The Apprentice's Quest

“Okay, Leafpool.” Tigerheart took a pace back. Alderpaw had missed the next part of the conversation, but he was relieved that the ShadowClan tom sounded less hostile. “You can pass,” he went on. “But we’ll escort you to the edge of our territory.”

Leafpool dipped her head in acknowledgment. “Thank you.”

The whole patrol set off along the edge of the lake, with Leafpool and Tigerheart in the lead. The apprentices brought up the rear; Needlepaw padded along beside Alderpaw.

“Toms!” she muttered. “Always making trouble. Spikefur’s a real pain in the tail.” She hopped along on three paws while she used the fourth to ruffle up the fur on her head, and spoke in Spikefur’s lower tone. “‘Go and fetch me more moss, lowly apprentice! And catch me a blackbird while you’re at it.’”

Alderpaw stifled a snort of laughter. “You shouldn’t talk like that about your mentor.”

“He’s not my mentor, thank StarClan!”

Needlepaw meowed.

“I’m

Tawnypelt’s apprentice, but she’s helping reinforce the camp walls today, so I get to go out with Spikefur.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m so lucky!

Anyway,” she went on, “what are you doing here with Leafpool?”

“She’s my mentor now,” Alderpaw replied.

“We’re going to—”

“You’re a medicine-cat apprentice?”

Needlepaw’s eyes stretched wide with amazement. “You didn’t say that when we met before.”

“I wasn’t, then,” Alderpaw explained.

“Wow, that’s really cool!” Needlepaw sounded impressed. “You must get to learn lots of stuff.”

“Oh, yes, lots. Different kinds of herbs and what they’re used for, and how to stop wounds from bleeding…” For the first time Alderpaw found himself boasting, proud of his position as a

medicine-cat apprentice.

“Tonight

Leafpool is taking me to the Moonpool to meet with StarClan,” he finished.

“That’s awesome,” Needlepaw breathed out.

“Do you have visions? Do you know anything special about the prophecy?”

Alderpaw shook his head. “I did have a sort of weird dream… ,” he began.

“Alderpaw!” Leafpool glanced back, and gestured with her tail for Alderpaw to come and walk beside her.

Embarrassed, Alderpaw realized he had almost gotten carried away and told Needlepaw stuff he wasn’t supposed to mention. For the rest of their journey across ShadowClan territory, he padded in silence beside his mentor.

At the far border, Tigerheart waved his tail toward Leafpool and Alderpaw. “You have permission to cross back to your own Clan,” he mewed loftily. “But don’t take too long about it.”

Like we’d want to hang around in your territory, Alderpaw thought.

“Good-bye, Alderpaw.” Needlepaw gave him a friendly swipe around the ear with her tail. “I’ll be seeing you.”

Alderpaw wasn’t sure if he was looking forward to that or not.

The half-moon shed a bright light over the forest as Jayfeather, Leafpool, and Alderpaw trekked alongside the stream that separated ThunderClan from WindClan. Alderpaw felt every hair in his pelt rise as they crossed a set of ThunderClan scent markers, and he realized that they were leaving behind not just their own territory, but the territories of all the Clans, and setting off into the unexplored hills.

“Is it much farther?” he panted.

“Oh, yes, we’ve a long way to go yet,” Jayfeather told him.

Alderpaw sighed, half excited and half afraid. They had left the sheltering trees behind, and now rolling moorland stretched away in all directions, bare except for clumps of gorse, or reeds growing around a pool.

“How did the medicine cats know to come up here to the Moonpool?” Alderpaw asked.

“Actually, I was the cat who found it.”

Leafpool sounded slightly embarrassed.

“Spottedleaf—she was a ThunderClan medicine cat many seasons ago, when Firestar first came to the forest—came from StarClan to show me the way.”

“Wow, that means you’re really special!”

Alderpaw mewed admiringly.

Leafpool ducked her head. “Not at all. Just the right cat in the right place. Besides, lots of cats gathered at the Moonpool before the Clans ever came to the lake.”

“Will we meet them?” Alderpaw blinked nervously.

“You may meet them in StarClan,” Leafpool replied. “But they left this place many, many seasons ago.”

Alderpaw shivered. “That’s weird.”

The journey to the Moonpool seemed to take forever. Then, scrambling up a steep slope, Alderpaw began to realize that he could hear the sound of falling water from somewhere up ahead.

“We’re almost there,” Leafpool told him.

Leafpool kept climbing upward, and Alderpaw padded after her. Jayfeather brought up the rear; glancing back to make sure he was okay, Alderpaw was impressed to notice how he set down his paws instinctively in the right places. It was as though he knew this path so well that he didn’t need to see it.

Before they reached the top of the slope, Alderpaw heard a yowling cry coming from some way behind them. He paused and looked back to see all the other medicine cats, tiny in the distance, making their way along the path.

“We’ll wait for them,” Leafpool mewed, standing at Alderpaw’s shoulder.