“Tawnypelt’s asleep.”
“Good,” Brambleclaw meowed. “You… you fought well today. Dustpelt would have been proud of you, if he could have seen.” He let out a long sigh, full of weariness and uncertainty.
To his surprise, Squirrelpaw pushed her nose comfortingly into his fur. “Don’t worry,” she mewed. “We’ll be fine. StarClan are watching over us.”
Breathing in her soft, warm scent, Brambleclaw wished that he could believe her.
Chapter 21
Leafpaw jumped up from her nest in the ferns outside Cinderpelt’s den. The sun was just rising, its rays glittering on drops of water that trembled on each fern frond and blade of grass.
There was a chill in the air, reminding Leafpaw that leaf-fall would give way to leaf-bare before many moons.
At first she was not sure what had awakened her. There was no sound except for the gentle sigh of wind in the tree-tops and the distant murmur of the warriors rousing in the main clearing. Cinderpelt had not called her, yet Leafpaw’s fur prickled with the certainty that there was something she had to do.
Almost of their own accord her paws took her to the mouth of Cinderpelt’s den. Peering into the cleft in the rock, she meowed softly, “Cinderpelt, are you awake?”
“I am now.” The medicine cat’s voice was sleepy. “What’s the matter? ShadowClan attacking? StarClan walking among us?”
“No, Cinderpelt.” Leafpaw shuffled her paws. “I just wanted to check if we have any burdock root.”
“Burdock root?” Leafpaw heard her mentor scramble to her paws, and a heartbeat later Cinderpelt poked her head out of the den. “What do you want that for? Come on, Leafpaw, what do we use burdock root for?”
“Rat bites, Cinderpelt,” Leafpaw meowed. She sat down and wrapped her tail around her paws, trying to calm her heart, which was pounding as if she’d just run all the way from Fourtrees. “Especially if they’re infected.”
“That’s right.” Cinderpelt slipped out of the den and made a quick tour of the clearing, prodding the clumps of fern with one paw. “No, just as I thought. No rats here,” she pronounced at last.
“I know there aren’t any rats,” Leafpaw mewed helplessly.
“I just needed to check that we have burdock root, that’s all.”
Cinderpelt’s eyes narrowed. “Have you been dreaming?”
“No, I—” Leafpaw broke off. “Actually, I think perhaps I have, but I don’t know what it means. I can’t even remember what the dream was about.”
Cinderpelt’s blue eyes considered her calmly for several heartbeats. “This may be a sign from StarClan,” she meowed at last.
“Then can you tell me what it means?” Leafpaw begged.
“Please!”
To her dismay Cinderpelt shook her head. “The sign—if it is a sign—is yours,” she explained. “You know that StarClan never speak to us in plain words. Their messages come in little things… the prickling of fur, a tugging in our paws—”
“The feeling that something’s right—or wrong,” Leafpaw put in.
“Exactly.” Cinderpelt nodded. “Part of being a medicine cat is learning to read those messages by instinct… and we both know how hard it can be to make a leap of faith. That’s what you have to do now.”
“I’m not sure I know how,” Leafpaw confessed, scraping the ground with one forepaw. “Suppose I get the meaning wrong?”
“Do you think I’m never wrong?” Cinderpelt’s gaze suddenly grew intense. “You must trust your own judgment.
Believe me, Leafpaw, one day you will make a wonderful medicine cat—perhaps even as good as Spottedleaf.”
Leafpaw’s eyes flew open. She had heard many stories of the gifted young medicine cat who had been killed not long after Firestar had joined ThunderClan. She had never in her wildest dreams thought that she might be compared with her.
“Cinderpelt, you can’t mean that!”
“Of course I mean it,” Cinderpelt mewed dryly. “I don’t talk for the pleasure of hearing my own voice. As for burdock, you’ll find it growing on the edge of the training hollow. Why don’t you go and dig up a few roots—so we’ll have plenty, just in case.”
As Leafpaw trotted out of the camp, she tried to remember what she had dreamed about. But nothing came into her mind except for a picture of dark Twoleg nests and harsh light shining on a Thunderpath. She wondered if the dream had really been a sign from StarClan; instead, she had a sense that Squirrelpaw was trying to tell her something, though the strength of their link had dwindled with distance. Leafpaw had not seen her sister and the other journeying cats in her dream, but somehow she became convinced that Squirrelpaw had been bitten by a rat.
If only I’d gone with her, she thought helplessly. They need a medicine cat. Oh, Squirrelpaw, where are you?
In the sandy hollow, Mousefur and Thornclaw were training their apprentices. Leafpaw paused for a few moments to watch, but somehow she could not summon up much interest.
She felt as if the sunlight were draining all her energy away, so that she could hardly manage to put one paw in front of the others.
The tall stems of the burdock were easy to find. Leafpaw burrowed under the dark, sharp-scented leaves to dig up the roots. When she had scraped off most of the clinging earth, she carried them back to Cinderpelt’s den and laid them in a neat pile beside the other herbs.
Tonight was the Gathering, she remembered. When Cinderpelt had first told her she would be going she had been excited, especially at the thought of seeing Mothwing again.
Now she did not feel she had enough strength for the journey to Fourtrees. She would have given up every Gathering from now until she went to join StarClan, if only she could have been sure that her sister was safe.
By the time the ThunderClan cats reached the Gathering, Leafpaw felt better. She had snatched a brief nap after sunhigh, her nose filled with the scent of burdock clinging to her fur, and woken with energy in her paws again.
As she emerged from the bushes in the clearing at Fourtrees, she saw Mothwing pushing her way toward her.
“Hi, there,” Leafpaw meowed. “How are you getting on?”
Mothwing paused. “Fine, I think, but there’s so much to learn! And there are times I don’t feel any closer to StarClan than before I went to Mothermouth.”
Leafpaw let out a wry meow. “We all feel that. I think every medicine cat in the forest has felt it at some time.”
Mothwing’s huge amber eyes were confused. “But I thought I’d be wise now that I’m a medicine cat. I thought I’d walk closely with StarClan and always know the answer to everything.”
She looked so dejected that Leafpaw leaned over and gave her ear a comforting lick. “One day perhaps you will. We walk closer to StarClan every day.” When Mothwing still looked uneasy she added, “Mothwing, is there something in particular bothering you?”
Mothwing started. “Oh, no,” she replied, shaking her broad golden head. “Nothing at all, only—”
Leafpaw never found out what she was going to say. A loud yowling drowned out Mothwing’s voice as Tallstar, on the top of the Great Rock, called for silence. Leopardstar stood beside him, while Firestar and Blackstar, the leader of ShadowClan, sat a little way behind.
Leopardstar was the first of the leaders to speak. “Tallstar,” she meowed, “rain has fallen many times on the forest since the last Gathering. Do the streams run freely again in WindClan territory?”
Tallstar inclined his head toward her. “They do, Leopardstar.”