Captain of the Guards- Chapter Three- Training Begins

Fleck awoke to being pushed out of the cave with the tide of the other guards. Soon, all of the guards were gathered in a place that looked like the training clearing. Fleck waved her tail to the other guards in greeting. A few of them grunted as a sign of recognition, but this was all she received in reply.

“Hello, everyone,” Fleck said lightly, pretending to be oblivious to the glares that she was receiving. “My name is Fleck. What are your names?”

The first cat to answer this was a white tom with brown splotches all over and a tail half as long as was normal. He wasn’t as large as any of the others, but still looked as though he could fight quite well, and was much bigger then Fleck. “My name’s Mudsplash,” he grunted.

A huge gray tabby she-cat with intense green eyes and a white muzzle, chest, belly, and paws stepped forth next. She was just a little smaller then Oatmeal was, and made both Fleck and Mudsplash look quite pathetic. “Jade,” she said. “My name is Jade.” At that, the she-cat withdrew, looking as  though dung was being held directly beneath her nose. 

A third cat, another she-cat, with a snow-white coat and and insane look in her crystal-blue eyes spoke next. Her beautiful fur was well-peppered with small black spots and her tail was tipped with black. “I am named Frost,” she snarled. “Scum.” She added this without bothering to lower her voice, as that all of the cats there could hear her perfectly. Mudsplash sniggered at this.

The last cat, a light ginger she-cat stepped forward. She had tattered, darker ginger ears and a bobtail of the same color. Her paws were dark ginger, also and she had a ginger patch over her right eye and a large, dark ginger spot on her back. Her cocoa-brown eyes flickered with spunky menace and she had a huge, transparent gun strapped to her left hind leg. Fleck recognized the gun as the first that she had ever seen. “I’m Ginger,” she said, and then melted back into the throng of cats without so much as another word.

Fleck could tell that it would be harder for her to befriend these cats then she had assumed.

“Okay,” Fleck said with a heavy sigh. “So what are we doing for training today?”

“Today’s training,” said a new voice from behind her, “is going to consist solely of assessing our newest member.”

Jump slightly and whipping her head around to face the speaker, Fleck found that it was nome other then the king himself. Nodding shortly, she asked, “So what do I have to do?”

With agility that she would not have expected from neither him nor her own king, Slate leapt up from the ground to the lowest branch of the guard’s den. “This is what we are to do today: First, each o you in turn will have a one-on-one with Fleck, a twenty-minute break in between each round. And no, Ginger, it will be claws and teeth only, no guns. And there will be no killing, Jade. We have very few guards already.

“Next, after another brake, Fleck will demonstrate the so-called hunting skills that she claims to have by catch an article of prey for me, all of you guards, and herself.

“After this, Fleck will chose a gun type and you guards with teach her how to use it. If she fails to complete these exercises as I had hoped, then perhaps Jade with get her wish. I will oversee her progress from my den.”

He abandoned them, at that. Jade licked her lips. Fleck recalled Jade’s ‘wish’ last night being ripping off her head. With a shudder, she averted her eyes from the hungry glare that Jade was giving her.

“Me first!” Jade snarled, tail twitching madly.

Fleck crouched, as did Jade. She noticed that Jade would be slow, but undoubtably strong. The hunger in Jade’s eyes was so intimidating, that Fleck found herself almost calling out that she surrendered. No, she told herself, you’re gonna win this. You have to win this or... or Jade will get her wish...

Fleck found herself leaping at Jade, claws extended as far as they would go. Jade attempted to dodge, but Fleck still managed to graze her with her claws. Snarling with fury, Jade bit down, hard, on Fleck’s tail. Pain shot up her spine, and she could taste her blood and Jade’s heavy in the air.

In a rage, Fleck lashed out with her claws and managed to get a claw hold on Jade’s cheek. In a flash, Jade had whipped around and slashed at Fleck’s foreleg. Yowling in pain, Fleck retreated and dashed forth to return the attack. Fleck’s claws dug deep into Jade’s flank. A cry from the king far above her signaled Fleck’s victory.

Jade slunk away, not even bothering to lick her bloody wounds. After the break, Fleck was to fight Ginger, who looked, despite being smaller in size, no less intimidating. Lean muscles rippled beneath her ginger fur as she crouched, brown eyes glittering with sort of an undertone of mad excitement.

Ginger was the fist to attack, and Fleck attempted evading her blow to slowly. Ginger’s razor-sharp canines pierced the skin of Fleck’s left hind leg. Ginger locked her jaw on the leg tighter then a gila monster. With a howl of pain and fury, Fleck slashed blindly, uncaring of where her claws landed. Ginger held on a moment longer, and then released Fleck’s leg.

Fleck attempted to stand, but the leg wouldn’t carry her weight without painfully protesting. Finally, Fleck decided that it was best to ignore the searing pain and to just distribute her weight unevenly among her limbs.

At that moment, Ginger sprang at her, claws unsheathed, but, this time, Fleck was the one who was faster. Claws sheathed (as there was to be no killing during training), she leapt to meet her opponent in midair. Fleck slammed a powerful paw on Ginger’s chest, knocking her with force to the ground.

Pridefully, Fleck helped the stunned Ginger, who looked oddly both shocked and pleased, to her feet. As Ginger passed, grinning, she whispered into Fleck’s ear, “Well done. We’re lucky to have someone like you on our team.”

At that, Fleck felt a warm glow of pride spread from her nose to her tail tip. After that, Fleck defeated, with difficulty, Frost and Mudsplash. After that, the king arrived.

“You have done well,” he told her, eyebrows raised. “I, again, underestimated you. You will do well, I am sure, in our battle in a week.”

“In a week?” Fleck gasped, thinking of her earpiece beneath the bramble bush. A wave of fear swept over her as she thought about Slate’s powerful arsenal and Ember’s meek... Well, Ember didn’t have any trace of a weapon, much less a gun.

“Yes, I figure that it will give you some time to train briefly and time to heal,” the king said, as if he were giving her a real treat by doing this.

“Next wekk,” Fleck said in a whispered echo, marking the date and feeling glad that she had an excuse to leave the kingdom for her hunting assignment.______________________________________________________________________

Fleck crouched, watching a sparrow as it flew above her head. It was flying much to high for even her to jump. She imitated a sparrow’s mating call. The sparrow circled closer by a few feet, uncertain. That was enough for her. Fleck leapt skywards, claws raking the sparrow’s underside. She dropped neatly onto all four paws, her catch dangling limply in her jaws.

As she placed her catch among the four others, Fleck’s mind wandered. How could she get out of fighting her fellow cats, those that she had grown up with, without giving herself away?As she pounced on a deer mouse, an idea hit her. Yes! That was it! she would brake her already-wounded leg as an excuse as not to come to battle. She could say that she had broken it while jumping onto a bird from atop a tall tree...

But Fleck knew that she would really have to land on a bird--which was to be the sparrow that she had recently caught--and really jump off of a tall tree, and really brake her leg.

Shuddering at this not-to pleasant thought, Fleck added the little deer mouse to the pile of prey and withdrew the sparrow. Fleck placed the sparrow beneath the tallest tree that she could find. She then climbed the tree until she was in the topmost branches that would continue to hold her weight. Fleck glanced at the earth. There was sure a lot of air between her and the ground from atop the towering oak.

Swallowing hard, Fleck leapt in free fall, bound for the earth. She forced herself to twist in the air--but not in the way her instincts were telling her to. Normally, she would twist in midair so that her paws would touch softly to the ground. But now she turned so that her left side was the closest to the ground.With a dull thud, she landed, putting as much weight as possible on her injured leg. An excruciating pain ran through her body. Stifling a scream of agony, she got up and attempted putting pressure on the leg, but immediately she collapsed. Fleck couldn’t help but smile weakly, despite the unbearable pain. Her plan had worked; the leg was most defiantly broken.

With great difficulty she stood, careful to keep her broken leg as far off the ground as was possible. Fleck then gathered the prey and limped towards the kingdom.______________________________________________________________________

“What’s wrong with your leg?” Jade, who had evidently forgiven Fleck for beating her, gasped as Fleck threw the prey to the ground.

Ginger and Mudsplash surged forward to assist Fleck in sitting down, unaccompanied by Frost, who was apparently, unlike Jade, holding a grudge against Fleck forevermore.

“I think that I broke it,” Fleck explained in between great lungfuls of air, “when I caught that bird. I leapt down from a really tall tree and I guess that I landed kind of awkwardly.”

“I’m sorry about that,” Ginger said as she examined Fleck’s leg.

“What’s all of this hubbub?” Growled Slate, emerging from his hole within the hollow ash tree. “And where’s my prey? You did catch it, I trust?”

“She broke her leg,” said Jade shortly, thrusting a vole sharply towards her king.

“I’m so sorry,” Slate murmured, not looking sorry at all. “Well, you can rest it while you eat, but we can’t have any other delays. You have to practice shooting if you are to contribute at all in the battle next week.”

“But--but my leg is broken!” Fleck stuttered lamely, in a shock.

“Yes, how inconvenient,” Slate murmured without a trace of sorrow. He withdrew and returned to his den without another word.______________________________________________________________________

-KittyLover8© 2013