All three elders sat silent as the warriors discussed where they would go. At last Mousefang raised her head to meet Spiderstar’s sorrowful gaze. “I want to stay here,” she stated flatly. “I’m too old to find a new place. This is where I belong.”
“Me too,” murmured Nightfur, giving the old she-cat’s ear a lick. “The rats don’t come here. There’s water, and we can still find the odd mouse or beetle.”
“It’s not like we have much time left,” Oakstep added.
Once again Spiderstar dipped his head. “I will stay with you,” he meowed. “I will see that each of you has an honorable ending, to give thanks for your loyalty.”
Nightfur nodded, his eyes full of grief and loss too deep for words.
“I’ll stay, too,” Brackenheart added. “This is where I can make the best use of my medicine cat skills… before I am no longer a medicine cat.”
He rose to his paws, glancing around at the remnants of his Clan, gathering their attention as a queen gathers her kits into the shelter of her tail. Then he looked up at the sky, staring unblinkingly at the cold light of his warrior ancestors.
“May StarClan light your path, Fallensnow, and yours, Sunpelt, as you walk the skies to join them,” he meowed. “May you find good hunting, swift running, and shelter when you sleep.”
The cats around him murmured their agreement with the words spoken for each fallen warrior.
Spiderstar heaved a deep sigh. “May StarClan light a path for all of us. We still live on, but our Clan has died.”
No cat responded. Their eyes shone in the starlight, full of fear and despair, as they stared at the cat who had been their Clan leader. Spiderstar did not meet their gaze, as if he was too overwhelmed by shame at the destruction of the Clan he had led for so many seasons.
Brackenheart remained silent for a heartbeat, then gave his pelt a swift shake, as if he had just pulled himself out of icy water. “Come,” he mewed. “It’s time I looked at your injuries.”
With a wave of his tail, the young brown tabby led his wounded Clanmates to his den, where he stopped the worst of their bleeding with cobwebs, and made poultices of marigold against infection. For Honeyleaf and the other cats who were leaving to explore farther up the gorge, he made up bundles of traveling herbs.
“May StarClan walk with you,” he meowed as they left.
Honeyleaf bounded away without replying. Brackenheart followed her out of the den, and sat beside Spiderstar to watch his Clan separate for the last time. The moon had drifted from behind a patch of cloud, shedding a frosty light over the rocks and the river. The dark outlines of the departing cats slipped up the trail to the top of the gorge, and were lost to sight. Only Spiderstar, Brackenheart, and the three elders were left.
“Let’s move our nests into the elders’ den,” Brackenheart suggested quietly to Spiderstar. “That way we can take care of them until they don’t need us anymore.”
Spiderstar nodded, looking around the empty gorge. It was still littered with the lives of so many cats, with memories like shadows clinging to each rock and crevice.
“I wonder…” He sighed. “Will a Clan ever live here again?”
“I think they will. One day, cats will return here and find a way to succeed where we have failed.” A deeper echo sounded in Brackenheart’s voice, a strength that came from pride and courage and unflinching loyalty to the warrior code. “This is the leaf-bare of our Clan. Greenleaf will come, but it will bring even greater storms than these. SkyClan will need deeper roots if it is to survive.”
Chapter 1
Floodwater thundered down the gorge, chasing a wall of uprooted trees and bushes as if they were the slenderest twigs. Leafstar stood at the entrance to her den and watched in horror as the current foamed and swirled among the rocks, mounting higher and higher. Rain lashed the surface from bulging black clouds overhead.
Water gurgled into Echosong’s den; though the SkyClan leader strained her eyes through the stormy darkness, she couldn’t see what had happened to the medicine cat. A cat’s shriek cut through the tumult of the water and Leafstar spotted the Clan’s two elders struggling frantically as they were swept out of their den. The two old cats flailed on the surface for a heartbeat and then vanished.
Cherrytail and Patchfoot, heading down the trail with fresh-kill in their jaws, halted in astonishment when they saw the flood. They spun around and fled up the cliff, but the water surged after them and carried them yowling along the gorge. Leafstar lost sight of them as a huge tree, its roots high in the air like claws, rolled between her and the drowning warriors.
Great StarClan, help us! Leafstar prayed. Save my Clan!
Already the floodwater was lapping at the entrance to the nursery. A kit poked its nose out and vanished back inside with a frightened wail. Leafstar bunched her muscles, ready to leap across the rocks and help, but before she could move, a wave higher than the rest licked around her and caught her up, tossing her into the river alongside the splintered trees.
Leafstar fought and writhed against the smothering water, gasping for breath. She coughed as something brittle jabbed inside her open mouth. She opened her eyes and spat out a frond of dried bracken. Her nest was scattered around her den and there were deep claw marks in the floor where she had struggled with the invisible wave. Flicking off a shred of moss that was clinging to one ear, she sat up, panting.
Thank StarClan, it was only a dream!
The SkyClan leader stayed where she was until her heartbeat slowed and she had stopped trembling. The flood had been so real, washing away her Clanmates in front of her eyes…
Sunlight was slanting through the entrance to her den; with a long sigh of relief, Leafstar tottered to her paws and padded onto the ledge outside. Down below, the river wound peacefully between the steep cliffs that enclosed the gorge. As sunhigh approached, light gleamed on the surface of the water and soaked into Leafstar’s brown-and-cream fur; she relaxed her shoulders, enjoying the warmth and the sensation of the gentle breeze that ruffled her pelt.
“It was only a dream,” she repeated to herself, pricking her ears at the twittering of birds in the trees at the top of the gorge. “Newleaf is here, and SkyClan has survived.”
A warm glow of satisfaction flooded through her as she recalled that only a few short moons ago she had been nothing more than Leaf. She had been a loner, responsible for no cat but herself. Then Firestar had appeared: a leader of a Clan from a distant forest, with an amazing story of a lost Clan who had once lived here in the gorge. Firestar had gathered loners and kittypets to revive SkyClan; most astonishing of all, Leaf had been chosen to lead them.
“I’ll never forget the night when the spirits of my ancestors gave me nine lives and made me Leafstar,” she murmured. “My whole world changed. I wonder if you still think about us, Firestar,” she added. “I hope you know that I’ve kept the promises I made to you and my Clanmates.”
Shrill meows from below brought the she-cat back to the present. The Clan was beginning to gather beside the Rockpile, where the underground river flowed into the sunlight for the first time. Shrewtooth, Sparrowpelt, and Cherrytail were crouched down, eating, not far from the fresh-kill pile. Shrewtooth gulped his mouse down quickly, casting suspicious glances at the two younger warriors. Leafstar remembered how a border patrol had caught the black tom spying on the Clan two moons ago, terrified and half-starving. They had persuaded him to move into the warriors’ den, but he was still finding it hard to fit into Clan life.
I’ll have to do something to make him understand that he is among friends now, Leafstar decided. He’s more nervous than a cornered mouse.