Beast of the Sea - WARRIOR CATS

Chapter 12

"Ferretpaw, wait!"

I whirled around, seeing Littlepaw sprinting towards me with wide amber eyes. I stared toward the exit to camp, trying to keep my gaze blank and steely. Not even looking at my friend, I meowed.

"Sorry, I don't have time to talk."

It wasn't that I didn't have time, but more so that I wasn't allowed to talk to my friends. If I didn't do what Dewocean said, I risked getting punished, or worse, having one of my friends get punished instead of me.

Before Littlepaw could come after me, I sprinted towards the forest in the distance, letting oaks and spruces distance myself from the pale brown she-cat. In the distance, I thought I heard Ripplepaw's voice murmuring quietly in her ear, but I pressed on, relentless.

I had a mission. Today, Dewocean told me I had to raid CaveClan territory. She was searching for something, but what it was, I wasn't entirely sure. Each night, before she went to sleep, she was always meowing something about the powers of CaveClan and how they had stolen something from ShoreClan.

Just go to the caves, I repeated Dewocean's command in my mind. Don't think about what you're doing. Go to the medicine den and find a...friend I made. He'll tell you how to do the rest.

So that was my mission. All I had to do was get into CaveClan. I'd been training for battle, so attacking the warriors wouldn't be too much of a trouble. Part of me wished that Littlepaw could come too, since she was so good at sneaking, but then I thought of the time I had attacked Flowerpaw. I hadn't truly talked to her since.

As I padded through the forest, aware that this was one of the first times I'd been out of camp since the whole gathering incident, I let myself taste the air for freshkill. Instead of scenting prey, though, I scented another thing. A cat. A cat without ShoreClan scent.

Instantly I dropped all that I was doing, and narrowed my eyes. Dewocean had decided that any cat found on ShoreClan's territory was something they could use. Basically, I either had to drive off the cat, kill it, or drag it back to camp.

Dewocean recommended I just kill it. She said it would help me become a better fighter.

But I...I hadn't actually ever wanted to hurt another cat. What if this cat was someone like Littlerpaw? Then, I forced myself to root my paws into the damp, muddy earth. No cat on ShoreClan territory was innocent. If I told Dewocean that I'd killed a cat, she might let everything go back to normal. Then, I could have my best friend back.

Either way, I was feeling pretty angry with myself, and I knew that this would be one way to expend my pent up fury.

I picked my way around so that bushes surrounded me on either side. I growled under my breath as a few leaves, wet with some sort of sap, got stuck in my fur. Silent as a predator, I zeroed in on the scent trail, following it several more tail lengths. For a heartbeat, I worried that the rogue creature had made its way into CaveClan land, but then I heard a voice.

"Oh come on, Puddle! This is where she said they would be. Maybe they can help Whisper out. I've never seen anything like it...She keeps muttering about the ocean..."

"It certainly ain't natural," another voice, likely Puddle meowed with a deeper voice. In spite of the baritone sound, the speaker sounded young, almost friendly. "But yeah...at least we know some stuff about herbs from Whisper. And she said something about this clan..." the voice trailed away uneasily.

"Little oughta help!" The other cat pipped up. "I'm pretty sure she and that other cat live there now! I talked to her once after, and she said they have a healer cat, and fighty cats and a leader cat. Imagine! Having all that power."