FIREFANGED

Chapter 7 (Demon hunting party)

The early summer night started perfectly. The clear weather, high moon, and cool breeze flowing down from the mountains offered the perfect conditions. My chainmail was covered with a thick layer of dark leather, the sleeves cut short, making room for my steel vambraces and leather wraps. An axe was strapped across my back with my fang dagger secured below it.

We slipped out of Berykholt via a small gate from the north tower around midnight as the earlier night patrol was returning. They had run a loop up through the Everest Gap, as the nearby mountain pass was known, and then searched westward before turning back. Their fifteen-mile excursion had come up empty of any sightings, and it seemed like we were in for a quiet night.

Jacka took the lead and gave me a rundown of the area that we would be covering. After clearing the Gap, which was located just a mile north of our valley, we would be encountering rough vertical terrain. It forced us to turn either east or west to get around Adam's Peak, which was positioned directly north of the Everest Gap. We would take the route eastward, chasing game trails for signs of predators and caves, following a counterclockwise route for the night's patrol.

Besides Dan Jacka, Sentinel-Scout Pika Havens was our third. He was a smaller man of about thirty years with a hunter's eyesight and attitude. I liked him immediately. We traded stories of our favorite kills to pass the time as we hiked into the mountain pass. Adam's Peak wasn't so much a peak as a tall cliff, and I wouldn't expect anything but mountain goats to call it home. As far as I could tell, the area around us lacked any serious predators.

We hiked a few miles eastward and turned to the northeast through another small valley. I could feel the anxiety of the men ramp up, though my senses were telling me that we were safe from anything predatory or dark.

As we trekked further, I noticed the dull scent of a not too recent kill. I tried to put things mildly, "Sentinel Jacka, what can you tell me about this place? I mean, there's an air of violence here." 

Jacka looked at Pika Havens before answering, "We lost a scout patrol here a couple of weeks ago. Both sentinels, Drake and Dillon, were torn to pieces and scattered about a quarter-mile ahead, near that huge flat boulder. Drake was Corbin's second at the time. Somehow, they had been cut off and ambushed, but by what we don't yet know. Too many caves around this area that could hold just about anything."

"Could I take a look at where you found them?"

"Sure, though I doubt you'll find anything new. Especially not while it's dark."

We approached and circled the kill-site. There was the scent of widely scattered human blood and a mixture of other scents, mostly animals, but also traces of something unnaturally rotten.

"Mostly human blood here. The men had their backs to the massive boulder. It seems like they were overwhelmed by a much larger group of demons," I offered. "They didn't have a chance to kill any of their attackers."

Not wanting to consider the full implications of that, Jacka gave the order, "Let's get moving. This area seems clear, and I want to pull a full circle around Adam's Peak before the break of dawn."

We picked up the pace pushing another couple miles straight north. As we were turning westward to circle back around Adam's Peak, my senses picked up something that wasn't there a minute ago. Something dark, maybe a mile away, was moving rapidly in our direction. A tang of blood rode in on the north breeze.

I stopped the sentinels. "Are there any caves nearby? I think we may have found some rogue hunters." I pointed up the rough slope and touched my nose.

Jacka whispered, "How many?"

"Hard to tell. Maybe a half dozen. Dark, loud, certainly demonic. Moving generally in our direction less than a mile to the northwest."

That hit both men hard. One moment, we were enjoying a quiet patrol, and the next, we've got serious trouble on our hands. They recovered quickly knowing our options were few.