Hunter's Bounty (Veller) (6 page)

“You never let me get that close before.” He said as he tipped back his hat and rubbed his chin. “You seem a little preoccupied. Would it be this bounty we are supposed to track down?”

Her hand fell from the grip of her sword. “Sorry Robert, it’s just that Guild Master Lathery has me a little spooked.”

“No need to say anything more.” Folkstaff replied. “But it is good to see you again. It’s been a while.”

“I’ve been busy… so to speak.”

“I can imagine. The Council has you running all over Aru.
Keeping you busy so you don’t make waves.”

“Something like that.” She replied as she looked toward the stables.

“So, who is this all important bounty that I am to help you track down?” Folkstaff asked, but Erin silenced him as the average looking stable hand led her horse out into the yard.

The man first looked at
Erin, then at Folkstaff as if weighing something in his mind. Had he planned on doing something, Erin wondered, or had Latherby managed to infuse her with a sense of paranoia.

“She weren’t here long enough for a good cleaning, but she has been fed and watered.” The stable hand finally said as he handed her the reins.

“Thank-you sir.”

Since the Guild House owned the stables there was no fee, but she still handed the man a few
coins as she mounted up. He said something more to her, it might have been a thank-you, could have been something else, but she wasn’t paying any attention as she rode from the yard into the streets. She was no longer comfortable in the city. There were too many people now, too many places where they could hide. She wouldn’t feel safe until she was out in the wild again, it must be a Hunter thing. Folkstaff mounted his dapple gray mare and followed her into the streets of Littenbeck. They said nothing as they quickly navigated through the busy roads, and Erin didn’t slow down until she had crossed under the northern gates of the city. Once she was out on the open road, once the city walls were no longer closing in on her, she slowed her horse down to a more even pace and let Folkstaff finally catch up.

“I suppose now you can explain what’s
going on?” He asked, after they had put some distance between them and Littenbeck, or was it just the Guild Hall.

“Sorry Robert.” She said. “I guess I’m still a little jumpy”

“I’ve seen rabbits that were less jumpy. What’s gotten into you, you aren’t usually like this?”

“A few days ago I got myself into a little trouble down south, nothing I couldn’t handle mind you. At the time I thought it was just a group of brigands that had chosen the wrong target, but now… I’m not so sure.”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you aware that the count is now up to twenty one, with seven Hunters still missing… eight if you count the bounty we’re after?”

“I figured it was about that high. I’ve been doing my own calculations when the Council’s investigators arrived at the Academy asking all sorts of questions. I figured the number was higher than what they’ve been letting on. So, the bounty we’re tracking is a Hunter… anyone I know?”

She
pulled the files from her jacket and handed them to him. He began to read through them as his horse kept a steady pace. No one could train a horse better than Folkstaff, not even Horse Master Pike.

“Things are making a bit more sense.” He finally said as he closed the files.

“Well?” She asked.

It was difficult to tell what Folkstaff was thinking. He was the most laid back individual that
Erin had ever gotten to know. Nothing ever bothered the big man, he just took everything in stride, reasoned it out and went with what he believed to be the best possible solution, regardless of what others thought.

“Well what?” He asked.

“Come on Robert, you know damn well what. Do you think she did it?”

“
Erin, you should know me by now. Without any evidence, it is difficult to say one way or the other. If I am not misreading our assignment, we are to bring Kile Veller in, not discern her guilt or innocence that is for the council to decide.”

“I think the council has decided. They’ve already posted an open bounty on her, which means they’ve already revoked her Hunter status.”

“I see, I suppose that is understandable from the council’s point of view.”

“What? Are you insane? How can you say that?”

“Think about it Erin, you know as well as I that her evaluation from the entry examination wasn’t entirely spectacular, not to mention here time at the Academy. She has been deemed irrational, unpredictable, and hot headed. Her psych evaluation is still in questions, and from what her files have to say, she has a complete disregard for authority and has shown signs of being emotionally distant from fellow students as well as colleagues.”

“
That's not fair. You don’t know what it’s like to go through the Academy as the only girl, constantly being ridiculed and picked on.”

“You’re right, I wouldn’t know.”
He replied. “I’m sure, in that situation, it would change a person, but in what ways?”

“So… what your saying is… you think she did it.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Yes you did, you just got through telling me why you thought she did it.”

“No, I just got through telling you why the council could think she did it. As for myself, without the evidence, I cannot say one way or the other.”

“But how do you feel?”

“I had the opportunity to sit with her once, during the first wilderness survival exercise, when I tested the cadets on their survival techniques.”

“How did you do that?”

“Do you remember Master Shimrock and his so called ultimate survival test?”

“
How could I forget?”

“I sent them all out into the wild to survive a single night with nothing more th
an what they brought with them to class that day.”

“And… what happened?”

“Out of the fifty some odd cadets that I had at that time, only three managed to spend the entire night in the wild, and only one of them did it without complaining.”

“Kile.”
Erin replied. It wasn’t that difficult to guess, it had to be Kile otherwise Folkstaff wouldn’t be telling her the story.

“The next morning, when I came to tell her that the assignment was over, she was making breakfast under a tree that she had fashioned into a lean-to. She was cooking fried potatoes with onions and cheese. To this day I don’t know where she got those ingredients, but she asked me to sit down and share her breakfast with her.”

“And?”

“As a survivalist, she has skills, as a cook… not
so much.”

“That still doesn’t answer my question about whether or not you think she could have assassinated the man.”

“Only if he died of food poisoning.”

“So you don’t think she killed him?”

“If there is one thing that these files do say in their obscure way, is that Kile Veller just doesn’t have the killing instinct.”

“What about the incident with Master Boraro?”

“She didn’t kill him.”

“She might have, I often wondered if she would have if no one stopped her.”

“It would appear that you are not so sure of her innocence.”

“I don’t know what to think. If she didn’t kill this Mr. Draw, then where is she?”

“Only when we find her, will we know the answers. So where do we start?”

“Well, since Mr. Draw
’s house is on the way to Coopervill, I thought we’d go there first.”

“To see what we can see.”

***~~~***

4

Kile opened her eyes again, but the view hadn’t changed
in her cell. She had laid there in the dark for five days, on a damp bed of straw, shackled to the wall with thick chains. If it wasn’t for Reginald and his family, she would have surely starved, or worse. As long as they brought her food, she didn’t have to eat what the guards tossed in at her. She could feign her sedation for only so long, but to what end she wasn’t sure. She knew that as long as they thought she was harmless, that she was incapacitated, there was no reason for them to do… well, to do whatever it was they were planning on doing to her.

Each morning she would try the chains, pulling them from the wall, but it was no use. They were as secured to the wall as they were around her wrists, keeping her arms stretched apart so that she couldn’t even brush the hair from her eyes or scratch the end of her nose. Why was it that her nose never itched until she was unable to scratch it?

From what she had learned from Reginald she was imprisoned in a cell, in a dungeon, in the deepest part of either a Keep or a Stronghold, she wasn’t sure what the difference was between the two, but the images that Reginald showed her were limited at best.

The door to the dungeon opened as the squeak of the rusted hinges echoed off the empty walls and filled the air, a dry wind blew in from somewhere, it was a welcome relief it if only for a moment. The door closed and the sound of bare feet on cold stone got closer.
She slumped down against her chains. Her only defense was to keep faking her condition, at least until she could find a way out. The shackles bit into her wrist but she knew it was better than the alternative.

Someone or something jingled a set of keys that opened the door to her cell, but she was in no condition to take advantage of the situation. They tossed in a bowl of what their idea of food was, along with a few choice words before locking the door again. The
bowl landed, not far from her feet, tipping to one side and releasing a thick gray slug onto the floor. Even if she was hungry enough to eat it, she had no way of actually reaching it. She couldn’t identify what was in the bowl or even understand what her jailer had said to her each day for the last five days, but each time he said it, he seemed more determined and she knew that her time was running out. She would have to find a way to escape, but escape wasn’t going to be easy. The cell door shouldn’t be a problem if she could get the keys away from her jailer, she would need Reginald’s help with that, and finding her way out of the stronghold, or was it a keep, would be tricky at best, but she had a firm idea of the layout even if it was from a skewed point of view. All she had to do was find a way to get out of the shackles, and that was where her master plan met its demise.

The shackles had been welded closed, sealed around her wrist. There was no key to unlock them since there was no lock. Who ever had chained her to the wall had no intention of letting her leave any time soon.

The last thing she could remember was knocking on Mr. Draw’s door, and the horrid smell that filled the air. She couldn’t identify it at that time, but she knew it now. It was the scent, or should that be the stench, of the uhyre. If that was true, and the guttural sounds of the guard’s voice seemed to support that scenario, then she must be somewhere in the wastelands, the only thing she didn’t know was why.

She had played over the various scenarios in her head, trying to make each piece of the puzzle fit and then filling in the blank spaces with simple speculation. She knew whoever was behind this was not
of the uhyre, but a vir. The man that opened the door of the cabin had spoken to her in the Royal tongue, as far as she knew, none of the uhyre spoke the king’s language, or at least not that clearly. He also knew something about Hunters, since he must have been the one to send the message, knowing that a higher priority package would supersede the temporary freeze on common deliveries. Then there was the fact that her food had been tainted. She was able to detect that the first night she was here simply by the smell. They were trying to keep her sedated, more than likely out of fear of what her edge could do. Even in keeping her hands apart, they showed some knowledge of the mystic arts, since more complicated skills need the use of special hand movements. The only glimmer of hope that she had, was in their attempts to prevent her from using her edge they proved that they had no idea what her edge was. That, at least, gave her some advantage.

A sudden sound caught her attention from the far corner of the room as something moved out from underneath the pile of straw. She couldn’t make out what it was at first until it moved into the thin shaft of light that came through the small window of her cell door. It was a large brown rat, larger th
an what she was used to seeing back home. It was nearly six inches from end to end, and that was not including the tail which was easily another ten inches. He came out from the shadows, cautiously sniffing the gray slop that had spilled from the bowl.

“You wouldn’t happen to know what that is, would you?” She asked it.

-Not a chance.-

The rat replied as it slowly backed away.

-I heard the valrik eat something known as Shrool, but I don’t know if that’s what it is.-

“Just though I asked.”

The rat retreated back into the pile of straw and reappeared with something round in its mouth. As it got closer, Kile identified it as a potato.