Cry of the River Book 1
The five Warrior Clans are going extinct. Gatherings and Moonpool visits are inacessable, with leaders falling left and right. The lake territories are being wiped out to the brink of extinction by new, large predators that h...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Crescentpaw turned her head just in time to see the creature pursuing. It took the exact path that Hillflower had taken, as if it were following her scent.
The animal had a dark, distinctive predatory aura. As if it had no goal other than to kill them.
Which it does. The wolf's head was lowered as it sniffed along Hillflower's footfalls. It was trotting quickly, large paws skimming the grass. It looked like a young wolf.
Crescentpaw's ears flattened. She barreled her head into Oatkit's flank, shoving the tomkit into a barreling run.
"Get back to Windclan's camp! Back to the maple tree!" She snapped.
Cloverkit stumbled over her own paws.
"That's too far!" The kitten wailed pitifully, hardly looking where she was stepping.
Oatkit darted ahead of them. Crescentpaw tensed.
"There's no trees out here, Cloverkit! We have to go now."
They had waited too long. The wolf overcame them, and Crescentpaw flattened herself to the ground beside Cloverkit, trying to cover the kitten's nape with her outstretched paws.
The wolf didn't even glance at them. Its feet flung up dirt as it passed them by. The animal rounded the bend of a hill and within seconds was gone.
It's following Hillflower's trail so closely that it didn't notice us. Cloverkit trembled in the grass.
"Go now. Get to the maple tree now!" She pulled the kit up by her scruff. Cloverkit's white tail was fluffed with terror.
"By myself?" She asked, glancing around.
Crescentpaw's blood was roaring in her ears. She swiveled her head, a sense of foreboding swelling in her chest.
The apprentice twitched her tail, not sure what to do next, yet knowing she had no time to think about it.
"Yes, just go! Follow Oatkit's scent trail to the Windclan camp." She meowed firmly a few seconds later.
"I've got to see if Hillflower's okay. Go, hurry! You'll be fine."
Crescentpaw made sure that Cloverkit headed in the right direction, and quickly. Then she leaped off the path toward the wolf's scent trail. Windclan grasses blurred around her, golden-gray in the wash of shadow beneath a dim-lit sky. Twilight would fall soon.
The apprentice was perturbed. I thought we'd be lucky enough to make it back to Riverclan before a wolf showed up. I thought we'd have more warriors to deal with something like this, if it did happen.
She trudged on with oatgrass lashing against her muzzle. Hillflower can't be killed. She can't be. She's got to be okay. Crescentpaw pushed through the stems, her adrenaline growing.
