“Are you sure about this?” Crowfeather heard Heathertail asking Breezepelt, padding at his side.
“Yeah, you know how tough the stoats are,” Emberfoot added.
“I’m quite sure,” Breezepelt retorted through clenched teeth.
Before they set out, Heathertail had talked to the apprentices about what had happened in the tunnels, making it clear that the coming battle was beyond their skills. Crowfeather suspected that Breezepelt had asked her to do it. After her talk, the apprentices seemed to have gained new respect for the enemy their Clan was about to face.
“How big do you think they are?” Hootpaw had asked his denmates, fluffing up his fur to increase his own size. “As big as this?”
“Much bigger!” Slightpaw had responded, wide-eyed.
“And I bet they have really long claws and teeth,” Featherpaw had added. “Breezepelt was so brave to fight them all by himself.”
Crowfeather, listening with amusement to their speculations, had given a nod of approval. Finally!
Now, as the Clan came within sight of the steep bank where the tunnel entrances gaped open, Harespring called a halt and gathered his Clanmates around him.
“I’ll just remind you about what we’re going to do,” he began. “I’ll enter the tunnels with Heathertail and Weaselfur.”
Crowfeather shifted his paws impatiently. He had volunteered to join the group that was to go underground, but Harespring had assigned him to lead the ambush outside instead. At least he hasn’t chosen Breezepelt to go back in there. There had been anger in Breezepelt’s eyes when he learned he wouldn’t be at the forefront of the battle, but he remained beside Crowfeather without complaining.
“Larkwing and Gorsetail will put the rabbits in place,” Harespring continued. “We hope the scent of prey will lure the stoats out so we can fight them on our own ground.”
Yes, we know all this, Crowfeather thought. His claws tore at the grass in his impatience to sink them into stoats, turning their white fur red. Stop meowing and let’s get started.
“The rest of you, hide in the bushes.” Harespring waved his tail toward the gorse thicket, a few fox-lengths away from the tunnel entrances. “Any questions? No? Then let’s go!”
Harespring led the way into the tunnels with Heathertail and Weaselfur padding warily after him. Crowfeather watched while Larkwing and Gorsetail put two rabbits in position outside the entrances, dragging them over the grass to spread their scent. Then the two she-cats headed for the thicket where the rest of the Clan was hiding.
Now there was nothing to do but wait.
Moons seemed to pass before Harespring shot out of the nearest tunnel, with his two companions hard on his paws. They raced across the open ground and joined their Clanmates in the bushes.
“They’re coming,” Harespring mewed tensely.
Several heartbeats later a few stoats peeked their heads out of the tunnel, sniffing the air and darting their gazes around as if they expected trouble.
Come on, Crowfeather urged them silently. His legs were aching with the effort of holding back when all his instincts were to leap forward and fight. Don’t you want some of that nice juicy rabbit?
Then a voice spoke behind him. “Those are the dangerous enemies in the tunnel that every cat’s warned us about?”
Slightpaw! Crowfeather whirled, tearing his pelt on the gorse spines. “What are you apprentices doing here?” he demanded.
All four apprentices were crouched in front of him, smug looks of satisfaction on their faces. His throat choked on mingled anger and fear, so that for a few heartbeats he couldn’t speak.
“You told us to be bold,” Featherpaw mewed, “so we’ve come to help fight.”
“Yeah, Harespring isn’t going to keep us away from all the excitement,” Hootpaw declared, sliding his claws out and scraping them along the ground.
“It doesn’t even look as if it’ll be that hard,” Oatpaw added as he peered out at the stoats. “They’re kind of . . . cute!”
“I can’t believe we were so scared!” Hootpaw exclaimed. “Come on, let’s get them!”
“No!” Crowfeather yowled. “Get back to camp!”
By now the stoats had emerged from the tunnels and were sniffing around the prey. Wild with enthusiasm, the apprentices ignored Crowfeather. With Hootpaw in the lead they thrust their way out of the bushes and hurled themselves at their enemies.
The stoats whipped around to face the four young cats charging at them. As Crowfeather raced to catch up, they let out their weird chittering cries and flung themselves into the attack.
“Get back!” Crowfeather yowled again. Fear shook him like a leaf in the wind as he realized that he was too late.
CHAPTER 15
Stoats poured out of the tunnels in an unending stream. There are too many of them! Crowfeather realized, his chest tightening with fear. Soon the four apprentices were surrounded. The stoats were smaller than badgers, but they were fast and wily, and Crowfeather knew from the previous skirmish that their teeth were sharper than eagle talons. And in the bright sunlight, their pure white pelts were unnerving.
It’s like being attacked by a blizzard.
Before he could move, the stoats had the apprentices trapped. Oatpaw nervously struck out with one of their battle moves, but the stoats were too fast and too vicious—and there were too many of them.
Crowfeather charged toward the apprentices, with Breezepelt and Gorsetail following. When he was just tail-lengths away, Crowfeather cast one glance over his shoulder to make sure that the rest of his Clanmates were following—they were. Then he hurled himself into the fray.
They disobeyed, and there’s no way of getting them out unscathed, he thought desperately. I hope they’re ready to fight!
“Remember your training!” he yowled. “Be bold and strike out!”
In an effort to obey him, Featherpaw pounced on a stoat at the mouth of the nearest tunnel. Crowfeather batted aside one stoat and had another stoat pinned to the ground, digging his claws into its shoulders, but he caught sight of his apprentice as she rose on her hind paws and gave her opponent two sharp blows around its ears.
The stoat shrieked in pain and fled. Featherpaw let out a screech of triumph, but at the same moment more stoats appeared in the tunnel behind her and leaped on top of her, tearing at her pelt. Featherpaw disappeared under the tide of white bodies.
“No!” Crowfeather yowled. I’ve lost too many cats lately! His heart lurched at the thought of the apprentice he cared for dying under the claws of these filthy invaders.
Tossing his stoat aside, he dived into the tunnel entrance after Featherpaw, lashing out with both forepaws to pull the creatures off her. The young she-cat was crouching on the floor of the tunnel, letting out whimpering cries. Blood was already seeping from her wounds, matting her gray tabby fur.
Crowfeather snarled with fury as he drove the stoats back into the tunnel. He paused, listening, wanting to make sure he had enough time to pull the apprentice to safety. As their chittering cries faded away, he lifted Featherpaw gently by her scruff and dragged her out into the open. Her body was covered with scratches, and there was a particularly deep wound on her back. One of her hind paws was dangling awkwardly.
For a moment Crowfeather’s mind flew back to Feathertail’s death, the sickening crunch as her body hit the floor of the cave. I couldn’t save her, but I will save Featherpaw, he thought grimly.
Battle raged around him as his fellow WindClan warriors clashed with the stoats. He could see several of the white bodies stretched out on the ground, but his Clanmates were still on their paws.
Glancing around, Crowfeather spotted Breezepelt and Heathertail fighting side by side, with Hootpaw close to them. To his relief, none of them seemed to be badly injured.
“Over here!” he called out to them. “Featherpaw is hurt—we have to protect her!”
Breezepelt and Heathertail dashed across to him, while Hootpaw scurried after them, all three gasping
in horror as they saw the blood welling from their young Clanmate’s wounds. Together the four cats formed a barrier around Featherpaw, who was feebly trying to rise to her paws.
“Stay still,” Crowfeather ordered. “The stoats aren’t finished. Let us handle this.”
But the tumult of battle was dying down. Crowfeather could hear the scurrying of paws through the tough moorland grass. The fierceness of the stoats’ attack had faded, and they were beginning to retreat into the tunnels. The other WindClan warriors drove them back: Gorsetail and Crouchfoot were in the lead, clawing at the stoats’ black-tipped tails until the last of the white-pelted creatures had disappeared into the darkness.
“Yeah! We won!” Oatpaw yowled. The pale brown tabby was leaping up and down with excitement. His only wounds, Crowfeather was grateful to see, were a couple of scratches on one shoulder.
“It’s over for now,” he mewed angrily to Oatpaw. “But the stoats will be regrouping down there, and there may be many more of them. We need to retreat and get Featherpaw to the medicine-cat den.”
“I’m okay,” Featherpaw murmured. “I can stay and fight. I did well, didn’t I?” she added, gazing up at Crowfeather. “I struck out swiftly, just like you said.”
Her voice faded and her eyelids fluttered closed as she lost consciousness.
“You have less sense than a newborn rabbit,” Crowfeather told her, even though he wasn’t sure she could hear him. “But you were so brave—and so reckless.”
Breezepelt joined him to help lift Featherpaw. Guilt washed over Crowfeather like a tide of blood as he saw the young she-cat’s body hanging limply between them; only her shallow breathing showed that she was still alive.
“That’s a bad wound on her back, and if her paw isn’t seen to right away, it won’t heal right,” he mewed miserably. I’ll never forgive myself if she doesn’t recover.
Breezepelt was silent as they began to carry Featherpaw across the moor; Crowfeather was aware of his son’s gaze fixed on him, a look that Crowfeather couldn’t interpret. But he said nothing, and Crowfeather had too much on his mind to bother challenging him.
The WindClan camp was in sight before Breezepelt spoke. “You don’t have to worry about Featherpaw’s paw,” he meowed abruptly. “As long as Kestrelflight wraps it with a good clump of comfrey leaves and cobweb, it should be fine.”
Crowfeather gave his son a curious look. “How do you know that?” he asked. “You never trained as a medicine cat.”
“No,” Breezepelt responded. “But I had the same injury when I was an apprentice, and that’s how Barkface treated me. I was up and walking again in just a few days.”
Crowfeather was about to say that he didn’t remember Breezepelt being injured back then, but stopped himself. When he thought about it, he did remember the injury—or, more accurately, he remembered Nightcloud’s worrying over it. Busy with his duties as Heathertail’s mentor, he had just assumed that Nightcloud was being overprotective as usual.
Now Crowfeather understood Breezepelt’s strange look. He was envious that his father had praised Featherpaw and was worried about her injuries.
It wasn’t just my kits from ThunderClan that I wasn’t there for, he realized, shock striking him like a lightning bolt. I paid so little attention to my WindClan son that I hardly remembered that he suffered a major injury. Have I really cared more for my apprentices than my own son?
Crowfeather had a horrible feeling that he knew the answer—or what would have been the answer, until recently. But Crowfeather hoped that however lacking he had been as a father, he could make up for that now. In fact, he had to, now that Nightcloud was gone. He had to accept that he’d been a different cat back then, just as Breezepelt was no longer the cat whose loyalties lay elsewhere.
Now Crowfeather had become the kind of warrior who could pass his experience on to younger cats. He suppressed a wistful sigh. If only my kits had been born later . . . I could be a better father now, but is it too late for Breezepelt?
As he and Breezepelt struggled into Kestrelflight’s den with Featherpaw, Crowfeather saw the young medicine cat’s eyes stretch wide with alarm. But a moment later he recovered his air of efficiency.
“Bring her over here,” he meowed, pointing with his tail to a nest of soft moss. “I’ve got all the herbs ready to treat injuries from the battle.”
But no cat expected the worst-injured cat to be one of the youngest, Crowfeather thought. He could read as much in Kestrelflight’s eyes. It doesn’t seem fair.
The young medicine cat was too kindhearted to scold Crowfeather for not taking better care of his apprentice. In any case, he couldn’t have blamed Crowfeather any more than Crowfeather was blaming himself.
Crowfeather and Breezepelt laid Featherpaw down, settling her comfortably in the nest, and Kestrelflight crouched over her, licking the blood from the wound on her back to clean it up.
“What happened out there?” he asked between licks.
“When we left, the stoats had been driven back into the tunnels,” Crowfeather replied, a worm of uneasiness stirring in his belly. “I just wonder why none of the other warriors have made it back.”
He found the answer to his question a few moments later, when Heathertail stuck her head into the entrance to Kestrelflight’s den.
“What’s wrong?” Breezepelt asked urgently. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Heathertail replied. To Kestrelflight she added, “We drove the stoats into the tunnels and thought it was all over. But then more of them came pouring out, and we had to retreat. We killed a few of them, but we’re still vastly outnumbered.”
So what do we do now? Crowfeather asked himself, a dark cloud of disappointment descending on him at the news that they hadn’t won even a minor victory. They had already assured ThunderClan that they had the stoat problem under control. But that wasn’t true. What’s going to happen if we can’t handle this ourselves?
Then he pushed the thought away. There were more important things to deal with.
“Heathertail, can you fetch Featherpaw’s parents?”
Heathertail gave a swift nod. “Emberfoot might not be back yet, but I saw Sedgewhisker just now. I’ll go get her.” She disappeared, and her hurrying paw steps faded away.
Kestrelflight was chewing up marigold leaves for a poultice when both Emberfoot and Sedgewhisker arrived, their eyes full of anxiety. Crowfeather could taste their fear-scent.
“How did Featherpaw get hurt?” Emberfoot demanded, while Sedgewhisker crouched down beside her unconscious kit and began to lick her ears. “She wasn’t supposed to be in the battle!”
“She and the other apprentices followed us and joined in without permission,” Crowfeather explained.
Emberfoot and Sedgewhisker exchanged a shocked glance. “It must have been those others, encouraging her!” Sedgewhisker meowed. “Featherpaw would never have done such a thing by herself.”
“So what happened?” Emberfoot demanded.
“Featherpaw was ambushed by a group of stoats,” Crowfeather replied, “and that’s how she was injured.”
“She’s lost a lot of blood, and her paw is broken,” Kestrelflight added.
“But she will be all right?” Sedgewhisker asked, looking up at him with pleading eyes.
Kestrelflight hesitated. “I can’t be certain,” he admitted at last. “I’ll set her paw and treat the wound on her back, but we’ll have to wait until she wakes up to know for sure if she’ll recover.”
Emberfoot and Sedgewhisker exchanged a glance of mingled grief and fury. Crouching down beside her kit, Sedgewhisker began to lick the clotted blood from Featherpaw’s fur, while Emberfoot stroked her shoulder with the tip of his tail.
“You’re her mentor, Crowfeather,” he snarled. “You should have made sure that she didn’t end up on such a dangerous mission!”
“The apprentices were ordered not to take part in the battle,” Crowfeather insisted, seeing Breezepelt looking at him uncertainly. “But I d
id tell her to be bold,” he admitted, feeling his throat tighten with guilt. “I suppose she took it the wrong way. She’s so brave . . . she already has all the makings of a warrior. When I said to be bold, I never meant for her to join in battles far too dangerous for an apprentice.”
“So it was you who gave her the idea to do this?” Emberfoot’s shoulder fur began to bristle, and his voice was a deep, threatening growl. “Why? She’s just an apprentice!”
“I wanted to inspire her,” Crowfeather replied, “but—”
“What’s wrong with you lately?” Sedgewhisker interrupted. “Ever since the Great Battle, it’s like you’re barely here! I know you’ve suffered some losses, but still . . . if it weren’t for you, Featherpaw wouldn’t be lying here now, and we don’t even know if she’ll survive!”
Crowfeather wanted to tell the distraught cats that it was a mentor’s job to inspire their apprentice, and that Featherpaw would still be fine if she had done what Harespring had told her and stayed in camp. But he knew what their reaction would be, and it wasn’t an outpouring of understanding. Even Hootpaw, who had slipped inside and was sitting next to Featherpaw, couldn’t meet Crowfeather’s gaze.
Does he blame me as well? Crowfeather asked himself, heat rising beneath his pelt. If he does, he’s right to. They all are. Onestar, too, when he told me why he didn’t choose me as deputy. I have been barely here lately. And it’s cost WindClan so much.
“I’m so sorry,” he meowed to Sedgewhisker and Emberfoot. “I feel terrible about this. I know I haven’t been the greatest of mentors.” Just like I haven’t been the best of fathers.
“I wish I could disagree,” Emberfoot meowed coldly. “I used to trust you completely, Crowfeather. I was pleased when Onestar chose you to mentor Featherpaw. But now—now I wonder if your carelessness contributed to Breezepelt’s foolishness. I thought his problems were being overblown by some cats, but now I look at you differently. I’m not sure either of us will ever trust you again. You could’ve gotten Featherpaw killed!”