At this realization, that she trusted the other medicine cats more than she’d been able to trust her own littermate—the cat who’d belonged to her, and who she’d belonged to, the only one—Mothwing began to wail with misery. Leafpool and Willowpaw pressed closer, trying to comfort her.
I loved him. I did love him, Hawk, my littermate, despite everything. How can I never see him again? But they had lost each other somewhere along the way.
Moons had passed since Hawkfrost had died. Mistystar was the leader of RiverClan now, and Willowpaw had become a full medicine cat alongside Mothwing. The Clans had gone on. But there was always a small hurt spot deep inside Mothwing where she held on to the memory of him. My brother.
And yet the work of a medicine cat went on. It was something she could rely on.
“Okay,” she told Duskfur, pushing thoughts of Hawkfrost away. “I’ll keep giving Podkit comfrey for a few more days, but his cough should be gone soon. He’ll be fine.”
The gray-and-white kit bristled. “Yuck! These leaves taste horrible!”
“They’ll make you strong, though,” Mothwing stroked the kit’s back with her tail. “Be as brave as a grown warrior and eat them up.”
Duskfur purred. “Thank you, Mothwing.”
“You’re welcome,” Mothwing replied. “Now, you’ve heard what Mistystar said. Be careful, and if any trouble starts, stay in the nursery where your Clanmates can protect you and your kits.”
Duskfur stopped purring. “Do you really think something’s going to happen?” she asked. “Is the Dark Forest coming?”
“I don’t know,” Mothwing told her. “But we should take precautions, just in case.”
As Duskfur and Podkit left the medicine den, Mothwing exchanged a worried look with Willowshine.
“I’ve been making the bundles,” Willowshine meowed, nodding at a neat pile of leaf-wrapped herbs at her feet. “Each one has all the right herbs to treat a cat’s wounds, plus cobwebs. We’ll be prepared.”
Mothwing sniffed at the herb bundles, smelling the sharp scents of marigold and nettle. “Good thinking,” she told her Clanmate, then burst out, “Do you really think the Dark Forest is coming?”
Willowshine held her gaze, her green eyes steady. “I’m sure of it.”
The Dark Forest was where Clan cats believed that their wicked Clanmates went when they died. Cats who broke the warrior code so badly that they didn’t deserve to go to StarClan ended up in the Dark Forest. Mothwing had always assumed that, like StarClan, the Dark Forest was only a story.
But strange things had been happening. The medicine cats of each Clan—including Willowshine—had told their Clanmates that StarClan wanted them to enforce their borders and keep away from the other Clans. Even the medicine cats had stopped meeting at the Moonpool. Before, Mothwing had just shaken her head. Why did intelligent cats let the imagined mumblings of the dead control their actions?
Then some of her Clanmates had begun acting strangely: Turning up in the medicine den with battle injuries at dawn when they had headed into their dens uninjured the night before. Seeming exhausted after a long night’s sleep. Sneaking off to scheme with cats from other Clans, who they seemed to know better than they should.
Jayfeather, the young blind medicine cat from ThunderClan, had come to Mothwing and told her that these cats, and cats from every Clan, were being trained in the Dark Forest by the most vicious cats from every Clan: Tigerstar, Darktail, Brokenstar, Mapleshade … cats who had died before she was born, but whose names were remembered with a shudder. And Hawkfrost.
Now, prompted by their medicine cats, the Clans were uniting to prepare for an invasion by the Dark Forest cats.
It can’t be true, Mothwing thought. The dead were dead and gone.
But this wasn’t like the other medicine cats’ dreams and signs, which were so easy for Mothwing to explain away. Cats she trusted claimed to have seen the Dark Forest cats. Beetlewhisker, a young warrior, had disappeared from his nest one night, leaving no trace behind. The scents of strange cats had started turning up deep inside every Clan’s territory. All the Clans were getting ready for an invasion.
It can’t be true, Mothwing thought again. But it was her responsibility to protect her Clan. So she would prepare as if it were.
She nodded to Willowshine. “I’ll get some moss so we can bring water to the wounded.” It won’t hurt to have it. Just in case.
Mothwing pushed her way through the tunnel and came out into the clearing at the center of RiverClan’s camp. The air was thick with tension, and every cat seemed to be in motion. Mistystar was calling out orders, her deputy Reedwhisker beside her, assigning cats to guard duty and extra patrols. Graymist and Mallownose were squaring off against Pebblefoot and Grasspelt, practicing battle moves. Icewing and Minnowtail were reinforcing the brambled sides of the elders’ den and the nursery, making sure that no cat could easily break through. Mosspelt, her fur bristling, was pacing in front of the nursery entrance. Even the elders, Dapplenose and Pouncetail, looked fierce and alert.
Nine RiverClan warriors were missing, gone to fight for the other Clans, and ShadowClan and WindClan cats who had come to fight for RiverClan wove their way between Mothwing’s Clanmates, their scents dry and distinct among the familiar fishy smells of RiverClan.
“Where are the ThunderClan cats?” she asked Dapplenose, and the mottled gray she-cat flicked her ears.
“Late,” she spat. “Even though trading warriors was all Firestar’s idea. Who knows if they’ll come at all.”
Paws pounded through the reeds outside of camp, and Mothwing cocked her ears. “Maybe this is them now,” she said. A moment later, Foxleap burst through into the clearing, his reddish-brown sides heaving. Toadstep and Rosepetal were close behind, their eyes wide and shining with panic.
“They’re coming,” Foxleap yowled. “The Dark Forest is attacking!”
Chapter 8
“Breathe slowly,” Mothwing advised, trying to ignore the screeches and yowls of battle outside the medicine den.
Mosspelt groaned, her eyes shut, and Mothwing wrapped cobwebs around the gaping wound on her leg, pressing hard to stop the bleeding. “I have to … protect the kits,” the tortoiseshell warrior insisted weakly.
“They’re fine,” Mothwing reassured her, hoping desperately that it was still true. “Every RiverClan cat will protect them with their lives.” Mosspelt didn’t answer, and Mothwing saw that she had lost consciousness. Her breathing was steady, though, and, once Mothwing had finished bandaging her wound, she picked up another bundle of herbs and headed out into camp.
As she hurried through the tunnel, the sounds of battle became deafening. In the clearing, so many cats were fighting that Mothwing had trouble picking out her individual Clanmates. It all seemed to be a mass of fur and blood and rage.
Mistystar, blood running down her chest from multiple wounds, was grappling with a long-legged dark tabby Mothwing didn’t recognize—a Dark Forest cat? Or a rogue? Mothwing wondered. Dapplenose, Pouncetail, and Duskfur were tightly bunched in front of the nursery entrance, facing off against a wild-eyed cat with patches of black, white, and brown fur covering his pelt. Willowshine was at the far side of the clearing, wrapping cobwebs around a wound on Troutpaw’s leg. Rosepetal, one of the ThunderClan warriors, stood over them, fending off attackers as Willowshine worked.