The Apprentice's Quest

“Careful!” Sorrelstripe warned him. “That’s what hurt Cherryfall.”

“Why can’t the Twolegs take their stuff back to their own dens instead of leaving it here to injure cats?” Sparkpaw asked angrily.

“Alderpaw!” Jayfeather beckoned with his tail. “We need some cobweb to stop the bleeding. Go and find some.”

Alderpaw froze, glancing around wildly.

Cobweb? Where? The sight and reek of the blood, and Cherryfall’s face screwed up with pain, worried him so much that his paws felt stuck to the ground.

“Over there!” Sparkpaw pointed to an oak tree at the far side of the hollow. “There’s a cleft in that tree—there should be cobwebs inside it.”

Before Alderpaw could move, his littermate darted off, closely followed by Sorrelstripe.

Now Sparkpaw is better than me at being a medicine cat! Alderpaw thought, furious with himself. He was even angrier when she turned out to be right, and she and Sorrelstripe returned across the hollow with pawfuls of cobweb.

“Oh, for StarClan’s sake, Alderpaw!”

Jayfeather hissed in exasperation. “Come here.

Put your paw there.” He pointed with his tail to a spot on Cherryfall’s leg. “Press down hard—no, harder than that. Don’t worry about hurting her. We’ve got to stop this bleeding.”

“It’s okay, Alderpaw,” Cherryfall gasped.

Alderpaw put all his strength into pressing down where Jayfeather had shown him, and to his relief the flow of blood from Cherryfall’s paw slowed and then dwindled away completely.

“Good,” Jayfeather grunted. “Now the cobweb.”

Alderpaw couldn’t believe how deft Jayfeather’s paws were in wrapping Cherryfall’s wound, especially considering he was blind.

“Now release the pressure,” Jayfeather instructed Alderpaw when all the cobweb was wound around the injured paw. “And—please, StarClan—let’s hope the bleeding doesn’t start again.”

Alderpaw lifted his paw and stared at the cobweb covering, afraid that he would see a red blotch spreading on the gray webs. “There’s no more blood,” he mewed after a few heartbeats.

“Right.” Jayfeather sounded satisfied.

“Cherryfall, let’s get you back to camp. And don’t even think about putting that paw to the ground. Sparkpaw and Sorrelstripe, support her.”

Back in the camp, Jayfeather had the other cats take Cherryfall to the medicine cats’ den.

Alderpaw arranged a nest for her beside

Briarlight, and she sank into it with a sigh of relief.

“Thanks, Jayfeather,” she mewed. “And you, Alderpaw. I’m sorry to be such a nuisance.”

“Just remember that the next time you want to do something mouse-brained,” Jayfeather muttered.

“Now, Alderpaw, unwrap the cobwebs. I want to get a better idea of the wound.”

“What if the bleeding starts again?”

Alderpaw asked nervously.

“Then we put more cobweb on, bee-brain!”

As carefully as he could, snagging his claws delicately into the cobweb wrapping, Alderpaw laid the wound bare. He hardly dared to breathe as he tore away the last of the cobwebs, but to his relief there was no more bleeding.

Meanwhile Jayfeather had gone to the herb store, and he came back carrying a piece of comfrey root. “We’ll put a poultice of this on the wound,” he meowed, dropping it at Alderpaw’s paws. “You can chew it up, and Cherryfall, give that wound a good lick.”

Alderpaw began chewing the root, blinking at its tangy taste. When he thought it was fine enough, he spat it out again. Jayfeather bent his head to sniff at it.

“It’ll do,” he commented. “Now spread it on Cherryfall’s paw.”

Alderpaw noticed how Cherryfall began to relax as he patted the poultice into place and the comfrey juices sank into her wound. “That feels so good… ,” she murmured.

“You should get some sleep,” Jayfeather told her when the poultice was in place. Turning to Alderpaw, he added, “And you’re done for the day. Go and get something to eat.”

“Thanks, Jayfeather.”

Alderpaw slipped out of the den, his legs shaky with exhaustion. Spotting his sister over by the fresh-kill pile, he padded across to join her.

“Come and share this vole,” Sparkpaw invited him as he drew near. “I caught it when I went hunting with Cherryfall earlier today.

Doesn’t it look good?”

Alderpaw felt his jaws watering as he looked at the plump piece of prey, and he realized that his belly was bawling with hunger.

At the same time a hot wave of embarrassment flooded through his pelt.

“I really freaked out when I saw Cherryfall’s wound,” he confessed. “I couldn’t do a simple thing like finding cobwebs.” He let out a long sigh. “How am I going to be a good medicine cat if I freeze up at the sight of blood?”

“Oh, mouse dung!” Sparkpaw mewed cheerfully. “I don’t know why any cat would want to be a medicine cat, but I was really impressed with the way you stopped Cherryfall’s wound bleeding. You just need to trust yourself,” she went on, brushing her tail against Alderpaw’s side. “The way I do when I’m hunting. It’s when you stop to worry that you miss your prey, and it was the same thing with the cobweb. But then you did the right thing. So