Warriors: Back to the Wild Book#3

Chapter 12

Flightwing's body was gone. Mousepelt assumed one of the Dark Forest went buried her, or just left her on the SkyClan border. She looked to see a rat was waiting for her. One of the Dark Forest cats must have went out to hunt while she was training. Eating the prey, Mousepelt began thinking about her Clan. She remembered lying close to Ravenclaw to keep warm. The kits playing in the snow. The elders complaining about the cold. Vinetail and Stripeback yelling at each other in their battle to be leader.

Then Jumbledstar's body came to her head. The mocking of Silversol and Deathmask as they laughed in the caves. Mousepelt was standing and listened with horror. They laughed at all the terrified faces of the cats and the wailing of Yellowstone. Mousepelt couldn't forget the blood she saw on her paws. She had killed a leader. No. She didn't kill him. Silversol and Deathmask killed him. They used Mousepelt as an alibi.

Clawface then appeared next to her. "I don't think I recieved a thank you for that prey." he purred.

"I don't have to thank you if I don't want to." Mousepelt got up and began walking away from the leftover mouse. Clawface immediately ran in front of her, blocking her path.

"I almost got caught by a warrior trying to get that thing!" the scarred tom hissed. "I deserve something!"

"Enough, Clawface!" Mousepelt turned to see Thistleclaw and Snowtuft came from the darkness. "We need her to be on all our sides, not just Silversol's and Deathmask's."

"Let me ask you all something here," Mousepelt looked at the toms, "why are you not in StarClan? You're all dead correct?"

The warriors looked at one another then glared down at the young warrior. Mousepelt was taught that if you'd follow the warrior code you'd go to StarClan. So did neither of these warriors follow it? Why should she even be listening to them? They're the ones who were making her kill the cats that pretented to like her.

"Sit down," Thistleclaw instructed, "I'll tell you how." Mousepelt sat down and listened to the mottled tom. "I was supposed to go to StarClan, I was finally with my mate and son once again, but then Bluestar, a leader of ThunderClan, chased me out to the Dark Forest. One of these seasons I'm going to rip that lousy she-cat's pelt off!"

"What did you do?" Mousepelt asked.

"She said I was evil, I may have wanted war, but I was not evil! I'd never kill my own clanmate. Now I can never see my mate or son again except in battle!"

Mousepelt lowered her ears. The warrior was wrongly accused and banished to the Dark Forest. She looked to Clawface for his story.

"I followed Brokenstar and killed kits and I killed a medicine cat." Clawface started. "I don't regret it, Brokenstar was a great leader and I followed him until a StarClan cat killed him!"

Mousepelt didn't care for this cat. He was too pretentious and Mousepelt got the feeling that she was going to spill his blood at one time or another. She then looked to Snowtuft.

"I only came to get stronger and I was correct," Snowtuft growled, "I'm more stronger than ever and when my time comes I'm going to spill every cat's blood and lick it off my fur laughing!"

Mousepelt glared at the white warrior. There was nothing in this cat's life that made him come to the Dark Forest? He seemed like he only wanted to kill and be the one to spill blood. Either way, all three cats got up and began to disperse. Deathmask and Silversol came in to the caves padding past the others. Deathmask made his way down to the stream to get something to drink.

Mousepelt lied down and curled up and got ready to fall asleep. As she was drifting off the last thing she heard was Deathmask walking back up the gorge and looked around. He walked over to Silversol and asked loud enough for Mousepelt to hear him.

"Where's Flightwing's body?"