Warriors: Power Of Three 1 - Sight (24 page)

Firestar gazed down at the little kit. “She’s going to train as a warrior,” he explained.

“I thought she was training to be a medicine cat,” squeaked Icekit.

Hollypaw felt a prickle of unease. She still couldn’t help worrying that she had broken the warrior code.

“Hollypaw knows best what lies in her heart,” Firestar meowed.

I do, Hollypaw thought.

Cloudtail came hurrying through the camp entrance. “I’ve told him,” he called to Firestar. “He’s on his way.”

“We’ll have an apprentice ceremony later,” Firestar told Hollypaw. “But I’ve called your new mentor back from the hunting patrol. If he agrees to take you on, you might as well start right away. You’ve got plenty of training to catch up on.”

Hollypaw nodded, unable to speak because her throat seemed to have closed up with excitement.

The thorn barrier quivered.

“Firestar?” Brackenfur hurried toward the ThunderClan leader, panting. He must have run all the way back. “What is it?”

Hollypaw flicked her tail happily. Not only was Brackenfur a great fighter, but he was also clever and thoughtful; she trusted his judgment as much as his strength.

“Would you be willing to take on Hollypaw as an apprentice?” Firestar asked.

Brackenfur’s gaze shot toward Hollypaw. “What happened?”

Hollypaw tensed. Was he going to say no? After all, she had already let one mentor down. “I-I don’t think I’m cut out to be a medicine cat.”

Brackenfur gazed at her a moment longer; then he turned back to Firestar. “I’d be pleased to train her.”

Hollypaw felt a wave of relief.

“Good,” Firestar meowed. “I’ll leave her in your paws, then.” He turned and padded away.

Brackenfur looked Hollypaw up and down. “You’ve got some catching up to do,” he warned.

“I know, and I’m going to train extra hard.”

“Good.” Brackenfur flicked his tail. “We’ll do battle training every day to begin with.”

“Great!”

Brackenfur stared at her with his head to one side. “I’m not going to ask what made you change your mind. If you’re going to be a warrior, I want you to concentrate on the pres-ent, not the past. You’ve made your decision, and I expect you to stick to it.”

“I will!” Hollypaw vowed.

Brackenfur kneaded the ground with his front paws, his shoulders flexing. “Are you ready to start training right away?”

Hollypaw nodded.

“Good. You can join our hunting patrol.” He headed back toward the thorn barrier and raced out of the entrance.

Taken by surprise, Hollypaw pelted after him, her tail fluffed out. Her first real hunt!

Brackenfur didn’t slow down to accommodate her shorter legs, and Hollypaw had to run twice as fast to keep up with him. He raced up the slope and headed through the forest.

All the time Hollypaw had spent sorting herbs had exercised her mind more than her body. She realized with a jolt how much fitter the other warrior apprentices must be.

Brackenfur glanced over his shoulder as she struggled after him. “We’re nearly there,” he encouraged.

Hollypaw dug her claws into the frozen earth and tried even harder to catch up. A fallen tree blocked the path, but Brackenfur cleared it with ease. Hollypaw skidded to a halt in front of it and wriggled through the narrow gap underneath.

Brackenfur was waiting for her on the other side.

Graystripe and Millie were pacing the small clearing in the undergrowth. Ashfur and Spiderleg talked quietly nearby, while their apprentices, Lionpaw and Mousepaw, competed to see who could skid farthest through the fallen leaves.

Lionpaw stared at Hollypaw in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

“Meet my new apprentice,” Brackenfur meowed.

Lionpaw’s tail flicked. “That’s great!”

Graystripe padded forward and touched his muzzle to hers. “Congratulations.”

“Did you catch anything while I was gone?” Brackenfur asked.

“The prey’s hiding from the cold,” Ashfur complained.

“There must be some way to tempt it out,” Brackenfur meowed. “It’ll be as hungry as we are.”

“We could dig it out,” Lionpaw suggested. “The shallow burrows would be easy to scent.”

“The ground’s probably too frozen,” Ashfur pointed out.

“What about that huge beech tree near the old Thunderpath?” Spiderleg suggested. “There are always beechnuts on the ground, even this late in leaf-bare.”

“The prey’s more likely to venture out there than anywhere else,” Brackenfur agreed.

He raced away again. The patrol took off after him. Taking a deep breath, Hollypaw followed. Did Brackenfur always give such little warning before he shot off? And how did the others know to follow him? Her muscles were screaming for her to stop, but there was no way she was going to show she was struggling to keep up.

Her paws lightened with relief when she recognized the leaves of the beech up ahead. They rustled in the wind, as golden as Brackenfur’s pelt. The patrol skidded to a halt before they reached it and padded forward silently, weaving through the bracken toward the clear ground around the trunk. Hollypaw watched and copied them.

No one spoke as Brackenfur drew himself forward and peered from the edge of the bracken. While the others lined up alongside, Hollypaw slid into the space beside her mentor.

“Keep your tail still,” he whispered.

Hollypaw realized that the tip of her tail was twitching with excitement. “Sorry,” she breathed. When she held it still, the dry bracken fronds above her head stopped rattling.

The rest of the patrol lined up along the edge of the bracken, their eyes all fixed on the leaf-strewn earth around the tree.

“I see something!” Lionpaw hissed.

Hollypaw searched the forest floor, but could see nothing.

She looked at Lionpaw and followed his gaze. He was staring at a single leaf trembling beside an exposed root. Was that really prey? She sniffed the air. At first all she smelled was the pungent mustiness of dead leaves. And then she smelled mouse.

She thrashed her tail, setting the bracken rattling again.

The leaf up ahead flipped over, and Lionpaw shot out of the bracken and hurled himself toward it.

“Too late!” he cursed as he slammed his paws down on empty ground. He glared at Hollypaw. “You scared it off!”

Hollypaw’s ears grew hot. “I’m sorry,” she apologized.

“Don’t be hard on her,” Ashfur chided Lionpaw. “It’s her first hunt.”

Lionpaw shrugged. “It’s okay, Hollypaw. I was just annoyed because I wasn’t fast enough.”

“You looked fast enough to me!” Hollypaw told him.

“You’re only fast enough if you catch the mouse,” Mousepaw mewed pointedly.

“Keep quiet, or nothing is going to stir from its burrow for the rest of the day,” Brackenfur ordered.

Lionpaw hurried back to the bracken, and the patrol took up their positions once more.

* * *

Hollypaw’s back was beginning to ache from crouching in the same position so long. Lionpaw had caught his mouse at last, Ashfur had caught a vole, and Mousepaw had spotted a sparrow flitting from tree to tree and disappeared into the undergrowth to track it.

“Your turn,” Brackenfur meowed in Hollypaw’s ear.

Her shoulders stiffened. “Are you sure?” She thought she was more likely to scare the prey away than catch anything.

“You learn more by trying than by watching,” Brackenfur replied.

Hollypaw focused on the beech tree up ahead. The clearing still smelled of blood. Surely no more prey would be foolish enough to stray out after Lionpaw and Ashfur’s kill?

“Shouldn’t we try somewhere else?” she suggested.

“There are beechnuts here,” Brackenfur reminded her. “If a creature’s hungry enough, it’ll risk anything for food.”

Hollypaw stared among the roots of the tree. Almost at once she noticed a leaf flickering on the ground. She dashed out of the bracken and threw herself on top of it. Her heart sank when she realized that the ground felt flat and lifeless beneath her paws. She had caught nothing more than a dead leaf, flapping in the breeze.

She glanced back at her Clanmates, her pelt prickling with embarrassment. Graystripe’s whiskers were twitching.

Millie glanced sharply at her mate and his whiskers stopped moving. “It’s the same for every cat to start with,” the kittypet reassured Hollypaw. “Have another try.”

Hollypaw closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then she blinked them open and glanced around the clearing. I’m not fast enough yet to hunt from the bracken, she decided. She stud-ied the tree. Its pale bark darkened at the roots, which snaked out from the base before disappearing into the earth. Her black pelt would blend in well. Climbing stealthily onto the largest root, she crouched and began to wait. She looked over at Brackenfur, wondering if she had done the right thing. He nodded.

Relieved, Hollypaw turned her attention back to the forest floor. She kept perfectly still, not letting even an itch make her ear twitch. Far away, a sparrow screeched an alarm before falling silent. Still she did not move.

Then, almost directly below the root where she crouched, a tiny movement in the leaves made her tense the muscles in her hind legs. She waited. Sure enough, the leaf stirred again, and a small pink nose came snuffling to the surface. A wood mouse! Hollypaw held her breath, waiting like an adder preparing to strike. The mouse nosed its way farther out into the open, heading for a beechnut. Hollypaw knew it had no idea she was there.

She pounced, catching the mouse squarely between her forepaws.

“Well done!” Brackenfur called.

Hollypaw looked up, the warm mouse dangling in her jaws. Her first kill! She closed her eyes, remembering how Lionpaw and Ashfur had given thanks to StarClan when they had made their kills.

“Thank you for the life of this prey, given to feed my Clan.

I shall take no more than I want . . .” She paused. “I mean, need, and I shall give all that I can.”

She was on her way to being a warrior at last!

“Mousefur kept me awake half the night coughing,” Longtail complained.

“It’s a wonder you could hear me over your snoring!”

Mousefur retorted.

Jaypaw sighed. He was in the elders’ den, listening to the denmates bicker like kits. He didn’t know why they argued so much. Even now, Longtail’s complaint was only his way of telling Jaypaw that he was worried about Mousefur.

“I can’t feel any swelling around her throat,” Jaypaw told him. “Just make sure she eats the coltsfoot I brought.

Leafpool says it will ease her breathing.”

“I don’t need herbs,” Mousefur grumbled.

“Take them anyway,” Longtail urged. “At least it means you’ll eat something. You’ve not had anything since sunhigh yesterday.”

“I don’t like to take prey from the fresh-kill pile when food is so scarce,” Mousefur meowed. “There are younger bellies to feed than mine.”

“Well, eat the coltsfoot instead,” Longtail meowed. “If only to give me some peace.”

Muttering crossly, Mousefur used her tail to sweep the pile of shredded leaves toward her nest.

Jaypaw sighed. Listening to the elders fussing, he felt as though nothing had changed since his days with Brightheart.

After hardly a quarter moon he was bored to the ends of his whiskers with doling out herbs. He was meant to visit Stormfur in the warriors’ den next and apply a honey-and-horsetail poultice to his shoulder wound yet again. The warrior refused to rest, and the balm seemed to rub off as quickly as Jaypaw could apply it.

Leafpool appeared at the entrance of the honeysuckle bush, bringing with her the scents of the medicine den.

“How’s Mousefur’s throat?” she asked.

“It feels fine,” Jaypaw answered tersely. “Although it would be easier to tell if she stopped complaining long enough for me to feel it properly.”

Leafpool’s irritation spiked the air. “If you can’t be polite to your Clanmates, you may as well come back to the medicine den and help me tear up the tansy that Hollypaw was kind enough to fetch for you yesterday!” she snapped.

Jaypaw rolled his eyes. Another moment in the medicine den and he would burst! So much for his great destiny as a medicine cat. Spottedleaf hadn’t warned him that life would be one tedious chore after another.

Leafpool led the way back to the den, her shoulders tense.

Jaypaw padded miserably after her. He felt a lecture brewing in her like a storm, and nosed his way reluctantly through the trailing brambles and sat down.

“You drift around the camp like a little dark cloud looking for someone to rain on,” Leafpool snapped.

“I’m bored!” Jaypaw complained.

Exasperation flashed from his mentor. “Anyone would think I had forced you to become my apprentice!”

“You didn’t force me,” Jaypaw agreed. “But it’s what you wanted all along, isn’t it?” He lashed his tail. “Are you happy now?”

“Do I sound happy?” Leafpool hissed. Jaypaw could feel the fury seething beneath her pelt. Why did she have to be so mad at him? Couldn’t she understand that he had expected more from his life than this?

“It’s okay for you,” he snapped. “You always wanted to be a medicine cat!”

“And you don’t?”

“It’s my destiny,” he muttered. “Wanting doesn’t seem to come into it.”

“Then deal with it!” Leafpool growled unsympathetically.

Unhappily, Jaypaw padded to the heap of tansy Hollypaw had left and began to strip the leaves from the stems. He ripped at them carelessly, leaving long strings of stalk attached. Leafpool sighed and sat down beside him.

Wordlessly, she began to nip off the trailing strips he had left.

Her disappointment showed in every small, silent movement she made. Guilt pricked at Jaypaw like a bellyful of thorns. He wished he could find the words to explain his frustration, but he knew that whatever he said would only make it worse.

What would she say if she knew just how miserable he was at giving up his dream of being a warrior? And for this! A life of sorting herbs and worrying about scratches and bellyaches.

“Leafpool?” Stormfur pushed his way into the den. Jaypaw could smell the sour odor of the scratches festering on his shoulder. He had forgotten to apply the new poultice. He jerked his head around, feeling guiltier than ever.