Warriors: The Third Strike: Book Five: Trail of Malice

Chapter 11

[Rainsong's POV]

I got to go to the gathering with my brother, though he did get a strong talking to about injuring Icehowl in front of everyone by Tinystar. The female still brought him with her because she knew that this gathering would be a strange one and she could use some backup. I knew that Maskedstar had challenged our female leader to a battle at this gathering, but would the male uphold his challenge or would he back down? 

As I looked to the warriors that Tinystar had decided to bring with her, I noticed that they were all only the most loyal and strongest warriors she had. She had decided not to even bring the apprentices to their first gathering. They would have to wait until another gathering to see cats from the other clans. 

We walked into the gathering place to see all the other clans already there and it sounded like everyone was arguing with each other. I stuck close to my brother and watched as the other clans turned to see us. Each of them seemed to have a hateful glare as they looked at us, but Tinystar kept her head up. 

The female leader leaped up next to the other leaders, while Witheredsoul sat himself down with the other deputies. Creamspots had also decided not to come along since she still had to treat Icehowl, but none of us thought anything of it. If there was going to be a large fight, it might be better for the feeble female to be back in camp. We had her makeshift apprentice with us anyways if anything drastic did happen. Swirlpool did not seem to know much, but he always hung out with her so he had to know a bit. 

I sat myself down near the EverClan warriors. They stayed to themselves and seemed to be the only ones not arguing, but they whispered to each other. Riversand sat next to me and looked up to our leader. 

Everyone seemed to be on edge as the leaders talked to each other giving us some time to socialize. None of the other cats seemed to move away from their clan. I gave a confused look to Riversand wondering if he knew why no one had decided to socialize during this gathering. I knew that some cats had friends in the other clans, but everyone was silent.

It seemed like the leaders took the hint that no one wanted to socialize. I kept my eyes on Maskedstar waiting for the massive tom to challenge my leader. That would lead to some chaos most likely, but it would let me test out some new fighting moves I had learned. I silently looked up and watched as Duskstar had stepped up first. His eyes were fixed on Venomstar as the tom began to speak. Had something happened between TideClan and MapleClan that we were going to be made aware of?

"You stole part of my clan's territory and now we are going to starve during leaf-bare!" The dark furred tom hissed toward the leader of MapleClan.