StarClan isn't real..

Chapter 17

Specklebird's head turned as he saw Finchpaw enter the clearing. Good, we can start. He looked to Willowmist. They were a black tomcat with deep blue eyes and blood clumped up in their thick fur. There was a red outline on their fur, and their teeth were yellow and ragged. Black mist radiated from his fur, like smoke in a fire.

"Attention, my warriors!" Willowmist yowled. "Because I don't want to spend a heartbeat in the old territory, let's wrap this up so we can get it over with."

Specklebird listened closely as Willowmist spoke about the plan. He listened to every detail, every mention of Yellowpaw. He listened as Willowmist explained how when the wolves had eaten the deathberries, their bodies had been free to inhabitat, and that's how the Dark Forest spirits were in them.

When the meeting was over, Specklebird bounded over to Ryepelt, one of the other trainees. The blue-gray tom looked uneasy, his white-dappled paws shifting. "Lighten up," Specklebird snapped.

"Huh?" Ryepelt flinched.

Specklebird rolled his eyes. "Shouldn't you be happy? You'll be respected once the rest of the plan is put in action."

"I guess," Ryepelt mumbled.

Specklebird cuffed the tom sharply over the ear. "I told you I'd pick you as deputy, but that doesn't mean I don't have only one option." He glanced around, searching for a certain she-cat. "Where is she?"

"Hunting patrol," Ryepelt mumbled. He looked over to Finchpaw, who was boasting to a ShadowClan apprentice named Emberpaw. "There's Finchpaw."

Rolling his eyes, Specklebird began to wash the grime and mud off his fur. "It'd be so much better if we could use the new hunting grounds instead of this StarClan forsaken forest," he grumbled, clearly angry. "I'd love to see the prisoners, too. I hope they enjoy the hell that our allies have to go through."

"Oh... yeah." Ryepelt mumbled.

Specklebird drew back his lips, annoyed by the tom. "Time to wake up," He snapped. Before Ryepelt could object, he raised a forepaw and slashed the tom across the muzzle. Ryepelt let out a yelp that was cut off as he vanished.

Raising a paw to his shoulder, Specklebird dug his claws in. The pain plunged him into darkness, and soon, he would return to his "kind deputy" life.

***

Yellowpaw dug her claws into her face, ignoring the feel of the sensitive flesh on the left side. Annoyance and anger at herself ran through her mind, and her stupid stutterings during the meeting played over and over again in her brain. Shut up! She yowled silently, digging her claws in deeper.

She stopped when a red trickle ran down her ginger fur. Stupid blood. She wished the wolves had killed her!

What attacked me? She wondered. What do I even look like?

Yellowpaw figured that she had been blinded in one eye, and maybe her ear had been torn. She could see big, bandages gashes along her body, but they didn't hurt or anything. But her face certainly did!

"Yellowpaw?"

Weedtooth. "What do you want?" Yellowpaw looked up, then immediately regretted it, seeing her scratch reflected in Weedtooth's orange eye.

"What did you do to your face?" Weedtooth gasped.

Sinking her claws into the ground, Yellowpaw glared up at the dark gray tabby tom. "Nothing!" She snapped. But Weedtooth was already hurrying over to the herb store. Yellowpaw felt a pang of guilt that she was wasting herbs, but knew there was nothing she could do except allow Weedtooth to put the herbs on, or the scratch would get worse.