Yellowfang murmured agreement. “Fernshade is expecting kits,” she informed the Clan leader.
Raggedstar’s eyes widened in delight. “That’s excellent news!”
“But what about the dream we had?” Yellowfang whispered. “It must mean something terrible for the Clan.”
“Kits are always a good thing,” Raggedstar meowed; there was a hint of warning in his voice, as if he didn’t want to be contradicted.
Yellowfang knew there was no point in persisting. Instead she dipped her head and slipped past him to the fresh-kill pile.
What a miserable little heap!
With hunting so badly neglected, there was hardly any prey worth eating. The best pieces were a vole and a starling, but Yellowfang spotted Archeye and Poolcloud padding up with gloomy expressions as they surveyed the scanty pile. The elders need to be fed, Yellowfang thought. I’ll choose something else.
She took a scrawny shrew, while Archeye and Poolcloud settled down with the vole and the starling. But before they could start to eat, Frogtail bounded up to the fresh-kill pile and shouldered the elders away.
“I need this prey!” he announced. “I’m a warrior. I have to keep my strength up.”
“What?” Poolcloud bristled. “Kits and elders eat first! That’s the warrior code.”
“Let him have them,” Archeye mewed wearily, patting the vole and starling across to Frogtail. “It’s not worth arguing.”
Poolcloud still looked indignant.
Frogtail was crouching down to take his first bite of vole when Brokentail strode across the clearing and fixed him with a stern look. “Frogtail, what are you doing?” he demanded.
“Taking our food, the prey-stealer,” Poolcloud grumbled.
“What?” Brokentail’s eyes narrowed and his voice dropped to a soft snarl. “Frogtail, give the prey back right now. The warrior code tells us that kits and elders feed first.”
“Told you!” Poolcloud mewed smugly.
“I’m shocked and disappointed in you, Frogtail,” Brokentail went on. “This isn’t the way a ShadowClan warrior behaves.”
“But you said—” Frogtail protested.
“I’m sure I never told you to steal food from those who need it more,” Brokentail interrupted, not giving Frogtail the chance to speak.
“Brokentail is right.” Raggedstar, who had been listening, padded up to join the group. “Archeye, Poolcloud, eat your fill. Frogtail, you can take out a hunting patrol and see if you can restock the fresh-kill pile.”
Frogtail sullenly rose to his paws with a glare at the elders, who crouched down and began to eat in swift bites, in case their leader changed his mind.
Meanwhile, Brokentail glanced around the camp, signaling to nearby warriors with a sweep of his tail. “Brackenfoot, Stumpytail, Blackfoot, you need to join Frogtail on a hunting patrol.”
The Clan leader and his deputy stood side by side as the patrol left the camp. Yellowfang saw that Raggedstar’s eyes gleamed with approval and satisfaction.
He and Brokentail seem to be in agreement for now, she thought uneasily. But how long will it last?
Yellowfang shifted in her nest, blinking up at the warriors of StarClan above her head. She felt exhausted, but her growling belly wouldn’t let her sleep. Frogtail’s patrol had brought back only a meager collection of prey, and she had ended up sharing a skinny blackbird with Runningnose.
“Honestly, Yellowfang!” Runningnose’s voice came from his own nest. “They can probably hear your belly rumbling in ThunderClan! Why don’t you go and catch yourself something? The night patrol went out a while ago, so make sure they don’t think you’re an intruder and flay your fur.”
“I might just do that.” Yellowfang heaved herself stiffly out of her nest and headed into the clearing. Instead of leaving the camp, she padded over to the fresh-kill pile and began nosing around the area for scraps.
She was gulping down a morsel of mouse when she heard a noise from the entrance tunneclass="underline" a cat’s voice raised in a wail of unbearable anguish. Every hair on Yellowfang’s pelt rose. Whipping around, she saw Brokentail burst into the camp. His fur was bushed out and his eyes were wild and distraught.
“WindClan ambushed us by the tunnel!” he yowled. “Raggedstar is dead!”
Yellowfang froze. The solid floor of the camp seemed to give way under her paws, and she was falling, falling into darkness. Then her head cleared and she forced her paws to move, racing over to Brokentail.
“What happened?” she demanded.
“They were waiting for us…” The deputy’s voice shook; he seemed dazed with grief and anger. “We fought. Raggedstar led us… then a WindClan cat tore out his throat.” He shook his head helplessly. “I couldn’t save him…”
“And the rest of your patrol?” Yellowfang asked, fear surging up inside her. Not more cats dead…
“Chasing the WindClan cats across the moor,” Brokentail replied.
Not waiting to hear any more, Yellowfang raced out of the camp and across the marshes toward the tunnel that led to WindClan. The reek of blood caught in her throat before she came within sight of it. At the mouth of the tunnel, Raggedstar lay stretched out. A circle of torn-up grass and fern surrounded him, and the ground was soaked with his blood. His eyes were glazed, staring sightlessly up into the sky.
Yellowfang lay down beside him and pushed her muzzle into his fur. Until then she had hoped that he hadn’t lost all his lives, or that her medicine cat skills might be enough to revive him, or even that Brokentail had mistaken the Clan leader’s losing a life for true death. But now her hope had gone. Raggedstar’s wounds were so severe they had drained all his lives at once. He hunted with StarClan now.
“I loved you so much,” she murmured. “You were all I ever wanted. We fought and hunted together, and played in the sunlight… What went wrong? How did we ever come to this?”
A memory of giving birth to Brokentail flashed into Yellowfang’s mind, and she saw once again the rage that fueled the tiny body. Another pang of grief shook her, but she pushed the memory away.
“Hunt well in StarClan,” she told Raggedstar, drawing her tongue over his fur in a long, caressing lick. “I will see you again.”
Running paw steps alerted her and she looked up to see Blackfoot, Scorchwind, and Boulder racing out of the tunnel. Spotting her with Raggedstar, they halted and stared with growing horror in their eyes.
“We fought with some WindClan cats,” Boulder mewed hoarsely. “But we didn’t know that Raggedstar was hurt.”
“How can he be dead?” Scorchwind whispered, taking a pace forward to look down at the body of his brother. “He still had nine lives!”
“A leader can lose all his lives at once if the wounds are severe enough,” Yellowfang told him quietly. “Now you must carry his body back to camp.”
As the patrol gathered around, Brokentail rushed up, the wild look still in his eyes. “Stay away from my father!” he ordered. “I will carry him, no one else!”
A rush of pity engulfed Yellowfang. My poor son…
As Boulder and Scorchwind heaved Raggedstar’s body onto Brokentail’s back, she rested her tail across his shoulders, and in a rare moment of gentleness Brokentail let it stay there while they walked slowly back to camp.
Chapter 36
Yellowfang stood beside Raggedstar’s body in the center of the camp while the cats of ShadowClan filed out of their dens to sit vigil for their dead leader. Every cat’s eyes held the same stunned expression, as if they couldn’t believe that their leader was dead.