Warriors: 9 Lives of TERROR

Chapter eleven- One. Two. Three. Four. See those bodies on the floor?

Frostheart gazed at Splashstar's mangled body in contempt, his eyes as dull as a brackish puddle of water. Sageweed shimmered into view, and before he could react threw him to the ground and sliced a long gash in his side. Frostheart yowled in pain, and scrambled to his paws. "What was that for?" he snarled, teeth clenched in pain.

"We must take no chances," she hissed. "This will make it look like a fox actually attacked you. Now roll around in the fox scent," she said, like the clearing wasn't drenched in fox-scent enough. He did as he was told, wincing in pain and leaving a smear of blood. Panting, he lay on his side. "Stay there," Sageweed hissed, pressing him down by his shoulder when he tried to get up. Side throbbing, he did.

There was a rustling sound, and a patrol burst into sight. "Frostheart!" screeched Ivyclaw, and ran over to his side, sniffing his wound.

"Fox... Splashstar...." Frostheart managed to choke out, but inside he was bursting with joy. His victory over Splashstar was too real to even believe. Ivyclaw gasped and ran over to the leader. The rest of the border patrol, Coldrose, Silverpaw, Thrushfeather, and Creekwater came into sight. They all ran straight for Splashstar, letting out anguished wails. Coldrose was the only one who came to him. She stood over him, but gazed at Splashstar. After a few heart-beats she looked back down at him.

"You killed him, didn't you?" she whispered fiercely. Smiling, he nodded.

"And if you stand by me, I'll reward you greatly," he replied. Coldrose's whiskers twitched, then she nodded curtly and walked away.

~~~~~~

Coldrose had to keep her paws from trembling as she walked away from Frostheart, feeling his piercing gaze following her. When the strange cat first showed up in her dreams, telling her she was special and deserved to know that Frostheart was going to become leader, Coldrose had not been fooled by the flattery. She had listened to the cat anyway, who claimed they were from StarClan, but Coldrose recognized a Dark Forest cat when she saw one. They didn't glow with stars and stank of rotting wood. Coldrose had seen a StarClan cat before- her dead mother, and this was not one. But, Coldrose had a feeling she was the only one who knew the bad things that would happen.

So she pretended to be in full support of Frostheart, befriending the others chosen by the dark she-cat clearly working with Frostheart. Inwardly, she was disgusted by their keenness to be his loyal servants, even though she was positive they had no idea what they were doing. Almost.

Coldrose felt deaf to the wails of grief as the cats gathered up Splashstar's body and helped the wounded Frostheart back to camp. All she could hear was her own heartbeat pounding in her ears, the quickening of her breathing as her body filled with fear. She had been hoping, while Splashstar was still alive, that even though he was weak he was better than a murderer and somehow StarClan would intervene and stop Frostheart's evil scheming. But that moment never came and now it was all too real, and that knowledge of knowing what horrible things Frostheart would do weighed like a stone in her belly threatening to pull her down under the waters of life and drown her.