by Erin Hunter
What’s left of it, Mothwing thought, looking out across what had been ThunderClan’s camp. The huge yellow Twoleg monsters had dug deep gouges in the earth and slaughtered many trees, leaving shockingly bare patches. Beyond where she could see, she knew that Fourtrees was gone and the Great Rock had been torn from the earth.
Her fur brushed Hawkfrost’s, and she glanced at him to see him looking back at RiverClan’s camp, an expression of longing on his face. This had been the first place they had been safe. The place where a Clan had taken them in and taught them how to not be rogues. To depend on cats other than themselves. Wherever we go, I’ll never forget this home, she promised herself.
As they crossed through what remained of the forest, she spotted a flash of tawny fur between the trees. A moment later, Sasha slipped out and stood in the Clans’ path, her tail held high. Mothwing’s heart lifted for the first time since Mudfur had died. We couldn’t have left without saying good-bye, she realized. She raced toward Sasha and rubbed against her legs, rolling on the ground like a kit. Hawkfrost followed her more slowly and looked at Sasha, his ears twitching.
“I’m glad to see you,” he mewed quietly. “RiverClan is leaving, I don’t know if we’ll find each other again.”
Sasha’s blue eyes were troubled. “Don’t go with them,” she pleaded.
Mothwing stilled, then climbed to her paws to look their mother in the eye. “But this is our Clan,” she argued. “You brought us to them so we could become warriors.”
Sasha shook her head. “I brought you here so you’d be safe,” she protested. “It’s not safe now. I’ve seen what happened here. Come with me and we’ll be together again.”
Pain shot through Mothwing. She didn’t want to lose Sasha. But . . . she belonged in RiverClan.
Hawkfrost drew back. “I’m a RiverClan cat now,” he meowed. “One day I’ll be leader.”
Sasha’s bright eyes dimmed. “No,” she insisted. “You won’t.” Brushing past him, she padded toward the watching cats. Hawkfrost and Mothwing followed, Mothwing’s belly churning uneasily.
There was hostility in the eyes of the ShadowClan and ThunderClan cats, and several of them hissed softly as Sasha got closer. But Leopardstar dipped her head in greeting. “I didn’t think we’d see you again,” she meowed.
“Nor I you,” Sasha replied calmly. “I have come to ask Hawkfrost and Mothwing to leave RiverClan and come with me.” Leopardstar bristled, but Sasha went on. “I’ve seen what the Twolegs are doing to your homes. It is no longer safe for them to stay with you.”
Mothwing’s heart beat faster. Leopardstar wouldn’t just let them go, would she? But it was Leafpaw, her fellow medicine-cat apprentice, who pushed out of the crowd toward Mothwing, her gaze outraged. “You wouldn’t really go, would you?” she asked.
Mothwing blinked. Sasha had turned to face her, and she could see pain in her mother’s eyes. “I—I don’t know,” Mothwing mewed.
“Your Clan needs you,” Leafpaw hissed. She turned to Hawkfrost. “You wouldn’t abandon your Clanmates, would you?”
Hawkfrost’s eyes narrowed; he didn’t like being questioned by a ThunderClan cat. Before he could answer, Firestar spoke up, cutting off Leafpaw’s anger. “The choice is theirs. But I agree they should remain with their Clan.”
Sasha’s ears flattened, and Mothwing knew what she was going to say. “You want them to stay?” she snarled. “In spite of the fact that Tigerstar was their father?”
There was a moment of silence from the gathered cats. The RiverClan cats were staring at Mothwing and Hawkfrost, their eyes wide. All Mothwing could hear was the steady beat of the rain. She braced herself. Would the other cats rip them to pieces? Or just chase them out of the Clans?
Firestar answered, his voice calm. “I want them to stay because Tigerstar was their father,” he meowed, and Mothwing’s pelt prickled in surprise. Beside her, Hawkwing flexed his long claws, distrustful. “Tigerstar was a great warrior,” the ThunderClan leader went on, “and these cats have proved they have inherited his courage.”
He was looking at Brambleclaw, Mothwing realized, and remembered that the ThunderClan warrior, the cat every cat thought would be Firestar’s next deputy, was Tigerstar’s son too. And Tawnypelt, Tigerstar’s daughter, was a respected ShadowClan warrior. Of course, they were born in the Clans, she thought. Their mother was a ThunderClan cat. Things are different for them.
“Their Clan needs them more than ever,” Firestar continued. “Tigerstar’s kits have earned their place in the Clans many times over.”
Brambleclaw’s eyes were wide. Mothwing knew Firestar wasn’t talking about her and Hawkfrost, not really, but she warmed a little with hope—maybe the fact of their parentage wouldn’t turn the Clans against them after all. She looked up at the faces of her Clanmates, hoping for their approval.
Leopardstar held her gaze. “RiverClan needs all our warriors,” she meowed. “And we certainly need our medicine cat.”
“But they’re Tigerstar’s kits!” Dawnflower hissed. Her pale gray tail was bushed in horror. Mothwing lifted her chin and stared the she-cat down. I gave you catmint for your cough, she thought. When Minnowkit had an infected cut on her paw, I healed it.
“Hawkfrost is one of our best warriors,” Stormfur countered, the fur along his back bristling. He looked to the rest of RiverClan. “Have any of you ever doubted his loyalty?”
“Never,” Mistyfoot replied firmly, and other warriors nodded their agreement.
“Will you stay?” Leopardstar asked, looking at Mothwing and Hawkfrost.
“Of course,” Hawkfrost told her. He didn’t even look at Sasha.
Mothwing did. Tail drooping, rain plastering her fur to her sides, Sasha looked sad and utterly alone. “I have to stay with my Clan, too,” Mothwing explained. “I’m their medicine cat now. They need me.” She gazed at her mother pleadingly. Please understand. Forgive me.
Sasha nodded once, then lifted her tail high. “Very well,” she answered. “Firestar is right. I see your father in both of you.” Dawnflower growled, and Sasha glared at her sharply. “Tigerstar never knew about these kits,” she went on, “but he would have been proud of them.” She looked around at the rest of RiverClan. “You’re lucky to have them.” She turned and padded over to Mothwing and Hawkfrost.
Mothwing tensed. Was Sasha going to walk away without a word? Or would she give them some last bit of motherly wisdom? Sasha’s blue eyes met hers steadily, but she only brushed her pelt against them, first Mothwing, then Hawkfrost.
“I wish you well on your journey,” she told them, then padded away into the forest.
Mothwing stared after her, her mouth dry and her heart heavy. I’ll never see her again, she thought. We don’t even know where we’re going.
“Let’s go,” Firestar mewed quietly, and the Clans began to pad forward once more. Mothwing looked up at Hawkfrost, but he was staring straight ahead, his eyes narrowed.
“We made the right choice, didn’t we?” she asked.
He nodded. “RiverClan is our home.”
Hawkfrost was right. But Mothwing shivered, looking at the land stretching out in front of them. They were part of RiverClan, and she had to trust that they were going where they belonged.
Chapter 5
Mothwing curled up more tightly in her mossy nest, and pushed her nose between her paws, letting the sound of the stream nearby soothe her aching heart. Heavystep, who had become an elder at the end of their journey to the Clans’ new territory, had died yesterday. I wish I could have saved him.
Mothwing had known how to treat him. Greencough was a disease every medicine cat dreaded, because it could spread through a Clan as fast as a river overflowing its banks and was often fatal. If she had given Heavystep catmint in time, he would have recovered. She’d searched the territory around the lake. She’d gotten Leopardstar to send out patrols. But none of them had been able to find catmint. And Heavystep had suffered the consequences.
At least s
he had been able to stop the disease from spreading throughout RiverClan. At the first sign that Heavystep’s mild whitecough was developing into greencough, she had isolated him in the elders’ den. Not one other cat was showing symptoms.
But that didn’t make losing a cat she could have saved any easier.
Willowpaw, Mothwing’s new apprentice, hesitated at the entrance to the medicine den. “Should I . . .” She trailed off.
Mothwing sat up and twitched her ears at the small gray cat, trying to look reassuring. Willowpaw was just starting to learn the ways of a medicine cat. Mothwing had to guide her, no matter how she was feeling. “I’d like you to try to find some cobwebs for us,” she told the younger cat, as cheerfully as she could. “If we have them here in the den, we’ll be ready if any cat is injured. You don’t even have to leave camp—there are probably some webs between the reeds behind the warriors’ den.”
“Okay,” Willowpaw replied.
“After that, I’ll teach you some more herbs,” Mothwing told her, and the apprentice nodded eagerly.
“Yes, please,” she meowed. She started out of the den, then turned back. “It wasn’t your fault,” she added quietly. “I saw how hard you worked to save Heavystep.”
Startled, Mothwing hesitated, then dipped her head to Willowpaw. “Thank you,” she told her. I feel like it was my fault, though, she added silently as Willowpaw slipped out of the medicine den.
Willowpaw herself was another worry for Mothwing. The small gray apprentice was eager to help her Clanmates and quick to learn the herbs and techniques she would use to heal their illnesses and injuries. Mothwing was confident that she could train Willowpaw well in all of that.
But there was another part of being a medicine cat, one that Mothwing had failed at over and over again.
I can’t believe in StarClan. I just can’t.
She had tried. Mothwing had never seen StarClan in a dream, had never had a vision. But that didn’t mean StarClan didn’t exist. Hawkfrost had cheated the Clan into accepting Mothwing as a medicine cat; maybe StarClan didn’t want to share tongues with her.
The other medicine cats believed. They saw visions, they dreamed dreams where they spoke to the dead cats of their Clans, and they saw signs everywhere around them. Mothwing didn’t doubt their sincerity: it shone in every word they said. But it wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. When they dreamed their dreams, she thought that their minds must be remembering small things they hadn’t noticed, making connections they hadn’t thought of, then using memories of cats they had known to explain these things to themselves.
Mothwing couldn’t do it. And if she couldn’t teach Willowpaw to do it, her apprentice would never be a true medicine cat either.
Mothwing sighed, her tail drooping. She was a good medicine cat in a lot of ways—she knew she was. But lately, she felt like she was failing.
The grass and thorny vines that protected the medicine den rustled, and she looked up to see Hawkfrost pushing his way into the den.
“Oof.” He shook out his pelt. “Those thorns pull at my fur.”
“You’re almost too big to fit,” Mothwing meowed, eyeing her brother. Hawkfrost seemed to grow broader and more powerfully muscled every day. He had become the most formidable warrior in RiverClan. And right now, his gaze seemed too intent for this to be a casual visit. “What do you need?” she asked.
“I wanted to talk to you,” Hawkfrost told her. “As RiverClan’s medicine cat, not just my sister.”
Mothwing looked at him again. His fur was as thick and shiny as ever, but his eyes were tired, and there was a long scratch across his chest. “Are you feeling all right? Does that scratch need treating?”
“I’m fine.” Hawkfrost licked at the scratch quickly. “It’s nothing, just a scrape.”
“It looks like it was made by claws,” Mothwing meowed, worried. Surely, she would have heard if Hawkfrost had been fighting.
“Maybe I got it during battle practice,” Hawkfrost answered dismissively. He lowered his voice. “I’m worried about RiverClan, not about myself.”
“What’s wrong?” Prey was running well, and they’d had little conflict on their shared border with ShadowClan lately. “Have Twolegs been coming onto our territory?” Now that full greenleaf was here, Twolegs had been riding their strange water monsters across the lake, but they rarely came onto the reedy, muddy banks that surrounded RiverClan’s camp.
“It’s not Twolegs.” Hawkfrost tucked his tail more tightly around himself. “I don’t like Stormfur and Brook being here.”
“Stormfur and Brook?” Mothwing asked, puzzled. The dark gray tom had left RiverClan during their journey and joined the Tribe of Rushing Water in the mountains, but he—and his Tribe mate, Brook Where Small Fish Swim—had recently rejoined the Clan, with little explanation. “They’re fitting in, aren’t they? They hunt and patrol and all that? Every cat seems to like them.”
“Every cat likes them too much,” Hawkfrost growled. “I don’t trust them.”
“Stormfur was one of the cats who went to the sun-drown-place and found the way to our new territory,” Mothwing protested. The fur at the back of her neck was prickling uncomfortably. What was Hawkfrost getting at? “He’s always been a loyal warrior.”
“No, he hasn’t!” Hawkfrost jumped to his paws. “He left RiverClan. He’s a traitor!”
A traitor? Mothwing wondered dubiously. Stormfur had left the Clan, but it was because he had been in love. She didn’t think of him as a traitor. All of RiverClan had missed him.
“And Brook! She’s not even one of us. RiverClan’s just supposed to let her join?”
“They let us join,” Mothwing reminded him.
Hawkfrost glared at her. “That’s not the same thing. RiverClan took us as apprentices. We had to work to be accepted, and we’ve proved ourselves over and over again. Brook just walked in and she pretends to be a warrior! She can’t even fight!” The fur between his shoulders bristled with anger.
“Well, in the Tribe, she was a prey-hunter. She never had to fight,” Mothwing shot back, wishing her brother would be reasonable. “Why does it matter, anyway? If Leopardstar is okay with them being here, it’s her decision, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know why she lets them stay.” Hawkfrost began to pace, his tail slashing back and forth. “I don’t like it.”
“Why do you care?” Mothwing asked, puzzled. “Even if they are still loyal to the Tribe, they’re no danger to RiverClan. We can always use more hunters.”
Hawkfrost stopped pacing and stared at her, his ice-pale blue eyes narrowing. “Leopardstar is the oldest Clan leader now,” he meowed. “Before many seasons pass, Mistyfoot will become RiverClan’s leader.”
“Leopardstar is perfectly healthy,” Mothwing replied defensively. She didn’t like to think about Leopardstar dying, even though she knew their leader was getting old.
“I want to be RiverClan’s next deputy,” Hawkfrost told her flatly. “I deserve to be. I’m the strongest warrior in the Clan, and I’ve always been loyal.”
“You’re the clear choice to be deputy,” Mothwing agreed. “Leopardstar already made you temporary deputy once, when Mistyfoot was missing.”
“Yes, but Mistyfoot likes Stormfur better than me!” Hawkfrost hissed. “I don’t know who she’d choose.”
Mothwing cocked her head, considering. “Do you really think she’d choose Stormfur? You’re right about one thing—he did leave the Clan.”
Hawkfrost’s ears twitched. “Maybe she wouldn’t choose him now, but in a few moons? When the Clan’s memory of his desertion isn’t so fresh? Tigerstar kept both Mistyfoot and Stormfur as prisoners because they were half-Clan cats. He planned to kill them! Don’t you think when Mistyfoot becomes leader, she would prefer Stormfur as her deputy, instead of Tigerstar’s son?”
Mothwing blinked at him. “Mistyfoot’s always accepted us. I’m sure she wouldn’t hold what Tigerstar did against you.”
“I can’t take that chance.�
�� Hawkwing’s eyes narrowed.
“What do you mean?” Mothwing asked. The prickle of unease was getting stronger. Hawkwing had gotten angrier, colder, since they’d traveled to the lake. He’d always wanted to be the best of the RiverClan warriors, but now he seemed to resent any cat who might have an advantage over him.
“I can’t risk Mistyfoot choosing Stormfur,” Hawkfrost explained. “And I can’t do anything about it, but you can.”
“I can?” Mothwing replied. “It doesn’t have anything to do with me.”
“You’re the medicine cat,” Hawkfrost told her. “If you told Leopardstar and Mistyfoot that Stormfur and Brook don’t belong in RiverClan, they’d have to listen to you.”
“Why should I say that?” Mothwing felt her eyes stretch wide. “They’re doing well here.”
Hawkfrost glanced back over his shoulder, then stepped closer, until his breath was hot on her cheek. “Don’t you agree I’d be a good deputy?” he asked softly. “Don’t you want to help me? After all we’ve done for RiverClan, we deserve to lead it. No cat respects the warrior code and what being part of a Clan means more than we do.”
Mothwing swallowed. Would Hawkfrost be a good leader? I’m not sure. Before they’d come to the lake, she would have said yes. But lately he’d been restless, and she wasn’t sure she liked the brooding look in his eyes. She’d seen the same look in the eyes of their ThunderClan half brother, Brambleclaw. The two toms were more alike than she’d thought.
“I can’t just tell Leopardstar to get rid of Stormfur,” she argued. “Not without a reason.”
“Have a reason, then,” Hawkfrost answered, even more quietly. “Tell her you had a vision.” His tail was sweeping slowly back and forth, as if he scented prey.
Mothwing gasped. “I can’t!” she protested. “I couldn’t lie about that. Being a medicine cat means I have to be trustworthy.” She willed her brother to understand. “The way that it happened—that you tricked Mudfur into thinking he’d gotten a sign about me from StarClan—I’ve always been ashamed of that. I’ve been afraid of any cat finding out I’m not a proper medicine cat. It’s like heavy paws pushing me down sometimes, knowing that the whole Clan would turn on me if they knew. I can’t lie again. Being a medicine cat is the most important thing in my life.”