Hunter's Bounty (Veller) by Garry Spoor Page A

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.
    -I’m afraid this is all I can bring you today.-
    He said as he climbed the wall with it in his mouth, walked along the thick chains, onto her arm and all the way up to her shoulder in order to get it near enough to her mouth so that she could take a bite. Raw potato would not have been her first choice of a meal, but it was better than nothing, and definitely better than the gray slop that was now congealing on the cell floor. It would be at least another six or seven hours before the guard came in to remove the bowl.
    -It has been difficult to get into the kitchen with so many vir.-
    To think that men were working alongside the uhyre. Of course she had no way of knowing if they were doing it voluntarily.
    “They’re preparing for something.” She replied a bit nervously. She was just hoping that whatever it was that they were preparing for didn’t include her.
    -There is talk of a visitor coming today, someone important, someone the black robed man wants to make comfortable. Someone he needs.-
    “Needs? Needs for what?”
    -His plan.-
    “I don’t suppose you know what his plan is?”
    -Don’t know. He never speaks of it, not even to the little cruel one.-
    She finished the last bit of her potato as the rat climbed back down to the cell floor.
    -Try to find Kile better food tomorrow-
    He said as he headed toward the corner of the room, to where a small hole in the stone wall was located.
    “Thank you Reginald.” She called after, but the rat was long gone.
    From what she had learned from Reginald’s visits she now knew that the keep or stronghold was populated by the uhyre, except for the kitchen staff which seemed to be made up of mostly vir. That wasn’t really surprising since there appeared to be at least two vir in charge, and she figured they wouldn’t want to eat the gray slop either.
    One of the vir the rats called the black robed man, for what she could only assume was because he wore a black robe and the other was referred to as the little cruel one. She had not seen either man since she had been imprisoned, but that was probably because they thought she had not regained consciousness. It was also clear that the black robed man was in charge, since according to Reginald, he had often bossed the little cruel one around.
    The knowledge didn’t really help her situation, but then as Master Adams back at the Academy always said, information was power. It was the job of all good Hunters to gather as much information as they could, and that was all that she could do at the moment, gather information, but if the situation didn’t improve, what good was the information.
    She closed her eyes and her mind and melted into the silence of the cell, it was only a matter of time before whatever was going to happen happened and she had to be ready for it. She must have dozed off since she was awakened by the sound of the dungeon doors opening again. Was it meal time already? It was difficult to tell time in the darkness of the cell, she had no way of telling night from day. Maybe they were just coming for the bowl, or maybe they were coming for her this time.
    “Unhand me.” She heard a young woman scream. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with.”
    It was the first time she had heard real words spoken in the darkness, most of the time it was just the guttural speech of the uhyre. She risked looking up toward the small window of the door, but she couldn’t see anything from her place on the floor.
    “Put her in with the hunter, they can keep each other company.”
    The second voice was that of a man, who sounded strangely familiar, and the way he spit out the word Hunter showed a strong hatred towards the Guild.
    “I will not be handled like this. Do you hear me? Do you know who I am?”
    The