Leafpaw and Cinderpelt had found a rocky overhang at the back of the stone hollow.
“This won’t do permanently,” Cinderpelt warned. “We need a proper cave with walls to store our supplies, like the one we had in the forest. But it’ll be okay for tonight.”
Leafpaw crept in after her mentor and found a dry place at the back for the horsetail stems she had carried from the marsh.
“Get a good night’s rest,” Cinderpelt advised her, settling down and tucking her nose under her tail. “There’ll be plenty to do in the morning.”
Leafpaw knew she wouldn’t be able to close her eyes until she had asked the question that ran icy claws along her spine.
“Cinderpelt? D-do you think this is the right place for us?” she mewed bravely. “Is this really where StarClan meant us to be?”
Cinderpelt yawned. “We’ll know that when StarClan’s ready to tell us. Now stop worrying and go to sleep.” She pushed her nose further into her tail, and her breathing became slow and even as she drifted off.
Leafpaw did not find sleep so easy to come by. She sat beneath the overhang with her paws tucked under her, gazing into the shadow-filled hollow. StarClan, where are you? she begged silently. But only one or two lonely stars glimmered from the cloudy sky, and Leafpaw felt as if her warrior ancestors were too far away to watch over her Clan tonight.
She must have dozed at last, because she opened her eyes to find she was dreaming. She was standing on a dark sweep of hillside, looking down at the glitter of Silverpelt reflected in the shiny black lake. The island should have been a thicker patch of shadow against the water, but instead it shone with moonlight, each tree picked out in a shaft of silver. Leafpaw felt as if the place were calling to her, as if there were more she needed to learn about it. But we can’t go there, she reminded herself. Not every cat can swim like RiverClan.
A breeze picked up, whispering over the star-filled lake and ruffling Leafpaw’s fur. She felt a surge of hope run through her, even though the voices of her warrior ancestors remained silent. But Leafpaw was not afraid. They had been silent before on the long journey through the mountains, and she had learned that sometimes the only thing a cat could rely on was the strength that lay within. Everything would be all right if she and the others made it so. They would make their camp here; they would explore every part of the woods until they knew the good places for prey, for water and bedding, the spots where each healing herb grew, and the places where they could play and relax in the sun. It seemed strange and daunting now, but eventually it would be their home.
Pawstep by pawstep, they would make it happen.
As she stood gazing down at the lake, Leafpaw realized that the surface of the water was changing. The glitter of starlight faded and the water turned steadily redder, until waves of scarlet lapped against the shore. Leafpaw looked up in surprise, but the sky was as dark as before, so this couldn’t be a reflection of sunrise. The water seemed thick and slow-moving, surging lazily over the pebbles—and in that instant, Leafpaw knew that it wasn’t water at all. The lake was filled with blood, fed by streams that ran like gaping wounds.
Another gust of wind buffeted Leafpaw’s fur, hot and dusty this time, bringing with it the stench of crow-food.
Shaking with terror, she heard a voice speak clearly in her mind: Before there is peace, blood will spill blood, and the lake will run red.
“Cinderpelt! Cinderpelt!”
Leafpaw woke with a jump. It was still dark. Sorreltail was peering under the rocky overhang, anxiously calling Cinderpelt’s name. Somewhere in the hollow, the eerie yowl of a cat in pain tore the quiet of the night.
“What is it? What’s happening?” Leafpaw asked, scrambling up and prodding Cinderpelt in the flank.
“It’s Mousefur,” mewed Sorreltail. “She says she has a pain in her belly.”
“I’ll come,” Cinderpelt meowed, getting to her paws.
“If Mousefur has bellyache, we need water mint or juniper berries,” Leafpaw told her. “There were masses of them at the other end of the lake. Do you want me to fetch some?”
Her mentor looked serious. “It would be better to find a supply nearby, but if we need them before daylight, then you’ll have to go back.”
They followed Sorreltail across the hollow to the clump of ferns where Mousefur had made her nest, stumbling over stones in the darkness. Leafpaw tasted the air in an attempt to discover if any of the herbs they needed were growing nearby, but it was impossible to make out the special scents among so many, and against the overwhelming scent of cats.
When she and Cinderpelt reached Mousefur, the brown warrior was lying on her side, her body twisted with pain, her jaws gaping as she let out another anguished yowl.
“Mousefur, listen to me.” Cinderpelt crouched down beside her. “Do you know what caused this? Have you eaten any crow-food?”
Mousefur blinked eyes glazed with pain. “Crow-food?
No,” she rasped. “Do you think I’m mousebrained? My belly…” Her words trailed off into another yowl.
A horrible suspicion forced itself into Leafpaw’s mind.
Beckoning Cinderpelt aside, she murmured, “Mousefur must have drunk some of the water Mothwing found. I think it might have been tainted. It smelled bad, and when she showed me the pool she got it from, there was a dead rabbit in there.”
Cinderpelt let out an exasperated sigh. “And she didn’t think to… Well, no point in going into that.”
“What are we going to do?” Leafpaw asked anxiously.
Cinderpelt turned to Sorreltail. “Do you know if any other cat drank the water?”
Sorreltail shook her head.
“Goldenflower and Longtail might have,” Cinderpelt went on. “Check it out, would you, Sorreltail?”
The tortoiseshell warrior nodded and vanished into the darkness.
“Try to lie still, Mousefur,” Cinderpelt urged. “Let me feel your belly.” She patted gently with her paw. To Leafpaw, the brown warrior’s stomach looked unnaturally distended.
“Haven’t you got some herbs I could take?” Mousefur fretted.
Cinderpelt shook her head. “We haven’t had time to look for any yet.”
Mousefur opened her mouth to say something else, then retched and began to vomit.
“That could be a good sign,” Cinderpelt meowed to Leafpaw. “At least she’s getting rid of the poison.”
Leafpaw nodded, feeling utterly helpless. Mousefur was suffering because the medicine cats could do nothing without their stock of herbs. “We’ll have to find more supplies as soon as it’s light,” she mewed. “Especially water mint and juniper berries. I’ll take some to the other Clans, in case they drank the water too.”
Cinderpelt’s blue eyes widened in surprise, and Leafpaw winced. She had become too used to thinking of all four Clans as one, with shared problems and shared solutions. It seemed natural to help them if she thought their elders might be suffering the same thing as Mousefur. But now that the boundaries between them were being reestablished, was she being disloyal to her own Clan?
“We should check on WindClan at least,” she added persuasively. “Their cats are the weakest, so they’ll be in the most danger.”
Cinderpelt nodded. “You can go in the morning, but you’d better take a warrior with you. We’ll speak to Firestar as soon as we can. Well?” she prompted, as Sorreltail reappeared.
“Goldenflower says she had a bellyache, but she’s been sick, and it isn’t too bad now,” the tortoiseshell warrior reported. “Longtail is asleep, and he looks okay, so I didn’t wake him.”
“Thanks,” meowed Cinderpelt. “Longtail’s younger, of course, so he should be stronger. I’ll have a word with him when he wakes.”