Beast of the Sea - WARRIOR CATS

Chapter 24

"Fear is not always a weakness," she meowed softly.

Minnow squawked indignantly as though she would very much like to disagree. Stone gave the young she-cat a grave look that made her fall silent.

"As I was saying," Wolfwhisper's voice gained more strength with each word. "Fear tethers us, it gives our paws something to hold onto in the middle of the raging sea. Because in fear, we learn to rely on others. To trust and love others."

"Dewstar fears nothing. She has nothing to lose, and that makes her dangerous. But you see, my friends," Wolfwhisper turned, and her gaze raked the crowd. "We have everything to lose. And that makes us more dangerous than a thousand super powers."

As she stopped speaking, the cats remained silent. It was only broken by a plaintive mewl from Ketchup as the red tom leaned against his mother. I stared up at the cats surrounding me. Even though I had only spent a bit over a quarter moon with them, I could see how much they were beginning to mean to me, and how much they meant to one another.

Fang, Ketchup, Bean, Spike, Flow, Stone, Coriander, Minnow, Puddle, Bubble, Dijon, Avocado, Bloom, Fir, Spike, Pounder, Strikeclaw, Wolfwhisper, Ripplepaw, Littlepaw. From a glance, we were a bunch of half-fed, mangy strays. But I knew these cats now. They were all so different, with sometimes polar opposite backgrounds and opinions, yet that might be our strength.

I watched as every cat mulled over what Wolfwhisper was saying. Eventually, it was Bubble who broke the silence.

"Perhaps you are right...mother..." he meowed from beside Puddle. "There may be a lot we don't know, but there is a lot I am certain of. I trust each and every one of our groupmates," he meowed, grinning at a scowling Coriander.

"Potentially we could overrun the tyrant," Dijon meowed tactfully from beside his mate Avocado, and their kit, Ketchup.

Stone nodded. "There are four camps," he meowed, drawing four circles in the dirt with his paw. Every cat gave him a wide berth as he drew with narrowed eyes.

"Quit breathing down my neck," Coriander muttered to Minnow.

Glancing up, I realised that all of Wolfwhisper's cats had gathered together in a tight knot, all of them watching as Stone intricately began to draw a map of the territory of the land we lived on.

The circles (which indicated the OceanClan camps) were clearly marked. Our spy missions, while not getting us actually in the camps, had given us a fairly good idea of their locations.

The first rested on CaveClan land, there was another on GladeClan land, one further beyond all the clan territories, and the last one, eerily close to where we now stood, was ShoreClan camp.

As Stone finished his diagram, he sat down on his hindquarters, apparently satisfied. He glanced up at Wolfwhisper and me, as though looking for more direction.

"Well," I said uncomfortably as the silence drew on. "These are where the camps lay. They're all close enough for Dewstar to manage, but far enough apart so that her cats can have sufficient prey, and so the troublemakers are isolated."

I continued more briskly. "We know that Dewstar has created new ranks to keep her clan in order. As Strikeclaw has told us, the ranks are as follows: Ocean Master, Warrior, Apprentice, Feral and Prisoner."

"Yeah, and how will that help us?" Coriander growled from beside Pounder and Fir.

"Understanding the way Dewstar runs her clan is essential to stopping her," Ripplepaw interjected.

I gave my sister an appreciable nod. "Right. And if we're gonna infiltrate these bases to get cats on our side, we need to know which cats are our best bet." When several cats looked up sharply, I growled. "Look, Dewstar is inevitably going to find and destroy this haven. Understanding what to do after that is vital."