Chapter Six: Edmund

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                                                           CHAPTER SIX: EDMUND

As of late, the Hunters’ Guild was often described by outsiders either as a guild of oafs or a guild of mercenaries.  Edmund was not either, as it turned out, but he could not argue with the opinions that had formed over many years.

The former label had something to do with the Guild's apparent disinterest in the larger affairs of the Northlands and even more so, the affairs of the more distant realms.  The Northlands were bordered to the west by an impenetrable forest, and then by the seas to the east.  Therefore, like the majority of Northlanders, they viewed their geographic isolation from the rest of humankind as reason to pay little attention to anything outside their immediate domain. 

Of the Northlanders, the hunters were an even more independent and isolationist sort.   The first hunters who founded the guild were among the first humans to break away from small settlements in the loosely inhabited areas to the south and near the east coast.  Many had come from the small coastal port of Capestown on the eastern shores.

However, once the cities across the seas had acquired a taste for the beautiful wood from the Northlands, Capestown shed its image of frontier town for a growing cosmopolitan city.  As such, where there is money, the nobles and the vermin that circled around them, came.   Those who had come to the Northlands to escape the outside world found themselves pushed west from the coast.  Hunters, adventurers, families looking for opportunities -- they all walked past the hills and conifers that typified the Northland terrain and ignored the Wood elves who still inhabited parts of the eastern Northlands.   They founded small villages along the way, including those that would later become Crossroads and Winchester.

The first incarnation of the guild came about during the last double eclipse, a period of great darkness in the Northlands.  It was the intent of several forward thinking frontiersmen and adventurers to use a guild structure to help pool knowledge that would keep them and the small villages alive. These men carefully logged their collective knowledge and added to it.  What they learned about the unusual rotation of the two moons in the sky, the migration patterns of animals in the region, and other tales and stories – they committed to paper and to their sons.

That said, the current hunters were nothing like their forebears.  The initial guild members had all varied in origin and education and were men living on the edge of an unknown wilderness.  The current generation consisted of men who had largely inherited their position from their own families and who had grown comfortable with their environment and profited handsomely in their dealings with the nobles who came to these areas to hunt.

Edmund, however, was one of the few not from that tradition.   As the ward of a merchant, his entry to the guild differed.

As it were, most persons in Winchester tended to inherit the same roles or trade that their parents possessed.   Edmund, however, had not wanted to continue in the trade business.  Winchester had never been as robust as some of the villages to the east and south.  With the exodus of younger folk from the area and few persons to replace them  – Winchester was too small in population to sustain much trade.  It was not pragmatic to own a shop in town that did most of its business in a few concentrated months during the year.

His elder siblings had realized this some time ago, leaving Winchester for busier towns.

Left behind, the youngest child took up the only other trade in town that would put food on the table and also not upset the harmony of its quiet existence.   While there could only be one blacksmith, one teacher, or one preacher -- the number of hunters that could be accommodated in the Northlands was unlimited so long as there continued to be game to tap within the Northlands.

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