Hunter's Academy (Veller)

by Spoor, Garry

  “Maybe you should bring Hunar with you.” Kile added.

  “Not a bad idea cadet… oh, sorry, I can’t call you cadet anymore, Its Hunter Kile Veller now isn’t it?”

  Hunter Kile Veller. It sounded so foreign and yet so comfortable. Did that nine year old girl, lost in the forest, really think that someone someday would be calling her Hunter Kile Veller?

  “Technically sir, according to the Hunter’s Code book, first chapter section five under titles and addresses, the proper greeting would be Probationary level five Hunter Kile Veller.”

  “Oh, I see that Master Adams has already taken care of his responsibilities today.” He laughed, “If that is what the code book says, then I am obligated to use that title. So I will be seeing you latter, Probationary level five Hunter Kile Veller.”

  Turning and headed into the sea of people he started shaking hands and putting on his public face. In many ways she was going to miss the Headmaster, the man that told her that if it was the last thing he ever did he would see her out of the academy, well, he got his way, she was graduating.

  “There you are?”

  Daniel had a nasty way of finding her whenever she wanted to be alone. She turned to see the boy, or was he now a young man, walking toward her with two other people in tow. One was a middle aged woman, a little shorter, a little rounder, the other was a taller middle aged man that bore a striking resemblance to Daniel himself.

  “Kile, I wanted you to meet my parents. This is my father Howard Leary and my mother Patricia Leary. Mom, Dad, this is Kile Veller.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you ma’am, sir.” Kile said, shaking their hands.

  “Oh she’s adorable.” Mrs. Leary said, much to Daniel’s embarrassment.

  “Daniel’s told us a lot about you Miss Veller.” His father said in a soft voice, he was so much like his son that it was scary.

  “Are your parent’s here today?” Mrs. Leary asked as she looked around the growing mob, expecting to be able to pick them out on sight.

  “I’m afraid not.” Kile replied. “They couldn’t make it.”

  “Oh, I am sorry.” Mrs. Leary said, and Kile had the feeling she actually meant it, which only made Kile feel even more uncomfortable lying to her.

  “Patty please.” Mr. Leary said to his wife as he took her hand. “We just wanted to thank you for taking such good care of Daniel, as well as Alex and Carter. The three of them can really be a handful if not kept an eye on.”

  “Father.” Daniel shouted, looking at his dad. “I’m seventeen now, I think I can take care of myself.”

  “Yes, but son, you said that when you were twelve and we had to fish you out of the water trough.”

  Daniel’s face slowly turned red from the bottom up. “It was nothing, nothing happened.” He said, trying to wave it off.

  “Oh but son, don’t you remember?”

  Kile had the feeling that Daniel’s father had the same warped sense of humor that Daniel had. It must be hell during the holidays.

  “You’re not going up on stage alone, are you dear?” Mrs. Leary asked, leaving the boys to argue among themselves. “Oh we can’t let that happened, can we Howard?”

  Kile had forgotten that little detail. It didn’t make that much of a difference but a family member always went up on the stage to assist the graduating cadet. It wasn’t that they really needed assistance, but they were given their probationary certificate, their destination papers, their graduation banner, their ceremonial alumni long knife, and then they were expected to shake hands with the members of the council as well a few of the witnessing hunters. The family members were there just to hold all the junk.

  “I’m sure she doesn’t want some complete stranger up there with her dear.” Mr. Leary replied, like his son Daniel, he was not one to get overly emotional, or tread where he didn’t feel comfortable.

  “I’ll be fine ma’am.” Kile assured the woman who now looked saddened by the idea of her going up there alone.

  “But…”

  “Patty.” Mr. Leary said in a soft, yet strong voice that clearly told her to drop the subject.

  “What about Erin Silvia, she’d go up with you if you asked.” Daniel suggested. He looked around the Great Hall for the female hunter.

  “She’s one of the hands we have to shake.” Kile told him, “I’ll be fine. Vesper will go up with me.”

  “Who’s Vesper dear?” Mrs. Leary asked.

  Daniel quickly turned his mother away from Kile and pointed across the room. “Oh, look ma, there's Alex and Mr. Bartlow.” He said as he gave her a gentle push in their direction. “Why don’t you go say hi?”

  “Because we came down here with them.” His mother responded.

  “I think these two want to be alone.” Mr. Leary said, directing his wife toward the opposite side of the room.

  “Well it was nice meeting you dear.” Mrs. Leary said as she was being pulled away.

  “What was that about?” Kile asked

  “Mother is deathly afraid of mice, and yarrows are not that far from mice. If you don’t want to see her screaming for the door in the middle of the ceremony, you may want to tell Vesper to keep his head down.”

  “Point taken.”

  “I better go with them.” Daniel replied. “You know, if there is a sufficient gap between us, I can go up as your second.”

  “All you want to do is hog the spotlight, I’ll be fine.”

  “Okay, but if you want…”

  “Don’t worry about it and go tend to your mother.” She told him.

  She watched Daniel go and only then did she realize how envious she was of him. Now that her father was gone, she knew her mother wouldn’t hesitate to be by her side, but her mother was never in the best of health, and the trip wouldn’t do her any good. If push came to shove, all she would have to do is stuff the junk in her pocket or her courier bag, as long as Vesper didn’t protest.

  “I don’t really have to ask if you’re Kile Veller, do I?”

  She turned to see a tall young athletically build man standing behind her, he must have been waiting for Daniel and his parents to leave before he approached. He was dressed in traveling leather and had a bit of road dust on him. A badge sown to the arm of his jacket identified him as a hunter, probably a level five or four based upon his age, and the fact that hunters of higher levels don’t wear badges. He had a dark completion, a long narrow face, short cropped hair and eyes that were so dark they were almost black. She knew she had seen him somewhere before or at least she had seen those eyes.

  “Yes, I’m Kile Veller.” She said as she tried to run back through her mind to find this man’s name.

  “You don’t recognize me.” He said with a hint of a smile.

  “I’m sorry.” She admitted. It just wasn’t coming to her.

  “I not really surprised, we only met once and that was very brief. I’m…”

  “Rick.” She exclaimed as the vision of the thin young man with long black hair came back to her. He was a friend of Tree's. He was the one that had given him the message of the Troll of Blackmore when he was escorting them around the compound. His grin assured her that she had gotten his name right, how could she have forgotten those black eyes. “Your hair is a lot shorter, and you’ve… grown.” She said, stepping back and taking him all in.

  “I can say the same for you, although your hair is a lot longer.” He grinned.

  “So, what are you doing here? You have a message to deliver?”

  “Actually it's a personal matter.”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean to pry.”

  “No, nothing like that.” He laughed. “I’m here to fulfill a promise I made, to a mutual friend.” He said, pointing to the pin on her tunic.

  “Tree?”

  “He told me I had to be here for your graduation.” Rick said. The memory of his passing was still weighing heavy on the young hunter.

  “Well, he did say that he was going to be here, but I had just assumed he was te
lling me that to… you know… raise my spirits.”

  “No, if there’s one thing I knew about Tree, if he said something, he would follow it through no matter what, he thought highly of you.”

  “I don’t know why, it’s not like I knew him all that well. I really only knew him for a few days.” She replied.

  “Yeah, but you reminded him a lot of his little sister. She was determined to be a hunter as well.”

  “Did she ever try?”

  “No.” Rick said, shaking his head. “She went to the other side when she was only thirteen. It hit Tree hard, they were really close, but I think he always knew that they wouldn’t be apart for long, but here I am talking about sad events on what should be the happiest moment of your life, and yet you don’t seem to be all that happy.”

  “Oh, it just all this ceremonial stuff.” She replied. “I would be happier if I could just grab my papers and be out of here.”

  “Just like Tree.” Rick laughed. “But I wouldn’t worry. It may seem long now, but once your name is called, just move through the line, take the stuff they give you, hand them to your second, shake a few hands and keep heading for the door.”

  “That’s just it, I don’t have a second.” She replied.

  “So I’ll be your second.”

  “I can’t do that to you.”

  “Why not, is it the way I’m dressed.” He laughed as he held up his arms and turned around, almost knocking the drink out of some woman’s hand.

  “Okay, okay, you can be my second, just leave the civilians alone.”

  ***~~~***

  21

  “A young man by the name of Moran Leafter saw a need for an individual to exist outside the walls of civilization, to protect the people from the wild that surrounded them, and he set about to fulfill this need. In time the small villages became towns and the towns became cities and as the population grew, so grew his popularity. So Morgan Leafter gathered together some like minded individual and started the Hunter’s Guild, but that wasn’t enough. He knew that the cities would grow even larger and the need for more Hunters would follow. He knew the responsibilities that would be laid upon those Hunters, and he realized that not just anyone could shoulder those responsibilities, and so the Hunter’s Academy was formed, that was over four hundred years ago. Since then the Hunter’s Academy has done its best to sift through the possible candidates and choose only those that were smart enough, wise enough, brave enough, and had the heart to become Hunters. The academy could give them the skills and the tools, but the heart, they had to find on their own. And so, allow me to introduce to you, the four hundred and sixty third graduating class of the Hunter’s Academy.”

  The applause was deafening, but that was in part due to the echo of the half filled Great Hall. Guild Master Latherby stepped down from the podium and surrendered the attention to Sir Oblum Hansen. The headmaster tugged at his shirt collar as he shook the Guild Master’s hand and stepped up on the stage. He waited until the audience quieted down before he even tried to speak. He was a man of few words, unless he was addressing his cadets, then he could be rather long winded, but in this setting, wearing those clothes, he wasn’t willing to prolong this any longer than he had to, and skipping his speech, he got down to what he felt they came to hear.

  “Will the cadets please come up when I call their name?” He said as he unrolled the list and tried to flatten it out on the small podium.

  “Robert Jacob Adams.”

  A young man dressed in his Guild issued uniform got up from the front row along with an older gentleman who was probably his father. He took the stage, if it could be called a stage; it was only a raised platform, no more than six inches off the Great Hall’s marble floor.

  Sir Oblum handed him two tightly wrapped scrolls. One would be his probationary certificate to be presented to the guild house upon his arrival. It was simply a signed document acknowledging his completion of three years at the academy and giving him all the rights afforded to a probationary level five hunter. The second scroll was his destination papers. They were actually more important because they told him where his guild house was. That would be the house he would be assigned to during his probationary period and probably most of this Hunter career. The cadet handed the two scrolls to his father and shook Sir Oblum’s hand, but that was just the beginning. In order for the boy to get off the stage, he was forced to walk through a gauntlet of Council Members and level one Hunters, each one extended a hand to be shaken.

  Along the way he was given the Hunter’s Academy banner. This was a cheap piece of green cloth, mass produced, bearing the coat of arms of the Hunter’s Guild. The cadet handed this to his father.

  Next he received the Hunter’s Guild badge. This would be sewn to his jacket or other article of clothing and was only worn by fifth and fourth level hunters. Officially it was a mean of identifying new members of the guild, unofficial it was a version of a toe tag. If he was found dead on the side of the road, and assuming that the badge hadn’t been stripped from his uniform, or his uniform stripped from him, his body would be brought to the nearest Guild house for proper burial procedures. The Cadet handed this to his father.

  The next item was the alumni long knife, originally referred to as the ceremonial dagger, but due to the religious sounding connection, the name was later changed, and it serves no useful purpose that anyone could remember. The cadet handed this to his father.

  By this time the probationary level five hunter Robert Jacob Adams shook fourteen hands before finally reaching Guild Master Mathew Latherby who presented him with the Hunter’s ring. The ring was a simple silver band with a green emerald that was worn by all hunters as a way of identifying one hunter to another. Under the Hunter’s Code, no hunter could perform an act of aggression toward anyone wearing the Hunter’s Ring. It was always worn on the left hand’s ring finger, and only to be worn on the right hand should a hunter find himself in a tight spot and wished to let other hunters know he was in a tight spot without actually having to tell them, or if the hunter lost his left hand. Probationary level Five Hunters Robert Jacob Adams put the ring on his finger, shook the Guild master’s hand and finally stepped off the stage, now they only had thirty four more cadets to go.

  In the past the graduating hunter would also have received his sword, or weapon of choice, his code book and his courier bag as well as the rest of the items. The weapons had a tendency to be too bulky for the second to carry and during one ceremony a second dropped a warhammer on a council member’s foot, delaying the graduation ceremony for three hours. The code books just took up too much space on the stage, and as the Quartermaster had explained, the newer hunters stopped using the leather courier bags in favor of the soft cloth pouches.

  Probationary level Five hunter Robert Jacob Adams looked relieved as he returned to his seat, but not as relieved as his father.

  “Carl Sins Arthur”

  Another cadet in another Guild issued uniform got up and made his way to the stage, followed by a younger man, probably his brother, and it started all over again.

  “Alphabetical order.” Kile sighed. She tried to go over all the names of all the other cadets and although she couldn’t recall every name, she was pretty sure that they all came before Veller, and if they didn’t speed things up, she wouldn’t get up there until late tomorrow morning.

  “Alexander Cappa Bartlow.”

  Alex jumped up and was on the stage shaking Sir Oblum hand before his second, his father, was able to get out of his seat. The hyperactive chipmunk had set a speed record as he received his items and shook all fourteen hands and was sitting down before half the council member realized that another cadet had gone by.

  Now if everyone moved like that Kile thought, they could have the entire ceremony over and be at the feast in less than ten minutes.

  She tried to listen and connect the names to the faces. She hated to admit it, but she really didn’t care all that much about these hunters, there were only a few tha
t she called friends and even if the rest had come to accept her, she had not forgotten how they treated her, but, out there, in the wild, if she did come across them, it would be nice if she knew their names. They had it easy, she was the only girl that had graduated the Hunter’s Academy in the last twenty some odd years, they already knew her name.

  She watched each cadet receive their papers, and even though she didn’t dislike them, she did feel a certain distance toward them, as if she was no longer a part of the whole academy thing. She put it up to the excitement of graduating and getting out into the real world, but she couldn’t convince herself that that was the whole truth, that it wasn’t something else.

  “Carter Roland Hausman.”

  Carter rose straight up from his seat, tugging at the base of his tunic to straighten it before walking to the stage. With his back straight, chest out, and arms swinging, she wondered if he knew how foolish he looked. He should have enrolled in the military if he wanted to march. Carter’s second had to be his father, He wasn’t as tall as Carter but his broad chest and missive arm left no doubt that he was a blacksmith. He seemed awkward in this place, surrounded by so many people; he would be more at home standing in front of a forge swinging a hammer. People had to get up out of their chairs and give him room as he tried to maneuver between the rows, and he stepped on no fewer than three sets of toes, one belonging to Mr. Leary.

  Carter’s procession through the line of hands was considerably slower as he stopped before each member, and Kile was sure he was going to salute them, and when he stopped before Master Boraro, he did. As much as she liked Carter, she could easily see him falling in with the sons of Terrabin, they seem to share that military thinking. She felt sorry for his father thou, the man was clearly out of his element and every time his son stopped, prolonged his agony of standing in front of all these people. He even looked out into the audience with a nervous smile on his face. It definitely wasn’t the weight of the objects that had this man sweating, she was sure he could have just picked up the stage, people and all, and walked off with it, He just didn’t like crowds.