Skyclan’s Destiny

Chapter 5

Before Leafstar could move, Sharpclaw shot out of one of the lower caves and began clawing his way upward, closely followed by Patchfoot. In the same heartbeat, Petalnose emerged from the nursery and flung herself across the rock face toward the terrified apprentice, scrambling precariously along a trail that was so narrow it was almost invisible against the sandy cliff.

Leafstar began to climb, too, her paws pounding over the rocks, but she was much farther away than her deputy.

“Hold on!” Sharpclaw ordered, his voice crisp and calm. “Don’t move!”

Petalnose let out a panic-stricken wail. “StarClan help him!”

The rock was crumbling beneath Sagepaw’s claws. Leafstar’s belly lurched as she saw him slide a tail-length down the cliff. She spotted Ebonyclaw and Rockshade peering out of the cave below, but Sagepaw was just out of reach of their paws.

“I’m slipping!” he gasped. “I can’t hold on!”

“Yes, you can. Keep still.” Sharpclaw was only a couple of fox-lengths below the apprentice now, the only cat close enough to have a hope of reaching him. His powerful hind legs pushed upward from a crack in the rock and he lunged toward Sagepaw, but before he could fasten his claws into the young cat’s fur, more of the rock flaked away under Sagepaw’s paws.

The apprentice let out a shriek; his paws flailed as he tried to dig his claws into the powdery surface. Leafstar gazed in horror as his small body plummeted down. Off balance, Sharpclaw barely saved himself from following.

Sagepaw’s shriek was cut off as he struck a jutting boulder, bounced off, and fell the rest of the way to the foot of the cliff, landing with an ugly thud. He lay motionless on the trail between the cliff and the river.

With a cold weight gathering in her belly, Leafstar turned and scrambled down to join him. Landing lightly beside him, she bent her head to sniff his pale gray fur.

“Is he dead?” Petalnose hurtled down the cliff and flung herself onto the ground beside her son. Every hair on her pelt bristled with horror. “StarClan, don’t let him be dead!”

Sagepaw lay stretched out in the dust at the bottom of the cliff. His eyes were closed, but relief flooded through Leafstar when she saw his flank twitch.

“He’s not dead,” she murmured, pressing her muzzle against Petalnose’s shoulder.

Patchfoot jumped down and shot one horrified look at the motionless apprentice. “I’ll fetch Echosong,” he meowed, and raced away.

Petalnose crouched beside Sagepaw and started to lick the fur on the top of his head. “Wake up, Sagepaw,” she pleaded, her voice quivering. “It’s my fault,” she added, raising wide blue eyes to her Clan leader. “I should have been watching him.”

Leafstar could understand the gray she-cat’s guilt. Sagepaw was Petalnose’s son and her apprentice; no wonder she felt responsible for his accident.

I remember Firestar telling us that forest cats don’t mentor their own kin. Maybe they have a point.

“It’s not your fault,” she reassured Petalnose, resting her tail-tip on the distraught cat’s shoulder. “He’s an apprentice, not a kit. You can’t have your eye on him all the time.”

Petalnose didn’t respond, just went on covering the young cat’s head with frantic licks.

Leafstar glanced over her shoulder at the sound of soft thuds behind her, and saw Sharpclaw, Sparrowpelt, and Shrewtooth heading toward her. Rockshade, Tinycloud, and Ebonyclaw leaped down just behind them. They crowded around and gazed down at the motionless apprentice.

“I’m sorry.” Sharpclaw lashed his tail, clearly angry with himself. “If I’d been just a bit quicker…”

“You did your best,” Leafstar told him. “No cat can—”

“He’s dead!” Shrewtooth let out a loud wail, his neck fur bristling out. “Sagepaw’s dead!”

Petalnose gasped, her blue eyes stretching wide with horror.

“No, he’s not,” Leafstar snapped. “And he’s not going to die. Shrewtooth, instead of terrifying every cat, go find some moss and wet it in the river.”

Shrewtooth stared at her; he opened his mouth to let out another wail, then shut it with a snap. “Sorry,” he muttered, scuffling at the ground with his forepaws. “I—I guess I’ll go and do that, then.”

He dashed off. Leafstar bent closer over Sagepaw’s body, encouraged to see that his breathing seemed to be more steady. She saw that one of his legs was stretched out at an awkward angle. Something’s wrong there. Please, StarClan, don’t let it be broken!

To her relief, she heard the quick pattering of paw steps approaching from farther down the gorge and Echosong appeared at her side, with Patchfoot just behind.

“Keep back, all of you,” the medicine cat mewed briskly. “Petalnose, you can stay, as long as you can keep him calm and not make him more scared.”

Petalnose gulped and sat upright, forcing the fur on her neck and shoulders to lie flat. Leafstar was impressed by her self-control, but the bleak look in her blue eyes showed how much she was suffering.

“Echosong, please save my son,” she begged.

Pity for the gray she-cat stabbed through Leafstar like a thorn. Petalnose had already lost her mate, Rainfur, in the battle against the rats. StarClan, you couldn’t be cruel enough to take her son, too!

For a few heartbeats Echosong studied Sagepaw, running her paw lightly over his fur. He stirred under her touch and tried to raise his head.

“Rainfur?” he whispered.

“No, it’s me, little one,” Petalnose purred, bending her head to lick his ears.

“That’s good.” Sagepaw’s voice was muzzy. “I thought I was in StarClan.” He scrabbled at the ground in an effort to sit up, then sank back with a sharp yelp of pain.

“Keep still,” Echosong told him, resting a paw on his shoulder. “You’ve hurt your leg, and I need to look at it properly before I can fix it.”

Her voice was steady, but Leafstar wondered how confident she really was. The Clan had been lucky to get through leaf-bare without any bad accidents, and Echosong had never needed to treat an injured leg before.

“Tinycloud,” Echosong meowed, glancing over her shoulder to where the other cats had withdrawn into a worried huddle. “Go and fetch me some poppy seeds.”

Tinycloud nodded, her eyes wide, and trotted off.

“Rockshade.” Echosong beckoned with her tail. “Come here and lie down in the same position as Sagepaw.”

Looking mystified, the young tom did as she told him, settling himself in the dust beside the injured apprentice. Echosong ran her paws over Rockshade’s outstretched leg, then did the same to Sagepaw’s. She felt Rockshade’s leg again, pushing it in each direction with one paw resting at the top where it joined his flank. She touched Sagepaw’s leg at the same place, and the apprentice let out a squeak of pain.

“I think I understand,” she meowed, nodding. “Thank you, Rockshade, you can get up now. Sagepaw’s leg isn’t broken,” she went on, “but it has come out of place. I need to put it back.”

“Can you do that?” Petalnose whispered.

“Yes.” Echosong sounded tense but brave. “But it will hurt. I’m sorry, Sagepaw.”

“I’ll be okay,” Sagepaw mewed. He blinked gratefully as Shrewtooth returned with a mouthful of dripping moss and set it down beside him. “Thanks, Shrewtooth.”

While the apprentice was lapping the moss, Sparrowpelt padded up with a stick in his jaws and dropped it next to Sagepaw. “Bite down on that,” he advised. “It’ll help when the pain comes.”

Sagepaw nodded. “Can we do it now, please?” he asked Echosong, unable to hide the fear in his voice. He gripped the stick in his jaws and held it tightly.

Echosong motioned with her tail for the other cats to stand out of the way. Leafstar stepped back with them; only Petalnose stayed close, crouched beside her son with their pelts brushing.

The medicine cat bent over Sagepaw. “I’m sorry, I’m going to have to use my teeth,” she meowed. She planted her forepaws firmly on the young cat’s haunches, and gripped his leg in her jaws. Then she gave a massive wrench; Leafstar heard the click as Sagepaw’s leg went back into place.

The stick splintered in Sagepaw’s teeth. Dropping the fragments, he let out a shriek. Petalnose gasped as she bent over him and pushed her nose into his fur.

Then Sagepaw raised his head. “Hey, it doesn’t hurt so much!”

Echosong’s eyes glowed with a mixture of relief and triumph, while her Clanmates murmured their congratulations. Leafstar could see how impressed they were. Petalnose didn’t say anything, but her purrs almost drowned out the voices of the other cats.

“Well done,” Leafstar meowed. “I’m proud of you, Echosong.”

Echosong dipped her head, giving her chest fur a couple of embarrassed licks. Then she turned and spotted Tinycloud, who was hovering close by with a poppy seedhead in her jaws. She beckoned the white warrior over with a flick of her ears and took the seedhead from her. Carefully she shook out two seeds in front of Sagepaw.

“Lick those up,” she instructed. “You’ll need to come back to my den and rest, where I can keep an eye on you. The poppy seeds will dull the pain and help you sleep.”

“Thanks, Echosong.” Sagepaw swallowed the seeds with one lap of his tongue, then tried to struggle to his paws.

“Don’t you dare try to walk!” Petalnose meowed. “I’ll carry you.”

“I’m not a kit!” Sagepaw protested.

“You’ll always be my kit, little one.” Gently Petalnose picked up Sagepaw by his scruff and began to carry him toward Echosong’s den, staggering slightly under his weight but careful not to let his injured leg knock against the ground. Echosong padded alongside.

Leafstar watched them go.

“We’re lucky to have Echosong,” Sharpclaw remarked with satisfaction.

“We certainly are,” Sparrowpelt meowed. “Thank StarClan!”

Leafstar murmured agreement. “But what I’d like to know,” she went on, “is what Sagepaw was doing, climbing so high up the cliff. He was well away from any of the trails.”

Sharpclaw shook his head. “I have no idea.”

Leafstar glanced around the rest of her Clanmates, and spotted Patchfoot scrabbling uncomfortably at the ground with his forepaws. “Patchfoot?” she prompted.

“I—I’m sorry, Leafstar,” the black-and-white tom stammered. “I think it might have been my fault.”

A growl began deep in Sharpclaw’s throat, but Leafstar motioned him to silence with a wave of her tail. “Explain,” she meowed.

“Well… I think Sagepaw was trying to prove he was descended from the old SkyClan cats. He was trying to show how good he was at jumping and climbing.”

“And why is that your fault?” Sharpclaw asked tartly.

“I—I teased him about it,” Patchfoot confessed, his eyes full of guilt. “I said he wasn’t a real SkyClan cat. But I never thought he would do something like that, Leafstar, honestly I didn’t!”

“I believe you,” Leafstar told him. “No cat would expect him to do anything so stupid.”

But while she reassured Patchfoot, anxiety rose inside her like floodwater. This wasn’t the first time she had noticed how much her Clanmates cared about their ancestry. The day after the snowfall, she had heard Cherrytail boasting to Echosong about her strong legs and tough pads. No cat should care so much about being descended from the ancient SkyClan cats. Maybe they all are, but there’s no way of telling. It shouldn’t matter to any of them.

“I’m really sorry,” Patchfoot went on, blinking in relief that his Clan leader wasn’t angry with him. “I’ll never do it again.”

“Make sure you don’t,” Leafstar replied, nodding to dismiss him.

She watched him set off up the cliff again, back toward the cave where he had been working, while Sharpclaw chivvied the other cats back to their duties. I need to make them understand that we’re all one Clan. The ancestors that matter are those in StarClan, who watch over us as if we were all their kits.

The hunting patrols were returning, adding their prey to the fresh-kill pile. Leafstar watched Tinycloud bound up to Mintpaw as she returned with Cherrytail’s patrol.

“Mintpaw, Sagepaw has had an accident!”

Mintpaw let her prey fall and stood with her jaws open in horror as Tinycloud described how Mintpaw’s littermate had fallen from the cliff.

“But he’s going to be fine,” the white she-cat finished. “Echosong was great. She put his leg back in the right place, and now he’s resting in her den.”

“Then he’ll need to keep his strength up,” Mintpaw declared, grabbing the biggest squirrel off the fresh-kill pile and hauling it in the direction of Echosong’s den.

Leafstar waited until all the cats had gathered around the fresh-kill pile and chosen something to eat. They huddled in small groups; those who had witnessed Sagepaw’s accident were passing on the news to those who had been out of the camp.

As the talk died down, Leafstar leaped up onto the Rockpile and raised her voice in a yowl. “Let all cats old enough to catch their own prey gather here beneath the Rockpile for a Clan meeting.”

Most of the cats were already there, crouching near the fresh-kill pile or on the bank of the stream. Fallowfern’s kits scrambled out of the nursery with their mother behind them, trying to make sure they didn’t fall off the trail as they bounded downward.

“Remember what happened to Sagepaw!” Fallowfern warned, but the kits didn’t pay any attention, plopping down happily onto the path by the waterside and lining up in a row with ears pricked and eyes shining with curiosity. Fallowfern sat down beside them, stretching out her tail around them.

Leafstar looked around to see if any cat was keeping watch; it was easy to feel trapped and vulnerable when every cat was at the bottom of the gorge, and a few moons ago she had ordered that some cat should always guard the camp during meetings. She nodded in approval when she spotted Waspwhisker bounding away to take up a position on a boulder halfway up the trail.

Lichenfur and Tangle emerged from their den and padded slowly toward the Rockpile, settling down on a flat, sun-warmed stone that jutted out over the water. Mintpaw appeared from Echosong’s den to join her Clanmates, while Echosong and Petalnose sat in the den entrance where they could listen and still keep an eye on Sagepaw.

“Cats of SkyClan,” Leafstar began when they were all assembled. “First of all, there’s no need to worry about Sagepaw. He’s going to be fine, thanks to Echosong.”

“Echosong! Echosong!” the Clan yowled; several of the cats jumped to their paws and waved their tails.

The young medicine cat dipped her head in embarrassment at the sound of her Clanmates’ enthusiastic praise.

Leafstar raised her tail for silence. “There’s something else I need to say to you,” she went on. StarClan, give me the right words, she prayed. “This is our Clan, and we should all be proud of it, and proud to belong here. This is our home now. We protect the borders, we hunt the prey, and we train new warriors. If there are echoes of the old SkyClan among us, such as the ability to jump and climb well, they are no more important than what each cat brings to the new Clan.”

Patchfoot was looking uncomfortable again, his gaze fixed on his paws; one or two of the others seemed uneasy as well. Leafstar sank her claws into the boulder underneath her. I was right. It’s time to root out this obsession with SkyClan blood.

“I look down at all of you,” she continued, “and I see cats who have done everything they can to make our Clan strong. Clovertail has raised healthy kits who are now SkyClan warriors. Shrewtooth, your sharp hearing means that enemies will never sneak up on us.”

The black tom started with surprise that his leader had singled him out for praise, and Sparrowpelt, sitting beside him, gave him a friendly shove.

“Sharpclaw is the best deputy a Clan leader could wish for, and Echosong is a truly gifted medicine cat.” Leafstar paused and let her gaze sweep across the assembled Clan. “But there is no need for me to go on naming names. I am proud to have all of you as my Clanmates, and SkyClan would be diminished without a single one of you.”

The cats below her glanced at one another; she saw Lichenfur lean over and mutter something into Tangle’s ear.

“But Firestar chose me and Cherrytail first,” Sparrowpelt pointed out, “because we inherited our climbing and jumping skills from old SkyClan.”

“That’s right!” Cherrytail agreed, nodding.

“No, he didn’t!” Fallowfern argued, her neck fur beginning to bristle. “From what I heard, he chose you because you were nearest. You have no more right to be part of the Clan than my kits.”

Cherrytail sprang to her paws, only to sink down again when Leafstar raised her tail in warning.

“What Fallowfern said is exactly what I mean,” she went on, struggling to keep her voice even. “No cat has more claim to SkyClan than any other, no matter who their ancestors were. As Clan cats, StarClan is here for all of us.”

“Leafstar is right.” Sharpclaw rose to his paws to address the rest of the Clan. “A place in the Clan is earned by loyalty, duty, and courage.”

Leafstar had no time to feel warmed by her deputy’s support before she saw him cast a dark glance at Billystorm, Ebonyclaw, and the two daylight-warrior apprentices.

Before she could say anything else, she was interrupted by a yowl from Waspwhisker. “Intruders!”

The gray-and-white tom, still on watch halfway up the cliff, had sprung to his paws and was gazing across the gorge to the cliff on the other side. The rest of the Clan spun around, their neck fur bristling, and stared at the top of the rocks. Leafstar spotted a cat peering over the cliff, only its brown-furred head visible. Within a heartbeat it was joined by another, then a third and a fourth.

A low growl came from Sharpclaw’s throat. “How did they get so far inside the borders without us noticing?”

“We should have been on border patrol,” Bouncefire explained helpfully, “but Leafstar told us to hunt instead.”

Leafstar winced at the querying look Sharpclaw shot at her. What the young warrior said was true, but when so few strange cats ever came into the territory, she had thought it was more important to stock the fresh-kill pile.

This would happen the one time there’s no patrol!

Resentment stirred inside Leafstar at the thought of defending herself to her deputy, so she didn’t respond to what Bouncefire said. “Patchfoot,” she meowed instead, “fetch the strangers down here. Cherrytail and Sparrowpelt, go with him.”

The three cats ran a short way down the gorge and crossed the river by a line of stepping-stones. Patchfoot led the way back up the gorge and they vanished around a bend in the cliff. The four cat heads vanished, too, pulling back from the edge.

“You’re trespassing on SkyClan territory!” Leafstar heard Patchfoot’s voice raised in a stern yowl. “Come down and meet our leader!”

The SkyClan cats waited in tense silence, in which the sound of paw steps running down the cliff could be heard. A heartbeat later the patrol reappeared with Patchfoot in the lead, while Cherrytail and Sparrowpelt flanked the four intruders. The SkyClan cats escorted the newcomers across the river, all the way to the foot of the Rockpile. The other cats drew back to let them pass. Leafstar’s eyes narrowed as she saw her Clanmates’ bristling fur and extended claws. Let’s hope we can end this peacefully.

She jumped down from the Rockpile and confronted the four strange cats. The tallest of them, a long-legged brown tom with yellow eyes and a scraped pelt, let his gaze travel slowly around. To Leafstar’s surprise, he didn’t look scared at being surrounded by a Clan of hostile cats. Instead, he looked… satisfied.

Turning to Leafstar, he gave her a nod. “It looks like Firestar found you after all,” he meowed.