Leafpool's Wish Page 7

  “Climb onto my shoulders,” Squirrelflight meowed, crouching down so he could scramble on. “I’ll carry you for a while.”

  “That’s not fair!” grumbled Hollykit. “Just because Jaykit can’t see, it doesn’t mean his legs don’t work!”

  “But his legs are much shorter than ours,” Lionkit pointed out, looking down at his fluffy forepaws. “We can manage better than he can in the snow. Race you to that tree, Hollykit!”

  Leafpool watched her son and daughter scamper ahead, throwing up specks of snow from their tiny paws. They are so close already, my three beautiful kits. As long as they have one another, they can survive anything.

  They followed the steep-banked stream until they could see the open stretch of grass leading down to the lake, then turned and headed along the ridge above the ThunderClan boundary. The snow had melted here and all three kits trotted along, sniffing the new scents.

  “We’ll have to cross the border soon,” Squirrelflight mewed.

  Leafpool nodded. She felt sick with dread. One small paw step would change everything, plunge her back into her life as a medicine cat, when she had barely become a mother. She slowed down, her paws as heavy as rocks, and Squirrelflight kept pace with her, resting her tail lightly on Leafpool’s back.

  Lionkit had scrambled onto a fallen tree. “I can see the lake from here!” he yowled. “It’s as big as the world!”

  “Let me see!” panted Hollykit, trying to haul herself up. Her scrabbling paws knocked Lionkit off balance and he fell off the trunk with a yelp.

  Leafpool was about to run over to him when she stopped. She looked at Squirrelflight. “You go,” she mewed. “They need to learn that you are their mother.” The words stuck like thorns in her throat and the trees blurred around her.

  Squirrelflight’s gaze was warm and full of sorrow. “Are you sure?” she asked quietly. “I know what we agreed, but you can still change your mind. I will do everything I can to help you, whatever you decide.”

  Leafpool leaned against her sister’s shoulder for a moment. I wish everything were different! Oh, my kits, I am so sorry! Then she straightened up. “I am sure. Be good to them. Love them more than life.”

  “I will,” Squirrelflight promised.

  Leafpool rubbed some of her milk scent onto Squirrelflight’s fur, then watched as her sister trotted over to the tree trunk to rescue Lionkit, who was unharmed but squeaking indignantly on the other side. As Squirrelflight pulled Lionkit clear of the ferns, Jaykit and Hollykit clustered around her.

  “Can you help us all climb up?” they mewed. “We want to see the lake!”

  Squirrelflight curled her tail around them. “Of course I can, my darlings,” she purred. “One at a time, no pushing!”

  Leafpool forced herself to turn away and walk into the undergrowth. She needed to find some herbs that would stop her milk. There was a patch of wild parsley growing close to the border. Nosing carefully through the bracken, she found the frost-nipped plants and picked the leaves. Some she ate at once, wincing at the sharp taste, and the rest she rolled up to carry back to her den. I am the ThunderClan medicine cat, she told herself. My sister has had three kits, and I could not be more delighted.

  They crossed the border close to one of the tunnel entrances and began to descend the slope toward the hollow. Hollykit stopped by the tunnel and peered in, her fur flattened by the cold wind.

  “Stay away from there!” Squirrelflight warned. “It’s not safe for cats to go inside.”

  Lionkit scrunched up his nose. “Who’d want to? It’s all dark and scary!”

  Jaykit was sniffing a clump of moss. “I can smell cats!” he squeaked.

  “That’s right, little one,” Squirrelflight mewed. “Those are your Clanmates.”

  Hollykit trotted over and butted Squirrelflight’s belly. “I’m hungry! Where’s all the milk gone? You smell the same, but I can’t find anything to eat!”

  Leafpool watched as Squirrelflight stroked Hollykit with her tail. “I’m sorry, poppet. My milk has gone, but there’s a lovely cat called Daisy who will have plenty for you.”

  Hollykit pouted. “But I want your milk!”

  Leafpool’s belly ached with a pain more fierce than the birth of her kits. She hung back as Squirrelflight led them down the narrow path beside the hollow. She couldn’t risk the kits picking up the milk-scent that still clung to her. When she noticed a deep patch of snow among the roots of a tree, she stopped and rolled in it to clean off the last traces of kit scent. Then she rubbed herself against a patch of damp ferns, covering her fur in sharp green flavors as further disguise.

  In the distance, she could hear Squirrelflight telling the kits about ThunderClan, how they would grow up to be great warriors, strong and skilled at hunting and fighting.

  “I know how to fight already!” Lionkit boasted. “Watch this!” He launched himself at a branch that lay on the fallen leaves, then stumbled back as a twig poked him in the eye. “Ow!”

  “Come on, little warrior,” Squirrelflight meowed. “Let’s see if we can get you home in one piece!”

  “Why aren’t you walking with us anymore?” piped a small voice beside Leafpool.

  She jumped and looked down at Jaykit’s dazzling blue eyes. “I . . . I had to fetch some herbs,” she explained after putting the leaf wrap on the ground. “I’m the medicine cat for ThunderClan, you see.”

  Jaykit put his head on one side. “You were in the hollow tree, weren’t you?”

  “That’s right. I am your mother’s sister. I came to look after her while she gave birth to you.”

  “Why didn’t she stay in the Clan to have us?” Jaykit asked.

  Leafpool’s heart began to beat faster. “Because we had to go on a journey together,” she meowed. “And you came unexpectedly. But it’s my duty to care for all of our Clanmates when they are sick or in trouble, so it’s lucky I was there to look after your mother.”

  Jaykit blinked his beautiful eyes. “Does that mean you can make me see?” he mewed. “Hollykit and Lionkit can see things, I know. And I guess you and my mother can. Why not me?”

  Leafpool felt her heart crack. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry. I can’t make you see. I would if I could, I promise.”

  Jaykit shrugged his tiny shoulders. “Okay,” he chirped. He spun around and scampered down the slope, following exactly in the paw steps of his littermates. He grabbed at Hollykit’s tail as he passed, and she squealed.

  The barrier of thorns loomed up in front of them. Squirrelflight hesitated, and Leafpool saw her take a deep breath. She knew she was asking so much of her sister, not least that she spend the rest of her life lying to the cat she had so recently chosen to be her mate. I know these kits are worth it! Remember what Feathertail said, that their destiny will shape the future of all the Clans.

  Squirrelflight looked down at the little cats beside her. “Are you ready to meet your Clanmates?” she asked. “And your father?”

  Three small heads nodded vigorously.

  “When can I start being a warrior?” Lionkit squeaked.

  Squirrelflight licked his head. “Soon enough,” she promised. She looked over her shoulder at Leafpool. “This is it,” she murmured.

  “Thank you,” Leafpool whispered.

  Squirrelflight led her kits into the thorns, holding the prickly tendrils aside with her body. Lionkit and Hollykit walked either side of Jaykit to guide him through. The branches stirred around them, swallowing them up. There was a moment of silence as they emerged into the clearing, then Leafpool heard a chorus of voices.

  “Squirrelflight! You’re back!”

  “With kits? I didn’t even know you were expecting!”

  “Thank StarClan Leafpool was with you! Are you all well? They look fine!”

  “Brambleclaw, look! You’re a father!”

  Leafpool stood outside the barrier of thorns and closed her eyes. Three tiny shapes filled her mind, three pairs of eyes—amber, green and blue—glo
wed from the shadows.

  Live well, my darlings. You will always be in my heart.

  Excerpt from Warriors: Dawn of the Clans #1: The Sun Trail

  A mysterious vision leads a group of cats away from their mountain home in search of a land filled with prey and shelter. But the challenges they face threaten to divide them, and the young cats must try to figure out how to live side by side in peace.

  PROLOGUE

  Cold gray light rippled over the floor of a cave so vast that its roof was lost in shadows. An endless screen of water fell across the entrance, its sound echoing from the rocks.

  Near the back of the cavern crouched a frail white she-cat. Despite her age, her green eyes were still clear and deep with wisdom as they traveled over the skinny cats swarming the cave floor, restlessly pacing in front of the shimmering waterfall; the elders huddled together in the sleeping hollows; the kits mewling desperately, demanding food from their exhausted mothers.

  “We can’t go on like this,” the old she-cat whispered to herself.

  A few tail-lengths away, several kits squabbled over an eagle carcass, its flesh stripped away the day before as soon as their mothers had caught it. A big ginger kit shouldered a smaller tabby away from the bone she was gnawing.

  “I need this!” he announced.

  The tabby sprang up and nipped the end of the ginger kit’s tail. “We all need it, flea-brain!” she snapped as the ginger tom let out a yowl.

  A gray-and-white elder, every one of her ribs showing through her pelt, tottered up to the kits and snatched the bone away.

  “Hey!” the ginger kit protested.

  The elder glared at him. “I caught prey for season after season,” she snarled. “Don’t you think I deserve one measly bone?” She turned and stalked away, the bone clamped firmly in her jaws.

  The ginger kit stared after her for a heartbeat, then scampered away, wailing, to his mother, who lay on a rock beside the cave wall. Instead of comforting him, his mother snapped something, angrily flicking her tail.

  The old white she-cat was too far away to hear what the mother cat said, but she sighed.

  Every cat is coming to the end of what they can bear, she thought.

  She watched as the gray-and-white elder padded across the cave and dropped the eagle bone in front of an even older she-cat, who was crouching in a sleeping hollow with her nose resting on her front paws. Her dull gaze was fixed on the far wall of the cave.

  “Here, Misty Water.” The gray-and-white elder nudged the bone closer to her with one paw. “Eat. It’s not much, but it might help.”

  Misty Water’s indifferent gaze flickered over her friend and away again. “No, thanks, Silver Frost. I have no appetite, not since Broken Feather died.” Her voice throbbed with grief. “He would have lived, if there had been enough prey for him to eat.” She sighed. “Now I’m just waiting to join him.”

  “Misty Water, you can’t—”

  The white she-cat was distracted from the elders’ talk as a group of cats appeared at the entrance to the cave, shaking snow off their fur. Several other cats sprang up and ran to meet them.

  “Did you catch anything?” one of them called out eagerly.

  “Yes, where’s your prey?” another demanded.

  The leader of the newcomers shook his head sadly. “Sorry. There wasn’t enough to bring back.”

  Hope melted away from the cats in the cave like mist under strong sunlight. They glanced at one another, then trailed away, their heads drooping and their tails brushing the ground.

  The white she-cat watched them, then turned her head as she realized that a cat was padding up to her. Though his muzzle was gray with age and his golden tabby fur thin and patchy, he walked with a confidence that showed he had once been a strong and noble cat.

  “Half Moon,” he greeted the white she-cat, settling down beside her and wrapping his tail over his paws.

  The white she-cat let out a faint mrrow of amusement. “You shouldn’t call me that, Lion’s Roar,” she protested. “I’ve been the Teller of Pointed Stones for many seasons.”

  The golden tabby tom sniffed. “I don’t care how long the others have called you Stoneteller. You’ll always be Half Moon to me.”

  Half Moon made no response, except to reach out her tail and rest it on her old friend’s shoulder.

  “I was born in this cave,” Lion’s Roar went on. “But my mother, Shy Fawn, told me about the time before we came here—when you lived beside a lake, sheltered beneath trees.”

  Half Moon sighed faintly. “I am the only cat left who remembers the lake, and the journey we made to come here. But I have lived three times as many moons here in the mountains than I did beside the lake, and the endless rushing of the waterfall now echoes in my heart.” She paused, blinking again, then asked, “Why are you telling me this now?”

  Lion’s Roar hesitated before replying. “Hunger might kill us all before the sun shines again, and there’s no more room in the cave.” He stretched out one paw and brushed Half Moon’s shoulder fur. “Something must be done.”

  Half Moon’s eyes stretched wide as she gazed at him. “But we can’t leave the mountains!” she protested, her voice breathless with shock. “Jay’s Wing promised; he made me the Teller of the Pointed Stones because this was our destined home.”

  Lion’s Roar met her intense green gaze. “Are you sure Jay’s Wing was right?” he asked. “How could he know what was going to happen in the future?”

  “He had to be right,” Half Moon murmured.

  Her mind flew back to the ceremony, so many seasons before, when Jay’s Wing had made her the Teller of the Pointed Stones. She shivered as she heard his voice again, full of love for her and grief that her destiny meant they could never be together. “Others will come after you, moon upon moon. Choose them well, train them well—trust the future of your Tribe to them.”

  He would never have said that if he didn’t mean for us to stay here.

  Half Moon let her gaze drift over the other cats: her cats, now thin and hungry. She shook her head sadly. Lion’s Roar was right: something had to be done if they were to survive.

  Gradually she realized that the cold gray light in the cave was brightening to a warm gold, as if the sun was rising beyond the screen of falling water—but Half Moon knew that night was falling.

  At her side Lion’s Roar sat calmly washing his ears, while the other cats in the cave took no notice of the deepening golden blaze.

  No cat sees it but me! What can it mean?

  Bathed in the brilliant light, Half Moon remembered how, when she first became Healer, Jay’s Wing had told her that her ancestors would guide her in the decisions she must make—that, sometimes, she would see strange things that meant more than they first appeared. She had never been directly aware of her ancestors, but she had learned to look out for the signs.

  Possible meanings rushed through Half Moon’s mind, thick as snowflakes in a blizzard. Maybe the warm weather is going to come early. But how would that help, when there are so many of us? Then she wondered whether the sun was really shining somewhere else, where there was warmth and prey and shelter. But how would that help us, up here in the mountains?

  The sunlight grew stronger and stronger, until Half Moon could barely stand to look into the rays. She relaxed as a new idea rose in her mind.

  Maybe Lion’s Roar is right, and only some of us belong here. Maybe some of us should travel toward the place where the sun rises, to make a new home in the brightest light of all? Somewhere they will be safe, and well fed, with room to nurture generations of kits?

  As Half Moon basked in the warmth of sunlight on her fur, she found the certainty she needed within herself. Some of her cats would remain, a small enough group for the mountains to sustain, and the rest of her Tribe would journey toward the rising sun, to find a new home.

  But I won’t leave the cave, she thought. I will see out the twilight of my days here, a whole lifetime away from where I was born. And the
n maybe . . . just maybe . . . I’ll find Jay’s Wing again.

  CHAPTER 1

  Gray Wing toiled up the snow-covered slope toward a ridge that bit into the sky like a row of snaggly teeth. He set each paw down carefully, to avoid breaking through the frozen surface and sinking into the powdery drifts underneath. Light flakes were falling, dappling his dark gray pelt. He was so cold that he couldn’t feel his pads anymore, and his belly yowled with hunger.

  I can’t remember the last time I felt warm or full-fed.

  In the last sunny season he had still been a kit, playing with his littermate, Clear Sky, around the edge of the pool outside the cave. Now that seemed like a lifetime ago. Gray Wing had only the vaguest memories of green leaves on the stubby mountain trees, and the sunshine bathing the rocks.

  Pausing to taste the air for prey, he gazed across the snowbound mountains, peak after peak stretching away into the distance. The heavy gray sky overhead promised yet more snow to come.

  But the air carried no scent of his quarry, and Gray Wing plodded on. Clear Sky appeared from behind an outcrop of rock, his pale gray fur barely visible against the snow. His jaws were empty, and as he spotted Gray Wing he shook his head.

  “Not a sniff of prey anywhere!” he called. “Why don’t we—”

  A raucous cry from above cut off his words. A shadow flashed over Gray Wing. Looking up, he saw a hawk swoop low across the slope, its talons hooked and cruel.

  As the hawk passed, Clear Sky leaped high into the air, his forepaws outstretched. His claws snagged the bird’s feathers and he fell back, dragging it from the sky. It let out another harsh cry as it landed on the snow in a flurry of beating wings.

  Gray Wing charged up the slope, his paws throwing up a fine spray of snow. Reaching his brother, he planted both forepaws on one thrashing wing. The hawk glared up at him with hatred in its yellow eyes, and Gray Wing had to duck to avoid its slashing talons.

  Clear Sky thrust his head forward and sank his teeth into the hawk’s neck. It jerked once and went limp, its gaze growing instantly dull as blood seeped from its wound and stained the snow.