The Battle of the Hidden Graveyard

  Chapter 4

  I

  They didn’t understand this at all. Though the stagecoach should’ve been moving straight ahead, it kept changing direction, which was mystifying to both Belbo at the reins and JJ. There was only one thing they did know—the fact that they were being pulled back into Sinistre’s hidden graveyard. The wrathful spirits of Duke Sinistre’s children, resting in the graveyard, steered the fresh sacrifices they desired toward themselves—even Louise realized that, and she told JJ to try to escape again.

  The former Hunter shook his head. “It’s no use. We’ll only wear out the horses. Nothing to do but make our stand here.”

  “You can’t be serious. The sun will be going down soon. There’s no telling what’ll happen then.”

  “I only know one thing—if we run, it’s just gonna pull us right back.”

  “I’m with him,” the coarse Belbo interjected.

  He’s full of fight, but that’s just the flip side of his fear, Louise thought to herself, seeing right through her deputy.

  “So long as we’ve got what’s-his-name—Dorleac—they can’t just blow the whole damn stagecoach away,” Belbo continued. “So we all lock ourselves inside it, and use him to negotiate with the enemy. Tell ’em that if they don’t want him killed, they’d better let us go. If they don’t, we’ll chop his fingers off one by one, and finish off by taking his head and—”

  “Our job is getting him to the Capital unharmed!” Louise said, flatly rejecting her subordinate’s savage proposal. “At any rate, let’s see what kind of move the opposition makes. We’ll only use him as a last resort!”

  No one voiced any objection to that. From the look of things, that was because they knew this was the only thing they could do, but even knowing that, there were some things that couldn’t be avoided. Harman had just said he had to answer nature’s call. And there was no bathroom on the stagecoach.

  On stagecoaches traveling the highways of the Frontier, where there could be a full day’s ride between stations and way stations, it was customary to use the facilities at the station first, but when unavoidable, passengers could get out and relieve themselves by the road.

  “Can’t you hold it?”

  “No can do.”

  “Why didn’t you go earlier?”

  “Actually, I did, it’s just I’m so nervous now . . .”

  “Then there’s no way around it. Just do your business close to the vehicle.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Although, I’m kinda sheepish about being on my own. Sheriff, would you mind tagging along?”

  “What are you talking about, you deviant!”

  Claire bugged her eyes, and Louise blushed in spite of herself.

  “I’ll go with you,” Belbo suggested.

  “No, I’ve got it.”

  All eyes turned to the second volunteer—Lantz.

  “I’m due for a pit stop myself. Perfect timing. My shoulder isn’t bothering me anymore, so leave this to me.”

  Louise made her decision quickly enough. “Okay,” she said. “Watch yourselves.”

  Getting the stake launcher from her, Lantz stepped down from the stagecoach with Harman. As they circled around to the back of the vehicle and did their business, Lantz never took his eyes off the blacksmith. Less than five yards lay between them. If anything were to happen, the deputy could race to his aid. And their vinyl raincoats shielded them perfectly from the rain, at least.

  The rain.

  Suddenly, Harman’s form grew hazy.

  “Oh, shit!”

  Lantz turned around. He was done answering nature’s call. He went two paces before halting, then called out Harman’s name repeatedly.

  The blurry form had vanished, like a picture obliterated by the rain.

  Louise and JJ barreled out. On hearing what had transpired, the sheriff sent Lantz back into the vehicle, called for Belbo, and they searched their immediate surroundings. But they didn’t find any trace of the man, as if he’d melted in the rain.

  Twenty minutes later, there was nothing more they could do but return to the stagecoach. JJ was the first to notice.

  “Where’s Claire?”

  Only a liquor bottle remained in her seat.

  Al’s eyes went wide, and he replied, “What are you talking about? After you called for Belbo, you came right back in. Then you told Claire there was something you wanted her to see, so you led her outside. Didn’t you?”

  By “you,” he meant Louise.

  They checked with Lantz, and he agreed with the farmer. Even JJ was at a loss for words.

  “So, while we were out searching . . .”

  “A second one taken.”

  And saying that, JJ fell silent again.

  Louise knew the rest that he hadn’t said. Their side was holding one. This was about exchanging hostages.

  “I’m going out to look for them!” the sheriff declared.

  “It’s no use.”

  “I can’t just give up on them.”

  “Forget that, and start giving some thought to what you should do when the enemy asks us to make a trade,” JJ told her. “I’ll go out and search.”

  “But—”

  “It’s an ugly situation, but don’t look away from it. You’ve got to shoulder all of this. You can turn over the kid to save the other two, or decide to do like you stated right at the start. But don’t put that burden on anyone else, okay? You and you alone have to make that call.”

  JJ exited the stagecoach.

  No one said anything. They all knew the weight Louise carried.

  But a voice rose in the silence.

  “So, what will you do?”

  As Dorleac looked up at her from where he sat on his stool, it appeared that a smile had risen on his lips. Even when the sheriff’s bloodshot eyes were upon him, the servant didn’t seem upset.

  “Will you abandon me? Or will it be the two who vanished? Either will be fine with me.”

  “Shut your trap!” Belbo shouted, turning the stake launcher that way. “The next time you shoot your mouth off, I’ll end you before we even get a chance to hand you over.”

  “If you do that, it’ll be the end of you all. If the lot of you want to stay alive, you have to stay with me. Duke Sinistre really is incredible. This is his checkmate.”

  “You son of a bitch!”

  Lantz had anticipated how long it would take Belbo to lose his temper. More than his finger going for the trigger, it was the man’s expression that gave it away. That was the face a man wore only when he was about to murder someone. The gaze became fixed, the humanity drained from the expression in an instant, and—

  Now.

  Lantz’s hand went for the barrel of the stake launcher. The stake of ash launched by the pressurized gas was thrown far off course, rebounding down by Al’s feet.

  Cruel as it may seem, no one paid any attention to either Al or the errant stake. The shooter, the one who’d interfered with him, and the sheriff were both staring out the window on the left side of the vehicle. That was where the death rattle that’d thrown off Lantz’s timing had come from.

  “All of you, stay right here,” Louise ordered them before disembarking from the stagecoach.

  The door was shut immediately.

  Clearly the scream had come from nothing human. And at present, anything nonhuman had to be considered the enemy. Who’d it been slain by? JJ?

  Dark forms took shape between the gravestones up ahead of them. There were four of them. The one on the far right and the one on the far left ran all the way there. It was Claire and Harman.

  “You’re okay, right?”

  The two of them bobbed their heads repeatedly. Their faces were tinged with fear, but also there was a definite excitement—and was that rapture?! Each of them looked as weak in the knees as if they’d just met the love of their life. While that was understandable in someone as emotional as Claire, Harman was moonstruck as well and looked ready to whisper professions of love to anyone, even the bar girl.

  What had happened?

  The other two figures would know the answer to that. One of them—on the right, from the sheriff’s perspective—was JJ. On the left was a man in a wide-brimmed traveler’s hat who wore a long coat blacker than the darkness and had a longsword across his back. But what was the thing that dangled from his right hand?

  It fell at Louise’s feet. The man on the left had tossed it there.

  “Like the one the day before last?!”

  Split in two lengthwise, it was the same sort of winged beast-man JJ had cut down back at the Mihal station. The rain was washing away the fresh blood that still gushed from the wound.

  “That’s what was manipulating the stagecoach,” said JJ. “It’d never occurred to me it was coming from the sky, but even if I’d known, there wasn’t anything I could’ve done. If not for him, we’d still be unable to escape this graveyard.”

  “It’s true,” Claire said dazedly. “You came and called me, but the second I stepped out of the stagecoach, my head suddenly got fuzzy, so I just followed along after you. The next thing I knew, there were two of you standing in front of me, and Harman was there, too. I thought he must’ve been tricked, too, but I just couldn’t make myself fight it. Then those two versions of you suddenly turned into a young couple dressed like Nobility, and they were just about to bite our throats—and at that moment, a scream seemed to come from the sky, there was a spray of blood, and that thing fell to earth. With that scream, Harman and I snapped out of it, and those lousy Nobles took off!”

  “And then, he came floating down from the sky,” Harman said, his voice lilting like he was reciting poetry. “The hem of his coat spread like a gigantic bat . . . Oh, it was beautiful . . .”

  “And there you have it. By the time I raced over, the two of them were already with him. Said he had no business with us, so it would seem he was looking for the graveyard. That being the case, he said he was in our debt, and had brought them back to return the favor. Allow me to introduce him.”

  JJ no doubt intended to tell them the new arrival’s name. However, the man gave it himself.

  “D.”

  His voice echoed in Louise’s ears. A name so cold, so beautiful, and so sad.

  “I’m Louise. I serve as sheriff back in Happy Gringo.”

  The sheriff caught herself trying to scrutinize the shadowy figure’s face. Its contours were a blur, the line of his nose—that was all she could see, yet it had a strange effect on her. Her heart was hot and racing. Please, she thought, let me see it all.

  “They have problems with the rain, you see,” he said in a voice like steel. “So they’ll take off. I’d appreciate it if you could stay here a little longer.”

  “How long?”

  “About half an hour.”

  “Roger that. It’s the least we can do, what with you breaking that spell over us. Of course, even if I said no to you, the passengers would be sure to mutiny.”

  Louise shot a glance at Claire. The woman was so busy gazing at the new arrival, she forgot to show her displeasure at the sheriff’s catty remark. The bar girl had her hands folded together over her chest.

  “Thanks.”

  The shadowy figure turned right around. Louise had to fight a desperate urge to follow after him.

  “Just thirty minutes,” she said in an absent-minded tone that was swallowed by the sound of the rain.

  While it was nonsense talk, it was also a vain spell from the bottom of the heart of a foolish woman who wanted to once more glimpse a gorgeous dream.

  II

  D returned to the spot where he’d cut down the winged beast-man. Four or five yards away there stood a false spring tree. It leaned to the right more than the other trees in a testimony to the magic D had worked. This species of tree was unusually elastic, and D had used his monstrous strength to bend it, then secure it with a wire wrapped around the trunk of another tree. After lying flat on his back against the bent tree, the Hunter had cut the wire and been launched into the air. Timed so that he’d intercept the winged beast-man flying overhead, his rough handiwork had miraculously succeeded.

  Having lured D into the graveyard along with the stagecoach, the spell-casting scout had outlived its usefulness. All that remained now was to pinpoint the graves of the young Nobles and destroy them all.

  D put his left hand to the ground and asked, “Can you track them?”

  “The sound of the rain isn’t helping, but yeah, more or less. Head east by southeast.”

  Following the hoarse voice’s directions for about five minutes, he came to an enormous gate of what looked to be marble. There was nothing beyond it, just the gate. Though it would’ve been simple enough to go around it, D knew very well that doing so wouldn’t allow him to meet with those he sought. He pushed the gate with his left hand.

  A terrible chill coursed through his body. His left hand must’ve been doing everything it could to stem the flow. It was power leaking through there. It wasn’t a form of magic. Rather, it was a physical form of energy generated where two dimensions came in contact with each other. In D’s world, it would be a source of destruction.

  All his functions froze, and the instant D came into contact with this death and destruction, he ceased all resistance. As his body headed toward death, his left hand sent out a single thread of regeneration to connect them to the real world, while D moved into another world.

  Stars came into view on the other side of the gate. They were constantly changing, with a transient orphan star being swallowed by a nebula one moment only to be transformed the next into an enormous planet that filled his entire field of view. What’s more, they existed both without and within D. Various forms slipped past the Hunter, or else cut right through him. That was how they appeared in this world, but in D’s they would’ve taken the form of defensive systems, various weapons, or carbon-based constructs such as people and animals.

  Through this extremely dangerous space D floated, reduced to a lifeless corpse. Length, width, and height didn’t exist there, nor did the flow of time, and D himself simultaneously existed and didn’t exist. Perhaps somewhere in the process of creation was the D JJ had glimpsed as a distant figure on a cliff, or the one who’d rescued Claire and Harman in the rain.

  After a few hundred million years had passed in this world without time, D finally ascertained that a group of coffins existed at the heart of a defensive system in an enormous nebula. As he approached, the nebula glowed weirdly, its very light trying to destroy D, but all of its attacks were drawn down the connection to the Hunter’s world and expelled in the space between the two dimensions. It took another hundred million years to reach the center of the nebula, and there at the center of countless geometric patterns D finally saw three coffins.

  “There they are!” the hoarse voice cheered. “That’s Sinistre’s oldest boy and his daughter. Hurry up and finish ’em off. Man, this has been one long trip.”

  Drawing still closer, he entered the heart of the geometric patterns. Though the bizarre shapes attacked him relentlessly for the next million years, D made contact with the coffins. The attacks were intended to kill him, but D was already dead.

  The instant he made contact, D’s return connection pulled him back into his own world.

  As soon as he was revived, D got up. For the few seconds since he’d opened the gate he’d lain there, reduced to a corpse.

  About fifteen feet ahead of him were three wooden coffins in a row. Each was faded, cracked, and covered with moss, making manifest the cruelty of the one who’d buried them, as well as the despair of those interred.

  D drew the blade from his back and walked toward them. Pale hands burst through the lids. Rising from the boxes in luxurious garb were a boy and two girls. Their faces were so brimming with youth and joy, the hoarse voice actually murmured, “Kinda feel sorry for ’em.”

  The young man stepped to the fore, saying, “We knew you would come. D, I am Riyara, firstborn son of Duke Sinistre. I shall face you. Will you not spare my younger sisters?”

  “The job was for the three of you,” D said in a voice that was soft, but still carried a ring of iron to it.

  “We were sealed in our graves by our father, yet we had to go on living. Is there something wrong with that? Human beings take the life of other creatures to stay alive, do they not?”

  It was clear Riyara’s heart held nothing but sincerity in his wish for his younger sisters. The young man, who could’ve been described as the crystallized beauty of youth, was probably willing to take D’s blade right through the heart at that moment.

  “In another universe, I saw the trillion geometric patterns that surrounded the three of you. Or perhaps it was all just a dream. But of that trillion, a tenth of a tenth were the corpses of humans you’d drained of blood. And not just to live.”

  Riyara’s eyes gave off blood light. His mouth snapped open, revealing horrid incisors that spoiled the elegance of the Nobility. Short swords slid from either sleeve to rest in his palms.

  The horizontal swipe of D’s blade clanged against one short sword, which Riyara then hurled through a strange twist of the wrist. The sword spiraled down D’s blade, and then shot toward the Hunter’s throat. Giving off a sound of unearthly beauty, a dagger in D’s left hand intercepted it. The short sword continued to spin as it shot through empty air, embedding itself in a stand of trees towering to D’s right. The trunk of the tree it hit twisted.

  D bounded. Gambling life or death, there was no hesitation in him. When he had come within about ten yards of the young Nobleman, who’d kicked off the ground before him, the Hunter hurled his dagger. It pierced the young man’s heart, and when he landed, D was right on top of him, lopping off his already decaying head.

  While in midair, D saw indications that the younger sisters intended to flee. Before bisecting Riyara, he had thrown a pair of wooden needles. Once he’d confirmed Riyara’s destruction, the Hunter ran over to the girls. All he found there were gorgeous dresses with stark wooden needles stuck in their backs.

 

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