Warriors: Blood and Hope: Book 2: Tempting Limits

Chapter 11

[Icehowl's POV]

With both Witheredsoul and Maplesnow, I had been left in a camp full of warriors that hated me. I pinned my ears back and headed over to the nursery. I could at least be able to visit my sister and Roseeyes without too much hate. Burninghope seemed to tense up as she saw me, but Roseeyes let out a loud purr. 

"Icehowl! Come look at how large the kits have gotten since the last time you visited!" She let out another excited purr. 

I was happy that she did not relate her kits with that piece of foxdung from SmallClan, but she tried to relate them back to me. I moved carefully through the nursery, being extra careful with all the small kits around. Once I got close to her, I laid by her side, curling my tail up against her side. She let out another purr, pushing her head against my neck. 

"They surely have gotten big. How long until they are apprentices? Three moons?" I asked her also making sure that they would be away from the clans when the fighting went down. If they were to be apprentices in three moons, then they would be apprentices a half moon after everything goes down. I just hoped that we would win so that I might be able to mentor one of them. 

"Yeah! Burninghope's will be apprenticed a half moon earlier though, but that could always just free up the nursery a bit. It is getting rather cramp in here." She let out a sigh. 

I could see what she meant. With four queens, each with their own litter of kits, the nursery could easily get overrun. I just licked her forehead knowing that I had no advice to give. The nursery had always been the place that queens stayed in. There had never been another place, and no den was empty at the moment. 

"Icehowl, look at these tiny ones. They are still so small." My sister spoke up, moving so that she could show me her three kits sleeping my her stomach. They were small, but they were not even a moon old yet. 

As I looked around the nursery, I realized that there would be a lot of kits that became apprentices all at once. If things turned out badly, then I had no clue who would be able to mentor all of them. DepthClan may be the largest clan at the moment, but if we fall apart, we might not have enough warriors to mentor them. I could only hope and pray to StarClan for good luck in the upcoming moons. We would certainly need it. Tinystar could call upon the dead, though we do not know if she can still do it. We could only count on the living to help us. We needed to make sure the other clans would fight with us, and we needed Maskedstar out of the way. 

The next two moons would be full of trial and error, while we also try not to get caught. If we get caught too soon, we could end up dying.