Iriya the Berserker by Hideyuki Kikuchi Read Free Book Online Page B

Something that made ’em drop their glasses and cigarettes.”
    D twisted around to face the door. That was the direction most of the chairs pulled away from the tables faced. The patrons had pushed their chairs back and risen to face whatever had come through the door.
    “There’s no smell of gunpowder. Somebody might’ve drawn a sword, but it looks like most of them accepted their fate without doing a thing,” said the hoarse voice.
    D went over to the bar and looked behind the counter. A double-barreled shotgun still sat in the customary place. It appeared the bartender hadn’t even had time to go for the weapon.
    “What came in?”
    The hoarse voice didn’t answer.
    D went outside.
    “What’s this?” the hoarse voice exclaimed, sounding intrigued.
    There was no sign of the Hunter’s cyborg horse.
    “That’s no small feat, taking that horse without you or me noticing it.”
    “You’re the one who didn’t notice.”
    “Huh?”
    “A formless presence is on the move. It came from the center of town and got rid of the horse.”
    “Where’d it go?”
    “Back where it came from.”

    In less than five minutes’ time, D stood in front of an old cylindrical building. A theater.
    Though entertainment on the Frontier wasn’t as rare as those in the Capital believed, anything culturally redolent of the Capital was restricted to the traveling plays and concerts that might visit a few times a year. It was easy to dismiss those who constructed such theaters, both large and small, as bumpkins or pretentious posers. But in a theater much smaller and simpler than this, in a community far more isolated than this town, one Yuna O’Conner—considered the world’s greatest violinist—had packed the house day in and day out from the time he was a child. He referred to the boards of that theater’s wood-plank stage as his “parents.”
    The front doors had been left wide open, and D passed through one of the many doors set in the wall within. This had to be the theater’s stage. A stone floor about thirty feet in diameter, it was surrounded by stone seats that radiated out from it and climbed gradually to a height of about fifteen feet.
    On the Frontier, theater was like a drug that people had a love-hate relationship with—the genius playwright OX had worked for the Nobility, penning the series of plays called the Aristocrat Saga , in which any nameless hick actor could deliver his lines in a monotone, and the seasoned audience members would still offer up thunderous applause that would shake the sunlight, the moonlight, and even the wind.
    Regrettably, this time there was no applause at all.
    D turned first as if moving his head to catch the sound of the wind, then angled his eyes upward. In the last row of seats on the northern side was a man with his hair pulled back in a ponytail. He wore a leather cape over a reddish floor-length coat.
    “Nice of you to come. Thought maybe I was gonna have to go get you!” Grinning from ear to ear, he said, “I’m Isaac Nogia. I’m a drifter and a warrior. I’ve always wanted to meet the great D we hear so much about all over the Frontier!”
    “Who hired you?”
    “Why, Baron Mitterhaus. I’m sure you must’ve heard of him. He was a big deal back in the day, with two hundred villages and a hundred and forty-eight towns under his thumb in these parts. The first Mitterhaus was attacked and slain by the lousy farmers, but the one who took his place prides himself on his hidden power.”
    “He’s not anyone I’ve been hired to deal with.”
    “So why is he gunning for you, you wonder? On account of you’re just so goddamn good looking. Nah, just kidding. It’s not you I’ve got business with. It’s the girl.”
    “Why?”
    “Damned if I know,” Nogia replied, shrugging his shoulders. His ponytail swayed. “But if a Frontier Noble went to all the trouble of hiring me and the rest to catch ’er, he’s probably got a damned good reason. So, if you’ll keep