Crowfeather's Trial

Chapter 23

Crowfeather spun around at a flicker in the undergrowth and found himself face to face with a fox as it emerged from behind a bramble thicket: an old dog fox with a graying muzzle and a malignant look in its berry-bright eyes. Crowfeather slid out his claws and let out a growl from deep in his throat.

“Back off, mange-pelt!” he snarled.

But before he had finished speaking, two more foxes leaped out from behind the thicket; they were young and strong, with parted jaws and pointed fangs.

“Run!” Gorsetail yowled.

She took the lead as the cats pelted away through the trees. Crowfeather pounded along, shoulder to shoulder with Breezepelt, aware of Heathertail hard on their paws. The sound of the Thunderpath ahead grew even louder.

Crowfeather’s pelt prickled with fear. Which was worse — to die from the bite of a fox, or crushed by the huge round paws of a monster?

Then Crowfeather heard a terrified wail from behind him. “Help me!”

Glancing back, he saw that Hootpaw was falling behind, almost in the teeth of the leading fox. The fox kept snapping its jaws, getting closer and closer to Hootpaw’s tail.

“Hootpaw, I—” Crowfeather began, only to break off as he slammed into something hard. All the breath was driven out of him.

Struggling to his paws, Crowfeather realized that he had run straight into a tree. “Fox dung!” he hissed. He began racing back to help Hootpaw, claws extended, ready to fight the fox.

But before he reached the terrified apprentice, Crowfeather realized something else. “Climb the trees!” he screeched.

He reached Hootpaw as he spoke and barreled into him, boosting him up into the nearest tree. Hootpaw dug his claws into the bark and scrambled up higher. Crowfeather followed him, feeling the hot breath of a fox on his hindquarters as he swung himself up onto the lowest branch. Hootpaw crouched, trembling beside him.

“Thanks, Crowfeather!” he panted.

Looking around, Crowfeather spotted Gorsetail in a nearby beech tree, her fur fluffed up as she spat defiance at the foxes below. And where were you when your apprentice was in danger? Crowfeather wondered.

Heathertail and Breezepelt had found refuge in an oak tree a little farther off.

“We’re WindClan cats. We don’t do trees,” Breezepelt complained loudly.

Crowfeather gazed down from his branch to see the other two foxes catching up and skidding to a halt. All three of them began prowling around the trees, glaring up at the cats and letting out vicious snarls between gleaming bared teeth.

“Neither do foxes,” Crowfeather responded to his son. “At least, not usually.” He had heard now and again of foxes that climbed trees, but they mostly stayed on the ground. If any of these foxes tried it, he’d just slash his claws across their muzzles as they drew close.

That would make them think twice!

Hootpaw shuddered. “What are we going to do?”

“We’ll be fine,” Crowfeather reassured him. “Look — if you walk along this branch, you can cross into the beech tree where Gorsetail is.”

Hootpaw crept forward hesitantly, but as soon as he moved, the branch gave a lurch, and he halted, trembling even harder.

“I don’t think I can.” He gave Crowfeather a scared look. “I might fall.”

“No, you won’t. I’ll be right behind you. I won’t let you fall.”

Hootpaw took a deep breath and rose to his paws, once again digging his claws into the bark. Paw step by careful paw step he crept along the branch, then briefly froze again as the branch grew thinner toward the end and began to bounce gently under the cats’ weight.

“Go on. You’re doing fine,” Crowfeather encouraged him. “Don’t look down.”

The reek of foxes was wafting up to Crowfeather from underneath the tree. He risked a quick glance down and saw that all three foxes had gathered below them, obviously hoping that one or more of them would lose their balance. But Hootpaw carried on steadily, then half leaped, half scrambled into Gorsetail’s tree. Gorsetail was waiting to grab him by the scruff and set his paws firmly on a thicker branch.

“Thanks!” Hootpaw gasped. “I’ve never been up a tree before.” Recovering his usual spirit, he added, “It’s kind of fun!”

“Tell that to Breezepelt,” Crowfeather mewed wryly; his son was right that living on the open moor, WindClan cats didn’t have much opportunity for tree climbing. But these trees had just saved them from a fox ambush.

Slowly and cautiously the three cats ventured out onto a branch on the opposite side of the beech tree and managed to jump across to the oak where Breezepelt and Heathertail had taken refuge. The foxes followed, anger and frustration clear in their glaring eyes. The old dog fox sprang up, slamming his forepaws against the tree trunk and tearing at the bark with his claws.

“We’re lucky these things don’t climb,” Breezepelt commented.

“Yes — I hope they give up and go away soon,” Heathertail mewed.

“Stupid flea-pelts!” Crowfeather hissed down at the furious creatures. “Go and find yourselves some crow-food!”

“Yeah,” Breezepelt added. “Cat isn’t on the fresh-kill pile today. Eat your own tails instead!”

Crowfeather turned to exchange an amused glance with his son. But almost at once, Breezepelt’s amusement faded. His head drooped and his ears flattened.

“We will find Nightcloud, right?” he asked, his voice not quite steady.

“Of course we will.” Crowfeather’s response came before he had given himself time to think. He remembered the monsters and the Thunderpath, and the way that Nightcloud had been wounded by the stoats. But Yew saw her alive, he added to himself. We will find her.

The cats kept going, moving from tree to tree, but the foxes still followed them on the ground. Crowfeather began to be afraid that they were tenacious enough to keep it up until some cat fell.

We can’t go on like this all night. We’re already tired; sooner or later one of us will slip, or some cat will leap a little short… He tried to hide his misgivings from the others, but he could tell from their uneasy expressions that they knew the danger as well as he did.

And the trees were thinning out even more; soon they were bound to reach a place where the next tree was too far away for them to jump the gap. When a monster roared down the Thunderpath ahead, he caught glimpses of its glaring eyes. There were other lights, too, scattered and distant, but enough to tell him that they must be coming to the Twolegplace.

Foxes, monsters… is there anything else that can go wrong?

But the foxes didn’t like being so close to the Thunderpath, either. When a monster roared past, they would back up, half withdrawing into the undergrowth, only to creep back as the sound died away. Then, before the cats could be forced down to the ground again, an even bigger monster swept by, its bellowing seeming to fill the whole forest. The foxes halted; then, with a last flurry of furious snarls, they turned tail and disappeared back into the trees.

“Thank StarClan for that!” Gorsetail exclaimed.

She bunched her muscles to jump down from the tree, but Crowfeather stretched out his tail to stop her. “Wait,” he meowed. “They might be hiding in the undergrowth, trying to trick us.”

“Like they’ve got the brains for that,” Gorsetail grumbled, but she stayed where she was.

Crowfeather waited, his ears pricked for any sounds that would tell him the foxes were nearby. But he heard nothing, and the fox scent was beginning to fade. Finally he nodded. “Okay.”

All five cats scrambled down the tree — Hootpaw complaining that climbing down was much harder than climbing up — and padded past the few remaining trees until they reached a stretch of snow-covered grass leading up to the Thunderpath. In the moonlight it looked like a gleaming black river, edged on either side by filthy slush where the snow was beginning to melt. On the opposite side, more grass separated the Thunderpath from fences around Twoleg dens made of red stone.

“That’s a Thunderpath?” Hootpaw asked, his eyes stretched wide.

“That’s right,” Gorsetail told him. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen one before.”

“No, Nightcloud never took me that far from camp,” Hootpaw responded. He stretched out a paw to touch the surface, then jumped back with a surprised squeak. “It’s hard! And cold!”

Gorsetail gently pushed her apprentice away from the edge. “We don’t go near Thunderpaths unless we have to,” she meowed. “They’re dangerous.”

Hootpaw blinked in surprise. “Why? They don’t look dangerous.”

“Remember the cute stoats that didn’t look dangerous?” Crowfeather nudged Hootpaw’s shoulder. “They—”

He broke off at the sound of roaring, faint at first, but soon growing louder. Glaring yellow eyes cast their beams across the surface of the Thunderpath, and the cats crouched at the edge as the monster growled past on its round black paws. Their fur was buffeted by the wind of its passing as they backed away from it, almost choking on the acrid air.

“That’s a monster?” Hootpaw asked, watching the huge creature as it disappeared into the distance.

“Yes,” Gorsetail told him. “And that’s why Thunderpaths are dangerous. Monsters like that have killed cats.”

Crowfeather thought Hootpaw looked too excited to be taking his mentor’s words seriously. His eyes were wide and sparkling, and he was bouncing up and down on all four paws.

“I’ve seen a monster!” he exclaimed. “Cool! Wait till I tell Featherpaw and the others.”

Crowfeather shot the ’paw a withering glance, and Hootpaw ceased bouncing, abruptly sitting down and casting a nervous lick over his chest fur.

Crowfeather rolled his eyes. “If you’re quite finished… Okay, let’s assume that Nightcloud made it this far. We need to pick up her scent trail again. Let’s work along the edge of the Thunderpath in both directions. And you,” he added to Hootpaw, “will not put one paw off the grass, or I’ll see to it that you do all the elders’ ticks for the next three moons.”

“Right,” Gorsetail added. “And no hunting patrols.”

The apprentice’s eyes stretched wide again, this time with horror at the thought. He looked even more scared of the threats than he had been of the monster. Checking on him, Crowfeather noticed that he kept well away from the Thunderpath, his nose busily probing into the grass.

It was Hootpaw who found the trace they were looking for. “Here! Over here!” he squealed.

Breezepelt was the first to reach him, sniffing eagerly at the place where Hootpaw pointed. “He’s right. That’s Nightcloud’s scent.” His amber eyes glowed with happiness and relief. “The foxes didn’t get her.”

Crowfeather bounded along the edge of the Thunderpath and tasted the scent for himself. Relief flowed over him as he recognized not only Nightcloud’s scent, but a trace of Yew’s, too.

“Yew’s scent is here!” he announced triumphantly. “He did meet Nightcloud!”

“So where did she go from here?” Heathertail asked.

Although the cats searched for a long time, they couldn’t find any more traces of Nightcloud’s scent. Breezepelt was getting more and more nervous, tearing up the grass with his claws. Crowfeather’s frustration was peaking when he suddenly realized what the problem was.

“Yew said that Nightcloud went into the Twolegplace,” he meowed. “We’re searching on the wrong side of the Thunderpath.”

“Into the Twolegplace?” Breezepelt’s tone was abrasive. “She would never have done that!”

Crowfeather flicked his ear irritably. “Normally, no,” he agreed, “but she was injured, too severely for Yew to help her. He said he told her to go into the Twolegplace for help.”

Breezepelt looked dubious. “She’d never trust a Twoleg to make her better,” he insisted.

“She might have,” Crowfeather countered, “if it was her only chance. Remember, she was far from home, separated by foxes from any medicine cat — never mind Kestrelflight.”

Breezepelt turned and stared at the lights beyond the Thunderpath.

“I know it seems weird,” Heathertail responded, resting her tail-tip on Breezepelt’s shoulder, “but why would Yew lie to Crowfeather? Besides, Nightcloud might have at least wanted to cross the Thunderpath to escape from the foxes. Let’s go and look.”

After a moment, Breezepelt turned back and nodded his assent.

Relieved, Crowfeather led the cats back to the place where Hootpaw had found Nightcloud’s scent. Lining them up along the edge of the Thunderpath, he mewed, “This shouldn’t be too difficult. Most monsters don’t come out at night. But we still need to be careful. Wait for my order, and when I say run, run!”

“Hootpaw, stay beside me,” Gorsetail added.

The apprentice was quivering with excitement as he waited with his Clanmates. Crowfeather looked carefully in both directions, but there was no sign of a monster, not even a distant roaring. “Okay,” he meowed. “Run!”

He bounded forward, so fast that his paws hardly touched the hard, black surface. Breezepelt and Heathertail were beside him, Gorsetail and Hootpaw a paw step behind. But before they reached the far side, a raucous screeching split the silence of the night. Glaring light swept over them and wind ruffled their fur as the monster swept past, barely a tail-length from their flying paws.

Every cat collapsed, panting, on the other side of the Thunderpath. “Mouse dung!” Gorsetail exclaimed. “I thought we were crow-food for sure.”

Breezepelt sprang to his paws. “Well, we’re fine,” he mewed impatiently. “Let’s carry on looking.”

Crowfeather cast a glance at his son, half proud and half incredulous. My paws are still shaking, he reflected, but if Breezepelt’s are, too, he couldn’t care less. This search for Nightcloud is really bringing out the best in him.

This time Heathertail took the lead, weaving this way and that along the edge of the Thunderpath as she padded along. After a few heartbeats she halted, her tail rising straight into the air as she lowered her head for a good sniff at the grass. A moment later she raised her head. “Here,” she mewed.

Crowfeather bounded over to her, his heart pounding with hope. Breezepelt was hard on his paws, and the two toms bent their heads beside Heathertail. The trace was faint, but as Crowfeather tasted the familiar scent, he felt hope swelling up inside him. Now we know that Yew was right, he thought. She escaped the foxes and went into the Twolegplace. If I can only find her, I still have a chance to make peace with her.

He let Breezepelt take the lead as they padded alongside the Twoleg dens, following the last vestiges of Nightcloud’s scent trail. It was hard to distinguish it among so many competing scents of Twolegs, dogs, other cats, and monsters. But Breezepelt in particular seemed to have a knack for following where his mother had gone.

By now moonhigh was past, and most of the Twoleg dens were dark and silent. A few more monsters passed them, but they didn’t seem to notice the cats in their headlong rush along the Thunderpath.

The black surface seemed to stretch on forever, with the long row of Twoleg nests on one side of it. Crowfeather’s legs ached with weariness, but hope helped him to keep putting one paw in front of another.

Then they came to a point where the scent trail seemed to stop, swamped by the mingled scents of several Twolegs. What happened to her here? Crowfeather asked himself. Could some Twoleg really have taken her away? And if they did, how will we ever find her?

Glancing at Breezepelt, Crowfeather guessed from his son’s desolate expression that similar thoughts were running through his mind.

“Have we lost her?” Breezepelt choked out. “Have we come as far as this, to lose her to a Twoleg?”

Crowfeather had a vision of some dark, faceless Twoleg stooping down and grabbing Nightcloud in its huge clumsy paws. I can’t bear to think what the Twoleg would do to her. Though he knew the loner meant well, Crowfeather had no faith in Yew’s assertion that most Twolegs were kind.

“No — look!” Heathertail drove away Crowfeather’s despairing thoughts as she pointed with her tail at the bottom of the Twoleg fence. It was made of flat wooden strips, and at one point the strip had broken away, leaving a jagged hole. “I’ll bet a moon of dawn patrols she went through here!”

Crowfeather thought it was quite likely. If I were here, wounded, I’d want to get away from that Thunderpath.

“Do you want me to check?” Heathertail asked him.

Crowfeather hesitated, then nodded. “Okay. But be careful.”

Heathertail wriggled her way through the gap in the fence, the spiky bits of wood scraping through her fur. A moment later her face reappeared in the hole, her eyes shining with excitement. “Yes! Her scent is here.”

The rest of the patrol followed Heathertail and found themselves in a Twoleg garden. Thick bushes surrounded a patch of grass that led up to the walls of the den.

“No stupid behavior now,” Gorsetail warned Hootpaw. “There can be all kinds of trouble near Twolegs.”

Hootpaw didn’t reply, just nodded fervently, his eyes wide and gleaming. He obviously believed it was the best patrol ever. He’ll be boasting about it for moons, Crowfeather thought, hiding his amusement. Then, reflecting that they weren’t out of danger yet, he added to himself, I hope.

The scent trail led across several Twoleg gardens. Crowfeather felt his paws prickling with apprehension, wondering what would happen if they were still following it when the sun came up and the Twolegs began to emerge from their dens.

And what is Onestar going to say when we get back to camp? he asked himself. I never thought we would be away so long.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of high-pitched yapping.

“Dogs!” Gorsetail exclaimed.

Crowfeather spun around to see dogs pouring out of a hole in the entrance to the Twoleg den. At first sight, there seemed to be a whole Clan of them, but he quickly realized there were only five. Before any of the cats could react, they were surrounded and herded into a corner between the den and the fence.

Bushing out his fur to make himself as big as possible, Crowfeather arched his back and hissed at the dogs. “Back off, flea-pelts!”

The dogs were bounding around, their ears flopping and their tongues lolling. They kept making little rushes at the cats, trying to chew their necks and legs, and swatting at them with their huge paws.

“I think they’re playing,” Heathertail meowed. “They’re only kits — dog kits!”

“Kits?” Breezepelt echoed, disbelieving. “Look at the size of them!”

“I don’t care if they are kits,” Gorsetail snapped, pressing herself back against the fence to avoid a huge tongue swiping across her muzzle. “I’ll claw their ears off if they don’t stop!”

“No, don’t hurt them,” Heathertail protested. “Climb the fence. I’ll hold them off.”

Breezepelt instantly stepped forward to stand shoulder to shoulder with her. “I’m not leaving you.”

Heathertail gave him a shove. “Go on, mouse-brain. I’ll be fine.”

Crowfeather could see that Breezepelt was determined not to move. “I think she’s right,” he meowed. “Come on. We can jump down again if she gets into trouble.”

Muttering something under his breath, Breezepelt obeyed. Gorsetail and Hootpaw had already scrambled up the fence and were balancing precariously on the top. Breezepelt joined them, and Crowfeather followed.

Meanwhile Heathertail was bounding to and fro, weaving in front of the dog kits and dodging their pummeling paws. As soon as she saw that her Clanmates were safe, she lashed out with one forepaw, swatting the leading dog kit on the nose.

The dog kit sprang backward; its yapping changed to a high-pitched squeal. The other dog kits’ playful yaps became angry, and they advanced, growling, on Heathertail.

But Heathertail was too quick for them. She scrambled up the fence to join the others before any of the dog kits could reach her. At the same moment, the entrance to the den flew open. A Twoleg stood in the gap, yowling furiously.

Crowfeather didn’t wait to see what happened next. “Come on,” he urged the others, leading the way along the top of the fence until they had put a couple of gardens between them and the pack of dog kits.

“Now what do we do?” Gorsetail asked. “We’ve lost Nightcloud’s trail, and I’m not going back there again.”

Breezepelt opened his jaws for a sharp retort, then clearly thought better of it and closed them again, looking miserable.

“Let’s check in this garden,” Crowfeather suggested, reluctant to give up hope. “This is the direction Nightcloud was going. We might pick up her trail again.”

He jumped down from the fence and the rest of the cats followed him. But though they searched the garden from one side to the other, there was no sign of Nightcloud’s scent.

We’ll have to go back, Crowfeather thought. Maybe the Twoleg will have taken the dog kits inside.

But before he could make the suggestion, Heathertail padded up to him and tapped him on the shoulder with one paw. “Look,” she mewed, pointing upward with her tail.

Crowfeather raised his head to look where she was pointing. On a ledge a few tail-lengths up the den wall, two kittypets were sleeping. One was a plump tortoiseshell with a rumpled pelt, while the other was a black tom with a white front and paws.

“Kittypets,” he muttered. “So?”

“They might have seen Nightcloud!”

Crowfeather realized that Heathertail was right. I’m so tired, I’m getting stupid! Without hesitating he leaped up onto the ledge and prodded the plump tortoiseshell in her side. “Hey, kittypet! Wake up.”

The tortoiseshell’s eyes blinked open, and she fixed an unfriendly gaze on Crowfeather. “Whoever you are, shove off. I’m sleeping,” she responded. Her nose wrinkled as if she didn’t like Crowfeather’s unfamiliar scent.

Crowfeather prodded again, harder. “Not anymore. We need to talk.”

By now the black tom was awake too. “Who are you, and what do you want?” he asked irritably. “Don’t you know it’s very rude to wake up a sleeping cat?”

Before Crowfeather could reply, Heathertail called up from the garden. “Sorry for disturbing you, but we need your help.” To Crowfeather she added, “Politeness costs nothing,” and then in a lower voice, just loud enough for him to hear, “You daft furball!” What about politeness to your former mentor? he thought.

While he waited for the kittypets to reply, Crowfeather tasted the air and thought that he could pick up Nightcloud’s scent, stronger than the traces in the forest and beside the Thunderpath. His paws tingled with anticipation. She must be somewhere around here! Or am I just imagining things?

The tortoiseshell kittypet looked from Crowfeather to Heathertail and back again. “Okay, what can we do for you?” she muttered ungraciously.

“We’re looking for one of our friends,” Heathertail explained, while her other Clanmates, who were still searching the garden, padded up to join her and listen.

“A cat called Yew said she came this way,” Crowfeather added. “Do you know him?”

“You?” The tortoiseshell stretched her jaws in an enormous yawn. “Like ‘Hey, You’?”

“Like the tree,” Crowfeather responded, stifling a mrrow of amusement.

“Weird name,” the tortoiseshell sniffed. “No, we don’t know him.”

“Our friend is black, and quite thin,” Crowfeather continued, looking at the tortoiseshell’s rounded figure. “And she was probably bleeding from a wound.”

“Have you seen her?” Breezepelt asked eagerly.

“Oh, yeah, we’ve seen her,” the black-and-white tom mewed, with a glance at the tortoiseshell, who gave a brief nod.

Crowfeather felt a surge of relief, and could see it was shared by his Clanmates in the garden below. Hootpaw leaped into the air and let out a triumphant caterwaul. “Yes! We found her!” For once, no cat told him to keep quiet.

“She turned up quite some time ago, in the garden next door.” The tom angled his ears in the direction from which the Clan cats had come. “She was weird… She kept meowing on about returning to her ‘Clan.’ She said her ‘Clanmates’ would be looking for her.”

“And she wouldn’t play stalking with us,” the she-cat added. “She said she was a ‘warrior,’ and that was a game for kits.”

“What’s weird about that?” Breezepelt asked, bristling. “We’re her Clanmates, and we’re looking for her. We’ve come to take her home.”

The two kittypets exchanged a surprised glance; Crowfeather thought they were impressed to hear that Nightcloud had been telling the truth.

“We thought she must have hit her head,” the tortoiseshell admitted. “She was talking about all sorts of crazy things, like cats made of stars! And fighting against cats who were already dead! Who would believe that?”

Crowfeather sighed. How stupid are these two? They have no idea about StarClan — living with Twolegs must make them blind. “So where is she now?” he asked brusquely.

“The housefolk next door took her in,” the tom replied. “And they’ll probably be glad to be rid of her. She’s so prickly, no gratitude at all — always trying to scratch them and escape.”

She’s still next door? For a moment Crowfeather found it hard to get his breath. He could hardly believe that they were so close to Nightcloud, after so long and coming so far. But I knew it! I did scent her!

“Thank you,” he mewed to the kittypets. “We’ll leave you to sleep.”

“Thank goodness for that,” the tortoiseshell responded, wrapping her tail over her nose and closing her eyes.

“Good luck,” the tom meowed.

Crowfeather leaped down from the ledge to join his Clanmates. The fence that divided this garden from the one beside it had gaps between the flat wooden strips, and it was easy for the WindClan cats to slip through.

As soon as they emerged into the next garden, they picked up Nightcloud’s scent again, but there was no sign of her.

“The kittypets said she’s always trying to escape,” Heathertail pointed out. “That means the Twolegs must be keeping her in their den.”

Hootpaw let out a gasp. “You mean we have to go… in there?” Looking at his wide eyes and bristling pelt, Crowfeather couldn’t decide whether the apprentice was delighted or terrified.

“Maybe,” he replied. “We have to find Nightcloud first.”

Scanning the Twoleg den, Crowfeather spotted a huge gap in the wall, starting at ground level and rising up several tail-lengths above his head. It was blocked by the shiny, transparent stuff that Twolegs used to plug holes in their walls, but he had never seen a hole so big.

Cautiously Crowfeather padded up to the gap, beckoning with his tail for his Clanmates to follow him.

Peering through the transparent stuff, Crowfeather was confused at first; he needed a moment to make sense of what he was seeing. But then he ignored the strange Twoleg material and focused on something that was more familiar: a nest, though instead of moss and bracken, this one seemed to be made of interlaced twigs and lined with soft white bedding.

Inside the nest was Nightcloud. She was curled up asleep. Crowfeather could see her sleek black body rising and falling as she breathed: strong, steady breaths that showed she must have recovered from her injuries. A weird, white object, like a curled, hard leaf, surrounded her head.

“Thank StarClan!” he breathed out, so relieved to see a familiar form that he had thought he would never see again. Nightcloud!

“Oh, she’s safe!” Breezepelt’s voice shook as he pressed himself up against the shiny barrier.

Then Nightcloud shifted in her sleep, the leaf-object bumping against her soft bedding. Crowfeather gaped in astonishment as he picked up the scent of a second cat, and saw that what he’d thought was bedding, like some sort of Twoleg moss, was another cat curled up in the nest with her — a fluffy white kittypet.

A kittypet tom!