A New Horizon Book 2: The Dying Forest {COMPLETE}

Chapter 1

Falconpaw licked his foreleg, trying to soothe the growing ache. Falconpaw stopped and looked around, Cherryleaf was nowhere in sight, but he knew she was watching. Falconpaw had to continue his hunting. Shoving the pain in his leg away, Falconpaw crept forward. He sniffed the air, breathing in the scent of the forest. The air had a sharp chill to it, newleaf was here and it brought the cool air along with it. Falconpaw padded silently through the forest, trying to catch a trace of prey. A light breeze picked up, rustling Falconpaw's fur and bringing along the scent of shrew. Keeping himself quiet, Falconpaw followed the scent. He kept himself low to the ground and kept his amber eyes peeled for his prey.

Not long after he began crouching he spotted the small creature scurrying amongst the leaves. Falconpaw dropped lower to the ground, his belly fur brushing the cold ground below. With careful, light steps he moved forward. The shrew was completely oblivious as it looked for it's own food. Falconpaw moved swiftly, pouncing forward with his claws striking the shrew, killing it quickly. Pain shot up Falconpaw's sore leg and he let out a hiss of pain. Falconpaw twitched his ears in annoyance, at least he had killed his prey.

"Nice, catch." Falconpaw heard the mew of his mentor from behind him. He turned and saw Cherryleaf stepping out from the undergrowth. Her green eye sparkling with pride and praise. Falconpaw faced his mentor and gave a small nod.

"Thank you, it was an easy catch." He cast a glance at his prey, a clean and easy kill.

"Is everything alright with your leg? You seem to be favoring it a bit." Cherryleaf looked at his foreleg, Falconpaw tensed up slightly but gave a reassuring not.

"I think I just slept on it wrong." He stretched out his sore foreleg. "It's just sore." He replied, keeping his voice steady.

Cherryleaf nodded. "Well, why don't you grab your other pieces of prey and see if Pebblestep can't give you something for it. We're going on patrol later, and you need to be at your best."

Falconpaw nodded. "Alright," He was somewhat disappointed, he wanted to keep hunting. His only other catches were two mice but he was also excited to go on patrol.

"Good hunting today, I'll see you back at camp." Cherryleaf praised with a purr, then bounded back into the forest. Falconpaw watched her leave, then picked up his shrew and began tracking his steps back to where his other catches were. Falconpaw felt a small pang of guilt, his story about sleeping on his leg wrong wasn't entirely true.

The injury happened in his sleep, but not because of how he slept. When Falconpaw first became an apprentice, he was visited by a shadowy StarClan warrior named Falconclaw, his own namesake. Falconclaw had been teaching him during his dreams, to be the best warrior he could possibly be. The training was intense and somewhat dangerous, they trained with claws out and to defend and harm. It wasn't an oddity for Falconpaw to wake up with scratches or bruises.

His newest injury occurred the night before when Falconclaw threw Falconpaw to the ground and Falconpaw wrenched his shoulder trying to defend himself. The worst injury he had received was a torn ear, a scar still visible to this day. Falconpaw wasn't ashamed of his nightly trainings, he just didn't feel like he should mention it. Cherryleaf was a good mentor, but Falconclaw taught him what he really needed to know as a warrior. Ferocity and courage, knowing he could never give up.

Falconpaw found his two mice and began the walk began to the camp. The leaves in the trees were starting to turn shades of gold, brown and red and began to shower around on the forest floor. Leaf-bare wouldn't be far off, and Falconpaw had heard how hard leaf-bare could be. Not enough prey and sickness would run rampant throughout the Clans. Falconpaw would catch as much prey as possible for his Clan to survive.