Give me moss any day!
“Hey, Jayfeather!” Dovewing’s excited voice broke in on his thoughts. “Crag has invited Foxleap and me to go on a border patrol.”
Jayfeather could feel how eager she was to get out of the cave and start exploring. “That’s good,” he mewed. “But be careful, and don’t forget to keep your ears open.”
Dovewing sighed. “I always do.”
Squirrelflight padded up with Brook. The two kits were behind them. Jayfeather could picture them peering at him, round-eyed, from the safety of their mother’s hindquarters.
“Brook and I are going hunting,” Squirrelflight announced.
“Stormfur is coming, too,” Brook added. “Talon and Bird will look after the kits, Jayfeather, so they shouldn’t bother you again.”
“We don’t want to stay in the cave,” Lark squeaked.
“Yeah, that blind cat might scare us again,” Pine added.
“Nonsense!” Stormfur meowed as he joined them. “You startled Jayfeather, that’s all. You should say sorry.”
“Sorry,” Pine muttered.
“We won’t do it again,” Lark mewed, then added to her brother in a whisper, “It was fun, though!”
“While we’re out,” Stormfur went on to the kits, “you can ask Talon to tell you the story of Sharptooth, and how I first came to the mountains with the cats from the Clans.”
“Yes!” Lark jumped up and down.
“That’s the best story!” Pine squealed, as both kits scurried off to where the elders made their nests.
Jayfeather was aware of an orderly bustle in the cave as the patrols gathered together and went out. No cat was giving them orders; they all seemed to know what to do and what their duties were without being told by a senior member of the Tribe.
Where’s Stoneteller? Shouldn’t he be supervising this?
But there was no sign of the Tribe’s old Healer. Jayfeather couldn’t even pick up his scent.
“Will you be okay, left behind?” Squirrelflight asked Jayfeather as her patrol was moving off.
“Yes, of course,” Jayfeather replied, wondering why she bothered to ask. No harm is going to come to me in here. He could sense Squirrelflight’s awkwardness, and wondered why she was delaying when Brook and Stormfur were already waiting beside the waterfall for their turn to take the path that led out onto the mountain.
“Jayfeather…” she began quietly after a couple of heartbeats, “have you worked out why we’re here?”
Jayfeather shook his head. “No,” he admitted. “I have no idea.”
Squirrelflight suppressed a sigh. He knew that she wanted to ask more, but just then Brook called to her from across the cavern.
“Coming!” Squirrelflight called back. “We’ll talk later,” she added to Jayfeather before she bounded away.
Once the patrols had gone, the cave fell quiet, except for the roar of the water; Jayfeather was growing so used to the sound that he hardly noticed it anymore. It’s so different from our camp, he thought. There’s always something going on there, even when the patrols are out. He went on with his grooming; before he had finished he heard the kits come bouncing back into the middle of the cavern, followed by the slower paw steps of Talon and Bird.
“Okay, we’re going to play a game,” Talon instructed, raising his voice over the excited squeaks of the kits. “This bunch of feathers is a bird.”
“What sort of bird?” Lark mewed. “A lark like me?”
“An eagle!” Pine suggested.
“It doesn’t matter what sort of bird,” Talon told them. “Let’s make it a crow, okay? And you’re going to catch it.”
“Yes!” A scuffling sound told Jayfeather that Pine had tried to pounce on the feathers already.
“Wait a moment.” Bird’s quieter voice broke in. “It’s not as easy as that. You have to creep up on the crow across this patch of stones.” Jayfeather heard the sound of pebbles sliding across the cave floor. “If you disturb one and make a noise, the crow will fly away.”
“Oh, cool!” Lark exclaimed. “I bet I can do it.”
“So can I,” Pine declared. “I’m going to be the prey-hunter.”
Leaving the kits to their game, Jayfeather crossed the cavern to the tunnel that led into the Cave of Pointed Stones. The stone closed around him as he padded forward; after no more than a few paw steps he blundered into the wall, his paws almost skidding out from under him on the damp floor.
He let out a hiss. He hated having to squeeze through the narrow passage, and found it hard to check his position by the echoing drip of water when all other sounds were muffled by the rumble of the falls. Recovering his balance, he edged forward more slowly, frustrated by the way that every paw step felt the same; he missed the forest, where the covering of moss, twigs, ferns, and grass could tell him everything he wanted to know about where he was.
At last Jayfeather sensed that the tunnel walls had opened into a larger cave. The noise of the falls was fainter here, the drips of water echoing more loudly in contrast. There was movement in the cool air against his whiskers; he knew it came from the hole in the roof where moon and starlight could enter, bringing signs from the Tribe of Endless Hunting. Tasting the air, he located Stoneteller at the far side of the cave.
“Who’s there?” the old cat growled. Before Jayfeather could reply, he added, “Oh, it’s you.”
Jayfeather padded forward, skirting the stones and pools of water until he stood in front of Stoneteller.
“Why are you here?” the Healer growled. “And don’t give me that nonsense about wanting your young cats to gain experience. You can be honest with me.”
Jayfeather chose his words carefully. “I was told to come.”
To his surprise, Stoneteller didn’t ask who had summoned him. “We don’t need your help,” he insisted. “There’s nothing you can do.”
“You haven’t chosen a successor,” Jayfeather challenged him. “Is that because you don’t believe your Tribe will survive without you?”
Stoneteller let out a contemptuous snort. “Their survival doesn’t depend on me. Even while I’m alive, I can do nothing to help them. Nor can our ancestors,” he added bitterly.
Jayfeather knew that the old cat felt he had been betrayed by the Tribe of Endless Hunting, who had refused to guide him when the intruders came to the mountains. “The Tribe has to be given a chance to survive!” he protested. “It would be too easy to give up the first time something goes wrong.”
“It’s not the first time!” Stoneteller snapped. “Have you forgotten how so many of us were hunted like prey by Sharptooth? Our endless struggle against the cold and snow? The danger from eagles that means half the Tribe must stand guard while the other half hunts? We could catch twice as much prey if there were no eagles. Queens can’t even nurse their kits in peace; they have to go straight out on patrol again.” He lashed his tail. “Cats do not belong here!”
While Stoneteller was speaking, Jayfeather became aware of a faint light coming from above, illuminating one wall of the cave, slick with water, and one tapering column of stone that rose from the cave floor to meet another spike jutting from the roof, with no more than a mouse-length between their two points. If he could see, and he wasn’t asleep, that meant only one thing…
A shiver tingled through Jayfeather from ears to paws as he made out the shape of Rock in a beam of moonlight. The ancient, hairless cat stood with his head bowed. Then he looked up and turned his sightless eyes on Jayfeather.
“We do belong here,” he rasped. “This was my home once, before the cats lived by the lake, before they came back here to start again.”