Erin Hunter - Long Shadows

“You should be more careful. Are you okay? You don’t have to come to the Gathering if you’d rather rest.”

“I’m fine,” Squirrelflight insisted. “And I’m not going to miss this Gathering. I haven’t been to one in moons.”

“Come on, we’re wasting time,” Firestar called from the front of the group.

He set off toward the lake; the forest floor was still sodden from the recent rain, and the cats had to scramble through muddy hollows or over branches that fell in the storm. Hollyleaf barely noticed the mud or the small streams her paws splashed through. She felt as though she was looking down a long tunnel into a future dark with fear and betrayal. She asked herself how far a cat should go to preserve the warrior code. And what happens if the code was broken no matter what you did?

The ThunderClan cats emerged from the trees and padded down to the edge of the lake, turning toward the WindClan border. A full moon already floated high in the sky, turning the surface of the water to silver. Looking up, Hollyleaf saw that clouds were drifting close to it, though none of them touched the shining silver disk yet. She swallowed. Were the spirits of their ancestors about to show their anger?

Firestar waved his tail. “Let’s hurry. The other Clans will be waiting for us.” Clear of the forest, he set a brisk pace, until his warriors were bounding along the edge of the lake.

Hollyleaf, still near the back of the group with Lionblaze and Jayfeather, saw Firestar halt suddenly on the bank of the stream that marked the border with WindClan. Graystripe, hard on his paws, let out a startled yowl.

Terrible foreboding filled Hollyleaf from ears to tail-tip.

She put on a spurt until she was racing along, her belly fur brushing the pebbles and her tail streaming out behind her.

Lionblaze kept pace with her.

Reaching the bank, she pushed through the cats who were clustered there, staring down into the stream. Wedged behind a rock just below her paws, the lifeless body of a cat floated in the swollen water, his fur dark and sodden. His tail streamed out into the current, waving as if he were still alive.

Dustpelt was the first to speak. “It’s Ashfur.”

Lionblaze dug his claws into the bank of the stream, only just managing to suppress a wail of dismay. Yet he couldn’t feel any sense of grief for his dead Clanmate. Ashfur had been about to reveal something that would have destroyed them all; now those terrible words would never be spoken. Exchanging a glance with Hollyleaf, he could see that his sister felt the same.

He hoped no other cat would ever know how relieved they felt at Ashfur’s death.

“Get him out,” Firestar ordered.

Dustpelt slid into the stream, with water washing around his belly fur. He gripped Ashfur’s shoulder in his teeth and started tugging.

“Be careful,” Ferncloud mewed anxiously.

Graystripe leaped into the water on Ashfur’s other side, and together the two warriors freed him from the rock and hauled his body up the bank.

Leafpool crouched beside him, one paw on his chest as she gave him a rapid sniff. Jayfeather stood beside her, his whiskers quivering. Leafpool looked up. “He’s dead.”

“How did he die?” Cinderheart asked, her blue eyes wide.

“Did he fall in and drown?”

“I fell into the stream by ShadowClan,” Squirrelflight reminded them; Lionblaze wondered if she too shared his relief. “It’s easily done, when the water’s running as high as this.”

Cloudtail let out a snort. “Ashfur was a strong warrior. He wouldn’t drown like a kit. If we want to know how he died, we should be looking at WindClan.”

Firestar bent his head to sniff Ashfur’s sodden body.

“There’s no WindClan scent.”

“The water would wash it off,” Cloudtail pointed out.

“We’ll talk about this later.” Firestar glanced around swiftly. “Dustpelt, Graystripe, can you take Ashfur’s body back to camp? The rest of us must go on, or the other Clans will know something is wrong.”

“I’ll go, too,” Lionblaze volunteered. “Ashfur was my mentor.”

Firestar nodded. “Good. You others, follow me.”

As Firestar and the rest of his warriors half waded, half swam across the stream, Lionblaze and his Clanmates picked up Ashfur’s body. It hung between them, a dead weight, as they struggled back through the forest to the hollow.

Thornclaw was on guard at the entrance to the camp.

“What…?” His fur rose as they dragged Ashfur up to the tunnel. “What happened?”

Dustpelt explained, while Lionblaze and Graystripe carried the dead warrior into the middle of the clearing. The moonlight shone silver on his drenched gray fur; Lionblaze thought he looked strangely small in death. It was hard to imagine the power he had held in his paws, the power to drag down his Clan and bring shame on Squirrelflight and the kits who had believed they were hers.

Lionblaze flinched at the sound of a distraught wail behind him. Whitewing had emerged from the warriors’ den, followed by Birchfall. “Did a fox get him?” she cried.

Lionblaze shook his head. “We found him in the stream on the WindClan border. It looks as if he drowned.”

Whitewing shuddered. “That’s dreadful.”

Birchfall pressed his muzzle against hers. “You mustn’t upset yourself,” he murmured. “Think of the kits.”

Whitewing nodded. Slowly she padded up to Ashfur’s body and settled down beside it, her nose pushed into the cold, wet fur. Birchfall crouched protectively at her side, to keep vigil along with her. “He was a good mentor,” he mewed sorrowfully. “I’ll miss him.”

By now other warriors were coming out of their den, forming a ragged circle around Ashfur and questioning one another in hushed, shocked voices.

“WindClan will be at the bottom of this, mark my words,” Mousefur meowed as she padded up with Longtail.

“On the night of a Gathering, too.” Honeyfern’s voice shook. “StarClan will be angry.”

“Firestar doesn’t think any cat is to blame,” Graystripe told them. “Ashfur was just very unlucky.”

Mousefur snorted with disbelief as she bent her stiff joints to crouch beside Ashfur’s body. Lionblaze lifted his head to gaze up at the moon as it f loated above the treetops. The clouds had cleared away; perhaps Firestar was right, and there was no need for StarClan to show their anger.

Sighing, he crouched down in his turn and pushed his nose into his former mentor’s fur. There was nothing to scent there but mud and water. Closing his eyes, he hoped that none of his Clanmates could sense that instead of grieving, his mind was numb with relief.

Lionblaze stayed beside Ashfur until the sky began to grow pale with the first hints of dawn. Other cats came and went around him, mewing in hushed voices.

At last Lionblaze heard the sound of movement in the thorn tunnel as Firestar and the rest of the Clan began to return from the Gathering. He stretched his cramped muscles and looked around to see Hollyleaf bounding toward him. Her eyes shone with a fierce light.

“You wouldn’t believe what happened at the Gathering!” she hissed. “Firestar didn’t say a single thing about Ashfur.”

Lionblaze’s pelt prickled with surprise. “He didn’t?”

“Not a thing.”

One or two cats gave Hollyleaf a curious glance as she passed; Lionblaze touched her mouth with his tail to warn her to be quiet, and drew her a pace or two away from Ashfur’s body.

“He just passed on trivial bits of news about prey,” Hollyleaf went on in a furious whisper. “And he thanked our warrior ancestors for watching over us. And that was all.”