It’s meat, he told himself. You’ve got to make meat for the others. They’re depending on you.
The doe stood less than five feet away. She scraped at the snow with one delicate hoof till she exposed a few tufts of grass that weren’t quite dead. The earth didn’t die immediately after the coming of winter. It wavered and clung to life.
Other deer dotted the hillside. They worked the ground with their hooves and muzzles as well. Several of the does were heavy with fauns that would be born in the spring. That, at least, was promising.
Provided we don’t eat this herd into extinction, Simon amended.
That was a very real threat with the way things were going these past few months. The hydroponics systems back at the redoubt that he’d chosen as their fortress weren’t keeping up with the demand of the burgeoning numbers of people living there. Enlarging the redoubt and building more hydroponics tanks took time and materials.
One of the main problems was that the population at the shelter continued to grow. In addition to survivors whom the Templar were still bringing out of the wreckage of London and the suburbs, babies were being born. Simon couldn’t believe that anyone would have children given the threat of the demons in the world. But it happened.
Focus, he told himself.
The doe ate the tender shoots.
For a time after he’d left London and the Templar lifestyle because he’d lost faith in the existence of demons, he’d been a guide in South Africa. He had learned to track and hunt animals. That had been an honorable profession. His skills as a Templar had made the vocation a natural fit for him.
Primarily, though, he’d guided people who’d only wanted to record video of the animals. His fellow guide, Saundra McIntyre, hadn’t liked killing. He’d liked Saundra enough, and the money had been good enough, that he hadn’t often pursued trophy-hunting guide work.
But then the animals he’d sometimes hunted had had an even chance against him. His strength, speed, and instincts had been matched up with theirs. He hadn’t taken any part in the “canned” hunts that went on there. Hunting animals that had been fed and trained to live in certain areas wasn’t hunting. Those animals had been slaughtered.
They were taken for trophies, Simon reminded himself. These aren’t going to be trophies. These are going to feed people.
He knew his argument was right, and the necessity was there. But it still didn’t feel good to do what he was about to do. Even worse, he believed this kind of “hunting” brought only disgrace to the armor he wore.
Dressed in the dark blue and silver Templar palladium shell, Simon knew he could weather a direct hit from a main battle tank’s long gun. With his strength and speed augmented, he was superhuman, stronger and faster than anything the deer had ever before faced.
Except demons, Simon reminded himself. If they’ve been preyed upon by demons, they’ve seen creatures far worse than me.
“Simon,” Nathan Singh called over the suit’s comm.
“Here,” Simon replied.
“Are we going to do this, mate?” Nathan Singh was one of the other Templar currently involved with the hunt. “Not that I’m in any hurry to start the carnage of When Humans Attack, but waiting around isn’t going to make it any easier.”
Simon took a deep breath. “I know.”
“Then let’s be about it and get on home.”
Home.
Simon heard that term resonate in his mind. It was a good thought, but he didn’t even dream about that anymore. All real possibility of the world going back to anything normal was certainly past the end of his years.
“All right,” Simon said. “Count them down as we take them. Only as many as we need. The killing stops when we reach our quota.”
Grimly, he hefted the short sword in his right hand. He wore his Templar blade down his back. He wouldn’t defile it on hunting the deer. Nor would the other Templar. They’d all forged plain, steel blades, good quality, but not blessed as their righteous weapons were.
“Do it.” Simon shifted into motion. He streaked for the nearest doe, one of those they’d marked from the herd. She never heard him coming. His sword pierced her side and split her heart before she knew death was on her. He yanked his sword from her body as her legs buckled and she fell.
Fast as he’d been, Danielle counted her kill before his. “One,” she said.
“Two,” Simon echoed.
“Three,” Boyd Lister said.
And Nathan, almost on Boyd’s heels, breathed, “Four.”
By that time the deer herd broke into a run. They flitted and bounded across the snow-covered terrain. Muscles bunched and exploded into motion as the deer fled for their lives.
The “hunting” continued unabated, as did the relentless countdown.
In less than three minutes, it was over. Feeling sickened and disgusted, Simon watched the herd race to safety. They headed south and west of London. Everything that wanted to live these days headed in that direction.
Inside the armor, Simon had a full 360-degree view of the nearby terrain. He saw the corpses of the deer lying behind him. The kill zone, according to the measurements provided by the suit’s onboard AI, was less than a quarter mile long.
Simon tried to tell himself that it wasn’t seventeen deer that lay dead on the ground. It was over a ton of red meat that people back at the shelter needed.
He leaned down and grabbed a handful of snow to clean the sword blade. Crimson slush dripped to the ground, but gradually the sword was clean. He sheathed it along his leg and reached down for the carcass of his last victim. Slinging the deer’s body over his shoulder, hardly noticing over three hundred pounds of deer, he walked back to the center of the kill zone.
They strung the deer up from trees, and the bodies hung there like obscene fruit. All of the Templar knew how to kill demons. They’d been trained to do that
