Veil Of Shadows

Chapter 12

Bristlefrost stood in the entrance to the Clan leader’s den on the Highledge, gazing down at the listless figure of the false Bramblestar where he lay in his nest. The sun was well above the trees at the top of the stone hollow, and yet the impostor had barely moved since dawn.

“Maybe you should get up now,” Bristlefrost suggested. “There’s a hunting patrol waiting for your orders, and a few warriors want to speak to you about border marking. And—”

Bramblestar gazed at her with confusion in his face. “What are you meowing about?” he grumbled. Then he lifted a weary paw and waved her away. “Let Berrynose deal with them,” he murmured. “I don’t care about any of it. How can I? Squirrelflight is dead, and it’s my fault. If I hadn’t exiled her . . .”

A tiny spark of hope woke inside Bristlefrost, and she wondered if the intruder might possibly change his mind. “If you’re having second thoughts about the exiles,” she began tentatively, “it’s probably not too late to find the others.”

Bramblestar just moaned and looked away, closing his eyes as his whiskers drooped in pain. Bristlefrost wasn’t even sure that he had heard her. Then with a pitiful whine he buried his face in the bracken fronds of his nest.

He looked so miserable that Bristlefrost couldn’t suppress a pang of sympathy. For a moment she was tempted to tell him the truth, that Squirrelflight wasn’t dead at all; she just didn’t want to be found. But that would undo all our hard work. It would put Squirrelflight and the rest of the exiles in danger, she reflected. And me, too, because it would prove that I lied to him. She thrust the temptation away and remained silent.

For a few heartbeats she stood still, looking down at the wretched creature who was supposed to be her Clan leader. Then an idea crept into her mind.

“Maybe instead of seeing Squirrelflight’s death as a punishment,” she suggested to Bramblestar, “you should make sure she didn’t die in vain.”

Bramblestar raised his head and gave her a wary glance. “What does that mean?” he rasped.

“You know that Squirrelflight was a good cat,” Bristlefrost told him. “Even if she was named as a codebreaker. It’s not too late to turn things around, to make things right. In Squirrelflight’s memory, you could rededicate yourself to making ThunderClan the strongest and most prosperous Clan. That means trusting your loyal warriors.”

Bramblestar’s gaze narrowed. “My loyal warriors,” he repeated. Bristlefrost thought that a glow began to kindle in the depths of his amber eyes. Her heart lurched, and for a moment she could hardly get her breath, in fear that he would punish her for her boldness. It’s not my place to advise a Clan leader!

But before Bramblestar could say any more, the sound of paw steps came from the Highledge, and Alderheart slid inside the den. Bristlefrost shivered, thankful that her sense of menace had evaporated at the medicine cat’s appearance.

“You wanted to see me?” Alderheart asked, casting a curious glance between Bramblestar and Bristlefrost.

“You took your time,” Bramblestar grumbled. “Where have you been?”

“I was out collecting herbs,” Alderheart explained, dipping his head respectfully. “I only just got your message. Are you hurt?”

“Of course I’m hurt!” Bramblestar snapped. “Why else would I have called you here?”

Alderheart seemed unworried by the Clan leader’s irritable tone. “Then tell me what the problem is,” he mewed calmly.

“My chest hurts, and my fur itches.”

Padding across the den, Alderheart ran his paws carefully over Bramblestar’s body. He gave his pelt a good sniff, parting the strands of fur, and sniffed again around the Clan leader’s muzzle, his eyes and ears.

“I still can’t find anything wrong with you,” he pronounced at last.

Bramblestar convulsed in his nest, half sitting up. “That’s because you’re useless!” he hissed. “Just a second-rate medicine cat! Maybe I should have sent you away instead of Jayfeather. Even a blind cat could see something’s wrong with me.” Drawing his lips back in a snarl, he added, “Go get something to help me, or you can join Jayfeather in exile!”

Turning his head away, Bramblestar buried himself deeper in the moss and bracken of his nest.

With a slight twitch of her ears, Bristlefrost signaled to Alderheart to follow her out of the den. When they reached the Highledge, the medicine cat halted and faced her.

“I can’t help Bramblestar when there’s nothing wrong with him,” he complained, his tail-tip flicking to and fro in exasperation.

“I know,” Bristlefrost murmured. “But maybe you could bring him something to make him sleep. He might get back to normal if he could rest.”

“I hope so,” Alderheart agreed. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take. Some of the Clanmates who mean the most to me are gone, and the cats who remain are miserable.” It was clear to Bristlefrost that Alderheart was really referring to himself. His eyes were full of pain, reminding her that the real Bramblestar was Alderheart’s father as well as his Clan leader. This ordeal had been hard for all for them, but Alderheart had obviously been suffering more than most and keeping it to himself.

“I think he’s grieving for Squirrelflight,” she murmured, hoping at least a bit of explanation might help to ease Alderheart’s mind.

Alderheart nodded; Bristlefrost had told him about the former deputy’s deception. “He has some feelings, then,” he responded. “But I’m still convinced that something dark and terrible has taken over Bramblestar’s body.” His tail-tip twitched in frustration. “I’d join the exiles without a backward glance, but I can’t leave the Clan when I’m the only medicine cat left.”

“Oh, please don’t do that!” Bristlefrost exclaimed, alarm throbbing in her chest. “Don’t leave us to Flipclaw!”

Alderheart rolled his eyes. “Flipclaw!” he snarled. “StarClan help us all!”

He cast one final glance back into the den, then hurried off down the tumbled rocks.

Bristlefrost remained on the Highledge, looking out across the stone hollow. After a moment, she noticed Spotfur standing at the edge of the camp. Their gazes locked; then Spotfur angled her ears toward the thorn tunnel, clearly beckoning Bristlefrost to follow her out.

There must be another meeting of the rebel cats, Bristlefrost realized, her pelt tingling with a mixture of fear and excitement. I need to go.

She turned and craned her neck to look inside the den. Bramblestar was curled up in his nest, letting out a miserable whine. Bristlefrost knew that soon Alderheart would be back with herbs to help him sleep; this could be her best chance of slipping away unnoticed.

Bristlefrost padded quietly down into the camp, then followed Spotfur through the tunnel and into the forest. The spotted tabby she-cat led her through the undergrowth until they came upon Stemleaf waiting in the shelter of a holly bush. He rose to his paws and joined them as Spotfur turned and headed toward the lake.

None of the three cats spoke a word until they emerged from the trees and padded down a grassy bank to reach the strip of pebbles that bordered the lake. For the first time, Bristlefrost became confident that no cat was pursuing them.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“You’ll see,” Spotfur responded, and refused to say more.

She set a brisk pace along the edge of the lake and across SkyClan territory. When they reached the ShadowClan border, Spotfur veered away from the water and led the way into the pine forest. The wind had risen again; branches creaked and thrashed above their heads, and Bristlefrost could hardly hear her own paw steps as she padded over the thick layer of needles that covered the ground.

At last she began to make out movement ahead, and she picked up the mingled scent of many cats. All the same, as she followed Spotfur, whisking around a sprawling bramble thicket, she was amazed to see the crowd of cats that met her gaze.

Bramblestar had exiled many cats, and had encouraged other Clans to exile theirs. Bristlefrost’s eyes flicked between Jayfeather, Squirrelflight, Crowfeather, Lionblaze, and Mothwing, along with most of ShadowClan. Now that they were allied with the rebels, there were almost enough of them to form a Clan of their own.

But that’s not what we want to do, she thought uneasily.

Noticing Twigbranch sitting by herself at the edge of the crowd, Bristlefrost padded over to her. “Greetings,” she mewed, sitting beside her. “Are you okay?”

Twigbranch shrugged uneasily. “I suppose . . . ,” she mewed. “To be honest, Bristlefrost, I don’t feel like I belong here. I can’t wait for the half-moon to be up so that I can go home.”

Bristlefrost stared at her in surprise. “You really want to do that—knowing the truth about Bramblestar?”

“Bramblestar isn’t the only cat in ThunderClan,” Twigbranch responded. “I love my Clan, and I think of myself as a ThunderClan cat. I’m going back as soon as I can.”

“But you can be a real help to us here,” Bristlefrost pointed out.

“I can be a real help there, too,” Twigbranch meowed. “I can’t turn my back on ThunderClan, but what I can do is resist the false Bramblestar from within. After all, Bristlefrost, isn’t that what you’re doing?”

Okay, I stuck my paw in my mouth there, Bristlefrost thought regretfully. But maybe Twigbranch was right. They weren’t so different, and it would help to have another cat on the inside, keeping a close eye on Bramblestar and helping to limit the damage he tried to do.

While she and Twigbranch had been talking, Harelight and Icewing, warriors of RiverClan, had slipped out of the undergrowth to join the group. Clearly the rebels had been waiting for them to arrive. Every cat settled down in the shade cast by the thicket; Tigerstar ordered a couple of the younger ShadowClan warriors to remain standing on watch. Bristlefrost padded over to sit beside Stemleaf and Spotfur, anticipation fluttering in her belly.

Squirrelflight was the first to speak, stepping forward into the center of the group. “There’s something I need to tell every cat,” she began. “Mothwing and Bristlefrost and I have convinced the false Bramblestar that I am dead. It was the only way to stop him looking for me.”

Bristlefrost saw the rebel cats flick up their ears in surprise. “How did you do that?” Conefoot called out.

“Never mind,” Squirrelflight responded. “That’s not important. The point is, for StarClan’s sake, if you meet the impostor, don’t give me away. If he discovers I’m alive, it will cause no end of trouble.”

Bristlefrost suppressed a shiver and felt Stemleaf rest his tail-tip briefly on her shoulder. I don’t even want to think about what Bramblestar would do to me if he found out I lied to him.

“I’m not sure I like the idea of lying to a Clan leader,” Crowfeather meowed thoughtfully. “Especially your own,” he went on, with a glance at the ThunderClan cats.

“We can lie to him, no problem,” Spotfur retorted.

“Yeah, because he’s not our leader,” Stemleaf added.

Crowfeather shrugged. “Good point.”

“Then are we agreed?” Tigerstar asked, his gaze traveling over the assembled cats as he rose to stand beside Squirrelflight. “No cat will even mention Squirrelflight to Bramblestar, and if he should ask you, she’s dead, okay?”

Murmurs of assent rose from the crowd of cats. Squirrelflight dipped her head. “Thank you,” she mewed, and stepped back to sit down again.

“And now we have more news,” Tigerstar went on; to Bristlefrost’s surprise she saw a gleam of happiness in his eyes. “Frecklewish, I think this is for you to tell.”

The SkyClan medicine cat rose to her paws. “Yes, I have news,” she announced. “And for once, it’s good. Shadowsight has been found. He’s alive, but unconscious, in the SkyClan medicine-cat den. Fidgetflake is taking care of him.”

Gasps of astonishment and soft purrs of pleasure greeted the medicine cat’s news. “Thank StarClan,” some cat mewed softly.

Jayfeather’s harsher tones cut across the sounds. “How did a ShadowClan cat end up in the SkyClan medicine cat den?” he asked.

Bristlefrost noticed that Rootpaw was glancing around awkwardly as if he expected some older cat to tell the story. But no cat spoke.

Eventually Frecklewish meowed, “Come on, Rootpaw. Spit it out.”

“I was the one who found him,” Rootpaw explained, still looking faintly embarrassed to be addressing the whole group. “It’s a long story—I can’t tell it all now—but I could see that another cat had attacked him and he’d been terribly wounded.”

“Who attacked him?” Jayfeather asked. “Was it Bramblestar?”

Rootpaw shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s been unconscious since I found him, so he hasn’t been able to tell us anything. But whoever did it nearly killed him.”

“If Rootpaw hadn’t found him when he did,” Frecklewish added, giving the SkyClan apprentice an approving nod, “Shadowsight would probably be dead by now.”

Tree rose to his paws and took a pace forward to stand beside his son. “And now SkyClan is uncertain what to do about Bramblestar,” he meowed.

“What do you mean by that?” Bristlefrost asked.

“At best, Bramblestar lied about Shadowsight just running off,” the yellow tom told her. “Not that any cat believed him, anyway. At worst, he had something to do with the attack.” He paused, letting his gaze travel around the group of cats. “Until Rootpaw found Shadowsight, Leafstar resisted doing anything to support the rebels. But now . . . she’s seriously thinking about it.”

Bristlefrost shuddered. Despite the blood she’d seen coating Bramblestar’s chest that night, she wanted to reject with every hair on her pelt the idea that Bramblestar—or whoever he really was—could do something so wicked. Attacking Sparkpelt was bad enough, but it was far worse for any cat to attack a medicine cat. And why would he want to? But I have to admit it’s probably true.

For a few moments the assembled cats broke up into little groups, anxiously discussing what they had just heard.

“Bramblestar would never attack another Clan cat!”

“No—but the thing inside him obviously would.”

Then Crowfeather’s voice rose above the rest. “Things have gone too far,” he stated, his dark gray fur bristling. “I don’t like it, but it’s clear what we need to do: kill Bramblestar.”

Protests arose from the cats around him, mingled with murmurs of agreement.

“I never thought it would come to this,” one of the RiverClan cats mewed sadly. “Every cat admired Bramblestar so much.”

“But whatever is inside him isn’t Bramblestar,” Breezepelt argued. “And it looks like there’s only one way to get rid of him.”

A jolt passed through Bristlefrost’s chest. She felt like she had been racing through the forest and the ground had suddenly given way beneath her paws.

“There must be another way!” she objected. “We want the Clans back the way we were, but we’re not cold-blooded murderers. If we do that, are we any better than he is?”

“But he obviously tried to kill Shadowsight!” Kitescratch argued, giving Bristlefrost a hostile glare. “We need to kill him before he can hurt any other cat. And if you want to prove you’re really with us now, you’ll go along with it.”

For a few heartbeats Bristlefrost didn’t know how to reply. She glanced around at the gathered cats and saw vague uncertainty in their eyes. It was unnerving how easily the notion that she was working for the impostor could take hold, but she doubted any of them still truly believed that. She knew that Kitescratch had only brought it up as a way to quiet her protests. But he didn’t need to. She couldn’t deny that there was a lot of sense in what Crowfeather and Kitescratch said, and she could see that many cats agreed with them. Even Stemleaf and Spotfur were nodding assent, although they both looked unsure.

In the end it was Squirrelflight who broke the silence. “You’re all forgetting something,” she meowed loudly. “We haven’t been in touch with StarClan in moons. The truth is, not even the medicine cats know what would happen if any leader were to die now.”

Rootpaw blinked in shock as he shifted his gaze to Jayfeather. “Is that true?”

The medicine cat shook his head. “There’s no way to know. But I suspect that with StarClan gone, they might not go on to their next life.”

Squirrelflight was staring at the blind medicine cat, her green gaze filled with horror at the thought of losing her mate. “This means we have to wait,” she pleaded. “At least until we find out for sure what happened to Shadowsight. Surely we can delay until he regains consciousness and we can find out what he knows. There are too many unanswered questions for us to act now.”

“You’re right, Squirrelflight,” Stemleaf mewed, though Bristlefrost thought he sounded reluctant to admit it. “We should wait until Shadowsight wakes up before we do anything.”

But in spite of his words, Bristlefrost could tell from Stemleaf’s hesitant voice and his unwillingness to meet Squirrelflight’s gaze that he didn’t really want to do that at all.

She could hear more arguing among the younger ShadowClan warriors.

“I’d kill him now! I’d rip his throat out!”

“For StarClan’s sake, haven’t you listened to a word Squirrelflight said?”

It was clear that the assembly was splitting between cats who were willing to wait, and those who wanted to kill Bramblestar—right now.

Bristlefrost wasn’t sure what she wanted. She knew how dangerous the false Bramblestar was, and how much safer every cat would be if he was gone for good.

But what about the real Bramblestar? If we’re ever to bring him back, he’ll need a body to come home to. I admired him so much, she added sadly to herself. I wanted to impress him. And now . . . Who will lead ThunderClan, if not Bramblestar?

“So are we agreed?” Tigerstar demanded, taking control of the meeting. “We will do nothing until we have talked to Shadowsight.” His amber gaze raked the assembly. “Do you promise to stick to this plan?”

Slowly each cat in turn gave their promise, though Bristlefrost could still see angry or bitter looks coming from many of the cats. I hope this doesn’t cause a split among the rebels, she thought.

“Why is it that Tigerstar gets to decide?” she heard Breeze-pelt whisper. “He’s a leader, but he’s not my leader.”

“Doesn’t seem right to me,” Kitescratch agreed.

Crowfeather flicked his tail. “First Tigerstar wanted us to wait until we were all in agreement; now we’re waiting for Shadowsight to wake up. We’re never going to make a plan at this rate.”

Bristlefrost’s pads prickled with apprehension. Bramblestar might need protection.

“I may be blind, but I’m not deaf,” Jayfeather grumbled, clearly having picked up the whispering. “If any cat has something to say, you should speak up so we can all hear it.”

The whispering stopped, and for a few heartbeats no cat said anything. Eventually Breezepelt rose and gave his pelt an irritable shake.

“The only reason we aren’t killing the impostor,” he snapped, “is because the real Bramblestar might need his body one day. But his ghost hasn’t been seen in nearly half a moon. And that means,” he added with an apologetic glance at Squirrelflight, “that his spirit might be gone. In that case, what are we waiting for?”

Tigerstar turned to Rootpaw. “Do you have any news?” he asked the apprentice.

Reluctantly, Rootpaw shook his head. “I haven’t seen Bramblestar’s ghost for a long time,” he replied. “But that doesn’t mean he’s gone for good.”

“He isn’t gone,” Squirrelflight insisted, with an angry lash of her tail. “I can still feel his presence. And any cat who tries to kill my mate’s body will have me to answer to.”

Seeing Squirrelflight’s claws out and her eyes blazing, Bristlefrost thought she would be a formidable opponent for any cat. Breezepelt and the others clearly thought so too. For a few heartbeats they looked as if they might say more; then Breezepelt backed off, muttering something into his chest fur.

“There’s one more thing we can do,” Frecklewish announced as the tension began to die away. “Kestrelflight and Willowshine aren’t here. We should speak to them and see if they’re prepared to join us.”

“That won’t be easy,” Crowfeather responded. “Harestar and Mistystar, at least, are convinced that StarClan is punishing us with this heavy rain and wind, and that Bramblestar is the only cat who knows how to appease StarClan. And the medicine cats won’t want to act against their leaders’ wishes. At least not without good reason. If we move against Bramblestar without them, we’ll be fighting WindClan and RiverClan as well.”

“Then you’ll have to give them that good reason. Tell them what Bramblestar tried to do to Shadowsight,” Stemleaf told Frecklewish. “Surely they wouldn’t take the advice of a murderer?”

“We haven’t proved that he is a murderer yet,” Tree pointed out, though no cat took much notice of him.

Frecklewish let out a long sigh. “I hope Kestrelflight will listen,” she replied. “As a medicine cat, Shadowsight has a connection to at least one cat in each of the Clans. This attack on him should be enough to push them to do something.”

At Frecklewish’s words, the meeting began to break up. Bristlefrost was about to follow her Clanmates back to their own territory when Squirrelflight halted her, resting her tail on her shoulder and drawing her to one side.

“Please, Bristlefrost, watch over Bramblestar,” she begged. “I know it’s a lot to ask. After all, the impostor could be dangerous. But you’re one of the few cats he trusts, and you’ll know which cats to look out for,” she finished, with a sharp glance at Breezepelt and some of the other cats who were pressing for action.

“Don’t worry,” Bristlefrost assured her. “I won’t let anything happen to Bramblestar.”

Not if I can help it, she added to herself. But I hope I won’t have to battle cats I know, just to protect this stranger.