CHAPTER ONE: An unexpected meeting
1. Ivywhisker
She met him during her first spring as a warrior.
"Ivywhisker!" Swanfall flicked his ear and the other two members of the patrol carried on ahead while he waited for her to catch up. "I assure you, StoneClan's warriors aren't hiding in rotting logs."
She fluffed her fur defensively. "I know that," Ivywhisker said with a huff, her ears burning at her half-brother's gentle teasing. It would be better if she had a viable excuse --prey scent, perhaps, or herbs-- but she didn't, and so she clamped her jaw shut and forced herself to look Swanfall in the eye.
He touched his nose to her flank. "You'd be a better warrior than most if you focused on the job," Swanfall said, starting forward and leaving her to trail beside him, her fur prickling with his blunt honesty. Ivywhisker could see Lilacsun and Hemlockpaw, the spring brush wasn't dense enough to hide their forms, but they were still far enough apart that Lilacsun wouldn't hear them.
Ivywhisker's embarrassment was beginning to fray into frustration. "I know, Swanfall. I said I'm sorry." Sometimes her thoughts got away from her, that's all! She didn't know why her brother was making such a fuss about it; Hemlockpaw was constantly following tracks far into the woods, and Lilacsun didn't scold him for that. Ivywhisker's hackles rose and she shoved off Swanfall's next attempt at consoling her, stomping ahead with heavy paws and claws twitching between her paw pads.
The white tomcat sighed. "StoneClan warriors were on the mainland last night," he said, his voice low, serious.
It was enough that Ivywhisker hesitated. "StoneClan is always crossing the river, that's nothing new," she said with a huff, dismissing Swanfall's concern. But there was a seed of discomfort settling in her stomach now, uprooting her anger and sharpening her senses. The forest beyond suddenly felt quieter and she fluffed her fur against the silence.
"They left scent markers all over the Lush Meadow."
"Already?" The Lush Meadow, despite its name, was a soggy mess until late summer, where it became a hotspot for rare herbs. Why would StoneClan want to make a move for it now?
Swanfall caught up to her as she hesitated, distracted by her own thoughts, trying to discern the reasons StoneClan might try. . . what? "Keep your nose sharp, Ivywhisker. CreekClan needs you today." He waited for her nod before sprinting ahead to confer with Lilacsun. He must have warned her of the same danger, as the golden she-cat gathered Hemlockpaw close with her tail.
With a frown, Ivywhisker trotted to catch up. They were close to the Lush Meadow now, and if StoneClan warriors were lurking, she'd do best to keep up with her patrol. Just in case.
2. Slatepool
He wished there was another way.
"Quiet," Slatepool hissed, peeping over the fallen log to the south, towards CreekClan's camp. If a patrol was going to come by, it would be from that direction.
If anything, Copperstrike became louder, splattering mud atop crunchy autumn leaves as she dug into the boggy earth. The ginger she-cat was covered in the stuff, more black and blobby browns than ginger. Hopefully the stink will cover our scent, Slatepool thought, turning away to continue his watch, worry itching his pelt.
"There's nothing here," Copperstrike finally said, her voice punctuated by a nasty squelch. "You stay here, keep an eye out for patrols. I'll check if Cloudyflight had better luck."
"Be careful."
The senior warrior rolled her eyes behind her mask of mud. "It's just CreekClan, fish-brain. What're they gonna do? Throw fish at us until we leave?" She snorted and shook her head, spraying the side of his muzzle with the acrid sludge, then headed north, crashing through the brush towards the other end of the Lush Meadow where Cloudyflight and Tadpolepaw were excavating early horsetail from the muck.
Hopefully.
Slatepool's fur stood up as he realized he was now alone in CreekClan's territory. He wasn't too far from the river, but he couldn't see it, and the thought of not having a quick escape made his ears buzz and fur prickle. Trapped.
No, he had a good vantage down the trail leading to CreekClan's camp, and the wind was blowing in his favor. It would be impossible for a patrol to sneak around him, he was certain. Slatepool's only job was to watch the path and warn the others at the first signs of a CreekClan patrol. An apprentices' job, really. He'd be fine.
It didn't stop worry from slipping in his stomach like a ball of worms, but it did calm the fur on his shoulders and kept his paws from twitching. Once he gathered himself, he peeked over the log again.
Nothing.
Relief flooded over him as he dropped back into hiding. See? Cloudyflight will get enough horsetail for all the sick cats, and we'll be back over the river before sun-high.
3. Ivywhisker
What would have happened if she didn't scout ahead?
It was Lilacsun that noticed the water-darkened pebbles on the riverbank. "Was a patrol scheduled to hunt here this early?" she asked, looking to Swanfall.
The older white tom shook his head, his eyes narrowed as he checked for scent, even if he knew it would be impossible to pick up anything over the cleansing river water. "It could be a warrior with a free morning come for a swim," he proposed, "but let's treat it as if something is amiss."
Lilacsun nodded. Ivywhisker wandered further up the bank, brushing against the twigs and grass fronds as she followed the quickly drying trail of wet --well, wetter-- earth. She had a better nose than Swanfall, and StoneClanners weren't accustomed to heavy foliage, meaning...
"Gotcha." Ivywhisker spotted a tuft of ginger fur caught in a bramble ahead. She stalked up beside it, keeping a low profile now that she was atop the bank, but she hardly had to reach before her nose was filled with StoneClan's scent: bitter, like sand grit between teeth. Ivywhisker sneezed the scent from her nose before hopping down onto the pebbly shore with her Clanmates. "It's StoneClan, and it's fresh," she confirmed.
Swanfall dipped his head towards her with a smile and she felt a rush from his praise. See, I can focus, she thought, which was more than a little petty, but she deserved it. "What should we do about it?" Lilacsun asked, again turning to the patrol leader. "They wouldn't have trespassed with fewer than four cats, it's not worth the risk with a small patrol." The golden she-cat looked between them, as if counting their own number. Hemlockpaw made himself taller as his mentor's gaze passed over him, but that didn't change the fact that they only had three warriors and an apprentice.
"Chestnutdrift is holding a mock battle session in the clearing north of the Arched Ash," Swanfall replied. Perhaps there was merit to waking up early and listening to the deputy's schedule, but Ivywhisker figured knowing about things was for the older cats. "That's not too far from here. There'll be WhistleClan warriors there too, and I know they'd all much rather a real fight than a staged one. Hemlockpaw?"
The apprentice kept his eyes to the ground, as if that would keep him away from playing messenger. "Yeah, I know where it's at," he said, cutting off Swanfall's question as he got to his paws.
Lilacsun's whiskers twitched watching her apprentices' grudging acceptance of the task. "We won't fight without back up, so get back quickly before they get away, yeah?" Hemlockpaw's ears perked at the chance to be in a fight and he sped off on the trail back to camp.
"Ivywhisker?" Swanfall asked, and she blinked, feeling the two remaining warriors' attention shift to her. "Could you scout ahead? Run away if they spot you and be careful not to fall into any ambushes, but it would be helpful to know their numbers before the battle patrol arrives."
For a moment, she sat on the pebbles, stunned, until she realized what Swanfall was asking of her. Anticipation swirled up in a wave and Ivywhisker nodded before the opportunity could pass her by. Now this was real responsibility! a part of her crowed. A smaller, sour voice whispered: better not mess it up. "I can do it."
"I know you can," her half brother assured her.
"Let StarClan gift you stealth," Lilacsun said, and the kind golden she-cat brushed her cheek against Ivywhisker's, tickling her fur. "It's likely they'll use this crossing again, so Swanfall and I will keep watch here.."
Swanfall hummed. "That's a good point, Lilacsun. We'll find a place to watch the shore. Call if you need help and we'll be right on your tail, Ivywhisker."
The three warriors got to their paws, Swanfall and Lilacsun retreating back along the trail to camp to find a thicket dense enough to conceal them as they surveyed the river bank, and Ivywhisker to the fur she'd spotted earlier. The grey she-cat's hackles rose, both from her nerves and excitement of the task, and she grounded herself by focusing on the damp earth beneath her paws.
Ivywhisker paused at the tuft of fur, drinking in a deep breath of the scent, then gliding forward in a low prowl, following the trail through the new-leaf undergrowth. Flowers and fragrant mosses, revived from the warmth, battled in her nose, but she doggedly held onto the gritty, bitter scent of StoneClan as she wound through the trees.
Careful, she reminded herself, slipping into a heightened awareness, stalking like in the games she'd played with her littermates as an apprentice. The stakes may be higher, but Ivywhisker had plenty of practice sneaking up on Mallowflash to see how far her skittish brother would jump, or snatching away precious morsels from under Wavepatch's nose, and Ivywhisker quickly found herself moving in rhythm with the forest's sounds.
She had nearly reached the Lush Meadow's swampy edge when she heard voices. Ivywhisker froze, glad she had decided to weave through the trees, where she'd be less exposed than the trail. She didn't see a cat at first, just movement and a flash of ginger. The shape was wrong but as her eyes traced the figure across the Meadow from her vantage, Ivywhisker realized that it was a cat covered entirely with mud with only patches of their fur visible, the rest blending seamlessly with the dark, swampy earth.
If they were trying to use the mud to hide their fur or their scent, they had done a poor job of it.
Ginger. That was the color of the fur caught in the brambles back on the riverbank. Could it really only have been one cat? No, there had been too much water for that; even a cat with thick fur wouldn't have dripped that much onto the stones. Lilacsun was probably closer to the mark with four or five cats. So where are the others?
The Lush Meadow, as the name implied, was dense. At this time of year, the sedges were browned and the vines barren, but the dead foliage still shielded much of the Meadow from view. If she could get a better vantage... Ivywhisker scanned the area and found what she was looking for: a slight rise to the east, topped with a decaying log. That should be enough to get a good view of the Meadow, if the other StoneClan cats were around.
Ivywhisker picked her way around the edge of the Meadow, her paws soundlessly cushioned by the damp peat moss carpeting the ground between the trees as she stealthed up the small hill.
4. Slatepool
The first thing he saw were her eyes.
Slatepool lifted himself to take another scan over the log and was met with a pair of yellow eyes peeking back at him.
They both froze, but she recovered first, darting over the rotted log in a flash of grey fur to tackle him to the ground, slamming his face into the dirt. Even stronger than the stench of mud was her, CreekClan, a scent brighter than sunlight glinting over waves and richer than peat moss after rain. She leaned down and the smell nearly choked him.
Or perhaps that was just the mud, pressed against his jaw and squelching in between his teeth.
“StoneClan fox-heart,” the CreekClan she-cat said, her voice a low snarl meant only for his ears. “Trespasser!” Slatepool's first instinct was to shout for help, but that meant opening his mouth to the mud, and he wasn’t very keen on that.
So he went limp, hoping she’d relax her hold and he could use the slippery mud to squeeze free. The grey warrior was wise to that particular trick, though, and she dug her claws deeper into his shoulders, pinning him tightly, leaving Slatepool to devote a lot of his focus not to wince in pain, terrified any slackening of his jaw would drown him in mud.
“How many StoneClan warriors did you bring? Huh?” The grey she-cat dug her hind claws into Slatepool’s leg and he closed his eyes, shaking his head as much as he could from where she pinned it down. Slatepool was breathing heavily from his nose, trying to ignore the cold slime shifting under his fur.
It was then that she realized that he couldn’t answer with his face pushed into the mud, her yellow eyes going wide before narrowing again. She growled in frustration, but it wasn’t like she’d let him up, because he was slowly realizing that she was also alone and she didn’t want him calling for reinforcements.
At least, not before hers arrived first.
So they were stuck.
Slatepool growled deep in his throat, wishing more than anything else that he hadn’t been chosen for this mission. Not like there were any other options, since most of StoneClan’s warriors couldn’t swim the river with a cough, and while most of the apprentices had been spared the illness, it wasn’t like Cloudyflight could have sent a group of apprentices into enemy territory with only Copperstrike’s dubious supervision. His tail flicked in irritation, the only part of him that wasn’t being subsumed into the muck.
Wait. His eyes snapped back open and though he couldn’t open his mouth to speak, he grunted to get the grey she-cat’s attention. “I’m not letting you up, fish-brain,” she snapped.
He tapped her hip with his tail. Once. Twice. Four. “Mph!”
Slatepool would do anything if it meant he didn’t have to be pushed into the mud, and telling the CreekClan warrior their number wasn’t really conceding much, since he bet she had a patrol behind her with how much she was checking over her shoulder into the trees. “What’s your deal?” she hissed as he wriggled, her yellow eyes narrowed. Again, he gave her four deliberate taps with his tail and she finally connected the dots. “Four warriors.”
“Mhm!” She understood! It didn’t make up for the mud, but Slatepool was proud of himself for figuring out how to communicate that information, and it did get her to stop digging her claws into his leg, which he was grateful for, though she kept his muzzle firmly pinned in the muck. “What are you here for? Did you really think you could hold territory across a river?”
Now that was a question he couldn’t answer with tail taps. And, what surprised him most, is that he was willing to talk. Not just because his patrol was in no condition to fight --they needed every paw to help feed their sick back at home-- but because he trusted her to let them go. Slatepool couldn’t put his paw on why he trusted her, he just did. Maybe it was the way her eyes had lit up when she understood his attempt at communication, or maybe it was how she tipped her head, as if she didn’t want to be seen with him any more than he wanted to be here, or perhaps it was simply because he realized that she was about his age and he felt a spark of kinship with this CreekClan cat from across the river.
Whatever had planted the seed, it was fed by desperation and watered by the growing urge to get free of this rancid mud before it killed his sense of smell forever. He didn’t struggle, fixing the she-cat with a wide-eyed stare. Take pity on me, he tried to tell her with his gestures, I won’t run, just for the love of StarClan let me up.
5. Ivywhisker
There was sadness in his eyes, but also… hope?
She didn’t want to trust him. A StoneClan cat, a trespasser on CreekClan territory! But she was curious. They must know they couldn’t hold land on the other side of the river, not for long, and especially not this close to CreekClan’s camp. While Ivywhisker waited for the patrol to catch up, she was trying to fit the pieces together, but answers slipped away like minnow between her claws.
Why was he here?
With a frustrated growl she leaned into his face. The StoneClan tom flinched away from her sudden motion, but his eye never left hers: wide, amber like flames, pleading. “Fine!” Ivywhisker finally whispered through her teeth. “I’ll let you up but you have to promise not to yell. Swear it on StarClan or else I will make this,” she flexed her paw against the side of his face, watching the slime inch up his jaw another whisker, “a whole lot worse for you.”
The dark tom blinked and wriggled, nodding the best he could, which only served to mire him deeper. So stupid, she scolded herself, even as she shifted her weight and let the tom rise on his shoulders, gasping huge breaths now that his head was free of the sucking mud. He turned sharply and Ivywhisker tensed, ready to throw him back down if he made to scream, but the tom only spat dirt to try and rid himself of the taste and, well, she couldn’t really blame him for that, having walked those pawprints more than once in her apprenticeship. “Thanks,” he finally said, softly, his voice a rasp. “I swear on all the stars above I’ll do as you say. Please don’t put me in the mud again.”
“No promises,” Ivywhisker grumbled, but she knew her threats felt thin. She could hear the terror in the StoneClan warrior’s voice; he’d do as he said unless she gave him reason to fear for his life, or his Clanmates’.
Which meant they were on a timer, since Hemlockpaw and his battle patrol would be well on their way. “Well? You can speak now, so explain yourself.”
“Horsetail. We’re looking for herbs.”
Ivywhisker narrowed her eyes. “Early in the season for stocking up.” She didn’t have to mention that the Order of Honey always had plenty of excess, available for any Clan that found themselves low on supplies, or needed herbs that didn’t readily grow in their climate.
The grey tomcat winced; they were both well aware that trespassing for herbs --on the mainland! where CreekClan was strongest-- wasn’t a trivial decision. “Our warriors are sick. We need the herbs now.”
“Go to the Order of Honey if it’s that serious.”
The grey tom huffed a breath, half of a laugh, even as he was still pinned in the mud beneath her paws. “Your leader would have known the moment we stepped foot in the Order’s camp and then we’d have CreekClan warriors flooding our territory by the next sunrise.”
He… wasn’t wrong. Pinestar wouldn’t pass up such a wonderful opportunity to take Heron’s Rest for CreekClan, as well as some of the smaller isles to the south, testing the waters. If StoneClan couldn’t muster enough resistance, he might even try to take the River’s Throat and cut StoneClan off from the Crossing altogether. Unless SkyClan intervened, StoneClan would be weakened for moons, maybe even seasons, perhaps enough that CreekClan could march on their camp--
Okay, she could see why Swallowstar would have resorted to trespassing and theft. Ivywhisker shifted her weight, but now that his face was free from the mud, the grey tom was making no effort to flee. “Either way, CreekClan knows now.”
“No, you know now,” the StoneClan warrior corrected, his amber eyes wide and pleading again.
StarClan, she hated that look. Ivywhisker had to turn her eyes to the dark fur of his shoulder before she could muster the will to scoff. “Why wouldn’t I tell Pinestar? StoneClan has been a thorn in our flanks for seasons.”
The tom wilted under her paws, mud slicking over the fur of his stomach. Even his tail, which he had carefully kept free of the sludge, had fallen. Ivywhisker was very glad she wasn’t looking at his face, she didn’t think she could stand to watch the embers in his eyes die. “It’s my brother that’s sick,” he said, almost conversationally with how the emotion was stripped away. “But it doesn’t matter anyways. We couldn’t find any horsetail.”
“Of course not. The only place it grows is in the southern marshes.” She didn’t know why she said that. Her gaze snapped to his eyes, which were just as shocked.
But his hope faded just as quickly and he leaned his head back into the muck. “The southern marshes or the moon, we missed our chance.”
The StoneClan warrior’s defeat should have filled her with pride, or at least with satisfaction, but Ivywhisker couldn’t help but to feel pity. What if it had been her brothers that were sick? Swanfall? Mallowflash? As soon as she imagined Mallowflash, withered and coughing in their nest, she knew she couldn’t fault this StoneClan warrior for his actions. Ivywhisker would have raided StoneClan’s camp by herself if her brothers were sick and that was the only way to save them.
She sighed and let him up, pushing her paws off his mud-soaked chest with a wet squelch. For a pair of heartbeats, he didn’t move, his amber eyes questing up at her. “What…?”
“Two apprentices.” Ivywhisker felt the lies rush up quicker than the river after a storm. “They crossed the river on a dare. I scared the fish-brains off.” She shouldn’t be covering for him, but she wasn’t going to let a cat’s brother die because of politics. Ivywhisker stood straighter, looking over her shoulder to check if the battle patrol was near, but the southern forest was still empty.
6. Slatepool
He couldn't believe she let him go.
Her paws left his chest, yet Slatepool stayed frozen in the mud, hesitant to trust a CreekClan cat's mercy. Then she was splashing mud along her own flanks, painting the grey tabby with smears of black and Slatepool quickly scrambled away so she wouldn’t splatter him too. Not that most of him wasn’t completely covered in mud by now, but he certainly didn’t want any more. “It has to look like I followed,” she explained.
He nodded, checking behind him as he backed up. He hoped Cloudyflight hadn’t gone too far. “Use the bridge north of the rapids. My Clanmates will have the nearby banks guarded."
It was a long detour and Slatepool winced. So much for getting back before sun-high; they’d be lucky to make it home before dusk. Mud squelched between his toes as he turned to leave. “Wait,” he paused, turned, then his eyes went wide. He could see movement over her shoulder: the CreekClan reinforcements. There had to be two dozen cats, crashing through the trees in the distance like a wall of water heralding a flood.
Slatepool’s spine arched and his ears pressed back --his fur would have stood on end if it wasn’t throughly plastered down with mud. She followed his eyes then spat, turning to him with wide, yellow eyes. “Meet me at crossing stones at dusk, okay? I’ll bring horsetail. Go!”
He didn’t take the time to process that. Slatepool fled. The mud held him back, pulling on his paws and weighing him down, but he sped onwards through the thick, yellowed sedges. “Copperstrike!” he said, his voice not quite a screech. He could hardly see as he pressed through the tussocks of dead grasses and dodged thickets of branches that would be green come summer, but now were dead and crunchy.
He didn’t look behind him.
She’ll keep them distracted long enough, he thought, surprised at how easily the trust came. “She has to.”
Finally he saw a flash of Copperstrike’s bright ginger fur through the swamp and swerved her direction. Cloudyflight was there too, alongside the small, mud encrusted silhouette of Tadpolepaw, the three of them looking down into a pit of mud. He skidded to a stop, spraying more mud their direction, making Cloudyflight curl her lip. “CreekClan warriors incoming,” he said between breaths. “Gotta go now.”
Copperstrike was the first to react, throwing herself into the brush towards the river. “North, to the bridge,” he called after her, as Cloudyflight pushed her apprentice to his paws and started him forward. Copperstrike stopped, turned, a snarl splitting her muddy face into a slash of fangs.
“The river is close--”
“They’re watching the river. This was a trap.” Cloudyflight’s eyes sparked as her lip curled again, but the deputy trusted his word and led the StoneClan patrol into the trees, heading north as fast as they could move with mud weighing them down.
Copperstrike was not as quick to trust, but had little choice but to follow. Slatepool anxiously watched the trees behind them as the patrol hurried north, but he didn’t see a single CreekClan warrior following. They only slowed after they had crossed the bridge back into familiar territory, and that was when it really hit him: she had saved him.
And not just him, she had promised to give him the horsetail StoneClan desperately needed.
The idea that a CreekClan warrior would go so far to help him was impossible. Yet. . .
“How did you know it was a trap?” Copperstrike pressed. Now that they were on friendly territory, the patrol had relaxed their pace and caught their breath, washing the mud from their pelts at the first chance they had. They still had a long day’s walk back to StoneClan’s camp.
Slatepool knew she wouldn’t believe him if he told her a CreekClan warrior had let him go; he still hardly believed it himself. “They had over two dozen warriors in their battle patrol and they were expecting us to flee that way.”
Copperstrike scoffed. “CreekClan doesn’t even have two dozen warriors.”
“They must have had reinforcements. WhistleClan, probably.” Everyone in the Circle knew CreekClan and WhistleClan were like honey and bees: you couldn’t go far from one without seeing the other. Not just allies, together for politics but probing for weaknesses behind each other’s backs, no, they were friendly. There were rumors that the border between the two Clans was completely open, and that warriors could hunt and wander where they pleased, with friendships and mates encouraged between the two Clans.
Slatepool didn’t quite believe it, but it was hard to imagine the two Clans were merely allies with how many WhistleClan warriors had been bolstering CreekClan’s ranks. “We should have risked the river. Now we’ve wasted the entire day with nothing to show for it,” Copperstrike snapped.
“Peace,” Cloudyflight interjected, “our Clan needs every paw it can get. That means keeping safe at all costs. Even if there had been a chance of a fight, it would have been catastrophic if even one of us had been injured or captured.”
Slatepool blinked a quick thanks to the deputy, glad she’d stood up for him. Copperstrike simmered, but even the fiery molly didn’t dare contradict their deputy. “I’ll hunt on the way back then,” she snapped. “At least I’ll have something to bring back to our sick Clanmates.”
He watched her sprint into the trees, her ginger pelt a streak of light before she disappeared. Cloudyflight sighed. “Copperstrike is right, we should hunt.”
The CreekClan she-cat’s voice echoed in his head:
meet me at crossing stones at dusk, okay? I’ll bring horsetail. He’d be hard pressed to make it there before dusk, but he had to try, and Cloudyflight had given him the perfect excuse to go off on his own. “I’ll try nearer the banks, then.” He waited until Cloudyflight dismissed him, turning to her apprentice --poor Tadpolepaw, the young tom was exhausted, his tail dragging in the dirt-- before he hurried off to the south.
She’d better be there, Slatepool thought, clamping down on the hope that was starting to bloom. It was then that he realized he didn’t even ask her name.
7. Ivywhisker
She couldn't get him out of her head.
Ivywhisker rolled her eyes, brushing some of the mud off her pelt. "It was just apprentices messing around in the mud. When they saw the battle patrol over the hill, they ran. I followed to make sure they crossed the river."
"Just apprentices?"
"Yeah, two of them. Probably came over on a dare."
Swanfall's eyes were ablaze. "It could have been a trap." He took a step towards Ivywhisker, holding himself taller to loom over her, but she wasn't intimidated.
She knew his scolding would be much, much worse if he knew what she had really done.
"It's fine, I promise," she reassured him, because it was. "I made sure to scout around the Lush Meadow first. I was careful." She hadn't been and she would have been in deep trouble if the StoneClan warrior had come out on top in their scuffle, but he didn't have to know about that because it hadn't happened.
Swanfall looked about ready to go off again, so Ivywhisker quickly cut her half-brother off before he could start. "Sorry for disrupting your battle training," she apologized to Gingerfreckle, going right over Swanfall's head. His lip curled in the beginning of a snarl but he stepped back so that the WhistleClan deputy could have the proper attention.
Gingerfreckle's smile was polite, but terse. "It doesn't hurt to be cautious." Many of the others in the battle patrol were grumbling, put out that they had come all this way for nothing. "And perhaps StarClan has led our paws to a more apt training field," she added, pointing with a ginger-tipped tail towards the quagmire that was the Lush Meadow. The WhistleClan deputy looked over her shoulder to Duckshadow, who was leading CreekClan's half of the scrimmage, checking if the change was amenable, especially since this territory was firmly inside CreekClan’s territory.
“Why not? We’re already here,” the dark molly replied.
“Excellent.” Gingerfreckle turned back to Ivywhisker, her smile less forced this time. “Then there’s no reason to apologize. And even if there are StoneClan warriors here for an elaborate ambush,” she said, flicking an ear towards Swanfall in concession of his worry, “I would think they’d be smart enough to retreat with the mock battle patrol around.”
“Indeed.” Swanfall’s voice belied his clenched jaw.
With that, the battle patrol broke away, leaving the four cats of the dawn patrol behind: Swanfall, who looked like he’d just stepped on a nest of hornets; Lilacsun, who was watching the white tom with distant concern; Hemlockpaw, who was dejectedly staring at his paws, denied his chance to fight; and Ivywhisker, who was relieved the conversation with the patrol had taken long enough that the StoneClan warriors could flee.
“Now that that’s dealt with, let’s finish this patrol.” Ivywhisker nodded and fell in step, letting her paws take her down the familiar trails. Her mind wasn’t in it, though, and she kept reliving the electric moment on the muddy hillside, her mouth whispering over and over: “meet me at the crossing stones at dusk.”
8. Slatepool
And there she was, across the river.
Slatepool stood on the StoneClan side of the Crossing Stones, just as she stood on the CreekClan bank. This far south, the river was shallow and more than a tree-length wide, but Slatepool could recognize the cat standing on the banks was the same grey molly he’d talked with earlier that day.
The late evening sun haloed her in gold.
Slatepool was rooted to the pebble bank, his exhaustion and surprise equally overwhelmed by a flood of relief. She’d actually done it.
She didn’t look about to move to his side of the river, so it would be up to him to ferry the herbs across. At least the river wasn’t too swollen with ice-melt from the north; he could still clearly see the peaks of stones breaking free from the current, a narrow but dry path across the water. The dusk patrol had already passed by, scent markers fresh along the brush, so Slatepool was confident there was no cat that would see him crossing to CreekClan.
He hopped out onto the first three stones, steadying himself on the largest. The next gap was larger and he glanced down at the water swirling beneath his paws.
Honestly, the worst injuries he could get from the river here would be to his pride. That, and he’d have to fight the current as he crossed, else he’d be swept completely off the edge of the world.
Okay, that might be a good reason to watch his paws.
Slatepool gathered his muscles and his courage and made the leap to the next stone, digging his claws into the mossy clefts to keep his balance. The next four stones were laid in a zig zag, but were flat and close enough that he didn’t worry as he hopped across those with ease.
He was a quarter of the way across the river, now, and looking downstream, he could clearly see the Edge of the World in the distance, a cliff that fell away into nothing. The world simply ended, like StarClan forgot to finish their job in creating the land, leaving an abrupt void for the river to fall into forever.
Slatepool’s claws slipped out as he pulled his eyes away: he was always uncomfortable being close to the Edge.
Only twice did he need to pause before the CreekClan bank, worried over the distance between the stones, but his limbs carried him over steadily and by the last quarter, he’d gained confidence that even if he did fall and had to swim, that he’d safely make it across. He had been so focused on his footing that he’d forgotten his destination and what awaited him on the opposite bank.
He stepped down onto the shore and was surrounded by CreekClan.
Slatepool’s hackles rose instinctively as he dropped into a crouch, CreekClan’s scent overwhelming his nose, pressing down--
But it was only her.
Embarrassed, he licked at his chest as he straightened. “Hello,” he greeted. “I’m Slatepool, by the way, since we didn’t have time for introductions last time.”
Stars, he’d been obsessing over this conversation since that morning, and that was the best he could come up with. He looked up, met her bright yellow eyes, and the rest of his thoughts fled his head entirely.