Read Hunter's Bounty (Veller) for Free Online

Lann, but she was wasn’t quick enough as everything suddenly went black.
     
     
     
    ***~~~***
     
     
     
    3
     
    “Miss Silvia, it’s nice to see you again. What brings you back to Littenbeck?” The stable hand asked as he took hold of her horse.
    Erin dismounted and wiped the dust from her pants as she ran two gloved hands through her short black hair and tried to remember the name of the man that was now holding the reins of her horse. He was an average looking man in many ways, average height, average weight, even his face was nondescript. It was difficult being the only female Hunter, or should she say the only other female hunter. Everybody knew her on sight, even people she hadn’t met before and she was pretty sure she had never met this man before.
    “Important business at the Guild Hall.” She replied casually. “Can’t really say much more th an that.”
    “I understand.” The man said as he led the horse away. “Top secret and all that.”
    “Yeah, something like that.” She replied with a smile, but the truth was she couldn’t tell him any more because she didn’t know anymore. She had just received the summons yesterday afternoon by special courier and the only instruction she had was to come to the council chamber as quickly as possible.
    She stepped out of the stables into the busy streets of Littenbeck. People going about their business paid her no mind as she crossed to the courtyard of the Guild Hall. She was just one of the masses here in the city, just another civilian. There was a strange sense of safety in that anonymity, but that same anonymity extended to those around her, and that wasn’t so confronting. With the disappearance and deaths of so many Hunters recently, she would have liked to know who these people passing her were. Who was to say that any one of those couldn’t be responsible?
    She walked up to the white marbled steps and stared up at the large imposing structure of the Hall. It was a three story tall stone façade construction lined with windows, and with a row of columns bracing the second floor over the door, it looked as ominous as the Mystic Tower. There was a time when the Guild Council met in a one room shack on the edge of town, how things have changed since those days. For one thing the power of the council has shifted, and although Mathew Latherby is still Guild Master, he is slowly loosing ground in the council power structure and everybody knew it.
    In many ways it was his fault she thought as she pulled off her gloves and tucked them into her belt. Latherby never seemed to take the job seriously, not that he couldn’t be serious when it was required of him, he just couldn’t be serious all the time, and the council saw that as a fatal flaw.
    She adjusted her sword at her side, straightened her jacket and proceeded up the steps one at a time. She wasn’t in a rush, and she had a bad feeling about the entire summons. It was not the way things were done, but then a lot of things that the council did these days were not the way things were done.
    She hesitated a moment before reaching for the door. Even when her hand gripped the golden handle it took a force of will to pull it open. She took a deep breath and stepped inside. The heat of the late afternoon was nothing compared to the stifling, stillness of the place. She could feel the sweat as it ran down her back, and she wasn’t sure if it was the temperature, or what she knew she was in store for.
    This was not what the Hunters were about. The main foyer was filled with paintings, the same grotesquely exaggerated paintings that hung in the Great Hall back at the academy, but these weren’t just hunters, these were paintings of the members of the council and not only of the ones that had passed, but the ones that were currently sitting. When had the council members become so egotistical that they required eight foot tall, life sized paintings of themselves framed in a golden décor? She diverted her