Demons. Nasty little bastards. They were raiding a nearby graveyard for some quick, easy labor, and Sam would be damned before he'd let them recruit the dead without paying the blood tax. Quietly, he crept through the cemetery, ghosting from tombstone to tombstone, and hiding in the deep moonshadows. The night was misty, and the moon was bright. Visibility was wretched.
The stench of the dead, mixed with churned earth to stick inside his nostrils like some necrotic sap. Grimacing with distaste, the young Returner unlimbered his rifle from the strap over his shoulder, and cradled it in his arms. A bayonette of silver, dulled with mud to keep the moon from glinting off the blade was perhaps too long for the common man, but if demon stabbing had to happen, Sam wanted to do it from as far away as he could afford.
Peering around one waist-high tombstone, the young man finally laid eyes on a small group of figures in the mist. There were two zombies standing in a waist-deep pit over a grave. They looked like they'd been dead for ten years or more, and were barely more than sinew and skin.
Smiling with grim satisfaction, Sam cast his senses into the air. He felt more than saw the three demons lurking nearby, on the far side of the pit from him. He'd gotten to the graveyard at the same time as they had, but he'd lost them in the fog. Two zombies wouldn't make much of a difference in the fight, especially as old and weak as these were, but three demons would be a hairy battle at the best.
Luckily, Sam didn't play fair.
Fingers brushed the cool tombstone, damp with fog, and it quietly crumbled into a pile of rubble. Quickly, Sam moved to the next tombstone, and the rubble began to reform itself into a trio of small, stone dogs, no larger than a grown man's mid-shin. He repeated the process with the next stone, with similar effects. And the next.
When he had a pack of the little stone dogs skulking after him, he drew nearer to the pit, searching for a line-of-sight on the demons. With any luck, he'd be the only hunter on the mission. He didn't like working with trigger-happy gunmonkeys when the visibility was this poor, and nobody'd told him to expect backup.
The stench of the dead, mixed with churned earth to stick inside his nostrils like some necrotic sap. Grimacing with distaste, the young Returner unlimbered his rifle from the strap over his shoulder, and cradled it in his arms. A bayonette of silver, dulled with mud to keep the moon from glinting off the blade was perhaps too long for the common man, but if demon stabbing had to happen, Sam wanted to do it from as far away as he could afford.
Peering around one waist-high tombstone, the young man finally laid eyes on a small group of figures in the mist. There were two zombies standing in a waist-deep pit over a grave. They looked like they'd been dead for ten years or more, and were barely more than sinew and skin.
Smiling with grim satisfaction, Sam cast his senses into the air. He felt more than saw the three demons lurking nearby, on the far side of the pit from him. He'd gotten to the graveyard at the same time as they had, but he'd lost them in the fog. Two zombies wouldn't make much of a difference in the fight, especially as old and weak as these were, but three demons would be a hairy battle at the best.
Luckily, Sam didn't play fair.
Fingers brushed the cool tombstone, damp with fog, and it quietly crumbled into a pile of rubble. Quickly, Sam moved to the next tombstone, and the rubble began to reform itself into a trio of small, stone dogs, no larger than a grown man's mid-shin. He repeated the process with the next stone, with similar effects. And the next.
When he had a pack of the little stone dogs skulking after him, he drew nearer to the pit, searching for a line-of-sight on the demons. With any luck, he'd be the only hunter on the mission. He didn't like working with trigger-happy gunmonkeys when the visibility was this poor, and nobody'd told him to expect backup.