Chapter 2: Skills
"Sparkflame, I'd like you to lead the Dawn patrol, take Dusktail, Ambermist, their apprentices and Bluebelltail." Dawntail stood on the Highledge, assigning the patrols, careful not to mix up the cats. "I'll lead a hunting patrol, Spottedpaw, Flamecloud, Greyshine and Bluestorm, come on my patrol. And Swiftclaw, you can guard the camp."
We are very short on warriors. She looked down at assembled cats. They can barely make up two patrols at a time.
There had been questions when Firedust died and she was appointed as deputy. She had been skilful, but small and inexperienced. But Featherheart had a vision of the blinding bright dawn, which she thought referred to her, Dawntail.
Green-leaf was here, though it's only a few moons till another leaf-fall, then leaf-bare. The green leaves loomed over the stone hollow of ThunderClan camp, brightened by the morning sun.
The hunting patrol was over soon enough, she returned to camp with two mice and a pigeon dangling in her jaws. The other members of the patrol had all caught something, too. She was impressed of her own apprentice, Spottedpaw, who had caught a big shrew neatly. She had also heard of Bluebelltail's great performance in the other patrol. Not surprising at all, for seeing her hunting skills when they first met.
She had heard the reports, which were nothing really. The usual strongly marked boarders and hearing the other Clans are doing well.
Dawntail stretched under the bright sun, pleased for seeing the Clan relaxed and well-fed. She had planned a training session for the apprentices after sun-high. Gazing over the clearing, the apprentices are sharing togues and boasting about their hunts. Completely normal.
As her attention lifted from Blackpaw to Shredpaw, a great pang of sorrow hit her. The brown and white little tom was undersized, even smaller than his den-mates, who were two moons younger than him. Th result of spending half of his kithood in the medicine den.
He was badly injured in the stoat attack, when his littermate, Leafkit, was killed. He got the cruel name soon afterwards. And the scar...
The long scar ran across the young cat's right eye, he was lucky enough to not to lose that eye. His ear on the same side was torn badly, too. He nearly died of infection then. But he lived, and started training two moons late, when he was apprenticed alongside Spottedpaw and Blackpaw.
She hadn't seen the silver light in Bluebelltail's eyes since last dusk, so she had assumed it was her own imagination.
Dawntail rolled on her back, enjoying the last relaxing moments before the battle training.
. . .
Dawntail hadn't always been respected. She had been one of the smaller kits of the litter. Even Lightpelt, the youngest amongst her sisters, was bigger than her. And the Clan doubted her loyalty because she was half-Clan.
But she soon proved them all wrong.
Dawntail had mastered the hunter's crouch before the age of two moons, and had learnt most of the fighting moves before she left the nursery. She had always been silent on her paws.
Then she had been Foxstar's apprentice, not because she needed to keep a close eye on, but because she wanted to learn more from a more experienced warrior.
She hadn't been an apprentice for a long time. She had only been to a single gathering during her apprenticeship, but two battles.
The first was with ShadowClan, when Dawntail herself had found ShadowClan warriors on their land, stealing prey. She had shredded Sleekstripe then. And that's when she had found Lightpelt and Sunwhisker, both apprentices then, were fighting with their claws sheathed.
Then not long after that, the stoats attacked. She and Dusktail were made warriors after that. That's when Lightpelt decided to go to ShadowClan.
Dawntail had fought both battles fiercely, and she fought for ThunderClan, smoothing the doubts. She would have never betrayed her birth Clan in the first place, no cat could have helped with whether his or her parents are from the same Clan or not.
Swiftclaw and Bluestorm sometimes still challenged her, though always ended up backing down awkwardly in front of her reasons. It's not my fault that all your parents were dead! Nor the fact that I'm half-Clan! She had thought angrily. Silverstripe, Ambermist and Sparkflame lost their parents as well, they don't feel that stressed about it!
It's mostly the toms that were hostile towards Dawntail and her littermates, not that there were that many cats here. Greyshine was okay, with the fact that he had mentored Lightpelt.
The thing is, they had targeted her from the moment she first saw the camp. Probably because Nightspirit was the medicine cat, Dusktail had no mysteries without her bursting them all out, and Lightpelt was always a little distant and she was not even in this Clan anymore.
Dawntail had been a little too mysterious, her own clan-mates even suspected her having training lessons somewhere else. That was partly true though, she had trained herself sometimes, but they say it as if she was going to rogues or other Clans to train. How ridiculous.
She glared at them now, steady. No one will ever doubt me, now that I'm the deputy, they will see sense and look up to me for advice someday.
Make them look up to you at all costs. A voice whispered. They should never have undermined you. It continued. Make them regret it.
Dawntail turned around, no cat was there.
. . .
"Jump, Blackpaw! No, higher! Spottedpaw, roll out of the way! Turn around, Blackpaw, your landing should be softer! Shredpaw could have pinned you while you were staring at the other way! The whole point of double-attack training was for you to be aware of your surroundings all the time!"
Dawntail stood at the edge of the training hollow, snapping out orders as Spottedpaw and Shredpaw were practicing double-attack on Blackpaw, who was whirling from side to side, trying hard to take on two cats emerging from different directions.
"Spottedpaw! Shredpaw! You are tripping over one another! You should work together! When I say you can all fight together for only yourselves, you will! But it's not now!"
Ambermist and Dusktail were there, too. Watching their apprentices mock-fighting.
Blackpaw was standing on his hind legs now, swiping at the two attackers. Spottedpaw suddenly ducked into a low crouch, and, without warning, slid swiftly to Blackpaw's side. She lashed out her paws at Blackpaw, who was unbalanced and fell to his side. Shredpaw jumped up and pinned Blackpaw, who only managed to roll onto his belly, to the ground with a yowl of triumph, while Spottedpaw looked at Dawntail expectantly.
"We won, right?" The tortoiseshell apprentice asked.
"Yes, right, you won. Spottedpaw, that was a great move at the end, unbalancing Blackpaw on the side while Shredpaw was distracting him." The apprentice's tail curled to her back with delight, eyes twinkling.
"Shredpaw, you can let Blackpaw up now, before you squash him to death." Dusktail, Blackpaw's mentor, mewed, "I'm impressed for how long you put up with that fight, Spottedpaw and Shredpaw are growing strong now."
"It's Spottedpaw's turn to fight two cats, then." Ambermist suggested, "And that was a good fight." She added to the apprentices.
Bluebelltail walked into the clearing, whiskers twitching. "Did I interrupt anything?"
"Well- no, not at all," Ambermist replied, "In fact, why don't you join in too? We can see how is our new warrior."
The reply came as a simple "sure", then Bluebelltail suddenly leaped, without mussels tensing the moment before. She landed a tail-length before Dawntail, which was shorter than Dawntail had expected and she let out a low grunt of surprise.
In less than a heartbeat, Bluebelltail dodged to the side and lashed out at her. She ducked the swipes just in time and stalked forward as Bluebelltail leaped again, this time she turned in mid-air and landed neatly on four paws, facing Dawntail with a mock look on her face.
Is that all a Clan cat can do? Her expression seemed to say.
I'll show you what a warrior can do. Dawntail shot back the gaze.
This is even harder than fighting another warrior. She thought as Bluebelltail dodged swiftly another of her powerful strikes. Time to put on the show.
She leaped into the air, aiming for Bluebelltail, who rolled onto her back, exposing her belly. Well that makes it easy. Dawntail landed squarely on Bluebelltail. Not that skilled, are you?
Bluebelltail extended her paws to grip Dawntail's flanks. Oh really? Her eyes twinkled. Before Dawntail could do anything as she suddenly realized what she was going to do, she felt being rolled over and she was pinned.
Dawntail batted Bluebelltail with her hind legs, but without the force of a cat landing on her, she couldn't do the move Bluebelltail just used on her.
"I win." Bluebelltail mewed with a slight smirk. "You were fast, Dawntail, but not fast enough."
She jumped off, letting Dawntail get up.
"That was great! Where did you learn these moves, Bluebelltail? They were quite advanced." Dusktail exclaimed, "No one has beaten Dawntail in seasons!"
"We haven't lived for that long to say many seasons, Dusktail," Dawntail retorted, "But that was some good moves there, Bluebelltail."
"I taught myself." The silver cat replied, "I didn't know that Clan cats use these as well."
Dawntail turned to the apprentices, who were watching wide-eyed in astonishment, "I hope you were watching carefully, and I expect the same from all of you." She paused, "Not now, of course, but you should all try to work on that." She added, hearing the gasps from them as if it was an impossible task.
"Now back to camp, all of you."