ROWANTHORN
LeafClan territory. He followed the same path he'd tread just a moon before, darting between the nooks of Twolegplace to where the Horsepath spilled into the edge of the forest. His heart was no lighter than when he left, but he knew his course was certain.
Rowanthorn paused at the border markings, freshly scented, and then paused again to gaze into the dark trees.
Rosestar's word was clear, and he knew what might wait for him in those woods. A clanmate's teeth in his throat.
But exile was a sort of death of its own. Worse than death. He would live and die in the land of his warrior ancestors, come what may, and thistles and thorns on Rosestar.
His treason? Honesty.
He trekked a careful, circuitous path along the edge of LeafClan territory, not quite sure what he was seeking. To be found? To find someone else? Or not to be found?
Rowanthorn knew he had to return, and after that, he was in StarClan's paws.
But if he returned just to have all his clanmates scorn him to his face, maybe it would be better to have whiled out his life in Twolegplace.
Down to Tumblestone, the earth churned to mud around the rock piles from earlier rains. Further down, snaking through the trees and undergrowth. Wetting his paws in trickling brooks, walking upstream against the current, or rolling in wild sharp-smelling tansy where he found it. Here and there, he picked up the stale scent of a clanmate, and skirted wide to avoid them.
But by night, he redoubled back to Tumblestone. There he found some makeshift den in an old, hollow log, only marginally damp and smeared with mud. A hard nest, but Rowanthorn had started to get accustomed to those. His nest in the warrior's den seemed like a distant memory.
Maybe the stars would speak to him again, and tell him what he should do.
StarClan, light my path. Send me a sign on my next steps.
It had been a dream voice that had beckoned him home. He woke in a meadow of stardust, a silver pool stretching in front of him. When he gazed into the glassy water, he saw the sky reflected, streaming with green ribbons, and another cat's face reflected that was not his own.
Lionpelt stood mirrored in the pool, speaking to him.
"Your Clan needs you now."
The pool rippled, dissolving his father's shape into mist, and wrenching him from his dream.
By sunup, he was starting down the Horsepath back to Clan territories. But waited for him now? The poppy fields?
He closed his eyes, uneasy, lulled by those familiar night-sounds he hadn't realized he'd missed. The frogs and greenleaf crickets and shriek of night birds, the rustle of leaves. It could not be any different from Twolegplace, where he lived in the shadow of their strange angular nests of stone, straw, and timber, living off the massive rats that gnawed their crowfood.
Chasing off the rogues that lived off the crowfood. There were a hundred Clans and a hundred thousand codebreakers in that place.
"There he sits," a voice called, jolting Rowanthorn back to alertness. "The foulest, fox-hearted traitor to LeafClan that ever lived. I knew I'd tracked your rogue stench here. Come back to die?"
A black shadow crouched on the other end of the log, Nightbird fixing him with a golden stare.
Rowanthorn could just sit, frozen, tensing, ready for the tom to pounce. So much for covering his tracks
But Nightbird didn't move. He… purred.
"I'm just yanking your tail. You ought to have seen your face."
They moved through the night side by side, over where the land rose like the form of some green sleeping thing. Up, and up, and up, to the crown of Berry Hill. Thick with thornbushes, but when the blackberries ripened they teemed with birds and squirrels.
He'd collected one too many thorns in his pads at this place, but breathing in the fragrant aroma of ripe and budding berries seemed to fill him with fresh life. This was home. Let him never be away from it again.
"How is Lionpelt?" had been the first question out of his mouth, after first greetings were exchanged.
Nightbird only needed to answer him with a look. When he spoke, his heart broke twice. "With us, and not. Laid in the poppy fields but a day before," the warrior had to admit, lowering his eyes. "His passing has moved our warriors' hearts to your cause."
To think that Rosestar was out of camp with most of his warriors. Lionpelt, you called me here for a purpose. But he wished it had just been one day sooner.
There was Hawkwing and Owlswoop to link up with them, and maybe Boulderstep, Longscar, and Stonetooth, and who knows who else in turn. What had started as a dearly kept secret spread through the dens like infection within a matter of hours, and one by one, two by two, they had trickled out through the camp entrance, so Nightbird said.
"My children?" Rowanthorn asked.
"Well," Nightbird granted curtly.
"And Sunpaw?"
"Seldom seen in camp these days, admittedly. Focused on training with Goosebelly."
"Training, yes," Rowanthorn grumbled with a lash of his tail. It was some joke that Rosestar played on him, to give his son's training to Goosebelly out of all warriors in the Clan. A warrior with a kittypet's heart, like to spend his days sunbathing instead of hunting.
The stars knew what Rowanthorn would have become without a mentor like Lionpelt, who had been mentored by Stormstar in his own time. Few warriors were so lucky, and so by that same scale, he had to count Sunpaw unlucky.
They were still speaking between themselves when Nightbird held up his tail for silence, gaze shifting from left to right and flattening his body to the ground. Rowanthorn mirrored his silent cue, disappearing into the nearby brush.
It was unmistakable, the crush and rattle of trampled undergrowth.
Are we discovered?
Rowanthorn watched Nightbird's face for answers, witnessing as it shifted from alert caution to something like annoyance. Perhaps a touch of relief. A moment later, the shape of a running apprentice pelted down their path, and understanding finally ignited.
Nightbird crested over the earth like a river wave, throwing the weight of his shoulder into the apprentice as they barreled past, and sending them flying off balance into the dirt with a flurry of curses. Nettlepaw spat and hacked as he stood, claws unsheathed, but just as quickly sheathing them again.
Rowanthorn remained hidden in the brush.
"Watch where you're running, you hare," Nightbird hissed. "You're causing enough clamor to wake up all four camps from here! We are moving in stealth, Nettlepaw."
"Spiders keep stealth," Nettlepaw spat in protest, panting. "I ran my heart out to find you as soon as possible."
Nightbird just dismissed it with a sigh and shake of his head. "What word from Sparrowflight back in camp?"
"I'd hoped she'd be with you," Nettlepaw said. "But last I left, there were more elders and queens than warriors left back in camp. They've almost all gone to find Rowanthorn."
"You need to hone your awareness before you move into the warrior's den with us," Nightbird said with a snort. "Rowanthorn is with us right now."
He emerged from the brush behind the apprentice, making Nettlepaw jump first, and then quickly recall the proper courtesies.
"Rowanthorn," Nettlepaw said with a deep bow of his head. "You are welcome home by us—your clanmates haven't forgotten you."
Rowanthorn returned the deep nod of respect, keeping his head low in humility. "You risk much for me, and I won't ever forget it. If my fortune thrives, all my friends will share in the happy future that waits for us. I promise you."
They walked together up Berry Hill, stopping among a copse of trees, where a beam of moonlight slanted in through the forest canopy. He sat among the damp clumps of tall grass, staring into Silverpelt above, searching for something among the star-studded canvas.
It was not long before Hawkwing and Owlswoop found their trail up Berry Hill, his half-brother Boulderstep who greeted him with hearty purrs and playful boxes over the ear, Sparrowflight and serious young Stonetooth.
"We are with you every step of the way, Rowanthorn," Owlswoop said.
"They can't exile all of us," Hawkwing mewed.
Bold warrior, bold statement, Rowanthorn couldn't help but think.
Every familiar face nourished some of his spirit, starved of their looks. How loners lived alone with no one to depend on but themselves, it was no wonder they were so bitter and suspicious. He had only a taste of it for a moon, but now he knew he couldn't return to it again.
With Longscar, there came the apprentices, and for the first time Rowanthorn could truly purr. "Sorrelpaw, Honeypaw," he said as they rushed to brush up against him. "Ryepaw…"
He glanced around in the brush, waiting for the fourth face to appear, but one golden pelt was missing.
"Where is Sunpaw?" he mewed.
Honeypaw and Ryepaw swapped uncertain gazes while Sorrelpaw dragged his paws through the grass, gazing somewhere else.
"Not sure," Ryepaw finally admitted after Honeypaw shouldered him. "Sunpaw wasn't back in his den, so he could be anywhere, really."
"Chasing moths, most likely," Nettlepaw said with a chortle.
Rowanthorn gave a heavy sigh of exasperation, eyes going searchingly up toward the stars again for guidance, but he didn't let it hang on his mind long. "Come. Tell me everything you've learned. Show me."
Their reunion could only be carefree for so long, but he would take these moments wherever he could now, like gasps of oxygen.
Another twig snapping in the underbrush soon pulled his attention, but no face emerged this time. Rowanthorn stepped out toward the edge of the copse, ears pricked toward the source of the sound. "Who goes there?"
Nightbird parted his mouth to scent the air. "Beethorn, would that be you?" he called out from behind Rowanthorn.
No response came from the forest. Rowanthorn took another step closer to the edge of the clearing, eyes searching the shadows, sweeping left to right. Nothing, so he thought, until a pair of orange eyes blinked out from the dark.
"Elderheart?" Rowanthorn purred. "I'm beyond glad to see—"
Elderheart leaped from the darkness before the words had left his mouth, hurtling into him with the momentum of a running horse. Rowanthorn went crumbling belly-up into the grass, the air crushed out of his lungs as Elderheart pressed his claws into the pit of Rowanthorn's throat.
Beethorn and Shrewnose lunged out from the dark after him, chasing Nightbird and the other warriors back with spitting words and furious warning swats that sliced the air. Rowanthorn went limp under the deputy's weight, making no move to resist.
"Have you come back to betray your leader?" Elderheart growled. "To wreak revenge on your own Clan, while your clanmates are away fighting our enemies?"
"I am loyal," Rowanthorn growled back, swallowing hard at the thorn-sharp prick of claws against his soft throat, his soft belly. "I've betrayed no one."
"You were exiled by your leader, and here you are on LeafClan territory." Elderheart pinned his head to the cold earth now, fangs bared. "Rosestar entrusted the protection of LeafClan to me, and while he is away, I execute his commands."
"Then tell me again why I'm exiled," Rowanthorn growled back now. "Tell me how I broke the warrior code, how I betrayed LeafClan. What is my fault?"
Elderheart's gaze was steady, not answering at first. "The 'why' isn't for us to question. It's our leader's command that you are exiled, and that makes you a trespasser."
"It was Lionpelt who bid me to return home," Rowanthorn said, and just the mention of the elder's name made the deputy's whiskers tense. "Speaking to me in my dream. And now that I am home, a true born LeafClan warrior, I am not prepared to leave again. Should I waste my life in exile for no just cause?"
"Rosestar has abused his power!" Nightbird yowled, mews of agreement rising from the other warriors.
Owlswoop stepped up beside him, tail lashing, claws unsheathed. "He is our clanmate and we must do him right."
"Our leader has put himself and his pets above the warrior code. We're not his slaves." Hawkwing was there now too, and the rest of Rowanthorn's clanmates, poised to pounce, and it was Beethorn and Shrewnose edging backward this time.
The claws in Rowanthorn's throat relaxed, just enough, the weight lifting away as the deputy stepped back. Rowanthorn clambered to his paws with slow, deliberate motions, in case any warrior sent him spilling back into the earth again.
"Hear me, LeafClan," Elderheart mewed. "My heart is with you, and I've done all I can to speak on Rowanthorn's behalf. But this mutiny can't be called anything except treason to Rosestar, and if you persist in it, then every single one of you share in the consequences. 'The word of the Clan leader is the warrior code.'"
"We have all sworn oaths to give Rowanthorn aid," Nightbird hissed, "and being warriors, we do not break our oaths."
Elderheart's gaze shifted from one warrior to another, Nightbird and Sparrowflight, Boulderstep and Stonetooth, Hawkwing and Owlswoop, the apprentices, Longscar and Goosebelly.
"Goosebelly, what are you doing over there?" Beethorn hissed.
"Well, my mentor taught me to count," Goosebelly quipped. "So count me as a good friend of Rowanthorn now."
The deputy stood alone with his two warriors, unflinching all the same.
"Then this can only end one way," Elderheart growled. "If I were the same Elderheart that fought alongside Lionpelt and Blackfang, then I would already have you stooping at Rosestar's mercy."
Rowanthorn squared himself, bracing for the jump, watching how the three warrior's eyes tracked him, shifting their shoulders and haunches. Visualizing how they would tear out his throat before any of the other warriors could intervene—that was their only chance against these numbers.
"But since I'm not," Elderheart continued, hackles relaxing, "I have no power to stop you from roaming LeafClan territory as you please. You can do as Lionpelt tells you to."
Relief flooded through him, sheathing his claws, and bending his low toward the senior deputy. Steady bubbling tension evaporated into the moonlight. Elderheart turned as if to leave, but Rowanthorn's voice made him pause to listen.
"Elderheart, there is one more thing," Rowanthorn pressed. "I know the favorites are not raiding with Rosestar. Are they back at camp?"
"The favorites?"
"You know who I mean. Briarstalk, Larkfeather, and Greeneyes. Are they at camp?"
The deputy returned a long, silent glare. Those orange eyes seemed to pierce into his skull, as if searching his intentions. "As a matter of fact, they're not. All three of them fled."
"Fled?"
"Fled. Just tonight."
Fortune keeps doing me favors. He had thought about it many long nights in unfamiliar territories, where no cats followed any code except the law of claw and tooth. It had to be one of them, or all of them, that had planted the idea of his exile in Rosestar's ear, that and so many other seeds of misjudgment.
In private, it wasn't uncommon to hear that they were Rosestar's true deputies, and he wondered how often Elderheart thought the same.
Rosestar could have been called his friend once, but that friendship wilted from slow poison, helped along by their whispers. The Rosestar that sat on the Hollow Ash, cloistered by flatterers, was almost a stranger to him now.
Rowanthorn looked to Elderheart with renewed hope now. "Then would you help me chase them down?"