Hunter's Academy (Veller) (39 page)

“You have been a thorn in my side for too long.”

Kile opened the little ebony box.

There was a bone shuddering boom that slid her even further across the field. It wasn’t as violent as an explosion should have
been; it was more like she had been pushed out of the way of Eric’s ball of fire which was hurling towards her, but instead of hitting her, it was engulfed in a shimmering blue orb of energy. The orb went from blue to red then to yellow as it slowly melted into the robes of a mystic.

Morgan Vain stood silently looking around the
field and he was not pleased by what he saw. The fighting was over, for better or for worse, the cadets stood facing this new force of nature. The squirrels were the smarter group as they quickly high tailed it to the safety of the forest, and after seeing the look on Morgan’s face, Kile wished she could have joined them.

“Well, I guess it is over.”
Eric said with a smile as he dusted himself off and got to his feet. It was not the victory that he wanted, but he would take it. “I guess I’ll see you back at the academy with the rest of the losers.” He said and waved for his group to join him.

“Not so fast.”

Morgan picked up the open box that lay at his feet.

“This is your box.” He said, facing Eric.

“No it’s not, it’s hers.” Eric said, pointing to Kile.

“I’m afraid not.” Morgan replied. “This is your box.”
It was not a question, it was a statement.

“She opened it, she gave up.”

“And what proof do you have of this?” He asked.

“Proof? She opened it… we all saw her open it.”

“I’m afraid that isn’t good enough. This box was assigned to your group, and since it has been opened, it is your group that has forfeited.”

Eric’s face suddenly dropped as he looked around the field then his eyes fell on Kile, who couldn’t resist waving.

“No, that’s not right.” Eric shouted. “She gave up, she opened the box, her group forfeited.”

It was clear that Morgan had no intention of debating this matter any further as he lifted his arms and swirling blue ribbons of light began to encircle Eric and the members of his group.

“This isn’t right.” Eric continued to protest. “You’re going to pay for this Veller, you little…” And he was gone.

Morgan looked around the field again and then focused on Kile before
his yellow robes swirled around him and reverting back to the shimmering blue globe of energy before he too was gone. The small ebony box dropped to the ground. She wasn’t sure if that last look was one of disappointment or not, but it meant she would probably hear about it later. Slowly getting to her feet, cringing at the pain in her ankle she reached down and picked up the small ebony box.

“Maybe I should start a collection of these.” She said as she turned it over in her hand.

“What just happened?” Carter asked as he walked toward her.

“I took a gamble.” She replied. “I figure if the keys and the orbs were individually tuned to our group, then the boxes had to be as well.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say the keys or the orbs were tuned to our group, the orbs are tuned to the keys but anyone could use the keys.” Daniel reasoned. “Remember the burning farm house.”

“Really?” She replied
. She had forgotten that Murphy used three of the keys to recover the orbs from the farm house. “It’s a good thing you didn’t tell me that earlier.”

“It doesn’t matter, we still lost. Speedy got away with our orbs.” Alex added as he came running down the hill.

“I don’t think so.”

“Sure he did, I saw him with the pack myself. I almost had it but he disappeared, along with the rest of them.”

“Just because he had the pack, doesn’t mean he had the orbs. Does it Tik?”

-Help Kile?-

The voice, only she could hear, came from the tree just behind her. She turned to see a familiar squirrel sitting on one of the lower branches alongside a yarrow. His tail looked a little singed, but otherwise he was in good health. She limped over to them, holding her arm out so Vesper could get back onto her shoulder.

“Yes, you did, thank you Tik, you both helped.”

-Help Kile-

Tik said as he ran back up the tree, there was a moment of chattering in the higher branches, and then three red orbs fell to the ground followed by three blue ones.

Daniel was able to soothe the pain in Kile’s ankle, fortunately there was nothing broken, although that’s not what it felt like.
It was still a little sore but she would be able to walk on it without help.

“That’s about as much as I can do at the moment.” He told her.

“It feels a lot better now, thanks.”

“What were you thinking, trying to trip him? You could have just stepped out of the way.”

“Yeah, but where’s the fun in that?” She grinned.

“Yeah, like when he did that awesome face plant.” Alex laughed.

“That was a bit wild.” Carter remarked as he helped her to her feet. “You could have given your little army some better information. I don’t know… like whose friend and whose foe.”

“Hey, I didn’t tell them to go after anyone, they did it by themselves.”

“I think it’s a little more than that.” Daniel replied. “Squirrels don’t tend to link up in platoons and attack people. It’s not exactly… normal.”

“Hey, what can I say, they were just looking out for me.”

It took them another three hours before they reached the road moving at a much slower pace. They could finally see the western gates of the Academy. The sun was already low in the sky that was now changing to a misty orange, but it was still a long way from setting so they had arrived with time to spare. As the Open field just outside the walls of the academy got closer, they noticed a group of cadets sitting on the side of the road. One of the cadets sat up as Kile and her group got closer and she recognized Keith Larks as he waved to her.

“What’s the matter?” She asked. Her first thought was that something had happened within the academy, something that she didn’t want to know about.

“Nothing.” Keith said, looking to the other members of his group. “We got tired, right guys.”

“That’s it, just taking a break.” Another member chimed in and lay back down on the grass as if to prove it.

It seemed like an odd place to get tired, just a couple of yards from the western gate, a couple of yards from the completion of the exercise. It was almost as if they didn’t want to come in first, well, two can play at that game.

“You know, I’m feeling a little tired too.”
She replied, turning to the others.

“Yeah, I think we can all do with a little rest before we move on.” Daniel agreed.

“What? What are you talking about we’re almost home.” Alex started to complain until Carter slapped him upside the head.

“We’re going to rest here first
squirt.” He told him as he followed Kile and Daniel to the side of the road.

Alex looked to Murphy who just shrugged and followed the others.

Kile took a place on the grass beside Keith.

“That was
some exercise.” She said as she stared at the road.

“It sure was.” Keith replied.

“You guys the first here?”

“As far as we know.”

“How many groups do you think made it through?” Daniel asked.

“We were trying to figure that out.” Robby replied. “Laurence and his team never made it.”

“What happen?”

“Rock slide during all the rain. Caught them on the top of the hill, about three days back. Barry broke his leg so they couldn’t continue.”

“Is he alright?” Kile asked.

“Oh sure, the healers will have him fixed up in no time.”

“It’s a shame they didn’t have you with them Daniel.” Keith added. “With your skill they could have continued.”

“If I had known I would have been there.” Daniel said.

“So, out of the seven groups, that still leaves just the six.”

“Four.” Carter corrected. “We found a spent black box in the rooms under the hill, by the looks of things there, someone got themselves caught in a nice little trap and had to drop out.”

“Do you know whose group it was?” Keith asked.

“No way of telling.” Kile added. “They were long gone before we got there.”

“Well, that still leaves five.” Robby replied.

“Well, Eric’s group had to drop out unexpectedly.”

“Really?” Keith said, and his face lit up with a grin. “I know Jakk will be happy about that, they ran into Eric and his minions two days out, barely got away.”

“So, how long are we going to sit here?” Alex asked.

“Two more group out there, I say at least until the sun sets below the walls.” Kile replied and looked to Keith for verification. The blond haired boy nodded.

“Sounds like a good idea to me.”

They didn’t have long to wait as one of the cadets from Keith’s group stood up and pointed.

“That looks like Jakk and his group now.”

Kile looked up the road.

“I can’t see anything.” She said.

“Trust him.” Keith sighed. “If he says he sees something, he sees it. It gets rather annoying after a while.”

“Don’t blame me if you’re as blind as a bat.” The other cadet laughed.

It was about five minutes later before any movement could be seen on the road.

“Yeah, it’s Jakk.” The cadet said as he sat back down on the grass.

Jakk was a lean, dark haired boy with a narrow face and rather large ears. He stopped in the middle of the road when he saw the other Cadets.

“
What's the matter, what’s going on?” He asked as he came over to Keith, his eyes briefly glanced over at Kile, but only for a moment.

“We’re waiting on you.” Keith replied, to where Jakk just looked more confused. “Come on, sit down, we still have some time.”

Jakk looked at the other cadets, and then looked at his own group. He could have made for the gate and been the first through, but it didn’t look as if he really cared all that much and neither did his group.

“Hey Jakk, you’ll be happy to know that Eric and his group dropped out.”

“No way, are you sure?” He asked as he sat down on Keith’s other side.

“Oh yeah, we’re sure.” Carter replied. “He didn’t want to drop
out; the decision was kind of made for him.”

“As long as he’s out of it, that’s all I care about.” Jakk laughed.

“We were trying to figure out who still out there, it’s either Williams group or Troy’s.”

“
Troy’s gone. His group didn’t last one day.”

“What happen?”

“Eric. He persuaded Troy to drop out early if you know what I mean. Tried to do it with us but… well… lets just say it didn’t turn out the way he had hoped.”

So, Eric had tried to remove other groups as well. In a way, Kile felt kind of disappointed, she was under the impression that Eric had a personal vendetta against her, but now it would appear that he was trying to stop everyone. In many ways it
seemed a little pointless to have all the cadets fail the final exercise with the sole exception of his group, it would have looked a little suspicious.

“So that means William’s group was trapped.” Daniel concluded.

“What happened to William?” Jakk asked

“We think he got caught in a trap while going for one of the orbs.” Carter replied. “At least the trap was sprung when we got there and we did find one of the black boxes, it had already been opened.”

“You mean that trapped room in the cave, the one with the poisoned needle in the box?”

“That’s the place.”

“Yeah, we would have walked into that trap too if Tom here hadn’t noticed the Hunter symbols on the floor.” Jakk replied as he gripped the shoulder of a rather round cadet sitting next to him.

“
Symbols, what symbols?” Carter asked.

“There were Hunter symbols on the floor just outside the room. At first I
though it was a joke, something to mislead us, but as Tom said, Hunter symbols should be taken seriously. Figured it wouldn’t hurt to be cautious. James was able to get the orb, he set off the trap but… lets just say he has a way of getting out of a closed room.”

“We didn’t see any
symbols?” Carter replied.

“I don’t see how you could have missed
them, they were large enough.”

“How come we didn’t see it?”

“Because Kile wrote them after we left.” Daniel replied.

“Kile?”

“If Williams and Troy both dropped out of the exercise, then that leave just us.” Kile said, quickly changing the subject.

“Well, if that’s the case, there’s no use sitting around here.” Keith replied as he got to his feet. He even offered Kile a hand.