SkyClan's Destiny

by Erin Hunter

  The three young cats rose to their paws and padded forward, eyes sparkling and whiskers twitching with anticipation. Clovertail gave Rockpaw a final lick as he passed her, though a tuft of black fur still stood straight up on his head, while one of Bouncepaw’s ears was folded back on itself. His littermate Tinypaw gave it a quick flick with her tail to turn it right side out.

  Their three mentors also rose and stood together a couple of tail-lengths away. Leafstar looked down at them, the solemnity of the moment surging over her like a wave. She knew that even if she led her Clan for season after season, she would never fail to feel the wonder of presenting new cats to StarClan. Besides, these three cats were special: the first warriors of SkyClan who had been born in the gorge.

  “Patchfoot,” Leafstar began, “has your apprentice, Bouncepaw, learned the skills of a warrior? Has he studied the warrior code and understood what it means to every cat?”

  The black-and-white tom glanced proudly at his apprentice as he replied, “Yes, Leafstar.”

  “And so has Rockpaw,” Cherrytail added.

  Leafstar dipped her head in acknowledgment; she wished Cherrytail had waited to be questioned in her turn, but Rockpaw’s mentor looked almost as excited as her apprentice, and there was no point in scolding her.

  “Sparrowpelt,” Leafstar went on, “are you satisfied that your apprentice, Tinypaw, has learned the skills of a warrior and the importance of the warrior code?”

  “Yes, Leafstar,” Sparrowpelt replied. “She is ready to become a warrior.”

  With a purr of satisfaction, Leafstar leaped down from the Rockpile and stood in front of the three young cats. Their eyes stretched even wider as their leader raised her head and addressed StarClan.

  “I, Leafstar, leader of SkyClan, call upon my warrior ancestors to look down on these three apprentices. They have trained hard to understand the ways of your noble code, and I commend them to you as warriors in their turn.”

  A shiver went through Leafstar as she remembered the ranks of starry cats who had stood around her when she received her nine lives and her name. Are they watching me now? Will they protect these young warriors until it’s their turn to walk among the stars?

  “Bouncepaw, Tinypaw, Rockpaw,” Leafstar went on, “do you promise to uphold the warrior code and protect and defend this Clan, even at the cost of your lives?”

  Bouncepaw gave a huge gulp and replied, “I do.”

  “I do.” Rockpaw’s voice rang out clearly.

  Tinypaw blinked; her eyes were deep blue pools as she too replied, “I do.”

  “Then by the powers of StarClan I give you your warrior names. Bouncepaw, from this moment you will be known as Bouncefire. StarClan honors your energy and your loyalty, and we welcome you as a full member of SkyClan.”

  Leafstar rested her muzzle on the top of Bouncefire’s head, and the young ginger tom licked her shoulder. Then he took a couple of paces back to stand with the other warriors.

  “Rockpaw,” Leafstar went on, “from this moment you will be known as Rockshade. StarClan honors your courage and your strength, and we welcome you as a full member of SkyClan.”

  The black tom closed his eyes briefly as Leafstar rested her muzzle on his head, then licked her shoulder and withdrew to stand beside his brother. Tinypaw was left alone in front of her Clan leader; Leafstar could see that the little white she-cat was quivering with anticipation.

  “Tinypaw,” she meowed, “from this moment you will be known as Tinycloud. StarClan honors your intelligence and enthusiasm, and we welcome you as a full member of SkyClan.” She rested her muzzle on Tinycloud’s head and felt the rasp of her tongue before she moved away to join her littermates.

  “Bouncefire! Rockshade! Tinycloud!” The whole Clan raised their voices to welcome the three new warriors. Leafstar looked on proudly as her Clanmates crowded around to offer congratulations.

  “Tinycloud!” The white she-cat’s voice rose indignantly above the rest. “I’m not tiny anymore. I thought I’d be big enough to have a different name.”

  A murmur of amusement ran through the cats around her. Clovertail padded up to her and gave her a comforting lick on her ear. “You’ll always be tiny to me,” she purred.

  Leafstar could see that the small white cat still wasn’t convinced; Bouncefire and Rockshade both looked thrilled with their new names, but there was a shadow of hurt in their sister’s eyes.

  The Clan leader slipped through the crowd of cats until she stood in front of Tinycloud. “Your name may be tiny but your spirit is not,” she murmured. “One day the name of Tinycloud will be honored by your Clanmates, and all the Clanmates to come.”

  Tinycloud stared at her. “Do you really think so?”

  Leafstar nodded. “It’s up to you to do great things that will be remembered forever. Your name has nothing to do with what you choose to do.”

  “I’ll do my best to be a great warrior,” she promised earnestly.

  Leafstar touched Tinycloud’s shoulder with the tip of her muzzle. “I know you will.”

  While she was still speaking, Waspwhisker’s four kits bundled past and crowded around their mother, Fallowfern.

  “We want to be apprentices!” Nettlekit announced.

  Fallowfern stroked him gently with her tail. “One day you will be,” she promised. “But not yet. You’re too young.”

  “No, we’re not!” Nettlekit’s sister, Plumkit, pushed forward to face her mother. “We’re three whole moons old!”

  “But to be an apprentice you have to be six moons,” her mother reminded her.

  Plumkit’s eyes clouded with dismay.

  “But that’s forever!” her brother Rabbitkit wailed. “We don’t want to wait that long.”

  “That’s right,” the fourth kit, Creekkit, added. “We want to learn how to be warriors now!”

  Fallowfern gazed at Leafstar over the heads of her kits. Her eyes were half-amused, half-helpless. “What do I do with them?” she asked.

  Leafstar twitched her whiskers. “They’ll be apprenticed soon enough,” she mewed. “Then their mentors will have to deal with them.”

  Fallowfern heaved a long sigh. “I can’t wait!” But Leafstar saw that her gaze was full of affection as she watched the wriggling kits.

  Nettlekit popped his head up. “Plumkit pushed me in the river!” he complained. “I was all wet for the ceremony.”

  “Did not!” Plumkit protested. “You were showing off and you fell in.”

  “That’s enough,” Fallowfern mewed sharply. “Nettlekit, Plumkit, I don’t want to hear another squeak from either of you.”

  Plumkit glared at her brother. “Clovertail, he says I pushed him!” she wailed, padding up to the light brown she-cat. “And I didn’t! He was just showing off. He should know he can’t do that fighting move yet.”

  “I know.” Clovertail bent her head to lick the dark gray kit’s ear. “Accidents happen. And there was no harm done. Nettlekit is fine.”

  Leafstar was impressed by Clovertail’s soothing words. She remembered what the she-cat had been like when she first joined SkyClan—lazy, spoiled, and selfish, and interested in Clan life only for the protection it offered herself and her kits. But since then she had become like a mother to all the cats, always ready with comfort and advice. She would never be a great hunter or fighter, but she kept the nursery clean and well ordered.

  And I don’t know how Fallowfern would manage without her, looking after that rowdy lot!

  “Come on,” Clovertail urged, gathering the four kits together with her tail. “Let’s go back to the nursery, and I’ll tell you all about the time Firestar came to the gorge.”

  “Yes!” Creekkit exclaimed, his eyes gleaming. “That’s the best story!”

  As Clovertail and the kits headed up the trail, Leafstar gazed proudly at her Clan. Sharpclaw was sitting in a patch of sunlight, grooming his dark ginger fur with long, smooth strokes of his tongue. The three new warriors were bunched together in an excited hud
dle, while their former mentors chose prey from the fresh-kill pile and settled down to eat it.

  Petalnose waved her tail at Waspwhisker. “Come on, let’s give our apprentices some battle practice.”

  “Great!” Sagepaw yowled, and raced off up the gorge. His sister, Mintpaw, took off after him in a whirl of dust, followed more slowly by the two mentors.

  Leafstar let out a sigh of pride and satisfaction. Her Clan had survived the long leaf-bare, and the battle with the rats was fading from memory.

  But we’ll never forget Rainfur. The gray tom, Sagepaw and Mintpaw’s father, had fought valiantly on behalf of the Clan he had belonged to for such a short time. He would always be remembered as the first warrior to give his life for the newly restored SkyClan.

  And now SkyClan is strong in the gorge, thanks to Firestar and Sandstorm.

  Leafstar’s thoughts drifted back through countless seasons, to the Clan who had lived there before and left their claw marks in the warriors’ den. She wished so often that she could know more about them. The last remnant of that long-ago Clan was Skywatcher, the old gray tom who had been nicknamed Moony, ridiculed and called mad by the cats who were now Leafstar’s loyal warriors. He had nurtured the memory of SkyClan like a tiny flame, until Firestar came to fan it into brilliant, blazing life. Leafstar raised her head to gaze at the Skyrock, where the Clan gathered at the full moon. There are so many of us now that some cats have to sit on the main part of the cliff. She caught her breath as she made out a faint gray shape against the drifting white clouds.

  Skywatcher!

  Warmth filled the Clan leader as she realized that the old cat had come back to see the ceremony for the first warriors who were born in the gorge. She raised her tail in greeting, hoping that all the SkyClan ancestors were looking down from StarClan, and were proud of their descendants, and those who had decided to become Clan cats.

  “We will honor you always,” she murmured, her gaze still fixed on Skywatcher’s faint outline. “And we will do everything we can to keep your Clan alive.”

  CHAPTER 2

  “Invasion! Invasion!”

  Leafstar spun around at the panic-stricken yowl, her claws sliding out as she prepared to defend herself and her Clan. Sharpclaw and the warriors around the fresh-kill pile sprang to their paws, their fur bristling. A few tail-lengths farther down the river, Shrewtooth stood stiff-legged on a rock, his eyes wide with horror as he gazed upward. His mouth hung open from where he had just screeched a warning; now he looked too frightened to say anything.

  Three cats had appeared over the lip of the gorge and were trotting down the trail. The leader was a black she-cat, closely followed by a ginger-and-white tom and a younger tom with a black-and-white pelt.

  “That’s Ebonyclaw, Billystorm, and Snookpaw,” Cherrytail meowed. “Why is that mouse-brained tom making such a fuss?”

  “He nearly made me jump out of my fur,” Sparrowpelt grumbled.

  Leafstar relaxed with a sigh. “Shrewtooth, it’s okay. It’s just the daylight-warriors!”

  The jumpy black tom stared at her, then flicked his gaze back toward the cats who were rapidly making their way down the rocks. At last he seemed to recognize the newcomers. “Sorry,” he muttered, ducking his head to Leafstar. “The sun was in my eyes. I got confused.”

  “He’s permanently confused, if you ask me,” Cherrytail muttered.

  Sharpclaw let out a hiss of annoyance and went back to grooming his pelt. He seemed to be ignoring the approaching cats, though Leafstar spotted the tip of his tail twitching back and forth. She opened her jaws to speak and then thought better of it. Instead, she padded over to the bottom of the cliff to welcome the newcomers as they leaped down the last couple of tail-lengths.

  “Hi, Leafstar,” the black she-cat meowed. “Are we in time for the ceremony?”

  Leafstar shook her head. “I’m sorry, Ebonyclaw. We held it at sunhigh.”

  “Oh, no!” The young tom’s voice rose in a wail. “We missed it! I’ve been looking forward to it for nearly a moon.”

  “We called for Harveymoon and Frecklepaw,” Ebonyclaw explained. “But they were shut in.” She shrugged. “I guess we waited too long.”

  Leafstar didn’t turn to look, but she could feel Sharpclaw’s gaze boring into her back like a fox’s fangs. She knew he didn’t approve of allowing kittypets to join the Clan and go back to their Twoleg nests at night. But she wasn’t about to start that argument again. SkyClan needed the daylight-warriors.

  They help us keep the fresh-kill pile well stocked. And the Clan is still small; we can’t afford to turn any cat away.

  “Never mind, Snookpaw,” Ebonyclaw went on. “There’ll be other ceremonies.”

  “But I wanted to see this one.” Snookpaw padded over to the three new warriors. His eyes shone with admiration as he spoke to Bouncefire. “I wanted to be the first to call you by your warrior name. And now I don’t even know what it is!”

  “It’s Bouncefire,” the young warrior told him, seeming to swell with pride.

  “That’s a great name!”

  “And we’re Tinycloud and Rockshade,” Tinycloud added.

  Leafstar stifled a mrrow of amusement when Snookpaw completely ignored the young white warrior.

  “I bet you’re the best warrior in the Clan,” he went on to Bouncefire. “I wish you could be my mentor.”

  “Hey!” The ginger-and-white tom strolled over to the younger cats and gave Snookpaw’s shoulder a friendly shove. “What’s wrong with the mentor you’ve got?”

  “Sorry, Billystorm.” Snookpaw gave his chest fur a couple of embarrassed licks. “You’re a great mentor, too.”

  Before Billystorm could reply, excited squeals broke out from farther up the cliff, as Nettlekit, Plumkit, Creekkit, and Rabbitkit scrambled out of the nursery and headed down the trail, slipping and tumbling over their own paws in their haste.

  “StarClan must be looking after those kits,” Ebonyclaw commented, “or they would have broken their necks long ago.”

  “Billystorm!” Rabbitkit mewed as he plopped down from the top of the last rock and scrambled over to the ginger-and-white tom. “Watch us do the moves you taught us yesterday!”

  “I’m the best fighter!” Nettlekit boasted.

  “No, I am!” Plumkit gave her brother a shove.

  “They’re too young to be taught fighting moves,” Fallowfern meowed, her neck fur beginning to bristle. “Nettlekit nearly drowned today when they were play fighting.”

  “That’s right.” Patchfoot padded over to stand beside the pale brown she-cat. “You shouldn’t encourage them, Billystorm. Half the time you’re not even here. You don’t see the trouble that they get into.”

  Billystorm dipped his head politely to the kits’ mother. “I’m sorry if there was an accident, Fallowfern. But hawks and foxes won’t stay away from them just because they’re young. They may as well know some defensive moves.”

  “What would you know about hawks and foxes, kittypet?” Cherrytail hissed from the other side of the fresh-kill pile.

  Leafstar wasn’t sure if Billystorm had heard; he gave no sign of it. But she thought it was time to step in. The full Clan cats and the daylight-warriors have to get on together. A divided Clan cannot survive.

  “We can’t blame Billystorm for Nettlekit’s accident,” she meowed, padding up to stand beside the group of cats. “Kits play all the time, and they don’t watch where they’re putting their paws. If they’re not play fighting, they’re pretending to stalk like foxes or fly like owls. I hope you’ll all be more careful from now on,” she finished, gazing down at Nettlekit and his littermates.

  Nettlekit nodded vigorously, his eyes stretched wide at being addressed by his Clan leader.

  “And can Billystorm keep teaching us?” Plumkit begged.

  “If he wants to,” Leafstar agreed. “And provided your mother says yes.”

  All four kits hurled themselves at Fallowfern, who staggered under the impact.

/>   “Please!”

  “We’ll stay away from the river!”

  “We promise.”

  “Well…” Fallowfern still looked reluctant. “I suppose so.…”

  Squeaks of delight came from the kits. They immediately started wrestling, pummeling one another with soft paws.

  “Billystorm, look at me!”

  “No, watch me! I’m going to bite Rabbitkit’s throat out!”

  “That’s enough for now,” Leafstar mewed. Spotting Sharpclaw padding up to her, she added, “It’s time to set the patrols.”

  Sharpclaw gave her a curt nod. “I’ll lead a patrol to check the borders on this side of the gorge. Cherrytail and Patchfoot, you can come with me. Sparrowpelt, you can lead a border patrol on the other side; take Bouncefire and … yes, Ebonyclaw, since your apprentice isn’t here today, you might as well go with them.”

  Leafstar’s whiskers twitched; there was a definite edge to her deputy’s words when he spoke to the daylight-warrior, as if he didn’t think she was much use to the Clan.

  He might think that, Leafstar thought. But that’s just his opinion. He doesn’t have to be so obvious about it.

  Ebonyclaw had understood the barb in Sharpclaw’s comment, Leafstar could see, but she just dipped her head politely to the deputy, and went to stand beside Sparrowpelt and Bouncefire.

  “What about me and Tinycloud?” Rockshade asked, his eyes shining. “We want to do our first patrol as warriors.”

  “I haven’t forgotten you,” Sharpclaw meowed, sounding much more friendly as he addressed the gorge-born cats. “We need more fresh-kill.… Try the woods farther downriver. Shrewtooth, you can go with him.”

  The black tom gave a nervous jump. “Right, Sharpclaw.”

  “And Billystorm—”

  “I’d like Billystorm and Snookpaw to join the other mentors and apprentices at battle training,” Leafstar interrupted.

  Sharpclaw nodded. “Fine. Then that’s every cat. Let’s go.”