Island of Shadows (34 page)

As Toklo struggled to get a better grip among the caribou's legs, he realized that Lusa had joined them and was hanging on to the creature's neck, her paws almost lifted off the ground as it fought to rise again. Toklo reached around her and slashed his claws across the caribou's throat. Blood gushed out onto the snow, and the animal went limp.

Panting, all four bears rose to their paws and stood looking down at their prey.

“Good job,” Toklo grunted.

“Try it.” Kallik nudged Yakone closer to the dead caribou. “You'll really like it.”

Looking a bit uncertain, Yakone crouched down beside the prey and tore at its flesh, taking a huge mouthful. A low growl of appreciation came from him as he gulped it down. “That's delicious!”

“Told you,” Kallik said smugly as she crouched down beside him to eat. “Thank you, spirits, for this prey.”

Lusa and Toklo joined her. Toklo sighed with satisfaction as he sank his teeth into the warm caribou meat. It had been a long time since they'd been able to feast like this, with more than enough for every bear.

“You're all really good at this,” Yakone remarked when the worst of their hunger was satisfied. “You make a good team.”

“We've had practice,” Toklo replied briefly.

“Now you're part of the team, too,” Kallik added, edging closer to the other white bear. “It's good to know lots of different ways of hunting.”

Yakone nodded, looking impressed. “I can see that.”

Lusa had taken only a few mouthfuls of the meat. Then she turned away from the carcass and began scrabbling at the snow. “Nanulak taught me how to scent plants growing underneath,” she explained, as she began uncovering a straggly bush with a few grayish leaves clinging to its branches. She took a huge bite. “This is the right food for a black bear,” she mumbled around her mouthful of twigs.

Toklo stared at her, thinking how dry and unappetizing the leaves looked. “Yeah, right,” he muttered. “You're welcome to it.”

While they were eating, the sun had dipped close to the horizon, staining the snow with scarlet light. His belly comfortably full, Toklo began to feel sleepy. He and the others curled up in the shelter of the rock where Yakone had hidden from the caribou. Toklo relaxed into the warmth of Kallik on one side of him and Lusa on the other, but a familiar worm of dread stirred in his belly.
There won't be many more nights like this, when we're all together.

Kallik is going home, and that should be a happy time. I'm not going to spoil it for her. She's my family, and I will look after her until I know she's safe.

DON'T MISS

OMEN OF THE STARS

BOOK 5:
THE FORGOTTEN
WARRIOR

Jayfeather's dream dissolved into darkness as
he woke and stretched his jaws in a massive yawn. His whole body seemed heavy, and when he sat up in his nest he felt as though ivy tendrils were wrapped around him, dragging him back to the ground. The air was hotter than usual for late newleaf, filled with the scents of prey and lush green growth. Noise filtered through the brambles that screened the medicine cat's den from the rest of the stone hollow: pawsteps and the excited murmuring of many cats as they gathered for the first patrols of the day.

But Jayfeather couldn't share his Clanmates' excitement. Although a moon had passed since he and his companions had returned from their visit to the Tribe, he felt cold and bleak inside. His head was full of images of mountains, endless snow-covered peaks stretching into the distance, outlined crisply against an ice-blue sky. His belly cramped with pain as he recalled one particular image: a white cat with green eyes who gave him a long, sorrowful look before she turned away and padded along a cliff top above a thundering waterfall.

Jayfeather shook his head.
What's the matter with me
?
That was all a long, long time ago. My life has always been here with the Clans. So why do I feel as if something has been lost?

“Hi, Jayfeather.” Briarlight's voice had a muffled, echoing sound, and Jayfeather realized she must have her head inside the cleft where he stored his herbs. “You're awake at last.”

Jayfeather replied with a grunt. Briarlight was another of his problems. He couldn't forget what Lionblaze had told him when he returned to the mountains: how Briarlight was so frustrated by being confined to the hollow, trapped by her damaged hindlegs, that she'd persuaded her brother Bumblestripe to carry her into the forest to look for herbs.

“There was a dog running loose,” Lionblaze had told him. “A cat with four functioning legs would have been hard-pressed to outrun it. If it hadn't been for me and Toadstep luring it away, Briarlight would have been torn to pieces.”

“Mouse-brain!” Jayfeather snapped. “Why would she put herself in danger like that?”

“Because she's convinced that she's useless,” Lionblaze explained. “Can't you give her more to do? Cinderheart and I promised her we'd help her find a proper part to play in the life of the Clan.”

“You had no right to promise her anything without speaking to me first,” Jayfeather retorted. “Are you suggesting I take her as my apprentice? Because I don't want an apprentice!”

“That's not what I meant,” Lionblaze meowed, his tail-tip twitching in annoyance. “But you could find more interesting duties for her, couldn't you?”

Still reluctant, Jayfeather had done as his brother asked. He had to admit that Briarlight was easy to teach. She had been stuck in the medicine cat's den for so long that she had already picked up a lot.

She's actually useful
, he mused.
Her paws are neat and quick when she sorts the herbs, and she's good at soaking wilted leaves in the pool without letting them fall to pieces
.

“Jayfeather?” Briarlight's voice roused Jayfeather from his thoughts. He heard her wriggling around, and then her voice came more clearly as if she was poking her head out of the cleft. “Are you okay? You were tossing and turning all night.”

“I'm fine,” Jayfeather muttered, unwilling to dwell any longer on the dreams that had plagued him.

“We're running low on marigold,” Briarlight went on. “We used up a lot on Dovewing's scratches when you got back from the mountains. Should I ask Brightheart to collect some more?”

“No, I'll go,” Jayfeather muttered.

“Fine.” Briarlight's voice was determinedly cheerful. “I'll get on with sorting the herbs. Oh, one more thing…”

Jayfeather heard the young she-cat dragging herself across the floor of the den until she reached his nest and pushed something toward him. “Could you throw this out on your way past the dirtplace?” she asked. “It was stuck at the back of the herb store.”

Jayfeather stretched out his neck until his nose touched a tuft of fur with a few dried scraps of leaf dusted on it. He stiffened as he recognized the faint scent that clung to it.

“Who would have put an old bit of fur among the herbs?” Briarlight continued. “It must have been in there for ages. I don't recognize the scent or color.”

For a moment Jayfeather didn't reply. He breathed in his lost sister's scent, overwhelmed by longing for the time when he and Hollyleaf and Lionblaze had played and trained together, before they knew anything about the prophecy, before they learned how Squirrelflight and Leafpool had lied to them.

I don't know how Hollyleaf's fur got into the store
, he thought,
but I should have thrown it out when I first found it there, not left it for another cat to find
.

“I wonder where it came from,” Briarlight meowed. “Maybe a cat from another Clan got in here to steal herbs.” She stifled a
mrrow
of laughter. “Maybe the kits got in and hid it.”

“How would I know?” Jayfeather snapped, irritated at being jerked out of his memories. “You should stop letting your imagination run away with you.”

Turning so that Briarlight couldn't see what he was doing, he tucked the scrap of fur deep inside the moss of his nest, and rose to his paws. “I'm going to fetch that marigold,” he mewed, and headed out of the den.

Before he had taken half a dozen pawsteps into the clearing, Bumblestripe's scent washed over him as the young tom bounded up. “I was coming to see you,” Bumblestripe blurted out. “I'm really worried about Dovewing.”

“Why? What's the matter? Her scratches have healed, haven't they?”

“It's not that. She keeps having bad dreams—she had another one last night. She woke up screeching, and she was muttering about giant birds and snow.”

Jayfeather struggled to suppress a stab of impatience.
I know how bad it must have been, watching Swoop carried off by the eagle. But Dovewing has to be stronger than this
.

“How do you know about it?” he asked Bumblestripe.

“There's a leak in the warriors' den right above my nest,” the young tom replied. “And there's no more room in there, so I thought I'd spend a few nights in the apprentices' den with Dovewing and Ivypool. And every night Dovewing has these awful dreams. Are there any herbs that can help her?”

Jayfeather picked up waves of deep anxiety rolling off Bumblestripe. “There are no herbs that can take away memories,” he meowed. “You just have to learn to live with them.”
Don't we all?
he added silently.

“But—” Bumblestripe began.

Brambleclaw's voice rang out across the clearing, cutting across his protest. “Hey, Bumblestripe! You're supposed to be on hunting patrol. Sorreltail's waiting.”

“Okay!” Bumblestripe called back. “Coming! Bye, Jayfeather!” He bounded away.

Jayfeather headed toward the apprentices' den, where Dovewing and Ivypool were sleeping since the warriors' den was so crowded, only to halt when he realized that Brambleclaw had gotten there ahead of him.

“Ivypool, Dovewing, wake up!” the ThunderClan deputy yowled, sticking his head into the den. “You've overslept again.”

Jayfeather heard muffled mews of protest; a couple of heartbeats later the two she-cats staggered into the open.

“You look dreadful!” Brambleclaw meowed, annoyance in his tone. “I've never seen such messy fur! Have you been hunting at night?”

Though Jayfeather couldn't see them, his twitching nose picked up dusty, ruffled fur, and he could sense echoes of fear coming from both cats. He knew very well why their sleep had been disturbed. Bumblestripe had just told him about Dovewing's troubled dreams, while each night Ivypool was visiting the Dark Forest, training with the cats who had been spurned by StarClan.

I wish she'd tell me more about what happens there
, Jayfeather thought.
But no—she just says that she'll let me know when there's anything important to report
.

“Why don't I check them out in my den?” he suggested to Brambleclaw, hoping for the chance to get some information out of the two she-cats in private. “Maybe they're coming down with something…”

Jayfeather's voice trailed off as he realized that no cat was listening to him. As he was speaking, the swift patter of paws announced the arrival of Whitewing.

“Brambleclaw, don't get angry with them!” she meowed. “They're working so hard, now that we don't have any apprentices.” She paused, then added, “I'll help them with their duties today.”

“I need you to go on border patrol,” Brambleclaw told her.

“And I
need
to stay here with my daughters,” Whitewing retorted. “Some other cat can go on border patrol instead of me.”

Brambleclaw gave a disapproving sniff. “Fine,” he muttered, and stalked away.

“Now, tidy yourselves up,” Whitewing went on, rasping her tongue busily over Ivypool's ears.

“Get off me!” Ivypool protested. “I'm not a kit!”

“You'll always be
my
kit,” Whitewing told her, turning to give the same brisk licks to Dovewing, who jumped back and exclaimed, “Stop! I'm a
warrior
! I can do my own fur!”

“Then prove it. We need to fetch moss for the elders' bedding,” Whitewing went on as her daughters gave themselves a quick grooming. “And for StarClan's sake make sure there are no thorns in Purdy's, or we'll never hear the end of it. Come on!”

She bustled them toward the camp entrance, but before they reached the thorn tunnel Firestar appeared at the head of the dawn patrol. Jayfeather's nose was flooded with the scents of his Clanmates. Brambleclaw bounded across the clearing to meet them, with Dustpelt, Cloudtail, and Brightheart hard on his paws. Foxleap raised his head from the fresh-kill pile, a mouse dangling from his jaws, while Berrynose strode importantly up to the patrol, followed more slowly by Leafpool and Squirrelflight.

Molekit and Cherrykit burst out of the nursery, scampered out into the clearing, and hurled themselves at Berrynose's paws, tripping him.

“Careful!” he murmured, recovering his balance and sweeping his tail around the two excited kits.