Heart Of A Fighter (Book 1): The Story Begins

Chapter 19: Rocky Rumble

Rustles echoed out through the forest as five young cats ran about, plucking herbs from the ground. Goslingpaw paused from her sorting and glanced around her at her friends.

Softpaw and Stonepaw were working together to dig up some burdock root, not caring if their paws and claws got damaged.

Depthpaw was quickly pulling up some yarrow, and Slatepaw had scaled a tree to find more large leaves to bundle the herbs in.

More and more RoadWalker monsters had come closer and closer to camp, driving more and more prey away and nearly killing any cat that went out on patrol or a hunt.

Herbs had also been either destroyed or completely ripped up, and the great trees that once shaped the clan's landscape had been cut down and reduced to stumps.

A discussion had taken place, and Cougarstar said that BlazeClan may have to evacuate if they came any closer to camp.

This had caused a huge riot in camp, especially because the expecting queen, Cottonsong, was estimated she'd give birth sometime this moon, and leaving now would pose a great danger to her unborn kits.

Now, she and her four friends were out gathering all the herbs they could find that weren't already squashed or torn up.

Softpaw had immediately volunteered to go, and Depthpaw had insisted to show his gratitude, much to Thornslash's dismay.

Beechwhisker had surprisingly allowed Slatepaw to go and help out, while Stormslash was a bit more hesitant.

Being completely honest, Goslingpaw would've rather used her powers to grow herbs and bring them back since the Granite brothers and Softpaw had already witnessed it, but decided against it because she didn't completely trust Depthpaw yet.

Not to mention, she was pretty sure he wouldn't keep his big mouth shut and end up spewing out her secret to who knows which cat, which she did NOT need.

Goslingpaw quickly knotted up the third large leaf full of herbs and yelled, "Slatepaw! Any luck?" Her Titanpaw friend leapt off the tree, two big leaves in his jaws along with a sturdy stick.

He cantered over and dropped them at her paws, and she turned to him and asked, "Why the stick?"

"Don't pregnant queens bite down on sticks when they're giving birth? I saw Dovetail do it when she was kitting before." He shuddered. "Still comes to me in my nightmares."

Goslingpaw snorted with laughter and took both the herb bundles and looped them around the stick.

"We got the burdock!" The two apprentices turned to see Softpaw and Stonepaw running over with big clumps of the root in their jaws.

They dropped it on the leaf spread out before Goslingpaw, and she sniffed it to make sure it was the correct root. "These things soothe rat bites, right?" Stonepaw asked as he watched his best friend bundle up the roots into a huge leaf.

"Yep. You shook off all the dirt from them, I'm hoping?" Softpaw shook off bits of bark from her pelt and replied, "We did, the river's too far from here and no cat wants to eat dirt."

Goslingpaw nodded and finished wrapping up the bundle just as Depthpaw raced over with a bunch of yarrow in his jaws.

"I got the yarrow, I dug up the right flowers, I hope?" He panted as he dropped the stalks onto the leaf she had pushed towards him by her paws.

Goslingpaw leaned over and sniffed the blooms carefully, before nodding in confirmation. Quickly bundling them up in the last leaf and looping it around the stick, she gazed up at her friends.