Chapter 37
Two days after Ashstar noticed the scent of Thunderclan in their camp, the sky was covered in dark clouds. It was no longer Leaf-Bare but another storm was coming. No one would be too surprised if it rained. There was a calm breeze traveling across the moor. It seemed to tell the clan that something was going to happen.
Icefur was beginning to think the leader forgot about attacking Thunderclan or at least decided not to. But that changed after he called a clan meeting.
"Thunderclan thinks they can walk all over us-" Ashstar begun once the warriors gathered under the Tallrock. "-Only because we have done nothing to stop them. But that ends today. Today we will launch an attack on Thunderclan that will put them in their place!" He paused for a moment to see if anyone below was against the idea. No one spoke out or seemed angry so he continued. "One group will attack first and another will stand by just in case."
Icefur already heard the plan. Ashstar told her his plans before calling the meeting. For the past two days, the deputy has been thinking of ideas to possible stop the attack but nothing came to mind. It was true that Thunderclan needed to be taught a lesson in her opinion but another side of her was against the idea. She just didn't want anyone to get hurt.
Knowing the leaders word is law, Icefur also tried to get herself to like the plan of attacking. He was a warrior. More then that, she was the deputy. Icefur knew she needed to stop fearing death for its all a part of life.
Icefur looked back up at the leader and started listening again when he was finished explaining the plan and started listing off the cats who will go.
"The warriors apart of the first group are Stormtooth, Blackspot, Bramblestripe, Rowanpelt, Moonheart, Sunclaw, Rainpaw, Runningshade and myself. If they need help at any time, then Icefur, Breezetail, Snowpelt, Mudwhisker, Flowerfrost, Rockpaw and Silverstone will be there to back them up."
Icefur quickly glanced over to her apprentice who seemed disappointed that her name wasn't called.
Ashstar looked up at the sky. It was hard to tell behind the clouds, but it was almost Sunhigh. "Prepare yourselves," he added. "We will leave soon… Clan meeting dismissed."
After the meeting was over, Icefur found Bramblestripe talking to Breezetail.
"Looks like we're all going," Breezetail said almost joyfully.
"Maybe," Icefur pointed out. "You may not even need the second group."
"We all know Thunderclan is tough," Bramblestripe said. "Its' good to know we have backup."
Icefur nodded and shifted her paws. He has been debating on weather or not telling her friends her thoughts on the battle. "I wish we didn't have to fight though," the white she-cat said at last.
Breezetail tilt his head. "Why? We're warriors. Fighting is what we do."
"I know, I know. It's just that… After Cloudheart died, I don't want to lose anyone else in a battle."
Breezetail glanced at his sister then walked up to Icefur and sat down at her side. "We'll be alright, Icefur." He smiled at her.
"Yeah," Bramblestripe agreed. "We have been trained for moments like these. Besides, you and the others will be here in case we need help."
Icefur looked up at her friends and smiled. Then she spotted Stormtooth walked in the distance. "I'll talk to you guys later," she said and ran after her mentor.
"Hey Stormtooth," she called to get his attention.
The dark brown tom stopped and turned to the younger cat. He didn't say anything.
"Good luck. You know, with the battle."
"Thanks." Stormtooth always spoke with little emotion. "This is the first time Windclan attacked another clan in a while. Maybe it'll be exciting."
Icefur smiled. She remembered how he felt about Hawkstar. He has probably been looking for a good excuse to start a fight with the Thunderclan leader. Hawkstar was strong but Stormtooth looked stronger.
The two turned their heads towards the call Ashstar made near the camp entrance. The first group was about to leave. Stormtooth said goodbye and walked away to join the others. Icefur saw Bramblestripe walk off to join them as well along with the other warriors.
I'm over thinking this, he suddenly decided. Windclan has been in many fights before. No one is going to die. I'm just being paranoid because this is the first attack I've been apart of.
After reassuring herself, Icefur turned to join the other warriors who were also in the second group.
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Bramblestripe pushed herself to the front of the group as they walked through the breezy moor. She never liked being in the back.
Ashstar and the senior warriors were at the frost as well. She wondered how many of them had attacked another clan before. It seemed to be pretty rare. Bramblestripe agreed with Ashstar; Windclan needed to step up their game.
They reached the border near Fourtrees and Riverclan and crossed it. Riverclan being their ally, the Windclan cats knew they wouldn't get mad for walking on their border for a brief moment.
As they got closer to the forest, the wind seemed to die down; the trees blocked it out. They first group soon reached the Thunderclan border and didn't hesitate to walk across. Moving a little faster now, they ran through the trees, heading for the Thunderclan camp. Bramblestripe noted that it seemed even darker inside the forest.
But not long after entering the territory, a mob of Thunderclan cats stormed out of the trees to defend. Bramblestripes' first thought was how did they find out we were coming? Her second thought was to attack.
In the debths of the forest, she quickly picked out an enemy warrior and tacked her. The she-cat she attacked was Fernpetal. She could tell by the Thunderclan cats' size that she was still young; probably a new warrior.
The she-cat was startled but swiftly retaliated. She raked her claws against Bramblestripes' muzzle and Bramblestripe clawed her side. The two she-cats, surrounded by other fighting cats, were almost completely unaware of the violence around them.
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Stormtooth indeed wanted to find the Thunderclan leader but knew he couldn't waste any time looking for the one cat. He simply attacked the first cat he saw. That cat happened to be Thistlescar, one of the cats who Stormtooth particularly did not like.
Stormtooth pushed off the ground with his hind legs and tacked into the Thunderclan deputies' side when he wasn't watching. The tom reacted as if he was expecting it and quickly got back on his feet, biting Stormtooths' leg. The Windclan cat kicked him in the side, making him let go and clawed the toms back. Thistlescar expertly jumped out of the way in time to dodge the attack and tackled Stormtooth. He was pushed backwards until colliding with a tree.
Before Thistlescar could attack again, Stormtooth clawed his chest. While he flinched in pain, Stormtooth jumped back into his feet and attacked again.
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It didn't take long for Ashstar to see that the Thunderclan leader wasn't at the fight. In fact, he only assumed that Thunderclan somehow knew they were coming; that was the only way to explain how they got to the Windclan cats so quickly. He decided to look into it after the battle.
The leader locked claws with the Thunderclan warrior, Greyshadow, right at the beginning. Ashstar had nothing against the particular grey warrior; they had actually known each other for a while but it was a good thing they never became friends. Otherwise the fight was be quite awkward.
Ashstar kicked Greyshadow back when he was close to pinning him to the ground and followed it with a claw to the shoulder. Greyshadow bared his teeth in pain but ignored it and clawed Ashstar back on the leg.
When the two cats' separated, Ashstar looked around and saw Windclan was already pushing them back. They did seem weaker from sharing their land with Shadowclan… Perhaps he was right.
Before Greyshadow could attack first, Ashstar ran up to the tom once more and slashed his side as he tried to dodge. Greyshadow backed up and glanced around, also noticing that Thunderclan was losing.
Before the fight could continue, Ashstars' attention was dragged away from Greyshadow as he heard one of his warriors shriek. He turned around after the voice and saw Bramblestripe was lying on her side with a bad looking claw mark on her side. Blood was already dripping onto the ground.
Ashstar wanted to run over and check if she was okay, but turned to where Greyshadow was standing. He was surprised to see the warrior had fled. He glanced around and noticed the number of Thunderclan cats was quickly getting smaller.
The leader ran to Bramblestripes side and made sure to check if she was alive. He was glad to see that her wound was not as bad as it looked but she had to get back to camp as soon as possible.
Ashstar called the two closest warriors, which were Moonheart and Sunclaw and told them to get Bramblestripe back to camp safely.
Right after speaking, he noticed that all the Thunderclan warriors were gone.
Aside from Bramblestripe, that went better then I expected… Ashstar should have been happy they won but something was not right. It wasn't like Thunderclan cats to run so quickly. Now that he thought about it, there weren't many to begin with.
Ashstar decided it would be better to just get back to camp; they proved their point.
"Okay everyone," he called to the Windclan warriors. "Let's get out of here."
He and the warriors walked through the forest, heading back to the moor. Thanks to the dark clouds, the forest seemed more mysterious and ominous. This only made him want to leave even quickly.
He padded over to Moonheart and Sunclaw who were helping Bramblestripe.
"How is she doing?"
"She'll be fine once Heatherwish takes a look," Sunclaw replied. Bramblestripe was faintly awake. She had enough energy to walk with the two warriors help. Her side was still covered in blood. "I wonder who did this to her…"
Ashstar could see the moor in the distance through some of the trees. He let out a sigh of relief at the sight but apparently, he sighed too soon.
Out of nowhere, I heard battle cries behind him and the leader spun around to see what happened.
Another, even larger group of Thunderclan warriors suddenly appeared. These warriors all looked stronger then the ones before and there were much more then them.
Ashstar was too shocked to do anything before Hawkstar ran into him, his eyes ablaze with anger. Thunderclan was making a counterattack.
"What is the meaning of this?" Hawkstar demanded, surprising Ashstar with the question.
"How could you act dumb?!" Ashstar scolded. "A Thunderclan cat snuck into out camp a few nights ago! What did you expect us to do?"
"Enough of your lies," Hawkstar spat. "We did no such thing! You make a sad excuse for attacking and now you will be sorry! Now you have corssed the line. This is War!"
Hawkstar ran into the Windclan leader. Ashstar attacked back by clawing his stomach right after being tackled. Hawkstar backed up in pain but did his best to ignore it.
White Hawkstar was recovering; Ashstar glanced around to realize they were outnumbered. He spotted Runningshade and told her to run back to camp and get the second group. Moment after she left, Hawkstar was coming at Ashstar again.
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Icefur and the other warriors were waiting patiently as camp for any news about the attack. They finally got it when Runningshade ran into camp with an urgent expression.
"Thunderclan made a counterattack," she told the deputy once she arrived. "We're outnumbered."
"Alright, let's go help them out," Icefur called the others and all the warriors assigned to the second group stormed out of camp.
They raced through the moor and quickly came to the edge of the forest where the battle raged on. Thanks to the wind, they got there much faster then usual. With no hesitation, the group of cats raced inside and joined the battle with Icefur at the head.
But before she could do anything helpful, Icefur froze when she saw Stormtooth and Thistlescar fighting. She arrived just in time to see Thistlescar slash her mentor from his neck down to his stomach and suddenly, Icefur felt sick. Stormtooth was too injured to defend himself after getting attacked and he just fell onto the ground, possible unconscious.
Now oblivious to everything else around her, Icefur charged at Thistlescar before he could finish off Stormtooth. The white she-cat tackled him bring him to the ground. He kicked her off right away but before anyone could blink, Icefur spun around and clawed the Thunderclan deputies muzzle as hard as she could, still furious about what happened to Stormtooth.
Thistlescar backed up, trying to make some distance to recover enough energy to keep fighting. He was tired from the fight with Stormtooth but Icefur was well-rested and ready to fight.
The Windclan cat gave Thistlescar no time to rest before she launched herself at him and clawing him on the head. He flinched and in that time, Icefur circled around him and bit down hard on his back.
The Tunderclan tom shook her off and backed away again. While he was at a distance, Icefur glanced around the battle to see how her warriors were keeping up.
Both clans were evenly matched in numbers but the Windclan cats were getting tired from fighting. She wasn't the only one who noticed this. Ashstar, standing not far from where she was, soon called a retreat.
Icefur paused to help Stormtooth up before leaving with the others. But the large tom was not awake and couldn't walk even with her help. Breezetail noticed she was having trouble and came over to help her carry him.
Just a moment later, all the Windclan cats quickly made their way out of the forest, across the Riverclan border and back onto their own land. Everyone felt exhausted and defeated as they slowly made their way back to camp.
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Right after returning to camp, Icefur, Ashstar and Breezetail took Bramblestripe and Stormtooth to the medicine cat den; they were more injured out of the other warriors.
Heatherwish and Nightpaw covered their wounds in cobwebs as soon as they walked in.
"So how are they?" Ashstar asked the medicine cat after a while of silence.
Heatherwish took a moment before answering to look closer at the two knocked out cats. "It's hard to say," she muttered still occupied with helping her patients. "Bramblestripe should be fine after some rest. Her injuries are really not that bad." Heatherwish turned to the three cats and sat down. "But I'm not sure about Stormtooth."
Icefur began to get a bad feeling. "It's not looking good," Heatherwish continued. "He was clawed from the neck down to the stomach and already lost a lot of blood. I will do whatever I can but he's in Starclans' paws now."
Icefur didn't trust herself to speak once Heatherwish was done explaining. She walked outside of the den, ignoring the fact that her white fur was covered in blood; most likely Stormtooths'. When she stepped outside, Icefur noticed it began to rain. Most of the warriors who were not in line to see Heatherwish and/or Nightpaw were already in the underground caves to get some rest.
Icefur wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone. She walked out of camp and paced around the territory as it rained. In a way, the drops of cool water felt good against her pelt even thought she knew it would be annoying later.
Though impossible to tell, the sun was going down and the sky became even darker behind the dark rain clouds. The gentle breeze still lingered about.
Icefur stopped walking and sat down after a while of walking in no particular direction. She stared at the ground near her paws and ordered her thoughts.
Thunderclan somehow knew Windclan would attack; that much was certain. Otherwise, they wouldn't have such a large patrol near the border closest the Windclan. But how did they know?
Two of the cats closest to her were injured. Bramblestripe would be fine but its possible Stormtooth would die. And Icefur felt like she had to blame someone for it all. She wanted to blame herself for not getting to the fight scene in time but that wasn't enough. She could blame Ashstar for attacking Thunderclan but that didn't feel right. Icefur could also blame Thunderclan for sneaking onto their territory in the first place but she didn't know Hawkstar was clueless about it. And she could blame Starclan for taking Stormtooth if it came down to that.
I shouldn't blame anyone for this… It's no ones fault; it just happened. Icefur tried to convince herself but it didn't help. Inside, she truly knew that blaming someone wouldn't help at all but what else could she do?
Still ignoring the rain, Icefur looked up at the clouded sky; it wasn't night yet but it sure looked like it.
The started thinking back to the battle and her thoughts on it;
None of this needed to happen… This whole thing was completely pointless! It didn't solve anything; just make things worse. We're trying to make peace by fighting and we're doing a bad job at it. Icefurs' own thoughts were beginning to make her mad. There has to be a better way to solve this…
Icefur paused, pondering the few ways to bring peace to the forest and the clans. These meaningless battles are the reason my friends got hurt- the reason for so much unnecessary death. Then Icefur suddenly got an idea that sent chills down her spine.
Was Shadowthorn right?
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A/N: Oooh, what is Icefur going to do next? I guess we'll have to wait and find you. (When I say we, I mean you; I already know)
You can all thank one Guest for this chapter being uploaded already. This person rawred and me (not even kidding), reminding me that what I have been doing is silly. My chapters aren't that long so I shouldn't make you wait a whole week just because I'm lazy. School is no excuse. Only that person knows what I mean by 'rawr.' X)
Anyway, make sure to give me your thoughts, comments, questions, anything! I want to know what you think. =]
Have a nice day~