At first Hawkwing wasn’t sure what to do. He had never seen a raccoon before. What can these creatures do? How do I fight it?
In his moment’s hesitation, Pebblepaw leaped at the raccoon, slashing her claws through its thick fur. With a hideous tearing sound the raccoon let Echosong go, and the medicine cat slumped to the ground with a dull thud. Then the creature turned on Pebblepaw, hissing ferociously.
Terrified for her, Hawkwing barreled into its side, thrusting it away, and lashed at its muzzle with one forepaw. With a grunt of pain the raccoon spun around, scattering drops of blood from its injured muzzle, and vanished once more into the undergrowth.
“Thank StarClan!” Pebblepaw exclaimed. “They were much fiercer than that when they attacked us in the gorge.”
“M aybe they’re not so brave when they’re alone,” Hawkwing responded, grateful that the encounter had been no worse. “It seemed just as surprised as we were when we came across each other. I don’t think it was looking for a fight.”
Though he and Pebblepaw were both bruised and exhausted, the raccoon hadn’t injured them. The kits were fine, too, crouching under a bush with bristling fur and eyes stretched wide with a mixture of fear and excitement.
So all we need to worry about is the bite on Echosong’s shoulder, Hawkwing thought, relieved.
“Echosong, are you badly hurt?” Pebblepaw asked.
The medicine cat shook her head. “It’s not too bad,” she replied. “It just needs cleaning out, and cobweb to stop the bleeding.”
“I’ll clean it up,” Pebblepaw offered at once. “Echosong, come and lie down here in the shelter of this bush.”
Echosong padded over into the shade of a hazel bush and sank down with a sigh of relief. Pebblepaw crouched beside her and began to clean the wound with strong, rapid rasps of her tongue.
“Come on, kits,” Hawkwing directed. “We’ll go and look for cobwebs.”
The kits sprang up instantly, obviously pleased to be able to help. “We’ll find lots!” Curlykit boasted.
Hawkwing kept an eye on the kits as they all headed into the bushes, and tried to imagine how they felt. They’ve lost their home and a littermate, all at once. I’m scared, so they must be terrified.
“You’re doing really well,” he told them as they peered under branches to find the cobwebs Echosong needed.
By the time Hawkwing and the kits returned with pawfuls of cobweb, Pebblepaw had finished cleaning Echosong’s wound.
Already the bleeding had almost stopped, but she still showed Hawkwing how to plaster the cobweb over the bite. Fidgetkit patted it carefully all around to seal the edges.
“You should rest now,” Hawkwing told Echosong when the cobweb was in place. “Keep the kits with you, and Pebblepaw and I will hunt.”
“But shouldn’t we go on looking for Snipkit?” Curlykit objected.
“No,” Echosong replied, curling her tail around to draw the little gray she-cat closer to her. “We need to eat to keep up our strength. We can’t help Snipkit by making ourselves ill.”
Fidgetkit nodded seriously. “We’ll look after you, Echosong,” he mewed. “Are you comfortable there? If you stretch out more it should be better. And can we find you any herbs to help with the pain?”
“Not right now,” Echosong replied, blinking affectionately at the little tom. “It’s more important for us to stay together.”
When Hawkwing was satisfied that Echosong and the two kits would be safe for a while, he headed farther downstream with Pebblepaw at his side. Though they still kept a lookout for Snipkit, their main purpose was to find some prey. Hawkwing hadn’t realized until then how hungry he was.
“We’d better watch out for raccoons, too,” Pebblepaw murmured, tasting the air. “It’s weird that they started coming onto our territory so often, when we’d never seen them before.”
Hawkwing nodded agreement, then halted as a sudden realization struck him. “You know,” he began slowly, thinking aloud, “I saw Darktail scattering Twoleg food scraps near the camp. Suppose he was trying to lure other animals—foxes, maybe, and these raccoons—onto our territory to cause trouble for us and put us in danger. How long have Darktail and Rain been working against us? From the very beginning?”
Pebblepaw listened in silence, her eyes widening as Hawkwing explained his suspicions. “I saw Darktail leaving half-eaten pieces of prey outside camp once,” she meowed when he had finished.
“But that was a long time ago. I didn’t know what to think about it, and I didn’t want to confront Darktail.” Her head drooped in regret. “I should have shared my suspicions with some cat.”
Hawkwing shook his head. “It’s not your fault. I could have spoken up too, but I thought of Darktail as a friend. I still can’t really believe what he did. I felt so close to him. The cat I thought he was just wasn’t the same as the cat who did these dreadful things and spent so much time planning how to destroy us. The quests, too,” he added. “I don’t think he ever knew where we could find Firestar’s kin. He just wanted to distract us and weaken us.”
“Then he succeeded,” Pebblepaw mewed solemnly. “We followed his directions and we lost Billystorm.”
“It’s my fault,” Hawkwing continued, fighting with a renewed onset of guilt. “I saw him leave the food scraps, and I should have reported it. If I’d told Leafstar or Sharpclaw, the attack last night might never have happened.”
Pebblepaw huffed out a breath. “Don’t deceive yourself.
Darktail is clever and sneaky. He would have thought up some excuse. And you couldn’t possibly have known just how evil he is.”
“M aybe you’re right,” Hawkwing sighed. Pebblepaw’s words comforted him, even though he couldn’t entirely get rid of his guilty feelings. “At any rate, once we find our Clanmates I’ll protect them from now on—even with my last breath!”
Pebblepaw pressed her muzzle against his shoulder. “We’ll make things better,” she purred. “We’ll work together, and save SkyClan any way we can. And now let’s hunt,” she added. “M y belly thinks my throat’s been clawed out!”
Sunhigh was approaching by the time Hawkwing and Pebblepaw returned with a mouse and a couple of voles. Echosong was asleep, with the two kits nestling against her flank, but all three of them roused as Hawkwing and Pebblepaw padded up and dropped their prey beside them.
Curlykit and Fidgetkit blinked sleepily, then sprang to their paws and looked around hopefully. Only for a heartbeat; then their tails drooped in disappointment.
“You didn’t find Snipkit,” Curlykit mewed.
“No, but we found fresh-kill,” Pebblepaw told her, pushing the plumpest vole toward her. “Come and eat.”
“So can we go and look for Snipkit now?” Fidgetkit asked when every cat had gulped down the last mouthfuls of prey.
Hawkwing glanced at Echosong. We know that Snipkit is dead, he thought. Maybe this is the time to tell the kits.
Echosong shook her head sadly. “No,” she responded to Fidgetkit’s question. “If Snipkit had made it to shore, we would have found her by now.”
Curlykit and Fidgetkit gazed at each other in dismay, and Curlykit let out a miserable wail.
“That doesn’t mean she’s dead,” Fidgetkit meowed. “She could be on the opposite bank.”
Hawkwing exchanged a doubtful look with Echosong, while
Pebblepaw studied her paws and wouldn’t meet the kits’ gaze.
“You could be right,” Echosong agreed at last. “I think if Snipkit did swim to shore, she would try to find the rest of the Clan. And so should we. Hawkwing, where do you think the others would have gone?”