Accursed Bride

The setting sun was staining the far reaches of the plain, its hue closer to blood than vermilion. The wind snarled like a beast across the barren sky. On the narrow road that cut through a sea of grass, high enough to hide all below the man’s ankles, the lone horse and rider ceased their advance as if forestalled by the wall of wind gusting straight at them.

The road rose a bit some sixty feet ahead. Once they’d surmounted the rise they would be able to survey the rows of houses and greenbelts of farmland that comprised Ransylva, just another hamlet in this Frontier sector.

At the foot of that gentle slope stood a girl.

The horse had likely been startled by her appearance and stopped. She was a beautiful young woman, with large eyes that seemed alight. Somewhat tanned, she had her black tresses tied back. An untamed aura, unique to all things living in the wild, emanated from every inch of her. Any man who laid eyes on her, with those gorgeous features like sunlight in summer, would undoubtedly draw his attention to the curves of her physique. Yet below the threadbare blue scarf swathing her neck she was concealed to the ankles by the ash-gray material of a waterproof cape. Except perhaps for her snug leather sandals and what seemed to be a coiled black whip in her right hand, she wore no necklaces or torques, or any other accouterments that would have lent her a feminine feel.

An old-fashioned cyborg horse lingered at the girl’s side. Until a few minutes earlier, the girl had been lying at its feet. Woman of the wild or not, the fact that she noticed a horse and rider, not running but approaching silently amidst the kind of howling wind that would leave others covering their ears, and that she stood her ground meant the girl probably wasn’t some farmer’s wife or the daughter of a pioneer.

Having stopped briefly, the horse soon began walking forward. Perhaps realizing the girl wasn’t going to get out of the road, it stopped once again about three feet shy of her.

For a while there was nothing but the sound of the wind racing along the ground. In due time the girl opened her mouth to speak. “I take it you’re a drifter. You a Hunter?” Her tone was defiant and full of daring, and yet also a touch worn.

The rider sat on his horse but made no answer. She couldn’t see his face very well because he had a wide-brimmed traveler’s hat low over his eyes and was covered from the nose down by a scarf. Judging from his powerful frame and the combat utility belt, half revealed from his faded black long coat, it was safe to say he was no seasonal laborer or merchant dealing with scattered villages. A blue pendant hanging just below his scarf reflected the girl’s pensive expression. Her large eyes fixed on the longsword strapped to his back. Limning an elegant arc quite different from the straight blades cherished by so many other Hunters, it spoke of the vast expanses of time and space its owner had traveled. Disconcerted, perhaps, by the lack of response, the girl shouted, “That sword purely for show? If so, I’ll take it off you to sell down at the next open market. Set ’er down!”

As if to say that if that didn’t get an answer out of him then the time for talking is done, the girl took one step back with her right leg and crouched in preparation. The hand with the whip slowly rose to her side.

The rider responded for the first time. “What do you want?”

The girl’s expression was one of amazement. Though the voice of her opponent was low, and she could barely pick it out over the snarling of the wind, it sounded like the voice of a seventeen-or eighteen-year-old youth.

“What the hell—you’re just a kid! Well, I’m still not gonna show you any mercy. Show me what you’ve got.”

“So, you’re a bandit then? You’re awfully forthcoming for one.”

“You dolt! If I was looking for money, you think I’d go after a lousy drifter like you? I wanna see how good you are!” The wind shot with a sharp snap. The girl cracked her whip. It didn’t look like she was doing any more than playing it out lightly with her wrist, but the whip twisted time and again like an ominous black serpent in the light of the setting sun. “Here I come! If you fancy some good eatin’ in the village of Ransylva, you’ll have to go through me first.”

The youth remained motionless atop his mount. He didn’t reach for his sword or for his combat belt. What’s more, when the girl saw how nonchalant he remained when challenged to battle by a good-looking young lady who gave no reasons but showered him with a murderous gaze, a tinge of consternation rushed into her expression. Letting out a rasp of breath, the girl struck with her whip. The weapon was made from intertwined werewolf bristles painstakingly tanned over three long months with applications of animal fat. A direct hit from it would sunder flesh.

“What the?...”

The girl leapt back, her expression changed. Her whip was supposed to strike the youth’s left shoulder but for some reason, just at the instant she saw it hit him, the whip changed direction and shot instead for her own left shoulder. The youth had reversed the vectors of the whip without the slightest injury to himself and turned the attack back upon its source. To grasp the speed and angle of that black snake striking so fast it escaped the naked eye, and have the reflexes to do something about it, was something that defied description.

“Damn it! You’re good!”

Worked by her right hand, the whip did not strike her shoulder but danced back through thin air, yet the girl stood rooted to the spot and made no attempt at a second attack. She realized his fighting skills were as high above hers as the heavens were over the earth.

“Out of my way, please,” the youth said, as if nothing whatsoever had transpired.

The girl complied.

The youth and his horse passed by her side, but when they’d gone a few steps more, the girl once again stepped into the road and shouted, “Hey, look at me!”

The instant the youth turned around, the girl grabbed her cape with her left hand and whipped it off in a single motion.

For a moment, the venomous glow of twilight seemed to lose its blood-red hue.

Clad in not a single stitch, a naked form so celestial none save the goddess Venus herself could have fashioned it glittered in the breeze. At the same time, the girl extended her other hand and undid her ponytail. Her luxurious raven mane splayed in the wind. Her nakedness alone had been beautiful, but this was truly enchanting. The wind twisted around, bearing nothing but the scent of a woman in the full of her bloom.

“Let’s try that again!”

Once more her whip cracked.

Through some masterful handling, the single tip whistling toward the youth split into eight parts just as it was about to strike. Each tip had a separate target, coiling around his neck, shoulders, arms, and chest with slightly different timing, making a hit much more difficult to avoid than if all struck simultaneously.

“You sure fell for that one,” the girl laughed. “That’s what you get for letting a little nudity distract you.” She hollered the words, conceding nothing to the snarling wind. And then, almost disappointed, she suddenly added, “You’re the ninth. Looks like I’m out of luck after all. How do you wanna play this? You drop the weapon you’ve got on your back and the ones around your waist and I’ll have you undone in no time.”

The reply she received was totally unexpected. “And if I said I wouldn’t?”

The girl became indignant. “Then you get your choice of how I knock you out. Either I strangle you or I drag you to the ground. So, which of those suits your fancy?”

“Neither appeals to me.”

With his words as her signal to start, the girl concentrated all her might into her right hand. Her power coursed down the whip to the tips, trying to send the youth sailing through the air. But it didn’t! In fact, all eight loops passed right through the youth’s body without losing their circular form!

“What the—?”

Not merely surprised but dumbfounded, the girl stood rooted and dazed. After all, here was an opponent who had beaten an attack that incorporated every bit of skill she possessed without so much as lifting a hand…

The youth’s mount started to walk away calmly.

Though she remained in her absentminded stupor for a bit, the girl wrapped her fallen cape around herself and scrambled after the youth with a speed that was hard to believe from such slender legs. “Hold up. I apologize for that craziness just now. I’d like you to hear me out. I just knew you were a Hunter. Better yet, you’re a Vampire Hunter, aren’t you?”

The youth finally turned his eyes to the girl.

“I’m right, aren’t I? I wanna hire you!”

The horse stopped.

“That’s nothing to joke about,” the youth said softly.

“I know. I know Vampire Hunters are the most skilled of all Hunters. And I’m well aware what fearsome opponents vampires are. Even though only one Hunter in a thousand is good enough to make the grade, your chances of fighting a vampire and winning are still only fifty-fifty, right? I know all that. My father was a Hunter, too.”

A tinge of emotion stirred in the youth’s eyes. With one hand he pushed back the brim of his hat. Long and thin and cold, his dark eyes were quite clear.

“What kind?”

“A Werewolf Hunter.”

“I see, so that’s where you get that trick with the whip,” the youth murmured. “I’d heard all the vampires in these parts were wiped out during the Third Cleansing War. Of course, the war was a good thirty years back, so I suppose we can’t put much stock in that. So, you want to hire me? I take it someone in your family or one of your friends has been attacked. How many times have they been preyed upon?”

“Just the once, so far.”

“Are there marks from two fangs, or just one?”

The girl hesitated for an instant, then laid her hand to the scarf around her neck. “See for yourself.”

Vampire Hunter D

© Hideyuki Kikuchi, 2021, 2024
English translation copyright © 2021, 2024 by Dark Horse Books.
Written by: Hideyuki Kikuchi
Illustrations © Yoshitaka Amano
English translation by: Kevin Leahy
Published by Dark Horse Books.
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