Chapter 12 - The War
Half A Moon Later…
“Bramblesnow! Lionstorm!” The clan chanted, pride bursting out of their glowing eyes. Lionstorm and Bramblesnow pressed against each other, purring with happiness. Fallenwings cheered as hard as he could for his former apprentice, pure joy obvious in his meow.
“I will be the bravest warrior I can be.” Lionspark announced, proudly.
“And I will be the loyalest.” Bramblesnow added.
“May you serve your clan well, for a long time.” Silentstar dipped her head
while saying this. “Let us feast. Feast for new warriors, for them to have a long life, and most of all, that the coming war may go our way. Clan dismissed!” Silentstar leaped down from the tree, gracefully landing.
The clan streamed to the prey pile and began eating. Fallenwings picked out a rabbit and shared it with Willowmoon, Gingerstorm, Echonight, and Darkvalley on the sunning rock, even though the sun was just setting and the rock wouldn't warm their fur. He couldn’t look at the young medicine cat while eating with his family, in fear of spilling what he knew about the omen. Suddenly he realized something. Something bad. Dark the rogue. Dark in the omen. What could this mean? Fallenwings wondered, his belly too full of dread to make space for any food.
…
One And a Half Moons Later…
“Beepaw! Wasppaw! Clean out the Prey Tree!” Lionstorm called to the two apprentices.
“What? Can’t you stop bothering us?” Wasppaw answered, and Beepaw, who was sitting next to him, nodded in agreement.“Yeh! You’ve been treating us inferior even though we are only a quarter moon younger than you.” Beepaw added.
Fallenwings had to admit it was somewhat true. The bossy new warrior had even ordered him, a senior warrior to clean out the main den. For StarClan’s sake, what would get this cat to understand his place?
Fallenwings sighed, and decided to just say something. He rolled his eyes and said,
“Lionstorm, you've been a warrior for one and a half moons. That's it. Let the ordering go to Hawkstep and Silversong, their mentors.” A jolt went through Fallenwings when he thought of Silversong, his father, who was probably mentoring his last apprentice. The now familiar dread went to the place in his belly, weighing him down like whenever he thought of bad things.
“Fine.” Lionstorm grumbled, jerking Fallenwings out of his thoughts before grumpily stalking away.
Fallenwings glanced appologeticly at Beepaw and Wasppaw, who both gave him a exhausted of Lionstorm but happy he was not bothering them now look.
He then walked away, whiskers twitching with amusement at their twinness. He suppressed his urge to purr, and padded up to Moonflame, the real cat in charge of chores.
“Moonflame? Anything I can help with for the battle?” Fallenwings asked.
“Yes, can you help Mistyfern, Gingerstorm, and our two new warriors, Lionstorm and Bramblesnow brush up on some battle moves? Bring Archtail if you want some help.”
“Ok. Sounds good.” Fallenwings replied, trotting away to find the listed warriors. While he walked, secretly, he was scared inside. No matter how much they prepared, war always had a cost. He was more certain than anything.