by Erin Hunter
Firestar blinked solemnly. “Hawkfrost was killed by a fox trap,” he began. “It was a terrible accident. I’m so sorry.” He gazed around at the assembled RiverClan cats, who stared back at him with a mixture of hostility and grief. “I know that many cats, both in and out of RiverClan, will mourn him.”
Suspicion ran through Mothwing, and she unsheathed her claws, digging at the earth of the clearing. Hawkfrost was dead. Surely RiverClan would rise up against these ThunderClan cats who had brought his body here. Mothwing trembled, her body shaking with grief and rage.
But Leopardstar bowed her head solemnly. “He was a great warrior and a loyal RiverClan cat,” she meowed. “Thank you for bringing Hawkfrost home, but I ask you to leave now so that we can sit vigil for him.”
“Of course.” Firestar glanced at his Clanmates. In response, Squirrelflight and Bramblestar moved toward the camp entrance, but Leafpool stayed where she was.
“I need to speak to Mothwing,” she announced.
Leopardstar’s eyes widened in surprise, but she only replied, “That’s Mothwing’s choice.” Mothwing walked toward the medicine den, gesturing with her tail for Leafpool to follow. Her paws felt as heavy as stones. She was aware of Willowpaw hurrying behind them.
When they were safely inside the medicine den, she rounded on Leafpool. “What happened?” she growled again. The ThunderClan cat hesitated, and Mothwing went on, desperately, “Please don’t lie to me, Leafpool. My brother was a dangerous cat. But I have to know the truth.”
Leafpool swallowed hard. Then she glanced at Willowpaw.
“You can speak freely in front of Willowpaw,” Mothwing told her. She trusted her apprentice.
Willowpaw nodded solemnly. “I would never betray one of Mothwing’s secrets,” she said. Mothwing knew that to be true. Willowpaw had guessed Mothwing’s greatest secret—that she didn’t speak to StarClan. But instead of revealing what she knew, her apprentice had simply stepped up and taken care of that aspect of a medicine cat’s duties herself.
Leafpool hesitated, then finally spoke, her voice almost a whisper. “Hawkfrost tried to kill Firestar,” she mewed, and Mothwing froze, horrified.
“He wouldn’t,” she protested hoarsely, but something inside her insisted: He would.
“He led him into a fox trap and told Brambleclaw to kill him so that Brambleclaw could become leader of ThunderClan,” Leafpool went on. “But Brambleclaw wouldn’t do it. He saved Firestar instead. Hawkfrost attacked Brambleclaw, and Brambleclaw put the stick at the end of the fox trap through Hawkfrost’s throat.” She looked miserable. “Brambleclaw was just defending himself. And Firestar.”
Mothwing squeezed her eyes shut. It was true, she knew it. She remembered Hawkfrost’s voice, saying that one day he and Brambleclaw would lead the Clans together. He hadn’t been willing to wait. She felt sick.
Leafpool’s tail brushed across her back. “I’m so sorry, Mothwing,” she continued. “Only a few of us know, and we’ll keep how Hawkfrost died a secret. There’s no reason to hurt RiverClan that way.”
Willowpaw came close on her other side, her pelt touching Mothwing’s, reassuring her. “He wasn’t all bad,” she meowed softly. “RiverClan knows there was more to Hawkfrost than ambition.”
Was there? Mothwing thought bleakly. She remembered the eager kit her brother had been, and how devastated he had been at Tadpole’s death. She and Hawkpaw had clung to each other when they were apprentices, abandoned by their mother, with no other cat to depend on. But Hawkfrost had changed.
He had decided they would stay in RiverClan when Sasha left. He had faked the sign that made sure Mothwing was chosen to become a medicine cat. He had lied and schemed, grasping at power.
Mothwing moaned and collapsed to the floor, pushing her face between her paws. Was that a tiny thread of relief running through her? Now she didn’t have to worry about what Hawkfrost would do, or what terrible thing he would try to make her do. And now she knew that no cat would ever reveal her secret: that she had never been chosen by StarClan, that she couldn’t even bring herself to believe in them. Only Leafpool and Willowpaw knew, and she trusted them utterly.
At this realization, that she trusted the other medicine cats more than she’d been able to trust her own littermate—the cat who’d belonged to her, and who she’d belonged to, the only one—Mothwing began to wail with misery. Leafpool and Willowpaw pressed closer, trying to comfort her.
I loved him. I did love him, Hawk, my littermate, despite everything. How can I never see him again? But they had lost each other somewhere along the way.
Moons had passed since Hawkfrost had died. Mistystar was the leader of RiverClan now, and Willowpaw had become a full medicine cat alongside Mothwing. The Clans had gone on. But there was always a small hurt spot deep inside Mothwing where she held on to the memory of him. My brother.
And yet the work of a medicine cat went on. It was something she could rely on.
“Okay,” she told Duskfur, pushing thoughts of Hawkfrost away. “I’ll keep giving Podkit comfrey for a few more days, but his cough should be gone soon. He’ll be fine.”
The gray-and-white kit bristled. “Yuck! These leaves taste horrible!”
“They’ll make you strong, though,” Mothwing stroked the kit’s back with her tail. “Be as brave as a grown warrior and eat them up.”
Duskfur purred. “Thank you, Mothwing.”
“You’re welcome,” Mothwing replied. “Now, you’ve heard what Mistystar said. Be careful, and if any trouble starts, stay in the nursery where your Clanmates can protect you and your kits.”
Duskfur stopped purring. “Do you really think something’s going to happen?” she asked. “Is the Dark Forest coming?”
“I don’t know,” Mothwing told her. “But we should take precautions, just in case.”
As Duskfur and Podkit left the medicine den, Mothwing exchanged a worried look with Willowshine.
“I’ve been making the bundles,” Willowshine meowed, nodding at a neat pile of leaf-wrapped herbs at her feet. “Each one has all the right herbs to treat a cat’s wounds, plus cobwebs. We’ll be prepared.”
Mothwing sniffed at the herb bundles, smelling the sharp scents of marigold and nettle. “Good thinking,” she told her Clanmate, then burst out, “Do you really think the Dark Forest is coming?”
Willowshine held her gaze, her green eyes steady. “I’m sure of it.”
The Dark Forest was where Clan cats believed that their wicked Clanmates went when they died. Cats who broke the warrior code so badly that they didn’t deserve to go to StarClan ended up in the Dark Forest. Mothwing had always assumed that, like StarClan, the Dark Forest was only a story.
But strange things had been happening. The medicine cats of each Clan—including Willowshine—had told their Clanmates that StarClan wanted them to enforce their borders and keep away from the other Clans. Even the medicine cats had stopped meeting at the Moonpool. Before, Mothwing had just shaken her head. Why did intelligent cats let the imagined mumblings of the dead control their actions?
Then some of her Clanmates had begun acting strangely: Turning up in the medicine den with battle injuries at dawn when they had headed into their dens uninjured the night before. Seeming exhausted after a long night’s sleep. Sneaking off to scheme with cats from other Clans, who they seemed to know better than they should.
Jayfeather, the young blind medicine cat from ThunderClan, had come to Mothwing and told her that these cats, and cats from every Clan, were being trained in the Dark Forest by the most vicious cats from every Clan: Tigerstar, Darktail, Brokenstar, Mapleshade . . . cats who had died before she was born, but whose names were remembered with a shudder. And Hawkfrost.
Now, prompted by their medicine cats, the Clans were uniting to prepare for an invasion by the Dark Forest cats.
It can’t be true, Mothwing thought. The dead were dead and gone.
But this wasn’t like the other medicine cats’ dreams and signs, which were so
easy for Mothwing to explain away. Cats she trusted claimed to have seen the Dark Forest cats. Beetlewhisker, a young warrior, had disappeared from his nest one night, leaving no trace behind. The scents of strange cats had started turning up deep inside every Clan’s territory. All the Clans were getting ready for an invasion.
It can’t be true, Mothwing thought again. But it was her responsibility to protect her Clan. So she would prepare as if it were.
She nodded to Willowshine. “I’ll get some moss so we can bring water to the wounded.” It won’t hurt to have it. Just in case.
Mothwing pushed her way through the tunnel and came out into the clearing at the center of RiverClan’s camp. The air was thick with tension, and every cat seemed to be in motion. Mistystar was calling out orders, her deputy Reedwhisker beside her, assigning cats to guard duty and extra patrols. Graymist and Mallownose were squaring off against Pebblefoot and Grasspelt, practicing battle moves. Icewing and Minnowtail were reinforcing the brambled sides of the elders’ den and the nursery, making sure that no cat could easily break through. Mosspelt, her fur bristling, was pacing in front of the nursery entrance. Even the elders, Dapplenose and Pouncetail, looked fierce and alert.
Nine RiverClan warriors were missing, gone to fight for the other Clans, and ShadowClan and WindClan cats who had come to fight for RiverClan wove their way between Mothwing’s Clanmates, their scents dry and distinct among the familiar fishy smells of RiverClan.
“Where are the ThunderClan cats?” she asked Dapplenose, and the mottled gray she-cat flicked her ears.
“Late,” she spat. “Even though trading warriors was all Firestar’s idea. Who knows if they’ll come at all.”
Paws pounded through the reeds outside of camp, and Mothwing cocked her ears. “Maybe this is them now,” she said. A moment later, Foxleap burst through into the clearing, his reddish-brown sides heaving. Toadstep and Rosepetal were close behind, their eyes wide and shining with panic.
“They’re coming,” Foxleap yowled. “The Dark Forest is attacking!”
Chapter 8
“Breathe slowly,” Mothwing advised, trying to ignore the screeches and yowls of battle outside the medicine den.
Mosspelt groaned, her eyes shut, and Mothwing wrapped cobwebs around the gaping wound on her leg, pressing hard to stop the bleeding. “I have to . . . protect the kits,” the tortoiseshell warrior insisted weakly.
“They’re fine,” Mothwing reassured her, hoping desperately that it was still true. “Every RiverClan cat will protect them with their lives.” Mosspelt didn’t answer, and Mothwing saw that she had lost consciousness. Her breathing was steady, though, and, once Mothwing had finished bandaging her wound, she picked up another bundle of herbs and headed out into camp.
As she hurried through the tunnel, the sounds of battle became deafening. In the clearing, so many cats were fighting that Mothwing had trouble picking out her individual Clanmates. It all seemed to be a mass of fur and blood and rage.
Mistystar, blood running down her chest from multiple wounds, was grappling with a long-legged dark tabby Mothwing didn’t recognize—a Dark Forest cat? Or a rogue? Mothwing wondered. Dapplenose, Pouncetail, and Duskfur were tightly bunched in front of the nursery entrance, facing off against a wild-eyed cat with patches of black, white, and brown fur covering his pelt. Willowshine was at the far side of the clearing, wrapping cobwebs around a wound on Troutpaw’s leg. Rosepetal, one of the ThunderClan warriors, stood over them, fending off attackers as Willowshine worked.
The strange cats were fighting like warriors, only even more fiercely. As Mothwing watched, the calico landed a mighty blow on Duskfur’s neck, sending her to her knees. That’s a warrior’s blow. Were these cats really from the Dark Forest?
And if they were, where was StarClan?
If the other medicine cats were right all along, why isn’t StarClan protecting us?
A moan of pain made Mothwing refocus. Whether the dead walked the Clan territories or not, she was still a medicine cat, and she had to help her Clanmates. Minnowtail was lying near the warriors’ den, her face a mask of blood, and Mothwing made her way toward her, dodging battling cats.
“It’s all right,” she mewed soothingly, dropping her bundle of leaves next to Minnowtail. The warrior’s injuries didn’t look so bad, now that she was close to them. A long, shallow cut across her forehead was producing most of the blood.
“Mothwing,” Minnowtail whimpered. “I have to tell you the truth. I didn’t know what I was doing.”
“Don’t worry,” Mothwing told her automatically. She cleaned Minnowtail’s face, relieved to see that the she-cat’s eyes were undamaged.
“You don’t understand!” Minnowtail yowled, pushing Mothwing’s paws away. “I trained in the Dark Forest. I gave away our battle secrets. They said they were training me to be a better warrior for my Clan.”
Mothwing stared at her, feeling cold.
“They said they’d kill me,” Minnowtail croaked. “But I would never have betrayed RiverClan.” Her amber eyes stared into Mothwing’s, pleading.
“Traitor!” The yowl was almost a roar, and Mothwing turned to see a gray Dark Forest cat swipe a heavy paw at Minnowtail. Instinctively, she crouched, shifting her body to protect the injured cat. Before the blow fell, Mallownose barreled at their attacker with a snarl, knocking him to the ground. Trying to shut out their struggle, Mothwing quickly staunched the flow of blood from Minnowtail’s wound and chewed up some marigold to stop the infection.
Her mind was spinning. The Dark Forest was here—dead cats who lived on after death. That meant StarClan must exist as well. But where were they? Didn’t they care? How had they let things get this far? Hot anger blossomed in her chest.
As she raised her head from Minnowtail’s wound, another familiar cat rushed through the tunnel.
Hawkfrost. Mothwing rose to her feet and stared at him, her mouth dry and her heart pounding.
It was undoubtedly her littermate. He looked as powerfully muscled as ever, but he was no longer the sleek young cat who had died all those seasons ago. His coat was dull and matted, the shape of his ribs clear beneath his fur. Blood ran from his cheek, and one of his eyes was swollen shut. And the other eye was lit with fury and hot hate, different from the cold ambition of the living Hawkfrost. He looked insane.
This new Hawkfrost stood in the clearing for a moment, his good eye darting from one tangle of battling cats to another. Then, in one swift move, he turned toward the nursery.
Duskfur and the elders, bleeding but still standing, snarled at him, bunching more closely together. Hawkfrost, hissing, swung one huge paw, his claws extended, and slashed Dapplenose across the throat.
Blood streamed down her chest and the old she-cat collapsed, her eyes already glazing with death. Pouncetail and Duskfur yowled in horror.
“Hawkfrost!” Mothwing screeched.
Her brother jerked back and stared at her, his blue eyes lingering on hers for a long heartbeat.
“Don’t,” she pleaded. “Please.”
Hawkfrost’s face was unreadable. Was the sweet, brave kit she remembered still in there somewhere? After a long moment, he turned away and took a step toward the nursery.
“No!” Mothwing yowled. She leaped over the still-moaning Minnowtail and started toward him.
Then she stopped in confusion. Cats had begun to stream through the rushes that fringed the RiverClan camp. Some of them were familiar but changed, stars shining in their fur.
Leopardstar, her face grim. Dawnflower, her gray tail bushed. Voletooth, Blackclaw, Heavystep, and others, cats who must be from before Mothwing’s time with the Clans.
At their advance, Hawkfrost fell back. Leopardstar, her ears pulled back in fury, prowled toward him, flanked on either side by starry-furred warriors.
Hawkfrost snarled, but then his nerve broke. He turned and fled, the other Dark Forest warriors following, rushing out of camp after him.
Mothwing felt as hollow as a dry husk.
Did we win?
Her mind was spinning. She had always thought that the dead were gone forever. But today they had come back. Hawkfrost, the brother she had loved, had returned. But he had brought an army to fight the living, had tried to destroy the Clan he had once protected so fiercely.
All around her, her Clanmates were moving forward to greet their old friends in StarClan. Mistystar ran forward, purring despite her wounds, and pressed her muzzle to Leopardstar’s. Stonestream bowed his head to Heavystep, who had once been his mentor. Even Minnowtail struggled to her paws, the blood beginning to stream down her face again, and twined her tail with her mother Dawnflower’s. Everywhere Mothwing looked, the dead and the living greeted one another joyfully.
But around them, injured cats lay, some groaning, some quiet and still. Their blood soaked into the earth of the clearing. Dapplenose’s body lay across the nursery entrance, her empty blue eyes staring at nothing. Mothwing bent to pick up her bundle of herbs.
“Mothwing.”
Jerking up her head, she saw Mudfur standing before her. His fur, thick with stars, was a rich brown now instead of flecked with gray, his golden eyes warm. For a moment, affection surged through her, and she stepped forward to press her nose against his shoulder, breathing in his familiar, comforting scent. “I’ve missed you,” she whispered.
“You’ve done very well,” Mudfur told her. “I’m proud of you.”
Mothwing pulled back, her anger returning as she saw again the dead and wounded on the ground. “Where were you? Where was StarClan?”
Mudfur cocked his head to one side. “What do you mean?”
Gesturing with her tail at the injured cats, Mothwing said, “When the Dark Forest attacked us! Or earlier, when they were planning to invade! If StarClan exists, why didn’t you stop all this from happening?” She thought of Hawkfrost, wild-eyed and furious. It would have been better for him, too, never to have come back to RiverClan. “You told the medicine cats to keep the Clans apart, when what we needed was to band together!”
Mudfur bowed his head. “We cannot always see the future,” he told her. “And when we do, sometimes we can’t act. StarClan could help in this battle, but it was the living Clans that had to come together to defeat the Dark Forest. What happened today will determine the Clans’ future, their unity and harmony, for many moons.”
