Hunter's Academy (Veller)

by Spoor, Garry

  “Eric… Eric Rimes?” Oblum said, as if hearing her for the first time.

  “Yes, he’s influenced by the sphere of fire, he can manipulate fire, he set the fire, not me.”

  “Eric Rimes… influenced by fire?” Oblum repeated.

  She was wondering if another bite from Gorum would snap the Headmaster back to reality, fortunately it didn't come to that as the realization of what she had told him finally sunk in.

  “Guards, Guards.” Oblum called out as a few men came running in his direction. For a man that was standing in his bathrobe and underwear, he could still command respect. “Close the gate, search the grounds, find cadet Rimes and bring him to me… by any means necessary.”

  She turned to face the Great hall as the flames had now reached the second floor. The gallery was gone, the portraits were gone, and Risa Ta’re was gone. She opened her hand to see what the artifact was, the artifact that Eric was willing to destroy the academy for, and all she found was a small blue and white stone. She had wondered if maybe she had made a mistake, that he had actually managed to get a hold of the artifact and she only came away with a piece of the floor.

  “The stables, the stables are on fire.” Somebody shouted from down the hill.

  It took her a moment to realize what the man was yelling as he came running up to them waving his arms. If the stables were on fire, then the horses were in danger. She shoved the stone in her pocket and ran toward the stables, but Oblum quickly overtook her as he grabbed a guard on his way up. The guard didn’t seem to recognize him at first and tried to pull away.

  “What is it, what’s happening?” Oblum shouted.

  “Sir, we pursued the cadet into the stables, but when we moved in on him, the whole place burst into flames, somehow he managed to escape in the confusion.”

  She didn’t wait to hear the details. There wasn’t time as she ran the rest of the way to the stables. When she got there, Luke was staggering out of the burning building, pulling two of the horses behind him before collapsing on the grass. There were a few other horses running loose through the compound, but not nearly as many as there should have been.

  Erin Silvia was helping Luke to his feet when Kile reached him.

  “Luke… Luke how many are still in there?”

  “I… I don’t know.” He coughed. “Twenty… thirty… I don’t know.”

  “Take is easy Luke.” Erin said as she led the man away from his stables and eased him to the ground. “Someone get Bealer over here now.” She shouted.

  Kile watched the burning stables. It looked as if Eric had set the hayloft on fire, and this time it really was to cover his escape, but it meant the fire shouldn’t be in the populated area yet.

  “Here, watch Vesper.” She told Erin as she set the yarrow on Luke chest and ran into the burning building.

  “Kile, get back here, you can’t save them.” Erin called out.

  Maybe she couldn’t but she had to try, they were her friends after all.

  The stables had never been this hot before, or this bright as the flames danced above her head, jumping from rafter to rafter, and it was spreading faster than she had anticipated. The horses were already starting to panic.

  “Calm down.” She shouted as she started to unlock the stalls. “You’re going to do yourself more harm if you don’t calm down.” She kept saying, but the fear of flames was all consuming and they were no longer listening to her. A few of them ran for the open doors, knocking her down in the processes, but the fire burning through the main structure quickly closed that exit off by bringing down the front of the barn, trapping them inside.

  This was a mistake she thought as she quickly opened the other stalls. Now the horses were all free, they just didn’t have anywhere to go. The eastern section of the stables was the next to go as the section where she and Luke had trained only hours ago collapsed in a wall of flame. The heat was now becoming more and more intense and the smoke was making it harder to breathe as she made for the back door, but even that way impassable.

  Suddenly the wall caved in, but this wasn’t due to the fire, this was due to the platter sized hoofs of a very aggravated mountain pony.

  -What are you doing in here?-

  His gruff voice blasted out everything else in Kile’s head as he walked through the fire toward her like one of the demon horses of legend.

  -Get out of here.-

  “I can’t, not without the others.” She cried.

  -Forget them.-

  “I won’t, I can’t… we need a way out.”

  -Get them under control and I’ll give you a way out.-

  Control. That was what she had to do, she had to gain control. She had to do the one thing she swore she would never do. She pushed out all the thoughts of the fire, the thoughts of the heat and focused on the horses. Not one at a time, but all twenty six. She fell into her edge and felt the black strands of molasses stretching out through the burning stables as they sought every living thing she could gain control of, twenty six horses and one stubborn old cat. Where was the cat? She didn’t know but he was somewhere in the stables. As she merged with them she felt their fear as each one tried to fight her, tried to pull away from her. She fell into their thoughts, their memories, their feelings, and it was like living twenty seven lives all at the same time.

  When Oblum arrived at the stables, the south side was already coming down, as the guards and the cadets, who were trying to douse the flames with buckets of water, barely managed to escape the falling debris. They quickly fell back a safe distance when the fire squad from the city finally arrived.

  He looked around and wondered how it had gotten this bad. Nothing like this had ever happened within the walls of the academy, and it had to happen on his watch. He walked around the parameter of the burring stables, calling the cadets back and letting the fire brigade do their job. If this had been the city of Littenbeck, there would have been a water mystic on call, but this was Azintar, so there wasn’t.

  He found Erin sitting with Luke to one side; Mr. Bealer was tending to the stable hand’s injuries.

  “How bad is it?” He asked Erin as he got closer.

  “It’s not good. Most of the horses are still in there, as well as one cadet.”

  “A cadet? Who?”

  “Veller.”

  “Kile, what the hell is she doing in there?”

  “Trying… to save… her friends.” Luke coughed as he tried to get to his feet.

  “Take is easy Luke.” Erin told the stable hand as she eased him back to the ground.

  Why was that damn cadet always in the wrong place at the wrong time? Oblum silently cursed to himself as he stared at the burning stable. If he had known she was going to be this much of a problem, he would have retired before she arrived, let her be someone else’s headache.

  “Well, what happened?” He demanded.

  “She just dropped off her yarrow and ran into the stables.”

  “And you didn’t try to stop her?”

  “How could I, she was gone before I knew where she was going.”

  He watched as the eastern section of the stables fell in on itself.

  “How did we miss this one?” He asked Erin, shaking his head. “How did we get it so wrong?”

  “We looked the other way.” She replied.

  A blanket covered mountain pony suddenly ran head first through the western wall of the stables. He flicked off the blank and stamp his huge platter sized hoofs, driving the other cadets, staff members and fire squad back, away from the burning stables. Within a few moments a red headed girl staggered out, followed by four columns of horses, six rows deep and one cat.

  “By the gods.” Oblum said as he stood there in amazement watching the horses pass in formation, one of which was his own. They proceeded away from the stables, following almost blindly the red headed girl.

  Kile didn’t stop until she was far enough away from the heat of the flames, then she just crumbled to the ground, and the horses sc
attered in all directions.

  She didn’t really feel like waking up, she didn’t want to open her eyes, not that she had the energy to do so if she wanted to. She felt completely drained, wrung out like an old dish rag. Every muscle in her body was sore, her head was throbbing, but she was getting used to the headaches, it was almost too much of an effort to even breathe.

  There were people in her room, people moving around her bed, walking back and forth across the floor. It was rather rude, since she was trying to sleep, but it did raise one interesting question, how could people walk around her bed when her bed was tucked in the corner of her cell. She slowly opened her eyes, which felt abnormal dry as she tried to blink the light out. It was coming through a window that she didn’t recognize.

  “Sir?” She heard someone say off to her right. She hoped that it wasn’t directed at her, unless it was a really confused individual. “I’ll go find Mr. Bealer.” He said as he passed the foot of her bed. She couldn’t make out who he was, everything was a little blurry.

  “So. You’ve decided to return to us cadet.” A man said from somewhere on her right side. First dilemma solved, that must be the sir the second individual was refereeing to. In many ways it was a relief.

  She opened her mouth to speak, but all that came out was a dry squeak.

  “Easy cadet.” The man warned.

  She felt his hand behind her head, gently lifted it up as he brought a cup of water to her lips. She drank slowly, almost forgetting how to swallow, and probably wore more of it than she managed to get in her mouth.

  With her lips properly moistened, she managed a hoarse “Thank you” before the man eased her head back down to the pillow.

  “You’re gonna be a little dry, how are you feeling otherwise?” He asked.

  “Sore.” She replied as she tried to sit up by herself.

  The strong hands helped her again as they stuffed the pillows behind her back.

  “Where am I?” She asked.

  “You’re in the halls of healing.”

  Halls of healing, why was she in here? She wasn’t injured; at least she didn’t think she was injured. She stretched out her arms, then her legs, feeling every muscle strain, but no real pain, just kind of sore all over, like a bad sparring day.

  “Is it… bad?” She asked.

  “Not any more. Not as bad as it could have been.” He replied. “You had us worried though, you were out for some time.”

  “How long?”

  “Five days.”

  “Five days?” She said in amazement as she turned to face the man and found Sir Oblum sitting on the chair beside her bed, her cup of water still in his hand. “Sorry Sir.” She said, although she wasn’t sure why she was apologizing, it just seemed the thing to do. He smiled, which was out of character for the big man, and that made her even more uncomfortable.

  “You overextended yourself, basically you drained yourself.” Oblum said as he handed her the cup of water. She took it with shaky hands.

  “Drained?”

  “That's how Morgan described it. He said you’ll come around in time.”

  “Five days.” She said again as she drank the contents of the cup. It was no wonder she was so thirsty. “What happen… the horses?”

  “They’re fine, they’re all fine. Not one was lost, a miracle in its own right, thanks to you. I am indebted to you cadet. One of those horses you saved was my Sable.”

  “Grim… what about Grim?”

  “Grim?”

  “My horse sir, the mountain pony, is he alright?”

  “That black hairy beast, I’ll say he alright.” Oblum said shaking his head. “Six hunters tried to calm him down long enough to get to you. He stood over you, wouldn’t let anyone near, not even old Luke. Eventually it was Master Pike who persuaded him to move.”

  “Master Pike?”

  She couldn’t see the Horse Master coming within a hundred feet of Grim if he could help it.

  “Well… maybe persuade is not the right word.” Oblum said with a grin. “The minute that horse set eyes on him he took off after him like a cat on a mouse, damnedest thing I ever saw, a horse chancing a man across the compound, right through the dinning hall, there’s another few doors we’re going to have to replace. If Pike hadn’t reached the stairs of the staff quarters, I’m sure that horse would have trampled him.”

  “Sorry about that?”

  She was gong to have to talk to Grim about his temper.

  “I don’t think a few extra doors will go noticed with the repairs that we have on our hands.”

  “How bad is it?” She asked, although she didn’t really want to know.

  “The stables are gone, pretty much burned to the ground, not much left of them to salvage, as for the Great hall, there was a lot of damage in the gallery and a few of the rooms, although most of the storage area in the back rooms went untouched.”

  “The displays?”

  Oblum leaned back in the chair and shook his head. “Gone.” Was all he would say.

  “It’s my fault.”

  “Your fault, and how did you come to that conclusion?”

  “I was careless. I shouldn’t have been in the gallery that night, I shouldn’t have confronted Eric knowing what he was capable of doing, or I should have at least waited until he got outside where he couldn’t do much damage. If it wasn’t for me the gallery wouldn’t be a pile of ash, maybe not even the stables.”

  “Let me tell you something cadet. There is a long list of people to blame for this, but if your name is on that list, it would have to be somewhere on the bottom. A lot farther down than mine that’s for sure.”

  “Yours sir, I don’t understand.”

  “Eric Rimes never should have been here, he should never have been allowed to set foot in this academy. I knew it, but I didn’t do anything about it. I figured the guild knew what it was doing, but they couldn’t see past the political and financial gains. I should have kept a better eye on him, but instead I was keeping an eye on you, and for that, I am sorry.”

  “Me? Why me?”

  “For the opposite reason, there were members in the guild that don’t want you to graduate, but I can see that doesn’t come as a big surprised to you. Does it?”

  “No sir.”

  “The guild is divided internally, even within the council. There are those members that want to bring it to the next stage. They want to create a more disciplined, regulated organization to take on more responsibilities, in some ways they want to create their own military. They want to fill the ranks with the social elite, the sons of power and money, to bring the status of the Hunter to a whole new level, and leave behind the trivial tasks. Members are calling themselves the sons of Terrabin.”

  “Terrabin as in Terrabin D’al?” She asked.

  “I can see why Master Adams speaks highly of your intellect.” Oblum laughed as he got up from the chair. “Terrabin D’al had the idea that the Hunters, if organized correctly, could be a force to reckon with, an organized army for hire if you will. A money making corporation to take over all your responsibilities, if you could afford them. Mind you, he never got farther than preaching his beliefs to the council, but that was all that was needed to plant the seeds that he would never see grow. Hunter’s took up his cause, and it was only a matter of time before they got into the council.”

  “And what of the other side?” She asked. “What is it that they want?”

  “Just the opposite really. They want to revert back to what the hunters were. A group of like minded individuals that saw a need and tried to fill it. Whether they were men or women, rich or poor it didn’t matter, it was never about the money or the fame, only a need to help the simple man.”

  “So, what’s going to happen now?” She asked. She didn’t want to work for a corporation that catered only the rich and powerful, she didn’t want to work for the Sons of Terrabin, that was not what she signed on for.

  “I don’t think you have to worry about any great chan
ges happening anytime soon.” Oblum said as if reading the concern on her face. “Not as long as Guild Master Latherby controls the council. He’s a traditionalist as his predecessor was before him.”

  “Could Eric have been working for the Son’s of Terrabin?”

  Oblum thought about it for a moment, it was obviously something that he hadn’t considered, but eventually he shook his head.

  “What make you think that?” He asked.

  “When I surprised him in the gallery, he seemed to be expecting somebody else.”

  “Did he mention who?”

  “No, nothing like that… I might be wrong. It was just the way he acted.”

  “I guess we’ll never know the answer to that, not yet anyway.”

  “Why? What happen to Eric?”

  “Of course you don’t know. He escaped.”

  “Escaped? How?”

  “We’re not exactly sure. We believe he managed to slip out when the fire brigade from the city came in. Hunters searched the city of Azintar for three days, but couldn’t turn up anything. Of course, if what you’re saying is true, he probably had help.”

  “So he’s… still out there.”

  “I’m afraid so.” Oblum replied. “Another open script for the board, but there will be time for that later, for now you need your rest.”

  “But there’s nothing wrong with me.”

  “That is not for me to judge. The healers feel that you need an extended rest what with your recent, shall we say, encounters of late. If I was you, I would make the most of it.”

  “But sir, my training, the evaluations.”

  “I wouldn’t worry too much about those cadet. You did defeat Master Boraro in a fight, even if it wasn’t sanctioned and there are still some lingering questions about what actually happened, but enough members of the council have agreed that it will count toward your combat evaluation, so you don’t have to go up against him again, they say they are not looking forward to bloodshed, but I think it's more likely they want to avoid a scandal.