The Fourth Apprentice Page 7

  “And maybe hedgehogs fly,” Spiderleg mewed with a sigh. “Lionblaze, you really ought to tell your apprentice not to make this stuff up. It’s not funny, not when we’re all suffering.”

  “That’s right,” Whitewing added. The approval in her eyes had changed to annoyance and embarrassment. “Dovepaw, what’s come over you? This is a nice game to play with your sister, but it’s not the sort of thing you should talk about in front of all your Clanmates.”

  Dovepaw sprang to her paws, the remains of her vole forgotten in her surge of anger. “It’s not a game! And I’m not making it up! You have to know I’m not.”

  “I don’t know anything of the sort,” Spiderleg retorted. “Twolegs and big brown animals? It sounds like a tale for kits.”

  “Can’t you hear them?” Dovepaw asked. All the other cats were looking at her uneasily, and she found it hard to meet their gaze.

  “Don’t be too hard on her.” Graystripe flicked his tail at Spiderleg. “We all played games when we were apprentices.”

  “Maybe she’s confused,” Millie added kindly. “It could be the heat. Did you have a dream?” she asked Dovepaw.

  “I didn’t dream it, and it’s not a game!” Dovepaw’s anger was giving way to distress, her forepaws working in the earth of the camp floor. Why are they all pretending they don’t know about the stream?

  “Come on.” Hazeltail got up and stretched. “Let’s find a shady place to sleep. Maybe we can all dream about big brown animals.” She padded off toward the edge of the clearing, followed by Spiderleg and Mousewhisker. Birchfall skirted the fresh-kill pile and halted in front of Dovepaw. His eyes were serious.

  “If you’re making things up for fun, then stop it and say you’re sorry,” he meowed. “If you’re feeling ill, then go ask Jayfeather for some herbs. But stop bothering warriors who have better things to do than listen to nursery tales.”

  “It’s not a nursery tale!” Dovepaw wanted to wail like a lost kit. Even my own father is joining in!

  Birchfall exchanged a glance with Lionblaze, then padded away with Whitewing. Graystripe and Millie headed for the warriors’ den. Cinderheart rose to her paws. “Get some rest now, Ivypaw. When it’s cooler, I’ll take you for some battle training.”

  “Thanks,” Ivypaw mewed, watching her mentor as she followed the other warriors. She gave Dovepaw a hard shove. “Stop showing off.”

  Dovepaw stared at her, incredulous. “But, Ivypaw, you—”

  “You’re only doing it to get attention,” Ivypaw hissed. Before Dovepaw could respond, she bounded away and vanished into the apprentices’ den.

  Dovepaw stayed crouched beside the fresh-kill pile, her head down, feeling utterly crushed. Every cat in the Clan had treated her like a piece of dirt, just because she knew about the brown animals. Why are they pretending they don’t know? At least Lionblaze must have heard them; he was beside her when she sensed them, far upstream on the border with ShadowClan. Maybe it was some big secret that apprentices weren’t supposed to know about? He shouldn’t have taken me to that empty stream, then!

  After a few moments, she felt the light touch of a nose against her ear, and looked up to see her mentor gazing down at her. His amber eyes were unreadable.

  “Follow me,” he meowed.

  CHAPTER 6

  Dovepaw followed Lionblaze through the thorn tunnel and into the clearing just outside the camp. Is he angry with me as well? she wondered.

  Lionblaze halted in the shade of a hazel thicket at the edge of the clearing and turned to face his apprentice. “Tell me what you can hear,” he mewed.

  Dovepaw was startled. Was this her punishment? “Waves lapping at the edge of the lake,” she replied. “And the dawn patrol is on its way back.” Brightening up a little, she added, “Berrynose trod on a thistle earlier. He was trying to balance on three paws while he pulled the prickles out with his teeth.”

  “Was he now?” Lionblaze murmured. “And where did this happen?”

  “On the WindClan border, near the stepping-stones across the stream.”

  As Dovepaw spoke, the bracken at the other side of the clearing parted, and Dustpelt led his patrol into the open. Rosepetal, Foxtail, and Berrynose followed him; the cream-colored warrior was limping.

  “Hey, Berrynose!” Lionblaze called. “What happened to you?”

  Berrynose didn’t reply, except for heaving a long sigh.

  “He stepped on a thistle,” Dustpelt snapped. “You would think no cat ever had a thorn in his paw before.”

  Lionblaze was silent until the patrol had vanished into the tunnel. Then he turned back to Dovepaw. Her fur prickled under the intensity of his gaze.

  “Wait here,” he ordered.

  Dovepaw crouched down as he padded across the clearing and followed the patrol into the tunnel. Her belly was churning uncomfortably. I don’t understand what all this is about!

  A few heartbeats later, Lionblaze returned; Dovepaw stiffened when she saw that Jayfeather was with him. Does Lionblaze think that I’m sick, too? Does he think I need a medicine cat?

  “This had better be important,” Jayfeather grumbled as he crossed the clearing beside Lionblaze. “I’m in the middle of making a yarrow poultice.”

  “It is important,” Lionblaze assured him, halting in front of Dovepaw. “I think she’s the one.”

  “One what?” Dovepaw’s nervousness made her voice sharp. “Don’t talk about me like I’m not here.”

  Lionblaze ignored her. “She hears things,” he explained to Jayfeather. “Not from StarClan. I mean from really far away.” Turning to Dovepaw, he added, “Tell Jayfeather about the brown animals blocking the stream.”

  Reluctantly Dovepaw repeated the story she had told to her Clanmates around the fresh-kill pile. When she had finished she waited for Jayfeather to make fun of her like the others. Why is Lionblaze making me go through all this again?

  Jayfeather was silent for a moment; when he spoke it was to Lionblaze. “Do you think she’s telling the truth?”

  Dovepaw’s frustration spilled over. Before Lionblaze could reply, she sprang to her paws and confronted Jayfeather. “I don’t understand why every cat thinks I’m making this up! There are animals blocking the stream; are you telling me that you can’t hear them?”

  Jayfeather answered her with another question. “Do you just hear them?”

  Dovepaw shook her head; then she remembered that Jayfeather couldn’t see her. “No, I know what they look like, too.” Confusion swept over her. “I mean, I can’t really see them, not like they’re in front of me. But—but I know what they look like. They’re brown, with stiff fur and flat tails. Oh, and they have big front teeth, which they use to cut the trees and branches.”

  “She saw Berrynose treading on a thistle, too,” Lionblaze added. “While his patrol was at the other end of the WindClan border.”

  Jayfeather’s whiskers twitched. “So, you saw him and heard him,” he mused. “Anything else? Did you feel his pain?”

  “No,” Dovepaw replied. “But I saw him stumble, and I heard him complain about the thorns in his pad. And I knew he was trying to pull them out with his teeth.”

  “That doesn’t sound like messages from StarClan,” Jayfeather remarked, turning to his brother. “It’s more as if she can see and hear things that other cats can’t.”

  “We need to test her,” Lionblaze meowed.

  “Do you mean I’m different from other cats?” Dovepaw asked, her brain whirling. Couldn’t all cats tell what was happening around the territory? How did they know when trouble was coming, then? She felt her fur beginning to fluff up in panic. “Is there something wrong with me?”

  “No,” Lionblaze assured her, giving her a calming touch on her shoulder with the tip of his tail. “It—it means you’re special.”

  “Can Ivypaw sense the same things?” Jayfeather asked.

  Dovepaw shrugged. “We’ve never spoken about it. But…maybe not.” Now that she thought about it, she had always be
en the one who commented on things happening far away, not her sister. A worm of fear crept into her belly. I thought every cat could see and hear the same way I can. I don’t want to be the only one.

  “We need to test her out,” Lionblaze repeated. “Is that okay?” he added quickly as Dovepaw began to bristle up again.

  She met his amber gaze, aware that something had changed in the last few moments. Lionblaze was no longer just her mentor, teaching her things and telling her what to do. Instead, his eyes held respect, perhaps even awe.

  Weird, she thought. “I’m fine with being tested,” she meowed. Let’s just get it over with, and then maybe life can get back to normal.

  “I’m going to go off somewhere and do something,” Lionblaze told her. “When I get back, I want you to tell me what I did.”

  Dovepaw shrugged again. “Okay.”

  Without another word, Lionblaze dashed off into the trees, heading toward the WindClan border. Dovepaw felt a bit strange being left alone in the clearing with Jayfeather. She didn’t know the medicine cat like she knew the warriors, though she was well aware of his sharp tongue. But he didn’t seem inclined to talk; he just crouched down with his paws tucked under him, so Dovepaw let her attention wander out into the forest.

  Gradually she made sense of the confusion of noise that poured from the trees. A ShadowClan patrol was investigating the scent of a fox near the border; RiverClan warriors were making a fuss about the sticky mud at the edge of the shrunken lake, where Mistyfoot was scolding an apprentice. And farther away, at the very edge of her senses, one of the big brown animals was adding another piece of wood to the blockage in the stream.

  She jumped when Jayfeather spoke. “Can you tell what Lionblaze is doing yet?”

  Dovepaw swiveled her ears in the direction Lionblaze had gone, toward the WindClan border. But there was no sign of her mentor there. Where could he have gone? She investigated the abandoned Twoleg nest and the training clearing, where she picked up the sounds of Cinderheart and Ivypaw practicing battle moves. Still no Lionblaze.

  Dovepaw focused her senses on the edge of the lake. Yes! There he is! She could hear him and scent him, heading down the bank to the pebbly lakeshore. Did he think he would be able to trick me if he doubled back?

  Lionblaze’s paw steps thudded on the dried mud. Pausing, he glanced around, then bounded over to a lump of battered wood and started dragging it onto the pebbles. Dovepaw could hear them rasping and rolling as Lionblaze tugged the wood higher. When he had pulled it all the way up to the grass, he pulled a tendril of bramble out of a nearby thicket and laid it over the wood.

  “Lionblaze, what are you doing?” Dovepaw heard Sandstorm’s voice and spotted the ginger she-cat appearing around the edge of the thicket, with Leafpool, Briarpaw, and Bumblepaw just behind her. All four cats were carrying bundles of moss.

  “Oh, hi, Sandstorm.” Lionblaze sounded startled. “I’m…uh…just trying an experiment.”

  “Well, don’t let me interrupt you.” Sandstorm seemed puzzled as she waved her tail and led the two apprentices out onto the mud, heading for the water in the distance.

  When Sandstorm had gone, Lionblaze ran back through the trees and arrived, panting, a few moments later. “Well?” he gasped. “Where did I go and what did I do?”

  “You tried to trick me, didn’t you?” Dovepaw began; she felt so self-conscious that every hair on her pelt was prickling. “You set off toward WindClan, but then you went down to the lake. And you found a piece of wood….”

  As she went on, she saw Jayfeather listening with his head to one side, his ears pricked. He didn’t speak until she had finished. “Was she right?”

  “Yes, every detail,” Lionblaze replied.

  Suddenly the air around the three cats seemed to crackle with things unsaid, as if a greenleaf storm was about to break. Dovepaw drew a shaky breath.

  “It’s no big deal,” she protested. “I thought every cat could tell what was going on, even if it’s not right in front of us. We all have good hearing and sensitive whiskers, right?”

  “Not that sensitive,” Lionblaze meowed.

  “Listen.” Jayfeather leaned forward with an intensity in his sightless blue eyes. “There is a prophecy, Dovepaw,” he began. “There will be three, kin of your kin, who will hold the power of the stars in their paws. It was given to Firestar a long time ago by a cat from another Clan, and it refers to three cats who will be more powerful than any others in the Clans—more powerful even than StarClan. Lionblaze—”

  “But what has that got to do with us?” Dovepaw interrupted; suddenly she felt as if she didn’t want to know the answer.

  “Lionblaze and I are two of those cats,” Jayfeather mewed with a flick of his ears. “And we believe that you are the third.”

  “What?” Horror and disbelief surged over Dovepaw; her voice came out like the squeak of a startled kit. “Me?” Spinning around, she fixed her gaze on her mentor. “Lionblaze, this can’t be right! Please tell me that it isn’t true!”

  CHAPTER 7

  Jayfeather winced at Dovepaw’s dismay as she learned that she was different from all the other cats in her Clan, with a destiny greater even than StarClan. Not that we know what our destiny is…He heard Lionblaze sigh as she begged him to tell her it wasn’t real.

  “I can’t tell you that, Dovepaw,” his brother meowed. “Because it is true. I often wish it wasn’t, believe me.”

  “Lionblaze and I both have special powers,” Jayfeather put in. “He can’t be beaten in battle, and I…well, I have more skills than other medicine cats.” No way am I telling her what they are! Not yet, anyway.

  “And you have especially strong senses,” Lionblaze told her. “You can tell what’s going on very far away. I started to wonder that day we went to RiverClan, when you told me there was a very sick cat in the camp. I didn’t sense anything like that. You’re a better hunter than you should be, with less than a moon’s training. And no other cat knows anything about these animals you say are blocking the river. The way you could tell exactly what I did just now makes me think you could be right about them.”

  Dovepaw was silent for a few heartbeats; Jayfeather could hear her claws tearing at the grass. “This is mouse-brained!” she burst out at last. “I don’t believe you. I don’t want to be different!”

  “What you want isn’t—” Jayfeather began, then broke off as he heard the swishing sound of cats pushing their way through bracken. Sandstorm was in the lead, with more cats behind her, their scents almost drowned in the dank smell of mud.

  “I’m sick of this,” Sandstorm complained, her voice muffled so that Jayfeather could picture the soaked moss she held in her jaws. “RiverClan is behaving as if we have to ask their permission every time we want to go near the water.”

  “And I’m covered in mud,” Briarpaw protested.

  “We’re all covered.” Leafpool’s voice was tired. “Once we take the water to our Clanmates, we can have a rest and lick it off.”

  “Yuck!” Bumblepaw exclaimed.

  The sounds of the patrol faded as they headed into the thorn tunnel.

  “We can’t talk here,” Jayfeather meowed. “We might as well announce everything to the Clan and be done with it.”

  “Then let’s go farther into the forest where no cat can overhear us,” Lionblaze suggested.

  Jayfeather led the way along the old Twoleg path as far as the abandoned nest. The scent of catmint greeted him, soothing his worries and filling him with a deep sense of satisfaction. If ThunderClan ever suffers from greencough again, we’ll be well prepared.

  “Your catmint is flourishing,” Lionblaze remarked as the three cats padded into the overgrown Twoleg garden. “It’s weird that it grows so well in a drought.”

  “If it did, that would be weird,” Jayfeather agreed. “I’ve been fetching soaked moss to water the roots. We can’t afford to let it die.”

  Distracted for the moment from the problem of Dovepaw, Jayfeather moved conf
idently from plant to plant, guided by the strong scent of catmint, and gave each root a careful sniff to make sure that the fragile shoots were thriving.

  “You must understand how I can tell what’s going on all over the forest.” Dovepaw padded up behind him, a challenge in her voice. “You know where every one of those plants is, even though you can’t see them.”

  Jayfeather flicked up his ears, startled, while Lionblaze began, “Dovepaw, that’s different—”

  “It’s okay,” Jayfeather interrupted. It was refreshing to meet a cat who didn’t tie herself into knots trying not to mention his blindness to his face. “Dovepaw has a good point. I know other cats are surprised when I know where things are. I’ve developed very good senses of smell and hearing,” he went on to Dovepaw. “I suppose that’s to make up for not being able to see. But I can’t tell what’s going on at the other side of the forest.” A flicker of resentment crossed his mind. “Your powers are much greater than my senses.”

  “But I don’t understand!” Jayfeather could tell that Dovepaw was trying very hard to keep her voice steady. “Why do I have these powers? What does the prophecy mean?”

  “We’re not sure,” Lionblaze replied. “We felt just like you, at first. And we’ve struggled hard to understand it, but—”

  “What’s the matter with you?” Jayfeather cut in. “How can you not want to be more powerful than your Clanmates? To have a greater destiny, a mystery to solve? How can you not want to be one of the Three?”

  “But we’re not three, we’re four!” Dovepaw spun around to face him. “What about Ivypaw? What are her special powers? What does the prophecy say about her?”

  “Nothing,” Jayfeather told her. “At first we didn’t know whether the prophecy meant you or your sister. But you’ve made it pretty clear that you’re the One.”

  “You just told us Ivypaw can’t sense things at a distance, the way you do,” Lionblaze pointed out.

  “Not yet. But how do we know she won’t?” Jayfeather dug his claws into the ground at the apprentice’s stubborn tone. “Besides, she’s my sister. I’m not going to do anything without her.”