Erin Hunter - Sign of the Moon

“Swoop!” Splash shrieked. She tried to jump into the air, but the eagle was already climbing higher.

“No!” Swoop screamed, battering the air with her paws. “Help! Crag! Splash…”

Dovewing could still hear her as the eagle’s wings beat more strongly and carried him off, vanishing over a distant peak. The sound of Swoop’s terror filled her head until she thought she would never hear anything else again.

Trembling, Dovewing blocked her ears with her paws. “I’m sorry, Swoop,” she whispered. “There’s nothing I can do…”

Silence fell. The snow-covered slope was stained with blood and strewn with feathers. The Tribe cats stood silent, watching Dovewing as she writhed in agony. The intruders had picked themselves up; even Flora was standing shakily on her paws. They exchanged swift, guilty glances, but said nothing.

Dovewing lifted her head, feeling cold horror course through her veins. She couldn’t hear Swoop screaming now—and that was the most terrible sound of all. “She’s dead,” she whispered.

Foxleap staggered to his paws and faced the Tribe cats. “I’m sorry,” he mewed, his voice full of anguish. “It was my fault.”

“Yes!” Splash hissed, her eyes narrowed with grief and hostility. “You were told to stay out of it. If you’d done as Crag told you, Swoop would be alive now.”

“I know. I’m sorry,” Foxleap repeated.

Dovewing padded over to him and pressed her muzzle against his shoulder. “It wasn’t your fault,” she murmured. “You were only trying to help. Without you, the eagle might have taken Flora.”

“Better an intruder than one of the Tribe!” Splash snapped.

Foxleap said nothing, just stared at his paws with numb grief in his eyes.

Crag let out a long sigh. “Blaming Foxleap won’t help. We’d better get back to the cave.”

As they set off, the black tom took a pace forward. “Wait!”

Splash spun around, flexing her claws. “What?”

“Nothing.” The black tom looked embarrassed and guilty. “Just…er…thanks.”

The Tribe she-cat let out a snort of disgust and bounded away with a last glance over her shoulder. “Don’t even think about crossing the border again,” she snarled.

Dovewing stumbled blindly back through the snow. She felt so much pain inside that she scarcely noticed her frozen paws or aching ears. All she could hear was the echo of Swoop’s terrified shrieks as the eagle carried her away.

We should never have come here. This has nothing to do with the prophecy, nothing to do with keeping the Clans safe from the Dark Forest.

The sun was sinking into a troubled mass of cloud by the time the waterfall came in sight. When the patrol finally staggered into the cave, Squirrelflight sprang up from where she had been talking to Talon and Bird. “What happened?” she demanded, fear in her eyes as she bounded over to Dovewing.

“We went to help—” Crag began, but Splash cut him off with a lash of her tail.

“Swoop is dead,” she rasped. “An eagle took her while she was trying to save this cat.” She glared at Foxleap. “He forced his way into the fight when he’d been told to stay out of it.”

Squirrelflight let out a gasp of horror. More cats gathered around them, Stormfur and Brook in the lead.

“That’s terrible!” Stormfur exclaimed.

Brook nodded, stroking her tail over Splash’s shoulder. “No cat has been taken by an eagle for many moons.”

“They have now!” Splash spat.

“I’d better report to Stoneteller,” Crag muttered, bounding to the back of the cave.

Brook’s kits, Lark and Pine, were staring up at her with wide, frightened eyes. “Will the big bird come and take us, too?” Lark whimpered.

“No.” Brook bent down and touched each of their noses in turn. “You’re safe inside the cave.”

Dovewing stood close to Foxleap so that their pelts brushed. “We should never have made this journey,” she murmured. “Jayfeather won’t tell us why we had to come, and now a cat is dead.”

Foxleap nodded. “I want to go home.”

Movement in the shadows of the cave caught Dovewing’s eye, and she spotted Stoneteller stalking toward them, with Crag at his shoulder. The old cat halted in front of the group, his amber eyes glaring with anger and hatred.

“No cat wanted you here,” he snarled. “And now one of the Tribe is dead because of you.”

“You can’t blame Foxleap!” Dovewing stepped forward, her neck fur bristling with anger. “He was very brave.”

“I don’t blame Foxleap,” Stoneteller rasped. “I blame all of you. If you had never come to the mountains, Swoop would still be alive.”

Squirrelflight stretched out her tail to touch Dovewing’s shoulder. “He’s right,” she murmured. “We’ll leave as soon as we can. Stoneteller, we are all sorrier than we can say.”

As the old cat opened his jaws to reply, a muffled noise sounded behind them; Dovewing turned to see Jayfeather padding from the Cave of Pointed Stones. His blind blue eyes stared at her. “It’s my fault,” he rasped. “I was the one who said we had to come. I will do what I have to, and then we will leave.”

Jayfeather felt as if all the weight of the mountains was resting on his shoulders, but he braced himself and turned to Stoneteller. “Your Tribe will always be loyal to the Teller of the Pointed Stones,” he meowed. “You need to return their loyalty by having faith that you are destined to be here. Your descendants will survive if you give them hope now.”

“But—” Stoneteller began.

Jayfeather didn’t let him speak. “The time has come to choose your successor.”

His words fell into silence. Jayfeather was conscious of the Tribe of Rushing Water around him, waiting for their Healer’s reply.

The old cat hauled himself to his paws. “It’s too late,” he growled. “Our ancestors no longer watch over us. We are alone.” Turning, he limped down the tunnel into his den-cave. Jayfeather pictured his Tribemates staring after him, as murmurs of protest began to rise from them.

“What does he mean?”

“Has the Tribe of Endless Hunting abandoned us?”

“What’s going to happen?”

“Calm down.” Bird’s voice rose above the rest. “Stoneteller is very troubled, but he is still our Healer. He will protect us. Let him sleep.”

The murmuring died away, but Jayfeather could tell that the cats were still uneasy.

“I want to go now.” Jayfeather heard the slap of Dovewing’s paw on the stone floor.

“So do I,” Foxleap added.

“I know. I want to leave, too,” Squirrelflight meowed. “But we can’t set off when night is falling. We’ll go home tomorrow. Is that all right with you, Jayfeather? Will you have finished whatever you need to do here?”

Jayfeather nodded, ignoring Dovewing’s hiss of impatience. “Yes, we can leave tomorrow.”

“Let’s find you a nest.” Squirrelflight drew Dovewing away, and Foxleap padded after them. “You’ll both need a good night’s sleep if we’re to travel tomorrow.”

“I don’t want to sleep,” Dovewing retorted. “I’ll keep on seeing Swoop, I know I will.”

Jayfeather waited until their voices had died away, then padded back into the Cave of Pointed Stones. Blind once again, he could still remember the pinnacles of stone and the thin shaft of moonlight cast into the shallow pools. He remembered how Half Moon had patted the water and set the reflection flickering. Taking a deep breath, he searched for her scent, but all he could smell was stone and water.