River, page 20
Putting out all her strength, Frostpaw raced back down the slope, her belly fur scraping the moorland grass. Curlfeather kept pace beside her. But the trees scarcely seemed to draw nearer, while the dogs had veered to intercept the fleeing cats before they could reach safety. For one horrifying heartbeat Frostpaw thought they would collide. She caught a glimpse of tongues lolling from gaping jaws, and rows of sharp teeth. Then she and Curlfeather were past, with a clear run to the forest, but with the dogs still hard on their paws.
Is this the end? Frostpaw thought. Is there to be more tragedy for RiverClan? What will they do if they lose both of us?
Curlfeather dodged around a clump of gorse bushes; Frostpaw followed, hoping that the thorny branches would slow the dogs down. Casting a glance over her shoulder, she saw that they had gained a little, but the dogs seemed to be eating up the ground with their long legs and flying paws, panting and drooling only a few tail-lengths behind. The stink of fresh-kill from their breath washed over her and caught in her throat.
Frostpaw felt as if she had been running forever, trying to force extra speed from her aching legs, but at last they reached an outlying oak tree, its branches spreading wide and close to the ground. Frostpaw leaped for the lowest branch, but her claws barely scraped it and she fell back, winded and shaking with terror.
“Climb!” Curlfeather yowled.
She thrust her shoulders under Frostpaw’s belly and boosted her up the tree trunk. Frostpaw scrabbled frantically at the rough bark until she managed to reach the safety of the branch.
“Keep going!” Curlfeather urged her.
“Then follow me!” Frostpaw yowled in reply. “Save yourself!”
Turning back, she expected to see Curlfeather climbing up after her. But the dogs were already upon her; Frostpaw let out a wail of horror as she saw the lead dog sink its fangs into her mother’s hindquarters. Her head swam and she felt as if the whole tree were tilting around her.
“Curlfeather!” she wailed. “No!”
Curlfeather was staring up at her, her eyes welling with love and emotion. “Keep RiverClan safe!” Her voice rose into a screech of agony. “And trust no cat!”
Then she disappeared under a tangle of snarling dogs.
Frostpaw squeezed her eyes tight shut, but she couldn’t shut out the shrieks of pain from her mother or the snarling and snapping from the dogs. She was trembling so much that she nearly fell off the branch. Only the knowledge that she was still in danger helped her pull herself together.
Mouse-length by mouse-length, she managed to climb up to a higher branch. Then, seeing that it stretched out into the limbs of another tree, she crossed over, then crossed again into another. The ground, so far below, seemed to whirl around her; she froze, squeezing her eyes tight shut. I can’t move! I’m going to fall!
But she could still hear the horrible sounds of her mother’s dying screams somewhere behind her, and she knew she had to go on.
My mother gave her life to save mine. I won’t let her die for nothing.
Frostpaw forced herself onward until she couldn’t hear the dogs anymore. She tasted the air: Even their scent had faded. For a few heartbeats she stayed where she was, all her senses alert, until she was sure that she was far enough away from the dogs to make her way safely down to the ground. She had no idea where she was, except that she must be on ThunderClan territory; the scents of ThunderClan cats were all around her.
Please, StarClan, don’t let them catch me trespassing!
For a moment Frostpaw wondered if she ought to go on to the Moonpool, until she realized that there was no point now. With a crushing sense of defeat, she knew that all she could do was go home and tell her Clan the terrible news of what had happened to Curlfeather.
There’s no hurry, she thought drearily. It’s far too late to save her.
Pausing to listen, Frostpaw could just make out the sound of running water; she headed in that direction and came eventually to the bank of the border stream. With a gasp of relief she leaped across, then followed it as far as the lake. Stunned and exhausted, she still found the strength to pad along the lakeshore until she passed the horseplace and regained RiverClan territory.
When Frostpaw stumbled into camp, her pelt shaking and scratched, her heart aching, the first cat she saw was Mallownose, standing alertly on guard. His eyes widened as he spotted her and he ran up to her side.
“Frostpaw!” he exclaimed. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”
“Dogs!” Frostpaw gasped. “They attacked me and Curlfeather.”
Mallownose stared at her in shock for a moment, then turned and called out across the camp. “Mothwing! Duskfur! Splashtail!”
The warriors he had named emerged from their den, followed by several of their Clanmates. Mothwing appeared from the direction of the stream and bounded across the camp to Frostpaw’s side.
“What happened? Where’s Curlfeather?” the medicine cat demanded.
Her voice trembling, Frostpaw told the story of how she and her mother had been attacked by dogs on their way to the Moonpool, and how Curlfeather had thrust her to safety up a tree at the edge of the forest.
“Just where is this tree?” Mothwing asked when Frostpaw had finished. “I have to find Curlfeather and look after her.”
“It’s too late,” Frostpaw choked out. “The dogs killed her.” Briefly she was back in the tree, looking down as her mother was overwhelmed by the dogs, and hearing her agonized shrieks.
Gasps of horror followed her words, with cries of protest and disbelief. Graypaw and Mistpaw moved to the front of the crowd, eyes wide, jaws open. In Frostpaw’s mind, their voices blended with all the others’ into a single wail of anguish. The whole camp seemed to tilt and whirl around her. She was vaguely aware of Mothwing and Splashtail supporting her as far as the medicine cats’ den, where she collapsed into her own nest.
Just outside she could hear Mothwing and some of the warriors discussing how they could gather a patrol to find Curlfeather’s body and bring it back to camp. Frostpaw curled up tighter in her nest, her eyes shut and her tail wrapped around her ears as she tried to block out the voices, and the rest of the world with them. She didn’t want to believe that her mother was truly gone.
At the same time, Frostpaw kept hearing her mother’s final words, forced out in her shriek of agony as the dogs pulled her down. Trust no cat! What did it mean? Should Frostpaw not trust Mothwing? Should she not trust any of her Clanmates?
As Frostpaw was struggling to make sense of all of it, she felt something warm and soft slip into the nest beside her. When she opened her eyes, she nearly gasped—Mistpaw and Graypaw had snuck into the medicine cat den and were snuggling in on each side.
“Shhh,” Mistpaw whispered. “No cat knows we’re here. But we needed to be near you now.”
Frostpaw licked her sister’s ear gratefully.
“It’s hard to believe.” Graypaw mewed. “But . . . we’re all we have now.”
Frostpaw wiggled closer to her siblings, and at last she slipped into uneasy dreams. When she woke, she wasn’t sure how much later, her littermates had gone. She could still hear Mothwing and some of the warriors talking outside the den, but she could tell by the red-gold light that the day was drawing to an end. She tottered to her paws and staggered out into the open.
Mothwing was sitting beside the stream with Mallownose, Duskfur, and Splashtail. Duskfur’s eyes were dull with grief, and her tail drooped; she looked as if Curlfeather’s death had aged her seasons in a single day. Graypaw and Mistpaw were sitting nearby with their mentors, Breezeheart and Icewing. They looked as lost and forlorn as Frostpaw felt.
When Frostpaw emerged, her mentor spotted her at once and padded up to her. “We have found your mother’s body,” she meowed gently. “Tonight we will sit vigil for her, and then bury her in the way of the Clans.”
Frostpaw dipped her head in gratitude, but she was too deep in grief to find words.
“So what are we going to do now?” Mallownose asked. “Curlfeather was supposed to be our new leader.”
“Maybe we should go on as we’ve been doing, with a group of cats to lead us,” Splashtail suggested. “Mothwing, you could choose two or three of the senior warriors—”
“That’s mouse-brained!” Mallownose interrupted harshly. “A Clan has always had one leader. We need to wait until Frostpaw can speak to StarClan again.”
Frostpaw gazed at the brown tabby tom in dismay. “I can’t go back to the Moonpool!” she wailed. “Don’t make me!” Her muscles were limp with exhaustion, and her paws felt heavy as rocks. And the thought of the dogs made her belly cramp with terror.
“Mallownose, you’re the one who’s mouse-brained.” Duskfur laid her tail gently over Frostpaw’s shoulders. “We shouldn’t ask that of Frostpaw. She just lost her mother!”
Frostpaw felt her fear ebb and she leaned gratefully into Duskfur’s shoulder. A vast wave of relief enveloped her as Mothwing dipped her head to Duskfur. “No,” the medicine cat meowed. “We can’t put Frostpaw through that right now. I know that you won’t want to hear this, but . . .” She paused and took a deep breath. “It’s time to tell the other Clans. We need help.”
About the Author
ERIN HUNTER is inspired by a love of cats and a fascination with the ferocity of the natural world. In addition to having great respect for nature in all its forms, Erin enjoys creating rich mythical explanations for animal behavior. She is also the author of the Seekers, Survivors, Bravelands, and Bamboo Kingdom series.
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Books by Erin Hunter
A STARLESS CLAN
Book One: River
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Copyright
WARRIORS: A STARLESS CLAN #1: RIVER. Copyright © 2022 by Working Partners Ltd. Series created by Working Partners Ltd. Map art © 2015 by Dave Stevenson. Interior art © 2022 by Owen Richardson. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Cover art © 2022 by Owen Richardson
Series cover design by Ellice M. Lee
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Digital Edition APRIL 2022 ISBN: 978-0-06-305012-9
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-305008-2
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FIRST EDITION
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Erin Hunter, River
