“I found him,” Talltail replied. “But he told me that Sandgorse had given his life to save him in the tunnels. I couldn’t kill him then. Sandgorse would have died for nothing.”
“So you didn’t need to leave the Clan after all?” Heatherstar probed.
“That’s not true,” Talltail growled. “I didn’t leave just for revenge. I didn’t feel like I belonged here.”
“Sometimes we have to leave to find out where our heart truly lies,” Heatherstar whispered.
Talltail’s pelt pricked. Heatherstar had said the same thing when he’d left. Does she know something she’s not telling me? Right now, he didn’t care. She understood that he had needed to leave, and that was what mattered. Relief swamped him. “I learned a lot,” he told her. “Friendship and kinship matter more than adventure. Boundaries only exist in our minds. A heart can travel to the horizon without moving a paw step. And I made the best friend any cat ever had.”
Heatherstar glanced over her shoulder. “But your loyalty is with the Clan now, right?”
Talltail’s pelt pricked with irritation. “I came back, didn’t I?”
“For good?”
Talltail winced. She was right to question his loyalty. “Yes,” he meowed.
Heatherstar turned her muzzle toward the horizon once more. “I always knew you would leave.”
Talltail stiffened. “What do you mean?” He padded forward and stopped at her side.
“When I received my nine lives, Mothflight warned me a warrior would leave my Clan.” A purr edged Heatherstar’s mew. “I was headstrong then. I told Mothflight that no warrior of mine would dare abandon his Clan.” She dipped her head. “But Mothflight was right. Sometimes a cat needs to go a long way to find that his true home is right where he started.”
Talltail’s ear twitched. “How did you know that cat was me?”
“You were restless even as a kit. You were a tunneler’s kit who hated tunnels, and a moor runner who couldn’t grasp the importance of boundaries. I let you go, as Mothflight had told me I should, so that you’d come to understand that it’s not boundaries that tie us down. We are held by much deeper bonds.”
Grief stabbed Talltail’s chest. Jake. That was the deepest bond he’d ever known, and yet Talltail had left him to return to his Clan. He shifted his paws. “This friend that I made, he’s the one who told me to come back.”
Heatherstar nodded. “He sounds like a wise cat,” she murmured. “He knows you better than you know yourself.”
Talltail turned away, his heart aching.
Heatherstar called to him as he padded from the rock. “You’ll still have to earn the trust of your Clanmates.”
Talltail hesitated. “I know.”
“You must prove that you’re willing to lay down your life for any of them,” Heatherstar meowed. “Even Shrewclaw.” There was a hint of amusement in her voice.
“I’ll try,” Talltail promised. As he headed onto the grass, relishing its softness beneath his pads, Heatherstar called after him.
“I’m glad you came back.”
The claws that had been sunk for so long into Talltail’s belly seemed to give one final squeeze before letting go. “So am I,” he answered.
Chapter 41
Steadily falling water turned the hills gray. It had rained every day since Talltail had returned, and the familiar trails ran like streams through the heather. Out in the open, sand washed around Talltail’s paws as he trekked toward the gorge.
Reedfeather trudged beside him. “A hard frost now would burn away the youngest heather,” he commented as they skirted a swathe of dripping bushes, their roots exposed where rain had washed away the soil.
Talltail glanced at the heavy sky. “There won’t be frost for a while.”
Reedfeather shook out his pelt. “I prefer snow,” he grumbled. “It stays out of my fur.” The WindClan deputy was limping. A sprain in his shoulder that he’d suffered half a moon earlier was refusing to heal.
Talltail noticed him wince with every step. “Do you want to find shelter and rest?” he offered. “I can hunt alone.”
“I can still hunt for my Clan.” Reedfeather shot him a look. “Even on three legs.”
“You’re not on three legs yet.” Talltail eyed the stretch of grass ahead. A thrush, impervious to the rain, was pecking for worms. “See that?” He nodded toward the bird.
Reedfeather paused. “Your eyesight’s as good as ever.”
“Go around and come up behind it,” Talltail whispered. “Send it toward me. I’ll do the rest.”
Reedfeather hesitated.
“Hurry,” Talltail urged. “I can’t catch it alone.”
Reedfeather headed away, keeping low, rain dripping from his whiskers as he veered wide around the thrush. Talltail waited. The bird had gripped a worm in its beak and was tugging it determinedly from the ground. As Reedfeather closed in, Talltail stalked forward. He kept one eye on the deputy. The old warrior would know when to make his move.
Talltail’s paw steps were hidden by the thrumming rain. The thrush only realized what was happening when Reedfeather darted at it. With a shriek, it fluttered away from the WindClan deputy. Talltail sprang as it flew toward him. Stretching up his forepaws, he knocked the bird from the sky. It dropped to the ground, dazed, and he nipped its spine.
Reedfeather hobbled to meet him. “That’s a useful technique,” he grunted. “Even an elder could make a catch like that.”
“Or a kittypet.” Talltail fought to keep the wistfulness from his mew as he remembered Jake’s startled face when he caught his first mouse.
The rain was easing by the time they reached camp. Reedfeather led the way through the heather, nodding to Talltail before he carried their catch to the prey heap. Talltail scanned the camp. Water dripped into a puddle in the apprentices’ den. With no apprentices, the gorse had not been patched and the nests were wilting and soggy. Meadowslip was resting outside the nursery, Palebird sitting beside her. Lilywhisker was dragging old bedding from the elders’ den. Heatherstar sheltered below Tallrock with Aspenfall and Doespring. On the Hunting Stones, Wrenkit, Flykit, Bristlekit, and Rabbitkit were bickering about who got to sit on the highest rock.
“It’s my turn!” Rabbitkit sounded indignant.
“You sat there last time,” Wrenkit argued.
“I never get to sit on the highest one,” Bristlekit complained.
Talltail headed away before they spotted him and begged him to decide. As he padded toward the long grass, hoping to find enough shelter to wash some of the rain from his fur, Hopkit scrambled out of the nursery. One moon from becoming an apprentice, he looked too big for the old gorse den. Perhaps it was time to start clearing the old nests from the apprentice den and repairing the roof.
“Talltail!” Hopkit raced around the edge of the Meeting Hollow. He ran nimbly, compensating so well with his three strong legs that sometimes Talltail forgot about his useless, twisted forepaw. “Will you help me practice my attack crouch like you promised?” Worried that he wouldn’t be given a mentor because his paw made the moves more difficult, Hopkit wanted to learn everything before he left the nursery.
Talltail glanced at the sky. The clouds were beginning to tear apart, showing patches of blue. It was the first sign of good weather in days. “Okay.”
The black kit flicked his tail excitedly.
“Let’s use the Meeting Hollow.” Talltail jumped into the dip, feeling the wet earth slide beneath his paws. Days of rain had washed the hollow clean, and stones hidden for moons beneath the soil flashed and sparkled on the surface as the sun peeked through a gap in the clouds.