Warriors: Power Of Three 5 - Long Shadows (18 page)

Dustpelt turned his head, blinking eyes glazed with fever.

“Keep back,” he meowed hoarsely. “I’ll be fine.”

Ferncloud looked away and buried her muzzle in Birchfall’s shoulder fur.

Daisy was the next cat to appear, carrying Rosekit, with Toadkit, Blossomkit, and Bumblekit behind her. The mischievous kits were unusually subdued, their gaze fixed on their paws as they padded quietly along.

“You can’t go with Rosekit,” Brambleclaw declared, stepping out to bar Daisy’s path. “You and the healthy kits have to stay in camp.”

“Nonsense!” Rosekit let out a feeble wail as Daisy set her down gently to confront the Clan deputy. “Who will feed Rosekit if I’m not there?”

“Rosekit can eat fresh-kill now,” Brambleclaw replied. “And Firestar will make sure she’s cared for. Do you want the other kits to get sick?”

For a couple of heartbeats Daisy stood glaring at him, then dropped her gaze and padded to one side, gathering the healthy kits to her with a sweep of her tail.

“I want to go with Rosekit!” Toadkit mewed fiercely.

“You can’t.” Daisy stooped to touch her remaining kit on the head with her nose. “You can help her best by keeping well and strong.”

Toadkit still looked rebellious, but he didn’t say any more.

Honeyfern, emerging from the barrier, took in the situation at a glance and stood over Rosekit. “I promise I’ll look after her,” she told Daisy, who gave her a grateful nod.

Rosekit batted the air with her paws and went on wailing as her Clanmate carried her toward the Twoleg nest.

More movement in the tunnel signaled Millie’s approach.

The gray she-cat was supported on either side by Leafpool and Jaypaw. Lionblaze caught his breath in horror when he saw her. Her paws barely moved; the medicine cats were all but carrying her. Her pelt clung to her ribs, and her sides heaved as she let out a rasping cough.

“No!” Graystripe yowled from just behind Lionblaze and Hollyleaf. He plunged forward; Lionblaze blocked him, and Hollyleaf sank her teeth into the loose fur on his shoulder.

“Let me go!” Graystripe snarled as he struggled. “She’s dying!

I have to go to her!”

Lionblaze braced himself; it went against everything he had learned to fight a Clanmate, but he knew that he couldn’t allow Graystripe to be near his sick mate.

“Keep back!” Leafpool ordered, raising her tail in warning.

Graystripe ignored her and kept struggling, lashing out a paw to rake his claws down Lionblaze’s shoulder.

“Stop!” Brambleclaw bounded up to help.

“Graystripe.” Firestar’s hoarse voice came from the head of the pitiful line of cats. The Clan leader had halted and turned to face his friend. “I know how you feel. But you must stay away from Millie.” His voice was full of sympathy; Lionblaze knew how deep the friendship was between the two cats.

“Millie needs you to stay strong and healthy.”

Graystripe stopped struggling and took a long breath.

“Firestar, my heart is clawed in pieces.”

“I know. But what you’re doing now doesn’t help. Graystripe, if Millie’s paws are truly set on the path to StarClan, then I’ll send for you to say good-bye. I promise you.”

Graystripe hesitated for a heartbeat, then bowed his head.

“I’ll hold you to that, Firestar,” he choked out.

Lionblaze and Brambleclaw stood back, and Hollyleaf let go her grip on the gray warrior’s shoulder. Graystripe stood still, his head and tail drooping; Lionblaze was close enough to feel the shivers that were running through him.

Leafpool and Jaypaw moved on, with Millie supported between them. Her head hung; she didn’t seem to have heard her mate’s protests. Behind them came Longtail, guiding himself by the tip of Leafpool’s tail. Briarkit dangled limply from his jaws like a piece of fresh-kill.

Lionblaze tensed. Was the tiny kit dead? Then her tail twitched, and she let out an exhausted cough. Seeing she was still alive, Lionblaze relaxed, only to have his relief swallowed up in a wave of guilt. She needs catmint. They all do.

When the sick cats had gone, Brambleclaw led the rest of the Clan back into the stone hollow. Mousefur and Squirrelflight, the only cats remaining, were sitting together near the fresh-kill pile; Mousefur rose and padded to meet them as they returned.

“I should be with them,” she snapped at Brambleclaw. “I could help. I’m an elder; it doesn’t weaken the Clan if I get sick.”

Brambleclaw dipped his head. “That’s an offer worthy of a warrior,” he replied. “But the Clan values every cat, from the newest kit to the most senior elder.” His amber eyes glinted. “I know you already asked Firestar, and he said no. Don’t think you can get around me.”

“Pesky young cat . . . thinks he knows everything,” Mousefur muttered, turning her back.

Instead of going to their dens, the remains of the Clan huddled together in the center of the clearing, as if they were waiting for something. Lionblaze crouched beside his sister, his fur standing on end. The camp felt strange, as if it wasn’t their home anymore. The stench of sickness still hung around it, and an eerie quiet covered everything.

“I don’t like this,” Hollyleaf whispered. “I wonder how many of the sick cats will ever come back.”

Don’t. Lionblaze dug his claws hard into the ground. “It’s in the paws of StarClan,” he muttered, knowing how hypocriti-cal he was being.

It seemed a long time, though the shadows had crept no more than a mouse-length across the hollow, before Leafpool and Jaypaw returned.

“Good, you’re all here,” Leafpool meowed, padding toward the gathering of cats. “Jaypaw, fetch me those strengthening herbs from our den.” As Jaypaw bounded off, she continued,

“Every scrap of bedding has to be taken out of the dens and into the forest, and fresh bedding brought in.”

“What?” Icepaw, who had been grooming herself drowsily, raised her head. “I’ve been dragging moss around all day. Do we really have to get more? I’m worn out!”

“Every cat is worn out,” Spiderleg added. “Can’t it wait until morning?”

“Sure it can, if you want more cats to get sick,” Leafpool retorted. Her tone softened as she added, “Every cat will be helping this time. It won’t take long.”

Jaypaw came back with the herbs, dropping a few leaves in front of every cat. Lionblaze felt his aching limbs fill with warmth as he swallowed them.

“Let’s get going,” he mewed to Hollyleaf. “The sooner we get started, the sooner we’ll be done.”

All the warriors headed out of the camp to fetch fresh moss and bracken, while Icepaw, helped by Mousefur and Squirrelflight, cleared the old bedding out of the dens and carried it as far as the barrier to be disposed of outside. Leafpool and Jaypaw checked the dens to make sure not a scrap of it remained behind. By the time it was all gone, and fresh bedding installed, the taint of sickness that had hung about the camp for so long had almost vanished.

“This is better,” Hollyleaf murmured as she settled down inside the warriors’ den beside Lionblaze. “Except it’s strange with so many cats missing. I hope Firestar’s plan works.”

Lionblaze was already sliding into sleep, his eyes closed and his tail wrapped over his nose. He was too exhausted for his worries to keep him awake, but as he slid into darkness his mind filled with a vision of catmint: thick, lush clumps of it, growing among rocks on the edge of the moor, just as Jaypaw had described. He leaped forward to bite off the stems, only to halt, trembling, on the bank of a river.

The stream that marked the border with WindClan had swollen into a rushing scarlet torrent. The air was filled with the stench of blood, and the grasses on the edge of the river where Lionblaze stood were spattered with it.

He took a step back, horrified at the thought of blood sticking to his paws, and stiffened as he heard a familiar voice behind him.

“Are you scared, little warrior?” Tigerstar taunted him.

“Where’s this power of yours now?”

Every muscle in Jaypaw’s body was yowling with exhaustion as he finished sniffing around the elders’ den to make sure that every scrap of the tainted bedding had been removed. He stumbled back into the clearing and padded up to Leafpool.

“It’s okay,” he reported.

“Why don’t you get some rest?” his mentor meowed.

“Brambleclaw and Cinderheart have just brought us some fresh moss.”

Jaypaw opened his jaws to protest that he could keep going as long as any cat, then thought better of it. His job and Leafpool’s was finished for now; there was no reason why he couldn’t catch up on his sleep. But tired as he was, his paws were itching and his mind whirling; he knew his thoughts would keep him awake.

“Thanks,” he replied, “but I’d like to go out for a while.”

“Fine.” Leafpool sounded faintly surprised. “Be careful, won’t you?”

“Sure.” Jaypaw wished she wouldn’t keep trying to mother him. He had Squirrelflight for that; Leafpool was just his mentor. He took off at a trot through the tunnel, where he passed Whitewing and Birchfall returning with bundles of bedding, and headed for the lake.

Pushing through the last of the undergrowth, Jaypaw paused at the top of the bank overlooking the water. He could hear the soothing lap of waves on the shore, and the faint scrape of pebbles. Scenting carefully, he made his way to the hollow under the tree roots where he had hidden the stick.

As he laid his paws on the scratch marks, the whispers of the long-ago warriors rose up around him. He strained to hear them clearly, but just as before, they stayed out of his reach.

“Rock, don’t you have a message for me?” he meowed aloud.

His head spun with thoughts of everything that had happened: the mysterious appearance of Sol, and the fake sign that had become real and driven him from ShadowClan; the terrible sickness, and Firestar taking the sick cats away from the stone hollow . . . Jaypaw felt as if he were a leaf spinning in eddies of wind.

It’s all escaping from me, like prey running too fast. I’m supposed to have power, but I can’t control anything.

“Has it always been like this for the Clans?” he murmured.

“Fighting one battle after another? And some battles no cat can win. I wonder if it was sickness that drove the first cats away from the lake?”

Yet again he ran his paws over the scratches, the record of the cats who had emerged victorious from their test in the tunnels, and of those who had never come out. The whispers wafted around him like faint puffs of breeze, but Jaypaw still couldn’t make out their meaning.

“What’s the use of you if I can’t hear you?” he protested.

“Speak up a little, please. Tell me how to fight the sickness, or what I can say to Lionblaze to make him fetch the catmint.”

But the gentle whispering didn’t change. Sighing, Jaypaw lay down with his chin on the stick, and closed his eyes.

Damp soaking into his belly fur woke Jaypaw. His muscles felt stiff and cramped with cold as he raised his head and looked around. He was in the underground cave, lit by a trickle of daylight from the roof far above his head. The river f lowed past him a couple of tail-lengths away.

Jaypaw staggered to his paws. He expected to see Rock, but the ledge where the ancient cat usually crouched was empty, and there was no sign of him anywhere in the cave.

Soft paw steps sounded behind Jaypaw; he spun around to see a ginger-and-white tom standing at the entrance to one of the tunnels. His green eyes looked haunted and somber, as if he couldn’t shake off the memory of drowning when rain flooded the tunnels.

“Fallen Leaves!” Jaypaw exclaimed.

“I didn’t think you would come back.” Aching loneliness vibrated in the ancient cat’s voice. “Are you going to stay with me this time?”

Sympathy stabbed Jaypaw, sharp as a thorn in his pad. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be trapped down here, alone, for countless seasons. The last time he had seen Fallen Leaves, the ancient cat had saved his life, and the lives of his littermates and WindClan cats, when floodwaters had risen while they were looking for the lost kits.

“What happened to your Clanmates?” Jaypaw asked. “Why did they leave the lake?”

Fallen Leaves looked down at his paws. “I don’t know. I only knew that they had gone. Sharpclaws stopped coming into the tunnels, and the only sound from the moor was the wind. I have been on my own here for so long, I have lost count of the moons.” He raised his head, his green eyes pleading. “You and your friends were the first cats I had seen down here since . . . since I came in.”

“I have to know why they left!” Jaypaw meowed; he couldn’t explain it, but he was certain that the fate of those long-ago cats was bound up with the prophecy. Meeting Rock, finding the stick, feeling the whispers of ancient cats around him when he went to the Moonpool: None of that had happened by chance, he was sure.

He bounded toward the tunnel that led up into ThunderClan territory, brushing aside Fallen Leaves, who stared after him in dismay.

“Wait!” Fallen Leaves called out. “I thought you were going to stay with me.”

“I have to know what happened,” Jaypaw insisted with a last glance over his shoulder. The drowned cat was standing at the end of the tunnel, his eyes wide and distressed.

Jaypaw forced anger to stifle his pity. “How can I stay with him?” he muttered as he padded forward into the thick blackness of the tunnel. “There are too many things I need to find out. I can’t spend all my time hanging out with a dead cat!”

He expected to emerge in the woods above the hollow, awake and blind once more, or perhaps find himself on the lakeshore with the stick. Instead, daylight began to gleam on the walls ahead of him, growing stronger as he padded on. He could hear the sound of leaves rustling in the wind.

“I must be still dreaming,” he whispered.

His paws tingling, Jaypaw headed for the light. Rounding a curve in the tunnel, he saw a circle of daylight ahead of him.

Excited voices broke the silence.

“Is it him?”

“He’s later than I thought he’d be.”

“Do you think he got lost?”

Jaypaw slowed his pace. Even if he was coming up inside WindClan, he should have known some of the voices, but they were all strange to him. And he didn’t recognize any of the scents drifting toward him from the tunnel mouth. Where was he, and who was waiting for him?