Aspenwhisper's War

Part 9

       Aspenpaw woke a few days later in the medicine den, his head swirling with the painful memories from his father's murder. He tried curling up into a ball, wanting to block out the world, but a painful twinge in his side made him open his eyes, looking at his flank.

       His pale ginger fur was split by a series of deep, ugly scratches that were patched up with a strong-smelling poultice and a thick layer of cobwebs. The scratches hurt, but the growing ache in his heart as he remembered his father's body, not two tail-lengths away from him, broken and bloody, torn open by the ruthless claws and teeth of his murderer, made him let out a choked sob, squeezing his eyes shut.

       "Aspenpaw?" He opened his eyes to the voice of Flamesong's apprentice, Whitefall. The young she-cat had entered the den, padding over to him as soon as he'd made the sound. "Does anything hurt? Do I need to redress your wounds?" 

       Aspenpaw shook his head, looking up at Whitefall, his eyes glistening. "What happened that day?" He asked, his voice husky and cracked. "After we were brought back." 

      Whitefall sat beside the broken and grieving apprentice, resting her tail gently across his shoulders. "Well, Cloudrunner - he's Cloudstar now - had asked what happened, but all the warriors could say was that your father and Cloverstar had been killed by what they'd assumed to be rogue cats. Timberclaw said that you were found unconscious at the scene, and you'd lost a lot of blood. Flamesong and I were afraid we wouldn't be able to save you.

       "None of the patrols Cloudstar set out could pinpoint who had killed the leader or your father, and Cloudstar said as soon as you'd recovered enough, he wanted you to tell him everything."

       Aspenpaw's gaze hardened, his blue-green irises like flint; sharp and almost deadly. "Send him in." He growled, rage and the unfiltered desire for revenge pushing away his pain. "I want him to know everything about the fox-heart that killed my father."

~~~~~~~~~~

       Later on that day, Aspenpaw was sitting up, picking at a mouse Flamesong had brought him. His appetite wasn't fully there, but the medicine cat had insisted he'd eat.

       "You need to keep your strength up." The ginger tom had said, dropping the prey at Aspenpaw's feet. "You'll heal faster if your body has the energy to do so."

       Aspenpaw looked up from his meal, however, when Cloudstar walked into the den with Whitefall, the grey and white leader looking at him with an oddly gentle expression. "Aspenpaw." He murmured, sitting down in front of the apprentice. "I'm so terribly sorry for the loss of Shadecreek." Aspenpaw mumbled his thanks before making himself as comfortable as he could, considering his condition.

       "I take it you want me to tell you who killed Cloverstar and my father?" Aspenpaw said bitterly, taking another bite from the mouse. Without waiting for a response, the apprentice looked up and spoke, his voice shaking and filled with grief and fury.

       "Snowskip." He spat, disgust lacing his tone. "That mad, fox-hearted maggot ambushed Cloverstar, killing her again and again, slowly taking each life agonizingly slow, barely giving her a chance to breathe before taking the next life. Shadecreek and I, we watched as that monster killed her for the last time. She enjoyed it! She made it seem like it was just pure fun for her! 

       "And the way she spoke so highly of Rosestar.... almost as if she worshiped her leader. Then, she told us she'd kill both of us, me after Shadecreek, and they fought, my father attacking her first." Aspenpaw paused, taking a deep breath as grief rose in him, threatening to spill over in a spout of rage. 

       "Then, after fighting so viciously I thought they would rip each other apart, Shadecreek threw Snowskip into a tree, telling her to leave now, and being lucky to escape with her life after the cruelty she'd shown when killing Cloverstar, she pretended to oblige, acting all weak and scared. And then.... she grabbed him by his throat, and just completely tore him apart." 

       Cloudstar nodded slowly, standing and, despite everything, leaning in and touching his nose gently to Aspenpaw's head, the gesture shocking to the apprentice. 

       "I'm so sorry you had to witness that." He whispered softly to the young tom. "I promise you that, as soon as you've recovered, we'll have you get your revenge on the warrior that did this." 

       "I don't want revenge." Aspenpaw whimpered. "I just want my father back." He sounded like a scared little kit, but he didn't care. However, when the leader and medicine cat left, he opened his eyes, and, deep down, they glittered with an unfiltered rage. He did want revenge. And when Aspenpaw wanted something, he knew for a fact he'd figure out how to get it.