Crowfeather's Trial

“What are you doing here?” Jayfeather demanded, glaring at Crowfeather as the two WindClan cats reached the row of bushes that edged the hollow of the Moonpool. “This place isn’t for warriors.”

“I’m not the first warrior to come here,” Crowfeather retorted, guessing that Jayfeather was angry with him for convincing him to lead Bramblestar into Onestar’s unjustified attack.

“And the others had good reason,” Jayfeather snapped. “What’s yours?”

Crowfeather felt awkward as he searched for an answer. He didn’t want to admit that Onestar had made an error in judgment. “Does it matter?” he asked eventually, wishing he could have a conversation with one of his sons without getting into an argument.

He wondered, too, what was the right way to be a loyal WindClan warrior. Do I just obey Onestar, as he seems to think, or do I speak up when I think he’s wrong?

“No, it really doesn’t,” Leafpool murmured in response to Crowfeather’s question, resting the tip of her tail lightly on Jayfeather’s shoulder. “Come on, we’re wasting moonlight.”

“Well, he’s not coming down to the pool,” Willowshine of RiverClan put in, giving Crowfeather a hostile stare. She was alone, Crowfeather noticed; for some reason Mothwing hadn’t come with her. “I’ll claw your pelt off if you try.”

Huh! Like you could! Crowfeather thought.

Littlecloud of ShadowClan shook his head testily. “We’re medicine cats,” he told Willowshine. “We don’t claw pelts. But she’s right,” he added to Crowfeather. “You stay here, outside the hollow.”

“Fine,” Crowfeather snapped. “I have no interest in your little get-together, so you can all relax. I’d rather be home sleeping, believe me.”

With a last huff of annoyance, Jayfeather turned and stalked up to the bushes, his scrawny frame slipping easily between the branches. Leafpool gave Crowfeather a sympathetic look as she followed, and Crowfeather dipped his head in return, no longer trying to explain. Leafpool always understood me.

Kestrelflight was the last of the cats to push his way through. “I won’t forget,” he promised Crowfeather before he disappeared.

Left alone, Crowfeather settled himself in the shelter of the bushes, his paws tucked under him while he looked out across the moon-washed landscape. He could see the dips and swells of the moor, and far away in the distance a dark mass that must be the forest. Behind him he could hear the soft splashing of a waterfall, and imagined the starlit cascade falling endlessly into the Moonpool. After a short while, he slept.

Once again he was in the tunnels, following Ashfoot, who whisked around the corners ahead of him in a swirl of pale light.

“What are you trying to tell me now?” he called after her. “Are you really here, or am I just dreaming?”

But Ashfoot didn’t reply. This time she led him out of the darkness and through a forest filled with translucent dawn mist. Dew-laden grass brushed at Crowfeather’s pelt and soaked it as he trod in his mother’s paw steps.

“Where are you taking me?” he asked Ashfoot.

His mother did not reply. Instead she halted at the top of a shallow dip in the ground, and waved Crowfeather on with a swish of her tail. Looking down into the hollow, Crowfeather recognized the pool at the bottom, surrounded by ferns, where he had found Nightcloud’s blood and her scent, almost overwhelmed by the reek of fox.

Horrified, Crowfeather turned back toward Ashfoot. “Why?”

But his mother had disappeared. Reluctantly, every step an effort, Crowfeather padded down toward the edge of the pool. Before he reached it, the fern fronds stirred slightly, and he saw that a cat was lying among them. A black she-cat, with blood pulsing from a wound in her side…

“Nightcloud…,” he whispered.

Nightcloud raised her head to look at him, fury glaring from her eyes. “Don’t you see me?” she hissed. “Don’t you?”

Crowfeather jerked into wakefulness. His legs were shaking and his heart was pounding as if it was going to burst out of his chest. What does it mean? he asked himself. He heard an echo of Nightcloud’s words in his mind, and desperately tried to hold on to her fading image. Grief stabbed at him as they slipped away from him like water through his paws. Have I missed something?

The sound of paw steps and the murmuring voices of cats came from behind the barrier of bushes. Crowfeather sprang to his paws and gave his pelt a shake, desperate not to show how distraught he was. If I had to explain myself to Jayfeather…

His ThunderClan son was the first cat to emerge from the bushes. He swept one sightless glance across Crowfeather and then ignored him, leaping sure-pawed down the rocky slope. Leafpool followed, giving a polite dip of her head to Crowfeather, with Willowshine and Littlecloud after her.