Tear the Trees Apart: Mapleshade's Vengeance

Chapter 1: The Gathering

Three trees stood proudly. A birch, a maple, and an apple. All three reached up into the sky. Despite being young saplings, they were already impressively strong. The black tom stared at them carefully.

Without warning, the birch tree shuttered. The tom jumped, and steadied himself against the ground. It shuttered again, more violently, and suddenly it tore out of the ground! Its roots flailed in the wind as it fell, smashing into the maple tree. The tom willed the maple tree to prevail, but it too was uprooted. The birch tree crashed against the ground, shaking the earth beneath the tom. His eyes frantically darted between the birch and the apple tree as the maple tree creaked and moaned. It rocked back and forth, as if it was unsure.

But it too fell, smashing into the apple tree. The two trees splintered and fractured, leaving nothing but a ruined forest. The tom stared in horror. In a matter of seconds, three perfectly healthy trees had been lost.

Three trees, a maple tree, a birch tree, and an apple tree, will fall, and take the whole forest with them.

...

"Steady on, Mapleshade! You just trod on my tail!" The WindClan warrior jerked away with a hiss.

"Sorry, Swiftflight," Mapleshade apologized over her shoulder as she plunged deeper into the throng of cats. The light of the full moon turned all their pelts to silver, and fur tickled Mapleshade's nose. Above her, Oakstar's voice echoed around the trunks of the four gigantic oak trees.

"My warriors tracked the adders to their nest at Snakerocks and blocked the hole with stones," the ThunderClan leader reported. "Thanks to their courage, no adders have since been seen in our territory."

"They were lucky not to get bitten," grunted a ShadowClan elder near Mapleshade's ear.

"Too right," agreed her Clanmate. "Remember when Marshpaw trod on an adder on his first patrol? That was a bad way to die."

The first cat shrugged. "I've seen worse."

Mapleshade felt too numb to react. ShadowClan cats were always so morbid. She dodged around a rock and emerged among a cluster of RiverClan cats. Instantly pelts bristled and she felt eyes burn into her. Some still bore the scars of the last Sunningrocks fight.

"There may be a truce," snarled the black warrior Rainfall. "But don't push your luck, ThunderClan mouse dung."

Mapleshade ducked her head, hiding her tears. "I... I'm not here to fight" she mewed. "I'm not staying."

"Good," growled a cat she couldn't see.

Mapleshade forced her hair to lie flat as she wove among the hostile warriors. She couldn't blame RiverClan for being angry. ThunderClan had triumphed in the last clash over Sunningrocks; defeat was the bitterest wound of all.

"Remember what happened to Birchface and Flowerpaw," Rainfall murmured in her ear, so close that Mapleshade could feel the heat of his fish-breath. "Those rocks belong to us, and we'll kill as many of your Clanmates as we need to until you give them up."

Mapleshade stumbled as a memory seared through her brain: Appledusk, a light brown RiverClan warrior with piercing green eyes, striking Birchface so hard that the ThunderClan cat lost his footing and slipped from the very top of Sunningrocks. He landed with a splash in the swollen river. His apprentice Flowerpaw leaped in after him and struggled to keep Birchface's head out of the water but the current was too strong and they were swept downstream into the half-submerged crossing rocks. For one terrible moment, dark tabby and dappled gray heads rose above the surface, screeching in fear, then both vanished into the tumbling foam.