THISTLETEETH
The grass chirped with crickets, far too peaceful a song as he peered out from one of the upper lofts, piled with hay and creaky wood panels thick with dust. Outside, he could see the perfect rows of fruit trees, hair on end as he waited for the next attack.
Night after night, the LeafClan raiders washed over them, forcing warriors to muster and defend the entrance. So far, they had kept any enemy from so much as poking their head inside the barn camp, but he increasingly felt like prey trapped in a burrow.
He would not let LeafClan fox-hearts take this camp, but that meant keeping that many warriors here to defend it. The warriors nesting here could hardly leave to hunt without risking running into a roving 'LionClan' patrol.
LionClan. Just the name was bitter on his tongue. A vulgar, kit-like concept; a blasphemy.
All this early newleaf had been racked with war, but he prayed they would not fight alone for long. Even as he stood here, Plumberry would be making her way across the marshes, to seek alliance with MireClan…
Well, so long as she hadn't been captured, or killed, or diverted. It had been two nights since she'd set out from the camp after dark, hoping to slip across the river without being detected.
Thistleteeth lashed his tail, glancing to his warriors behind him, pale brown Cricketsong and dark ginger Poppypetal. It couldn't be known who might prevail at the end of all this. There was no doubt that StarClan's fortune had shined on the forest until now, but things had finally begun to turn.
When Lilystar had finally given his last life and departed to Silverpelt, MeadowClan had flocked to his side, the camps either emptied to join him or held out in support. And even here, waiting in the barn camp for the nightly clash with LeafClan, he dared feel that first glimmer of hope.
Soon, he would be Thistlestar, and MeadowClan would retake their rightful place in the forest. And they would remember who they were, and he would make LeafClan remember what they were. Murderous rogues, marauders, codeless thieves and back-biters.
"The squirrel-chasers run late tonight," Cricketsong yawned, running a paw over her ear. "Take them out of the shade of the forest and put them in the newleaf sun, and their poor icy hearts begin to melt, and they look as piteous as drowned mice. Maybe they're taking the evening off, you think?"
Poppypetal flicked his ears. "Then we should strike while they wish to rest," he challenged. "Why do we sit idly by, waiting to be attacked? Hawkwing is taken, their best senior warrior. The only LeafClan cats still living on the prairie are led by mad-brained Tansyslip, and she doesn't have the numbers we do."
Down by the old river camp, that was where the LeafClan cats crossed and massed for their attacks. All newleaf, Tansyslip and her war party had held it as a foothold in the meadows, as Sorreltail led his raiders across MeadowClan territory, foraging off their land the same as Sunstar had done.
Thistleteeth perked his ears, purring in approval. Yes… It was time to turn the momentum.
They crested over gentle green slopes, a great wing of MeadowClan warriors fanning out over the fields toward the river.
Tansyslip's warriors were encamped in a triangle of land between two streams, some few tree-lengths away from an old tree bridge across the river itself. Hazel, brambles, and walls of reeds veiled their numbers from view, but as he held up a silent tail signal, he could perk his ears to the faint sound of voices carried on the night breeze.
A pot-bellied moon, some three quarters full, leered low and yellow down over the camp. Far too much light, but he would not withdraw now. "Now for the honor of MeadowClan!" he cried, as his loyal warriors echoed his shout. They would rush on them. "I'll forgive any cat that kills me if they see me go back one foot or flee!"
Without making any move to disguise his movement, Thistleteeth went charging across the grassy plain, along the stream bank toward the reed tunnel. MeadowClan charged after them, bursting through the reed and bramble walls, as the small camp clearing became alive with struggling cats.
The LeafClan cats had been in ranks, linked side by side, ready and braced for their charge. Like the river against the rocks, the MeadowClan cats crashed over them.
Now, he knew all their pelts and faces and names and stories, since Lilystar had played the farce of naming them clanmates. He had his claws in Ryebreeze, batting her back, and Thistleteeth took his swipes at Embercloud, the faithless mouse-heart.
A traitor to his own Clan, to still fight with LeafClan against his own MeadowClan blood-kin now!
But for all his wrath, the rage belonged to Tansyslip. She shouted out and yowled orders to the night sky, the warriors in her command falling back in lockstep against the MeadowClan charge. The golden tabby flung herself from one end to another, fending off Spiderstep with a hefty shove and tripping up Cricketsong with a simple sweep of her legs.
The tide of MeadowClan warriors receded, and a circle of LeafClan warriors still stood tail to tail, fangs bared and hackles raised.
That was when the other LeafClan cats poured in from the dens, from behind, seemingly leaping out from the shadows where Thistleteeth had sworn he had not seen cats before.
Teeth locked around his scruff, and he grunted as another tom wrestled him to the soft, black soil.
"Sorreltail…!" Thistleteeth cursed, using his free forelegs to twist and claw and slash at him, until the senior LeafClan warrior relented with a hiss.
Glancing around now, he was almost dizzy from the sheer disorder. Everywhere he looked, there were MeadowClan cats scattered, while the LeafClan cats menaced and corralled them to far corners of the camp like herding dogs. Some of his clanmates were already turning tail and fleeing.
Fleeing!
And there he was, alone in the middle of the camp, Tansyslip closing in on one flank, Sorreltail from another.
You won't have me! Without him, MeadowClan's hopes might all just collapse.
"MeadowClan! Regroup to me!" Thistleteeth shouted above the din, shoving at Sorreltail again with two paws as he went peddling back toward the reed tunnel. And snarling, he knew he had to force that shameful word past his lips once again. "MeadowClan, retreat!"
It was only the stirring of the breeze when he noticed the hot trickle of blood against his cold skin, the sting of a cut across his cheek. He could not say which warrior delivered it, or if they all contributed their part.
"Who ever saw the like?" Thistleteeth cursed as Cricketsong and Poppypetal breathlessly staggered to his side. The river camp was just a smear of dark hazel bushes from this distance, but he could still hear the faint yowls of triumph lilt into the brisk air. "What warriors have I! Mice! Cowards! Rogues!"
He never would have fled, except that he was left in the midst of his enemies.
"Tansyslip is a desperate maniac," Poppypetal cursed. "She fights like someone weary of life, and the other LeafClan warriors are like starving foxes, rushing in on prey."
"Raggedweed said Stormstar's wars bred LeafClan to be bloodthirsty as tigers," Cricketsong growled. "Stoatjaw was left behind… Sorreltail had him down. Taken captive."
You can hope he was taken captive. His mentor had taught him a code that an honorable warrior did not have to kill to win their battles, but he was not always so sure LeafClan learned the same laws. The type of slaughter his Clan had seen at the hawthorns was beyond forgiveness, and he did not blame his clanmates for reciprocating blood with blood.
Thistleteeth felt his heart continue to sink, flicking his eyes up to the moon. How could StarClan look down on this indignity to his Clan and keep allowing it?
They returned to the barn deep past moonhigh, sullen and defeated, one less cat than they had departed with. Worse than hunting grounds or pride, they had maybe lost a clanmate.
Cats watched them slink back in through the open siding in the barn with dejected eyes, and it seemed even the crickets were silent with mourning. But they soon started up again as Thistleteeth climbed to the loft above, apart from most of the camp bustle.
"No warrior has ever won every fight they ever fought," he heard Hailfall's voice echo within the barn walls, consoling his son young Frogleap beside him. Fallowpelt was pressing a poultice to the newly appointed warrior's shoulder as he squirmed and growled.
"It was Ryebreeze," Frogleap seethed. "I did the leap-and-hold just like you taught me, but she rolled me over."
"Well, next time, win," Hailfall mewed with a twitch of his whiskers. "There are other ways to fight your battles, you know. Listen closely; for the past three days, I've been watching the old tree-bridge LeafClan uses as their main crossing…"
Thistleteeth let his attention drift back to the look-out from the loft, eyes scanning over the fruit trees. His senior warriors spoke quietly among themselves as he stewed in his own defeat and untreated cuts. The sting of a few claw-marks were nothing compared to the shredding of his pride.
"Let's leave this camp," he murmured quietly to himself, making the senior warriors within hearing perk their ears. "LeafClan are hare-brained slaves, I know them. They'd tear these walls down with their teeth before they give up trying to capture it."
As long as they held this place, they were fighting with one paw tied down. They could only react, never taking the initiative. LeafClan's border had its weak points… But with Tansyslip's war party camped just on the river and Sorreltail's band hunting them like prey, they could not move freely without leaving the camp vulnerable.
Take all the warriors and leave this place an empty Twoleg nest, a useless prize. Shed the dead weight—the elders, the queens, the kits, leave them at the main camp or wherever they could find shelter hidden away from the fighting.
"It will mean moving lots of cats," Poppypetal said warily. "But it may either be that, or grinding to slow defeat."
"Be it so," Cricketsong agreed.
Each of them were still up long past moonhigh when fresh scents entered the barn, movement down below.
"Where is our leader?" Brokenface's familiar voice called gently through the dark. His twisted jaw gave the hint of a slur to his words, unmistakable.
Thistleteeth turned as the white tom climbed the loft to join them. "Brokenface, you're a most welcome sight," he greeted.
"Yet I think you look sad and ruffled," Brokenface said, amber eyes glinting in the gloom. "I heard of our defeat tonight. But fear not; deliverance is here."
He gave Brokenface his full attention now, ears perked. Deliverance was all he had prayed for, but what could that be, except for the stars to rain from the clouds and burn LeafClan's woods to ash?
The other senior warriors crowded around as Brokenface flourished his tail.
"I bring a warrior who has been touched by a vision from StarClan," he said, eyes wide in wonderment now. Thistleteeth smirked, if only because he had never thought Brokenface as so pious and stargazy. "The spirit of deep prophecy has moved in her, allowing her to see past and future, and she has been ordained to drive LeafClan from the rivershore."
Prophecies… Visions… The deliverance he hoped for was a MireClan war party, not thoughts and prayers.
Yet, what else did MeadowClan have left except prayers?
"Who is this heroic prophet of yours?" Thistleteeth questioned flatly.
"She has only gained her warrior name in the last moon," Brokenface said. "Firefang."
He narrowed yellow eyes. A daylight warrior! And far more kittypet than warrior…
"You mean Firepaw," Thistleteeth said. "Who has named her a warrior?"
"Why, StarClan has," Brokenface said, and for the first time, Thistleteeth worried for his clanmate's health.
"Who can give an apprentice their warrior name except the leader of MeadowClan?" Thistleteeth demanded. In MeadowClan, they did not name just any cat a fang… Such a warrior name was only given to the Clan's fiercest fighters and hunters. And he knew enough of this kittypet to know she was no fang.
Brokenface bowed his head low. "A greater power than any leader in the forest, Thistleteeth," the tom with the twisted jaw said, voice low and pleading. "Please, if you have ever valued my worth and judgment as your loyal warrior… I must beg you to give her audience."
In MeadowClan, no cat was judged by the circumstances of their birth, so long as they could keep up with a warrior's training. But this 'Firefang' had been a ghost in their camps, even before Lilystar had passed. All newleaf they had been warring with LeafClan, but where had she been? Feeding out of her Twoleg masters' paws while her nominal clanmates fought and bled day in and day out. Her mentor had split off to LionClan, and her training had remained incomplete.
The kit of a barn-born MeadowClan warrior and a kittypet who never deigned to dirty their paws in service to the Clan, and who knew the inside of their Twoleg nest better than any MeadowClan nursery. And so young… not even a true warrior at all.
"Go, call her in," Thistleteeth sighed. I did not think you were so easily starstruck. He would not offend Brokenface with his misgivings, but he could not feel it in his heart to humor this young she-cat now. Another set of paws was another set of paws, and at the very least, he would not turn down an able body.
As Brokenface nodded in respect and leaped back down the loft, Thistleteeth gave a noncommittal swish of his tail, turning to gaze out into the night once again.
"Poppypetal, will you see what use we might make out of her?" he mewed quietly. "I think I'll retire to my nest soon. We will start moving cats out at first light."
He still had his back turned when he heard Brokenface return with the newly appointed warrior, not even bothering to turn his head in greeting.
"Firefang," Poppypetal purred in greeting. "Is it you who will do these wondrous feats?"
"Poppypetal, I did not come here to speak to an underling," a sharp voice whipped in response. "Where is Thistleteeth? Stand back and give us leave awhile; I will speak to him in private."
Her peremptory tone was enough to make Thistleteeth turn, and at the very least, this young warrior had snatched his attention.
"She strikes bravely at first dash," Poppypetal murmured with a flick of his ears. But Thistleteeth nodded, waving his warriors away with another swish of his tail, and they stepped back to mutter between themselves.
Firefang was young, hardly a warrior in age. Her full ginger pelt was the color of rust in the half-light, two bright emerald eyes glowing with conviction. Thistleteeth recalled her once having a kittypet's collar, but if she did, it had since been torn away.
She stepped boldly forward as the senior warriors peeled back, until she was face to face and eye to eye with Thistleteeth.
"Thistleteeth, I am a kittypet by birth, untrained as a warrior, a stranger to my father's Clan," Firefang mewed. "But it has pleased StarClan to shine on me. While I stood in my housefolk's garden and looked into the parching sun, our warrior ancestors deigned to appear to me… And in a vision full of majesty, willed me to leave the soft life of a kittypet, and free my Clan from calamity.
"They promised their aid and assured success, revealing themselves in their full glory…" Her eyes seemed to still glitter with the starlight that had dazzled her vision. "Where I was weak and soft-hearted before, they poured the dawn's fire into my spirit. Ask me any question you possibly can, and I will answer unpremeditated. Try my courage by combat, if you dare. Resolve on this, and accept me as your loyal clanmate, and you will be fortunate."
Bold, haughty words… She gazed unflinchingly at him as if she were Meadowstar come again, above and beyond reproach. Even more insane, she spoke with such self-assurance he almost felt himself taken in, despite his better judgment.
Hope in evil times was a perilous, teasing, torturous thing.
"You have astonished me with your high terms," Thistleteeth granted, tail lashing. "Give me only this proof of your valor. If you can vanquish me in single combat, your words are true. Otherwise I renounce all confidence."
She dared to laugh in his face, a grin splitting her ginger muzzle. "I am prepared." Her claws unsheathed, but she did not fall into any sort of fighting stance.
"Then come, in StarClan's name," Thistleteeth challenged, squaring into a pounce and unsheathing his own claws. Even with her lack of training and combat experience aside, she was clearly lighter and smaller than himself. "I fear no cat."
"And while I live, I'll never fly from a fight!" Firefang promised, and at once, Thistleteeth sprang at her. So close, so suddenly, there was no reason he should be clawing at empty air, landing on open space the ginger she-cat occupied only a moment before.
But she moved like lightning, water. Inexplicably, the walls were spinning around him as she swept his paws out from under him with a kick of her leg.
It was impossible… This kittypet who had not even finished their apprentice training stood untouched, unharmed, lazily by as Thistleteeth staggered to his paws again.
With new desperate fury, he lunged at her again, slashing claws rapidly through the air as she ducked and bobbed back. And then her own paw flashed out, knocking and turning one arm aside, plunging past his face.
A white whisker shaved off his muzzle as her claws deftly scratched across his cheek and down the length of his neck, a sting of pain that elicited a hiss from his throat. And before he could react, that paw was curling around the back of his neck as she pulled them nose to nose together, and they both went rolling to the ground.
He flopped to the wood planks, his legs tangled in hers, immobilized. And then somehow he was on his back, soft underbelly exposed, Firefang hovering over him with claws raised for a punishing strike.
He saw the glint of death in those claws.
"Stay! Stay your claws!" Thistleteeth panted breathlessly, flattening himself against the loft floor in submission. No cat he'd faced from Twolegplace or any Clan had ever knocked him around like that, not ever. "You are a true warrior and fight with the fangs of Meadowstar."
She smiled, sheathing her claws and stepping back with a bow of her head. "StarClan helps me, or else I would be too weak."
Thistleteeth dragged himself upright on trembling legs, still breathing heavily. "Whoever it is that helps you, it's you that must help me," he said, and he was almost certain his eyes glowed with the same wonderment he'd glimpsed in Brokenface. And he looked at her in a new way as well; a warrior, a she-cat, as beautiful and full-coated as kittypets were wont to be. His voice dropped low, just for her hearing, as he stood with her nose to nose now.
"My heart and paws you've both subdued," he mewed. "That same burning desire to free MeadowClan burns in me. Excellent Firefang, if StarClan has named you as such, let me be your servant and not your leader."
"I must not think of such comforts of love until I have chased all your foes from here," she answered softly, green eyes sparkling.
He had almost forgotten the other senior warriors, drowning in those twin green pools, until Cricketsong loudly cleared her throat.
"Thistleteeth, what do you devise?" Poppypetal asked. "Shall we abandon this camp tomorrow or not?"
It was Firefang who turned and answered, head high. "Why, no, I say, distrustful mouse-hearts!" she declared, voice ringing with a certainty that made the older warriors bristle. "Fight until the last gasp! I will be your guard."
"What she says, I'll confirm," Thistleteeth followed up, looking over them all. "We'll fight it out."
Firefang stood for all the world like a leader, her voice keen as a flint's edge. "I am assigned to be LeafClan's scourge. Before three sunrises, I will drive the invaders from the rivershore." Even as Cricketsong and Poppypetal exchanged glances, she did not waver. "Expect golden greenleaf days since I have entered into these wars. Glory is like a circle in the water, which never ceases to enlarge itself until its broad spread disperses to nothing. With Sunstar's death, the LeafClan circle ends and his glories vanish with him. Now you will come to no harm, because when you fight with me, you carry my fortune."
Were their ancestors inspired by the moon? Then it was the sun that blessed her. "Bright morning star, fallen down to earth," Thistleteeth mewed in awe. How could he worship her reverently enough?
"Leave off delays, and let us free our land!" Cricketsong resolved.
"Firefang, do what you can to save MeadowClan's honor," Poppypetal said with a dip of his head. "Drive them from our territory and be immortalized."
Thistleteeth permitted that pernicious virus of hope to wriggle into his heart again. "StarClan knows we will try." And he'd never trust another prophet again, if this one proved false.