FIVE
A chill breezed through Simon as he considered the Ravagers approaching from the east. Ravagers were at the low end of the mental spectrum of the demons, but they were definite threats. They lived to kill, and they always hunted in packs.
“If you’ve picked up a small group of them advancing on us,” Simon said, “you can bet it’s not the only one.”
“I am,” Danielle said. She’d been heavily blooded in the killing ground over the past four years. She’d trained all her life to be a Templar and had excelled in bladed weapons.
“Patch me in.” Simon stood and surveyed his HUD view.
“Confirm upload of incoming information?” the armor AI asked.
“Yes.”
“Streaming now.”
As Simon watched, a window opened up in the upper left corner of his HUD. The view was a thermographic display of nine warm-blooded entities arranged along the ridgeline overlooking the hunting ground.
“Confirm preliminary identification of demon entities known as Ravagers,” the suit AI said. “Size and general characteristics, including internal body temperature, match known values.”
Simon booted the feed onto the other Templar harvesting the deer. They all grew silent and turned in the direction of the approaching demons.
“They’re waiting,” Nathan said.
“Yes.” Simon clamped the knife back onto his armor. “Grab the deer that you can manage and let’s get out of here.”
“Run from a fight?” Campbell, one of the younger Templar, demanded. “From demon scum?”
“If we can,” Simon said, “yes.”
“We’re here to kill the demons,” Campbell protested.
“We’re not here to get kacked by them, mate,” Nathan replied evenly. “You’ve not been in any battles with demons.”
“That’s not my fault,” Campbell replied. “I’ve been willing.”
There were a lot of the Templar that hadn’t been yet blooded against the demons. Simon tried to keep the young ones out of harm’s way until absolutely necessary. Too many of the young, untried Templar found their way into early graves despite their training.
“There’ll be plenty of time to fight,” Danielle said before Nathan could reply. “And plenty of demons to fight. The main thing you need to realize right now is that Ravagers never hunt unless they outnumber their prey.” She paused. “If we see this many now, there are more out there.”
Simon draped the deer’s body over his left shoulder. He gripped his main battle sword and freed it from the sheath across his back. The blade gleamed. Forged of palladium and steel, the sword was over three feet in length, double-edged, and straight as a ruler. The cross guard was solid and heavy, scarred from past battles. Runes along the blade held in the eldritch forces Simon and his father had beaten into the metal when they’d forged the sword.
“Over here,” Trent said softly.
Simon accepted the additional feed patched into the HUD. Eleven Ravagers closed in from the north. Only a moment later, Linda Estep reported seven more to the south.
All three groups converged on the Templar.
“They’re trying to box us, mate,” Nathan said.
“Ravagers aren’t this methodical.” Simon jogged easily to the west, the only direction currently open to them. “Someone’s guiding them.”
“Too bad they didn’t get to shut the door before we picked up on them,” Nathan said.
Simon brought maps of the surrounding countryside up onto the HUD. The transparent overlays didn’t block his vision. He’d trained since he was a child to separate the different video and audio input streaming to him at the same time. The Templar at the shelter he had put together four years ago stayed in the field nearly every day. Over the past few years, there wasn’t much they didn’t know about the lay of the land.
Problems lay to the west. The land turned steep and treacherous there. Hillocks became cliffs sixty and seventy feet high, above valleys of broken limestone.
The Ravagers acted as though they knew that.
“Bring the group together,” Simon ordered. “We’re going to try to break through to the south before they herd us to the cliffs.”
The Templar gathered. Simon and Nathan took point. They stayed twenty feet apart and stretched their long strides into a distance-eating run. The onboard gyros kept Simon’s gait smooth. He had the Ravagers on his HUD now. They were close enough that he no longer needed the piggybacked feeds from the other Templar to sense the Ravagers. Despite the speed possible in the armor, the demons closed the distance.
As he ran, Simon tried not to think of all the meat they’d left hanging from the trees to spoil. The deer had died for no reason, and the people at the shelter were going to go hungry soon if something weren’t done. The whole turn of events offended him.
“Hostile forces one hundred twelve yards away,” the suit AI informed him.
Simon used the light-multiplier programming built into the armor’s optical array. The utility leached the color from the scene ahead of him and turned everything black and white with an undercurrent of green. The human eye was capable of detecting more differences in the color green than in any other color of the spectrum.
The seven Ravagers stood out against their surroundings. Their bodies were black as ink, heads too large for the narrow shoulders. They stood almost waist-high on Simon. As they traveled on all fours, the demons reminded Simon of crocodiles. Their tails, almost as long again as their lean, powerful bodies, switched back and forth in anticipation.
“Something’s wrong,” Simon said. “There are ten of us and seven of them. They should be giving ground, not staying there.”
“Maybe they can’t count, mate,” Nathan offered.
It wasn’t just counting, though. The Ravagers would have known when they didn’t have the numbers they needed to bring down their prey.
A cold warning thrilled down Simon’s spine as he watched the Ravagers holding their positions to the south. The demons
