Leafstar and Hawkwing kept their Clanmates bunched together as they slipped between the dens, darting from one clot of shadow to the next, crouching in a shivering cluster as monsters or Twolegs passed by. Hawkwing couldn’t forget his lost Clanmates’ despairing wails as the Twolegs carried them off from the lake camp.
After what seemed like a moon, he felt himself relax as he and his Clanmates left the last of the Twoleg dens behind and headed out across a stretch of open ground covered with coarse grass and scrubby bushes. The grass stems were stiff and spiky, furred with frost, pricking the cats’ pads as they trudged over them. But in spite of the discomfort, and a cold wind buffeting their fur, Hawkwing sensed the easing of tension among his Clanmates too.
The sky was beginning to grow pale with the light of dawn, showing a belt of woodland crossing their path, the leafless branches outlined against the sky.
“Trees!” Sparrowpelt exclaimed. “Thank StarClan!”
Sandynose swiped his tongue around his jaws. “And where there are trees, there’ll be prey.”
But when the cats arrived under the trees, they found that there was little undergrowth, and the scanty prey-scents were faint and growing stale.
“I think all the prey is hiding away down their holes,” Tinycloud grumbled.
Plumwillow managed to track down a mouse, which she gave to her kits to share, and Sparrowpelt caught a squirrel after a frantic dash through the branches, but none of the other cats had any luck.
Then Hawkwing caught sight of a few rabbit holes in a steep bank on the far side of the trees. His whiskers twitched at the scent of rabbit. “Look over there,” he murmured to Leafstar. “I could go down one of those holes and scare the rabbits out.”
“You will not,” Leafstar replied decisively. “I don’t want my deputy stuck down a rabbit hole. If we wait, maybe they’ll come out on their own.”
Hawkwing sighed. “Okay.”
As the dawn light strengthened, most of the Clan settled down at the edge of the wood, their gazes fixed on the rabbit holes. Plumwillow and Sandynose kept their kits well back among the trees, so the kits wouldn’t make a noise and scare away the prey.
Eventually Hawkwing saw a flicker of movement at the mouth of one of the burrows, and a rabbit hopped into the open. It halted a fox-length away from the opening and began to nibble the grass.
“Wait a few moments,” Hawkwing whispered, his jaws beginning to water. “Let it come out a bit further before we attack.”
He had scarcely finished speaking when a flash of ginger erupted from the top of the bank. A ginger tom leaped straight onto the rabbit, pinning it down with his claws and cutting off its squeal with a bite to the neck.
“Hey!” Macgyver called out, jumping to his paws. “That was ours!”
The ginger tom paused in the act of stooping to pick up his prey. “Yours?” he snarled. “My claws. My teeth. My prey.”
Macgyver stalked out into the open, followed by the rest of the Clan. “Shove off, flea-pelt!” he snapped.
The ginger tom’s fur bristled and he crouched over the body of the rabbit, ready to spring. He didn’t look at all intimidated by the number of cats surrounding him.
Hawkwing exchanged an uneasy glance with Leafstar. The tom was no full-fed kittypet; he was clearly a rogue or a loner, and he looked just as thin and desperate as the SkyClan cats.
“We can’t risk a fight,” Leafstar murmured. “We’ve enough problems without that. Besides, he is the one who caught the rabbit.”
“I’ll deal with it,” Hawkwing responded, an idea slipping into his mind.
He padded forward, gesturing with his tail for his Clanmates to keep back. “Okay,” he meowed to the ginger tom. “You can keep the prey if you’ll answer a few questions.”
The tom narrowed his eyes. “What questions?”
“Is there a big lake around here?” Hawkwing began. “One that’s so big you can stand on the shore and hardly see the other side.”
The tom’s hostility began to fade, replaced by confusion. He shook his head. “There’s nowhere like that around here.”
A chill of despair began to creep through Hawkwing’s pelt, but he went on. “Then do you know about any Clans of cats nearby?”
The ginger tom twitched his whiskers, puzzled. “Clans?”
“Cats like us,” Hawkwing mewed.
The tom raked his gaze across the SkyClan warriors and gave a disdainful sniff. “Mange-ridden prey-stealers, you mean?”
A low growl came from Sparrowpelt’s throat, but Hawkwing glared at him and flicked his tail at his Clanmate for silence.
“Clan cats live in a group together,” Leafstar explained, padding up beside Hawkwing. “We look after each other and train our young ones.”
“Really?” The ginger tom sneered. “That doesn’t seem to have done you much good, does it?”
Hawkwing winced at the truth behind the tom’s words. “Have you seen any cats like that?” he asked.
“No. Never heard of Clans before. Never want to hear about them again. You’ve all got brains full of feathers!”
Without waiting for a response, the ginger tom snatched up the rabbit, bounded up the bank past the burrows, and vanished from sight.
“That went well,” Hawkwing sighed.
“We’d better move on,” Leafstar meowed, above the angry muttering of her Clan. “It sounds like we’ve still got a long way to go.”
Finally, after more than two moons, the cats of SkyClan made camp in a copse of oaks and gorse bushes, where the ground was covered with bracken and bramble thickets, offering some shelter from the cold.
“We’ll rest here for a few days,” Leafstar decided. “Tonight is the full moon, when StarClan draws closest to us. Perhaps they will send us a sign at last.”
Every cat was too exhausted that night to do more than curl up where they stood. The following morning, Hawkwing began to make a proper nest for himself in the bracken. As he pulled at the dead brown stems, he noticed tiny new fronds beginning to uncurl in the depths of the clump. The biting green color brought a sudden surge of hope in his heart.
Maybe this long, miserable leaf-bare is coming to an end at last.
Looking up, Hawkwing spotted Echosong speaking urgently to Leafstar across the makeshift camp. He hardly had time to wonder what that was all about before Leafstar raised her head and let out a yowl.
“Let all cats old enough to catch their own prey join here in the middle of the camp for a Clan meeting!”
Cats slid out of the bracken where, like Hawkwing, they had been making their nests. Plumwillow’s kits bounced to the front of the crowd, with Sandynose and Plumwillow just behind them. Bellaleaf sat beside Fallowfern and Blossomheart, while Sparrowpelt and Macgyver padded up from the opposite side of the camp. The rest of the Clan gathered around; Hawkwing could feel a sense of tension in the air, as if every cat was expecting something to happen.
He bounded over to join his Clanmates, noticing that Leafstar’s amber eyes were glowing and her whiskers quivering.
She’s excited about something, he thought, and she’s doing a poor job of hiding it.
When the entire Clan had assembled, Leafstar let her gaze travel over her cats. “Echosong has had another vision,” she announced. Raising her voice to carry over the eager exclamations from the rest of the Clan, she added, “Echosong, please tell us about it.”
The medicine cat stepped up to Leafstar’s side and raised her head; her beautiful green eyes were full of joy and gratitude. “I was tempted to lose hope, after we had been traveling for so long,” she began. “But last night, under the light of the full moon, I begged StarClan to send me a sign that we were still on the right track—that SkyClan had a future to share, and not merely a past.”
“And they answered you?” Tinycloud asked.
“Yes, I had a vision,” Echosong replied. “I saw Skystar, the pale gray tom who first appeared to me in the Whispering Cave, and told me to find the spark that rema
ins.”
“What did he say this time?” Sparrowpelt asked eagerly.
“He told me, ‘Embrace what you find in the shadows, for only they can clear the sky,’” Echosong announced to the Clan.
“Well, that’s really helpful!” Sagenose exclaimed with a disgusted twitch of his whiskers.
“Yes, why does StarClan have to be so vague?” Plumwillow demanded. “Would it hurt them to tell us clearly so we can understand?”
More cats jumped in with their comments and suggestions, and as the arguments rose Echosong had to wave her tail vigorously for silence. “Skystar showed me a five-pointed maple leaf,” Echosong told the Clan, “and said that now SkyClan is scattered like leaves, blown by the wind.”
“We know that,” Sagenose muttered.
Echosong ignored the interruption. “But then he told me to look at the leaf.”
Hawkwing’s pads prickled with irritation at this incomprehensible message. Glancing around, he realized that his Clanmates were just as bewildered as he was. Confused murmuring arose from them as they exchanged puzzled glances. Hawkwing felt as though he was wandering in a fog, and that StarClan’s sign had made it even harder to decide what path they should take.
Then Hawkwing noticed that a look of understanding was spreading over Leafstar’s face, her amber eyes glowing with sudden excitement. “I see!” she exclaimed. “A leaf with five points—and including SkyClan, there are five Clans! We are on the right track. StarClan wants us to find the other Clans.”
Cats turned to each other, eagerly discussing what they had just heard. Then Blossomheart spoke up. “That’s all very well, but that’s what we already thought they meant. And it doesn’t exactly tell us what to do.”
Echosong dipped her head. “True. StarClan never makes it easy for us. But I asked for a sign that we were on the right track—and we are! StarClan hasn’t forgotten us.”
Her Clanmates nodded in agreement. Hawkwing’s gaze fell on the tender new fern fronds uncurling in the midst of the dead brown growth of previous seasons. Beside them was a single yellow flower of coltsfoot, glowing like a tiny sun. Maybe new hope is coming after all. Maybe SkyClan will be rewarded for surviving this miserable leaf-bare.
All morning a stiff breeze had been blowing, driving gray clouds across the sky. Now rain fell in a sharp, freezing shower, sending the SkyClan cats diving for shelter in the bushes. Hawkwing crouched underneath some thickly growing holly branches, licking the icy drops from his fur and struggling to hold on to his earlier optimism.
StarClan has chosen to speak to us again. I must hold on to that.
When at last the rain had passed, Leafstar called the cats back into the middle of the camp.
“There is one more thing to do,” she announced, “and one of the most important duties of a Clan leader. Dewkit, Finkit, Reedkit, come here.”
Exchanging wondering glances, the three kits padded up to stand in front of Leafstar, while Plumwillow let out a soft wail.
“Just look at them! It’s as if they’d been pulled through the bushes backward! Why does Leafstar never give us any notice?”
“Today it is my task to make three new apprentices,” Leafstar went on. “And I can think of no better way to commit ourselves to the future under the guidance of StarClan.” Beckoning Dewkit with her tail, she continued, “From this day forward, this apprentice will be known as Dewpaw. Macgyver, you gave up your life as a kittypet to follow SkyClan. I trust you will pass on your commitment to Dewpaw as his mentor.”
A look of pleased surprise gathered on Macgyver’s face as Dewpaw trotted up to him and stretched up to touch his nose.
“Dewpaw! Dewpaw!”
Hawkwing joined in as his Clanmates chanted the new apprentice’s name, then watched proudly as Leafstar apprenticed Finkit to Blossomheart and Reedkit to Bellaleaf.
“Finpaw! Reedpaw! Finpaw! Reedpaw!” the Clan called out, while the new apprentices glowed with excitement.
Hawkwing felt a moment’s pang that he wasn’t to mentor one of his beloved kits, then reflected that if he had been the mentor for one of them, the other two would have felt left out, and discontented with their own mentors.
Leafstar has chosen well.
He thought back over all the moons of their journey, remembering the effort it had taken to keep the kits safe and together—not to mention keeping the rest of SkyClan safe, too, so that they would see this day. Dogs, Twolegs, sickness . . . we have survived them all. Now he felt that SkyClan was waking from a bad dream, and these eager young cats were its future.
He spotted Plumwillow casting him a grateful look, and dipped his head in acknowledgment. He could see in her eyes that she recognized how hard this was for him. Since Sandynose’s return, Hawkwing hadn’t tried to speak to her alone, not wanting to get into the middle of their happiness. But he felt a warm glow inside at the thought that Plumwillow remembered what he had done for her family.
All three apprentices were crowding around Plumwillow and Sandynose, eagerly discussing their ceremony. “Wasn’t it amazing when the whole Clan called out our names?” Reedpaw meowed.
“It felt great!” Dewpaw puffed out his chest. “I’m going to be the best apprentice ever.”
“No, you’re not! I am!” Finpaw insisted, swiping at his brother’s ear.
Sandynose separated the two young cats with a gentle paw before they could start tussling. “That’s enough of that,” he told them. “You have to behave yourselves and listen to your mentors. Then you’ll all be great warriors one day.”
“We will!” the new apprentices promised him fervently.
Hawkwing could see that they were well on the way to accepting Sandynose, and he determinedly crushed down a small pang of regret.
Then the kits broke away from their parents and came scampering across to him.
“We’re apprentices now!” Finpaw announced. “Isn’t it great?”
“I’m very proud of all of you,” Hawkwing told them. “You’ve survived incredibly difficult times to become apprentices. And I truly believe that you will see SkyClan flourish again.”
“I believe that, too!” Dewpaw assured him.
At last the kits left, scurrying off excitedly to join their mentors.
“I want to catch a mouse!” Reedpaw squealed, flinging herself at Bellaleaf. “Show me how!”
“Stop squealing like that, for a start,” Bellaleaf responded, wryly amused. “Come on, I’ll teach you the hunter’s crouch.”
“Us too!” Finpaw demanded, bouncing up to Blossomheart, while Dewpaw skidded to a halt in front of Macgyver.
All three mentors led their apprentices to a flat grassy area at the side of the camp, where Blossomheart began demonstrating the hunter’s crouch.
As he watched them go, listening to their eager chatter, a familiar hollowness swelled inside Hawkwing. These are not my kits, he reminded himself. They will always have a place in my heart, but they can’t truly fill the hole Pebbleshine and our kits have left behind.
His paws led him to the top of a rocky bluff overlooking the camp. Wind ruffling his fur, Hawkwing raised his head to gaze at the sky, where the clouds were rapidly clearing.
What will fill my heart, then? Hawkwing asked himself. He didn’t feel the despair he had struggled with all leaf-bare, but he also didn’t have any answer to his question.
“My brave warrior, with the wings of a hawk.” Echosong padded up beside him and settled down with her paws tucked under her. She met his gaze, curiosity in her green eyes. “What do you see when you look at the horizon?” she asked.
Hawkwing gazed out across the vista of rolling hills and trees, and considered the medicine cat’s words. There was only one honest answer. “The future,” he replied.
“That’s no small task,” Echosong responded, “after the tragedies we’ve all suffered. It takes a strong cat to see the future, instead of getting lost in the past.”
Hawkwing looked down at her. “Do you think we’ll find the other Cla
ns?”
“I know we will, for StarClan has told me so,” Echosong replied. “And they’ve told me something else, too.”
Hawkwing waited curiously, but for a few heartbeats Echosong didn’t go on.
“After I went back to sleep,” she continued at last, “I had a vision of a young she-cat who looked exactly like you, Hawkwing. At her paws was a maple leaf, and she nodded down to its five points. Do you know what that means?”
Hawkwing stared at her, stunned. What could that mean? “She looked just like me?” he stammered. “Then . . . she . . . could she be my kin?”
Echosong nodded sagely. “Your kin . . . or perhaps even your kit.”
A wave of fierce emotion washed over Hawkwing, almost carrying him off his paws. Could my kits really be part of my future? It’s what I want most in the world—but I never dreamed it could be possible.
“You deserve happiness, after everything you’ve suffered,” Echosong meowed. “It has been a long, difficult journey, but it has made you into a very strong cat—the very cat your Clan needs most.”
“Thank you,” Hawkwing meowed fervently.
Side by side, he and Echosong turned to look out at the sky. The clouds had cleared away, and the sun shone in a vast expanse of crystal blue.
A fragile hope began to bloom inside Hawkwing. If one of my kits is alive, then surely Pebbleshine is, too. For the first time he began to believe that everything his Clan had suffered would prove worth it in the end.
We aren’t home by the lake yet, Hawkwing thought, but for the first time in a long while, I believe we will be soon.
READ ON FOR AN EXCLUSIVE MANGA ADVENTURE . . .
CREATED BY
ERIN HUNTER
WRITTEN BY
DAN JOLLEY
ART BY
JAMES L. BARRY
Excerpt from Warriors: A Vision of Shadows #1: The Apprentice’s Quest
A new adventure begins—for all five warrior Clans.