"You played with your food, Mapleshade," Hollystar growls. "Upon your death, you tossed aside all your virtues, but not your petty desire for cruelty. Now here I am, alive because you couldn't resist, more powerful than anything you've ever seen."
"Bold claims for a little molly," Mapleshade hisses.
Hollystar judges the distance in the blackness. Three fox-lengths - no, space means nothing here. She wills it to be it as three whisker-lengths. Mapleshade is cloaked in shadow, darker than any void in the silverpelt, amber eyes burning like a terrible monster.
At three whisker-lengths, Hollystar isn't the one in danger.
"I've done what Tigerstar couldn't do in a lifetime in three sunrises. I don't make claims anymore." Hollystar continues, leaning forward: "So we can fight again if you want, and you can lose and die again. Or I can tell you why you're going to help me." Mapleshade pulls the shadows to her, but Hollystar feels no fear. Hollystar is here to ruffle some fur.
Mapleshade laughs with her thick ThunderClan accent. "I'm going to enjoy killing you, but please, by StarClan, entertain me first."
Hollystar continues, meowing, "You've been here a lot longer than Tigerstar, Hawkfrost, Brokenstar, or whatever other weasel hearts you have in this cold, StarClan-forsaken place. You've killed me multiple times, letting me live on your will. You can bend space, kill cats in their sleep, walk into others' dreams, and conjure an army from shadow. Warp minds. There's nothing here for you. You could've killed Appledusk's descendants a hundred times by now. You could've killed the Clans by now – and you've never struck me as a dormouse. So why haven't you won yet?"
Mapleshade twitches. "To think you'd be this much of a tail-licker," she meows. "I'm sure you have your own explanation for why I haven't wiped Appledusk's disgusting lineage from the forest."
"I'd like to hear it from the warrior queen herself," Hollystar meows.
Mapleshade pauses in thought, some fox running through her mind, before she, in a rare chance, chooses honesty. "Revenge is best delivered slow and painfully," Mapleshade finally meows. "In death, I've discovered many wonderful ways to make the forest worse."
And there, Hollystar realizes, is her way out of here.
"You'll let me live because of that," she meows. Her power sinks in Mapleshade's skull and frame, biting down into fur and bone – but it's still not deep enough to find purchase, and Hollystar pulls back. Hollystar gives her the bait.
"Will I?"
"You will. If you truly believe in making the Clans worse, you'll let me live."
Mapleshade chuckles. "I have made you into a little monster, haven't I?"
It wasn't you. Just life.
Hollystar twists her tail. "Do we have a deal?" she meows.
Mapleshade twists on her paws, the space she takes up doubles, and then she stands. "Let me show you something," she meows. "Follow me."
Hollystar follows. Content at last to just watch.
The forest shifts, turning from cold dirt to paw-breaking rock. The soft mist that permeates The Place of No Stars sinks low as Hollystar follows Mapleshade up a familiar slope. This time, Hollystar strides confidently, breathing in the smell of wet mist before it too leaves her. There is nothing to fear. The Place of No Stars will be empty when she is done.
The ledge drops and Hollystar looks down upon the ruin of the Clans.
Mapleshade is beside her. "In four sunrises," she meows, "The Dark Forest will rise up through the cracks in the world – weakened by the eclipse. Through the tunnels beneath the Clans, where the veil between worlds is thinnest, we will crawl into the sunlight and kill every single last warrior. The noble Clans will be wiped from the world."
Hollystar counts a hundred shades. Maybe two hundred. Combined with the actual residents of the Dark Forest, she'll be outnumbered four to one. It'll be far worse if the Clans remain ununited; only LionClan stands a chance, and Hollystar will bring them together.
She can work with four sunrises.
"Help me," she meows to Mapleshade. "If Tigerstar has his way, there'll be nothing left for you to destroy, nothing left to corrupt. Maybe you'll get your revenge, but it'll be meaningless—"
"You presume much," Mapleshade speaks. She doesn't attack, so Hollystar knows she's winning.
"You no longer give a mouse's whisker about Appledusk's descendants. Maybe you did once, but you found the real secret here in this darkness." Hollystar almost hisses this last part, and Mapleshade focuses on her – her attention grabbed.
Mapleshade's returning sigh reverberates with a deep and hostile edge. Her eyes flicker to Hollystar, patience dancing a cliff edge. What Hollystar says next will decide the fate of everything. Mapleshade purrs out: "And what is that?"
"Dying is easy. Living is hard. Draw out the Clans' suffering; work with me. Tip the odds against Tigerstar," Hollystar meows.
Mapleshade scoffs, right eye flickering down to the writhing shades. "Even if I agreed, you won't win. Tigerstar will destroy you and everything Firestar has built. You don't stand a chance, Hollystar. And I don't lose."
"Then you have no idea who you're dealing with," Hollystar meows. "In the eyes of StarClan, I am a disgrace. A piece of half-clan crowfood—" Mapleshade blinks at that but lets her continue, "—My parents are dead, two by my own paw, and the cat I call mother fears me. My siblings have run off to who knows where. I have nothing left but my dream, and I will kill as many cats as I need to reach it. Let me live; don't let me die in my sleep, and I will break Tigerstar either here or on the battlefield with an army at his back. Or he will break me, in which case, you win anyhow. When I am dead and gone or condemned to these same forests, you will be uncontested."
For once, Mapleshade is silent.
"Say it," Hollystar hisses. "Say 'you will live.'"
"Tigerstar will be arriving soon," Mapleshade meows. "Convince me quickly."
"I will never quit. Kill me, or let Tigerstar do it. It won't matter. I'll find a way back to the Clans as a spirit and bring them together. I'll die twice before I see either of you walk the forest." Hollystar takes her chance.
Mapleshade smiles, and at that moment, Tigerstar pulls himself from the shadows. The world becomes heavy.
"Well, my granddaughter, it looks like we have much to talk about," Tigerstar hisses, nothing in his voice implying he's here to talk. The terror of the Clans is here for war. Hollystar turns to face him, glancing back at Mapleshade – but she doesn't show any expression.
Save me, Mapleshade. I will not die here or now. Wish for me to live, contest Tigerstar's will – let me wake from this dream. What's more important to you, Mapleshade? Annihilation of Appledusk's legacy in a single sunrise or a thousand seasons of torment?
Hollystar faces her destiny and takes a leap of faith.
It's what saves her.
It is the first sunrise, and Hollystar pulls herself to consciousness with searing pain across her throat. Past the early sun, she sees the distant, far, and faint moon. Her neck is swathed in webbed makeshift bandages and sticks – sticky herbs shoved deeper into blistering wounds like stones trying to stop a flooding river. She can't possibly get up.
"You shouldn't be up," Littlecloud meows from a fox-length away. "Your neck wound needs time to recover."
Hollystar pulls herself up anyhow.
Her throat itchs and burns, and Littlecloud opens his mouth in protest, "Wai—" she tugs on Littlecloud and then silences him. Littlecloud can tend to her on the territory if he worries so much about her wound. She needs a dawn patrol, and she has plenty of cats to spare.
First, she finds Jayflight and Lionblaze.
No words need to be said when she grabs Squirrelflight, Brackenfur, Cinderheart, and Sorreltail. Cat's that will know her brother's scents. A patrol five cats strong, plus an agitated Littlecloud, it'll be enough.
The scent trail, it turns out, is obvious. When the morning moon finally sets, she finds herself again on the WindClan border with the stench of family and betrayal. Of course, Jayflight would crawl to WindClan, the Clan that carries her shame. Of course, Jayflight would want to taunt her with the memory of Crowfeather.
She tastes hot, liquid blood between her fangs – bitter and stone – and feels her heartbeat. Claws clench on dewy grass, and she feels the slick moisture and dirt between her toes. She breathes, and it's hard. She feels sick.
It doesn't matter.
"Cinderheart," she hums, looking to the windswept plains. "Find them and bring them here."
"You won't go yourself?" the she-cat meows behind her.
"No, I have other things I need to attend to," Hollystar meows. "Find Jayflight. He'll know you're coming and will agree to a meeting on the border. There's been some miscommunication between us and I want to correct it. There's nowhere they'll be able to hide from me."
Will they try to stop me? Can I win against my brothers?
"Okay," Cinderheart meows.
Hollystar sighs in relief – it comes out as a rasp.
Cinderheart's tail brushes her flank as she passes WindClan's border. Hollystar licks the taste of slimy grit from the inside of her mouth. Her mouth is dry and cold, her teeth clean, with a faint taste of congealed blood.
Littlecloud hisses under his breath from her side, and she opens her neck to him. He mutters about her reopening the neck wound and then messes with her bandages. In the meantime, Hollystar takes slow and soft breaths on the WindClan border.
A heartbeat passes…
"We'll return to camp while Cinderheart grabs my brothers. I will form a battle patrol. RiverClan is wedged between the western ShadowClan border and the devastated wetlands. They will have nowhere to hide when we find them this sunrise," Hollystar meows, flicking her one ear until Brackenfur and the others get her message.
She doesn't need them to say anything, so they don't.
If I make good time, I can have RiverClan wrapped up before sunhigh.
By the time she meets her brothers on the WindClan border, an agreed ceasefire, RiverClan has fallen. She doesn't need to fight or run. She walks behind her patrol into the bleeding and dying RiverClan and binds them. Littlecloud only has to fuss with her neck wound once, and Hollystar only has to spit out blood twice, which she calls a success.
"Come home," she meows. "RiverClan, ShadowClan, and ThunderClan are already under my control. I'll have WindClan by the end of the sunrise. It's already over. I don't know why you ran, but come home."
"ThunderClan isn't home anymore," Lionblaze mews. The golden tom takes his place across from her, Jayflight on his left, and the three sit awkwardly about a fox-length apart under a bare cherry tree. WindClan stench covers the whole area.
"And so you ran to WindClan? Ran from our grieving mother? Decided to abandon me when I needed you most?" Hollystar meows, voice raising. "That was your answer?"
"You made it that way, Holly! We have nothing left because of you!" Lionblaze meows, his voice sinking deeper until he almost growls.
Not afraid of you.
"This is for you! I killed Ashfur to protect us! Our reputation would've been destroyed for nothing if Ashfur had gotten his way! And now I'm fixing the rest of this mess." She turns towards Jayflight. "Jayflight, you can be a warrior in the Clan I'm making. They won't care about your disability. I'll make them not care." No response. "And Lionblaze, you can be… whoever you want. Do you want kits with Cinderheart? I'll make it happen." She can make anything happen.
"Can you even hear yourself right now? You're destroying everything—"
"Enough." Jayflight's voice ends the argument. "This is over within three sunrises. Holly, I would impress upon you the mistake you will make by assaulting WindClan during these precarious hours, but the implication would be lost."
Hollystar blinks and then scoffs. Emotions tip over.
"Are you implying that you're going to stop me within three sunrises?" she mews incredulously. "Even if you could, we need a united front against the Place of No Stars within four. You can't guarantee that with your powers. I can."
Lionblaze's eyes almost pop out of their sockets, but Jayflight remains unfazed. "Like I said," he meows, "lost." Jayflight makes eye contact with her, but Hollystar doesn't bother holding it.
"We only have four sunrises?" Lionblaze whispers as her statement sinks in. He looks at her with betrayal. "Please, Hollystrike! This is a terrible time to do this! Stop using your power, and we can solve this the normal way!" His voice begins to edge on panic.
Hollystar spits out more blood, disappearing into the grass; her brothers see it, but Hollystar continues, her voice raspy and snarling, "And what is the normal way? What's your grand solution?"
Lionblaze is silent.
"That's what I thought," she finishes.
"You're destroying the Clans," Jayflight lies. "Your work will be their undoing, even seasons from now."
Hollystar breathes deep until her neck stings, feeling Jayflight's words tumbling about in her head like boulders. "Your lying," she meows. "I'll be leading a battle patrol later this sunrise to take WindClan, though I'm sure you already knew. You can try to stop me if you wish, but it'll be war then. More cats will die before you lose."
Lionblaze opens his mouth, but Jayflight beats him to it. "I'm confident," he meows, wrapping his tail around Lionblaze's in some unknown message, "that we'll manage to outlast you."
Enemies it is then for now.
"Bold words for a cat that had to run to WindClan for protection," she snaps, staring at him eye to eye.
"Running to WindClan wasn't for you," Jayflight speaks with finality.
Hollystar doesn't reflect on Jayflight's choice of words until much, much later.
She takes a battle patrol eleven cats strong to WindClan's border. She doesn't need an army to end this – it'll be over as soon as she sees WindClan's camp. WindClan will be a sitting duck on the moor with only tall grass to protect them. Jayflight won't be able to protect them from that.
Brackenfur, Sandstorm, Cinderpelt, and a couple former ShadowClan warriors she hasn't yet learned the names of take her left flank. She fills her right side with RiverClan.
"Brackenfur, when we encounter WindClan's battle patrol, because there will be one, take Sandstorm and two others and divert pressure," she rasps, then she pushes the command down as she turns to her right. "Reedwhisker, you know what to do."
Reedwhisker blinks, opening his mouth, but Hollystar pushes her strategy into his mind.
On second thought, Reedwhisker may need some help. If it goes badly… which it won't, he'll be vital.
Her strands rearrange themselves before her eyes, and then Mintfur and Dawnflower are also clued in on the secondary plan. Her throat itches and she tastes faint blood.
"We march," she meows, trying to sound confident, but her throat is still trussed up, and it comes out as a loud rasp instead. A RiverClan molly tries to laugh, but Hollystar can barely talk, so she won't either.
For not the first time in her life, Hollystar breaks the WindClan border.
Wild tundra spreads out before her, and in the distance, familiar mountains stir up old memories. It's Leaf-Bare, so WindClan's territory is thick in tall, underbrush-like grass but not much else. A tree length in, Hollystar almost loses sight of the sweeping plains, her vision swallowed up by the grass. The land almost wants Hollystar out as much as she wants to be out.
We need to leave this tall grass before we get ambushed.
It's a longer trek, but she takes her patrol farther east around the inclined hill where WindClan's camp resides. More importantly, it gets her out of the tall grass, where she could be ambushed, and into shallower fields where she can see.
No WindClan yet.
Their lack of response and her patrol's quietness almost get to her, but she tampers the rising paranoia. Brackenfur opens his mouth to speak, "Do we ne—" Hollystar shuts him down, confident that they'll be an ambush. Controlling her paranoia and anticipating the ambush is rewarded when Lionblaze, previously hidden in the tall grass with favorable wind, smashes into her battle patrol's right flank. It's almost relieving to have her fears confirmed.
Mintfur screeches and then goes down into a tumble. Lionblaze hits the gray tom hard to spin him across the ground, and the lack of blood tells her that her brother is using sheathed claws.
If he wants to fight at a disadvantage, then let him.
Her eyes lock onto him, her power bouncing from his pelt; it's useless, but her cats aren't.
Brackenfur takes his patrol and splits. Lionblaze spots it, but then a ShadowClan warrior barrels into him and he's again focused on the main group. Six on one – not great odds.
They make eye contact when he scatters two of her warriors with glancing blows. Hollystar stares him down as two more of her warriors dash towards him. He doesn't flinch. This sunhigh, they were exchanging words, but now there's nothing left to say.
Lionblaze turns with unnatural speed, reorienting towards Brackenfur's smaller patrol of four. He intends to cut them off. The commands want to come out of her mouth to stop him, but pain in her freshly healed throat stops her.
It doesn't matter. She doesn't need to speak to issue orders.
One ShadowClan warrior goes for Lionblaze's flank as he turns, but her brother is too quick. Another warrior nabs his tail but fails to draw blood as his bite slips. Like water between the claws, Lionblaze slips through her patrol's assault.
Hollystar sucks down spit and adrenaline, eager to join the fray, but resists the temptation and lets her warriors do it for her. Brackenfur finally lands a blow on her brother. Brackenfur's weight forces Lionblaze downwards, the toms going down into the dirt, and then Sandstorm and Cinderpelt join them, their pelts blending into the soil and weeds.
There's the sound of a devastating blow. Hollystar can only watch, and Lionblaze rises from a grapple, Brackenfur on the ground dazed, only for her brother to get caught by Olivepaw from behind. The golden tabby twists, nearly flinging the ShadowClan apprentice from his back, and counters two blows from her ShadowClan warriors.
It's seven on one now. Hollystar begins her advance.
Lionblaze is forced on the defensive, pushed back into a clump of tall grass. For every warrior he smacks down with his paws, two more rises in the assault. Lionblaze rips fur from Sandstorm's tail, jolting backward to protect his back when more of Hollystar's warriors close in. He can't focus on knocking out any of her warriors from the fight when he's focusing on protecting all his sides and flanks. Like an inevitability, her brother is knocked sideways.
He rolls into the grass, and Hollystar loses vision of her brother.
A ShadowClan warrior, probably Ivytail, falls downward into a rough tumble, and then Lionblaze leaps into the air, using her as a launching point. There's a sharp thwack as Ivytail's head hits the ground and her neck almost snaps. Still, Lionblaze is the one Hollystar focuses on as his momentum carries him into a brutal downward blow onto another of her warriors – chaining the blow to reach out with his other forepaw, knocking Otterheart from his paws. Sneezepaw from RiverClan steps onto her brother's back and slams down, seemingly uncaring that his mentor is squashed beneath the larger tom.
The fight becomes a blur of names, flattened grass, and tuffs of fur.
Pin him. Drive him back to WindClan with his tail between his legs.
Two more warriors rip into Lionblaze's belly, smashing into him. While Lionblaze emerges from the grass in a majestic spin, Brackenfur and Sandstorm renew the assault with ShadowClan warriors behind them. Cinderpelt hits her former mate from the side.
Her brother hits the dirt. Hollystar advances, closer to WindClan.
"Sorry, brother," she whispers in a rasping wheeze. A faint taste of blood is in her mouth, like a tick that won't go away.
In that heartbeat, everything goes wrong.
Maybe he hears her over the fray, maybe he doesn't, but either way, Lionblaze unsheathes his claws when he sees a splinter of her battle patrol try to sneak by him, and his next blow comes so fast that Hollystar doesn't even see it happen. In the fray, Otterheart and Olivepaw fight for one heartbeat, and then in the next, they are a fox-length away on the ground, paws in the air, blood across their snouts and fur.
Her patrol doesn't even have a chance to reel in shock before Lionblaze's next burst of speed scatters her patrol, launching himself through the air at Hollystar. Her last ShadowClan warrior, Smokefoot, another black tom, ends up in Lionblaze's path – and then looks up at the sky as the ground leaves him temporarily. Hollystar sees it coming, can't react fast enough anyhow, and never predicts what comes next.
Touch down. Lionblaze connects with the underbrush beneath him, a rabbit-foot away from her, and then the earth shatters in all directions.
The impact takes Hollystar off her paws, and she can hear an unnerving rip in her neck bandages. When Hollystar reorients herself mid-air, she sees a dust cloud billow outwards, interspersed with bits of grass and clumps of root formerly attached to the earth. Thin, wide cracks spread from Lionblaze's landing point – the tundra literally reshaping around his paws. Smokefoot is unconscious, his body strewn another fox-length away, and the rest of her warriors reel back from shock or the dust in their eyes.
Hollystar hits the lovely ground, rolling to her paws in a smooth recovery, and then twitches forward when Lionblaze continues his second wind by smashing Ivytail into StarClan. His first blow scores blood from the top of Ivytail's right ear all the way down to her hind, and then when she flinches, his second blow flips her sideways, jerking her in the opposite direction and into the grass.
Ivytail's connection goes dark. The energy from her connection returns to Hollystar.
Hollystar reaches her brother, jabbing him sideways in three alternating blows, then ripping into his breast with her teeth. He lets her and Hollystar takes advantage of his weakness by rotating into a devastating combo that Mapleshade once upon a time used against her.
She pulls back, breathing heavily, and realizes that none of the blood that Lionblaze is covered is his own. There's a pause in the battle.
Lionblaze swings wide in anger, and Hollystar feels her cheek split in the pullback. She falls back, feels herself lose a whisker, and stares wide-eyed. Her left cheek stings red hot, and her neck feels stuffed with oozing pus.
Hollystar rips her warriors back, back along their path towards ThunderClan territory. "Retreat," she yowls, pushing past the pain in her neck, and then takes her chance when Sneezepaw distracts Lionblaze long enough to get tossed aside with a bloody snout.
Her quick pace doesn't count anymore when Lionblaze yowls and gives chase. She feels the echoing boom and rustle of grass when Lionblaze launches himself at their retreating patrol. She has to sacrifice Sneezepaw. May Sneezepaw rest easy in StarClan, who lags behind and gets the courage to sacrifice himself, dragging Lionblaze into a short tumble before his connection goes dark.
It buys her enough time to get in front of her patrol and hit ThunderClan forest.
"Move!" she hisses under her breath and then puts extra heft in her legs when there's another echoing boom behind her.
A tree topples towards them from behind, a large oak smashing through the treeline and ripping a path toward the earth. Hollystar has to peel her patrol around it, temporarily splitting them into two patrols to avoid its landing zone. They reconvene as the oak hits the ground, shattering the forest and licking their tails. She's lost all track of her brother in the retreat.
Lionblaze is out for blood. She needs to get her warriors away from him before anything else. She can think of a new strategy later to take WindClan. Lionblaze has lost his fox-brained mind.
The lakeside rushes up upon her left, familiar ThunderClan territory around her. She's finally escaped.
Lionblaze crashes down from the sky.
Two fox-lengths in front of them, Hollystar comes to a grinding halt that's stopped when Otterheart, the oaf, crashes into her from behind. She tumbles when Lionblaze, burning with forward force and on his forepaws, flips his direction and momentum, half of his body still not touching the ground. He catches dirt with his forepaws, ripping it from the undergrowth, and then chucks it in her direction in an impossible maneuver.
Lionblaze's hindlegs hit the ground, boom, and the force somehow kicks out towards her in a wave. It knocks her battle patrol sideways, and then the force turns the clump of tossed dirt into a dirt fog. Hollystar goes blind and can only feel Olivepaw's panic when the tortoiseshell is cut sideways in her blood. Lionblaze rushes them, her patrol caught totally unaware.
One on five now.
Sandstorm hits sand while Brackenfur finds himself flung into lake water. Lionblaze doesn't bother finishing the job - he only has his sights on one molly, and Hollystar picks herself up in the scramble when she realizes it's her. Mintfur jumps to the rescue, forcing Lionblaze sideways towards a boulder. It's an easy spot to pin him and force him on the defensive again. Hollystar needs the advantage.
Cinderheart rejoins the fray.
"Kill him!" Hollystar screeches, barely thinking.
Cinderheart leaps, Otterheart attacks Lionblaze from the other side, and Lionblaze jumps backward into the air, another impossible move, and then – boom – the boulder shatters in a single hindleg tap from Lionblaze. With awe-inspiring strength, stone fragments go everywhere, slicing into trees and bushes. Otterheart gets his left eye instantly pulped. Hollystar and Cinderheart slide to the ground, avoiding the carnage, but it's Cinderheart who slides right into Lionblaze's following leap – intended for Hollystar. Hollystar closes her eyes.
Blood hits the ground, and once again, it's not Lionblazes.
The battle and retreat is over.
"Cinderheart?" there's a distressed mew. "Cinderheart? Cinderheart! Cinderheart, get up! Get up!"
Hollystar opens her eyes.
Cinderheart's neck is both inside of her and halfway on the grass. An impossibly powerful blow, not replicable even by the mightiest badgers, only by myth and legend, a blow meant for Hollystar. Hollystar suspects that Cinderheart didn't even have a chance to feel a single thing before it was over.
Lionblaze has Cinderheart's blood all over his mouth. He leans down into his mate's warm corpse. His whiskers brush her, and then he looks up at Hollystar. The glazed-over look in his eyes dissipates like fog, returning to sharp, terrifying clarity.
"Just go," he growls, his voice cracking.
Hollystar opens her mouth to reply, —
"If you don't get out of my sight within the next couple of heartbeats, I'm going to break another promise of mine," Lionblaze interrupts. Her brother raises his hackles, fur spiking out aggressively, and the threat is clear. It's over.
He lets them leave through the underbrush trail.
Returning to ThunderClan, Hollystar leads her battle patrol into Littlecloud's den to check for injuries. Brackenfur has a new scar across his breast to show for his efforts, Sandstorm nurses a bruised and beaten hide, and Mintfur has a minor concussion. As for Hollystar, blood fills her mouth from the reopened wound across her neck. It doesn't matter.
"You need to rest, Hollystar. Continued stress on your neck could lead to permanent damage. This wound could cripple you for life if not kill you outright," Littlecloud mews. Delicate paws strip out and clean up the exposed muscle in her neck, wrapping her mouth in more web and soft sticks. Hollystar has to lie down on one of his stone slabs to deal with the pinpricks of pain.
"I'm done for this sunrise. I'll rest in the medicine den this moonrise," Hollystar rasps. "Let WindClan have their temporary victory."
"You need to rest for multiple sunrises, Hollystar," Littlecloud replies. His voice is stern in an attempt to order her around. Hollystar ignores him and instead takes the moment to reinforce her strands. She closes her eyes. A short nap won't hurt.
….
When Hollystar blinks again, it's late in the sunrise, and there's commotion in the clearing as Reedwhisker and Dawnflower return from WindClan. Hollystar's real plan works. With them, they drag a semi-bruised Whitetail. The small white WindClan she-cat looks indignant, and Hollystar pulls herself out of the medicine den when her cursing begins to come out from the bramble entrance to the Stone Hollow.
"Let me go, you ThunderClan weasel-hearts! WindClan won't —" Hollystar binds her.
Her eyes widen and then she looks at Hollystar in awe.
"We got a WindClan warrior just like you asked. Your diversion worked perfectly, and we snagged Whitetail while she was separated out hunting on the territory," Reedwhisker meows. "Dawnflower was a huge help."
The RiverClan molly beside him purrs.
"You can let her go. You both did well. Take your choice from the fresh-kill pile," Hollystar rasps, and then she ignores them when they drop Whitetail onto the ground.
"WindClan," she meows to Whitetail, "is the only Clan with extensive experience underground. I know that WindClan has tunnelers. Breezepaw and Heatherpaw mentioned them in the past. In addition, WindClan owes me." Whitetail gulps and Hollystar commands her to obey. "Tell me everything you know about the tunnels."
If she can't reach WindClan on the moor without fighting Lionblaze, she'll just reach WindClan from below.
Whitetail tells her everything.
Second sunrise.
Hollystar wakes up in Littlecloud's den, throat still stinging and sore, and then gathers every able-bodied fighter she has. When she has every warrior and apprentice, she counts a fighting force numbered fifty-seven strong. Even when she decides to leave the kits, queens, and elders behind, she has an invasion force greater than the Clans have ever seen.
The tunnels beneath the Clans run far deeper than they ever imagined, and this sunrise, Hollystar will use them to her advantage. Why fight her brother, Lionblaze, when she can instead go around him? Beneath him?
This horror will be over when she lays eyes on WindClan's camp.
"I will take the middle position," she speaks, but it's purely for herself. The Clans cannot deny her.
Cats line up before her in rows of three, too many heads and scents to tell who's who. The WindClan border is before her, but she's most interested in the small tunnel that dips down into the earth. Hollystar flicks her tail, and then the descent begins. There's no time to waste.
Familiar darkness takes her.
"Whitetail, direct us to WindClan!" she commands, barely able to see past the throng of cats. The former WindClan warrior is beside her, kept close at all times, but she peels forward, passing the initial invasion force and begins to direct.
"The tunnel to WindClan should be this way," Whitetail mutters from far ahead, and Hollystar has to strain her ear to hear her. "The tunnels split here, but the path on the right is quicker. We have a ways to go before we hit WindClan-made tunnels. You can tell when the earth gets softer."
The mob moves, and Hollystar lets herself join the force. In such tight quarters, her power is a mess of bodily sensations, and it's easy to bury herself in the twitching muscles, blinking eyes, restlessness, and dull emotions. It's better than thinking.
Hollystar breathes…
"This is wrong!" Whitetail yowls from the front, and then Hollystar has to crawl through her army of unfamiliar snouts and tails, cramped in claustrophobic tunnels, to see what Whitetail is yowling about. "This wasn't here last sunrise! I swear upon StarClan."
The tunnel is sealed off by crumbled rock and dirt as if StarClan had struck down the tunnel. Hollystar silences the muttering behind her and then pushes against the blockade. The tunnel wall does not budge, and it's too much effort to dig through.
"Could WindClan have collapsed the tunnels? Is that possible?" she rasps to Whitetail.
The molly glances at her, more nervous looking than she probably intends to be, and meows, "No! Absolutely not. Maybe farther in where the dirt softens up around WindClan, but these tunnels are as old as StarClan and made of solid rock. No force in the Clans could collapse these tunnels by paw."
Boom.
Hollystar has her suspicions but doesn't voice them out loud.
"Could WindClan know we're coming?"
Whitetail licks her lips and then shakes her head. "No, I don't see how," she meows.
Hollystar definitely has her suspicions.
"Whitetail, you said there were other tunnels to WindClan. Longer ones. Direct us to them," she commands.
"Right," Whitetail nods. Then she adds: "What if they're collapsed too?"
"They won't be," Hollystar says with a tone of finality that books no argument, and then she has her Clan moving again. Doubt silenced.
Hollystar prays.
It begins to rain. Hollystar can tell by the heavy beating sound above them and the water divots that occasionally flood between her toes. She almost turns her LionClan around, all fifty-seven cats, but Whitetail calms her by mentioning that these tunnels are not prone to flooding.
The rain becomes the least of her worries.
They take the long way to WindClan through a stretch of deeper tunnels that haven't seen life in a hundred seasons. Two more tunnels towards WindClan are mysteriously collapsed, and Hollystar lets out a huge breath of relief when the third remains unsealed. In all, their journey bleeds precious time as Mapleshade's warning counts down.
With fifty-seven cats, the air is thin and their pace a crawl even in the broader tunnels. It's worse in the parts when they have to go down into pairs and squeeze through tunnels almost as small as rabbit holes. Many of her cats are exhausted by the time they start making real progress.
"Tunnels upon tunnels here," Whitetail mews. "Best be careful and take it slow."
Slow doesn't cut it, and Hollystar speeds them up.
Their tunnel breaks into a cavern of soft, compacted dirt, multiple branches going in all directions. The room is spacious, with plenty of space for her warriors to spread out —
Jayflight and Lionblaze are there in the middle of the cavern. Waiting for her.
"The collapsed tunnels were you and Lionblaze's work, I'm assuming. Your plan was filled with fleas. You left a tunnel for me, straight to WindClan." She gets the first word in and decides to feel smug.
"I would also impress on you how bee-brained it is to take fifty-seven cats into the tunnels, but that would be lost." Jayflight taunts her with disdain. The grey tom holds himself tall, looking at something behind her, looking nowhere, while Lionblaze keeps his eyes locked on her.
"They all made it, didn't they? Surrender. You're outnumbered three to one at best and four to one at worst. WindClan won't be able to survive that. Your plan to stop me failed."
Lionblaze tenses, hackles raising.
Jayflight tilts his head. "That," he meows, "remains to be seen."
Please surrender. I don't want any more cats to be killed in our battle. Please, Jayflight. I know you can hear me.
The battle for WindClan starts with not a single word but Lionblaze launching himself into the fray. The gold tom skids into a violent turn, shaking off her warriors, bouncing from one movement to another. And then he's upon her. It's come to blows.
Hollystar catches Lionblaze with a side blow, claws unsheathed, but the blow has no impact – once again, it's like hitting a boulder. Nothing has changed from when they were apprentices. Lionblaze tackles her, and Hollystar's legs slide beneath her on slick rock, sliding out from underneath her as she topples, and then her brother has her in a terrible grapple. Her neck flares up in pain.
Chaos erupts around her as WindClan warriors flood out of the surrounding tunnels. They keep to the small rabbit holes, poking their rat-like snouts out from the darkness and taking quick swipes at LionClan before darting back and avoiding retaliation. Their movements are coordinated and swift – unnaturally so, and Hollystar wonders if this is Jayflight's doing.
It doesn't matter. She's already won.
Lionblaze pushes her face into the damp, rain-slicked rock, but this time, she has her eyes on the sky. Cloudtail pokes his head into a WindClan hole, looking for something to fight, and she can have him drag a WindClan warrior out of hiding and into her line of sight. Her power flo—
Wham!
Lionblaze slams her into the rock, head and neck rattling, and she loses grip of her power. It rocks her mind and chest until she feels a burning sensation. Her eyes flicker up to her brother. Calm and collected.
She needs to escape. Again.
The realization burns more than the pain in her chest, but she gets LionClan to the digging.
WindClan warriors bite and scratch her warriors from every direction, but she ignores them, instead throwing LionClan against the dirt walls. Some of her warriors dig wildly while others throw themselves violently into the softer, more fragile tunnel spots while she forces another collection of warriors to gang up on Lionblaze. In the tight, cramped space, they cannot make him bleed, but they don't need to, as they just need to slow him down, keep him from moving or dragging her somewhere else while she's pinned.
"She's breaking the tunnels! Prepare for a collapse!" Jayflight howls from some faraway place.
Lionblaze coughs, "Is this really necessary? Can't we just all get along?" Hollystar takes the moment to have Toadfoot wedge himself between Lionblaze and the dirt ceiling. Toadfoot's hindlegs leave the ground, twisting into a leaping grapple onto Lionblaze, and then he violently presses his back into the wet, soft dirt above the three of them.
Something above them breaks with a massive rumble. Lionblaze's eyes open in shock as instinct makes him move, releasing the grapple, and then the tunnel collapses.
She pulls herself to her paws and rips herself across the ground as a ton of rock and dirt slam into her former position. Jayflight is there beside her, already moving, and he catches her in a side blow, sending them both tumbling. Wet dirt seals the former route off, and then with a secondary boom, something else cracks as a second wave of dirt floods in to the fill empty space alongside the rainwater. Trying to evacuate her warriors, Lionblaze gets caught in the side collapse – the earth swallows him up instantly.
For a moment, the world ends.
"Lionblaze!" she screeches, ignoring the new, blistering wound from Jayflight.
Instinct carries her, and then she's at the landslide digging into the earth.
Not him. StarClan, you will not take him from me!
Wet sludge slicks between her toes, interspersed with pebbles that, in desperation, cut shallow gashes into her paw pads. The rainfall formerly contained to the upper world now has a direct opening into the tunnel, and she has to fight against rainwater in her snout and eyes. But the earth is endless, and for every pawstep she sloughs out, the mud fills up another two.
"Help!" she orders with panic at the chaos around her. "Help me!"
WindClan still has more tunnels, and they snag and bite at her warriors from two new directions, undeterred from the tragedy. It's a tactical advantage for WindClan because Hollystar can't be bothered to stop while trying to save her brother from the mudslide. She pulls her warriors away from the underground fight, letting WindClan chip away at her, and orders her companions to dig.
Hollystar scoops out another pawstep of mud, then a golden paw rips itself from the earth and grabs her. Lionblaze pulls her into the mud and then rips himself halfway from the landslide like a monster taking its first breath. Pulled into the mud wall, she tastes foul dirt, writhing in the mud, splattering the mire into her eyes – the surprise of Lionblaze's survival and strength is both a blessing and curse. Pain focuses her, and she pushes against Lionblaze with what leverage she can muster, trying to break another grapple as LionClan warriors surge in to bite down on Lionblaze's chest and face.
Her legs sink into the mud and rock, fashioning her into a mud monster like her brother.
"Give up!" she screeches, spitting into the face of her bee-brained brother. "Give up!" They're close enough to brush whiskers - covered in the muck and rain. Rocks serrate her legs in the chaos.
"Lionblaze the earth! Break it." Jayflight appears behind her like a phantom, a pace back and untouched by the fray. Lionblaze twists, snarling confirmation through the assault on his body.
"Don't you dare!"
Boom.
Lionblaze slams down, still halfway in the mudslide, and in another incredible feat of strength, the cavern floor shatters, and with it, mud and rock go flying everywhere. Every fractured shard of stone is a lethal strike in a fall.
Her warriors fall, Hollystar included, and instinct guides her in the fall as the unnatural darkness swallows them. She feels the mud and dirt follow them, splattering onto their backs and rocks, and following the mud is the relentless rain and rocks. It's tunnels upon tunnels here, and — Hollystar sees Jayflight's next plan as it happens.
She hits the ground, braces herself, and immediately opens up her power - eyes twitching in the obfuscating darkness as if it intends to blind her. The air grows into a familiar thickness. WindClan warriors rush into the fray, comfortable and familiar with the terrain, and she can end this instantly.
In the mud and water, Jayflight attacks her. Hollystar twitches sideways to protect herself from the Medicine Cat she called brother, and then it's a duel to what seems like death. Hollystar's twitchy movements are fox-quick, honed from fighting cats far more dangerous than her blind brother, but Jayflight, Hollystar learns, moves unnaturally with disciplined grace.
No words need to be said.
Her front blow sends mud slicking through the air, but Jayflight has already dodged, sliding sideways into an offensive that Hollystar is quick enough to catch and divert. Jayflight's next rotation flows into the next one, and even with his paws sheathed, Hollystar finds herself matched.
Breezepelt and Heathertail appear out of the corner of her eye, which is the point where Lionblaze body-checks her. Lionblaze has the entire might of LionClan upon him, but it doesn't matter – it doesn't slow him down. Lionblaze snarls with a wave of tremendous billowing anger from his throat that comes out as almost a roar.
"If you touch them, I'll kill you!"
"Why do you care?"
Hollystar remains confused and betrayed.
"Bring it all down!" Jayflight yowls.
It snaps her into her focus, and her power flexes, draining energy from her limbs, commanding every warrior to stop her orange brother. LionClan crashes down around her in a frenzied, unthinking charge.
She sees Firestar, Cloudtail, Birchfall, Graystripe, Icepaw, Brackenfur, Ratscar, Whitewater, Redpaw, Blackclaw, and Pouncetail, and Rainstorm, and Mistyfoot, and other warriors slam into Lionblaze – sending the orange tom falling backwards, his invisible strength giving out and in the mob Hollystar finds herself trapped, tripping over her own warriors. Dapplenose, Beechfur, and Tawnypelt join in the mob and Hollystar curses. It's too much. It's far too much.
Wholly ignored by her warriors, Jayflight slams into her right flank, tackling her around the belly. Hollystar feels the darkness of the tunnels push back and then violently snap. Jayflight flashes with power she can see, and then the world goes sideways. Everything in the tunnel is lost; she tastes starlight, sees sunlight, and then drifts. She scatters herself. It's a familiar sensation from a long, long time ago. The memory of nearly drowning in the lake and rescuing Thistlekit jostles her. She smells queens' milk. StarClan is welcoming Hollystar home.
Not yet. Not until I'm done.
She pulls herself back from Jayflight's trick, catching herself just as her limp body begins to tip. The darkness in the earth returns her, casting away the starlight. Jayflight takes another gash from her right as he's at last out of fancy tricks. Hollystar retaliates by twitching sideways, tasting blood in her throat, and clawing Jayflight across the flank until she draws deep drops of blood.
He hisses, letting go of his grapple and landing on his paws. The duel continues.
"Why won't you give up!" she curses.
"Saving you from your own regrets," he replies with blood upon his whiskers. Meaningless.
Boom.
Hollystar steps through mud and slick that swallow her paws, pushed aside by rainwater. She tries to reach Jayflight, to beat some sense into him, but there's too much interference. The ceiling pours.
Lionblaze blows knock LionClan off their paws, then carves lines through the rock and dirt until it brings down another two tunnels nearby. With it, he brings the rainwater, sludge, and yowling cats who fight against her control to retreat and run. WindClan, in the chaos, with Jayflight and Lionblaze at her throat, slip away like the mud between her toes.
Jayflight himself takes a paw step away from her, Hollystar reaching out to drag him back, but red ichor in her throat stops her, forcing her instead to take a moment to cough and wheeze. She's made too many mistakes in this engagement – it doesn't matter – she won't make the same mistakes twice.
"You're going to kill yourself. You should go back to camp and rest," Jayflight speaks while retreating. He's so sure of himself; it's all in his whiskers, and Hollystar is going to take great pleasure wiping that confidence off.
Hollystar spits in his face.
"I'll kill you."
Boom. Boom.
A wall of dirt and rock crashes down in front of her, Lionblaze's blows shaking the entire tunnel system, and that's the last she sees Jayflight that sunrise.
Boom.
Lionblaze seals up the rest of the tunnels.
On the third sunrise and final sunrise, Hollystar starts digging.
Musty air and solid mud are the only things left when Lionblaze seals the tunnels, but that's fine. She has a lot of paws. She scraps through mud alongside Rippletail, and when Rippletail collapses in exhaustion, Hollystar has Littlecloud and Mothwing drag Rippletail away. Toadfoot replaces the RiverClan warrior, and Hollystar draws upon an invisible reserve of strength, pushing her wrath back down her scabbed throat and then pushes more sludge between her belly.
The need for water and food pushes LionClan back, and she has ThunderClan warriors retreat, hunt, and then deliver fresh prey to her diggers. The break gives her time to probe the edges of WindClan's territory as Lionblaze follows her battle patrols tirelessly and endlessly.
She naps, drifts into dreamless sleep, wakes up, and digs.
Beechfur is her next partner, the light brown tomcat exchanging concerned glances at her, but Hollystar pushes him to exhaustion, digging through endless dirt and muck. When her paws are finally chafed raw and it hurts to stand, she goes to Willowshine, has her paws rubbed in comfrey root, and then returns to work.
No surrender. No mercy.
The work is tiring beyond explanation, and by sunhigh, not even guilt can keep her up.
She naps while LionClan digs and churns.
She awakes to Littlecloud, dragging off an exhausted Rainstorm and Blackclaw. Mothwing tends to an injured patrol of warriors who wandered too close to Lionblaze on the surface. Another three warrior-queens sleep nearby, paws bloody, covered in scratches from the earlier battle.
"Hollystar, we don't have the right herbs to cure these ailments," Mothwing's soft mew is matched by her caring eyes, but to Hollystar, it only means that her Medicine Cats need time. Time enough to find traveling herbs, ragwort, stinging nettle, and other things that Hollystar doesn't have names for.
Mapleshade's threat hangs. There's no divine intervention in sight. Only her.
"They'll work through it."
Mothwing doesn't like that, but she doesn't get a choice when Hollystar pumps more energy down her web.
She steps over an exhausted Brackenfur, who's almost as dirty and muddy as her and takes her place beside the only mother she ever has known. Squirrelflight's front half is covered in dirt and ungroomed, the next cat to be assigned to digging duty, and her mother already looks exhausted. Her next scoop of dirt barely moves the earth as new dirt from above falls down to fill the gaps.
"Hey," Hollystar whispers and rasps. "We're breaking through this wall, okay? No matter what Lionblaze or Jayflight think."
Squirrelflight looks unsteady, one of her eyes dilated unnaturally, but she whispers, "Yeah." She returns to the digging.
Hollystar takes a moment to feel the cold, muddy dirt slide beneath her toes, stuffs down some more wrath in her bloodied, bloated throat, and then continues her work.
WindClan will fall in a two-pronged assault. The constant battle patrols skittering the edges of the WindClan territory may be constantly stopped by Lionblaze, but that keeps him from the heart of WindClan and allows her time to dig. If Lionblaze breaks more tunnels to slow her down instead, then her battle patrols on the surface serve as the metaphorical execution. She knows that Jayflight knows this, and because he knows, Lionblaze will also know. So he'll keep to the edges of WindClan, constantly pushing back against her relentless assault, waiting for her to surface and suffer a humiliating defeat.
So all Hollystar has to do is to break this wall back into the main tunnel, and then it'll be over. They can't defend every exit point, and she can end WindClan when her eyes reach sunlight. She won't let her brothers distract her this time with petty fights, taunts, or tricks. The moment her warriors reach the surface, it'll be over. She just needs to get one good look at WindClan.
Mintfur brings her a vole upon which Hollystar sucks down its blood, ripping into fresh veins, feeling a different kind of blood parch her throat, and then she tosses the rest of the vole aside. She cleans her teeth in between dirtying her claws.
Eventually, her luck wins out.
"Look!"
Squirrelflight scoops another mound between her belly, the tunnel noticeably tighter than before beneath their bellies, but more dirt from above does not fill the space this time.
"Look, Hollystar! We've broken through!"
Squirrelflight is the first to poke her head through the gap. Hollystar rolls her eyes and pushes her mother through as soft dirt and mud give away underneath them.
They are back in the main cavern from earlier. The double-stacked tunnel is cracked wide with deep with rivets of stone forming pathways upwards, branching off into a million surface tunnels carved from WindClan claws. In the darkness, Hollystar can make out the shallow mounds of dirt that block her off from the sun.
Hollystar sucks down the terrible feeling in her chest.
No more blood is going to be split this Sunrise.
LionClan spills out behind her like a popped organ – half-limping and half-exhausted. Hollystar growls: "We climb. Everyone get into position."
Half of LionClan settles itself around her, buried in their tunnels of choice; the other half of LionClan is already on the surface in organized battle patrols. They lurk around WindClan like hungry foxes, and Hollystar bids them to feast as her trap closes in on the camp. LionClan outnumbers WindClan four to one. She has more than enough cats to spare in her assault.
If Jayflight has more tricks, this is the moment where he'll use them.
Hollystar flicks her tail, and then the scramble begins.
In eerily unison, LionClan begins to rapidly dig, shoveling dirt downwards and upwards and backward and with multiple tunnels leading to WindClan's camp, Hollystar has the benefit of surprise.
There's a yowl and scream as Sandstorm breaks the surface and is immediately forced back down from a hailstorm of blows. But it doesn't matter as Rowanclaw breaks the surface next on the opposite side of the camp just as LionClan reinforcements smash into WindClan from across the moorland. A battle patrol is knocked asunder, Lionblaze's work certainly, but that just leaves another battle patrol to break into WindClan from the west.
Hollystar takes her own tunnel, Squirrelflight reeking of fear behind her, feeling soft dirt fall between her paws and almost salivates thinking about her victory. Her brothers will be the ones defeated within three sunrises, not her.
She can't see in the muck. She can't see, only hear the frantic yowls, hisses, and cursing from above, matched with the scrambling of tiny paws. She smells dirt and soil and breaks onto the surface, scattering mud across her body. She smells blood and is immediately tackled by Lionblaze.
This time, she rolls with the blow, pulling her own strength to her, and by the time Lionblaze has a moment to curse, she's tackled him with six other warriors. Hollystar calls for aid, and LionClan answers with a roar. She pulls off Lionblaze in a frenzy, twisting her head to rake her eyes across the defending WindClan warriors.
I win—
Jayflight rips into her flank, then jerks hard enough to rip her sideways. Hollystar's eyes peel down to her new opponent and then has Jayflight dancing backward to avoid the relation blow.
Her power swells, and she feels her cats fighting WindClan three to one, spilling blood, and she twitches sideways, letting her power do the work for her until she—
Heathertail and Breezepelt, in a perfectly timed attack, disrupt her left flank and concentration. They are not immune to her power, though, and Hollystar twitches back towards them, eyes hungry, and then — Lionblaze body checks her into the shrubbery.
She pulls more LionClan warriors off the offensive and onto Lionblaze, who gets submerged in a sea of angry bodies. It lessens the assault on WindClan, giving them time to run, retreat, and cower, but Hollystar only needs a moment.
Jayflight takes another swipe at her, scoring light blows on her from the front, but Heathertail goes for a devastating counterattack alongside Breezepelt. Hollystar lets it hit, feeling claws and teeth sink into her back, weight pushing her forward, and then twitches sideways in the collapse. Light brown fur crosses her vision, and that's all it takes.
There's a moment of shock and then fear from the tabby; she's been told about Hollystar's power and limits, and then it's buried under devotion. Heathertail holds down Breezepelt, and then it's all over.
They are bound to her now.
Jayflight hits her from the front again, scratching light marks of blood from her nose and snout, and then, seeing as Lionblaze is still preoccupied with fighting off the entirety of LionClan and winning, Hollystar focuses on her last problem.
Blood drips into her left eye, but Hollystar's double blow is perfect, sending Jayflight reeling. With a mental wipe of disregard, she sends Heathertail and Breezepelt to deal with her other troublesome brother because Jayflight is hers alone. He deserves what's coming.
Momentum carries her into another three down swings, and Jayflight is pushed back, dancing backward to avoid the pummeling blows, and then she tackles him into a melee. He rolls, barely keeping her from grabbing his scruff, but Hollystar's assault is relentless as she follows into another brutal assault.
"Is this what you imagined, Jayflight? Did running to WindClan prove me wrong?" Hollystar's blow hits the ground hard enough to rip the grass, Jayflight rolling out of the way again just in time. "Was it worth it making me struggle to just get here? How does it feel to lose anyhow?"
Jayflight catches her left forepaw and then twists into an overhead leap. He's a lot better at this than before, and Hollystar wonders when he learned to fight or if it's just his power doing the work for him. She twitches into a roll when he lands on her back, trying to pin her.
He doesn't reply, and Hollystar's whole world focuses on him. She sees red.
The roll catches Jayflight beneath her, and Hollystar flips midair using the momentum, long raking claws reaching downwards to catch a Jayflight who's already moving. This time, though, Jayflight isn't fast enough, and blood flies in his escape. Little droplets that Hollystar can see beyond the haze. Hollystar's forepaws have barely touched the earth when she uses them to rip her way towards her retreating brother, longer legs built and trained for running tear into the earth, and then she tackles her brother a fox-length out. Her brother goes limp.
"This was for you! They hate us, half-clan crowfood, but I can change that. They forced you to chew on herbs because they only saw you as my blind brother! I'll change that, too!" Hollystar swings down and scores two deep blows across his ribs. "They'd destroy our family if given the chance, and you'd side against me?" Two more blows land upon her brother's face and ears, who tries to protect himself by rolling, but Hollystar bloodies him more and follows his movement.
"If you win, they'll kill me." She starts pleading when he doesn't surrender. "You have to surrender! You have to tell Lionblaze to stop fighting. The Clans would have me dead for this, you know that, or The Dark Forest will kill me in my sleep." Jayflight tries to weakly catch her next blow, but Hollystar is physically stronger and forces him down until she can split his nose. "Surrender! Let me unite the Clans here and now and forever! Surrender!"
Jayflight coughs up blood, and Hollystar looks down to see her paws. They are stained blood red, her toes sticky, and the air is swamped with blood.
"Surrender… Say something! Say something, at least!" she snarls. "Don't just sit there and take it! Fight! Do something! An—"
"Do you hate me so much that you'd die fighting me?"
Lionblaze, who she's forgotten in the fray, brings his paws down on her back, and Hollystar's hindlegs slip out from under her. Jayflight uses the moment to weasel his way out from under her while, at the same time, Lionblaze kicks her in the ribs, claws latching onto her pelt. They go into a tumble, and Hollystar lets Lionblaze's momentum carry him into the ground. The orange tom bounces on the blood-slicken grass back into her. She wastes precious heartbeats, wrestling her brother before his grip relents.
Hollystar counts her blessings and pulls herself up in a sprint just in time to take Jayflight's clawed swipe to the face. Blood splashes in her eyes, but she returns the blow with her own that Jayflight isn't fast enough to dodge. She grabs him, slamming him into the ground with a chokehold, and from the corner of her eye, she spots Lionblaze, pursued by her warriors, rushing to turn the tide. Her body tingles with static, adrenaline burning her frame.
Jayflight's right forepaw snaps out, and then, with a resounding crack, Hollystar's head is thrust upwards, blood in her cheek, and Hollystar's eyes snap upward across the clearing.
I win.
Great divots pocket the clearing, scoops and trenches of shallow, broken earth from where Hollystar and her brothers have reshaped the world in their struggle. Collapsed tunnels form miniature ponds that will one sunrise be filled with rainwater. In the middle of it all, Lionblaze fights twenty to one. His sheathed paw slams down and sends LionClan warriors scattering while the rest of WindClan mounts a desperate defense. Her brother strikes with more fury and indignation than she's ever seen him have before, and the rest of WindClan follows his example. With no cover to hide behind, Owlwhisker, WindClan warrior, and Barkface, WindClan Medicine Cat, fight back to back, covered in blood beneath a pile of shrubbery. Nearby, Onestar pulls himself up from death and leaps undaunted to his Medicine Cat's defense. WindClan's two elders take up their own defense in another corner, refusing to be pinned down in submission. Another ginger tom refuses to surrender, kicking out from under his assaulters until Hollystar's warriors are forced to bloody him further.
He's not the only one, either.
It's a blood bath from one side of the camp to the other. LionClan numbers WindClan four to one but cannot kill or maim their opponents on Hollystar's orders. WindClan has no such qualms. Every apprentice, warrior, and elder spills blood, and LionClan spills blood in return until the shallow scoop that is WindClan's camp is angry red. WindClan has decided there will be no retreat and no surrender.
Is this the kind of loyalty that Jayflight inspires?
Lionblaze headbutts a ShadowClan warrior into the grass and then, in the upswing, catches Cloudtail - swinging him over and then down. He roars, loud enough to blast her ear from a tree-length away and WindClan roars back. Lionblaze pulls her warriors from WindClan's defense; WindClan responds in kind, saving her brother's back from the next wave.
Lionblaze…
She sees cats she knows and loves climb out of the carnage, Squirrelflight included, and she's covered in blistering blood, not all her own. Red in Hollystar's name.
"I love you," Jayflight mews between bloodstained teeth.
In one terrifying moment, for some reason that Hollystar will never be able to explain for the rest of her life but will always be thankful for, the weight of everything she's done comes crashing down upon her like the wrath of StarClan. Hollystar chokes on her own bile, sucking it back down, and then hacks it back out. She barely has the dignity to twist her head and not vomit on her brother.
Jayflight's plan comes to completion.
"Well done, Jay," she mews and rasps, "well done."
She's not welcome here. The Clans would rather die than let her win. Hollystrike isn't going to get her legacy, her heroics, her family, her peace, or even her life.
She pulls on her strands, her ginormous web, pulling it all back to her until she feels like she might explode. She wishes that maybe she would and that perhaps her heart would give out at last – but it doesn't. In a terrifying instant, ThunderClan, RiverClan, and ShadowClan are freed – with it comes sudden silence and the scent of fear. The battle comes to a sudden, grinding halt.
Hollystar realizes she is going to die.