After a day of fruitless hunting in the bushes around the camp, Mistystar settled outside her den and waited for one of the medicine cats to leave. She saw Mothwing emerge from between the rocks, and for a moment Mistystar thought the golden cat might be making one last attempt to prove her right to be RiverClan’s medicine cat. But then Willowshine padded out behind her.
“Thank Jayfeather for the herbs,” Mothwing instructed. “And ask Kestrelflight if Tornear’s cough cleared up with the poultice of bright-eye and lovage.”
Willowshine nodded. “See you later,” she meowed, stretching up to brush her muzzle against Mothwing’s. With an anxious glance at Mistystar, she trotted out of the camp.
Mistystar stood up. Mothwing had vanished back into the shadows behind the rocks, and the clearing was silent apart from the murmurs of sleepy warriors in their nest. Mistystar pushed her way through the ferns and went down to the edge of the lake. She paced along the shore, feeling the stones smooth beneath her paws. Sparkling reflections of stars swirled and danced on the surface of the water—the empty, fishless water that mocked the RiverClan cats and their hungry bellies. Mistystar stared at the silvery patterns, desperately trying to read a message in their shapes. Should they be fishing in a different way? Were the fish about to return? Perhaps the hunger was nearly at an end.
But how would she know if there were any messages to be seen? She wasn’t a medicine cat! Mistystar hissed and sank her claws into the grit between the pebbles. Mothwing had made it impossible for her to lead her Clan with any sort of confidence.
“Oh, Stonefur!” Mistystar whispered. “I can’t do this alone!”
Mistystar tossed and wriggled all night, unable to get comfortable in her nest. The fresh moss seemed full of thorns, and she was convinced there was a lump of gorse caught up in it. As the first rays of the sun slanted through the rowan branches, she jumped up and trotted into the clearing. She just caught sight of Willowshine’s gray striped tail whisking into the medicine cats’ den. Mistystar followed and stood in the entrance. The two medicine cats blinked at her from the shadows.
“Willowshine, from now on you will be RiverClan’s sole medicine cat,” she announced. Her heart pounded, and she dug her claws into the earth to stop her legs from shaking. “Mothwing will no longer live with you in this den.”
“That’s not fair!” cried Willowshine. “I still have so much to learn!”
“StarClan will help you,” Mistystar mewed. She looked at Mothwing, who was staring at her in dismay. “I’ve had enough time to think about this. Mothwing, you have served RiverClan for many seasons, and we are grateful. As an elder, you will be well cared for. No cat needs to know about . . . anything.”
Mothwing stepped forward. “Mistystar, I know you want to punish me—”
“This is not about punishment!” Mistystar interrupted. “This is about doing what is right for the Clan!”
Mothwing twitched one ear. “Don’t you think the Clan has suffered enough change recently, with the loss of Leopardstar? Let them come to terms with that before you make them accept something else. You are not the only cat who has their best interests at heart, Mistystar. I’ll announce my retirement at the next Gathering, but not before.” Her blue eyes flashed briefly with anger.
Mistystar gritted her teeth. She must see that I have no choice in this! She cannot be a medicine cat if she doesn’t believe in StarClan! “Very well,” she hissed. “You may stay here for the rest of this moon.”
She started to back away, but stopped as Mothwing moved toward her. Placing her muzzle close to Mistystar’s ear, she murmured, “I am so sorry.”
So am I, thought Mistystar. You were my closest friend. But there was nothing to say, so she just shook her head and walked quickly away from the rocks, feeling her heart break with every step.
“Mistystar! Watch this!” It was Podkit, Duskfur’s sturdy son. He had sunk his claws into a twig and was dragging it toward the nursery. “I caught this giant fish and I’m going to feed the whole Clan!” he squeaked proudly.
Mistystar purred. “Great catch, Podkit. Make sure it doesn’t eat you first!”
“It won’t. I killed it with one paw!”
Duskfur appeared at the entrance to the nursery. “Podkit! I hope you aren’t bothering Mistystar!”
“He’s not,” Mistystar assured her. “If he can catch a fish that size, we might have to make him a warrior already!”
“Really?” gasped Podkit, his eyes huge.
“Of course not,” snapped his sister, Curlkit, who was wriggling out past their mother. “You’re such a minnow-brain!”
“Don’t be rude to your brother,” Duskfur chided. “If you can’t play nicely, one of you will have to go back to the nest.”
“She started it,” Podkit muttered, slicing the bark of the twig with his tiny claws.
Duskfur rolled her eyes. “Tell me it gets better,” she begged Mistystar. “Some days I feel I do nothing but scold them from dawn until dusk!”
“It does get easier,” Mistystar promised, though inside she felt a stab of agony that her time with four playful kits had passed so quickly.
Duskfur shuffled her paws as if she realized she had said something clumsy. “We’re all so pleased that you’re our leader,” she mewed earnestly. “Not that I didn’t like Leopardstar, of course, but every cat thinks you’re the best choice for RiverClan.”
Even though we’re still hungry? Mistystar wondered. What will they say when we lose one of our medicine cats at the next full-moon?
“There was one thing I wanted to talk to you about,” Duskfur went on. “I found Curlkit up to her belly in mud yesterday by the stream, and I wondered if we could put up some sort of barrier to keep kits away from the edge of the water. I know it’s inside the boundary of the camp, but I’d hate for there to be an accident with a very small kit.”
Mistystar nodded. “That’s a good point. The recent rain has made that bank very slippery, and I’ve nearly lost my footing there myself. I’ll ask Grasspelt if he can sort something out. He can get the apprentices to help.”
“He’ll be lucky,” grumbled Pouncetail, getting up from outside the elders’ den. “Our bedding was supposed to be changed today, but there’s been no sign of any apprentices.”
Pebblefoot looked up from the shrew that he was chewing unenthusiastically. “Really? I definitely told Rushpaw and Hollowpaw that they had to do it before we did battle practice after sunhigh.”
“Well, you’d better check their hearing,” grunted Pouncetail.
Pebblefoot pushed the remains of the shrew away from him and stood up. “If you haven’t seen them, where are they?” he pondered, looking troubled.
“They could be collecting fresh bedding first,” Mistystar suggested, not wanting the apprentices to get into trouble unnecessarily.
Robinwing crossed the clearing and dropped a bundle of moss on the ground outside the warriors’ den. “I didn’t see them when I was gathering this,” he remarked.
Troutpaw and Mossypaw padded into the camp, dragging a wet, dark-furred creature between them.
“Is that a rat?” squeaked Curlkit. “Gross! There’s no way I’m eating that!”
Duskfur flicked her daughter’s ear with her tail. “Then you’ll have to go hungry,” she snapped. “This isn’t the time to start being fussy.”
Mistystar went to greet the apprentices and their mentors, Graymist and Minnowtail. “Have you seen Hollowpaw and Rushpaw? They were supposed to be clearing out the elders’ den, but no cat has seen them.”
Graymist frowned. “They weren’t on the marshes. Did you see what Troutpaw and Mossypaw caught? That should feed us for a while!”
Troutpaw looked proudly over the spine of the bedraggled corpse. “It took ages to drag it back!” she declared. “My teeth ache now!”
Privately Mistystar shared Curlkit’s feelings about tucking into a rat—that was ShadowClan food, not RiverClan. But she nodded and mewed. “Well done! Now, where
else might Hollowpaw and Rushpaw be?”
Mossypaw shrugged. “I don’t know. They were muttering about something last night when I was trying to go to sleep, but I didn’t hear what they were saying.”
Mistystar felt the ground dip beneath her paws. Was she losing control of her entire Clan? No fish, prey scarce on land, a medicine cat who didn’t believe in StarClan, and now half the apprentices gone missing?
Just then, the brambles behind the medicine cats’ den rustled, and Rushpaw and Hollowpaw emerged, looking triumphant and somewhat ruffled. They were each carrying a tuft of moss.
“Where have you been?” demanded Pebblefoot. “The elders’ den should have been cleared out ages ago!”
Hollowpaw dropped his mouthful of moss. “We were collecting fresh bedding!” he protested.
Pouncetail prodded the dusty moss with his paw. “From where? Some other cat’s manky nest?”
“You can use what I’ve collected,” Robinwing meowed. He narrowed his eyes at the apprentices. “I don’t know where you found that, but stick to our usual supplies in future, okay? There’s no point in refilling a den with moss that is going to be uncomfortable, especially for the elders.”
“Whatever,” Rushpaw muttered. “We were just trying to help.”
Mistystar studied the apprentices closely. From the state of their rumpled fur, they looked as if they had traveled a long way in search of bedding for the elders. Exceptional commitment, or had they been looking for something else as well? She felt a flash of fear that they might have been trying to fish on their own. With the lake this full, that was strictly forbidden for younger cats. She’d have to warn Pebblefoot and Reedwhisker to keep an eye on them during future patrols.
The apprentices clawed out Pouncetail’s and Dapplenose’s old bedding and replaced it with Robinwing’s fresh supply. Then they joined their Clanmates at the fresh-kill pile, as the cats divided up the prey. Mistystar noticed that Hollowpaw and Rushpaw only shared a tiny minnow between them. Were they feeling guilty for not pulling their weight properly that morning? She sighed. Whatever they had been up to, she didn’t want any of her Clanmates punishing themselves with further hunger.
She looked at the rocks that guarded the medicine cats’ den. Willowshine and Mothwing seemed to be avoiding Mistystar as much as they could. Was Willowshine even watching out for omens? Or was StarClan ignoring them after all?
Chapter 7
A run of stormy days kept the RiverClan cats confined to their camp; none of them minded getting their fur wet by choice when it came to swimming, but they hated torrential rain as much as any Clan. At last the wind eased and the rain lightened to a fur-flattening drizzle. Mistystar and Reedwhisker stood on the rocks at the edge of the lake and stared into the water. It was slightly clearer than before, and one or two tiny silver shapes darted about in the shadows, but there were still no large fish such as trout or carp.
“Is it worth fishing today?” Pebblefoot called, crunching over the stones toward them.
Reedwhisker shook his head. “Not unless you want to chase minnows again. Oh, I meant to tell you that Hollowpaw and Rushpaw asked if they could do some battle training on their own today. They know their assessments are coming up and they wanted to practice the crouch-and-leap technique we taught them.”
Pebblefoot looked surprised. “I didn’t realize they were taking the assessments so seriously. I sometimes wonder if Rushpaw wants to go straight to the elders’ den when he reaches twelve moons. I’ve never met an apprentice who is so good at finding shortcuts to getting things done!”
Mistystar snorted. “Perhaps he’ll just be a very efficient warrior.” She headed back up the shore, and the two warriors fell in beside her. “We can’t keep waiting for the big fish to return,” she mewed quietly before they reached the camp. “And our territory isn’t big enough to provide enough land prey to support us all. We’ll have to think about expanding upstream.”
“It does seem like the only option,” Pebblefoot agreed. “Hunting patrols have already caught a few birds in the reeds just beyond the border. Do you think we should go even farther?”
Mistystar nodded. “I’ll take a patrol that way myself today. I don’t want to announce the expansion to the whole Clan yet, but every cat knows we are running out of food.”
“Would you like me to come too?” Reedwhisker offered.
“No, thank you. I want you to lead a patrol along the border with WindClan and renew those scent markers, just in case they’re still waiting for us to cross over again. And Pebblefoot, will you take a hunting patrol onto the marshes?” The senior warriors nodded.
Back in the clearing, Reedwhisker started selecting cats for his and Pebblefoot’s patrol while Mistystar looked around for warriors to accompany her upstream. She was just about to call out to Grasspelt when Mothwing approached. Mistystar felt her fur bristle. Why am I so hostile? Mothwing used to be my friend!
Mothwing’s blue eyes looked troubled. “Do you know where Hollowpaw and Rushpaw are?” she asked.
“They’re practicing for their assessment,” Mistystar told her.
“Are you sure? I heard them telling Mossypaw and Troutpaw that they had found something none of the warriors knew about, but they couldn’t say what it was because it was a big secret. Do you think they’re up to something?”
For a moment Mistystar longed to be able to talk openly to Mothwing, like they had done so many times before. I always thought we would lead our Clan together! But Mothwing had kept a bigger secret than anything the apprentices might be hiding, and Mistystar couldn’t see how they could find a way back to how things used to be. “They were probably just showing off,” she told Mothwing. “Don’t worry about them.” She sounded more dismissive than she had intended, and Mothwing shrank back as if she had been hit.
“I just thought I should let you know,” she mewed. She turned and walked away before Mistystar could say anything else.
Mistystar forced herself to concentrate on the upstream patrol. “Grasspelt! Could you come over here? Bring Icewing and Mintfur!”
The three warriors trotted over. They bristled with excitement when Mistystar told them that they would be exploring beyond the border.
“It makes sense, if we don’t have enough prey around the camp,” Grasspelt meowed.
“Do you want us to set border marks?” asked Icewing.
“Not yet,” mewed Mistystar. “I don’t know how far we’ll get today. We’re just looking for hunting possibilities at the moment.”
They left the clearing and picked their way down to the edge of the narrow stream. As Duskfur had said, the shore was muddy and slippery from the recent rain, and Mistystar felt her paws sink deeper with every step. The cats clung to the bank and scrambled through the long grass until they emerged from the trees that enclosed RiverClan’s territory. Just beneath their feet, the stream was swollen and fast-flowing, impossible to fish in even if the cats wanted to. Mistystar clawed her way along the steep slope, keeping her head below the top of the bank. Her fur was soon slicked with reddish-brown mud, and her paws kept slipping. Behind her, Icewing fared better because she was more lightly built and seemed able to leap between patches of less sodden grass. Her denmate Grasspelt plodded grimly along at the rear, cursing under his breath every time he lost his footing.
At last Mistystar’s pads were so clogged with wet soil that she couldn’t keep a grip on the bank any longer. She scrambled up to the top and peered over the edge. Huge expanses of flat land, rippling with dark green grass, stretched away on both sides of the stream. Feeling very exposed under the vast gray sky, Mistystar reared up on her hind legs and peered over the stems. The stretch of grass ended at a row of cloud-colored Twoleg dens, three of them side by side with dark-leaved plants growing up the walls. As Mistystar stared, she spotted a flash of movement beside one of the dens, a blur of gray-brown fur.
“Kittypets!” growled Grasspelt beside her. “Two of them, by the looks of it.”
; A second shape had joined the other; then both vanished around the side of the den.
“If there are other cats around, there might be less prey for us out here,” Icewing warned. Her fur stood on end, and she was clearly uncomfortable about being so far outside their territory in such an open, unprotected place.
Mistystar lifted her muzzle and sniffed the air. “I can’t smell any trace of them,” she commented. “Wouldn’t kittypets be too lazy to come all the way over here if they have enough slop to eat from their Twolegs?”
“Probably,” grunted Grasspelt. He started nosing through the grass, his ears pricking. “This way!” he whispered over his shoulder.
Mistystar and Icewing tracked him along the edge of the grass to a bramble thicket that hung over the bank of the stream. Grasspelt slowed down as they approached the brambles, lowering his belly until it almost hung on the ground, before he plunged forward with both front paws outstretched. The air was split with squeals; Mistystar and Icewing raced up to see him looming over a nest of young, hairless mice. They dove in, killing the baby mice with swift, careful blows so as not to spoil the delicate bodies.
When everything was quiet, they stood back and looked down at the instant fresh-kill pile. “That was a good find,” Mistystar praised Grasspelt.
Her Clanmate shrugged. “It’s hardly enough to replace a lake full of fish.”
“But it’s a start,” mewed Icewing. She scooped up the mice, gathering the tails in her teeth. The others helped her, and they began to make their way back down the stream, holding their prey out of the mud as they struggled to keep their footing.
Back in the camp, their Clanmates fell hungrily on their catch. “Mice are almost as yummy as trout!” Podkit declared, munching a soft, pink ear.
There were enough mice for every cat to have half each. Mistystar watched her Clanmates eating and felt a surge of satisfaction. Perhaps hunting farther upstream would be the answer until the fish came back. She looked up at the sky, wondering if her warrior ancestors agreed. If Mothwing can’t hear you, could you send a sign to Willowshine instead?