[TB] STARLIGHT -- Chapter 10 (Patreon)

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Crowflight was grateful to be out of camp and on the moor. He took a moment to breathe in the fresh air; touched with cold, true, but still filled with the scent of grass and heather and gorse, all smells he knew to his bones as the hallmarks of home. The sky above was a clear, bright blue, without a single cloud, and though its rays were weak, Crowflight was grateful for the sun’s warmth as it settled on his shoulders between the sweeping gusts of icy wind.

“It’s so big!” Weaselpaw breathed, his eyes sparkling. The young tom’s tail was sticking straight up with excitement, unbothered by the cold, and he looked to Webfoot. “Where are we going first?”

“That’s up to Crowflight,” Webfoot reminded his apprentice. The older warrior was braced against a frigid gust, looking Crowflight’s way as he added, “But it is a good question. Where to?”

Crowflight flinched. He brought himself down from the clear blue sky and saw that his patrol was staring at him expectantly, with Duskwhisker’s whiskers trembling with amusement. Crowflight’s pelt flashed hot – this was the first patrol he’d ever led, and in a new territory to top it off! Were they really so impatient?

Still, he had to think on it. He glanced to his left, towards the Arrival, then to this right, towards the trees. Even in the old forest, WindClan’s territory had been too large to be circumnavigated in one day, and here it seemed like an even more daunting task for one patrol to do. But borders and exploration were both important things... He wished that he hadn’t been given two tasks. If only Onewhisker and Mudclaw could’ve agreed, they might’ve had time to send out another patrol!

“Let’s head for the river,” he decided. “The Horseplace border can wait; the land between us and RiverClan has been declared neutral anyway.” There was nothing he could do about the enormity of the task aside but to take it one step at a time. And, anyway, wasn’t it a good thing to have this much land?

He was grateful to see Webfoot nodding in agreement. Duskwhisker’s tail swished, and she added, “It’s a longer way to go for RiverClan if they want to swipe any of our territory here. ThunderClan’s got it easier now, I’ll bet.”

Webfoot curled his lip at the thought. Weaselpaw didn’t comment, but Crowflight guessed the young cat didn’t care. He was too entranced by the idea of exploration to think about Clan politics – an attitude Crowflight wished he could share.

“Lead on,” Webfoot mewed, nodding to Crowflight. To Weaselpaw, he offered, “Keep your eyes and ears open. This is a new land; we can’t get too comfortable just yet.” Weaselpaw nodded at his mentor and refocused his attentions.

Crowflight took the lead, heading downslope towards the lake. It would be easier, he figured, to make it to the river this way. Following the lakeshore would make it difficult to get lost in this new territory. Frosty grass crunched beneath his paws as the hills grew less and less drastic and the still waters of the lake grew closer and closer.

“It’s so big!” Weaselpaw breathed. “Do you think we’ll swim in it?”

“Gross,” Duskwhisker muttered, sticking out her tongue.

“Leave that to RiverClan,” Crowflight threw over his shoulder. “The rest of us swimming in the lake would just be a disaster.”

Webfoot grunted in agreement, and Weaselpaw sighed. His excitement grew again, though, as they reached the stony shore of the lake. The gray tom let out a squeak, hobbled across the stones, and dipped a toe into the water.

“It’s so cold!” he exclaimed, drawing back, as if the water had bitten him.

Duskwhisker purred. “What’d you expect? It’s leafbare, hare-brain!”

Crowflight’s whiskers twitched. Weaselpaw stared at the water as if it had betrayed him, shuffling back. With a kit-like grunt he hooked one of the pebbles with his paws and tossed it into the water. It landed with a tiny plunk.

That’ll show it, Crowflight thought, amusement warming his pelt.

Webfoot wasn’t as distracted by his apprentice’s tantrum, however. The older warrior was looking out across the water, eyes narrowed as he scanned the land on the other side. With his tail, he pointed, “RiverClan’s there, where their river forks; ShadowClan is in the pines, with the swampland; and ThunderClan is where the forest meets the water. Got that, Weaselpaw?”

Weaselpaw looked up, ears pricked. He nodded. “Got it,” he mewed.

Duskwhisker raised her muzzle and sniffed. “I wonder if we’ll be able to smell them all over here, once the borders are well established,” she mused. Sticking out her tongue, she added, “That’d be gross, too.”

Crowflight grimaced at the thought. He followed Webfoot’s gaze around the lake and tried to suppress a sigh – in each bit of the land, he could count the cats he missed most. They would always be a whole lake away.

“I wonder if a RiverClan cat could swim across it,” Weaselpaw mumured.

Crowflight frowned. “I don’t think so,” he explained. “With a lake this size, the bottom of it must go so deep that no cat could hope to come up if they get tired and then sucked down.”

Duskwhisker’s eyes narrowed. “You sure learned a lot about swimming on your little journey...”

Annoyance flashed in Crowflight’s pelt. “I traveled with two RiverClan warriors!” he snapped back. “Did you think they ever shut up about water?”

Duskwhisker shrugged. Crowflight flicked his tail and stalked on, leaving the stony shore and heading for the grass. His words pricked at his mind like thorns: It wasn’t true, of course - Stormfur and Feathertail had talked about a lot things completely unrelated to water – but the insinuation was frustrating. It wasn’t like Crowflight had chosen to travel with non-WindClan cats!

He gave a glance over his shoulder to make sure his patrol was following as he trod through the grass. The frost was mostly gone as the sun rose, but the cold remained, its claws driven deep into the earth. Moor grass didn’t shrink and shrivel when the frost and snows came, it was hardier than that; but that didn’t stop the colors from shifting, or the texture from changing. Everywhere Crowflight could see patches of moor grass either dead or dying, and the fronds that brushed against his pelt felt lifeless and brittle.

The patrol walked along the shore as it raised up, the land mounding up into cliffs that looked over the lake rather than lay beside it. At the peak of the tallest, still a ways from the forest, Crowflight paused again.

“We ought to place a scent marker here,” he remarked, recalling his first tour around the lake. “We don’t want cats falling into the water on accident.”

Webfoot nodded in agreement. This cliff boasted a clump of bushes that Webfoot leaned against, marking the branches with his cheek. Weaselpaw followed up with a scent spray for good measure.

“Marking the other edges would be a good idea, too,” Duskwhisker pointed out. “It doesn’t look like there’s a proper shoreline on this side of the moor.”

Crowflight nodded. “The land is higher in ThunderClan territory,” he explained. He thought of the place Nightfrost had picked out for ThunderClan’s camp and shivered, elaborating, “Lots of cliffs and sudden drops.”

Webfoot chuckled. “I wonder how they’re handling that! In the old forest there was nary a hill in their land...”

Crowflight glanced up at the sun. They were making good time, by his estimate, as they marked the cliffs. They’d be here all day if they were to mark the entire edge, so they chose the most inconspicuous ledges to mark and, at Webfoot’s suggestion, Crowflight planned to ask Onewhisker to send another patrol to do a more detailed pass.

Before they reached the forest, bellies began to growl. The warrior code did not forbid a border to patrol from eating, so a pause to hunt was called and the patrol split, with Webfoot taking Weaselpaw into the hills and Crowflight and Duskwhisker staying near the lake.

The black she-cat stretched each leg in turn. “Ready?” she asked.

Crowflight flicked an ear. “Of course.” The two of them hadn’t hunted together since the brief period when they were apprentices at the same time, back in the old forest before Crowflight disappeared for his journey. There was a determination in him to impress her, so he opened his jaws for the nearest prey-scent.

Duskwhisker found it first. Just as the taste of rabbit touched Crowflight’s tongue, the dark she-cat was already stalking off, her body almost completely hidden in the grass. Crowflight lowered himself, going in the opposite direction – a standard WindClan pair-hunting technique.

They found their quarry quickly. The rabbit was scrambling for scattered grass seeds, anything to fill its belly for leafbare. It seemed blissfully unaware of any predators that might be coming for it – when Duskwhisker moved, Crowflight moved, too, and they crushed the rabbit between their paws. Duskwhisker got the killing bite, and she lifted her head proudly while Crowflight thanked StarClan for the meal, though he wished he’d been able to land the final blow.

They rejoined Webfoot and Weaselpaw not long after. The two had found a pair of plumped-up thrushes, and though Weaselpaw seemed annoyed by the idea of the feathers, it was apparently an impressive catch, according to Webfoot.

“The birds didn’t expect him at all,” Webfoot was meowing, his mouth full of thrush. “He practically caught them both at once!”

“This rabbit wasn’t much better,” Duskwhisker admitted. She bent down and tore off one of its legs. “The prey here is in for a rude awakening, now that we’re here...”

Crowflight took his share of the rabbit, savoring the taste. Then he pushed it to Webfoot, who blinked gratefully at him. The older tom likely hadn’t had rabbit in some moons, and Crowflight could tell he was hesitant to take a bite. But he did, and he sighed happily.

“I missed that,” he mewed.

“We all did,” Duskwhisker agreed, gnawing on a leg bone.

Crowflight gave the rest of the rabbit over to Webfoot and Weaselpaw, taking the thrushes for he and Duskwhisker. They polished off their meal and, bellies full, buried the bones and set off again.

“There was a badger’s set,” Webfoot meowed as they walked. “I had Weaselpaw mark it while I looked for signs of activity. It was empty, it seemed.”

“Onewhisker will send a patrol to check it out,” Crowflight said back. He thought of Midnight, the strange she-badger that had helped them on their journey, and though he hoped it was her, he was sure it wasn’t. “If it were a leafbare set, a badger would’ve moved in by now.”

“Possibly,” Webfoot agreed.

Soon enough they were in the forest. None of the WindClan cats seemed to like it - being surrounded by trees and their pokey roots that threatened to trip or sprain a paw was just not the WindClan way. Evern the rattle of bare branches seemed to spook Weaselpaw as they walked, and when one fell and shocked Duskwhisker into a yelp, there was no mercy from the glare she gave the rest of the patrol for being concerned.

Crowflight had little problems navigating the wood, however, and Webfoot seemed a little more comfortable, too, though he wasn’t happy about it. They followed the land as it turned sharply, having finally reached the river, the sound of water tickling their ears.

“Reminds me of the gorge, a little,” Webfoot remarked, looking down the cliffs. “Not nearly so long a fall, though.”

“You’ll get washed into the lake,” Duskwhisker pointed out. “Who knows if you’ll be able to get back out!”

Weaselpaw, his tail trembling, stayed a few good tail-lengths away from the edge.

They all took turns marking the bushes and trees along the edge of the water, as this was the border with ThunderClan for the time being. Crowflight couldn’t at all imagine ThunderClan wanting to cross a tree-bridge to make it to a tiny sliver of territory, but he also had a hard time imagining trees on WindClan moorland, either. Orders were orders, though, and he marked it all the same.

It was past sunhigh when they reached the tree-bridge. Crowflight was the only one brave enough to approach, and he gave it a sniff. It still bore the scents of the exploratory patrol, of Stoneheart and Mistyfoot and Tawnypelt and Nightfrost...

Crowflight lifted his nose. Nightfrost’s scent – ThunderClan scent – seemed stronger here than it ought to be. He wasn’t the only one to notice, as Webfoot’s hackles rose and Duskwhisker unsheathed her claws. Weaselpaw’s tail stuck up and bushed out, an attempt to make the skinny young cat look more intimidating.

The bushes on the other side of the tree-bridge rustled, and out from them came a ThunderClan patrol – Ashfur, Brightheart, her new apprentice Sun, the former Tribe cat, and, leading the way, was Nightfrost.

Crowflight was struck by how strange it was to see Nightfrost so far away, across a border of all things. The small black tom didn’t seem as friendly, his features nowhere near as soft or kind. Crowflight stared at Nightfrost, baffled.

If Nightfrost felt the same way, he didn’t show it. “Crowflight!” he called, raising his tail. His patrol drew up close to the edge of the water, but Ashfur pointedly marked a stone on their side of the border, glaring over the gap at Webfoot.

Nightfrost ignored that and mewed on, “How is it going?”

“Just marking the new border,” Crowflight responded. Across the water, it was difficult to sound hostile. “Exploring. Nothing special.”

Nightfrost’s tail twitched. “Nothing special? Of course it’s special! It’s an all-new territory to explore!” he purred. “That's what we’re up to too - y’know, exploring! Isn’t it exciting?”

“I suppose it is,” Crowflight replied, feeling awkward. He imagined the gazes of Webfoot and Duskwhisker to be boring into his pelt, like claws of suspicion.

Nightfrost didn’t seem bothered by it, not even when Ashfur looked annoyed that he was talking so easily with a WindClan cat. “The river’s a great border in itself, too,” Nightfrost meowed on. “We were just upstream, and it goes pretty straight on for a long way! Nothing like the ShadowClan border...”

Ashfur cleared his throat, loudly. “We need to keep moving, Nightfrost...”

“So do we,” Duskwhisker stated, her voice low as she stepped up to Crowflight’s shoulder. “Our border needs marking, too.”

Ashfur’s hackles rose, and he, too, stepped to the edge of the land. “You’re lucky we didn’t fight for that forest, WindClan!”

Duskwhisker growled low in her throat, and now Webfoot stepped forward to match her, forming a line on their side of the river. Weaselpaw let out a brave hiss aimed at Sun, who, on the other side of the river, seemed very confused by the sudden shift in attitude. She stared helplessly at Brightheart, whose posture had gone cautious.

Crowflight swallowed, and squared his shoulders. He didn’t want to fight right now, and he certainly didn’t want to fight Nightfrost.

He unsheathed his claws. We aren’t a traveling group anymore. We’re four Clans, and the warrior code is the warrior code...

Nightfrost flicked his tail. “Hey, stop it!” he snapped, glaring at Ashfur. “It’s only been a day; do you really want to get into a scuffle about some trees? Who would want to cross a bridge just to hunt, anyway?”

Ashfur looked crossly at Nightfrost, but the gray tom backed down. Crowflight felt a sense of satisfaction, seeing that – no doubt the older warrior was already annoyed about a younger cat taking the lead. Brightheart at least handled it with grace, and poor Sun just looked unsure and confused – but Crowflight guessed that borders would be a hard subject for her to wrap her head around, after living in the mountains with her solitary Tribe.

Nightfrost waved his tail at Crowflight. “See you later!” he called. “I’ll say hi to Shadepaw and Mistyfoot for you!”

Crowflight only gave a slight nod, conscious of his Clanmates beside him. Were they questioning the depth of his friendship to Nightfrost and the others? His loyalty to WindClan? When he dared to glance their way, they said nothing, but they didn’t meet his eye, either. Crowflight felt a lump in his throat, and he pressed on.

They marked the border along the river until they came to the spot where, on the other side, the ThunderClan cats had stopped. At that point, the land was becoming harsh and stony, the ground rising in cliffs rather than sloping hills while the river did indeed become engulfed in a steep, dangerous gorge, full of waterfalls and strong currents. The smell of prey was faint, and, at Webfoot’s suggestion, they turned around. This land wasn’t suitable for hunting, and thus not worth patrolling, either.

The sun was beginning to set as they trudged through the forest. Crowflight’s breath puffed before his nose and eyes and the chill in the air was biting. His paws ached, and young Weaselpaw looked exhausted – but there was at least one more spot to mark before they traveled back to their camp by the rowan.

Coming out from the forest the patrol crested another hill. Beyond that rise, lit by the evening light, was a seemingly endless expanse of moorland, hills stretching farther than they could see. Mountains created dark shadows at the edges of their visions, and Crowflight wondered if those peaks were a splinter off of the Tribe’s territory, though there was no way to tell from here.

“We definitely don’t need all that land,” Webfoot breathed. “But it’s amazing, isn’t it? How far it goes?”

Weaselpaw yawned. “What’s out there?” he asked, his voice sleepy.

“Who knows,” Crowflight murmured.

Duskwhisker sighed. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I don’t want to find out,” she said briskly. “Let’s mark this and head back – my toes are freezing off, and I’m starving...”

So, they did. Crowflight left that final marker and then led them back home, in as direct a route as he could piece together in his mind. Uphill and downhill they marched, until finally they saw the branches of the rowan tree, reaching up to the stars. The sight filled them with energy, and they broke into a trot, winding around the rowan tree and into the camp from the back, where the walls had not yet been finalized.

In the dark, the progress was difficult to make out, but it seemed like work was done for the day. Almost all of the bushes had been cleaned out from the center of the hills and pushed to the places where they might be useful, leaving a clearing pockmarked with holes but free otherwise of obstruction. Cats were resting, now, sharing an evening meal and welcoming Crowflight’s patrol with questions and mews.

Weaselpaw was immediately taken in by the other apprentices as Thistlepaw and Thornpaw plucked their denmate out of the patrol and began badgering him with questions. Duskwhisker sauntered over to the temporary fresh-kill pile and picked a rabbit, taking it to eat by herself. Webfoot stretched, then nudged Crowflight.

“Go make the report, I’ll handle them,” he mewed, gesturing with his tail to the curious warriors all around.

Crowflight blinked gratefully at the older warrior, and headed for Onewhisker. He dodged around his clamoring Clanmates, some of whom were rather demanding with their questions, until Webfoot offered his own answers. Suitably distracted, Crowflight made his way across the camp to where Onewhisker and Ashfoot were sitting, eating and sharing tongues.

“You’re back!” Ashfoot purred, immediately pulling Crowflight down with a paw. Her tongue switched to his flank, and her purr warmed Crowflight’s chilled body. “Tell us everything...”

Fighting back embarrassment, Crowflight recounted the entire patrol to Onewhisker, conscious of the eyes gleaming from the darkness. Perched on the rocks, beside Tallstar’s body, was Mudclaw, who was clearly listening in. Crowflight left nothing out, however, not even the bits about the ThunderClan patrol.

“They have a point,” Onewhisker mused. He lapped at a forepaw, drawing it over his ear. “We don’t really need the forest. Our territory is huge as it is, and we’ve no taste for forest prey.”

Mudclaw’s eyes flashed. He leaped down from the stones and prowled up, growling, “And what about when the snow comes, and the rabbits flee?” His voice was loud enough to catch the rest of the Clan’s attention. Heads turned, and Crowflight wished he were mouse.

Ashfoot turned away from washing Crowflight’s tail. “We’ve never needed trees before, Mudclaw,” she insisted. “WindClan has always survived on the moor’s bounty alone.”

Mudclaw’s eyes narrowed into slits, but it was Duskwhisker who pointed out, “That ‘moor’s bounty’ threatened to poison us all two moons ago! We’d be dead by now if all we ate were rabbits! Have you forgotten Graytail and Bristlepaw?” Behind her, Bramblefur and Emberstep were nodding, while several other cats who were overhearing murmured anxiously.

Crowflight swallowed around a lump in his throat – Duskwhisker was right, and the scars of the poisoned rabbits from the old territory would take a very long time to heal. Barkface and Ryewhisper, the cats that had had to watch their Clanmates suffer and die powerlessly, looked shaken by thought even now as they huddled together beside one of the caves.

Onewhisker was caught, and he seemed to be aware of that, at least. Awkwardly, he mewed, “I suppose...”

“That forest is ours,” Mudclaw growled. “If we give a pawstep of territory up now, what message does that send?” A few cats voiced their agreement beside him, Duskwhisker included.

Onewhisker frowned, and he stated, “The borders are not final, not yet.” Raising his chin, he announced, “I intend to do a full circuit of the land myself before then, and we’ll set WindClan’s borders in stone at the next full moon, like we leaders agreed.”

Mudclaw curled his lip, but said nothing. Crowflight wondered if there was anything more that needed to be said, though – Onewhisker’s words were clearly a personal strike at Mudclaw’s pride, which was wounded enough already. Crowflight didn’t know whether or not that was necessary to get the point across.

Yet it seemed to stop the argument. Cats began to finish up their meals and head to their sleeping spots as the moon rose and the stars blinked into existence. Crowflight, full but worried, curled up into a group with Duskwhisker and Emberstep and closed his eyes, wondering what tomorrow was going to bring for his Clan.