Jack Templar and the Monster Hunter Academy: The Templar Chronicles: Book 2 (8 page)

“I doubt any of them will make it,” said someone else in the crowd. The hunters nearest us looked embarrassed by the comment. Will stepped forward but I held him back by the arm. The last thing we needed was to get into a fight on our first day of school.  

Within seconds of the last bell, the room was back to being a flurry of activity. Soon, there wasn’t a single person left in their bed; everyone was busy putting on their clothes and stretching the sheets tight on their mattresses. Will jumped down to the floor beside me. “You’ve got to make your bed,” he said. “Hurry up.”

I made the bed quickly. It was easy enough because I had slept so hard that I don’t think I actually moved once during the night. Will had found out from one of the boys that the bathroom was in the back, so we went there and waited in line. No one spoke to us, but there was no shortage of curious looks and sidelong glances. After we had our turn in the bathroom, we followed the migration of boys out of the barracks and into the courtyard.

The Academy looked completely different by day. While the flicker of campfires and torches the night before had made the courtyard seem mysterious and foreboding, the bright morning light made it look more like a working farm than a secret hideout for monster hunters. Well, a working farm with extensive fortifications and battlements, that is.

The layout of the fort was fairly basic and entirely built for defense. I could see the main wall better in the daylight. It looked like something out of a history textbook about the Middle Ages. Black boulders stacked high into the air with slits for shooting arrows. The wall was rugged and looked like sections of it had been repaired over the centuries. I wondered whether it had been time and the elements that had made the repairs necessary, or if those sections were the scars from long-ago battles.

The Academy’s main wall curved in an arc from left to right, both ends terminating into the side of a mountain of black rock. In the dark, I hadn’t noticed that the entire Academy actually rested on top of a small plateau with a massive, sheer mountain face behind it. I looked up to the top and felt dizzy from the height of it. It was a perfect defense, as it seemed climbing the face was impossible. I suspected that the opposite side of the mountain was just as steep, giving an attacking army no option other than an uphill assault on the wall.

And that was just the first line of defense. A second wall rose up on the opposite side of the wide courtyard, covering the mouth of a giant cave.  I noticed there were two towers built into the wall on either side of the gate that I hadn’t noticed the night before. This wall looked even older than the outer defenses.

At least twenty feet tall, it was covered with nasty spikes, blades and wires, making climbing nearly impossible. The roof of the cave towered over it and went back deep into the mountain.

I took a few steps backward to get a better angle and see how far back the cave went. The rock ceiling continued to rise, but the shadows were too dark; it was impossible to tell how big it was. 

I was no expert in medieval fortifications, but this set-up seemed perfect. Any attack would first have to come uphill to the first wall, where the enemy would be completely exposed to the archers and defenders. An almost impossible task. But, if they were to succeed, the defenders had to simply pull back to the second wall and renew the defense. Again, the attackers would be totally in the open in the wide crescent-shaped space of the courtyard, an area that was about the length of a football field in the center and that tapered to a point at each end.

Meanwhile, the defenders would be holed up in the cave system protected by a thick, seemingly impenetrable wall. I imagined that there would have been food and water supplies in the cave that could last through any siege. Whoever had built this fortress must have known they would eventually be attacked. I wondered if the Black Guard had been the original builders and, if not, then who? I added it to my growing list of questions to ask Eva when I saw her next.

“Jack!” Will called out to me. “Come on, breakfast is over this way.”

Just the mention of breakfast sent my stomach rumbling. I jogged to catch up with him. Boys and girls ranging in age from eight to sixteen poured out of the barracks and converged on a grassy open area near the top end of the crescent. Nearly everyone wore the same simple uniform—all black—including a heavy black cloak to ward off the cold. The only exceptions were the instructors, who wore blood-red cloaks, and the Ratlings.

The Ratlings stood behind the serving tables, hefting mounds of steaming food onto the hunter’s trays. They wore stiff grey coats that went three-fourths of the way to the floor and covered their heads with knit caps. But their clothes weren’t the only thing that separated them.

I remembered Aquinas saying that hunters became Ratlings if they were injured or couldn’t handle the training. I noticed quite a few of them walked with a limp, or even had an arm, leg or foot missing. They ran the gamut from being so thin that a soft breeze could knock them down to someone like Bacho, who looked like he just might have eaten a couple of the skinny Ratlings for breakfast. Right next to Bacho, grinning like he had won the lottery, was T-Rex dressed in the grey Ratling uniform.

I waved at him and he waved back.

The distinctive smell of bacon wafted over the air and I realized how hungry I was. I grabbed a plate and watched as it filled with bacon, scrambled eggs, baked tomatoes and chunks of a white cheese. I reached Bacho and T-Rex’s place in line and they gave me wide grin.

“Isn’t this awesome!” T-Rex said. “We got to eat before you guys. All the bacon I wanted!”

Bacho smiled, happy with his new charge. “Don’t ya worry, M’ster Jack,” Bacho said. “I’ll take care a’ T-Rex ‘ere. Come on, you can ‘ave a lil extra. On the ‘ouse.” Bacho heaped a massive serving of thick porridge onto my plate.

It sloshed over all my other food and dribbled off the edge of my plate. Bacho looked so proud to have helped me out that I tried not to show my dismay that my entire breakfast was now going to taste like porridge.

“Thanks, Bacho,” I said. “I appreciate it. See you later, T-Rex.”

I followed Will through the rows of tables, trying to ignore the people staring at us. We took a seat at an empty table and sat across from another. No one had started eating yet, so we followed their example and waited.

I craned my neck to find Eva in the crowd. I spotted her sitting at a table filled with older hunters, all of them instructors, as noted by the ribbons tied around their arms. Someone blocking my view moved to the side and I saw that Daniel sat next to her. He was telling a story and the entire table was hanging onto every word. He must have told the punch line as the table erupted in laughter and the instructors closest to Daniel slapped him on the back.

“What a putz,” I whispered.

As if sensing my stare, Daniel turned and looked directly at me.

I spun back around in my chair and pretended to play with my breakfast, forcing myself not to look over in that direction again. Even as more people filtered in and got their food, no one sat at the table with us. They just passed right by like we didn’t exist and sat at the next table over. Soon, everyone had been served and every table in the room was crowded to over-capacity, but the ten open spots at our table remained empty.

“Geez,” Will whispered to me. “I know we didn’t take a shower this morning, but I didn’t think we smelled this bad.” He leaned toward me and took a good sniff. “It might be you.”

I was about to comment that he didn’t exactly smell like a flower either, when Aquinas walked into the room. Everyone stood up from their chairs and fell silent.

“Hunters and trainees of the Black Guard. May honor guide you, may truth comfort you, and may justice always be your goal,” Aquinas intoned.

In unison, everyone put their right fist to their chest, then extended their arm forward. It was the same hunter salute I had learned from Eva. “Do your duty, come what may,” replied the group.

“Enjoy your meal,” Aquinas said.

The room exploded in loud conversation as students dug into their food. Famished, I hardly noticed the soggy porridge that covered all my food. Will and I barely said a word as we devoured our plates in a matter of minutes.

Good thing too, because no sooner had we finished than a high-pitched bell rang, very different from the deep tones of the one T-Rex had rung earlier. In an instant, all the hunters were on their feet and hustling out of the room, leaving their dirty plates behind.

Will and I followed along and jogged to catch up. A quick look back confirmed what I thought. The Ratlings were clearing the tables and cleaning up the mess left by the hunters. 

The crowd jogged to the main courtyard and quickly assembled itself in organized rows with military-like precision, ten men across and fifteen deep. At the head of each row, facing the column of fifteen, was an instructor.

Everyone seemed to have an assigned spot. Everyone except Will and me, that is. Thinking it was first-come, first serve, we tried to stand in a column only to shortly have a hunter run up and claim the spot as their own. The bell kept ringing, adding a sense of urgency to find a place. We worked our way to the back of the formation and took our place there, making two columns an uneven length. A glance down the line confirmed I was in Eva’s column.

“Get behind me,” I whispered to Will. “We want to stick together.”

But Will had a different plan. He spotted Daniel and jogged down the back of the formation to join his column.

The bell finally stopped ringing. Everyone snapped to attention and fell silent.

Daniel left his column and walked over to the boulder with the large bell on it. “Good morning,” he started. “Despite the events of last night, today will be a normal training day on the regular rotation. But first, three announcements. Until further notice, due to the aggressive wolf activity, leaving the grounds will be by instructor permission only.” Groans rumbled through the crowd. “Second, we welcome the return of one of our best instructors after a successful field assignment. She will be filling in for Instructor Saliba who is still recovering from his training injuries. Eva.” Daniel pointed to her and clapped his hands. The assembly followed his example and gave her a rousing applause. “Third, we all heard the bell ring this morning.” He played up the drama, shaking his head as if he were speaking of a great tragedy. “Not the five rings of a hero, but three. Only three.” He strung out his delivery, pacing and shaking his head. “A person who was given the chance of a life of valor and bravery, and instead chose one made of potatoes and dirty dishes.”

A low chuckle passed through the group. Eva stared Daniel down with a scowl.

“Every day, you must choose to be here,” Daniel said. “We need you. We need all of you. But only if you have the commitment to achieve excellence. Because, after all, what is the Black Guard, if not excellence?”

I looked around at the young hunters near me. They were eating every word up, their heads nodding in agreement. 

After a long pause, Daniel let go his near-hypnotic hold on his audience by clapping his hands together. “I wish that excellence extended to our weather.” The group dutifully laughed. Daniel held up his hands and they fell quiet. “I should also point out that we have two new recruits who have joined us. Will Chacon and Jack Smith,” Daniel said. “Welcome them.”

“Templar,” Eva corrected. “It’s Jack Templar.” She whispered something to Daniel who shrugged and grinned. 

Everyone spun around to seek us out. A murmur passed through the crowd.

“I know I speak for both of them when I tell you they do not want, nor should they get, special treatment,” Daniel said. “They must earn the right to be here just like everyone else. Or they can join the Ratlings like their friend and make our supper.”

Laughter rippled through the crowd.

“We’re on regular rotation,” Daniel said. “Dismissed.”

In a flurry of action, each instructor ran to a different section of the open area, followed fast behind by the column of hunters. Eva stood where she was, realizing that if everyone ran off, then the current area would suddenly be empty. I watched Will run over to where Daniel’s group was meeting. Daniel reached out and shook Will’s hand generously, introducing him to other members of his group.

I turned back to see that the rest of my column had already moved up and gathered around Eva, sitting on the ground in a semi-circle. I was left out in the open, the only person not in a group. Suddenly, the hair on the back of my neck pricked upward as if someone were staring at me. I looked up at the giant oak and saw Aquinas hunched over the railing, watching my every move.

I took a deep breath and jogged to Eva’s group. She was already mid-lecture, talking about the difference between rock ogres and forest ogres, and the most efficient ways to dispose of each.

I took a seat and tried to pay attention, but my thoughts were a million miles away. I couldn’t help but wonder if I had made the right decision to come here.

Certainly, Aquinas knew some of the things I needed to know, but she didn’t appear even close to sharing those answers with me. And the training we were doing was great if I had a couple of years to dedicate to study. But I didn’t have that kind of time. My father’s life was in peril, and every minute spent playing soldier was time that could be used to search for him and free him.

I decided to give the Academy a few days, but if Aquinas wouldn’t give me some answers by then, I’d have no choice but to strike out on my own.

I looked back over to the balcony on the giant oak and saw that Master Aquinas had gone. I settled in for my first full day of class at the Monster Hunter Academy.

Chapter Five

A
ny hope that I would be welcomed with open arms by my new monster hunter family seemed to be just that, a hope. True to Daniel’s introduction of me, everyone seemed to not only go out of their way not to give me any special attention, they appeared to go out of their way not to give me any attention at all.