Scenes from an Unholy War by Hideyuki Kikuchi

for saying that. “Okay,” he said, his laughter freezing his faithful underling. “One little house out in the wilderness. People living where no human being should. Go right ahead.”
    In no time, three riders galloped away, kicking up the dark earth. Once they were in the distance, the leader told the rest of his gang to wait there, and then followed after the trio alone. Behind him, he could feel the tension growing in the group of more than fifty men.
    When he was still about two hundred yards from the log cabin, he heard a gunshot. Several more followed, and then he heard a faint cry that made him give his steed’s flanks a kick, conjecture as to the fate of his henchmen putting a callous grin on his lips.
    As he got closer, the voices became clearer.
    “What the hell are you?”
    “No, stay back! Our boss is even tougher than you!”
    “Help! Please, help me!”
    Then there was a gunshot, and the sound of a table being knocked over.
    Up on his steed, he panted a little. His expectation was so great, the beating of his heart reverberated through his entire body. This would probably be the most fun he’d had in quite some time.
    As he reached the cabin, the door opened and a bloodied man appeared. It was his scout. The man’s right hand was pressed to the nape of his neck. The vermilion hue spilling from between the scout’s fingers ignited the darkness in the leader’s eyes and soul. The scout noticed him there. He’d ask for help—but no, the scout whirled around instead. Was he trying to get away from his own boss?
    “Seth,” the leader called out softly.
    The scout’s movements seemed to creak to a halt.
    “Where are you going? Come here.”
    “Ye—yessir,” the scout said, turning around. Gore continued to stream between his fingers. He looked as if he’d been soaking in a bathtub full of blood.
    “Were Gass and Muradashi killed?”
    “Yessir,” the scout replied, but he seemed to ask, How did you know that? And why are you so calm about it?
    “And the one who did it—was it someone like me?”
    “. . . Yessir.”
    “How many are there?”
    “Two . . . A married couple.”
    “Both like me?”
    “. . . Yessir.”
    “Good work. Now you can rest.”
    “Wha . . .” the scout said, gazing stupidly at an object that had been thrust in his face.
    There was a small black circle—not an inch across. The incendiary round it fired shot through the scout’s throat and into his body, breaking apart as it struck his spine, at which point the brezene incendiary compound within it sparked to life. Six-thousand-degree flames welled up. The expansive force of the fire surpassed the limits of the scout’s body, and in a heartbeat he popped like a balloon.
    The flames also assailed the horse, clinging to its armored plates. Though the steed tried to back away, its rider wouldn’t let it.
    “Hang in there. I’ll stand it, and so will you.”
    He gazed down at the flames creeping up his boots. The heat-, flame-, and water-resistant artificial leather slowly burned away, and the six-thousand-degree heat reached his flesh.
    “Could a genuine Noble stand this? Or would they die, driven mad by the heat, then rise again? They’re such fucking masochists.”
    The leader got down off his horse. The animal bolted away, as if that were exactly what it’d been waiting for. It was trying to put out the flames that enveloped its legs.
    As he headed for the door, the man used his left hand to draw another weapon—a twenty-three-millimeter automatic handgun tucked through his belt. The flames had begun to spread to the wall of the cabin.
    The second he stepped inside, he was greeted by a terrible, foul odor. As it entered his nostrils and coursed through his body, it was so overpowering that he came to a halt and even felt a bit dizzy. It was a sickeningly sweet smell. Abhorrently pure.
    “I smell blood,” he declared.
    But two fifty-millimeter shotgun shells had been waiting to empty their contents into