by Erin Hunter
“Cats of all Clans, WindClan is stealing our prey!” Morningstar announced.
“What? How dare you accuse us?” snarled a cat below him; the WindClan leader, Rabbitstar, let out a hiss from the back of the rock.
Morningstar let his gaze fall across all the Clans. “I don’t want WindClan to try to deny it,” he went on. “They know it’s true; we’ve seen their warriors too many times inside our borders, chasing voles and mice instead of rabbits. I’m not challenging them to a battle, either.”
A ripple of surprise rose from the WindClan cats.
“I’m not scared of fighting them!” yowled a ThunderClan warrior.
Morningstar sighed. “I know you’re not, Beechfur. But we are in no position to challenge them. Our Clan is weaker than we have ever been, weaker than we should be even in the middle of leaf-bare.”
Wails of protest came from his Clan. “No, Morningstar! You can’t say that!”
“Do you want every Clan in the forest to help themselves?”
“Why are you doing this?”
Morningstar pushed on. “We’ve had too many kits born recently, and our elders have started to refuse food for the sake of the queens. We’re surviving on crow-food found by the side of the Thunderpath because we’re too weak to hunt fresh-kill.”
“Morningstar, stop! You’re destroying us!” snarled his deputy, Leafstorm, who was at the foot of the rock. From the shadow cast by moonlight, he could tell she was standing up on her hind legs, craning to see him on top.
“I don’t want my Clan to fight,” Morningstar meowed. “Instead, we should share what prey there is among all the Clans, and help one another through leaf-bare until our hunting grounds are full again. If we join together as one, we will all survive.”
Willowstar, the RiverClan leader, sprang to her paws. “Why should I care if ThunderClan is starving? My loyalty is to my own cats! You are a fool if you thought we’d agree to this, Morningstar. RiverClan keeps its own prey!”
Rabbitstar jumped up. “My cats wouldn’t eat your slimy fish anyway! We’d rather go hungry!”
Sedgestar of ShadowClan joined in more calmly. “My Clan is bigger than any of yours, so we can’t spare any fresh-kill. We have enough to feed ourselves, and I won’t let any of my cats go hungry for the sake of our rivals.”
SkyClan’s leader, Fennelstar, nodded. “Our warrior ancestors have given us territories according to our skills. It’s up to us to survive on that legacy. Morningstar, you shame your ancestors if you cannot feed your Clan within your boundaries.”
“Perhaps this is a test from StarClan?” Rabbitstar suggested. “There is too much weakness in the forest, and only the strongest Clans deserve to survive.” He flashed a glance at Morningstar. “I’d say that my Clan was doing pretty well right now.”
Morningstar shook his head. “I cannot believe that our ancestors would willingly let us starve to prove a point.”
“You’re letting yourselves starve if you can’t protect your borders,” Willowstar commented, with a hint of smugness.
Morningstar faced Rabbitstar again. “If you choose to keep stealing prey from my territory, you will be breaking the warrior code. My Clan is too weak to fight you. I’m asking for mercy until our prey starts running again.”
“You’re the weak one, old cat,” sneered Rabbitstar. “Better start sniffing out that crow-food, because you won’t be having any fresh-kill for a while.”
Morningstar began to pick his way down the Great Rock. Normally he would jump down, but his legs were trembling with hunger. He couldn’t remember the last meal he’d eaten. The elders weren’t the only ThunderClan cats giving up their food for the nursing queens. “I have nothing more to say,” he meowed over his shoulder. “Our fate is in your paws.”
He wound through the cats, who parted like rippling grass to let him pass. His Clanmates waited for him at the foot of the slope, their eyes flashing with anger and their pelts bristling. Morningstar pushed past them and led them out of the hollow without giving them a chance to speak. Leafstorm caught up to him, panting.
“Are you out of your mind? You’ve just invited every other Clan to help themselves to our territory and our prey!” She was furious, and for a moment Morningstar saw her unsheathed claws gleam in the moonlight.
“We will not fight WindClan over this,” he repeated. “Tomorrow I want you to take a patrol of warriors to Rabbitstar and speak to him again. We are too quick to use violence to solve everything. If we fight now, we’ll lose half our Clan with the first strike. Can’t you see I’m trying to protect us?”
Leafstorm glared at him, her green eyes hot. “All I see is a leader who’s too scared to go into battle!”
Morningstar started to protest, but the ginger she-cat leaped ahead of him into the trees. Several warriors followed her, leaving Morningstar padding alone through the frost-dappled forest. A puffing sound behind him made him look back; Mothwhisker, an elder, was hobbling to catch up. Morningstar stopped to wait.
“Thanks,” wheezed Mothwhisker. The two cats walked on slowly, their breath clouding around them. “You meant what you said back there, didn’t you?” Mothwhisker rasped.
“Yes,” Morningstar replied. “The Clan is too weak to fight right now.”
He expected Mothwhisker to agree with him; elders knew better than most cats how fragile a hold warriors had on life, and how dangerous a battle would be on hollow bellies. But Mothwhisker was shaking his head.
“You’re wrong, Morningstar,” he muttered. “Oh, we may be weak, but you should never have let WindClan know. They must be hungry, too, or they wouldn’t be stealing our prey. We should strike them by surprise, take the battle right to their camp, and show them that ThunderClan borders are as strong as they ever were.”
Morningstar stopped and rounded on the elderly tom. “I will not lead my Clan into a needless battle!” he spat. Memories filled his mind of a light brown tabby with amber eyes and white front paws, as if she had stepped up to her knees in snow. The last time he had seen her, she had been so drenched in her own blood that he couldn’t see a fleck of white fur underneath. She had died curled protectively around her belly, which was just beginning to swell with her kits—his kits, too. Morningstar had never known which ShadowClan warrior struck the killing blow. Anyway, what good would vengeance do? It wouldn’t bring her back.
“We lost Songbird in a battle that should never have been fought,” he hissed. “We had no proof that ShadowClan chased that fox into our territory. Getting rid of it used up too much of our strength; I was stupid to let my pride send a patrol after ShadowClan as well.”
“Leaders have to be proud of their Clans,” Mothwhisker murmured. “Would you rather be ashamed of us? Tell every Clan that we’re too feeble to defend our borders anymore?”
Morningstar started walking again. “I’m not ashamed of any cat,” he growled. “You don’t understand. I’ve made my decision, and that’s the end of it.”
Leafstorm returned the next day with a slash along her flank that the medicine cat, Pearnose, struggled to close. The warriors who had gone with her to WindClan bore their own wounds. The patrol had barely crossed the border when WindClan cats attacked them; Leafstorm suspected they’d been lying in wait.
“Of course, we couldn’t fight them off,” she spat, clenching her teeth as Pearnose pressed another pawful of cobweb against her injury. “They outnumbered us and were fat from feasting on our prey!”
“We didn’t smell them before they attacked because they were covered in our own scent,” added Pineclaw. One of his ears had been ripped right to the tip, and scarlet blood streaked his dark brown fur.
“We may as well let them live here and make their hunting easier,” growled Featherwing. The pale gray she-cat had one eye swollen shut and claw marks sliced across her cheek.
“I’m sorry,” Morningstar meowed. “Clearly WindClan is without honor.” He turned to walk away down the tunnel of ferns that led to the clearing.
&nb
sp; “They have no honor because they are thieves!” Leafstorm yowled after him. She broke into a coughing fit, gasping for breath.
Morningstar winced. Leafstorm had been coughing for days. He’d suggested she stay back from the Gathering, but she’d insisted on coming. He’d thought that meant she was feeling better. As he reached the clearing, Pearnose scampered along the tunnel and joined him. The brown tabby’s eyes were serious.
“Morningstar, can we talk? In private, I mean.”
“Sure.” He led her to his den beneath Highrock. They pushed through the screen of lichen that hung across the entrance, and the medicine cat settled herself neatly on the sandy floor opposite Morningstar’s nest.
“I think Leafstorm has greencough,” she announced.
Morningstar stared at her in dismay. “But…but she went all the way to WindClan today! And fought!”
Pearnose narrowed her eyes. “She shouldn’t have done either of those things; nor should she have gone to the Gathering last night. She’s been sick for more than a moon, and I warned her it would get worse if she didn’t rest. But she’s been hunting every day, you know, often two or three times. And I haven’t seen her take anything for herself since Mossheart’s kits were born.”
Morningstar let his shoulders slump. His Clan was dying around him, and he could do nothing to protect it.
Beechfur poked his head through the lichen. “Sorry to disturb you, Morningstar, but I wondered if you wanted me to lead a border patrol? Mossheart said Leafstorm was sick.”
Morningstar lifted his head. “There will be no more border patrols,” he ordered. “I want every warrior, every apprentice, to look for food. We’ll all get sick if we don’t have something to eat.”
Beechfur’s eyes were very round. “Wha…what? No border patrols at all? But…WindClan and SkyClan will take everything!”
“Not if we catch it first. You’re wasting time! Go!” Morningstar dismissed the warrior with a flick of his tail. As the lichen quivered behind him, Morningstar turned back to Pearnose. He sighed. “Are you going to tell me that I’m doing the wrong thing as well?”
The medicine cat shook her head. “You know me better than that, Morningstar. I would not walk in your paws for all the mice in the forest. Your path is lonelier than I could bear. Now, I must go and send Fallowpaw to look for catmint at the edge of Twolegplace. If we’re lucky, some will have survived the frost.”
She slipped out of the den. Beyond the clearing, Leafstorm’s coughs split the air. Morningstar heaved himself to his paws. He could hunt as well as any of his warriors. He’d find something for Leafstorm to eat, to get her strength back. He should have seen how thin she had become long before now. Battles or not, he needed his deputy beside him.
A quarter moon passed. It was getting hard to remember where the fresh-kill pile was supposed to be. Any prey that was caught, any scraps of crow-food, were eaten at once. Queens first, then warriors, then apprentices. Morningstar took charge of feeding Leafstorm. She tried to refuse, but he threatened to lean on her wound if she didn’t eat. Now he stood staring at a lump of black feathers that might have been a bird once, but was so mangled and frozen that it could have been a piece of wood instead.
“Is this all you could find?” he demanded.
Pineclaw curled his lip. “No, actually. There are squirrels and mice all over the place out there, but I thought you’d prefer this.”
Morningstar winced. “It’s okay. I know you’re doing your best.”
“But WindClan is doing better!” Featherwing argued. “They don’t even try to hide from us now! They just march in and stalk our prey as if we were nothing but unwelcome visitors.”
“I went along the border this morning, looking for yarrow, and I couldn’t even tell where our scent marks were supposed to be,” put in Pearnose’s apprentice, Fallowpaw.
“You gave WindClan a chance to have mercy,” Beechfur meowed more gently. “They have shown us none. We should stop having mercy on them.”
Morningstar gritted his teeth. StarClan, why are you destroying my Clan? I only want peace for them!
Suddenly, Pearnose burst into the clearing. “Leafstorm is dead!” she wailed.
Morningstar stared at her in disbelief. “No…” His brave, quarrelsome, sharp-minded deputy couldn’t be dead. Not from a cough.
“She was too thin to fight the infection,” Pearnose murmured, her breath warm on his ear.
“You mean I killed her,” Morningstar rasped.
Pearnose drew back in horror. “No! You tried to feed her, but she was too sick. Please don’t blame yourself.”
“Leafstorm wanted to die in battle,” whispered another voice beside him.
Morningstar spun around, his nostrils flaring as he breathed in the sweet, familiar scent. Songbird?
“At least I had that chance,” the voice continued.
Morningstar narrowed his eyes and made out a faint outline of a brown tabby she-cat. He could see his warriors standing behind her; they were gazing at him with concern in their eyes, as if they didn’t know what he had just seen.
“Songbird,” he breathed.
“Let your warriors fight,” she told him. “Let them prove their courage and their loyalty to you by defending your borders. Peace is not the way of the Clans. We prove ourselves in battle.”
Her outline wavered like mist, and Morningstar bounded forward. “Songbird! Wait!”
He blinked, and the clearing was empty apart from his warriors and Pearnose, looking uncertainly at him. How could he have doubted their courage? Hunger wouldn’t weaken their desire to win; instead, it would sharpen their claws, lend power to each strike. Leafstorm was dead because he had not fought to keep ThunderClan’s prey safe from thieves. If any more cats were to die, it would be honorably, in battle, not starved like a helpless kit.
“Who will join me in battle against WindClan?” he roared.
There was a moment of shocked silence; then his warriors straightened up, lifting their heads and letting the fur bristle along their spines. “We will,” they yowled.
More cats emerged from the dens around them, their eyes brighter than Morningstar had seen in a long time. “We’re really going to fight?” one of them asked.
“We are,” vowed Morningstar. He turned to Pearnose. “Prepare your supplies. Fallowpaw will help you.” His gaze fell on a patchy gray-and-brown pelt among the throng of cats. “So will Mothwhisker. I know he wants to serve his Clan once more.” His eyes met the elder’s, and they nodded to each other.
Then Morningstar lifted his tail and faced the gorse tunnel that led out of the camp.
“ThunderClan, attack!”
PART FIVE:
THE AFTERMATH
CEDARHEART’S FINAL WARNING
So, young kittypets, you have walked in the memories of our finest warriors, shared in the thrill of the fight, felt teeth meet in your fur, and struck out with your paws to bruise your enemy before they can deal a killing blow. Has your curiosity been satisfied? There is one more lesson to learn about battles: that the echoes last long after the final blow has been struck and every wound has healed. With each challenge and each blow landed, lives are changed forever.
Before I take you back to Onestar, there is a story to tell from long ago, when there were still five Clans in the forest. ThunderClan and SkyClan argued for many moons over the land on their shared border. So much blood was spilled that Darkstar, the leader of SkyClan, decided to give it to ThunderClan at a Gathering. His Clanmates were horrified, especially his deputy, Raincloud, but Darkstar refused to go back on his word. Each Clan set new border marks the following day, and SkyClan had to watch their rivals feast on prey that had once been theirs.
Seasons passed, and Twolegs began building new nests on SkyClan’s borders. As their territory shrank on one side, their leader, Cloudstar, looked at the hunting grounds that had once belonged to them, and knew that those grounds would give his Clan a chance of survival if Twolegs stole any more of their l
and. He launched an invasion with his warriors and tried to take back the territory by force. But ThunderClan was expecting this and fought back, hard, and with the strength of full-fed warriors.
Two Clans licked their wounds and told stories to their kits, stories that could not have been more different, on each side of the border….
The Victorious Clan
Clanmates, we won!”
Redstar crossed the clearing in two bounds and leaped onto the Highrock. He gazed down at his Clan circling beneath him, purring and yowling with delight. The scratch on his muzzle, the ache in his hind leg where a SkyClan warrior had crushed it, the patch of fur missing from his flank: None of that mattered now. Victory was better than any herbs at making pain disappear.
Kestrelwing, the ThunderClan medicine cat, stood on tiptoe at the mouth of his den and called, “Any cats with injuries, come see me!”
A few warriors shuffled toward him, but most stayed, sharing their stories with the queens and elders who hadn’t taken part in the battle. One gray tabby was dragged to the ground by a tumble of squeaking kits, who succeeded in flooring him when several SkyClan warriors dropping from trees had failed.
“Tell us about the battle!” the biggest kit begged.
“Were the SkyClan cats superbig and scary?” squealed another.
Nettleclaw shook his head. “No, but they were hungry, and that makes any enemy more dangerous.”
“Not too dangerous for us!” chirped the first kit. “I bet you showed them who’s the best around here!”
Nettleclaw let out a snort of amusement. “I guess we did, little one,” he purred.
Redstar jumped down from Highrock, planning to see Kestrelwing once the first rush for treatment was over. His deputy, Seedpelt, padded up to him.
“Welcome back,” she meowed, her eyes shining. “All was quiet while you were out.”
