Long Shadows

by Erin Hunter

  “But our destiny has nothing to do with the warrior code,” Lionblaze argued with a glance over his shoulder to make sure no cat was listening.

  Hollyleaf snorted. “Sol is a dangerous cat. If he turns up again, you should stay away from him. Our destiny will come, whatever we do or don’t do. Isn’t that the point of a prophecy?”

  Lionblaze looked away. He didn’t protest anymore, but as Hollyleaf padded over to the warriors’ den, she wasn’t sure she’d managed to convince him.

  Hollyleaf stood on a steep bank overlooking the lake, and tasted the air for signs of prey. Behind her, Dustpelt and Sorreltail, the other members of the hunting patrol, were stalking through the undergrowth. A cool breeze was blowing the leaves from the trees; they whirled past Hollyleaf, fluttering scraps of scarlet and gold. Though the sun was up, the ground underpaw still crackled with frost.

  Hollyleaf’s ears flicked up as she caught a trace of vole on the wind. Heartbeats later she spotted a good plump one, under a root halfway down the slope that led to the lake. She dropped into the hunter’s crouch and glided toward it, trying to keep her paw steps as light as a falling leaf.

  She was sure that she hadn’t made a sound, but before she had covered half the distance, something spooked the vole and it scurried down the bank toward the lake. Mouse dung! Hollyleaf sprang after it, but when she reached the pebbly shore her prey had vanished.

  Furious, she began sniffing at the holes in the bank; there was a strong scent of vole, but no way of getting at it.

  “Hello, Hollyleaf.”

  Hollyleaf froze at the sound of the quiet voice. She spun around to see Sol sitting on the pebbles with his tail wrapped neatly over his paws. His white pelt with its black, brown, and ginger patches was sleek and well groomed, and his pale yellow eyes gleamed.

  “What are you doing here?” Hollyleaf demanded. She could feel every hair on her pelt bristling, her tail fluffing out to twice its size, and her belly churning with her distrust of this powerful cat. “I thought you’d gone.”

  Fury flashed in the loner’s eyes, and his claws dug into the ground. Yet a heartbeat later he was cool and controlled again, so that Hollyleaf almost believed she had imagined the anger he had betrayed.

  “I left ShadowClan, but I cannot leave the lake yet,” Sol meowed calmly. Hollyleaf had never met a cat, not even Firestar, who sounded so sure of himself. “The Clans need me. They just haven’t realized it yet. You need me, Hollyleaf.”

  Hollyleaf swallowed, realizing that she was in danger of falling under the power of Sol’s voice once again. “You’re wrong,” she insisted. “I don’t need you, and neither do Lionblaze and Jaypaw.”

  “Are you sure of that?” Sol’s amber gaze was fixed on her; for a heartbeat Hollyleaf felt like a piece of cowering prey, transfixed under a warrior’s claws.

  “Quite sure.” She forced herself to sound certain. “We’ll achieve our destiny without your help, because the warrior code will set our paws in the right direction.”

  She braced herself for Sol to argue, but the loner only dipped his head a little, acknowledging what she said. He rose to his paws and turned away without another word.

  Hollyleaf stood watching him, determined to make sure that he left ThunderClan territory. Before he had gone more than a couple of tail-lengths, Sol glanced back over one shoulder.

  “Are you sure you have found the three?”

  “What do you mean?” Hollyleaf took a pace toward him, her vision blurring with anger. “Lionblaze, Jaypaw, and I are the three. We’re kin of Firestar’s kin, and there are three of us. And Jaypaw knows things that no other cat does.”

  “But Jaypaw didn’t know about the vanishing sun.” Sol’s voice echoed around Hollyleaf, but when she focused her gaze again he was already far away, padding along the shore of the lake in the direction of WindClan territory.

  “Good riddance,” she whispered, but her pelt still quivered and in her heart she knew that she had not seen the last of Sol.

  Hollyleaf managed to track down another vole and carried it back to where the hunting patrol was gathering, ready to return to camp. She was determined not to say anything about meeting Sol, and she hoped no other cat had seen him; the sooner her Clanmates forgot about him, the better.

  Dustpelt, who was leading the patrol, was scraping the earth off their cache of fresh-kill when Hollyleaf padded up. “The Clan will eat well today,” he meowed. “Let’s go.”

  There was a rasp in his voice, and he ended with a cough. Hollyleaf gazed at him in dismay. There was a feverish glitter in the tabby warrior’s eyes; it sounded as though he had been coughing for some time.

  “You should see Leafpool as soon as you get back,” Sorreltail told him.

  “I’m fine,” Dustpelt retorted, with another painful cough.

  “You are not fine, and you will see Leafpool,” Sorreltail flashed back at him. Dustpelt had been her mentor for a while, when Sandstorm was away journeying with Firestar; Hollyleaf knew she wasn’t as apprehensive of the short-tempered warrior as many of the other ThunderClan cats.

  “All right, no need to be so bossy,” Dustpelt grumbled, grabbing up a squirrel and stalking through the undergrowth toward the camp.

  Hollyleaf exchanged an anxious glance with Sorreltail as the two she-cats followed.

  Back in the stone hollow, she dropped her prey on the fresh-kill pile and bounded across to Leafpool’s den to tell her about Dustpelt. She wouldn’t put it past the tabby warrior to conveniently forget that he should visit the medicine cat.

  “Don’t come in!” Leafpool’s voice came urgently from behind the brambles. A moment later she appeared, the scent of herbs clinging to her pelt. “Oh, it’s you, Hollyleaf. What can I do for you?”

  “Nothing for me,” Hollyleaf replied, worried to see how tired the medicine cat was looking. “But I was out hunting with Dustpelt, and I heard him coughing. I thought you should know.”

  “Oh, no—not another cat!” Leafpool’s eyes stretched wide with anxiety. “Longtail started coughing last night, and Daisy and Honeyfern this morning, and Rosekit is feverish.”

  Fear gripped deep in Hollyleaf’s belly, not just because of the bad news, but because she had never seen Leafpool this distraught. “Are we all going to get sick, one by one?”

  “I don’t know.” Leafpool shook her head. “I’m doing all I can, but what if it isn’t enough?”

  Hollyleaf couldn’t remember ever seeing Leafpool so full of doubt, so frightened for her Clanmates. She pressed her muzzle into the fur on the medicine cat’s shoulder. “You’re a great medicine cat, Leafpool. I know every cat will be fine with you to take care of them.”

  “It means a lot to me, hearing you say that.” Leafpool’s amber gaze was fixed on Hollyleaf. “I just wish it was true.” She straightened up and gave her pelt a little shake. “Go and get something to eat. You need to keep your strength up, or you’ll get sick, too.”

  Hollyleaf dipped her head. “Okay.”

  As she returned to the fresh-kill pile, she felt confidence gradually filling her up like rain in an upturned leaf. Sol had gone; she had watched him leave, and she had made it clear that he wouldn’t be welcome in ThunderClan. ShadowClan was keeping the warrior code once more, and looking for guidance from the spirits of their warrior ancestors. As for the sickness—it was bad, but Leafpool would cure it.

  Crouching down to take the first bite of her vole, Hollyleaf felt some of her old excitement about the prophecy coming back.

  I’m ready, StarClan! Just tell me what I have to do!

  CHAPTER 11

  Jaypaw let out a sneeze as dust from the dried herbs got up his nose. Squeezing himself even farther into the storage cleft in the medicine cats’ den, he stretched out a paw and scrabbled at a few brittle stems that lay right at the back. The faint scent that lingered told him they were coltsfoot, collected the previous newleaf.

  “Jaypaw!”

  The apprentice started at the sound of Leafpool’s voic
e and bumped his head on the roof of the cleft. “Mouse dung!” he muttered, wriggling out backward with the dried coltsfoot leaves in his claws.

  “What have you managed to find?” Leafpool asked.

  “Coltsfoot, and a few juniper berries,” Jaypaw reported, dropping the stems at Leafpool’s paws.

  “So little…” Leafpool murmured.

  Jaypaw could hear her sorting through the pitiful collection. “Better than nothing,” he mewed, trying to sound optimistic.

  “But it’s not enough. Jaypaw, we’re losing the battle.”

  Every hair on Jaypaw’s pelt prickled and he dug his claws into the packed earthen floor. “We can’t be!”

  “We are.” Leafpool let out a despairing sigh. “There isn’t enough room to separate the sick cats from the rest of the Clan, and we can’t treat greencough without catmint.”

  “I’ve been looking after the catmint plants at the old Twoleg nest,” Jaypaw meowed. “Shall I go and see if there are any new shoots?”

  “No, there can’t possibly be enough.” Jaypaw felt his mentor’s hopelessness as if it were his own. “Besides, we need to let that supply grow for next season.”

  “Then what are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know. Things will only get worse as the weather gets colder. Cats will get weaker as prey runs short. And if more cats get sick, there won’t be enough warriors left to hunt for the Clan.”

  Jaypaw lifted his chin. “Then we need to find more catmint.”

  “There is no more,” Leafpool insisted. “I know of one patch, just outside the RiverClan border, by a Twoleg nest, but I can’t leave the Clan long enough to fetch it, and—”

  She broke off, but Jaypaw knew well enough what she had meant to say. You can’t go because you’re blind. He sensed Leafpool watching him in despair, and felt the strength of her desire that he could see. Briefly he struggled with a surge of bitterness. Because then I’d be more useful, right?

  “No, Jaypaw.” Leafpool answered his unspoken resentment. “It’s not because you’re blind that you can’t go. If that was the problem, I could send you with a warrior.”

  “Then why don’t you?”

  Leafpool sighed. “Because you would need to cross ShadowClan territory, and go along the RiverClan border to get to the place. There has been too much fighting recently. We can’t risk you and a warrior when so many cats are sick. What if another Clan attacked us? We need all the paws we’ve got, here in our own territory.”

  “Then what about asking the other medicine cats?” Jaypaw suggested. “If they’ve got catmint, they’d give us some.”

  “Yes, they would.” Leafpool’s voice grew sharper, as if she was annoyed by his insistence. “But I can’t ask without the other Clans finding out how weak we are. Firestar would have my pelt if he found out I’d done that.”

  Reluctantly Jaypaw had to admit she was right. “So what can I do to help?” he asked.

  “I’ve sent Millie and Briarkit out for some fresh air and sun.” Leafpool sounded relieved to turn to something more practical. “They’re in that space between here and the warriors’ den. It’s sheltered there, and they should be far enough away from the other cats to stop the cough from spreading. Could you take out their old bedding, and bring in some fresh?”

  “Sure.” Jaypaw padded to the side of the den and started scraping up the used moss and bracken, collecting it into a ball.

  “Make sure you take it a long way from camp,” Leafpool reminded him. “And when you’ve finished, you can fetch Millie and Briarkit back in, before they get too tired and cold.”

  Jaypaw rolled the ball of soiled bedding out through the thorn barrier, and dumped it several fox-lengths away from the hollow. Nearby he found more moss growing thickly around the roots of a tree. To his relief, it had dried out since the heavy rain of a few days before. Tearing off some fronds of bracken, he bundled the whole lot together and staggered with it back into camp.

  When he went to fetch the sick cats, he found Millie lying stretched out in a sunny spot beside the wall of the stone hollow. Her breath rasped in her throat and when he rested a paw on her chest, Jaypaw could feel it heaving rapidly up and down. Briarkit pushed up beside him, nudging at her mother. “I want to play,” she whimpered. She had to catch her breath as she spoke, and Jaypaw could feel her legs wobbling. “Be a mouse, and I’ll catch you!”

  Millie let out a weary sigh, and Briarkit’s pleading ended in a cough.

  “Come on,” Jaypaw meowed, trying to sound cheerful. “I’ve put down some fresh bedding for you. You’ll be able to have a really good sleep.”

  “Don’t want to sleep!” Briarkit protested.

  “Yes, you do,” Jaypaw informed her. “Sleeping will make you feel better.”

  He slipped his shoulder under Millie’s as she struggled to her paws; her chest wheezed with the effort and her coughs were weak, as if her strength was ebbing fast. Jaypaw’s belly twisted with frustration. The prophecy said he had the power of the stars in his paws, but what good was that if he had to witness the cats in his care die?

  He helped Millie back into her nest, with Briarkit getting under his paws until he shooed her into the moss beside her mother. He straightened up and headed back to the cleft, wondering if he could have possibly missed any stores of herbs.

  Suddenly his eyes filled with dazzling sunlight, so bright that he flinched and bent his head, trying to shut out the rays. When his vision cleared, he looked up again, blinking. He was standing in a glade, thick with rustling leaves. The warm air was heavy with the scent of growing herbs.

  Is there catmint here? That was the first thought that jumped into his head.

  As he tasted the air, the smell of cats flooded over him, drowning the scents of the herbs. Starlight glimmered in the undergrowth under the trees, and warriors of StarClan began to emerge into the clearing. Jaypaw recognized Bluestar, her tail twitching with anxiety; she glanced back at the muscular figure of Whitestorm, who followed her into the open.

  “They are coming,” the old ThunderClan leader whispered. “So many of them…”

  “Maybe not,” Whitestorm meowed reassuringly. “ThunderClan couldn’t have better medicine cats.”

  Jaypaw heard a disgusted snort as yet another starry cat pushed her way through the ferns: Yellowfang with her ragged gray pelt and burning amber eyes. “Are you mouse-brained, Whitestorm? What can medicine cats do if there aren’t any healing herbs?”

  “Is there no way we can guide them?” A soft mew announced the arrival of Spottedleaf, her tail waving gracefully as she padded out into the open. “No way to help?”

  “You tell me,” Yellowfang snapped. “There’s no more catmint on ThunderClan territory, and that’s that. I’d give them my pelt if I could, but what use would that be?”

  “Will sickness destroy my Clan?” Bluestar wailed, her claws working furiously, tearing up clumps of grass.

  One last cat slipped into the clearing: the silver tabby whom Jaypaw had seen in Graystripe’s memory, her lifeblood gushing out onto stones as she gave birth to a pair of tiny kits.

  “Millie is close to joining us,” she murmured. “What can we do? Graystripe doesn’t deserve to have his heart broken again.”

  None of the other StarClan cats could answer her. They began to circle distractedly, their pelts quivering with distress. None of them seemed to have noticed Jaypaw.

  Why am I here? he wondered. If there’s nothing useful in this vision, I’ve got sick cats to look after.

  A cool breeze swept over the clearing, ruffling the moon-colored fur of the restless cats. Starlight gleamed again in the shadows under the trees, and three more cats padded into the open. The first was a young she-cat—barely old enough to be a warrior—her silver tabby pelt glimmering with a pale light.

  The second cat was older, a silver tabby so like the first that Jaypaw guessed she was her mother, while the third was a broad-shouldered tabby tom.

  “Brightspirit.” Bluestar di
pped her head respectfully to the young she-cat. “It has been a long time.”

  “Shiningheart. Braveheart,” Whitestorm greeted the two older cats. “Your presence honors us.”

  Jaypaw stared at the three newcomers. Where had these cats come from? He had never seen them before, or heard their names in any of the Clans. Their scent was different too—faintly of StarClan, and of something else carried on wind and in starlight. He sensed that they had traveled a long distance. Is this why I’m here? To meet these cats?

  The two older cats remained at the edge of the trees, their tails twined together, but Brightspirit bounded across the clearing and halted in front of Jaypaw. Her green eyes glowed with love and sympathy and her sweet scent wreathed around him.

  “Greetings, Jaypaw,” she mewed. “You are troubled.”

  Jaypaw crouched to the ground. This was no ordinary StarClan cat; he couldn’t imagine telling this cat she was merely a Clan cat in a different place. Something about her, the way she tipped her head to one side and studied him as if they were the only cats in the clearing, made him spill out the truth. “ThunderClan cats are dying. I don’t know what to do.”

  Brightspirit stretched out her neck and rested her muzzle against her ear, warming him with her breath.

  “Seek for the wind,” she whispered. “The wind holds what you seek.”

  Jaypaw took a step back and stared at her. “What do you mean? I don’t understand.”

  With a hiss, darkness slammed down over his eyes as if night had suddenly fallen, and he found himself surrounded by the scents of stale herbs and sick cats once more. He bit back a yowl of frustration.

  She was going to tell me something!

  For a few heartbeats he could still make out Brightspirit’s scent, and a distant echo of her voice. “Seek for the wind. And may StarClan light your path.” Then she was gone.

  “Come on, Millie.” Leafpool’s voice sounded close by him. “Lie down here. Jaypaw fetched fresh bedding for you.”