Cloudstar's Journey Read online

  “The fish will come back soon,” Mistyfoot meowed. “Now that the streams are flowing, there’s no reason for them to stay away.”

  Leopardstar gazed at the ruffled water. “So many fish died in the drought,” she sighed, as if Mistyfoot hadn’t spoken. “What if the lake stays empty forever? What will we eat?”

  Mistyfoot moved closer to her leader until her shoulder brushed Leopardstar’s fur. She was shocked to feel the she-cat’s bones sharp just beneath the skin. “Everything will be fine,” she murmured. “The beavers’ dam has been destroyed, the rain has come, and the long thirst is over. It’s been a hard greenleaf, but we have survived.”

  “Blackclaw, Voletooth, and Dawnflower didn’t,” Leopardstar snapped. “Three elders lost in a single season? I had to watch my Clanmates starve to death because there were no fish to catch, nothing left in the lake but mud. And what about Rippletail? He was as brave as any of the other cats who went to find where the water had gone—why didn’t he deserve to come back? Did he go too far beyond the sight of StarClan?”

  Mistyfoot let her tail curl forward to rest on Leopardstar’s back. “Rippletail died saving the lake, and all the Clans. He will be honored forever.”

  Leopardstar turned away and began to pad up the shore. “He paid too high a price,” she growled. “If the fish haven’t returned with the water, we’re no better off than we were during the drought.” She stumbled, and Mistyfoot jumped forward, ready to support her. But Leopardstar shrugged her off with a hiss and continued over the stones, limping.

  Mistyfoot followed at a respectful distance, not wanting to fuss over the proud golden cat. She knew Leopardstar was in pain most of the time now, worn down by a sickness that had resisted all of Mothwing’s medicine skills, although it wasn’t unknown: the ravaging thirst, the dramatic weight loss in spite of constant hunger, the growing weakness that dulled a cat’s eyes and hearing. Mistyfoot felt her gaze soften as she watched Leopardstar reach the end of the pebbles and push her way into the ferns that ringed the RiverClan camp.

  Suddenly there was a muffled cry from the depths of the undergrowth.

  “Leopardstar?” Mistyfoot bounded into the green stalks. A few strides in, she reached her leader’s side. She was slumped on the ground, her eyes stretched wide with pain, her flanks heaving with the effort to draw another breath. “Don’t move,” Mistyfoot ordered. “I’ll fetch help.” She thrust her way through the rest of the ferns and burst into the clearing at the heart of the territory. “Mothwing! Come quick! Leopardstar has fallen!”

  There was the sound of racing paws; then Mothwing’s sandy pelt, so close to the shade of Leopardstar’s, appeared at the entrance to her den. The medicine cat paused, looking around, and Mistyfoot called, “This way!”

  Side by side, the cats pushed through the ferns to their leader. Leopardstar had closed her eyes, and her breath rattled in her chest as she gasped for air. Mothwing bent over her, sniffing and tasting her fur with her tongue. Mistyfoot leaned forward but recoiled from the musty stench coming from the sick cat. Close up, she could see dirt and scurf in Leopardstar’s pelt, as if the leader hadn’t groomed herself in days.

  “Fetch Mintfur and Pebblefoot,” Mothwing mewed quietly over her shoulder. “They haven’t gone out on patrol yet. They can help us carry Leopardstar to her den.”

  Relieved to have an excuse to leave, and guilty that she wanted to, Mistyfoot backed away and raced to the clearing. She returned with Mintfur and Pebblefoot and watched as Mothwing eased Leopardstar to her paws, propped heavily on either flank by the warriors. Mistyfoot held the ferns aside as the cats half guided, half dragged their leader into the camp.

  “Is Leopardstar dead?” Mistyfoot heard one of Duskfur’s kits whisper.

  “Of course not, dear. She’s just very tired,” Duskfur mewed.

  Mistyfoot stood at the entrance to the den and watched Pebblefoot pat moss into place beneath Leopardstar’s head. This was more than mere exhaustion. Already the den seemed darker, the shadows thicker, as though warriors from StarClan were gathering to welcome the RiverClan leader. Mintfur brushed past Mistyfoot as he left, his pale gray pelt smelling sharply of ferns. “Let me know if I can do anything else for her,” he murmured, and Mistyfoot nodded. Pebblefoot followed, his head lowered and the tip of his tail leaving a faint scar in the dust.

  Mothwing tucked Leopardstar’s front paw more comfortably under the she-cat’s chest and straightened up. “I need to fetch some herbs from my den,” she meowed. “Stay with her; let her know that you are here.” She rested her muzzle briefly against Mistyfoot’s ear. “Be strong, my friend,” she whispered.

  The den seemed deathly quiet after Mothwing had gone. Leopardstar’s breathing had grown shallow, a barely audible wheeze that did little more than flex the moss by her muzzle. Mistyfoot crouched down by her leader’s head and stroked her tail along Leopardstar’s bony flank. “Sleep well,” she mewed softly. “You’re safe now. Mothwing is gathering herbs to make you feel better.”

  To her surprise, Leopardstar stirred. “It’s too late for that,” rasped the she-cat without opening her eyes. “StarClan draws near; I can feel them all around me. This is my time to leave.”

  “Don’t say that!” hissed Mistyfoot. “Your ninth life has barely started! Mothwing will heal you.”

  Leopardstar let out a grunt. “Mothwing has served me so well, but some things are beyond even her skills. Let me go peacefully, Mistyfoot. I won’t fight this last battle, and neither should you.”

  “But I don’t want to lose you!” Mistyfoot protested.

  One clouded blue eye opened and gazed at her. “Really?” Leopardstar wheezed. “After what I did to your brother? To all the half-Clan cats?”

  For a heartbeat, Mistyfoot was plunged back into the dark and stinking rabbit hole in RiverClan’s old camp in the forest. Tigerstar and Leopardstar had united to form TigerClan, and in their quest for the purest warrior blood, they had imprisoned all cats with mixed Clan heritage. Mistyfoot and Stonefur, who had been the RiverClan deputy, had recently learned that Bluestar of ThunderClan was their mother. This had been enough to condemn them in Leopardstar’s eyes, and she had allowed Tigerstar to persecute them until Stonefur had been killed, murdered in cold blood by Tigerstar’s deputy, Blackfoot. Mistyfoot had been rescued by Firestar and taken to ThunderClan until the terrible battle with BloodClan had ended Tigerstar’s death-soaked rule.

  “I never deserved your forgiveness,” Leopardstar whispered, jerking Mistyfoot back to the cold, quiet den.

  “Tigerstar was responsible for the death of my brother,” Mistyfoot growled. “Tigerstar and Blackfoot. The time of TigerClan had nothing to do with the warrior code that I believe in. I was always loyal to RiverClan—and to you, as our leader.”

  Leopardstar sighed. “Your life has been harder than I wanted, Mistyfoot. Losing your brother and three of your kits. You have borne your heartache well.”

  Mistyfoot stiffened. No cat would ever know the pain she had felt when she buried her children. “Every queen knows that the life of a kit is a precious and fragile thing. I will see them again in StarClan, and I walk with them in my heart every day,” she mewed.

  There was a pause as Leopardstar strained to take a breath, and Mistyfoot half rose, ready to call for help. Then Leopardstar relaxed again. “I am sorry not to have known the joy of having kits. There was a time when I thought it might happen, but it was not to be.” Her words faded away as though she was picturing something she had dreamed of long ago. “Perhaps it was for the best. But I would have been proud to call you my daughter, Mistyfoot.”

  Mistyfoot couldn’t reply. Her heart ached with the familiar sorrow that she had never had a chance to know her real mother, Bluestar. The ThunderClan leader had revealed her darkest secret to Mistyfoot and Stonefur just before she died on the banks of the river. For a moment, Mistyfoot had been scorched by the love of a mother, but then it had vanished, leaving a cold emptiness that could never be filled.

>   She curled herself around Leopardstar, just as she had tried to warm Bluestar’s sodden body all those moons ago.

  “Sleep now,” she murmured into Leopardstar’s ear. “I’ll be here when you wake.”

  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 day
s here, a whole lifetime away from where I was born. And then 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 snow-bound 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.