“I’m sure Twigpaw will come back to visit,” Alderheart reassured her.
Twigpaw only sighed; Alderheart wasn’t sure whether she was actually listening. He wished he knew what he could do or say to cheer her up: the young apprentice had been depressed ever since her encounter with Violetpaw during the battle.
“Tell me again about Blossomfall’s kits,” Briarlight begged. “I can’t believe she’s a mother now! It seems like it was only yesterday she and I were playing together in the nursery.”
“She’ll be a good mother,” Leafpool mewed. She stifled a yawn. She and Alderheart had been up half the night helping to deliver the new litter. “It’s good to see new life beginning. It gives me hope, even in the middle of all this trouble among the Clans.”
“Are their eyes open yet?” Briarlight asked.
“No, it’ll be a few days,” Alderheart told her, keeping an eye on Twigpaw as he spoke. “But all four of them seem healthy and strong.”
“Let me see if I can remember their names,” Briarlight murmured. “Stemkit, Eaglekit, Plumkit . . . and what’s the fourth one? Oh—Shellkit! They’re beautiful names, and I’m sure the kits are beautiful, too. I can’t wait to see them!”
Alderheart stifled a mrrow of laughter. “You should have seen Thornclaw last night. We had a hard time keeping him calm while Blossomfall was giving birth.”
“True.” Leafpool’s amber eyes gleamed with amusement. “He might be a senior warrior, but this is his first litter of kits, and it made him as nervous as an apprentice on his first hunt.”
All the time he had been talking, Alderheart had watched Twigpaw. He had thought she would surely be interested in the new kits, but once again she hardly seemed to be listening.
“You’ll be fine now, Twigpaw,” he mewed, rising to his paws and feeling himself sway a little with weariness.
“If you’re done checking on her, you might as well duck into the apprentices’ den to get some sleep,” Leafpool suggested. “I was able to get some rest this morning, but you’ve been on your paws ever since Blossomfall’s pains began just after moonhigh.”
“Okay,” Alderheart agreed, feeling more tired than ever at the thought of collapsing into sleep.
“On the way, you could find Jayfeather and tell him to come back,” Leafpool meowed. “He left to get something to eat, but he’s had enough time to go to the horseplace and return.”
Alderheart nodded, though privately he doubted that he—or any other cat—could make Jayfeather do anything he didn’t want to. Despite this, he dutifully padded out into the clearing and looked around for the other medicine cat.
The first cat he spotted was Purdy, drowsing in a patch of sunlight near the fresh-kill pile. Remembering the old cat’s bellyache on the night of the Gathering, Alderheart hurried over to him.
“How are you feeling, Purdy?” he asked.
Purdy blinked up at him. “Better, thanks,” he replied. “The bellyache comes an’ goes, y’know?”
“Should I get you some juniper berries now?”
Purdy flicked an ear. “No, I’ll manage. At my age, a bit o’ bellyache is nothin’ to worry about. I’ll just take it easy at the fresh-kill pile for a couple o’ days.”
“If you’re sure . . . ,” Alderheart mewed.
“Sure I’m sure. Herbs can’t fix everythin’, young whippersnapper. I remember one time . . . ,” Purdy began, but the rest of the story was lost in a massive yawn.
“Well, make sure you come to the medicine-cat den if the pain gets any worse,” Alderheart told him.
Purdy let out a rumbling purr. “I will . . . I know I can count on you.” He rested his nose on his paws and drifted into sleep.
Alderheart looked down at him for a moment until raised voices distracted him. He turned and let out a groan as he spotted Rowanstar and Bramblestar, nose to nose and in the middle of an argument.
“Not again,” he muttered.
“It’s obvious what we have to do now!” Rowanstar snapped. “We must organize another attack, and take back ShadowClan territory.”
“I don’t disagree with that.” Bramblestar sounded as if he was finding it hard to hold on to his temper. “But we have to take our time and make a plan, instead of just dashing in like foxes after a rabbit.”
Rowanstar glared at him. “You’re just making excuses.”
“Excuses?” Bramblestar’s tone grew cold. “Have you forgotten that WindClan has closed its borders, and that RiverClan has refused to commit to more fighting, at least for now? You’re expecting ThunderClan to carry this battle alone.”
As the leaders spoke, Alderheart noticed that Jayfeather was sitting close by, with his brother, Lionblaze, and Lionblaze’s mate, Cinderheart. Jayfeather and Cinderheart were openly following the argument, their ears pricked with interest, while Lionblaze simply looked embarrassed; the golden-furred tom was pretending to groom himself, though Alderheart could tell from how he would break off after every tongue stroke that he was paying close attention to the two leaders. Tawnypelt, too, was listening, a couple of tail-lengths away from the others.
Alderheart padded over to join his Clanmates, and Cinderheart brushed a friendly tail over his shoulder as he sat next to her.
“I would never have thought that ThunderClan could be such cowards,” Rowanstar hissed nastily.
At once, Lionblaze stopped his grooming and half rose to his paws, glaring furiously at the ShadowClan leader. He only sat down again when Cinderheart leaned closer to him and murmured something into his ear.
“And I would never have thought I’d hear that from you, Rowanstar,” Bramblestar retorted. “If you and the other ShadowClan cats hadn’t hesitated to attack your former Clanmates, maybe the battle would have gone better.” Whirling to face Alderheart and Jayfeather, he added, “Tell this excuse for a leader that my warriors are too badly injured to stage another attack.”
Alderheart nodded, while Jayfeather replied, “Send them into battle again before their wounds are healed, and you will have dead cats on your conscience, Rowanstar.”
Before Rowanstar could retaliate, Tawnypelt rose to her paws and took a step forward. “There must be another way . . . ,” she began.
Both her brother and her mate glared at her. “Keep out of this,” Rowanstar snapped.
“Yes, this is leaders’ business,” Bramblestar added.
Tawnypelt gave a single lash of her tail. “Are you complete mouse-brains?” she snarled. “This is every cat’s business. I still have kin in that camp, in case you’ve forgotten!”
By now, Alderheart realized, more of his Clanmates were gathering around to listen. Most of them looked furious: he guessed this was because they had heard Rowanstar accuse them of being cowards.
As his gaze passed over them, Alderheart spotted one cat who was glaring in another direction: Ivypool was watching Tigerheart and Dovewing, where they were sitting together, and she looked both irritated and anxious.
I wonder what that’s all about.
“Rowanstar’s got a lot of nerve,” Cinderheart mewed quietly to Lionblaze, “expecting ThunderClan to fight his battles for him.” With a flick of her tail she added, “If most of the ShadowClan cats want Darktail to be their leader, maybe ThunderClan shouldn’t be fighting for Rowanstar at all. Is it really our business?”
Shock and confusion spread through Alderheart from ears to tail-tip. StarClan chose Rowanstar to be leader, and gave him nine lives, he thought. To refuse to defend that would be a violation of the warrior code.
The camp began to blur in front of Alderheart’s eyes. He blinked to clear his vision, realizing how weary he was.
“Jayfeather, Leafpool wants you in the medicine cats’ den,” he meowed, and added to the other cats, “I’ll see you later.”
Then he headed to the quiet of the apprentices’ den, behind its barrier of ferns, where he settled into his nest and closed his eyes. He sank at once into sleep, as if he were gently falling into a dark lake.
&nb
sp; Alderheart opened his eyes and found himself on the edge of a large group of cats.
The other cats were thin, their pelts ragged, and they lay stretched out or curled up, sleeping, as if they were all exhausted. Suddenly Alderheart recognized them.
These are the cats of SkyClan. I’m having another vision!
Although he looked closely, he could not see Echosong among them. Sorrowfully, he realized that she must really have died when he’d seen her in the hollow beside the pool.
Glancing around, Alderheart tried to work out where they were. At first he was confused. Walls of gray stone rose up all around him, with light slanting in from narrow openings near the top. The floor was hard stone, too, covered with heaps of straw.
This must be some kind of Twoleg den.
Then he remembered the place where he and Needletail had sheltered from the rain on their way back from the gorge, where Sandstorm had visited him in a dream and told him to find a different path. This could be the same yellow barn. There were no horses here now, but the wooden barriers dividing the den into sections were in the same place.
If this is that barn, then the SkyClan cats aren’t so far away!
Movement in the shadows caught Alderheart’s eye, and he saw a gray tom emerge from behind one of the heaps of straw, the limp body of a mouse in his jaws. He padded across the stone floor and laid the mouse down beside a queen whose belly was swollen with kits.
Alderheart had never noticed this particular cat before. He must have overlooked him, distracted by Echosong’s suffering, in his previous vision. He had the same gray pelt as Twigpaw, and when he looked up after laying down the mouse, Alderheart saw that he had amber eyes the same size and shape as Violetpaw’s.
Excitement tingled through Alderheart’s fur, his heart beating harder.
Every cat is sure that Twigpaw and Violetpaw’s mother must be dead, he thought. But could this cat be their kin? Are the two kits lost members of SkyClan?
Alderheart sprang to his paws, wanting to observe the gray tom more closely. But at the same moment, harsh sounds fell on his ears, and he startled awake to find himself back in the apprentices’ den.
He let out a hiss of annoyance at the raised voices coming from outside. This time they belonged to Ivypool and Tigerheart, but the topic was still the same: whether ThunderClan should attack the rogues again.
Frustration coursed through Alderheart at the sudden interruption of his vision, especially when he felt he had been on the verge of discovering vital information. He squeezed his eyes tight shut, committing every detail of the vision to memory so that he could be sure not to forget a single thing.
Then he opened his eyes again, already knowing what his next move must be.
Could Twigpaw and Violetpaw be SkyClan cats? I need to talk to Bramblestar!
CHAPTER 5
Twigpaw lay in her nest in the apprentices’ den. Daylight still filtered in through the screen of ferns, but her leg was aching and she felt like going to sleep.
It’s not like I’ve got anything better to do, she thought. She had been excused from her apprentice duties until her leg was stronger, and she couldn’t work up any enthusiasm for finding something to eat or talking to any of the other cats.
The only cat I really want to talk to is Violetpaw, and that’s not going to happen.
Twigpaw loved the Clanmates she had grown up with, but Violetpaw had always been the most important cat in her life. They were each other’s true kin.
“Isn’t that what matters?” she sighed aloud. She wished she could ask Violetpaw if she really believed what Needletail had said. Did Violetpaw really think that they weren’t kin anymore?
Twigpaw was curling up to sleep when she heard Bramblestar’s voice ringing out across the camp.
“Let all cats old enough to catch their own prey join here beneath the Highledge for a Clan meeting!”
In spite of her gloomy thoughts, Twigpaw was intrigued. She brushed her way through the ferns and limped into the clearing to hear what was going on.
Bramblestar stood on the Highledge outside his den, with Squirrelflight flanking him on one side and all three medicine cats standing on the other. A buzz of speculation rose from the ThunderClan cats as they gathered beneath the ledge in the rock face to hear what their leader had to say.
“This has to be important,” Whitewing meowed as she sat beside her mate, Birchfall. “Maybe Bramblestar has thought of a way of getting rid of the rogues at last.”
“Watch out for flying hedgehogs,” Birchfall responded, flexing his wounded shoulder.
Twigpaw went to sit beside Lilyheart, who had been her foster mother when she first came to ThunderClan. The small tabby she-cat turned to her with a mrrow of welcome and gave her shoulder a friendly lick.
“Are you feeling better?” she asked.
Twigpaw didn’t want to share her worries with any cat, even Lilyheart. “My leg will be fine,” she replied.
“Cats of ThunderClan!” Bramblestar began to speak, and the chatter in the clearing died down. “The time for secrets is past. Alderheart, tell the Clan about your latest vision.”
Alderheart stepped forward, looking slightly embarrassed to be addressing the whole Clan from the Highledge.
“I have seen the SkyClan cats again,” he announced. “I believe I know where they are: in a barn where I took shelter on the way back from my quest, not very far from here. I think that ThunderClan should send out another search party to find the lost SkyClan cats. They looked so skinny and exhausted; I fear that they need our help, urgently.”
Pity for the cats Alderheart described flowed through Twigpaw, but at the same time, she wondered what kind of help the Clans could give. Haven’t we got enough trouble right now?
Alderheart’s last words were almost lost as the cats in the clearing began to yowl out questions and protests. Rowanstar sprang to his paws, his eyes glaring with outrage.
“I’ve never heard such a load of bat droppings!” he exclaimed. “We should be focusing on what’s going on here—the rogues taking over ShadowClan.”
“That’s right,” Birchfall meowed, while several of the other Clan cats murmured their agreement. “We have to deal with what’s in front of us before we rush off on a new adventure.”
“Yes,” Berrynose added, giving a dismissive flick of his tail. “The last journey cats went on because of Alderheart’s visions didn’t turn out so well, did it?”
Twigpaw felt as if her insides were being clawed out by badgers when she heard Berrynose’s words and realized that many of his Clanmates agreed with him. Are they saying that they regret finding me and my sister?
She felt sorry for Alderheart, too, as he looked down at his paws, even more embarrassed. Sparkpelt, who was sitting next to Berrynose, gave the cream-colored cat a hard shove.
“It’s easy for a cat to say that when all he did was stay at home getting fat on prey!”
Berrynose turned his head to hiss at Sparkpelt, but said nothing more.
“I don’t agree.” Whitewing spoke up, with an apologetic glance at her mate, Birchfall. “It’s obvious to me—SkyClan must be the sky that will clear from StarClan’s prophecy. Surely we need to find them? If we learned anything from the battle against the Dark Forest, it’s that living cats must listen to StarClan.”
Some of the cats were nodding, clearly appreciating what Whitewing had said, but Twigpaw spotted Larksong and Hollytuft exchanging a dubious glance, and even Alderheart looked doubtful for a heartbeat. Twigpaw could understand that. Like her, the younger cats hadn’t been born at the time of the Great Battle. It was hard to imagine fighting with spirit cats on your side, and even harder to think of facing their claws and teeth in combat.
“There’s something else,” Alderheart continued, raising his voice to be heard above the discussion going on in the clearing. “One of the cats in my vision looked so much like Twigpaw, I think he might be her kin.”
Twigpaw stared at him, feeling as if a massive
rock had just hit her in the belly. For a few heartbeats she couldn’t even breathe. I might have kin, besides Violetpaw? She was sure that her mother was dead, and she had never even thought about other kin. I might have a father out there! Or my mother or father might have had littermates who would be glad to know me. A warm, confused feeling rushed over her. Maybe I’m not as alone as I thought.
“If this cat is kin to Twigpaw,” Alderheart went on, “then the lost kits have always been linked to SkyClan. The prophecy might depend on us bringing them together.”
Twigpaw flexed her claws in and out with excitement. Not only kin, but perhaps a whole Clan out there that’s tied to me!
But to her dismay, none of the other cats seemed to be much affected by Alderheart’s announcement.
“There are a lot of ifs and perhapses in what you’re saying,” Cloudtail pointed out, lifting a paw to examine his claws. “If you ask me, all this talk of visions is a lot of thistle-fluff. You had a vivid dream, that’s all.”
“Excuse me,” Jayfeather snapped from where he stood beside Alderheart. “Medicine cats know the difference between dreams and visions.”
“Sure, and I’m a starling,” Cloudtail muttered, but not loud enough for his words to carry up to the Highledge.
“Well, I think we should take this vision seriously,” Dovewing meowed, with an exasperated glance at Cloudtail. “I think we should send a patrol to look for SkyClan and offer them whatever help we can. I’d be happy to lead it.”
“I’ll join you,” Lionblaze added, though he didn’t sound as certain as Dovewing. “If you think we can be spared from defending the Clan, Bramblestar.”
“I could go with them.” Sparkpelt’s eyes were gleaming with excitement. “I remember where that barn is.”
“I’ll go, too,” Tigerheart volunteered, touching Dovewing on the shoulder with the tip of his tail.
Instantly Rowanstar sprang to his paws. “You will not!” he growled.
Tigerheart was unmoved by his leader’s anger. “You don’t want ShadowClan to have a paw in this affair?” he asked. “After all, the prophecy was made to all the Clans, so it should not be just ThunderClan that investigates.”