Legacy (Book 1)

Chapter 7: Back To The Start

Chapter 7: Back To The Start

Rainstone scrambled back to avoid flashing claws. Her fur was bristling and her eyes were wide with fear and excitement as heat and energy pulsed through her. Her shoulder was sticky with blood from a stinging scratch, but she leaped back into the brawl, pummeling the side of a skinny brown tom with a flurry of swipes.

At the base of the third mountain she and Night been ambushed by three cats, and had quickly been pushed into an all-out fight. She jerked her head back to avoid snapping jaws from a gray and white tom.

She was glad Night was a fighter, if he wasn't able to keep most of the focus on himself, she'd have been severely injured already, she just didn't have any training, everything she was doing was based on instinct.

She had a moment to breathe as the two toms who had been snapping at her lunged for Night as he clawed the skinny brown tom away from her. Rainstone frowned, looking around for the third cat, she hadn't seen the cat well before and she couldn't see it now.

But as something leaped into her, rolling her off her paws, she knew she'd found it. Or more it found me, she thought as painful claws raked over her flank. She kicked out feebly, but the cat was heavier and bigger then her and she ended up pinned, her struggle all in vain as she hissed up at her attacker.

But then she froze as she looked up at the alighted green eyes of her attacker, a pretty dark brown and golden dappled she-cat. She just stared, all her wounds numb for the moment as she stared in amazement. How does a she-cat know how to fight? Curiosity and admiration, probably the opposite feelings of those she should have been feeling, swarmed through her and she almost purred.

Then the she-cat was pushed off of her and Night was nudging her to her paws. "We need to run, now!" he hissed as she stumbled when putting weight down on an injured paw. She looked over her shoulder and saw the three cats, each bleeding, but better off then they were, chasing after them.

Gritting her teeth, she ignored the excruciating pain as she raced after Night, not stopping until he pounding paws behind them faded to silence. Rainstone threw herself on her belly and twisted her head to look at her injured fore-paw.

She grumbled as she saw it was twisted and swollen from running on it. She glanced over her other wounds, none were too deep and they would heal with a few herbs. Then she looked at Night, he'd been lapping at the small stream they'd collapsed by, now he was soaking a bloody foreleg in it, making the water swirl crimson orange in the dusk light.

She hobbled over to him on three legs and sniffed at it as he pulled it out of the water. It wasn't deep, but still bleeding. Quickly looking him over, she saw with annoyance that he had only a bite mark on his tail that hadn't broken the skin to prove for the fight.

Grumbling, she padded over to a felled log and raked her paw through the hollow, pulling out a forepaw matted with cobwebs. Putting them on her injured paw, she tottered back to Night and laced his wound with cobwebs.

Night nodded, "Lets get going then," he mewed.

Rainstone glared at him, "I haven't healed myself yet," she snapped, pain making her irritable. She nodded to her own wounds and twisted paw. "We'll probably have to stay here for the night," she mewed discouragingly.

Night swished his tail angrily, but he didn't argue. "Fine, I'll find some prey while you heal yourself," he muttered unsympathetically. "But don't think I'm going to let you hold me back again," he snapped, shooting her a glare.

Rainstone fluffed up her fur and drew her lips back in a snarl, though she knew he was just being difficult because he'd been ashamed he hadn't been able to fight he cats off and had let her be injured. That, on top of the tiring journey, was making them both short-tempered.