Hunter's Beginning (Veller) (24 page)

“That is where you will be learning your edge.” Tree said as he pointed them out. It didn’t look as if he wanted to get any closer
than he had to. “The one on the right is yours I believe.”

“What do you mean ours?” Carter asked.

“That is where your mystic will live for the next three years.”

“Our mystic?”

“Well of course your mystic, whose do you think?”

“Do we have a mystic?” Alex asked.

“The mystic that preformed the sphere influence test during your entry examination. That is your mystic for the next three years. It will be his job to teach you guys how to use your Hunter’s edge responsibly.”

“You mean the old guy in the yellow robes?” Alex shouted in surprise.

“Yeah, that would be him.” Tree shouted back. “You’ll all be assigned sessions with him based on your individual needs.”

“What does that mean?” Daniel asked.

“Well...The more training you need to control your edge, the more times you will be seeing him.”

Great, Kile thought, she might as well just move in with the old man and save him the trouble of finding her, how could he teach her about something that she
didn’t have.

“Has a
Hunter ever graduated without any edge?” She asked.

“Not possible.” Tree replied, an answer that Kile didn’t really want to hear. “Every
Hunter has to prove he has a grasp of his edge before he can graduate, although that evaluation is also done one on one with the mystics. So no one, not the instructors, not your classmates, not even the guild knows what your edge is. That is something between you and the mystic.”

“Then how do we know if we pass?” Tommy asked.

“Again, that is between you and the mystic. Only he will know if you have a firm enough grasp of your edge. For some people it’s easy, others have to try a little harder. Just because two people are influenced by the same sphere, doesn’t mean that they have the same edge, and even if they do happen to have the same edge, it could be at two different levels. Say two people are influenced by the sphere of fire. One might be able to light a candle, the other might be able to set a house ablaze, but they can both pass if the mystic feel that they have a firm enough grasp on their edge based on their own limitations.”

“But what if you’re not influenced by any sphere, what if you have no skill
s in the mystic arts what so ever, no edge, would you still be able to pass?” Kile asked.

“You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t
have some skill in the arts, it just doesn’t happen. That like asking… can I pass if I’m not breathing, well no, if you’re not breathing your dead so you wouldn’t be here.”

Kile thought about it for a moment, but it still didn’t make any sense, she knew what Tree was trying to say, but she just didn’t have any skill
s in the mystic arts. Could the old mystic have made a mistake? He did seem a little distracted during the examination, maybe he didn’t mean to pass her in the first place.

***~~~***

10

Kile lay on her bed, wide awake, staring up at the ceiling.
Two months had passed since Tree’s graduation ceremony, and she was fortunately enough to be allowed to watch it. It appeared to be a rather simple ceremony, although she didn’t have much to compare it to. It was held in the great hall and seemed rather fitting with all the history and the grandeur of the Hunters displayed around them; even the painting appeared to have mellowed for the occasion.

Each cadet was called up onto a small stage where they passed through
a gauntlet of academy instructors and guild members, each one giving their encouragement to the young cadet as well as handing them some useless looking items which the cadet passed off to their seconds.

When Tree was called it was his father that went up with him. The man was beaming with pride as he walked behind his son, accepting each one of the worthless items that were handed to him as if they were treasured artifacts to be prized beyond all worth.
The only items that Tree was interested in were his destination papers as well as his Hunter’s ring.

He didn’t get the assignment that he wanted, instead of being
stationed in Baxter’s Bay, he wound up in a small town on the western border in the province of Denal, a place called Grover’s Den, not even Tree knew where that was, although he would never admit it. He never let it get him down. That was the one thing Kile was going to miss about the man that she had only known for a few days, nothing ever managed to dampen his spirits, he took everything in stride and it was something that Kile tried to do, but wasn’t having much luck at it.

She pulled herself out of bed, walked to the widow, and stared out at the compound that was still asleep. It wouldn’t be long now she thought as she looked toward the sky. The sun was already
starting to peek over the eastern wall, and with the rising of the sun comes the start of another day at the academy. For the first couple of weeks the boys have done nothing but complain about the early mornings and not getting enough sleep at night. It was clear that none of these guys ever grew up on a farm. If she had slept in as late as they do around here, her father would have kittens. He was never one to tolerate idleness, to him that was on the same level as murder or possibly even worse. Of course there were a few good things about waking up before the rest of the compound. She had the showers all to herself for one, and she was able to read the daily schedule posted on the board without having to fight her way through the mobs. She wasn’t sure who posted the daily schedule, but it had to be done the night before since it was always updated by the time she got up in the morning. She had been up for nearly two hours now, and was already dressed in her Academy browns, or that’s what most of the cadets called them. Brown tunic, brown slacks, brown boots, brown belt, there was a definite lack of style in this place.

She pulled the chair up to the window and rested her chin on the sill as she watched the sun rise. The first sign of life was usually Luke as he worked the stables.
He was the only one that got up as early as she did, and she had often through of going up there to talk with him, but he wasn’t exactly the sociable sort and he kind of frightened her at times. The next hub of activity was the kitchen, and on some morning Sir Oblum could be seen walking his two Shinar mastiffs, Hunar and Gorum. It was a rather curious sight to see, since Oblum always made it a point to present himself as a hard nosed military man, but when he was playing with his dogs in the field, Kile could almost imagine what he must have been like when he was a little boy.

She sat back in her chair and looked around the room again, hoping for something new that she might have missed the several thousand other times she looked around her room. If this was going to keep up for the next three years, she would have to find herself a hobby or at least a book to read. She had already read through the manuals that they gave her for the classes, and wasn’t surprised to find them rather dry an extremely boring. They were something to be read before going to bed, not after waking up. Unfortunately the only other books she had seen were those in
Master Adam’s room and he wasn’t going to lend them out so easily, especially not to Kile. He was another instructor who had made it quite clear that girls were not meant to be Hunters.

A noise caught her attention as she turned back to the window and looked toward the Staff building, toward the door that Master West, the assistant weapons master usually came out of, but it wasn’t him. It wasn’t that she wanted to see him. Personally she thought the man was a bit of a stooge, he never had an option of his own unless it was handed to him by Boraro, but it was his responsibility to ring in the new day.

Kile was starting to feel the solitude creeping in on her. She didn’t see much of Daniel during the day, her schedule and his never seemed to link up, and on those rare occasions when they did, he was often hanging around with Carter, or one of the other boys. She couldn’t really blame him for being able to make friends with the other cadets, even when they wouldn’t give her the time of day.

The cadets didn’t want her there, and they had made that quite clear. There were the not so friendly notes
left on her door, the mud that had mysteriously made it into her room, the overly seasoned food that had somehow managed to make it onto her plate, even a set of her Academy browns had gone missing. She wasn’t sure who had them, or what they were planning on doing with them, but what ever it was, she didn’t really want them back.

Of course those were the more creative tricks, most of the time it was the hand that knocked the books
out from under her arm, or the unseen foot in the dinning hall that send her and her tray to the floor, much to the delight of the room. It always surprised her that a room full of would be Hunters that prided themselves on their observation, were never able to see whose foot it was, not even the instructors noticed.

Her only true consolation was that Eric had kept his involvement to a minimum, although she sort of figured he had something to do with her underwear being posted on the bulletin board. She was so embarrassed that she had considered giving up right then and there, giving the cadets what they wanted and taking the walk of
shame, but after she passed through those gates, what then? It wasn’t as if she could just go home.

The most upsetting aspect about the harassment was that it wasn’t
only by her classmates. Right now the first year cadets were preoccupied with trying to fit into their routines, to be where they were suppose to be when they were suppose to be there. They didn’t have the time or the energy to make Kile’s life a living hell, therefore it must be the upper classmen, or, and this was a bit unnerving, one of the staff members.

The problem was that she had no one to report it to. There was just nobody to sympathize with her. The only person still talking to her was Alex, and he wasn’t exactly the right person to go to with such matters. She could try going through the proper channels which would mean reporting it Sir Oblum, but he would just accuse her of seeking special treatment, so in the end she was forced to endure the humiliation in silence and immerse herself into her studies.

Their days consisted mostly of the academic lessons, classes that included reading, writing, mathematics, culture, history and even a course on ethics. They weren’t scheduled to start combat training until the early part of the spring, which Kile was quite happy with. Although she knew she had to learn it, and she was eager to learn it, she also knew that Master Boraro was one of the instructors that were dead set against her being at the academy.

In the evening they had their assigned chores, and Kile was put on cleaning duty, which placed her in the dinning hall cleaning off the tables and mopping the floors after the supper shift. There were two other cadets assigned to work with her, but after the first day neither one of them showed up again. She had thought about reporting that too, it would have been the right thing to do based upon the teachings of the ethics class she was taking, but it would also have alienated her more
than she already was, and besides, she preferred to do the work alone, rather than work with two boys that didn’t want her there in the first place.

She found out from Alex that Daniel’s first assignment had been with the healers, but that was to be expected. It was no secret that his edge was in the healing arts, so it came as no surprise that they would want to capitalize on that from the start. Alex wound up
with the one job he didn’t want, kitchen duties. It was his job to carry the plates of food from the kitchen to the dining hall and the empty tray from the dining hall back to the kitchen. His only comfort was in his reasoning, that if he was doing it now, then he wouldn’t have to do it in the winter. Kile didn’t have the heart to remind him that it was a random drawing, which means he has as much chance of kitchen duties in the winter as anybody else.

After the chores it was bed time, or it was for her. There was no strict discipline on when you actually had to go to bed, if you wanted to stay up all night you could, you just had to pay the consequences the next morning. She knew some of the other boys stayed up well past lights out since she had heard them moving through the halls and carrying on conversations in
their cells on more than one occasion. That was probably why they were so tired in the morning.

Master Carl West stepped out
of his small room on the second floor of the Staff quarters and walked, rather stiffly, down the stairs and across the compound to the old rusty bell. He stood there for a while, staring at something, although Kile never knew what, she couldn’t see where he was looking from her vantage point, but whatever it was it was obviously something that happened each day at a certain time since after it happened, he would start ringing the bell, and then the chaos would ensue and a new day at the academy would begin. The only difference with today was that today she had her first meeting with the yellow robed mystic. According to the schedule board, that was to be just before the supper period, which meant she would have to see the old mystic on an empty stomach, and there was no telling how long the lesson, or meeting, or whatever it was supposed to be, was going to go on for. Since she had no affiliation with the mystic arts, she couldn’t see it lasting too long.