EDGECLAW'S GROUP
The patrol of cats had been walking for nearly half a day when a slight drizzle started coming down from the dark and cloudy sky.
"Oh just great, exactly what we needed," Grumbled Kickleg as he dropped his head lower to shield his eyes from the oncoming drizzle.
"There's an old abandoned barn just up ahead, if I remember correctly." Saige meowed to the cats, "I saw it on my journey over to your camp. It looks completely vacated, but would offer us a dry place to wait out this rain and maybe even hunt some prey."
Edgeclaw looked over at Saige, "What about other rogues, wouldn't that be an ideal place for them to live too?"
Saige flicked her tail irritably, "You know, not all rogues are cold, blood-thirsty murderers."
"I know that, and I didn't mean for it to sound like that." Edgeclaw meowed calmly, "It's just that most cats usually don't take kindly to letting travelers come, use their shelter, and then devour all of their prey."
Saige must've realized how quickly she had put her guard up when Edgeclaw had mentioned rogues, because she then responded in an understanding meow, "Well, in my experience, most rogues prefer to live out in the wilderness, rather than in barns. They don't seem to like being tied down to one place for long periods of time. Normally it's just an old farm-cat or rogue who settles in a barn."
Pushing forward, it wasn't long before the old tattered barn came into view. "At least it doesn't look like they'll be any two-legs around," Owlclaw meowed, trying his best to sound like a senior warrior.
Edgeclaw couldn't help thinking of Bravepaw and how he would've said something similar if he had been here. "How anxious I was when I first became a warrior to prove myself, although I sure did some brainless things while trying to prove it." He chuckled to himself as he remembered the one time he had fallen into the river bordering Riverclan while he was trying to prove that a Thunderclan cat could catch a fish just as easily as a Riverclan warrior could.
They entered the old barn by going through a huge gap near the bottom of the wall. The patrol then looked around, taking in their surroundings.
It was a rather large barn, with a full sized loft and a wobbly looking ladder leading up to it. One of the walls had numerous gaps in it from where the rusty nails had broken loose and caused some of the boards to collapse in a lopsided fashion. There was also a large hole in the roof, but thankfully, it was only on one side of the barn, leaving plenty of shelter for the traveling cats.
Edgeclaw took a few paces in and surveyed from the middle of the barn. He had to blink twice as he realized from the far back corner in the shadows a pair of light blue eyes were staring back at him.
An elderly she-cat with a jet-black pelt lied curled up in a lazy manner. She was almost camouflaged into the shadows if it were not for the piercing blue eyes that slowly shifted back and forth as they surveyed the group.
It was seemingly obvious that none of the other cats had taken sight of her yet for they continued on in ordinary conversation completely unaware of her presence.
"At least it's warm and dry!" Berrybranch meowed as she shook her pelt trying to remove the wet raindrops from her fur.
"It appears we've made it just in time too." Owlclaw starting licking his fur to bring back some more warmth into it, "Look outside. It's really starting to come down."
A lightning bolt flashed outside as the rain started making loud banging noises as it splashed on top of the old barns metal roof.
Edgeclaw stared as the dark black she-cat stepped out from her corner where she had been lying and into the middle of the barn. She was an old small cat with short fur and had a long scar that showed across her face below her right eye to almost the back of her neck.
"Well I see you've decided to take shelter from the storm in my barn," She meowed as all eyes of the soaked cats suddenly turned toward her.
"Oh, well, uh… yes, we hope you don't mind. It's just we were out on the field when it started raining, our friend here," She gestured to Saige then continued, "remembered passing this barn on her way once before and we thought we could get warm and dry here." Berrybranch meowed respectfully, "We hope you don't mind."
"Well I don't suppose it mattered if I did." The old she-cat croaked dryly, "Besides, what were you all doing out in weather like this anyway? I've never seen the likes of you around here."
Saige stepped up, "We're uh… we're-"
"Oh, never mind I don't want to know!" the old she-cat snapped, "Better not to know anything about anything, you stay out of a lot more trouble that way just by minding your own business. That's the trouble with youngsters now-a-days, always poking their noses where they don't belong!"
"Well we appreciate you allowing us to stay," Edgeclaw meowed. Even though he knew very well they were just humoring the poor old she-cat. It was obvious that she couldn't take on all of them. In fact, Edgeclaw doubted she could even make a single scratch on one of them! None-the-less she had been there first and even though she may not be happy about them staying, they were going to have to make the best of it either way.
"May we ask what your name is?" Berrybranch asked.
"I suppose it won't hurt nothing," She snorted, "I go by the name of Splinter."
"Well it's nice to meet you, Splinter," Kickleg piped in, "You wouldn't happen to know if there are any mice in this here barn, now would ya? 'Cause I don't know about my companions but I could sure use a little something to keep up my strength."
"I've not gone hungry here," Splinter meowed, "Feel free to hunt if you'd like. Of course you probably would anyways, even without my permission."
"Thanks!" Owlclaw exclaimed!
In only a matter of minutes, each of the warriors had caught themselves a nice juicy mouse, with the exception of Owlclaw who had caught two! Owlclaw padded up to old cat where she was lying and placed one of the mice at Splinter's paws.
"I caught an extra mouse and thought you might like to have it."
The old she-cat's face showed slight surprise at the kind gesture of the young tom, but she just mumbled passively, "Well I suppose if it's an extra one, I wouldn't want it to end up as crow-food." Then she bent down and started eating the prey appreciatively.
Owlclaw just padded off with a grin on his face, then settled down to eat with the rest of the cats beside his former mentor Kickleg, as they sat eating their prey and listening to the heavy downpour.
"So how many of these rogues are there exactly?" Berrybranch asked Saige, breaking the silence.
"I'm not sure how many there are exactly…" Saige meowed, her eyes once again taking on a vibrant hate at the mention of the rogues who were threatening her family.
A slight growl started at the pack of her throat, "Blood-eye is their leader, and his mate Scarflank is his right paw, they run the whole group, making demands whenever it meets their own whims. I'd guess they have at least seven others with them. All savage brawny cats that will back him up so that he gets what he wants. There were five of them that ganged up on Charles. He had just finished a hunting trip and was bringing back prey for me and the kits. Blood-eye was there." Her brown eyes turned cold as she meowed the rogue leader's name.
"They all ganged up on him, and would've left him there to die, but they wanted to strike fear into us and make us truly suffer, because that's just how ruthless they are. They wanted it to be slow. I went out to search for him, since he hadn't returned for a while and I was worried for him. When I found him caked in his own blood from all the scratches and bite marks they left on him, I thought for sure he was dead."
She paused to take a deep breath then continued, "He had a huge gash taken out of his back leg, and even now we're not sure if he'll be able to ever walk the same again. Our friend Pumble helped me take him home and care for him, his fever has risen so high though now. I just knew then we would never stand a chance against them by ourselves, that we needed help. That's why I came back to Thunderclan and that's why we're here right now, to stop those murderous rogues from bullying other cats around."
A quiet silence fell across the group as the all sat with their own thought, thinking of what Saige had said, and what they were up against.
Edgeclaw then meowed purposefully, "It doesn't look like this rain will let up for a while. I suggest we try and get a little shut-eye before we head back out. We're going to need all the rest we can get. We'll leave as soon as the rain dies down."
They then all settled down, some curled up with their tails wrapped around them, while others rested their chins on their paws, listening to the patter of the rain.