Long Shadows

The younger warrior let out a snort of disgust; he said nothing more, but stood glaring at the ShadowClan patrol.

“Birchfall’s right!” Hollyleaf protested. “These cats are just trying to make trouble. We haven’t broken the warrior code.”

“Oh, the precious warrior code!” Ivytail’s voice was full of scorn. “You think it’s the answer to everything, but you’re wrong. The warrior code didn’t stop the sun from vanishing, did it?”

“Right.” Snaketail supported his Clanmate. “Maybe it’s time the Clans stopped being so obsessed with dead cats, and started looking for other answers instead.”

Hollyleaf stared at them in dismay. She knew that these thoughts came from Sol. Was this what the strange cat had wanted all along—to destroy the warrior code from inside the Clans?

He meant to start with us. Hollyleaf remembered how friendly and helpful Sol had seemed. But maybe ShadowClan had been an easier prospect; Hollyleaf couldn’t imagine Firestar abandoning his beliefs as easily as Blackstar.

I have to save ShadowClan! In her desperation Hollyleaf was scarcely aware of the cats around her any longer. They can’t turn their backs on StarClan and the warrior code! There have to be four Clans!

“Hollyleaf, calm down,” Brambleclaw murmured beside her.

Hollyleaf realized that her pelt was fluffed out and her claws were digging into the damp earth. The three ShadowClan cats were staring at her, fur bristling as if they expected her to leap on them. Taking a deep breath she sheathed her claws and tried to make her fur lie flat again.

“I’m okay,” she muttered to her father.

“This is Sol talking, isn’t it?” Birchfall jeered, taking a pace forward so that he stood right on the border. “You’re all crazier than a fox in a fit! It’s mouse-brained to listen to a cat that no Clan cat has ever met before.”

“We listen because Sol talks sense,” Snaketail retorted, stepping forward until he faced Birchfall. “He knows what to do to give ShadowClan a better life for the future. Maybe if ThunderClan listened they would be able to fight their own battles. Maybe that’s why the sun vanished, to tell us that the time of the Clans is over, and cats have to work out how to live on their own. If ThunderClan is too cowardly to face that—”

With a screech of fury, Birchfall leaped on Snaketail.

The two cats rolled over in a spitting knot of fur. Scorchpaw jumped on top of them, clawing at Birchfall’s shoulder.

Hazeltail launched himself onto the apprentice, trying to thrust him away from Birchfall.

“Birchfall, Hazeltail, get back here now.” Sandstorm took a pace forward, only to find her way blocked by Ivytail.

“Can’t your young warriors fight their own battles?” the ShadowClan warrior sneered. “A battle they started?” She unsheathed her claws and drew back her lips in a snarl.

Brambleclaw bounded forward to stand at Sandstorm’s side. “No. This battle was provoked by ShadowClan.”

Another yowl split the air from the fighting cats. Hollyleaf cringed at the sound of ripping fur, as if the claws were raking her own pelt. “Stop!” she screeched. “What are you doing?”

To her surprise, the battling cats fell apart, panting. At once Brambleclaw stepped forward and thrust Birchfall and Hazeltail back across the border onto their own territory.

“There’s been enough fighting,” he meowed. “Come on, ThunderClan.” As they started to leave, he paused and looked back over his shoulder at the ShadowClan patrol. “You can believe what you want, so long as you stay on your own side of the border.”

“We weren’t the ones who crossed it in the first place,” Ivytail hissed.

Brambleclaw turned his back on her and bounded ahead to lead the patrol away.

“Are you okay?” Hollyleaf murmured to Hazeltail; her Clanmate was blundering through the woods, stumbling over branches and letting trailing brambles rake her pelt.

“I’m a little dizzy,” Hazeltail confessed. “I hit my head on a branch when I was trying to pull Scorchpaw off Birchfall.”

“Here, I’ll guide you.” Hollyleaf rested her tail on Hazeltail’s shoulder. “We’ll let Leafpool take a look at you when we get back to camp. Birchfall was lucky that you did help him,” she added. “He would have got an even worse clawing without you.”

The young ThunderClan warrior was limping along with blood oozing from a gash on his shoulder. When the patrol paused by the bramble thicket to collect Sandstorm’s thrush and their other prey, he sat down and began to wash the wound with vigorous strokes of his tongue.

“Birchfall, you asked for that.” Brambleclaw paused in digging up his vole. “ShadowClan shouldn’t have accused us of trying to cross the border, but you put us in the wrong when you started the fight. Warriors should know how to control themselves.”

“Sorry,” Birchfall mumbled.

“So you should be.”

When the patrol set off again, Brambleclaw and Sandstorm remained grimly silent. Birchfall padded after them with his head down.