Clans Reunite

Chapter 2

It was cold. So cold. The small cat that hung, with the wind swirling violently around it, whimpered and shook persistently. It longed only for its mew to be heard.

Sandkit's small body was tensed tightly, and her muscles ached from the effort. She painfully lifted her head to stare up at the huge Hawk that was carrying her above the mountain tops, which were heavy with a thick layer of white powder. The Hawk's sharp talons dug into the small cat's back and stomach, as they held her with an unfailing grip. But no matter how hard the Hawk clung, Sandkit could not shake the image of falling to her death.

It felt as if Sandkit had been traveling for moons when the Hawk finally began to descend.

It's huge wings slowed in pace, and as Sandkit watched the gap between her and the ground close, she let herself hang limp. Relief hit her in one, over-powering blast, and she unsheathed her claws and outstretched her legs in a desperate effort to feel solid ground under her paws again.

Now that Sandkit could see the ground, she could tell that the hawk was flying straight for a towering pine in the middle of the forest. As she approached it, she heard a shrill, ear piercing call over the wind; the call of hungry, shrieking, baby birds.

Sandkit's mind was buzzing with fear; she didn't know how big the baby hawks would be, she didn't know if she would either be able to fight them off, or be striped to peices and eaten. What if the mother Hawk stuck around? What if it made sure she couldn't escape? What if it finished her off before she had the chance?

Her wind ruffled fur standing on end, Sandkit watched as they drew closer and closer to the nest. Eventually, the small shrieking birds came into view, their mouths gaping wide, snapping beaks ready to devour whatever their mother fed them. Didn't mother birds eat the food first, and then regurgitate it? Sandkit pleaded that the chicks were old enough to break the food down themselves; their small nipping beaks looked much less daunting than that of their mother. Sandkit didn't want to be regurgitated; she would rather her death wasn't quite so prolonged.

Horrible thoughts cam into Sandkit's mind. Death before a proper chance to live? She had to escape.

The screeching of the hungry chicks burst through her thoughts again, as the mother hawk was slowing down, and she could see the size of the chicks now. They were only slightly bigger than she was. The mother hovered over the nest, lowering Sandkit into the snapping beaks of the chicks, and Sandkit had to keep on dodging their attempts to grab her and rip her to pieces. She was only half a tail length away from them when one chick stretched up it's beak, ready to gulp her down. Sandkit was horrified, and because of instinct, she struck out, claws unsheathed, and scraped across the baby hawk's face. The chick shrieked, and the mother hawk dropped the young cat in shock. A great sense of dread ripped at sandkit as she saw anger welling up in the mother hawk's eyes. Sandkit saw her chance, and leaped from the nest and onto the next branch down the tree. Memories of climbing the ancient pohutukawa tree with her sister back at Waveclan camp pulled at Sandkit's heart, and tears welled up in her eyes and she leaped furiously from branch to branch back down the tree.

The mother hawk was crashing through the branches towards Sandkit, it's beak outstretched, and Sandkit began taking flying leaps from branch to branch down the tree. At the bottom of the pine, the branches stopped, and Sandkit was bracing herself for the leap to the ground when her foot slipped on the layer of ice on the tree's branch.

Sandkit tumbled into the white powder at the tree's trunk. It struck Sandkit with an ice cold jolt. Sandkit had never felt this stuff before! She lay, stunned, at the base of the tree, and the Hawk saw it's chance. It dove strait for Sandkit, who leaped back to her paws and hurtled off through the fluffy ice in a desperate dive for cover. She ran towards a shrub that was growing at the base of a pine, and slid into it, thorns clinging to her fur. The hawk flew straight into the bush, and a thorn pierced straight into its eye, leaving it shrieking in pain.

Sandkit dived out, and ran from the bush and straight into a small cave-like entrance in the powdery white ground. It must be an old rabbit hole, she thought to herself. She leaped in, leaving the hawk scrabbling at the entrance, trying to squeeze in, but it couldn't fit. After a while it gave up, and left. Sandkit, who was shivering with cold, curled up to try and get some rest. For a while, she lay, eyes wide, staring at the ice cold wall, wondering where she was. Was that cat she could smell? Sandkit brushed the thought off, telling herself that no cat would live out here: it was just her longing to be home with her family. Sandkit puffed out her thin, ginger coat, trying to warm herself, and after a while, she fell asleep.