Crowfeather's Trial

The WindClan cats slipped like shadows through the forest as Crowfeather led them toward the hollow where he had found Nightcloud’s blood and the fox scent. Now and again he picked up the faintest trace of his own stale scent, but his anxiety grew when he couldn’t find any of Nightcloud’s.

Maybe Breezepelt was right, and it has faded. That would make it much harder to find her, if her scent trail has disappeared.

But before the patrol reached the hollow, Crowfeather spotted movement in the undergrowth over to one side, and a flicker of pale light that vanished almost immediately. He halted, signaling with his tail for his Clanmates to do the same.

The pale flicker came a second time, and for a moment Crowfeather wondered if his mother, Ashfoot, was showing herself to him again. Then he dismissed the thought. Ashfoot only came to him in dreams. He must have caught a glimpse of a living animal. It has to be a cat with a white or pale gray pelt, he thought. A strong, fresh scent drifted into his nostrils. Fox dung! It’s ThunderClan!

He beckoned his patrol into the shadow of a bramble thicket, where they crouched in silence, hardly daring to breathe. Rustling came from the undergrowth, followed by a cat’s voice raised, half amused and half annoyed.

“Great StarClan, Lilypaw! Do you have to stomp around like an overweight badger?”

“That’s Poppyfrost,” Crowfeather whispered. “I wonder how many more of them there are.”

A heartbeat later the ThunderClan patrol emerged into the open. Ivypool was in the lead, with Poppyfrost and Bumblestripe. Following them were their apprentices, Lilypaw and her littermate, Seedpaw. Moonlight reflected off Ivypool’s silver-and-white pelt.

Crowfeather hoped that if they kept still, the darkness still might hide them, or their ThunderClan scent would deceive the patrol, but it was a vain hope. Ivypool stalked straight up to him and stood looking down at him and the rest of the WindClan cats.

“Greetings,” she meowed. “I suppose you have a good reason for lurking there on our territory?”

Crowfeather remembered that Ivypool had trained in the Dark Forest, spying for ThunderClan, and there wasn’t much she didn’t know about tracking in the dark. Or fighting, if it came to that. How long did she know that we were here?

“Well?” Ivypool asked.

Rising to his paws, Crowfeather gave his pelt a shake, trying to recover a little dignity. “Let me explain…,” he began.

But at that moment, Bumblestripe padded forward and pushed his muzzle into Breezepelt’s shoulder fur. “They’re carrying our scent!” he exclaimed. “That proves they’re up to no good!”

Breezepelt started backward, his pelt beginning to bristle, and slapped Bumblestripe away with a lash of his tail. A growl came from deep in Bumblestripe’s throat, while Breezepelt slid out his claws. Their backs arched, as if they would leap into a fight at any moment.

“No!” Crowfeather ordered. He pushed Breezepelt back and stepped between him and the ThunderClan tom.

At the same moment, Ivypool snapped, “Stop that, Bumblestripe.” She stood beside Crowfeather, separating the two hostile toms.

Reluctantly, Bumblestripe took a step back, though he and Breezepelt were still glaring at each other. Ivypool stood waiting with her head tilted to one side, while Poppyfrost had withdrawn a few paces with the two apprentices. Crowfeather heard her say to them, “If a fight breaks out, run!”

“Look, Ivypool…” Crowfeather addressed the silver-and-white she-cat, hoping she would be reasonable. “We’re here on an important mission. We’re looking for Nightcloud.”

“But Nightcloud is dead,” Ivypool objected. “Onestar announced it at the Gathering.”

Crowfeather began to explain how he had followed Nightcloud’s scent from one of the tunnel entrances, until he had found her blood and scent beside a pool, mixed with the reek of fox.

“Of course we thought that a fox got her,” he mewed.

“So you’ve been trespassing here before!” Bumblestripe broke in accusingly.

Ivypool twitched her ears in annoyance. “Bumblestripe, will you for StarClan’s sake shut up!” She nodded to Crowfeather. “Go on.”

Crowfeather told her how Kestrelflight had failed to find Nightcloud in StarClan, and how that made her Clanmates hope that she was still alive, and then how he had met Yew, who’d told him of meeting her on the edge of a Twolegplace beyond the forest. “But our best hope of finding her is to go back to that pool and see if we can find her scent leading away from it.”

“Good luck with that, after all this time,” Ivypool murmured. “But I can understand that you have to try. Yes, they can, Bumblestripe,” she added, glaring at her Clanmate, who had opened his jaws to protest. “Nightcloud is a noble warrior, and she deserves the help of any cat.”