“He’s got no right to mess up Brokentail’s battle training!” Deerleap retorted hotly. “Brokentail is tough, sure, but he’s made me a better warrior already!”
“So what did Brokentail say?”
“He did what Raggedstar told him. He’s a loyal deputy. But I could tell he wasn’t happy …”
The young cats began to move off, and Yellowfang couldn’t hear any more of their conversation, but she felt a stir of concern in her belly. Will Brokentail start to defy his Clan leader when he knows that he has the support of the warriors?
After Fernshade had left the den, Yellowfang tracked down Raggedstar near the fresh-kill pile. “Is everything okay?” she asked, bounding over to join him.
“Fine,” Raggedstar replied. “I spoke to Brokentail and asked him to be a bit less fierce in training.”
And you trust him to do that? Yellowfang didn’t voice her doubts out loud.
“In three moons, Featherstorm’s and then Newtspeck’s kits will be ready to be apprenticed,” Raggedstar went on, “but until then Brokentail needs to focus on keeping the Clan fed and fit through the cold season.”
Yellowfang murmured agreement. “Fernshade is expecting kits,” she informed the Clan leader.
Raggedstar’s eyes widened in delight. “That’s excellent news!”
“But what about the dream we had?” Yellowfang whispered. “It must mean something terrible for the Clan.”
“Kits are always a good thing,” Raggedstar meowed; there was a hint of warning in his voice, as if he didn’t want to be contradicted.
Yellowfang knew there was no point in persisting. Instead she dipped her head and slipped past him to the fresh-kill pile.
What a miserable little heap!
With hunting so badly neglected, there was hardly any prey worth eating. The best pieces were a vole and a starling, but Yellowfang spotted Archeye and Poolcloud padding up with gloomy expressions as they surveyed the scanty pile. The elders need to be fed, Yellowfang thought. I’ll choose something else.
She took a scrawny shrew, while Archeye and Poolcloud settled down with the vole and the starling. But before they could start to eat, Frogtail bounded up to the fresh-kill pile and shouldered the elders away.
“I need this prey!” he announced. “I’m a warrior. I have to keep my strength up.”
“What?” Poolcloud bristled. “Kits and elders eat first! That’s the warrior code.”
“Let him have them,” Archeye mewed wearily, patting the vole and starling across to Frogtail. “It’s not worth arguing.”
Poolcloud still looked indignant.
Frogtail was crouching down to take his first bite of vole when Brokentail strode across the clearing and fixed him with a stern look. “Frogtail, what are you doing?” he demanded.
“Taking our food, the prey-stealer,” Poolcloud grumbled.
“What?” Brokentail’s eyes narrowed and his voice dropped to a soft snarl. “Frogtail, give the prey back right now. The warrior code tells us that kits and elders feed first.”
“Told you!” Poolcloud mewed smugly.
“I’m shocked and disappointed in you, Frogtail,” Brokentail went on. “This isn’t the way a ShadowClan warrior behaves.”
“But you said—” Frogtail protested.
“I’m sure I never told you to steal food from those who need it more,” Brokentail interrupted, not giving Frogtail the chance to speak.
“Brokentail is right.” Raggedstar, who had been listening, padded up to join the group. “Archeye, Poolcloud, eat your fill. Frogtail, you can take out a hunting patrol and see if you can restock the fresh-kill pile.”
Frogtail sullenly rose to his paws with a glare at the elders, who crouched down and began to eat in swift bites, in case their leader changed his mind.
Meanwhile, Brokentail glanced around the camp, signaling to nearby warriors with a sweep of his tail. “Brackenfoot, Stumpytail, Blackfoot, you need to join Frogtail on a hunting patrol.”
The Clan leader and his deputy stood side by side as the patrol left the camp. Yellowfang saw that Raggedstar’s eyes gleamed with approval and satisfaction.
He and Brokentail seem to be in agreement for now, she thought uneasily. But how long will it last?
Yellowfang shifted in her nest, blinking up at the warriors of StarClan above her head. She felt exhausted, but her growling belly wouldn’t let her sleep. Frogtail’s patrol had brought back only a meager collection of prey, and she had ended up sharing a skinny blackbird with Runningnose.
“Honestly, Yellowfang!” Runningnose’s voice came from his own nest. “They can probably hear your belly rumbling in ThunderClan! Why don’t you go and catch yourself something? The night patrol went out a while ago, so make sure they don’t think you’re an intruder and flay your fur.”
“I might just do that.” Yellowfang heaved herself stiffly out of her nest and headed into the clearing. Instead of leaving the camp, she padded over to the fresh-kill pile and began nosing around the area for scraps.
She was gulping down a morsel of mouse when she heard a noise from the entrance tunnel: a cat’s voice raised in a wail of unbearable anguish. Every hair on Yellowfang’s pelt rose. Whipping around, she saw Brokentail burst into the camp. His fur was bushed out and his eyes were wild and distraught.
“WindClan ambushed us by the tunnel!” he yowled. “Raggedstar is dead!”
Yellowfang froze. The solid floor of the camp seemed to give way under her paws, and she was falling, falling into darkness. Then her head cleared and she forced her paws to move, racing over to Brokentail.
“What happened?” she demanded.
“They were waiting for us …” The deputy’s voice shook; he seemed dazed with grief and anger. “We fought. Raggedstar led us … then a WindClan cat tore out his throat.” He shook his head helplessly. “I couldn’t save him …”
“And the rest of your patrol?” Yellowfang asked, fear surging up inside her. Not more cats dead …
“Chasing the WindClan cats across the moor,” Brokentail replied.
Not waiting to hear any more, Yellowfang raced out of the camp and across the marshes toward the tunnel that led to WindClan. The reek of blood caught in her throat before she came within sight of it. At the mouth of the tunnel, Raggedstar lay stretched out. A circle of torn-up grass and fern surrounded him, and the ground was soaked with his blood. His eyes were glazed, staring sightlessly up into the sky.
Yellowfang lay down beside him and pushed her muzzle into his fur. Until then she had hoped that he hadn’t lost all his lives, or that her medicine cat skills might be enough to revive him, or even that Brokentail had mistaken the Clan leader’s losing a life for true death. But now her hope had gone. Raggedstar’s wounds were so severe they had drained all his lives at once. He hunted with StarClan now.
“I loved you so much,” she murmured. “You were all I ever wanted. We fought and hunted together, and played in the sunlight … What went wrong? How did we ever come to this?”
A memory of giving birth to Brokentail flashed into Yellowfang’s mind, and she saw once again the rage that fueled the tiny body. Another pang of grief shook her, but she pushed the memory away.
“Hunt well in StarClan,” she told Raggedstar, drawing her tongue over his fur in a long, caressing lick. “I will see you again.”
Running paw steps alerted her and she looked up to see Blackfoot, Scorchwind, and Boulder racing out of the tunnel. Spotting her with Raggedstar, they halted and stared with growing horror in their eyes.
“We fought with some WindClan cats,” Boulder mewed hoarsely. “But we didn’t know that Raggedstar was hurt.”
“How can he be dead?” Scorchwind whispered, taking a pace forward to look down at the body of his brother. “He still had nine lives!”
“A leader can lose all his lives at once if the wounds are severe enough,” Yellowfang told him quietly. “Now you must carry his body back to camp.”
As the patrol gathered
around, Brokentail rushed up, the wild look still in his eyes. “Stay away from my father!” he ordered. “I will carry him, no one else!”
A rush of pity engulfed Yellowfang. My poor son …
As Boulder and Scorchwind heaved Raggedstar’s body onto Brokentail’s back, she rested her tail across his shoulders, and in a rare moment of gentleness Brokentail let it stay there while they walked slowly back to camp.
CHAPTER 36
Yellowfang stood beside Raggedstar’s body in the center of the camp while the cats of ShadowClan filed out of their dens to sit vigil for their dead leader. Every cat’s eyes held the same stunned expression, as if they couldn’t believe that their leader was dead.
The older warriors and elders in particular were struggling with grief. “Raggedstar was leader for such a short time,” Archeye mewed. “He should have cared for his Clan for many seasons yet.”
“How terrible, to lose nine lives at once!” Hollyflower murmured.
Brokentail was crouching beside his father’s head with one paw resting on Raggedstar’s cold fur. “Those WindClan maggots must have been determined to send him to StarClan,” he rasped.
Struggling to focus through her aching sadness, Yellowfang padded to stand at Brokentail’s shoulder. “You must go to Moonstone to receive your lives,” she reminded him. “You are leader of ShadowClan now!”
Brokentail looked up at her with fury in his eyes. “I will not leave my father’s body in the cold!” he hissed. “We will go tomorrow.”
Startled—I thought becoming leader was all he ever wanted—Yellowfang didn’t try to argue. She bowed her head. “Of course. StarClan will understand,” she murmured.
As dawn crept into the sky, the elders gathered around to carry Raggedstar’s body outside the camp for burial.
“May StarClan light your path, Raggedstar,” Yellowfang announced. “May you find good hunting, swift running, and shelter when you sleep.”
She watched the elders bear their former leader’s body away, and felt a tremor of fear in her belly. If WindClan did this to us, we must prepare for war. Hearing angry voices, she noticed Scorchwind and Blackfoot huddled beside Tangleburr and Cinderfur.
“WindClan might attack us at any moment,” Cinderfur meowed. “They’ll think we’re weak without a leader. What are we going to do?”
“That’s for Brokentail to decide,” Tangleburr reminded him. Her tail-tip was twitching, but she was clearly trying to control her fury. “But he can’t do anything until he gets his nine lives.”
“Then he needs to get a move on,” Blackfoot hissed.
“We have to attack!” Scorchwind declared. “We can’t let WindClan get away with this.”
Brokentail, who had been watching his father’s body vanish into the brambles, looked over his shoulder. “Vengeance can wait until we have grieved, Scorchwind,” he murmured wretchedly.
He seems further from launching an attack on WindClan than ever before, Yellowfang thought, not sure whether that was a good thing or not. Surely he wants to avenge Raggedstar’s death?
Returning to her den, she found Runningnose halfheartedly rolling more balls of moss for the store. “Do you think Brokentail even wants to be leader?” he asked, echoing Yellowfang’s own thoughts. “He’s only just become deputy.” He sighed. “It’s a big responsibility for him.”
“It will be difficult,” Yellowfang admitted, “but he is strong enough.” She added, “And he is not alone. We will be with him. He needs us to get him through this dark time.” Most of all, he needs his mother.
She left her den and went to find Brokentail. He wasn’t in the camp; guessing where he might be, Yellowfang padded through the brambles and discovered him beside the mound of earth where Raggedstar was buried. He was staring at the soil, one huge paw resting on the disturbed leaves.
“Brokentail, it’s time for you to come to the Moonstone with me,” Yellowfang mewed.
Brokentail started and looked up. “It’s too soon....” he protested.
Yellowfang shook her head. “You cannot leave your Clan without a leader.”
Brokentail hesitated, then took a deep breath. “Very well. I will do this for the Clan. For my Clan.”
He seemed sad and quiet as he padded at Yellowfang’s shoulder across the marshes. But when the WindClan tunnel came into sight he halted with a flash of fury in his eyes. “I will not set paw on the territory of that evil Clan,” he declared.
Yellowfang sighed. The journey would be even longer if they couldn’t go through WindClan. But she made no protest, just led the way farther up the Thunderpath until the moorland fell away behind them. They crossed beside a small cluster of Twoleg dens; Yellowfang worked her claws impatiently into the grass as she waited for a chance to race over the hard black surface between the snarling monsters. Their route took them across frostbitten fields where the grass was hard and cold under their paws. A bitter, icy wind blew into their faces. Brokentail plodded with his head down, the freezing gusts plastering his fur to his sides.
Darkness had fallen by the time they reached Mothermouth. Yellowfang led Brokentail down the long tunnel and into the cave, where dazzling light was already pouring from the Moonstone. As she waved her tail to beckon Brokentail closer, and showed him where to lie with his nose against the stone, she winced at the memory of her previous dream.
Please, StarClan, spare me from that.
But no shrieking, bloodstained kits met Yellowfang’s gaze as she woke within her dream. Instead she was standing on a bleak and windy stretch of marsh that might have been somewhere within ShadowClan territory. Looking around for Brokentail, Yellowfang saw that the quiet, grief-stricken cat of their journey had vanished. Now the tabby tom stood strong and erect, his kinked tail held high like a signal. His eyes shone and he quivered with excitement.
“Where are they?” he demanded. “My StarClan ancestors?”
Yellowfang glimpsed movement in the distance, and pointed with her tail to where a line of cats was advancing steadily over the marshes. A frosty glimmer came from their pelts, and the light of stars was in their eyes. Cedarstar was in the lead, with his deputy, Stonetooth, padding at his shoulder. Sagewhisker and Lizardfang were there too, and other cats Yellowfang didn’t know, though she recognized some of them as cats who had given lives to Raggedstar when he became Clan leader.
At first Yellowfang could only count eight cats, until she noticed that one of them was a tiny kit, skipping through the long grass in Cedarstar’s paw steps.
“My daughter … oh, my daughter,” she whispered.
She felt a moment’s surprise to see that Raggedstar was not among the nine. Surely he would want to give a life to his son? Then she told herself that Raggedstar’s spirit must still be traveling to StarClan. He will watch over Brokentail as he leads his Clan.
Cedarstar was the first of the nine cats to step forward. He bowed his head to Brokentail and meowed, “I give you a life to live by the warrior code. Remember it well, Brokentail, and let it be your guide. Wiser cats than you or I have lost their way without it.”
Yellowfang detected a veiled warning in his words, though Brokentail showed no loss of confidence as he touched noses with Cedarstar to receive the life. Yellowfang knew what agony the leader had to endure with each new life, but Brokentail gave little hint of the pain beyond a flaring of his nostrils and a twitch of his eyes.
Cedarstar stepped back into the circle of nine cats that had formed around Brokentail, and Stonetooth took his place. “I give you a life for duty,” he meowed. “Remember what you owe to your Clan as well as what your Clan owes to you.” He touched noses with Brokentail, who flexed his claws briefly and then was still.
The next StarClan warrior to step forward was Dawnstar, the former ShadowClan leader who had given a life to Raggedstar. “I give you a life for honor,” she told Brokentail. “Honor is expected from all cats, but most of all, from a Clan leader. Use the honor of leadership carefully.”
For the first tim
e Brokentail showed emotion as he received his third life. His eyes closed as if he was in pain, and his claws dug hard into the earth. As the StarClan she-cat withdrew, Brokentail opened his eyes again and fixed her with a challenging gaze as if he blamed her for the torture of receiving her life, but Dawnstar did not react as she took her place once more in the circle.
The fourth cat stepped forward; Yellowfang didn’t know his name. He was a skinny gray tom, and he studied Brokentail carefully before he spoke. “I give you a life for truth. Without it, kin is set against kin, Clan against Clan. Hold fast to truth in all your dealings and let it guide your words.” The skinny tom hesitated before darting his head forward like a striking snake and touching Brokentail’s nose to give him his life.
As Yellowfang looked on from outside the circle of cats, she began to feel uneasy. All the lives Brokentail had received so far seemed to come with a warning, almost a threat, and she sensed a reluctance among the StarClan cats that was unlike anything she had experienced when she had accompanied Raggedstar to his ceremony.
Then she dismissed these thoughts with a lash of her tail. Brokentail was the Clan deputy, so he has to be the new leader. Even StarClan can’t change that, and why would they want to? Brokentail is a strong and loyal cat. When he has more experience he will be a great leader.
Lizardfang was the next warrior to come forward. Yellowfang rejoiced to see his frail limbs strong again, and his tabby pelt thick and healthy. “I give you a life for judgment,” he meowed. “ShadowClan stands at a place where the path ahead divides. Choose to follow the right path, for the good of your Clan.”
As Brokentail received his fifth life, instead of appearing unmoved, his limbs and his tail twitched as if they were briefly out of his control. He staggered at the touch of Lizardfang’s nose, recovering himself with an effort. Something huge, something overwhelming, seemed to hover around him, as if an unseen battle were going on in the very air he breathed.
Can he stand to receive four more lives? Yellowfang wondered. Then she saw the next cat in line and bit back a cry of pain. Oh, my precious love. I miss you with every beat of my heart.