Ravenpaw's Farewell

For Missy

Special thanks to Victoria Holmes

“Faster, Ravenpaw! Keep up!” Graypaw glanced
over his shoulder before he plunged into a clump of ferns.

Ravenpaw dug his claws into the ground and picked up speed. He saw Graypaw's striped pelt vanish into the bracken, just behind the orange flash of Firepaw's fur. Ravenpaw burst through the ferns and raced after his Clanmates. They were running much faster now, so quickly that the colors of the forest were a blur of green, brown, and pale gold.

They whisked through the undergrowth, following paths that grew narrower and narrower, but even the densest clump of brambles didn't slow them down. Smooth gray shapes loomed up and vanished in a heartbeat.
I didn't know we were heading toward Snakerocks,
Ravenpaw thought in surprise. Then they were pelting next to the Thunderpath, monsters roaring alongside them, but the apprentices were too quick; they were leaving the howling yellow-eyed monsters behind.

Now they were beside the river, brown and churning and flecked with foam. The trail along the bank was little more than the thickness of a reed, slippery with wet green moss, but the cats didn't falter, not even when stiff green stalks lashed
against their fur.

I wish we could run like this forever!
thought Ravenpaw. His legs weren't tired at all, his paws were lighter than dried leaves, and he was breathing as easily as if he were lying in his nest.

In front of him, Firepaw had reached the base of Sunningrocks, the vast mound of stones that stood beside the river. Firepaw swarmed up the rocks without slowing down. Graypaw and Ravenpaw reached the top only a moment behind him, and all three cats stood side by side, looking out across the trees.

“There is no better place than ThunderClan!” Firepaw declared.

“ThunderClan!” Graypaw echoed.

Ravenpaw opened his mouth to join in, but a raindrop splashed onto his muzzle, making him jump. The sky was still blue and cloudless, and the sun blazed on his black fur, but out of nowhere rain was falling, heavier and heavier.

“You're getting wet!” grumbled a voice close to Ravenpaw's ear. A paw jabbed him in his flank, and he rolled over to see Barley standing over him. Behind his friend's head he could see pale gray sky through a crack in the barn roof. Another trickle of raindrops landed on the back of his neck, and Ravenpaw jumped out of his nest with a hiss.

“I thought you checked the roof before we made our nests last night,” he muttered. His dream still tugged at the edges of his mind, and he was convinced he could smell the scent of his old friends close by.

“Don't be such a grouch,” Barley teased. “Do you want me
to go climbing over the whole roof every night before you go to sleep, just to make sure you won't get wet? Come over here where it's dry.”

He patted the hay where he was lying. Ravenpaw stayed where he was for a moment, halted by a sharp stabbing pain in his belly.

Barley pricked his ears. “Are you okay?”

“I'm fine,” Ravenpaw mewed. “It's probably that mouse you caught two sunrises ago. I told you it didn't look right.”

Barley squinted up at the gap in the roof. “I don't think this rain is going to last,” he meowed. “Would you like to go to the forest today? Once the weather turns, it won't be so easy to get there, and we haven't been there in moons.”

Ravenpaw tasted the air. He could smell leaf-bare approaching, cold and crisp like stone. “Yes, I'd like that,” he mewed. He stretched out his front legs and arched his back, curling his tail until it brushed his ears. The pain in his belly had subsided to a dull ache, and Ravenpaw hoped that a walk to the forest would get rid of it completely.

They sprang down the stacked hay to where Barley had hidden the remains of the pigeon he had caught the day before. Ravenpaw wasn't hungry—his belly felt strangely full—but he picked at a wing when he felt Barley's gaze boring into his pelt. When Barley had finished cleaning his whiskers, they slipped through a hole in the wall and padded through the long grass that grew beside the barn. The rain had stopped, and the clouds were thinning to reveal slender strips of blue.

Barley paused at the edge of a stretch of pale stone. Faint
barks were coming from one of the fields beyond the Twoleg den, suggesting that the dogs were far away, so the cats trotted across the stone and plunged into the hedge. Barley led the way, his big paws leaving prints in the damp earth. Ravenpaw tried to put his feet into the same imprints, but Barley's legs were longer than his. He had to trot to keep up.

A few cows lifted their heads and watched as the cats crossed the field. Ravenpaw had been scared of the huge black-and-white creatures at first, but now he regarded them with a sort of affection. He was so used to seeing them around, they almost felt like his Clanmates.

For a moment he was back in his dream, standing on top of Sunningrocks and looking down over the forest where he had been born.
I wonder where Firestar and Graystripe are now?
It had been a long, long time since they were apprentices together. When Ravenpaw had first left ThunderClan, they had visited him sometimes, but then Firestar had led all four Clans out of the forest when the giant Thunderpath came. Graystripe had disappeared before that, stolen by Twolegs. After the Clans had gone, Ravenpaw had seen Graystripe once, escaped from the Twolegs and looking for ThunderClan, and he'd pointed him in the direction they had gone. He hoped Graystripe had found them.

Ravenpaw shivered.
Wherever you are, I hope you are safe, well fed, and at peace. May StarClan light your paths, always.

“Come on!” Barley bounded back to him. “Let's check that the tunnel isn't flooded.”

The Thunderpath was much broader than it had been
when Ravenpaw had first crossed it as an apprentice. The hill on the far side had been gouged out, leaving huge scars in the earth. Even this close to dawn, the Thunderpath teemed like a river of gleaming fish, with monsters growling up and down. It was too wide for cats to cross, so instead Barley and Ravenpaw used a narrow tunnel that ran underneath. It was dark and damp, and just big enough for a badger to squeeze through; mercifully Ravenpaw hadn't come face-to-face with one of those in the narrow space.

The tunnel did sometimes fill with water after heavy rain, but today there was nothing more than a muddy trickle running along the bottom. Taking a deep breath, Barley plunged in. Ravenpaw gritted his teeth and followed, hating the way the tunnel wrapped around him. The air thrummed with the noise of the monsters overhead, and it was impossible to think of anything but pressing forward to the cold, clean air on the other side.

Ravenpaw burst out at a run and almost crashed into Barley. They were at the edge of a wall of dense brambles. There was no way through; instead they had to creep along the edge, following the land as it rose steeply above the Thunderpath. The earth had been ripped away here to make way for the new stone path, and the broad sweep of moor had become a sheer cliff that echoed with the roar of monsters.

Ears flattened against his head, Ravenpaw set off up the slope. The noise faded a little as he scrambled to the top of the cliff, where a strip of short, windblown grass led down to the trees. The breeze was stronger up here, tugging at Ravenpaw's
black fur. Familiar scents filled his mouth, bringing memories tumbling into his mind: the ravine, Gatherings, the scent of the medicine cat's den, training with Tigerclaw . . .

Ravenpaw shook himself. There was a reason he had left the forest.

He padded to the edge of a shallow dip surrounded by gorse and small boulders. Ravenpaw had a feeling this used to be the WindClan camp, but the images in his mind were hazy, and there was no trace of cats here now. Behind him, Barley growled as a gust of wind almost knocked him off his paws.

“Let's get into the shelter of the trees,” he called. He ran across the stretch of grass, his black-and-white fur distinct against the green. Ravenpaw glanced into the dip once more before following. Had WindClan survived the journey? Had any of the Clans?

The bracken under the trees felt still and quiet after the open moor. Ravenpaw paused to catch his breath, listening to the tiny rustles of unseen prey. Above his head, tangled branches hid the sky. The cats pushed their way through the brittle fronds until new sounds assailed their ears: the rumble of monsters moving more slowly, as well as the shouts of Twolegs.

Ravenpaw reached the edge of the trees and looked down. It seemed a lifetime ago that he had stood here and seen four huge oaks in moonlight. The hollow had vanished, flattened out to make room for squat, silver dens and a broad expanse of black stone filled with rows of silent monsters. The air was thick with fumes and the stench of something hot and almost
prey-like but unappealing, and Ravenpaw's stomach curdled.

Barley started pushing his way into the bracken along the top of the slope. Ravenpaw knew he was following an ancient path that had once led around the top of the hollow and down through the trees to the ThunderClan border. When the Clans had been here, Barley wouldn't have dreamed of walking confidently through this territory. Now that the Twolegs had taken it over, there were no borders left, no patrols for a loner to fear.

They left the silver dens behind and pushed deeper into the trees. The paths once used by ThunderClan were faint and overgrown. A huge mound of brambles covered pale gray boulders that jolted Ravenpaw back to his dream: This must be Snakerocks, though the snakes seemed long gone as well. A few pine trees began to appear among the oaks and beeches, and something about the curve of the almost invisible path felt achingly familiar beneath Ravenpaw's feet.

“Watch out!” yowled Barley, springing forward and blocking Ravenpaw with his shoulder. Ravenpaw blinked and looked down. The ground gave way a mouse-length in front of him, plunging into a narrow hollow filled with thorns and half-grown trees.

“It's the ravine,” Ravenpaw whispered. “The place where I was born!”