“’Course,” the medicine cat mumbled around her mouthful of herbs. “They’ve got to learn.” She headed for her den to store the leaves away.
Leafstar watched Echosong’s fluffy tail whisk out of sight. I’ll feel a lot better when they arrive. But what will I do if they don’t come back?
Excited squeaking broke out behind her as Fallowfern brought her kits down from the nursery. “Nettlekit, sit still,” she ordered. “Your neck fur is all rumpled, and I can’t lick it straight when you’re bouncing around like that.”
Leafstar turned to watch the kits bundling around their mother.
“I’m going to sit on the Skyrock!” Plumkit announced. “I’m going to jump right over the gap and sit with the warriors!”
“You certainly are not,” her mother scolded, pausing in her firm tongue strokes over Nettlekit’s neck. Her sharp gaze traveled over her kits. “The Skyrock is for warriors. Besides, you’re too young to leap across the gap, and if even one of you tries it, all four of you will go straight back to the nursery.”
“But—” Rabbitkit protested.
“Not another word. You’re only kits; you can’t possibly jump that far.”
“Can too,” Plumkit muttered; her mother flicked her over the ear with the tip of her tail.
Leafstar was distracted from the antics of the kits as Waspwhisker limped past. “How is your wound?” she called to him. “Do you think you can leap across to the Skyrock?”
The gray-and-white tom nodded determinedly. “I’ll be fine, Leafstar.”
She wasn’t certain, but before she could protest she heard yowls of greeting coming from the top of the cliff. Relief rushed through her from nose to tail-tip as she recognized the outlines of Harveymoon and Macgyver.
“Hey, look who’s here!” Patchfoot exclaimed as the two daylight-warriors raced down the trail.
Their Clanmates clustered around to welcome them back to the Clan, and Leafstar let out a sigh of relief. Now maybe we can carry on and put their bad behavior behind us.
As the initial excitement died down, Harveymoon spotted the Twolegplace cats, who were sitting together in the shadow of the Rockpile. His white neck fur started to fluff up. “Who are they?” he demanded, flicking his ears in their direction.
“They’re cats from another Twolegplace,” Rockshade explained, springing to his paws and padding over to the visitors. “Firestar met them on his way here. This is Stick,” he began, touching each cat on the shoulder with his tail-tip as he spoke their name, “and this is Cora, Shorty, and Coal. These are Harveymoon and Macgyver,” he told the visitors. “They… er… they haven’t been here for a while. They’re kitty… I mean, daylight-warriors like Billystorm and Ebonyclaw.”
Stick dipped his head. “We’re glad to meet you.”
Harveymoon and Macgyver didn’t look as if they wanted to return the compliment. “What are they doing here?” Macgyver asked.
“They’re just staying here for a while,” Patchfoot replied. “They’ve been helping us out.”
“What, with hunting and everything?” Harveymoon sounded shocked.
Leafstar suppressed a sigh. The questions were natural enough, she supposed, but did he have to sound so unwelcoming?
“They’ve been great, actually,” Sharpclaw meowed. “We would never have won the rat battle without them.”
“Rat battle?” Macgyver spun around to face the Clan deputy. “What rat battle?”
“There was this huge heap of old stuff that the Twolegs left on our territory.” Cherrytail’s eyes stretched wide with excitement as she began to explain. “It was full of rats.”
“We found it on patrol,” Patchfoot added. “We had to get rid of the rats, and Stick and the others knew what to do. They have a lot of trouble with rats in their Twolegplace.”
“They eat rats,” Mintpaw chipped in.
“Stick built a practice heap here in the gorge,” Petalnose went on, “and we all learned the right moves for fighting rats.”
“Then we sneaked up to the heap one night…” Bouncefire began to describe the attack, how the Clan had blocked up all but two exits and driven the rats out into the claws of the waiting warriors.
“I was badly wounded,” Waspwhisker told the kittypets, proudly turning sideways to display his scar. “I might have died if it wasn’t for Echosong.”
“But no cat died,” Sharpclaw finished. “And we owe that to our visitors.”
“I wish I’d been there,” Macgyver meowed enviously as he gave Waspwhisker’s scar a sniff. “I’d have killed loads of rats.”
“Oh, you wouldn’t have been there anyway,” Rockshade told him. “It was too early in the morning for you.”
“None of the daylight-warriors were there,” Mintpaw mewed, as Harveymoon and Macgyver looked puzzled.
“But the Twolegplace cats were there?” Harveymoon checked, sounding offended.
“Yes, they organized the attack,” Cherrytail replied.
Harveymoon and Macgyver exchanged a hurt glance. Leafstar could feel the rising tension. She was annoyed with Rockshade and Mintpaw for not being more sensitive—and with herself for doubting yet again that it had been the right decision to exclude the daylight-warriors.
As she caught Sharpclaw’s eye, the deputy stepped forward. “That’s all in the past,” he mewed. “Tonight’s the Gathering, and it’s time we were off.” He waved his tail and stood back for Leafstar to lead the way up the trail that led to the Skyrock.
I shouldn’t worry so much, Leafstar told herself as she took her place at the head of her Clan. Harveymoon and Macgyver probably just feel left out. And that might not be a bad thing, if it makes them better warriors.
The moon cast soft silver light onto the cliffs, turning everything gray, as the cats of SkyClan reached the Skyrock. Leafstar felt her paws tingle when she jumped across the gap from the edge of the cliff to the ledge that jutted out over the gorge. This was the place where Firestar had shown StarClan to her, and where she had received her nine lives from the spirits of those long-ago cats.
Wind whispered over the surface of the rock as more cats joined her. Now that SkyClan had grown so big, there was only room for the senior warriors. The newly made warriors, Tinycloud, Rockshade, and Bouncefire, sat closest to the edge on top of the cliff, with Mintpaw and Sagepaw just behind them. The daylight-warriors sat a tail-length or so away, as did the visitors; Leafstar noticed with a pang of uneasiness that the three groups of cats were keeping themselves separate, even though there didn’t seem to be any outward hostility among them.
Clovertail, Fallowfern, and her kits sat on a pile of curved stones at the end of the trail, a few tail-lengths from the gap. The two she-cats enclosed the wriggling kits with their tails, to make sure none of them tried to jump across. Lichenfur and Tangle joined them; the two elders had hauled themselves up the trail, complaining every paw step of the way, but Leafstar knew that neither of them would dream of missing a Gathering.
When her Clanmates had settled down, Leafstar sat in silence for a heartbeat or two, gazing up at the full moon and the stars. It was easy to imagine that the cats she had met when she received her nine lives were looking down at her now.
What do they think about the way I’m leading their Clan?
She took a deep breath and let her gaze travel around the circle of warriors. “I, Leafstar, leader of SkyClan, call upon my ancestors to look down upon these cats,” she began. These Gatherings were still unfamiliar, and she was sharply aware that she was forging traditions that her Clan would follow for season after season. I need to get it right. “Since last we Gathered on the Skyrock, we have defended our territory against a horde of rats. Every cat fought bravely and took wounds for the sake of our Clan. I commend especially Waspwhisker, who almost died in the fight, and Patchfoot and Sparrowpelt, who were particularly vigilant in keeping watch on the rats until we were ready to attack.”