Venom Rising- Prologue
The Greenleaf sun shone high in the sky over a vast jungle territory, its thick canopy casting dark shadows onto the ground below where a small group of cats were gathered at the bank of a quickly flowing river.
Lavenderpaw crouched and leaned over the water in search of a flash of scales that would indicate where his breakfast waited for him.
"You'll never catch anything like that."
Turning at the sound of a voice behind him, Lavenderpaw saw the deputy, Icestorm, padding over to him.
"Don't you see your shadow? Because the fish sure do. Don't let it fall on the water." The blue gray tom advised.
Lavenderpaw groaned inwardly. Cricketpaw, who was seated a few foxlengths downriver from him had already caught a fish, and she had only begun her training two and a half moons ago, and her mentor, Frostclaw, hadn't even been a warrior for four seasons. Lavenderpaw could be made a warrior any day now; he has to do something to prove himself. More importantly, however, he was starving. His mentor, Hawkleap, had gone on a hunting patrol this morning into the forest, so, having some extra time before training this afternoon, he decided to tag onto Icestorm's fishing patrol with Cricketpaw and her mentor, Frostclaw.
The idea had seemed simple enough earlier, but to be honest, fishing turned out to be a lot harder than it sounds. Personally, Lavenderpaw was terrified of getting stuck in the undercurrent and drowning. Worse than the thought, however, was diving in and soaking his fur through without even catching anything.
As Icestorm headed over to Cricketpaw and began instructing her on how to properly dive, Lavenderpaw refocused himself on the water. The sunlight rippling on its surface distracted him until he heard Icestorm's panic stricken yowl. "Snake!"
Lavenderpaw spun around, spotting the snake as it lunged for Cricketpaw. Icestorm threw himself in front of her and howled in pain as the snake's fangs found their mark in his neck. Lavenderpaw rushed over, but the snake had already slithered away and disappeared among the rocks, leaving Icestorm to collapse to the ground, panting as the toxins took effect. Cricketpaw stared, wide eyed at him as a spasm of pain made him writhe and yowl in agony. "W-What do we do? Cricketpaw!" Lavenderpaw was panicking, terror had frozen Cricketpaw and he didn't know what to do other than watch Icestorm die.
There was splashing as Frostclaw pulled himself out of the river, a fish clasped between his jaws, which he dropped at the sight of blood pooling around Icestorm's shuddering body. "What happened?" He questioned urgently.
"Th-there was a snake, it bit him!" Was all Lavenderpaw could choke out. Frostclaw pinned his front paws on either side of the ragged holes in Icestorm's neck, attempting to apply pressure to stop the venom from flowing into his blood stream, but it was far too late. Icestorm choked out a few clots of blood and left scores in the ground with unsheathed claws, then fell limp on the ground, his eyes glazing over.
Frostclaw backed away from the unmoving body, and all three of them stood, silent for a moment, until Frostclaw pronounced solemnly, "He's dead."