“You’re her mentor, Crowfeather,” he snarled. “You should have made sure that she didn’t end up on such a dangerous mission!”
“The apprentices were ordered not to take part in the battle,” Crowfeather insisted, seeing Breezepelt looking at him uncertainly. “But I did tell her to be bold,” he admitted, feeling his throat tighten with guilt. “I suppose she took it the wrong way. She’s so brave… she already has all the makings of a warrior. When I said to be bold, I never meant for her to join in battles far too dangerous for an apprentice.”
“So it was you who gave her the idea to do this?” Emberfoot’s shoulder fur began to bristle, and his voice was a deep, threatening growl. “Why? She’s just an apprentice!”
“I wanted to inspire her,” Crowfeather replied, “but—”
“What’s wrong with you lately?” Sedgewhisker interrupted. “Ever since the Great Battle, it’s like you’re barely here! I know you’ve suffered some losses, but still… if it weren’t for you, Featherpaw wouldn’t be lying here now, and we don’t even know if she’ll survive!”
Crowfeather wanted to tell the distraught cats that it was a mentor’s job to inspire their apprentice, and that Featherpaw would still be fine if she had done what Harespring had told her and stayed in camp. But he knew what their reaction would be, and it wasn’t an outpouring of understanding. Even Hootpaw, who had slipped inside and was sitting next to Featherpaw, couldn’t meet Crowfeather’s gaze.
Does he blame me as well? Crowfeather asked himself, heat rising beneath his pelt. If he does, he’s right to. They all are. Onestar, too, when he told me why he didn’t choose me as deputy. I have been barely here lately. And it’s cost WindClan so much.
“I’m so sorry,” he meowed to Sedgewhisker and Emberfoot. “I feel terrible about this. I know I haven’t been the greatest of mentors.” Just like I haven’t been the best of fathers.
“I wish I could disagree,” Emberfoot meowed coldly. “I used to trust you completely, Crowfeather. I was pleased when Onestar chose you to mentor Featherpaw. But now — now I wonder if your carelessness contributed to Breezepelt’s foolishness. I thought his problems were being overblown by some cats, but now I look at you differently. I’m not sure either of us will ever trust you again. You could’ve gotten Featherpaw killed!”
Crowfeather met Breezepelt’s gaze, unsure of what he was hoping to find there. Support? Maybe sympathy? Or does he agree with the others? He’s never been shy about letting me know how frustrated he is with me.
But Breezepelt showed nothing of what he was thinking, lowering his head to look at the ground while he scuffled his forepaws on the earth floor of the den.
“My den isn’t the right place for this argument,” Kestrelflight declared. While the others had been talking, he had poulticed the wound on Featherpaw’s back and plastered cobweb all over it to hold the herbs in place. “I want you all to leave and give Featherpaw some peace and quiet.”
“No — I want to stay with her!” Sedgewhisker objected.
“But she needs to rest,” Kestrelflight pointed out. “If you stay, she’ll only try to get up and prove what a brave warrior she is.”
“He’s right,” Emberfoot meowed, padding up to Sedgewhisker and nudging her to her paws. “Come on. Kestrelflight will let us know as soon as Featherpaw wakes up.”
“Of course I will,” Kestrelflight promised.
Reluctantly Sedgewhisker allowed her mate to coax her out of the den. Breezepelt and Hootpaw followed. Crowfeather brought up the rear after one last long look at Featherpaw’s inert form.
Outside the den, Harespring had returned with the rest of the warriors. He was assembling the wounded, picking out the ones with the worst injuries for Kestrelflight to see first.
“How is Featherpaw?” Gorsetail asked.
Crowfeather shook his head. “Not good,” he admitted.
“And why was she even there?” Crouchfoot added. “I thought the apprentices were forbidden from taking part in the battle.”
“They were. They disobeyed,” Crowfeather responded. “But I did tell Featherpaw to be assertive,” he added reluctantly.
Shocked exclamations rose from the crowd of warriors; Leaftail’s voice rose above the rest. “I can’t believe you’d say that to an apprentice right before a battle! You couldn’t have encouraged them more if you’d sharpened their claws yourself.”
Crowfeather felt the accusing glances of his Clanmates like a whole gorse bush full of thorns driving into his pelt.
They’re right. I made the wrong decisions at nearly every turn. But there’s one thing I wasn’t wrong about. The threat in the tunnels can’t be ignored.
“There’s something I want to say,” he announced, raising his voice to be heard above the murmurs and pain-filled mews of the crowd of cats.
Harespring turned toward him. “Go on, say it, then,” he ordered curtly.
“Maybe I expressed it wrong,” Crowfeather meowed. “But I wasn’t wrong that the apprentices — and all of us — need to be brave and assertive. Have you all forgotten Kestrelflight’s vision? The dark water that emerged from the tunnels, whipped by the wind, fierce enough to swamp WindClan and ThunderClan — maybe ShadowClan and RiverClan too? Suppose that we don’t manage to deal with this stoat problem, and something else follows them? What if the Clans are so tired and wounded from fighting with the stoats that we don’t have the strength to handle another threat?”
Hootpaw’s fur bushed out as he stood in front of Crowfeather with alarm in his eyes. “What are you saying?” he demanded, seeming to forget that he was an apprentice talking to a senior warrior. “That there’s going to be another battle? That the Dark Forest cats will return?”
“No, I’m not saying that,” Crowfeather responded, trying to reassure Hootpaw. “Because I don’t know for sure. But there must be a reason Kestrelflight had that dream. And what worries me is that a new conflict — maybe a threat from outside, maybe trouble within the Clan — is going to fall over us like the shadows in the tunnels, and maybe wash us away like a great flood.”
Some cat in the crowd muttered, “He’s got bees in his brain,” but Crowfeather ignored the insult.
The idea he needed was in Crowfeather’s mind like an elusive piece of prey. So close, but always just out of reach… “I know there’s an answer there,” he mewed. “I can feel it.”
The cats gathered around Crowfeather were exchanging dubious glances, as if none of them believed what he was trying to tell them. To Crowfeather’s surprise, Breezepelt was the first to speak.
“I think you could be right,” he began. It surprised Crowfeather even more that Breezepelt, of all cats, was on his side. “After all, there were two waves in the vision. The wind defeated the first one, but the second one overwhelmed everything. So do you think getting rid of the stoats will ward off this bigger threat?” His tone was thoughtful, as if he was taking his father’s worries seriously. “How do you think we can do that? There were so many of them in the battle, and there must be more of them lurking in the tunnels. We’ll be outnumbered, and they know the tunnels much better than we do. It’s not easy to lure them out into the open.”
Crowfeather nodded. “That’s true.” He paused for a moment, uncertain of how to respond to his son, though the idea he needed to capture was still lurking at the back of his mind. Maybe I should treat it like cunning prey, he thought. Pretend to ignore it, and trick it into overconfidence…