Warriors: The Chosen Warrior: Short Stories

Spidernose's Injury

The black-furred tom soared among the branches and leaves like a bird's shadow, his blue eyes focused only on the branches rushing upon him. His breath came heavily with the effort of speeding through the treetops, but that did not slow him one bit. Quickly his eyes darted toward a specific tree, one that screamed victory.

Almost there!

With three more bounds from limb to limb, Spiderleap landed in the thick Ancient Oak, digging his claws in with pride and taking in deep breaths of the mingled scent of the forest and lake. Panting, he glanced back nonchalantly to surprisingly see his Clanmate and friend closer behind than he had initially thought he would be, and still growing closer as he jumped to the same branches Spiderleap took, the tom's black-and-white fur easily visible in the brown and green. Spiderleap effortlessly jumped up to another branch to give Spottednose space to land once he finally did reach the goal.

"Not as far behind as last time," Spiderleap purred between pants as Spottednose landed heavily on the Ancient Oak's branch.

Spottednose took a few heartbeats to catch his breath; he was panting much harder than Spiderleap was with the effort to keep up with the other warrior. He glanced up at the black tom, mischief glistening greatly in his green eyes among the exhaustion they held. "Would you believe me if I told you I've been sneaking out of camp at night to practice?"

Snorting, Spiderleap sat down on his branch. "No. One, because I'm still recovering from that bad piece of prey I ate the other night, and two, because if you were practicing during the night, I would have found your mouse-brained, broken body on the forest floor."

They shared a laugh at the crude humor.

"Okay," Spottednose confessed between laughs, "you have the right to not believe me. Maybe it was just because of your recovery."

Spiderleap simply lifted his chin in victory. "Come on, let's get back to camp. I'll catch something for you to make up for your hard loss on the way."

Spottednose puffed out a breath. "I'll have you know that I can catch my own food!"

"But in the state you are?" Spiderleap joked. He began to look for an easy path to climb down from the large tree, but movement from further away caught his eye. Peering curiously through the leaves, the tom saw a rather large patrol of cats walking along the shore several fox-lengths away.

Spottednose noticed the party, too. He jumped up to the limb to crouch next to Spiderleap. "What's that?" he wondered aloud.

Spiderleap didn't have an answer, until the slightest breeze blew toward them, bringing with it the strong, bitter scent of WindClan.

His fur immediately began to bristle. Something's not right, he realized. ThunderClan was in danger. "Come on," he murmured to Spottednose, who also got whiff of what was happening, and nudged past him to lead the way. He leaped from the Ancient Oak into a nearby tree.

The two ThunderClan warriors jumped from tree to tree, but instead of a race against each other, it was a race against WindClan. Spiderleap forced himself to go slower than he wanted, not only to stay with Spottednose but also to be quieter; it'd be better if WindClan didn't know they had seen them entering the territory.

For trying to invade a Clan's territory, WindClan was anything but quiet. Spiderleap and Spottednose had managed to find them struggling loudly through the thick undergrowth of the forest, much different than that of the moor. They were able to look down at the patrol from above, concealed by the greenleaf leaves. Spiderleap's eyes narrowed with confusion and anxiety as he watched the cats flow beneath him. He counted at least ten, realizing that this must be a planned attack on the camp. But why would WindClan want to attack ThunderClan so fiercely and so directly?