Sparkpaw sat beside Sandstorm and began to ease the wad of cobweb away. Sandstorm twitched and grunted in her sleep, as if she was in pain, but when Sparkpaw hesitated, Alderpaw just nodded to her to keep going.
While he was chewing up the marigold, Needlepaw pushed her way through the bushes with a dripping ball of moss in her jaws. “I couldn’t find any herbs,” she meowed, setting the moss down beside Sandstorm, “but I brought this. I thought she might be thirsty.”
“That was a really good idea,” Alderpaw told her, feeling warmer toward the ShadowClan cat than ever before. Needlepaw ducked her head to lick her chest fur, embarrassed at his praise.
“Sandstorm.” Alderpaw gently stroked the old cat’s head. “Wake up and have a drink.”
Sandstorm’s green eyes blinked open. “Oh, that’s good,” she breathed out, lapping at the moss.
While she drank, Alderpaw plastered the marigold poultice to her wound. I just hope it’s enough, he thought. I wouldn’t worry so much about the infection if she weren’t so weak from the bleeding. He let out a long sigh. Oh, I wish Leafpool or Jayfeather were here to help me!
Sandstorm reached out her tail to touch him briefly on his shoulder. “Don’t worry, Alderpaw,” she rasped. “I’m going to be fine, and we must set out again soon. The…” For a heartbeat she hesitated. “The others need us,” she finished.
“Which others?” Sparkpaw asked curiously.
Alderpaw’s belly lurched. “Oh, she’s feverish,” he mewed quickly. “She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” But inwardly he felt worse than ever. Sandstorm must be losing her sharpness, to mention the secret.
“You have to rest,” he told her. “You have to get better. We can’t finish this quest without you!”
But he was not even sure if Sandstorm had heard him. When he looked down at her, he saw that she had drifted back into a fevered sleep.
Chapter 14
Alderpaw stood on the grass outside the sheltering elder bushes. Above his head the sky blazed with stars. Although the night wasn’t cold, he was shivering as though he had just clambered out of icy water.
Just ahead, a cat was walking away from him, toward the fence they had crossed the day before. Her head and tail were proudly raised, and she moved with a strong, purposeful gait.
Starlight glimmered at her paws and around her ears.
“But that’s—” Alderpaw cut off his words with a gasp, and he spun around to check on the nest beneath the elder bushes.
But the elder bushes were no longer there.
When Alderpaw turned back, the fence had vanished, too. He stood in the middle of a stretch of lush grass, with whispering groves of trees all around. The starry cat was facing him now, and he saw clearly that it was Sandstorm.
“Oh, no, no… ,” he whispered.
The ginger she-cat looked taller and stronger than he had ever seen her, and her infected wound had disappeared. Her pelt was thick and sleek, and her green eyes gleamed with love for him.
“It is my time to leave you,” she meowed, with no pain or confusion in her voice. “But don’t worry, Alderpaw. StarClan is where I belong now.”
“No!” Alderpaw protested with all the strength that was in him. “You can’t leave us now. We need you!”
“This is my destiny,” Sandstorm responded.
“And you do not need me anymore. You are stronger than you know. Listen.” She took a pace toward him. “You must lead the others now. Continue heading toward the rising sun. It is many days’ journey, and you will have to cross a very big and busy Thunderpath. After that, you will come to a river. Follow it upstream, and you will find the gorge where SkyClan has their camp.”
Alderpaw tried to memorize what Sandstorm was telling him. The rising sun… a big Thunderpath… then the river. At the same time, he felt hot with shame that she wouldn’t be there to guide him. He turned his gaze away, unable to go on looking at her.
“I failed you,” he muttered.
“No,” Sandstorm murmured gently. “No cat could have done more to help me. I doubt that even Jayfeather or Leafpool could have kept me alive so long. I knew the risks when I chose to come on this quest,” she reminded him. “I know how important your visions are.”
“But you could have lived for many seasons in ThunderClan,” Alderpaw mewed wretchedly.
“And now I will live for many more in StarClan,” Sandstorm pointed out. “I will get to see Firestar again, and all the cats I have loved and lost. Alderpaw, this is how it was meant to be. You have nothing to feel ashamed of, or guilty about.”
Alderpaw turned in an anxious circle, unable to believe what Sandstorm was telling him. What will I do without her? How will I lead this quest?
“This isn’t a vision!” he insisted, fear overwhelming him. “It’s just a dream. I’m going to wake up, and you’ll be sleeping beside me, just like always. You’re going to be all right.”
Sandstorm’s eyes glowed with a mixture of pity and affection. “I was dying,” she reminded Alderpaw. “You knew that, didn’t you?”
“No—you’re going to get better!” Alderpaw retorted, even though deep within him was the cold certainty that she was right. “I’m going to make sure of it!”
Sandstorm gave a sad shake of her head.
“There was nothing you could have done to save me. It was my time to die. No cat lives forever.
This is one of the most important lessons that you—or any medicine cat—will ever learn.”
On the last few words her voice began to fade, while the starry light around her blazed brighter and brighter, until Alderpaw couldn’t go on looking at the dazzling glory. A moment later he jerked awake in his nest under the elder bushes.
Thank StarClan! It was only a dream.
Sandstorm is right here beside me.
Scrambling to his paws, Alderpaw turned to nudge Sandstorm awake. But as soon as his pads touched her fur, he knew that he hadn’t been dreaming. Sandstorm’s fur was limp, the body beneath it cold, and her ribs weren’t rising and falling with her breath.
It was a vision. Sandstorm is dead.
Alderpaw backed away in horror, his fur pricking up and his belly clenching. He couldn’t keep back a wail of distress. “No! No! It wasn’t her time!”
Cherryfall’s head popped up from her nest.
“Alderpaw? What’s happening?”
The other cats were waking, too, confused and questioning. A shocked silence fell over them as Alderpaw pointed to Sandstorm’s body with his tail. Slowly they all padded over to Sandstorm and stood looking down, a tail-length away from the huddle of cold fur.
Sparkpaw was the first to break the silence.
“She’s… she’s dead, isn’t she? Now what do we do?”
“Sandstorm was the only one who knew the route,” Molewhisker pointed out gloomily. “We were relying on her to help us complete the journey. Is her death telling us that the quest is doomed?”
Murmurs of agreement, with a note of fear, came from the other cats.
In spite of his grief, Alderpaw felt a surge of purpose flooding through him from ears to tail-tip. “Sandstorm wouldn’t want us to stand around like this, wondering what to do,” he told the sad and confused cats in front of him. “She would want us to sit vigil with her, and then bury her, before we decide what to do next.”
“You’re right,” Cherryfall meowed. “Let’s do that.”
Together the ThunderClan cats dragged Sandstorm out of the nest and laid her on the grass, gently stroking her fur and fluffing up her tail. It was dark; the sky was studded with stars, as if all the spirits of their warrior ancestors were waiting to welcome Sandstorm and to honor her.