TW : Blood, violence

Chapter 4:: Demon's Cry

EIGHT HOURS TO SUNRISE

"Warriors do not flee from a battle." This was Shadepaw's most prominent value.

Of course, however, he had only been in one real battle, and so it could be argued that his adage didn't hold enough ground to be respected. As far as he was concerned, however, his personal life was proof enough.

As much as he and Jackalpaw got along, they fought. Words mostly - words flung carelessly at each other for the hell of it. Usually they were easily forgotten, but sometimes, on bad days, their words became barbed, meant to hurt. Neither backed down, because warriors do not flee from a battle, and knowing each other better than anyone else meant that they knew exactly how to attack. Sometimes, often enough that there was a routine for it, they would fight, they were separated by the older apprentices, and then chastised by their mentors.

They never apologized, not once, because their attacks, though breaking skin and leaving scars, were not targeted at each other. They were the product of long-standing frustrations boiling over, vicious insecurities poking their heads.

Shadepaw didn't back down from Sharpfang either. As his mentor scolded him, he raised his head and looked him in the eyes. He would never argue back to Sharpfang, or throw words at him the way he did to Jackalpaw. He would never say You're the reason I'm like this, or Don't fucking tell me what to do, because emotions are complicated, actually, and despite everything, he respected Sharpfang. But his defiance said all that was needed:

I won't be tamed by you.

All that said, when the wolves bore down on Shadepaw, he wanted to run. Every bone in his body screamed at him to flee. But his body was a coward, and Shadepaw was more than what his bones and meat made him.

He saw nothing but black fur and red eyes as he scrambled to the side to avoid the wolf's snapping teeth. He, Sharpfang, Darkleaf and Shadowhisker scattered away, all wide eyes and flashing tails. The wolf turned in one swift notion - not even close to falling for Darkleaf's cliff idea - and snapped its teeth at Shadowhisker. Shadowhisker was fast - he ducked under the creature's belly, and in a moment of impossible flexibility, its neck bent to follow him.

But Darkleaf was fast to distract it, pouncing directly onto its neck. Because while some warriors have adages about honor and bravery, as far as Shadepaw knew, Darkleaf's was, "All or nothing!"

Sharpfang leapt onto its back as it shook its head, and Shadowhisker snapped at its legs. Shadepaw shuffled his paws, crouched low and ready to strike, but indecision kept him away.

One mistake and that thing would finish him.

In Shadepaw's moment of hesitation, the wolf kicked Shadowhisker with its back leg, threw Darkleaf off its head, and bent its neck to grasp Sharpfang in its teeth. It closed its teeth around him, and Sharpfang shrieked.

Shadepaw's eyes snapped wide, and he leapt, taking Darkleaf's place on the wolf's face. Frantically, he scrabbled for a hold on its muzzle, its eyes, its ears - anything that would hurt it. He was small, but his claws were sharp, and desperation gave him strength. He thought he heard Sharpfang's body hit the ground, and the wolf growled and shook its head. Shadepaw tried to hold on, but yes - he was small. He was thrown off easier than Darkleaf was, the whiplash sending him straight to the ground.

He rolled a distance. In a heartstopping instant, he sensed that he was rolling towards the edge of the cliff. He dug his claws into the earth, but what stopped him was a corpse closer to the edge than the others. He huffed as he hit it, and looked up with blurry eyes.

The wolf was above him, shaking its head back and forth. Its eyes were bloody and clawed over - between Darkleaf and Shadepaw, had they blinded it?

It let out a snarl that made Shadepaw shrink back against the fur of the dead cat that sheltered him. Sharpfang was still under it, moving weakly.

Darkleaf distracted it from him as Shadepaw watched, nipping at its legs and avoiding its attacks. Shadowhisker joined her, too, although Shadepaw saw that one half of his face was soaked in blood. They led it away from Sharpfang, leaving Shadepaw to run over to him.

In Shadepaw's mind, he was in that battle on the plateau - Sharpfang laid out like he was dead, belly torn apart, claws split, looking really like every one of the corpses that Shadepaw had stepped over since he made it down that fucking mountain. He remembered his stupid kitlike paws pressing against his shoulder, his thin pathetic voice crying Sharpfang, Sharpfang, Sharpfang-

"Sh-Sharpfang." Shadepaw prodded his shoulder with his paw, and then flinched when he heard a different cat's pained yowl.

Sharpfang shuddered, too. "Stop that." He drew in a breath that shook his lungs, but he stood on shaky legs. The two of them looked around themselves.

"We ought to run," Sharpfang said.

Shadepaw felt helplessness truly sink into his bones, then. "But Jackalpaw-"

Sharpfang shook his head in one rough movement, and then he looked at their blinded wolf. Shadowhisker and Darkleaf were darting in-between its legs, and, Shadepaw realized, luring it close to the edge of the cliff.

Sharpfang flicked his tail once, and then ran to join them. Shadepaw followed behind him, thinking without really thinking, and when Sharpfang snapped at the wolf's left leg, Shadepaw snapped at its tail, and jumped out of the way of its attack on him.

Shadepaw never ran from a fight because he didn't need to. Brazen defiance got him through life, the thought that he would rather die than face the shame of backing down. The smugness of the enemy that watches you slink into the troughs of surrender was something he would never see again.

Slavering jaws snapped at him, and he fell to the side. Darkleaf grabbed him by the scruff and flung him away as a heavy paw almost slammed down on him. Bit by bit, they were luring it to the cliff, and in its bloodied frustration, it easily followed.

Only a few paces away, Shadepaw started to think that they could made it. Hope pulsed through his bruised body as he darted from side to side, and in a look he shared with Sharpfang, he thought, Just one final push!

It stopped moving.

Shadepaw skidded to a stop next to it, almost tripping over his paws. He stayed perfectly still, apprehensive, and the sounds of the battles around him faded to fuzzy white noise in his mind. As he watched the wolf's heaving form, he realized that it… it truly did look like it was in pain.

The other three cats had stopped as well, each of them warily eyeing it. Shadepaw's eyes flickered from its rapidly expanding flank to its hunched shoulders, to finally its face. Thick dark blood seeped from the wounds on its eyes and dripped down into its mouth, where it dribbled down its open jaw, onto the ground.

Before Shadepaw's mind could form a thought, it threw its head back, and howled. The shriek ripped through the air, and Shadepaw pressed close to the ground as he flattened his ears. It howled until its lungs ran out of air and the sound died out. It howled and the night answered, in a cacophony of shrill voices that echoed through the valley.

And then it collapsed, and it was silent. Shadepaw had to take a few scrambling steps to not be crushed under it. He stared at it with wide eyes - it was still breathing, labored and whimpering - but he startled at Sharpfang's nudge.

Behind him, in different stages of injury, the other two wolves faced them. In a moment, the breath left Shadepaw's lungs, and he sharply inhaled when Sharpfang suddenly shoved him. In the moment that they moved, the other wolves pounced, one at Sharpfang and Shadepaw, and the other at Darkleaf and Shadowhisker. In a moment of bad fortune, Shadepaw moved one way and Sharpfang went the other, and they were separated.

It chose to go after Sharpfang, and Shadepaw immediately spun around to intercept it, as well as the other cats. But as he did, he suddenly came face-to-face with someone.

He gasped and shrunk back from wide amber eyes. Fisher, he realized - the stranger who'd warned them about the wolves.

"More will come," he said. Shadepaw's mind had to take a second to process the words - I need to help Sharpfang I need to help Sharpfang I need to help Sharpfang - but when he did, he tried to speak and heard himself whimper.

Fisher was breathing heavily, swallowing as he tried to regain his breath. Just as he was about to speak, they both heard howls coming from the distance - from the north, Shadepaw thought. The direction of home.

Fisher gasped, and he started to back away. "I can - I know one place, come on, come on!"

Shadepaw shook his head. "Sharpfang-"

Fisher growled in a wordless frustration, and grabbed onto Shadepaw with his teeth. But at that moment, Darkleaf and Shadowhisker's wolf plowed into them - Jackalpaw was there too - and they, so close to that fucking cliff, lost their balance.

"Shadepaw!" Jackalpaw was by his side, reaching out to him. Shadepaw twisted himself in the moment before his paws left the ground, enough for Jackalpaw's claws to sink into him.

But Shadepaw had never had a moment of good luck in his life, and his friends could say the same. When Shadepaw's weight pulled on Jackalpaw's uneven footing, rather than letting go, Jackalpaw fought to keep them upright.

Jackalpaw was Shadepaw's best friend, but he had often thought that he would never trust Jackalpaw with his life. He thought of that now with a grim irony - he was right.

Four bodies - Shadepaw, Jackalpaw, Fisher and the Wolf - all fell down the cliff.