“You’re the weak one, old cat,” sneered Rabbitstar. “Better start sniffing out that crow-food, because you won’t be having any fresh-kill for a while.”
Morningstar began to pick his way down the Great Rock. Normally he would jump down, but his legs were trembling with hunger. He couldn’t remember the last meal he’d eaten. The elders weren’t the only ThunderClan cats giving up their food for the nursing queens. “I have nothing more to say,” he meowed over his shoulder. “Our fate is in your paws.”
He wound through the cats, who parted like rippling grass to let him pass. His Clanmates waited for him at the foot of the slope, their eyes flashing with anger and their pelts bristling. Morningstar pushed past them and led them out of the hollow without giving them a chance to speak. Leafstorm caught up to him, panting.
“Are you out of your mind? You’ve just invited every other Clan to help themselves to our territory and our prey!” She was furious, and for a moment Morningstar saw her unsheathed claws gleam in the moonlight.
“We will not fight WindClan over this,” he repeated. “Tomorrow I want you to take a patrol of warriors to Rabbitstar and speak to him again. We are too quick to use violence to solve everything.
If we fight now, we’ll lose half our Clan with the first strike. Can’t you see I’m trying to protect us?”
Leafstorm glared at him, her green eyes hot. “All I see is a leader who’s too scared to go into battle!”
Morningstar started to protest, but the ginger she-cat leaped ahead of him into the trees. Several warriors followed her, leaving Morningstar padding alone through the frost-dappled forest. A puffing sound behind him made him look back; Mothwhisker, an elder, was hobbling to catch up. Morningstar stopped to wait.
“Thanks,” wheezed Mothwhisker. The two cats walked on slowly, their breath clouding around them. “You meant what you said back there, didn’t you?” Mothwhisker rasped.
“Yes,” Morningstar replied. “The Clan is too weak to fight right now.”
He expected Mothwhisker to agree with him; elders knew better than most cats how fragile a hold warriors had on life, and how dangerous a battle would be on hollow bellies. But Mothwhisker was shaking his head.
“You’re wrong, Morningstar,” he muttered. “Oh, we may be weak, but you should never have let
WindClan know. They must be hungry, too, or they wouldn’t be stealing our prey. We should strike them by surprise, take the battle right to their camp, and show them that ThunderClan borders are as strong as they ever were.”
Morningstar stopped and rounded on the elderly tom. “I will not lead my Clan into a needless battle!” he spat. Memories filled his mind of a light brown tabby with amber eyes and white front paws, as if she had stepped up to her knees in snow. The last time he had seen her, she had been so drenched in her own blood that he couldn’t see a fleck of white fur underneath. She had died curled protectively around her belly, which was just beginning to swell with her kits—his kits, too.
Morningstar had never known which ShadowClan warrior struck the killing blow. Anyway, what good would vengeance do? It wouldn’t bring her back.
“We lost Songbird in a battle that should never have been fought,” he hissed. “We had no proof that ShadowClan chased that fox into our territory. Getting rid of it used up too much of our strength; I was stupid to let my pride send a patrol after ShadowClan as well.”
“Leaders have to be proud of their Clans,” Mothwhisker murmured. “Would you rather be ashamed of us? Tell every Clan that we’re too feeble to defend our borders anymore?”
Morningstar started walking again. “I’m not ashamed of any cat,” he growled. “You don’t understand. I’ve made my decision, and that’s the end of it.”
Leafstorm returned the next day with a slash along her flank that the medicine cat, Pearnose, struggled to close. The warriors who had gone with her to WindClan bore their own wounds. The patrol had barely crossed the border when WindClan cats attacked them; Leafstorm suspected they’d been lying in wait.
“Of course, we couldn’t fight them off,” she spat, clenching her teeth as Pearnose pressed another pawful of cobweb against her injury. “They outnumbered us and were fat from feasting on our prey!”
“We didn’t smell them before they attacked because they were covered in our own scent,” added Pineclaw. One of his ears had been ripped right to the tip, and scarlet blood streaked his dark brown fur.
“We may as well let them live here and make their hunting easier,” growled Featherwing. The pale gray she-cat had one eye swollen shut and claw marks sliced across her cheek.
“I’m sorry,” Morningstar meowed. “Clearly WindClan is without honor.” He turned to walk away down the tunnel of ferns that led to the clearing.
“They have no honor because they are thieves!” Leafstorm yowled after him. She broke into a coughing fit, gasping for breath.
Morningstar winced. Leafstorm had been coughing for days. He’d suggested she stay back from the Gathering, but she’d insisted on coming. He’d thought that meant she was feeling better. As he reached the clearing, Pearnose scampered along the tunnel and joined him. The brown tabby’s eyes were serious.
“Morningstar, can we talk? In private, I mean.”
“Sure.” He led her to his den beneath Highrock. They pushed through the screen of lichen that hung across the entrance, and the medicine cat settled herself neatly on the sandy floor opposite Morningstar’s nest.
“I think Leafstorm has greencough,” she announced.
Morningstar stared at her in dismay. “But…but she went all the way to WindClan today! And fought!”
Pearnose narrowed her eyes. “She shouldn’t have done either of those things; nor should she have gone to the Gathering last night. She’s been sick for more than a moon, and I warned her it would get worse if she didn’t rest. But she’s been hunting every day, you know, often two or three times. And I haven’t seen her take anything for herself since Mossheart’s kits were born.”
Morningstar let his shoulders slump. His Clan was dying around him, and he could do nothing to protect it.
Beechfur poked his head through the lichen. “Sorry to disturb you, Morningstar, but I wondered if you wanted me to lead a border patrol? Mossheart said Leafstorm was sick.”
Morningstar lifted his head. “There will be no more border patrols,” he ordered. “I want every warrior, every apprentice, to look for food. We’ll all get sick if we don’t have something to eat.”
Beechfur’s eyes were very round. “Wha…what? No border patrols at all? But…WindClan and SkyClan will take everything!”
“Not if we catch it first. You’re wasting time! Go!” Morningstar dismissed the warrior with a flick of his tail. As the lichen quivered behind him, Morningstar turned back to Pearnose. He sighed.
“Are you going to tell me that I’m doing the wrong thing as well?”
The medicine cat shook her head. “You know me better than that, Morningstar. I would not walk in your paws for all the mice in the forest. Your path is lonelier than I could bear. Now, I must go and send Fallowpaw to look for catmint at the edge of Twolegplace. If we’re lucky, some will have survived the frost.”
She slipped out of the den. Beyond the clearing, Leafstorm’s coughs split the air. Morningstar heaved himself to his paws. He could hunt as well as any of his warriors. He’d find something for Leafstorm to eat, to get her strength back. He should have seen how thin she had become long before now. Battles or not, he needed his deputy beside him.
A quarter moon passed. It was getting hard to remember where the fresh-kill pile was supposed to be.
Any prey that was caught, any scraps of crow-food, were eaten at once. Queens first, then warriors, then apprentices. Morningstar took charge of feeding Leafstorm. She tried to refuse, but he threatened to lean on her wound if she didn’t eat. Now he stood staring at a lump of black feathers that might have been a bird once, but was so mangled and frozen that it could have been a piece of wood instead.