Crowfeather’s Trial

  Peering out from his hiding place, Crowfeather thought he spotted a flicker of movement at the edge of the camp. Drawing in a hissing breath, he pressed himself lower to the ground. Everything was still, and for a moment Crowfeather assumed he had been mistaken.

  I’m so nervous, I’d run away if a mouse jumped into my paws!

  Then a breeze started up, teasing the surface of the snow into little flurries and carrying to Crowfeather a scent that he recognized all too well.

  “Okay, Hootpaw,” he mewed. “I know you’re there somewhere. You can come out now.”

  Heartbeats later the dark gray tom popped up from behind a rock, scuffled his way through the snow, and skidded into the shelter of the bush beside Crowfeather. His eyes gleamed and his tail was bushed out with excitement.

  Oh, StarClan, now what do I do?

  “What are you doing out of your den?” Crowfeather asked, fixing the apprentice with a stern glare. With any luck, he didn’t hear anything.

  “I only went to make dirt,” Hootpaw excused himself. “But I was so excited to see that you’ve come back—and you’ve found Nightcloud!” The apprentice gave a little bounce. “That’s so great!”

  “So you were listening to me and Heathertail!”

  For a heartbeat, Hootpaw looked chastened. “I didn’t mean to spy,” he insisted. “I want to come with you! Please, Crowfeather!”

  Crowfeather was briefly tempted. He knew how much Hootpaw cared for his former mentor, just as Featherpaw, surprisingly, cared for him. And Hootpaw had learned his battle moves well; he could be an asset if they ran into trouble.

  But then Crowfeather realized that it was quite impossible. And he’d had enough of taking apprentices into danger.

  “Absolutely not,” he replied. “Take another warrior’s apprentice on a dangerous mission?” It’s a secret mission, too, he reflected. A banished cat sneaking an apprentice out without his leader’s approval! “You must have bees in your brain,” he finished.

  Hootpaw’s tail drooped and he blinked in disappointment. “Please, Crowfeather,” he repeated. “I’ll do everything you tell me.”

  “I’m telling you no.” Crowfeather slid forward, so close to Hootpaw that his nose almost touched the top of the apprentice’s head. Being tough with him now is the best way to protect him. “And if you breathe a word of this to Onestar,” he continued, “I’ll personally make sure that you wish you’d never left the nursery. Got it?”

  Hootpaw’s eyes were wide and scared. “Got it, Crowfeather.” He wriggled out from under the bush and streaked off, back toward the camp.

  Crowfeather watched him go, shaking his head a little. He’s got great spirit, he reflected. He’ll make a fine warrior one day. And I’ll do all I can to make sure that Nightcloud is around to help him do it.

  While Crowfeather waited for his Clanmates to return, the sky cleared and the moon shone down on the snowy moor. Crowfeather let out a purr of satisfaction; their journey would be much easier if they could see where they were putting their paws—provided they got away without any cat spotting them.

  When Heathertail reappeared with Breezepelt padding in her paw steps, the light was bright enough for Crowfeather to see how battered and exhausted they both looked. Their tails and shoulders were drooping; Heathertail’s pelt was matted with twigs, and Breezepelt had a scratch on one foreleg.

  He wondered if they were even in any shape to go through with the plan.

  “What happened to you?” Crowfeather asked, emerging from his hiding place under the bush. “Has there been trouble?”

  Heathertail shook her head. “We spent the whole day lugging stones and brush around to plug up the tunnel entrances,” she told Crowfeather. “It’s exhausting work.”

  “And after all that, we didn’t have time to do them all,” Breezepelt complained. “Onestar insisted on stopping when the sun went down. That means the stoats can still get out, so it was all for nothing. I feel like every scrap of skin has been scraped off my pads.”

  “It’ll be fine.” Heathertail gave Breezepelt a friendly nudge. “We can finish tomorrow.”

  Crowfeather had listened to their news with mounting anxiety. “Are you sure you’re fit for this?” he asked. “It’s a long way to the Twolegplace.”

  There was a determined gleam in Breezepelt’s eyes as he gazed at his father. “I could do more than this for Nightcloud,” he meowed. “We have to find her.”

  “It’s the least we can do,” Heathertail agreed.

  A trickle of pride in the two young cats began to flow through Crowfeather, like a frozen stream beginning to melt. The determined look on Heathertail’s face filled him with confidence. She would definitely be a useful cat to have around on this journey. But what about the camp? he wondered. She’s supposed to be keeping watch.

  He tilted his head, thinking hard, when the sound of paw steps swishing through the snow behind him made him start. He swung around to see Hootpaw and his mentor, Gorsetail, looming up out of the darkness.

  Crowfeather felt every hair on his pelt beginning to rise. “What in StarClan’s name are you doing here?” he demanded in a low voice. “Hootpaw, I told you not to tell any cat.”

  “You told me not to tell Onestar,” Hootpaw reminded him, as bright and confident as ever. “But I told Gorsetail. I reckoned you’d have to let me come if I had my mentor’s permission.”

  “And has she given it?” Crowfeather angled his ears toward Gorsetail. “Are you as bee-brained as he is?”

  “Bee-brained yourself,” Gorsetail retorted coolly. “I’m not the cat who’s showing his face here after being banished from the Clan. And yes, Hootpaw has my permission—on one condition.”

  “And what’s that?” Breezepelt growled, taking a pace toward the gray-and-white she-cat.

  “That I get to come with you too,” Gorsetail replied.

  Crowfeather’s eyes widened in shock. Gorsetail wants to help?

  “Don’t look so surprised,” the she-cat mewed. “I respected Nightcloud as much as any cat.”

  Crowfeather stared at his Clanmate, hardly knowing what to say. He hadn’t forgotten that Gorsetail had once said that the Clan would be better off if Breezepelt were killed by a badger. Though lately her attitude seemed to have relaxed, she still wasn’t a cat Crowfeather wanted with him on a dangerous expedition.

  It was Heathertail who broke the silence, giving Crowfeather an irritated nudge. “For StarClan’s sake, let them come! If we stand here arguing, some cat will hear us, and we won’t be able to go at all.”

  Crowfeather could see the sense in that. “Okay, you can come,” he meowed. Privately he still wasn’t sure that it was a good idea to take so many cats, especially when they had to cross a rival Clan’s territory. And if Onestar found out, it would surely cause problems. Not to mention, the camp would be unguarded for a little while. But then, he told himself, the more noses, the more chance of finding Nightcloud. We have to take the risk.

  Hootpaw leaped right off the ground in his excitement. “If we meet any stoats, I know what to do,” he boasted, landing on his hind paws and striking out with both forepaws against an imaginary stoat.

  “If we meet any stoats, you’ll stay beside me and do as you’re told,” Gorsetail responded, with a severe look at her apprentice.

  “Sure, Gorsetail!” Hootpaw’s enthusiasm wasn’t dampened in the slightest.

  Let’s hope we don’t find any stoats, Crowfeather thought as he took the lead away from the camp. But we will find something. I just hope that something is Nightcloud.

  Surprising himself, he couldn’t stifle a pulse of excitement at the thought of seeing her again.

  CHAPTER 22

  Crowfeather led the way across the moor, guiding his patrol in a wide half circle to avoid the tunnels. “I don’t want to risk meeting the stoats,” he murmured. “They’ll be even more angry with WindClan after you blocked up the entrances.”

  Even so, he couldn’t help feeling a prickling of te
nsion in his pads as they passed by, remembering once again Kestrelflight’s vision. He saw dark water rush out, swelling and tossing until it could engulf all the Clans.

  It’s so clear. It’s almost as though the vision were mine.

  He shook his head to clear it of the fake memories.

  But I still want to know what it means.

  When they reached the stream that formed the border with ThunderClan, Crowfeather halted. “We could trek all the way around the forest,” he meowed, “and get to the Twolegplace that way. But it’s much farther than cutting across ThunderClan territory; we’d never do it, find Nightcloud, and get back to camp again before dawn.”

  “If we find Nightcloud,” Gorsetail put in.

  Breezepelt gave her a savage look and opened his jaws to speak, but Heathertail interrupted him with a touch of her tail on his shoulder. “We don’t want the Clan to miss us if we can possibly avoid it,” she pointed out. “If we don’t find Nightcloud, they never need to know we were gone, and if we do—well, Onestar will be so pleased that he won’t mind what we did.”

  Gorsetail shrugged. “ThunderClan it is, then.”

  Crowfeather gazed into the trees on the opposite side of the stream. “From now on, absolute silence,” he told the others. “We’ll be on another Clan’s territory, and it’s possible that some ThunderClan cats will be out and about. We really don’t want trouble with them right now.” He hesitated, then added, “Hootpaw, have you got that?”

  Serious for once, the apprentice nodded vigorously.

  “I’ve got an idea,” Heathertail meowed before Crowfeather could start looking for the best place to cross the stream. “Why don’t we roll ourselves in the ThunderClan scent markers? That way, if we do meet a ThunderClan patrol, we can hide and our scent won’t give us away.”

  “That’s a brilliant plan!” Breezepelt exclaimed.

  But Hootpaw let out an outraged squeak. “I don’t want that ThunderClan stink on my fur!”

  Gorsetail gave her apprentice a cuff around the ear, her claws sheathed. “You’ll do as you’re told. We could still go back to camp.”

  Hootpaw hunched his shoulders. “Sorry, Gorsetail.”

  Crowfeather located a narrow part of the stream where it was easy for the cats to leap across. As he and his Clanmates rolled in the ThunderClan scent, he couldn’t help feeling some sympathy for Hootpaw. The markers were strong and fresh—clearly they had been renewed at sunset—and he winced as the stench sank into his pelt.

  I don’t think I’ll ever smell like WindClan again! Instead the scent reminded him of Leafpool, and he gave his ears an irritated twitch, as if he were trying to get rid of a fly buzzing around him. I have to stop thinking about her!

  When every cat was ready, Crowfeather headed into the trees with his Clanmates padding softly beside him. Beneath the trees the snow was not so thick, and they were able to pick up their pace. The forest floor was dappled with black and silver, a pattern that shifted as the branches moved gently overhead, rustling in the breeze. The prey-scents were muted; Crowfeather guessed that most creatures would be safe in their holes, though he thought it worthwhile to glance over his shoulder and whisper, “We take no prey, remember? This isn’t our hunting ground.”

  “What do we do when we get to the Twolegplace?” Heathertail asked as the sound of the stream died away behind them. “It must be huge. How will we ever find Nightcloud?”

  “How about we worry about that when we get there?” Gorsetail responded, an edge to her voice.

  “I’ve been thinking about that.” Crowfeather ignored the gray-and-white she-cat. “I’m going to start from the pool where I thought Nightcloud died. We might be able to pick up her scent there, and if we can, it will make our job a lot easier.”

  “Good idea.”

  The grunted response came from Breezepelt. Crowfeather could barely prevent his tail from sticking straight up in astonishment. Finally, I’ve done something right!

  The WindClan cats slipped like shadows through the forest as Crowfeather led them toward the hollow where he had found Nightcloud’s blood and the fox scent. Now and again he picked up the faintest trace of his own stale scent, but his anxiety grew when he couldn’t find any of Nightcloud’s.

  Maybe Breezepelt was right, and it has faded. That would make it much harder to find her, if her scent trail has disappeared.

  But before the patrol reached the hollow, Crowfeather spotted movement in the undergrowth over to one side, and a flicker of pale light that vanished almost immediately. He halted, signaling with his tail for his Clanmates to do the same.

  The pale flicker came a second time, and for a moment Crowfeather wondered if his mother, Ashfoot, was showing herself to him again. Then he dismissed the thought. Ashfoot only came to him in dreams. He must have caught a glimpse of a living animal. It has to be a cat with a white or pale gray pelt, he thought. A strong, fresh scent drifted into his nostrils. Fox dung! It’s ThunderClan!

  He beckoned his patrol into the shadow of a bramble thicket, where they crouched in silence, hardly daring to breathe. Rustling came from the undergrowth, followed by a cat’s voice raised, half amused and half annoyed.

  “Great StarClan, Lilypaw! Do you have to stomp around like an overweight badger?”

  “That’s Poppyfrost,” Crowfeather whispered. “I wonder how many more of them there are.”

  A heartbeat later the ThunderClan patrol emerged into the open. Ivypool was in the lead, with Poppyfrost and Bumblestripe. Following them were their apprentices, Lilypaw and her littermate, Seedpaw. Moonlight reflected off Ivypool’s silver-and-white pelt.

  Crowfeather hoped that if they kept still, the darkness still might hide them, or their ThunderClan scent would deceive the patrol, but it was a vain hope. Ivypool stalked straight up to him and stood looking down at him and the rest of the WindClan cats.

  “Greetings,” she meowed. “I suppose you have a good reason for lurking there on our territory?”

  Crowfeather remembered that Ivypool had trained in the Dark Forest, spying for ThunderClan, and there wasn’t much she didn’t know about tracking in the dark. Or fighting, if it came to that. How long did she know that we were here?

  “Well?” Ivypool asked.

  Rising to his paws, Crowfeather gave his pelt a shake, trying to recover a little dignity. “Let me explain . . . ,” he began.

  But at that moment, Bumblestripe padded forward and pushed his muzzle into Breezepelt’s shoulder fur. “They’re carrying our scent!” he exclaimed. “That proves they’re up to no good!”

  Breezepelt started backward, his pelt beginning to bristle, and slapped Bumblestripe away with a lash of his tail. A growl came from deep in Bumblestripe’s throat, while Breezepelt slid out his claws. Their backs arched, as if they would leap into a fight at any moment.

  “No!” Crowfeather ordered. He pushed Breezepelt back and stepped between him and the ThunderClan tom.

  At the same moment, Ivypool snapped, “Stop that, Bumblestripe.” She stood beside Crowfeather, separating the two hostile toms.

  Reluctantly, Bumblestripe took a step back, though he and Breezepelt were still glaring at each other. Ivypool stood waiting with her head tilted to one side, while Poppyfrost had withdrawn a few paces with the two apprentices. Crowfeather heard her say to them, “If a fight breaks out, run!”

  “Look, Ivypool . . .” Crowfeather addressed the silver-and-white she-cat, hoping she would be reasonable. “We’re here on an important mission. We’re looking for Nightcloud.”

  “But Nightcloud is dead,” Ivypool objected. “Onestar announced it at the Gathering.”

  Crowfeather began to explain how he had followed Nightcloud’s scent from one of the tunnel entrances, until he had found her blood and scent beside a pool, mixed with the reek of fox.

  “Of course we thought that a fox got her,” he mewed.

  “So you’ve been trespassing here before!” Bumblestripe broke in accusingly.

  Ivypool
twitched her ears in annoyance. “Bumblestripe, will you for StarClan’s sake shut up!” She nodded to Crowfeather. “Go on.”

  Crowfeather told her how Kestrelflight had failed to find Nightcloud in StarClan, and how that made her Clanmates hope that she was still alive, and then how he had met Yew, who’d told him of meeting her on the edge of a Twolegplace beyond the forest. “But our best hope of finding her is to go back to that pool and see if we can find her scent leading away from it.”

  “Good luck with that, after all this time,” Ivypool murmured. “But I can understand that you have to try. Yes, they can, Bumblestripe,” she added, glaring at her Clanmate, who had opened his jaws to protest. “Nightcloud is a noble warrior, and she deserves the help of any cat.”

  Bumblestripe stared down at his paws, a sullen expression on his face, though he didn’t argue anymore.

  Ivypool turned back to Crowfeather. “Bumblestripe and I will escort you,” she told Crowfeather. “We can’t have WindClan cats wandering around alone in our territory.”

  “We don’t need—” Gorsetail began, looking outraged, but Crowfeather interrupted her with a lash of his tail.

  “That’s fine by us,” he meowed, and his Clanmates, even Gorsetail, murmured agreement.

  It’s so easy to work with ThunderClan when we agree on a goal, Crowfeather reflected. If only Onestar had seen that, we might be done with the stoats by now.

  “Then I’ll take the apprentices back to camp,” Poppyfrost announced.

  “Not fair,” Lilypaw muttered. “You said you’d take us night hunting. And we haven’t caught anything yet.”

  “Yeah, trust WindClan to spoil our fun,” Seedpaw added.

  “Never mind.” Poppyfrost gathered the apprentices together with a sweep of her tail. “We’ll see what we can pick up on our way back.” She dipped her head to Ivypool and padded off in the direction of the ThunderClan camp, with the two apprentices trailing after her, glaring over their shoulders at the WindClan cats.