Crowfeather's Trial

Bumblestripe stared down at his paws, a sullen expression on his face, though he didn’t argue anymore.

Ivypool turned back to Crowfeather. “Bumblestripe and I will escort you,” she told Crowfeather. “We can’t have WindClan cats wandering around alone in our territory.”

“We don’t need—” Gorsetail began, looking outraged, but Crowfeather interrupted her with a lash of his tail.

“That’s fine by us,” he meowed, and his Clanmates, even Gorsetail, murmured agreement.

It’s so easy to work with ThunderClan when we agree on a goal, Crowfeather reflected. If only Onestar had seen that, we might be done with the stoats by now.

“Then I’ll take the apprentices back to camp,” Poppyfrost announced.

“Not fair,” Lilypaw muttered. “You said you’d take us night hunting. And we haven’t caught anything yet.”

“Yeah, trust WindClan to spoil our fun,” Seedpaw added.

“Never mind.” Poppyfrost gathered the apprentices together with a sweep of her tail. “We’ll see what we can pick up on our way back.” She dipped her head to Ivypool and padded off in the direction of the ThunderClan camp, with the two apprentices trailing after her, glaring over their shoulders at the WindClan cats.

“Okay, Crowfeather,” Ivypool meowed briskly. “Show us this pool.”

She padded beside him as they set out again, with Bumblestripe bringing up the rear. Crowfeather could see that Breezepelt was still bristling with anger, glaring over his shoulder at Bumblestripe, flexing his claws. Crowfeather shot him a warning glance and hoped that he had sense enough not to start any more trouble with the ThunderClan tom.

When they finally reached the pool with its fringe of ferns, Crowfeather’s heart sank as he tasted the scent of fox in the air, stronger and more recent than when he had been here before. They must come here regularly. Can’t ThunderClan keep the mange-pelts off their territory?

Examining the ground around the pool, Crowfeather found the spot where he could still see that Nightcloud’s blood had sunk into the grass, but there was not the slightest trace of her scent.

“Work outward from the pool,” he instructed his Clanmates. “That way we might pick up her trail and find out which way she went.”

Ivypool and Bumblestripe stood to one side of the pool while Crowfeather and the other WindClan cats searched for Nightcloud’s scent. Crowfeather felt his hope sinking away like rain into dry ground as the moments passed and they found nothing. He was wondering how much longer they could go on searching when Breezepelt let out an excited yowl.

“I’ve found it!”

Crowfeather looked up. Breezepelt was standing several fox-lengths away from the pool, in the opposite direction from WindClan and toward the Twolegplace that Yew had pointed out to him. Swiftly he skirted the pool and bounded over to join his son, hoping that Breezepelt hadn’t imagined finding the scent out of sheer desperation.

Breezepelt pointed with his muzzle to a clump of chervil, the leaves wilting and frostbitten. Crowfeather bent his head to sniff, parted his jaws to taste the air. The fox reek was swamping everything; he was sure there were at least two of them, and possibly three. Beneath the fox scent there was a trace of something else. Crowfeather wanted to believe that Breezepelt was right, but he wondered if he was just smelling what he wanted to smell. He shook his head slowly. “I’m not sure,” he murmured.

“It is Nightcloud’s scent!” Breezepelt insisted.

Hootpaw pushed his way forward. “Let me try!”

Gorsetail hooked his tail around her apprentice’s neck and drew him back. “Stay out of the way,” he ordered. “We don’t want your scent confusing everything.”

Crowfeather could see that Breezepelt’s eyes looked hopeful and yet uncertain, as if he wasn’t quite sure that he had really found his mother’s scent after so long. Crowfeather guessed that he too was desperately trying to convince himself.

“If she went this way, she wasn’t heading for WindClan,” Crowfeather murmured thoughtfully. “And there’s only one reason for that.”

“The foxes were chasing her!” Heathertail meowed excitedly. “So if we follow the foxes…”

Crowfeather nodded. “We stand a good chance of finding Nightcloud.”

“But what if…?” There was panic now in Breezepelt’s eyes, and his fur began to prickle in alarm. “What if they caught her?”

Heathertail wrapped her tail over his shoulders. “Calm down,” she mewed. “We know she isn’t dead, right? That other cat saw her. So somehow, she must have shaken off the foxes and ended up in the Twolegplace.”