Crowfeather's Trial

“That’s a bad wound on her back, and if her paw isn’t seen to right away, it won’t heal right,” he mewed miserably. I’ll never forgive myself if she doesn’t recover.

Breezepelt was silent as they began to carry Featherpaw across the moor; Crowfeather was aware of his son’s gaze fixed on him, a look that Crowfeather couldn’t interpret. But he said nothing, and Crowfeather had too much on his mind to bother challenging him.

The WindClan camp was in sight before Breezepelt spoke. “You don’t have to worry about Featherpaw’s paw,” he meowed abruptly. “As long as Kestrelflight wraps it with a good clump of comfrey leaves and cobweb, it should be fine.”

Crowfeather gave his son a curious look. “How do you know that?” he asked. “You never trained as a medicine cat.”

“No,” Breezepelt responded. “But I had the same injury when I was an apprentice, and that’s how Barkface treated me. I was up and walking again in just a few days.”

Crowfeather was about to say that he didn’t remember Breezepelt being injured back then, but stopped himself. When he thought about it, he did remember the injury — or, more accurately, he remembered Nightcloud’s worrying over it. Busy with his duties as Heathertail’s mentor, he had just assumed that Nightcloud was being overprotective as usual.

Now Crowfeather understood Breezepelt’s strange look. He was envious that his father had praised Featherpaw and was worried about her injuries.

It wasn’t just my kits from ThunderClan that I wasn’t there for, he realized, shock striking him like a lightning bolt. I paid so little attention to my WindClan son that I hardly remembered that he suffered a major injury. Have I really cared more for my apprentices than my own son?

Crowfeather had a horrible feeling that he knew the answer — or what would have been the answer, until recently. But Crowfeather hoped that however lacking he had been as a father, he could make up for that now. In fact, he had to, now that Nightcloud was gone. He had to accept that he’d been a different cat back then, just as Breezepelt was no longer the cat whose loyalties lay elsewhere.

Now Crowfeather had become the kind of warrior who could pass his experience on to younger cats. He suppressed a wistful sigh. If only my kits had been born later… I could be a better father now, but is it too late for Breezepelt?

As he and Breezepelt struggled into Kestrelflight’s den with Featherpaw, Crowfeather saw the young medicine cat’s eyes stretch wide with alarm. But a moment later he recovered his air of efficiency.

“Bring her over here,” he meowed, pointing with his tail to a nest of soft moss. “I’ve got all the herbs ready to treat injuries from the battle.”

But no cat expected the worst-injured cat to be one of the youngest, Crowfeather thought. He could read as much in Kestrelflight’s eyes. It doesn’t seem fair.

The young medicine cat was too kindhearted to scold Crowfeather for not taking better care of his apprentice. In any case, he couldn’t have blamed Crowfeather any more than Crowfeather was blaming himself.

Crowfeather and Breezepelt laid Featherpaw down, settling her comfortably in the nest, and Kestrelflight crouched over her, licking the blood from the wound on her back to clean it up.

“What happened out there?” he asked between licks.

“When we left, the stoats had been driven back into the tunnels,” Crowfeather replied, a worm of uneasiness stirring in his belly. “I just wonder why none of the other warriors have made it back.”

He found the answer to his question a few moments later, when Heathertail stuck her head into the entrance to Kestrelflight’s den.

“What’s wrong?” Breezepelt asked urgently. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Heathertail replied. To Kestrelflight she added, “We drove the stoats into the tunnels and thought it was all over. But then more of them came pouring out, and we had to retreat. We killed a few of them, but we’re still vastly outnumbered.”

So what do we do now? Crowfeather asked himself, a dark cloud of disappointment descending on him at the news that they hadn’t won even a minor victory. They had already assured ThunderClan that they had the stoat problem under control. But that wasn’t true. What’s going to happen if we can’t handle this ourselves?

Then he pushed the thought away. There were more important things to deal with.

“Heathertail, can you fetch Featherpaw’s parents?”