Jack Templar and the Monster Hunter Academy: The Templar Chronicles: Book 2 (6 page)

But then I noticed the heavy trail of blood on the snow behind him as we circled one another. Soon, his other front foot gave out and he put pressure on his injured leg to keep from falling. He let out a yelp and nearly fell. He licked the wound, in turns whimpering and then growling at me.

Finally, whether too weak from the loss of all that blood or giving into the pain from the bolt, the wolf’s legs gave way and he crumpled to a pile.

Sword raised, I edged up closer to him, careful that it might be a ploy to get me to lower my guard. But after a few steps toward him, he didn’t even raise his head to look at me. He lay there, taking short, labored gasps of air.

I raised my sword over my head and prepared to strike a finishing blow.

This movement caught the wolf’s attention and he tilted his head with all his might. He looked at me with enormous brown eyes and I saw an intelligence there that I hadn’t expected. Even though it seemed like he knew what I was about to do, he just lay his massive head back on the ground and closed his eyes.

There was something about this simple gesture that took me off guard. I knew what I should do. Strike hard and fast, then move on to find the others.

But I couldn’t.

I thought of what my Aunt Sophie had looked like in her devil-wolf form, waiting for death at the hands of Ren Lucre. Was I to be no better than him? Suddenly, I didn’t have the stomach to kill the wolf.

I lowered my sword to the ground and put both hands out in front of me so the wolf could see them.

“All right, my furry friend,” I said. “Don’t make me regret this.”

The wolf looked up at me with renewed interest. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he looked genuinely surprised.

“Shhhh,” I said. “The bolt is poisoned. We need to take it out.” I eased closer, ready to jump back if the wolf made a lunge for me. But he didn’t. He cocked his head on the ground so as to get a good look at me, but he stayed still. “That’s it. Now, I’m working on the assumption that if I help you, you’re not going to jump up and bite me. Can we agree on that?”

The wolf let out a huff of air. I couldn’t be sure, but it seemed like an agreement to me.

I wrapped my fingers around the shaft of the bolt sticking out from the wolf’s shoulder. It was in there solidly, right into the bone. The wolf whined from the pressure on his wound.

“OK, here we go,” I said. “This might hurt a little.” I yanked back as hard as I could and the bolt popped out.

I went reeling backward and landed flat on the ground.

Almost immediately, the wolf was on his feet. In the blink of an eye, he was on top of me, a paw on either side of my shoulders, his massive head directly over my own.

Hot blasts of air blew on my face as the wolf moved closer, inch by inch. His lips pulled back into a snarl, showing a row of sharp teeth that looked like they could chew off my head with one bite. That’s when I considered that taking pity on the wolf might have been the dumbest thing I’d ever done.

Then, as suddenly as he had pinned me to the ground, the wolf jumped off me and ran toward the tree line, still favoring his injured leg but now at least able to put some pressure on it.

I scampered to my feet and grabbed my sword. When I turned back toward him, the wolf was looking over his shoulder at me, almost as if he were amused. He bowed low to the ground, his nose almost in the snow. Awkwardly, I returned his bow and added a little slicing salute with my sword as I had seen Eva do when we sparred.

A burst of howls exploded from the path that the wagon had disappeared down. I looked down the road and saw a faint silhouette of a rider atop a horse galloping down the road. When I turned back, the wolf was gone.

I looked back to the rider and recognized the unmistakable outlines of Eva and Saladin. As they bore down on me my heart sank. Behind them was a black wave of wolves chasing at their heels.

Eva leaned to one side, her arm outstretched.

I slid my sword back into its scabbard and climbed a rock to get a little more height. I knew we would only get one chance at this. If one of us missed, then I was going to be dinner for a pack of hungry wolves.

I tried to stay calm, but the rock had a thin layer of ice on it and my feet kept sliding from one side to the other. When she was only steps away, I nearly lost my balance entirely and had to swing my arms wildly to regain my foothold.

As soon as I did, I felt Eva’s strong grip on my forearm as she lifted me up onto the back of the saddle. Not missing a beat, Saladin cut to the right into the forest, circled back through and charged right at the approaching wolves.

Eva dropped the reins quickly, grabbed the crossbow and immediately shot down the two wolves in the center of the road. The others hesitated just long enough for Saladin to find a weakness in their line. With a giant leap, he was over the two dead bodies, and had given another wolf a sharp kick to the head. Soon we were galloping down the road at a safe distance.

“Where are the others?” I yelled at Eva.

“They’re safe!” she shouted back. “We’re near the Academy.”

I looked back and saw that the wolf pack was back on our trail, howling and snapping at their prey. Further behind them, I saw the wolf I had saved climb up onto a rocky outcropping, the cross of white fur nearly glowing in the night.

“There!” Eva shouted.

I looked ahead and saw a massive stone wall with an open gateway rise up ahead of us. It looked ancient and worn down, as if the forest were trying to reclaim it. Men stood in position along the battlements above the gate, swords and bows at the ready. Two other men on horseback charged at us from the gate, swords swirling in the air, a battle cry bursting like a song from their mouths.

A single howl rose up above all the noise. Strong and clear.

The pack of wolves slid to a standstill in response to the call.

Eva quickly closed the distance to the riders coming from the gate, and as they pulled up to us, she turned Saladin and lined up along with them. Now the three of us faced the wolves together.

“They’re just out of range for the archers,” the rider next to me said. I turned and was surprised to see it was Daniel. “Cheeky devils.”

The wolves clawed at the ground, teeth bared.

The howl came again and this time I followed the sound up to the rock outcropping where the wolf I had saved stood like a general surveying a battlefield. The other wolves reacted to the howl, turned and ran away into the night.

Eva whispered to me, “See that one? The one with the white on its chest? That’s Tiberon. As he commands, the others follow. We’ve been trying for years to track him down. He’s too clever for his own good.”

“Is he a werewolf?” I asked.

“No one knows,” Eva said. “But—”

“But nothing,” spat Daniel. “He’s a werewolf all right, and I’ll wear his skin for a winter coat soon enough. I promise you that, hero.”

I felt Tiberon’s eyes bore into me from his position and I returned the gaze. I decided it would be better if I didn’t reveal my part in helping the wolf that night.

But then Tiberon bowed once again in my direction. The others looked around as if deciding whom the gesture was meant for. I tried to keep my expression blank but I must have done some small thing to acknowledge the wolf because Eva turned to look at me.

“Anything you want to tell me about?” she asked.

I glanced nervously over at Daniel. His eyes were still fixed on Tiberon, hate burning in his eyes. Luckily, it didn’t seem like he had picked up in the connection between the black wolf and myself.

“You said the others are inside?” I asked, eager to change the subject. “Maybe we should go in.”

Eva gave me a hard look, but finally reined Saladin around and trotted back into the fortified wall, followed by Daniel and the other rider.

We crossed through the large gates, revealing the sheer thickness of the outer walls. They must have been nearly twenty feet thick on all ends. Inside was an enormous courtyard lit by small campfires and torches. Wooden structures were pressed against the fort’s massive walls, their roofs serving a platform for the bulwarks above. At the far end of the courtyard, nearly a hundred yards away, was another wall. This one stretched across the mouth of a massive cave that appeared to go deep into the mountain. This looked even older than the outer wall and bore signs of repair work done over time. I wondered if this second wall was the next line of defense, or if was built to keep things from getting out of the cave.

In the center of this second wall was another gate, set between two tall towers on either side. Eva noticed my interest and said, “That’s the Citadel, the original Academy before the outer walls were built.”

“And what’s that?” I asked, pointing to a giant oak tree growing just outside the second wall. Its trunk was as wide as two cars and its gnarled, lower branches were the size of full trees in their own right. Intertwined throughout the tree was a series of balconies, stairways and walls that seemed almost part of the tree itself. Golden lanterns hung throughout its thick branches, giving it an ethereal quality.

“That?” Eva said, “That’s the Templar Tree. Supposedly planted by Jacques de Molay himself.”

“Who’s Jacques de Molay?” I asked. Unfortunately, Daniel was near enough to overhear my question.

“Did you just ask who Jacques de Molay was?” he snickered. “Yeah, he seems like the One to me.” He spurred his horse forward.

I was about to ask Eva about it when Will and T-Rex mobbed me.

“You son-of-a-gun,” Will said. “You scared the crap outta me.”

“We thought they got you,” T-Rex blubbered.

I climbed off the horse and we all hugged each other, laughing.

Bacho rushed up and nearly knocked us over. “I thought you was a goner for sure.”

“What? And let you guys have all the fun?” I asked. “Not a chance.”

Several dozen people crowded around us in the courtyard, everyone talking over one another excitedly. I could only catch pieces of the conversation.

“Which one you thinks he is?”

“Canna be the little guy, can it?

“Thems both kinda little. I thought he’d be tall as a minotaur.”

“I heard he was s’pposed to be the best fighter ever.”

“He’s friends with a Ratling?”

“Wolves can almost get him. Then how can he be the One?”

“Maybe he’s not, right? That’s what I heard the instructors sayin’. Maybe he’s not.”

Thud. Thud. Thud.

A heavy rapping echoed throughout the fort, immediately silencing the group. I followed everyone’s gaze upward to the source of the noise, to a well-lit balcony perched on the second floor of the Templar Tree. An ancient looking woman stood looking out over the courtyard, a wooden staff clutched in her hands.

She pointed at us and curled her fingers in to tell us to come meet her. Then she went inside.

“Alright. Excitement’s over,” Eva called out. “Instructors, see to your students. Ratlings, finish your preparations for the breakfast meal.” She pointed a finger toward Will, T-Rex and me. “You three, come with me.”

As we followed Eva into the tree, I noticed faces stealing curious looks at me as they filtered back into doorways around the courtyard. There were a few people in their early twenties, but most of them were around my age, some of them much younger. But it wasn’t hard to notice that even without knowing me at all, there wasn’t a single face that looked happy that I was there. In fact, many of them looked outright hostile. 

“Don’t worry about them,” Eva said, also noticing the cold reception. “After being in this place a while, it’s hard to accept outsiders.”

“Where are the adults? The instructors?” Will asked.

“Most instructors are my age. You don’t find a lot of adult hunters,” Eva said.

“Do I want to know why?” T-Rex asked.

“The average life expectancy for an active hunter is only twenty-five years. I told you, this isn’t a game. This is life and death. Come on, Aquinas doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

We followed Eva toward the giant oak tree. I noticed there wasn’t a single electric light anywhere in the compound.

“No electricity?” I asked.

“A few generators for emergencies. But we’re completely off the grid so this place can stay secret,” Eva explained. “Aquinas prefers the old hunting methods anyway. You won’t find guns here. Swords, axes, and crossbows are our weapons of choice.”

“No electricity?” T-Rex moaned. “Does that mean no Xbox?”

“No Xbox. No Wi-Fi. No TV,” Eva said. “Just training on how to hunt and fight the world’s most terrifying monsters.”

“More like how to hide and survive attacks by the world’s most terrifying monsters,” said Daniel, striding up toward us.

“There’s some disagreement about how aggressive we should be,” Eva said, giving Daniel a hard look.

“We’re monster hunters, not monster hiders,” Daniel said.

“But we are the Black Guard,” Eva said. “We watch over the Regs and keep them safe.”

“Regs?” Will asked. “What are they?”

“Non-hunters,” Daniel spat. “Regular people. The ones who sit out there, happy in their ignorance of monsters. I don’t know why we should bother protecting them. What have they ever done for us?”

“Daniel,” an old, creaky voice said from above us. “That will be enough.” It was Aquinas. “You four, come up.”

Doing the quick math, Daniel replied, “Don’t you mean five?”

“I may be old, but I can still count fairly well,” Aquinas muttered as she walked away from the balcony edge. “Monster hiders, indeed.”

Daniel looked to Eva who just shrugged. I couldn’t help but suppress a grin. Daniel spotted it and looked furious as he stomped off. 

Eva walked to the stairs, but then turned to us. “Just…just be careful what you say. Aquinas has a bit of a temper.”

“That old bat?” Will whispered. “What’s she going to do, throw her dentures at us?”

I shuddered at the phrase
that old bat
. The last time I heard that was when my principal had actually transformed into a giant bat creature right before my eyes. A chill passed through me and I tried to put it out of my mind.