Hawkwing's Journey

  But suddenly Leafstar was in their midst. “Don’t fight!” she ordered. “We can’t win. Run! Meet up in the long grass by the lake.”

  “But they have Fidgetpaw!” Hawkwing protested.

  “There’s nothing we can do!” Leafstar snapped back at him. “Head for the lake!”

  His heart wrenched at the thought of abandoning Fidgetpaw, but Hawkwing had to admit that she was right. These Twolegs with their weird pelts and sticks were impossible for them to fight. He dodged around one of the cobweb-things, then halted as another Twoleg swung his stick around and scooped up Waspwhisker.

  This can’t be happening! he thought as he stared at the Clan deputy, who was screeching and fighting in vain as the Twoleg carried him over to the shiny den.

  “No!” Plumwillow yowled, giving Hawkwing a mighty shove. “Run!”

  Hawkwing pulled himself together. We have to save the kits!

  He followed Plumwillow as she gathered her kits together. All three of them were staring open-mouthed at the Twolegs, as if they couldn’t believe what they were seeing, or didn’t understand.

  “What are they doing?” Dewkit asked.

  “You can see what they’re doing,” Plumwillow snapped, giving the little tom a shove. “Now go!”

  Hawkwing helped her push the others along until the kits finally realized the danger they were in and scurried for the camp entrance. Once in the open they began to panic, scattering in three different directions.

  “This way!” Hawkwing called.

  Together with Plumwillow he managed to round up the terrified kits and head toward the lake. On the way there they spotted more Twolegs standing beside two monsters on a small Thunderpath that led through the woods and down to the Twoleg dens. As Hawkwing and Plumwillow ran past with the kits the Twolegs let out a roar and lumbered toward them.

  “Quick! This way!” Hawkwing gasped.

  He veered toward an outcrop of rocks, and spotted the entrance to a rabbit burrow half concealed among the boulders. He pushed the kits into the opening of the burrow, then dived in himself with Plumwillow. Hawkwing gestured to the kits to be silent, and they crouched there, wide-eyed, listening to the Twolegs tramping around the rocky outcrop.

  Finally the heavy paw steps died away; Hawkwing peered out cautiously and saw the Twolegs heading back toward their monster.

  “Okay,” he whispered. “We can go.”

  Keeping low, their bellies pressed to the ground as if they were stalking prey, Hawkwing and Plumwillow led the kits toward the lake. Hawkwing’s fur was bushed up with fear, and with every paw step he expected to see one of the Twolegs’ cobweb-sticks swooping down to envelop the kits.

  I can’t lose these kits too, he thought, remembering the lost Pebbleshine and her litter. I have to save them!

  Hawkwing felt as if whole moons were passing as they crept along, until finally they made it to the tall grass and collapsed there, panting.

  Rileypool and Sagenose had already arrived at the meeting-place, their fur bristling and a wild look in their eyes.

  “They took Waspwhisker!” Rileypool exclaimed disbelievingly. “What will they do with him?”

  “And Fidgetpaw!” Sagenose tore at the grass with his claws. “I have to save my kit!”

  Peering out through the long stems, Hawkwing saw two Twolegs emerge from the trees, rolling the shiny den in front of them, with Fidgetpaw and Waspwhisker still trapped inside. The rest of the Clan was scattering, all of them making for the long grass, with the Twolegs in pursuit.

  Hawkwing watched helplessly as they swung their sticks again and trapped Clovertail, then Birdwing, and carried the struggling cats over to the monster.

  “Birdwing!” Sagenose howled as he saw his mate disappear into the belly of the monster. “Birdwing, not you too!”

  Claws of pain gripped Hawkwing’s heart; he knew exactly how his Clanmate felt. But he still blocked Sagenose’s way as he tried to leap out of hiding and follow Birdwing. Sagenose tried to dodge around him, and Hawkwing had to dart to the side, anticipating which way his Clanmate would move, and stop him from charging into danger.

  “No,” he mewed, nose to nose with Sagenose. “You can’t help them.”

  “I can at least go with them!” Sagenose panted, sliding out his claws to attack Hawkwing.

  “No.” That was Leafstar, appearing through the grass stems and resting her tail on Sagenose’s shoulder. “SkyClan needs you, Sagenose.”

  “Birdwing and Fidgetpaw need me,” Sagenose responded, bunching his muscles and preparing to leap out into the open.

  Before he could move, Hawkwing slammed a paw down hard on his neck. “Stop that!” he hissed. “Leafstar is right. We need you here.”

  For a moment Sagenose writhed in Hawkwing’s grip, growling furiously. Then he collapsed with his nose on his paws and his eyes closed, not trying to fight anymore.

  At last the remaining warriors of SkyClan made it to the tall grass, and watched as the Twolegs climbed back into the monsters, which awoke with a roar and sped along the Thunderpath, heading away from the lake.

  “What just happened?” Dewkit asked plaintively. “Did they take them to be kittypets?”

  “Maybe,” Leafstar replied, though Hawkwing could tell by looking at her that she didn’t believe it.

  I don’t believe it, either, he thought. I know enough about Twolegs to be sure they don’t treat their kittypets that way. Our Clanmates are prisoners. Horror shivered through his pelt again as he added to himself, What do they do to their prisoners?

  “They’re gone,” Leafstar meowed when the noise of the monsters had died away. Her voice was shaking with anger and grief. “The Twolegs are no longer willing to live in peace with us. This proves that we’re right to leave.”

  “Leave?” Sagenose let out a desperate wail. “Surely we can’t leave Birdwing and Fidgetpaw?”

  “And Waspwhisker,” Rabbitleap added.

  “They are already gone,” Leafstar told them gently. “Monsters can travel very far, very fast. Remember what happened to Pebbleshine!” As she spoke she cast an embarrassed glance at Hawkwing, as if she was sorry to have mentioned the name of his lost mate. Hawkwing didn’t need the reminder. He was already reliving that terrible day. “She got trapped inside a monster that ran off with her. She never came back,” Leafstar finished.

  Rileypool let out a wail. “Are we going to lose all our Clanmates?”

  “I know you’re hurting,” Leafstar meowed, “but you must be quiet. The Twolegs might hear you. And we must all be brave,” she continued, gazing around at her Clan. “We have lost two special cats: our medicine cat, Fidgetpaw, and our deputy, Waspwhisker. We can only pray to StarClan to send Echosong back to us, but we can and will have another deputy.”

  A stir of surprise traveled through the remaining cats of SkyClan, as if none of them had thought of replacing Waspwhisker so quickly. But it has to be done, Hawkwing thought regretfully. I wonder who Leafstar will choose.

  Leafstar stood silent for a few heartbeats, gazing down at her paws, as if she was deep in thought. Then she raised her head again. “I speak these words before StarClan,” she announced, “that the spirits of our warrior ancestors may hear and approve my choice. Hawkwing will be the new deputy of SkyClan.”

  Hawkwing stared at his Clan leader, stunned. He couldn’t have been more astonished if the ground had opened up and swallowed him. “Me?” he gasped. “But I—”

  “You, Hawkwing,” Leafstar interrupted him. “I can think of no cat better suited to help me lead our Clan through these dark days.”

  Hawkwing couldn’t agree with her. I failed my Clan . . . I’ve failed time and time again! I couldn’t even keep my apprentice. But as he gazed around at his Clanmates, saw their eyes shining and heard their approving murmurs, he realized with even more amazement that they wanted him to be their deputy.

  “You’ll do a marvelous job,” Firefern assured him. “Remember how you saved the whole Clan back in the Twolegplace.??
?

  Plumwillow’s gaze was warm as she turned to him. “Leafstar couldn’t have made a better choice.”

  “That’s right,” Sparrowpelt added. “You’ll be a great deputy, just like your father was.”

  Hawkwing couldn’t agree with that. I’ll never be as good as Sharpclaw. But his Clanmates were murmuring their agreement with Sparrowpelt’s words. Even though it was too dangerous for them to chant his name, he couldn’t have hoped for a better sign of their support.

  “Then . . . thank you, Leafstar,” Hawkwing stammered, his voice hoarse. “I swear that I will be loyal to SkyClan, and spend my last drop of blood defending it.”

  Leafstar dipped her head. “And now we must go,” she meowed. “It is a difficult journey ahead of us, but we must make it, to have any chance of saving our Clan.”

  With a wave of her tail she ventured out of the long grass, checked that no more Twolegs were lurking, then led the way back into the trees in the direction Echosong had gone, a little more than two moons ago. Her Clan followed.

  Hawkwing, his mind still reeling, took up a position in the rear. At the edge of the woods he halted and took a last look back at the lake. We should never have stayed here, he reflected. Echosong was right.

  Then with a deep breath he turned and padded into the shadows after Leafstar and the tattered remnants of his Clan.

  CHAPTER 33

  Hawkwing sat on a rock overlooking a shallow stream bubbling over stones, and surveyed his Clan’s temporary camp. A moon and a half had passed since they left the lake, and though they thought they were going in the direction they had seen Echosong take when she left, they had seen no sign of her or the cats who went with her.

  Every cat was weary of traveling, growing thinner as the weather became colder and prey scarcer. Finally Leafstar had decided to camp here, where the ground had fallen away into rocky hollows that offered at least a little shelter. But the landscape that surrounded them was bleak, with only a few wind-twisted trees; Hawkwing’s heart sank right down to his paws at the thought of being caught here by leaf-bare.

  Wind buffeted his fur as he sat on watch and let his mind travel back to the beginning of their new journey, just after Leafstar had made him deputy. The Clan had sheltered for the night in a copse on the side of a hill, where wind rustled the branches of the trees and sent clouds scudding across the sky. Unable to sleep, Hawkwing had padded out of his makeshift den and crouched among the roots of an oak tree, watching the sky. Soon, Leafstar had slipped through the shadows to join him.

  “What convinced me to make you deputy,” the Clan leader had meowed, “wasn’t anything to do with what happened in the Twolegplace. It was remembering when you were brave enough to tell me that you thought we should leave the lake. That showed me that you have grown, and learned to put the needs of your Clan above your own.”

  Hawkwing had been flattered that Leafstar thought so, but privately he wasn’t sure that he agreed. He still felt that he didn’t deserve to be deputy. He had begun to grow used to his duties, though he found it strange to have his Clanmates defer to him and see the look of respect in their eyes. “I’ll do my best, Leafstar,” he had promised. “But if Waspwhisker should come back to us, I’ll step down.”

  “That’s in the paws of StarClan,” Leafstar had murmured, though Hawkwing could tell that she had no hope of the former deputy returning.

  Now he faced his secret fears that there wouldn’t be a Clan for much longer. They had wandered through woodland, across open ground, keeping well clear of Twolegplaces, and if Leafstar had a purpose in the path she chose, Hawkwing didn’t know what it was. Now that they had no medicine cat, they had no visions from StarClan to guide them. All they had was blind faith, and the hope of finding either Echosong or the lake she had dreamed of, where the Clan cats lived.

  We could be traveling in entirely the wrong direction, Hawkwing thought despairingly. And how many more cats can we lose before SkyClan is gone forever? Will Twolegs take more of us, like they took Waspwhisker and the others?

  Hawkwing was distracted from these dark thoughts by the appearance of Macgyver, who emerged from under a rocky overhang where he had made his den.

  There isn’t even room here to make a proper warriors’ den we can all share, Hawkwing thought. We have to split up. That’s not right for a Clan camp.

  Macgyver padded over to Hawkwing, swaying a little on his paws.

  “I’m hungry,” he announced. “I’m going hunting.”

  Hawkwing gave a disapproving twitch of his whiskers. “The hunting patrols have already gone out,” he mewed. “You said you were a bit tired, so I told you to get some rest.”

  “Well, I feel better now,” Macgyver told him. “And I’m starving! So I’m going hunting.”

  Hawkwing leaped down from his rock and leaned in closer to the black-and-white tom. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  Macgyver looked up at him, his eyes strangely blurred. “Never better,” he muttered, and folded up to collapse at Hawkwing’s paws.

  “Macgyver!” Hawkwing gasped, appalled. He bent over his Clanmate, prodding him in a desperate attempt to rouse him. Macgyver only grunted, but at least that proved he was still alive.

  Instinctively Hawkwing looked around for a medicine cat, but he realized in frustration that SkyClan didn’t have one anymore. He raised his voice in a yowl. “Leafstar!”

  “Tansy is for fever, I think,” Hawkwing mewed uncertainly.

  “No, it’s borage,” Firefern argued. “And there’s a clump of it right there.” She pointed upward with her tail to where plants tumbled from the lip of the bluff above the rocky hollow.

  Two sunrises had passed since Macgyver had collapsed, and since then Blossomheart and Rileypool had succumbed to the same mysterious illness. All three cats lay together in a nest of moss and dried grass, curled up and seemingly unaware of anything that went on around them. Their pelts gave off a dry heat, though they still shivered with cold, even huddled together for warmth in thick bedding.

  Hawkwing fluffed up his pelt against the stiff breeze that probed into it with claws of cold. The sky was gray, the bulging clouds getting ready to release their rain. Leaf-bare is almost on us, he thought, and that’s only going to make it harder for any cat who falls ill.

  “Even if you’re right, it’s not just fever,” Hawkwing pointed out to Firefern. “They have bellyache as well, and you need juniper or watermint for that.”

  “Well, we don’t have any juniper or watermint!” Firefern snapped. “And we do have borage.”

  “And what good will that do, if it’s the wrong herb?” Hawkwing felt the heat of anger spreading through his pelt. “Firefern, are you completely mouse-brained?”

  The ginger she-cat stared at him, shocked into silence. Hawkwing instantly realized how unfair he was being, to take his frustration out on a cat who was only trying to help.

  “I’m sorry,” he meowed, feeling close to his breaking point. What right have I to tell Firefern she’s wrong when I haven’t the faintest idea which are the right herbs? We’re all just guessing. It’s hopeless, when we don’t have a medicine cat.

  “It’s okay, Hawkwing,” Firefern responded. “I know how you feel. And look—even if the borage doesn’t help, it can’t do any harm, right? I’m going to fetch some.”

  While Firefern leaped nimbly up the rocks, Hawkwing gazed down at the three sick cats. Though Macgyver had been the first to get sick, Rileypool seemed to be the weakest; unconscious most of the time, and finding it difficult to eat even if some cat chewed his food up for him.

  Hawkwing could hardly bear to look at Blossomheart, his bright, brave sister, lying there so limp and still. Oh, StarClan, after all the cats I’ve lost, I can’t lose the only littermate I have left!

  Firefern returned clutching some stems of borage in her jaws and started chewing them to a pulp. “If only we knew what this illness is,” she mumbled around a mouthful.

  “Well, Macgyver admitted he was so hungry he
ate some crow-food,” Hawkwing mused. “That might have caused it. And the others caught whatever it is from him, I guess. But that doesn’t help.”

  “No,” Firefern agreed. “The only thing that will help is to find Echosong.”

  She prodded Macgyver to rouse him and began pushing some of the pulped borage into his mouth. Macgyver lapped at it, muttered something inaudible, and lapsed back into unconsciousness.

  “Hawkwing!” A cry sounded from across the camp.

  Hawkwing whipped around to see Plumwillow heading toward him, supporting Finkit, who tottered along beside her on uncertain paws. Sagenose was helping to steady him on the other side; Dewkit and Reedkit followed, their eyes wide and scared.

  “Finkit has the sickness!” Plumwillow wailed.

  Hawkwing felt as if a dark fog had descended on him, blotting out the last traces of light and hope. The fear and tension that he felt were like claws in his belly, tearing him apart. Not Finkit!

  “He was so good yesterday, soaking moss and fetching it so the sick cats could drink,” Plumwillow went on as she and Finkit reached Hawkwing’s side. “But I should have kept him away from them!”

  “Every cat needs to keep away from them.” Firefern looked up from treating the other patients. “Except for you and me, Hawkwing. We’d better make that a rule. Come on, Finkit,” she added, “eat some of this nice borage.”

  “My belly aches,” Finkit whimpered, but he bent his head and ate the borage without protesting.

  Firefern nudged him into the nest with the others, and Blossomheart stirred slightly, wrapped her tail around him, and drew him closer.

  “I’ll stay and look after him,” Plumwillow mewed.

  Hawkwing stepped forward to block her with his tail. “No,” he told her forcefully. “You have to take care of your other kits.”

  Plumwillow stared down at Finkit, then glanced over her shoulder at Reedkit and Dewkit. The anguish in her eyes told Hawkwing how she was torn between them.

  “Reedkit and Dewkit need you,” he meowed gently. “I’ll do the best I can for Finkit. You do trust me, don’t you, Plumwillow?”