NIGHTBIRD
In truth, he was not half as dire sick as he'd told the medicine cat. Curled up in his nest of moss and rushes in another Clan's camp, he'd closed his eyes and feigned sleep, but kept his ears perked to every careless stray word cast around him.
Rumors. Whispers. They swirled around, carried on a dozen tongues in MireClan.
But fevered dreams haunted him, all the same. A bleak leaf-bare landscape, fields greasy with blood, streaking stars illuminating the night sky. Two-headed snakes coiled among the wild roses. And all Silverpelt blinking out, one by one, until the world around him became inky void.
And between all that, the mundane, the bizarre. Dreams of his kit, his mate, his Clan, and sleepy days in the green hollow, lounging in sunspots.
He started awake with a jolt, peering up through a thorn thicket roof, taking a moment to remember where he was. Far, far from LeafClan. Sundown's bloody fingers rifled in to disrupt the peaceful gloom of the medicine den, a hateful glare against his still-blurry eyesight as he blinked the nightmares away.
As his eyes adjusted, the silhouette of another cat took shape across the den. Shrikewing, pawing through another Clan's herbs. Even now, their allies might be out there fighting. And another, younger cat, Jaywind, her head down over her crossed paws, but still staring out through sleepy, blinking blue eyes.
"Nightbird," Shrikewing mewed. Gold eyes blinked at him through the half-light. "The warriors still haven't returned. How are you feeling?"
He forced his eyes shut again, answering with a shiver. "Glad enough to breathe, Shrikewing," Nightbird managed in reply. But it was his heart that raced.
The medicine cat laid out yellow coltsfoot and tansy stems, and Nightbird obediently stooped to chew it up into a pulp, wincing at the bitterness.
For Jaywind, Shrikewing turned and laid a stalk of fuzzy-leaved mallow, roots and all.
"That's not what you gave Nightbird," Jaywind mewed skeptically, sniffing at it.
"I don't give tansy to expecting queens," the medicine cat answered flatly, as Jaywind raised her hackles in alarm.
"I hadn't even told anyone—"
"A medicine cat knows," was all Shrikewing said.
To think about kits in such times as these. He remembered being not much older than Jaywind, when Mousespots was expecting her first litter. But they had lost those kits in the leaf-bare chill, gone before they could even have names.
It was common in LeafClan for queens to not name the fathers of their litters. Beethorn had done so, and couldn't get out of the nursery fast enough to return to her duties as deputy. But Nightbird couldn't contain his excitement, the first time.
After that, his joy was always tampered with dread, fear, expectation of the worst. His prayers to StarClan had failed again and again, until Nettlefang.
Jaywind looked lost, eyes almost glazed over. "Thrushear," she mewed. "I was going to tell him first, after the battle. Stars, I hope he's okay."
Nightbird forced his eyes shut again, to empty out the dread thoughts pooling in his mind, and fill it up with the inky void of sleep.
In his dreams, he was back in his nest in LeafClan camp. Rays of greenleaf sun pricking through the cover of the bramble thicket, the fresh scents of the forest. Rosestar sitting at the base of the Ash; Mousespots and Nettlekit in the nursery.
When he woke, it was the same pungent scent of MireClan swamp, compounded with the waft of herbs in the dingy medicine den. It was nearly moonhigh now, the moon's face hidden behind a silken veil of clouds. His ears pricked to a yowl from the camp entrance, lifting his head to the sudden commotion.
"Loachwhisker is back!" he heard a MireClan cat cry.
Shrikewing was alert now too, standing as a MireClan warrior went stumbling through the curtain of ferns. Loachwhisker was a dappled brown tabby, limping in on three legs. She held up one bloodied forepaw, the sickly, sharp stench of blood rousing Nightbird up from his nest.
The MireClan medicine cat had gone out with the warriors, to treat their injured in the field. It was their tradition, he'd learned, that they were trained as warriors and joined them in battle, if needed. But this warrior had returned alone.
It was no wonder. One look at the gruesome wound was enough to make Nightbird wince, wrinkling his brow. A leader wouldn't expect their warrior to try and fight like that.
"You would be Loachwhisker, I take it," Shrikewing said. "Do you bring news from the battle?"
"I didn't pick this up hunting frogs," Loachwhisker hissed through the pain, lifting her bloodied leg for the medicine cat to behold. "Certain news."
"And good news, StarClan willing," Nightbird rasped. Shrikewing already went to work, chewing goldenrod into a poultice and dabbing on the warrior's wound, binding with ivy leaf and cobwebs.
"As good as the heart can wish," Loachwhisker mewed with something between a growl and a purr, brow furrowing at what could only be the sting of discomfort from Shrikewing's medicine. "Burdockstar told me to fall back when a LeafClan cat gave me this—but even before the battle started, the outcome was never in doubt.
"Rowanstar's more than likely dead, by now. Burdockstar was hunting him up and down, slaying every warrior in her path. The LeafClan deputy had already fallen before I left the field, and that hulking mouse-heart Goosebelly. No doubt, LeafClan's warriors will be scattering to the wind, if they haven't already."
Shrikewing worked in silence, as Nightbird fell back on his haunches. Jaywind had lifted her head from the other end of the den, blue eyes blazing, but saying nothing.
"A LeafClan cat gave me this wound, and now a LeafClan cat is healing it," Loachwhisker said with a craning of her head. "How does that make you feel? I'd say this is a victory worthy of your oh-so-scary Blackfang."
Shrikewing just flicked his ears. "We're on the same side. But I can just as easily make sure this paw goes green and falls off, if you tempt me."
The MireClan warrior squinted her eyes, and then gave a hearty laugh, batting the medicine cat playfully over the shoulder with the limp, wounded forepaw.
"Do you know all this for sure?" Nightbird pressed. "The battle was still being fought when you left?"
"I saw it with my own eyes," the MireClan warrior insisted. "The LeafClan cats were outnumbered, and in a dire, desperate state."
By the time the warrior's leg was bound up, there was another yowl, and more excited chatter at the mouth of camp. Both Loachwhisker and Shrikewing stood to move, and both Nightbird and Jaywind stood to follow.
The medicine cat tried to stare his patients down with a stern look, and when it didn't work, relented with a sigh. The four of them poked their heads out from the medicine den as an apprentice stumbled through the thorn thicket tunnel into the muddy hollow.
"Volepaw," Loachwhisker mewed. "I ran past him on the way here."
Volepaw struck Nightbird as too young for a raiding party, if he could be spared. He was small, even for an apprentice, light brown fur ruffled and copper eyes blazing with fear.
"Tell us what you saw!" one MireClan cat demanded, as queens, elders, kits, and other left-behinds swarmed around the apprentice.
"Burdockstar told me to wait where it was safe, and carry messages, and help the wounded," Volepaw said with a tremor in his mew. "The LeafClan cats brought rogues to fight with them, real ones…!" Murmurs of disbelief rippled through the MireClan camp, but the apprentice went on. "The HillClan cats were turning mouse-heart and fleeing. Burdockstar was in bloody shape, and that LeafClan cat… It was too late to help him."
"Which LeafClan cat?" Nightbird urged. "Are they dead?"
"Nonsense," Loachwhisker scoffed. "Don't even speak of it. MireClan will win the day."
"I'm telling you what I saw," Volepaw countered. "I couldn't tell you who was winning."
The sentry gave yet another yowl, and another apprentice followed in through the thicket, their pelt streaked with blood. They almost slid into the muddy hollow, tearing up the carpet of ferns laid beneath their paws.
Her face was all he needed to see. He'd seen the same thing again and again in his own clanmates, after the shock of tragedy.
Shrikewing was the first one to their side, so bold as to shove the MireClan cats away who crowded around her. "Rockpaw, is it?" he mewed. "Come, straight to the medicine den."
But still, a shout came from another MireClan cat, following them as they stumbled toward the ferns. "Rockpaw, what news from the battle?"
"I ran from the battle," she shouted behind her, staggering to a halt, sounding almost on the verge of tears. "We all started to run."
"Tell me," Nightbird urged as the medicine cat ushered them into the medicine den with a sweep of his tail. "You know the LeafClan warriors. Sparrowflight, my sister, and Nettlefang, my son. How do they fare?"
"Do you know Thrushear?" Jaywind chimed in, voice strained.
"Is Burdockstar okay?" Loachwhisker asked, standing aside as the medicine cat led Rockpaw to a fresh-prepared nest. Shrikewing had busied himself with such things, in all the idle hours.
The apprentice gave them one wide-eyed look and glanced away, as if the words themselves stung. She didn't answer at first. "Burdockstar is living, and I-I don't know about Sparrowflight or the others. But Nettlefang…"
"Why, he's dead?" Nightbird finished. Rockpaw just looked down at her paws. That was enough confession, the pity in even a young cat's eyes, the way she slumped her shoulders. "If he is dead, then say so!"
His voice came out as an unexpected roar, making all the cats in the medicine den shrink back.
"I cannot think that MireClan has lost," Loachwhisker moaned.
"I'm sorry I should force you to believe what I'd hoped I'd never seen," Rockpaw whimpered, gazing up at the thicket roof. "But I saw Nettlefang all coated in blood, wearied and outbreathed. And a golden tom with a scarred face struck him down, where he fell and never again sprang up. It wasn't long before we started to run.
"Burdockstar could barely walk. She sounded the retreat, but the rogues gave chase—"
Sounded the retreat…? Then they had truly lost.
"And Rowanstar lives?" Shrikewing hissed. When Rockpaw nodded gravely, then he lashed his tail, lips curling in a snarl. "Then he'll still seek our blood. Even in MireClan camp."
His joints, weakened with sickness, were now enraged with grief, and he surged to his paws with new vitality. Forget fever, forget age, forget weakness. Forget the safety of the medicine den.
"Let him come. Let the stars kiss the earth," Nightbird growled, eyes brimming with tears. "Let the river drown the forest; let the code die, and all the Clans, and end this bloody cycle. Let us all be set on one course, with murder in our hearts, and let darkness be the burier of the dead!"
Why was he not with him?
Shrikewing laid a tail-tip on his shoulder, but Nightbird flicked it away. "Don't strain yourself, Nightbird. Save your strength; the lives of all our allies will lean on your health."
"We all knew what the danger might be," Jaywind chipped in from the back of the den. "It was never going to be a bloodless victory. We all walked on the cliff's edge, and still ventured even when the odds were against us."
There was more commotion from the mouth of camp. More warriors, trickling in through the tunnel one by one. This was no organized retreat; the MireClan cats had scattered like birds.
"We are bloodied, not defeated," Loachwhisker snarled. "As long as we have body and spirit, we will fight again."
"Do not forget how this started," the medicine cat said sharply. "When our true leader's blood was spilled on the orders of an exile. I saw Rowanstar touch the Moonshard with my own eyes, and how StarClan rejected him. Without his nine lives, LeafClan has no leader, and StarClan will continue to forsake us until we cut out the rot. Until he dies, this fight is not over."
All this, he knew. But grief had wiped it from his mind.
Sickness seemed to catch back up with him after his surge of rage, and Nightbird sank back into his nest again, once more paralyzed by the expanding hollow loss in his chest. Again and again, losing litter after litter. But their little one had survived, with enough spirit for ten hundred kits. His Nettlekit.
He wondered who else may not return from the poppy fields. They'd never been so few, and the need had never been greater.
Nightbird swept his gaze toward the cats in the medicine den. "Then as long as you're all committed," he mewed, "stay with me, and help plot our revenge."