Raining Down Stones and Embers Series, Book One
It was drizzling one night in late greenleaf. Cats gathered around their superior, a built black tom. "This is the time for redemption, to make right what that retched Clan has done to me, to us," he announced. "Will we let their deed go unnoticed? I say not!"
Many of the cats sitting around the black tom were rogues since birth, and squirmed uneasily at the thought of attacking a bigger group of cats then themselves. In fact, the black tom was himself a rogue, but he was a very convincing speaker. The tom finished speaking and trotted over to his son.
"Ember, I know you're uneasy about what I am planning to orchestrate on SpringClan. But, don't you know inside that it truly is for the better?"
"Alright, father, but we're just going into the camp to kidnap the leader, right? I don't wish to hurt any kits or queens."
"Yes, we're going to take their leader away…..and more. By the time I'm done with SpringClan, they'll be begging for me to stop destroying what's left of their Clan!" Lightning flashed overhead, causing the black leader-like tom to fall into a flashback.
It was newleaf, but this time the black tom was a kit of four moons. He was playing with his meal, a dead mouse, when his mother spoke up. "Stonekit, did your father say where he was going to hunt?"
"No, mother." "That aggravating furball needs to tell me where he is, so I won't worry!" The black kit's other two littermates were play-fighting when their mother said, "Stop!" Fighting could still be heard, which made the mother's neck fur stand on end.
She told the kits, "Kits, stay here. I'll be back."
The mother trotted off, and everything was quiet. "Hey, let's play-fight more!" , said Burrkit.
"Yeah!" , agreed Crowkit. The two bumped around, until a loud wail made them stop.
"That sounded like mother," said Stonekit observantly. "We should check it out, you two," Stonekit suggested. The three kits brushed past some weeds and went on. Soon, though, they were disoriented.
"Where are we?" , Burrkit asked. Stonekit shrugged, then stopped. He could sense more cats nearby. The even odder feeling was the sense that his mother was with these cats, and that they all were very near.
The three kits walked right into a small clearing, bumping into an unexpected log. "Who's there?", called an unfamiliar voice.
"It's just us," Crowkit called. "We were looking for our mother. She was looking for our father, who was trying to find us some food."
Stonekit finally saw the new cats. There was a ginger tom, a speckled russet tom, and a mottled russet she-cat. "Your father is dead," croaked the russet she-cat. Silence gripped the clearing and the cats in it.
"Dead? He can't be!" , wailed Burrkit.
The ginger tom said, " We will give you two days to leave here, and no more. If you're still here, well...it won't be pretty."
"Vixenstar, they've already lost a father. Why be so harsh? Can't we let them join SpringClan?"
"I won't join a Clan that killed my mate," hissed Stonekit's mother. "My kits and I will be on our way."
"Very well, then. Are you absolutely sure you don't want your kits to join? They'd be much safer, and have access to herbs, should they be injured or sick," Vixenstar spoke.
"I'm sure." Stonefeather's surroundings came back to him. He was older now, back in the clearing with the rest of the rogues.
"So, father, what was your father like? Why did you and your littermates have Clan names?"
"Our father was from another Clan, and that was one of the only aspects of Clan life he wished to keep."
"Oh, alright then." Ember got off and walked off, leaving Stonefeather by himself. Voices in his head kept telling Stonefeather not to destroy SpringClan, but to join it. That was StarClan speaking. As he went to sleep, Stonefeather blocked those voices out, sure that he would do what he planned to. No one would be able to stop him.