Warriors: The Undying Flame: Into The Wild

CHAPTER FOUR

Rusty had had a long day. BloodClan had recently taken over two more scrapcans, and he had been forced to range even further from his usual scavenging grounds. And as if that weren't enough, the loners in the town had all become increasingly hostile as their food sources dwindled. Rusty had seen two cats whom he knew to be good friends nearly come to blows over a small strip of meat before they had reluctantly decided to split it in two.

How long can we go on like this? Rusty wondered. Every cat is getting desperate, and desperate cats do desperate things. At this rate, BloodClan will win before any of them have to lift another claw.

As Rusty made his way back to the alley where he had made his nest, a rustling from somewhere close by startled him. He spun around, tasting the air, but he couldn't detect any other cats around him. So it wasn't an ambush. That was good.

The sound came again, and this time Rusty traced it to a heap of Twoleg stuff piled up against a fence. The pile was too small, and too tightly packed, for anything much bigger than a mouse to have wriggled its way inside. Whatever was moving around in that pile, it could only be one thing: prey.

Rusty's claws slid out, and he passed his tongue over his lips as he began to salivate. Calling upon everything his father had taught him during their limited time together, he dropped into a slightly awkward crouch and moved to position himself downwind of his quarry.

He didn't have to wait long before he could make out the shape of a sizeable rat emerging from the other side of the pile. It scanned its surroundings but failed to notice Rusty hiding nearby. The rat squeaked once and began to skitter away.

Judging his moment, Rusty pounced, narrowly missing the rat as it suddenly dodged to the side. It took one look at Rusty as he whirled around to pounce again and ran away. Rusty wondered whether he should chase it, but he had to decide against it. It was getting dark, and Rusty didn't want to run into any danger he couldn't see coming. Besides, rats were known for being vicious when cornered, and Rusty knew better than to go into battle without the element of surprise on his side.

Disheartened, Rusty turned in the other direction and set off again for his temporary shelter. He reached the alley as the sun was setting behind him, casting long shadows everywhere. Rusty wanted nothing more than to curl up in his nest and sleep for a whole moon, but he knew that the pangs of his barely satisfied hunger would keep him awake. Catching the rat would have more than made up for the terrible scavenging he had had that day, but Rusty had only ever learned the most rudimentary hunting techniques before his father had died, and none of those would have helped him against a creature that could fight back.

It wasn't fair, Rusty thought as he sunk down onto the Twoleg pelts he had laid out for bedding. How had his life turned out like this? Why was he, an innocent cat, forced to struggle to get by while BloodClan could bully the whole town into living under its rule?

Once, moons ago, the concerns of loners and rogues wouldn't have bothered Rusty one bit. He had been born as a housecat, living together with his littermates and their mother Nutmeg. However, once the kittens had been weaned and were old enough not to need their mother's milk, they had all been separated, each one taken to live with their own new housefolk.

Rusty had wound up in a tall den where many elderly Twolegs lived. He had belonged to one in particular, an almost completely hairless male. The Twoleg hadn't been able to move around much, and some days, he hadn't even been able to get up from where he slept. But Rusty's food bowl had always been filled at the proper times, and he had always had a comfortable basket to sleep in, so he hadn't minded the lack of interaction. He had been well cared for for about two moons, until everything changed.