Fatal War
Chapter 10
Lionblaze gaped. Graystripe, Whitewing, and Cinderheart cautiously approached.
"H-Hollyleaf?" Cinderheart breathed. Lionblaze suddenly noticed a bunch of cats of all shapes, sizes, and colours behind them. There were enough to match all of ThunderClan's warriors. Hollyleaf sneered,
"Yes, it's me, Cinderheart." For a moment there was silence. Then,
"Who are your friends, Hollyleaf?" Graystripe asked kindly, hoping to soothe the tension between all these cats. Hollyleaf flicked her tail,
"Oh, a few acquaintances I've met." Tension simply increased. Finally, after what seemed like moons, Hollyleaf spoke again,
"I guess you want to know what happened after the tunnel incident." Lionblaze nodded.
"Well, I ran in the tunnel, and the entrance collapsed behind me. I was hit by quite a few falling rocks, and I was seriously wounded. I crawled away, but didn't get far. I was almost dead when I was found by a cat all of us have met." Hollyleaf said. Then Lionblaze recognized the cat standing directly behind Hollyleaf. Sol.
The cats marched Hollyleaf into the ThunderClan camp. Sol had followed without complaint, but a few of the other rogues had tried to fight, but a quick word from Hollyleaf had silenced them. Many cats were curious about the party of cats that doubled the ThunderClan camp's population, but they were soon all squeezed into Firestar's den for questioning. Jayfeather took the time when Firestar was occupied to look for herbs. But first he needed an escort. He bounded over to the first cat he saw,
"Whitewing! I'm going out to look for herbs, and I need an escort!" Whitewing nodded, and after finishing her conversation with Dovewing, bounded over to the entrance and waited for Jayfeather, When they were out of camp, Whitewing asked,
"What herbs do we need?"
"Pretty much everything except yarrow," Jayfeather replied,
"but we need catmint the most. I lost too much over Ivypool." Jayfeather suddenly regretted choosing Whitewing to come, because her nostrils flared at the suggestion it was her daughter's fault because of the yarrow lost. Jayfeather, however, never backed down without a fight.
"Well, it's true!" Jayfeather snapped. Whitewing was still visibly angry, but she had nothing to say after that. Jayfeather took the moment of silence to search under a juniper bush. He hadn't expected anything, but under the bush he found two juniper berries. He searched with his paws, found a leaf, and wrapped them up. Then, as he sniffed the bush, he realized it hadn't succumbed to leaf-bare yet, and was covered in juniper berries! He unwrapped the leaf with the first two juniper berries and added dozens more. Whitewing produced her own leaf, and started following Jayfeather's example. Soon there were four bulging leaf-wraps, and they couldn't have been able to pick up anymore herbs if they tried. Thank StarClan, Jayfeather thought, but too bad it was only juniper. That's only good for bellyaches and breathing troubles. At least we have something, though. As Jayfeather padded out of the medicine den after depositing all those juniper berries with Whitewing, he smelled Hollyleaf coming out of Firestar's den. Finally! Jayfeather thought as he bounded over to her,
"Hollyleaf! How are you!" Hollyleaf seemed depressed when she answered,
"Okay, I guess."
"What is wrong?" Jayfeather asked. Hollyleaf turned, anger flaring,
"Firestar says I cannot stay in ThunderClan! After all of my work and suffering trying to come back here and be accepted, Firestar says I can't because I killed Ashfur, and that's breaking the code that a warrior doesn't need to win. Well, in this case, I think it did, and I had always been trying to protect my Clan before that, and I was still trying, and…." She stopped.
"Firestar says that if any of his warriors catch me on ThunderClan territory after the sun sets tonight, they have permission to kill me." Already the sun was sinking. Hollyleaf straightened,
"Goodbye, Jayfeather." She left the ThunderClan camp, Sol in tow, and behind them, a huge band of rogues following. Jayfeather stared after her, all his energy draining from him. He would probably never see his beloved sister again.
"Firestar, what are you doing!" Lionblaze and Jayfeather were in the leader's den. If looks could kill, Firestar would melt like snow in newleaf.
"Why did you banish Hollyleaf?" Jayfeather asked. Firestar stared at them,
"She killed Ashfur. I did it for her own safety. How could she ever be accepted into ThunderClan again?" Suddenly Jayfeather saw Firestar's method behind his madness. Firestar shared his point of view on Hollyleaf. He thought she was innocent, but would the Clan think that? They would shun Hollyleaf. It was probably better off she was living as a rogue.
"I was a little troubled when she seemed glad Squirrelflight and Leafpool were dead, but I assure you, that did not affect my decision."
"That's good, because you would have had to banish us too if it did, because we were too!" Lionblaze snarled. Firestar revealed a red ball hooked on his claw.
"Deathberry." He explained.
"Found it when I went hunting one day." He stared at Jayfeather,
"StarClan sent me a message. It's my time to go." He popped the deathberry in his mouth. Jayfeather turned and bolted out of the den, across the camp, into the medicine den, grabbed all the stinging nettle seeds and yarrow he could find, ran out of the medicine den without bothering to wrap it in a leaf, bolted back across the camp, herbs flying, and was back in Firestar's den. By Twoleg time standards the process took a second and a half. Jayfeather ripped open Firestar's jaws and dumped some stinging nettle seeds down the hatch. He then chewed up yarrow faster than he'd ever chewed before, and stuffed the pulp down Firestar's throat. Firestar coughed and choked, and for a second it seemed he was going to be OK. Then he keeled over and his breathing slowed and stopped. Jayfeather stared. Then he bounded back to the medicine den, grabbed some juniper berries, bolted back, and stuffed them down Firestar's hatch. Too late. Firestar was with StarClan.