Hunter's Academy (Veller) (45 page)

“Kile is not influenced by water.”
Erin replied.

“She
’s not?” Mathew said, and again he wasn’t nearly as surprised as he sounded. “Then who is? I’m sure I saw the use of a water edge during the battle, of course… I could be mistaken.”

“Actually, Master Boraro is influenced by water.”

“Oh, it couldn’t be Garret.” Mathew replied, waving his hands in a dismissive gesture. “A hunter that uses his edge during battle… should at least win.”

“That was my thought exactly.”
Erin replied, which received a glare from the Weapon’s Master.

“Well, then that’s settled.” Mathew said as he got up from his chair. “If water was the only edge used and the cadet is not influenced by water, then clearly the Cadet is not to blame for the incident.”

“That’s it? You’re going to let her get away with this?” Boraro asked as he pulled the towel from his face pointing to his blood stained nose.

“It isn’t like you didn’t ask for it.” Mathew replied with an impish grin.
“But you’re right. We should do something to the cadet. Let’s see, how about this? As of tomorrow, she will no longer receive combat training… from Master Boraro. Instead of reporting to the List, she will report to the stables.”

“Are you sure sir?” Oblum asked. “She will need some form of combat training in order to pass the exam.”

“Since the exam is based upon how well a cadet can handle themselves in battle, and she was able to defeat the weapons master in a… somewhat fair duel, then I fail to see how she did not already pass it. Clearly if the student can defeat the teacher, there is not much more she can learn from him. It appears that she has found the weapon she excels in, besides Master Boraro, we have to keep you safe… don’t we?” Mathew said with a grin as he walked to the door. “Oh, and one more thing, only the cadet can bring charges against the instructor if she feels that he has used his edge inappropriately.”

The knocking on the door didn’t help her head much as the noise seemed to rattle inside her skull.

“I’m sleeping.”
She yelled, and then instantly regretted yelling since that didn’t help her head either. She pressed the rag to her forehead again, fortunately the bleeding had slowed, but the buzzing still remained.

The door opened and Erin Silvia looked in.

“You do know that ruse only works if you don’t actually say it.” She commented.

“Sorry ma’am” Kile said as she started to get to her feet, but she couldn’t seem to find the end of the bed very well as it kept moving farther and farther away.

“Don’t move around so much.” Erin warned her. “You’ve taken a pretty good blow to the head.”

“If this is a good one I’d hate to feel what a bad one is.”

Erin pulled Kile’s hand away and brushed the hair from her forehead. She didn’t have to see the damage; she could tell by Erin’s expression that it didn’t look good.

“
She should be taken to the healer.” Master Adams said from the hallway.

“She shouldn’t be walking around the compound either, send someone to fetch Bealer.”

“I guess they finally got what they wanted.” Kile said.

“Who did?”

“Master Boraro, Master West, Master Pike even Sir Oblum I suppose. None of them wanted me here, they were just looking for a way to get rid of me… and I gave it to them.”

“Do you want to go home?”
Erin asked.

“No, but it’s not like I have much of a choice.”

“Well, we don’t expel people due to head injures, if we did that we wouldn’t have much of a staff left.”

Kile looked at
Erin, although at the moment she was seeing two of her.

“So, I’m not being expelled?” She asked.

How was that even possible, she just broke the nose of an instructor, surely that is cause for dismissal?

“For the moment… no, you’re not being expelled. Although, there is talk about an edge having been used during the
incident between you and Master Boraro.”

An incident. That must be the guild’s way of saying a fight to the death.

“I don’t… think I used my edge.” Kile replied as she ran what little she could remember about the fight. If she had used her edge, she wasn’t aware of it, and it would have to have been in a way she could not have predicted.

“You’re not sure?”

“I think if I did, it would kind of be noticeable.”

Like an entire army of squirrels descending on the academy, chasing Master Boraro down the road. The
thought of it did make her smile, but she was sure that didn’t happen.

“Morgan did allude to the fact that that might be the case.”

“He told you my edge?”

“Don’t worry, he didn’t tell us anything.”
Erin assured her.

“So?” Kile asked. “What happens now?”

“Well, that depends on you.” Adams replied as he finally stepped into the room holding a book tightly in his hands. “We have reason to believe that Master Boraro may have used his edge during the… incident. As you know it is a violation for a hunter to use his edge against another hunter. If you’re willing to press charges…”

“Charges? You want me to press charges against Master Boraro?” Kile asked.

“What he did was wrong.”

“I don’t care, I’m not pressing charges.”

“Kile. Master Boraro exceeded his authority and used his edge against another hunter. This has to be taken before the council.”

“Absolutely not.”
She replied. “I might not like him, but he’s a certified level one Hunter. He’s a hero… not to me… but isn’t there some code in that book of yours that says, a Hunter doesn’t rat on another Hunter?”

“Well… no there isn’t.”

“Well there should be. I mean… he went through the entry examination and the academy right? He’s been a hunter since he was fourteen, he’s done a lot for the people of Aru. How could you ask me to throw away the man’s life like that, over a stupid mistake that was made in the heat of battle? It’s… it’s just… wrong.”

“Yes but
… he wanted to do the same thing to you.”

“Well… so, that doesn’t make it right. My mother use to say, two wrongs don’t make a left… or was it two lefts
… don’t make a wrong?”

“Where’s the healer?”
Erin asked.

“It doesn’t matter.” Kile said, waving it off, “Just because he would, doesn’t mean I should.”

“I think I understand.” Master Adams replied with a hint of a smile. She wasn’t sure if that meant he was disappointed or pleased with her decision, but if she was to get Master Boraro kicked out of the guild, it would go a long way to ruining her standing with other guild members.

“I will inform Sir Oblum of your decision.”

“I’m sorry sir.” She apologized. “I know you’re just… two wrongs don’t make right, that's it.”

“The healers on his way.”
Adams replied, “I’ll be in Oblum’s office.” He told Erin as he pulled the door closed.

“I’m babbling aren’t I?”
She asked.

“Just a bit.”
Erin replied.

“This day is just getting better and better.”
She said as she fell back on her pillow and instantly regretted it as it only made her head start throbbing again. “First my father, and now this, if bad things happen in threes I can’t image what fate has in store for me tonight.”

“Well, if anything good came about your fight with Master Boraro, you no longer have him as an instructor.”

“How’s that?”

“Guild Master Latherby has arranged for you to have another instructor for you
r training.”

“Who?”

“That I don’t know, but you are to report to the stables instead of the List.”

The first person that came to mind was Luke, the stable hand. Would Mathew Latherby allow Luke to train Kile in combat? It seemed a little odd, even though he had been training her for the last couple of months, but nobody else knew about that.

“Kile, why don’t you want to go to your father’s funeral?” Erin asked.

She
turned to face the wall.

“Because he wouldn’t come to mine.” She replied.

“I don’t understand.”

“You saw how he was the day I got lost in the woods.
He was more angry than concerned. Angry because I ruined his day, angry because he had to take time out because of me. Useless, that’s what I was, Useless, a waste of space, a disappointment, but mostly just useless. Did you know I had two brothers?”

“I was only aware of one.”

“Leon. He was always my father’s favorite, and then there was Andrew, my father had great plans for Andrew. Leon, being the oldest would take over the family farm, but Andrew would carry the Veller’s name to glory, right to the top again, not that the Veller name was ever at the top before mind you, but my father always thought so. Andrew Veller was going to be something, he was going to be somebody and people would see him and say, there goes one of the Vellers. I never knew my brother Andrew. He was only four when he died. But that didn’t stop my father, and before long, Ma had me.

“Oh what a disappointment that was for my father, and he never let me forget it.
My mother should never have had me, she was not that strong to begin with. She almost didn’t survive. After that the midwife told my mother that she couldn’t risk carrying another child, so that put a huge dent in my father's schemes on conquering the world and spreading the Veller name from the mountains to the sea.

“He eventually found a use for me
though, as a bartering chip to gain land and water rights from our neighbors. He would marry me off to the neighbor’s little troll of boy Pordist, Pordist Tallon. I was only eight at the time but my father had it all planned out. It wasn’t as grand as his first attempt at greatness, but it was still all planned out. When I turned fourteen I would become Kile Tallon, and when I had my first child, my father-in-law Oric Tallon would give my father the bottom land that adjoined our family farm. Needless to say that my father wanted me turning out kids as soon as possible, not because he wanted to be a grandfather, but because he wanted that bottom land to expand our farm, sorry… his farm.”

“But you became a hunter.”
Erin replied. “He must have believed in you at some time, he did give you a chance in the end.”

“Says who?”

“You, or at least your essay. The one that you wrote for the entry examination.”

“Well, that may not have been entirely true.” Kile said still staring at the wall. “I kind of wrote that because I was afraid that I wouldn’t be
allowed to take the exam if the guild knew that I… ran away from home.

“The thing is he got so
used to calling me useless, that he didn’t think I had a chance of passing. If I was going to become a hunter, I would have to do it alone.”

“But
surely he had to be proud of what you’ve accomplished.”

“You think so?” Kile said. “Vesper, show Miss Silvia the letter.”

Erin was a little puzzled by this last remark, but when a yarrow popped out of the bottom draw of the dresser carrying a crumbled up piece of paper in his mouth, she was more stunned than puzzle. He came up to the foot of the bed where she sat and dropped the paper beside her. Erin slowly picked it up, watching the yarrow carefully. He didn’t shy away from her, but instead jumped up on the bed beside her and ran over to where Kile was lying, crawling up onto the girl’s shoulder and curling up around her neck. Kile absently stroked the yarrow. Erin watched the two for a while in complete amazement, she had never known anyone to have trained a yarrow, or even bothered to try.

The door opened as an elder man looked in.

“Miss Sylvia, you requested my assistance.” Bealer said as he stepped into the room. He looked at Kile lying on the bed, and then at the yarrow around her neck. “What is that discussing little creature doing here. Please have it removed immediately it is unsanitary.”

“You’ll be leaving this room faster th
an Vesper.” Kile remarked without turning around.

“Miss Veller, I must insist.”

“Please Bealer.” Erin pleaded.

The elderly man looked at
Erin, then at Kile, then at the yarrow that was now staring back at him. Realizing he was going to be outvoted he gave in.

“Very well.” He sighed. “Let’s see what we can do.”

“I’ll leave you to it then.” Erin replied as she stepped out into the hall.

She flattened out the paper that the yarrow had given her and read it. It wa
s written in a stiff, hard hand, and the writing had been smudged, but Erin could make out two words quite clearly, “Disowned” and “Useless.” She crushed the paper in her hand.

***~~~***

16

Kile didn’t attend classes for the next few days under Bealer’s orders, the only order she was willing to follow, the other being to get rid of the yarrow, although he didn’t try to enforce that one. In fact, after the first few visits to her room, Bealer was becoming rather attached to the yarrow, and Vesper was enjoying the healer’s company, especially since the old man started bringing him treats. She was sure that Vesper could worm his way into anyone’s good graces.