Five months. I can't believe it. I'm so sorry. I've had school and traveling, and I spend most of my time on the Official Warriors Forum. Not to mention my new (since the last update, anyway) obsession. To make up for this huge hiatus, I'll treat you all to a double update! Thank you, Wishheart01, for posting the comment that inspired me to get off the forum and write again.
The patrol left from the Landing Rock with little sound except wingbeats. Each of the cats could tell that the others were looking for something to say to break up the awkward silence. Eventually, Dragonpaw mewed, "Pretty leaves." Flicking her gaze downward, Silverpaw could see that they were indeed beautiful- red and orange and gold like fire in the treetops.
"Yeah," she replied. "Colorful." Then, something occurred to her. "What kinds of signs are we looking for? What do wolf tracks look like?" Icehawk, who led the patrol, threw his wings back and hovered. He sputtered, "Y-y-you agreed to come on this patrol and you don't even know what a wolf looks like? How could you not know what wolves are like?"
"I don't know, maybe because I wasn't even a blob of unborn kit the last time they came? And I didn't agree to anything!" Silverpaw spat.
"Silverpaw! You will show your deputy more respect if you don't want to go back to the elders' den! Ever since the last time you were sent there, you've been like this. What happened?" Icehawk hissed back.
Graywind knew, and quickly tried to break up the coming fight. "Hey, we're almost to the Icicle Pines. They usually come in around there. Let's go look," he mewed.
"Yeah, let's," Silverpaw growled. She gratefully swooped out of her hover and after her father. The cold leaf-fall air sliced at her ears like claws, but she fell too deep into thought to care. What Icehawk had said was true; ever since she'd heard how Swirltail and Graywind had once been a couple, she'd become angry and prickly. Her eyes registered her father stalling and landing in one of a stand of tall, white pine trees. She automatically joined him and was soon followed by Grouseclaw and Dragonpaw; Icehawk had already made his way to the ground and was sniffing intently at a skeletal bush.
The patrol circled down like a pack of owls to join him. "To answer your question, Silverpaw, a wolf is… well, imagine a fox, but twice the size and twenty times the weight of a cat. Unlike foxes, they live in packs- essentially Clans, but their hierarchy is a bit more complicated," he meowed calmly.
"Our question is-" replied Graywind, "-are they here yet? Is there any sign of them?" There was no need to ask who they were.
Dragonpaw thrust his nose into the bush, right past Icehawk's chest, and fell over with a yelp. A sharp twig had scratched him, but there was no blood. "I didn't smell anything," he said, rubbing his muzzle. Silverpaw caught herself about to make a small smile at this little scene, and forced the corners of her mouth back down. Dragonpaw had been nothing but a bully and a nuisance since they were kits.
She turned away from the main group and began to look for anything that looked like something a monstrous fox-beast would make. The frosty leaf litter was disturbed in a way Silverpaw had been trained to recognize. "Maybe they were hunting rabbits," she offered. "See? Something scared a rabbit and it ran that way."
"Rabbits get scared if a leaf falls ten tail-lengths away," scoffed Dragonpaw. "Besides, wouldn't the wolves leave prints too?"
"Good point," Silverpaw mewed, hanging her head. "I guess it was nothing." She felt a cat lay his tail across her shoulder. She looked up. It was Graywind.
"It was a good try," her father purred. At that point, a bird flew over the patrol's heads. Silverpaw looked up at the zipping shadow and didn't think much of it. She turned her head to keep looking, but two more birds – a robin and a waxwing – flew past, calling with alarm.
"That's weird," observed both apprentices at once. They looked at each other simultaneously, and each turned away. Dragonpaw's ear tips were red. Icehawk flapped up into a tree, but no sooner had he perched like a hawk than a flock of ducks appeared, only a tail-length or two from his head. The deputy ducked. When he looked up, his eyes grew wide and his tail bushed out.
"Silverpaw! Dragonpaw! Hide, the both of you!" he screeched. The apprentices, knowing that if something could scare the grizzled deputy, it must be bad, scrambled for hollows in the pine trees, where they peeked out like owlets. Strange shapes appeared in the sky over the horizon. Their wingspans were huge – almost as big as those of eagles. But the bodies were too long and too deep. The only thing that looked remotely like them was a winged cat.
"What are those things?" whispered Silverpaw.
Graywind mewed flatly, "Looks like the wolves are here."