A/N: I published my Jayfeather thing! It's titled "Power" if you want to check it out ;) Also, I noticed an error in the previous chapter, Blackfoot will lead the THIRD patrol, not the second, because Raggedstar already said that was Russetfur's. Ha ha, silly Raggedstar. Anyway, I really hate to beg for reviews, but only one person is just really sad, and I'm never motivated enough to write these like this. Okay, I'll stop whining now. On with the chapter!
"Today, ShadowClan, we go to battle!" Raggedstar growled. The huge, scarred tom had called a Clan meeting a few minutes ago, and seemed to be getting the cats snarling for vengeance. "These rats, the very rats that we hunt when we are hungry, have killed one of us! Our deputy, no less. They will pay! Foxheart, are you ready to avenge the tom whose position you hold now?" The bright ginger she-cat nodded, her eyes burning with anger.
Russetfur glanced at the ground. Drawing lines in the earth with her claws, she refused to dwell on their argument. Raggedstar, now finished with his speech, dipped his head to her as he passed. The dark ginger she-cat watched as Foxheart gathered the warriors she had chosen, and she decided to do the same. "Skyheart! Icepaw! Nightpelt! Whitewater! Tanglepaw! Featherstorm! Flamesong!"
As the warriors gathered around her, she said, "You guys are on my patrol. I don't want you hungry for the battle, so share prey with each other. I wish there was enough to have a piece for everyone, but there's not. Oh well. So pick someone and have some food!" The mentors and apprentices almost all stuck to each other, but Featherstorm picked Nightpelt, so Flamesong was the one left. "Guess you're with me." Russetfur said, nodding respectfully.
The young she-cat smiled weakly in return, her eyes only meeting hers for a moment. "Scared?" Russetfur asked understandingly. Flamesong nodded slowly as she took a lizard from the pile for them.
"Y-yeah. It's not my first battle, but..." she murmured, trailing off.
Russetfur swallowed the small bite she had taken of the fresh-kill. "What's bothering you about this battle?"
"I think..." Flamesong started, looking up into Russetfur's eyes. "I think I'm pregnant. I don't want my kits- that ism if there are any kits, and there might not be... But I don't want them hurt."
Russetfur's eyes widened. "Oh. Well, Flamesong... You could talk to Raggedstar. Guard the camp with the warriors who aren't going..." The black-pelted she-cat shook her head.
"No, no. I have to be in this battle. For Lizardfang! He was Skyheart's mentor..." Anger burned in the queen's fiery eyes.
Russetfur asked in a low, quiet voice, "Is Skyheart the father?" Flamesong dipped her head slightly, just enough to know that Russetfur had gotten it right. "Well, Flamesong, I have a secret..." said the dark ginger warrior, seriously wondering if she was doing the right thing in telling someone. "I think I might be pregnant, too. Maybe."
Flamesong's eyes grew wide with disbelief. "Really? Who?"
"I don't want to talk about him..." Russetfur mewed, staring darkly at the ground. The young warrior ate a few mouthfuls of lizard and pushed the rest at the elder warrior. She took a small bite, but almost coughed it back up again, feeling nauseous at the memory of the father of her kits. "You can have the last. I, uh, had two birds last night, still pretty full."
The black shecat hesitated. "You sure? You seemed kind of ravenous a minute ago..." Concern lay heavily in her voice, making Russetfur emotional, because of the hormones.
"Really. I'm fine." The warrior looked around to see that the other warriors were mostly finished, pacing and scratching at the dirt nervously. Skyheart, however, stared at the ground, claws extended, eyes wide with fury. He and Lizardfang had been closer than most mentors and their apprentices get, and now he had a chance to exact revenge on his murderers. Obviously, he was ready to kill.
Foxheart motioned to Raggedstar, and he dipped his head. "Let's move out!" the deputy said firmly, and she paced swiftly, almost a run, towards the entrance of the camp. Jaggedtooth, Poolcloud, Oakfur, Gingerpaw, Clawface, Ratpaw, and Shadestorm followed, all looking determined. Russetfur stood and motioned to her patrol to stand. Before she could follow her sister's patrol, however, Dustfang came up to her.
"Russetfur, don't die out there, okay?" Her former apprentice was part of Raggedtsar's patrol, and her voice was hevay with worry.
Taking a slow breath, the warrior responded, "Ill be fine, Dustfang. And so will you." She gave the she-cat a quick lick on the forehead and followed after Shadestorm, in the back of Foxheart's patrol.
The trip to Carrionplace seemed at once unbearably long and terribly short. Once they neared, Foxheart waved her tail to indicate that Russetfur's patrol should stop here. Russetfur led the warriors to a clump of bushes, and they crouched behind them. Blackfoot's patrol stationed a little bit behind, and Raggedstar's closest to camp, behind a couple of saplings and shrubs.
The deputy's patrol moved forward, slinking through the grass quickly but silently. Ratpaw looked back with a look of fear on his muzzle, obviously afraid to fight his namesakes. Russetfur couldn't blame him, but he would be fine. Clawface, if more than a little bit of a jerk, would never let his apprentice get hurt.
As the first patrol got into Carrionplace completely, the squeaks and squealing of rats could be heard faintly, though the small sound seemed harshly loud in the ears of the tense, waiting cats. Soon they could hear the fighting of cats and rodents. They seemed to be doing okay for a bit, and Russetfur was beginning to wonder if they would be needed at all when the screeches of cats came loud and clear.
The dark ginger warrior streaked out of the brush, her warriors right behind her, the last fox-lengths between them and Carrionplace closing fast. They reached Carrionplace, and a fraction of a moment held stillness, silence. Then, rats exploded from seemingly everywhere and swarmed their fresh new opponents.
Two large rats buried their fangs in Russetfur's pelt, and she in turn bit own on them, raking her claws down the closest to make it let go. Its glowing eyes shut, and the warrior slashed open its throat in the moment of weakness. Her razor-sharp teeth crunched through the neck bones of the other rat, and it lay dead, too. But within seconds, more rats took their fallen brethren's place, clawing and biting and doing their damndest to kill every cat present.
Russetfur heard a shriek from Flamesong and shook the rats from her pelt to help her. Skyheart, however, got there first and decapitated the rat that was latched on to her neck in one claw-stroke. The rage and bloodlust in his gaze, his very movement, was frightening. He moved away, slashing his long claws at a particularly large rat, leaving Flamesong. The older warrior dashed over and asked quickly, "You okay?" Flamesong winced but nodded, trying to stem the flow of blood from her neck. The wounds weren't that large, however, so Russetfur dipped her head and went back to fighting rats.
Three of them, all the same dirt brown with bitter black eyes, threw themselves at her. She tried to fight back, but each time she ripped one from her bloody fur, another replaced it. as she was getting more and more exhausted, another warrior took on one of the rats, leaving her free to attack the others. "Thanks!" she shouted over the screeching and squeaking and looked to see who her savior was.
Tanglepaw grinned at her, his claws sinking into the rat's neck. He had several wounds, but seemed to be doing fine on his own. Russetfur looked around briefly for Whitewater, but the appearance of yet another rat distracted her before she could spot the white-furred she-cat.
Finishing off the rat that had attacked her by seizing its neck in her jaws, shaking it vigorously and throwing it, Russetfur heard a wail of despair and pain. She whipped around and saw that Ratpaw was struggling underneath a rodent easily the same size as him, if not somewhat larger. She sprinted to him, barreling into the rat and smashing its head against some Twoleg object. Ratpaw had deep wounds covering nearly his entire pelt, most of them bleeding profusely."Ratpaw! Go back, find Runningnose!" she shouted.
"No, Russetfur!" he yowled back, "I have to keep fighting! Dirtpaw-"
The warrior interrupted him "Go back, before you bleed to death! You can't do anything for Dirtpaw in this state. Where is she?"
"Over there." he said, pointing with his tail before finally taking her advice and fleeing. Russetfur ran in the direction he had given her searching desperately for the apprentice's brown coat. She glimpsed it and dashed over only to find that the apprentice was on the ground, dead. Her eyes stared blankly into the fray of battling animals, her throat torn and a lake of blood surrounding her.
"Oh, Dirtpaw..." Russetfur said sadly, backing away slowly from the horrific sight. She turned her head and saw something that would haunt her dreams until the day she joined StarClan.
Foxheart fell to the ground as if in slow-motion, Russetfur's eyes widening in disbelief as it happened. She dove through the throng of warriors and rats to the ginger she-cat. Blood trickled out of her mouth, and her eyes started to glaze over. A rat still clung to her, teeth sunk in her neck, the one that had delivered the final blow. "Foxheart, get up." Russetfur pleaded, nudging her flank. "Foxheart, the battle isn't over! Come on, you have to get up! Foxheart!" She pressed her muzzle into the ginger fur, already going cold, and the truth bled into her like a light rain, gathering into a storm of grief and rage.
"FOXHEART!" She yowled to the sky, wondering how it could possibly still glow vibrant blue when her sister wasn't there... Russetfur tried to stop herself from thinking it; her sister was dead. Her mind refused to accept it, and denied furiously. "No, no, no, NO!" Tears were spilling out now, hard and fast, turning Foxheart's bright fur into a light russet tone. "You can't leave me alone here! Foxheart!" Her heart swelled with grief, threatening to burst, when another rat leaped onto her sister's body, eyes gleaming with malice.
"GET YOUR FILTHY PAWS OFF HER! I'LL KILL YOU! I'LL KILL YOU ALL!" She sprang at the rat with a fury she had not known she could contain, beside herself with the shock of losing the cat she'd known her whole life, depended on, trusted, and, more than anything, loved. She had loved all her family, but no one quite understood her like the brave she-cat that lay fallen on the battle-field, untended by the fighting warriors.
She tore through the rat's throat with ease, driven by her own rage. She pounced on the vile rodents, over and over again, all the while staying near Foxheart, not letting any creature near her, cat or otherwise. Adrenaline pulsed through her, though she did not understand how, because a great hole had been ripped through her, ravaged her to no end. She killed mercilessly and tirelessly for StarClan knows how long, not caring who her opponent was, needing only to bite and claw and fight, anything to tear her mind away from the fact that Foxheart, her sister, her friend, her deputy, her den-mate, was dead.