Warriors AU: Moonrise

Prologue

One by one, the cats crept into the cave. Their fur was streaked with mud and their eyes stretched wide with fear, reflecting the cold moonlight that filtered through a crack in the roof. They crouched low with their bellies close to the ground, their gazes flickering from side to side as if they expected to see danger lurking in the shadows.

The glimmer of moonlight was caught in pools of water on the cave floor. It lit up a forest of pointed stones, some rising from the ground and others hanging from the cave roof. Some of the stones joined in the middle to form slender trees of gleaming white rock. Wind gusted through them, ruffling the cats' fur. The air smelled damp and clean, and was filled with the distant roar of falling water.

A cat stepped out from behind one of the pointed stones. She was long-bodied, with lean, muscular limbs, and her pelt was completely covered in mud that had dried into spikes, so that she looked like a cat carved in stone.

"Welcome," she meowed in a rasping voice. "Moonlight lies on the water. It is time for a Telling, according to the laws of the Tribe of Endless Hunting."

One of the cats crept forward, dipping her head to the mud-covered cat. "Stoneteller, have you had a sign? Has the Tribe of Endless Hunting spoken to you?"

Another cat spoke from behind her. "Is there hope at last?"

Stoneteller bowed her head. "I have seen the words of the Tribe of Endless Hunting in the pattern of moonlight on rock, in the shadows cast by the stones, in the sound of raindrops as they fall from the roof." She paused, letting her gaze sweep over the cats around her. "Yes," she went on. "They have told me there is hope."

A faint murmur, like the rustle of leaves in the wind, passed through the group of cats. Their eyes seemed to grow brighter, and their ears pricked. The one who had come forward first mewed hesitantly. "Then you know what will rid us of this dreadful danger?"

"Yes, Crag," Stoneteller replied. "The Tribe of Endless Hunting has promised me that a cat will come, a striped cat not from this Tribe, who will rid us of Sharptooth once and for all."

There was a pause, then: "Are there other cats, not in the Tribe of Rushing Water?" a voice asked from the back of the group.

"There must be," another cat replied.

"I have heard tell of strangers," meowed Crag, "though we've seen none here in our lifetimes. But when will the striped cat come?" she added desperately, and other mews rose from all around her.

"Yes, when?"

"Is it really true?"

Stoneteller signaled for silence with a twitch of her tail. "Yes, it is true," she meowed. "The Tribe of Endless Hunting has never lied to us. I have seen the ripple of his striped fur myself, in a moonlit pool."

"But when?" Crag persisted.

"The Tribe of Endless Hunting has not shown that to me," Stoneteller replied. "I do not know when the striped cat will come, or from where, but we will know it when he arrives."

She raised her head toward the cave roof, and her eyes shone like two tiny moons. "Until then, cats of my Tribe, we can only wait."