The stick in Amberleaf's mouth splintered. She howled in pain as another spasm of pain rippled along her flank. She felt Fidgetfoot's paws massaging her flank, trying to twist the kit around. Trying to distract herself from her fearful thoughts, she looked up, but only to see snowflakes swirling down. No! My kits aren't going to be able to survive this cold!
"Two more!" Fidgetfoot's mew snapped her from her thoughts.
She dug her claws into the solid rock and frozen grass around her. They had trekked to the mountains for over a moon. After climbing steep rocks and walking through plateaus, they had arrived in the sheltered grove a less than a quarter moon ago and Amblerleaf was having her kits.
Thinking for her kits, she pushed harder until two more wet bundles plopped to the ground. She leaned over to lick them, but the two youngest had been born dead. She licked each once before turning to her two remaining kits. Both were she-kits. One looked like Parsleyseed while the other was a tortoiseshell-and-white lie Amberleaf.
"They're beautiful!" Parsleyseed breathed into her ear.
Amberleaf sighed, resting her orange head on her paws. She tensed when she heard whispering that was not coming from her clanmates. She wrapped her tail around her kits, both dead and alive, and pricked her ears.
"That's a big group of cats!" She heard a cat say.
"Well, it's smaller than the last," another retorted.
"There are cats around here!" Amberleaf whispered to Parsleyseed.
Parsleyseed raced off to warn Skyheart just as two brown cats stepped out of the shadows. Amberleaf let out a warning growl.
"Relax!" One of the cats mewed, amused.
"We're not going to hurt you," the other said, shooting a glare at the first.
They padded closer and Amberleaf wrinkled her nose at the stench, "Is that m-mud I smell?"
"Yes, we plaster our fur in it to hide among the rocks."
Suddenly, an ear-splitting screech echoed around the rocks and Fernwhisper and Reedthicket burst out from the boulders and flew at the mud cats.
"Wait!" Amberleaf yowled at her sister, "They want to help us, not hurt us!"
"We don't know that!" Fernwhisper spat back.
"It's true! What your orange and black friend says is true!" The cat that Fernwhisper was on top of whimpered.
Fernwhisper gave the cat a hard stare, "Are you sure?"
"Of course she's sure!" The other cat screeched.
"Give them a chance to explain!" Cherrystar commanded, standing on top of a boulder, listening.
Immediately, Reedthicket and Fernwhisper leaped off the mud cats and looked at Cherrystar.
Cherrystar glowered at the her clanmates before turning to the strangers, "Who are you , and what do you want?"
"I am Dark Shadow Over Water." The first cat said, "And this furball is Pebble That Rolls Down Mountain."
"But just call us Dark and Pebble, please," the she-cat, Pebble, mewed.
"Alright, Dark and Pebble, what are you? Rogues? Loners?" Cherrystar asked.
"No! We are part of The Tribe of Rushing Water." Pebble replied, horrified, and licked her chest fur.
"The Tribe of Rushing Water? I've never heard of you before." Cherrystar mewed, puzzled.
YOU ARE READING
Shaken Sky
Adventure"'Mouse dung! They know I'm here!' Amberkit thought with a quiet whimper. It's just a dream, it's just a dream. She told herself. But if it's a dream, then why is it so real? Yep, I'm crowfood..." Amberkit was born into Skyclan. She loves her clan b...
