The Forgotten Warrior

Jayfeather padded across and found the elder crouching alone outside her den. “Where’s Purdy?” he asked.

“Hollyleaf took him for a walk in the forest,” Mousefur replied. “I didn’t want to go. My legs are aching too much.”

“We can sort that out,” Jayfeather assured her. “I’ll go and fetch you some daisy leaves.”

“I didn’t call you over for that,” Mousefur snapped at him. “It’s about Hollyleaf.”

Jayfeather stood frozen with shock as Mousefur described the scene that had taken place in camp that morning. “Then Brambleclaw told every cat that he’d seen what happened,” she meowed. “That Ashfur attacked Hollyleaf and then fell into the stream by accident. I was sitting right here and I heard everything.”

She paused and Jayfeather could feel her gaze burning into his pelt. His mind was whirling. What does it all mean? What’s going to happen, now that every cat thinks they know the truth? What happens if the real truth comes out?

“You knew this all along, didn’t you?” the old cat asked shrewdly.

Jayfeather nodded.

“But you said nothing?”

“What was the point? Hollyleaf had gone, and the situation was more complicated than it looked because of Ashfur’s threats. He threatened me, too, you know.”

Mousefur sniffed. “So it suited you to have him dead.”

“It suited the whole Clan,” Jayfeather retorted, refusing to be disconcerted by the elder’s plain speaking. “Ashfur was determined to cause trouble for every cat.”

“I won’t say that no harm was done,” Mousefur grunted, “because harm has been done. To Ashfur, to Hollyleaf, to Brambleclaw, to you. And now the Clan has to carry on as normal, is that what you want?”

Jayfeather licked one paw and drew it over his ear, giving himself time to figure out a reply. “I think there are bigger things to worry about right now than the death of one cat many moons ago.”

Mousefur snorted, then lapsed into silence. Jayfeather was getting ready to leave when she spoke again. “Darkness is coming, isn’t it?”

Jayfeather felt every hair on his pelt begin to rise. “What do you know?” he asked hoarsely. Could Mousefur be the fourth cat in the prophecy? An elder?

“I don’t know anything that could help us,” Mousefur admitted. Her voice was bleak. “But my dreams have been troubled for a long time.” She let out a weary sigh. “I never thought that I would live to see the end of the Clans.”

Jayfeather leaned close to her. “This will not be the end of the Clans,” he meowed. “As long as I have breath in my body, the Clans will be safe.”

He waited beside Mousefur until the old cat drifted into sleep, muttering and twitching. She’s so old, he thought. Does she really know what she is saying? As he rose and headed for his own den, Jayfeather’s fur prickled at the truth of what Mousefur had said about keeping quiet about Hollyleaf and Ashfur.

But the Clan must move forward, he told himself. There’s no time to waste looking back at what can’t be changed.

Before he reached his den, Jayfeather heard the sounds of cats brushing through the thorn barrier, and he heard Purdy’s voice.

“There was this fox, see, took to wanderin’ through my Upwalker’s garden. Well, I wasn’t havin’ any of that, so what do you think I did?”

“I have no idea, Purdy,” Hollyleaf replied, sounding distracted. “Hey, watch out for that bramble!”

“I can see it,” Purdy muttered. “I’m not a young ’un like you, but I’ve got eyes. Anyway,” he went on, “I hid under this holly bush, see, right next to my Upwalker’s fence, an’—”

He broke off as Jayfeather approached. “Hollyleaf, I need to talk to you.”

“We were talkin’,” Purdy retorted with dignity, before Hollyleaf could reply. “Don’t they raise young cats with manners anymore?” He gave a disgusted sniff. “I’ll be in my den when you’ve finished, Hollyleaf, an’ I’ll tell you the rest of the story.”

Jayfeather heard him stalking away. “Come over here,” he meowed to Hollyleaf. With his sister following him, he padded over to the bottom of the cliff and sat in a sheltered spot underneath an elder bush.

“You know, don’t you?” Hollyleaf guessed as she settled down beside him. “What happened this morning?”

“Mousefur told me,” Jayfeather replied. He hesitated for a moment and then went on, “Hollyleaf, do you understand what Brambleclaw has done for you?”

Jayfeather knew what it must have cost the Clan deputy to speak out as he had. It was hard for him to appreciate what it meant, how much Brambleclaw—and Squirrelflight, too, he admitted to himself—had loved him and his littermates. And maybe they love us still. He felt as uncomfortable as if ants were making their nest in his pelt.

“They all know now,” Hollyleaf murmured, her voice stricken. “They know I killed a cat.”