I got the prologue up quickly 'cause of the dizzying allegiances... So, well, here it is.

DISCLAIMER: Young readers, you have much to learn if you believe Warriors belongs to me. =wise nod=

Prologue

"Oh... in the name of all things blessed!"

The quiet whisper sliced through the night air as the she-cat's eyes flashed fearfully. The short furred, brown tabby tom beside her stiffened.

"Please, Sycamore, don't do it!" the tawny she-cat begged in a whisper which was high-pitched with terror. "Not tonight."

For several heartbeats, Sycamore neither moved nor said anything.

"Sycamore, our son!"

"Iris!" growled Sycamore, whipping around to face his mate. "There is nothing more I can do for Ivy, however ill he might be."

"But-"

"Comfort Tulip," Sycamore mewed, cutting across her. He did not meet her eyes. "She must not be allowed to go near Ivy. I'm not sure whether he's contagious or not." His eyes darkened. "But I'm not putting our other kit at risk."

"You're putting yourself at risk!" whispered Iris, her eyes wide and fearful. "Please!"

"I can't let them trespass! I have to let them know that this is our territory!" Iris was scared by the passion in her mate's mew.

"Alone?"

Shaking his broad, dark-furred head impatiently, Sycamore opened his jaws to breathe in the forest odours. "Can't you scent it? He hasn't brought his mate this time. Or his kits, more's the pity."

Iris's eyes stretched so wide that the whites were nearly visible. "What do mean?"

"Maybe I'd like to make him feel worried for his kits' lives once in a while," Sycamore hissed, unsheathing his claws into the soft earth. He briefly met Iris's eyes and sheathed them again. Perhaps he realised how much fear his words had invoked on the tawny she-cat. "I've got to go."

Gently, Iris touched his nose with her own, anguish in her eyes. "If you must," she murmured. "But please, Sycamore... Careful."

But Sycamore was already gone, the gloom surrounding the trees swallowing his dark pelt.

Iris turned back to her den, her tail trailing and her head low. If she had had less on her mind, she would have noticed that Tulip and Ivy's den, which was only a couple of rabbit hops from hers, under a canopy of low-hanging branches, was empty.

The entire den reeked of illness. Iris pushed her way past a shadowed branch into what had once been a quiet sanctuary, wrinkling her nose in disgust at the stench. As she turned towards her son's makeshift nest she heard a feeble cough, followed by a hushed mew.

"Here, Ivy... drink this..."

Iris stopped dead, nostrils flaring in alarm. "Tulip!" she hissed, eyes flashing. "You're not supposed to be in here!"

The dark tawny she-cat jumped, dropping the soaked scrap of moss she had been carrying in her jaws. "S-sorry, mother," she stammered. "I just wanted to see Ivy." Her voice cracked on the last word, and she lowered her eyes.

Iris trembled with anger, though she knew that she was simply afraid for her daughter. "Ivy is very sick," she whispered, trying to keep the fury from her mew. "Which is why he was moved into my den. I... I doubt he even realises that you're here. We don't want you falling ill, too."

Glancing up hesitantly, Tulip tried to tactfully change the subject. "Where's Sycamore?"

Iris forced herself not to shy away from the question, but she knew that Tulip had not missed her flinch. "He has gone to settle some matters with some of the cats that live on the other side of the copse."

"You mean he's gone to fight." Tulip's mew wobbled, but her eyes were evenly trained on Iris.

Her mother bowed her head. "Yes," she murmured, not able to meet her daughter's steadfast gaze. "He has gone to fight."

Tulip said nothing more. She padded quietly out of the den, her shoulders slumped with defeat. Iris stretched out her neck and gave her daughter a quick lick on the head, unable to bear her unhappiness, but Tulip didn't respond.

Ivy writhed uncomfortably in his nest. Iris padded closer to her ailing son and tried to straighten the moss around him with her nose. Anything to make him a little more comfortable...

He shuddered with cold and curled up into a tense ball, eyes squeezed tightly closed and muscles taut. Distressed at seeing Ivy in such pain, Iris touched her nose to his flank and realised that he was, yet again, red-hot with fever. He had always been a sickly kit, but this...

"Mother!"

"Tulip, I thought I told you to keep away?" spat Iris, her temper rising to the surface as her daughter skidded back into the den.

"I'm sorry!" Tulip crouched low as she saw her mother's expression. "But... I've just thought... Ivy..." She fixed Iris with an anxious eye. "Will he... die?"

Iris turned away and stared at Ivy so fiercely she felt that she could have scorched his fur. She wasn't ready to answer that question.

What if Ivy didn't get better?