The Apprentice's Quest (19 page)

It let out a high-pitched, drawn-out cry, and Needlepaw at once tried to imitate it, snorting with laughter at her own weird meows.

“Whenever you've finished. . . ,” Alderpaw snarled, giving her a hard shove.

“Keep your fur on!” Needlepaw retorted.

She was still bouncing around like a kit on its first day out of the nursery when the cats approached a hedge. Beyond it, rows of tall, yellow-brown plants stretched into the distance. Alderpaw could hear a faint rumbling and noticed a haze hanging in the air.

“There may be a Thunderpath on the other side of this,” he mewed.

Sandstorm nodded. “I still think this is the way we should go.”

Without hesitating, Alderpaw began to push his way through the hedge; fortunately the bushes weren't too thick. “Sandstorm, watch out for your shoulder,” he warned her.

Sandstorm brushed through without mishap, while Cherryfall and Molewhisker followed. Sparkpaw pushed Needlepaw ahead of her and brought up the rear. “I swear by StarClan,” Sparkpaw hissed as she emerged, “if you behave like this for much longer, I'm going to claw your ears off.”

Needlepaw swiped playfully at her. “You can always try.”

“Let's go,” Alderpaw mewed curtly.

He headed out into the stretch of yellow-brown plants. Their stalks were hard and scratchy, and the ground underpaw was hard, bare earth. At least Needlepaw seemed to have calmed down as she slid through the gaps between the plants.

The rumbling sound Alderpaw could hear grew louder, and he guessed that they might be coming to the Thunderpath. Then he realized that the plants on one side were thinning. Veering in that direction, he poked his head out of cover. His companions clustered around him, peering over his shoulder.

There was no Thunderpath. Instead Alderpaw saw a stretch of ground where the plants had been cut down, leaving only stubble behind. Now he discovered where the rumbling came from: a huge monster with spinning jaws was moving straight toward them, slicing off the next swath of plants and tossing them into its belly! All around it the air was full of dust.

Alderpaw felt as if his whole body had been suddenly drenched in icy water. “It's eating the field!” he gasped out.

“And it'll eat us!” Sandstorm meowed. “It could gulp down all six of us at once. Run!”

Alderpaw whipped around and began to race through the plants, bobbing and weaving as gaps opened up. Behind him he heard Cherryfall yowl, “Stay together!”

Glancing over his shoulder, Alderpaw could spot all the other cats racing along with him. The tall plants blocked his view of the monster, but he knew it was close—the noise it made seemed loud enough to rattle the air.
We have to keep running!

As he fled, Alderpaw realized that the hard ground had given way to soft mud that clung to his paws and gave off a terrible smell. He was too scared to wonder what it was, or to do anything except keep on pelting away from the monster.

Alderpaw was glancing behind him again when he suddenly crashed into something hard but springy that bounced him back a tail-length into the plants. Regaining his balance, he looked up and let out a groan.

“No! I don't believe it!”

He was facing another fence made out of the shiny tendrils with the spikes along the top. His companions gathered around him.

“We'll have to climb it,” Molewhisker meowed, “or the monster will get us.”

“Right.” Sparkpaw took the lead, climbing rapidly up the fence and hurling herself down on the other side into soft grass. “Hurry!” she urged the others.

Needlepaw went next. While Alderpaw was waiting for his turn, he noticed that some of the foul-smelling mud had got into Sandstorm's wound, which was red and swollen now. Alderpaw was certain that it was infected. And Sandstorm was standing with her head lowered and her chest heaving; she was clearly exhausted, much more so than her age and the race through the plants would explain.

It
must
be her wound,
Alderpaw told himself.
I can just feel it.
With an inward start of surprise he realized that this must be part of what being a good medicine cat was all about.
I can't just see that she should probably rest; I can tell that she needs to.

“You ought to rest,” he mewed to Sandstorm.

Sandstorm raised her head and gave him an annoyed look. “I'm an elder,” she retorted. “I've been around for a long time. I
know
I'm okay.”

Alderpaw had heard that argument before, and this time he wasn't about to accept it. “No!” he meowed sharply.

Sandstorm's eyes stretched wide in outrage. “What do you mean, no?”

“Sorry,” Alderpaw responded. “It's just that I can tell how tired you are. I'm your medicine cat, and I'm saying you
need
to rest.”

The ginger she-cat hesitated for a moment. “Maybe you're right. But let's get across this StarClan-cursed fence first.”

She began to climb without waiting for a reply. Alderpaw could see how hard it was for her to haul herself upward. When she reached the top, she toppled rather than jumped onto the far side, letting out a screech as she fell.

Alderpaw scrambled over the fence without even thinking about it, and ran to Sandstorm. His eyes widened with horror as he saw her wound pooling with blood.
She must have torn it on one of those spikes!

“That does it,” he growled. “We rest
now
.” Turning to the others, he added, “Find me some cobwebs.”

The cats scattered to search among the bushes that were dotted here and there across the grassland. While he waited for them to return, Alderpaw licked the clinging mud out of Sandstorm's wound. The old cat just lay on her side, panting.

When his companions returned, Alderpaw packed the wound with cobwebs, but blood still kept oozing out of it. He gazed down at Sandstorm, trying to ignore his rising panic.

Her wound is worse now, and she's weaker. How will she fight off the infection?

Cherryfall touched him on the shoulder. “It's getting late,” she meowed. “Should we hunt?”

Alderpaw looked up, startled. In his anxiety he hadn't noticed that the sun had gone down and the shadows of night were gathering.

“Please,” he responded. “I'll stay with Sandstorm and fix up some nests.”

He found a gentle hollow sheltered by elder bushes and heaped dead leaves into it before helping Sandstorm across to it. The old cat had stopped insisting that she was fine, and she leaned heavily on his shoulder as she staggered across to her nest.

Cherryfall came back with a mouse as Alderpaw was getting
Sandstorm settled. “Thanks,” Alderpaw mewed. “Sandstorm, eat this. And then you can go to sleep.”

“Bossy furball,” Sandstorm muttered, but she ate the mouse and curled up without protest.

Watching her, Alderpaw was relieved to see that the bleeding had almost stopped. At the same moment he realized how bone-weary he was. He could hardly keep awake until the other hunters returned, and he managed just a few mouthfuls of thrush before he too sank into sleep.

The patter of raindrops on the bushes above his head woke Alderpaw to the light of a chilly morning. Fortunately the bushes were so thick that very little rain penetrated to his nest.

Raising his head, Alderpaw saw that Sandstorm was still sleeping beside him. All the other cats were gone, except for Cherryfall, who crouched with her back to him at the top of the hollow, peering out through the branches. As Alderpaw sat up, the dead leaves crackling under his paws, she turned around.

“The others have gone hunting,” she mewed. “I stayed to keep watch. How is Sandstorm?”

Alderpaw examined the old she-cat. She was muttering in her sleep, shifting restlessly in her nest. Her wound had stopped bleeding, but it was more swollen than ever, red and hot to the touch.

Sandstorm's green eyes blinked open as Alderpaw bent over her. “Hi,” she murmured. “Have you come to do my ticks?”

Alderpaw realized that Sandstorm thought she was back in
the ThunderClan camp. “No, we're on our quest, remember?” he replied. “Is there anything I can do for you? How are you feeling?”

“I'm perfectly okay,” Sandstorm told him, her voice a little stronger. She winced, gasping in pain, as she tried to sit up, and let herself flop back into the nest. “Don't worry about me.”

But Alderpaw couldn't help worrying. Sandstorm's green eyes looked glassy, and he guessed that she was just trying to put on a brave front. When he stroked her pelt, she felt warm all over, and already she was drifting back into sleep.

She roused again a few moments later as the hunters returned, dragging a rabbit and a couple of blackbirds into the shelter of the bushes.

“It's horrible out there,” Needlepaw complained, shaking her pelt so that the drops spattered Alderpaw. “Most of the prey is in hiding.”

“You did well, though,” Alderpaw praised her. “Come on, Sandstorm, do you want one of these blackbirds?”

His misgivings increased as Sandstorm struggled to stay awake enough to eat, and after a few mouthfuls she turned her head away. “I'm full,” she mewed. “You finish it, Alderpaw.”

When the other cats had settled down at the top of the hollow to eat their prey, Alderpaw rose to his paws to talk to them. “Sandstorm is sick,” he announced. “We can't start traveling again until she's fit to move.”

“I'm fit now,” Sandstorm protested, though any cat could see she was lying. “Don't listen to this stupid furball.”

Clearly all the others understood how serious the situation
was; they gazed down silently at Sandstorm, their eyes somber. Even mischievous Needlepaw had stopped joking around.

“What can we do?” Cherryfall asked.

“You know we'll do everything we can,” Molewhisker added, and Sparkpaw nodded eagerly.

“I need marigold, horsetail, or honey,” Alderpaw told them. “They'll help Sandstorm's infection. I don't know what kinds of herbs grow around here, but hopefully you'll be able to find at least one.”

When his companions had gone, Alderpaw sat beside Sandstorm, gently licking her ears as she drifted in and out of sleep. He hardly noticed when the rain eased off, until a weak ray of sunshine sliced through the bushes. It brought Alderpaw a slight glimmer of hope.

Sparkpaw was the first cat to return, and relief flooded over Alderpaw as he saw that she was carrying a few stalks of marigold. “Good job!” he told her. “Now I can make a poultice. Can you get the cobweb off Sandstorm's wound? Very carefully, please.”

Sparkpaw sat beside Sandstorm and began to ease the wad of cobweb away. Sandstorm twitched and grunted in her sleep, as if she was in pain, but when Sparkpaw hesitated, Alderpaw just nodded to her to keep going.

While he was chewing up the marigold, Needlepaw pushed her way through the bushes with a dripping ball of moss in her jaws. “I couldn't find any herbs,” she meowed, setting the moss down beside Sandstorm, “but I brought this. I thought she might be thirsty.”

“That was a really good idea,” Alderpaw told her, feeling warmer toward the ShadowClan cat than ever before. Needlepaw ducked her head to lick her chest fur, embarrassed at his praise.

“Sandstorm.” Alderpaw gently stroked the old cat's head. “Wake up and have a drink.”

Sandstorm's green eyes blinked open. “Oh, that's good,” she breathed out, lapping at the moss.

While she drank, Alderpaw plastered the marigold poultice to her wound.
I just hope it's enough,
he thought.
I wouldn't worry so much about the infection if she weren't so weak from the bleeding.
He let out a long sigh.
Oh, I wish Leafpool or Jayfeather were here to help me!

Sandstorm reached out her tail to touch him briefly on his shoulder. “Don't worry, Alderpaw,” she rasped. “I'm going to be fine, and we must set out again soon. The . . .” For a heartbeat she hesitated. “The
others
need us,” she finished.

“Which others?” Sparkpaw asked curiously.

Alderpaw's belly lurched. “Oh, she's feverish,” he mewed quickly. “She doesn't know what she's talking about.” But inwardly he felt worse than ever.
Sandstorm must be losing her sharpness, to mention the secret.

“You have to rest,” he told her. “You have to get better. We can't finish this quest without you!”

But he was not even sure if Sandstorm had heard him. When he looked down at her, he saw that she had drifted back into a fevered sleep.

Alderpaw stood on the grass outside
the sheltering elder bushes. Above his head the sky blazed with stars. Although the night wasn't cold, he was shivering as though he had just clambered out of icy water.

Just ahead, a cat was walking away from him, toward the fence they had crossed the day before. Her head and tail were proudly raised, and she moved with a strong, purposeful gait. Starlight glimmered at her paws and around her ears.

“But that's—” Alderpaw cut off his words with a gasp, and he spun around to check on the nest beneath the elder bushes.

But the elder bushes were no longer there. When Alderpaw turned back, the fence had vanished, too. He stood in the middle of a stretch of lush grass, with whispering groves of trees all around. The starry cat was facing him now, and he saw clearly that it was Sandstorm.

“Oh, no, no . . . ,” he whispered.

The ginger she-cat looked taller and stronger than he had ever seen her, and her infected wound had disappeared. Her pelt was thick and sleek, and her green eyes gleamed with love for him.

“It is my time to leave you,” she meowed, with no pain or confusion in her voice. “But don't worry, Alderpaw. StarClan is where I belong now.”

“No!” Alderpaw protested with all the strength that was in him. “You can't leave us now. We need you!”

“This is my destiny,” Sandstorm responded. “And you do not need me anymore. You are stronger than you know. Listen.” She took a pace toward him. “You must lead the others now. Continue heading toward the rising sun. It is many days' journey, and you will have to cross a very big and busy Thunderpath. After that, you will come to a river. Follow it upstream, and you will find the gorge where SkyClan has their camp.”

Alderpaw tried to memorize what Sandstorm was telling him.
The rising sun . . . a big Thunderpath . . . then the river.
At the same time, he felt hot with shame that she wouldn't be there to guide him. He turned his gaze away, unable to go on looking at her.

“I failed you,” he muttered.

“No,” Sandstorm murmured gently. “No cat could have done more to help me. I doubt that even Jayfeather or Leafpool could have kept me alive so long. I knew the risks when I chose to come on this quest,” she reminded him. “I know how important your visions are.”

“But you could have lived for many seasons in ThunderClan,” Alderpaw mewed wretchedly.

“And now I will live for many more in StarClan,” Sandstorm pointed out. “I will get to see Firestar again, and all the
cats I have loved and lost. Alderpaw, this is how it was meant to be. You have nothing to feel ashamed of, or guilty about.”

Alderpaw turned in an anxious circle, unable to believe what Sandstorm was telling him.
What will I do without her? How will I lead this quest?

“This
isn't
a vision!” he insisted, fear overwhelming him. “It's just a dream. I'm going to wake up, and you'll be sleeping beside me, just like always. You're going to be all right.”

Sandstorm's eyes glowed with a mixture of pity and affection. “I was dying,” she reminded Alderpaw. “You knew that, didn't you?”

“No—you're going to get better!” Alderpaw retorted, even though deep within him was the cold certainty that she was right. “I'm going to make sure of it!”

Sandstorm gave a sad shake of her head. “There was nothing you could have done to save me. It was my time to die. No cat lives forever. This is one of the most important lessons that you—or any medicine cat—will ever learn.”

On the last few words her voice began to fade, while the starry light around her blazed brighter and brighter, until Alderpaw couldn't go on looking at the dazzling glory. A moment later he jerked awake in his nest under the elder bushes.

Thank StarClan! It was only a dream. Sandstorm is right here beside me.

Scrambling to his paws, Alderpaw turned to nudge Sandstorm awake. But as soon as his pads touched her fur, he knew that he hadn't been dreaming. Sandstorm's fur was limp, the
body beneath it cold, and her ribs weren't rising and falling with her breath.

It was a vision. Sandstorm is dead.

Alderpaw backed away in horror, his fur pricking up and his belly clenching. He couldn't keep back a wail of distress. “No!
No!
It
wasn't
her time!”

Cherryfall's head popped up from her nest. “Alderpaw? What's happening?”

The other cats were waking, too, confused and questioning. A shocked silence fell over them as Alderpaw pointed to Sandstorm's body with his tail. Slowly they all padded over to Sandstorm and stood looking down, a tail-length away from the huddle of cold fur.

Sparkpaw was the first to break the silence. “She's . . . she's dead, isn't she? Now what do we do?”

“Sandstorm was the only one who knew the route,” Molewhisker pointed out gloomily. “We were relying on her to help us complete the journey. Is her death telling us that the quest is doomed?”

Murmurs of agreement, with a note of fear, came from the other cats.

In spite of his grief, Alderpaw felt a surge of purpose flooding through him from ears to tail-tip. “Sandstorm wouldn't want us to stand around like this, wondering what to do,” he told the sad and confused cats in front of him. “She would want us to sit vigil with her, and then bury her, before we decide what to do next.”

“You're right,” Cherryfall meowed. “Let's do that.”

Together the ThunderClan cats dragged Sandstorm out of the nest and laid her on the grass, gently stroking her fur and fluffing up her tail. It was dark; the sky was studded with stars, as if all the spirits of their warrior ancestors were waiting to welcome Sandstorm and to honor her.

As they began to settle down around her, Needlepaw padded up to Alderpaw. “I know Sandstorm wasn't my Clanmate,” she murmured; to Alderpaw's surprise she sounded almost shy. “But I traveled with her long enough to know what a great cat she was. May I keep vigil with you?”

“Sure,” Alderpaw replied, warming once again to the silver she-cat. “Come and sit by me.”

Sparkpaw crouched down beside Sandstorm's head, and gave her ears a lick. “We've come all this way,” she mewed sorrowfully. “We've come so close to being killed by monsters or foxes; we've fought so hard to survive. . . . It doesn't seem fair that Sandstorm died anyway.”

“I know,” Cherryfall sighed. “She deserved so much more than this.”

“What do you think, Alderpaw?” Molewhisker asked, turning to him. “Do you still want to go on?”

Alderpaw bit back a sharp retort.
I just told them they could agonize
after
we laid Sandstorm to rest.
“I'll think about it during the vigil,” he replied.

“Maybe StarClan will send you a sign,” Cherryfall suggested.

The questing cats gathered around Sandstorm's body, staying there throughout the night. Sustained by the day spent
drowsing in the den, Alderpaw didn't find it hard to keep awake. He tried to focus on the future, but he couldn't help wondering if there was anything he could have done to keep Sandstorm alive.

She told me in my vision that it was her destiny to die now,
he thought.
So why does my heart still ache? And if every cat is going to die eventually, why bother trying so hard to stay alive?

Eventually he dozed, and he roused to hear the voices of the other cats. Blinking his eyes open, he found himself surrounded by the gray light of dawn.

“Back in camp,” Cherryfall was mewing, “the elders bury our dead Clanmates. Molewhisker and I are the oldest cats here, so we ought to do it.”

“But I want to help,” Sparkpaw protested, raw grief in her voice. “She was my mother's mother.”

“Okay, you can,” Molewhisker told her comfortingly.

Alderpaw staggered to his paws, his legs stiff after the night spent in vigil. “Let me say the proper farewell to her.” He took a deep breath, looking up at the sky where a few warriors of StarClan still lingered. “May StarClan light your path, Sandstorm,” he meowed, speaking the words used by medicine cats for season upon season. “May you find good hunting, swift running, and shelter when you sleep.”

All the cats bowed their heads for a moment.

“We need to find a good spot for her burial,” Molewhisker mewed after a moment. “What about under these bushes where she died?”

Cherryfall shook her head. “She'd be hidden from the stars
there. Just beside the bushes would be better.”

Molewhisker nodded agreement. As he and Cherryfall were preparing to move Sandstorm's body, he said quietly, “I think we should consider turning around and going home. This quest might be doomed.”

“What?” It was Needlepaw who spoke, her neck fur bristling. “Sandstorm died trying to help us complete this quest. If we stop now, won't she have died in vain?”

Molewhisker swung around on her. “It's not your decision,” he spat, his voice sharp as a claw. “In case it escaped your notice, you're not a ThunderClan cat.”

Alderpaw felt his whole pelt quiver as he listened to the quarrel breaking out. Not waiting for Needlepaw's response, he turned and padded away, keeping to the line of the fence they had crossed two days before. He just wanted to get out of earshot, to find a little peace and quiet where he could think.

His chest fur burned with grief for Sandstorm, and his head swam with indecision.
Should we even go on? Sandstorm so wanted to see SkyClan again, and that made me feel that we were meant to be on this quest. But now that she's gone, do I even believe that these strange cats could be what StarClan says will solve our problems? Not even
Bramblestar
seemed certain of it.
Sighing, he remembered his last vision of the SkyClan cats, when they were shrieking for help.
Why do they need me?
he asked himself.
What can
I
do for them?

Looking up, he saw that the last starry spirits had vanished and the sky was brightening toward sunrise.
I wonder if Sandstorm can see me now. Can she hear my thoughts? I really wish I could ask her for guidance.

Letting out another long sigh, he spoke aloud. “What am I going to do?”

“Tell them the truth,” a voice replied.

Alderpaw started and swung around, arching his back, even while he recognized the voice as Needlepaw's. The ShadowClan cat showed none of her usual mischief as she approached him.

“The others have come this far,” she began, “and they won't turn away from you now. You must go on. But first you must tell the others the truth about why you're on this journey.”

“Do
you
even know why?” Alderpaw asked tartly.

“No, I don't. I only heard a little bit of what you and Sandstorm said,” Needlepaw admitted, her eyes serious. “But I know there's more behind it than you've told us, and I think it's time every cat knew the truth. If you don't tell them, I will.” As Alderpaw opened his jaws to protest, she added, “Or I'll tell them what I know, and that will force you to tell the rest.”

Alderpaw stared at her in outrage. “I didn't think you would betray me like that!”

Needlepaw flinched as if he had struck her a blow. “It's not a betrayal,” she said, defending herself. “I've seen how you think things over—and over and over and over again. I know you'd never tell the others the truth on your own, but I think it's important for them to know.”

“Why?” Alderpaw challenged her.

“It will help bind them together after losing Sandstorm,” Needlepaw explained; Alderpaw realized she must have
thought long and hard about this. “And it will help every cat recognize how important the quest is. I saw how you and Sandstorm looked at each other when you talked about it; I know how serious it is.”

Alderpaw thought about that, then gave a nod, trying to hide his surprise.
I can't believe it's Needlepaw of all cats giving me such wise advice.
“I'll do as you suggest,” he meowed.