SUNFIRE
He retread old prey trails, side by side with his old mentor, mouth still full of feathers. Sunspots dappled the ground now, shafting through the forest canopy, but there was no time to stop and nap. He'd already started thinking toward his next rest, anything but the meeting in front of him.
So, thorn-pricked little Nettlefang had turned traitor, the way Goosebelly and Hawkwing told it. He'd always found ways of making every day more aggravating than it had to be.
Nettlefang, who single handedly killed some six or seven MireClan warriors before sunup every day, the way his clanmates spoke about him. Him and his mate, Dovefeather.
"Mouse-guts on this quiet life," Sunfire groaned between the fresh-kill in his teeth, imitating Nettlefang's voice. "I want work."
He switched his voice to a shrill, high, fawning she-cat's tone, a crude mockery of Dovefeather's speech. "Oh, Nettlefang, how many have you killed today?" Sunfire mewed as the young queen.
"Some fourteen," Sunfire mewed back to himself in Nettlefang's harshly exaggerated timbre. "A trifle, a trifle."
That was enough to get a snicker out of Goosebelly, which was enough to cheer his heart some as they approached the green hollow. LeafClan's camp was a hidden glade, easily overlooked by an outsider, but he knew the paths leading out of it as well as his own paws.
They trotted through the bramble tunnel with the fledglings clenched in their jaws, a trove for any hunting patrol. No cat seemed to notice, of those that remained, pacing back and forth, the elders and apprentices making repairs in the camp wall.
Depositing their fresh-kill without ceremony, Sunfire still took a moment to drag his paws, idly observing the grass, the dens, the few familiar faces moving around camp. There was his apprentice, Mistpaw, whose eyes seemed to brighten that he was back in camp. Perhaps glad that her mentor hadn't finally run off for good.
The others only had dark, preoccupied looks to offer; Close-eye dragging fronds of undergrowth to patch over the bramble thicket, Tansypaw and Bluepaw practicing fighting drills between themselves, Asterstripe resting alone in the den with his paws folded over his eyes, pretending to sleep.
When he glanced around for Beethorn, the deputy, he spotted her in the nursery. Not on patrol, or in the Hollow Ash with Rowanstar. He'd seen her wrangle and herd an entire patrol of warriors, but her own litter seemed almost too overwhelming to handle, half a dozen kits scrambling around her paws and mewing piteously.
"You must be good," Beethorn said sternly, even while her kits wreaked havoc around her. Elmkit and Waspkit writhed and wrestled on the ground, tiny Acornkit squealing as Minkkit chased his tail. "I'm sorry, but I'll be very busy, and the warriors and apprentices don't have time to entertain you…"
"You're always busy!" Fleckkit whined.
Mousespots had nursed them, watching over the queens and kits, even after she'd lost litter after litter of her own. There was no sign of her now, or Dovefeather, both their scents stale. Now, the kits were foisted back into Beethorn's paws.
Perhaps more suited to battle than this kind of delicate talk. She had given up a queen's life to serve her Clan as deputy instead.
"Yes! Yes I am always busy!" she snapped back. "The Clan depends on me! And now I depend on you, and need you to listen, and follow my orders. You will not leave the nursery, except with a warrior or elder to watch you. Close-eye will be sleeping in the nursery here with you, and she'll never be far from this den, and you must follow every word she says. If you hear any fighting in the camp, you—"
Sunfire peeled himself away, out of earshot and letting the deputy's sentence trail off unfinished, not eager to hear anymore.
There was no delaying it any longer. The Hollow Ash. The ancient tree loomed over him, its clubby branches webbing out like sickly pale spider thread.
Sunfire ducked into the leader's den alone, Goosebelly not daring to follow him into the shadow of the Ash.
Rowanstar's warriors and closest advisors were already gathered. Hawkwing, Owlswoop, Boulderstep, Sorreltail. The leader himself sat in the shadow of the far corner, merely two golden eyes glowering out from the half-light of the den.
Their intense discussion, incomprehensible whispers from where he wandered in, immediately lapsed into cold silence as every warrior turned their head toward Sunfire's entrance.
"Warriors, give us leave," Rowanstar mewed, his voice as heavy as stone. "Sunfire and I must have a private word. But do not wander from camp; I'll need you soon enough."
They shuffled out one by one, until Sunfire stood alone with his father in the shade of the Ash. Rowanstar said nothing at first, glare intent on Sunfire. Then he stalked out from the shadow, into the crisscrossed light that filtered in through the Ash's rivened trunk.
"I don't know if it's for some guilt of mine, that the stars have bred a punishment for me out of my own blood. But every step of your life, you've sought to undermine me, vex me, shame me, to rebel against the warrior code."
The leader's searing yellow glare swept over him, up and down.
"Tell me why else, that you—a LeafClan warrior and my son—are blighted with such black reputation? Why else do you skirt your duties, your patrols, the training of your apprentice, to skulk about in Twolegplace and run around with rogues? To eat carrion-heap rats and live for yourself and your base desires like a kittypet, neglecting your own kin, your own clanmates during our time of crisis? And yet, you still dare call yourself a warrior of LeafClan?"
He'd rehearsed his reaction in his head what felt like half a hundred times. Underneath Rowanstar's wilting glare, his gut instinct was to bolt back outside. Toward the safety of the lodge, or maybe the nursery, where expectations were non-existent.
It was all he could do not to flatten his ears and cower. But Sunfire managed a casual roll of his shoulders, flashing his father an easy smile that only made him raise his hackles in response.
"If I can speak, Father," Sunfire started, only the hint of a tremor in his voice as he whipped up an air of nonchalance. "I wish I could prove my innocence, and clear my name of all these offenses. Yet, I can assure you, all… most of the things my clanmates might be telling you, they're just gossip. Tales that gossips love to spin for great leaders like you, if it catches your attention."
Rowanstar's face remained a stony mask, lips curled.
"That said," Sunfire mewed, ambling word to word, shuffling his paws, "I'm young, and not perfect. I may not always have been the most diligent warrior, I admit it, but I hope you can forgive a few slip-ups here and there…"
"StarClan forgive you!" Rowanstar roared in response, Sunfire flinching away from the explosion in volume. "There is not a trace of myself, or my father, or his father before him in you! The rest of your litter has never shamed me the way you do, day by day, and you've become a stranger to your own Clan and blood. All hope and expectation in you has already been ruined, and every cat foretells your fall!"
Sunfire dropped his eyes to his paws, not daring to lift his head. Rowanstar paced the den, tail lashing as his voice dropped to a low snarl.
"Had I been as effete and disrespectful, so shameless and vulgar as you, my clanmates would have abandoned me in my exile," Rowanstar growled. "And they would have been right to leave me to my fate.
"But because I lived for my Clan, because of my reputation, when I rose up my clanmates followed. When my opportunity came, I stole all courtesy from the stars, and spoke with such humility that I plucked allegiance from their hearts, loud shouts and salutations from their mouths… Even to Rosestar's face."
Rowanstar rounded back on him now.
"Skipping, honey-tongued Rosestar; he ambled up and down the camp seeking approval, surrounding himself with tail-lickers and sycophants. Prancing fools and jokers who filled his ears with poison, who shamed themselves and their leader with their petty conduct, and crippled our Clan with their blindness. His voice became like the cuckoo in greenleaf; heard, but not regarded.
"And in that same, smirking way, that is where you stand among your clanmates, Sunfire. You have lost their respect and trust with your selfishness and disregard for the code, and not one eye is unwearied of your sight."
Sunfire's tail drooped into the dirt, searching for the words. "From now on, Father, I shall be more myself," he ventured, voice threatening to break.
"Yourself?" Rowanstar repeated with a flinty edge. "For all the forest, I am to this day what Rosestar was, when I returned to Tumblestone. And Nettlefang is everything I was then. He is a worthier warrior and son than you have ever hoped to be."
Those words might as well have been a stake of ice through Sunfire's chest.
"Being no older than you, he sways our warriors, queens, and medicine cat from our side, leading them to bloody battle. They stand with him even in the badger's jaws, and cats know his name in all four Clans. What honor he won against MireClan, fighting three battles on our borders, taking one of Burdockstar's lives, and making her a prisoner. Only to free her, lift her up, and turn her into a friend and ally against us, shaking the safety and future of our Clan!
"Nettlefang, Nightbird, Shrikewing, Burdockstar, Paleface, and more. They all stand against us, out to spill my blood." Rowanstar turned his head sharply away, a note of despair filling his voice. "But why do I tell you my troubles? You, Sunfire, my nearest and dearest enemy. It was a shock to me that you returned to camp at all, and didn't flee to Nettlefang's side like the rest, to dog his heels and bow at his frowns…"
Sunfire's whole body quivered as the words burst from his throat, hot tears stinging his eyes. "Do not think that. Never think that of me! I will redeem all this on Nettlefang's life!" His voice strained, meeting his father and leader in the eyes, fire building in his belly as the words streamed out. "And at the close of some glorious day, when it comes, I will be bold enough to tell you that I am your son!"
He dropped his voice lower now, even as the last syllable rang in the dim hollowness of the den.
"That will be the day, when this all-praised Nettlefang and your unthought-of Sunfire chance to meet, that I'll make him exchange his glorious deeds for my indignities. Or die in the attempt. And I would rather die a hundred thousand deaths than break the smallest parcel of this vow."
Rowanstar watched him for a long moment before speaking to answer, his voice softer now.
"Let a hundred thousand enemies die instead," the leader mused. "You'll have your chance to prove it, Sunfire. We fight together."
By the time Sunfire stalked out of the leader's den, Goosebelly was nowhere to be found.
It was another sunup when Beethorn burst through the bramble tunnel, the dawn patrol trailing at her tail. Rowanstar was already at the base of the Ash, ears perked in anticipation.
"You're full of urgency, Beethorn," he mewed. "What news?"
"You see right," Beethorn breathed. "We've spotted cats moving along the border in large numbers. Multiple raiding parties, MireClan and HillClan warriors among them, and one of them with a white coat."
Paleface, it had to be. And with him, Nettlefang, Nightbird, Sparrowflight, and all the others who'd disappeared from camp. The other warriors gathered now, whoever was left to fight at Rowanstar's side.
Beethorn continued, tail flicking, "They were gathering near the poppy fields, where all three territories are joined. As large a war party as I've ever seen."
Rowanstar seemed to be staring a thousand miles away, his hackles standing on end. But he seemed to snap back to reality with sudden clarity, renewed vigor as he climbed the Hollow Ash. There was no need to holler the words; his Clan was already gathered beneath him.
"Then we will meet them in the poppy fields, and leave them to rest there!" Rowanstar mewed, letting his voice ring through the green hollow as he swept over the gathered cats. Hawkwing, Owlswoop, Boulderstep, and Asterstripe, their apprentices close at hand. The deputy and her gaggle of kits, disobeying her command to stay in the nursery even now. The elders, Close-eye and Threefoot and Deadnose, hardest of hearing and closest to the tree. Murkpool, their once-medicine cat, was the only one of them to hover near the back, watery blue eyes almost seeming to brim with tears. Or perhaps that's simply how he always looked.
Still, no Goosebelly that he could see.
Sunfire sat close to his siblings, a cluster of reddish-brown and brassy pelts. Mistpaw sidled up just behind her mentor, and even without glancing over, he could almost taste her mix of excitement and fear.
"I know you are all weary of defeat, of betrayal, of death. But I also know who we are, and what is in our blood, and what our destiny must be," Rowanstar said. "We'll do more than endure. We'll do more than survive. We are warriors; we are conquerors; we are LeafClan, and we will be masters.
"And I promise you, the long night will soon be over, and dawn will break!"