BRISTLEFUR

The rain only poured harder. His spiky fur was slicked flat with mud, blood patching his coat, welling in between his teeth as he struggled in the icy water. All spots, swirls, and stripes turned the same blotchy red and brown, as cats struggled together beneath the shade of the hawthorns.

Rain lashed at his face as he sloshed through the creek, shoving a LeafClan cat back and slashing out at another. He saw Snowtuft with her jaws around a she-cat's leg, biting it down clear to the bone, and Morningsky locked with Sunstar himself.

Bristlefur waded to shore, breathless and pained, glancing around at the chaos that raged around him. A LeafClan warrior ranged up and down the creekbank, bloody from head to tail, throwing Pikestripe into the water. Another LeafClan warrior laid still on the shore, red bubbling from a horrific gash across their throat, but so covered in mud and wounds that he could hardly tell their original pelt color beneath.

A weight crashed into him, and he flailed out with claws, but it was Dappleleaf shouldering past him. She cursed behind her before disappearing into the folds of battle. This was total confusion, madness…

Bristlefur pivoted his ears to Morningsky's voice roaring over the chaos, crossing back over the stream. "MeadowClan! Rally to me! To me!"

MeadowClan and LeafClan pulled back from each other, dozens of warriors crossing back over the stream to gather around their deputy. He saw Pikestripe's eyes blazing with fury, Leechnose wincing in pain with blood trickling from her nicked ear.

Still, the LeafClan cats kept the island, snarling their defiance to the air. He felt his hackles stand on end.

"Nothing can stand against the force of water!" Morningsky shouted as the battle came to a stop, just for a few breaths. "We are grace! We are power! We are MeadowClan! On my signal, charge!"

And the MeadowClan deputy chopped her tail sharply through the air, and they went charging across the stream again, at the LeafClan warriors standing on the other side of the bank.

They crashed against them in a sharp wedge, driving the LeafClan line inward with their sheer momentum. And once again, the fighting dissolved into the vision of nightmares. Shadows of cats, near indistinguishable from each other, clawing and biting and kicking. Bristlefur went to lunge at one she-cat, who stood over a writhing Snailmoon, only to feel teeth clamp down hard on his tail.

Pain lanced up his spine, kicking and scrabbling in the mud as he tried to wheel around to get his attacker. But the bite suddenly released, and as Bristlefur turned, there was no telling who had been there a heartbeat before, or what became of them.

Morningsky was wheeling around again, drenched up to her belly fur in the middle of the stream, tail up high. "MeadowClan! Rally once more!"

Again, he retreated back across the stream, and it felt like foxes were snapping at his heels from behind. And this time, they left bodies half-submerged in the water. The water washed around their pelts like stepping stones. Bristlefur almost tripped over one cat, barely pausing to see if the limp form was kin or friend, as he went sprinting to where his clanmates gathered on the opposite end of the bank.

Morningsky's voice was hoarse now, not putting weight on one of her forelegs. "MeadowClan… charge!"

The blood roared in his ears, deafening to a ring as the water splashed up around his paws, charging across the stream. This time, the LeafClan cats waded out into the creek to meet them. Bristlefur splashed his paw across the surface of the burbling stream, spraying water up in a golden she-cat's eyes, but she still plunged at him blindly.

And he could hardly believe it, but they both went plunging down into the cold water, light and sound dissipating to nothing. Shadows swam in his stinging eyes as he kicked and grappled at the warrior underwater, holding his breath like every kit was trained.

The warrior struggled and kicked in his grip, increasingly desperate, their kicks occasionally breaking the surface. But they grew weaker, and weaker, and he thought she might stop forever in his embrace.

But another weight plunged in, grabbing him by the scruff. Bristlefur sucked in oxygen with a long gasp, fighting for footing, but the teeth around his scruff didn't relent.

His attacker plunged suddenly downward, dunking his head beneath the water. Water filled his nose and mouth, churning his legs uselessly in the stream until he was almost lightheaded. Then the teeth around his scruff yanked back again, his vision blotchy as he coughed and hacked up water from his lungs.

And in the disturbed water, he saw Sunstar's terrible scarred face reflected in the stream, with an unbreakable grip around his scruff. The LeafClan leader pressed his weight down on him again, forcing him down into the stream again.

This time, he hardly had the strength to resist, feeling the numbness spread from the paws up. He would have given himself up to the bleary streambed, and cease the struggling, until he felt himself drift free.

Bristlefur might have kept drifting, but he remembered Ivyflower's face, and clawed himself back to land. He retched up water from his lungs, his fur plastered to the skin, no strength in his limbs.

Snailmoon had leapt to his rescue. Sunstar had the queen grappled in his claws now, plunging her down into the stream, and he never saw her head break the surface again. Bristlefur turned his head away, too nauseous to see what became of his clanmate, and went crawling up the muddy slope.

Other cats were fleeing across the grass, slipping in the mud, only seeing their tails disappear over the grassy rise.

He gazed around the island shore, between the dead and injured and the many cats still locked in combat.

"Rally! MeadowClan, rally to me!" Morningsky cried, once again. But for every cat that limped back to the deputy's side, another cat fled past her. "Keep your ground!" She frantically swept her head around, calling after them as they broke and ran across the fields.

Others ignored her entirely, still trapped on the other side of the stream. The LeafClan ranks still stood.

"Oh StarClan…" he heard Morningsky whisper as he stumbled to her side.

"By Silverpelt," Bristlefur rasped. "We've lost, we've lost everything."

"By death, all is overturned," Pikestripe hissed. "Reproach and everlasting shame sits mocking in our pelts." He turned his head toward Sheephead as he pulled himself from the stream and went fleeing back over the prairie. "Do not run away!"

But he called out in vain.

"Why, all our ranks are broke," Morningsky said startingly, her voice strangely flat and casual, as if her heart hadn't processed her own words.

"Perdurable shame!" Pikestripe growled again. "Better to die than yield a blade of MeadowClan grass!"

Is this the leader we sent to for ransom? Bristlefur thought in wonderment, staring across the stream at the still-raging battle as if in a dream.

"Shame, and eternal shame, nothing but shame…!" Cinderfrost growled, her voice breaking as she stared out over the island of hawthorns. The skies continued to weep for them. "Let us die. In once more! Back again!"

"Disorder spoiled us, but may it befriend us now," Morningsky said quietly, staggering to her full height and preparing for the final charge. Her tail was high, and Bristlefur stood tall to obey her signal. "Let us offer up our lives on the heaps."

"We are still enough living in the field to smother up LeafClan in our throngs, if any order might be thought upon," Bristlefur said, looking desperately to his clanmates.

Pikestripe's green eyes burned with blazing, furious tears. "StarClan take order now!" he snarled. "Back into the fray! Let life be short, else shame will be too long!"

And lining up side by side with his clanmates, Bristlefur charged back across the stream, into the wicked violence.