(eng) Mercedes Lackey - Hunter 01 by Hunter

Author:Hunter [Hunter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

“We’ll split up for the morning. Stay close enough that if one of us runs into trouble, the other can get there fast,” White Knight said over biscuits and gravy, “but far enough that it counts as Hunting solo. It’s the next step of your assessment.”

I nodded, though I hadn’t expected to be doing any solo Hunting quite this fast, once I’d been told what was what.

“The other thing is that because there are two of us, we’re going to be going deeper into Spillover than I usually patrol,” he continued. “Truth to tell, I’m not sure what to warn you about, because I haven’t been out there in over a year.”

Now…we have some smart people up on the Mountain. I mean book-smart, not just survival-smart. When the Diseray happened, we ended up with a mix of both, and that’s kind of the way it stayed. So something that one of my teachers—as opposed to my Masters—taught me was how to look at numbers, as in where things are changing over time. That’s a lot easier here, the computer does it all for you, so I’d asked my Perscom to show me some stuff. “Whatever it was like then, it’ll be worse now,” I said. “This morning I asked the computer to show me Hunts over time for the last five years. Everything stayed pretty flat for four, but this year is getting worse month by month. It’s very gradual. Like, it’s not as if things have doubled from this time last year. But there is a slow and steady increase in the numbers and the hazards.”

That sent both his eyebrows shooting toward his hairline. “I knew it felt that way,” he said slowly. “But you’re telling me it wasn’t just me?”

I nodded my head.

Knight sucked on his lower lip. He tapped his own Perscom. “Reasons for increase in Otherside incursion over past six months?” he queried aloud.

“Population pressure: probability fifty-four percent,” the Perscom said. “C and C orders: probability fifty-two percent. Personal vendetta: probability forty-nine percent. All other probabilities twenty percent or less.”

“C and C?” I asked.

“There’s some indication that at least some of the Folk actually work together, with something like a Command and Control structure of their own, like we have in the army,” Knight replied, and scratched his head. “I’ve never seen anything to make me think they were…but I never thought to ask the Perscom if things were getting worse around here either.”

“I want some grenades this time,” I said finally. “If we need anything bigger than that, we need an Elite, or artillery or air support and at least another Hunter. Can we get artillery or air support?”

“Not in Spillover, unless we actually see a force trying to knock down the Barrier,” Knight said truthfully. “Or something equally nasty that could get inside.”

The pod dropped us at a different part of the Barrier this time, and if my memory was correct, it was nearly to the spot where we’d routed the Goblin market.

This time

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