ASTERSTRIPE
Nightbird's tail had only just disappeared back into the tall grass when Rosestar let out a rattling sigh, all those jumbled nerves contorting his shoulders. Asterstripe had never seen him so discomposed, so off-balanced.
"It's humiliating to look so poor and speak so sweet," Rosestar practically growled under his breath. "We should let them attack this hill and take a few codebreakers with us to Silverpelt."
He's given up, Asterstripe thought with fresh tension creeping up his spine. But Rosestar's confidence was the Clan's confidence, and if Rosestar couldn't find his heart, Asterstripe would give his own. He had to. He needed him now more than ever, to guide him through this treacherous path.
"Fight with gentle words," Asterstripe said in hushed tones, "until the moment to strike, and we can gather friends and numbers. We can still fight and win another day."
Rosestar's gaze was inclined toward the morning sky, green eyes searching the clouds. "What would Stormstar think about a leader who has to swallow back their words? To exile that proud, stone-headed stoat and then lift that banishment with sweet courtesies? If only I were a warrior instead. If only I couldn't remember what I am, or forget what I've been."
His leader was too lost in clouds to notice the rustle of grass, the telltale signs of many cats converging on the muddy bank, scents he recognized well. There was his father Elderheart among them, and nearly all the Clan warriors left behind in camp.
Were they so quick to forget their loyalty, with their leader away for one night?
His father had always taught him the leader's word was the warrior code, and the warrior code was everything. The warrior code stood in front of him now, half-slumped, defeated, betrayed, his usual well-groomed cream fur ruffled and tufted after the night's battle.
"Nightbird is returning with Rowanthorn and the others," Asterstripe said, prodding the leader's flank.
Rosestar didn't move his head, didn't turn or respond to his touch in any way at first. "And what must the leader of LeafClan do now? Surrender to an exile? Give up my name? Give up my nine lives? Be exiled myself?" He kneaded and clawed at the ground, tail drooping. "StarClan in the sky, let it all go. I'll trade away the Hollow Ash and LeafClan and all I have for a loner's life. I'll give dawn patrols up for sleeping in, Gatherings for gossip with kittypets, fresh-kill for crowfood. They were my cares. And what loss is it to be rid of care? Better some other poor cat than me."
Asterstripe had wanted to be his heart, but the tears flowed unbidden, and the soft sobs escaped his throat against his will before Rosestar had finished speaking.
His leader turned then, gently lifting Asterstripe's chin with his tail tip. Looking muzzle to muzzle, eye to eye now, he saw Rosestar's own silent tears mirroring his.
"My kitten-hearted warrior," Rosestar purred. "Don't cry. We'll flood the forest and drown every camp if we both cry. They'll find this little island one day, and tell about two LeafClan warriors who dug their graves with weeping eyes. Is that how you want to be remembered in the elder's stories?"
Asterstripe managed to choke out a light laugh, and Rosestar laughed too, mossy green eyes bright now.
"See," Rosestar mewed playfully, blinking those tears away and nuzzling his cheek against Asterstripe's. "Now you laugh at me; a traitor just like all the rest."
By the time Nightbird approached the muddy bank again, this time with a patrol behind him, Rosestar looked every whisker a proud Clan leader once again. The same young, brave warrior with a tongue as sharp as his wit that he'd grown accustomed to seeing perched in the Hollow Ash or atop the Greenstone on Clawtower.
The Rosestar he loved, but even then, Asterstripe could see the fragility of that haughty, aloof facade.
"So, what does Rowan star's little messenger have to say?" Rosestar called down, emerald fire in his eyes now.
Nightbird didn't take the bait, but Asterstripe didn't mistake the sudden twitch in the dark warrior's tail. "He would speak to you face to face and have us all return to camp. Would it please you to come down?"
There was something mockingly sweet about the warrior's courtesy. Rosestar didn't answer for a moment, before mimicking the tone.
"Well, down, down I come," Rosestar said in a singsong voice, disappearing back into the brush. The other warriors soon gathered around them, Splitears and Rooktuft and Jaywind and Paleface, Larkfeather, the medicine cats and the few apprentices.
That affectation of confidence evaporated from Rosestar's expression as soon as he was out of sight of the mutinous warriors below.
Rosestar's raiding party, so ready to return from MireClan with shouts of victory, slinked through the brambles in silent procession, snaking a path down the bank and onto even ground with the rest of the warriors. Clanmates exchanged uneasy glances, as if looking at each other again through new eyes, strangers taking the pelts of friends and family.
The grass parted above as Rosestar approached over the creek bed, and Rowanthorn finally showed his face. Asterstripe had been among the last to see him, escorting him to the border with Twolegplace. He'd slunk away a cold and sullen loner; now he returned with his head held high, surrounded by LeafClan warriors.
Rowanthorn lowered his head low and deep, the proper gesture of respect for a warrior toward his Clan leader. "Rosestar," he greeted, still not lifting his head.
"Rowanthorn," Rosestar said. "I'd rather feel your love than see your courtesy. Quit the pretenses and lift your head."
Elderheart stood by, and father and son exchanged long, silent stares. How could it be that his father, so loyal, so immovable, could be caught up in a sad rabble like this one? All their hopes could have pinned on the deputy and the camp warriors, and all their hopes had fallen and shattered like ice in leaf-bare. Asterstripe searched for answers in his eyes, but there was only a profound sadness on the edge of agony in the deputy's aged face.
"I swear my true loyalty," Rowanthorn said, blinking golden eyes open. "I only come to be restored as a warrior of LeafClan."
"Yes, warrior of LeafClan," Rosestar said with just the veneer of pleasantry, the bite of scorn easily tasted in his words, "and is that all? I've always known your ambition, Rowanthorn. It's that drive which made you such a great warrior to begin with."
Rowanthorn lowered his head again. "I only aspire to serve my Clan, however they call on me."
"So modest. You play it so well." Rosestar leered at the warrior, sliding glances toward his pained deputy and the other rebellious warriors, some of them shrinking under his gaze. "The strongest and most desperate are the most deserving, and who could be more deserving than Rowanthorn? Deserving of anything he aspires to."
Deserving of a shallow pit in the poppy fields, Asterstripe thought, unsheathing and sheathing his claws. They had been friends once, but how could he forgive this?
Rowanthorn had no answer for that, his expression opaque.
"Well, off to camp, are we not?" Rosestar said.
"Yes, Rosestar," Rowanthorn said.
"Then I can't say no."
The two bands merged over the grassy plain, crossing back over the border and toward the line of trees that marked LeafClan territory. Rosestar and Rowanthorn walked side by side, with Asterstripe behind them, closed in on all sides like a prisoner.
Rosestar perched on his usual place on the Hollow Ash, but Rowanthorn and Elderheart sat on the lower roots, directing everything. Their leader might as well have been a pale golden leaf on that gnarled tree, ready to flutter away in the wind.
Morning had turned to well past sunhigh, long shadows stretching over LeafClan camp.
The entire Clan was gathered around the Ash; warriors and apprentices, elders and queens, the medicine cats, and kits attempting to peek unnoticed. All about as sleepless as himself, Asterstripe supposed.
"Larkfeather, step forward," Rowanthorn called. Asterstripe felt his hackles rise as the brown tabby she-cat padded toward the front of the crowd, green eyes level and straight, not even sparing a glance for her fellow clanmates. "With no more secrets, tell us what you know about Squirreltail's death, who plotted it with Rosestar, and who carried out the murder."
Rosestar sat silent on the perch above, eyes set impassively on Larkfeather, who had not looked back in his direction once. Just yesterday, it was like he could barely pick her out of his pelt, like a stubborn tick.
"Then bring out Asterstripe," Larkfeather mewed.
Murmurs rippled through the gathered warriors. Hearing his own name out of Larkfeather's mouth, Asterstripe felt his heart sink into the pit of his gut. A torrent of emotions rushed through his head and made him dizzy, either to faint or to claw Larkfeather into mouse-meat, but he still approached with his head held high. The tabby she-cat didn't return his pointed glare, her eyes still set forward as if the rest of camp had all faded away.
Standing beside her, she looked at him now, expression unflinching.
"Asterstripe," she started. "You always had such big words, and I know it'll shame you to take them back now. During the time Squirreltail's death was plotted, I heard you say that your claws were so long, they could reach from LeafClan camp to the MeadowClan border, and none of our clanmates would notice.
" That, and among other talk, I heard you say that you'd rather have ten leaf-bares in a row than see Rowanthorn's return to LeafClan, adding how lucky we would all be if he died during his exile."
Fox-heart! She was as loyal as a spider.
Asterstripe lashed his tail, turning toward the dozens of eyes all fixed on him now. "I don't even dare justify these lies with a response," he hissed, whipping his head back toward Larkfeather. "But I won't let you soil my reputation. Fight me, if you back up your words, and let StarClan decide who speaks the truth."
Rowanthorn sat up on the root now, tail twitching. "Asterstripe, Larkfeather, no. There will be no more bloodshed here."
"She would drown her own kits before she'd let herself fall behind," Asterstripe growled. "She'll say or do anything to survive—allow me to defend my honor against this fox-breath!"
"You won't with claws and teeth," Rowanthorn said, with authority that didn't belong to him.
They could all sense it too. All the while, Rosestar sat perched on the Hollow Ash, silent.
Another young she-cat stepped forward through the throng, lean and gray and bristling with rage. "Then let Asterstripe fight me," Stonetooth snarled, rounding Asterstripe and Larkfeather with unsheathed claws. "I overheard him joke about my mentor's murder, and if he denies it, he lies, and if he lies, I will bite out his lying tongue!"
"You are too mouse-hearted to actually back up your word," Asterstripe spat back. "Try me." He would send her to join her mentor in Silverpelt if that's what she craved.
"I'll tear out your throat here and now," Stonetooth growled, arching her shoulders as if poised to pounce.
Asterstripe fell into a crouch, claws unsheathed. "Then die and never find starlight!"
Yowls, cries, hisses and growls rose up from the gathered warriors, Rowanthorn and Elderheart shouting for order and going unheard, their voices lost in the din.
Another voice snapped his attention away, an apprentice bowling forward this time. Nettlepaw, both Sparrowflight's apprentice and Nightbird's whelp. "Stonetooth is no liar! If she says it's true, I vouch for her, and I would fight beside her!"
Foolish young thing, head governed by bees and delusions of glory.
Still, another voice joined the din, another cat jostling through the crowd with death in her eyes. It was the mauled queen, Longscar, Squirreltail's old mate, her teeth bared.
"The honor of avenging Squirreltail should belong to me," Longscar said, and more shouts and cries rose up with her declaration.
He might've laughed. "Who else?" Asterstripe said, standing tall. "By StarClan, I'll fight every single one of you rats and still stack my honor as greater than yours."
Splitears pushed forward now, toward the young gray she-cat, whose posture started to resemble a coiled adder.
"Stonetooth, I think I remember the conversation you overheard," the brown tabby tom said, the words striking through Asterstripe's heart like ice.
"It's true, you were there," Stonetooth answered. "Then you can credit what I'm saying."
"As false as a rogue's oath," Splitears hissed back, sending up more cries from the agitated warriors, almost every cat on their feet now. Asterstripe almost let himself breathe a sigh of relief. "You have no idea what you're talking about."
" Liar!" Stonetooth screamed.
"Lie with your mentor in a shallow pit," Splitears spat. "If you fight anyone, Stonetooth, fight me."
"Name the place and hour. When I send you to your ancestors, you try telling them that you only spoke the truth." Stonetooth's head snapped from Splitears back to Asterstripe. "Besides, Leopardfoot wasn't the only cat hunting with Squirreltail that day. Asterstripe, Rooktuft, and Splitears were all part of the patrol!"
"I don't care anymore. Bring back Leopardfoot and I'll fight her too," Asterstripe hissed.
" Enough!" Rowanthorn's voice rang over the camp, and the chattering voices stilled into thick silence. "Leopardfoot will be called back from her banishment, and let her truth stand against Asterstripe's. All cats in LeafClan will remain silent and at peace until then."
Murkpool closed his eyes and shook his head. "That day is not likely to be seen," the old medicine cat said, his voice coming out in a wheeze. "There have been rumors about a forest cat chasing the rogues out of Twolegplace, but at our last half-moon meeting, Raggedweed shared a rumor that the cat had died."
Rowanthorn turned to the medicine cat. "Are you saying Leopardfoot is dead?"
"I believe as much," Murkpool said with a solemn dip of his head.
"May she find good hunting and swift-running in the next life," Rowanthorn said. "Then let this sad, bloody story be concluded."
Rosestar was lounging on that perch now, chin perched on his paws, tail hanging down like a loose, swinging vine. "My, how this world is given to lying," he said.
The simmering anger from the LeafClan warriors, which had threatened to roil over into swipes and blows, dissipated into an uneasy tension. Every cat looked like they had a volume of words and no tongue to speak them, stones in their throats.
Elderheart stepped off the root now, orange eyes sweeping the gathered Clan. "There is more," he mewed, grave and low, and every cat pricked their ears to hear the reverend deputy. "I have served our Clan as deputy for many moons, but I've come to realize I cannot give the same strength and energy and devotion I did before. To stay your deputy would be doing my Clan a disservice, when a younger warrior could serve you better. So I will be retiring to the elder's den, as I promised Rosestar, and leave a better suited warrior to take my place."
Retiring? Asterstripe's mouth gaped at his father's announcement. Yes, it had only been a matter of time, but now of all times?
Rosestar sat up now, and Asterstripe couldn't mistake his hackles rising.
"Let Rowanthorn be our next deputy!" Nightbird shouted to break the silence, over the gasps and low whispers. "Let Rowanthorn be our next leader!"
The whispers grew louder, and then a shout from Boulderstep in agreement, and yowls from Stonetooth and Longscar, Sparrowflight, Owlswoop and Hawkwing, and more. Asterstripe felt his fur bush up, but he could only stand paralyzed as the shouts grew louder, finally swelling in unison.
"Rowanthorn! Rowanthorn! Rowanthorn!"
Rowanthorn bowed his head at the roots of the Hollow Ash, basking in the cheers of adulation.
"If my Clan calls on me," Rowanthorn said, "then I shall serve."
The cheers and yowls grew deafening, with Rosestar still sitting wordless and voiceless atop his perch. That ancient bough where generations of leaders had sat.
"StarClan forbid!" a ragged voice cried out, the old medicine cat scrambling out in front of the assembled Clan, as if to block any cat from climbing the Ash where Rosestar sat. Murkpool looked around, watery blue eyes wide and wild, his dark gray fur bushed out so the skinny tom was near twice his normal size. "This cannot be! Have you all gone mad? Have you forgotten the warrior code?"
All the murmurs and cries and voices ceased to listen to their medicine cat. Murkpool gazed at them helplessly, as if facing down a legion of badgers.
"I must speak the truth even if no one else will," Murkpool said, voice quivering. "Which one of you has the authority to name the deputy of LeafClan? Which one of you can take away the nine lives given to Rosestar, except by murder and disloyalty? We are a Clan of warriors, not a mob of rogues! The strong cannot just take what they wish; warriors cannot do as they please and disobey their leader's word! It is against our tradition!"
The aged, skinny medicine cat stood alone at the foot of the Ash, encircled by Rowanthorn and a ring of LeafClan warriors.
"This cat you would make our leader," Murkpool said, pointing a trembling tail toward Rowanthorn, "is a traitor to our true leader! And if he ever takes the name Rowanstar, let me prophesy that LeafClan blood will water the earth, and generations unborn will suffer and lament the foul day! It is foretold in the weeping stars and bloodstained clouds! Prevent it! Resist!"
His voice rang out to no answer. The medicine cat stood his ground even as Nightbird approached, the dark warrior twitching his whiskers in sly amusement.
"Well argued," Nightbird mewed, hovering threateningly over him. "But look around you; maybe you should think carefully about which leader you choose to disrespect, if you want to stay our medicine cat."
They spoke about Rosestar as if he was a ghost, already departed. Asterstripe raked his claws through the soft earth.
"Then let us hear it from Rosestar," Rowanthorn said, raising his eyes to the pale golden tom on the drooping bough. "Will you name me as your deputy and retire from leadership?"
Their leader stood up now on the bough with a lazy stretch, before bounding down from the perch to stand among the warriors. They cleared a circle around him as if he were a skunk.
"How sweet of you to think of asking me," Rosestar purred. "A question that isn't actually a question. You'll have to forgive me if I speak disrespectfully to you, Rowan star; I still haven't learned to bow my head and flatter like a warrior."
"But will you name Rowanthorn in my place?" Elderheart pressed. "The Clan must heal."
Rosestar winded around the roots of the Hollow Ash, until he stood near nose to nose with Rowanthorn.
"If you would have it, it's yours. Don't ask me for my permission. And don't you dare shrink now."
" Are you willing?" Rowanthorn said again.
"Yes," Rosestar said, to a drone of murmurs. Then, "No. No." The murmurs grew louder. Finally, almost exhaling the words, "I mean— yes."
The leader sat on a root between Rowanthorn and Elderheart, to look his warriors eye to eye. "I remember your favors," he said, green eyes sweeping over them all in turn. "Weren't you mine? Did you not shout my name once? Didn't you laugh at my jokes, share my secrets, and eat fresh-kill with me?"
Elderheart hung his head low, stooped, as if bent by the weight of the moon itself. Other cats shuffled their paws or turned their eyes away.
"Then hear me now, if I cannot be your leader any longer," Rosestar said. "I give up this dead, hollow tree where I make my nest. I silence my voice in Clan meetings. I take pride and sway out of my heart. I will call myself by a new name. I will never give another command, another order, perform another ceremony. Another cat will sit on the Greenstone at Clawtower.
"I renounce all past commands, all promises, all vows made under my power as leader. Let our ancestors forgive all oaths broken against me, and keep only the ones made to StarClan. Let StarClan approve of my choice, and protect our leader, and let him perch on the Hollow Ash for many greenleafs to come. But if they do not approve, then still, let them protect LeafClan."
The leader flicked his tail as the rest of the Clan stood in rapt silence.
"And flealess nests and rainbows and good hunting to Rowanstar for the rest of his many, many sunshiny days. Will that be all?"
"Nothing more," Nightbird mewed, "except that you confess your crimes in view of the entire Clan, so every cat knows you were justly deposed."
"Must I?" Rosestar answered with a hot, acrid laugh. "I'll confess my sins when I join my warrior ancestors. They are the only ones I have to answer to, not the likes of you, Nightbird. And one day you'll answer for all your offenses, and explain what ambition drove you to betray your leader, your Clan, and the warrior code."
Nightbird's hackles were raised. "Rosestar—"
"I'm not Rosestar to you, you flea-bitten carrion-eater. Rosestar is no more. I have no name." The cat who had been Rosestar's lips were curled in a snarl, with a glass-like quality in his eyes that seemed like he might shatter into a hundred thousand pale gold slivers at any moment, or melt into water drops. "How pitiful that I've lived this many moons and don't know what to call myself any longer."
"Don't urge it any further, Nightbird," Rowanthorn insisted.
The dark warrior lashed his tail, teeth bared. "But the Clan must be satisfied—"
" They shall be satisfied!" Rosestar roared, voice straining. "And every cat that was complicit in this rebellion, let them live with that blot on their honor until their dying breath!"
Rowanthorn stood now. "Enough of this. This drama is unbecoming of you."
"I thank you for your sagacity, Rowan star," Rosestar said with a twitch of his ears. "You give me causes to grieve and teach me the proper way to grieve the cause. May I ask for one final favor from you, and then trouble you no more?"
"Name it, Rosestar," Rowanthorn said evenly.
"' Rosestar'," he repeated, turning the name over in his mouth like it was bile on his tongue. "I must be greater than a leader, because when I was leader, my flatterers had warrior names. Now I have leaders flattering me. Being this great, I don't even need to beg."
Rowanthorn's ears twitched, golden eyes narrowed. "Yet ask."
"And you'll give it to me?"
The bristly reddish-brown tom hesitated, but finally answered, "If it's within reason."
"Then give me leave to go," Rosestar mewed.
"Where?" Rowanthorn pressed.
"Wherever you want," Rosestar said, "so long as it's out of your sight."
He hesitated again, and then twitched his tail, picking out Boulderstep and Sparrowflight. "Go, some of you, and convey him to the leader's den, to be kept under guard."
Rosestar gave another biting laugh. "Oh, good. Come convey me, please." He soon disappeared into the hollow dip in the earth beneath the roots, and in his absence, Rowanthorn bounded up to the lowest hanging bough of the Hollow Ash. The perch where Rosestar had sat for so many moons, the soft bark grooved by generations of leader's paws.
The sight of him up there made Asterstripe's stomach turn.
It swayed and shook uneasily beneath his weight, and for half a heartbeat Asterstripe thought he might slip, but Rowanthorn maintained his balance. "In the next three moonrises, I will make the journey to Standing Stones to receive my nine lives. I can only thank you, my clanmates, for the faith you have entrusted in me. In that time, I hope that Elderheart would honor me by remaining my deputy, until the proper time when we can honor his wishes for retirement. I can think of no better warrior to help guide us through these trying times."
Who created these trying times? Asterstripe simply sat in the dirt, ready to collapse in a heap.
Elderheart dipped his head low. "I shall, if you ask me to."
"I thank you, and all of you," Rowanthorn said. More warmly, he added, "And it is good to be back home. Now, let us all get some much needed rest."
Those warriors in his sway began the cheer again. " Rowanthorn! Rowanthorn! Rowanthorn!" It might as well have been barking dogs to Asterstripe, each chant sending a shiver down his spine. But soon enough, the Clan meeting was over. Rowanthorn leaped off the Hollow Ash, mobbed by warriors now, just how Rosestar had been just days before. Asterstripe lingered, not heading for the dens, or the forest, and he wasn't the only one.
Murkpool remained by the roots of the Ash, and Shrikepaw beside him. They caught each other's eye, and with a wordless flick of his ears, Murkpool padded out toward the camp entrance, and Shrikepaw followed. Asterstripe waited until they were out of sight before following, out through the bramble tunnel and into the forest.
The medicine cats waited for him outside of earshot of the camp walls, shrouded by ferns and foliage.
"What a sad pageant," Shrikepaw mewed. Asterstripe knew the medicine cat apprentice had a littermate in the poppy fields this past night, dead at Rowanthorn's doing. Briarstalk. But not a word spoken for her, or Greeneyes. The lethargy in his limbs, every step falling like boulders, replaced with liquid fury once again, a flint of shame and anger scalding in his chest.
"True sadness is yet to come," Murkpool muttered. "LeafClan will remember this day many moons afterward, and the kits of our kits will bewail us all."
"You both share dreams with StarClan," Asterstripe said in hushed tones. "Your voices mean something. Is there nothing we can do to stop this?"
Despite his name, Shrikepaw was a warrior in age, and maybe shrewder than a warrior in judgment and understanding. Asterstripe pricked his ears to full attention when he spoke.
"Asterstripe, before I speak my mind," Shrikepaw started, "you must promise on the graves of your ancestors that you will keep my intentions secret, and swear to help whatever I devise."
He felt his hairs rise, but gave an assenting nod of his head.
" Swear it."
Asterstripe swore.
He'd swear his soul away for Rosestar.
The medicine cat apprentice looked him in the eyes, and nodded back. "Then tonight, at moonhigh, we'll share tongues and converse. You, and others."
Maybe there could still be happy days ahead.