Hollypaw dug her claws into the frozen earth and tried even harder to catch up. A fallen tree blocked the path, but Brackenfur cleared it with ease. Hollypaw skidded to a halt in front of it and wriggled through the narrow gap underneath.
Brackenfur was waiting for her on the other side. Graystripe and Millie were pacing the small clearing in the undergrowth. Ashfur and Spiderleg talked quietly nearby, while their apprentices, Lionpaw and Mousepaw, competed to see who could skid farthest through the fallen leaves.
Lionpaw stared at Hollypaw in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
“Meet my new apprentice,” Brackenfur meowed.
Lionpaw’s tail flicked. “That’s great!”
Graystripe padded forward and touched his muzzle to hers. “Congratulations.”
“Did you catch anything while I was gone?” Brackenfur asked.
“The prey’s hiding from the cold,” Ashfur complained.
“There must be some way to tempt it out,” Brackenfur meowed. “It’ll be as hungry as we are.”
“We could dig it out,” Lionpaw suggested. “The shallow burrows would be easy to scent.”
“The ground’s probably too frozen,” Ashfur pointed out.
“What about that huge beech tree near the old Thunderpath?” Spiderleg suggested. “There are always beechnuts on the ground, even this late in leaf-bare.”
“The prey’s more likely to venture out there than anywhere else,” Brackenfur agreed.
He raced away again. The patrol took off after him. Taking a deep breath, Hollypaw followed. Did Brackenfur always give such little warning before he shot off? And how did the others know to follow him? Her muscles were screaming for her to stop, but there was no way she was going to show she was struggling to keep up.
Her paws lightened with relief when she recognized the leaves of the beech up ahead. They rustled in the wind, as golden as Brackenfur’s pelt. The patrol skidded to a halt before they reached it and padded forward silently, weaving through the bracken toward the clear ground around the trunk. Hollypaw watched and copied them.
No one spoke as Brackenfur drew himself forward and peered from the edge of the bracken. While the others lined up alongside, Hollypaw slid into the space beside her mentor.
“Keep your tail still,” he whispered.
Hollypaw realized that the tip of her tail was twitching with excitement. “Sorry,” she breathed. When she held it still, the dry bracken fronds above her head stopped rattling.
The rest of the patrol lined up along the edge of the bracken, their eyes all fixed on the leaf-strewn earth around the tree.
“I see something!” Lionpaw hissed.
Hollypaw searched the forest floor, but could see nothing. She looked at Lionpaw and followed his gaze. He was staring at a single leaf trembling beside an exposed root. Was that really prey? She sniffed the air. At first all she smelled was the pungent mustiness of dead leaves. And then she smelled mouse.
She thrashed her tail, setting the bracken rattling again. The leaf up ahead flipped over, and Lionpaw shot out of the bracken and hurled himself toward it.
“Too late!” he cursed as he slammed his paws down on empty ground. He glared at Hollypaw. “You scared it off!”
Hollypaw’s ears grew hot. “I’m sorry,” she apologized.
“Don’t be hard on her,” Ashfur chided Lionpaw. “It’s her first hunt.”
Lionpaw shrugged. “It’s okay, Hollypaw. I was just annoyed because I wasn’t fast enough.”
“You looked fast enough to me!” Hollypaw told him.
“You’re only fast enough if you catch the mouse,” Mousepaw mewed pointedly.
“Keep quiet, or nothing is going to stir from its burrow for the rest of the day,” Brackenfur ordered.
Lionpaw hurried back to the bracken, and the patrol took up their positions once more.
Hollypaw’s back was beginning to ache from crouching in the same position so long. Lionpaw had caught his mouse at last, Ashfur had caught a vole, and Mousepaw had spotted a sparrow flitting from tree to tree and disappeared into the undergrowth to track it.
“Your turn,” Brackenfur meowed in Hollypaw’s ear.
Her shoulders stiffened. “Are you sure?” She thought she was more likely to scare the prey away than catch anything.
“You learn more by trying than by watching,” Brackenfur replied.
Hollypaw focused on the beech tree up ahead. The clearing still smelled of blood. Surely no more prey would be foolish enough to stray out after Lionpaw and Ashfur’s kill?
“Shouldn’t we try somewhere else?” she suggested.
“There are beechnuts here,” Brackenfur reminded her. “If a creature’s hungry enough, it’ll risk anything for food.”
Hollypaw stared among the roots of the tree. Almost at once she noticed a leaf flickering on the ground. She dashed out of the bracken and threw herself on top of it. Her heart sank when she realized that the ground felt flat and lifeless beneath her paws. She had caught nothing more than a dead leaf, flapping in the breeze.
She glanced back at her Clanmates, her pelt prickling with embarrassment. Graystripe’s whiskers were twitching.
Millie glanced sharply at her mate and his whiskers stopped moving. “It’s the same for every cat to start with,” the kittypet reassured Hollypaw. “Have another try.”
Hollypaw closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then she blinked them open and glanced around the clearing. I’m not fast enough yet to hunt from the bracken, she decided. She studied the tree. Its pale bark darkened at the roots, which snaked out from the base before disappearing into the earth. Her black pelt would blend in well. Climbing stealthily onto the largest root, she crouched and began to wait. She looked over at Brackenfur, wondering if she had done the right thing. He nodded.
Relieved, Hollypaw turned her attention back to the forest floor. She kept perfectly still, not letting even an itch make her ear twitch. Far away, a sparrow screeched an alarm before falling silent. Still she did not move.
Then, almost directly below the root where she crouched, a tiny movement in the leaves made her tense the muscles in her hind legs. She waited. Sure enough, the leaf stirred again, and a small pink nose came snuffling to the surface. A wood mouse! Hollypaw held her breath, waiting like an adder preparing to strike. The mouse nosed its way farther out into the open, heading for a beechnut. Hollypaw knew it had no idea she was there.
She pounced, catching the mouse squarely between her forepaws.
“Well done!” Brackenfur called.
Hollypaw looked up, the warm mouse dangling in her jaws. Her first kill! She closed her eyes, remembering how Lionpaw and Ashfur had given thanks to StarClan when they had made their kills.
“Thank you for the life of this prey, given to feed my Clan. I shall take no more than I want…” She paused. “I mean, need, and I shall give all that I can.”
She was on her way to being a warrior at last!
CHAPTER 19
“Mousefur kept me awake half the night coughing,” Longtail complained.
“It’s a wonder you could hear me over your snoring!” Mousefur retorted.
Jaypaw sighed. He was in the elders’ den, listening to the denmates bicker like kits. He didn’t know why they argued so much. Even now, Longtail’s complaint was only his way of telling Jaypaw that he was worried about Mousefur.
“I can’t feel any swelling around her throat,” Jaypaw told him. “Just make sure she eats the coltsfoot I brought. Leafpool says it will ease her breathing.”
“I don’t need herbs,” Mousefur grumbled.
“Take them anyway,” Longtail urged. “At least it means you’ll eat something. You’ve not had anything since sunhigh yesterday.”
“I don’t like to take prey from the fresh-kill pile when food is so scarce,” Mousefur meowed. “There are younger bellies to feed than mine.”
“Well, eat the coltsfoot instead,” Longtail meowed. “If only to give me some peace.”
r />
Muttering crossly, Mousefur used her tail to sweep the pile of shredded leaves toward her nest.
Jaypaw sighed. Listening to the elders fussing, he felt as though nothing had changed since his days with Brightheart. After hardly a quarter moon he was bored to the ends of his whiskers with doling out herbs. He was meant to visit Stormfur in the warriors’ den next and apply a honey-and-horsetail poultice to his shoulder wound yet again. The warrior refused to rest, and the balm seemed to rub off as quickly as Jaypaw could apply it.
Leafpool appeared at the entrance of the honeysuckle bush, bringing with her the scents of the medicine den. “How’s Mousefur’s throat?” she asked.
“It feels fine,” Jaypaw answered tersely. “Although it would be easier to tell if she stopped complaining long enough for me to feel it properly.”
Leafpool’s irritation spiked the air. “If you can’t be polite to your Clanmates, you may as well come back to the medicine den and help me tear up the tansy that Hollypaw was kind enough to fetch for you yesterday!” she snapped.
Jaypaw rolled his eyes. Another moment in the medicine den and he would burst! So much for his great destiny as a medicine cat. Spottedleaf hadn’t warned him that life would be one tedious chore after another.
Leafpool led the way back to the den, her shoulders tense. Jaypaw padded miserably after her. He felt a lecture brewing in her like a storm, and nosed his way reluctantly through the trailing brambles and sat down.
“You drift around the camp like a little dark cloud looking for someone to rain on,” Leafpool snapped.
“I’m bored!” Jaypaw complained.
Exasperation flashed from his mentor. “Anyone would think I had forced you to become my apprentice!”
“You didn’t force me,” Jaypaw agreed. “But it’s what you wanted all along, isn’t it?” He lashed his tail. “Are you happy now?”
“Do I sound happy?” Leafpool hissed. Jaypaw could feel the fury seething beneath her pelt. Why did she have to be so mad at him? Couldn’t she understand that he had expected more from his life than this?
“It’s okay for you,” he snapped. “You always wanted to be a medicine cat!”
“And you don’t?”
“It’s my destiny,” he muttered. “Wanting doesn’t seem to come into it.”
“Then deal with it!” Leafpool growled unsympathetically.
Unhappily, Jaypaw padded to the heap of tansy Hollypaw had left and began to strip the leaves from the stems. He ripped at them carelessly, leaving long strings of stalk attached. Leafpool sighed and sat down beside him. Wordlessly, she began to nip off the trailing strips he had left. Her disappointment showed in every small, silent movement she made. Guilt pricked at Jaypaw like a bellyful of thorns. He wished he could find the words to explain his frustration, but he knew that whatever he said would only make it worse. What would she say if she knew just how miserable he was at giving up his dream of being a warrior? And for this! A life of sorting herbs and worrying about scratches and bellyaches.
“Leafpool?” Stormfur pushed his way into the den. Jaypaw could smell the sour odor of the scratches festering on his shoulder. He had forgotten to apply the new poultice. He jerked his head around, feeling guiltier than ever.
“Didn’t you treat Stormfur’s scratch?” Leafpool demanded.
“You told me to come back here,” he pointed out.
“You’re right.” She sighed. “Never mind. I’ll do it. You get some rest. It’s half-moon tonight. We’ll be traveling to the Moonpool with the other medicine cats.”
Brightheart was lying next to Cloudtail by the halfrock, washing herself. Jaypaw felt her hurt like thorns in his pads as he waited for Leafpool by the camp entrance. Firestar had promised Brightheart that she could mentor Icekit or Foxkit when their turn came, but the warrior hadn’t gotten over the pain of losing Jaypaw as her apprentice yet.
“Staring at her isn’t going to make her forgive you.” Leafpool’s meow surprised Jaypaw; he had been too busy worrying about Brightheart to hear his mentor approach.
“But she won’t listen to me when I try to talk to her,” Jaypaw mewed. “She just changes the subject or finds an excuse to go somewhere else.”
“She’ll listen when she’s ready to hear,” Leafpool advised. “She’s had to fight hard to prove to her Clanmates that she’s as good as them, and this must feel like a battle she has lost.”
“I never meant to hurt her,” Jaypaw mewed.
“It takes some cats longer to see past their weaknesses clearly enough to appreciate their strengths,” Leafpool meowed. “And until they do, they feel every hurt like a tongue on raw flesh.”
Jaypaw felt that Leafpool was urging him to understand more than Brightheart’s anger, but he didn’t want to think about it now. He was eager to leave camp. He hadn’t been farther than the Sky Oak in days, and his paws were itching to be on their way to the Moonpool.
Leafpool must have sensed his impatience. “Come on,” she meowed, leading him through the thorn barrier.
The night felt brittle with cold. Frost had driven most creatures into hiding, and Jaypaw’s and Leafpool’s pawsteps were the only movement that disturbed the frozen earth. As they neared the WindClan border, Jaypaw felt anxiety flutter in his belly. What if the other medicine cats thought a blind kit wasn’t fit to be one of them?
He sniffed the air. It was tinged with the scent of ShadowClan and RiverClan.
“The others must be waiting,” Leafpool observed, picking up the same scents.
Jaypaw followed her out of the forest and padded onto open grass. Moorland lay ahead; he could smell the scent of gorse and heather mingling with cat scent. He recognized Willowpaw and Mothwing from their visit to the hollow a moon ago. But the reek of the ShadowClan cat with them brought back the raw memory of battle.
“Hi, Mothwing.” Leafpool sounded pleased to see her RiverClan friend.
“Hello, Leafpool,” Mothwing purred.
“Is the frost as bad in RiverClan territory as it is here?” Leafpool asked.
“We seem sheltered from the worst of it, but the cold has driven the elders into their den. They’re complaining of aching bones.”
“You’ve enough poppy seed?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Hello, Littlecloud,” Leafpool greeted the ShadowClan medicine cat. “Is all well with you?”
Jaypaw bristled. It wasn’t long since ShadowClan invaded ThunderClan territory. How could she be so polite to her Clan’s enemy?
“It is,” Littlecloud answered. “Are your Clanmates recovered?” He had to be referring to the injuries they had suffered at the paws of ShadowClan warriors. Suspiciously, Jaypaw searched the ShadowClan cat’s tone for any hint of triumph, but he found only concern.
“One wound unhealed,” Leafpool reported. “And yours?”
“Oakfur is still limping,” he told her.
“Try wrapping his paw with comfrey each night when he sleeps,” Leafpool advised.
“I’ve run out,” Littlecloud confessed.
“You should have come to us!” Leafpool meowed.
“Blackstar wouldn’t let me.”
“I’ll leave some at the border tomorrow morning,” Leafpool promised.
Jaypaw couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Did Firestar know that Leafpool was helping ThunderClan’s enemies?
He felt a soft pelt brush his. Willowpaw from RiverClan. “Where’s Hollypaw?” she asked quietly.
She sounds disappointed to get me instead. Jaypaw flicked his tail. “Didn’t you know?” he hissed back. “Hollypaw found it so boring being a medicine cat that she let her poor, useless brother do it instead.”
Willowpaw flinched.
“I see you’re getting to know my new apprentice,” Leafpool meowed.
Jaypaw felt the gaze of all four cats burn his pelt.
“This is Jaypaw,” Leafpool announced.
Jaypaw stared back, ready to challenge any comment about his blindness.
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br /> “Hi, Jaypaw,” Mothwing meowed.
“How are you enjoying being an apprentice?” Littlecloud asked.
Jaypaw felt anxiety pulse through his mentor. She’s afraid I’m going to say it’s boring! “It’s great,” he replied.
“Jaypaw’s a fast learner.” Leafpool sounded relieved. “He knows all the herbs already.”
“Really?” Littlecloud was clearly impressed.
A new scent caught Jaypaw by surprise. Another cat was hurrying toward them over the WindClan border.
“Barkface!” Littlecloud called to the WindClan medicine cat as he approached. “Where’s Kestrelpaw?”
“He’s come down with whitecough,” Barkface panted.
“Not badly, I hope?” meowed Leafpool.
“He’s young and strong,” Barkface replied. “He’ll fight it off. But I’m making sure he doesn’t spread it around. With prey scarce and bellies empty, the Clans are vulnerable to sickness.”
Mothwing mewed in agreement.
“The moon’s rising,” Littlecloud observed.
“We’d better hurry if we want to catch it in the Moonpool,” Leafpool urged.
Jaypaw followed the cats as they began to climb the slope.
“Willowpaw!” Mothwing called to her apprentice. “Walk with Jaypaw. I’m sure he’ll have plenty of questions about the Moonpool.”
I’ve been there before, you know! Jaypaw bit back the words as Willowpaw fell in beside him. She kept a wary distance, making sure that her pelt did not touch his.
“Has Leafpool brought you here yet?” she mewed, sounding as if she didn’t really want to talk to him.
Jaypaw was about to tell her that he’d traveled there alone when Willowpaw grabbed his scruff without warning and dragged him sideways. He struggled free from her grip and turned on her, lunging at her with unsheathed claws.
“Jaypaw! What are you doing?” Leafpool screeched.
“He almost fell down a rabbit hole!” Willowpaw wailed. “I was just trying to help him.”
Jaypaw let go, shame burning his ears. “I didn’t know!” he snapped. Why had she tried to help him? He wasn’t a kit!