Erin Hunter - Dovewing’s Silence

“Are you feeling all right?” Ivypool asked.

Dovewing didn’t take her eyes from the nursery as she watched Brackenfur slip inside. “I’m fine,” she murmured.

“ No .”

Brackenfur’s single word dropped like a stone into the hush of the clearing. Dovewing was at the entrance to the nursery before she realized her paws were moving. Brackenfur was standing at the edge of Sorreltail’s nest, looking down at his mate’s unmoving body. The air was thick with the stench of blood, and Dovewing felt it sticky and liquid beneath her pads.

A tiny dark tabby head with white patches popped up from behind Sorreltail, her blue eyes huge and worried. “We can’t wake her!” Lilykit squeaked. “We tried and tried but she’s still asleep!”

Her sister Seedkit appeared. Her pale ginger fur was fluffed in all directions, making her look like a hedgehog. “Is she really tired from the fighting, do you think?”

“Tired…” Brackenfur whispered without lifting his gaze from Sorreltail’s sweet face. The she-cat’s eyes were lightly closed as if she had just dozed off.

“Lilykit, Seedkit, come with me,” Dovewing urged, her voice coming out as a croak.

The kits scrambled over Sorreltail’s body. “Sorry, Mama,” Lilykit mewed when her paw slipped into Sorreltail’s ear.

Dovewing tried not to flinch when she saw that the kits’ belly fur was soaked with blood. She glanced sideways at Brackenfur, but he hadn’t noticed. His legs had crumpled beneath him and he was curled around Sorreltail’s head, pressing his muzzle against her.

“Wake up, my love,” he murmured. “Our kits need you. We can’t lose you now.”

Dovewing nudged the kits toward the entrance. “I think Papa is sad,” Seedkit chirped. “Shall I stay and make him feel better?”

“No, let’s leave him be,” Dovewing urged. She followed the kits into the clearing. Several cats were waiting outside, eyes wide and anxious. Brightheart let out a gasp when she saw the bloodstained little cats. As she bounded forward, she called over her shoulder, “Cloudtail? Tell our kits to stay where they are.” Her mate trotted to the remains of the elders’ den while Brightheart pulled Lilykit and Seedkit to her belly with her tail and began licking their soiled fur. Over their heads, she met Dovewing’s gaze with a question in her eyes. Dovewing nodded. Brightheart bent over Sorreltail’s kits and drew them closer.

Squirrelflight padded over. “What’s going on?”

“Sorreltail is dead,” Dovewing meowed, each word dragged out with claws sharp as thorns.

Cherrypaw visibly swayed on her paws, and Whitewing closed her eyes with a grimace of pain. Squirrelflight looked baffled. “But… but she was fine. She didn’t say anything about being hurt.” The dark ginger cat looked around at her Clanmates. “Didn’t anyone notice she’d been injured?”

Sandstorm walked forward, her eyes still wet with grief for Firestar. She rested her tail on Squirrelflight’s shoulder. “If she was injured that badly, we couldn’t have done anything to help her.”

Squirrelflight lashed her tail. “We could have tried!”

There was a wail from inside the nursery. “Sorreltail! Don’t leave me!”

“I’ll go to him,” Millie offered, slipping into the brambles. “He shouldn’t be alone at this time.”

Graystripe stepped forward. With a shock, Dovewing realized he looked old and tired. “The Dark Forest has claimed another victim,” the warrior declared. “May Sorreltail watch over us from StarClan.” He bowed his head.

Squirrelflight paced anxiously around the cats. “I told you all to check yourselves for injuries. Have you done it yet? I won’t have any other cats die on me!”

Dovewing felt a stab of guilt as she licked at the scratch on her flank. She should get it treated before it got infected. She headed toward the medicine cats’ den. Inside, Spiderleg was helping Leafpool pad the gaping bite wound in Foxleap’s belly with crushed leaves. Foxleap lay very still, only the flickering of his eyelids proving that he was alive.

Leafpool looked up. “Are you hurt, Dovewing? Can it wait?” Her amber eyes were huge with distress.

“Sorreltail died,” Dovewing meowed.

Leafpool jumped up, almost tripping over Foxleap. “What? She didn’t tell me she was hurt!”

“She didn’t tell anyone,” Dovewing whispered. “I think she just wanted to be with her kits.”

The medicine cat’s shoulders slumped. “There is nothing I can do for her now. Let me finish treating Foxleap, then I’ll bring some herbs and cobweb outside to treat you and anyone else that I haven’t seen yet.”

Dovewing padded back to the clearing. The three bodies of her fallen Clanmates were surrounded by little knots of their kin and closest friends. Ivypool was hunched beside Hollyleaf, licking the soft black fur on her shoulder. Bumblestripe was next to his father at Firestar’s body. The pale gray tom caught Dovewing’s eye and twitched his ears, as if offering to join her instead, but Dovewing shook her head. Graystripe needed him more right now.

Cloudtail and Berrynose were picking through the remains of the warriors’ den, trying to drag out scraps of bedding. As Dovewing watched, Squirrelflight went over to them and told them to stop.

“We’ll get nothing done tonight,” she meowed, sounding calmer now, more like a Clan deputy. “We should all get some rest before Brambleclaw returns.”

He’ll be Bramblestar by then , Dovewing thought. She found a patch of clean sand close to the tree stump where apprentices loved to practice leaping and settled down. Curling her tail over her front paws, she looked up at the pale stars and tried to spot the new warriors of StarClan that had been born this night. But the stars were nothing more than cold glints of light in a depthless sky, and Dovewing felt no comfort from them. Did we really win the battle? Because this doesn’t feel like a victory.

She pricked her ears, straining to hear how the other Clans were coping with their dead and wounded, but all she heard was a soft rushing sound like wind through leaf-heavy trees. The forest loomed around the hollow, dark and thick with shadows full of menace, and Dovewing wondered if she would ever feel safe again.

Dovewing woke to find pale dawn light filtering through the leafless branches. She was bitterly cold, and her breath hung in clouds in the still air. All around the clearing, her Clanmates were stirring from where they had slept beneath the sky, huddled around the fallen warriors. Sorreltail’s body had been brought out of the nursery during the night and laid next to Mousefur, a splash of light color against Mousefur’s soft brown pelt. Brackenfur crouched beside his dead mate, his eyes closed, though Dovewing doubted he had slept for a moment.

A dark tabby shape moved through the clearing, gently rousing each cat. It was Purdy, his muzzle looking grayer than ever and his pelt ruffled with lack of rest. “Our vigil is over,” he meowed quietly to his Clanmates. “These cats must be laid in the ground.” When Molepaw responded with a grunt of protest, Purdy told him, “I am the only elder left. I cannot bury them alone. I need your help.”

Abashed, the young brown-and-cream tom scrambled to his paws and followed Purdy across the clearing to where the dead cats lay. Others joined them: Graystripe, Rosepetal, Blossomfall, and Bumblestripe. Dovewing fell in behind them, stumbling on paws that felt as cold as stone. As she passed the tangled remnants of the elders’ den, she heard muffled squeaks, loud enough to suggest that Daisy and Brightheart had made room for Sorreltail’s kits in there as well and were keeping them away from the clearing for as long as they possibly could.