odd troops coming down the highway and raced back. After sending word to town, he’d loaded his family into a trailer and fled, leaving one of them behind.

“Me,” Irene said in a self-deprecating fashion.

“Why, were you too slow or something?”

“I guess so.”

“That sure was cold of your family. I don’t care if they were in a hurry—they should’ve noticed right off they were shy one person. And they didn’t come back for you?”

“I guess not.”

Strider said mockingly, “I don’t suppose you’d be the black sheep of the family by any chance, would you?”

“Oh, you’re right on that account. But what’s it to you? I’ve still got a home and a family, anyway. At least I’m not some killer vagrant going around murdering people for money!”

“Come again?” Strider growled, the look in his eye changing.

Though Irene was obviously frightened, she didn’t back away. “You got a problem with me?” she replied, baring her teeth.

This wasn’t the sort of thing the average farm girl would do. But if she were average, she clearly wouldn’t have been able to steal a car from right under the supernatural soldiers’ noses and make her escape, either.

“While I was getting my stuff together, everyone else took off, so I headed toward town on foot. Then those jerks came, and they captured me.”

Putting her in the old-fashioned motorcar she was driving earlier, the supernatural soldiers had brought Irene back to the abandoned factory. On seeing its interior, Irene had been stunned. When she was little, she’d gone out to the abandoned building any number of times and peeked inside, but now it seemed like an entirely different place. The rusting, derelict machines and power transformers had all vanished, and now gigantic devices of unknown purpose were being assembled. Electrical discharges coursed through the air, striking some soldiers during their labors and knocking them to the floor. Most likely they’d been constructing a reactor or something similar. The terrible devastation the group had witnessed lent credence to this.

Irene had been brought to a room within the factory.

“Oh? And what happened to you there?” Strider jeered. His expression as he licked his chops made clear the perversions he was imagining.

The girl’s gaze bored through his face. Her eyes were like fire.

“What do you mean by
that
?”

“Exactly what I said,” Strider replied, his tone even more mocking now. “Those guys had no damned need to keep you alive. Which means they could only have one use for you. You’ve got a tight little body there, you know.”

Irene started to pounce as soon as she noticed that the warrior’s eyes were focused on the impressive mounds straining against her shirt. However, before she could strike Strider in the chest, he gave her wrists a little twist and the girl let out a scream.

“You’re kinda tough, but don’t let that go to your head, missy. If we have to, we’ll be only too glad to hand your ass back to those lousy soldiers.”

But the warrior’s reprimand abruptly halted.

Stanza turned around with such speed, it was as if she’d just received an electric shock. Following her gaze, Strider’s eyes also went wide with terror.

What radiated from D was a hair-raising air of the supernatural.

“She didn’t finish her story,” he said, his voice that of a gorgeous specter. Perhaps that was exactly how he appeared to everyone else there.

“Well, I just thought this cheeky little bitch needed to be—”

“Later,” D replied curtly.

A short response would suffice. But what if it was the wrong response? What if the warrior wouldn’t cooperate?

“Sheesh,” Strider spat, letting go of the girl.

As the girl turned her malice-tinged eyes toward him, D told her, “Continue.”

—

II

—

The rest of Irene’s tale was brief. After being kept in the room and provided with food and water for five days and nights, she’d finally managed to escape.

“One of them forgot to lock the door. What an idiot!”

As Irene wore a look of contempt on her face, the other three rapidly fired questions at her. Most important among those were the questions of who’d resurrected the supernatural soldiers, and for what purpose.

Irene’s response was three simple words: “I don’t know.” She told them the soldiers hadn’t said a single word about it.

“Did anyone other than you survive?” Strider asked.

“When I was pretending to be asleep, I heard the two guards outside my door talking about somebody fleeing to the grand duke’s castle. I don’t know how many fled or who they were. I just pray it wasn’t my family.”

“If they escape to the castle, the soldiers won’t follow them. It’s a kind of sanctuary.”

No one there disputed Strider’s statement.

“Okay, that settles what our next move is. It’s off to the castle.”

As Strider got a reckless look on his face, Irene’s color drained, and she asked him, “Why do we have to go all the way out there? Wasn’t the plan for you to bring me back to town?”

“We can’t do that, missy,” Strider replied, giving her a strangely gentle pat on the shoulder. “See, our job is to rescue
everyone
who’s escaped the soldiers’ clutches. We can’t put that on hold just for little old you.”

“But I’m one of the people who escaped from them! Take me back to town, already!”

“Sorry, but you’ll have to go back alone.”

“That’s crazy! What am I supposed to do if I run into those creeps?”

“Don’t worry. Pretty boy there and the two of us got rid of them all.”

“No way am I going back all alone. If they were to catch me again . . .”

An intense fear drained the blood from the girl’s face.

“Then come with us.”

“What?”

“It’s not like you have another option. You’re one of the people we’re supposed to rescue. I’ll take real good care of you.”

“Who in their right mind would want you to—”

“Let’s go,” Stanza said to her. They were the first words the woman had spoken since reaching the bunker.

“But I—”

Irene was confused. She had no confidence in the chances of returning safely on her own. But if she went on, they’d be diving right into the thick of the supernatural troops. Still, she’d probably be better off with these three than by herself. As the girl’s eyes honed in on D, they seemed to melt away in rapture again.

D said, “Go back alone.”

“Excuse me?” Strider exclaimed stupidly.

Stanza merely gave D a look of suspicion. “Why?”

“She’ll just be in the way,” D replied, getting right to the point.

“But this girl’s one of the people we’re supposed to rescue!” Strider said.

“That’s right.” Stanza agreed. “Our reward covers her, too. I’m not about to let it go to waste.”

“We’ve already rescued her. There are no soldiers behind us. She could make her way back with her eyes closed.”

“No, not on your life!” Irene said, backing away. Circling around behind one of the cylindrical pillars, she continued shaking her head.