CHAPTER 6

The first sensation Dappledpaw felt was a clinging wet; soaking into her fur unpleasantly and seeming to cling to her limbs and weigh her down, like her whole body was sinking. It reminded her of when Rowanpaw had pushed her into a giant puddle of liquid mud during a long period of rain when they were kits. She struggled against it, and when she opened her eyes, she was somewhere entirely unfamiliar and yet, it nagged at her. The words of the elder Hailstorm telling his story to the kits rang in her ears.

She had found herself in a bog; thick fog swirling among crooked, pale, moss-covered trees that were mostly naked of leaves apart from an oppressive dark canopy that completely blocked out the sky. The understory was lacking, mostly due to the fact that the ground was almost entirely covered with dark, murky water of various depths. The small patches of ground couldn't be called dry. Where Dappledpaw stood was soft mud, her paws sinking slightly into it. What undergrowth was present was all cutting grass and thorns. She was sure she could see movement in the gloom, just in the corners of her vision, but couldn't make out what it was.

Dappledpaw lifted her head to sniff, trying to look around. It was hard to see very far ahead between the mist and the prevalent gloom. There was a slight sour scent to the air. The atmosphere was oppressive, and it made her heart clench, like it was hard to breathe. She felt like she was being watched and yet as she strained her ears and angled them in every direction, the mangrove was silent. Unnaturally so… Normally there was always a distant birdsong or a scurrying of small prey. Even the dull hum of the thunderpath or the whisper of the wind. No, there was nothing. Not even the shifting shadows in the distance that put her fur on edge seemed to be making a sound as they rustled the brush. Absolute stillness.

It couldn't be? No… she was just having a dream after hearing the old cat's legend. She'd always been an active dreamer.

"You won't hear anything much." A voice broke the silence; clear and amused in tone. The apprentice couldn't pick where it was coming from. "Only residents hear it."

Dappledpaw decided to bite. It was just a dream after all. "Hear what?"

"The waves. The lapping tide." The voice replied coyly. "Soothing and maddening. Mostly maddening when you have to hear it long enough and it's the only sound to your ears but your own voice. Some say it's Deepwater breathing; reminding us all he's watching us."

Suddenly there was a soft thud behind her. Dappledpaw wheeled around with fur on edge and claws unsheathed.

"Relax."

Before her stood a cat; one unfamiliar to her. The brown and white she-cat that stood tall and calmly before her was sleek; with a dark mask and dark tipped tail. Her eyes were a fearsome orange not unlike Icestars; alight with intelligence and basically glowing in the gloom. What was most striking though, was she was ever so slightly transparent, wisps of shadow at her white paws. She looked like she could melt into the mist around them.

"Who are you?" Dappledpaw demanded, still on guard. Icestar had always taught her to be ready to strike at any moment when dealing with an unknown.

"Assertive. I like that in a she-cat." The stranger chuckled, her laugh echoing slightly in the strange air of this place. "I suppose you wouldn't know me. You were too young." The cat lifted her chin with a slight frown, and just for a moment, instead of a beautiful young cat, there was an extremely aged one before her; emaciated, frail, and grey all over, eyes glassy and staring. Dappledpaw blinked, and the youthful version was back. "I prefer not to wear my state of death around like some. It's decidedly unsightly." She curled her lip slightly in disgust.

Dappledpaw was no less confused, and it seemed the strange cat realised that. One of her small, roundish ears twitched. "Stoatberry. I was your clan's herbalist."

This was some dream. Dappledpaw was taken aback. "Stoatberry…? But a herbalist-"

"In the Dark Forest?" Stoatberry smirked as she finished the question. "Doesn't add up does it?" The sleek cat padded in a semicircle. Dappledpaw realized her pawsteps were silent, even though she was clearly making impact with the ground, leaving tracks behind in the mud. "Let's just say Starclan doesn't approve of actions outside of their dogma, even if acting for the good of the clan. I knew a long time ago I would not be admitted to Silverpelt. I made my peace with it."

Dappledpaw was about to ask the cat if she would elaborate, but Stoatberry cut over her sharply. "We can talk about the past another time." Her tail tip twitched. "It's not like it's easy to drag a living cat here in their dreams, you know. I'd rather get to the point." She looked over her shoulder. "And the shadows are closing in."

"Shadows?" Glancing around, Dappledpaw noticed those strange movements she'd seen did indeed seem to be closer. They looked like the shadows of cats made solid, but they were completely indistinct and she couldn't so much as make out their pelt colour. Only hollow glowing eyes; harsh white and glaring. It made her skin crawl. Like she was being sized up as prey.

"They're mostly harmless." Stoatberry observed the shadows as they seemed to shrink back from being noticed. "Unless they catch you unawares, or, I assume, if you aggravate them somehow. I'm not particularly game to try and find out what would happen."

"What are they?"

"What's left." Stoatberry replied dismissively. "Not every cat has the will to last in this place. To stay you. There's no prey, no sky, no scent, nothing but yourself and that infernal sound of waves. You can never tell where you are, and it's rare to cross paths with someone else. And when you do, they usually aren't friendly, of course. This is the Dark Forest." She smirked slightly and looked around, and seemed to be in thought. "I hear them in the distance sometimes, wailing yowls of fear and anger and confusion. Sometimes I'm sure I've just missed another cat; a flicker of a tail going behind a tree. But the mist moves in and I can't find them. Or maybe there was nobody there at all; just the shadows. Eventually those of weaker wills sink in this place. As far as I can tell, those things are just the echo of a cat, left behind. Their fear, their anger, their malice… Eventually too, they fade away."

Dappledpaw remembered Hailstorm's story. Was that the fate of those that came to the Dark Forest; a revelation and redemption leading to Starclan, or sinking to the bottom of the ocean and becoming nothing?

"Anyway. As I said, time is short." Stoatberry said with a huff, drawing Dappledpaw's attention back to the former herbalist cat. "I'm sure you still think you are just having an ordinary fanciful dream, but I assure you that is not the case. I've pulled you to this place in your sleep for a reason. I've been watching you, Dappledpaw, and I think you are the she-cat I've been waiting for."

Dappledpaw narrowed her blue eyes at the cat. "What do you want, then?"

"Nothing, but your ear. I offer you my advice, my training… Things you won't learn from your lumbering brute of a mentor."

"Icestar is a great leader, and a good mentor!" The apprentice was quick to defend her idol.

Stoatberry shrugged. "Sure, he's an improvement on the last one, but he's still a flawed tom who puts too high a value on physical strength… Like many former leaders before him. Gorseclan needs to get over it's infatuation with strong tom leaders… What Gorseclan needs as a leader is a she-cat with some brains... That's all I want, Dappledpaw; I spent my entire life guiding my clan as best I could from the shadows of foolish leaders, I don't see why I need to stop just because I took the big dirt nap and ended up here. The clan clearly needs more guidance yet. You, though, have some potential."

"What about Sorrelwind? She's a smart cat, and she's deputy." Dappledpaw's inquiry brought about a low snort from the brown and white she-cat.

"Sorrelwind had promise too, yes, but she is too infatuated with Icestar, too infatuated with power. Not for lack of trying on my part while I was still kicking, mind you… though I mostly wound up babysitting her brother... You, however, I'm not too late to turn around yet. You're young; you have ambition and strength and that's all very well and good, but you also have a decent head on your shoulders. I just simply need to teach you how you should be going about things. Not relying on Icestar's killing moves and the status that comes with cosying up to him." She let out a chuckle filled with clear disapproval as her thick tail swept across the ground.

Suddenly, she paused; stock still for a moment, and blinked. A hiss escaped through her teeth. The fog around them seemed to grow thicker; pressing in. "It seems our time is up. Think my offer over, Dappledpaw. I would never counsel rushing blindly into a decision, after all…"

"Wait-!" Dappledpaw called out, as the mist rushed in like a raging fire's smoke, completely enveloping Stoatberry and blinding Dappledpaw, she felt a tug in her gut like a cat was dragging her backwards with their claws, and her vision turned black.

Dappledpaw snapped awake. She was back in her nest in the apprentice den. Her breathing was quick, her fur on edge, and her claws unsheathed. The feeling of being dragged awake like that had been unpleasant. What on earth was that dream? She looked at her paws and steadied herself, making her fur lie flat. With a deep breath she stood and shook herself off and looked down at her paws, no longer caked in the black muck of the dream. Was that really, actually, the Dark Forest? Did she really meet with their former herbalist there?

Dappledpaw had never been a strongly faithful cat. She followed the warrior code, as a good apprentice, of course… and obviously there was something to the whole Starclan thing; otherwise how did leaders get nine lives? But she'd never been devout in reverence to her warrior ancestors. She didn't believe they watched over them; guided them. As for the Dark Forest, she'd always thought it a place made up in stories to scare kits into behaving.

It had to have just been a vivid dream brought on by hearing Hailstorm tell the legend earlier.

The tortoiseshell yawned and stretched her still aching muscles from her earlier training session, poking her head out of the den to find it much fuller than when she'd left. Judging by the position of the sun in the sky, she'd slept through till later in the afternoon.

"There you are, sleepyhead!" Sedgepaw's bright voice greeted her. Her brother lay in a casual sprawl near the den entrance. Judging by his belly, he'd just eaten. "Icestar told us you'd had a big combat training session this morning and to let you sleep." He explained, gesturing with a flick of his ear to Rowanpaw who was sitting nearby, chewing the last of the meat off the bone of some kind of prey item. The red tom nodded at her silently by way of greeting.

"Have a good lesson, Sedgepaw?" She asked, trying to focus on the real here and now then be distracted by an off putting nightmare.

"I guess." The pointed tom muttered, tail tip twitching. "Weedfur is so strict!" He exclaimed suddenly, flattening his ears for effect. "He wouldn't even invite you or Rowanpaw to practice spar with me."

"Because you wouldn't take it seriously if we were there." She soothed with amusement in her voice, sitting down next to her brother and playfully swatting her tail at him.

"Sure I would!"

"You absolutely would not." Rowanpaw spoke up flatly, causing Sedgepaw to try to bat at him with his paws, making Rowanpaw hiss and lean away. Dappledpaw rolled her eyes at the antics. They were a good distraction.

And yet the faint voice of the former herbalist was still in her ears.

"We will speak again."