Until now, One-eye had spent his time alone, locked up in a small, moist, abandoned fox den just outside the huge clearing that contained so many animals. In the den, he'd been constantly watched by at least two guards.

It had been a terrible week. He'd seen barely any daylight because the entrance of the den had been blocked with sticks and stones, to prevent him from possibly escaping, and he'd hardly been fed. He was also close to dehydration, only being able to lick the moisty rocks that surrounded him, and the tiny, human-made thing the guards referred to as a Schüssel filled with a little water, which they gave him once every two days.

But the worst thing was the loneliness. No mother to comfort him, no sister to play with. One-eye even preferred Blaze's neglectful presence over this endless solitude. He'd cried for hours on end, begging to be let out of this awful confinement, but he didn't get any response, not even a "Stop crying!" from an aggressive guard.

One-eye sighed. He turned around again. The den was so small that he could barely rotate himself in it, and even he, with his hump that caused him to slouch when he sat, couldn't sit down without hitting his head on the rocky ceiling.

He heard the dim sounds of the guard in front of his prison moving. I wish I could move, he thought. He looked up when the noise got louder, though.

The branches and rocks covering the den's entrance, and thus blocking almost all light, were moving. Then, with a loud crash, the coverage fell inside the den, hitting One-eye, who could barely move, right in the face.

Not a second later, a wolf shot through the now-visible entrance, and grabbed the pup roughly by the sensitive spot between his scruff and his hump, dragging him out. "Yeeee!" One-eye yelped in pain.

Outside of the prison, he was released and dumped on the ground. He shook his head and whimpered in pain and confusion.

"Move it!"

The loud, raspy voice from the wolf who had been guarding him made him open his eye. He looked around. He was in the middle of a forest.

"The Main Base's this way," the pale she-wolf muttered, annoyed, and she trotted away.

One-eye reluctantly followed her, slowly and stiffly from being locked up in a small and cold den for so long. The light also hurt his only eye. Though the forest was relatively dark here due to the thick leaves, it was still seemed a million times brighter than the den had been.

One-eye got taken to an animal-built cave that lay at the edge of the Main Base, the place where so many different animals came together. On the way to it, he noticed more and more pups around his age, all wolves or wolf-dogs, being forced to go there, as well, with at least one guard flanking them.

He noticed that one of them tried to escape, running to the edge of the clearing. But before the pup even got near the edge, two wolves and a lynx were on top of it, growling lividly.

One-eye was forced to look away by the she-wolf that was guiding him. "In!" she urged, pointing at the cave.

The grey pup looked at it and swallowed in fear. After being stuck in a smelly and claustrophobic hole for a week, he didn't want to go back into anything that vaguely represented a den, including caves. I am not going in there!

"Move it!" The pale wolf pushed him in.

Inside the cave, it was a mess. There were lots of pups, most of them wolves, though two or three had some dog traits, and all were screaming and shouting, talking loudly, trying to protest.

"Why are we here? I'm afraid!"

"Me, too! I want my mommy! Allow us to go back!"

Judging by the battered fur and small wounds most of them had, they also had been locked up in similar circumstances as One-eye'd been. Though, when he looked closer, he saw only a few pups had severe scars like he had. Have so little of them rebelled against coming with that stupid catamount? Am I the only one here that gives a flying feather about my family?

With a pang of mental pain he realized that now, things were going to be worse. Besides the fact that he'd never see his own family again, and that he was eventually going to have to kill others, he was also maimed now. He'd been born deformed, but now, with only one eye and the scars the cougar had caused, he was anything but average-looking, and he already felt really, really uncomfortable with so many animals around him.

Being raised with only a mother, a neglectful dad, and some occasional siblings, of which most died really early, he had little to no experience with other animals. Ignoring that cougar that scarred me...

The she-wolf picked him up by his scruff and threw him in the crowd of whining pups.

They avoided him, and kept shouting at a wolf-dog that was sitting on a small log in front of them. She must have some high-ranked position, One-eye thought, as he slowly backed off to the cave wall. He wanted to be as far away from these pups as possible. None of them really looked at him, though; they mostly kept shouting and swearing.

The wolf-dog sitting on the log, a brown female with blue eyes and one pale ear, began to shout, trying to silence the pups.

What is she trying to accomplish? There's no way you can quiet so many pups like this, One-eye thought. He pushed himself against the wall, wishing he could blend in, and kept still. He did feel the slight urge to join in, but he had never been outspoken. Besides, was it really going to make a difference? Speaking against what a member of the Clan wants had only given him misery, so why risk more?

"Quiet! All of you, be quiet, please!" The wolf-dog was helplessly trying to silent the crowd, almost howling.

"Please, please! Release us! We miss our families! I'll never see my grandparents again!"

"Let us go! Let us go!"

One-eye saw how more and more pups started to join in with the "Let us go"-chant, until all of them, except him, were shouting it at the same time.

The wolf-dog shook her head and put her tail between her hind legs. She tried to look furious by baring her teeth and laying her ears in her neck, but there was no way that she was going to be able to control this mob. The other pups' guards had also left the cave, and she stood alone.

One-eye felt some very, very slight glee overcome the depression he'd slipped into ever since he had been taken away from his family. Seeing someone of the Clan--his enemy--suffer like this, felt somewhat satisfactory.

He stiffened, though, when he saw someone else enter. No. The hair on the back of his neck and his hump rose and his tail immediately went between his hind legs. The copper-colored catamount!

It was her. She was tall, her green eyes felt like they were piercing him. No... He pushed himself even more against the wall and whimpered. No, please leave, please! No matter how many Clan animals he hated, she'd been the one to take him away, to take out one eye, to tell him about how awful his life was going to be from now on. Why her?

The cougar took a deep breath and screamed, loud and shrill, and that sound scared One-eye to the bone. That'd been the same scream she'd let out when she had scarred him, though now it was ten times as loud.

The pups were quiet all of a sudden, staring at the high-ranked feline with big eyes.

One, however, dared to still speak. "But I want to go back to my parents! I don't want to become an assassin! I—"

The cougar suddenly shot forward, pinned the pup down to the ground, and without warning ripped off her ear.

"HUAAAAH!" the pup screamed, the cry echoing in the cave.

The catamount spat the ear out on the ground and let her go. The pup crawled back, teary eyes staring into the distance. One-eye stared at her, together with the others. Poor girl, he thought. Still, a ripped ear was much more common and looked much better than a missing eye. If only that cougar would've taken my ear, as well...I can live with one ear...

The catamount looked up, staring at the pups. Her voice sounded cruel. "Anyone else who desires to speak?"

Everyone was quiet.

The wolf-dog sitting on the log, however, spoke. "Thank you so much, Miss Jones. I didn't know they still had the guts to rebel." She looked guilty, but her ears pointed forward.

She isn't very good at faking bravery, One-eye thought.

The cougar nodded. "Very well. Here are the trainers. Good luck with teaching these punks some discipline."

"Thank you, Miss Jones."

One-eye and the other pups watched Miss Jones leave, and three other animals appeared in the cave entrance, blocking some of the light falling in. Their shadows on the cave-floor looked menacing.