Warriors: The Chosen Warrior: Rising Sun (BOOK 1)

Chapter 15

Before she knew it, they had scaled the wall of the hollow. With each scramble and dislodging of pebbles, Leafpaw looked back at the clearing with dread, sure someone would notice them missing already and catch them in the very act of stealing away. But as the she-cat made the final climb up and hid herself in the wall of ferns and bramble bushes that edge the top of the hollow, she heard no one shouting at them to return. From where she crouched, she was able to see most of the camp below through the twisting roots of the beech tree that had dislodged from the earth and fallen many seasons ago. Her Clanmates looked so small; Dapplekit was still playing with Brackenkit and Berrykit, who looked like mice from Leafpaw's position. Aspenshade and Dustcloud were sharing tongues with one another near the half-rock. The beech tree obscured her vision from the apprentice's den, but as she couldn't see Mosspaw and Finchpaw anywhere else in the camp, she assumed they were still sitting outside it as they were before.

A pair of soft, black paws gripped the lip of the hollow, followed by Darkkit's head poking up. Leafpaw grabbed his scruff to help, and with a grunt he made the push to reach the top. Without looking back, the tom slithered through the vegetation with a soft rustling. Leafpaw took one last glance to make sure no one had spotted them during the climb and then followed after him.

When she emerged through the ferns on the other side, Darkkit had already bounded some tail-lengths into the forest. With his tail straight up and eyes ecstatic, the young tom spun to take it all in.

"This is amazing!" he exclaimed, though he remembered to still be quiet about it. He took a deep breath in and let it out again with a noisy sigh. When his sparkling eyes swung toward Leafpaw, she felt the gaze pierce her with a beam of warmth; perhaps she had made the correct decision after all, in giving him this opportunity. She smiled back at him from his contagious joyfulness, and in the back of her head she hoped he would remember this moment when the Dark Forest visited his dreams.

Darkkit pranced up to her and stood before the she-cat with paws kneading the ground eagerly. "So, about that tree-climbing you mentioned earlier...."

The brown-and-white she-cat scanned the forest around them for any patrols that could be out and about. Ideally, there would be none, and it was sunhigh - almost everyone should be in the camp either eating or relaxing. "Okay," she meowed, "but only for a little bit." With a flick of her tail, she trotted away from the camp with Darkkit not far behind.

Her tail twitched nervously as they went, searching for a tree similar to the one Applefall had found earlier as well as keeping an eye out on patrols. Sootpaw and Smallkit had appeared on either side of them; the gray spirits kept their gazes on the woods, as well, as if they were watching out for wandering cats, as well. But the apprentice was not nervous solely because of the chance of them getting caught, but also because in order to teach Darkkit how to tree-climb, she would have to show him herself - and it would be her first actual attempt at climbing a tree.

At last she decided on an oak tree - one not quite as tall as the other tree, but still just as sturdy - a good enough distance away from the camp in which they were not far from it, but at the same time they should have been out of earshot. With a shuddering breath, Leafpaw turned to face Darkkit; the black-furred tom was running his eyes all over the forest from the floor to the canopy.

"Um... okay," stuttered the brown-and-white she-cat to get his attention. She glanced at the trunk behind her as she fought to recall Applefall's words during her lesson. "The first step is to... to jump at the trunk. And you get momentum by doing that. You dig your claws in deep to stay on the tree, and you just kind of... keep pushing up. It's a bit like walking," she added, picturing Applefall performing the motions, "except it's, you know, up a tree instead on flat ground."

She looked at Darkkit, flustered, to see if he understood what she was saying, and he nodded vividly. "Can I try it?" he asked with perked ears.

"Actually... you should watch me do it first." Although dread coursed through her as she craned back her head to see the oak's branches far above, she would rather be the one to get hurt than Darkkit if anything goes awry. After all, she had Applefall's visual to go by; Darkkit only had Leafpaw's inept explanation.

Conscious of the kit's immense focus on her, Leafpaw studied the tree reaching to the sky before her and replayed Applefall's own climb in her head several times. The lowest branches seemed to be at least five fox-lengths over her head, and she wondered if she should choose a different tree. It probably won't matter, though, she concluded tensely.

Not giving herself anymore time to think of what could happen, and to return to the camp as soon as possible, Leafpaw bunched her hind legs beneath her and flung herself at the trunk. Immediately she grabbed at the bark with her claws and briefly hung there, almost stunned, before forcing herself higher.

Just like walking, she urged herself on.

The action was very different from what she had ever done before, including climbing up the secret exit of the camp. All she could rely on were really her claws to keep her from falling back down to the ground that grew farther away each heartbeat, and even those felt like they were about to be torn out.

A tree hollow came into her sight. Making her way toward it, she successfully used it as a boost and a short resting station as her hind legs relaxed on the ledge. Before she knew it - though it felt like the climb took until sunset - the apprentice had come upon the first branches. With less grace than she had hoped for, she scrambled onto a particularly thick one, rested in the crook that met with the trunk, and took deep breaths to calm herself.

While her paws shook from the exertion the climb demanded of her, Leafpaw was thrilled - she climbed her first tree, all the way to the branches! She took a moment to look around; branches from another tree or two nearby reached out to the branch she sat on, and as she glanced up she saw that a couple branches practically touched one another. But she wasn't done yet, she knew. Now it was time for her to make her way back to the ground.

Leafpaw peered over the branch, careful not to lean too much as to cause herself to tumble off it and plummet like a stone. Her head was washed over by a wave of dizziness at how far below Darkkit stood on the roots of the oak, but she could still see the excitement and admiration in his amber eyes as he stared up at her.

"You got all that so far?" she called down to him. Her voice felt muffled in her own ears from the mid-greenleaf leaves surrounding her. "Now, to get down -"

She cut herself off with a gasp, and dread worse than she had had before the climb poured into her like a dip in the ground during a raging storm. Practically exploding out from a patch of nettles, a shadowy shape stomped over to Darkkit. The young kit, too focused on Leafpaw, flipped around at the newcomer's furious hiss and flattened himself to the ground. As the dark gray warrior glared up at Leafpaw clinging to her branch in terror, she recognized Smokefeather, and her heart sunk; Smokefeather was one of the worst cats to discover them out in the forest like this. Why couldn't it have been someone like Deertail, or Thistlestem?

"What in the name of StarClan are you two doing out here?" The senior warrior's angry growl easily reached the apprentice up in the branches. "Get back down here, Leafpaw!"

The brown-and-white she-cat crouched stricken for a few, thudding heartbeats as she wondered how Smokefeather found them. What was he doing out in the forest at this time of day? Why wasn't he having his meal, or taking a rest from patrols? Was he watching Leafpaw?

The same alarm that rang in the back of her head earlier in the day when she was alone with Applefall returned. Was Smokefeather watching her? Could he be one of the other cats visited by the Dark Forest, and agreed to do their business for them? But Leafpaw shook her head mentally. There was no way Smokefeather would submit to the Place of No Stars; he was one of the most loyal warriors in ThunderClan, and mayhap in all the Clans. Despite her efforts to defend the warrior, the suspicion stuck to her like a burr, and the burning in his eyes froze her to the spot.

Was Smokefeather going to try and kill her?

~*~*~*~*~*~

I'll tell you now: No, he was not going to try and kill her. Sorry for this chapter being short, because this is not a complete chapter. Please refer to the Author's Note in the next part :(