Legacy (Book 1)

Chapter 39: Not Quite Gone

Chapter 39: Not Quite Gone

Scampfur's lifeless red and black body lay silent on the ground, dark blood pooling and staining the feather-soft grass. Rainstone was shaking, horror and guilt racing through her mind. No! He can't be dead! He had a mate and kits! I should've been the one to die. Oh! Why did I ask for his help? Why did I get him involved? He should be in his nest, curled around his mate and kits! Not lying so still on the ground! There shouldn't be blood pouring from his body, this shouldn't have happened!

She was trembling harder, unable to pull her eyes away from the face of the cat that had once brought her so much happiness and later caused her pain. Willowwater's eyes were wide from shock but her gaze was focused on the surrounding enemies, Needlepine was doing likewise.

"You don't stand a chance against us," Nightwing growled, eyes narrowed and angry. He waved his tail at the five other black cats and they pressed in closer.

"Rainstone! We need your help now, grieve later!" Needlepine's insistent voice hissed into her ear and it snapped her out of her numb shock. Rainstone flicked her eyes around, looking for an opening chance. Got it.

"Don't move," she whispered to her two cats, waving them away from her and standing on her own paws again. With her eyes focused on Nightwing, she knew she had to time this right. Leaping suddenly, she bowled into Nightwing and had him pinned firmly before he could react.

"No one move!" she commanded loudly in an icy voice, claws pressed up against a hissing Nightwing's throat. No cat moved and it was deathly silent for a moment, then one of Pinefur's black cats narrowed his blue eyes at her.

"You can't win, to get away you need to release Nightwing and you can't outrun us," the cat growled triumphantly.

"Willowwater, Needlepine, move fast," Rainstone ordered in the same cold voice. They gave her perplexed looks but complied and moved a safe distance toward the ShadowClan border.

"You still haven't solved the problem," the black cat mewed, narrowing his eyes triumphantly.

"Are you sure?" Rainstone asked, looking coldly down at Nightwing, with a strike to his leg he let out a low moan of pain as she matched it with a gash to his other leg. Now, he wouldn't be able to run after her.

"We can still get you," the black cat growled angrily.

"Perhaps," Rainstone purred, glaring at them threateningly. "But if you do, I'll tell Nightwing about our little... secret," she was talking about how Pinefur was deceiving Nightwing and from the mingled expressions of anger and fear, they needed to keep it a secret for now.

"So if you attack me when I let go of Nightwing, I'll shout it out to the midnight sky, and if you kill me before I tell him, I'll have one of my friends," she jerked her head at Willowwater and Needlepine, "Tell him back at his camp," she laughed and the black cats growled in confusion, unsure what to do. "I imagine Pinefur wouldn't let you live if you let me tell Nightwing, so now it comes between your lives and mine, which is more important?"

She let them ponder that for a moment as she broke away, she made it to Willowwater and Needlepine, hissing at them to run, before she heard the pound of pursuers. She looked back and saw that two cats were hauling Nightwing away while the other three chased them. So that he can't hear me say anything, clever, she thought, but now they had to outrun or hide from them.

"C'mon, climb," she hissed through the pain of her broken paw as soon as they were swallowed by the shadows of the pine forest. She couldn't hope to outrun them even if the other two Clan cats could, and she doubted they'd leave her behind.