Echosong motioned with her tail for the other cats to stand out of the way. Leafstar stepped back with them; only Petalnose stayed close, crouched beside her son with their pelts brushing.
The medicine cat bent over Sagepaw. “I’m sorry, I’m going to have to use my teeth,” she meowed. She planted her forepaws firmly on the young cat’s haunches, and gripped his leg in her jaws. Then she gave a massive wrench; Leafstar heard the click as Sagepaw’s leg went back into place.
The stick splintered in Sagepaw’s teeth. Dropping the fragments, he let out a shriek. Petalnose gasped as she bent over him and pushed her nose into his fur.
Then Sagepaw raised his head. “Hey, it doesn’t hurt so much!”
Echosong’s eyes glowed with a mixture of relief and triumph, while her Clanmates murmured their congratulations. Leafstar could see how impressed they were. Petalnose didn’t say anything, but her purrs almost drowned out the voices of the other cats.
“Well done,” Leafstar meowed. “I’m proud of you, Echosong.”
Echosong dipped her head, giving her chest fur a couple of embarrassed licks. Then she turned and spotted Tinycloud, who was hovering close by with a poppy seedhead in her jaws. She beckoned the white warrior over with a flick of her ears and took the seedhead from her. Carefully she shook out two seeds in front of Sagepaw.
“Lick those up,” she instructed. “You’ll need to come back to my den and rest, where I can keep an eye on you. The poppy seeds will dull the pain and help you sleep.”
“Thanks, Echosong.” Sagepaw swallowed the seeds with one lap of his tongue, then tried to struggle to his paws.
“Don’t you dare try to walk!” Petalnose meowed. “I’ll carry you.”
“I’m not a kit!” Sagepaw protested.
“You’ll always be my kit, little one.” Gently Petalnose picked up Sagepaw by his scruff and began to carry him toward Echosong’s den, staggering slightly under his weight but careful not to let his injured leg knock against the ground. Echosong padded alongside.
Leafstar watched them go.
“We’re lucky to have Echosong,” Sharpclaw remarked with satisfaction.
“We certainly are,” Sparrowpelt meowed. “Thank StarClan!”
Leafstar murmured agreement. “But what I’d like to know,” she went on, “is what Sagepaw was doing, climbing so high up the cliff. He was well away from any of the trails.”
Sharpclaw shook his head. “I have no idea.”
Leafstar glanced around the rest of her Clanmates, and spotted Patchfoot scrabbling uncomfortably at the ground with his forepaws. “Patchfoot?” she prompted.
“I—I’m sorry, Leafstar,” the black-and-white tom stammered. “I think it might have been my fault.”
A growl began deep in Sharpclaw’s throat, but Leafstar motioned him to silence with a wave of her tail. “Explain,” she meowed.
“Well… I think Sagepaw was trying to prove he was descended from the old SkyClan cats. He was trying to show how good he was at jumping and climbing.”
“And why is that your fault?” Sharpclaw asked tartly.
“I—I teased him about it,” Patchfoot confessed, his eyes full of guilt. “I said he wasn’t a real SkyClan cat. But I never thought he would do something like that, Leafstar, honestly I didn’t!”
“I believe you,” Leafstar told him. “No cat would expect him to do anything so stupid.”
But while she reassured Patchfoot, anxiety rose inside her like floodwater. This wasn’t the first time she had noticed how much her Clanmates cared about their ancestry. The day after the snowfall, she had heard Cherrytail boasting to Echosong about her strong legs and tough pads. No cat should care so much about being descended from the ancient SkyClan cats. Maybe they all are, but there’s no way of telling. It shouldn’t matter to any of them.
“I’m really sorry,” Patchfoot went on, blinking in relief that his Clan leader wasn’t angry with him. “I’ll never do it again.”
“Make sure you don’t,” Leafstar replied, nodding to dismiss him.
She watched him set off up the cliff again, back toward the cave where he had been working, while Sharpclaw chivvied the other cats back to their duties. I need to make them understand that we’re all one Clan. The ancestors that matter are those in StarClan, who watch over us as if we were all their kits.
The hunting patrols were returning, adding their prey to the fresh-kill pile. Leafstar watched Tinycloud bound up to Mintpaw as she returned with Cherrytail’s patrol.
“Mintpaw, Sagepaw has had an accident!”
Mintpaw let her prey fall and stood with her jaws open in horror as Tinycloud described how Mintpaw’s littermate had fallen from the cliff.
“But he’s going to be fine,” the white she-cat finished. “Echosong was great. She put his leg back in the right place, and now he’s resting in her den.”
“Then he’ll need to keep his strength up,” Mintpaw declared, grabbing the biggest squirrel off the fresh-kill pile and hauling it in the direction of Echosong’s den.
Leafstar waited until all the cats had gathered around the fresh-kill pile and chosen something to eat. They huddled in small groups; those who had witnessed Sagepaw’s accident were passing on the news to those who had been out of the camp.
As the talk died down, Leafstar leaped up onto the Rockpile and raised her voice in a yowl. “Let all cats old enough to catch their own prey gather here beneath the Rockpile for a Clan meeting.”
Most of the cats were already there, crouching near the fresh-kill pile or on the bank of the stream. Fallowfern’s kits scrambled out of the nursery with their mother behind them, trying to make sure they didn’t fall off the trail as they bounded downward.
“Remember what happened to Sagepaw!” Fallowfern warned, but the kits didn’t pay any attention, plopping down happily onto the path by the waterside and lining up in a row with ears pricked and eyes shining with curiosity. Fallowfern sat down beside them, stretching out her tail around them.
Leafstar looked around to see if any cat was keeping watch; it was easy to feel trapped and vulnerable when every cat was at the bottom of the gorge, and a few moons ago she had ordered that some cat should always guard the camp during meetings. She nodded in approval when she spotted Waspwhisker bounding away to take up a position on a boulder halfway up the trail.
Lichenfur and Tangle emerged from their den and padded slowly toward the Rockpile, settling down on a flat, sun-warmed stone that jutted out over the water. Mintpaw appeared from Echosong’s den to join her Clanmates, while Echosong and Petalnose sat in the den entrance where they could listen and still keep an eye on Sagepaw.
“Cats of SkyClan,” Leafstar began when they were all assembled. “First of all, there’s no need to worry about Sagepaw. He’s going to be fine, thanks to Echosong.”
“Echosong! Echosong!” the Clan yowled; several of the cats jumped to their paws and waved their tails.
The young medicine cat dipped her head in embarrassment at the sound of her Clanmates’ enthusiastic praise.
Leafstar raised her tail for silence. “There’s something else I need to say to you,” she went on. StarClan, give me the right words, she prayed. “This is our Clan, and we should all be proud of it, and proud to belong here. This is our home now. We protect the borders, we hunt the prey, and we train new warriors. If there are echoes of the old SkyClan among us, such as the ability to jump and climb well, they are no more important than what each cat brings to the new Clan.”
Patchfoot was looking uncomfortable again, his gaze fixed on his paws; one or two of the others seemed uneasy as well. Leafstar sank her claws into the boulder underneath her. I was right. It’s time to root out this obsession with SkyClan blood.
“I look down at all of you,” she continued, “and I see cats who have done everything they can to make our Clan strong. Clovertail has raised healthy kits who are now SkyClan warriors. Shrewtooth, your sharp hearing means that enemies will never sneak up on us.”