Swiftclaw's Father

Chapter 8

It has been 1 week since Shadowclan had started their raids on us, and it is now the full moon. The last one nobody went because the moon was covered. This time I was finally able to meet the other clans not in battle, and actually see Windclan since we don't share a border with them. As we ran through the forest to Fourtrees, I felt myself getting more and more excited. When we got to Fourtrees I almost plunged right down into the clearing, but Moonflower stopped me. "We have to wait for Thornstar to give the signal" she whispered to me. Luckily Thornstar didn't make us wait long before we went down into the clearing, and soon flicked his tail and the entire clan surged down the side of it. When we got down into the clearing, I was suddenly struck with nerves, and I didn't know who to talk to. "I would head over there, they are other apprentices from Windclan." Moonflower meowed. I went over to see if they wanted to talk with me, and they seemed happy enough to meet another apprentice. "I am Nightpaw, and this is Graypaw. We are from Windclan. Is this your first Gathering?" One of them asked. All I could do was nod, since I was so nervous. Nightpaw just smiled and said "I bet you are from Thunderclan, since you smell so bad!" I could tell she was just making a joke to try and get me to be more comfortable. It made me smile. "Yup, I'm from Thunderclan, but you smell worse than me I bet!" I said with a laugh and a smile on my face. She just smiled and meowed "I don't think so", she said with a sly grin. Right as I opened my mouth to continue talking I heard Thornstar call out to start the Gathering. The first cat that stepped forward I didn't recognise, so Nightpaw whispered in my ear "That is the Windclan leader, Lightningstar" I then nodded my thanks. "If no one objects I will go first" he looked around and when no one said anything Lightningstar continued. "Windclan is doing well, and Daisyflower had her kits, Thistlekit and Pinekit. She is unable to be here right now, but you can give your congratulations to Wolfleap." "Is he the father?" I asked Nightpaw quietly, She nodded. "We don't have any other announcements" Lightningstar then stepped back and another cat took his place. "Stormstar, leader of Riverclan" Nightpaw murmured. "Riverclan has been doing good as well, and we don't really have anything to report as of this moon." Stormstar then stepped back as well. I wondered who would go next, Thornstar or Fogstar. They glared at each other for a moment, and then with a moment's hesitation Thornstar stepped forward. "So far we have 4 new warriors, Tallfoot, Graycloud, Cinderblaze, and Flyheart" All of the clans started to cheer for Tallfoot, Graycloud, Cinderblaze, and Flyheart. When the clearing was silent again he also said "We have 3 new apprentices as well, Bluepaw, Jaypaw, and Swiftpaw." and once again the clearing was filled with cheers. Then Thornstar turned a withering glare on Fogstar and meowed "We also have had trouble on our Shadowclan border, and they even attacked our camp." The clearing was then filled with cats talking and arguing about if it really happened and if it was as bad as he seemed to make it to be. Fogstar stepped forward and called out clearly through the chaos, "It is true that me and my clan attacked the Thunderclan camp, but we only did it because we need more territory. A group of rogues have been coming into ours and are stealing prey. They have even started to mark some of our territory as their own. We have no other choice." Everyone then started talking even more than before when Thornstar told the other clans Shadowclan was attacking my clan. "Shadowclan had also been hunting on our borders too, but they had never attacked us," said Nightpaw. I was shocked that rogues would dare to attack an entire clan. Pretty soon after that the gathering ended and all of the clans went home. As we walked back to camp I could see that Thornstar and Sunblaze were troubled. I wanted to hear what they were talking about, but they were keeping their voices down. I pricked my ears to try and hear them, and I was concentrating so hard that I didn't notice Stormsight walk up behind me. "You shouldn't eavesdrop, Swiftpaw" He meowed lightly. I quickly turned around , shocked that someone had noticed. "I wasn't!" I meowed indignantly. Stormsight just gave me a knowing look and told me to get some sleep. I walked back to my den where I curled up in my nest. The next morning when I woke up the sun was low in the sky, it wasn't yet sunhigh. The camp had already started to buzz with the news that Shadowclan was being attacked by rouges, and that they had been starving. Suddenly Thornstar jumped onto the Highrock. "All cats old enough to catch their own prey join here beneath the Highrock for a clan meeting" He called out loudly. The clan started to gather under him, and Sunblaze and the medicine cats took their places at the foot of the rock. "I'm sure you all have heard what had happened at the gathering last night, and no worries, we are not giving them any territory and we will protect our borders. I will be increasing patrols along the Shadowclan border. We will also make the camp stronger than it has ever been. I will now leave it to Sunblaze to sort out patrols and the camp duties" Thornstar then jumped off the Highrock and everyone started to gather around Sunblaze to see what they're going to do that day. I went over there as well and I heard my name in the group that was going to make the camp wall stronger with Jaypaw and Leapordpelt. I groaned in my head, with Jaypaw teasing me every chance he got and his mother edging him on today would be unbearable. I didn't know why Leopardpelt hated me, but she made it clear that she does. When I was a kit she rewarded Bluepaw and Jaypaw with prey for bullying and messing with me. They never actually harmed me, but they said a lot of mean stuff. Now I didn't really trust them that they wouldn't try it again, but I was assigned to work with them so I had to at least try to get along. Leopardpelt told me to go out of the camp and find brambles to strengthen the walls. When I left the camp, I heard her and Jaypaw snickering, and I figured it was about me. It took a little while to find good brambles that I could pick up and drag back to the camp. When I finally got back to the camp my mouth was stuffed full of brambles. Then when I made it through the camp entrance I heard Leopardpelt say "We will need way more brambles than that, you will have to go out again", She hissed smugly ."Don't take as long as you did before either". I didn't say anything, but I gave her a long hard look as I padded past her to place the brambles by the camp wall. Suddenly I felt a tail under my paws and I tripped, causing me to drop all of the brambles and to fall on top of them. I then jumped up to confront the cat that tripped me. Not to my surprise I saw Jaypaw leering over me with a stupid grin on his face. "Sorrey, I didn't see you there. I thought it was just a walking pile of brambles" Jaypaw snickered. "Hurry up!" I heard Leopardpelt shout at me. I glared at her, but I then picked up the brambles and put them by the camp wall so I could go out again for more. I kept bringing brambles into the camp until Sunhigh, then Beetail walked over to me and Meowed "You have been working hard all day, so it is time for you to learn how to hunt". We started to pad out of the camp and to Sandy Hollow where I would learn how to hunt. "Ok so we will first start with the hunters crouch" Beetail crouched down in a position that must have been the hunters crouch. His front feet were tucked under him looking like he was about to pounce. All of a sudden he pounced in mid air catching a big leaf that was falling in the air. "That was amazing!". "Now that's what I want you to try and do, you obviously won't get it right away but we will work up to that". "Ok I first want you to crouch down like this'' Beetail showed me the crouching position he wanted me to be in. "Tuck in your paws a little more," Beetail said with a calm and soothing voice. I tucked in my paws a little more like he told me to do. "Like this?''. I asked excitedly, "exactly like that, "your getting the hang of it pretty fast". Beetail then told me to tuck in my tail so the prey wouldn't see it. " There now you got the hunters crouch down, and now I want you to practice pouncing". Beetail showed me how to pounce on my prey and make a swift and soft landing. "Ok now i want to try what I just did". I stood in the position that Beetail showed me, I then pounced into the air accidentally missing a step and landed on my side in the dirt. "Are you okay Swiftpaw?", Beetail said with a concerned voice. I got up and shook off the dirt and leaves that were stuck to my pelt. " I'm okay i said". I knew I was looking very embarrassed that I had messed it up so Beetail said "It's fine, even though I didn't get it on the first try. It took me lots of tries to get it right" "Just keep on practicing and you will get the hang of it". We practiced for a while then, and I kept getting closer and closer to getting it right. "Well I think we will be done for the day," Beetail said with a calm voice. "As I looked up at the sky and I saw that the sun was starting to set. I was shocked that it was going down already, it had only felt like a few minutes. As we padded back to camp I decided to grab some more brambles so I didn't have to end up getting yelled at by Leopardpelt again. When I got back to camp Beetail told me to go and eat, then get some sleep. I grabbed a mouse from the fresh kill pile and settled down to eat it by the stump next to the Apprentice den. When I finished eating I headed into the den to sleep. I settled into my nest and fell right asleep.