Beast of the Sea - WARRIOR CATS

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

"Hurry up!"

The first thing I sensed as I woke up was the tangy scent of sand. It was all over me; on my tail, in my ears, on my tongue. Perhaps the only thing that was nice about the sand was the warmth it gave to my pelt, which seemed to grow scrawnier by the day.

The cat who had roused me from my deep slumber suddenly jabbed a paw into my side. I instantly leaped to my paws, awake. My gaze quickly darted around, taking in where I was, and what was going on.

All around me, rising out of the earth like the claws of a massive sea monster was the long deceased carcass of a whale. And I mean long-deceased. The rotting flesh and foul stench of death was entirely gone. What remained was the white bone, which encircled me and the other Bottom Feeders like a cage. Pale dawn light filtered overhead, shadows cast off my pelt in stripes because of the white bone overhead. I looked up to face my assailant.

Amber eyes glittered darkly in the doom as the cat faced me, tail lashing the earth. Within a heartbeat, I realised that it was my mentor, Shadefang. He flicked his jet-black tail to and fro in agitation as he spoke to me.

"Aquastar's called a clan meeting," he grunted.

He glanced at the other cats still asleep on the sand around me, seeming disconcerted. There were four other Bottom Feeders in the clan, and we all slept together. Apparently, I wasn't good enough to sleep with the other 'paws. Good riddance though, I thought. I'd heard of what Flowerpaw was like.

"Come on, Ferretpaw," Shadefang took a step towards me, the faint hint of a snarl brewing on his face. "Let's go. I want my apprentice to be there. You need to be sharp and alert."

He twitched the tip of his tail, and I dipped my head reluctantly. I wondered if perhaps Aquastar would be allowing me and my littermate Ripplepaw to go to the Starsea Passage, where all new apprentices received their powers. Or...

"Does he have any idea who the murderer is?" I asked Shadefang.

The black tom's eyes slitted, yet his snarly voice came out half strangled. "There were no murders!"

I blinked as the other Bottom Feeders began to rouse, awakened by Shadefang's snarl. I glared at him through narrowed eyes before he turned and padded away, gesturing at me to follow. I slunk around the pure white marrow of the whale carcass before skulking behind him, my paws landing on the exact impressions he made on the orange-yellow sand.

As the two of us travelled towards the leader's rock, which was on the far side of camp, right beside a copse of trees and in front of the black rocks which led to the vast blue sea, I noticed a plume of smoke which blotted out the blue sky. It was strange; I thought it was a cloud, but there was blue sky to the right of me. I turned to Shadefang.

"What's that?" I nodded to the dark mass of air.

He glanced up at it. His fierce expression, which in the three days I'd had him as a mentor I'd thought was impossible to penetrate, seemed to melt away slightly. My young mentor sniffed the air cautiously.

"Wildfire," he meowed warily, still not meeting my eyes. "They come more and more frequently these days. It's off near GladeClan, so we don't have to worry about it. But foxdung, do they come often. Last gathering, Shardstar spoke of how an entire part of the land beside their territory had been burnt to a crisp."

I wanted to ask more about the fires, and about GladeClan, but before I could, Shadefang and I found ourselves in a crowd of cats. He flicked his tail at me, warning me to stay silent. I suppose he must have been thinking of the time a couple days ago when Aquastar had made me and Ripplepaw apprentices.