“Okay,” Hollyleaf meowed as they reached the border. “Let’s split up. Brackenfur, you and Berrynose go upstream and renew our markers there. Ivypool, you and I will go downstream.”
Brackenfur gave her a brisk nod and headed off with Berrynose beside him. “Go straight back to camp when you’ve finished,” Hollyleaf called after them.
Hollyleaf set the first marker; by the time she had finished the two toms were out of sight. Ivypool padded at her shoulder as she turned toward the lake. Pausing to set another marker, Ivypool picked up more ShadowClan scent, strong and fresh.
“A patrol!” she whispered.
As she spoke the ferns on the other side of the border were thrust aside and three cats emerged into the open. Dawnpelt was in the lead; with her were Redwillow and Scorchfur.
Dawnpelt drew her lips back in a snarl as she spotted the ThunderClan cats. Ivypool felt her neck fur beginning to rise at the naked hostility in the cream-furred she-cat’s gaze.
“Set one paw across—” Dawnpelt began, then broke off as she noticed Hollyleaf. “You!” she exclaimed. “I thought you’d left the Clans.”
Hollyleaf shrugged. “I came back.”
For a few heartbeats Dawnpelt’s hostility faded, to be replaced by a look of interest. But Ivypool hoped that she wouldn’t want to stand around and chat. I’ve got nothing to say to that flea-pelt. I don’t trust her one bit. Before we know it, she’ll be accusing Hollyleaf of murdering Flametail, too.
“We’re not doing any harm,” Ivypool meowed. “Just setting markers.”
Dawnpelt snorted disbelievingly. “I’d better check where you’re putting them,” she hissed, padding forward and craning her neck to sniff the marker Ivypool had just placed. “I’ll tell Blackstar if any of them are a leaf’s depth out of place.”
“Feel free,” Hollyleaf retorted. “If you can find anything wrong, I’ll tell Blackstar myself.”
Dawnpelt’s only reply was a snarl. Ivypool knew that she was spoiling for a fight and didn’t much care how she provoked one. Does she think she can make two Clans go into battle just because she wants to? Ivypool remembered Tigerheart’s warning to Dovewing at the Gathering, but she found it hard to take Dawnpelt’s threats seriously. Tigerheart probably just wanted an excuse to talk to Dovewing.
“Dawnpelt, stop fussing,” Redwillow meowed, stepping forward. “The ThunderClan scent marks are fine.”
Ivypool was reassured by the brown-and-ginger tom’s brisk tone, but her belly churned a moment later when she caught Redwillow’s eye and he gave her a nod.
He’s on my side because we’re Dark Forest Clanmates, Ivypool thought, wincing. No! I’m loyal to my own Clan. And he should be loyal to his!
“Come on, Hollyleaf,” she urged. “Let’s keep moving.”
Hollyleaf nodded, leading the way along the border, past the ShadowClan patrol. Dawnpelt let out a loud yowl behind them, as if she’d won some kind of victory.
“Great StarClan!” Hollyleaf meowed when they were out of earshot. “Who made dirt in Dawnpelt’s fresh-kill? Or has she got a furball stuck somewhere?”
“She’s a pain in the tail,” Ivypool agreed.
“And what’s the deal with Redwillow?” Hollyleaf went on, glancing at Ivypool with narrowed eyes. “He seemed to know you better than I’d expect from a ShadowClan cat.”
She has eyes like a hawk! Ivypool thought, startled. “It’s nothing,” she mumbled aloud. “We’ve talked once or twice at Gatherings, that’s all.”
Hollyleaf paused, fixing Ivypool with an intense look. “Becoming too close to a cat from another Clan is the worst act of disloyalty,” she mewed. “No cat is—”
“But I’m not!” Ivypool interrupted, horrified at where Hollyleaf’s suspicions were heading.
Hollyleaf ignored her protest. “No cat is worth breaking the warrior code for in that way,” she insisted. “It only leads to unhappiness.” Without waiting for Ivypool’s reply she strode on down the border, disapproval quivering in every hair on her pelt.
“I don’t know what got into her,” Ivypool meowed to Dovewing when the sisters met beside the fresh-kill pile later that day. “You don’t think she suspects I’m in the Dark Forest with Redwillow, do you?”
Dovewing rolled her eyes. “Oh, please! It’s hard when my only sister is such a mouse-brain. The Dark Forest is the last thing Hollyleaf would be worried about. Just think of who her parents are! She’s half-Clan, remember?”
“Oh.” Embarrassment flooded over Ivypool. “I hadn’t thought of that. Well, she needn’t be afraid that I’ll take up with Redwillow, or any cat from another Clan.”
And it looks as if Dovewing’s sights are set on Bumblestripe now, she told herself with satisfaction. That’s much better than mangy Tigerheart!
Chapter 23
Lionblaze pushed his way between the branches of the warriors’ den and bounded across the clearing to join the cats clustered around Firestar. The full moon floated high in a clear sky, the warriors of StarClan glittering around it. Lionblaze’s paws tingled with anticipation of the Gathering.
“I’m not going to mention Onestar’s threats,” Firestar was meowing as Lionblaze reached his side. “There’s no point in drawing the other Clans’ attention to what could just be a minor dispute.” He twitched his whiskers at the murmurs of uncertainty that came from his Clanmates. “Besides,” he went on, “we haven’t seen Sol in ThunderClan territory for a half-moon. Onestar has no reason to attack us now.”
Lionblaze agreed, though part of him wished that Onestar could be called to account for his outburst of hostility toward ThunderClan. It’s none of his business that we let Sol stay in our camp!
Jayfeather and Cinderheart emerged from the medicine cat’s den and padded over to the group of warriors.
“I want you to stay here,” Jayfeather told the gray she-cat. “Lilykit has a fever, and I’d be happier if you kept an eye on her.”
Cinderheart looked briefly disappointed, then dipped her head and padded off toward the nursery.
I bet Sorreltail’s kit would be fine without a medicine cat hovering over her, Lionblaze thought as he joined his brother on the edge of the group. “You don’t want to make awkward explanations about why Cinderheart has suddenly changed to being a medicine cat,” he murmured in Jayfeather’s ear.
Jayfeather’s tail lashed irritably. “She’s not the first cat to switch roles!” he growled.
“No, but she’s the first cat to be another cat first. Kind of . . .” Lionblaze responded.
Jayfeather opened his jaws to reply, but in the same heartbeat Firestar raised his tail and beckoned. He headed out through the thorn tunnel with the rest of the cats streaming behind him.
As they made their way down to the lakeshore, Lionblaze found himself walking beside Graystripe and Millie. “What did you think of the session this morning?” he asked. All three of them had gone with Birchfall and Hazeltail for underground battle training with Hollyleaf. “I have to admit that I don’t like fighting in the dark. I’d rather see my enemy and know where I can strike without risking my paws on hard stone.”
Millie twitched her shoulders. “I wasn’t comfortable in the tunnels at all,” she confessed. “I couldn’t stop thinking about the amount of rock above my head!”
“But you were brilliant,” Graystripe meowed, resting his tail on his mate’s shoulder. “I think we all felt the same. Fighting underground isn’t natural, but neither is Sol. What kind of cat would keep trying to befriend a Clan, only to betray them?” The gray warrior ducked under a hawthorn bough, and went on, “Sol did it with Blackstar and ShadowClan, and now he’s turning WindClan against ThunderClan. If he has a reason, I’d like to know what it is.”
Whitewing caught up in time to hear the gray warrior’s last few words. “Sol knew that the sun was going to vanish,” she pointed out, suppressing a shiver. “That suggests he has more power than any of us.”
Lionblaze snorted. No cat has the power to challenge me
when it comes to a battle! His paws itched to take on Sol in single combat. He made me help him to escape from ThunderClan all those moons ago. The memory surged up inside Lionblaze, making him feel as if flames were scorching his pelt. I’d like to punish him for that. And for bringing more trouble to the Clans now, when we should be thinking about the Dark Forest.
A sudden thought struck Lionblaze, briefly freezing his paws to the ground. Was Sol sent by the Dark Forest cats to stir up trouble? Is this the beginning of the end?
Forcing himself to move on, he spotted Jayfeather a couple of tail-lengths away, slipping unerringly through the undergrowth. “I just had a horrible idea,” Lionblaze hissed. “Do you think Sol is helping the Dark Forest?”
Jayfeather paused, then shrugged. “I don’t know. But I wouldn’t be surprised.”
In the clearing around the Great Oak, the air was filled with tension, as if a greenleaf storm was about to break. Lionblaze noticed that the medicine cats especially seemed hostile, sitting loosely in a group underneath a pine tree, but not acknowledging one another. Every Clan is going it alone, he thought, twitching his whiskers apprehensively. It’s really bad when even the medicine cats are enemies.
Only Mothwing was speaking to her fellow medicine cats, but they barely replied. Lionblaze saw her flex her claws in exasperation and finally give up, sitting down beside her apprentice, Willowshine.
The rest of the cats settled down within their own Clans, without any of the mingling and gossiping that used to be part of a Gathering. Lionblaze watched carefully for any signs that cats knew one another in the Dark Forest. Once alerted, he spotted plenty of indications: Redwillow exchanging a glance with Breezepelt; Icewing of RiverClan nodding to Ivypool; the twitch of a tail as Tigerheart’s gaze met Hollowflight’s.
They know each other, Lionblaze thought, chilled. Better than any warrior should know a cat from another Clan. Then he gave his pelt a shake. Don’t get carried away, he told himself. Not every cat is being trained by unseen enemies.
He was distracted from thoughts of the Dark Forest when he noticed Crowfeather among the WindClan cats. The gray-black warrior had just spotted Hollyleaf, and he was staring as if his eyes were about to leap out of his head. Beside him, his mate, Nightcloud, followed his gaze and drew back her lips in a snarl.
Lionblaze realized that Hollyleaf had seen them, but she turned her back on them, staying close to her own Clanmates. Surprised murmurs spread around the clearing as more cats realized that she was there. One or two younger cats sprang to their paws to get a better view of her.
“This feels kind of weird,” Hollyleaf muttered, picking her way over to sit beside Lionblaze.
Lionblaze touched her ear with his nose. “You must have known it wouldn’t be easy.”
“It’s what kept me away for so long,” Hollyleaf admitted. “I can’t bear the whispers, the gossip . . .”
The compassion Lionblaze felt faded into a flash of annoyance. Jayfeather and I have had to put up with whispers and gossip for a very long time. But he realized that Hollyleaf felt genuinely uncomfortable, and pushed aside his resentment. Wrapping his tail around her shoulders, he stared straight ahead, ignoring the whispers.
The atmosphere seemed to be growing more and more hostile. Lionblaze was relieved when Mistystar rose to her paws on her branch of the Great Oak and announced that the Gathering would begin.
“We have had a few problems with Twolegs,” she reported. “As always in greenleaf, they come to fish in the lake and the streams around our camp. But we have managed to stay out of their way, and they didn’t catch enough fish to threaten our stocks of fresh-kill.”
“Huh!” Mistystar’s deputy, Reedwhisker, exclaimed. “Twolegs couldn’t catch a fish if it leaped out of the water and begged them.”
Mistystar gave her deputy an amused glance from glimmering blue eyes, and sat down again.
Firestar rose in his turn and advanced along his branch, carefully avoiding a cluster of oak leaves. “I have good news to report from ThunderClan,” he began, gazing down into the clearing. “Our warrior Hollyleaf has returned, after we believed she was dead for so many moons.”
Murmurs and gasps rose from the other Clans. “Where has she been?” some cat called out loudly. Beside him, Lionblaze felt Hollyleaf grow tense.
Firestar ignored the question. “We welcome her back,” he continued, turning his warm green gaze onto Hollyleaf. “We are glad to have her in ThunderClan once again, and I look forward to patrolling alongside her for many future moons.”
Lionblaze was relieved that Firestar had kept to his earlier intention of saying nothing about Sol or WindClan. But now he braced himself for cats from the other Clans to mention Ashfur and the time that Hollyleaf had disappeared, just after she revealed the terrible truth about Leafpool and Crowfeather at a Gathering.
But no cat asked the crucial questions, only murmured comments as they reacted to Firestar’s announcement.
“I’m surprised she showed her face after what she told us!”
“I bet Crowfeather isn’t pleased to see her.”
Nightcloud rose and lashed her tail, raking Hollyleaf with an icy gaze. “Does she think she’s welcome?” she snarled.
Firestar still refused to react to any of the comments; he dipped his head to Hollyleaf and retreated to sit down again farther back on his branch. Immediately Onestar took his place.
“This is surprising news, Firestar,” he mewed smoothly. “But I’m sure that any Clan leader would welcome back a trained and loyal warrior.”
Is he suggesting that Hollyleaf isn’t loyal? Lionblaze wondered, beginning to bristle.
“My patrols are as vigilant as ever,” Onestar continued. “We will do anything to defend our territory from rogues and strays.”
Lionblaze’s belly churned. Now he’s insulting all of us! He’s suggesting that ThunderClan is a bunch of rogues and strays! Glancing up at Firestar, half-hidden by the leaves of the Great Oak, Lionblaze could see that his Clan leader was struggling to keep his fur flat and his mouth closed.
With a triumphant glance at Firestar, Onestar sat down again. When Blackstar stood up, Lionblaze could see that he looked puzzled by the hostility between ThunderClan and WindClan, but after a moment’s hesitation he gave a tiny shrug and began to speak.
“Like RiverClan, we have had problems with Twolegs by the lake,” he began. “The warm weather brings them out like earthworms after rain. But they haven’t come into the forest far enough to bother us close to our camp.”
When he had finished he was about to sit down again, only to check as a voice rose up from among the cats in the clearing. “Blackstar, may I speak?”
Lionblaze glanced across to where the ShadowClan cats were sitting, and saw that Dawnpelt had risen to her paws, her cream-colored fur luminous in the moonlight. Blackstar blinked in surprise, then dipped his head. Instantly Dawnpelt leaped up onto a tree stump. Her neck fur was bristling and her tail fluffed up to twice its size.
“There is a murderer among us!” she yowled.
Silence crashed down on the clearing. Lionblaze tensed, and wrapped his tail more firmly around his sister’s shoulders. Oh, Great StarClan! How could she have found out about Hollyleaf?
But Dawnpelt raised a paw and pointed toward the pine tree where the medicine cats were sitting. “Jayfeather killed Flametail!”
The cats in the clearing exploded into yowls and screeches of horror. At first Lionblaze couldn’t make sense of what any of them were saying. Then Brambleclaw rose to his paws on the root of the Great Oak and made his voice heard above the clamor.
“We all know about Flametail’s death, and we grieve for him, too. But how was Jayfeather involved?”
“And why speak up now?” Graystripe added.
Dawnpelt turned her gaze onto the ThunderClan cats; her eyes were filled with hatred. “Jayfeather was there when Flametail drowned,” she hissed. “We all saw him struggling in the water beside him. Why do we believe his story
that he was trying to save Flametail?”
“Why not believe him?” Brambleclaw challenged her.
“Since when has Jayfeather shown compassion for cats in other Clans?” Dawnpelt snarled. “I believe that he deliberately drowned Flametail in front of all of us!”
Firestar sprang to his paws, thrusting his way out of the leaves. “That’s ridiculous! It goes against the warrior code and the medicine cat code. Jayfeather would never murder Flametail!”
Lionblaze, too, had risen to his paws, his fur bristling. He wanted nothing more than to rake his claws across Dawnpelt’s accusing face. Feeling a nudge from Hollyleaf, he glanced down at her.
“Sit down,” she murmured. “Don’t give Dawnpelt the satisfaction of provoking a fight.”
Lionblaze flexed his claws, then realized the sense of what his littermate was saying, and forced himself to sit down. This is a Gathering, he reminded himself. ShadowClan would be delighted if ThunderClan broke the truce.
“I met Dawnpelt on border patrol,” Hollyleaf continued quietly. “She was doing her best to pick a fight then, too.”
“What’s her quarrel with ThunderClan?” Lionblaze asked, bewildered.
Hollyleaf gave him a long look. “Her brother drowned and Jayfeather was there,” she mewed. “That’s enough.”
The clearing had descended into turmoil again, with no cat able to make themselves heard. Lionblaze spotted Dovewing and Ivypool weaving their way among their Clanmates until they reached his side.
“I knew Dawnpelt was planning something,” Ivypool whispered. “But I didn’t know this was it.”
Lionblaze wondered if Ivypool had heard something in the Dark Forest, perhaps from Dawnpelt herself. But he didn’t want to ask where other cats might overhear.
“It’s ridiculous!” Dovewing exclaimed. “I . . . I heard Flame-tail drown. I know Jayfeather was trying to save him.”
But there’s no way we can tell that to Dawnpelt and get her to believe it, Lionblaze thought. Gazing across the clearing at the medicine cats, he saw that his brother had risen to his paws. He looked icy calm, though Lionblaze could guess at the emotions that must be surging through him. Jayfeather waited, not even trying to speak, until the noise in the clearing died down.