Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Hatchet P.O.V :

I walked towards the blacksmiths house, I didn’t know much about him other than that he and his wife came here quite a few years ago very young and expecting a child and that they were both quite talented in their fields considering how high they climbed in this backwater while raising a child, then another and now a 3rd.

At the gate I saw the headman’s son and his friend both lazing about as per usual. The brat tried to get his father on my case for the incident 5 days ago but all he could do to me was ask “the hunters” to go clear out the stretch a bit away from the village meaning I had to sleep a night outside, not something that bothered me at all.

The kid, Ajax, came out the door, he had his bow on his back, sword at his hip and the dagger tucked behind his back, he then walked up to me clearly familiar with their weight on him from the countless hours of practice he had put in.

“Thanks for agreeing to take me on, I’ll do my best to meet your expectations” He eagerly parrots to me, probably the same phrase he said to each of the people that took him in for a few cycles as an apprentice.

“Cut the crap kid, we both know I took you on as a spur of the moment thing, so how about we make a deal you try not to get yourself and more importantly me killed out there and I’ll try to teach you as much as you can learn about being a hunter, what do you say?” I cut straight to it as soon as we are out of earshot of lazy number 1 and 2.

“Yeah I can work with that” he answers back with a self-confident grin.

This was not what I was expecting the old hunter to be like when he agreed to teach me a few days ago but hey, beggars can’t be choosers, and I am pretty sure he knows more than all the rest of the hunters in the village, probably combined.

As we head into the forest the way he walks changes and I lose track of him despite looking at him not 3 feet in front of me.

“Hey, keep close and stop standing out” I hear from my left and I instantly spot him before activating my stealth skill and try my hardest to follow in his footsteps as well as keep an eye on him while giving him a nod.

We wander the forest like this for a little while. He stops and points me towards a small patch of earth with a few scratch marks in a small pit and the dug up earth right next to it.

“Wolf tracks” is all he tells me and then starts following what I think must be other tracks the wolf might have left. As he is moving I am trying my hardest to keep my stealth up, keep track of him and scan the route we are taking for any of the marks he is following.

Not too much later we reach a small clearing in front of a cave that must be used as the den for the pack. With only one wolf hanging around I take out my bow and as I move to draw back the arrow I feel an iron grip on my wrist.

I ain’t proud to say that we moved about as fast as a snail while I tried to track the path of the deer and he also had to point out to me 2 times that I had lost the patch and move me back a little to pick it up again but a few hours later we finally caught sight of the damn thing calmly munching on grass.

I pull out my bow and take aim, I feel my breathing slow my heart rate pick up and I release the arrow. I nail the deer in the neck and don’t even get to celebrate as I see it stumble back from the power of the shot before a second arrow hits it between the eyes.

“Not a bad shot kid” Hatchet praises me while lowering his bow. “ Got it right in the neck”

“Then why did you take a shot?” calling him on his bluff.

“Because animals don’t need to wait to gain the power from levels and while I think the about level 5 deer might have died from that shot it would also have done so from blood loss a couple miles from here and I didn’t want to spend another few hours chasing dinner.” He gruffly remarks. “That wasn’t bad tracking there, to find it from this far away, even if you did lose the trail a few times.”

He was right, and right as I found the deer I had gained the Tracking skill. That thought alone made me happy, after all this time I could actually celebrate gaining a skill with my family. I was looking forward to tonight.

On the way back we found some of those sleeping berries and I picked a bush or two of them and packed them in my, well I want to say backpack but it’s more of a backsack.

“Didn’t you listen when I told you those aren’t the ones you want to pick, I swear young people it all goes in one ear and out the other” He mocks me after waiting for me to clear both bushes for good measure thinking this is a teachable moment, I would bet money on that.

“I know, I’m planning to sell these to Mr. Finean he’s been complaining about the merchants bringing sleeping drafts hiking the price on him” I smile knowing I can also gouge him for just a little under what they sell.

“Should have just been a fucking merchant like your sister you clearly think like one” he shook his head but still let out a good natured chuckle at seeing my smile, probably figured out I wasn’t going to be giving Finean that much of a price break on the sleeping berries.

“Just make sure to tell him not to eat more than 5 at a time if he wants to wake up the next morning. You can rip off your neighbors all you want but I don’t want their death on my hands just because you wanted to make some money.”

The rest of the way back was silent, “Here you can take this in, you shot it first” He passed me the deer. I guess you could say he wanted to make me look more promising than everyone thought I was but I’m almost sure he just didn’t want to have to take it to the butcher and spend another 30 min discussing the price with him.