Outcast

“They’re okay,” Stormfur meowed. Jaypaw felt the gray warrior’s tail flick lightly across his muzzle. “They’ll make the journey a lot easier.”

“If you’re sure…” Talon’s voice was still dubious, but he licked up the herbs. “They taste bitter,” he complained.

Stifling a sigh, Jaypaw carried on until he’d taken herbs to every cat except his father.

“Where’s Brambleclaw?” he asked Squirrelflight, mumbling around his mouthful of leaves.

“I think he went to talk to Firestar,” Squirrelflight replied.

“I’ll take those up to him, if you like.”

“No, I’ll do it.” Jaypaw’s fur bristled as he bounded across the camp. I can climb up to the Highledge without falling! He scrambled up the tumbled stones, making sure that his pelt brushed the cliff wall at every paw step. As he reached the Highledge, he heard Firestar’s voice from inside the den.

“You’ll be away for at least a moon, Brambleclaw. We need to decide who should be deputy while you’re gone.”

Jaypaw halted outside the den, drawing close against the rock wall so that the cats inside wouldn’t see him.

“Graystripe is the obvious cat to choose,” Brambleclaw answered. “He knows the deputy’s duties, after all.”

Jaypaw’s whiskers twitched in dismay. His father had only become Clan deputy because every cat thought that Graystripe was dead. After the gray warrior’s unexpected return, some cats had thought that Brambleclaw would step down. Graystripe hadn’t wanted that; he said he didn’t have enough experience of the Clan’s new home, and he was tired after his journey. But none of that was true anymore. If Graystripe took over as deputy now, what would happen when Brambleclaw came home? Jaypaw gritted his teeth. Couldn’t his father see that he might be giving up his position in the Clan?

“Fine, if you’re happy with that.” Firestar sounded relieved.

“I’ll tell him.”

There was movement inside the den as if the cats were rising to their paws. Quickly Jaypaw found a loose pebble and flicked it with his paw so they would think he had just arrived. Stepping into the mouth of the den he meowed, “Firestar?”

“Come in,” his leader responded.

“Are those my traveling herbs?” Brambleclaw asked.

“Thanks, Jaypaw. Is every cat ready?”

“Nearly,” Jaypaw replied. “I’d better find Leafpool and see if she wants me to do anything else.”

He withdrew from the den with a quick dip of his head. As he hurried down the rocks again he tried to scent Lionpaw and Hollypaw. He wanted to tell them about Graystripe taking over as deputy while they could still talk in private. But as he reached the floor of the clearing, his littermates passed him with fresh-kill in their jaws, heading for the elders’ den.

Hollypaw called out, “Hi, Jaypaw,” as they went by but they were too busy to stop.

Frustrated, Jaypaw went back to his own den. Leafpool was still there, fiddling with some leaves, though all the traveling herbs had been distributed now, except for Jaypaw’s own.

“What are you doing?” he asked. “Do you want me to take some herbs with me?”

“What?” Leafpool sounded surprised, as if she hadn’t realized he had come back. “Oh, no—there’s no point in doing that. They’d be a nuisance to carry every day, and you don’t know what you’ll need.”

“But I have no idea which herbs grow in the mountains,” Jaypaw objected.

Leafpool scraped the ground with one paw; she was trying to hide it, but Jaypaw could feel she was on edge for some reason. “You won’t be in the mountains for most of the way,” she told him. “And when you get to the Tribe, Stoneteller will be able to show you the mountain herbs. You’ll learn a lot from him.”

I hope so, and not just about herbs.

“Come on, Jaypaw, don’t just stand there. Eat your own herbs.” Jaypaw felt his mentor’s paw brush his as she pushed the remaining herbs toward him. “Brambleclaw will want to leave soon.”

Jaypaw licked up the mouthful of herbs. “Yuck,” he muttered.

“You’ll be glad of them once you get going,” Leafpool mewed sharply. “You’re lucky to be going on this journey at all.”

Lucky because I’m blind and shouldn’t be allowed to go? Jaypaw thought mutinously. He said nothing, trying to swallow the last of the bitter leaves.

“You’ll find the mountains fascinating,” Leafpool went on, sounding more like her normal self. “You should take the chance to learn all you can about them.”

That’s just what I mean to do, Jaypaw told himself, though he suspected he meant something different from what his mentor was suggesting. Oh, he would learn about new herbs and new ways of living, but what he really wanted to know was how the Tribe came to settle in the mountains, and how they were connected to Rock and the ancient cats who had left their paw prints around the Moonpool. But he knew better than to say any of that to Leafpool.

“Jaypaw?” Brambleclaw’s voice came from the clearing.

“Are you ready?”