Shattered Sky

Chapter 4

Alderheart passed his paws carefully down Twigpaw’s leg, feeling the muscles and bone beneath. The young she-cat didn’t react at all, just stared dully at nothing.

“How is she doing?” Leafpool asked, looking up from where she was helping Briarlight with her stretching exercises.

“Much better,” Alderheart replied. “Her leg was only badly wrenched, after all, not broken. Did I hurt you just then?” he asked Twigpaw, who just shook her head in answer.

“That’s great!” Briarlight meowed cheerfully. “But I’ll miss you, Twigpaw, when you go back to the apprentices’ den.”

“I’m sure Twigpaw will come back to visit,” Alderheart reassured her.

Twigpaw only sighed; Alderheart wasn’t sure whether she was actually listening. He wished he knew what he could do or say to cheer her up: the young apprentice had been depressed ever since her encounter with Violetpaw during the battle.

“Tell me again about Blossomfall’s kits,” Briarlight begged. “I can’t believe she’s a mother now! It seems like it was only yesterday she and I were playing together in the nursery.”

“She’ll be a good mother,” Leafpool mewed. She stifled a yawn. She and Alderheart had been up half the night helping to deliver the new litter. “It’s good to see new life beginning. It gives me hope, even in the middle of all this trouble among the Clans.”

“Are their eyes open yet?” Briarlight asked.

“No, it’ll be a few days,” Alderheart told her, keeping an eye on Twigpaw as he spoke. “But all four of them seem healthy and strong.”

“Let me see if I can remember their names,” Briarlight murmured. “Stemkit, Eaglekit, Plumkit… and what’s the fourth one? Oh—Shellkit! They’re beautiful names, and I’m sure the kits are beautiful, too. I can’t wait to see them!”

Alderheart stifled a mrrow of laughter. “You should have seen Thornclaw last night. We had a hard time keeping him calm while Blossomfall was giving birth.”

“True.” Leafpool’s amber eyes gleamed with amusement. “He might be a senior warrior, but this is his first litter of kits, and it made him as nervous as an apprentice on his first hunt.”

All the time he had been talking, Alderheart had watched Twigpaw. He had thought she would surely be interested in the new kits, but once again she hardly seemed to be listening.

“You’ll be fine now, Twigpaw,” he mewed, rising to his paws and feeling himself sway a little with weariness.

“If you’re done checking on her, you might as well duck into the apprentices’ den to get some sleep,” Leafpool suggested. “I was able to get some rest this morning, but you’ve been on your paws ever since Blossomfall’s pains began just after moonhigh.”

“Okay,” Alderheart agreed, feeling more tired than ever at the thought of collapsing into sleep.

“On the way, you could find Jayfeather and tell him to come back,” Leafpool meowed. “He left to get something to eat, but he’s had enough time to go to the horseplace and return.”

Alderheart nodded, though privately he doubted that he—or any other cat—could make Jayfeather do anything he didn’t want to. Despite this, he dutifully padded out into the clearing and looked around for the other medicine cat.

The first cat he spotted was Purdy, drowsing in a patch of sunlight near the fresh-kill pile. Remembering the old cat’s bellyache on the night of the Gathering, Alderheart hurried over to him.

“How are you feeling, Purdy?” he asked.

Purdy blinked up at him. “Better, thanks,” he replied. “The bellyache comes an’ goes, y’know?”

“Should I get you some juniper berries now?”

Purdy flicked an ear. “No, I’ll manage. At my age, a bit o’ bellyache is nothin’ to worry about. I’ll just take it easy at the fresh-kill pile for a couple o’ days.”

“If you’re sure… ,” Alderheart mewed.

“Sure I’m sure. Herbs can’t fix everythin’, young whippersnapper. I remember one time… ,” Purdy began, but the rest of the story was lost in a massive yawn.

“Well, make sure you come to the medicine-cat den if the pain gets any worse,” Alderheart told him.

Purdy let out a rumbling purr. “I will… I know I can count on you.” He rested his nose on his paws and drifted into sleep.

Alderheart looked down at him for a moment until raised voices distracted him. He turned and let out a groan as he spotted Rowanstar and Bramblestar, nose to nose and in the middle of an argument.

“Not again,” he muttered.

“It’s obvious what we have to do now!” Rowanstar snapped. “We must organize another attack, and take back ShadowClan territory.”

“I don’t disagree with that.” Bramblestar sounded as if he was finding it hard to hold on to his temper. “But we have to take our time and make a plan, instead of just dashing in like foxes after a rabbit.”

Rowanstar glared at him. “You’re just making excuses.”

“Excuses?” Bramblestar’s tone grew cold. “Have you forgotten that WindClan has closed its borders, and that RiverClan has refused to commit to more fighting, at least for now? You’re expecting ThunderClan to carry this battle alone.”

As the leaders spoke, Alderheart noticed that Jayfeather was sitting close by, with his brother, Lionblaze, and Lionblaze’s mate, Cinderheart. Jayfeather and Cinderheart were openly following the argument, their ears pricked with interest, while Lionblaze simply looked embarrassed; the golden-furred tom was pretending to groom himself, though Alderheart could tell from how he would break off after every tongue stroke that he was paying close attention to the two leaders. Tawnypelt, too, was listening, a couple of tail-lengths away from the others.

Alderheart padded over to join his Clanmates, and Cinderheart brushed a friendly tail over his shoulder as he sat next to her.

“I would never have thought that ThunderClan could be such cowards,” Rowanstar hissed nastily.

At once, Lionblaze stopped his grooming and half rose to his paws, glaring furiously at the ShadowClan leader. He only sat down again when Cinderheart leaned closer to him and murmured something into his ear.

“And I would never have thought I’d hear that from you, Rowanstar,” Bramblestar retorted. “If you and the other ShadowClan cats hadn’t hesitated to attack your former Clanmates, maybe the battle would have gone better.” Whirling to face Alderheart and Jayfeather, he added, “Tell this excuse for a leader that my warriors are too badly injured to stage another attack.”

Alderheart nodded, while Jayfeather replied, “Send them into battle again before their wounds are healed, and you will have dead cats on your conscience, Rowanstar.”

Before Rowanstar could retaliate, Tawnypelt rose to her paws and took a step forward. “There must be another way… ,” she began.

Both her brother and her mate glared at her. “Keep out of this,” Rowanstar snapped.

“Yes, this is leaders’ business,” Bramblestar added.

Tawnypelt gave a single lash of her tail. “Are you complete mouse-brains?” she snarled. “This is every cat’s business. I still have kin in that camp, in case you’ve forgotten!”

By now, Alderheart realized, more of his Clanmates were gathering around to listen. Most of them looked furious: he guessed this was because they had heard Rowanstar accuse them of being cowards.

As his gaze passed over them, Alderheart spotted one cat who was glaring in another direction: Ivypool was watching Tigerheart and Dovewing, where they were sitting together, and she looked both irritated and anxious.

I wonder what that’s all about.

“Rowanstar’s got a lot of nerve,” Cinderheart mewed quietly to Lionblaze, “expecting ThunderClan to fight his battles for him.” With a flick of her tail she added, “If most of the ShadowClan cats want Darktail to be their leader, maybe ThunderClan shouldn’t be fighting for Rowanstar at all. Is it really our business?”

Shock and confusion spread through Alderheart from ears to tail-tip. StarClan chose Rowanstar to be leader, and gave him nine lives, he thought. To refuse to defend that would be a violation of the warrior code.

The camp began to blur in front of Alderheart’s eyes. He blinked to clear his vision, realizing how weary he was.

“Jayfeather, Leafpool wants you in the medicine cats’ den,” he meowed, and added to the other cats, “I’ll see you later.”

Then he headed to the quiet of the apprentices’ den, behind its barrier of ferns, where he settled into his nest and closed his eyes. He sank at once into sleep, as if he were gently falling into a dark lake.

Alderheart opened his eyes and found himself on the edge of a large group of cats.

The other cats were thin, their pelts ragged, and they lay stretched out or curled up, sleeping, as if they were all exhausted. Suddenly Alderheart recognized them.

These are the cats of SkyClan. I’m having another vision!

Although he looked closely, he could not see Echosong among them. Sorrowfully, he realized that she must really have died when he’d seen her in the hollow beside the pool.

Glancing around, Alderheart tried to work out where they were. At first he was confused. Walls of gray stone rose up all around him, with light slanting in from narrow openings near the top. The floor was hard stone, too, covered with heaps of straw.

This must be some kind of Twoleg den.

Then he remembered the place where he and Needletail had sheltered from the rain on their way back from the gorge, where Sandstorm had visited him in a dream and told him to find a different path. This could be the same yellow barn. There were no horses here now, but the wooden barriers dividing the den into sections were in the same place.

If this is that barn, then the SkyClan cats aren’t so far away!

Movement in the shadows caught Alderheart’s eye, and he saw a gray tom emerge from behind one of the heaps of straw, the limp body of a mouse in his jaws. He padded across the stone floor and laid the mouse down beside a queen whose belly was swollen with kits.

Alderheart had never noticed this particular cat before. He must have overlooked him, distracted by Echosong’s suffering, in his previous vision. He had the same gray pelt as Twigpaw, and when he looked up after laying down the mouse, Alderheart saw that he had amber eyes the same size and shape as Violetpaw’s.

Excitement tingled through Alderheart’s fur, his heart beating harder.

Every cat is sure that Twigpaw and Violetpaw’s mother must be dead, he thought. But could this cat be their kin? Are the two kits lost members of SkyClan?

Alderheart sprang to his paws, wanting to observe the gray tom more closely. But at the same moment, harsh sounds fell on his ears, and he startled awake to find himself back in the apprentices’ den.

He let out a hiss of annoyance at the raised voices coming from outside. This time they belonged to Ivypool and Tigerheart, but the topic was still the same: whether ThunderClan should attack the rogues again.

Frustration coursed through Alderheart at the sudden interruption of his vision, especially when he felt he had been on the verge of discovering vital information. He squeezed his eyes tight shut, committing every detail of the vision to memory so that he could be sure not to forget a single thing.

Then he opened his eyes again, already knowing what his next move must be.

Could Twigpaw and Violetpaw be SkyClan cats? I need to talk to Bramblestar!