Rise Of The Hunters - Chapter 48

“Wait, you want to do what?” Rick was sitting at the table in the map room, staring at Xun as if he was crazy.

“It’s simple. The prey animals that the hunters hunt move in a pattern through the valley. If I teach the hunters that pattern, they won’t need me to tell them where to hunt.” Xun stood by the map, explaining to Rick again his ideas.

“No, I got that. I meant the watchers.” Rick rubbed his face and leaned back in his chair. Xun had found him sleeping on the floor again.

“There are only four routes that werewolves or Slavers can take to get to the valley. If watchers are put in each place, I won’t have to constantly move between them, and possibly miss something.”

“Okay, but why are you telling me? That’s the part I really don’t understand.”

Taking a breath to calm down, Xun tried to explain further.

“I need to make sure I work through any problems with the idea before I go before the council with it.”

Rick nodded, as if he finally understood.

“I was worried you were trying to convince me to sign up for the job.”

Xun smiled, “No. I don’t see you being very good at it. It would for the most part be a very boring job.”

“Okay, say one of the watcher’s spots something, how would they notify the compound without letting the monster know where they were?”

Xun frowned. He hadn’t thought of that. He paced back and forth in front of the map, trying to think of a way. There had been one compound that had a bell in the middle of it, that they would ring when Slavers were spotted, to give people a chance to escape, but that wouldn’t help the people watching out for the monsters. They might be able to let the compound know by making some noise, but they would be forfeiting their lives by doing so. Maybe if they had more talking boxes like the one Jerome had given him? He would have to ask the leaders about that one.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” asked Rick watching him pace.

“I want to be able to learn other things from the compound. The job they gave me seemed great at first, but now that they are complaining about how I do it, I need to think up something that will let me have a little more freedom to learn more things without constantly having to walk over the same ground.”

“Then tell them that,” Rick said with another yawn. “I think you are seriously overthinking this. But if you’re really worried about it, I guess I could always come with you.”

Xun shook his head. If there was one thing he couldn’t stand, it was someone who got things just because of the connections they had. He wanted to do this his own way, and if that didn’t work, he would have Rick step in. If people were going to respect him, they needed to see him accomplish things on his own, not him using people like Rick to influence the leaders.

“No, I’ll try on my own first. If that doesn’t work, I’ll get you.”

Rick nodded and stood up. “Good, because I’m going to go grab something to eat. See ya later, and take care. Some of the people in the great room downstairs were talking about how there may be a storm later.”

He waved at Rick, as he stood looking at the map on the wall one last time. He needed to go talk to the leaders before they thought up some other crazy thing to complain about. Tightening the straps on his backpack, he followed Rick out the door.

There weren’t a lot of people in the auditorium. Max and Jerome were talking quietly as they ate food off of trays from the kitchens. Lisa seemed to be missing at the moment and Xun felt relief wash through him. Maybe he would be able to pull this off after all.

Max saw him as he got closer to the stage and waved for him to go ahead and come up.

“What’s up?”

“I had a few thoughts that I didn’t remember earlier,” Xun said hesitantly. He didn’t want them to know he was lying about that, but was hoping to make them more sympathetic if he reminded them about how mean Lisa had been to him.

“Let’s hear them,” said Jerome, wiping his mouth.

“The werewolves have never attacked the compound before, right?”

“We have caught them far north and south of the compound in the past, but no, none have ever attacked us before.”

“I was looking at the map, and I’ve walked almost the entire valley. I was thinking that if I was north when a couple werewolves came from the south, I wouldn’t be able to warn the compound in time, ȧssuming I got lucky enough to even notice like last time.”

“I had wondered about that myself,” murmured Max.

“What if you put guards at each of the entrances to the valley, to give the people in the compound a warning if any approach? You could give them talking boxes like you gave me, so the monsters wouldn’t notice them maybe.”

“That’s actually not a bad idea,” Jerome said, turning to Max.

“I don’t like it,” Max said shaking his head. “I don’t like sending our people out into a dangerous environment to watch for monsters that can kill them. No one in the compound has any experience with the monsters, and we don’t have enough people from outside the compound to spare. They would have to have a fire to stay warm and that would give them away. Not to mention the fact we don’t have any more walkie-talkies to spare.”

Jerome nodded, thoughtfully. Xun was disappointed. Some of the points that Max made were true, and even though some sounded prejudiced, the ones that weren’t made sense.

“That was a good idea, and we’ll hold on to it for future use. Was there anything else?”