2. Whose blood is on your paws now?
"Wildrose! Circlebreeze! Wildrose! Circlebreeze!" As the Clan called her new name, Wildrose felt a great happiness. It was a perfect moment! She and Circlebreeze, her best friend, were finally RiverClan warriors. The sun shone brightly over the camp of rushes, bright greenleaf growth heavy on the trees on the near shore, ThunderClan's border. She could see the newly reclaimed Sunningrocks, last night's battle still fresh in her mind. Hah! She and Circlebreeze had proved themselves then! That was why they were being made warriors now, ahead of Fennelpaw, Deerpaw and Shiverpaw, although those three were a full moon older. And they'd never been afraid to use that advantage. Well, now she and Circlebreeze were the seniors. They'd just have to do as they were told. A smug smile flitted across her face, to be quickly replaced by her previous pure joy as she banished such unworthy thoughts. A warrior oughtn't be so mean. And she was a warrior now!
Their vigil that night was easy. ThunderClan made no move to take back Sunningrocks, and the air was warm. The only difficulty was not being allowed to talk to Circlebreeze! Her friend sat staring at the stars, his light tabby fur and white underbelly ruffled in the slight breeze, the stars reflected in his amber eyes. He turned to her and grinned; and she could see the curious circle marking around his right eye, a ring of darker fur that had given him his name. She smiled back and placed her tail across her mouth, reminding him. They'd have plenty of time to talk later! She looked down into the river below her feet. She sat at the very edge of the camp, her paws almost in the water, a little downstream from the stepping-stones. It was almost full moon tonight, and the stars were bright too, so she could clearly see her reflection staring back at her, illuminated by the heavens. Her pinkish coat, white marked and red striped, had been well groomed by her proud mother that afternoon before the ceremony. It really was almost the colour of a rose, thought Wildrose with a little vanity. She had little white socks on each of her paws, which could be considered dainty for a warrior, but that didn't make them any less dangerous, as some ThunderClan warriors had discovered. And her gold-flecked grey eyes sparkled with the recollection. She flicked her tail across her paws, utterly content and wide awake to the world.
The next few weeks passed quickly enough. The border patrols, the hunting trips, all seemed to take on new life to the young warriors. Soon enough though, the pair were hanging about the nursery, hoping for apprentices of their own.
"We are a little young to be considered, really," mused Circlebreeze one morning, after they'd been sent away to bring the queens some food, because if they were going to be loitering around there all the time they could at least make sure that all the queens were well fed!
"I shouldn't think that that would matter," Wildrose responded as they came to their favourite stream bend. The fish tended to slow down around there, to nibble at the sweet water-weeds, and they were easy to catch. It was moving into leaf-fall, and there was a cold breeze as the two sat down.
"I know. Frillfeather, Splashrock and Otterwillow are the only warriors without apprentices at the moment, I and reckon we'd do a better job than any of them." Circlebreeze's statement was more than just youthful conceit; the trio he had named were older warriors, with less of a grasp of the new tricks and techniques, and close to moving to the elders den besides.
Circlebreeze had his eye on Snowkit, Wildrose her sister Icekit. They were the only kits in the nursery, and, at five moons old, would need apprenticing soon. Already they were starting to range out of the camp, illegal (although expected) forays that earned them stern scoldings from every warrior. It was often Wildrose and Circlebreeze's job to bring them back; spending time around the nursery meant they often ran errands for the queens. Consequently, Icekit and Snowkit now showed quite a preference for the two youngest warriors, who tried to make staying in camp more fun for them and often got them out of trouble. Unfortunately, this also meant that the sisters would follow them around.
"Heya heya Wildrose, Circlebreeze!" called Snowkit, bounding out of the bushes by the stream. "We've come t'hunt wi' you an' learn extra 'fore you're our mentors!" explained Icekit, coming to an expectant stop by Wildrose's paws. A few fish already lay on the bank beside the cats, so they had no trouble telling the kits that they'd already caught plenty for the day, and that Snowkit and Icekit were so smart they didn't need extra training to be the best apprentices ever, but why didn't they help Circlebreeze and Wildrose bring the fish back to camp?
As the queens thanked the pair for the return of their kits and the juicy fish besides, Wildrose felt a surge of pride. This was what it meant to serve her Clan! Life should always be like this. The sharp breeze blowing scents of berries and fallen leaves, all kinds of prey abounding, the Clan flourishing. The responsibilities of a warrior felt right upon her shoulders and, as it had all the weeks since their warrior ceremony, so did the world.
The next dawn it all changed. Circlebreeze and Wildrose (who never did anything apart) were patrolling the ThunderClan border with Greywave and Fennelpaw, who still resented the pair for becoming warriors before her. There had been no response from the woodland Clan over the taking of Sunningrocks, and so RiverClan had somewhat relaxed, confident in their assumption of the cowardice of ThunderClan.
This morning it was different. As the Sunningrocks came into view, Circlebreeze's keen eyes saw first out of all of them the lone ThunderClan tom casually cleaning his paws, sitting on the sun-warmed stones.
"What are you doing here, Birdflash?" demanded Greywave, who recognised the big, tawny cat from Gatherings. "Sunningrocks are RiverClan's now. ThunderClan was too scared to take them back."
"Too wise, you mean," corrected Birdflash, a sneer on his lips. "We knew RiverClan would be too stupid to keep up patrols. And we were right, of course."
"We're smarter than you, you -" Fennelpaw began heatedly before Greywave, his own eyes flashing with anger, put his tail across his apprentice's mouth.
"Watch your words, Birdflash," he cautioned. "We outnumber you while you're on RiverClan territory, remember."
"If you can get to your camp for reinforcements," said the tom, unconcerned. "And I think . . . not." He stood up, and with his words, six more ThunderClan warriors slipped out of the bushes behind the patrol. Their fur was still dripping from their trip across the river, and they smelt of the herbs they must have rolled in to disguise their scents.
"We'll make an example of you," hissed Birdflash, almost gently, his eyes sparking. "RiverClan will know never to take ThunderClan's territory ever again."
The ThunderClan warriors began to advance, and he leaped the river – it was shallow and thin at that point, and he landed only a few tail-lengths from the bank, splashing quickly through to join his Clanmates.
Wildrose and the others were surrounded. They made a loose circle, back-to-back as they were hemmed in. Wildrose could feel the blood pounding through her ears. All her dreams, all her wishes – did it end today? She could hear Greywave whisper, almost imperceptibly, to Fennelpaw, "Don't worry about the fighting. We'll get you an opening, and you have to run back to camp and get help. Understand?"
Then at some signal that ThunderClan cats attacked.
It wasn't much of a fight. With no space to manoeuvre and hopelessly outnumbered, the RiverClan warriors were soon overwhelmed. Greywave lunged straight for Birdflash, pushing his apprentice towards the gap in the enemy circle with his tail. But they only grappled for a few moments before Birdflash thrust the older cat away, a quick slash with his front paw ripping through Greywave's throat. He fell to the ground, choking and twitching for a few moments, before lying still, his neck bloody and unmoving. Two of the other cats chased after Fennelpaw, who was the fastest apprentice but couldn't outrun them. She screamed as they brought her down, Wildrose and Circlebreeze throwing themselves at the remaining warriors but being pushed back.
"I know you!" gasped Wildrose to a scrawny brown tom, who pulled her off one of his comrades as she went for her neck. "You're – Rabbittooth!" They'd met at a Gathering, and he'd seemed nice enough then. But now he snarled wordlessly, thinking her only a RiverClan cat and therefore nothing. "Our blood is on your paws!" she hissed at him as the seven cats surrounded her and Circlebreeze. He laid his tail along her shoulders, and she glanced quickly at him. His amber eyes were sad but strong, and she knew that he'd fight with her to the end. All the love he'd never told her he'd had for her was there, and she knew he knew that she loved him back.
"Over the river!" he called suddenly, and, forewarned by a light tap of his tail she was ready to turn and follow as he leaped over the startled heads of the warriors. They splashed into the river and over to the ThunderClan border – to the Sunningrocks where they could hold more easily. The ThunderClan warriors followed quickly, but the pair had disappeared into one of the many little caves.
"Split up and find them," ordered Birdflash, one ear bleeding. He was irritated; two young warriors shouldn't be so hard to beat.
Circlebreeze and Wildrose dashed deeper into the little cave, squeezing through crevices with speed born of desperation. Scrambling up a rockfall, they came to an exit – on ThunderClan territory! Pausing to catch their breath, the two slumped in a corner.
"It's okay, Wildrose, it's okay," said Circlebreeze, and only then did she realise she was crying, and that there were tears in his eyes too. They could hear the water lapping against the stones far below, and the sounds of the searching patrol. "Greywave . . . Fennelpaw . . . " murmured Wildrose. She couldn't believe they were dead. Greywave had always been so nice, telling stories to the kits like any elder, taking the apprentices out hunting and training when their own mentors were sick. And Fennelpaw – they'd often been at odds after Circlebreeze and Wildrose's early warrior ceremony, but she'd hoped that Fennelpaw's imminent one would ease that tension. She'd been the fastest runner out of the apprentices, the best hunter. Now they were both gone. She pressed close against Circlebreeze, shaking.
"Let's stay here," she suggested. "They won't be able to fight well in the dark either, and only one or two will be able to get in at a time. And we can retreat the way we came if we need to."
"Alright," Circlebreeze agreed, his voice gentle. "I would have liked to see the sun once more, though." This last was murmured to himself, but it brought another tear to Wildrose's eyes. Then Rabbittooth – at least, it could have been Rabbittooth, it was hard to tell with his head blocking the light from the entrance – found them and called, "Birdflash! They're in here!"
Circlebreeze pulled himself to his feet, tensing, ready to fight. Wildrose followed suit, and no sooner than that Rabbittooth forced his way through the small entrance. She pounced and he responded to the attack, going for the kill. She couldn't believe she'd ever thought him nice! Now she targeted his throat too, but he was an excellent fighter and she was hard put to defend herself. As they wrestled on the hard stone of the cave, she caught a glimpse of Circlebreeze exchanging blows with another cat, shadows in the shadows, and still another trying to get through the entrance. Then Rabbittooth's claws scored her flank and she had to concentrate. Finally she managed to pin him against a spur of rock and slammed his head back against the wall, seeing his eyes roll back and feeling his body slump, lifeless. She wasn't sure if he was dead, but he was out of the action for now. Lunging across the cramped space, she slashed her claws along the face of the warrior dragging herself through the cave's entrance. Rearing back in pain, the cat knocked her head against the low rock ceiling and fell to the ground, unconscious, and blocking the entrance. Amazed at this stroke of good luck, she turned to help Circlebreeze with his opponent, but the space was now so dark that she could barely see the forms of two cats grappling over the other side, near their escape route. One of the cats suddenly rolled the other over, holding it down as it went for the throat. "Circlebreeze!" screamed Wildrose, and she sprang to rescue him, knocking the cat off its victim. They rolled over twice, stopping against the hard rocky wall. The other cat's head struck the stone with a harsh crack, the force of their momentum making Wildrose's move unexpectedly fatal. Just then, Birdflash and his cats managed to pull their stunned comrade out of the entrance, allowing light to pour in. And allowing Wildrose to see her terrible, terrible mistake. It was Circlebreeze's body which lay under her paws, his eyes staring sightlessly into the sunlight he had never seen again. The other cat he'd killed, she could see now, her brain registering the detail automatically. But Rabbittooth was still alive, pulling himself to his feet dazedly.
"Whose blood is on your paws now, Wildrose?" he said, staring at her with cloudy eyes, blood running down the side of his head. Then Birdflash forced his way into the cave, and Wildrose, staggering away from Circlebreeze's limp body, felt herself dive down the tunnel, scrambling and slipping on water-smoothed rocks, dashing down the short sunless passage, across the river. There was silence in her ears, her body shaking, not understanding. But her heart knew, her heart knew what she'd done. She passed Greywave's body, then Fennelpaw's. She wasn't functioning anymore, spasms passing down her limbs making it impossible to run, unhearing, uncaring, willing death on.
She made it back to camp somehow, choked out her message – "ThunderClan retaking Sunningrocks! The others – dead, all dead –" – and seen the warriors departing in a rush. Then there was blackness, welcome blackness, where she didn't have to think or feel. Fallowthorn, the medicine cat, told her later that they'd found the bodies of Fennelpaw, Greywave and Circlebreeze stretched out on the rocks on the bank there, a warning. RiverClan'd take Sunningrocks back, no doubt, but not yet, not yet.
Icekit and Snowkit came to visit Wildrose once or twice, as she lay in the medicine den recovering, but they soon stopped. She wouldn't talk, wouldn't move, even after the scrapes and scratches on her body were healed. She told only Fallowthorn what had happened, only him because she knew he'd be the only one to understand. He did understand, in his own oblique way, with the universal empathy bestowed on a medicine cat. He helped her through those impossible months, though it was a long time before she could bear to have other company or see the sunlight. She wouldn't see Icekit or Snowkit, reminders of that past life, and what a shock it was to hear that they'd been apprenticed to the newest warriors, Deerwhisker and Shiverstripe. They'd buried Circlebreeze and the others while Wildrose was still unconscious, but, when she felt well enough, she went to sit by their graves, at the bend of the stream that they had loved to fish at. Wildrose felt as though she'd killed her own heart, and that it was buried there with them.
"I think you need something to do," said Fallowthorn to her one day. The day before RiverClan warriors had successfully retaken Sunningrocks, and Wildrose had fallen back into her depression. She wished that they'd just let them alone. Those rocks were death.
"I'm fine," she muttered, her automatic response.
"Don't be silly. Go fetch me some watermint, please."
And so she began to run errands for Fallowthorn, as she had once for the queens. Soon enough, he asked her if she would like to train as his apprentice, and it seemed only natural to agree. The smell of herbs was soothing now to her, and she was sick enough of killing to last a lifetime. But she had one request.
"I'm not Wildrose anymore. It just doesn't feel like me. I was – I was Circlebreeze's Wildrose. Now he's gone I'm just – no-one."
"I understand," said Fallowthorn, nodding. And he did, as he always had. "What are you now?"
She had to think about that, but Rabbittooth's piercing comment had kept coming back to her, and so her final choice seemed somehow right.
"Bloodrose! Bloodrose!" As the Clan called her new name, Bloodrose didn't know how she felt. Circlebreeze had stood here beside her once, and his name had been called with hers, but that time was gone now. By her paw, or by another, he was gone and nothing would change that fact. She'd tried to keep memories of him untainted by guilt, and she would always hold him in her heart, buried in the riverbank. A new future waited now, a different one than she'd thought she would ever have.
"Bloodrose," she whispered to herself. Yes, that was her now. Bloodrose, whose paws were clean, not covered with the blood of her heart.