Leafstar wrinkled her nose at the metallic tang of blood as she padded into Skyclan's camp, leaping over a fallen log. She was clutching a squirrel in her jaws, but that didn't make the acrid scent any more easy to cope with.

"Leafstar!" A pale black tom called to her, jumping down from a ledge. "We were just finishing off some intruders in our camp!" Leafstar shied away from Moletooth, the tom's breath smelling of stagnant water and death.

"I don't think I gave you the orders to," she replied coolly. Where in the world was her deputy, Birchleaf? Couldn't he have stopped this terrible and bloody battle that had left the camp stinking of rotting flesh and had heaped scrawny bodies along the ground so carelessly? "Anyways, where's Birchleaf?"

"He refused to fight at first, but eventually he was killed in the fight," Trouteye snarled, trotting up to them, "And serves him right!" As the senior warrior said this, Leafstar felt red-hot anger bubble up inside her. What authority did her warriors have to declare war on innocent cats while she was out hunting?

"All warriors old enough to catch their own prey join beneath the Skyrock for a clan meeting!" She yowled fiercely, unsheathing her claws so that they dug deep into the brittle earth. Immediately, a wave of pelts swarmed in front of the ledge as she leapt onto it. Surveying the cats she had once known so well but whose claws were now tainted with blood, she curled her lip in distaste. She had to act now, before anything else could happen. "Why," she bristled, "Did all of you not wait until I came back to decide what to do?" Her voice quivered with fury, and she paused for effect before going on. "I do not know who all of you are anymore. You are not the cats that I watched grow up any longer!"

"No, we aren't," a sparrow-brown tom hissed, stepping up, and for a moment, Leafstar's heart leapt as she thought that finally, someone agreed with her, but then fluttered back feebly to the ground as Mudtail elaborated. "We are greater than ever before! If you are too foolish to make change amongst our clan, then maybe we should have a new leader!"

"New leader! New leader!" Even the she-cats, who were so reluctant to go to war, chanted along with the toms, and Leafstar's heart felt heavy with anguish.