Disclaimer: I own only what was not in the books
Chapter 19: Stars
Riverstripe poured down the ridge, paws thundering on the stony ridge, her cats, many carrying burning branches, streaking after her.Fear was replaced by rage. These were murderers! They deserved to die! They had to die!
With a screech, she lunged at a wolf, feinting toward his head, then ducking under his legs. Cutting his tendon like she had seen Shadowpelt do so long ago in another blood-soaked clearing, wreathing with cats and wolves, she watched him fall.
Wasting no time, she lunged forward and sank her teeth into his neck. Despite the thick fur, she managed to tear away his skin, exposing his life vein. With a quick bite, he was dead.
Having taken no more than a few seconds to dispose of her opponent, she spun. She knew she had to find Beast. She was one of the few cats who could kill him.
Looking around she found his hulking form quickly. He towered over all else, throwing cats to the side like mice. She lunged forward and found herself side-by-side with Thunderfoot and Windheart. She hadn't even noticed when they had entered the fighting.
The three approached the Beast from the back. Riverstripe expected to surprise him. But as they lunged toward his legs, he whipped around, fangs snapping. Riverstripe gasped in pain as his mouth closed around her neck. Suddenly, the wolf snarled and the weight was gone.
She scrambled out of the way as she heard her siblings gasp. Blinking spots from her eyes, she gawked. The Beast was writhing on the ground, and familiar black shadow clinging to his face.
"Shadowpelt," she gasped. Of course! He hadn't been among the ranks of StarClan!
Leaping off his face, her brother hurried toward them. It was indeed Shadowpelt. He was skinny and his fur stood up in ragged clumps. But his eyes burned as brightly as ever.
They heard a yowl. Glancing up at the ridge, she saw cats pouring down the slope. The Canyon Cats had arrived! The lunged into battle, swelling the ranks to almost three times their size.
Purring, she turned with all four of her siblings to face the Beast. The wolf was rushing toward them, face torn and bloody. Suddenly, time seemed to halt and Riverstripe collapsed.
Windheart's eyes snapped open. She was in the clearing again, surrounded by her ancestors. The odd voice rang out.
"This was not meant until later, but we see you need it now. It is time for you to receive your nine lives." Windheart gasped. Nine lives!
She looked around, and recognized the cats of the inner ring. The four Generals. The cat who had drowned in the river, and the apprentice who had been killed in the Valley of Thorns. Whitefoot. The black and white she-cat who had sacrificed herself and her unborn kits for them. And their mother.
(a/n- most of what is next is from book six, when Fireheart receives his nine lives. Some words are adjusted, but...)
All four Generals stepped forward, touching noses with their former Elites. "With this life, we give you justice. Use it well as you judge the actions of others."
An agonizing spasm of pain rushed through Windheart's body. She felt like she was being torn in two! She gritted her teeth to keep from yowling. At last, when the pain ebbed, the black and white she-cat stepped up.
Suddenly, she seemed to multiply, so that it was four ghostly, half transparent, cats that touched noses with the siblings. "With this life I give you protection. Use it well to care for your clan as a mother cares for her kits." Windheart expected this life to be gentle and loving, and she wasn't ready for the bolt of ferocity that transfixed him. She felt as though all the fury of their ancient ancestors were pulsing through her, challenging any cat to harm the weaker, faceless, shadows that crouched at her paws.
Shocked and trembling, Windheart recognized a mother's desire to protect her kits.
It was Mora, her old General of the RunningClan, alone who stepped up next. "With this life I give you tireless energy," she meowed as she bowed her head to touch noses with the four siblings. "Use it well to carry out the duties of a leader"
As the life coursed through Windheart, she felt as if she were racing across the moor, her paws skimming the ground, her fur flattened by the wind. She knew again the exhilaration of the hunt and the sheer joy of speed, and she felt that she could outrun and enemy forever.
Windheart knew the feeling.
It was the apprentice, murdered in the Valley, that came next. The young cats eyes shone with a wisdom beyond his age as he touched noses with them. "With this life, I give you mentoring. Use it well to train the young cats of your clans."
This life was short, a pang of anguish that he would never become a soldier, then a jolt of pure terror as he was pinned to the ground, and a flash of light, red as blood. Windheart knew she was experiencing the last moments of his life.
As the pain ebbed away, leaving Shadowpelt gasping, he began to feel like a hollow in the ground as rain falls into it and spills over. He didn't know how his strength would hold him through the last lives from the cats that were still to come.
The first was General Moonflower. She padded forward. "With this life I give you courage. Use it well in the defense of your clan."
The same pain from all the other lives passed through him.
Thunderfoot yowled as a bolt of energy so strong that all his fur stood on end seared through his body. A roar filled his ears and he felt dizzy as spots danced before his eyes. His mind filled with a chaotic swirl of battles and hunts, the feeling of claws raking across his fur and teeth meeting in the flesh of prey.
An image, so fast he wasn't sure if it had even been there, passed through his mind. Moonflower, leaping of the rock at the Gathering of the Clans, onto the back of a wolf, as he was about to close his jaws around an apprentice. Flung through the air, she landed with a thud and the wolf was on her. As she stared into the eyes of death, she snarled, unafraid, and swiped her claws across it's muzzle.
Riverstripe gasped and her eyes, which she didn't know she had closed, where open. Moonflower had been replaced by the cat who had drowned in the river. He, too, had multiplied into four.
"With this life I give loyalty to do what you know to be right. Use it well to guide your Clans in times of trouble." This life was less painful, for under the agony of it, lay a core of golden devotion, pure as the sun and the air.
When she opened her eyes, he was gone. In his place stood Whitefoot. She glanced at her sister, and saw a pang of longing in her eyes as she looked at her foster mother. "With this life I give compassion," she announced. "Use it well for he elders of your Clan, and the sick, and all those weaker than yourself."
This time, even knowing the pain she would have to bear, Windheart closed her eyes and drank in he life hungrily, wanting all of Whitefoot's spirit, all her courage and her lyoatly to her clan and the kit not hers by birth.
She received them like a tide of light surging through her: her humor, her gentle nature, her warmheartedness, and her sense of honor. She felt closer to her than before.
As his eyes followed the Medicine Cat back to her place, Thunderfoot decided that from then on, no Medicine Cat would be allowed to have kits. If Bristle and Fernpelt and Moren had had to go through the same as Whitefoot, others should know their pain.
To Shadowpelt's surprise, it was their mother who stepped up next. "With this life I give you love," she murmured. "Use it well, for all the cats in your Clan- and especially for Sheba," she added to him in a whisper.
There was no pain in the life that poured into Shadowpelt now, it held the warmth of the high sun in green-leaf, burning to the tips of his paws. It was pure love; at the same time he experience the sense of security he had known as a tiny kit, nuzzling his mother. He caught a gleam of pride in her eyes as she turned away, and his disappointment that she hadn't stayed to talk with him was mixed with relief that she approved of the life he had chosen.
At last, all the Generals appeared again, prowling toward him across the clearing like lions. Shadowpelt was almost dazzled by the glory of starlight around them, but he forced himself to look into Moonflower's eyes.
"Welcome Shadowpelt. I always knew you had a great destiny laid out for you." She touched her nose gently to his and went on, "With this life I give you nobility and certainty and faith. Use it well as you lead your Clan in the ways of StarClan and the warrior code."
The warmth of their mother's life had lulled Shadowpelt, and he was unprepared for the agony that shook him as he received Moonflower's and the other leader's.
He shared the fierceness of her ambition, the anguish she had suffered when her family had been killed as a kit, the frivolity of battle after battle in the service of her Clan. He felt her terror as she watched everything she had worked for fall to pieces before her very eyes, in the jaws of wolves and fire.
The rush of power grew stronger and stronger, until Shadowpelt thought his pelt would never contain it. Just as he thought he might yowl in pain or die, it began to ebb, ending in a sense of calm acceptance and joy.
A long soft his passed through the clearing. All the cats had risen, and the Generals beckoned for them to do the same. They obeyed, shakily.
"We hail you by your new names, Shadowstar, Thunderstar, Windstar, and Riverstar. You old life is no more. You have received the nine lives of a leader, and StarClan grants you the guardianship of the Clans. Defend them well; care for young and old; honor your ancestors and the warrior code that you must makee; live each life with pride and dignity. When your time has come, you can rest easily knowing that you will join the ranks of StarClan and look down on the home you have sacrificed so much for."
Shadowstar felt a rush of pride. For generations to come, leaders would stand where he was standing and receive their lives. They, though, would have a warrior code to follow and a clan to return to.
The clearing echoed with their names: "Shadowstar, Thunderstar, Windstar, Riverstar!" Slowly, the voice faded into nothingness and Shadowstar woke.
a/n- short, but it was a logical place to stop. The next chapter should be up by the end of the day, so keep you eyes peeled! I only have one or two more chapter to go, then maybe a prologue.