Underhowl- Rise of the Pures

Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

After breakfast, Jeda, Buster and Sunny were making their way to the school. They made it to a T-intersection in the corridor.
    “Bye, guys.” Sunny mumbled, and reluctantly went down the right corridor. She didn’t look too happy about leaving them.
    “Are you sure we don’t have to bring anything?” Jeda asked as they began walking down the left corridor.
    “Positive. Don’t worry- you’ll see how everything is like when you’re in there.”
    They continued walking until a big hole appeared in the wall. Buster walked straight in, while Jeda stuck his head through before letting his body follow. Nobody was in this room, but a bright spotlight lit up carvings on a large expanse of wall. It was a table, filled with scratches and squiggles.
    “This is the T.P.S Room-Time, place, subject. You find out what time and place you have your subjects for the day in.”
    Buster walked up and looked across the wall, his eyes narrowed.
    “Well, I suppose you’ll be in my class. Today is Monday… hmm… first we have Underhowl Layout… and then Creation Class…and then Warrior Training. We’ll check what we have next after lunch.” Buster pointed to a square that had a line and a squiggle, supposedly showing where lunch time was. Jeda nodded his head.
    Buster walked to the wall, pressing a lump in it. A slot opened in the wall.
    “Come on, this way to class.” Buster said, leading through the doorway.
    The corridor was dark, but they rounded a corner and saw the light at the end, and a whole lot of chattering. Jeda stopped.
    “What’s wrong?” Buster asked.
    “Is Nedan in this class?”
    Buster laughed. “Oh, no. If he was I’d never go to school. There are more classes than this one, thank All Highs of Underhowl.”
    Students all around Jeda’s age were talking and playing with each other. It was very rowdy.
    “Mr. Dueller is always late. So the class has a little bit of free time before he comes in, so basically from nine till nine thirty, we are on time.” Buster explained. He began walking around the loud students.
    “Hey Buster! Who’ve you got there?” One student yelled across the room. It was a thickly built dog, and he came wondering over with a couple of other dogs.
    “I’m Kailou. Are you the new pup that’s been wonderin’ ‘round with Buster all weekend?” He asked. He had a naturally growly voice.
    “Yeah, that’s me. I’m Jeda.” Jeda smiled a little.
    “I’m a bull-dog cross a dhole. Not many people know what a dhole is, but it’s a wild dog of South-East Asia. I have the reddish fur and the white chest, but that’s it. Most people think I don’t have any dhole in me, because I don’t look like it and they reckon it doesn’t exist, but I’m proud to say that my great-great Granpappy was a dhole, and his genes came to me, and-”
  “Sorry kids, I won’t be late again, if you could please find a seat and we’ll begin shortly…”
     Kailou’s babbling cut short when a brown and grey teacher walked into the class room, hustling over to a large rock and standing on top of it. As the students filed into lines on the floor, he read off a piece of paper in front of him.
    “I’m Mr Dueller, teacher of Underhowl layout, and I have an announcement to make. We have a new student in this class today, his name is Jeda-”
    “We already know, everybody’s met him already!” A student said, rolling his eyes.
    “Well, that makes it easier for me. Thank you for showing initiative while I was away, I’m glad to know that my class is learning without me…” He kept babbling on.
   “He says that every time. I don’t think he wants us to tell anyone that he’s late, so he’s always really nice to us. He’s too scared about losing his job. Man, he needs some organisation!” Buster whispered to Jeda. Jeda nodded in agreement.
    Overall, it wasn’t a bad class. Jeda learned that the rocks of Underhowl are very, very old and that wild dogs have been living in them for as long as anyone could remember. The magic in the rocks were as ancient as the dog species itself.
    Mr. Dueller gave them a quiz at the end of the class, which was a load of fun. Homework was to bring in a drawn map of Underhowl. And before Jeda knew it, class was over. Everybody moved down the corridor to Underhowl History.
    “How was it? Did you like it?” Buster asked.
    “My first class? Yeah, that was cool.”
    “That’s good. Underhowl History is cool, too. We go to the Museum and we look at all the historic artefacts…” Buster said with a British accent. Jeda laughed.
    Underhowl History was good, too. The Museum was situated down a path from the Announcement Arena, and was filled with things such as armour, statues of Legends, tapestries, and moments in Warrior History written down on paper. They only saw a small part of the Museum, but it was still amazing enough for Jeda.
    Lawliet, the Museum Keeper and teacher of the class, loved all of his artefacts. In fact, he was a little protective. Once, as he was describing the War of the Scars in his British accent, Danny, who was a boy in Jeda’s class, reached a paw over to touch the plaque of the statue of Gellette, First to Die in War of the Scars, 1106 BC and Lawliet batted it away and looked at Danny in shock. Danny gave a sheepish smile, and cringed away before he got in trouble.
    “When we get older we’ll be able to go to the other rooms, and the artefacts get more and more scary. Apparently, there’s a mummy  in another room, and somebody licked it on a dare. How disgusting is that!”
    Jeda agreed with Buster. He couldn’t imagine how it would’ve tasted.
    They left Underhowl History in a good mood, but the mood seemed to become gloomy as they made their way to Creative Class. It wasn’t just Buster, but the whole class seemed reluctant to be going to the next subject. It didn’t take Jeda long to find out why.
    The class took a stairwell up into the classroom. It was quite high up. As soon as Jeda placed a paw in the room, a shrill voice filled the air-
    “Come on, hurry up! You’re five minutes late already! We have a lot to get through and because of your timing issues, you’re all going to have to miss out on one of the activities! This is the last time I will put up with this nonsense!”
    Jeda looked to see Mrs Taylor barking at everyone walking through the door. Although, she didn’t look like Mrs Taylor, she was chubbier and her eyes were harder…
    Jeda sat on the ground next to Buster. “Is that Mrs Taylor?” he asked.
    “No, that’s Mrs Taylor’s sister, Ms Axie-Taylor. She’s a load meaner than Mrs Taylor, though.”
    Buster made a shifty glance at Ms Axie-Taylor. She was snarling at the last lot of students walking past her. Jeda realised that Buster was talking in hushed tones, and the rest of the class was as silent as the grave.
    “Does she have a husband?” Jeda asked.
    “No, it’s the other way around. Mrs Taylor cut off the first part of her last name- dunno why- while Ms Axie-Taylor kept it-”
    “What’s going on there?” Ms Axie-Taylor asked, her eyes blazing with anger at Buster and Jeda.
    Neither Buster nor Jeda moved a muscle.
    “Are you the new student?” she shot at Jeda.
    “Y-yes…” Jeda stuttered.
    “Hm. Corrine told me you were coming. Jeda, is it?” She raised an eyebrow.
    Jeda nodded, trying to look stronger than he felt.
    “I’m Mrs Axie-Taylor, teacher of Creative Class. Let me tell you now, Jeda, that if you want me to give a good report to Corrine of your work, I suggest you don’t sit next to ones that aren’t adequate role models.”
    She looked at Buster, who looked away.
    “And to help you get there, I am going to give you a head start. Sit here. Now.”
    She pointed to an empty spot next to a female student, right at the front of the class. Jeda swallowed, and slowly walked to the empty spot. He could tell no one in the class agreed with this order, but no one dared speak up.
    “Don’t give me that look, Bustreson. It’s for his own good. I am most displeased with your work, I just cannot see how your sister inherited such talent and you did not.”
     She pointed to a painting that hung in a frame.
    “Ah…” she sighed. “The finest work I have ever seen from a pup. Created in a class of finger painting with a mixture of ochre paints and clay, just for a fun lesson, yet Sunny dear put it to a whole new level. Her first creation, you know...”
    She gazed at the painting dreamily.  After a while, somebody coughed loudly.
    “What did you say?” she snapped.
    “I-I just coughed.” The student replied.
    “Hm.” She narrowed her eyes, and then shook her head.
    “Let’s get back to business. Today we will be continuing our exploration in drawing dog fur, focusing on each hair…”
    Creative Class was a bore. Jeda wasn’t very good at art anyway, but his mind was in other places. He liked being able to talk to Buster, since there were still so many more questions to ask about Underhowl. He tried to make conversation with the girl next to him, but she was very shy and barely talked at all. Jeda just managed to catch her name as she mumbled it under her breath- Lila. After the class that seemed to go on forever, Jeda and Buster made their way to Warrior Training. They chatted all the way there about how much they hated Mrs Axie-Taylor.
    “I mean, honestly, why did she move me in the first place?” Jeda ranted.
    “She’s paranoid- she hates knowing that there is only one good art student in all of Underhowl, which is my sister! So she always gets new students to ‘be their best’ in Creative Class, which means moving them, yelling at them, forcing them, and making them hate her ten seconds after class has started. Gah!” Buster cried, frustrated.
     They trotted through a door way into a small room. Warrior Training in here? Jeda wondered. It’s a tiny room…
    They took seats in the centre of the class.
    “We always meet here for the beginning of Warrior Training.” Buster explained. “Sometimes we learn defensive skills, other times, when we’re really lucky, we get to-”
    “Uhem.”
    The class went silent as the teacher up the front got everyone’s attention. He was a very big and very muscly wolf, more like a gorilla. He had long scars down his arms that glinted pink in the light through his thick grey fur, and huge muscles lined his shoulders and legs.
    “Good morning, class.”
    “Good morning Mister Rohanson.” The class chimed back.
    “I have a treat for you today- we’re going into the Warriors den to do some real training this lesson!”
    The class gasped, and then cheered loudly. Even Buster was celebrating.
    “C’mon, let’s not waste any more time!” Mr Rohanson smiled and the class bolted out the door and took a sharp left down the corridor. Before Jeda could run after them a thick leg stamped in front of him, barricading his way. Jeda looked up into the brown and red eyes of Mr Rohanson.
    “You stick with me, son.” He said, and walked out of the door. Like Kailou, he had a naturally growly voice.
    “Are you a wolf?” Jeda burst. Mr Rohanson chuckled.
    “Yeah, straight ‘n pure. You look like a mixture of things there, son.” He pointed out.  Jeda nodded. He’d heard that sentence a lot.
    “Corrine told me you were coming. I was just going to give you a run down on some things about Warriors before you have to dive into this stuff. What do you know about them so far, kid?” He asked. They were walking side by side down the corridor.
    “Well, the Warriors have to sit in the centre of the Announcement Arena, and their leader is Sihren, and that they’re all wolves-”
    “Whoa, hold it there. It may look like they’re all wolves, but most of them are a mixture of wolf and something else, but are more wolf on the outside.”
    “Then why do they still just look like wolves? Who picks the Warriors, anyway?”
    “Kid, it takes years to become a Warrior. Most of the Warriors started out like any other kid of Underhowl, wanting to be a Warrior. The lucky ones get into training, which let me tell you is very hard to get into, and they train their hearts out until they can be evaluated. Even when they’ve been evaluated, some don’t get into being a Warrior, and they continue training and being evaluated until they do. It’s a very long process, and you have to be very dedicated. Usually when some don’t get into being a Warrior, they give up and go for Plan B. There are loads of other jobs around Underhowl, like chef and cleaner… but anyway, most of the dogs that do get into being a Warrior are more like wolves. Wolves are very good in packs, they are very strong, smart, persistent… you need genes like that if you’re going to become a Warrior.”
    Jeda decided that this wolf knew everything about Warriors. He chose to take this chance to ask some other questions.
    “Also, I noticed Sihren... making weird noises when she was with the Warriors. I’ve never heard them before- do you have to learn them in order to become a Warrior? Or can you only be a wolf to make those noises?”
    “Ah, now it gets complicated. It’s called Leader Pass.  Only Warrior Leaders can make those noises. When the Pure’s first came here there were hundreds of leaders. Now, they are the rarest breed. Sihren is the only leader in Fierce Coven. Every coven now only has one leader. Which means, if ever Sihren dies, Fierce Coven doesn’t have a new leader, which means we cannot fight properly in battle.”
    “Why doesn’t somebody just learn the noises?” Jeda asked.
    “You can’t learn them- you are born with them. Sihren was one of the lucky ones.”
    They walked through a large arch doorway, and into a large room. A huge circular arena was smack in the middle, with a tall fence lining the edges. The entrance to the arena was a gap between the fence on both sides. Pillars of rocks stacked on top of each other lined around the room and held up rooves of dried leaves. 
     “Okay, everyone! Here, please!” Mr Rohanson called. All the students sat at his feet, and the excited chatting subsided.
    “Rule number one, you are not allowed to go into the Warriors rooms. You can stay in here only.” He gestured to the series of holes underneath the rooves. “Rule number two, if you see a Warrior you’re not allowed to bother them. The consequences from me will be severe, even if you just ask for their autograph. Rule number three, you have to come when I call you. Last person here has to do ten curl ups.”
    Everybody groaned.
    “Now, the game we’re going to play is Protection Steal. I’ll separate you into teams. You must pick one person to protect, and the aim of the game is to bring the protected person from the other team into your base. Simple enough, but for a tip, I suggest you create some Warrior Lines like the ones we have been studying.”
    Everyone was buzzing with excitement.
    Mr Rohanson separated the class, and appointed the bases at opposite ends of the arena in the middle.  Jeda and Buster were separated into different teams, but Jeda didn’t mind. Mr Rohanson had said that the best way to learn to be a Warrior is to be competitive against your friends, but not in a mean way.
    “I think that I should be Leader of this team.” Gina sneered once everyone huddled around each other. Gina was part fox, with a red and gold fur and large brown eyes, and was very stubborn.
    Nobody protested, and she went on.
    “Okay. I think Kailou, Judd and Finn should go Head Defence, Stacey, Danny and Allie should be Sneakers, and Nala and I should be Front Attackers. And then- oh…” she looked at the last two people who hadn’t been given a place yet, Jeda and the shy dog called Lila. She grimaced.
    “Since I’m Leader, I think Jeda should be the protected one. You’ll need to stand over there.” She added slowly, as though Jeda couldn’t speak dog.  She pointed to a dark corner of the base.    
    Jeda nodded and began walking; feeling insulted that Gina was talking to him like he was a baby, and upset that he wasn’t any help to the team.
    “I think he should be a Front Attacker.” someone said. Everyone turned to see Mr Rohanson walking up to the huddle.
    “But he doesn’t know anything- he probably doesn’t even know what Warrior Lines are!” Gina protested.  Jeda was insulted again.
    “That may be true, but he needs to learn eventually, doesn’t he?”  Mr Rohanson said, smiling.
    “Oh, no Mr Rohanson, you don’t have to- I don’t want to let the team down,” protested Jeda.
    “You can’t do that in your first Warrior Training class, where’s the fun? I’m the teacher, and I say you be a Front Attacker. Lila can take your place.”
    He walked off, shouting that the game would begin in a few moments.
    Jeda was scared now. Gina sighed and rolled her eyes.
    “Come on, Jeda, you need to stand here. As soon as Mr Rohanson says go, we’re gonna run across the Training Arena and get the Front Attackers off the other team, including their Head Defence. While we’re distracting them the Sneakers will go around the back and try and get the protected one. Under no circumstances are you allowed to go in front of me, okay? I’m the Leader, remember?” she said incredibly fast. Jeda nodded, trying to remember what she had said first.
    All of the team took up their positions. The appointed Sneakers were all gone, but Jeda was sure he saw a shadow just dart from a post a second ago. The other team was out of sight.
    “Are you ready?!” Mr Rohanson shouted from the centre of the arena.
    “GO!”