Hunter's Beginning (Veller) Page 22

  “First, do not confuse a Hunter’s edge with his sphere of influence. Everyone born is born influenced by one of the spheres, but not everyone can use that influence, in fact, given the sheer number of people in this city alone only a handful would be able to utilize the mystic arts to any extent, and even fewer to the extent of that of a Hunter. The Hunter’s edge is by definition an advantage that the Hunter has over the common mercenary, and although it is, for the most part, derived from his sphere; it does not necessarily have to be so.”

  “So, you’re saying… I can still be a Hunter without an edge.”

  “No, you have an edge, or at least you have something.” Morgan replied as he sat back in his seat, pushing the wired rimmed glasses further up his nose as he explained. “I had assumed that the orb would have changed to a color that clearly indicated two conflicting spheres, but it did not, and had it returned back to its original color, I would have been forced to admit a grievous error in my previous judgment, but the fact that it possessed no color at all, that is at least something.”

  “What… I mean, what can I do?”

  “That’s just it, I don’t know.”

  Kile tried to put together everything that this man was telling her. If anything was a contradiction, it was his logic. She didn’t have an edge, but she did, she was influenced, but she wasn’t. How could she have an ability, but not know anything about it. Daniel knew his edge when he was young, so did Carter, so did Alex. Even Eric understood what he could do, and their edges made sense. To heal someone, the creating of illusions, to wield fire, these were real. How was it that she could have something like this, but not like this, and not even know about it?

  “I understand it’s a bit confusing right now.” Morgan replied as if reading her mind, but then that’s probably what he was doing. “We have three years to find out what it is that you can do, to hone your Hunter’s edge.”

  “Has any other Hunter… you know… been filed as a miscellaneous?”

  “There must have been some, none that I know about, but there have been references in the logs. Although, even if I knew, I couldn’t’ tell you. The Hunter’s edge is a knowledge that is only shared between the Hunter and the mystic who teaches her, that way the edge stay an edge. If your enemies knew of your abilities, they could use it against you, or find a way to nullify it. It is to your best advantage that you keep your edge a secret.”

  That shouldn’t be so hard, since neither she, nor the mystic that is supposed to teach her, knew what it was.

  “The only thing we can do at this time is to run you through a series of test, to put you under stress so that your arts show themselves. Then, and only then, can we hope to hone your Hunter’s edge.”

  More stress was the last thing she needed in her life right about now.

  Kile left the Mystic instructor feeling more confused than ever. Every time she thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did. Why couldn’t it be easier, why couldn’t she just have a nice common edge like Daniel. He had a great edge, the ability to heal was something she wouldn’t mind being able to do, or what about Eric’s edge. She might not like Eric, well… actually she didn’t like Eric, but at least his edge was useful. She could see herself manipulating fire. She wasn’t sure about Alex’s edge, the ability to create illusions take too much imagination, and she was never one to make up thing on the spot as quickly as he could, but still, it was better than being a miscellaneous, or what was it that Alex had said, a freak.

  She stepped into the dinning hall and was surprised to see how crowded it was. Usually she was able to get in and out before too many people showed up, but the appointment with Morgan had taken a lot longer than she had figured. Her first thought was to back out before anyone noticed her standing there. She wasn’t as hungry as she thought she was, and started to back out of the hall before she realized what kind of fool she was being. She had come here to learn to be a Hunter, and so far they have thrown every obstacle they could think of in her path and she was sure they had a few more they hadn’t even launched yet. It really came down to one simple decision, she was either going to do it her way, or take the walk of shame as Eric had suggested, and the last thing she wanted to do was anything that Eric suggests.

  Kile pushed the fear from her mind and walked into the dinning hall. She didn’t bother to look at anything or anyone, just the front counter where the meal of the day was being served. Two boys had made a comment as she passed, she wasn’t sure what was said or if it was said about her, but it was followed by laughter, and she realized at that moment, she just didn’t care anymore, which made her smile. It was actually kind of refreshing not to worry about what others were saying about her behind her back, it was quite liberating. She had never cared about what people said about her back home, why should she care what these people had to say? Why should she let them bother her?

  She grabbed her tray from the stack and walked up to the front counter, the meal of the day turned out to be meat with gravy, although the cut of meat was yet to be identified, a half-baked baked potato and broccoli rounded off the meal, it was pretty much the same thing as yesterday and the day before. There was no originality in the kitchen. She thanked the attendant who served her, took her tray and turned to face the sitting area. Her regular seat at the back of the room was still empty and that was where she headed. According to her master survival plan, she should keep to the outer wall, taking the widest path, the path of least resistance and avoiding the most people. Today, however, she was a miscellaneous, and miscellaneous people didn’t care about the master survival plan, she took the shortest route right up the middle of the dinning area.

  Most of the boys didn’t say anything, they appeared to be lost in their own problems, and weren’t really concerned with hers. She did hear a few comments that were spoken for her benefit, but she simply ignored them, and one boy did stretch his foot into the aisle in front of her. It was so juvenile that she didn’t give it a second thought, she just stepped on it. The boy screamed, the other laughed, and she continued walking. If that was the best they had, why had she been so frightened of them? When she reached her table she dropped the tray down, pulled her chair up and started to eat.

  Being labeled a miscellaneous changed her entire outlook on things. She was so different than they were that it no longer mattered. They would never be able to see things the way she did and now she just didn’t care, she came here to be a Hunter and she would be dammed if she was going to let any of them stop her, because that was what it really came down to, her letting them.

  She looked down at the meat floating in the gravy and discovered she really wasn’t all that hungry after all. She picked up the broccoli and chewed on the flower as she watched the gravy form shifting patterns. It was like the orb of meditation, the way the colors seemed to swirl around. It wasn’t until she looked up that she realized what was going on.

  At first she thought she had created a disturbance by stepping on the boy’s foot, but quickly realized to her relief that it wasn’t about her, but it was still about Eric. The dark greasy haired boy had found another target to satisfy his sadistic needs, this time it was Alex. She hadn’t even seen Alex when she came into the mess hall, but Eric found him. It was inevitable, she realized if it wasn’t going to be her, it was going to be him. Since Alex was the smallest cadet it was easy for Eric to pick on him without fear of retaliation. With his two friends in tow he had draped the unidentified meat over Alex’s head and was now pouring the gravy.

  Alex was sitting there completely still, and if Kile knew Alex, he was too scared to move. The small cadet had come to the conclusion that if he did nothing to defend himself or try to get away, Eric would eventually lose interest, leave him alone, and seek his amusement elsewhere, but that was not always the case. The gravy was now flowing freely down Alex’s face.

  Kile looked around the room, and the only thing she saw were a bunch of boys doing absolutely nothing. They were either watching in silent amusem
ent, or looking the other way pretending it wasn’t happening. There were a handful that had the good graces to at least look annoyed, but they weren’t moving from their seats any time soon. Then of course there were those few that were actually cheering Eric on. She knew what they were all thinking, It was better that Eric pick on this small boy than to pick on them. If this was going to be the mentality of the next generation of Hunters, then maybe she had made a mistake, maybe she didn’t want to be a Hunter after all.

  Kile got up, grabbed the half-baked baked potato from her tray and without thinking of the consequences, threw it with all her might. It sailed clear across the room, over six tables and just missed two boys to find its mark on the back of Eric’s head with a loud splat. Eric dropped the bowl of gravy he was holding, which made an even louder sound as it hit the table and spattered on his tunic. He grabbed the back of his head and staggered forward. The entire room fell silent and all eyes shot toward Kile who could only smile.

  Eric slowly got to his feet and looked around the dinning hall, it didn’t take him long to find his assailant, Kile just stood in the back of the room waiting for him to make the next move, but Eric never did.

  “What is going on here?” The voice boomed behind her.

  Kile turned slowly to see Master Boraro standing over her, his arms crossed as he stared down at her. It was inevitable she thought as she looked up at the man who now had veins protruding from his forehead.

  “What do you have to say for yourself Cadet Veller?”

  Kile thought about it, she thought about lying, she thought about apologizing, she even through about coming up with a half decent excuse, but none of them were good enough for a miscellaneous.

  “You have to admit, it was a damn good throw.” She finally replied, something that Garrett Boraro hadn’t expected to hear as the tension in the dinning hall broke with thunderous laughter, but it quickly fell silent again with one stern look from Weapons Master.

  “Oh, you think so do you?” He said as his voice dropped to a more pleasant tone, but only for a minute. “Since you like potatoes so much, you’ll have kitchen duties on top of your assigned chores for the next two weeks.”

  Kitchen duty on top of cleaning duty, what was she thinking. Now, not only did she have to spend her evenings cleaning the mess hall, she had to spend her nights peeling potatoes. Kile sat in a small room off the main kitchen, a large pile of potatoes beside her, and a bucket of water in front of her. Maybe that was her mystic art, the ability to tick people off, or maybe she was influenced by the sphere of bad luck.

  She grabbed another potato from the pile and started to peel. Peeling potatoes wasn’t anything new to her, she had peeled potatoes back home and she could do them fairly quickly. It was all in the wrist, especially if you had a good sharp knife, and the kitchen was well stocked with those. The staff had gone home long ago, the sun had even gone home long ago, and the kitchen was a rather cold and lonely place. Was it worth it she kept asking herself, and each time she would answer the same way, hell yeah.

  Just the look on Eric’s face as he got hit in the back of the head by a flying baked potato was enough to keep her going.

  The pile of potatoes didn’t appear to be going down but the ones she peeled did appear to be growing, so somewhere in the middle she was making progress. She was determined to prove to Master Boraro that she wasn’t going to be broken so easily, she was determined to peel every last potato if it took her all night, and by the looks of the pile they had given her, that's exactly how long it would take.

  The cook, a man by the name of Joseph Spece, or big Joe as most of the kitchen staff called him, felt bad about the incident and even apologized to Kile on more than one occasion, although she was not sure why he was apologizing. He was even willing to stay behind and help her but she couldn’t let him do that. He didn’t make her throw the potato, she enjoyed throwing the potato, and he shouldn’t be punished for it. He was a good man, a very large and round good man with a chubby face and a receding hairline, basically what she had pictured the Kitchen’s cook to look like. In fact all the kitchen hands were rather decent people who agreed she got a raw deal for this one incident, the only thing she felt bad about was insulting their food.

  She filled the bucket, picked it up and took it back into the kitchen where the potatoes were dropped into an even larger bowl, there to sit until tomorrow’s breakfast. She then refilled the bucket with more water from the pump and took it back to the potato room were the whole thing started all over again.

  Kile sat down, grabbed another potato and was about to start peeling when something shot out from under the pile and ran to the far side of the room. She knew the sound, she knew the shape, she had been born on a farm, and she knew a rat when she saw one.

  “Oh wonderful.” She said as she dropped the peeled potato into the bucket. “At least it company.”

  It didn’t move around the outer perimeter of the room, nor did it stay close to the walls, as rats do, instead the furry little rodent came out, away from the shadows, sat in the middle of the floor and stared up at her. She had never seen a rat like this before. It wasn’t anything like the rats back home in the barn. For starts it was a soft grayish white in color, with rather large, oversized ears, each one crowned with tufts of hair. Its tail was as long as its body and ended with a small white ball of fluff that it seemed to wag from side to side.

  She cut off a piece of the potato she was peeling and tossed it to the rodent. It ran over to it, picked it up with its front paws and began to eat.

  “I’ve never seen a white rat before.” She said as she dropped the rest of the potato into the bucket. She was answered with a series of irate squeaks.

  - Yarrow -

  “Sorry, a yarrow.”

  - No see here -

  “That’s because this isn’t what I normally do.”

  - What do? -

  “I’m trying to be a Hunter.”

  - What Hunter -

  “You know, hunt for this hunt for that, most of the time it sounds like a glorified letter carrying service.”

  - Boring -

  “Well yeah but….” Kile stopped in mid sentence and looked down at the yarrow who was watching her with interest.

  “Did you… just… ask me a question?” Kile asked the yarrow, who cocked its head and continued to look up at her.

  “Am I actually carrying on a conversation with a rat… sorry a yarrow. What is a yarrow anyway?”

  - I yarrow -

  “Well I figured you were, otherwise you wouldn’t keep telling me you were… you did just tell me didn’t you? How do you know how to talk?”

  - Talk? -

  “You are talking aren’t you… or am I completely losing my mind.”

  - Losing Mind -

  “Are you agreeing with me or asking me?”

  Kile didn’t wait for an answer as she got up from her stool, walked into the main kitchen and splashed her face with the cold water from the pump.

  “I must be asleep.” She told herself as she looked out the window. It was dark, well past her bed time. Maybe she had just fallen asleep. She could be lying on those potatoes right now, fast asleep. She splashed some more water on her face, no, unfortunately she was awake. Kile walked back into the potato room but the yarrow was nowhere to be seen. Maybe she was just falling asleep, that would have made more sense, and then the whole concept of talking to a rat had been the remnants of her imagination. She sat down, picked up another potato and began peeling, always keeping an eye towards the wall, but the yarrow never returned that night.

  ***~~~***

  11

  The sound of the bell was an unwelcome noise as Kile opened her eyes, the pounding on the door by a senior cadet was even worse. She scrambled out of bed and fell on the floor as she got caught up in the bed sheets. The last thing she wanted was for two senior cadets to come into her room and drag her out across the compound because she missed roll call. Kile ran to the window and was
grateful to see that nobody was in the field just yet. She went into the lavatory, splashed some water on her face and ran a comb through the tangles of her hair, then looked at herself in the small mirror and sighed. Yes, that was the face of someone that had been up all night peeling potatoes. She could barely remember dragging herself back to her cell let alone falling into bed. She hadn’t changed, she was still wearing the same academy browns she had on the day before, but unfortunately there wasn’t time to amend that. Maybe she could slip in around lunch time and get some fresh clothes.

  Straightening herself out the best she could she pulled open her cell door and headed out into the hall. She was glad to see that there were still quite a few freshmen cadets rushing around half dressed as she pushed her way through the chaotic mob. Once outside she paused and took a deep breath, the cool air woke her up a bit more. It would not do for her to look harried, why give them the satisfaction she thought as she calmly walked across the compound. She took her place on the field and waited for the rest of the cadets to show themselves.

  The roll was called, the calisthenics were inflicted and when they were finally dismissed for breakfast she had serious doubts she was going to make it through the day. As she entered the dinning hall she watched the boys pushing each other out of the way to get to the food, and realized she wasn’t as hungry as she thought she was. She turned around, walked out and made her way to her secluded little spot behind the stables where she sat in the sun, closed her eyes and soon lost her battle with sleep as she dozed off, although she didn’t sleep for long.

  “Hey, get up.”

  Kile slowly opened her eyes and saw a familiar shadow looming over her, two more figures stood behind him, this was the last thing she needed today. Without a second thought she lashed out with her foot, making contact with the boy’s shin. He cursed as he hopped back away from her, dropping whatever it was he was holding. Kile quickly rolled to her feet and pressed her back against the stable wall as she prepared herself for whatever was coming next, but all she heard was laughter. It took her a moment to wake up completely and figure out what was going on.