Warriors: The Eagle's Reign

Prologue

The slender cream tabby she-cat leaped past the hissing flames, clearing the second last boulder. "Nearly there, little ones," she rasped, coughing. Smoke coiled around her lungs, choking her. Her two remaining kits mewled pitifully.

The queen picked up on of her kits by the scruff and braced for the next jump. Her eyes narrowed with concentration as she prepared to jump.

She sprang, landing on the rock. She gave a sigh of relief as her kit dangled and squealed, but didn't squirm too hard or fall. Now she had to get her other one. 

She licked the little scrap on the head. "I'll be right back," she whispered, her heart swelling with grief as she remembered poor little Badger and Mouse. She'd been forced to abandon Badger, her striped black-and-white kit in the nursery, and Mouse had fallen from one of the boulders. The huge rocks stabbed out of the cliff leading to safety. Since fire had burned away the main entrance, she had no choice but to take her kits along the dangerous escape route.

The she-cat firmly shook the memory of her two other kits and jumped back to get her remaining kit, a little tom called Night. His dusky grey-black pelt with white speckles reminded her of the night sky and she felt sorrow. She hoped all three of them survived to see it again.

As she grasped her kit by the scruff and yet again bounded back to her other kit, Flower, something flashed in the corner of her eye. A flash of amber-brown. The eyes of a cat! The she-cat spun around. "Grass?" she called. "Coal?" Uncertainty burned her pelt. Were any cats left in the camp at all? "Dawny? Fern? Rutch? Anyone there?"

But the eyes had disappeared as soon as she'd turned. So everyone had fled the camp and assumed that the she-cat could make it out herself, with her kits. She felt a twinge of anger. After so much loyalty, they'd just left her?

"Wren?" a whisper came. She glanced around. "Is that you, Coal?"

"Yes," Coal's eyes glinted. "I didn't see you following us, so I came back. I told the others to run further away from the fire," 

"I can't believe our whole camp is burnt," whispered Wren, her heart breaking. The land she'd known for so long, it was all... gone.

Coal's eyes rested sympathetically on Wren. "We'll find a new home," he murmured. "Right now, we have to get your kits to safety," he beckoned to the kit on the rock in front of them. "I'll go to Hollow and you come over,"

But as he jumped across someone else sprang out of a bunch of ferns that weren't yet burnt. Eagle, the grey-and-white tomcat, knocked Coal off the rock. Wren gave a screech of shock and horror. "Eagle!" she shrieked. "What are you doing?!"

Eagle's copperish-amber eyes gleamed with satisfaction. He didn't answer, he just gazed down where Coal suddenly gave a sickening cry as he hit the jagged rock that lay beneath the boulder he'd fallen off. There was a dull thud just before his cry.

Wren stared in disbelief at Eagle, one of her most trusted friends. "What did you just do?" she repeated, her mind whirling.

Eagle towered above the remaining kit. "I did what I wanted," he sneered before grabbing the kit and flinging her over the edge. She gave squeals of fear as she sailed through the air before hitting the hard earth below and giving a bloodcurdling, shrill screech.

Wren felt horror burn in her belly. For many seconds she just stared down while it burned; then, it was replaced by fury, pure, flaming fury. "You traitor!" she spat. "You foul, fox-hearted traitor!" then, she launched herself at him.

He sidestepped easily. "You're defeated, Wren," he gloated. "I've led all your cats away, and now you're all alone," he spun around and bounded away.

Wren stared as the ferns shook as he departed. First she had to get out of the fire.

But then, her revenge would begin.

Hello! Welcome to my first fanfic! A couple of people wanted me to do a cat leading a bunch of dogs, so....lazy_gaming_platypus here you are!