I'm not even going to apologize any more for being late, since I realize I do it every time and it's just getting old. Here's my last and final apology: I am lazy, and when I'm being lazy I'm doing homework. Therefore, I don't really write fanfiction anymore, but I like this story and I vowed to finish it, so I will. Eventually.
BTW: So, I decided to keep Owlkit, since I like the name. I'm going to just pretend that he was one of Specklefoot's kits, Redkit and Dapplekit's brother. Whatever works, right?
Aaaand…I may have gotten whitecough and greencough confused, but since I already wrote this chapter, the difference is no longer important.
Sort of a short chapter, but I just got a little stuck and figured I might as well end it and post faster. Please tell me if you liked this one, it seemed a little boring to me, but whatever. I'll say this again: I know I'm doing a lot of what the Hunters did in the first Warirors series, with the fire, and whitecough, losing faith in StarClan and the dogs and stuffs, but I do promise that everything ends up differently. After all, since Fireheart was part of a lot of those things, and helped them to end well, Icefang is part of a lot of these events, and how do you think they end? Dun dun dun… (and to answer someone's question about why I didn't just have Icepaw enter ThunderClan with the same characters as Firepaw's story, I did it because I wanted to create my own characters instead of having to fill in someone else's. And, because this story has more to it then a retelling of Firestar's story. Muahahaha…
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Icefang awoke on the morning after the gathering with stiff muscles and damp fur. The rain of the previous night had soaked just about every inch of the camp, even managing to penetrate the warriors den. Icefang had been too tired to go out and look for dry bedding after the Gathering, but she was regretting the choice. She cast an envious glare at Robinwing, who snuggled deep into her nest of dry feathers and released a contented sigh.
Feeling cold to the bone and subsequently irritable, Icefang stalked out the darkness of the den and into the icy dry morning air. Frost covered the leaves and left a silver sheen on the ground, where pawsteps like dark shadows were printed in tracks going to and from the dens. Curious, Icefang followed the only other pair of prints that led out of the medicine den, trying to place her paws in the same darkened areas. There was no point to it, but it was fun. In the back of Icefang's mind, the idea that no one who looked at the paw prints would know she was awake sent a thrill of excitement through her veins.
"Icefang! Would you mind helping me for one moment?" came a rasping yowl. Icefang recognized Shortwhisker's voice floating from the warriors' den. To her disappointment, the pawsteps that she had been following led towards the leaders den and not the sheltered glen. Suppressing a growl of frustration, Icefang bunched her hind muscles and leaped as far away as she could from the makeshift path. When she turned to glance back at her tracks, she smiled briefly. Without close inspection, one cat had left the warriors den, and one ghost had dropped from the sky and headed towards the medicine den.
"What can I do for you, Shortwhisker?" Icefang asked, poking her head around the fern barrier. Most of the stalks were still thin and scraggly looking after the fire, but a few new green shoots were beginning to spurt from the dark earth.
Shortwhisker's tail, which was the only piece of him visible outside of the cave where his nest was, flicked in irritation. He grumbled something, and Icefang's ears pricked up. Another voice answered. Of course – Sparrowpaw was in there with him.
After a moment, the grizzled gray tom backed out of the den, his jaws full of brown, rotten looking leaves. Shortwhisker spat the leaves into a corner and kicked a few chunks of earth over them with a contemptuous flick of his paw.
"What's going on?" Icefang questioned, sliding the rest of the way into the clearing. The ferns swung back into place behind her slender tail as she curled it around her paws and watched. Sparrowpaw followed, carrying more rotten leaves in her mouth.
"We're just doing some cleaning before leaf-bare," Shortwhisker replied, his eyes half-lidded. "We want to be able to stock up on whatever herbs we can find before the real weather sets in."
Icefang swallowed nervously. "That storm last night wasn't…real weather?"
Both Shortwhisker and Sparrowpaw paused to stare at her in disbelief. They blinked in unison, and then Shortwhisker shook his head sadly and trotted back towards the cave.
Sparrowpaw padded over, licking her muzzle to clear away the taste of the rotted herbs.
"What's really going on?" questioned Icefang quietly. She didn't know Shortwhisker very well, but the expression on his face and his unusual silence seemed to imply something more severe then 'some cleaning'.
"Well, he's just worried," Sparrowpaw meowed cautiously. "We don't have a huge supply of catmint. It's fairly rare, you know, and it dies at the first hint of a frost. What with the fire, and last night's storm, Shortwhisker is afraid we won't have enough if an outbreak of whitecough starts." She blinked and lifted a paw to swipe over her whiskers.
"But…" Icefang mewed, a sudden fear sparking in the depths of her stomach. "He doesn't believe there will be an outbreak, right? I mean, no one's sick yet." She glanced desperately at Sparrowpaw. The tortoiseshell looked uneasy. "Right?"
"Palenose had a cold last quarter-moon. Or at least, that's what we thought it was. It wasn't very bad, and she was hardly coughing."
Icefang's eyes widened. She didn't know exactly what whitecough was, but so many cats had died from it last leaf-bare that she assumed it must be a terrifying disease. Sparrowpaw glanced at the ground, shuffling her paws. Shortwhisker had come out with some more leaves, but this time they were dry and crinkly, and he placed them delicately in a pile in the center of the clearing, obviously indicating that they were not trash. Then he whisked away, back towards the cave.
"Palenose is okay now, isn't she? It didn't get worse." Icefang stared wildly at the medicine cat apprentice. Going out with glory in the middle of a battle while fighting for the safety of her Clan wasn't so bad, but succumbing to a measly little sickness was practically like giving up. Icefang shuddered.
"Well…no. We think that Palenose has developed whitecough. At least, the coughing part of her cold has gotten much worse. We've already used a good amount of catmint trying to stop it before it spreads to the rest of the Clan."
Icefang's pelt prickled. The rest of the Clan? That made it sound like the disease was just itching to leap from cat to cat, wreaking havoc throughout leaf-bare like some overeager flea. "How come she hasn't been confined to the medicine den?"
"We just discovered it a little while ago. And…"
Now what? Icefang wailed in her mind. Which one of the warriors would be infected next? Suddenly, her paws felt dirty, and every breath she sucked in was like a death sentence.
"It seems that the whitecough has spread to the nursery. Redkit started coughing early this morning. If either of them gets worse, and this turns into greencough…" The she-cat trailed off into a miserable silence.
Icefang nearly jumped out of her skin. "Greencough?" she hissed. It could get worse?
Sparrowpaw frowned. "Yes. If whitecough isn't treated soon enough, it turns into greencough. There's nothing to worry about, Icefang. Usually only elders and kits are affected. But ThunderClan's already had such a hard year – I can't imagine losing any more cats. If Specklefoot's litter doesn't make it through leaf-bare, ThunderClan will have some serious problems in their paws."
This idea immediately took precedence over the fear for Icefang's life. The concept of no apprentices, which she had been toying with the other night after observing Shadepaw of RiverClan, was suddenly looming over her head like another dark cloud. Not only would she be forced to do apprentice work, but also ThunderClan would shrink to a deplorable size, at the mercy of its weirdly prosperous neighbor – ShadowClan.
"How do we stop it from spreading?" meowed Icefang solemnly, suddenly all business. The thought of ShadowClan invading their territory and stealing prey right out from under their noses made Icefang's pelt sting worse than the idea of dying of whitecough – or greencough.
"Well, that's what's making Shortwhisker worried," Sparrowpaw mewed, wrapping up the entire explanation with a matter-of-fact nod. Both pairs of eyes traveled to where the gray tom was now stopped over various little piles ranging from sick looking black to a vibrant green.
"Perfect!" exclaimed the medicine cat suddenly, his tail waving over his head. He raised his head and looked around before his gaze finally rested on Sparrowpaw. The she-cat blinked, confused.
"That's what I called you over for, Icefang," mewed the tom, his voice rough and gritty from age. "I would like you to accompany Sparrowpaw on a search for more herbs."
"I know we're looking for catmint," mewed Sparrowpaw, an uneasy edge to her voice, "but is there anything else?"
"Maybe feverfew, and if you find any after that frost, we're running low on marigold," instructed the patch-pelted tom. His sharp eyes followed them as the two she-cats turned to pad away. "And Sparrowpaw? Check in on Redkit when you return. We really should move her to the medicine den as soon as possible."
Sparrowpaw nodded sagely, then turned and padded out of the den, flicking her tail for Icefang to follow.
"Where are we supposed to look?" asked the white warrior, trailing behind Sparrowpaw as they made their way to the tunnel. The floor of the camp was now crisscrossed with a multitude of dark trails, so that now the colors had been reversed – the damp black of mud was spattered with a few odd patches of slowly fading silver. A prickle of disappointment burned Icefang's pads – no one had commented on her ghostly tracks, starting from nowhere as though a warrior of StarClan had descended from the sky.
"There's catmint by the river," Sparrowpaw meowed, ducking through the tunnel. Brambles clawed at her multicolored pelt and snagged in Icefang's thick fur.
"You mean there was," Icefang corrected sullenly. Her paws were beginning to feel wet and cold after trudging through the mud. It was a good sign that the frost was melting this early in the morning, but as Icefang flicked her paws in annoyance she didn't see much good in it.
"Don't say that," Sparrowpaw snapped. "There will still be enough left."
They had to scour the muddy banks for at least an hour before Sparrowpaw would eat her words. The miserable look on her face almost dredged up a feeling of pity in Icefang's heart, but the emotion died quickly, just like the green catmint leaves under the layers of shiny frost.
"Shortwhisker will skin us alive if we don't come back with any," Icefang commented while poking her nose into a sunlit crevice between two boulders. She knew she'd looked in the same hole at least a dozen times before, but by now she wasn't really thinking about it any more, just blindly sniffing.
"No he won't," hissed Sparrowpaw. She was becoming more and more panicked as the time passed. "And besides, we will find some. We should go look by the ShadowClan border. Their might be some new shoots."
"New shoots?" Icefang growled. "Sparrowpaw, the frost killed everything!" She nosed a bedraggled weed drowning in a pool of dark mud, its leaves yellow and blotchy.
"But what if the cough spreads!" she wailed, suddenly crumpling into the mud. Her voice carried over the river, its crystal clear water bubbling rapidly past, and Icefang cringed, hoping no RiverClan patrols were snooping around the opposite bank. She wouldn't put it past them to jump the border and attack at the smallest provocation.
"It won't, it won't, now be quiet and lets head back to camp," Icefang hushed her quickly, nudging the she-cat to her feet and taking off into the forest. As much as Icefang was itching to get her claws into something, she wasn't willing to go into battle against a patrol with just a medicine cat apprentice at her side.
When they returned, carrying a mouthful each of their meager findings: a few damp marigold leaves and some other various herbs that Sparrowpaw had managed to salvage from the chilly graveyard of the forest, Icefang learned that Redkit had already been moved into the medicine den. She left Yellowpaw to take over her job with the herbs and went in search of a hunting partner. Normally she would have asked Eaglepaw, but the apprentice was out training with Brightpool.
Icefang padded in circles, gazing around the camp. Leafspots had just gathered Tansyleaf and Robinwing into a hunting party, and they were already leaving. Ashfoot looked tired and wet, as though he had already been out on patrol. Other than Whitefoot, there was no one in camp. Suddenly, ThunderClan scent wreathed her muzzle, coming from close by. Puzzled, Icefang turned to see who it was.
"Excellent. Icefang. I've been looking for you," Cinderstar meowed in a low voice. That was all he said before he bounded past her on his way to the Highrock. Stonepelt, who had been standing at his shoulder, paused by her side.
"Where were you?" she questioned, a little bit peeved.
Stonepelt merely shifted his gaze to the Highrock and remained silent.
"May all cats old enough to catch their own prey gather here beneath the Highrock for a Clan meeting!" yowled Cinderstar, leaning out over the edge of the stone. His fur was sleek, streaked with water, showing none of the stress of the past moons like many warriors. Icefang felt a surge of envy, wishing that instead of the skinny gray tom, she were standing at the top of the Highrock, the glint of a secret in her eyes.
It took a few moments for the warriors to assemble. Not everyone was there since Leafspots had taken her party and the apprentices were training, but the news would be passed along to them as soon as they returned, whatever it was.
"I have decided, in lieu of recent events, to pay another visit to the Moonstone in order to speak with our warrior ancestors. Though Shortwhisker feels their eyes watching over us, it is my opinion that StarClan may have further advice to give us during this troubled time. I will leave now so that I may returned at least by tomorrow at sunhigh. Icefang and Stonepelt will accompany. That is all." Without another word, he dropped from the stone and stalked through the confused crowd to where Stonepelt and Icefang were crouched in the back.
"Come," he meowed, beckoning to them with a flick of his tail. His eyes betrayed no emotion, his face a blank slate.
"Wait, Cinderstar!" cried Ashfoot, his eyes wild with fear. "What if we are attacked? ShadowClan is strong, they wouldn't hesitate to cross our borders when we are so weak!"
"We aren't weak!" Mossfur hissed at him, the elder's eyes blazing.
Ashfoot ignored him, stepping forward and demanding, "Who's in charge while you're gone?"
"Brightpool, of course," Cinderstar mewed matter-of-factly. "She is the deputy after all."
The leader hurried forward, his ears swiveling back and forth, his eyes on the ground. Ashfoot stared after him, gaping. Icefang had to admit, she was a bit surprised too. Usually Cinderstar was so warm and gentle, his eyes like liquid sky, a small smile always tugging at his muzzle. All of a sudden, perhaps since Oakshadow's death and the start of the bad weather, the tom had taken on a new persona: brisk and simple, always polite, but no longer tender or perfectly calm. It was as though he had lost something, some little piece of his makeup and was left with an imperfect shell that he was merely pretending to fill.
Hesitantly, Icefang trailed after him, Stonepelt padding quietly on her side. The tension in the air as they filed out of the camp made her pelt hot. As soon as they had left the ravine and Cinderstar was a good ways ahead, Icefang turned her sharp glare on Stonepelt.
"What was that?" she growled in an undertone, narrowing her eyes. "What in the name of StarClan is going on?"
Stonepelt hesitated. Before now he hadn't responded to any of her sideways glances or nudges, and his expression was carefully guarded.
"Cinderstar wants to speak with his warriors ancestors," meowed the gray tom slowly, as if choosing each word carefully.
"Mousedung!" Icefang spat, her whisker quivering. "He practically shoved Ashfoot's nose in the dirt back there! You're hiding something from me," she accused.
As expected, her wounded one of voice melted Stonepelt's defenses. Since she'd decided to let him hang around her, Stonepelt had become more and more like clay in her capable paws. He rarely withheld any information from her, whether it was his deepest personal secrets or what he'd found on patrol that day. Icefang was thrilled, the newfound advantages far outweighing her frustration with having to put up with him. It was like having her own personal spy in the upper circles of the camp hierarchy. The benefits of taking a senior warrior as her mate were worth the annoyance.
"The medicine cats haven't had a sign from StarClan since last leafbare," he blurted out miserably, dragging his paws. "Cinderstar is worried sick! He's afraid…" Stonepelt paused, swallowing his words.
Icefang's spine tingled, her ears pricking up quickly. "What? What, Stonepelt tell me?" she hissed breathlessly.
"He's afraid that StarClan has abandoned us."
There was a moment of frigid silence, the only sound the very faint whistle of an icy wind that ruffled Icefang's pelt. Her heart was pounding as she stared wildly at Stonepelt, fighting to smother her urge to grin. Stonepelt's morose frown helped to dispel the sudden jubilation she felt.
"He can't…" she whimpered, her voice shaking with the strain. A bark of laughter threatened to break through before she clamped her jaws shut again. Cinderstar, frightened of being abandoned by StarClan! And this frightened – he would jump at the slightest mention of 'ancestors' or 'loss of faith'. Stonepelt had handed a delicious morsel of information to her with nothing less than a glare and a mew, and she was determined to put it to good use.
Stonepelt shrugged and started forward again so they wouldn't be left behind.
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