Post by Deleted on Feb 4, 2020 4:05:55 GMT -5
Darkstar
I don't got time to look over my shoulder
Leaf-bare 4 - The sky is overcast and frigid winds blow down the mountains, in stark contrast to the day before.
It was sunhigh when a paw prodded Darkstar awake. The tortoiseshell leader blinked blearily up at the face of her deputy, who wore a concerned frown. “Darkstar, I was just about to leave with the sunhigh patrol and noticed the dawn patrol has yet to return. The camp guides haven’t seen any of them.”
Darkstar pushed herself to a sitting position, licking one paw and drawing it over her face a few times in order to help her wake up. It took a moment for her to process Rainfur’s words. Her ears flicked and her sharp gaze settled on the silver tabby, “Take the sunhigh patrol and follow their trail.” It could be TreeClan, finally making a move… or it could be Demon. “Take two more cats with you, just in case.” Rainfur nodded and slipped away.
Darkstar settled back into her nest, but not to sleep. She waited, fiery gaze burning in the dark, her tail tip twitching restlessly. Perhaps she should have gone with. One ear flicked dismissively. If the dawn patrol returned while she was gone, she wouldn’t know what had happened to delay them so long until she’d run about the territory trying to track them down. After several more heartbeats she stood and stalked from her den, gaze narrowing to slits as she turned toward the camp entrance and bright mid-day light pouring down into the cavern. With another twitch of her tail, she forced herself up into daylight, blinking until her eyes adjusted.
She nodded a greeting to Ashfang and Brindlejay before leaping up onto the boulder ledge to survey the forest that looked so entirely different in the light of day. An unrelenting wind sliced through her fur like icy claws. She braced herself against its onslaught and waited for any sign of either patrol’s return while the rest of the camp slept on, unaware. It was better that way. They should know something about what had happened before the camp roused for the night. There was no need for the entire camp to worry until she had details to give them.
Several times, she leapt from the ledge to take a quick trot to the ambush pond and back, to warm herself up a bit and dampen the restlessness that continued to grow within her like an itch she could not reach. It wasn’t until dark was falling and she was hearing the beginnings of her Clan’s waking that she finally caught sight of movement in the trees. Rainfur’s patrol surrounded the dawn patrol, all of them ragged and bleeding, but alive. A few supported their Clanmates, offering shoulders to lean on as they limped home. Darkstar leapt once more from the ledge to meet them. Rainfur stepped forward to speak with her, “I heard their story on the way back.” She turned to the others, stepping aside to let them pass, ordering her patrol, “Get them to Shadowchaser and Smokefur.”
Darkstar let them go, her gaze sliding over each wounded Clanmate, but her words were for her deputy, “What happened.”
Rainfur waited a few moments more, until the last cat had disappeared into camp, then nodded to the two camp staff guards, “You two may go. I’ll fetch a new guard after I’ve spoken with Darkstar.” After Ashfang and Brindlejay had both headed inside as well, Rainfur finally turned to her leader, “TreeClan ambushed them at the Deer Path. When they tried to get back to camp they were instead chased farther away, where another TreeClan patrol was waiting. They chased them into the mountains.” Rainfur’s tail lashed once, the usually calm, stoic she-cat visibly upset, “They attacked them and wouldn’t even let them return home to have their wounds treated.” It was an odd move for Lionstar to make, from Rainfur’s perspective. She had always respected the golden tom, despite the poor relationship their Clans generally had with each other, and this seemed very unlike him. But then, so had his behavior at the Gathering, so soon after Darkstar’s rise to leadership. Perhaps she shouldn’t be so surprised, but she was.
Darkstar hissed, tail lashing, “We will make them regret this.” Her fiery gaze shifted past the silver tabby, in the general direction of TreeClan’s territory.
“What do you plan to do?” Rainfur asked, for once without reproach in her tone.
“If they want a fight so badly, I will give them one,” she snarled, turning to leap up onto the boulder ledge to let her gathering yowl echo into the cavernous camp below, “Let all cats who wear the shadows as their own pelts gather beneath the boulder ledge for a Clan meeting!” Rainfur settled herself beside the rock upon which her leader perched, ears flicking uncertainly at the vague answer she had gotten as the Clan all gathered to hear what Darkstar would say. Most of them would have seen their wounded Clanmates return.
Darkstar wasted no time getting to the point, “TreeClan attacked our dawn patrol in an ambush and drove them into the mountains. Their leader has crippled ours. His son killed Blackwolf! Their deputy has crippled one of our warriors!” She paused to let fiery gaze roam over the crowd of cats below, “At my first gathering as your leader I promised before all the Clans that any transgression against us would be paid back in kind, but perhaps that is not nearly enough!” She stepped forward to the edge of the ledge, her claws gripping at the stone beneath her paws as she leaned forward, “There was a time the valley feared NightClan, and it is time they do so again. No more will we sit back and wait for the right time, the safest route, the easiest path. We will make our own path and we will not fear the shadows along the way for we are the shadows, and we will remind them why they should fear the dark. We will take this war to TreeClan’s very heart and leave it broken and bleeding so they will never forget the cost of challenging NightClan!”
Leave 'em all behind I'm about to take over