Chapter 5: Descent, part 1

Jaggedshadow's POV

Jaggedshadow stepped down the tunnel. He had eaten two mice, a rat and a small rabbit, yet his hunger wasn't satisfied. He tossed the bones and fur aside. Jaggedshadow walked onward, surprised and impressed that he had caught prey. The ground sloped smoothly downward.

He continued to walk, his head raised high. His kin, the Sky Dwellers, had always been a proud family, well-known within Nightclan for their size, strength and courage. Jaggedshadow glanced around. Despite his thick ragged fur, the cold damp air chilled his skin. Frost weighed on Jaggedshadow's whiskers. His legs felt heavy, like they were made of stone. He stopped walking and looked down.

Scars decorated his forelegs, crossing and criss-crossing each other in memory-laden patterns. Most of them, he had received in battle. The lion's fang mark rested on his right shoulder and two scars lay parallel to each other across his left.

Of Jaggedshadow's scars, the three over his right eye mattered most. Oakpelt had given them to Jaggedshadow on that fateful night during the height of the battle at hawk ridge, shortly before Jaggedshadow killed him. Jaggedshadow's face scars were one of the first things that cats seemed to notice when meeting him for the first time. Jaggedshadow looked up, frowning. He had been good friends with Oakpelt.

Jaggedshadow began walking. He shook the frost off his whiskers. An ear flicked as something furry glided past. He swiped at it and his paw slammed into stone. He leaped backward, slamming into the tunnel wall. Jaggedshadow stood back up. Ignoring the throbbing pain in his back and forepaw, he limped down the path. Small rocks scraped his pads.

Jaggedshadow walked around, feeling the rock around him. Having mapped a section of the tunnel, he swiped at the air. His paw hit the tunnel wall. Jaggedshadow stepped back and struck again, his strike meeting only air.

"Let's see if I can strike farther." Jaggedshadow whispered to himself as he struck the air with his paw. He swung a foreleg diagonally downward. Successful, he stepped forward and swung his leg upward. He spun around.

Jaggedshadow threw a jab and swung his leg toward his other shoulder. He stamped his foot into the sand. Turning his head to look behind him, he kicked with a hind leg. Jaggedshadow reared up and slammed his forelegs against the sand. He turned around. Jaggedshadow stepped forward and swung his paw parallel to the sandy floor. Jaggedshadow stepped to the side as if dodging a strike and struck the air as if attacking an opponent's shoulder. He stepped forward and slashed up at an angle, then downward. Sand flew through the air, kicked up by Jaggedshadow's paws as he jumped. Balancing shakily on his back legs, he jabbed forward with both forepaws.

Back on all fours, he finished his impromptu practice session with a strong downward paw swipe that would temporarily cripple an opponent's shoulder. He began to walk down the path.

Sunlight shone on Jaggedshadow's face, warming his head. His ears were warm from the light. Bird song and the occasional caw of a crow filled the air. Jaggedshadow laid down on the sand and began basking in the sun's warmth, which filtered through a hole. He lifted his head and began to purr. Wirthing playfully on the sand, he rolled onto his back. Some earth fell on him. Jaggedshadow looked up. A cat was looking down at him. Jaggedshadow stood up. It was a ginger tabby she-cat.

"Do you need help?" The ginger she-cat asked.

"No." Jaggedshadow turned around and dashed down the tunnel. His pace gradually slowed until it was almost to a standstill. His heart thumped violently in his chest and his lungs ached from the exertion. Jaggedshadow had never been good at running. His stamina was too pathetic to allow him to run for long.

"I can do this on my own." His statement was more to convince himself than to clarify to others.

Jaggedshadow was never one to admit defeat easily. Even if losing, he stubbornly refused to concede. His pride demanded nothing less of him. So he walked on, ignoring the pain in his legs and his growling belly. Light drifted into the tunnel from cracks and holes in the stone above his head.

The walls of the tunnel had come closer together and Jaggedshadow's whisker-tips brushed the stone. He braced himself. Another vision could appear at any moment. Soothing or terrifying, they could show themselves at any moment like disturbed ghosts. The visions so far had been of past events. Plague had told Jaggedshadow that he would experience visions of past and future. Visions of lies and secrets, and visions of memories and warnings.

Jaggedshadow stopped walking and a crow flew overhead. Plague had often told Jaggedshadow to be wary of "the wind that arose from crow's wings.'' Jaggedshadow had seldom been superstitious, but Plague was rarely wrong, so Jaggedshadow continued walking.

Either Jaggedshadow's legs no longer ached, or they had finally gone numb. Either way, he marched on. The path sloped downward, plunging Jaggedshadow into darkness once again. No prey turned up. But it did not matter, as the hunger pangs Jaggedshadow had felt had faded away. The tunnel narrowed once again, pressing Jaggedshadow's whiskers flat against his face. The tunnel walls were smooth as if some river or stream had once run through it.

Jaggedshadow entered a cave and stopped walking. He sat down. A small stream trickled down a rock face to his right. He hissed and the echo repeated several times before fading back into the silence from which it came. Jaggedshadow looked around in wonder. A mossy-green glow emitted from a stone in the center of the cavern. Translucent dark purple rocks with many sides grew off of the cavern walls. Jaggedshadow walked around. The cavern was large enough for twenty large cats to lay around the glowing stone. Four columns of smooth, clear stone stood against the walls. Tree roots interlaced above him. The glow suddenly went blue.

Jaggedshadow circled the glowing stone one more time and exited through a tunnel to his left. Making a mental note to visit the cavern again later, he walked down the tunnel. This path sloped upward under his paws. Precious little light pierced the vast narrow darkness through which Jaggedshadow walked.

Jaggedshadow sat down and licked the dust off of a forepaw. It was dark, but at least the air was warmer than it had been earlier in the journey. He scratched at an itch behind his ear.

Jaggedshadow stood up, wondering when he last ate. As if by a signal, Jaggedshadow picked up the scent of a hare. He prowled forward, placing each paw carefully on the stone so that they didn't make noise. The hare sat up, glancing around and sniffing the air. Jaggedshadow froze. He tensed his legs, preparing to leap. The hare blundered into Jaggedshadow's grasp. Jaggedshadow jumped back, startled. Remembering that he was hunting, he leaped at the hare and sent it flying with a paw strike. Jaggedshadow approached his wounded prey and bit down. He sat down. Jaggedshadow bent his neck to take a bite and received several kicks to the face. The hare ran away shrieking and squealing.

Disappointed but entirely not surprised, Jaggedshadow looked around. He had always been terrible at hunting. The hare's shrieks must have scared away any other prey. Jaggedshadow took a step down the path. He would try for more prey later. He walked in darkness, his mouth opened to taste the air for prey-scent. No prey-scent drifted through the tunnel air, other than the hare's. His suspicion confirmed, he closed his mouth and pricked his ears. Jaggedshadow listened intently for any sounds that might point out potential prey. Sounds of small far off scurrying creatures echoed faintly throughout the tunnels. Jaggedshadow stopped walking. He tried to focus on one source, but couldn't pinpoint any of them. Frustrated, he stormed down the path. All three of his former mentors had taught him to tread lightly, especially when hunting, but Jaggedshadow was too tired and too frustrated to care.

He stared ahead, angered at his performance. At this rate, he might starve to death if he kept having such poor luck. He shook his head as if trying to clear the thought. His problem lay in his technique, not in luck. If there was one thing that Plague had taught Jaggedshadow, it was that one's path is rarely shaped by luck, or even by one's ancestors, but by one's choices and actions.