Read Mercenary Road for Free Online

wore custom-made armor anyway.
    “Don’t jump out and belt me,” he said, looking out of the corner of his eye to where D stood by the wall to his left. “Oh, there you are. It really is nice to meet you, I must say.”
    Suddenly the big man extended his hand. He must’ve wanted a handshake. But then he seemed to understand what he was doing.
    Immediately pulling his hand back, he said, “Oops, sorry about that. If you gave your right hand to everyone you met, you’d be a poor excuse for a Hunter.”
    His belly shook as he laughed. Apparently he was cheerful to the very core.
    “What do you want?”
    “I have a request for you,” he said, slapping his protruding belly with a great mitt of a hand. It wasn’t quite clear whether he was proud of his stomach or ashamed of it. But then, all portly people seemed to be that way.
    “Not interested.”
    “Hear me out before you say that,” the grinning giant said.
    “What is it, then?”
    “Hold up a minute. First, I have to tell you what I want. I’d like you to go with me now.”
    “No.”
    “Why not?” the man asked, looking surprised and disappointed. Apparently he wasn’t the kind to give much consideration to other people’s circumstances.
    “I have pressing business. I’m going.”
    “Come on. Wait a minute. There’s something in this for you. The fact of the matter is—”
    Once he’d listened to the man, D once again turned him down.
    “I ain’t asking you to do it for nothing. I can tell you all about the vampire castle on the Florence Highway!”
    D’s eyes gleamed.
    “It’s the truth,” the man continued. “Thirteen years ago, I went into that castle and came out alive, the only survivor.”
    “Tell me your name,” said D.
    “Uh, why?” the giant stammered, shaken.
    “As you say, seven Hunters entered the castle, and only one returned—a man with an unusual name. So tell me yours.”
    “Er . . .”
    D started walking toward the door.
    “Oh, all right. It’s ——,” the giant said, the last part unintelligible.
    “I didn’t catch that.”
    “Beatrice.”
    Nothing from the Hunter.
    “Okay, my name is Beatrice !”
    “Good enough. But I can only give you an hour.”
    It would take about that long on a fast horse to reach the place mentioned by the giant, Beatrice. However, the giant donned a smile.
    Pounding his chest, he said, “Then it’s settled. Just follow me, and try to keep up, will you?”
    —
    Once he’d paid for his room and gone outside, D had a five-minute walk to the mechanic’s shop where he’d left his cyborg horse for a tune-up. Beatrice brought along his own horse.
    “Yes, indeed, you sure are one heck of a looker,” the bearded Beatrice said pensively, the remark slipping from him as he sat astride his steed in front of the mechanic’s shop. “The clerk back at the hotel and this mechanic here are both grown men, but after talking to you, they looked as if they could just die. A man’s luck in life is set the moment he’s born, true enough.”
    “Let’s go,” D said, cracking the reins.
    —
    “That’s one strange request he’s taken him up on,” the mayor said, taking a pair of preposterously large earphones off and looking at the secretary who stood behind him. “But I’ll have no delays here. Get some people right away, and—oh, what’s this?”
    Noticing the sounds trickling from the earphones, he put them up to his ear again. There was more than one listening device planted in the hotel room.
    Less than two minutes had passed since D and Beatrice left. One of the bugs had picked up the sound of the door opening once more.
    “It would seem he’s come back. Both of them have . . . Oh, and it appears they’ve decided to wait until tomorrow.”
    The voice that reverberated against his eardrum stated, It looks like the mayor’s posted a watch outside the hotel.
    It was D’s voice.
    Still, there’s no need to rush into this, Beatrice responded. For one thing, I’ve got to wonder