PIKESTRIPE
By sunup, the rain had faded to a light mist. Fog pooled over the prairie, wisps breaking off into strands of pale gray cloud, threaded with gold and silver. As the ruffled clouds colored to rosy pink, the haze evaporated, and they could see LeafClan shadows moving among the hawthorns.
The gently sloping fields had turned all to mud around the island in the stream, and the lean and hungry shadows he spied looked like they might fade with the melting mist.
Pikestripe faced the rising sun to bask in its light, a brisk wind running through his pelt. His clanmates emerged into the light beside him, gazing down at where they had their prey entrapped and ready for the slaughter.
Pikestripe was as well-groomed as if it were his own warrior ceremony, his long gray hair sleek and glossy. They said MeadowClan cats were the most beautiful in all the four Clans, and compared to the shambling corpses-to-be he saw on the island, it seemed there was some truth in stereotypes.
Finally, finally, he could show the entire Clan how much he was worth. His father, their leader, had been too soft and too permissive with these LeafClan rogues for too long. This was the result; a war party marauding through their lands, raiders terrorizing their kits, demanding the hunting grounds that StarClan themselves had given them. All in the name of a dead, spirit-cursed rogue… Stormstar.
"The sun shines in our pelts," Bristlefur purred fiercely, orange eyes glowing like coals. "Up, up, MeadowClan!"
"Ready your claws!" Pikestripe shouted, to a chorus of eager battle cries from his clanmates. "Shame on the warrior with undyed claws today!"
"Brave spirit!" Bristlefur echoed. Morningsky stared at him too, but he paid her no mind. Yesterday's deputy. Tomorrow's elder. That tomorrow felt closer to ever, giving him another jolt of adrenaline to the heart.
"Let's go, by earth and water!"
"And nothing else? Air and fire?" Bristlefur asked idly.
"By starlight, Bristlefur," Pikestripe answered with a grin and whip of his tail.
Morningsky strode among the warriors now. "I hear your bold words," she asked, eyes sweeping over the ranks of MeadowClan warriors. He'd never seen such a large war party gathered in one place, not even for their delegations to Clawtower. "Are you prepared to make good on these promises? Will you drive these invaders back into the river?"
The yowls that broke out now were deafening.
"Hot blood will weep from LeafClan eyes today!" Pikestripe shouted with them.
"That's too bad," Applestem added dryly. "How will we see their natural tears?"
"We are all ready, Morningsky!" Cinderfrost called out.
"Then stand tall, MeadowClan. Let them see our full strength," Morningsky called out, raising her head high. She gestured down to the island of hawthorns, to the thin row of LeafClan warriors who now watched them helplessly from a distance. "Just look upon that poor and starving band, and your fair show will suck away their souls, leaving them just the shales and husks of cats. There is not enough work for all our claws, scarce enough blood in all their sickly veins.
"What's to say? A very little little let us do, and all is done. Then, on my signal, prepare to charge! And our approach will make LeafClan couch down in fear and yield."
There was the low cry of crows through the disappearing fog.
Leechnose raised her head, the tortoiseshell tabby's eyes almost frenzied. "Why do we stay so long? Those forest carrion-eaters, desperate for their bones, pollute our fields. I've never seen such lifeless corpses prepare for battle as the ones I see now."
"They have said their prayers, and they stay for death," Morningsky said, a grin creeping across her face.
"Should we send them fresh-kill and soft nests, and then fight them?" Pikestripe joked. He did not want it said his first true battle didn't count, being so lopsided. He'd proved himself in border scraps with rogues, warriors, and dogs, but Lilystar had always been so shy of a real battle. Robbing all his warriors of their glory.
"We only stay for Raggedweed's message," Morningsky mewed, as the restless lines of MeadowClan cats set themselves in position. Three tree-lengths down the slope and across the stream, it would take one brave charge to shatter their ranks like an egg.
Pikestripe fully intended to be at the front of that charge. Sunstar, he wanted for himself. The deputy Boulderstep too, and every other cat with a name worthy enough to be spread at the Gatherings. Thistleteeth and Rainripple would eat their own paws in envy, and it was almost enough just to look at Morningsky's face.
The sun continued to climb, but the clouds grew thicker, the rain picking back up into a drizzle that bedewed their coats.
Morningsky unsheathed her claws, tail high and upright in preparation for the signal. "MeadowClan, ready! Prepare to charge!"