Crowfeather's Trial

Chapter 22

Crowfeather led the way across the moor, guiding his patrol in a wide half circle to avoid the tunnels. “I don’t want to risk meeting the stoats,” he murmured. “They’ll be even more angry with WindClan after you blocked up the entrances.”

Even so, he couldn’t help feeling a prickling of tension in his pads as they passed by, remembering once again Kestrelflight’s vision. He saw dark water rush out, swelling and tossing until it could engulf all the Clans.

It’s so clear. It’s almost as though the vision were mine.

He shook his head to clear it of the fake memories.

But I still want to know what it means.

When they reached the stream that formed the border with ThunderClan, Crowfeather halted. “We could trek all the way around the forest,” he meowed, “and get to the Twolegplace that way. But it’s much farther than cutting across ThunderClan territory; we’d never do it, find Nightcloud, and get back to camp again before dawn.”

“If we find Nightcloud,” Gorsetail put in.

Breezepelt gave her a savage look and opened his jaws to speak, but Heathertail interrupted him with a touch of her tail on his shoulder. “We don’t want the Clan to miss us if we can possibly avoid it,” she pointed out. “If we don’t find Nightcloud, they never need to know we were gone, and if we do — well, Onestar will be so pleased that he won’t mind what we did.”

Gorsetail shrugged. “ThunderClan it is, then.”

Crowfeather gazed into the trees on the opposite side of the stream. “From now on, absolute silence,” he told the others. “We’ll be on another Clan’s territory, and it’s possible that some ThunderClan cats will be out and about. We really don’t want trouble with them right now.” He hesitated, then added, “Hootpaw, have you got that?”

Serious for once, the apprentice nodded vigorously.

“I’ve got an idea,” Heathertail meowed before Crowfeather could start looking for the best place to cross the stream. “Why don’t we roll ourselves in the ThunderClan scent markers? That way, if we do meet a ThunderClan patrol, we can hide and our scent won’t give us away.”

“That’s a brilliant plan!” Breezepelt exclaimed.

But Hootpaw let out an outraged squeak. “I don’t want that ThunderClan stink on my fur!”

Gorsetail gave her apprentice a cuff around the ear, her claws sheathed. “You’ll do as you’re told. We could still go back to camp.”

Hootpaw hunched his shoulders. “Sorry, Gorsetail.”

Crowfeather located a narrow part of the stream where it was easy for the cats to leap across. As he and his Clanmates rolled in the ThunderClan scent, he couldn’t help feeling some sympathy for Hootpaw. The markers were strong and fresh — clearly they had been renewed at sunset — and he winced as the stench sank into his pelt.

I don’t think I’ll ever smell like WindClan again! Instead the scent reminded him of Leafpool, and he gave his ears an irritated twitch, as if he were trying to get rid of a fly buzzing around him. I have to stop thinking about her!

When every cat was ready, Crowfeather headed into the trees with his Clanmates padding softly beside him. Beneath the trees the snow was not so thick, and they were able to pick up their pace. The forest floor was dappled with black and silver, a pattern that shifted as the branches moved gently overhead, rustling in the breeze. The prey-scents were muted; Crowfeather guessed that most creatures would be safe in their holes, though he thought it worthwhile to glance over his shoulder and whisper, “We take no prey, remember? This isn’t our hunting ground.”

“What do we do when we get to the Twolegplace?” Heathertail asked as the sound of the stream died away behind them. “It must be huge. How will we ever find Nightcloud?”

“How about we worry about that when we get there?” Gorsetail responded, an edge to her voice.

“I’ve been thinking about that.” Crowfeather ignored the gray-and-white she-cat. “I’m going to start from the pool where I thought Nightcloud died. We might be able to pick up her scent there, and if we can, it will make our job a lot easier.”

“Good idea.”

The grunted response came from Breezepelt. Crowfeather could barely prevent his tail from sticking straight up in astonishment. Finally, I’ve done something right!

The WindClan cats slipped like shadows through the forest as Crowfeather led them toward the hollow where he had found Nightcloud’s blood and the fox scent. Now and again he picked up the faintest trace of his own stale scent, but his anxiety grew when he couldn’t find any of Nightcloud’s.

Maybe Breezepelt was right, and it has faded. That would make it much harder to find her, if her scent trail has disappeared.

But before the patrol reached the hollow, Crowfeather spotted movement in the undergrowth over to one side, and a flicker of pale light that vanished almost immediately. He halted, signaling with his tail for his Clanmates to do the same.

The pale flicker came a second time, and for a moment Crowfeather wondered if his mother, Ashfoot, was showing herself to him again. Then he dismissed the thought. Ashfoot only came to him in dreams. He must have caught a glimpse of a living animal. It has to be a cat with a white or pale gray pelt, he thought. A strong, fresh scent drifted into his nostrils. Fox dung! It’s ThunderClan!

He beckoned his patrol into the shadow of a bramble thicket, where they crouched in silence, hardly daring to breathe. Rustling came from the undergrowth, followed by a cat’s voice raised, half amused and half annoyed.

“Great StarClan, Lilypaw! Do you have to stomp around like an overweight badger?”

“That’s Poppyfrost,” Crowfeather whispered. “I wonder how many more of them there are.”

A heartbeat later the ThunderClan patrol emerged into the open. Ivypool was in the lead, with Poppyfrost and Bumblestripe. Following them were their apprentices, Lilypaw and her littermate, Seedpaw. Moonlight reflected off Ivypool’s silver-and-white pelt.

Crowfeather hoped that if they kept still, the darkness still might hide them, or their ThunderClan scent would deceive the patrol, but it was a vain hope. Ivypool stalked straight up to him and stood looking down at him and the rest of the WindClan cats.

“Greetings,” she meowed. “I suppose you have a good reason for lurking there on our territory?”

Crowfeather remembered that Ivypool had trained in the Dark Forest, spying for ThunderClan, and there wasn’t much she didn’t know about tracking in the dark. Or fighting, if it came to that. How long did she know that we were here?

“Well?” Ivypool asked.

Rising to his paws, Crowfeather gave his pelt a shake, trying to recover a little dignity. “Let me explain…,” he began.

But at that moment, Bumblestripe padded forward and pushed his muzzle into Breezepelt’s shoulder fur. “They’re carrying our scent!” he exclaimed. “That proves they’re up to no good!”

Breezepelt started backward, his pelt beginning to bristle, and slapped Bumblestripe away with a lash of his tail. A growl came from deep in Bumblestripe’s throat, while Breezepelt slid out his claws. Their backs arched, as if they would leap into a fight at any moment.

“No!” Crowfeather ordered. He pushed Breezepelt back and stepped between him and the ThunderClan tom.

At the same moment, Ivypool snapped, “Stop that, Bumblestripe.” She stood beside Crowfeather, separating the two hostile toms.

Reluctantly, Bumblestripe took a step back, though he and Breezepelt were still glaring at each other. Ivypool stood waiting with her head tilted to one side, while Poppyfrost had withdrawn a few paces with the two apprentices. Crowfeather heard her say to them, “If a fight breaks out, run!”

“Look, Ivypool…” Crowfeather addressed the silver-and-white she-cat, hoping she would be reasonable. “We’re here on an important mission. We’re looking for Nightcloud.”

“But Nightcloud is dead,” Ivypool objected. “Onestar announced it at the Gathering.”

Crowfeather began to explain how he had followed Nightcloud’s scent from one of the tunnel entrances, until he had found her blood and scent beside a pool, mixed with the reek of fox.

“Of course we thought that a fox got her,” he mewed.

“So you’ve been trespassing here before!” Bumblestripe broke in accusingly.

Ivypool twitched her ears in annoyance. “Bumblestripe, will you for StarClan’s sake shut up!” She nodded to Crowfeather. “Go on.”

Crowfeather told her how Kestrelflight had failed to find Nightcloud in StarClan, and how that made her Clanmates hope that she was still alive, and then how he had met Yew, who’d told him of meeting her on the edge of a Twolegplace beyond the forest. “But our best hope of finding her is to go back to that pool and see if we can find her scent leading away from it.”

“Good luck with that, after all this time,” Ivypool murmured. “But I can understand that you have to try. Yes, they can, Bumblestripe,” she added, glaring at her Clanmate, who had opened his jaws to protest. “Nightcloud is a noble warrior, and she deserves the help of any cat.”

Bumblestripe stared down at his paws, a sullen expression on his face, though he didn’t argue anymore.

Ivypool turned back to Crowfeather. “Bumblestripe and I will escort you,” she told Crowfeather. “We can’t have WindClan cats wandering around alone in our territory.”

“We don’t need—” Gorsetail began, looking outraged, but Crowfeather interrupted her with a lash of his tail.

“That’s fine by us,” he meowed, and his Clanmates, even Gorsetail, murmured agreement.

It’s so easy to work with ThunderClan when we agree on a goal, Crowfeather reflected. If only Onestar had seen that, we might be done with the stoats by now.

“Then I’ll take the apprentices back to camp,” Poppyfrost announced.

“Not fair,” Lilypaw muttered. “You said you’d take us night hunting. And we haven’t caught anything yet.”

“Yeah, trust WindClan to spoil our fun,” Seedpaw added.

“Never mind.” Poppyfrost gathered the apprentices together with a sweep of her tail. “We’ll see what we can pick up on our way back.” She dipped her head to Ivypool and padded off in the direction of the ThunderClan camp, with the two apprentices trailing after her, glaring over their shoulders at the WindClan cats.

“Okay, Crowfeather,” Ivypool meowed briskly. “Show us this pool.”

She padded beside him as they set out again, with Bumblestripe bringing up the rear. Crowfeather could see that Breezepelt was still bristling with anger, glaring over his shoulder at Bumblestripe, flexing his claws. Crowfeather shot him a warning glance and hoped that he had sense enough not to start any more trouble with the ThunderClan tom.

When they finally reached the pool with its fringe of ferns, Crowfeather’s heart sank as he tasted the scent of fox in the air, stronger and more recent than when he had been here before. They must come here regularly. Can’t ThunderClan keep the mange-pelts off their territory?

Examining the ground around the pool, Crowfeather found the spot where he could still see that Nightcloud’s blood had sunk into the grass, but there was not the slightest trace of her scent.

“Work outward from the pool,” he instructed his Clanmates. “That way we might pick up her trail and find out which way she went.”

Ivypool and Bumblestripe stood to one side of the pool while Crowfeather and the other WindClan cats searched for Nightcloud’s scent. Crowfeather felt his hope sinking away like rain into dry ground as the moments passed and they found nothing. He was wondering how much longer they could go on searching when Breezepelt let out an excited yowl.

“I’ve found it!”

Crowfeather looked up. Breezepelt was standing several fox-lengths away from the pool, in the opposite direction from WindClan and toward the Twolegplace that Yew had pointed out to him. Swiftly he skirted the pool and bounded over to join his son, hoping that Breezepelt hadn’t imagined finding the scent out of sheer desperation.

Breezepelt pointed with his muzzle to a clump of chervil, the leaves wilting and frostbitten. Crowfeather bent his head to sniff, parted his jaws to taste the air. The fox reek was swamping everything; he was sure there were at least two of them, and possibly three. Beneath the fox scent there was a trace of something else. Crowfeather wanted to believe that Breezepelt was right, but he wondered if he was just smelling what he wanted to smell. He shook his head slowly. “I’m not sure,” he murmured.

“It is Nightcloud’s scent!” Breezepelt insisted.

Hootpaw pushed his way forward. “Let me try!”

Gorsetail hooked his tail around her apprentice’s neck and drew him back. “Stay out of the way,” he ordered. “We don’t want your scent confusing everything.”

Crowfeather could see that Breezepelt’s eyes looked hopeful and yet uncertain, as if he wasn’t quite sure that he had really found his mother’s scent after so long. Crowfeather guessed that he too was desperately trying to convince himself.

“If she went this way, she wasn’t heading for WindClan,” Crowfeather murmured thoughtfully. “And there’s only one reason for that.”

“The foxes were chasing her!” Heathertail meowed excitedly. “So if we follow the foxes…”

Crowfeather nodded. “We stand a good chance of finding Nightcloud.”

“But what if…?” There was panic now in Breezepelt’s eyes, and his fur began to prickle in alarm. “What if they caught her?”

Heathertail wrapped her tail over his shoulders. “Calm down,” she mewed. “We know she isn’t dead, right? That other cat saw her. So somehow, she must have shaken off the foxes and ended up in the Twolegplace.”

Crowfeather said nothing. The young she-cat was right that Nightcloud wasn’t in StarClan, and they had a good idea that she had gone to the Twolegplace, however unlikely that seemed. That’s why we’re here, he told himself determinedly, and we’re not going home until we know for sure what happened to her, one way or the other.

“Come on,” he urged his Clanmates. “We won’t find her standing around. Let’s follow the foxes.”

Ivypool and Bumblestripe padded over to join them as they turned in the direction of the fox trail, Ivypool taking the lead again while Bumblestripe tagged along at the end of the group. Crowfeather felt uncomfortable, almost as if he and his Clanmates were prisoners, but he had to admit they were lucky not to have ended up in a fight, or being chased off ThunderClan territory.

With so many cats involved in their mission, Crowfeather thought to himself, it was growing more and more likely that Onestar would discover what they had done. We’d better find Nightcloud, and then he can’t be too angry. There’s not much more he can do to me, but there might be trouble for the others.

The fox trail led in an almost straight line through the forest. Breezepelt kept his nose close to the ground as they followed it, here and there exclaiming that he had picked up Nightcloud’s scent. Crowfeather too thought that he could catch a trace of it, but as they padded onward, he felt his chest tighten with worry. Now and again he spotted the paw print of a desperately running cat, and he wondered how Nightcloud had managed to keep going, wounded as she had been by the stoats. Could she really have had the strength and speed to stay ahead of the foxes for so long?

Crowfeather could imagine the foxes encircling her, catching her and pulling her down, tearing her flesh. He couldn’t push away the thought that perhaps Yew hadn’t seen Nightcloud, but only another cat who looked like her. He had to halt and close his eyes, repeating inside his head, Yew said she smelled like me… She smelled like me…

Breezepelt’s voice came from close by. “Crowfeather, are you okay?”

Crowfeather shook his head as if he could drive out the images. “I’m fine,” he rasped, and padded on.

But the horrible visions still attacked Crowfeather’s mind, fierce as the warriors of the Dark Forest. He had to keep reminding himself that if the foxes had gotten Nightcloud, there would be blood and maybe even a body.

Or parts of a body. Please, StarClan, not that.

He shivered, but the chill had nothing to do with the frosty air of the snow-covered forest.

Eventually, Crowfeather could pick up the familiar tang of the ThunderClan scent markers; they had reached the border of ThunderClan territory. The fox trail led straight across it.

“Are you going any farther?” Ivypool asked.

“Of course!” It was Breezepelt who replied. “We’re not giving up until we find Nightcloud.”

Ivypool dipped her head; Crowfeather thought he could see a trace of approval in her eyes. “Then we’ll leave you here,” she continued. “And I give you permission to cross our territory again on your way back — but not to take prey. Of course, we will have to report this to Bramblestar.”

More trouble to come. Surely Bramblestar will discuss all this with Onestar. And Onestar will think even worse of me — if that’s possible. Aloud Crowfeather mewed, “Of course. And you might report the foxes, as well.”

“We know about the foxes,” Ivypool retorted. “We’re keeping an eye on them.”

Not a close-enough eye, Crowfeather thought, though he wasn’t about to start an argument. “Then thank you for your help,” he responded with a polite nod.

“May StarClan light your path,” Ivypool meowed. “I hope you find Nightcloud.”

As she spoke, there was genuine concern in her eyes and her voice. Crowfeather felt even more worried, guessing that Ivypool didn’t really believe that they had much chance of tracking Nightcloud down.

Ivypool turned, jerking her head for Bumblestripe to follow her. The ThunderClan tom gave the WindClan cats a last suspicious look as he turned away, and both cats disappeared into the undergrowth. Crowfeather let out a sigh of relief to see them go.

“Okay,” he meowed. “Let’s get going.”

His head held high, he crossed the ThunderClan border markings, and his Clanmates followed him into unknown territory.

For some time, the fox trail led on in a straight line as before, until the trees thinned out and Crowfeather began to pick up a new, acrid scent. “Monsters!” he exclaimed. “Of course… There’s a Thunderpath up ahead.”

“Fox dung!” Breezepelt hissed.

Crowfeather shared his anger. Picking out Nightcloud’s scent was hard enough; it would become even harder when the scent of monsters was added to the mix. And the Thunderpath was one more hazard that Nightcloud had faced. Crowfeather shuddered, wondering if she could have been killed by a monster.

One of them might have caught her after she met Yew.

Still, the scent of the Thunderpath meant that they were drawing close to the Twolegplace. And the fact that Nightcloud seemed to have made it this far made Crowfeather more certain that Yew had been right. He was determined not to give up.

Soon the acrid tang grew stronger, and now and again Crowfeather could hear the roar of a monster prowling along the Thunderpath. The fox scent was growing stronger too, and for a moment Crowfeather wondered if more foxes had joined the ones they had tracked from the pool.

Then he realized that he was wrong. The fox scent isn’t just strong — it’s fresh! There are foxes here right now!