Wolves Of The Ravine (abandoned)

Chapter 9

Ferone couldn't hear anything now, just the complaints of the wolves down on the lower platform. Brincel prodded him sharply. "Have you gone deaf? It's the second time you're daydreaming."

"I am awake." Ferone growled, then suddenly he gained a pricking urge of annoyance. "Why do we have to hide in this spot when we have claws?" He questioned, flexing his claws.

"Hasn't bossy Tyun told you so?" Brincel snorted, Ferone stiffened at the mention of his name, but was relieved that no wolf had payed attention to the conversation and that Tyun was up fighting.

"Nope. Continue." Ferone said, faintly interested.

Brincel paused and shuffled his paws as if unsure what to say. "Well there are different ranks, the Golden claws, the right and left hand wolves, the Alpha and the Beta stay up fighting. Tyun is a Golden Claw."

"What is with the 'paws'?" Ferone muttered under his breath, turning directly to Brincel he barked. "What rank am I?" Brincel cocked his head to the side and hung his jaw open in a thinking gesture,

"Softpaw, I guess?" Brincel said in a strange tone, Ferone knew he didn't intend sarcasm and nodded.

"And you?" Ferone asked.

"Silverpaw, we choose which higher rank we wish to become." Brincel answered, raising his chest in pride. "Amazon and Rift are also that rank, Pyan had recently become a Silverpaw." Ferone's head spun with unique and odd names.

But before the conversation could continue, Eclipse had emerged on the top of the slope. "Fellow wolves, we believe it is safe to come up." She announced, her voice had surprisingly lost its strength from last time Ferone had heard it.

There were a few grunts of relief, yet some wolves continued arguing, not noticing the situation. Again the small trail of wolves were battered to the side as they were led up the slope. To Ferone's surprise, the clearing was neat, though Alpha looked stressed, his amber eyes squinting and his bushy brown tail lowered. Eclipse opened her mouth to speak but instead came out a croak. "Alpha, would you like to speak?"

Alpha coughed, seeing all eyes rest on him, he said silently but smoothly. "Listen up wolves, the attack was just..." Alpha paused, there were panicked murmurs that filled the air with anxiety but instantly died down when Alpha spoke again. "They ran away like puny rats after their insolent conversation, not one of our fur was shed." He barked.

"Did they mean the pack of rats or the Parnes?" A wolf nervously whispered, loud enough for Ferone to hear.

"Peh- rats." Brincel snorted. "They definitely did some nonsense to ruffle Alpha's fur."

Ferone felt down himself without knowing until he spoke. "Marigold-" He almost barked out aloud, luckily Brincel didn't notice and had his snout turned to a black she-wolf.

"Good day, Rift." Brincel greeted the she-wolf; which Ferone presumed was Rift. Rift stared suspiciously at the upset Ferone with sharp green eyes.

"Sorry for my not-intended hostility, but what is your name again?" Rift questioned him, before acknowledging Brincel with a nod.

"I'm Ferone." Ferone introduced.

Rift nodded, she was rather good-mannered. "I guess you must go to Tyun." She said, her voice softening. Ferone nodded back and gave a farewell to Brincel before bitterly crawling towards Tyun.

Surprisingly Tyun was as dim as Alpha and Eclipse. Maybe his 'daydreaming' was true, but how come Brincel didn't see it? Perhaps it really was just a pack of rats and they startled them. "Hello Tyun, do we need to continue training?" He dared to ask, biting his lip.

"You look awfully tense. Of course we're training." Tyun snorted disdainfully.

Ferone looked up and sighed.