Darkness Within

by Erin Hunter

  Squirrelflight’s pelt smoothed. She stepped back and lifted her muzzle. “If this is your decision,” she told the leaving cats, “then go with my good wishes. You know your own minds and I won’t try to change them.” Her tail flicked ominously. “But remember, a warrior takes care of their Clan. If you go, you are letting down your Clanmates. I will tolerate this for now, but if you do not return within a moon, do not come back at all.”

  Alarm shrilled beneath Bristlefrost’s pelt. Would this be the last she’d ever see of Flipclaw? And the others? Would they never return? The air around her felt heavy as she watched Graystripe head for the camp entrance. Flipclaw, Thornclaw, Snaptooth, and Flywhisker followed at his tail. She wanted to yowl good-bye, but Squirrelflight was watching them darkly, and her Clanmates stood in silence as though their paws were frozen to the earth. Despair swept over her as though an icy flood had engulfed the camp.

  Ashfur might be in the ShadowClan camp now, but he had still succeeded in tearing Thunderclan apart.

  Squirrelflight turned wordlessly and headed for the rock tumble.

  Bristlefrost hurried after her. This wasn’t as bad as it seemed, surely? Squirrelflight must know that this was just temporary. “They’ll be back, won’t they?” she mewed breathlessly, following Squirrelflight up the stony slope.

  “That’s up to them.” Squirrelflight didn’t look at her.

  “But this happens sometimes, right?” Bristlefrost stopped as Squirrelflight reached the ledge.

  Squirrelflight turned on her, her ears twitching with irritation. “I don’t have time to reassure you,” she mewed sharply. “You’re a warrior, not a kit.” She must have seen the shock in Bristlefrost’s eyes at her harsh tone, because she added more gently, “I’m sure everything will be okay.”

  “Will it?” Bristlefrost’s heart ached for comfort. Could Thunderclan survive this? What if the Clan fell apart? What would become of them all?

  Squirrelflight didn’t answer. “You should focus on being a loyal warrior right now,” she said.

  Bristlefrost searched her gaze for a sign that Squirrelflight was truly hopeful. But the Thunderclan leader’s eyes were dark with worry.

  Bristlefrost backed away. Squirrelflight didn’t know. She scrambled clumsily back down the rock tumble, sending stones clattering into the clearing.

  Spotfur jumped out of the way as a pebble bounced onto the earth in front of her.

  “Sorry.” Bristlefrost pulled up in front of the gray-and-white she-cat.

  “It’s okay.” Spotfur shook out her spotted pelt coolly, but her eyes glittered with such unease, Bristlefrost felt her paws flex and her resolve harden. Spotfur was taking this worse than she was.

  “Are you all right?” Bristlefrost asked.

  “Sure.” There was brittleness in her mew, as though something was worrying her.

  Bristlefrost sympathized. “It’s unnerving seeing Clanmates leave.” She glanced at the camp entrance. The shadowy tunnel seemed suddenly different, no longer a place where warriors returned home with prey and stories of triumph. Now it was the way warriors left their Clan.

  Spotfur shrugged, seeming distracted. “It’s weird. But if that’s what they want, there’s no point in making them stay.”

  Surprise sparked in Bristlefrost’s belly. Didn’t Spotfur care? She looked at her denmate again. Spotfur’s pelt was fluffed out like a kit’s. Her paws were drawn in. Her tail trembled at the tip. The she-cat seemed suddenly very small. Don’t be mouse-brained. She’s a warrior like me. And yet there seemed something vulnerable about Spotfur as she stood in the fading afternoon light. Compassion surged in Bristlefrost’s heart. She felt suddenly protective of Spotfur—of all her Clanmates. How could any cat leave them to fend for themselves? If Thunderclan was falling apart, Bristlefrost was sure that she could never turn her back on the cats who’d fed her and raised her and trained her to become the warrior she’d always longed to be. She was going to stay, whatever it took, and make sure her Clan became whole again.

  Chapter 5

  Shadowsight’s heart sank as he watched Mothwing reach into the herb store. She was frowning, a frown that grew deeper as she pulled out a bundle of comfrey.

  What is it this time? Shadowsight wondered wearily as RiverClan’s former medicine cat looked disdainfully at the withered leaves.

  “Did you gather these?” she asked, turning to look at him.

  Shadowsight tried to remember. He and Puddleshine had gathered so many herbs since the start of newleaf, he’d lost track of who’d gathered what. “I’m not sure.”

  “Well, whoever it was, they didn’t dry them properly before they stored them.” Mothwing sniffed the bundle, her nose wrinkling as she gave a sigh. “I’ll put them in the sun now and see what I can salvage.” She picked up the bundle and headed for the entrance.

  “Puddleshine prefers them with a little sap still left in,” Shadowsight told her. “He says they keep their goodness longer.”

  She dropped the bundle. “They’ll rot if you keep them like this.”

  “It’s greenleaf. We can collect more.” Shadowsight swallowed back his frustration. He knew it must be hard for Mothwing, trying to fit into a new Clan, and he admired her for standing by Icewing and Harelight, but he wished she didn’t have to find fault with everything. Why couldn’t she just accept that ShadowClan did things differently from RiverClan?

  She wasn’t the only RiverClan cat finding it hard to adjust. Puddleshine was taking watermint to Icewing right now, to settle her belly. The white she-cat wasn’t used to eating more forest prey than fish. Shadowsight eyed Mothwing sullenly. At least Icewing didn’t try to tell the ShadowClan warriors how to hunt.

  Mothwing’s ears twitched. “Rot spreads,” she mewed. “If these leaves get mildew, the whole herb store could be ruined.”

  “That might be true in the marshland,” Shadowsight replied. “But it’s drier here. We don’t get mildew.”

  Mothwing wasn’t convinced. She picked up the bundle and began to head outside.

  She stopped short at the entrance, backing away as Scorchfur limped into the den. Shadowsight could smell forest scents in his fur. He also smelled blood.

  He hurried to see why the dark gray tom was limping. Mothwing must have smelled it too. She dropped the comfrey and followed Scorchfur to the middle of the den, where the warrior held his paw out for Shadowsight to examine.

  “I jumped down from a tree stump and landed on a sharp stone,” he mewed, wincing.

  As Shadowsight leaned down to sniff the gash in the warrior’s pad, his cheek grazed Scorchfur’s pelt; it was warm. He touched his nose to the warrior’s pad to be sure that his fur had been warmed by sun and not fever, relieved to find the paw cool. The fur around it was drenched with blood from a wide cut that was still dripping. “Sit down,” he told Scorchfur. “I’ll fetch marigold.”

  “Marigold?” Mothwing stared at him. “You’ll want oak leaves for a wound like that.”

  “Marigold will prevent infection,” Shadowsight told her.

  “Oak leaf would be better,” Mothwing argued.

  “I agree.” Shadowsight was careful not to contradict her. “But only once infection has set in. This cut is fresh and looks clean. Marigold will be fine.” And will sting less. He kept the last thought to himself so as not to alarm Scorchfur.

  “Let me look.” Mothwing lifted Scorchfur’s paw with her own and inspected the wound. She seemed not to notice Scorchfur’s wince. “It’s a long cut. I’d use oak leaf to be safe.”

  Shadowsight flexed his claws but didn’t argue. “Okay,” he conceded. “I’ll fetch oak leaf.” Puddleshine would have used marigold. He wished his mentor were here to back him up but, since he wasn’t, he padded to the gap in the brambles and reached his paw into the herb store. He hooked a bundle of leaves from the back, surprised to find, as he tugged them out, that they were mallow. What was mallow doing in the space they kept for oak? His pelt prickled irritably as he guessed that Mothwing had be
en rearranging the store again. He reached farther in and felt around for the scalloped edges of the oak leaves, grunting with relief when he finally found them tucked between the nettles and rosemary.

  He pulled out the bundle and eased one from the stack, which had been held together with a long grass stalk. As he turned back to Scorchfur, he saw with a ripple of irritation that Mothwing was hunched over the dark gray tom’s paw, stuffing cobweb around the wound.

  “What about the oak leaf?” He dropped it beside her indignantly. She’d stolen his patient. He leaned close to Scorchfur, trying gently to ease Mothwing aside, but she pushed him back and began trailing cobweb across the gash.

  “It’s important we staunch the bleeding first,” she told him without looking up. “I’m surprised you wandered off and left Scorchfur to bleed.”

  “I was fetching oak leaf, like you said,” Shadowsight snapped. “I was going to put a poultice on. That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?”

  Mothwing rolled her eyes at Scorchfur. “It’s pointless putting any sort of poultice on while it’s bleeding so heavily,” she told him.

  “It was barely a claw deep.” Shadowsight felt rattled. He’d worked hard to show his Clanmates he was a skillful medicine cat, and here was a cat from another Clan undermining him. “The bleeding won’t last long. But if there’s any dirt in there, it needs to be cleaned out.”

  Mothwing snorted. “Well, of course I cleaned it out. Perhaps that’s what you should have done before you went to the herb store. Then you wouldn’t have needed oak leaf or marigold.”

  “Puddleshine taught me that infection is a cat’s greatest enemy,” Shadowsight snapped. Mothwing was rolling cobweb thickly around Scorchfur’s paw. He wouldn’t even be able to check the wound now. “Why couldn’t you have waited?”

  “You were taking forever.”

  “Only because you’ve moved the herbs again!”

  Scorchfur pulled his paw sharply away and stared accusingly at Shadowsight and Mothwing. “I came here for help, not to watch a fight. I thought you were meant to treat your Clanmates, not squabble over them.”

  Shadowsight bristled. “There wouldn’t be a fight if Mothwing didn’t keep interfering.”

  “Interfering?” She turned on him, raising her voice. “I’ve been treating cats for more moons than you’ve been alive. You should be grateful I’m here!”

  “How would you like it if I came into your medicine den and started messing with your herb store and giving you orders?”

  A shadow blocked the sunshine streaming through the entrance.

  Cloverfoot stood there, frowning. “What’s going on?” The ShadowClan deputy marched into the den. “I could hear your yowls halfway across the clearing.”

  Shadowsight glared at Mothwing. “She’s messing up the medicine den and stealing my patients.”

  “He doesn’t know his oak leaf from his marigold,” Mothwing retorted.

  “I do so!”

  “And his herb store is a shambles.”

  “Because you messed it up!”

  Cloverfoot’s ears flattened. “Be quiet!” Her yowl rang around the den, shocking Shadowsight into silence. “You’re meant to be looking after Scorchfur, not arguing like a pair of kits!”

  Shadowsight glanced at her sheepishly.

  Mothwing puffed out her chest. “I wasn’t arguing. I was fixing Scorchfur’s paw.”

  “Then I suggest you finish fixing it,” Cloverfoot told her, “and then report to Tigerstar’s den.”

  Shadowsight felt a rush of triumph. His father would remind this RiverClan cat she was a guest here.

  Cloverfoot looked at him sternly. “And you can go too. Tigerstar will want to speak to both of you.”

  Shadowsight stared at her in disbelief. Had Cloverfoot forgotten they were Clanmates? Why would Tigerstar need to speak to me? I’ve done nothing wrong. She was supposed to be on his side, wasn’t she?

  Mothwing sat back on her haunches. “I’m finished here.” She sounded satisfied. “How does it feel?” she asked Scorchfur.

  The gray warrior touched his tightly wrapped paw to the ground.

  “Don’t put weight on it for a while,” Mothwing warned him. “And come back in the morning so I can re-dress it and see if it needs a poultice.”

  “If you’d put a poultice on it now, he wouldn’t have to come back in the morning,” Shadowsight grumbled.

  Mothwing blinked at him, unfazed. “It’s always best to check a wound the next day.” She got to her paws. “I’m ready to see Tigerstar now,” she mewed. “Are you?”

  Shadowsight glowered at her as she headed for the entrance, then padded after her, avoiding Cloverfoot’s gaze.

  Sunshine filled the clearing, and the pines creaked around the bramble wall as a soft breeze stirred their tips. Tawnypelt and Snowbird were sharing a mouse in the long grass at the edge of camp. Snaketooth and Whorlpelt practiced battle moves beside the rocks. Outside the bramble enclosure, where Ashfur must be keeping cool in the hollow tree, two SkyClan warriors, Mintfur and Sagenose, stood guard. Leafstar had sent them to take their Clan’s turn guarding the impostor.

  Outside the warriors’ den, Puddleshine was running his paws over Icewing’s belly. The medicine cat glanced at Shadowsight as he followed Mothwing across the camp. Shadowsight shot him a pleading look. He wanted his mentor to defend him. It wasn’t fair he was being sent to Tigerstar too. But Puddleshine hardly seemed to notice, and, peeling a few watermint leaves from the pile he’d taken with him, he gave them to Icewing.

  Disappointed, Shadowsight stopped beside Mothwing as she reached his father’s den.

  “Tigerstar?” she called through the brambles.

  “Come in, Mothwing.” Tigerstar sounded brisk, as though he was expecting her. As Shadowsight followed her inside, his father dipped his head. “Good,” he mewed. “You’ve both come.”

  Shadowsight blinked at him, puzzled. Had his father wanted to see them?

  “You must know why I’m here,” Mothwing mewed smoothly.

  Does he? Unease began to flutter in Shadowsight’s belly.

  Tigerstar’s gaze flicked to Shadowsight for a moment, then back to the RiverClan medicine cat. His ears were twitching uneasily.

  “I know you don’t want to hear this,” Mothwing went on, “but it’s best to have it out now before some cat gets hurt.”

  Anxiety rushed up from Shadowsight’s paws and set his heart racing. What did she mean?

  “I don’t think Shadowsight should be treating cats unsupervised.”

  Shadowsight’s pelt spiked with shock. “Why not?” He looked at his father. Surely he would object!

  Tigerstar’s expression was unreadable. “I know you’ve felt this way for a while.”

  Shadowsight could hardly believe his ears. Why hadn’t Tigerstar said anything? How many of his Clanmates knew about this?

  His father went on. “But I think Shadowsight should have a chance to defend himself—”

  “Defend myself?” Shadowsight cut him off. Outrage surged in his chest. “I haven’t done anything wrong!”

  “No cat is saying you have,” Tigerstar soothed. “But Mothwing is an experienced medicine cat, and if she has concerns, I think we should discuss them.”

  Shadowsight couldn’t believe his ears. “She’s not even ShadowClan!”

  Tigerstar didn’t respond to that. Instead, he went on, “We should hear what Puddleshine has to say.” As Shadowsight struggled to keep his breath steady, Tigerstar padded to the entrance and called across the clearing. “Puddleshine! Can you spare a moment?”

  Shadowsight glared at Mothwing. “What have I done wrong?” he demanded. “I’ve been treating cats unsupervised for moons!”

  “I think you received your medicine-cat name too early.” Mothwing’s mew was gentle now. “I can see your inexperience in the way you use herbs before they’re properly dry, and you’re too slow about tending to wounds. I only say this because I’m concerned for your Clanmates. You’re s
till very young.”

  “No younger than Puddleshine was when he became a medicine cat!” Shadowsight objected.

  “Two wrongs don’t make a right,” Mothwing persisted. “You must know, ShadowClan had no choice but to make Puddleshine a medicine cat early. He was the only trained healer they had at that time. Luckily, his skills and judgment were exceptional, so every cat trusted him. The truth is, we can’t say the same about you right now. It’s become clear that some of the cats in the Clan have been waiting until you’re away to come to the medicine den to have me or Puddleshine treat them.”

  Shadowsight fluffed out his fur. “Are you saying that my Clan doesn’t need me because you’re here now?”

  “No,” Mothwing mewed. “But you remember why you were given your medicine-cat name, don’t you?”

  Shadowsight frowned, puzzled. What did she mean?

  “Puddleshine made you a full medicine cat because you saved Bramblestar’s life,” she went on.

  Dread pulsed in Shadowsight’s belly. He knew what she was about to say.

  “But you didn’t save it, did you?” Her gaze was clear. There was no hostility there. “We know that now. You told Jayfeather and Alderheart to leave him on the moor to freeze the fever out of him.”

  Shadowsight’s mouth was dry. “I thought it was the right thing to do. StarClan told me to do it.”

  “Ashfur told you to do it,” Mothwing corrected. “And you were too inexperienced to know any better.”

  Shadowsight felt sick. It was true. He’d been wrong and his mistake had cost Bramblestar a life—all his lives if he never got his body back. I killed him! He’d allowed Ashfur to steal the Thunderclan leader’s body, and now even more cats had died. Shadowsight stared wordlessly at Mothwing, despair circling his thoughts like a fox.

  “No cat is blaming you.” Tigerstar was at his side now, running his tail along Shadowsight’s spine. “You didn’t realize what you were doing.”