Starlight

Chapter 11

“Are you stuck?” Thornclaw asked, nearly bumping into Leafpaw as he pushed through the ferns.

Leafpaw sprang forward, out of the sharp-smelling stems.

“Sorry,” she puffed.

Thornclaw followed more slowly and looked at her. “It’s all a bit strange, isn’t it?” he mewed. “But this is as strange as it will ever feel, remember that. We only have to explore once for it to seem more like home.”

Feeling comforted, Leafpaw padded beside him, away from the hollow. When she glanced back a few moments later, the stone cliffs had vanished among the trees, and all she could see were smooth gray trunks and branches that trembled in the wind. She was pleased to think her Clanmates were sheltered by the towering walls, invisible and safe in the middle of the wood.

Voices sounded up ahead, and they rounded a sturdy oak tree to find Cloudtail, Brightheart, and Sorreltail sniffing suspiciously at a gap between the roots. This was the patrol that Firestar had sent out to explore the territory that lay closest to the hollow.

“Fox,” Leafpaw heard Cloudtail meow.

Brightheart lifted her head and carefully tasted the air.

“It’s very stale,” she decided. “I don’t think the fox can have been there for moons.”

“Shall I go in to look?” Sorreltail offered.

Brightheart shook her head. “Didn’t your mentor ever warn you about going into strange holes? We can smell there’s nothing there. Let’s keep going.”

Sorreltail called out a greeting to Leafpaw, then followed the warriors as they headed deeper into the woods.

Leafpaw stopped to let Cinderpelt catch up, and gazed around her. Trees stretched away on all sides, their branches interwoven so tightly that only tiny splinters of sky showed through. The trees weren’t as tall as the ones in the forest they had left, but Leafpaw guessed that in greenleaf their leaves would form a thick, cooling canopy. Most of the ground was covered by short grass with spikes of snowdrops thrusting upward, and the occasional clump of thornbushes and bramble thickets. It was more exposed than Leafpaw was used to, and she hoped that ferns and other plants would grow in newleaf to provide homes for prey, and to make the cats feel safer as they patrolled their territory.

Cinderpelt reached her and limped steadily on, following the sound of running water. “We’re not likely to find juniper here,” she commented as the three cats padded side by side.

“Leafpaw, what else might we use for bellyache?”

“Water mint?” she suggested. “Or chervil root?”

“They would both be fine,” Cinderpelt agreed. “Water mint should be easier to find than chervil root.”

They reached the stream, which flowed in a deep cleft between the tangled roots of overhanging trees. Leafpaw stood on the bank and looked for signs of the leafy green plant, but all she could see was water sliding over gray stone about a tail-length below her, with bright green ferns trailing over the edge of the bank.

“Let’s try on the other side,” Thornclaw suggested when they came to a place where the banks sloped down and they could splash across.

Cinderpelt agreed, but it was much the same: open woodland with little in the way of undergrowth. Then Leafpaw smelled damp soil, a bit like the marsh at the far end of the lake. Water mint didn’t have to grow in a stream—sometimes wet earth was enough. She raced ahead, pushing her way through some spiky tussocks of grass, and spotted the tall, leafy stems half-hidden in a clump of bracken.

“Good work!” Cinderpelt praised her, coming to join her.

“There’s enough here to supply us regularly.”

Tipping their heads to one side, they bit through several stalks. Leafpaw’s eyes watered as sap clung to her fur, filling her mouth with the pungent scent.

“I’d better get back to camp,” Cinderpelt meowed when they had finished picking the water mint. “Thornclaw, will you take Leafpaw to WindClan now?”

“We’ll see you home first,” meowed Thornclaw. “I don’t think any cat should be alone in these woods until we know a bit more about them.”

He led them back by a different route, calculating from the way the ground sloped that it should lead more quickly to the stone hollow. They passed beneath some beech trees, and Leafpaw’s belly rumbled as the scent of squirrel flooded over her.

Thornclaw tasted the air with a gleam in his eyes, and Leafpaw guessed he was ravenous too. “Do we have time to hunt?” he asked Cinderpelt.

The medicine cat set down her stems of water mint. “If we don’t take too long.”

“This won’t take long at all,” Thornclaw promised. He flicked his ears toward the nearest tree, and Leafpaw spotted a squirrel among the roots, nibbling a beechnut.

Thornclaw paused for a moment to judge the direction of the breeze, then began stealthily working his way around so that he approached the squirrel from downwind. Bunching his hindquarters under him, he pounced; the squirrel gave one spasmodic kick, and was still.

“Come on,” he called. “There’s enough for all of us.”

The fresh-kill was delicious, and Leafpaw offered a quick prayer of thanks to StarClan for bringing them to a place where the prey was plump—and slow. Her mouth was filled with the scent of the squirrel, so she had no warning when three cats suddenly appeared around the trunk of a tree a little way off. They paused for a heartbeat when they spotted the ThunderClan cats, and then loped toward them. As they drew closer, Leafpaw realized it was a WindClan patrol made up of Tornear, his apprentice, Owlpaw, and Whitetail.

Swallowing his last bite of fresh-kill, Thornclaw rose to his paws, but Tornear spoke first.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded. “This is WindClan territory.”

“What do you mean, WindClan territory?” Thornclaw stared at him in surprise. “The boundaries haven’t been marked yet.”

“We’re marking them now,” Whitetail explained, sounding faintly embarrassed. “Firestar said the stream that runs along the foot of the hill would be the boundary, and this is on WindClan’s side.”

“Firestar also said that was only a suggestion,” Thornclaw reminded the WindClan warriors. He waved his tail around.

“Look. Trees. This is the sort of place where ThunderClan are best at hunting. You need moorland and rabbits, right?”

“There’s not as much moorland here as there was in the old place,” Tornear explained. “We need to extend the territory into these woods, or we won’t be able to support our Clan.”

“Well, you’re not extending it here,” Thornclaw meowed firmly, but the fur along his spine bristled, and Leafpaw guessed he felt very uncomfortable. It was impossible for any cat to forget how close the Clans had been on their journey.

Back in the forest, claws would have been unsheathed by now, but here, there was no instinct to fight over territory they hadn’t finished exploring.

“Do you think StarClan will send a sign to show us where the boundaries should be?” she asked Cinderpelt.

The medicine cat shook her head. “StarClan would never favor one Clan above another, or get involved in disputes.

This is something the Clans have to sort out for themselves.”

The warriors stood around awkwardly for a few more moments. Whitetail spotted the pile of water mint stems.

“Are those for bellyache?” she asked.

“Yes,” Leafpaw replied. “Are some of your cats ill too?”

Whitetail cast a swift glance at Tornear before she replied.

“Yes,” she answered. “Morningflower and Darkfoot.”

“Morningflower?” That was worrying. Leafpaw knew the WindClan queen had always been a friend to ThunderClan.

“What is Barkface doing for her?”

“There’s not much he can do without herbs,” Tornear meowed. “The last I heard, he’d gone looking for juniper. I just hope he doesn’t take too long. Morningflower looked pretty sick to me.”

Leafpaw spun around to face her mentor. “I can take some water mint to WindClan right now,” she mewed. “These cats can show me the way, and Thornclaw can go back to the hollow with you.”

“Of course,” Cinderpelt meowed. “Be as quick as you can.”

All the warriors looked relieved to have something more urgent to think about than the issue of boundaries.

Thornclaw and Cinderpelt set off toward the stone hollow, while Leafpaw went in the other direction with the WindClan cats. They led her to the edge of the trees—just as they had said, the stream curved into the woods here, away from the foot of the hills—and across open moorland. Then they climbed more steeply beside another stream that fell in a series of tiny, bubbling waterfalls. A few stunted thorns grew along the banks, with traces of rabbit scent clinging here and there. So there was prey for WindClan here, Leafpaw thought. Had Tornear been telling the truth when he said it might not be enough?

At last they came to the top of a rise, fringed by bushes, and Leafpaw found herself looking down into the WindClan camp. The sides weren’t as steep as the cliffs around ThunderClan’s hollow, but the smooth, bare slopes gave no cover for attackers.

Leafpaw spotted Onewhisker and Ashfoot talking with a couple of the warriors near a scatter of boulders in the center of the dip.

“I’ll take you straight to Morningflower,” Whitetail meowed.

“And I’ll let Onewhisker know you’re here,” Tornear added, heading down the slope with Owlpaw.

Whitetail led Leafpaw to a knot of gorse bushes at the far side of the hollow. Leafpaw’s pelt pricked under the stares of WindClan warriors as she padded past, but they were curious rather than hostile.

Morningflower lay on a bed of ferns in the shelter of the bushes. Darkfoot was curled up a tail-length away, but Leafpaw couldn’t take her horrified gaze from the old she-cat. Morningflower lay limply stretched out, her breathing harsh and shallow. Her belly was distended, and a sour smell of vomit came from her. Her eyes were closed, and she was still except for the occasional twitch of her flank. To Leafpaw, she looked as if she were barely a pawstep away from joining StarClan.

Setting down the water mint stems, Leafpaw bent her head closer to Morningflower, but before she could do more than set one paw gently on her belly, she was interrupted by a furious snarl.

“What do you think you’re doing?”