Hunter's Beginning (Veller) (21 page)

“Some of the boys thought that you might have already taken the walk of
shame.” He said, and then seemed to regret it the very moment it left his lips.

Kile quickly turned; there was no hiding the anger in her eyes now. Daniel jumped back defensively. If she wasn’t standing between him and the door she was sure he would have tried to make a break for it.

“Already?” She shouted, “As in, it’s only a matter of time before she does take the walk.”

“No… no that’s not what I meant.”
He panicked as he backed into the wall eyeing the door over her shoulder. “I mean... they thought…”

“I know what they thought, I know what
they’re always thinking, you included. That I don’t belong here because I’m a girl. Well I got this far and I don’t plan on taking the walk any time soon, so you can go tell your little buddies that from me.” Kile replied, this time she did step back, giving him a clear escape route, but Daniel didn’t move.

“For one thing I already told them that.” Daniel shot back, finding the courage to stand up to this diminutive creature that was nearly a foot shorter
than he was, “If anything, you have more of a right to be here than most of them out there, including me, and as for another thing, they are not my buddies… I thought you were.”

Daniel headed for the door, Kile grabbed his arm.

“I’m… sorry.” She replied. “I guess it’s… kind of getting to me.”

“Well
… If you can’t snap at your friends, who can you snap at.” Daniel replied and gave her a goofy grin that clearly said this was not his area of expertise. “Look, I can’t say I know what you’re going though, I don’t have a clue but I can imagine. If you need somebody to shout at, you can always shout at me.”

“Thanks, I might take you up on that offer.”

“Oh, the reason why I woke you up, some of the third years are showing the new cadets around the compound, you know, to get them better acclimated to their surroundings, or something like that. Tree told me to tell you to get your butt out there, you’re in his group, be on the field in an hour.”

“Thanks, let me just wash up and I’ll meet you outside.” Kile replied as she ran her fingers through her hair. She wished she had time to take a bath; it’s been a few days since she really felt like herself.

“Oh, by the way.” Daniel replied, stopping at the door. He reached into his shirt and tossed her an apple. “You didn’t eat last night, so I figured you were probably hungry… remember, one hour.”

“Thanks, I’ll be there.” She said as she closed the door behind him.

She washed up first, brushed the tangled out of her hair and pulled it back into a pony tail, tying it off with a piece of leather strap just as her mother had showed her time and time again. She changed her clothes and ate her apple as she put away the last of her belongings.
She took one last look around the room; she would have to do something to brighten the place up if she was going to stay here for the next three years. The room as it was now was just too depressing and that was the last thing she needed.

She closed the door and started down the hall. A few of the other boys were coming out of their own rooms getting ready for the own tours. Some paused in their doorways upon seeing her, waiting until she passed, probably didn’t want to be seen walking out with her.
Others hurried by looking the other way, pretending not to see her at all. This was what she had expected and what she had resigned the next three years of her life to. What did surprise her was that a few, and it was a very small few, actually gave her a nod as she passed, some even made eye contact and one went as far as to say “morning” as he rushed by. Who knows, by this time next year he might even manage to give her the complete “good morning.”

As she stepped out the front doors of the dorms, the compound stretched out before her, and it looked very much like it had yesterday, only a lot brighter. She didn’t really expect it to have
changed overnight, but she had hoped that it would make her feel different. Last night she was just a wanna-be cadet, today she was a full fledged cadet, surely that meant something.

Kile headed for the center of the field where most of the cadets had gathered, when she heard the familiar voice that made her blood run cold. She turned slowly to see Eric standing off to one side, leaning against one of the fence posts. Fortunately he had no interest in her this morning, and was in a heated discussion with a few cadets that were more his age. Alex had said that this was Eric’s third attempt to get into the academy. Those were probably some of the kids he had originally tried to get in with, reunited after two years. She was glad to see that some of them were a bit put off by whatever it was he was saying. All she could hope was that i
t wasn’t about her. Was that just the paranoia speaking she wondered as she reached the field and looked around for Tree. Surely not everybody here that spoke behind their hand or in a hushed whisper when she passed were discussing her, at least that was what she hoped.

She didn’t find Tree, who she found was….

“HEY KILE!!! OVER HERE!”

… one hyperactive chipmunk.

Kile cringed as Alex’s voice carried across the entire compound. It must be nice not to care what anyone thought about you, but she was beginning to think that in Alex’s case, he just didn’t know any better.

Faces turned toward her, but soon turned away. Was she becoming yesterday’s news so quickly? The excitement of the Academy experience would dampen their disgust for her if just for a day or two. Kile moved through the
crowd to where Alex was jumping up and down, waving his arms.

“We didn’t see you last night, where were you?” He asked as she got closer.

“I… must have fallen asleep.”

“Oh well, never mind. Nothing really happened, the food was pretty good though, if you like that sort of
stuff. You remember Carter don’t you?” Alex asked as he grabbed one of the other boys by the arm and turned him around, almost knocking him into Kile.

She had remembered seeing the boy before, during the examination. She knew he was Daniel’s friend but he didn’t want to have anything to do with her.
He thought she was a jinx and having any association with her would be marked against him. It would appear that he still didn’t want anything to do with her.

“Hi.” He mumbled without making much
eye contact.

“See you found the group.” Daniel replied as he came up behind Kile.

“Yeah, I had a beacon.” She said, nodding towards Alex who was jumping up and down to try to see above the rest of the boys.

“Yeah, I know, I could hear him across the compound.”

“This is all I get?”

Kile turned to see Tree cutting his way through the crowed. The large man was easily identifiable over the smaller cadets and truly lived up to his name. She looked around the field as groups were beginning to form around the other third year cadets all dressed in the same green livery. Most of the other groups were a lot larger
than the one Kile was in, and she wondered if it was because of her, or whether she really was being paranoid. Their group only consisted of six people, there was her, Daniel, Alex and Cater, as well as two other’s that she wasn’t too familiar with. She had seen them during the examination and she knew their names but she had never been introduced, and doubted if she would. One was Tommy Kline, she knew the least about him, the only other time she had seen him was during the combat scenario with the valrik in the mystic’s tower, and then he was already dead. The other boy was Murphy Sans. He was one of Eric’s friends. A tall, broad kid with a dark complexion and short cropped black hair. One should not be judged by the company one keeps she told herself, she would have to hold her opinion on him in check for the meantime, but it was rather difficult to do.

“Okay, we are going to take the scenic route, or better known as the round about way.” Tree announced, gathering their attention
onto him. “We’ll start at the stables and go on from there, and if you have any questions, just shout them out, that’s what I’m here for. I may not know the answers, but by the time you figure that out, I’ll have graduated and be long gone.”

Tree led them away from the other groups and up the hill toward the large barn like structure that sat off from the rest of the buildings, and given the all too familiar smell that was wafting down the hill toward them, it was no wonder the building was so far from the others. In many ways it reminded Kile of home, and for one very brief moment she was a little
homesick. It was a very brief moment, and in fact she actually missed it as a young man came running down the hill towards them. He was one of the older students, which was clear from his clothing, and would have passed them by if Tree hadn’t called out to him.

“Hey Rick, what’s the rush?”

Rick almost lost his footing as he tried to stop and change directions.

“Haven’t you heard?” He asked, slightly out of breath as he got closer. He was a tall thin boy with long black hair and eyes as dark as pitch. He was so excited that he could hardly speak.

“The Troll of Blackmore was brought in.”

“No way… how? By who?” Tree asked in disbelief.

“I don’t know all the details, not yet anyway, but the story is making its way through town. I just got the word from the Guild.” Rick said shaking a rolled up notice in his hand. “I’ve been ordered to bring the news to old sour puss himself, man is he gonna be ticked.”

“Tell me about it.”
Tree laughed. “But come on, what did you hear?”

“Well, what I’ve learned so far was that it was a
Hunter by the name of Marcus Taylor. He brought him into Evenshire two days back… by himself.”

“One man? I have to meet that guy.”

“Yeah, sorry about the script Tree, but that still leaves three more, you can always try for one of those.”

“Yeah… but the Troll of Blackmore.” Tree said shaking his head. “There’ll never be another script like that.
You’ll have to tell me what Sour Puss does when he hears the news.”

“You got it man.” Rick said, clapping Tree on the chest and running back down the hill.

Tree stood there for a moment still shaking his head as he watched his friend go. Kile couldn’t help but noticed how fast the young man could move, and before she realized it, he was already across the fields and through one of the door in the large stone building on the western side of the compound. Was that a Hunter’s edge she wondered, and what sphere would that have fallen under?

“What was that all about?” Alex asked.

The big man quickly turned around as if he had just remembered that he had six new students waiting for him.

“Well, if Rick got his story right, and I have no doubt he did, then a
Hunter just brought in the Troll of Blackmore.”

“
The what?” Daniel asked.

“You haven’t heard of the Troll of Blackmore?” Tree
responded in disbelief. “He’s been terrorizing the southern region around the Blackmore swamps for over a decade now. Boraro, our illustrious weapons master, went after the troll himself some years back, it nearly killed him. He is not going to be happy when he learns that another Hunter did what he couldn’t. Never let your pride get in the way of your duty.”

“You don’t
seem very happy about it either… are you?” Kile asked, although it wasn’t so much a question as it was a simple statement of fact. She wasn’t sure why she knew; only that she knew. The news of the death of the Troll was one that Tree wasn’t too happy about.

Tree
looked at Kile a bit confused at first, then that familiar smile returned to his face. “It’s not really all that bad.” He replied. “It’s just that… I always thought that I would be the one to bring the troll in.”

“Why you?” Carter asked.

“Oh, no reason… well… actually it’s kind of embarrassing really. You see it was my first year here when I heard about the Troll of Blackmore. It was just after he had attacked the royal caravan. It took a couple of days before the news actually reached us so there was nothing we could do about it, not that a bunch of cadets could do anything about the Troll, but Master Boraro was pretty steamed when he heard. I think he blamed himself for the attack, not being able to stop the troll when he had the chance.

“Well
… that night I had this dream that I was the one that brought the Troll in and receiving all the fame and glory, and of course the money wasn’t all that bad either. His script was enough for any Hunter to retire on. I just thought the dream was… I don’t know, an omen… or a prophecy or something, you know, like… my destiny. I use to tell everyone that I was going to be the Hunter to bring down the Troll of Blackmore and retire off the script. I guess there’s no chance of that now.”

Tree
fell silent for a moment and appeared to be lost in thought, and Kile knew there was a lot more to the story than he was telling. She wanted to ask him, but on the other hand she didn’t want to pry. If he didn’t want to tell, that was his business.

“What’s a script?” Tommy asked.

“A script, no… you wouldn’t really know what those are would you. Okay, I’m going to give you your very first unofficial lesson as a Hunter.” Tree replied, and again that familiar grin returned to his face. “You see, a script is the paper that is written up on a bounty. It is basically the price that is put on the bounties head along with any pertinent information. The Troll of Blackmore was an open script for… well… quite a bit of coin. Open means it wasn’t assigned to anyone, so any Hunter who really wishes to make a name for himself could fill the open script by bringing in the bounty, that is if he’s good enough, and lucky enough. As I was saying before, Boraro tried and nearly got himself killed. This Marcus must really be good to bring in the Troll on his own. A few Hunters have been known to collaborate on a script of this magnitude, but then they would have to divide the pay among themselves.”