CHAPTER EIGHT

'Those that do not touch

But have been merged four times

Are bound in destiny to fight

The darkness between them'

'The coldest of the elements

With the brightest heat of day

Must unravel the treachery of

The Shadows and the Darkness'

Finished Wavestar gravely. 'Those were Willowstream's last words.'

'No-one is quite sure how she died. She went missing from the camp one day. Willowstream was found near the Island by Horsepelt, but she died within minutes of her discovery. Willowstream had no wounds, no disease, and no marks. Nothing to suggest how she was killed.' added Sunclaw sadly.

Icepaw nodded slowly. 'Has anyone figured out the meaning of the prophecy?'

Sunclaw shook his head. 'No-one. Not even Rainpool.'

Dawnpaw rolled over lazily, basking in the warm sunlight of sun-high.

'And they didn't see another cat near her?' she questioned.

Icepaw shook his head. 'Not another cat.'

Vinepaw blinked uncomfortably. 'Can't we talk about something else? What about that huge fish I caught his morning?'

Icepaw laughed while Dawnpaw scowled at Vinepaw. While she scolded him, Icepaw thought about the mysterious words of the old Riverclan medicine cat.

The Shadows could be Shadowclan, but who was The Darkness? There was no Darkclan…. And the coldest of elements? Snow, or even water? The brightest heat of day…. That could be the sun… Those that do not touch… That could be anything. Sky and earth? Water and lightning? Or was Icepaw thinking on the wrong track? Was it clan territories? Windclan and Shadowclan territories don't touch! But they haven't been linked four times…. And what does that mean? Four cats merging the clans? Or the lake? What could it be?

Icepaw watched the gathering Island absently. Was he standing where Willowstream had died? The mystery that shrouded her death had consumed him. He spent all his spare time thinking of the strange prophecy. As far as Icepaw knew, it had never been for filled. Maybe it never would be, in his life-time.

A strange sound coming from the Gathering Island wrenched his attention away from his thoughts. A sort of smoke was just visible above the trees. What was it now?

Sunclaw, turning to tell his apprentice at get some of the horsetail near him for Rainpool, saw his apprentice start running towards the island.

Sunclaw hissed. 'What in Starclan is he doing now?'

Icepaw clawed his way down the log, which was slippery from recent rains. Sliding to on to the muddy surface of the land, he saw a dark shadow in the clearing used by the clans. Running through the trees, but coming to a stop before he was in the open, Icepaw gingerly peered out from behind a bramble thicket.

Sunclaw bounded across the log, using his big claw to grip the surface. Following Icepaw's scent, he found the apprentice crouching behind a bush.

'Wha-'

Icepaw flicked his tail for silence and kept staring into the clearing.

Although furious at being ordered about by an apprentice, Sunclaw looked where Icepaw was looking, a horrified expression on his face.

A huge sphere of black fog pulsed in the middle of the clearing, watched by a small cat. Tendrils of the shadowy mist curled lazily in the air around him. Even as they looked, a blurry image flickered in the depths of the smoke, becoming sharper as the mist around it expanded to make room for the image.

'Is that you? I came like you told me to, even though the meeting was in Riverclan territory.'

The small cat sitting in front of the picture, which Sunclaw recognised as the Shadowclan medicine cat, had a rough mew that sounded like dead bark being torn from a tree.

Another voice, this time issuing from the ball of fog, answered.

'Of course you did, Greycloud. You dare not disobey the leader of Darkclan.'

P.S I'm really sorry I didn't reveal how or why Willowstream died, but I had no idea that it would take so long to get to the Darkclan bit! Again, sorry, but I am a REALLY slow writer.