Chapter 26 is upon us! Thank you for all of your kind reviews! I have (unfortunately? Fortunately?) more time to write because I am in self-isolation, and I'm so sorry to everyone who has been affected by the virus, whether it's self-isolation, you or people you know have been diagnosed with it or you have lost someone to the virus. But nothing bad lasts forever and humanity will get over this, like we got over the spanish flu, the black death, SARS, MERS and all the other viruses and illnesses humanity has struggled through. Anyway…
Brambleflower- thank you so much! And yes, so many Ws, I got confused halfway through chapter 24. I'm glad you liked the chapter and thank you for believing in Sweetbreeze! It's clear to see how much you *cough cough* love Finchcry. But Finchcry really is a jerk, I'm glad someone agrees with me…
Anyway, onto the chapter!
Willowfeather sat there, thinking. Sweetbreeze is cracking under the pressure, she thought anxiously. But at least Finchcry is leaving her alone.
"Willowfeather!" Sweetbreeze called, stumbling out of the warriors den. She seemed to have recovered in the past few minutes. Her eyes were back to normal and her voice was clear, though she seemed slightly unbalanced. "Gather two warriors, and go on the WindClan border, I already sent one out to ShadowClan and they'll return any moment now-"
Just as Sweetbreeze finished her sentence, Sunheart came sprinting into the camp.
"I had to run through myself- nearly all of ShadowClan's forces ambushed us. Wildwind and Dustfoot are fighting them right now, but we need backup! They attacked right when we have the least warriors," He gasped.
"Snowcloud, Willowfeather, Redpaw and Cinderpaw, go with him to back them up. Finchcry, Lilypaw and I will do what we can to guard the camp. Is there anyone else who's strong here?" Sweetbreeze asked, looking around frantically.
"Me!" Flamepaw squawked.
"No, not you! One, you have greencough, two, you're a less experienced apprentice!" Sweetbreeze snarled.
"I will help," Dawnflower said, her coat hanging off her bones. "I may look old, but I am not that old. I am younger than most of ShadowClan's senior warriors. Yes, I dislike fighting for no cause but I have no trouble with defending the home I have lived in for moons."
"Alright, you can defend the camp with us," Sweetbreeze said frantically.
"Um, Sweetbreeze, I don't know if you remember, but I've got a broken leg," Willowfeather pointed out nervously. "It's been healing so I can hunt, but I'm not healed enough to dive into an already impossible battle. Five warriors versus nearly all of ShadowClan's forces? This is a death wish!"
When they arrived, Willowfeather realized it wasn't a death wish. It was just death.
Dustfoot cowered in a tree, trying to fight while balancing on a spindly tree branch, while Wildwind was hauling cats off herself.
"We're here!" Sunheart screamed, diving immediately into the battle. He launched himself at Dustfoot's tree to save his clanmate, while the others launched into their own battles. Willowfeather clashed against two ShadowClan cats, a she-cat and a tom, who were sneakily stalking away toward the camp.
"You are not reaching the camp!" She yowled as he claws raked the pelt of one cat and her ferocious teeth bit down on the paw of the other.
"This is what you call backup?" The she-cat smirked, kicking Willowfeather away. "I should hope for better competition. Five cats versus all of us! Claiming this territory will be easier than we thought. And we know there is greencough in your camp, we overheard one of your patrols talking. So the only defences in this clan must be you five."
"There are warriors in camp, even if they are weakened," Willowfeather said bravely, recognizing the she-cat as Bluebird and the tom as Poisonfang. "By the way, Bluebird, you are in no position to boast. Are you a senior warrior now? Well done. It doesn't change the fact that I've beaten you before. And I will beat you again."
"Oh, I don't think so. Look at your puny defences, even worse than before! Our clan has only grown- we have four new warriors now and we outnumbered you, even before. We will not accept defeat again!" Bluebird yowled.
Willowfeather's paw flashed out, clawing into Bluebird's neck. Her broken leg forgotten, Willowfeather found new strength and ripped the ShadowClan warrior's fur from her body, while keeping Poisonfang at bay with her back legs. Willowfeather hurled Bluebird away from her and turned to bite into Poisonfang's tail fiercely. Adrenaline pumped in her blood and anger ripped through her body. Poisonfang managed to score a scratch in Willowfeather's broken leg, weakening it further, but Willowfeather retaliated by hitting him as hard as she possibly could with both of her front paws. The tom was sent sprawling and when the two cats ran yowling back into the muddle of cats, Willowfeather turned and searched for a new victim- aha! A few apprentices and a small warrior, clearly one of the new ones, hung at the back of the battle, looking nervously at the blood.
Willowfeather bunched her powerful muscles, mostly powered by her adrenaline, and pushed back the exhaustion blurring the edges of her vision. This is not the time to be distracted, she thought, pushing off and launched herself at the apprentices. The warrior looked in horror as the apprentices, a young tom named Screechpaw and a she-cat named Nightpaw, crumpled easily under Willowfeather's weight.
"Look, I don't want to hurt you but the fact is, I have to," Willowfeather snarled menacingly. "I could defeat all three of you with a swipe of my claws. I specially sharpened them for you."
"You wouldn't have seen us coming," The warrior said meekly, trying to sound brave.
"Oh, but I did," Willowfeather purred in mock pity, though every word coming out of her mouth was a lie.
"Please, let me go," Nightpaw begged. "I don't want to sound disloyal, but I never wanted to fight. Friendly, peaceful neighbours are always better than aggressive ones ready to fight. But my mentor dismisses me as a young idiot. Please, just let us keep our lives. You couldn't watch youth die, could you?"
"I've witnessed a five moon kit suffer a much more honourable death than you," Willowfeather mewed, her claws digging tighter. "You saying I can't watch youth die is an insult to Leafkit's memory because I have seen a kit die. But maybe you are right. Maybe I have feelings, unlike your clan."
"ShadowClan is honourable," Nightpaw hissed, suddenly defiant. "I don't know who Leafkit was, but he did not die because of ShadowClan. We follow the code."
"No!" Willowfeather argued, feeling like a useless nursery kit arguing with their littermate. "The code specifically says to serve the elders, kits and nursing queens. Yet your clan murdered our deputy in our last battle. And she had two young kits, a loving mate and all of her life yet to come. Cut short by your clan."
Nightpaw's eyes glittered with clear shock, but Screechpaw looked at Willowfeather with narrowed eyes.
"Every war has a casualty. Now let us go."
Willowfeather let Nightpaw go free, and gave Screechpaw a huge mark on his shoulder.
"Remember me," Willowfeather hissed. "I hope you have learnt your lesson. Every life is worth saving."
Willowfeather swept him a final glare and galloped back into the battle, sincerely hoping that he had learnt his lesson.
An hour later, the ThunderClan cats had chased off many cats but they were all the same bloody, bruised and practically furless cats. They all looked the same, they were all so heavily injured. But they didn't stop.
None of them did.
When the first shrieks came from the camp, announcing that some cats had broken through their guard, Dustfoot, Cinderpaw, Redpaw and Snowcloud went back to help the camp protect it's weakest, leaving Willowfeather, Sunheart and Wildwind to battle half a clan alone. Sunheart, his fur stained red, one eye swollen shut and every claw wrenched, blindly whirled through the battle, slicing every cat nearby, while Wildwind, with a streaming cut that went from her muzzle down to her tail and an entire ear missing, lashed out at five different cats at once. Willowfeather's already injured leg had been broken in about five more places, three of her teeth had fallen out and she couldn't see, there was so much blood streaming out from a cut just above her eyes. She had the job of chasing cats away.
Eventually, they chased the final cats away and they slumped into a pile on top of each other in the middle of the battleground. A dead cat- Poisonfang- lay a few fox-lengths away, but they ignored him. Wildwind had passed out from blood loss, while Sunheart's legs gave way to tiredness and he slumped to the ground, barely conscious. Willowfeather wanted to follow suit, but she knew Wildwind would die. The she-cat had been horrible to her at times, but recently she had been a lot more bearable. Marigold or horsetail to stop infection, dock leaf to clean up the wound and cobweb to stop the bleeding, she thought dizzily as she limped into the forest. Spotting a growth of horsetail near a tree, she took the horsetail, found some cobweb, and felt too tired to look for the dock. Limping slowly back to Wildwind, she felt relieved all apprentices spent a few days learning from the medicine cat. I might hate Kestrelwing, but he taught me this, she thought, when she spotted a plant of juniper berries. For strength.
When she gets back to Wildwind…
The poor she-cat was in worse condition than Willowfeather had originally thought. The wound was still streaming blood and Sunheart was trying to stop the blood loss, looking wide awake all of a sudden.
"Kestrelwing said to put all the weight you can on it, right?" He questioned as she put down the herbs. "Ah, horsetail and cobweb."
Wordlessly, Willowfeather began to chew up the horsetail at the same time as dripping juniper berries into Wildwind's open mouth. After several minutes, the horsetail poultice was done and Sunheart quickly applied it, before Willowfeather stretched cobweb over Wildwind's injury.
"We need to get her back to camp where Spottedbird can care for her," Willowfeather said, watching a ShadowClan cat run past, fleeing from the camp.
When they get to camp…
"All three of you! You're as bad as Snowcloud, Dawnflower, Finchcry and Dustfoot!" Spottedbird said in horror. "Redpaw came back mauled as well, and Cinderpaw. All of you! Into the medicine den!"
Nearly every cat in the clan was squeezed into the den, and all of the cats were in critical condition. Willowfeather's injuries were bad, but she wasn't about to die, really. Sure, her jaw ached, she could barely walk and her cuts weren't great, but she wasn't as badly injured as the other cats.
"Spottedbird, if you could treat me quickly, I'll go to my den to get sleep and get out of your way," Sunheart offered, clearly thinking along the same lines as Willowfeather.
"Me too," Willowfeather added quickly.
"I'll check the blood isn't yours, make a quick cast for your leg, Willowfeather, and then you two can get out of the den. I'll give you poppy seeds, too."
They were released a few moments later, after being told to get some rest and receiving two poppy seeds each. Swallowing the tiny seeds, Willowfeather sat down drowsily in her nest. Suddenly, as sleep started threatening to overcome her, she heard something. Stomping. She snuck out through to the dirtplace and heard the horrible sound.
A patrol was coming their way.
Tears threatened to bubble up. It was a trick. ShadowClan weakened us and now they will attack us with their most senior warriors, who did not take part in the first attack. Of course.
Breaths coming up short, she ran back to the camp.
"ShadowClan is coming back!"
What did you think of that chapter? I thought it was okay myself… sorry about the cliffie!
Anyway, I hope I can update this story soon enough and in the meanwhile, don't forget to REVIEW!
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