Noble V: Greylancer Read Free Page B

few.
    Even a telepath with the ability to read and transmit thoughts within a kilometer
     radius was defenseless against an attack outside of his “earshot.” Greylancer took
     to one knee next to his irreplaceable servant.
    I believe not.
    Grosbec’s thoughts sounded oddly clear and lucid in the Noble’s mind.
    Where will you go?
    Perhaps the Sacred Ancestor was right, my lord. Now that my end is near, I finally
     understand his words.
    Transient guests are we.
    Indeed. Even as we’ve attained immortality, I leave you now. I pray you will never
     come to feel the same way that I do.
    With a start, Greylancer looked up and stared off into the distance.
    “Between the eyes,” he said aloud. The Noble was capable of sensing the outcome of
     his lance attack from two thousand meters away.
    There, I have avenged your fall. Go now, rest in peace. You need not worry about your
     wife and boy.
    I am grateful…how strangely peaceful…
    Greylancer paused for a moment and then stood up.
    There were piles of grayish-blue dust packed around Grosbec’s cape and armor. One
     pile, which poured out from the right sleeve, held the shape of an open hand until
     the wind blew it away.
    Taking a deep breath, Greylancer gathered up Grosbec’s garments and murmured, “OSB—you
     will pay dearly for his life.”
    †
    At the outset of war a hundred years prior, both the Nobility and OSB were shocked
     to discover the powers they had in common.
    Whereas the Nobility turned other creatures into one of their own and controlled their
     wills by feeding upon their blood, the OSB wielded the same influence over humans
     via the power of metamorphosis. But though they were able to assume the form of others,
     the OSB were incapable of breeding like the Nobility.
    The Nobility stood at a tremendous advantage in the beginning. The OSB’s primary weapon
     was an atomic blaster capable of incinerating objects, but the Nobility were able
     to reconstitute their forms after being struck by the sizzle of plasma.
    The OSB were thrown into perfect confusion. The way the immortal Nobility were able
     to rise again from an atomic blast was beyond comprehension—beyond even their concept
     of regeneration.
    Regeneration, as the OSB understood it, signified cell reproduction at the atomic
     level. Vampire resurrection defied analysis.
    That the Noble garments, too, rematerialized intact shocked and terrified the OSB.
     They repeated meticulous tests on capes and rings and various other spoils, only to
     find that they were made of ordinary silk and cotton. Though the pieces had been specially
     engineered to restore their shape after experiencing primitive sword and gun damage,
     they could easily be burned to cinders. Nevertheless, these same items were reconstituted
     from ash along with their wearers.
    It was not until a year later, when—as gleaned from human knowledge—they drove a stake
     into a Noble’s heart, that the OSB grew wiser to the supernatural forces fueling vampiric
     existence. Only when they bore witness to the Noble succumbing to death’s call, his
     flesh along with his garments crumbling to dust, did the OSB finally understand the
     words— legend, curse, occult, and evil —swirling inside the memories of their human prey.
    Though the Nobles were vulnerable to natural sunlight, they were impervious to the
     artificial light produced by the OSB. Wooden stakes were ineffective unless driven
     precisely into their hearts. Even if his head were severed at the neck, a vampire
     could come back from the dead, its head reattached in a matter of seconds. But only
     if reattached within ten minutes.
    Such phenomena were best understood as supernatural rather than physical, but since
     the OSB were only capable of processing reality within the material realm, these supernatural
     beings shook the OSB and wreaked havoc with their primitive DNA memory.
    Had the OSB not learned, from consuming human knowledge, that a wooden stake or