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"Thunderclan, retreat!" The voice came from Dawnstar, leader of Thunderclan.

Hazelwind gave no regard to her words. He was crazy! Thunderblaze's body was lifeless now, yet he still kept his jaws locked around her throat.

Dreamkit was frozen in horror. The Thunderclan cats racing past her to retreat from the camp where blurs. Riverclan had won, but that didn't matter. She'd just watched her mother be killed brutally.

Larkkit's pelt flashing by came as a shock Dreamkit and she was too late to hold him back. He hurtled into Hazelwind's face, obviously caught him off guard, and dug his own tiny jaws into Hazelwind's neck. At that, Hazelwind let go of Thunderblaze and rolled around violently in a panic to detach the kit from his neck. After he stood up, he was bleeding, but only a little bit. And Larkkit was on the ground, far bloodier than Hazelwind's fur.

A she cat from Thunderclan was staring at Hazelwind in horror. Then a cry escaped her throat, "Hazelwind killed a Riverclan kit!"

Every cat, Thunderclan and Riverclan, stopped in their tracks. There was long, dead silence... and even Hazelwind was looking at the bloody bodies with horror struck eyes.

"Hazelwind," Dawnstar's voice was loud and angry, "Get back to our camp. Now."

Hazelwind reluctantly followed some other Thunderclan warriors out of the Riverclan camp. After every warrior of Thunderclan had left, Dawnstar padded to the camp entrance and looked back at the Riverclan cats with regret in her eyes.

"He will be punished," she said. She gave an uncertain look around the clearing as if she wanted to say more, and then turned tail and left with a quick pace.

***

Hazelwind glumly dragged himself into the Thunderclan camp. All eyes were on him. Leafstorm, his former mentor, gave him a disappointed glare.

"I know it was a battle," Ravenbreeze said as she approached Hazelwind from a cluster of other warriors, "but why would you kill a kit. You didn't even have to kill that she-cat."

"She's right," Leafstorm said, "what in Starclan's name where you thinking!? I thought I taught you better than this..."

"I know!" Hazelwind almost yelped it like a kit, "I don't know what happened... I didn't even know that was a kit that attacked me... I didn't even know what was going on!"

"How does that make any since, "an apprentice shouted from somewhere among the cats.

"Yeah," another cat chimed in, "not to mention, you just made the entire clan look bad! Every clan is going to hate us for it, and it's your fault!"

A pang of sadness shot through Hazelwind's chest. They were right! And now his clan mates who he once called his friends and family hated him. It was all he could do not to break down into a wailing fit, "I never meant to kill them!" He meowed helplessly.

"Silence!" Dawnstar growled as she entered the clearing and leaped on the highrock. "Let all cats old enough to hunt their own prey gather beneath the highrock for a clan meeting."

Most cats where already gathered. A couple kits scampered out of the nursery with excitement, followed by their mother who was doing what she could to keep them quiet.

Hazelwind's heart almost leaped out of his chest as he stared up at Dawnstar, glaring at him from the highrock as if he was mouse dung.

"Explain to us, Hazelwind," she said, "Enlighten us on a fair reason you would have to kill Thunderblaze's kit. From what I here, taking the life of Thunderblaze was not a necessary move either. Why then, did you ruin the name of Thunderclan by taking two unnecessary lives?"

"The kit attacked me!" Hazelwind yelped, "I don't know why I killed them! I didn't mean to!"

"Mouse dung!" a warrior spat.

"Silence!" hissed Dawnstar. Then she turned her gaze back to Hazelwind, "You mean to say you took their lives by mistake... yet your claws bear their fur and blood. One does not kill with their claws by mistake."

"I...."

"YOU controlled your actions on the battlefield! As the warrior code given to us by Starclan themselves states, it is NOT always necessary to kill in order to win a battle! You could have defeated them without killing them! We attacked the camp as a threat to show what we're willing to do in order to keep Sunning Rocks ours; to show Riverclan they can't bully us and take it for their own; NOT to kill their kits and queens, and now it is Thunderclan that looks like the bully!"

The clan was silent for a while, and then Dawnstar continued in a grim tone, "In order to show that the entire of Thunderclan does not think the same way you do in battle, and is still loyal to the warrior code, you will be exiled in front of all four clans at the next gathering. Until then we are keeping you prisoner. It's a shame you chose to murder a kit, Hazelwind. You where a really great warrior..."

***

"He's alive," Rainpuddle whispered to Snowflight, "but barely. I'll take him to the medicine den and see what I can do. If he lives through the night, then he should okay... Graykit and Dreamkit are taking it really hard about Thunderblaze. I'll do my best with Larkkit, but you should really go comfort them."

The words "If he lives through the night" brought on a comfort to Snowflight, but also a fear. The chances of Larkkit living through the night where slim. Rainpuddle would never tell him that, but he knew.

He met her eyes, "I really appreciate it."

To his disappointment, she only looked away. Rainpuddle was only two moons younger than Snowflight. They had been in love since they were kits. Her father was a Shadowclan warrior and her mother a Thunderclan warrior. When they had been young, around the time Snowflight became an apprentice, they even referred to each other as mates. But two moons later it was announced at Rainpuddle's apprentice ceremony that she would be the new medicine cat. The medicine cat before her had died without an apprentice and she was the only available kit. So after that she trained with Barkspeckle, the Shadowclan medicine cat, to become the medicine cat of Thunderclan. As a medicine cat cannot have a mate or kits, she left him for her busy role in the clan. After Snowflight had come to accept that, he had chosen Thunderblaze as his mate. But that never changed the way he felt about Rainpuddle, no matter how well he was able to hide it.

"Are you okay?" Rainpuddle asked.

"Oh, uh, yeah." Snowflight replied, "Just thinking... I'll go comfort Graykit and Dreamkit."