MURKPOOL
He'd been to what felt like a hundred Gatherings, and almost every single one the same, but Murkpool never thought he'd live long enough to hear a leader tell the truth.
LeafClan was always strong, always growing, ever-thriving, even when they weren't. So was every Clan. They all had to sit through the theatrics and drama on the Greenstones, the puffed up threats and tired ceremonies of cheers and hisses from the mob. Sometimes, there was a morsel of real news to be grasped at, but you were more likely to find that gossiping among the queens, the elders, and especially the other medicine cats.
The things the leaders didn't say.
In the seasons since his muzzle began to turn silver, he found it more valuable to catch a few moments of rest instead. He'd become practiced at tucking his head sagely down and closing his eyes, as if in deep contemplation of whatever Burdockstar, Lilystar, or their new leader had to report.
The art of saying nothing in as many words as possible. Rowanstar had understood well, and Rosestar had been a master. The new one was not so promising.
Murkpool had been sitting at his usual place at the foot of the Greenstone, shivering, waiting for the farce to be over. The bare crowns of the trees shook and scratched at the starry night like reaching hands, the clearing bright with moonlight reflected off glittering snow. Empty, too empty without HillClan present, but the warrior code demanded they still attend.
All around him, ragged and hungry-eyed warriors, shadows of their former selves. The medicine cat was old enough to remember when the different Clans still mingled together, but the three surviving Clans each gathered in their own corner.
"Despite the hard times of leaf-bare," Burdockstar went on after a deep breath, "MireClan remains strong…"
The stench of sickness and crowfood clung to the MireClan representatives, no matter how much they tried to mask it with that touch of watermint. If this starving band were the warriors Burdockstar chose to bring to the Gathering, he could only guess how the rest of her Clan looked.
Lilystar couldn't be more of a contrast. Where Burdockstar hunched and crouched over the Greenstone like a predator ready to pounce, eyes narrowed and menacing, Lilystar was the paragon of solemn decorum. He sat tall and straight-backed upon the Greenstone, waiting patiently with his long, fluffy tail curled about his paws. Raggedweed the medicine cat and Morningsky the deputy flanked him at the foot of the boulder.
And all their warriors… Out of the three Clans gathered on the crown of Clawtower, over half of them were MeadowClan. That said enough without needing Lilystar to breathe a word.
Full-bellied and well-groomed, as if they were in the heart of greenleaf. Their pelts, sleek and glossy, most of them long-haired, shedding water off their thick coats like ducks. The MeadowClan cats had perfected the art of pulling fish from the river, even in the depths of leaf-bare, and said their prey-rich hunting grounds were a sign of StarClan's blessing.
The other Clans sneered that they took in kittypets and made camp in Twoleg barns, becoming almost half-kittypet themselves. But even if that were true, that meant LeafClan and MireClan only had the hollow pits in their stomachs and thought of the long, cold trek through the night back to an icy nest. If only they could be nourished on warrior's pride, then greenleaf would never end.
"MeadowClan grows, even despite the trying times of leaf-bare," Lilystar said. "We welcome a new litter into our nursery, new apprentices, and new first-time mentors…" And on and on and so on, about queens and elders, Twolegs building new stone nests, dogs chased to the border, a bout of whitecough that of course they all survived, and more he didn't care to note.
He marked the stream of names Lilystar threw out, more understated boasts of the Clan's numbers, and tucked his head down. MeadowClan's news was the easiest to nap to.
Boulderstep's tail reached subtly out to flick at him, and with a start, Murkpool realized it was their young, untested leader's time to speak. Sunstar stood to his full height on the Greenstone, mismatched golden eyes burning as they surveyed the crowd before he began.
"LeafClan is starving," Sunstar said, uneasy meows rippling through the clearing, as Murkpool felt his own hackles rise. "The cold has taken our elders. When we tried hunting in Twolegplace, the diseased prey took our queens. We thank StarClan that we have not lost our kits. But we have too many mouths, and not enough prey in our hunting grounds."
"Such is leaf-bare," Burdockstar spat. "Do you expect our pity?"
"There is not enough prey," he repeated. "In HillClan's old hunting grounds, it's just as barren. We found one of their warriors there, on the verge of death, and he told us the remnants of HillClan have sought new territories. But LeafClan will not leave their home, and I cannot watch my Clan die out. "
He locked Lilystar with his mismatched gaze now; one half of his face was a soft gold, the other half raked over with old poorly healed scars. "That's why I must ask that MeadowClan share their hunting grounds." Outraged yowls and muted growls rose up from every corner of the clearing, but Sunstar kept on undeterred. "Every cat can see that MeadowClan prospers while the other Clans suffer. The forest is not enough to feed our kits, but the prey still runs every season in the river and the meadows."
"The Clans have never shared hunting rights!" cried a pretty silver and white tabby, blue eyes flashing. Murkpool recognized her as Rainripple, a MeadowClan warrior. "Never! If LeafClan cannot support themselves, then that's not MeadowClan's burden!"
Sunstar turned that glare on the she-cat in the crowd. "Do you want us to watch our young starve?"
"MeadowClan has its own needs!" a gray tabby MeadowClan warrior said to a chorus of agreement and angry meows.
A MireClan cat howled, "LeafClan is weak!" And another, "Their leader begs for fresh-kill like a kittypet!"
Lilystar stood up stiffly now, his voice even. "I regret the death of any cat, of any Clan, to the cruelties of leaf-bare… But your request is unprecedented, and we are all too familiar with LeafClan's gluttony for blood and territory. Many of us bear the scars of those days still."
Sunstar met his gaze in the space between their respective boulders. "I do not ask for your answer now. Discuss it with your Clan. But please, in this evil leaf-bare that has already driven out one Clan, I ask you to give my words serious consideration."
"All I will tell you now," Lilystar said, never raising the hint of a growl, "is that I am bound by the warrior code to challenge all trespassers, and MeadowClan will double its border patrols against any prey-stealers. Come, if that is all, let us call this Gathering to an end."
And as the MeadowClan cats emptied out from the grove, Lilystar bounding down into the snow alongside his warriors, the clearing seemed all but empty.
His eyes were not as good as they once were.
Murkpool used to prefer early sunup, searching for herbs. Even before the dawn patrol, just himself, or with Shrikepaw lagging along behind when he was still young and bright-eyed. But the contours of the leaves seemed to blend together, the scents and colors confused, and these days he needed to work by the light of sunhigh.
By all rights, he deserved a nest in the elder's nest now, after he'd been banished under the hawthorn once while he still had something to give. But Shrikewing was gone, gone too young, and LeafClan needed a new medicine cat.
And so, duty compelled him to rise each day, to train his second apprentice.
Elmpaw stumbled ahead of him, sniffing furiously at a patch of golden flowers.
"Is it hawkweed?" Murkpool questioned. A teaching moment, and he relied on the medicine cat apprentice's eyes and ears.
She practically brushed her whiskers in it, drinking in the herb's fragrance. "Ragweed," Elmpaw deduced, wrinkling her nose now. "Dank."
A pity, Murkpool thought. Hawkweed was a good substitute for catmint, all the more precious in these times. If greencough swept through the warrior's den now, with what stores they had, who knew how many StarClan might take.
"And what are the healing properties of ragweed?" he asked creakily.
"You chew the petals for strength," Elmpaw answered dutifully.
"And we shall all need some strength, I think," Murkpool purred. "Very well found, Elmpaw. We'll pick it on the way back; for now, let's try closer to the water."
The trickle of the river grew louder as they padded out between the snow-laden trees, to the shaded bank that marked the border with MeadowClan. Frost spread over the edges of the water, choking the current, ice bobbing in its dark, frigid waters. To slip in there was death, he thought. The river was a natural barrier to all the other Clans, shielding MeadowClan from invasion and trespassing except for a few key crossings. To try hunting in there is death.
He tried to remember the last time he saw a fish on LeafClan's fresh-kill pile. Maybe only once or twice since Stormstar's day, if he really had to dive into the fog of memory. It would have to be.
They walked along the banks in silence, Murkpool lost in how the light glinted off the ice. In parts, it almost spanned the flowing waters, a thin bridge that danced with sunshine.
"Tell me, Elmpaw," Murkpool ventured quietly. "What did you make of what Sunstar had to say at the Gathering?"
"Well…" she began with an uncertain glance around. "Mistpelt said he wasn't wrong. But Bluenose said he made us look weak, and now MireClan and MeadowClan might try to take advantage and attack us. Even Thrushear said there was no way we could go to war with MeadowClan and win. They wouldn't just beat us, they'd punish us and drive us out, he said."
"But what do you think?"
Elmpaw kept her head down as they walked the edge of the river. "If MeadowClan tells us no, what can we say? The warrior code says we can't hunt or trespass on their territory. I think… Sunstar should ask StarClan what he should do. He should go to Standing Stones and ask for a sign. What else can we do?"
Murkpool stopped at the edge of the river. What else, indeed…?
"But you are hungry, though," Murkpool said with a light, bitter chortle.
Elmpaw didn't laugh. "Who isn't?" she grumbled.
He continued on at a slower pace, leaving it where it lay. "Our leader is inclined to do StarClan's will, I think," Murkpool said after some time.
"No one doubts he tries his best," Elmpaw murmured.
The courses of his youth promised it not. The breath had no sooner left Rowanstar's body, that all the wildness seemed to wither in him and die too. No cat had ever seemed to flip dispositions so utterly and so abruptly, as the Sunfire he knew in the leaf-fall, and the Sunstar he watched leading LeafClan now.
"We're blessed in the change," Murkpool said with a twitch of his whiskers. Some in LeafClan still doubted him, but he had a higher estimate. "Strawberries grow underneath the nettle, so they say."
The old medicine cat gazed out again, across the half-frozen river, to rolling green fields beyond patched with snow. There were wild lilies growing on the other side of the bank; toxic, but beautiful. And he managed a soft smile, despite the sharp pang in his stomach.
"It's a sign…" he heard Close-eye croak three sunups later. Fear-scent flooded the hollow, still shrouded in the early morning gloom.
He stirred out of his nest, sleepless, wincing from his aching joints. The first thing he did, before even blinking his eyes open, was nose through a leaf bundle and eat up the poppy seeds inside. Even as the commotion outside swelled to a cacophony, with his apprentice bolting out from under the rowan tree to investigate, Murkpool took time for his daily routines. Lapping at the snowmelt pooled in a stone basin, stretching each limb, counting the medicine stores.
"Where is Murkpool?" came Sunstar's voice faintly.
"Not present here," Boulderstep said.
"In his den!" Elmpaw squeaked.
"Send for him, Boulderstep."
Murkpool padded out from beneath the sprawling branches of the rowan, gazing around at the fearful and disturbed faces of his clanmates gathered around the roots of the Hollow Ash.
Owlswoop growled, "This isn't some apprentice's prank?"
Their leader stood in the mouth of his den, Thrushear behind him, mismatched golden eyes searching as the medicine cat approached where his clanmates gathered. The warriors parted to allow him through, and he followed their gaze down to the grass.
Lying there, propped between the roots of the Ash, was a golden-furred mouse, frozen stiff overnight. A fresh flower blossomed out from the creature's mouth, six long white petals flowing out between the creature's teeth.
All around him, cats leaned in expectantly, awaiting his interpretation.
"I don't expect you need a medicine cat's training to tell you what this means, Sunstar," Murkpool said quietly. "The mouse is LeafClan's staple prey, and this flower is a lily. And I'm truly sorry, but if you look closer…"
He turned the golden-furred mouse over. One eye was scratched out.
"If LeafClan does not act, MeadowClan will be the death of us."
Dark murmurs spread through the Clan. Leekroot, the gray ghost from a dead Clan, stood at the outside edge of the crowd, his expression grave as he stared down the mouse from a distance.
Sunstar's expression darkened, his gaze hardening. "Be very certain before you speak such things, Murkpool," their leader began, his voice frozen to ice. "How you might unsheathe our claws for war. For StarClan knows our two Clans have never contended without much fall of blood."
"Then hear me, Sunstar," Murkpool said, and turning to address the Clan, he raised his voice. "StarClan's message is clear as the greenleaf sun: Lilystar means to starve us dead. But this does not mean it cannot be prevented. When Stormstar was our leader, our hunting grounds stretched over the river and beyond, and if we will survive, we must reclaim that territory again. Either LeafClan must be destroyed, or MeadowClan."
Shocked but muted meows bounced across the clearing.
Sunstar fixed him with an uneven stare. "May I rightly make this claim in good conscience?"
"The sin upon my head, Sunstar," the medicine cat answered him with a solemn dip of his head. "You are our leader. Stand for your own, bare your fangs, look back into the might of your ancestors. Go to the poppy fields, invoke the great Stormstar's spirit, and channel the rage of Blackfang, who wrought tragedy against the full power of MeadowClan once before."
"Awake the remembrance of these valiant dead, and renew their feats," Close-eye rasped, standing to her paws, voice trembling. "You are their heir! You sit upon the Hollow Ash! The blood and courage that made them renowned runs in your veins!"
"All the forest expects you should rouse yourself," Boulderstep said with conviction as he stepped forward, "as did the former lions of your blood."
"No leader had warriors stronger, and more loyal," Owlswoop declared. "Our hearts are fighting across the meadows even now."
"Let their bodies follow," Murkpool urged, padding forward to speak low into Sunstar's ear. The young leader's gaze seemed a thousand tree-lengths away. "With blood and claws and teeth to win LeafClan's right."
Sunstar's eyes dropped. "We must not only prepare to invade MeadowClan, but defend against MireClan, who will strike at the first opportune moment."
The scar that blemished their leader's face ensured none of them would forget the threat of MireClan anytime soon. "The regular border patrols will be sufficient against MireClan trespassers," Murkpool said.
"I don't just mean prey-stealers," Sunstar said. "But if I leave LeafClan camp undefended, MireClan will pour in like the tide."
"They would inflict more fear than harm," Murkpool assured him.
"You saw their numbers at the Gathering!" Thrushear cut in now. "Even if we brought every warrior we had and left camp empty, it would be suicide to attack MeadowClan. And MireClan would relish the chance to get some vengeance on us."
Boulderstep bristled. "And that leaves us what option? To starve in our dens? One LeafClan warrior is worth four MeadowClan cats in battle."
Murkpool twitched his tail, glancing thoughtfully over the crowd. "We all know the forest cannot support all the cats living in it. Then let our warriors live off MeadowClan's hunting grounds instead. Instead of returning to camp and leading a MeadowClan war party back to our dens, make camp in their lands. Force them to dislodge you, to pursue you through their own territories. They will focus on nothing else."
"As Stormstar did," Close-eye said with a nod. "Their territory is vast, and they fill several camps across the prairie."
Sunstar visibly tensed, but his eyes blazed with newfound determination. And looking down at the mouse and the lily, despite his grave blasphemy, Murkpool felt a wave of satisfaction.
Plucking the lily had been easy, finding the right piece of prey was more testing. He would've preferred to use a squirrel, if he could find one. But trying to force the flower bulb into the mouth, getting it to stick in place? With his shaky paws, that was a near miracle of StarClan in itself.
"Then we're resolved, and by StarClan's help and yours, MeadowClan's territories being ours… We'll bend them to our awe, or break them all to pieces."
It was another three days when the MeadowClan messengers arrived. A cat let up the alarm from the bramble thicket as the scent of warm grass and wildflowers filled LeafClan camp, the scent of outsiders.
Sunstar sat perched upon the Hollow Ash, Boulderstep and the other warriors gathered around the roots. The clearing was silent except for the skeletal rattle of the naked branches, the distant cry of a crow.
Murkpool knew the leading MeadowClan cat well. Raggedweed, his fellow medicine cat, a stick thin golden brown tabby tom with a kinked tail. By tradition, they shared tongues together at Standing Stones every half-moon, but he hadn't made the journey as routinely as he had before his forced retirement.
Such a long walk, and he'd never heard so much as a word from his warrior ancestors. Once, Raggedweed had chided him for snoring. Still, that was the meaning of faith, to believe in spite of silence. And what else could a cat have in these evil times, except faith?
It was only for Elmpaw's sake that he bothered to go now, and in time she would be able to make the half-moon journey by herself.
Warriors flanked the medicine cat on either side, one he recognized as the she-cat who had raised her voice at the Gathering. Rainripple. She gave Sunstar that same defiant, fiery glare she'd shown him atop the Greenstone. The other blue-gray tom, Thistleteeth, was better at disguising his contempt, but only barely. His eyes flicked up and down LeafClan camp like it was a midden heap.
"You bring Lilystar's answer," Sunstar said evenly, tail curling around his paws.
Raggedweed dipped his head in a polite gesture, but there was an edge to his voice. "Do I have leave to freely speak what I was told, or shall I be short?"
"You are a medicine cat, sworn to safe conduct in every territory," Sunstar mewed. "Be frank and tell us your Clan's mind."
"Then, in few," Raggedweed started, gritting his teeth. His bent tail twitched and flicked with agitation, his breath billowing out in gray clouds. "At the Gathering, you demanded shared hunting rights on MeadowClan territory. In answer to which, our leader says that you savor too much of your youth. Instead of MeadowClan fresh-kill, he sends you a gift more suited to your reputation."
The LeafClan leader's eyes blazed with quiet fury. "What gift?"
Thistleteeth gave a signal with his tail, and a younger MeadowClan cat followed into the bramble tunnel. An apprentice, not one he recognized, but he had to assume Raggedweed was her mentor. Every step jingled and chimed, a bundle of green hanging from her mouth.
"Moss balls," Boulderstep growled as the medicine cat apprentice laid them out in the clearing. Kit playthings, presented with a strip of torn Twoleg-spun ribbon, hanging with a kittypet's silver bell.
Even the crows were silent now. Sunstar stared blankly down at the moss balls and broken collar for a long moment before speaking again, his voice passive and restrained.
"I am glad MeadowClan is so pleasant with us," he mewed. "We thank you for your present and your pains, in our trying times. When newleaf comes, by StarClan's grace, our kits will be chasing these moss balls through your camp."
It was Raggedweed's turn to shrink back now, Thistleteeth's lips curling in a snarl, Rainripple's ears flattening against her head.
"And I understand you well, how you mock at my wilder days, not measuring what use I made of them," Sunstar growled, voice rising, standing to his full height now as the bough beneath his paws began to sway heavily from side to side. All around him, LeafClan warriors raised their hackles and showed their claws. "But tell your Clan I will rise so full of glory that I will dazzle all MeadowClan's eyes and strike them blind to look at me.
"And tell your leader this mockery of his has turned his singing kittypet bells to screams, and his spirit will answer for the wasteful vengeance that follows! For this jest of his will mock many queens, mock them out of their dear mates, mock mothers from their kits, mock camps into graveyards. And some are not yet born that will live to curse MeadowClan's scorn."
He leaped down from the Ash now, approaching with steady, even strides as the MeadowClan cats retreated back, step by step. Their backs were almost pressed to the bramble tunnel now, out of the thicket.
"But this all lies within the will of StarClan," Sunstar said, lowering his voice almost to a whisper as he stood nose to nose with the MeadowClan medicine cat. "So go in peace. And tell Lilystar, he will not feel so witty, when more cats have wept than laughed."
Raggedweed had no answer, except to bow his head.
"Give them safe conduct to the border," Sunstar ordered. "Fare you well."
The MeadowClan cats left the tunnel, an escort of LeafClan warriors following them out. They left their gifts in the middle of camp, and already, Frostkit was flying across the frozen grass to swipe at the chiming bell. It chirped like the prettiest birdsong, with a little red tail that the white kit pawed and snapped at.
Boulderstep gave Sunstar a sidelong glance as he padded to his side. "This was a merry message," he said.
"We hope to make them blush at it. So, LeafClan," Sunstar turned to address the cats still gathered around him. "Waste no time or energy that can be spent preparing for the struggles ahead of us. We have no other thought in us but MeadowClan. And we will need allies."