Prologue
"Be patient," Ulrich urged his apprentice, Raythe. "It doesn't know it's not alone. Always take the time to prepare, whenever possible."
Raythe's fingers constantly flexed and relaxed against the grip on his long bow. His nostrils flared like an animal's. His muscles almost imperceptibly flexed with tension. Only his eyes were still, fixed unwaveringly on his prey.
The two Demon Hunters were crouched behind a boulder that reeked of sulfur. Ahead, on the flat, broken stretch of Dreadland ground, a minor demon wandered alone. It jerked and grunted, looking for something – anything – to kill or maim. The skin beneath its armored bone plates steamed with hellfire.
Raythe pushed his hood back. His dirty blond hair was tied back into a short ponytail. He laid his long bow aside and drew his hand crossbow from the sheath slung low on his hip. Ulrich hissed softly.
"Bad idea, lad," he cautioned. "You should make your first kill at range."
"No," Raythe said serenely. His eyes never left the demon. "An impersonal kill is not meant for this one."
Raythe rose out of his crouch and began calmly walking toward the demon. Ulrich nocked an arrow into his own bow, ready to act if it proved necessary. When the demon and the Hunter were thirty paces apart, the demon noticed the human. It roared, a note of surprise quickly turning to fury. Raythe's own scream of rage answered it, and the young man began to run directly at his prey.
Ulrich was proud. Not many humans on Sanctuary would have the moxie to charge a healthy demon. The demon broke into a run to meet Raythe. Ulrich rose out of his own crouch silently and took aim. He would not fire unless he had to.
As the distance between the two close to nothing, Raythe threw himself into a somersault. The demon's fangs passed less than six inches beneath Raythe's dipped shoulder. With his eagle-sharp eyes, Ulrich saw the crossbow steady from the middle of the somersault, and his perfect hearing noted the soft 'thwip' of the bolt being released. Raythe landed in a skidding crouch and turned his body fluidly to face the enemy he'd just passed over.
The demon started to turn back itself, but collapsed before it could finish the maneuver. It groaned and settled to a motionless heap. Ulrich saw the bolt buried three quarters of the way into the back of the demon's neck, just below the bone plate which armored its head. Black blood suddenly gushed from its mouth and nostrils and began to puddle, steaming, on the wasted ground.
Raythe lifted its head and stared into its dead eyes. "You're only the first," he promised the corpse solemnly. "I promise that you'll have lots of company in Hell."
Ulrich strode calmly to his apprentice. He resisted the urge to criticize the decision to take his first demon at close range. And it was a beautiful kill, one that many of the veteran Hunters would have been proud to claim. Besides, the Order didn't judge the personal decisions of individual Hunters. They trained them and let them loose. That was the way it had always been. The most successful Hunters were always the ones with the most rage inside of them. That had always been so, as well.
Ulrich clapped the younger man on the shoulder. "Well done. Take your trophy, and we'll return to camp."
Raythe unsheathed his blade from its place at the small of his back. He knelt and began cutting. Soon, he had pried a narrow, thick piece of armor from the demon's spine.
"That will make a fine gauntlet," Ulrich said, admiring the day's work for his apprentice. The roses of blood high on the cheekbones of Raythe was fading as the heat of the fight left him. "Let's go home."