Prologue
The sun was setting just over the wooded ridges surrounding the valley, filling the sky with a magnificent shade of red that reflected off of the snow in a soft orange color. A white cat with gray tabby markings took the scene in wistfully; no matter how many times he'd see it, that shade of red would never get old. He looked up and closed his eyes in thought for a brief moment. It's amazing how the sun keeps doing this every day, no matter what challenge it faces. He opened his eyes again just in time to see the sun disappear behind a ridge, letting the snow return to its pristine white. It's a shame that the snow will be stained red by the time we're through here.
"Are you ready, Snowpaw?" a voice behind the tom asked. Snowpaw looked back to see a stone colored tom with black markings similar to his own. "This wouldn't end well if I wasn't." he replied.
"Well make sure that doesn't happen. If we show up to Leafpaw half-dead, she'll finish the job."
Snowpaw's whiskers twitched. "At first I thought it would be great having our sister as the MedicineCat's apprentice, now I'm scared she'll put deathberries in our fresh-kill if we make her mad."
His brother twitched his own whiskers before they heard another voice behind them. "Snowpaw, Stonepaw, quit talking and wait for the signal!" the voice hissed.
"Yes, Sandstripe," both brothers replied to Stonepaw's mentor – a tan, tabby she-cat with brown and black markings. It was moments later that a large, brown tom off to the side of them raised stood up and raised his tail. Snowpaw gathered his resolve and started to charge down the snow-covered hill alongside his brother and their mentors, going as quickly as they could without making too much noise for the wind to mask. The wind was also blowing toward them now, hiding their scent, and the sun shrouded the warriors in darkness; a perfect storm of stealth. The rogues didn't even realize the warriors were there until they were less than three fox-lengths away.
The moment that the nearest rogue – a tom about the size of an apprentice – turned and looked at him with fearful eyes, Snowpaw leaped at him.
"Mousedu-!" the rogue started to yowl before having the wind knocked out of him by a snow-pelted demon that seemed to appear with his comrades like ghosts from the hills. Snowpaw had the rogue pinned down, but was thrown off by a kick of surprising force for a cat that size. The tom began striking at Snowpaw with a flurry of claws that came at a surprising speed. Almost immediately, he could feel the sting of claws shredding through his flesh. He hissed in pain and heaved himself onto his back paws to meet the rogue's onslaught with his own, managing to make his claws catch the rogue across the chest and ear before the rogue gained the upper paw once more, lunging forward and pinning Snowpaw down in a way that he could not escape. The rogue's eyes were blazing; filled with hatred and resolution; a dangerous combination for whoever's life was in their paws. In less than a split second, the rogue went straight in to bite Snowpaw's throat. His eyes were wide as everything seemed to move in slow-motion, and he stared at the rapidly advancing fangs. But just before the rogue could bite bite down, a gray blur slammed into his side, sending both the rogue and the gray cat rolling until the rogue had Stonepaw in the same position.
The rogue smiled an evil grin as he looked down at the helpless apprentice. "Fine! You'll die first, then!" he hissed before going in for the kill. Snowpaw knew what the only course of action left was at this point. He ran full speed toward the rogue and his brother and leapt just in front of their heads, reaching his leg out and catching the rogue's throat with his claws. The rogue stood for a second, stunned, before he looked down at his rapidly spilling blood. The rogue started to shake and collapsed on top of an equally shocked Stonepaw. Snowpaw moved quickly and grabbed the dead rogue by his scruff to move him off of his brother.
"Stonepaw! Are you alright?" he asked urgently. The gray tom looked from his brother to the rogue, and back down at his own body with wild eyes, before responding in a shaky tone, "Yeah, I think I'm good." They both breathed a sigh of relief, and looked around at the rest of the battle-field. It seemed the other four rogues had been just as ruthless, for all but one of them had been killed by the warriors, and the one left alive was in a very poor condition.
The two ran over to their mentors, who had the last rogue pinned down.
"Why have you been trespassing here? What's so important that your friends had to die for it? Talk fast or you'll join them!" the large brown tom hissed at the rogue. The rogue smiled and coughed up some blood before answering, "We've been scouting the area; spying on your Clans."
"We know that! Give me something useful! What have you been trying to learn?" the tom asked, pushing down on the rogue with more force.
The rogue groaned in pain before smiling again. "There will be more of us than there are trees in the forest. We're ready to take over your land as soon as our leader gives the word."
"Who is your leader? When is the attack?" the large tom bristled. The rogue simply smiled and spat blood in the face of his captor before kicking at him with the last bit of strength he had left, which was enough to make the Clan cat slacken his grip enough for the rogue to jump toward a packet of herbs that had been dropped by another one of his fallen comrades.
Stonepaw's eyes went wide, and he jumped to intercept the rogue, but it was too late. The rogue had already bitten into the large packet of what appeared to be wilted leaves, and had gotten more than enough for them to do their job.
The tom who had been interrogating the rogue jumped back on top of him, but quickly got a confused look on his face that quickly changed to anger as the rogue started foaming at the mouth and convulsing, before finally going limp.
"Mousedung!" The tom spat. "What in the Dark Forest just happened?"
Stonepaw sighed and shook his head. "Cherry leaves. I remember Leafpaw pointing them out once. When they're wilted like that, they're just as effective as Deathberries."
Snowpaw looked toward the brown tom. "What now, Locustclaw?" he asked his mentor.
Locustclaw sighed. "We go back to camp and report this to Blackstar. You two go get your wounds looked at; we'll take care of ours after we've talked to him."
Both apprentices nodded and fell in behind their mentors as they made their way back to camp. Snowpaw's ears pricked when he heard the warriors speaking to one another in hushed tones.
"We've only seen rogues this ruthless once before, Sandstripe," Locustclaw said to Stonepaw's mentor.
"You don't think they're the same ones from last Leafbare, do you?" She asked the other warrior.
Locustclaw hung his head and sighed, before turning his gaze toward Silverpelt. "StarClan, help us all…"
AN: Fun Fact: wilting Wild Black Cherry leaves contain hydrocyanic acid - the main ingredient in cyanide - and have been known kill livestock if eaten. That brings me to another thing you should probably know: this story takes place in the type of forest you'll find around Appalachia, rather than England. So instead of having Badgers and Adders, you can expect to see Boar, Rattlers, and Coyotes, just to name a few.
I hope you all liked it. Chapter 1 should be up before too long.