Dovewing cast her senses out over the snowy landscape, her sight and hearing sharpened in the clear air. She could hear the stir of huge birds—eagles?—in their twiggy nests on the bare precipices; ice thawing on small streams hidden among the rocks; white-furred hares scuffling among snow and pebbles to find blades of grass. The mountains that seemed so barren were full of tiny lives.
Then Dovewing realized she could hear cats, too. They were too heavy-footed to be Tribe cats; they sprang arrogantly over the rocks, padding up to a Tribe scent marker, and giving it a sniff.
“Ooh, this is the Tribe’s border.” A mocking mew reached Dovewing’s ears. “Should we cross it? I’m shaking in my fur!”
“These cats have bees in their brain,” another voice responded. “They think they can keep us out with a barrier of air!”
Dovewing listened, anger growing in her belly as first one cat, then the second, jumped across the border, then back again, and for a third time, ending up inside the Tribe’s territory.
“Where are you?” the first cat yowled. “Where’s your patrol to drive us out?”
“Hiding like scared rabbits,” the second cat meowed. “Let’s hunt.”
Dovewing heard them padding off in search of prey—prey that belonged to the Tribe. She slid out her claws, scraping them against the rock. Jayfeather and Lionblaze had told her about their previous visit, how they had established the border and made the intruding cats promise to respect it.
What’s the point? she wondered angrily. The other cats don’t have any kind of code, so how can we expect them to stay on their side of the boundary?
A soft paw step sounded behind her; expecting to see a Tribe cat, she rose to her paws and turned. To her surprise, it was Jayfeather.
“How did you get up the rocks?” she asked, her belly twisting as she realized how easily a blind cat could slip and fall into the pool.
“With difficulty,” Jayfeather growled, giving himself a shake and sending a mist of spray into the air. With a long sigh he sat down beside Dovewing and waved his tail at the peaks that encircled them. “Amazing, isn’t it?” he puffed.
“How do you know?” Dovewing meowed, startled. The words were hardly out before she answered her own question, guessing that he had walked here in his dreams. “Why are we here?” she added.
“The Tribe has ancestors, too,” Jayfeather replied as he wrapped his tail around his paws. “The Tribe of Endless Hunting. I think they have something to tell me—something to do with the prophecy.”
“If we truly have the power of the stars in our paws,” Dovewing mused aloud, “then maybe we have power over the Tribe, too.”
Jayfeather twitched his ears. “I don’t think it’s as straightforward as that. Remember that Stoneteller has a lot of power—more than a Clan leader or a medicine cat alone. But I’m convinced that our destiny has something to do with the Tribe.”
“We’ve helped them so much before,” Dovewing meowed. “Maybe now it’s their turn to help us.”
“Maybe,” Jayfeather agreed.
As he spoke, Dovewing picked up the sound of another cat scrambling up the rocks, and a broad-shouldered gray tom hauled himself onto the plateau. He padded over to Jayfeather and dipped his head. “Greetings. It’s good to see Clan cats again.”
“Stormfur.” Jayfeather dipped his head in response. “This is Dovewing, Whitewing’s kit.”
Dovewing blinked, impressed that she was face-to-face with a cat who was almost a legend among the Clans. Born of a ThunderClan father and RiverClan mother, Stormfur had made the journey to the sun-drown-place to meet Midnight, and later had taken part in the Great Journey when the Clans discovered their new home by the lake. But he had loved Brook so much that he had abandoned his Clan to live with her and make his home with the Tribe.
“How are things beside the lake?” Stormfur asked. There was a hunger in his voice, and Dovewing understood that even though he had decided to stay here in the mountains, part of his heart would always be with the Clans.
“Pretty good,” Jayfeather replied. “We had a drought last greenleaf, and the lake almost dried up, but Dovewing went with a patrol to bring the water back.”
Stormfur’s amber eyes shone as he looked at Dovewing. “Well done! That must have been hard.”
Dovewing ducked her head. “I was scared most of the time. We had a tree fall into the stone hollow, too,” she added, eager to change the subject. “All the dens look very different now.”
Stormfur nodded. “And RiverClan?” he asked.
“I think they’re okay,” Dovewing told him. “But Leopard-star died.”
Stormfur bowed his head. “I’m sorry to hear that. She was a great leader.” He paused, then continued. “So is Mistystar Clan leader now?”
Dovewing nodded. “She’s a great leader, too.”
“I can imagine. StarClan made the right choice.”
“So who will Stoneteller’s successor be?” Jayfeather asked, with an edge to his voice that hinted there was more to the question than Dovewing understood.
Stormfur shook his head. “Stoneteller has refused to name any cat as his successor,” he meowed. “You can imagine how the Tribe feels about that.”
Dovewing felt puzzled. “Why is that such a problem?”
Stormfur turned to her. “Each Tribe Healer has the same name,” he explained. “Teller of the Pointed Stones, or Stoneteller. Usually each future Stoneteller is chosen as a kit, to be mentored by the current Stoneteller for as long as possible. Now the Tribe is afraid that a new Stoneteller won’t have time to learn everything before the present Stoneteller dies.”
“That means you might not have a leader!” Dovewing exclaimed. She knew that Stoneteller was both leader and medicine cat of his Tribe. How would the Tribe cope without either?
“So what is the Tribe of Endless Hunting doing about this?” Jayfeather asked. “If they—”
Stormfur interrupted him, signaling for silence with a sharp flick of his tail. He crept to the edge of the rock and looked over. Dovewing slid up beside him. Less than a tail-length away, the waterfall thundered down into the pool below.
“Careful,” Stormfur warned her softly.
Far below, where the path led behind the water to the cave, a cat had emerged. Dovewing recognized the scrawny shape of Stoneteller. “What’s the matter?” she whispered to Stormfur. “Maybe he just wants some peace and fresh air.”
Stormfur shook his head. “The Healer never leaves the cave,” he explained, “except to perform ceremonies here on the cliff top. And there aren’t very many of those…usually just when a cat dies. He’s supposed to stay in the cave the whole time, to receive messages from the Tribe of Endless Hunting.”
“He never leaves the cave?” Dovewing echoed, suddenly sorry for the fragile old cat imprisoned in those walls of stone and water.
“Never. Especially at night, when the reflections of stars are most vivid. So by coming out now, Stoneteller is defying his ancestors and the ancient laws of his Tribe.”
Dovewing looked down at Stoneteller, who was sitting at the edge of the pool, gazing at the mountains. She wondered what he was thinking, and why he was so angry that the Clan cats had come. Would he feel differently if he knew that Jayfeather and Dovewing had been promised the power of the stars?
What if the prophecy means that we have to protect the future of the Tribe as well as the Clans?