Vol. 1/6 ✅️
"Your future - it is a path entwined with thorns. They try to grab you, to pull you into the deepest thicket - and they will succeed. You don't have the power to change your destiny completely, Larkpaw. The only thing you can do is not t...
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Greenleaf was coming to an end. It was slowly getting cooler and a few individual leaves were already turning red. That was the first thing Larkpaw had noticed when she set off for the Pineglade together with Silversky, Sootfeather, Amberpaw, Heatherwing, Aster and Fennel to do the first battle training there.
Larkpaw thought back to the last few warm moons. During the prey-rich times, she could always go to her nest with a full belly, but now that the forest was adjusting to the cold leaf-changes, she had to get used to going hungry, for better or worse.
Our territory is large, but if the elders' words are to be believed, it won't be enough to feed everyone, Larkpaw thought as she entered the Pineglade. It had been a while since she had been here, so it took her breath away when she could see the vast landscape with the mountains behind the tree line. I wonder what there is outside the Clan borders. Would I ever get to see it?
"Well, do you know what we're going to start with?" Silversky's question tore Larkpaw from her longing-filled thoughts.
"Um, no," she stammered. Should I have known? Inwardly, she wanted to curse herself, but to her amazement, Silversky showed no signs of annoyance.
Instead, he simply meowed, "With the code of combat."
Larkpaw tilted her head in confusion. She thought she had misheard him. "I didn't know anything about that!" she protested, while panic slowly rose inside her like a small plant growing. What if she had to take a test now? She didn't know anything about this ominous code of combat.
Silversky purred with amusement. Is he making fun of me? Larkpaw flattened her ears. "I didn't know about it for a long time either," the silver-black tabby warrior explained.
It reassured Larkpaw that she hadn't made a mistake. "What does this code say?"
"Well, they're simply moral rules that are supposed to help ensure that every fight remains fair and is fought in the Clan way, unlike-" Silversky broke off briefly with a glance at Aster and Fennel, who were standing at the other end of the clearing. "So the code of combat is almost as important as the fighting techniques themselves."
"Am I going to learn fighting techniques today?" Larkpaw thought back nervously to how she had watched her older denmates train. To her taste, even mock battles seemed too fast and too hard.
To her relief, Silversky replied in the negative. "Not really," he explained. "But we'll get to that later. But let's start with the code now."
Larkpaw turned her ears forwards, determined not to miss anything.
"The first code says that you must never take revenge. That's also connected to the next code, which is that you can't kill an enemy unless there's a really, really good reason."
"Who would want to do that anyway?" Larkpaw shuddered. That is an unforgivable act. I'm surprised there's a code against it. There must be a reason for it.
