Warriors: The Undying Flame: Into The Wild

CHAPTER ONE

"You there!"

Rusty whirled around, all his senses on alert. The heap of bulging, rubbish-stuffed Twoleg pelts beneath him wobbled precariously; for an agonizing moment, he was afraid it would collapse. He dug in his claws and held on tightly as the pile steadied itself.

Nearby stood a tight-knit group of six or seven cats. It was as random an assortment as Rusty had ever seen; there was nothing to tie them together save for the identical gleam of malice in each pair of eyes. As Rusty watched, they fanned out, surrounding his position in a loose half-circle.

A black-and-white tom, who could only be their leader, stepped forward. He was easily the largest cat Rusty had ever encountered: well-muscled and obviously well-fed, too, judging by his sleek yet battle-scarred pelt. Dying sunlight glinted off the teeth set in his collar. He didn't even need to unsheathe his claws to look menacing.

"Scram," he growled. "This scrapcan belongs to BloodClan now."

At the single word, Rusty's heart seemed to stop. BloodClan. It was a word he had heard before, breathed out on his father's last breath. It was a word he had been taught to avoid, to fear, to despise. Beware of BloodClan, he had always been told.

But he had always heeded the warning. BloodClan did roam the streets of the town, along with countless loners and housecats, but their territory ended two streets away. So why were they here now?

Refusing to be daunted, he leaped to the ground, bushing out his fur so as to appear twice his size. "You can't do that!"

"Yeah?" came the response. "Who says?"

"I do," Rusty replied. "I've always respected your territory. But I've scavenged from this scrapcan for a while now, and I think I would have noticed if it was yours."

The tom chuckled. He let his gaze roam over Rusty: his ginger pelt, his skinny frame, the meat on his bones only just beginning to return after the cold seasons. "It wasn't ours then," he snarled. "It is now." He walked a circle around Rusty, sizing him up. "What's a puny cat like you gonna do about it?"

Cackles and jeers arose from several of the other cats.

"Yeah, Bone!"

"You tell him!"

"Puny cat! Ha!"

By now, Rusty was beginning to feel afraid. I'm only eight moons old—I can't stand up to these cats!  But he forced himself to remain calm and collected. If there was one thing street cats respected, it was courage.

He took a single step forward. "You can't claim the whole town!"

"We just might," the tom shot back. "BloodClan is growing, runt. We need all the territory we can get."

All the territory you can take, you mean, thought Rusty. Out loud, he simply asked. "What about the other cats? You're not the only ones in this town, you know."

The tom unsheathed his claws. "They'll be given a choice. They can join us and help make us strong, or they can suffer the consequences of resisting. It's the same choice we're giving you now."

Even as their leader spoke, Rusty was conscious of the other BloodClan cats creeping ever closer, their circle tightening around him. Soon, he'd have no chance of escaping unscathed.

Would it really be so bad to join these cats? he wondered. They obviously enjoyed a healthy amount of prey, if this cat Bone was anything to judge by. As he looked around the circle, he saw that most of Bone's enforcers had the same lustrous sheen to their fur, the same satisfied smirk on their muzzles, and the same powerful muscles rippling beneath their limbs.