“I will.” To Leafstar’s surprise, Spottedleaf didn’t seem as pleased as she would have expected at the thought of Firestar’s litter. Once again, she fixed her green gaze on Leafstar. “You have the hardest task of any Clan leader,” she meowed. “You must build a Clan from cats who know nothing of the warrior code.”
Leafstar hadn’t expected Spottedleaf to begin discussing her Clan, and she wasn’t sure she welcomed it. We do know the warrior code. Firestar taught the first of us, and we’re teaching the rest!
“I do my best,” she pointed out.
“And you are doing well,” Spottedleaf told her. “But there is a long way to go before your future is secure.”
Leafstar stiffened. What did Spottedleaf know that she wasn’t sharing? Had she seen the tension among the SkyClan warriors earlier? She opened her mouth to defend her Clanmates, but Spottedleaf was beckoning her to the cave entrance with a wave of her tail.
Looking out, Leafstar saw several unfamiliar cats in the bottom of the gorge. At first her fur started to bristle at the idea of strangers invading the camp. Then she realized that pale starlight glimmered from the fur of the newcomers, and their bodies were so faint that they were almost transparent; Leafstar could make out the jagged shapes of rocks behind them through their shadowy forms. As she watched, some of the cats padded away in different directions. Three more melted into the shadows of the elders’ den, leaving only two behind, sitting together at the entrance of Echosong’s cave.
“Who are they?” Leafstar whispered, icy claws pricking her spine.
Spottedleaf didn’t reply. Instead, the voice of the bigger cat, a dark brown tabby tom, floated faintly up from the gorge. “Will a Clan ever live here again?”
The other cat, a paler brown tom, dipped his head and murmured something Leafstar couldn’t catch. She sensed great sadness clinging to the pelts of both cats, like the scent of rank herbs.
Then the smaller cat raised his head, gazing upward as if he spoke directly to Leafstar. “This is the leaf-bare of my Clan.” Now his words rang clearly in Leafstar’s ears, echoing through the seasons that separated her from the long-ago cat. “Greenleaf will come, but it will bring even greater storms than these. SkyClan will need deeper roots if it is to survive.”
“Is that a warning?” Leafstar whispered over her shoulder, trying hard to keep her voice steady. “Maybe a prophecy?” She remembered her dream of the night before, the uprooted trees and bushes hurled down the gorge by the foaming torrent where her cats were drowning. Was that dream a prophecy, too?
No answer came from Spottedleaf, and when Leafstar turned toward her the cave was empty. Shivering as if she had fallen into icy water, Leafstar looked out at the gorge again. The moon shone down on empty rocks; the shadowy cats had vanished.
A heartbeat later, Leafstar opened her eyes to find herself curled up in the mossy nest inside her own den. Watery dawn light seeped in through the entrance. She blinked in confusion, the words of the small brown tom still echoing in her ears.
What did he mean by “greater storms”? And how can cats have “deeper roots”?
“Mouse-brain! There’ll be more prey if we go downstream!”
“No, we should cross the stream and hunt in the forest.”
“You’re both wrong! We should climb the cliff and try the trees at the top. There are plenty of squirrels there.”
Leafstar sighed as the bickering reached her den; she recognized the voices of Tinycloud, Rockshade, and Bouncefire. Heaving herself to her paws, she stumbled to the entrance of her den, struggling to tear her mind away from the clinging cobwebs of her dream. When she peered out the entrance, Leafstar spotted the Clan’s three newest warriors crouched together at the bottom of the Rockpile.
Bouncefire’s voice rose in a wail. “If you would just listen…”
Leafstar headed down the trail to break up the argument, but before she reached them Sharpclaw appeared, bounding down the rocks from the direction of the warriors’ den. Leafstar halted on a boulder at the foot of the cliff and watched her deputy deal with the quarrel.
“What’s going on here?” His voice was as rough as a pawful of claws scraping across rock. “You’re supposed to be keeping vigil, not waking the rest of the camp with your caterwauling.”
“It’s dawn. Our vigil’s over,” Rockshade pointed out.
“And we want to go hunting,” Tinycloud added.
Sharpclaw raked all three of them with an icy glare from eyes like chips of green ice. “Funny, I always thought it was the Clan deputy who set the patrols. Am I wrong?”
The young cats hung their heads. “No, Sharpclaw,” Bouncefire muttered.
“Good.” The Clan deputy flicked his tail. “Rockshade, you can come with me and do the border patrol on this side of the gorge. Bouncefire, Patchfoot is leading a hunting patrol; go find him and tell him I said you’re to go with him.”
“What about me?” Tinycloud asked.
“Cherrytail is leading the other border patrol. You can go with her. And make sure that I don’t have to talk to you about this kind of squabbling again.”
Leafstar gave her deputy a nod of approval as he spun around and stalked away. Pleased that she hadn’t needed to intervene, she headed along the bottom of the cliff toward the medicine cat’s den.
From behind her, she overheard Tinycloud’s voice. “At least I can stay away from Echosong’s den today. If she catches me, she’ll have me fetching herbs again.”
Leafstar almost turned back and ordered the white she-cat to do just that, but she didn’t want to countermand Sharpclaw’s orders. I’ll make sure she helps Echosong again soon, though, she decided. Every cat has to understand how important the medicine cat is to the life of the Clan.
When Leafstar slipped through the outer cave into Echosong’s inner den, the young medicine cat had her back to her as she bent over the herbs that were stored in cracks at the back.
“Juniper berries, yarrow, tansy…” she murmured to herself. “No, that’s not tansy, it’s coltsfoot…”
“Greetings, Echosong.”
At the sound of her leader’s voice the silver tabby jumped and whipped around, her green eyes wide. When she saw Leafstar she relaxed, puffing out a breath. “Leafstar, you startled me!”
“Sorry.” Leafstar padded forward to touch noses with the medicine cat, enjoying the sweet, crisp scent of herbs that clung to her fur.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Echosong went on. “I—I had something that might have been a dream last night. At least, I know it was a dream, but I’m not sure if it was important.”
Leafstar felt a tingle beneath her pelt. She’d intended to ask the medicine cat about her dream, too: a coincidence, or something more? “Tell me what happened,” she prompted.
Echosong paced across the outer den and sat down in the entrance, beckoning with her tail for her Clan leader to sit beside her. “I woke up—or at least I thought I woke up—and I heard quiet voices outside my den. When I looked out, I saw two cats. One was a big dark tabby, and the other was smaller and paler brown. Starlight was glimmering in their fur, but they looked so faint and far away.”
Leafstar’s belly clenched. Echosong was describing the two cats she had seen in her own dream. “Did they say anything?” she asked warily.
Echosong nodded. “The big tabby said, ‘It is time to leave. Our last duty is completed.’ They started to pad away, up the gorge. Then the smaller cat stopped and turned, and I felt as if he was looking straight at me. He said, ‘This is the leaf-bare of my Clan. Greenleaf will come, but it will bring even greater storms than these. SkyClan will need deeper roots if it is to survive.’ What do you think he meant, Leafstar?”