Chapter 7
Half-wolf cave
"Ice, Ice wake up!" Night was prodding me with his paw, he must not have been awake long because he hadn't even groomed. "Lionclaw and Highsun are waiting for us, we need to get a move on!" I started a few licks so I didn't look as if something chewed on me all night. I noticed that Night looked a little uncomfortable. "What's wrong Night, you don't have worm belly do you?" I asked, I was very protective of my brother so little things I notice about him put me on edge. "No," he said "I just wanted to thank you, for yesterday I mean. I was about to wet my fur." He didn't have to tell me, for some reason the emotion of wolves around me I am able to feel really easily. "That's all right, we should go before we become scrap meat." When we left the cave, Highsun and Lionclaw were sitting at the base of Alpha peak. "With the way you two get along," Highsun said ,"we have decided to train you together." "Later though we will start training you separately as you will not always have your kin to work with you." Included Lionclaw. "I only got an appetizer of your strength young Ice, now I try the full meal." Highsun guided us out of pack cave and through the forest until we reached a clearing that had a stream flow through it. Highsun flicked her tail signaling my brother and I to stay on one side of the clearing while she and Lionclaw went to the other. "Let's see how you can fight when I am prepared, Ice attack me." After getting over the shock of my Alpha telling me to attack her, I started sizing her up. She was about three times my size and weight, clearly an Alpha, but what I lacked in size and strength I gained in speed. I sped forward aiming for her left shoulder but she neatly danced away and moved me aside with a single paw. "You need to keep yourself balanced," she said as I shook the dust out of my pelt. "If you are off balance than you have an instant disadvantage in battle." I turned back around to find a better means of attack. I found quickly that the best way to hit her was on her back. I found a tree branch that hung low enough that I could get a clean landing. I ran to the tree and climbed it as quickly as I could. "Are you scared she asked as I became invisible in the branches. Once I caught my breath I made my move. I landed on her back, right between the front shoulder blades, a weak spot for wolves and it pushed her to the ground. I may have been weaker than Highsun but I was strong enough to keep her down. I wasn't going to hurt her when I put my teeth on her scruff but Lionclaw was ready to pick me off her like a tick. "Don't," she said, "she's not going to hurt me, she's just making it as authentic as possible." I could feel her muscles relax as if she was giving up. The moment I released my jaws she leaped up, throwing me across the clearing. At that moment, the power that surged through me at the ceremony now flowed through me, this time I surrendered to it. I happened to fly towards a tree and just like Alpha peak, I twisted my body and pushed off it, into the side of Highsun. The shock stopped me in my tracks and Highsun went sailing to the side of the clearing into a pile of stones. A feel of triumph was quickly replaced with fear when my Alpha didn't get up.