Holecloud walked next to his leader, anxiety tingled in his paws and he looked away when larchstar turned his head to him questioningly.

"I'm fine" he said hoping he could hide his fears.

Larchstar nodded and turned his head slowly away, holecloud felt relieved, the last thing he wanted to do was show how frightened he was, he was about to do battle training! He had to persuade his clan that everything will be all right.

But no matter what, he knew that larchstar was risking most of his warriors in this terrible battle.

He, himself, would probably never come out of it alive.

Holecloud dragged his paws on the grass, avoiding trees by swiftly turning away a fox-tail length close to it, he could feel his tail dragging on the ground, and he rapidly pulled it up high in the air.

Walking with his tail high made him feel more confident, but he felt his leader's gaze burning on him.

Suddenly he saw a brown pelt flashing in front of him, his leader hurrying toward the highrock and gathering the clan together "let all clan cats old enough to catch their own prey, gather around the highrock for a clan meeting"

Holecloud slowly walked toward his leader, his pelt bristling, then he heard the familiar pawsteps of meadowlight and breezefang padding toward him "so what happened at-"

Meadowlight stopped talking when she saw sadness beaming in her deputy's face "what happened?"

As an answer, holecloud flicked his tail toward the leader "This gathering was important" larchstar meowed "froststar had a message from starclan that she shared with all the clans.

Larchstar took a deep breath and holecloud could see his whole clan exchanging glances with each other "a new clan shall arise, not formed of cats but of what we call dark warriors, four must become one to fight these dangerous enemies..."

Whispering rose from all the cats bellow the highrock, holecloud stared at his leader, feeling meadowlight and breezefang's burning gaze on him.

Larchstar waited for all the whispering to die out before continuing, with a harsher voice "We know where the dark warrior's camp is, and in three days we will meet at fourtrees, at sunhigh and will fight these dark warriors together" murmurs of agreement sounded as the cats nodded.

"I know as well as you do, that we are risking most of our lives at this dangerous task, but we will loose more if we let these dark warriors tare our camp apart" larchstar looked expectantly at all the cats below him, probably waiting for a cat to disagree with him, but, to holecloud's relief, the cats stayed silent, nodding occasionally when they met their leader's gaze.

"Holecloud will carry on the job of battle training, and I will prepare the patrols instead, get some rest" then holecloud jumped down from the highrock, walking toward holecloud.

Holecloud bounded off toward his leader "you should go get some rest too, tomorrow I would like to see you at my den, first thing" holecloud nodded, happy to finally have some rest.

He ran to the warriors den and to his bedding of moss, getting ready for tomorrow, he thought through everything, and drifted off to sleep.