Skyclan’s Destiny

Chapter 9

“We may not have rival Clans on our borders, but there are always enemies out there!” Patchfoot announced as he beckoned his patrol with his tail. “We have to make sure the border markings are good and fresh.”

Leafstar watched as Billystorm and Ebonyclaw padded up to join the black-and-white warrior at the foot of the Rockpile. Their apprentices bounced eagerly behind them. It was the day after Sharpclaw’s training exercises, and the Clan leader was pleased to see her Clanmates so enthusiastic about regular tasks.

“I’ve never reset the markers before,” Frecklepaw meowed. “This is really exciting!”

Snookpaw lashed his tail and fluffed up his neck fur. “Those foxes and rogue cats had better watch out! We’ll see off anything that tries to set paw on SkyClan territory.”

Amusement prickled Leafstar’s pelt and she let out a soft purr of pride. I hope these apprentices decide to stay with the Clan. They’ll make fine warriors.

She noticed Cora and Shorty standing a few tail-lengths away, sharing bemused glances at the talk of border markers. “Would you like to join the patrol?” Leafstar invited. “If there’s trouble, we could do with a few more paws.”

Cora hesitated, then gave a restrained nod; Shorty kneaded the ground with his front paws, his eyes gleaming. “Let’s go!” he mewed.

Leafstar padded up to Patchfoot with the Twolegplace cats following. “Okay if we join you?”

Surprise flickered in Patchfoot’s eyes as he dipped his head. “Of course, Leafstar.”

He led the way up the trail, winding back and forth across the face of the cliff. Leafstar enjoyed the feeling of the breeze blowing through her pelt and the warmth of the stone under her pads. It’s good to be out of the camp. I haven’t patrolled the borders for ages.

When the patrol reached the top of the cliff, Shorty pushed forward until he could squeeze between Patchfoot and Leafstar as they weaved through the undergrowth. “What do you do if you meet a fox?” he puffed. “How can you practice fighting one?”

Leafstar flicked her ears to Patchfoot, indicating that he should answer.

“We practice the usual battle moves,” the black-and-white warrior meowed. “They work on anything… foxes, other cats—”

“Badgers!” Snookpaw put in, waving his tail wildly.

“If you spot a badger, you tell a senior warrior right away,” Billystorm warned him, flicking his tail sharply over his apprentice’s ear. “Do not try fighting one on your own.”

Leafstar nodded. “Even senior warriors wouldn’t tackle a badger without plenty of backup,” she meowed. “And you’d have to be pretty stupid to attack a fox alone. That’s why we train apprentices to fight as a team.”

“We’d like to learn that,” Shorty commented, glancing over his shoulder at the other Twolegplace cat. “Wouldn’t we, Cora?”

The black she-cat twitched her whiskers. “It would be useful.”

“And what would you do if you found a strange scent on the border?” Shorty went on eagerly.

“The first job would be to protect the camp—” Leafstar began.

“We’d follow the scent and track down the intruder,” Ebonyclaw meowed at the same moment.

“Huh?” Shorty glanced from one to the other, looking baffled.

Ebonyclaw seemed to realize that she had interrupted her Clan leader, and had given advice that directly contradicted her. She slapped her tail over her jaws and took a step back. “Sorry,” she muttered through a mouthful of fur.

Leafstar took a pace toward her and rested her tail-tip on the embarrassed she-cat’s shoulder. “We’re both right,” she purred. “Protecting the camp and tracking down the intruder are equally important. What we did first would depend on the number of warriors available.”

“And apprentices!” Frecklepaw squeaked, her eyes gleaming.

The patrol prowled on through the undergrowth, setting scent markers as they went. With a mrrow of satisfaction Leafstar skirted the boulder where Firestar had set a marker when he first defined the SkyClan borders. The Clan had grown since then, and Leafstar had expanded the territory by setting the next marker on an ivy-covered tree stump several fox-lengths farther from the edge of the gorge. The change had brought a wide stretch of prey-rich woodland inside SkyClan’s borders.

Patchfoot was heading for the Twolegplace when he suddenly halted; his jaws were open to taste the air and the fur on his neck began to rise. Leafstar stopped beside him and tasted the air for herself.

No! It can’t be! Panic jumped in Leafstar’s throat. Not now, when the Clan is doing so well!

The rest of the patrol was milling around confusedly, not knowing why Patchfoot and Leafstar had halted.

“What is it?” Frecklepaw called; the young cat sounded scared, and she flattened her ears as she gazed around as if she expected a fox to leap out of the undergrowth.

Shorty stepped forward to Leafstar’s side and took a good sniff of the air. “Hey!” he exclaimed. “Even though we’re on a border patrol, we’re still allowed to hunt, right?” When none of the others replied, he glanced around, puzzled. “You do eat rats, don’t you?”

The name of her Clan’s worst enemy plunged Leafstar back into the memories she had tried so hard to forget: narrow rat faces with cruel eyes, snakelike tails, sharp claws, the overwhelming stench of rotting things. She felt once again the powerless surge of fury as the rat swarm rushed over her and her Clanmates, drowning them in a choking brown tide. She struggled to escape the barn; she gazed once more at Rainfur’s body, bleeding from countless bites.

“Oh, wow! Rats! Just like in the stories!”

Frecklepaw’s awed whisper brought Leafstar back to the present. She dug her claws into the ground to stop herself from fleeing back to the camp, chased by scenes she would never forget.

“Is something wrong?” Cora prompted, padding up with concern in her eyes.

Leafstar swallowed, forcing herself to speak calmly. “SkyClan had a lot of trouble with rats a couple of seasons ago,” she explained. “We—”

“There were more rats than you could count!” Frecklepaw interrupted. “Cherrytail told me about it. They wanted to kill all the cats and take the gorge—”

“That’s enough.” Leafstar’s voice was curt. If the rats are back, we have troubles enough, without an apprentice frightening the whole Clan. “We need to work out what to do.”

“Maybe we should go back to camp,” Ebonyclaw suggested, shuffling her paws.

Leafstar could see Patchfoot nodding; she would have liked nothing better than to agree, to turn her back on the problem and flee to the safety of the dens. But that’s not why StarClan made me Clan leader.

“We need to check this out first,” she meowed firmly, “and find out where the scent is coming from.” To Cora and Shorty she added, “We won’t hunt today.”

Leafstar took the lead, creeping through the undergrowth with the patrol hard on her hindquarters. The scent of rat grew stronger, along with Twoleg scent and the stink of crow-food. The undergrowth around them became thicker and thicker, until it was hard to force a path through the stems; tendrils of bramble snagged the cats’ fur and leaves clogged their ears and eyes, leaving them stumbling blindly.

Just when she thought they would have to turn back or risk getting lost, Leafstar crawled under a low-growing hazel branch and emerged into a clearing. In front of her rose a huge pile of Twoleg waste: bulging, shiny black pelts, some of them split and spilling out their contents onto the ground; squared-off red and gray stones like the ones Twolegs used to build their dens; huge things almost as big as monsters made of wood and some sort of soft pelt. The disgusting smells rolled out of the heap until they filled the air like fog.

“That… that’s truly horrible,” Leafstar whispered.

The other cats were pushing up behind her, and Leafstar stepped forward a couple of paces to let them into the clearing. For a few heartbeats they stood staring up at the mountain of waste.

“It’s Twoleg stuff,” Snookpaw declared, his voice full of contempt. “Why do they have to come and dump it here, in our territory?”

Ebonyclaw padded forward and sniffed at one of the huge things made of wood and pelts. “Why do they want to get rid of this?” she asked, bewildered. “It’s a sofa!”

“What’s a sofa?” Patchfoot growled, eyeing the object suspiciously.

“Twolegs keep them in their dens,” Snookpaw explained, unable to hide his glee that he knew something his Clanmate didn’t. “And that thing there’s a chair. The Twolegs sit on them.” He licked one front paw. “They’re pretty comfortable, actually.”

“Chairs, bricks, cushions…” Shorty was stalking around the outer edge of the pile. “Some Twoleg has cleared out the whole of their den!”

“There’s chicken here.” Cora had padded closer to the pile and was sniffing something that had spilled out of one of the black pelts. “Any cat want some?”

“You’d eat that?” Patchfoot gasped. “It looks as if it’s been dead for a moon!”

“Where we come from, you’d be glad of it,” Cora replied, gulping down some of the pale crow-food.

Leafstar was appalled, though she tried to hide it. These cats must be starving! She crept closer to the mound. With every heartbeat she was more outraged that Twolegs would leave a disgusting heap like this in the middle of the forest, destroying the territory with its stink and filth.

She was just stretching out her neck to sniff one of the soft pelt-things, when she heard the scuttle of tiny paws coming from inside the heap. The wedge-shaped head of a rat poked out from a gap beneath a piece of wood, its eyes glittering with hostility.

Startled, Leafstar leaped back. Even though the rat vanished at the same time, she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the dark hole where it had appeared. Now she could hear the sounds of more rats inside the pile, squeaking and chewing and rustling with sharp yellow teeth and pointed paws, their naked tails flicking and coiling like tiny snakes…

The whole heap is infested with them!

“We’d better get back to camp and report this,” Patchfoot meowed at her shoulder.

“You’re right,” Leafstar replied, striving to make her voice as steady as his. “We must call a Clan meeting and decide what to do.”

“But it’s no big deal, surely?” Shorty protested as the patrol began to move off. “What’s wrong with a few rats?”

“I don’t see why we can’t hunt them,” Cora put in. “The Clan would eat well for days with the prey from here.”

Leafstar didn’t stop to argue. Cats who hadn’t survived the terrible battle at the edge of Twolegplace would find it hard to understand why every hair on her pelt was prickling with horror.

As she sprang down the last couple of tail-lengths into the camp, Leafstar spotted Sparrowpelt returning with his patrol; they had been renewing the scent markers on the other side of the gorge. Sharpclaw was padding along the trail beside the river with his hunting patrol behind him; all of them carried fresh-kill.

Leafstar bounded across to intercept Sharpclaw as he headed for the fresh-kill pile. “I want you to round up all the senior warriors,” she meowed. “Every cat who was here when we had the battle with the rats.”

Sharpclaw cocked his head to one side. “Trouble?”

Leafstar nodded tensely. “I’ll tell you when we’re all together. Make sure Clovertail and Echosong come as well. We’ll meet in my den.”

“Can I come, too?” Stick asked, rising from a flat rock on the edge of the stream and bounding over to them.

“Sure you can,” Sharpclaw replied, just as Leafstar was opening her jaws to refuse.

The Clan leader flashed an annoyed look at her deputy. This is Clan business! We’re not even including the daylight-warriors, and it affects them. But she couldn’t argue with Sharpclaw in front of Stick, so she gave the Twolegplace cat a curt nod and headed toward the trail that led up to her den.

By the time she reached it her Clanmates were beginning to arrive. Cherrytail and Sparrowpelt padded through the entrance together, dipping their heads to their leader before sitting side by side with their tails wrapped around their paws. Patchfoot appeared, looking grim, and a few heartbeats later Clovertail followed, with Petalnose at her side. Clovertail’s belly was bigger than ever, and she was panting from the effort of the climb.

Sharpclaw and Stick were the last to appear, just behind Echosong, who slipped into the den and crouched beside the wall, her eyes fixed on Leafstar.

“That’s every cat,” the deputy announced. “What’s all this about?”

Leafstar explained what the patrol had found as quickly as she could, trying to make the Clan see and smell the hideous pile of rubbish in the forest.

“Rats!” Cherrytail exclaimed, exchanging a horrified glance with her brother Sparrowpelt. “Don’t say we have to go through all that again!”

“No, no, we can’t!” Petalnose’s voice rose in a piteous wail, and Leafstar knew that she was remembering the death of her mate, Rainfur. “We must all stay away from them—as far away as we can.”

She sat with her head bowed; Clovertail pressed up against her side and gave her ear a comforting lick.

Stick listened to the she-cats with a puzzled look in his eyes. When Petalnose had fallen silent, he turned to Leafstar. “What’s all the fuss about?” he meowed. “It’s only a few rats.”

“Only a few rats!” Patchfoot echoed, rolling his eyes.

“We’ve had problems with rats before,” Sharpclaw told the visitor, describing how a vast family of rats had attacked the cats in the gorge until their only option had been to take the battle to them and wipe them out.

“One of our warriors died,” he finished, “and all of us were injured. We can’t let these rats get strong enough to attack us again.”

The Twolegplace cat looked thoughtful. “We’re used to hunting rats for food,” he meowed. “Maybe we can help.”

Leafstar was about to thank him and assure him that the Clan could cope, when Sharpclaw forestalled her. “That would be great. What do you think we should do?”

That’s the second time Sharpclaw has made the decision for me. Leafstar twitched her tail irritably. But maybe we should listen to what Stick has to say. “Go ahead,” she told him.

“Okay, suppose this is the rubbish heap.” Sharpclaw pulled out several clawfuls of moss and bracken from Leafstar’s nest and piled it up in the middle of the den. “The rats are in the middle, right? I suggest we take a patrol—as many cats as we can spare. Some of us should circle the pile and find the entrances where the rats go in and out. Then we block up most of them—”

“Why not all of them?” Cherrytail interrupted, lashing her tail with excitement.

“Because we don’t want the rats trapped inside there,” the brown tom explained. “We want them gone. We want them to think they have a chance to escape. So we leave a couple of entrances unblocked, and put our best fighters just outside.” With one paw he poked two holes in the heap of bracken. “One or two cats climb over the dump to frighten the rats and chase them out. Then when they run out”—Stick slid out his claws—“no more problem.”

He stared around at the SkyClan cats, his gaze focused and confident. Leafstar realized he was sure his plan would work. And it just might, she thought. It’s worth a try.

“We could try pulling the heap apart, too,” Stick went on. “That would drive the rats out.”

Patchfoot wrinkled his nose. “Yuck!” he spat. “Have you seen that dump? It’s disgusting!”

Stick shrugged. “You don’t have to do that. But it’s a way of finding food.”

“You eat rats?” Sparrowpelt asked, his eyes stretched wide with dismay. “I’d sooner starve.”

“So would I,” Cherrytail agreed. “Just thinking about it makes me sick.”

“Where I come from,” Stick mewed drily, “you’ll eat any sort of fresh-kill. I’ve often been thankful for a good plump rat.”

Leafstar looked at her Clan, feeling ashamed and a bit guilty that they were being so picky. We’ve never been really hungry, she thought. Maybe the time will come when rats won’t seem so disgusting.

“Right,” Sharpclaw meowed, rising to his paws. “Stick, will you organize some training patrols to prepare for the attack? We weren’t properly prepared last time; that’s how we lost Rainfur.”

A stab of anger pierced Leafstar like a claw. Have I said that we’ll go with Stick’s plan?

“Are you saying Firestar didn’t know what he was doing?” she challenged, rising to confront Sharpclaw. “He’s the cat who created this Clan out of nothing, or have you forgotten that?”

“That’s not the point,” Sharpclaw retorted, with a single lash of his tail. “I respect Firestar, but he didn’t have Stick’s experience with rats. And experience is what we need here. This time things will be different.”

Leafstar gazed at the ginger warrior, shocked that he seemed to be rejecting everything that Firestar had done for SkyClan. Sharpclaw’s green gaze met hers boldly. Sooner or later, I’ll have to talk to Sharpclaw about what’s appropriate for a deputy and what isn’t. But not now.

Suppressing her anger, Leafstar dipped her head. “Stick, we’d all be grateful for your help. Sharpclaw will help you organize patrols.”

“Fine.” Stick turned to go, with Sharpclaw following.

The other warriors made their way out of the den after them, until only Echosong remained. Her eyes were calm and sympathetic as she padded up to Leafstar and brushed her pelt against her leader’s.

“The Clan will face new challenges which we have to deal with on our own,” she mewed. “Firestar didn’t have time to teach us all he knew.”

Leafstar guessed that Echosong was trying to say that Sharpclaw was still a loyal Clan cat. But it troubled her that Sharpclaw seemed to have more respect for Stick than he did for Firestar.

Firestar did everything for us. None of us know anything about Stick.

Thinking back, Leafstar had always known that there was tension between Firestar and Sharpclaw, especially when she had become leader and Sharpclaw was only deputy.

“Do you think Sharpclaw blames me for taking the leadership of SkyClan?” she asked Echosong.

The young medicine cat regarded her gravely. “You didn’t take anything,” she reminded her. “StarClan sent me a sign—a vision of dappled leaves to represent your name, Leafdapple. Firestar and I knew that our warrior ancestors had chosen you.”

“But does Sharpclaw know it?” Leafstar muttered, half to herself.

“That’s not the problem now.” Echosong’s voice was firm. “Every cat has to focus on getting rid of the rats.”

Her certainty soothed Leafstar, though she still wondered if she had made the right decision. Sharpclaw didn’t give me time to think! “Maybe we should let the rats stay and use them for fresh-kill,” she suggested.

Echosong shook her head. “No, you were right with your first instinct. We should get rid of them as fast as we can.” She paused to give her white chest fur a couple of licks. “Rats are SkyClan’s oldest enemy,” she meowed. Her green gaze seemed to travel out of the den and back into the distant past when the first cats of SkyClan had made their home in the gorge. “They are not prey. They are rivals for everything that SkyClan needs to survive.”

When Leafstar climbed down from her den she spotted Mintpaw, Snookpaw, and Frecklepaw struggling to carry sticks and bramble tendrils up the gorge past the Rockpile.

“What are you doing?” she called.

Mintpaw dropped her bundle to answer. “Stick is building a waste pile in the training area. It’s going to be huge! He says it’ll help us learn how to fight the rats.”

“I’ve got to see this,” Leafstar meowed.

She padded alongside the apprentices; rounding the spur of rock that separated the camp from the training area, she stopped dead in surprise. An enormous mound of twigs, bracken, brambles, and other debris covered the middle of the open space.

How did Stick build something that big so quickly?

Most of the Clan cats were watching from the edge of the training area. Billystorm and Ebonyclaw were sitting under the overhang of the cliff, while Rockshade, Bouncefire, and Tinycloud crouched in the shadow of the mound; the young warriors were quivering with excitement, as if they could see their enemies in front of them and were ready to pounce. Shrewtooth, however, was hanging back, shifting uneasily from paw to paw. Cherrytail and Sparrowpelt were huddled together with Patchfoot at the far side of the area; Leafstar could hear that he was telling them more about the place where they had found the rats, in all its disgusting detail.

Meanwhile, Stick and Shorty stood beside the heap, their heads close together. Sharpclaw waited a fox-length away, listening intently.

“It should still be a couple of tail-lengths higher,” Shorty decided. “And it was more… more close-packed. You could climb up it and it would take the weight of a cat.”

“It would take too long to build something like that,” Stick argued. “This will do to work out our plans. Well done,” he added to the apprentices as they staggered up and dropped their burdens at the edge of the pile. “That’s enough for now. Can you make some of this bracken into bundles about the size of rats?”

The apprentices got to work while Leafstar padded across the training area to join Sharpclaw.

Her deputy turned toward her, his eyes gleaming. “With the help of our guests, we’ll soon show the rats they’re not welcome here.”

“We’ll turn them into crow-food,” Snookpaw growled. “Stick knows just what he’s doing.”

“Right!” Mintpaw exclaimed as she clawed a bunch of bracken into a rat-shape. “Maybe if he’d been here before, my father wouldn’t have died.”

Leafstar shook her head; she didn’t believe that any cat could have changed the result of the first battle, however much they knew about rats. You can’t understand if you weren’t there, she thought.

Hearing a sigh, she glanced over her shoulder to see Petalnose standing close by, her eyes full of sorrow at the mention of her dead mate. Leafstar eased back until she stood at her side.

“Rainfur didn’t make any mistakes,” Petalnose whispered to her leader. “He died fighting for his Clan.”

“He was a fine warrior,” Leafstar agreed, touching her nose to Petalnose’s ear.

“Now they’re talking as if he was stupid,” Petalnose went on, her voice quivering with grief. “As if he went out unprepared to tackle an enemy that was too strong for him.”

“Every cat who was there knows that isn’t true,” Leafstar comforted her.

Petalnose let out another long sigh, and leaned her head briefly against Leafstar’s shoulder.

Leafstar watched Stick patting the last of the twigs and brambles into place. “That looks great,” she mewed, not wanting to seem as if she begrudged praise for the visitors’ help. “But the Clan still has mouths to feed. Some cats need to go on a hunting patrol. Sparrowpelt, will—”

“No,” Sharpclaw interrupted, “every cat has to stay here for Stick’s battle training.”

Leafstar felt her claws slide out. Who exactly is Clan leader here? “We need to restock the fresh-kill pile,” she declared firmly. “Stick can hold another training session in the morning.”

“But we don’t want to hunt,” Cherrytail objected. “We want to learn to fight rats.”

“Yes, that’s more important than our next meal,” Sparrowpelt agreed.

Leafstar raised her tail to cut short a full-scale argument, but before she could speak again Billystorm stepped forward.

“I’ll lead a patrol if you like,” he offered. “Ebonyclaw will come with me, and our apprentices. Shrewtooth, will you come as well?”

“Glad to!” the black tom gasped, looking relieved to be away from the terrifying preparations for battle.

Leafstar blinked gratefully at the kittypet. “Thanks. Go anywhere you like, but stay away from the rats.”

“We’ll hunt on the other side of the gorge,” Billystorm promised, waving his tail to gather his patrol together.

Leafstar watched him lead his cats away, then turned back to the training area, where Stick was gathering the rest of the Clan together for the training session to start.

“I want to be the first cat to attack a rat,” Mintpaw insisted, her fur bristling as she angled her ears at the rat-shaped bundle of bracken she had made. “Rainfur was my father, and this is my chance to avenge his death!”

“I want to fight, too.” Sagepaw’s disconsolate voice came from behind Leafstar; she turned her head to see the injured apprentice limping around the spur of rock with Echosong beside him. “It’s not fair!”

“And us!” All four of Fallowfern’s kits bundled up to the edge of the training area, scampering ahead of their mother. “We’ll kill lots of rats!”

“No, I told you, you’re only allowed to watch,” Fallowfern meowed.

Leafstar stifled a purr of amusement. Her earlier panic was being replaced by a warm glow of pride as she watched her Clanmates rise to the challenge of the rats.

Is this what it takes to unite us as one Clan? Did StarClan send the rats?