"Hollyleaf," Matilda called, her silver bulk flashing as she weaved through the trees, "can you not walk faster?"
The black she-cat did not reply. She was in truth maintaining a quite respectable pace, but cats, unlike wolves, were not designed to cover long distances at speed. Wolves have a trotting gait that they can maintain for hours as the kilometres reeled beneath their paws. Cats walk. They have no other choice.
Ordinarily Matilda would match Hollyleaf's strides so that they would travel almost shoulder-to-shoulder, but in her impatience, she and her new wolf friend would trot some ways ahead before stopping to wait for her.

For once in her life Hollyleaf was glad to be half-WindClan. Her moorland blood gave her the speed to at least keep the wolves in her sight while her ThunderClan lineage enabled her to maintain it.
The other wolf, the one who had just joined them-Chénmò?-snapped his jaws at Hollyleaf every time she came close to him. Yet, strangely, she could not bring herself to fear him. Perhaps it was the amusing thought of him being strung up like a chicken by Mistystar that kept it at bay. She was intrigued, too, by the thought of a weapon, but had assured her wolf keepers that no such thing existed.

They had been hunting through the thick forest for several suns, rebuilding their strength. Hollyleaf was fitter than she'd ever been in her life. Decided to lose a little weight, Saffron, she told the spirit of her dead mate. The wolf diet. Run as fast as you can all day, then stuff yourself with deer at night.
She did that often, now, talk to him as though he could hear her. She knew he couldn't, really, but the she-cat was lonely. Now that Matilda had another wolf to talk to, she barely interacted with Hollyleaf, and of course Chénmò only growled when she came close. Sometimes, Hollyleaf almost thought she didn't exist. She wondered if things had been better before Chénmò had joined them. At least Matilda had seemed a little less…cold.

But the wolves needed her. It was the one thing that constantly grated on their nerves, shortened their tempers, and sharpened their hostility. If wolves had a weakness, it was their own impatience and lack of impulse control. They were worse than kits in that aspect. Hollyleaf had watched, half-amused, half-frightened, as Matilda had disembowelled a tree after missing a catch. Hollyleaf had spent most of that day plucking splinters out of the wolf's paws. She had begun to come to the conclusion that, aside from the possibility of regaining land that had once been theirs, the wolves didn't really know why they were going to attack the Clans.

Hollyleaf had no doubt that they would win. But she wished they would just stop and think of a plan before charging in. The last time a wolf had fought cats on their home ground, he had nearly died. Clan warriors might be idiots, but Clan leaders generally weren't, and Mistystar least of all.
"Hollyleaf!" Matilda growled, scraping at the earth. "Is this it? The RiverClan territory?"
Hollyleaf craned her neck and peered forwards. The ground beneath her paws felt moist, and smelt of decay. The trees were mostly cypress and willow, trees that tended to need a lot of water. And even if all that hadn't been enough to tell her that they were near a river, the thick fishy smell of a cat cloyed the air. Hollyleaf wrinkled her nose. Ever since she had been spending so much time near the wolves, cats had begun to smell increasingly strange to her.

"Yes, this is their territory," she replied to the she-wolf.
Matilda took a step back. "Then lead. You know the way to the camp."
Hollyleaf wondered if she should point out that she'd only been to the camp once, and not from this direction, and then decided against it. If they thought she was lost, they'd eat her. And she didn't want to die just yet. Not while Lionblaze was still breathing.

Sidling past the wolves to take the front, Hollyleaf glanced up at a break between the trees. The sky was swamped with gigantic storm clouds, blue-black in colour. Were the rains coming at last? A rumble shuddered through the trees, as if in response.
"Scared of a little thunder, small one?" mocked Chénmò. Hollyleaf ignored him and padded into the river woods, her heart beginning to beat faster. In truth, she did fear storms, and the memories they brought with them. It had been during a storm that she had learned the truth about her past.
But she would rather die-and it would probably be arranged for her-than admit it to the brute padding behind her.

Hollyleaf hoped he would die. He and Lionblaze deserved each other.
Fortunately, her memory was somewhat better than she had believed, and before too long was recognizing landmarks. Thunder continued to boom, and the air was hot and sticky. Her black fur prickled with static and itched almost unbearably, while her paws were slippery with sweat. The wolves behind her were in no better shape.
Finally, with vast relief, she dipped her paws in the stream that guarded the RiverClan camp, which was an island in the middle. She submerged herself several times in the cool, muddy water, trying to wash clean the scent of wolf from her pelt. Once she felt refreshed, she noted how low the water was, and again wondered if the storm above her head would bring the rain that the Clans so desperately needed.

"There," she told the wolves, keeping her green eyes fixed on the waving reeds. "RiverClan camp is just on that island."
Matilda began to paw at the ground again. "Then it begins. I will lead. Hollyleaf, stay at the rear, and do not get in our way."
Chénmò bared his teeth at Hollyleaf in a savage grin. Instead of stepping away from him, as she usually did, the she-cat flattened her ears at him and narrowed her eyes to slits, holding her tail high. In wolf body-language, it was an aggressive move, but not a hostile one. It meant I follow the alphas and the alphas alone, and you are not they. Do not presume to give me orders.
For a moment she had the satisfaction of catching him off guard; then he shrugged his massive shoulders, and followed Matilda across the river.

Hollyleaf stepped neatly behind him, feeling somewhat pleased with herself. She had picked up the body-language from watching the wolves, and had been waiting for a moment like this to use it.
But all satisfaction faded from her instantly as Matilda stopped and they beheld the RiverClan camp.
It was a peaceful enough scene, not a cat in sight, for they were all taking refuge from the relentless heat in their dens. Without warning, Hollyleaf thought uneasily of little Rabbit, hiding in the prison den, and wondered whether dens really offered any sort of protection at all.

Matilda suddenly let out a bark of laughter as she padded towards an immobile black shape, and the she-cat realised that the camp had not been deserted after all. Reedwhisker, one-time proud deputy of RiverClan, now a cripple with a shattered mind, was hunched over in the centre of the island, his amber eyes blank and unseeing. Matilda towered over him, and he seemed pathetic and small.
"I remember you," she said coldly. "You were the one that lead the group of cats to capture me. You were so certain it would be a simple task…" she paused, just for a moment. "You were wrong."
And at last this seemed to spark a reaction from the injured warrior, for he lifted his head to meet her golden eyes, and something stirred within them.

"Wolf!" he yowled to the deepening sky, and then three things happened at the same time.
One, Reedwhisker was killed, as Matilda's jaws cleaved his neck into pieces.
Two, a blue-grey she-cat stepped out of her den, her bright eyes made dull by horror and fear.
Three, a triumphant yowl of amazed disbelief arced through the air as Lionblaze fixed his gaze on the three of them. "You came here?" he demanded, as though scarcely able to believe his luck. "Out of all the places in the WORLD to go, you came back?"
Matilda let out a snarl of rage as she leaped at him, but Lionblaze ducked nimbly under her paws, yowling for both Clans to attack. Perhaps something in his courage inspired them, for even queens and elders charged out of their dens in a massive tidal wave of cats. Hollyleaf scrambled aside as the warriors swarmed past her, her eyes roving the battlefield as she searched for one particular golden pelt.

There-his claws raking Chénmò's muzzle, who let out a howl of anger and snapped his jaws through his shoulder. Despite the blood that welled up, Lionblaze let out a screeching laugh, and Hollyleaf wondered if her brother had gone truly mad at last.
Mistystar was also hurt, but her claws and teeth flashed in the unbearably sticky air as she duelled with Matilda, who at last thrust her away with massive paws before looking for an easier target. Cat bodies were beginning to litter the clearing, but things weren't going all the wolves' way. Chénmò had lost an eye, but whether it was from Lionblaze or another cat's lucky blow Hollyleaf had no idea. The tip of Matilda's tail was missing, and blood stained her flanks from other wounds. Despite herself, Hollyleaf wondered-is it possible that the cats can win?

Time seemed to blur as the battle grew ever more fierce, and Hollyleaf's memories began to merge and overlap. She thought she saw Mistystar lose a life, lying motionlessly for several minutes before leaping to her paws again, just as she thought she saw Chénmò collapse briefly under the pain and blood loss of his wounds, before tearing the cat who had attacked him to shreds. The air reeked of storm, blood, sweat, wolf, terror.
At last Hollyleaf had seen enough. She no longer knew who would win that fight, but she knew that she wanted no part of it. She had not seen Lionblaze for what seemed like hours, so perhaps he was dead. She turned away from the endless bloodshed, only to come face-to-face with him. A shiver ran down her spine. How long had he been watching her while his Clan died around him? Did nothing matter to him but vengeance and power? Oddly she remembered something that Firestar had told her, some seasons ago, when she'd asked him about Tigerstar.

Stars may fall, but in the end, Hollyleaf, nothing is truly forgotten. There are some emotions that cling to the earth too bitterly to not leave a mark. Happiness and sadness depart this world, but hatred alone never dies.
It was true. Even after all these years, the wolves still hated the cats; the Clans still hated each other; the Dark Forest warriors still hated the living. How long would her hatred of Lionblaze last? she wondered. Would her kits, if she had any, and their kits, look upon him with the same burning, destructive rage?

"Running away again, Hollyleaf?" he croaked, and she shuddered to look upon his wild eyes. "It's disappointing. I expected better from you."
"A wise warrior always knows when to flee a battle," she responded curtly, taking refuge in her sharp tongue.
Her brother leaned towards her. "But this is not that time, Hollyleaf! We're winning, or have you not realised yet?"
Hollyleaf glanced over her shoulder. "I fail to see your victory, Lionblaze. All I see are mounds of dead cats. Some of them your own."
The golden tabby tom began to laugh again, his manic howls echoing as suddenly, with a roar of thunder, a bright fork of lighting struck tree barely a hundred feet from them.

"Poor naïve Hollyleaf," he said. "Did you think that the wolves ever had a chance of winning? You were a medicine cat once, sister. So tell me-if you were facing a monster that could kill you easily, how would you bring it down?"
Another memory flashed into Hollyleaf's eyes. A pile of red yew, which some called night-seeds and others deathberries, hidden in the combs of ThunderClan's walls, baited with a mouse. A snake, the murderer of Honeyfern, glided silently up to it and swallowed…
"Poison," she breathed softly.
"Exactly so. All we needed was bait, bait that no wolf could resist. Us. Every time one of your beast friends takes a bite out of a Clan cat, their death creeps a little closer. And if some of us have to die to bring them down, well…" he shrugged his shoulders. "They will be honoured in the highest halls of StarClan."

"You're mad, Lionblaze," she told her brother. "You'll all die."
The golden tabby tom leaned forwards, as though hoping she would say that. "Ah, no, you see, Hollyleaf, we won't. Because," he said, raising his voice as another bellow raked the air, "it doesn't hurt cats."
And then, as though signalling its agreement with Lionblaze's words, the storm shattered. Torrential rain poured out of the sky, so large and so fast as to sting the skin of those it touched. Lightning and thunder danced in a brutal display of power as Mistystar called for the retreat. With a mocking smile, barely visible in the rain, Lionblaze slinked away.

Realising that he only would have told her if he was vitally certain the wolves would die, Hollyleaf leaped into the clearing. "Matilda! Don't touch those carcasses-they're poisoned!"
Chénmò let out a bellow of pain and fell to the ground. "My blood! It feels…burning!"
Good, she thought savagely, and turned to Matilda. "How many times did you bite a cat?"
"I know not. Many."
"As many as him?"
"Far, far less."

"Then you've still got a chance! We can get out of here and-" she paused. For, invisible in the roaring rain, Willowshine watched her. Only her eyes, glowing like two tiny lights, pierced the curtain of rain.
"Willowshine," whispered Hollyleaf. "Tell me. How is this cured?"
Willowshine stared at her. "So you did join them. Why?"
Hollyleaf closed her eyes briefly, and for a moment a tidal wave of shame swamped her. "Lionblaze killed Saffron. I want him dead."
"So you start a war between cats and wolves."
"I didn't start it! He did! He's the one that told her about the herbs!"
Willowshine said nothing. Hollyleaf leaned in closer.

"Willowshine, please. You know this isn't right. If Matilda dies, then Lionblaze will be a hero. Do you want a cat like him to be worshipped? He already thinks he's a Clan leader! When will he stop?"
The young medicine cat's tail dropped in thought.
"You have Chénmò," mewed the black she-cat. "Littlecloud's vision didn't say that Matilda was specifically the wolf required for the sacrifice. It just said a wolf. Willowshine, what if all this was our ancestors' plan? They made us fetch the wolf. They stopped the Tribe of Rushing Water from killing her. They sent Rabbit…" her voice broke for a moment.
Willowshine lifted her head to meet her old friend's eyes. Then, almost imperceptible under the roaring wind, she heard a whisper.

Charcoal.