Record of the Blood Battle (15 page)

A scream rang out. It was that of a female—a young girl, the baron noted. Jumbled with it were odd voices and the reports of firearms.

“What the—” the baron cried despondently, and with good cause. The last cyborg horse had whinnied, reared on its hind legs, and promptly galloped off. He was just about to chase after it when he heard a shout of, “It’s a water beast!” The cry that shook the heavens was far more desperate than the baron’s.

“Oh shiiiit!”

He was going to flee in the opposite direction from the voices when right in front of him, some men popped out from behind the tent. The trio he’d just met was there, too. All looked like they’d seen a ghost.

The baron’s face was tinged with black, for the thing that’d reared up on the other side of the tent had blotted out the sun.

It was a colossal, ocher insect a good fifteen feet long. With a body that resembled a collection of lumps fused together, it displayed no eyes or any other sensory organs. Its hide probably had a metallic luster because of the way it burrowed through the earth to move.

“Shit! The horses are gone!”

The Nobleman was about to run as fast as his legs could carry him when a sharp voice barked, “Don’t go anywhere!”

“Yipes!”

The baron froze in his tracks, but then he heard forceful cries of “Okay!” in reply, and gunshots rang out. The men were unloading their firearms into the enormous insect.

“Save that kid!” shouted the wrestler.

“Huh?”

Turning, the baron noticed that the men had their attention focused on something near the water beast’s fingertip-shaped head. Just below it clung a girl he recognized.

“Leda?”

At that point, the girl finally shouted down to them with complete abandon, “Help meeeeee!”

chapter 8

I

—

L
ike the baron, Leda had apparently been blown there by the energy overload. Only she’d been somewhat unlucky—though perhaps it was safe to say she was fortunate just to be alive.

More than Leda’s cries, it was the leather satchel hanging from her shoulder that drew a gasp from the baron. “That’s mine. Damn that little sneak thief. Hey, get that back for me!” he said, shaking the man beside him by the shoulder.

“And you call yourself human?” the man retorted, knocking the Nobleman over.

“The hell I do!” the baron shot back.

From overhead, something black fell, winding around the man who’d knocked him down. Another water beast had poked its head over the sand dune. This one was thirty feet long.

“What is that thing?” asked the baron. While he couldn’t make out its details, it did seem to have a certain solemnity to it. The baron’s tone was one of admiration.

The man he asked glanced quickly to either side with bloodshot eyes before replying, “It’s a water beast! One of the monsters the Nobility let loose on the world!”

“Why would they do that? Isn’t that rather dangerous?”

“That’s a question for the Nobles, damn them.”

“Hmm—well, I’m sure they must’ve had their reasons.”

“You stupid asshole!” the man shouted, and then he was lifted easily into the air. All that was clear was that the other water beast had caught him. Though the thing had coiled around him, it didn’t have hands or feet to hold him, yet it seemed to adhere to him as it carried him away.

“Break out the mortars!” the beanpole shouted. Blood streamed from his forehead.

Two men dove into the tent, then each carried out a black cylinder supported by a base. Apparently the cylinders were already loaded. Setting them down in the sand, they took aim through the sights and pulled the firing levers. Two streaks of white smoke and flame arced elegantly into the air, sinking into the water beasts. Fireballs formed. They were the color of blood. The beasts were blown apart.

Pieces of them rained down. The baron covered his head. However, it wasn’t blood and chunks of flesh that rained down on him.

“Water?”

Right beside him, the giant remarked with apparent disgust, “What’s so surprising about that? They’re liquid creatures that move through the ground, after all. They say it’s easier for them to move as a liquid than a solid. Say, are that kid and Ernie okay?”

Ernie must’ve been the name of the man who’d been carried away.

One of the men headed toward the dune, checked the figure on the ground, then shook his head.

“Didn’t make it, eh? How about the girl?”

“She’s all right,” the wrestler called out from the other side of the tent.

“Well, that’s something,” the giant said, heaving a sigh.

“Are you guys idiots?” the baron asked in utter amazement. “You got knocked around and lost one of your own, all for one little girl. Which is more important to you: some girl you’ve never seen before, or one of your compatriots? Well?”

The baron wore a frightened expression as the men who surrounded him stared him down.

“So, you think a man should run off and leave a little girl to her fate? You call yourself human, you son of a bitch?” the giant said, shoving the baron’s shoulder.

“Wh—what do you think you’re doing?” the baron shot back.

“No, you’re wrong. He’s a Noble!”

All eyes focused on Leda, who stood by the side of the tent. The girl’s clothes were tattered, her right shoulder exposed, and she was covered from head to foot with sand, but she pointed at the baron and shouted, “I know that guy—he’s a Noble who can walk in the light of day! Don’t let him trick you.”

—

A few minutes later, the hogtied baron had been put back in the tent.

“If you’re a Noble, you should find the place we’ll be taking you shortly pretty interesting. And behave yourself if you don’t want a stake through the heart.”

A few minutes after that, Leda was tossed in, also tied up.

“What happened to you? Did you try to rip them off?” the baron asked nonchalantly.

“They’re the ones running a scam,” Leda spat. “They say they’re Desert Hunters, but what they do is find people who’ve run into monsters out in the desert and sell them off in a nearby town!”

“Sell them off? You mean they trade in humans?”

“Bingo!”

“So, the only reason they saved you was so they could sell you?”

“That’s not all, though. When they rescued me, they really were concerned about me.”

“Then at some point after rescuing you, they no longer cared what happened to you?”

“I guess so.”

“I don’t understand that at all,” the baron said, and then he fell silent, blue veins bulging in his temples. “If you’re simply going to sell the person you save, you shouldn’t even save them in the first place. Or do they save them so they can sell them? But then there’s the chance some of them will get killed, so, as you said, they must’ve truly intended to help you. This just gets more and more confusing. What are humans, anyway?”

“How should I know? But that’s a fine question to be asking at your age.”

In a strangely childish turn, Leda was in the process of sticking her tongue out at him when the tent moved.

“We’re on the move. Where are we headed?”

“To the slave market. It’s near the town of Toro.”

“The hell, you say! I’m a Noble!”

“That’s why they’re gonna sell you. A Noble goes on the block maybe once in a hundred years. Now, a Noble who can walk around in broad daylight—that’s a real curiosity!”

“A curiosity? I’ll show you who’s a curiosity! I’m going to escape. I couldn’t bear the humiliation of being sold into slavery.”

“You know your leather bag? They’ve got it. What can you do empty handed? The sun will be going down in a little while, and when it does, the desert outside will be crawling with monsters. The days are too hot for them, too, so they prowl by night.”

“Damnation!”

“Just settle down. This is how life goes. Something will turn up—in one form or another.”

“Don’t presume to lecture me, you slip of a girl!”

“Slip of a girl? You’ve been asleep for five thousand years and don’t have a clue how the world works! In my fourteen years, I’ve gotten to taste all the good and bad this world has to offer. When I was six, my mother and father ran off, and my brother and me were picked up by a thief. We’ve been living that way ever since. You know, a vigilance committee cut off my left tit. My little brother doesn’t have any toes on his right foot. See, he made a grab for a gangster’s bankroll. Still, life goes on. And the next time you start that ‘What are humans?’ trash, I’ll kick your nuts in.”

The baron bared his teeth. Everything she’d said contradicted what Piron had told them when they first met. And no matter how he looked at it, the older sister had to be telling the truth. “You—you—you pair of insufferable liars. If I make it out of here alive, I’ll tear you to pieces!”

“Shut up, you half-assed Noble. You’re good for nothing outside your precious castle walls, so don’t go threatening children!”

The tent shook violently as they continued squabbling, on the way across the twilit desert toward the town of Toro.

—

With the coming of dawn, the tent stopped and the beanpole came in.

“We’re there. We’ll take a little break, then off to the auction house before noontime.”

“Why there?”

“For the auction. They deal in everything from daily essentials to weapons and supernatural creatures. The folks from town set the prices, with the goods going to the highest bidder. Nobles are rare. You’re going to make us a damned fortune!”

The baron went mad with rage. “Wh-why, you miserable human bastard, you intend to sell off a Noble? You’ll face heaven’s wrath for that!”

“Fool,” the beanpole sneered. “If ever we felt heaven’s wrath, it was when your kind came into the world. At any rate, there’s a shower stall in back of the tent. Can’t show our customers grubby merchandise, after all. You two had better clean yourselves up real good.”

“Ah, that’s great,” said the girl. “I’ll be able to freshen up. Who’ll go first?”

“You’re so vulgar, you’d have to use it until it drowned you. I shall pass.”

“Gross! You’re filthy. Why not?”

“Running water is a no-no for the Nobility. Didn’t you know that?”

“Ah, yes, now that you mention it. They say that’s why there are no castles near rivers. Why, I even heard that a long, long time ago, there were plans to fill in every river on Earth.”

“That’s right. However, as that would’ve conflicted with the accurate re-creation of the world of the Middle Ages the Nobility so idolized, the plan was abandoned.”

“Wow, so there were some people who were still thinking clearly. Okay, I’m hitting the showers, then.”

Lifting the flaps to the back of the tent, Leda disappeared, and before long the sound of the small shower rang out, drawing a grimace from the baron.

—

The town of Toro was located approximately in the center of the northern Frontier. Since there was a mine in the area that produced an antimatter catalyst, the town had grown extremely prosperous despite its inconvenient location, with a population of around seven thousand and a reputation as one of the five most successful communities in the northern Frontier. The suburbs were equipped with an airport for shipping ore, and the train tracks into the industrial zone were always humming, with fifty cars a day of cargo coming and going. Consisting of the usual bars and casinos, the entertainment district was as busy as could be, with many of the places lit up with neon and open for business even by day. The effect was enhanced by an artificial night that covered the entertainment district alone—a bit of scientific trickery made possible by particle-tinting technology.

Beneath the clear blue sky, that part of town was sealed in darkness, from which spilled singing and gunshots and the glow of lights in the quarter that never slept. Its habitués were drifters, gamblers, bartenders, dancing girls, outlaws, warriors, killers, bodyguards, prostitutes, monster peddlers, arms dealers, and so on, and so on. Any form of vice that could be conceived of in a Frontier town was put into action in this area that was dark even by day.

That included the slave trade. And today’s auction was a little different from usual. First to be led out before the ranks of monster dealers, bordello owners, and rich folks were a girl who seemed to be about thirteen or fourteen and a short, fat, bald man. After the girl—Leda—was pulled up onto the auction block, the crowd that pressed forward was then left surprised, dumbfounded, and snickering the moment they laid eyes on the bald man who followed—Baron Macula. On hearing his introduction as a Noble—and one who could walk in the light of day, at that—their reactions became peals of laughter.

“Who’s a Noble? You mean that uncouth midget?”

“He has the face of an imbecile, a real moron.”

“He’s just some Nobility-obsessed old guy. Get down from there right now, you damned fool!”

Though the baron met that hail of jeers and insults with protests that he was a genuine Noble, he only fueled the mocking laughter.

Leda went up for auction first, and she was won by the madam of a bordello called Pastoral.

“Yes!” the girl exclaimed, pumping her fist triumphantly. It was unclear whether she was excited because she’d finally found a steady means of employment, or because she was confident she could run off at some point in the future.

It didn’t appear to anyone that the baron would fetch more than a thousand dalas when he went up next, but a cry of “Ten thousand dalas!” came from a potential buyer, so the matter was decided without any further commotion or even any counterbids.

—

II

—

“The self-proclaimed Baron Alpulup Macula is sold to Madame Belle Kamiskly!”

After the auctioneer’s pronouncement, the baron gazed out at the audience from his place on the block with an inquisitive look, but he only saw someone who looked like the steward of a well-heeled family. As he came down off the block, the Nobleman asked the auctioneer, “Hey, just who is this person you mentioned?”

“The lady is one of the most famous people in town. She’s quite renowned for her various collections. It may well be that you’ll be going into one of her collections, too. As
Noble #1
.”

Surrounded by armed personnel, the baron was loaded into a sumptuous carriage and driven straight to a residential area to the south of town. No one dared to carry the commotion of the entertainment district all the way out here. That was the rule in town—one that need not be put in writing. The carriage passed through the gates of an estate so vast it took another thirty minutes from that point to reach the house. The house was like a veritable castle or church from the Middle Ages, and on entering it, the baron was greeted by android servants and ushered into a hall of sorts.

“What is this place?” the baron muttered, since the room was bound by a faint gloom. “Is this what entertains the lowly human curiosity seekers? Hmph! Mark my words: I’ll escape from here, and then there’ll be a reckoning, I swear!”

And having laid his curse, the baron twitched his nose. A certain odor hung in the house.

“That’s the smell of blood. Hmm . . .”

Any other Noble would’ve been licking their lips, their eyes agleam, but the baron looked rather hopeless as he buttoned the neck of his jacket.

“There’s something unsettling about all this. I’m a sensitive Noble. I desire well-lit interiors.”

As if waiting for him to say precisely that, a single beam of light shone down on the floor in front of the baron. A figure came into view. The baron gasped aloud.

—

Leda arrived at Pastoral about an hour before the baron reached his destination. She was promptly escorted to the dressing room, where she was told, “Change into whatever outfit you like. Then you can start learning the basics.”