Crowfeather’s Trial

  They’re taunting us, trying to draw us farther in, he thought. Then they can pick us off at their leisure.

  “This is mouse-brained,” Crouchfoot meowed, padding up to stand beside Crowfeather. “We could be heading right into an ambush.”

  “But we have to go on,” Breezepelt protested. “We have to do whatever we can to save Nightcloud and Heathertail.”

  Crowfeather gave his son a nod of approval, pleased at how he was overcoming his fear. “Breezepelt is right,” he declared, noticing his son sharply turning his head toward him, surprise in his eyes. “What choice do we have? Go back to camp with another cat missing when none of us has even seen a stoat yet?” But still an inner voice warned him: Cats might get hurt, or even killed, trying to save their Clanmates. . . . Oh, StarClan, help us. . . . Help us all make it back to camp today!

  Crowfeather shuddered. He wondered how StarClan could give them any help at all, down here in the earth where no stars had ever shone.

  “We keep going,” he mewed.

  Determinedly he padded on across the cavern with his Clanmates behind him, aware of flickering white shapes ahead of them and on either side. Their high-pitched cries came from all directions, as if the creatures were calling out to one another. Or taunting us, Crowfeather thought.

  Then one of the stoats darted out less than a fox-length in front of Crowfeather, appearing so quickly that he had no time to warn the others. It was almost a relief, after the long tension of waiting—the attack they had been expecting was finally about to start.

  Instinctively Crowfeather drew backward, only to collide with Breezepelt, feeling his son’s body rigid with tension and anger. For a moment neither of them could move, and in that brief hesitation the small, long-bodied creature leaped forward and fastened its teeth in Crowfeather’s side.

  Crow-food-eating mange-pelt! Crowfeather let out a screech of pain and batted the creature away with a fierce swipe of his paw. The stoat fell back, tearing out a chunk of Crowfeather’s fur as it went.

  Why are you such a pain in the tail? Normally, Crowfeather knew, an infestation of stoats would be easy for WindClan to deal with. But these stoats were so destructive! Peering through the weak light, Crowfeather saw that it was pure white, except for a black tip on its tail—exactly like the stoats that had come pouring out of the tunnels on the previous evening. A shiver of fear passed through him at the sight of it.

  They’re so eerie. . . . I’d rather face a fox or a badger.

  The stoat leaped at Crowfeather again, and Crouchfoot and Larkwing thrust their way forward, dragging it off as it sank its claws into Crowfeather’s shoulders. Crouchfoot raked his claws down its side and the stoat fled, whimpering, into the darkness. But as it vanished, more and more of the white shapes came skittering into the cavern, converging on the group of cats. The stoats’ malignant eyes glinted in the pale light, and their lips were drawn back to reveal their spiny fangs.

  So they’re showing themselves at last, Crowfeather thought grimly. That first one was just to get us in the mood for a battle!

  Breezepelt charged ahead with an earsplitting caterwaul, obviously ready to fight every single one of them. Crowfeather’s belly lurched with fear, and he sprang forward to put his own body between his son and their enemies. Larkwing helped him drag Breezepelt back down the passage, with Crouchfoot in the rear, slashing and raking his claws to drive the stoats back until they all burst out into the open.

  “But what about Heathertail?” Larkwing gasped. “I didn’t see her in there.”

  “I’ll find her!” Breezepelt yowled.

  Before Crowfeather could stop him, he whipped around and barreled back into the tunnel, slamming into the stoats and knocking them aside to force his way through them.

  “Breezepelt, no!” Crowfeather screeched after him. But his son paid no attention. The lithe, white-furred stoats closed around him as he fought his way through and vanished into the darkness. Soon the sound of skittering claws and pounding paw steps died away.

  For a heartbeat Crowfeather stood frozen, stunned by the speed of Breezepelt’s attack. Then, with a massive effort, he pulled himself together. “We have to go after him,” he meowed.

  Larkwing and Crouchfoot exchanged an anxious glance, then nodded and stood a little taller—as if, by pretending, they could make themselves feel more confident than they actually were. “We’re with you,” Crouchfoot responded.

  Crowfeather braced himself to plunge back into the tunnel, into the deadly crowd of stoats, but before he could move, Larkwing yowled, “Wait!”

  Turning toward her, Crowfeather saw that she was pointing with her tail. Looking in that direction, Crowfeather spotted a light brown tabby she-cat stumbling out of another tunnel opening farther along the bank, with a black tom hard on her paws. Heathertail and Breezepelt . . . they’re alive! As soon as they emerged, Breezepelt spun around and dropped into a crouch, baring his teeth and sliding out his claws.

  “Come out if you dare, you filthy stoats!” he snarled.

  Crowfeather raced along the bank; he could hear the paw steps of Crouchfoot and Larkwing as they pounded along behind him.

  A few stoats were jostling one another in the entrance, snarling in response to Breezepelt’s challenge, but before any cat could attack, they crept backward and vanished into the darkness.

  As Crowfeather and the others reached him, Breezepelt rose to his paws, blinking in surprise. Crowfeather knew that Breezepelt had nearly drowned once in these tunnels. He guessed his son had never seen himself as brave enough to charge into them again like that, in search of Heathertail.

  He must really have wanted to prove himself.

  With the danger over for the time being, Crowfeather whirled around to confront Heathertail. “Are you completely mouse-brained?” he demanded. “If you don’t care about your own safety, what about your Clanmates’? We could have lost you and Breezepelt because you were such a stupid furball!”

  He got the impression that Heathertail was hardly listening. She was staring past him, and he realized that her blue gaze was fixed on his son.

  “Thanks, Breezepelt,” she murmured. “You were really brave.”

  Oh, for StarClan’s sake. Breezepelt had an admirer. I suppose there’s a she-cat out there for every tom, Crowfeather reflected. No matter what a fuzz-brain he may be.

  Breezepelt gave the ground a couple of awkward scrapes with one forepaw. “It was nothing,” he mumbled.

  Breezepelt didn’t just do that to prove himself, Crowfeather realized with a tingle of shock in his whiskers. He must really care about her. And it might not be one-sided. . . .

  He knew that Breezepelt had been padding after Heathertail ever since they were both apprentices. But back then, she had seemed more interested in Lionblaze, the ThunderClan tom. Crowfeather had been vastly relieved when that friendship fizzled out.

  No good can come out of relationships outside your own Clan. He suppressed a sigh. No cat knows that better than I do.

  Now Crowfeather blinked at his son with approval of the choice he had made. Even though he had just clawed Heathertail with his tongue, he couldn’t think of any she-cat he would rather see as his son’s mate.

  His anger fading, he turned back to Heathertail. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “I’m fine,” Heathertail replied. “And I’m sorry for dashing off like that. I thought you would be right behind me.”

  “Sorry” catches no prey, Crowfeather thought, acknowledging her apology with a curt nod. “As long as you’re okay.”

  Larkwing was already giving a careful sniff at Heathertail’s hindquarters. “No, she’s not okay,” she meowed. “Those StarClan-cursed mange-pelts have torn out all her fur!”

  Crowfeather padded over to take a look. Huge clumps of Heathertail’s pelt had been wrenched out, and blood was trickling from so many wounds he couldn’t count them. He could also see two claws missing from one of her hind paws, and he remembered how she’d been stumbling as
she came out of the tunnel. None of her injuries looked life-threatening, but the loss of blood alone was going to weaken her badly.

  Crowfeather realized that shock, or relief at being rescued, must have been keeping Heathertail on her paws. But pretty soon the rush would wear off and the worst of the pain would hit her, and then she would need poppy seed to help her sleep.

  Taking another look at the tabby she-cat’s injuries, he was surprised that she was still standing. Heathertail is one tough cat!

  “She really ought to go back to camp and see Kestrelflight,” Larkwing pointed out. “We should all go, and come back another day with more warriors—enough of us to deal with those stoats.”

  “Are we sure they were stoats?” Crouchfoot asked. “They were all white!”

  “I’ve never seen white stoats before,” Larkwing added. “Do you think they’re ghosts after all?”

  Crowfeather rolled his eyes. “Great StarClan, is every cat bee-brained?” he asked. “If they were ghosts—which they’re not—how could they touch us?”

  Larkwing and Crouchfoot just looked at each other; they didn’t argue, but Crowfeather didn’t think he had managed to convince them. But at least Crouchfoot was treating Larkwing just like any of his other Clanmates, as if she had never set paw in the Dark Forest.

  “Humph.” Crowfeather let out an annoyed grumble. I suppose we don’t know what ghosts could do, but since our enemies aren’t ghosts, there’s no point in worrying about it.

  “I think I know why they’re white,” Heathertail meowed. “Because we’re in leaf-bare, and once there’s snow on the ground the stoats will be practically invisible. Their white pelts will make it easier for them to stalk their prey. I don’t know why they have a dark tail, though,” she added as an afterthought.

  Crowfeather blinked at her, struck by the cleverness of her explanation. “I think you’re probably right,” he responded. “Thank StarClan one cat has a bit of common sense. The rest of you go back to camp with Heathertail,” he added to the others. “Report to Onestar. But I can’t go with you. Not until I’ve found Nightcloud.” Dead or alive, he added silently to himself.

  With a pang of guilt, he remembered their argument about the way he treated Breezepelt, on the way to the tunnels the day before. Right after that, Nightcloud had disappeared. He couldn’t help wondering whether their argument had driven her into the paws of these strange stoats. She might have been so angry, or upset, that it made her reckless. . . .

  His thoughts were interrupted by Breezepelt. “I’ll stay, too,” he meowed.

  Heathertail cast him a worried glance, and Crowfeather thought she was about to protest. Then she gave her pelt a quick shake. “Just be careful when you go in there,” she warned them. “I scented water up ahead, which means some of the tunnels will be flooded.”

  Her gaze rested on Breezepelt, deeply serious now, and Crowfeather wondered if she was thinking the same as he was. Will Breezepelt panic if we go too deep into the tunnels?

  Crowfeather stood still, watching as Heathertail limped away, with Crouchfoot and Larkwing on either side of her, giving her a helping paw over the rough places.

  “Are you ready to go back in?” he asked Breezepelt, when the others had disappeared over the ridge.

  Breezepelt glanced at him, his amber eyes widening with nervous anticipation. For a moment he hesitated; then he gave a nod. “Let’s go,” he muttered.

  Crowfeather turned to face the dark holes gaping in the bank. “We’ll go this way,” he decided, heading for the entrance at the far end, the one the patrol had used the day before. “At least we won’t be walking straight back into the stoats’ paws.”

  In the first part of the tunnel, wider than most and lit from above, there was only a faint scent of stoat, and even that was stale. Crowfeather could pick up the scents of the first patrol, too, including Nightcloud, though that wasn’t going to help them to find her now.

  “Which tunnel did you and Nightcloud take yesterday?” Crowfeather asked Breezepelt when they reached the cave where the tunnels branched off.

  “That one,” Breezepelt replied, pointing with his tail.

  “Lead on, then,” Crowfeather meowed.

  Breezepelt gave a start of surprise at his father’s order, then padded cautiously into the tunnel he had indicated. Crowfeather watched him for a moment, to be sure that his courage would hold, that his nerves would not get the better of him.

  When he was sure that Breezepelt was not going to flee the tunnel, Crowfeather followed. He could sense fear in his son’s scent, but determination too, and his paw steps were steady.

  Within moments they were plunged into complete darkness, and Crowfeather could detect damp air rising from somewhere ahead of them. “Don’t forget that Heathertail warned us about flooding,” he reminded Breezepelt.

  He could sense his son shivering, and remembered once again the time Breezepelt had nearly drowned in the tunnels when he was an apprentice.

  “It’s best not to think about the past,” he advised Breezepelt. Somehow it was easier to talk to him in the thick darkness than when they could face each other in the searching light of day. “But if you must think about it, remember how you survived. The memory of the terrible thing that happened here should remind you of how strong and brave you are.”

  His son was silent for several heartbeats, just padding on steadily down the tunnel. It had been moons since Crowfeather had paid Breezepelt a compliment, and he wasn’t sure how he would take it. Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut.

  “I’m not afraid anymore,” Breezepelt responded at last. “I take after my mother, and she’s the bravest cat I’ve ever met. That’s how I know that Nightcloud is still alive.”

  Crowfeather had known plenty of brave cats who had met terrible ends, but he wasn’t about to say that to Breezepelt. He wondered, though, if he should advise his son not to get his hopes up too high.

  What if Nightcloud has drowned? Or maybe the stoats killed her. What if we’re looking for her body?

  Crowfeather tried his best to push those thoughts away as he and Breezepelt moved on through the tunnels, the passages leading them farther and farther downward. Now and again Crowfeather picked up the scent of water, but they were able to avoid the flooded tunnels Heathertail had warned them about. By now the last traces of Nightcloud’s scent had faded—swamped, Crowfeather guessed, by the dampness in the air and on the slick stone floor.

  Finally Crowfeather became aware of a faint light filtering up from below. The scent of water grew stronger still, until the cats emerged into a huge cavern lit by a jagged hole in the roof, high above their heads. The floor was rippled stone, and across the center a river flowed, appearing from a dark hole at one side of the cave and disappearing again into another hole opposite.

  Crowfeather breathed in fresher air from the other side of the river, and with it another familiar scent. He exchanged a glance with Breezepelt. Oh, fox dung.

  “ThunderClan!”

  We don’t want to get any closer to them, Crowfeather thought. After the Great Battle, it’s not going to take much to create new tension among the Clans.

  “Maybe we should turn back,” he told his son.

  Breezepelt glared at him. “Without finding Nightcloud?”

  Crowfeather flexed his claws uncomfortably on the damp stone of the cavern floor. “We haven’t picked up her scent since just after we entered the tunnels. “There’s no evidence that she ever came this way.”

  “But we have to try!” Breezepelt protested. “If she’s lying injured somewhere, time could be running out for her. She could bleed to death . . . or she could be defenseless against more stoats.”

  Crowfeather grimaced, unsure what to do. The last thing he wanted was to put his son in danger for no reason. But what if Breezepelt was right? Staying on good terms with ThunderClan was important, but would he ever be able to forgive himself if he gave up now and later discovered that he could have saved Nightcloud if they’d ke
pt searching just a little bit longer?

  He nodded slowly. “Okay, we’ll keep going.”

  Padding alongside the river, Crowfeather came to a narrower place where the water roared along in a deeper gully. “We can cross here,” he murmured.

  Drawing back a few fox-lengths, he took a run up to the bank and pushed off in a massive leap. As he took off, he felt his paws slip on the wet rock, and for a moment he was afraid that he would fall short of the opposite bank. Then he felt his paws strike the rock, but so close to the edge that he stumbled and barely managed to stop himself from falling back into the current. Regaining his balance, he turned back in time to see Breezepelt make the leap and land neatly beside him with a smug twitch of his whiskers.

  “Follow me,” Crowfeather murmured, ignoring his son’s triumphant look. “And step quietly. There might be ThunderClan cats lurking.”

  He chose a tunnel that led upward from the far side of the cave. Light died away behind them, and the tunnel rapidly grew narrower, until he could feel his pelt brushing the walls on either side. Now and again they passed tunnels leading off to the side, but the air down there smelled musty, and there was never any doubt about which tunnel led out into the open.

  Crowfeather kept on tasting the air, but there was still no sign of Nightcloud. However, the ThunderClan scent grew stronger and stronger: not just the Clan scent that clung to any territory, but fresh and complex, the mingled scent of several cats.

  There are three or four different cats up there, he thought. They must be a patrol. I hope they’re just passing, and not meaning to explore the tunnels.

  “Don’t make a sound,” he warned Breezepelt in a low murmur.

  A green light grew ahead of them, and soon Crowfeather could see the end of the tunnel, covered by an overhanging growth of fern. He could make out the shapes of cats moving around just outside. Crowfeather halted, crouching down to the tunnel floor. Glancing back at Breezepelt, he raised his tail to remind him to be silent.