Hunter's Academy (Veller) (63 page)

“I guess we’re on foot, for a while.” She said as she set off after her horse.

Fortunately she didn’t have very far to walk, as she fought her way through the hedge she found herself standing in the front yard of a small farm house. She also found a large shaggy black horse standing
in a rose bush with his head stuck through the kitchen window of the house and his face in an apple pie pan. There was a young dark haired woman in the kitchen with a startled look on her face, holding another pie away from the mountain pony.

Kile’s
first thought was to just keep walking and pretend she had never seen the mountain pony before. Who was to say otherwise? She could walk to Coopervill, find the Guild house and see if they could provide her with another horse, the only problem with that scenario was that Grim had all her belongings still strapped to him, which meant that she had no choice but to retrieve him.

Grim had finished off the first apple pie before Kile could reach him, and he was stretching his neck through the window, reaching with his tongue for the second one that the young lady was still holding. She was sure that this woman was about to scream at any minutes, bringing the town guard running, assuming that Coopervill had a town guard, but what the woman did next surprised
her even more, she held the pie that she had risked life and limb to protect, closer to the horse so that he could eat it.

“Grim.” Kile shouted as she crossed the lawn. “You dumped me in the filed to satisfy your addiction?”

She looked through the window at the woman that was holding the pie pan for Grim to eat from. The pie didn’t last very long and Grim was already licking the edge of the pan. The young woman didn’t appear to be as angry as Kile would have thought; in fact she appeared to be quite thrilled with the hoses and his appetite.

“I am so sorry ma’am, I don’t know what got into him. I’ll pay for the damages of course.”
Kile assured her as she grabbed Grim’s mane and tried to pull the pony back, but he wasn’t budging. Maybe she should look into having him fitted for reins, whether he wanted them or not, but that would cost, and at the moment she didn’t even have money to pay for the pies he had just eaten.

“I’ve been told that my pies are good, but I have to say that no one has gone through that much trouble to get one.” The woman laughed.

She was taking this better than Kile would have thought, unless the young woman just wasn’t all there.

“I really am sorry miss.”

“Oh please, don’t worry yourself over it.” The young girl replied as she set the pie pan down on the sill for Grim to get at, and disappeared from the window.

“
That’s it, that was your last pie.” She told the horse, who was still licking the empty pan. “You dump me on my ass in the middle of nowhere just so you can eat. You can ignore me as much as you want, it doesn’t change anything.”

The young woman came out of the front door of her house, wiping her hands on her apron as she stepped over the plants that Grim had crushed to reach the window. She didn’t seem at all bothered by the fact that her house had been invaded by a mountain pony, or that the same pony devoured two of her pies and crushed her roses.

She was a little taller than Kile and possibly a little older. Her hair was long and braded so that it hung down the center of her back, her eyes were a crystal blue, and her complexion was flawless if you disregarded the flour that marked her cheeks. She had obviously been baking and now had nothing to show for it.

“I am so sorry.” Kile apologized again.

“Oh stop your worrying.” She said with a smile, “there was no harm done, although I must say I was a bit startled.”

She stepped toward Grim and struck his side with the palm of her hand, it was not an attempt to discourage him, or to scold him, just to let him know she was there, it was also something that you just don’t do with a mountain pony, but Grim didn’t seem to care.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a horse as… unique as this, what's his name?”

“Grim… his name is Grim ma’am.”

She thought about it for a while, and then smiled.

“It kind of fits him.” She said and
then turned her attention to Kile. “You’re new here as well, aren’t you?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Please, I’m far from being a ma’am.” She laughed, “The name is Alisa, Alisa Reaba.”

“Kile, Kile Veller.”

Alisa stepped back to take a good look at her.

“My first guess would be military, but there are no women in the military.” She said.

“No ma’am.”

“Again with the ma’am.”
She laughed. “You Kile are as odd as your horse. What business do you have in Coopervill, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Well, at least she was in the right place that was a start.

“I’m looking for the Hunter’s Guild house.”

“Are you planning on hiring them?”

“Actually I’m a certified level five hunter, well, I’m still probationary, but I’ve recently graduated from the Hunter’s Academy and I’ve been assigned here.”

“You’re a hunter.” Alisa said,
and her eyes lit up. “I didn’t think that girls could become hunters.”

“Well, there is nothing that says they can’t, but th
ere are only two now, Erin Silvia and myself.”

When the name of Erin Silvia didn’t spark a reaction, Kile knew she was a long way from home.

“Well then, you’re in luck. For hunters we do offer reasonable stable fees.” Alisa announced.

“Stable
fees?

“Why yes, I thought that what you came her
e for, to stable your horse.”

“Actually I didn’t realize this was a stable, I thought it was just an orchard.”

“It is, and it isn’t.” Alisa replied. “We grow apples as well as a variety of other vegetables for the markets in town and a few of the inns, but we also stable horses and we have a blacksmith on call once a week.”

“I’m afraid I can’t really afford stable fees right now, I haven’t been paid and I’m not sure when I will or even how much I’ll get.”

“Oh, not to worry.” Alisa said with a wave of her hand. “I wasn’t planning on you paying me now. I usually collect at the end of each month.”

“You collect, so this is your stables.”

“Left to me by my father who passed away two years ago. I’ve been running it ever since.”

“Alone?”

“Oh no, I have a few people working for me, like Carl over there.” She said as she waved to a large burly man. He came walking across the field toward them, wiping his hands on a rag that he stuffed into his back pocket.

“Yes
Miss Reaba?”

“Carl, could you take Hunter Veller’s horse to the stables.” She told the large man.

Carl was a little surprised to see the horse with his head still in the kitchen window, but he didn’t say anything about it. He walked over to Grim and when he couldn’t find the horse's reins, he turned to Alisa for help.

Kile approached Grim from the other side so Carl couldn’t see what she was doing. She had to climb up on the window sill to get to his ear.

“You owe me for dumping me on my ass back there.” She scolded the pony.

Grim said nothing in response.

“I suppose you want to stay here, at these stables?”

-Will there be more pie?-

“Not for you there won’t, unless you behave yourself and you’re not doing a very good job at that.” She said, raising her voice enough that both Carl and Alisa were now watching her.

“Look Grim, I thought we made a deal here, you help me, I help you. What is it that you want? Do you want me to release you back to the wild?”

-No.-

That simple response caught
her off guard, she was not expecting that. She was under the assumption that Grim wanted his freedom.

“You don’t want to go home?”

-Not yet, I’m having too much fun with you.-

“Fun? This is fun?”

-It is for me.-

“Wonderful.”
She said. “Are you saying you want to stay with me?”

-For the time being. I like you Vir. There aren’t too many Vir that I have the opportunity to speak to.-

“Then why are you making this so difficult?” She asked, again loud enough to get a response from Alisa and Carl, who by now probably through she was as crazy as her horse.

-It doesn’t have to be difficult vir. You’re the one making it difficult.
You put too much pressure on yourself, you worry too much about how others perceive you. You are different then they are. What is so wrong about that?-

“Nothings wrong with that… well, almost nothing. The point is I have to live among the Vir I can be acting too strange now, can I.”

-Like now.-

Grim asked as he looked back
over his shoulder at Alisa and Carl who were watching the exchange between the redheaded woman and the long haired shaggy mountain pony.

“Yeah, like now.” Kile replied
gritted her teeth. “Alright, here is the new deal. You stay here, you behave yourself while you are here, and I’ll see if I can’t get Miss Reaba to bring you a slice of pie every once in a while. Would that satisfy you?”

-For now
.-

“Great, Follow
the man into the stables, pick out a stall and behave yourself.”

-For now.-

Grim said as he moved back from the kitchen window and headed off toward the stable, not stopping for Carl. The man had to run to catch up, and when he did he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do.

Kile jumped down from the window sill.

“So, is he going to behave?” Alisa asked.

She
couldn’t tell if the young woman was trying to be funny or serious with her question. It wasn’t every day she saw a woman converse with her horse in such a manner.

“For now.” Kile replied. “He can be a bit… temperamental.”

“I have a feeling that he is going to be a very interesting boarder.” Alisa said as she took Kile by the arm. “And you a very interesting client. Shall we go inside for a cup of tea while we discuss the arrangements?”

***~~~***

23

The little town of Coopervill wasn’t as little as Kile first thought, it was roughly three times the size of Riverport, but where Riverport was compact in the sense that most of the businesses were located in a central hub surrounded by farms, Coopervill was more spread out. She was expecting a mining town to be a group of modest houses surrounding the entrances of large caves, but instead she found a self sustaining community, it was really her lack of experience that had led her to that assumption. The only town that Kile knew was Riverport. She had seen nothing of Littenbeck but the single street that she walked through to get to the Mystic tower, and her only views of Azintar were from the Academy compound outside the walls. Even though she was a probationary level five hunter, she still had a lot to learn.

She
spent the next two hours discussing everything from the latest fashion to the rumors of war in the west, all over a pot of tea and a slice of apple pie. Coopervill was an out of the way place and there just wasn’t that many people passing through. Alisa was determined to learn all that she could about what was happening outside of the Denal province, unfortunately Kile wasn’t able to give that much information, so most of the questions Alisa asked were about life at the Academy, the one topic that Kile really didn’t want to talk about, and although the conversation did seem to be one sided, with Kile being grilled by Alisa, she did manage to learn a few useful things about the town of Coopervill.

For starters it was the only town in the area that had a Hunter Guild house, but
she already knew that, what she didn’t know was that there were already two Hunters assigned to that house. One was named Copper, or Irons, something in that area, Alisa really didn’t know and she really didn’t seem to care, the other hunter was one Marcus Taylor, a name that Kile was familiar with.

Marcus Taylor was the local hero, the men admired him, the ladies adored him, and Alisa was no different. She regaled Kile on the tales of the Hunter to such a point that Kile started to dislike the man without even meeting him. She knew it wasn’t fair, but anyone that boasted that much couldn’t be that good. The one adventure that Alisa told that did catch Kile’s attention was the tale of Marcus Taylor and the Troll of Blackmore.

The Troll of Blackmore was one of the four legendary open scripts, and the one Tree wanted to fill himself, but he never got the chance. When Tree was starting his probationary year, Marcus Taylor had been given credit for bringing the Troll in, she was there when Rick gave him the news. She never did find out why Tree was so eager to go after the Troll, and now she’ll never know.

If the story could be believed, Marcus defeated the troll with his bare hands in a fight that lasted four days, wrestling him to the ground and eventually pulling the
Troll's head off. There were a few variations to the story, mostly about the weather and how long the battle actually took, but it was a tale that was widely accepted in the town of Coopervill. Kile had learned about the different species of trolls found in Aru, and there were four basic types, and none of them had detachable heads, so the story just didn’t sit well with her.