Not every servant of the Twilight Order believed that confronting evil required standing close enough to smell its breath. As the Order adapted its ancient methods to the American frontier, some Crusaders discovered that the Winchester and other repeating rifles offered a particularly satisfying solution to supernatural creatures accustomed to relying upon terror, speed and brute strength. Brother Nathaniel Harcourt and Brother Samuel Whitaker became two of the Order’s finest riflemen, although each had arrived at that role by a very different path.
Brother Nathaniel Harcourt
Nathaniel Harcourt came to America as an experienced member of the Twilight Order, having already hunted supernatural creatures through Britain and continental Europe. He was methodical rather than flamboyant, preferring careful preparation and a well chosen position to the dramatic charge favoured by some of his fellow Crusaders. America suited him surprisingly well, particularly once he discovered that its rifles allowed him to engage the Order’s enemies at distances that would once have required considerably more dangerous methods.
Harcourt carries a rifle prepared for use against supernatural opponents, and whenever circumstances permit he chooses his ground before the fighting begins. He watches windows, ridgelines, church towers and patches of darkness that others overlook, waiting patiently for the enemy to reveal itself. There is little romance in his approach to monster hunting, but Harcourt has never understood why there should be. If a vampire can be destroyed from across a field rather than across a coffin, he considers the field the considerably more sensible option.
Brother Samuel Whitaker
Samuel Whitaker was raised on the American frontier and learned to shoot long before he learned that the Twilight Order existed. He had worked as a hunter, scout and occasional guide, becoming accustomed to reading tracks and noticing the small disturbances that betrayed the passage of men or animals. Eventually he began finding tracks that belonged to neither.
His first encounter with the supernatural convinced Whitaker that some of the stories exchanged around frontier fires deserved considerably more attention than he had previously given them. The Twilight Order encountered him while investigating the same series of unexplained disappearances and quickly recognised that the frontiersman possessed skills that could not easily be taught within a monastery or chapter house. Whitaker accepted recruitment with fewer questions than expected. He had seen what was hiding in the wilderness and had no intention of pretending otherwise.
Whitaker carries a rifle as naturally as another man might carry a walking stick, using his experience as a hunter to track supernatural creatures before they can choose the terms of an encounter. He has little patience for elaborate ceremony and even less for arguments about the Order’s ancient traditions, but his companions have learned to listen when he quietly announces that something has been following them.
The Long Watch
Harcourt and Whitaker make an effective partnership precisely because neither feels much need to compete with the other. Harcourt brings the accumulated knowledge and discipline of the old Twilight Order, while Whitaker understands the country in which that Order must now fight. One knows what they are hunting. The other knows where to find it.
When Brothers Matthias Kane and Gabriel Mercer advance with their paired pistols, Harcourt and Whitaker are usually somewhere behind them, rifles ready and watching the ground ahead. The pistol armed Crusaders may receive more attention when the shooting starts, but the two riflemen are perfectly content with that arrangement.
They would rather be overlooked by the enemy.
It makes the first shot much easier.