Crowfeather's Trial

“But she needs to rest,” Kestrelflight pointed out. “If you stay, she’ll only try to get up and prove what a brave warrior she is.”

“He’s right,” Emberfoot meowed, padding up to Sedgewhisker and nudging her to her paws. “Come on. Kestrelflight will let us know as soon as Featherpaw wakes up.”

“Of course I will,” Kestrelflight promised.

Reluctantly Sedgewhisker allowed her mate to coax her out of the den. Breezepelt and Hootpaw followed. Crowfeather brought up the rear after one last long look at Featherpaw’s inert form.

Outside the den, Harespring had returned with the rest of the warriors. He was assembling the wounded, picking out the ones with the worst injuries for Kestrelflight to see first.

“How is Featherpaw?” Gorsetail asked.

Crowfeather shook his head. “Not good,” he admitted.

“And why was she even there?” Crouchfoot added. “I thought the apprentices were forbidden from taking part in the battle.”

“They were. They disobeyed,” Crowfeather responded. “But I did tell Featherpaw to be assertive,” he added reluctantly.

Shocked exclamations rose from the crowd of warriors; Leaftail’s voice rose above the rest. “I can’t believe you’d say that to an apprentice right before a battle! You couldn’t have encouraged them more if you’d sharpened their claws yourself.”

Crowfeather felt the accusing glances of his Clanmates like a whole gorse bush full of thorns driving into his pelt.

They’re right. I made the wrong decisions at nearly every turn. But there’s one thing I wasn’t wrong about. The threat in the tunnels can’t be ignored.

“There’s something I want to say,” he announced, raising his voice to be heard above the murmurs and pain-filled mews of the crowd of cats.

Harespring turned toward him. “Go on, say it, then,” he ordered curtly.

“Maybe I expressed it wrong,” Crowfeather meowed. “But I wasn’t wrong that the apprentices — and all of us — need to be brave and assertive. Have you all forgotten Kestrelflight’s vision? The dark water that emerged from the tunnels, whipped by the wind, fierce enough to swamp WindClan and ThunderClan — maybe ShadowClan and RiverClan too? Suppose that we don’t manage to deal with this stoat problem, and something else follows them? What if the Clans are so tired and wounded from fighting with the stoats that we don’t have the strength to handle another threat?”

Hootpaw’s fur bushed out as he stood in front of Crowfeather with alarm in his eyes. “What are you saying?” he demanded, seeming to forget that he was an apprentice talking to a senior warrior. “That there’s going to be another battle? That the Dark Forest cats will return?”

“No, I’m not saying that,” Crowfeather responded, trying to reassure Hootpaw. “Because I don’t know for sure. But there must be a reason Kestrelflight had that dream. And what worries me is that a new conflict — maybe a threat from outside, maybe trouble within the Clan — is going to fall over us like the shadows in the tunnels, and maybe wash us away like a great flood.”

Some cat in the crowd muttered, “He’s got bees in his brain,” but Crowfeather ignored the insult.

The idea he needed was in Crowfeather’s mind like an elusive piece of prey. So close, but always just out of reach… “I know there’s an answer there,” he mewed. “I can feel it.”

The cats gathered around Crowfeather were exchanging dubious glances, as if none of them believed what he was trying to tell them. To Crowfeather’s surprise, Breezepelt was the first to speak.

“I think you could be right,” he began. It surprised Crowfeather even more that Breezepelt, of all cats, was on his side. “After all, there were two waves in the vision. The wind defeated the first one, but the second one overwhelmed everything. So do you think getting rid of the stoats will ward off this bigger threat?” His tone was thoughtful, as if he was taking his father’s worries seriously. “How do you think we can do that? There were so many of them in the battle, and there must be more of them lurking in the tunnels. We’ll be outnumbered, and they know the tunnels much better than we do. It’s not easy to lure them out into the open.”

Crowfeather nodded. “That’s true.” He paused for a moment, uncertain of how to respond to his son, though the idea he needed to capture was still lurking at the back of his mind. Maybe I should treat it like cunning prey, he thought. Pretend to ignore it, and trick it into overconfidence…

Then, like a stoat peering out of the shadows, the thought emerged into the light. And like the stoats, what I have to say won’t be welcome. He took a deep breath. “If we’re going to succeed in wiping out the stoats and clearing the tunnels,” he meowed, “we’re going to need help. We’re going to need ThunderClan.”