Recap: weather forecast: fucking grim.
The City's Army
Leader:
Emory: dark tabby tom with black rings around eyes
General:
Ice: icy-grey tom with thin grey flecks
Sergeants:
Evori: slim black tom with yellow eyes
Fray: brown-eyed black tom
Achilleus: large, scarred black tom
Kenna: lean black she-cat
Grete: grey she-cat with soft dapples
Soldiers:
Britta: small, lean grey tabby she-cat
Argus: squat chocolate tom
Dema: blue-ginger tabby she-cat
Azra: black-and-white tom
Viorel: scrawny blue-grey tom
Darus: short-haired fawn-and-white tom
Amalia: wiry fawn queen
Nada: stocky tom with thick black pelt
Sahar: reddish she-cat with white underbelly and blue eyes
Saga: pale, short-furred she-cat with dark brown paws, tail and muzzle
Fern: lilac-and-cream calico
Scipio: russet tom with gold eyes
Yanna: black and red spotted tortoiseshell she-cat with short fur, white socks, and green eyes
Modron: dark golden tabby she-cat
Elettra: bright sorrel she-cat with ginger rings around amber eyes
Beelzebub: ghostly grey tom with green eyes
Azazel: sandy-gold she-cat, ginger muzzle
Caprice: large, thick-furred black she-cat
Pope: white tom with bright golden eyes
Janus: chimeric silver tom with mismatched blue-and-brown eyes
Ceadde: black tom with short, velveteen fur
Gideon: cream tabby tom with kinked tail
Aella: wiry cream she-cat with ginger patches
Iiro: large dark brown tabby tom
Kin: heavyset golden tabby tom
Cort: white tom with dark brown splashes
Thaddeus: bright ginger tom with white paws and blue eyes
Brava: faint yellow tabby she-cat, amber eyes flecked with green
Balendin: solid, dark grey tom with black points
Ignac: burly, fiery red tom, narrow, dark eyes
Evala: lean apricot she-cat with missing tail
Denena: white she-cat with long fur and green eyes
Idrik: red ticked tabby tom with gold eyes
Venice: slender white she-cat with chocolate points and round blue eyes
Quill: fawn tabby tom
Mesrour: tall black-and-white tom
Kauri: brown tabby with white chin, throat, and belly
And so he waits to drown. So far from home, he'd imagined himself removed from the river's touch, the water's sinuous grasp. Is the river the executioner, he wonders, or merely the axe one wields above the necks of the doomed?
Two things are now true for Oakpaw. He's never really left the river behind, and it's seen all of his sins. Now it wants him back. But, secondly, almost less important, he is not about to drown. Sure enough, there are rebels screaming and swimming and drowning below him, caught in a dread tide none had seen coming, but not him. Death is not yet here for Oakpaw: its consort, its puppet, its cosmic little joke. Here he stands on an island, an oasis, marooned with Peppermask at his back and a hoard of panicked soldiers at his feet. Az is down there. He doesn't want to care - he tries goddamn hard not to - but he does. She can't die yet.
Around him, the rebels scramble to make sense of the storm. The prisoners sit quietly. If there's an opportunity to be made of this, neither of them can quite make it out.
Oakpaw closes his eyes, hunches his shoulders. The chill he feels is only secondary to the tumoult around him, both on the ground, in the water, and above in the sky. He wonders if there will still be an army left when he opens his eyes again, when the storm abates, mordantly satisfied with its work. The rain seems to lash against his skin: corded, icy, swung like a whip. Even through the blackness of his eyelids, he can see the light of a hundred awful spears of lightning.
"I should've learned to swim," Peppermask says behind him, like a prayer. "I should've learned to swim."
He remembers splashing through the river of his homeland: once to catch the fleeing deputy, once to catch a new kind of prey, to begin a hunt now flipped on its head, turned wrong and perverse. The water hadn't seemed to matter then. And then, when it had - when he'd limped towards a freedom only the river could bear him away to - he'd been too slow. He hadn't made it. The river could've saved him. As though it was never meant to be an ally, only a kind of promise, a distant and unspoken threat.
Maybe he could escape through the floodwaters. He's robust, strong enough. Perhaps he wouldn't drown. Perhaps it wouldn't matter if he did.
And yet he knows he won't. He wants to be here to see the end.
Oakpaw manages to sleep, even with the rain bearing down on his shoulders, even with the waters lapping at his feet. He's been exhausted by the whole ordeal - the one even before the storm, where the sight of Az had snapped something in him, something PureClan would rather excise in its entirety. He should've run the second she appeared. A real warrior, even, would've killed her. Still, his fitful dreams are full of her.
When he wakes, the storm hasn't completely died away. His mouth is dry as bone, even with the water surrounding him, swallowing the ground before his feet. The clouds have expunged themselves of rain: up above they look lighter, a tamed shade of grey. The ceaseless rainfall has found its end. The thunder has moved west, the sun shines in pale repose behind its clouded veil, and the lightning has vanquished itself. Oakpaw spends a moment looking up, almost afraid of what he might see when he lowers his gaze. The thunder grumbles in the distance, now with all the ferocity of a snoring elder.
After a long moment, Oakpaw looks down to survey the scene. The army is not dead, not gone, not washed away by the futile efforts of a godsent storm. His heart plummets in his chest. They will still fight, still die, and PureClan remains clueless. Az will still fight. Az.
He looks for her, and can't fool himself that he isn't. The vast moors he has crossed for days have become a vast lake: everywhere, there is water, dark and fetid. He's perched on a small hill-turned-island, and he isn't alone: Peppermask has clearly decided to forego an ill-fated attempt at escape, and lies reclined on the highest ground he could find. Assembled around them is a small contingent of guards: two are she-cats, and the other two are toms. None are familiar. Once, in his youth and well-stoked arrogance, Oakpaw would've taken on all four at once. Now that just seems like a deathwish, and if he really had one he would have already abandoned himself to the floodwaters.
Around him, the rest of the rebels huddle on islands of their own: the largest is some metres away, and choked with survivors. Beyond them, back towards the city, Oakpaw can see some dry land, rising like a mirage out of the flood. If the infernal army was any damn slower they all would have been fine. And though they haven't been destroyed - not in any measure, and it's an omen he feels looming over his shoulder, an odd assurance of things to come - they have suffered. Bodies float in the water below: not enough to make a difference, or crush them with their loss. Just enough, he feels, to dampen their spirits. Oakpaw looks at each one: not with any pity, for he has none for this cause, but with calculation. He doesn't see her bright ginger fur anywhere, not even among the dead. It's probable she's just packed in with the masses on one of the few available patches of dry land, but he can't help imagining her swept away, caught by the tide, drowned in dark water. Az is a spitfire, a spark, and perhaps she has been extinguished.
Oakpaw closes his eyes, pushes this all down. In PureClan, everyone has a mask. He only wishes he could mask this from himself.
"Nice nap?" someone asks. His voice is well-worn and familiar. Again, Oakpaw wonders how his uncle got caught up in this situation.
"Refreshing," Oakpaw says dryly, turning. There sits his uncle, ever the same, with only a damp pelt for his troubles. Whatever they are.
"I suppose you're wondering how I ended up here," the other tom says, loftily, as muddy water drips from his whiskers. Oakpaw senses he's about to be told.
Oakpaw makes a show of devoting all his attention to Peppermask, knowing he's only feeding what must be a massive ego. "By all means," he replies, gesturing for him to go on. Any news from home will be welcome, even if it's delivered through Peppermask's smug mouth.
"If I tell you I was framed," he begins, cryptically, "would you believe me?"
Oakpaw's answer is a flat no.
"Fair," Peppermask agrees. "But I wouldn't do that. I deserve all the credit for that ploy, you know. Oh yes," he continues, alighting on the sudden interest in Oakpaw's eyes. "You should've seen it, nephew. As I fled the territory all I could wonder was how she managed it. She should've died, right? Maybe she knew, but I doubt it, she isn't all-seeing. Now I'm just waiting for Morningstar to single-handedly decimate this pathetic army."
Impatient now, Oakpaw snaps, "What are you talking about?" For a moment, they both pause to watch some kind of commotion on another island: as they stare, cats splash into shallow floodwaters and begin to shout.
"The badger," Peppermask says, after a pause. "You really have been away for a long time."
"A bloody badger?" Oakpaw asks. "You, what, tried to bludgeon Morningstar to death with a badger, and she still won?"
Peppermask shrugs. "And now you see why I have no faith in this rebellion sham. She didn't even get a scratch, Oakpaw. She killed it without breaking a sweat. Our dear leader is supernatural."
Oakpaw pictures it. He's never seen Morningstar fight, but in his mind, it's all rage and glory. It's beautiful.
"And you managed to get away with your life?" Oakpaw snorts. "Seems unlikely. But how was the Clan when you...left? How were Emberpaw and Cloudpaw? What happened with the Tainted tom who ambushed Fernpaw?"
Peppermask flicks his tail. "Hold up, kid. One question at a time."
"Emberpaw?" he asks, thinking of his sister. His other sister. The first one.
"Her? Oh, she's fine. Still Morningstar's little handmaiden. I assume she has her name by now. Your buddy certainly does."
"Cloudpaw?" Oakpaw asks, pricking his ears. He's missed his friend, with his distinct lack of male companionship. The last time they were together they had been sparring, their favourite hobby. Then Oakpaw had ruined everything by chasing after her, the she-cat who had broken both his leg and something deep-seated in his chest.
Peppermask frowns, as though he's misplaced his memory. "Yeah, it's uhh… Cloudstrike now. Some ridiculous name like that."
Oakpaw almost purrs. They've always dreamed of fierce warrior names, the pair of them. At least Cloudstrike now has his.
"Unpaired, last I heard," Peppermask continues, ignoring him. Reminiscing must be pleasant for him. "But you should've seen the mess with Volepaw."
"What mess?" Oakpaw asks, conjuring up a picture of the other apprentice. A grey tom, he thinks, though the image is fuzzy. Volepaw had never commanded much attention, which is why hearing his name now is so surprising.
The other tom throws his head back and chuckles, even as one of the guards glances over and begins to look uneasy.
"Oh, you missed everything! That black tom you mentioned, the Tainted: he killed him. Single-combat apprenticeship assessment. Then Morningstar let him join the Clan, take his name, his life, everything. Disgraceful, like he'd taken the skin off Volepaw's body and started wearing it around camp, pretending to be the tom he killed. And we all had to go along with it because Morningstar had decided to enforce some crusty old law from the dawn of time."
Oakpaw frowns, turns his face away. An apprentice dead? A Tainted in his place? This is not the PureClan he longs for. This seems to be a beast apart. More than that, the Clan is suddenly not infallible, not invincible at all. Then he understands. The army didn't need him anyway: PureClan already has a spy in their midst!
"We have to get home," Oakpaw hisses, pitching his voice as low as he can make it. "That Tainted is a rebel agent. One of theirs."
His uncle looks intrigued. "Maybe he'll take out Morningstar before the army even arrives, let them have a clean sweep of things. If such a thing can be done."
Oakpaw begins to think hard, even if it means his efforts might be showing on his face. Let his guards look and wonder. That tom had arrived with Az, ill-fated as their trip was, and Oakpaw had left while the tom had stayed- taken his place, even! And then he remembers Khia, Khia the first time he had seen her, barging up to him and demanding in her angry little voice, What's happening to my brother? He'd assured her he was dead. He had every confidence that tom had been brutally murdered as custom decreed. He'd almost told her, let the words leave his mouth, that even if he fought in an assessment and won, won against every single odd the world possessed, he'd still wind up dead. Because that's just how PureClan works. It dawns on him suddenly that he doesn't know his Clan anymore, this entity he's been trying so hard to protect. What is it now? Cariad, she'd called him, her city-born brother. The only blood she's ever seemed to know. Oakpaw, too, was born in the city. Oakpaw, too, is tied to the memory of Sablefrost and Smokefang, the figures Khia can't quite seem to get out of her head. If Cariad is Khia's brother, and if Khia is Oakpaw's sister…
It seems Sablefrost left more of a legacy behind than anyone had ever suspected.
And despite it all, despite every hateful inch of the Code, his brother is alive! He, in fact, has a brother!
Oakpaw feels giddy. He springs to his paws, forgetting, for a moment, absolutely everything. The guards spin around, panicked, and tell him to sit down. There's a tremor even in the sternest's voice.
"Oh, calm down," Oakpaw says, scanning them with a wayward eye. "I'm not going anywhere."
He sits down again, with a thump, but it's one he hardly hears. His head is spinning, his blood racing: he is elated, he is angry, and most of all, he is confused.
Peppermask regards him with apathy. "You sure are excited about this," he muses. "A little death, an assassination here and there, maybe we are related."
"What do you get out of this?"
"Me, the avenging angel?" Peppermask asks, examining his claws. "I'll be there to tidy up the mess, regroup the survivors, make a better Clan than Morningstar ever could. They won't even miss her."
He can only roll his eyes. Peppermask doesn't want real change, unlike the rebels, but he'll scavenge from their failure. He's a fool; maybe there won't be enough left for him to scrape up. Peppermask and Oakpaw, an unfitting pair, may become PureClan's last legacy.
But he knows now, wherever Khia is, he must speak to her. And he can't very well do that under lock and key.
At that moment, the nameless chaos of the army grows louder. Oakpaw realizes a small group is approaching the island, wading gingerly through the shallowest waters they can find. A trio: a pretty sorrel she-cat, a handsome ginger tom, and an awkwardly familiar cream tabby, his strange kinked tail bobbing high over the water as he walks. Oakpaw gulps. He watches closely as they approach the guard, seeming to dismiss all but one- one who, he notices with unease, greets them with a purr.
"They need more numbers for the search party," the ginger one says, shrugging his shoulders.
The guard remaining, a pale yellow she-cat, nods self-importantly. "You guys go. I'll stick around for another shift."
"Are you sure that's wise, Brava?" It's a burly red tom who speaks, throwing the prisoners a surly glance as he does so. "You can't be too careful around Clanners."
"Ignac, I can handle myself," she says. "Modron, Quill, go help Kenna."
The other guards defer to her, though for some she is half their size, perhaps even half their age. In another life, she'd already be a warrior. Here, though, she's just a foot soldier: no rank, no power, no prospects. She watches the others leave with no emotion, and the new three stay, that handsome pair and Oakpaw's unfortunate, once-off victim. He wonders if they now intend to make him the victim. For a long minute, they huddle together with their heads bowed. It does nothing to help his spiking heart rate. He backs up a step as they break the huddle and approach, almost ready to throw himself backwards into the water if they start attacking.
They don't even look at Peppermask, who in turn adopts an expression of grievous injury. Oakpaw would sacrifice him in a heartbeat.
"You," says the ginger tom, twisting his handsome face, perhaps trying to look intimidating or anything other than pretty. Oakpaw stares at him and refuses to look at the cream tabby, but still that creeping feeling of shame presses in again, the knowing he has done a thing he shouldn't, and now must pay.
"You what?" asks Oakpaw, raising his brow.
"You know what you did," the other tom says. "Typical PureClan. Not even sorry."
"They don't teach us sympathy as kits," Oakpaw says. "It's not in the curriculum. Now, have you said what you came to say? I'm ready for you to go."
"Apologise," he says, whiskers twitching. From the corner of his eye, Oakpaw sees the cream tabby roll his eyes. There's a small, neat set of scars on his chest, but he doesn't seem to be limping, despite the bite wound previously inflicted on his paw.
Oakpaw dips his tail into the water, tests the chill. Not unbearable. "For what? Got an itemized list?"
"Forget it!" the cream tabby snaps, suddenly fed up. Oakpaw gets the sense that incident isn't really on his mind, anyway. "Let's just ask him what we need to and let the rest of the army sort out our vindication."
Finally, Oakpaw lifts his eyes to the tabby. He looks unhappy, unnerved, and his tail is trembling in the fitful breeze. The scars have healed well, tidily, but perhaps he bears unseen wounds. Oakpaw feels the strangest stirring in his chest as that shame melts into something altruistic, a feeling entirely alien to him, and entirely unwanted. Oakpaw feels sorry. He frowns. Has he really been away from the guiding vitriol of PureClan for so long?
Before he can stop himself, or even truly think about the words leaving his mouth, Oakpaw says, "I'm sorry." And he blinks, quite stunned at the sound of the words hanging in the air.
Everyone else looks mollified, though their surprise is obvious.
"...Thanks," the cream tom says slowly, as though waiting for the catch, or a retraction. "That wasn't really what I came to ask, though. Let me introduce myself. I'm Gideon, this is Thad, Elettra and Brava. We're Khia's friends."
"I knew that already." Disgusted with himself, he hardly processes the mention of Khia's name, what it might mean.
They all exchange a glance. Their patience, concerning him, has a short leash.
"Right," Thad prompts him. "And do you have… anything to tell us… about her?"
Oakpaw stares at them dumbly. How do they know when he's scarcely come to the conclusion himself? Is it that obvious, is the relation so prominent? He feels the first coils of panic build in his gut. This could have explosive implications, both for him and Khia, and even distant Cariad in his uneasy new role. He will have to lie. It should come easily enough. They watch him for a moment as he struggles with this, searching for the right words to dissuade them, the right tone for persuasion.
"Look," Gideon says, a little hostile now. "Where is she?"
"What?" Oakpaw asks, and feels his heart sinks. They haven't seen her. The last time anyone saw her, he supposes, was fleeing the warehouse, and anything might have happened to her in the city. "You haven't seen her? She's not here?"
Of course he doesn't really want her to be here, suffering through the catastrophic storm with everyone else, but at least she'd be with those who care about her. Those who can keep her safe.
They all exchange another look, now fraught with tension and worry.
"No," Gideon says. There's a hollow space in the conversation, a reverential moment of contemplation. "You said you'd meet up with her before the forest."
The soldiers all swivel to the south again, their eyes seeking the faint green shadow of the forest, a blight that grows larger and larger with every passing step. Oakpaw doesn't look, afraid of the sight and what it might hold, remembering his need to get home and warn his Clan before this uncertain doom crosses the threshold of the horizon. To do so, he must warn them about Cariad. About Az. PureClan will ask him to betray every single tie remaining to him, and in return they might give him a name, their collective attention for a day. He wonders how it is possible, this disengagement from his own reality, the dissolution of his heritage. Has Az done something else to him, poisoned him against himself?
"In case you hadn't noticed," Oakpaw replies, voice smooth despite everything, "my plans haven't worked out."
"She won't still be in the city," Gideon says. He shakes his head, as though banishing any untoward thoughts, any unpleasant suggestions. "She's desperate to rescue Cariad. She might already be in the forest, on her way to PureClan right now."
"Right now, if she's smart, she won't be going anywhere," Elettra says. Her voice is soft.
Gideon just shakes his head. "We have to find her. Who knows what ideas he put in her head?"
"None," Oakpaw protests.
"Right, clearly we can trust everything he says," Brava replies. She's been keeping an eye on Peppermask, who isn't even pretending not to eavesdrop. The sarcasm in her voice, he feels, is mostly unfounded.
"Well, you can't let her reach the Clan," Oakpaw says, with finality. Now that the mystery of Khia's whereabouts has been absolved of him, this group will want nothing more to do with him.
"I'll volunteer for extra scouting duties," Thad says. Once, his name would have struck Oakpaw as very odd. Now, it's his own name that seems always out of place. "I'll go as far as I can. Oakpaw, we'd appreciate your help. With the geography, the forest. Gideon, trail the army as far back as you can, in case Khia hasn't caught up with us yet. Brava and Elettra, watch the east and west, and listen in to all the conversations you can, in case anyone has seen her. Between us all we should manage to find her."
Your help. Oakpaw has never offered it to anyone before. No one has ever bothered to ask. Possibly it's a thing of little worth.
As the group marshals itself away, as the promises fade into silence, as the misty rain drifts down again, he wonders about it. Maybe he really can help. Help everyone. Unlikelier things have already happened.
