Satan's Gambit (The Barrier War Book 3) Read Free Page B

Somewhere, he dared
to imagine Gerard was looking down from Heaven and smiling in approval. With
the majority of their training complete, Garnet had volunteered the services of
Shadow Company in assisting the Prismatic Order in hunting down pockets of
demons trapped in the mortal world. For whatever reason, not all the demons had
disappeared at the end of the war, especially in the more remote areas of the
world. Garnet viewed it as the perfect training opportunity for a time he knew
would come soon.
    “We’re in
position now, sir,” Brican kythed, interrupting Garnet’s thoughts. Brican
had dropped the bantering tone he sometimes took with Garnet and the other
paladins in Shadow Company, a sure sign he was getting down to business.
Gradually, Brican had revealed himself to be just as much of a rogue as his
cousin Trebor had ever been, but he still suffered from what Marc called
“reverse racism” against most humans, a trait Trebor had never exhibited.
    “Trebor and I
didn’t exactly have the same life growing up,” Brican kythed shortly,
having read Garnet’s train of thought. “No disrespect intended, of course,
sir.”
    Garnet sighed.
    “Leave it
alone, Brican,” he thought. “Sometime you’ll have to explain to me just
what was so terrible about your past, but for now, let’s get to work.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Take me
through the rainbow, standard order.”
    Garnet closed
his eyes, and suddenly he was looking out through the eyes of Guilian, the
denarae platoon leader of Red Platoon. Brican read the thoughts and vision of
the denarae officer and relayed the images directly to Garnet, allowing him to
see what his men saw. It was a handy tool when there was time to properly
position and orient the viewers, but its use was limited by the strain on the
denarae relaying the image and the disorientation it caused in the viewer.
    He was used to
the effects by now, so the side-effects to Garnet were minimal, but he knew by
the end of just a few moments of using the technique he would have a strong
headache. Several minutes of use would leave him dizzy and unable to properly
control his body. The effects of long-term use were speculative at best, but
the possibilities Marc had suggested had proven graphic enough to deter
experimentation.
    Through
Guilian’s eyes, Garnet saw the layout of the enemy camp. Demons did not need to
truly sleep, nor did they need to cook their food, so the term “camp” was
really only loosely applicable, to Garnet’s mind. They did post sentries
and congregate around what passed for leadership among their ranks. Any mortals
– be they human or demi-human [5] – unfortunate enough to be caught by a group of demons were inevitably brought
back to the most powerful demons as sacrificial offerings, so the lesser demons
crowded around them begging for scraps. Garnet had seen the clothing remains of
at least a dozen men scattered about the place where the demons had stayed the
previous night. Getting an exact number of victims had been impossible; there
just weren’t enough bones left intact to know for sure.
    Shadow Company
had been stalking through the mountains for nearly a week, trying to catch
sight of this pack of demons. A double jintaal [6] of
paladins, a dozen holy warriors in all, had been sent with them to augment the
five paladins permanently assigned to Shadow Company. Flasch’s platoon had
found the site of the slaughter yesterday, and they’d tracked the demons to
their current position.
    A dull aching in
Garnet’s head warned him to hurry with his survey of the platoons.
    “Next.”
    Brican switched
Garnet’s borrowed vision so he was looking through Marc’s eyes.
    “Tell Marc to
pan left.”
    The mental
picture moved accordingly, and Garnet saw the demon camp from another angle.
    “Next.”
    In quick
succession, Garnet scanned through the eyesight of his platoon leaders, moving
on to Michael, then Brican himself (Garnet only paused briefly here to check on
the