Yuri Vinokuroff & Oleg Sapphire

  The Hunter’s Code

  Book 16

  A Portal Progression Fantasy Series

  Published by Magic Dome Books

  The Hunter’s Code

  Book # 16

  Copyright © Yuri Vinokuroff, Oleg Sapphire 2026

  Cover Art © Vladimir Manyukhin

  English translation copyright © Alix Merlin Williamson 2026

  Published by Magic Dome Books, 2026

  ISBN: 978-80-7702-762-5

  All Rights Reserved

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is entirely a work of fiction. Any correlation with real people or events is coincidental.

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  Table of Contents:

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  About The Authors

  Chapter 1

  Menshikov Lands

  Siberia

  Central Part

  MAJOR GENERAL Pavel Ivanovich Morozov jumped smartly out of his armored Wolverine, which had stopped on top of a round hill. An interesting scene opened up before his eyes, and the general couldn’t help but gasp in amazement as he looked out over the site of the recent battle.

  The Wolverine had parked on the sidewalk to get out of the way of passing troops. The vehicles of the Third Pacific Brigade streamed southwest in a solid convoy, into the very heart of the newly formed breakaway state — the Menshikov Mystic Metropolis. Columns of prisoners marched from the opposite direction, among them some short oriental men in flight suits, no identifying marks on them. They were escorted by ragged fighters with the crest of Dobrokhotov on their armor, faces grim.

  Pavel raised his binoculars to his eyes. Yes, he had already read the report on the recent battle, where battle airships had clashed in the sky. Through some miracle, two of Dobrokhotov’s Destroyer-class battle airships had taken down five airships of the Dragon Empire, even though two of them were aircraft carriers. The victorious airships were badly damaged, but still airborne!

  Four enormous fires burned on the huge plain — the four burning hulks of the Chinese aerial giants, with another hovering not far away, apparently captured by a boarding party, since the two Dobrokhotov airships were moored up beside it. Many other columns of smoke rose up from downed airplanes littering the fields.

  “Fighter! A moment!” Morozov raised a hand, beckoning over a guardsman with sergeant’s stripes.

  “Good health, Your Eminence!” the guardsman said, saluting.

  “Fighter, where might I find Duke Dobrokhotov?”

  “See that temporary field hospital all the way over there?” The fighter pointed in the right direction.

  Pavel nodded. “I see. Was the duke hurt?”

  “Oh, no, the Dragons were hurt.” The guardsman laughed heartily and the fatigue disappeared from his face in a flash once he started talking about his master. “The duke overdid it a little, and now he’s resting. Believe it or not, he took down two of those bastards’ airships personally!”

  Morozov raised a quizzical brow. “Personally?”

  Dobrokhotov was one hell of a personality. Officially just a humble Grand Magister with an inclination for elemental magic. So it said in his file. But according to many witnesses he was a High Mage, possibly even a Transcendental Mage, with the Gift of the Universal. Events here only confirmed the legends of this very contradictory man. Pavel thought all this over while driving to the field hospital.

  He was led to a separate tent, where, despite the frosty weather, the duke sat bare-chested at a small camping table, wolfing down breakfast.

  “What took you so long, Pavel Ivanovich? I expected you last night,” Dobrokhotov said, grinning widely and still chewing as he jabbed a silver fork at a chair. “Do sit down. Take a load off. Have a bite to eat. Tea, coffee?”

  “Coffee, please,” Morozov said, not contradicting the strange duke and sitting down on a stool opposite him.

  A porcelain cup appeared before him, and a servant filled it with hot coffee from the coffee pot.

  “Milk and sugar there,” Dobrokhotov said, pointing with his fork again. “Want a knife and fork? Will you eat?”

  Morozov glanced across the table covered in delicacies as if out of an audience with the Empress — black caviar, fresh baked goods, three types of meat, mushrooms. The porridge looked a little out of place next to all the rest, but it was there too.

  “No, thank you, Maximilian Benedictovich... I won’t be staying long. We have another twelve miles of marching today, then into battle. I just wanted to talk about your recent battle.”

  “What is there to say about it? I beat the scales off the Dragons, and the Menshikovs broke ranks and fled, so I am afraid it seems unlikely you will do battle today. Those cowards will limp all the way to Khabarovsk with their tails between their legs.” The Diamond King grinned again, still chewing while he talked. “By the way, how is your old man?”

  “He is well, thank you,” Morozov answered carefully.

  “What, does he feel no need to exercise old muscles?”

  “He has considered it, and if the Empire finds itself in need of his experience, then he will again join the ranks,” the young general answered honestly.

  At that, Dobrokhotov stopped chewing.

  “So all this now is what, child’s play? Might as well just sit in the capital and send our kids to war, is that it?”

  “I would ask you...” Morozov began, starting to stand up.

  “Ah, relax, Duke,” Dobrokhotov said, laughing as if nothing were amiss. “I don’t mean anything by it. It’s just that Ivan knows this rabble, and knows how to give them a good thrashing. Yes, yes! I know! You have a nickname of your own already, and those bastards fear you, but... You must understand, experience certainly wouldn’t hurt here.”

  In the end, the conversation turned down a smoother track. The two Gifted men agreed on a plan of collaboration and support. After saying his goodbyes, Morozov left the tent. As soon as the flap closed behind him, the Diamond King’s smile dropped from his face. Quickly taking a bucket out from under the bed, he threw up the breakfast he’d just eaten. His usual predator’s grace had disappeared off somewhere. His feet unsteady, the duke staggered to the washstand, washed, then sank down onto the bed with a groan.

  After wiping off the sweat beading on his brow, Maximilian Dobrokhotov smiled sarcastically and said to the empty air:

  “You’re getting old, Max, old! Not long for the nursing home at this rate. A bedpan for the Diamond King, what a disgrace... Prokhor!”

  The loyal Veryovkin appeared instantly and reached forward with an open box in which a blue jelly shimmered gently.

  “What are your orders, Master?” the Guard Captain asked while Dobrokhotov took the jelly from the box and squeezed it tight in his hand, absorbing it.

  “Leave me in peace for two hours. Then we march on. I have a feeling that young Pavel will get a rude welcome, and we don’t want him to croak. I still owe old Ivan Morozov a favor, so we’ll have to cover his noble backside. Though it seems the apple didn’t fall far from the tree; he knows what he’s doing. Still, better safe than sorry... Right! Out! I shall rest a little...”

  * * *

  “Are you ready?” I asked Arnautsky, who was sitting in my office and reading the documents I handed to him the previous day.

  He sighed. “Ready...”

  “Why the long face, then? Aren’t you glad to be getting an offer you can’t refuse?” I asked, interested to know if he suddenly didn’t like all this, since I didn’t want to force him.

  “It’s not that... I am glad, it’s just so sudden.”

  I got it. Yesterday he was a count with vast lands. Today he was still a count, but now landless. And then I made him an offer that turned all his plans upside down. There’d be no Kingdom of Switzerland for him if he accepted my offer, just more Empire, but also a new boss in the mix.

  From what I’d had time to learn, it was unheard of for a duke to obey a baron, which was the main flaw in my plan. I even thought about going to do some heroic deed and then asking Lizzie to make me a count. Thing is, I don’t want to be a count.
I kind of like being a baron.

  Anna and I sat down and thought about what to do. Until the two drunkards staggered back to the manor through the portal. I went over there to give them a slap for drunk and disorderly behavior. But when I saw what they brought, I forgave them on the spot. How could I not when they were dragging sacks full of gold behind them? They’d emptied out the treasury of one of the Khanate’s armies.

  I really needed money, and one thing I like about the Steppers, its their currency. They don’t respect paper, although they do have a paper currency, but gold and silver are always revered. The gold was sent on to my blacksmiths for smelting right away; we’d think of how to sell it and where later. Or maybe I wouldn’t sell it, but put it in my own treasury, to start building up a gold supply. You know, just in case. Even a small and proud kingdom has to have a treasury.

  There were rumors that every old family had a gold reserve, sometimes even more than one treasury. I called Androsov right away to ask him about that when I heard, and he lost the gift of speech after I asked him how much gold they had in their stash. I didn’t wait for an answer, just told him he could relax. If he didn’t know, he would have said that, and then told me he’d ask his old man.

  Anyway, I’m getting carried away. To my great surprise, it was Drunk Grandpa who gave me an idea for what to do about the count. We were catching up in the lounge over a bottle of wine when he said that actually, a baron can have a count as a vassal because of an old law, two hundred and thirty years old now, but still in force to this day, since it was never rescinded. There were a couple of nuances, and the Emperor or the Imperial Chancellery had to sign off on it, and only then if the Palace Council had no objections. But it was a legal option. The youth just had no thirst for knowledge, Grandpa grumbled. As for how he did, I didn’t know, I thought he only had a thirst for drinks of various strengths.

  Anna immediately checked out the information and found confirmation. It turned out the law really did exist, though it was long forgotten. And so now I was sitting in front of Arnautsky and waiting for him to sign his name after making one of the hardest decisions of his life.

  “I agree!” he cried suddenly, and signed his name. “I am now your vassal. Congratulations!”

  I smiled. “I’m not the only one to congratulate here. Rest assured, I’ll abide by the contract strictly, and I’m sure you’ve figured out already that it’s not in my interests to violate any of it.”

  “I understand.” He allowed himself a smile and reached out for his cup of tea. “By the way, I have something for you, since we’re in the same boat now.”

  He put down his tea and reached into the briefcase he always carried with him. He took a folder out of it and handed it to me carefully. I was glad to see that I’d made the right choice about him. I figured he was about to give me one of the techniques of his family.

  When I opened it, I realized that wasn’t it.

  “You’re suggesting I steal them?” I asked him, peering at the diagrams in the documents.

  Arnautsky choked on his tea.

  “Buy! Not steal!” Hey, my joke landed.

  “Sure... That works too... Do you wanna tell me what this is, and how it can help us?”

  “Happily!” Judging by the smile on his face, that was all he was waiting for. “This is a design from a friend of ours, Countess Saltykova, who until recently lived on lands neighboring the Menshikov lands.”

  “Go on...” I said, narrowing my eyes as I imagined how this information could be used to my benefit.

  I immediately thought of sending my army there to get her out, and in exchange I’d get another useful person.

  “Two months ago she left her lands, selling them for pittance, and has no plans to return,” he said, crushing my visions. “She plans on leaving the country too, and it seems her mind’s made up. I talked to her about it just yesterday.”

  I liked that he was showing the initiative and starting to think about our cause already.

  “Go on...”

  “She’s just like me... A scientist who lives in her dreams, who wants to create projects that really mean something. Invent something of her own, something unique, crazy.”

  “Go on...” Everything he said made sense so far, and was leading in the right direction.

  “Anyway, she needs money, and she’s willing to sell me a few of her diagrams for old times’ sake, and this is one of them. She gave it to me on trust, you might say, to show me what she can offer.”

  “Got it... I need one minute.”

  A minute wasn’t enough... Just like loose change wouldn’t be enough. It seemed Arnautsky had just managed to spend almost the entire budget of my barony plus all my savings. But at the same time, I was paying cents on the dollar. By my rough estimate, this design would have been worth seventy million, but she was willing to sell it for twenty-five. There was also a note saying she was willing to negotiate. Big money, but... There’s always that BUT!

  The design was for a supersize airship, which she couldn’t find sponsors and funding to build. Who needs an airship twice the size of a normal one? The behemoth would cost a lot to build too, and it was a battle airship to boot. A monster like that would be the primary target in the first minute of a battle, and like hell could it dodge. This meant it needed powerful shields and other gizmos to keep it from falling out of the sky.

  On the plus side, she’d already done a lot of work with her team. All the details and subtleties were described extensively, from what I saw of what was there and what I could grasp with my own knowledge. There was another note that this was only part of it, an introduction of sorts. She’d send the full document package after we paid, and that meant twenty boxes of documents.

  And on top of all that, I’d have to build the airship myself, since they had no parts already made. There was a list of all the drawbacks, stuff that still needed work. Honestly, the list made me want to laugh. I could solve these problems with my eyes closed using monster parts and a few other workarounds. Worst-case scenario, I’d have to think back and remember a few runes. Point is — I wanted this airship, and I knew how I was going to use it.

  “Let’s do it,” I said, not knowing what I was signing up for exactly, but set on my choice already. “When can you start building it?”

  Arnautsky thought for a moment.

  “We’ll need to build the production facilities from scratch. We’ll need an airwharf. Maybe it’d be wiser to rent one?”

  “I want my own. Will the mountain be enough?”

  “I don’t think so.” He shook his head. “Convenient as it is, it’s awkward in a lot of ways.”

  Now it was my turn to smile.

  “Well, let’s head out there today, and I’ll show you something that might change your mind.”

  As I already mentioned, Arnautsky had been shown only a small part of the mountain... But now that he worked for me, I could show him the rest.

  After discussing it all with him, I fulfilled my promise, and we headed to Ignatovton. By the end of the tour he was in total chock, and asked me directly:

  “Who are you, Baron Galaxius?” He looked at me like I was a god. “A baron alone can’t build all this...”

  I just smiled and maintained a humble silence. Humility looks good on a guy, right?

  A day had passed since my conversation with Arnautsky. I’d managed to introduce him to some of my plans, and given him an assignment that I needed him to complete. As it happened, he used to have experts with various skillsets who worked for him before, but now... Now he had practically nothing.

  And I decided to give him everything! According to our contract, he could do his own jobs like before, but most of the time he’d be doing jobs for me. After all, what did it matter if it was an imperial order or a private one for some baron? What mattered was that the whole world would see his inventions. And given the situation I was in, I’d need lots of them. I was giving him full protection, although he didn’t fully trust me yet. I knew that for sure. He said I couldn’t imagine how much power the people who sold weapons had. They were willing to wipe whole counties off the face of the earth if they got in their way. Only the Empire could give full protection, but the trouble with that was... That depended on who was kicking the shit out of who. On the other hand, all my business was done in secret, so there were no specific threats yet.