“What convinced me to make you deputy,” the Clan leader had meowed, “wasn’t anything to do with what happened in the Twolegplace. It was remembering when you were brave enough to tell me that you thought we should leave the lake. That showed me that you have grown, and learned to put the needs of your Clan above your own.”
Hawkwing had been flattered that Leafstar thought so, but privately he wasn’t sure that he agreed. He still felt that he didn’t deserve to be deputy. He had begun to grow used to his duties, though he found it strange to have his Clanmates defer to him and see the look of respect in their eyes. “I’ll do my best, Leafstar,” he had promised. “But if Waspwhisker should come back to us, I’ll step down.”
“That’s in the paws of StarClan,” Leafstar had murmured, though Hawkwing could tell that she had no hope of the former deputy returning.
Now he faced his secret fears that there wouldn’t be a Clan for much longer. They had wandered through woodland, across open ground, keeping well clear of Twolegplaces, and if Leafstar had a purpose in the path she chose, Hawkwing didn’t know what it was. Now that they had no medicine cat, they had no visions from StarClan to guide them. All they had was blind faith, and the hope of finding either Echosong or the lake she had dreamed of, where the Clan cats lived.
We could be traveling in entirely the wrong direction, Hawkwing thought despairingly. And how many more cats can we lose before SkyClan is gone forever? Will Twolegs take more of us, like they took Waspwhisker and the others?
Hawkwing was distracted from these dark thoughts by the appearance of M acgyver, who emerged from under a rocky overhang where he had made his den.
There isn’t even room here to make a proper warriors’ den we can all share, Hawkwing thought. We have to split up. That’s not right for a Clan camp.
M acgyver padded over to Hawkwing, swaying a little on his paws.
“I’m hungry,” he announced. “I’m going hunting.”
Hawkwing gave a disapproving twitch of his whiskers. “The hunting patrols have already gone out,” he mewed. “You said you were a bit tired, so I told you to get some rest.”
“Well, I feel better now,” M acgyver told him. “And I’m starving! So I’m going hunting.”
Hawkwing leaped down from his rock and leaned in closer to the black-and-white tom. “Are you okay?” he asked.
M acgyver looked up at him, his eyes strangely blurred. “Never better,” he muttered, and folded up to collapse at Hawkwing’s paws.
“M acgyver!” Hawkwing gasped, appalled. He bent over his Clanmate, prodding him in a desperate attempt to rouse him.
M acgyver only grunted, but at least that proved he was still alive.
Instinctively Hawkwing looked around for a medicine cat, but he realized in frustration that SkyClan didn’t have one anymore.
He raised his voice in a yowl. “Leafstar!”
“Tansy is for fever, I think,” Hawkwing mewed uncertainly.
“No, it’s borage,” Firefern argued. “And there’s a clump of it right there.” She pointed upward with her tail to where plants tumbled from the lip of the bluff above the rocky hollow.
Two sunrises had passed since M acgyver had collapsed, and since then Blossomheart and Rileypool had succumbed to the same mysterious illness. All three cats lay together in a nest of moss and dried grass, curled up and seemingly unaware of anything that went on around them. Their pelts gave off a dry heat, though they still shivered with cold, even huddled together for warmth in thick bedding.
Hawkwing fluffed up his pelt against the stiff breeze that probed into it with claws of cold. The sky was gray, the bulging clouds getting ready to release their rain. Leaf-bare is almost on us, he thought, and that’s only going to make it harder for any cat who falls ill.
“Even if you’re right, it’s not just fever,” Hawkwing pointed out to Firefern. “They have bellyache as well, and you need juniper or watermint for that.”
“Well, we don’t have any juniper or watermint!” Firefern snapped. “And we do have borage.”
“And what good will that do, if it’s the wrong herb?”
Hawkwing felt the heat of anger spreading through his pelt.
“Firefern, are you completely mouse-brained?”
The ginger she-cat stared at him, shocked into silence.
Hawkwing instantly realized how unfair he was being, to take his frustration out on a cat who was only trying to help.
“I’m sorry,” he meowed, feeling close to his breaking point.
What right have I to tell Firefern she’s wrong when I haven’t the faintest idea which are the right herbs? We’re all just guessing. It’s hopeless, when we don’t have a medicine cat.
“It’s okay, Hawkwing,” Firefern responded. “I know how you feel. And look—even if the borage doesn’t help, it can’t do any harm, right? I’m going to fetch some.”
While Firefern leaped nimbly up the rocks, Hawkwing gazed down at the three sick cats. Though M acgyver had been the first to get sick, Rileypool seemed to be the weakest; unconscious most of the time, and finding it difficult to eat even if some cat chewed his food up for him.
Hawkwing could hardly bear to look at Blossomheart, his bright, brave sister, lying there so limp and still. Oh, StarClan, after all the cats I’ve lost, I can’t lose the only littermate I have left!
Firefern returned clutching some stems of borage in her jaws and started chewing them to a pulp. “If only we knew what this illness is,” she mumbled around a mouthful.
“Well, M acgyver admitted he was so hungry he ate some crow-food,” Hawkwing mused. “That might have caused it. And the others caught whatever it is from him, I guess. But that doesn’t help.”
“No,” Firefern agreed. “The only thing that will help is to find Echosong.”
She prodded M acgyver to rouse him and began pushing some of the pulped borage into his mouth. M acgyver lapped at it, muttered something inaudible, and lapsed back into unconsciousness.
“Hawkwing!” A cry sounded from across the camp.
Hawkwing whipped around to see Plumwillow heading toward him, supporting Finkit, who tottered along beside her on uncertain paws. Sagenose was helping to steady him on the other side; Dewkit and Reedkit followed, their eyes wide and scared.
“Finkit has the sickness!” Plumwillow wailed.
Hawkwing felt as if a dark fog had descended on him, blotting out the last traces of light and hope. The fear and tension that he felt were like claws in his belly, tearing him apart. Not Finkit!
“He was so good yesterday, soaking moss and fetching it so the sick cats could drink,” Plumwillow went on as she and Finkit reached Hawkwing’s side. “But I should have kept him away from them!”
“Every cat needs to keep away from them.” Firefern looked up from treating the other patients. “Except for you and me, Hawkwing. We’d better make that a rule. Come on, Finkit,” she added, “eat some of this nice borage.”
“M y belly aches,” Finkit whimpered, but he bent his head and ate the borage without protesting.
Firefern nudged him into the nest with the others, and Blossomheart stirred slightly, wrapped her tail around him, and drew him closer.
“I’ll stay and look after him,” Plumwillow mewed.
Hawkwing stepped forward to block her with his tail. “No,” he told her forcefully. “You have to take care of your other kits.”
Plumwillow stared down at Finkit, then glanced over her shoulder at Reedkit and Dewkit. The anguish in her eyes told
Hawkwing how she was torn between them.
“Reedkit and Dewkit need you,” he meowed gently. “I’ll do the best I can for Finkit. You do trust me, don’t you, Plumwillow?”