The Fourth Apprentice

This is more important than anything that happened in the past!

“Okay, Purdy,” he mewed, interrupting a long and convoluted story about a fox. “We’re done here. Thanks for your help.”

“Any time, young ’un.” Jayfeather heard Purdy clambering back onto the flat-topped rock and settling himself in the sun. “You don’t get foxes now like the ones when I was young…” he murmured drowsily.

As Jayfeather padded back toward his den, he heard Lionblaze and Dovepaw practicing battle moves beside the thorn barrier. He stopped, listening to Dovepaw leaping at Lionblaze and slicing her claws through the air, barely a whisker from his fur. Suddenly the quest was real. Lionblaze and Dovepaw would be gone the next morning, and the thought terrified Jayfeather more than he would have thought possible.

Just find these animals, and come back, he begged. Whatever we have to do for the prophecy to come true, I can’t do it on my own.

Chapter 11

Dovepaw stood on the rocks at the mouth of the stream that marked the border with ShadowClan. Even though the sun had only just cleared the horizon, the stones were hot under her pads, and the island at the far side of the lake was veiled in a shimmering haze of heat. The journey was about to begin—the quest that she had set in motion when she heard the animals that were blocking the stream—but Dovepaw couldn’t push down her misery at leaving her sister behind. Before dawn, when Lionblaze had come to rouse her in the apprentices’ den, Ivypaw had curled up and pretended to be asleep so that she didn’t have to say good-bye.

Beside Dovepaw, Brambleclaw and Lionblaze were mewing quietly together. Not wanting to listen in on their conversation, Dovepaw let her senses range farther. She spotted a patrol of RiverClan warriors circling the pool of brackish water in the middle of the lake; they looked hungry and scared. Listening briefly to their complaints about the heat, she pushed her awareness farther still, and focused on the cats in the RiverClan camp. Soon she managed to identify Mistyfoot, Reedwhisker, and the golden-furred medicine cat, Mothwing, whom she had seen at the Gathering.

“I’ve done everything I can for Leopardstar,” Mothwing was meowing anxiously. “But she still hasn’t recovered from losing her last life.”

Mistyfoot shook her head. “She hasn’t had the chance to get her strength back. But there must be some herbs you can use to help her, Mothwing?”

“The herbs are all dried up.” The medicine cat’s mew was quiet. “I’m afraid Leopardstar is going to lose this life as well.”

There was a stunned silence. How many lives does Leopardstar have left? Dovepaw wondered. At last the quiet was broken by Reedwhisker. “Then we have to hope that Firestar’s plan works, and the cats we send find out what has happened to the water.”

The sound of paw steps on the other side of the stream jerked Dovepaw back to her surroundings. Three cats had emerged from the dried-up grass on the opposite side of the stream and were padding down the stretch of pebbles to join her and her Clanmates.

Brambleclaw stepped forward to meet them. “Greetings, Russetfur,” he meowed.

The dark ginger she-cat just grunted in response.

“She’s the ShadowClan deputy, isn’t she?” Dovepaw whispered to Lionblaze. “She looks really old!”

“She was one of the cats who made the Great Journey,” Lionblaze murmured in reply. “But she’s still a formidable warrior. Don’t let her hear you calling her old!”

“These are ShadowClan’s chosen cats,” Russetfur meowed, waving her tail toward the younger warriors who had followed her down to the stream.

The two cats stepped forward and nodded to the ThunderClan patrol. Dovepaw recognized the golden tabby pelt of Tigerheart, Tawnypelt’s son, from the Gathering, but the other warrior, an older dark brown tom, was a stranger to her.

“Who’s that?” she whispered to Lionblaze.

“Toadfoot,” her mentor told her. “He made the Great Journey, too, but he was a kit then.”

“Wow! Kits made the Great Journey?”

Lionblaze nodded, but he motioned with his tail for Dovepaw to be quiet as Russetfur spoke again.

“Don’t forget you’ll be traveling through our territory to begin with,” she growled. “Don’t even think about stealing prey, because my warriors will be watching you.”

Lionblaze let his gaze sweep across the burnt grass on either side of the stream. “What prey would that be?” he asked pointedly.

Russetfur bared her teeth in the beginning of a snarl. “Don’t get clever with me, Lionblaze. And just because this quest was Firestar’s idea, don’t start thinking that ThunderClan cats are in charge.”

“No cat thinks that,” Brambleclaw mewed soothingly. “That wasn’t how it worked on the first journey. They’ll figure things out for themselves on the way.”