Twilight

Chapter 20

Leafpool paused at the top of a ridge, trying to ignore the ache in her paws as she turned to look back. The lake and the trees were long gone; all around her stretched fold after fold of unfamiliar hills. She opened her mouth, picking up the sharp scent of moorland grass and a hint of rabbit. The sun was going down, but there was no sign of any trees or bushes where she and Crowfeather could shelter for the night.

The WindClan warrior followed her up the slope and stood close beside her. Warmth crept back into Leafpool’s tired legs as she felt his pelt brush hers. This cat could still give her courage and hope when everything else seemed strange and frightening.

And what about everything you’ve left behind? a small voice mewed inside her.

Leafpool tried to imagine what was happening in her Clan.

Firestar would be furious that she’d abandoned them without saying a word. Cinderpelt would have to find a new apprentice. Squirrelflight would miss her so much… A jolt of pain shook Leafpool, almost enough to make her turn her paws back toward the lake. But how could she go back now, when every cat knew what she had done, and that Crowfeather was with her?

Nothing mattered as long as she had Crowfeather. Her love for him tingled through her from ears to tail-tip; she had to keep on believing that her decision was the right one.

“Just a bit farther.” Crowfeather nosed her ear. “We need to find somewhere to sleep before it gets dark.”

“Okay.” Leafpool forced her paws to follow him along the ridge. They had been traveling all day, even though neither of them had gotten any sleep the previous night, and she felt more exhausted than she had ever been in her life.

Suddenly Crowfeather stopped and pointed down with his tail. “Look!”

When she caught up, Leafpool saw that just ahead the ground fell away into a rocky hollow. A tiny pool lay at the bottom, shaded by a couple of wind-scorched thorn trees.

“Thank StarClan!” she exclaimed. “Shelter and water.”

Summoning up her last scrap of energy, she bounded down the slope, paws slipping on the loose stones, until she could crouch beside the pool and lap from it. The memory of her last visit to the Moonpool flooded her mind.

Never again, the inner voice told her. You’re not a medicine cat anymore.

But that didn’t matter either, Leafpool reminded herself.

Spottedleaf had told her to follow her heart. She must be doing the right thing.

The gray-black warrior joined her beside the pool, peering into the water. “I can’t see any fish,” he commented.

His words reminded Leafpool how hungry she was. The only fresh-kill they’d had all day was a scrawny vole they had shared beside the stream not long after setting out. It seemed like moons ago now.

“You can catch us a rabbit in the morning,” she mewed, trying to ignore how faint the scent of rabbit had been.

“You’re good at hunting on moorland like this. You can teach me how too.”

“Sure. You’ll soon learn,” Crowfeather replied. “But I don’t think we need to wait till morning. There must be some sort of prey around here.”

He stood with his jaws wide, tasting the air. Leafpool stood beside him, ears standing straight, until she heard the sound of a tiny creature scuffling under the thorn trees. A heartbeat later she spotted a mouse and dropped into the hunter’s crouch. With a purr of satisfaction she pounced.

At the same moment a second mouse shot out of some dead leaves. Crowfeather grabbed it with one paw.

“There, what did I tell you?” he mewed, padding over to Leafpool so they could eat together.

They found a patch of sand between the roots of one of the stunted trees, sheltered from the wind by its twisting branches, and devoured the mice in a few famished gulps.

“You were right about the prey,” Leafpool murmured, swiping her tongue around her mouth. “I’m glad you’re here.

I would be so scared without you.”

“I’ll always look after you,” Crowfeather promised, resting his nose in her fur. “Tomorrow we’re bound to find somewhere better to live. After all, the Clans found the lake, and we don’t need such a big territory when it’s just the two of us.”

Leafpool nodded. “These hills can’t go on forever.” Can they?

“We’ll be fine. You’ll see,” Crowfeather assured her.

“I know.” Leafpool’s voice faded as she sank exhaustedly into sleep.

She was standing in a dark place, her paws cold on dew-drenched grass. She was surrounded by fearful snarling, but she couldn’t see where it came from, even though she wrenched her head frantically from side to side. Then she realized that the darkness that surrounded her was a rolling cloud of black fog. It drifted apart for an instant to show her waves lapping the lakeshore. Her dream had taken her home.

But the reek of blood engulfed her, and she saw that the water in the lake was a blood-red tide sucking hungrily at the land.

“No!” she gasped.

Before all is peaceful, blood will spill blood, and the lake will run red.

Every hair on her pelt stood on end. She had left her Clan far behind. Why couldn’t she escape StarClan’s terrible prophecy?

The snarling died away, only to break out again behind her, louder than before. Leafpool spun around. The black fog still billowed around her, but she could see huge lumbering shapes moving within it. They were too blurred for Leafpool to make out, although she caught glimpses of blunt claws, snapping jaws, and small, malicious eyes. A huge dark mass loomed over her, and a claw slashed across her face, ruffling her whiskers and barely missing her eye. She leapt back and felt sticky liquid washing around her paws. The stench of blood filled her nose and mouth.

“StarClan help me!” she yowled.

Her eyes flew open. She was lying in the moorland hollow with thorn branches above her head and Crowfeather at her side. She drew a long breath of relief. Then she realized that the WindClan warrior was rising to his paws, his body rigid with tension as he stared into the darkness.

“Who’s there?” he called sharply.

Leafpool heard shuffling pawsteps coming closer.

Crowfeather moved protectively in front of her; peering past him, Leafpool could just make out a dark, slowly moving shape like the ones in her dream.

Am I really awake?

Then a cloud moved away from the moon. Silver light washed down into the hollow, revealing a large, thick-furred creature with a broad white stripe down its pointed muzzle.

A badger!

Leafpool sprang to her paws. “Keep back!” she growled.

Crowfeather waved his tail. “It’s all right, Leafpool,” he meowed. “It’s Midnight.”

Still trembling, Leafpool gazed up at the old she-badger.

Midnight lived beside the sun-drown-place; what was she doing here on the moor? Leafpool padded forward curiously.

She had always wanted to meet the badger who had warned her sister and Brambleclaw that the forest was being destroyed by Twolegs, and all the Clans would have to leave.

Without her, they would never have discovered the new place StarClan had chosen for them.

“Greetings, Crowpaw.” Midnight’s eyes were bright with surprise. “Even I not foresee meeting you here.”

“Greetings, Midnight,” Crowfeather meowed. “We didn’t expect to see you, either. And I’m not Crowpaw anymore,” he added. “My warrior name is Crowfeather… in memory of Feathertail.”

“Yes, she watches you still,” Midnight told him.

Leafpool winced. Crowfeather seemed to sense she was feeling awkward, and he brought her forward with a gesture of his tail. “This is Leafpool,” he meowed. “Squirrelflight’s sister.”

Leafpool dipped her head. “It’s good to meet you at last, Midnight. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Your sister speak of you,” Midnight replied. “StarClan show you much of future also?”

“Yes, I’m a medicine cat.” Leafpool blinked. Not anymore.

The old badger glanced from her to Crowfeather and back again. “You flee, yes?” she demanded.

Leafpool stiffened. Did Midnight know she and Crowfeather were running away from their Clans? Is that why she came to find them?

“How do you know?” she asked warily.

Before Midnight could reply, Crowfeather took a pace forward. “We had to leave,” he explained. “We’re from different Clans, and there’s no way we could stay together if—”

“Wait.” Midnight raised a massive paw. “You mean here alone you are? Where rest of cats?”

“In their territories, by the lake.” Crowfeather pointed with his tail.

“Then you not know?”

“Know what?” Leafpool’s claws slid out in sudden panic.

Midnight lowered her head. “Is great trouble coming.

Many of my kin with Clans are angry,” she rasped. “Cats drive them out of their place. Now they come to attack and drive you out, take back what once theirs.”

Leafpool drew in a sharp breath. “We drove a badger out of our territory,” she remembered. “A female with kits.”

“And Hawkfrost chased one out of RiverClan,” Crowfeather meowed.

Leafpool hardly heard him. Her head spun as she plunged back into her dream of blood and slashing claws. “You say they’re going to attack the Clans?” she whispered.

“And whose side are you on, Midnight?” Crowfeather added harshly.

Midnight’s gaze met his. “I have no side. Cats, badgers, in peace could live. I speak against attack, but my kin not listen to me. For many days now they talk of blood and revenge.”

Crowfeather drew closer to Leafpool. She could feel his body quivering. “What do they plan to do?” he asked.

“Many badgers gather. Your sets they will attack, kill many cats, drive out others.”

Our sets… She means our camps. Leafpool’s fur stood on end.

She and Crowfeather would be safe out here, but the Clans they had left behind would be destroyed, their Clanmates murdered.

“No…” she whispered. “It can’t happen!”

“So what are you doing here?” Crowfeather asked Midnight.

“I go to warn Clans, tell them what is coming,” the old she-badger replied. “Will you help?”

Leafpool opened her jaws to speak, but Crowfeather interrupted. “No. We have left our Clans for good. There’s nothing we can do.”

“Crowfeather, no!” A shiver of horror passed through Leafpool from ears to tail-tip. “We can’t leave our Clans to die.”

Crowfeather’s amber eyes were full of pain. Gently he touched his nose to Leafpool’s muzzle. “I know,” he mewed.

“But Midnight is going to warn them. They’ll be safe if they listen to her. What more could we do?”

“We—” Leafpool broke off, not sure she knew the answer.

“We’ve come too far,” Crowfeather insisted. “If we go back now, every cat will know what we’ve done. We won’t be able to leave again. Things will be the same as they ever were—worse, because we won’t be able to meet up like we used to.

Every cat will be watching us, waiting for us to slip away. All this will have been for nothing.”

Leafpool gasped with pain, as if the claws of the badgers in her dream had torn her pelt away. She knew Crowfeather was right; they would lose everything if they went back now. Yet how could they keep going, when they knew what terrible danger their Clanmates were facing?

Midnight looked from her to Crowfeather and back again.

Leafpool didn’t know how much the badger understood about the duties of medicine cats, or about the warrior code that said that cats from different Clans could not be together.

But there was warmth and understanding in her gaze, as if Midnight somehow sensed the struggles they had gone through before they made the decision to leave.

“StarClan go with you,” the badger murmured. “Future rests in paws of warrior ancestors. All I can I will do.”

“Thank you,” meowed Leafpool.

She watched as Midnight lumbered away up the slope in the direction of the territory they had left. Her paws trembled with guilt and sadness; her Clanmates were in trouble, and she was deliberately choosing not to help them.

Crowfeather nuzzled her ear. “Let’s get some more sleep,” he meowed.

Leafpool curled up beside him under the thorn trees, but sleep refused to come. Her mind was filled with images of snarling badgers bursting into the ThunderClan camp, ripping apart her Clanmates.

StarClan be with them! she prayed.

Her dream had shown her how savage the attack would be.

She remembered the dreams that the other medicine cats had described at the Moonpool, dreams of darkness and slashing claws. And now she had received the same message from StarClan. Leafpool’s pelt tingled; the starry warriors were still speaking to her. She hadn’t lied to Midnight when she said she was still a medicine cat.

She could tell Crowfeather wasn’t asleep either. He kept shifting restlessly, and once she heard him sigh. He pressed closer to her, as if trying to comfort her, or himself.

At last Leafpool drifted into a light, troubled sleep. She seemed to float in gray mist, with nothing to tell her where she was. Suddenly the emptiness was ripped apart by a shriek of agony.

“StarClan, help me!”

Leafpool leapt up, trembling, to see the thorn branches outlined against a sky growing pale with the first light of dawn. She had recognized the voice in her dream; it was Cinderpelt.

“Crowfeather!” she gasped. “I can’t stay here. We have to go back.”

Crowfeather lifted his head. His amber eyes were sad. “I know,” he meowed. “I feel the same way. We have to go and help our Clans.”

Relief flooded over Leafpool. She loved him even more at that moment because he understood, because he cared for his Clanmates as much as she cared for hers. Briefly she pressed her muzzle against his, with a purr that lasted no more than a heartbeat.

“Let’s go,” she meowed.