Selection (Book 2 of P.O.E. chronicles)

Chapter 12 Stupid

“We will see if the higher ups have a plan.” Kailey said; we were hunting a good deal away from camp where all the ruckus had scared off the game. Ho assured us that in a week’s time we would attract game instead – fearless Legres who will attack us for food instead. Then we will be on full patrol.

Apparently so far all the night watch we went on wasn’t a full patrol. Great.

Half an hour later we arrived at the outskirt of camp where two people were on guard. When they saw us their eyes widened and one of them jaw dropped. John did a pose that he deemed to be handsome and smiled at the female.

“We are back with the day’s game.” He said in a flirty voice; Kailey and I struggled not to laugh, even Jeremy was having a hard time keeping his fits under control. John was a nice guy, but he was a major show off to girls. He tried this trick with all three of us in the beginning too, but later gave up on it.

Before he could extract any reactions Steve appeared, his face devoid of any expression as always. “You should all head to see Trevor.” He said, before turning around. He hadn’t spoken more than five sentences per day, and when he did, it would be under ten words. He was a bit scary but between him and Ho, I had a feeling that he would be the nicer one.

We attracted a lot of attention as we passed through different parts of the camp; John and Emily were thriving on it and I tried to keep my face hidden behind my hair.

The Hunters had brought with them a large tent, sort of like a marquee actually. Ho was outside already waiting for us with a big smile on his face.

“Well done guys.” He said clasping John on the shoulder beaming at us; at the deer more correctly. Moments later Trevor came out of the tent with Mariah and the illusionist from before behind him. I gulped nervously hoping they wouldn’t recognize me.

“Wow.” Mariah’s eyes brightened immediately when she saw the game. The illusionist threw our group an impressed look as well.

“This is a great catch.” Trevor said, nodding at each of us in turns. I breathed a sigh of relieve when his eyes glanced over my face impassively. “I am going to send a team to put half of the game to the nearest Citybase to sell, the other half we can have tonight.”

The next thing I knew a group of people appeared out of nowhere and half of the herd was split in half and whizzed away. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen now but everyone in my group just started walking away heading towards our campsite.

“I kind of wanted to see them skin it.” Jeremy murmured as we  walked back. Kailey laughed next to him.

“Then you should go and learn from the gatherer.” She teased him and Jeremy stuttered. I stifled a laugh beside them and wondered what on earth are gatherer.

“Gatherers don’t have it easy.” Vladimir suddenly spoke up; Kaliey gawked at him, surprised that he spoke and even more intimidated by the fact that he was talking in respond to her.

“Well, if you have to skin things and pick things up all the time, you wouldn’t either would you?” Emily said. Huh, so gatherers were those responsible for dealing with the spoils. I shuddered at the thoughts of skinning the deer. Hunting and killing is one thing, but skinning…

That night we had a huge stew brewing on our campfire. The look on Jeremy and John’s face as they stared intently at the pot was quite entertaining. Everyone was impressed by our catch and we even saw a glimpse of the departing group as they set off to some Citybase on the other side of the mountain that’s a three weeks trek at best. They were one of the experienced groups that came with us and now would be stopping there.