Crowfeather's Trial

“I’ll try,” Crowfeather promised. “But right now, keeping the Clan safe is the most important task for every cat. I know we need ThunderClan’s help to clear the stoats out of the tunnels, but Onestar just won’t see that.”

Feathertail’s blue eyes sparkled with sympathy. “Then there’s only one thing you can do,” she mewed. “Be true to yourself.”

Crowfeather’s whiskers twitched in surprise. “If I were being true to myself… I suppose I would go to Leafpool,” he murmured. But would Feathertail really suggest going to the only cat he had loved after her — and disobeying his Clan leader to do it? “Should I go behind Onestar’s back?” he asked.

Feathertail stared at him intensely. “Crowfeather…,” she began, but her voice trailed off.

“Leafpool would be able to persuade Bramblestar that it’s for the good of ThunderClan to help me,” Crowfeather went on as the pieces came together in his mind. “And once I get rid of the threat, Onestar won’t care how I did it.”

Ashfoot leaned forward. “Crowfeather… the Clan is what matters. You must put the good of the Clan above everything else.”

Her voice faded on the last few words, and the brilliant moonlight in the clearing began to fade too. Before darkness fell, the last things Crowfeather saw were Feathertail’s eyes, as warm and blue as the sky in greenleaf.

Crowfeather blinked awake in the dim light of the medicine-cat den. Featherpaw was still unconscious beside him, and Feathertail and Ashfoot were gone, but their words remained fresh in his thoughts. He rose to his paws and arched his back in a good long stretch.

Sedgewhisker was right, he thought. I haven’t really been present since the Great Battle, not for my Clan. Even though I’m not deputy, I seem to be the only cat who can see reason. It’s time for me to put my Clan first.

Now Crowfeather knew what he had to do.

Chapter 16

Crowfeather slipped through the undergrowth in the wooded area at the edge of WindClan territory. He didn’t like the damp sensation of moist earth under his pads, or the feeling of being closed in by branches above his head. He longed for the springy sensation of moorland grass, and the feeling of cold wind in his whiskers as he raced across the hillside.

No wonder ThunderClan cats are so weird, when they live in the forest all the time!

On leaving camp, Crowfeather had considered cutting through the tunnels to reach ThunderClan territory, his paws and fur itching with the urge to kill a few stoats on the way. But if I tried that, I might never come out on the other side, he realized.

As he headed for the border stream, Crowfeather seemed to hear Kestrelflight’s voice. A wild wind kicked up and drove the water back. But eventually the wind dropped, and the water kept on rushing and gushing… until it swallowed up everything. The image the medicine cat had spoken of was so vivid that Crowfeather felt that he could see the restless waves for himself, almost as if the vision had been his, a special message sent to him from StarClan.

After everything that had happened since, particularly how Nightcloud and Breezepelt had suffered so much from the stoats in the tunnels where the floodwater came from, Crowfeather couldn’t shake off the feeling that somehow the responsibility for fixing this problem rested on his shoulders.

Or, if I fail, maybe my kin will feel they have to do it. I can’t put that burden on them.

It felt strange for Crowfeather to muse that maybe not being deputy was a good thing. If he had been, he would never have dared to go behind Onestar’s back like this; as a warrior, he had less to lose. That conviction was all that kept him going, once he could hear the gurgling of the stream that formed WindClan’s border with ThunderClan. He couldn’t help remembering how forcefully Onestar had refused to ask for help from the rival Clan.

And now here I am, going to do just that. Cats have been banished from their Clans for less.

Approaching the stream, Crowfeather tasted the air, picking up the stench of the ThunderClan scent markers and, beyond that, the fresh scent of ThunderClan cats. A few heartbeats later, Berrynose and Thornclaw emerged from behind a clump of elder bushes that grew on the bank of the stream.

Oh, StarClan! Not Berrynose again!