Crowfeather waited until his fur had stopped prickling. Then he dipped his head respectfully to his Clan leader and stalked away. As he headed for the fresh-kill pile, he spotted Nightcloud and Breezepelt talking together. They broke off and raised their heads to watch him as he padded past, their eyes narrowed mistrustfully. Crowfeather thought of what Onestar had just said, about letting his anger go.
But I’m not ready to do that. Not yet.
Even more annoyed, Crowfeather seized a thrush from the pile and carried it away to the edge of the camp, far away from any other cat. He ate alone, in swift, angry bites.
I’ve given everything to my Clan, he thought resentfully. What more does Onestar want from me?
Chapter 2
Crowfeather chased a rabbit across the moor, reveling in the feeling of cold wind flowing through his fur, and the strength of his own muscles as they bunched and stretched to propel him effortlessly after his prey. He raced along so fast it felt as if his paws hardly touched the tough moorland grass.
A hole in a bank loomed up ahead, the entrance to one of the tunnels. The rabbit plunged into it, and without hesitating Crowfeather followed. He chased the rabbit down tunnels that twisted far more than he remembered, growing narrower and narrower until he could feel his fur brushing both sides in the blackness.
At last Crowfeather halted, his flanks heaving. He couldn’t scent the rabbit anymore, or hear the scrabble of its paws on the stone floor of the tunnel. Damp cold struck up through his pads, and he realized with the first stirring of panic that the passage was too narrow for him to turn around. He had no idea where he was.
Slowly now, Crowfeather began to pad forward, his heart pounding as he felt water flowing around his paws, growing deeper as he struggled onward.
Cats have drowned down here, he thought.
His belly fur was brushing the water when he spotted a feeble, flickering light ahead of him. Hoping he had found a way out, he waded on more rapidly, until he came to a place where the tunnel wall was scooped out at one side to form a kind of den. Crowfeather’s jaws dropped open with shock and disbelief as he recognized the cat who was sitting there.
“Ashfoot!” he choked out.
His mother sat with her head erect and her tail wrapped around her paws. Crowfeather couldn’t tell where the pale light was coming from. It seemed to radiate from Ashfoot, yet she didn’t have the frosty glitter to her fur that was the mark of a StarClan cat.
As Ashfoot spotted her son, she stood up and fled down the tunnel, her paws seeming to skim the surface of the water.
“Wait!” Crowfeather yowled, splashing clumsily after her. “Don’t leave me! Ashfoot!”
But she was gone, and the light gone with her. Crowfeather was alone in the darkness, with water lapping around his shoulders. “Ashfoot, why are you here?” he asked, as if his mother could still hear him. “Why are you not in StarClan?”
No answer came back, only Ashfoot’s voice raised in a screech that echoed around the tunnel like a roll of thunder. Terror shook Crowfeather from ears to tail-tip, and he startled awake to find himself in the warriors’ den under the stars. He lay panting and trembling as his horrific vision receded.
What was that? Just a dream? Or was what Hootpaw saw in the tunnel entrance truly a ghost… the ghost of Ashfoot? Is she trying to send me a message? As soon as the idea occurred to Crowfeather, he gave his head an angry shake, annoyed with himself for thinking something so mouse-brained. But he couldn’t let go of the idea. If Ashfoot was trying to tell me something, what could it be?
Once more, Crowfeather tried to shrug off the feeling, telling himself not to be a fool. In his dream, Ashfoot’s fur had been gray, just as it was when she was alive, not the shining white Hootpaw had described, and that he had glimpsed for himself at the tunnel.
Besides, it can’t be ghosts, he told himself. Smoky was probably just being stupid.
All the same, Crowfeather still felt shaken to the depths of his belly, and he caught only troubled snatches of sleep before the sky began to pale toward dawn.
The sun had not yet risen when Onestar’s voice rang out commandingly across the camp. “Let all cats old enough to catch their own prey join here beneath the Tallrock for a Clan meeting!”
Crowfeather struggled to his paws to see Onestar perched on top of the Tallrock, his figure outlined against the brightening sky. Harespring and Kestrelflight were standing at the base of the rock.
Is all this really necessary, just to announce who will be going out on the patrol today? Crowfeather wondered, stretching his jaws in a massive yawn. Or was there more the leader needed to say?
Around Crowfeather, more of the warriors were rising from their nests, shaking scraps of moss from their pelts and shivering in the early-morning chill. Crowfeather spotted Nightcloud and Breezepelt padding out into the open to sit side by side near the Tallrock. One of Crowfeather’s forelegs twitched, as if to walk over and sit with them, but then he turned away and took his position on the other side of the group of gathered cats.
They wouldn’t want me to sit with them anyway, he thought, surprised to feel a heaviness in his chest.
Whitetail and Whiskernose emerged from the elders’ den in the disused badger set. “What’s gotten into his fur now?” Whiskernose muttered, pausing to scratch himself vigorously behind one ear. “Whatever it is, couldn’t it wait until the sun’s up?”
All four apprentices scrambled out of their den and plopped themselves down in a furry heap at the edge of the gathering crowd. Crowfeather guessed from their wide eyes and excited looks that they were expecting momentous news, and Oatpaw — Leaftail’s apprentice, who hadn’t been with the hunting patrol on the previous day — looked just as thrilled as the rest.
So much for telling Hootpaw not to talk about it, Crowfeather thought wryly. That featherbrain has probably told all of the apprentices by now.
Sedgewhisker padded to the edge of the warriors’ den and sat down to groom herself, while Emberfoot bounded over to sit beside her. Larkwing was heading over to join them when the other two cats turned a chilling look on her. Crowfeather saw Larkwing veer away and crouch down next to Whiskernose.
I don’t like the look of that, Crowfeather thought. We shouldn’t treat the Dark Forest cats badly — not anymore. It reminded him uncomfortably of the time when he had returned to WindClan after leaving with Leafpool. He had often been on the receiving end of cold looks like that; it had been many moons before all his Clanmates had accepted him again. If they ever did. Maybe it will take just as long for the Dark Forest cats to be considered true Clanmates.
But the meeting was about to start, and Crowfeather had no time to give any more thought to what he had seen.
Onestar’s gaze swept around the camp, checking that all the cats had assembled. “Kestrelflight visited the Moonpool last night, for the half-moon meeting,” he began eventually. “He had a vision there — a vision that both he and I find troubling. Kestrelflight, please tell the Clan what you told me.”
Crowfeather felt a stirring of anticipation as the young medicine cat drew himself up to address the crowd. “Barkface came to me last night in StarClan,” he announced, “and he gave me a vision about the tunnels that lie between our territory and ThunderClan’s.”