Erin Hunter - Twilight

Mistyfoot looked horrified. “That means it could be over the whole territory by now!”

“I don’t think it’s as bad as that,” Leafpool told her. “You’ll need to warn every cat to keep away from this area for a while, but any prey that picked it up would die before they had the chance to travel very far. I don’t think there’s much risk they’d be caught as fresh-kill anywhere else.”

Mistyfoot nodded. “I’ll tell Leopardstar right away.”

“It’s about time,” Hawkfrost commented in a low voice to Blackclaw. “If the patrols had been properly organized, we would have found this long ago.”

Leafpool froze. Patrols were the deputy’s responsibility; Hawkfrost was criticizing Mistyfoot practically to her face.

She remembered that back in the old forest Mistyfoot had been trapped by Twolegs, and while she was away Hawkfrost had been made RiverClan deputy in her place. Becoming an ordinary warrior again when Mistyfoot returned must have been hard for Hawkfrost, but that was no excuse for under-mining Mistyfoot’s authority to other cats. What he said wasn’t even true; a Clan’s territory was too big for patrols to find every single hazard right away.

Blackclaw was nodding agreement, with a hostile glance at the blue-furred she-cat; did he think Hawkfrost should still be deputy? Leafpool wondered. Was Hawkfrost trying to gain followers who were loyal to him alone, and not to the Clan?

Mistyfoot had begun to pad away, back to the camp. If she had noticed the exchange, she gave no sign of it.

“We’ll find some thorns and build a barrier around the thing,” Hawkfrost offered, calling after her. “Come on, Blackclaw,” he added more softly. “We don’t want any animals coming near it, cats or prey. Some cat has to look out for the Clan.”

He bounded over to the nearest thicket and started clawing at a dead thorn branch. Blackclaw followed and helped to drag it back to the Twoleg thing with its stinking pool.

“Wash your paws when you’ve finished,” Leafpool advised, trying to pretend she hadn’t heard what Hawkfrost said.

“ Don’t lick them.”

“Good thinking,” Hawkfrost replied, as he went off to find another branch.

Leafpool ran to catch up with Mistyfoot. “There’s one thing I don’t understand,” she meowed, as the choking stench began to die away behind them. “How did those kits get ill?

Surely they’re too young to be this far from the nursery?”

Mistyfoot let out an exasperated sigh. “The other day they ran away from camp and went exploring on their own. It was Minnowkit’s idea. She can think of more ways of getting into trouble than there are stars in Silverpelt. The sooner she has a mentor to keep an eye on her, the happier I’ll be.”

“They’re too young to have caught any prey around here, so they must have found that Twoleg thing.” Leafpool shivered at the thought of young kits sticking their paws into the vile green liquid. “They never told any cat what they had found?” When Mistyfoot shook her head, Leafpool went on, “The other cats must have gotten sick from poisoned prey, or they would have reported the Twoleg thing to Leopardstar.”

“The kits never said a word,” Mistyfoot agreed. “I was furious when I caught them trying to sneak back into camp.

They probably thought they were in enough trouble already.”

She stopped suddenly. “Dawnflower’s their mother. She gave them a good licking when they got back, and she was the first full-grown cat to fall ill.”

“That makes sense,” Leafpool meowed. “I’ll have to have a word with those kits when they wake up.”

“They will wake up?”

“I think so.” Leafpool didn’t mention the black kit who hadn’t responded to the yarrow treatment. Mothwing needed more help than she alone could provide to save some of these fragile lives. “With the help of StarClan,” she added quietly.

The day was nearly over when the two cats returned to the RiverClan camp. The setting sun was a sullen red glow behind bars of cloud. Leafpool had hardly noticed time passing; it seemed no more than a few heartbeats since Mosspelt had dashed into the stone hollow.

At least the camp was quiet; no eerie wailing signaled another death. Most cats were settling into their dens for the night, although two or three still crouched beside the fresh-kill pile.

“That reminds me,” Leafpool meowed. “It would be a good idea to go through the fresh-kill pile and throw out anything with that scent on it.”

Mistyfoot nodded. “I’ll check the camp, too, in case any cat has brought that stuff in on their paws. And every cat should check themselves, and wash off the scent downstream if they have it.”

She headed toward Leopardstar’s den to report to her leader. Leafpool watched her go, then she slipped over the top of the bank and down to where Mothwing stooped over the sick cats.

“How’s it going?” she asked, joining the RiverClan medicine cat who was examining Dawnflower.

“Okay, I think. No cat has died, though Heavystep has fallen ill.” She pointed with her tail to where the big tabby elder was curled up on the bank. “I’ve given him yarrow, and he doesn’t seem as bad as some of the others.”

Leafpool remembered that Heavystep was one of the cats who had been carrying out the dead cat when she arrived.

Perhaps he had picked up the poison that way. Hawkfrost had been with him, but he seemed fine, and he knew now that he had to be careful not to get the sticky Twoleg stuff on his fur.

“We found what the problem is,” Leafpool told Mothwing.

She described the shiny Twoleg thing and the greenish liquid that was seeping out from it.

Mothwing shuddered. “So it was Twolegs who brought the trouble!” Her blue gaze locked with Leafpool’s. Then she flicked her tail. “Come and check the cats.”

Leafpool had hardly begun to sniff Dawnflower when she glimpsed movement out of the corner of her eye. A kit was standing at the other end of the line of sick cats; in the twilight Leafpool could only just make out her grayish-white pelt. At first she thought she must be one of Dawnflower’s litter making a spectacular recovery, but this kit was older, and she didn’t look ill at all.

“Mothwing, over here!” the kit called urgently.

“Who’s that?” Leafpool asked, following Mothwing as she began to pick her way around the sleeping bodies.

“Willowkit,” Mothwing replied; her eyes glowed with affection as she reached the pale gray kit and looked down at her. “Mosspelt’s daughter. She often comes to help me, and she already knows nearly all the herbs. Willowkit, this is Leafpool from ThunderClan.”

Willowkit dipped her head. “Mothwing, I think you ought to look at Beechpaw,” she urged.

The apprentice was lying on his side, his limbs splayed out, his claws scraping feebly at the ground. His chest heaved and he was struggling to breathe. His wide-open eyes were glazed.

“What’s the matter with him?” Willowkit asked, her eyes huge with anxiety. “None of the others are like this.”

Mothwing hesitated, and it was Leafpool who spoke first.

“Did you give him juniper?”

“Yes, for the bellyache,” Mothwing replied. “It ought to help his breathing as well. I wish we had coltsfoot,” she added with a frustrated lash of her tail. “The flowers are up, but it’s the leaves we need, and they won’t appear for another moon.”

Leafpool couldn’t see the point of wishing for a herb that wasn’t in season. Beechpaw’s efforts to breathe were already growing weaker; if they didn’t think of something soon he would die in front of them.

Suppose this wasn’t caused by the Twoleg stuff at all? It might be a completely new problem, and Beechpaw didn’t have much time for them to find the answer.