Code Of The Clans

A CAT CANNOT BE MADE DEPUTY

WITHOUT HAVING MENTORED AT LEAST

ONE APPRENTICE.

Our skil s and our knowledge will live forever, thanks to our mentors, who teach the next generation of Clan cats the way of the warrior. But it took a great leader to see that it was not only the apprentice who gained valuable knowledge from the mentor. Being entrusted with an apprentice teaches the mentor how to lead and gain loyalty and respect. For what is a deputy or leader if not a mentor to the whole Clan?

Second in Command

“StarClan, hear me as I make my choice. Acorntail will be the new deputy of WindClan.”

Featherstar stretched out and rested her muzzle lightly on top of Acorntail’s head. Acorntail closed his eyes, swallowing his grief for Pebblefur, the cat who had once been his mentor, and whose death from a strange, agonizing lump in his belly had shocked the Clan.

“Acorntail! Acorntail!” called the cats behind him, but to Acorntail, they sounded flat and disappointed. It was obvious they didn’t want him to be their deputy.

“Good luck, Acorntail,” murmured a voice in his ear. It was Morningcloud, the dark gray she-cat who had made no secret of her surprise when Acorntail was picked for deputy instead of her.

“Thanks,” Acorntail meowed. Behind her, he could see her apprentice Quickpaw glaring at him, his pale ginger face screwed up with indignation. Acorntail wondered if all young cats rewarded their mentors with such fierce loyalty. He hadn’t yet had an apprentice of his own, so he didn’t know what it would be like to train a new warrior and to watch him or her develop from bumbling kit to strong, skillful fighting cat.

Morningcloud padded back to Quickpaw, and Acorntail heard the young cat hiss, “It should have been you!”

The she-cat quieted him with a flick of her tail. “Maybe one day,” she murmured softly.

“Acorntail, you need to sort out the patrols for today,” Featherstar prompted. Her tone was almost apologetic, as if she didn’t want to remind him of his duties.

“Oh, yes, of course,” Acorntail stammered. “Gorseclaw, Sheeptail, and Cloversplash, you can go on hunting patrol.”

Cloversplash, a lightly built dark brown she-cat with a white flash on her nose shaped exactly like a cloverleaf, stopped him.

“We went on hunting patrol this morning. We should have a training session with our apprentices now.”

Acorntail felt as if the three apprentices attached to these warriors were looking at him with a mixture of scorn and pity. He ducked his head. “Oh, yes, of course, training. Well, maybe you could take the evening hunting patrol?”

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“Sure,” mewed Thistlepaw, Sheeptail’s apprentice. “We’re always in the mood for chasing rabbits all over the place after fighting all afternoon.”

Acorntail’s fur prickled with embarrassment. Why didn’t he think of that? Why was he being such a flea-brain?

“Right, okay. Morningcloud, could you and Quickpaw do a hunting patrol instead?”

Morningcloud put her head on one side. “On our own?” she questioned.

“Er, no. I’ll come with you,” Acorntail decided hastily. He glanced at Featherstar, who gave a tiny nod. Acorntail felt lower than a worm’s belly. Why did Featherstar make me her deputy when I’m so useless?

“You’ll do fine, Acorntail,” Featherstar told him. She sounded tired and strained, and Acorntail realized how much she must still be grieving for Pebblefur, who had died only three sunrises ago.

They were in her den, a shallow scoop in the sandy earth shielded by a wall of gorse. Sunhigh had just passed, and the hunting patrol was due to leave.

“Prey is running well at the moment. You’ll catch plenty with Morningcloud and Quickpaw.”

Acorntail heard the dismissal in her tone. He backed out of the den. Morningcloud and Quickpaw were waiting for him in the center of the camp. Quickpaw still looked hostile, but the she-cat’s expression was impossible to read. Morningcloud just nodded and let Acorntail lead the way up the slope and out onto the moor.

Acorntail quickly detected the musky tang of rabbit and hurtled off. For the first time since being made deputy, he felt sure of what he was doing, confident in the swiftness of his paws and the prospect of a good piece of fresh-kill for the Clan. The rabbit tried to outrun him but he drew steadily alongside, pounced from running full speed, and brought it down with a muffled snap of neck bones. He lifted his head and looked around. Morningcloud was racing after a young rabbit, her tail bouncing as she tore across the warm grass, and Quickpaw was sniffing the ground as if he had picked up the scent of a plover’s nest. Eggs laid in a scoop of earth were a rare treat for the cats as plovers defended their unhatched young fiercely, but Quickpaw already had a reputation not just for tracking the nests but for carrying the eggs undamaged back to camp, tucked under his chin. Acorntail felt a little pebble of worry in his stomach dissolve. His Clan was the best by far, and it was an honor to be their deputy.

He stiffened. There was another scent on the air, not rabbit or freshly laid eggs, but feline. The breeze was carrying it from the direction of Fourtrees and the border with ThunderClan. What did those mangy tree-dwellers want now? They were far too slow and fat to catch WindClan’s prey, so why would they even try?

His fur bristling, Acorntail shoved his rabbit under a gorse bush and trotted toward the border. The scent grew stronger.

As he crested a rise close to the edge of WindClan territory, he saw three ThunderClan cats walking along the border, barely a whisker-length from trespassing.

“Did you want something?” he growled.

The biggest ThunderClan cat shook his head. “Just doing a patrol,” he replied indifferently.

Acorntail looked closer. The smallest cat, which looked like an apprentice, had a tuft of dusky-brown fur stuck on his nose. There was only one type of prey that had fur like that.

“Have you been stealing rabbits?” Acorntail hissed.

The apprentice’s eyes stretched wide—in guilty horror, Acorntail was sure—but the big warrior just curled his lip. “As if we’d waste our energy chasing your scrawny prey.”

Acorntail opened his jaws; he could clearly taste the scent of fresh-killed rabbit clinging to these cats. Before he could say anything, Morningcloud and Quickpaw hurtled up from farther along the border.

“We found a dead rabbit!” Quickpaw panted.

“With ThunderClan scent on it,” Morningcloud added. She skidded to a stop and narrowed her eyes at the rival patrol.

Acorntail flattened his ears. “So you did steal our prey!”

“It was dead already,” growled the ThunderClan warrior. “We know better than to waste good fresh-kill—unlike your Clan.”

“It did look old and it smelled funny,” Quickpaw meowed before Acorntail could silence him. “It could have been dead for days. Yuck, you just ate crow-food!”

“That’s not the point!” Acorntail hissed. What kind of deputy lets the first rival patrol he meets get away with trespassing and theft? “These cats have stolen our prey! They must be taught a lesson! WindClan, attack!”

He sprang at the big ThunderClan warrior, claws unsheathed.

To his surprise, the warrior didn’t try to jump away or fight back.

Instead, he stared past Acorntail with a glimmer of amusement in his eyes. Acorntail thudded to the ground and looked over his shoulder.

Morningcloud and Quickpaw were standing close together, watching him.

“Attack!” yowled Acorntail.

“Don’t be such a mouse-brain,” Morningcloud retorted. “I’m not putting my apprentice in danger for the sake of crow-food. If they want to eat rotten prey that will give them bellyache, that’s up to them.”

“But they trespassed!” Acorntail protested, starting to feel like the day couldn’t get any worse.

“Actually we didn’t,” the other ThunderClan warrior put in helpfully. “The rabbit was on our side of the border.”

Acorntail looked questioningly at Morningcloud. She nodded.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Acorntail demanded.

“We were going to,” Morningcloud replied. “You didn’t give us a chance.”

“And now I think you’ll find you’re trespassing on our territory,” the first ThunderClan warrior pointed out.

Acorntail walked stiffly back across the border.

“Morningcloud, Quickpaw, we’re going back to the camp,” he announced. “Featherstar needs to be told that a rabbit has died on ThunderClan’s territory.”

Morningcloud looked faintly surprised, but to his relief, she didn’t argue.

“Which means it belonged to us anyway!” called the ThunderClan warrior as they headed back up the hill. “You should pick your battles more carefully.”

I don’t know enough to be a deputy, Acorntail thought miserably. I’m going to tell Featherstar I can’t do this.

“You’ve made a mistake. You’ll have to choose another cat to be deputy.”

Featherstar regarded him from her nest, her blue eyes glowing in the half-light behind the gorse bushes. “When you became an apprentice, did you know all the fighting moves and how to hunt prey?”

“Of course not,” Acorntail replied, puzzled.

“And when you became a warrior, did you know how to lead patrols, how to find the best places to hunt, and where our rivals

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were most likely to try to cross our border?”

Acorntail shook his head.

“Then why do you expect to know everything about being a deputy on your very first day? Every cat knows you have things to learn, but once you have, you’ll be as good as Pebblefur.”

Never.

“Think back to when you were an apprentice,” Featherstar went on. “Remember what it was like to learn new things every day, knowing they would all lead to making you a warrior of WindClan?”

“But that was different,” Acorntail argued. “I didn’t have responsibility for the whole Clan then.”

“And you don’t now,” Featherstar pointed out. “I’m still the leader.” She put her head to one side. “Why do you feel that you’re not worthy of giving orders to your Clanmates, Acorntail?”

“Because I don’t know how to! Look at what happened today: Morningcloud would never have given the order to attack. She’d have found out all the information first, and then made sure that her apprentice wasn’t in danger if a fight started. She’d make a much better deputy than me.”

“But I chose you,” Featherstar meowed. She was silent for a while, and Acorntail tried not to fidget. Then she lifted her head and looked straight at him. “I’m sorry. I should have given you an apprentice first. You would have gotten used to giving orders, and you would understand how protective mentors feel about sending young cats into battle.”

She sounded so flat and defeated that Acorntail felt a rush of concern for her. She had lost her last deputy, now making her life even more difficult.

“It’s not too late,” he meowed firmly. “Give me an apprentice now, and I can learn. Cherryfeather’s kits are nearly six moons old; let me have Pricklekit.”

Featherstar held his gaze. “If I do that, will you stay as my deputy?”

Acorntail nodded. “I’ll be the best deputy I can be. Pebblefur would have wanted me to do that.”

“And you’ll be as good a mentor to your apprentice as he was to you,” Featherstar assured him. She went on, “I think I’ll suggest an addition to the warrior code at the next Gathering, that a warrior cannot be made deputy unless he has had an apprentice.”

Acorntail winced, and she added quickly, “Not because I regret choosing you, Acorntail, but because you’re right. Training an apprentice teaches a cat how to give orders, how to protect the less-experienced fighters, and establishes bonds of loyalty that can survive the worst battles.

“Now, go sort out the dawn patrols for tomorrow. And then you might like to visit the nursery to see how your future apprentice is faring!”

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