The Warrior Games

Chapter 3

Snowpaw stared at Brambledust as the male cat continued to wash himself. They had only just finished battle practise. Now very soon they would be entering the Games. She sighed and looked at him. He was all she had at the moment. He nodded at her and she walked towards him, nuzzling his muzzle.

"We will get through this together, Snowpaw." Brambledust meowed. He looked over the training field to look at Scorch from BloodClan who was training with his partner, Fang. Scorch yowled and leapt at a black and white tom who was training them. Scorch clawed the tom to the ground. Snowpaw watched in horror as Fang followed and jumped onto the black and white tom's tail. Then, without any mercy, he sank his sharp looking fangs into the tom's tail. The tom screeched in agony as the two BloodClan cats leapt on it again, this time sinking their jaws into the back of his throat. Snowpaw turned away, she didn't want to watch anymore. She found herself shivering next to Brambledust.

"What are we going to do, Brambledust?" She said in despair, "These cats are so much better at fighting. They have trained so well."

"I know." Brambledust closed his eyes, "But we will make it through." He looked up and saw Snakestar walking into the clearing. He dipped his head to the cats and then sat up straight and announced,

"The Warrior Games are to start in less then one hour. I would hope that you would use this time to practises your fighting skills." He looked over at Snowpaw and the white apprentice nearly fell under the huge tabby's gaze.

Then Snakestar turned away and left.

Another cat was padding up behind them. Snowpaw saw that it was Reedfur, the ThunderClan deputy who had won the Games a couple of years ago. Reedfur dipped his head to them, urging them to follow him.

"Now." He said, "We are going to be practising some good battle strategies."

Snowpaw could hardly think straight, she was too stressed out by the the thought of the Games.

* * *

"Twenty, nineteen, eighteen, seventeen...."

The countdown for the Games had begun, and Darktail was ready as he sat in a huge grassy area, trees all around it. He was looking for something he could use as a weapon. He looked at the ground some foxlengths away and saw, with annoyance, that there were no weapons, only food.

I don't need the food. He thought to himself, "This is my chance to kill as many tributes as I can." He murmured to himself.

"...six, five, four, three..."

Darktail got ready to run forward into the bloodbath.

"Two.....one....go!"

The cats all ran, either into the clearing or into the forest. Darktail saw Silverflower next to him,

"Will you keep us safe?" She meowed at him.

Darktail bared his teeth at her and the shocked queen ran into the woods. Darktail let her go. What he needed to do now was try to team up with Scorch and Fang. They seemed like to strong warriors. Darktail raced forward and saw Mossheart and Rabbitpelt fighting their way through the cats to get to the fresh kill. Darktail snarled and leapt at Mossheart, dragging her down to the ground as she shrieked. Suddenly Rabbitpelt was on top of him, clawing Darktail until he felt like his who back was burning. With a yowl, Darktail spun around to face Rabbitpelt and jumped at him. Darktail was about to slice his throat with unsheathed claws, but before he had finished with Rabbitpelt, Mossheart leapt to her brother's defense. She wrapped her paws around Darktail's neck and tugged him backwards. Infuriated, Darktail spun around, trying to attack two at a time. But Darktail began to gt weaker and weaker until he felt his paws flailing. Suddenly, Rabbitpelt let go with a shriek and he and Mossheart bounded into the woods. Darktail looked to see what had gotten rid of them, and he saw Fang and Scorch behind him, snarling. Darktail looked at them, snarling back. He had been hoping to team up with them.

"Are you Darktail?" Fang, the reddish shecat asked.

"Yes. From ShadowClan." Darktail growled.

Scorch looked thoughtfully at Darktail, then nodded, "Come with us. Let's kill some tributes."