Billystorm! Waspwhisker! Hawkwing thought, whipping around with Pebblepaw and Blossomheart to help them in their battle. Then his heart lurched; he could see now that Waspwhisker was limping on three legs, and blood was pouring from one of his ears. Beside him, Billystorm lay motionless in a pool of blood.
No! Hawkwing felt as if every muscle in his body had been turned to ice. I can’t imagine SkyClan without Billystorm—and he means so much to Leafstar! How will we manage without him?
Pebblepaw let out a screech and threw herself across the clearing, snapping and clawing as she attacked the badgers.
Hawkwing and Blossomheart followed hard on her paws. The biggest badger joined in again, and the clearing seemed full of their reek and their snarling.
The sight of Billystorm’s body gave strength to Hawkwing’s fury as he leaped and slashed at the three attackers. But Pebblepaw seemed to be everywhere, a shrieking whirl of teeth and claws, flinging herself into the battle with no thought for her own safety.
She’s lost control, Hawkwing thought, anguished. She’s taking too many risks. She must want to avenge Billystorm.
At last the biggest badger let out a harsh cry. All three badgers began to retreat, and Pebblepaw harried them, biting and clawing at their hind paws as they lumbered across the clearing and vanished down their holes.
“Let them go! It’s over!” Hawkwing gasped to Pebblepaw.
Pebblepaw glanced at him, and Hawkwing saw in her eyes the same desperation he had felt when Duskpaw died. She turned back, panting, then raced across the clearing and flung herself down beside Billystorm’s body. Hawkwing’s heart lurched as he saw the massive wound slashed across the ginger-and-white tom’s belly.
Blood seeped from it into Pebblepaw’s fur.
“Billystorm!” Pebblepaw exclaimed, shaking him by the shoulder. “It’s okay. They’ve gone.”
But Billystorm still didn’t move. Waspwhisker bent his head to touch the apprentice’s ear with his nose. “I’m sorry, Pebblepaw,” he murmured. “He’s dead.”
“No!” Pebblepaw flung her head back and let out a horrible shriek.
Hawkwing felt his heart twist with pain. All his annoyance with Pebblepaw faded in the face of her obvious, inconsolable grief.
“Let’s carry him away from here,” he suggested. “We’ll find a place to sit vigil for him.”
Pebblepaw turned to face him with a blind stare, as if she wasn’t sure who he was. Then she bowed her head without speaking.
“What are we going to tell Leafstar?” Blossomheart whispered.
“The truth,” Waspwhisker responded, his voice hoarse.
“Billystorm died a warrior’s death, defending his Clanmates.”
Hawkwing supposed that the senior warrior’s words should have been comforting.
But he also knew that nothing would comfort Leafstar once she learned that they’d lost Billystorm.
Chapter 7
Hawkwing staggered to his paws to give himself a long stretch, then shook dew from his pelt. All night he had crouched under the tree that split into three, keeping vigil beside Billystorm’s body.
Now milky dawn light was creeping through the trees, banishing the shadows. The air was cool and dry, carrying the fresh scent of growing things.
Hawkwing felt stiff and light-headed, and still stunned by grief.
His wounds had started to throb, but he almost welcomed the pain, because it helped to blur his memory of the battle and his uncertainty about the future.
It seemed impossible that the day before, they’d thought they might be mere sunrises away from finding the other Clans. Now, after they’d walked right into a badger attack, no cat could be sure if their directions were even accurate. If Darktail was wrong about the badger den, what else might he be wrong about? Hawkwing thought back to their dispute over the “tree that split into three.”
What if he’d been right? What if it was the wrong tree, and they’d been following the wrong path ever since?
Looking at his Clanmates, Hawkwing shook out his pelt and sighed. Among all these questions, one thing was undeniable: Billystorm was dead, and Hawkwing had no idea what was going to happen next.
Who would have thought our quest would end like this?
Blossomheart and Pebblepaw sat pressed close together at the opposite side of Billystorm’s body, both of them still and silent.
At first Hawkwing couldn’t see Waspwhisker, until he spotted the gray-and-white tom limping out from behind a bramble thicket.
“I’ve been taking a look around,” he murmured as he joined Hawkwing. “We shouldn’t stay here, so close to the badgers. But we’ll bury Billystorm first.”
Pebblepaw raised her head. “No! We should take him back to be buried among his Clanmates. That’s what Leafstar would want.”
Waspwhisker shook his head. “I understand your concern, Pebblepaw, but it’s too far. Besides, his body would attract predators. You don’t want that, do you?”
In reply, Pebblepaw let out a small murmur of grief. Then she inspected the ground for a moment, before padding over to a spot near the base of the tree and beginning to scratch at the earth.
Hawkwing and Blossomheart joined her, digging out a grave for Billystorm. No cat spoke as they struggled through the task, ignoring their own wounds and their weariness.
Hawkwing couldn’t believe how things had gone so wrong.
There’s been so much death, in such a short time. First Duskpaw, and now Billystorm… Perhaps terrible things will keep happening until we find “the spark that remains.”
Now when Hawkwing looked at Pebblepaw, he could only feel empathy and understanding. It was hard to remember what the old hostility had been like. His heart felt as if it were breaking for her; he could see her paws shaking as she thrust them into the earth, digging the hole for her beloved mentor.
I know exactly how she feels—like I felt when Duskpaw died.
When the grave was deep enough they laid Billystorm’s body in it and covered it over, each taking a turn to push earth into the hole. When the task was done, all four cats stood beside the grave for a moment in silent respect, and Hawkwing tried to remember the words that Echosong had spoken over Duskpaw’s body.
“M ay StarClan light your path, Billystorm. M ay you find good hunting, swift running, and shelter when you sleep.”
The cats bowed their heads, and at that moment a shaft of sunlight struck through the branches of the tree and settled on Billystorm’s grave.
“Look—that might almost be a message from StarClan,” Waspwhisker murmured.
Hawkwing wanted to believe that the senior warrior was right, yet the words brought him very little comfort, and he could see that Pebblepaw wasn’t comforted, either.
As the cats stepped away from the mound of earth, Hawkwing turned to Pebblepaw, searching awkwardly for words. He knew as well as any cat how private grief was, and how—sometimes—any cat saying anything, even something nice, could be just another claw snagging at your heart. Yet he couldn’t use that as an excuse not to do what was right.
“Thank you, Pebblepaw,” he mewed. “You saved my life and Blossomheart’s. If it hadn’t been for you, I might not be alive right now. I’m very grateful to you.”
At first, Pebblepaw didn’t answer, just padded away from him.
Then she spun around, hurt and anger in her eyes. “I should have stayed to help protect my mentor,” she hissed. “If only I hadn’t left him to help you and Blossomheart, he might still be alive.”