ACORNPAW
Sunstar had them wade through the many half-frozen streams that crisscrossed the meadows, ignoring the stabbing cold and their own grumbling, in order to wash all traces of themselves away as they raced over the fields and pastures. They would walk upcurrent for a time, the icy waters numbing their paws, before breaking across the plains in erratic patterns. The tansy had receded back into the ground with leaf-bare, but when they found silvery-leafed lavender shrubs, Sunstar had them all roll through the patches.
When Boulderstep and Elmpaw returned from the MeadowClan camp, they knew trackers would follow their scent trail back. Their deputy took a winding course through the meadows, crossing forked streams and muddy creek banks to misdirect his pursuers, and they left Acornpaw in wait.
Waiting, watching over a forked stream where Boulderstep and Elmpaw were careful to leave their scent, far from the rest of the war party. The deputy left huge, clear pawprints in the slimy mud, but his scent trail would abruptly disappear on the other side of the rushing water.
Going unnoticed was always a particular skill of his. Acornpaw pressed himself flat against the grass, many tree-lengths out. The MeadowClan cats, a small patrol led by a dark reddish tom, came shortly afterward in pursuit. He watched them sweep their eyes around, heard their faint curses carried on the wind, noses lowered to the ground as they furiously sniffed up and down the forked streams.
When the patrol leader gestured to his clanmates with a flick of his tail, Acornpaw crept down the grassy slope to follow.
The MeadowClan cats followed one of the branching streams up its course, mewing between themselves, just beyond the edge of hearing. Acornpaw's heart thumped in his chest as he stalked through the grass, his senses choked with lavender. As they walked up the bank, the land began to gently climb, up and up and up.
He spurred himself on faster as the MeadowClan patrol disappeared up and over the rise. But he could scarcely believe his own eyes when he finally reached the top of the slope, gazing out to where the land plateaued into rows upon rows of fruit trees.
It wasn't like any other forest he'd ever seen. Every tree was lined up in perfect lanes, all wild undergrowth pruned and cleared away, leaving just plush carpets of clovers underfoot. Chickadees chatted noisily from the trees, flitting among the trees, hopping and pecking among the roots.
Acornpaw forced himself to tear his eyes off the prey, peering after the MeadowClan cats as they walked brazenly between the rows of trees, toward a Twoleg barn.
"In peace, there's nothing so becoming as modest stillness and humility," Sunstar told them all, tail lashing as he stalked among his warriors. "But when the cry of war roars in your ears, then become tigers. Stiffen the sinews. Summon up the blood. Set your teeth, hold your breath, and bend every spirit to its full height…
"On, on, LeafClan…! Whose mothers and fathers spilled blood in these fields before, prove who sired you! And you, brave warriors, whose limbs were made in LeafClan, show us the worth of their training! Let us swear that you are worth your breeding, which I doubt not. There's not one of you that doesn't have that hungry glow in your eyes. I see you stand like hounds in Twoleg slips, straining for the chase!"
They waited until sundown to strike. Their silhouettes flickered between the long shadows of the trees, as they raced between the rows toward the Twoleg structure on the other side. Many strong MeadowClan scents overwhelmed his senses, but even those were choked by the stench of old straw, horse, old traces of dog, and the sudden, frantic chattering of chickens as the LeafClan cats approached.
"What in StarClan's name is making that noise?" Shadepaw gasped beside him, peering through the darkness toward the chicken coop. It was easy for Acornpaw to forget that his denmates had never seen one before, their first time outside of LeafClan territory.
The hens shattered the dusk's stillness with their squawking, as the warriors gathered around a gap in the old barn's wall. A breach only large enough for one, maybe two cats to squeeze through at a time. And two MeadowClan sentries emerged at the mouth of the breach, their hackles raised.
"Who goes there?!" one shouted into the night, and LeafClan poured toward the gap. The trees rang with yowls and battle cries as the rival warriors crashed together around the threshold.
Asterstripe plunged in, disappearing up to the tip of his tail, before being shoved roughly back out. Boulderstep seemed to fill the whole space as he pressed forward, but even he had to retreat back out again with a snarl of pain, blood trickling down the bridge of his nose. Sorreltail and Honeypad flanked the gap, swatting and hooking their paws inside as if trying to flush prey from its burrow. But of the MeadowClan cats, Acornpaw could only make out the wall of darting paws, clawing away the raiders at the entrance.
"Once more to the breach, dear friends, once more!" Sunstar cried above the din. "Or close the wall up with our LeafClan dead!" Their leader charged headlong into the maw of claws and fangs, and with a joined cry, the yowling LeafClan warriors streamed in after him toward the gap.
"We have to get closer! I want to watch the battle!" Shadepaw hissed, scurrying closer.
"We're not supposed to be part of the fighting," Sedgepaw said, following anyway. Elmpaw hovered back, her brown fur bushed up to twice her size.
"But we have our duties too, don't we? What if Sunstar needs us?" Shadepaw argued.
The heaving mass of cats collided, until the MeadowClan cats collapsed beneath the wedge of LeafClan cats. Acornpaw watched the warriors fly into the gap, and edged closer on his belly to better glimpse inside. He could only hear the terrible yowling within.
"On, on, on, on, on! To the breach, to the breach!" Sneezy echoed, but dragging his paws as the last of the LeafClan warriors entered. Nimble and Old Scratch seemed to prefer the relative safety near where the apprentices were lurking.
"Say, stay back, Sneezy," Nimble grumbled under his breath, hackles raised and orange eyes wide as Gathering moons. "This heat's too strong, and I don't have nine lives like these wildcats. That's the way of it."
"Yes, if any MeadowClan cat comes out here, I swear I'll split them from tail to eartips!" Old Scratch growled from well outside the fighting, nervously watching the shadows that flit and leaped at each other through the gap.
Acornpaw didn't disillusion himself with warrior fantasies like the other apprentices. I wish I were back in the lodge right now, he thought. He would give all his fame for some easy-caught fresh-kill, and safety.
But as the rogues hovered outside, another shape edged behind them, a growl rumbling in their throat. They turned with frightful expressions as the HillClan warrior Leekroot advanced on them, green eyes blazing and lips pulled back in a snarl.
"Up to the breach, you hare-hearts! Forward, crowfood-eaters!" Leekroot snarled, claws unsheathed. The rogues fled from him with yelps and shrieks, straight into the barn with the HillClan warrior close behind.
As young as he was, Acornpaw had observed all three of these rogues. If he were Acornstar, he'd rather take three kittypets to war than this trio. Three such rogues didn't amount to even a single Clan-born warrior.
For Sneezy, he was red-nosed but white-livered. For Scratch, she had a killing tongue but quieter claws. And for Nim, he heard that cats of few words were the best, but his few bad words were matched with as few good deeds. He'd never broken any cat's head but his own, and that was against a post when he had his whiskers full of stolen catmint.
And they would steal anything and say they hunted it. Sneezy caught a chickadee in the trees and didn't share a word about it, except with Nimble. That made Acornpaw uneasy.
"Come on, let's get closer…!" Shadepaw said, streaking toward the breach, and Sedgepaw, Elmpaw, and Acornpaw had no choice but to follow. The furious shrieks and noise of battle rang through the barn, as Acornpaw stopped just short of the entrance, daring to peek from behind the wall.
"Can you believe it?" Sedgepaw murmured. "MeadowClan really is half-kittypet! They live in Twoleg nests like this?"
The barn sprawled with fighting LeafClan and MeadowClan warriors from corner to corner, and not just warriors. Queens sheltered over their kits, haggard elders pulling themselves up Twoleg shelves and crates to avoid the chaos.
Acornpaw's eyes found Leekroot first. The HillClan warrior danced out of range of a MeadowClan warrior's swipes, a gray blur that almost seemed to do pirouettes around the enemy, practically ricocheting off the walls. Where the LeafClan cats dug in their hind legs and went tooth to tooth, meeting slash for slash, he seemed to bob around slashes with all the near-clairvoyant grace of a dragonfly.
Sedgepaw scoffed beside him, "A LeafClan cat wouldn't be afraid of getting hit."
"Mistpelt!" a voice shouted above the din. Tansyslip was grappling at the reddish tom Acornpaw had spied earlier, teeth bared. "Honeypad needs assistance!"
He watched the young white tortoiseshell respond to the call, bounding between dueling pairs of cats. Honeypad had her back to the wall, having lost her footing, her soft underbelly exposed with a dusky MeadowClan tom looming over her.
"I got you!" came another voice, as Mistpelt bunched up the power in her hind legs to pounce. Kestrelstrike streaked forward for the MeadowClan warrior just as Mistpelt made her leap, and all cats went careening together in a heap of confused limbs and yelps. All on top of Honeypad, to boot.
Leekroot groaned like a disappointed mentor, disentangling Mistpelt from the others with a yank of her scruff. "Listen, you," the HillClan warrior complained through a mouthful of fur, as Mistpelt shoved him roughly away and hissed in his face. "All you LeafClan fight as individuals, that's the problem. The first battle training a HillClan apprentice receives is how to tackle in tandem with your clanmate."
"I don't need battle training from you, rabbit-face," Mistpelt snapped. Honeypad was off fighting somewhere else altogether, their combat forgotten. Behind them, Tansyslip was slamming the red MeadowClan warrior's head roughly against the floor, as Kestrelstrike struggled underneath the dusky tom's weight, spitting curses. Neither Leekroot or Mistpelt seemed to pay him any mind as they glared each other in the face. "I can handle myself! Don't get in my way, all right?"
"Bleeding StarClan, you're a bur in my pelt, do you know that?" Leekroot growled. "You have no more battle discipline than a kit."
As the reddish MeadowClan tom went stumbling around, mildly concussed, Tansyslip finally knocked away the dusky warrior now and helped Kestrelstrike to his paws.
"Sunstar himself trained me!" Mistpelt snapped. "And it seemed to do us just fine last time we faced your Clan!"
Leekroot pounced forward, bowling into her with all his weight and sending them both crashing down to the floor on top of one another. At first, Acornpaw's heart leapt into his throat, thinking his clanmate under attack by their strange outsider guest.
But a moment later, a MeadowClan warrior went sailing over both their heads, whiffing on the big tackle and tumbling across the straw-covered dust. As they got to their feet, Mistpelt and Leekroot fought back to back now, still arguing over the sounds of battle.
"I said leave me alone!" Mistpelt snapped, swiping a tabby she-cat across the face and sending her wheeling back.
Leekroot jumped back from a warrior's heavy swipe, almost tripping over Mistpelt's legs in the process, and eliciting another low groan of frustration. "Oh, I'll gladly let you get your throat clawed out the next time! Listen, you can't always go for the big strike. If you can take out their legs, then a clanmate can finish the fight without either of you taking a scratch."
Kestrelstrike was breathing heavily, as a cat went fleeing out of reach of his claws. "Really, it's not bad advice, sister. You shouldn't have gotten in my way there."
"You shouldn't have gotten in my way!" she bristled. He'd never seen her so angry, as if the battle was secondary. "It's not time to discourse, StarClan save me! The battle's raging, and we talk, and by StarClan do nothing! There's throats to be cut, and work to be done, and there's nothing done, so StarClan save me—"
"Before my eyes close, I'll do good service, or lie in the ground for it!" Kestrelstrike shouted in hearty agreement, plunging back into the melee.
"Now Kestrelstrike's a marvelous, valorous warrior, that's for certain," Leekroot said with a flash of a grin. They were back to back now, circling over and over again as they swatted away MeadowClan shadows. "But Mistpelt, I think, look you, there aren't many of your Clan—"
"Of my Clan?" she started, slapping back another warrior with a flurry of blows. "What is my Clan? Who talks of my Clan?"
"Look you, if you take it the wrong way, that's not my fault. I'm just saying, look you, being as good a warrior as yourself—"
Mistpelt turned on him now. A MeadowClan warrior darted between them, and she shoved the cat with both claws outstretched. As if on cue, Leekroot flattened himself low to the dust, and the MeadowClan warrior went tripping over him, tumbling to the ground just in time for Tansyslip to fall on them.
But they had no eyes for any MeadowClan warriors now, just each other.
"I don't know you as good a warrior as myself!" Mistpelt hissed, raising unsheathed claws as if to strike. "So StarClan save me, I will rip off your head!"
"Mistpelt, don't!" Tansyslip warned. "Not now!"
But around them, the battle had already receded. The MeadowClan warriors had pulled back, and back, to the far back corner of the barn, forming a thin barrier around their kits, queens, and elders.
"Wait…!" the yowl came from the reddish tom, and the sounds of fighting came to an end. Outside the walls, the chickens still raised a noisy alarm in an unharmonious chorus with the mewling of terrified kits inside.
"I think we'll continue this conversation another time," Leekroot said with another grin, disengaging himself with a dip of his head.
The LeafClan raiders gathered around the cornered MeadowClan cats now, eyes glowing in the half-light of the unlit barn. It was the reddish tom, the patrol leader who had tracked Boulderstep from MeadowClan camp, who stared down Sunstar as he advanced.
"Do you speak for these warriors?" the LeafClan leader questioned, sweeping his uneven gaze over the huddled MeadowClan cats, the bleeding and breathless warriors. "This is the only peace we will offer. So surrender to our best mercy, or defy us to our worst. For, as I am a warrior, if I sound the battle-cry again, I will not leave this camp until not even the memory of it remains."
The red MeadowClan tom's green eyes widened, his hackles up. The fear-scent was almost suffocating.
"So, you cats of MeadowClan, take pity on your clanmates, while my warriors are still under my command," Sunstar said, his voice turned to burning ice. "If not, then in a moment, look to see bloody warriors with foul claws rip the pelts of your shrill-shrieking queens… Your elders taken by their silver muzzles and their reverend heads dashed to the walls… Your kits' blood soaking into the hay, while the confused howls of mad mothers break the clouds…!"
Sunstar's face was contorted into a mask of pure menace, facing the red-furred warrior with the scarred half of his face.
"What do you say?! Will you avoid this and yield?" the LeafClan leader's voice exploded, making MeadowClan cats press themselves back farther against the walls, as the red-furred tom's mouth gaped open in speechless shock. "Or guilty in defense, be destroyed?"
The red MeadowClan warrior seemed paralyzed with horror.
"We are only scouts, not part of the war party sent to counter you," he mewed at last, voice quavering. "We do not have the strength to resist. So, great Sunstar, we yield this camp and our lives to your soft mercy. Dispose of us and ours, for we are no longer defensible."
With the battle over, Acornpaw and the other apprentices could walk the length of the barn, admiring the blood splotches. Elmpaw went from cat to cat, gathering cobwebs for cuts, while LeafClan warriors rooted through the herb stores and fresh-kill pile.
He could hardly believe it. Speckled trout and fat-bellied carp, voles, and a fair amount of the little chickadees they'd found outside.
"You think we could eat the chickens too?" Acornpaw asked. He saw Sedgepaw and Shadepaw's eyes light up at the proposition.
"What do they taste like?"
"Well, like chicken. You'll think you've never had any other kind of bird. They're huge too."
Acornpaw watched their leader pad by, Boulderstep at his side. He perked his ears to listen. "I don't recognize half these cats from the Gatherings," the apprentice heard Sunstar murmur to his deputy. "If MeadowClan territory is full of camps like this, then they have even greater numbers than we thought."
"They call them daylight warriors," Boulderstep said, his voice a low rumble. "I always thought they were a myth… But in MeadowClan, some cats live with a paw in both worlds. Kittypets, trained as warriors and performing their duties during the day, only to return to their Twoleg masters at night. It seems Lilystar is careful to hide them, but they exist, all right." The deputy sniffed. "A shameful concept—a warrior rejects the soft life of a kittypet."
That was the warrior code. Sunstar was only silent in response, sweeping his gaze around the barn.
"This will be a defensible position for us tonight," their leader said. "Keep a watch over the MeadowClan cats, make a headcount and ensure none slip away in the night, but use mercy on them all. Give express charge that none of them are to be abused or treated with disdainful language."
Boulderstep gave an obedient nod of his head.
"The fresh-kill and herbs taken here could be brought back to camp, or at least our side of the river where it's secure," Sunstar went on. "We will double back to the border to haul it back, before we continue our excursion. Find yourself a nice warm nest for once, Boulderstep. We move again before first light."