Warriors AU: Sandstar's Quest

Chapter 25

The following day dawned clear and cool. Sandstar stepped out onto the ledge outside the warriors' cave to see Clover and Poppy scrambling over the spur of rock on their way upstream. After the meeting, all the new Clan cats had returned to their own homes; one of the first tasks would be to collect more bedding and sort out the dens so that the caves in the gorge could become a real Clan camp.

Fireheart joined him, yawning and giving one ear a vigorous scratch with her hind paw. "We'll have to move Patches down to the nursery," she mewed, flicking her ears toward where the mother cat and her kits were sleeping against the far wall of the cave. "There won't be room in here once the warriors arrive."

"We need a den for the apprentices, too," Sandstar pointed out. "And the elders, the leader, the medicine cat..."

"Well, we'll have one elder, when Sky moves in with us." Fireheart blinked thoughtfully. "But there's no leader yet, apart from you."

"No! I'm the leader of Thunderclan. Starclan will show us which cat is meant to be leader of Skyclan."

"And a medicine cat," Fireheart added. "You can't have a Clan without a medicine cat."

Sandstar murmured agreement. He suspected that finding a medicine cat could be even harder than finding a leader, and he hadn't begun to tackle that problem yet. Until the night before, he hadn't been certain that there would be a Clan at all.

He had to push his worries to the back of his mind as Poppy and Clover came into view a little way down the stony trail, calling out a greeting. Clover looked nervous, but Poppy's ears were pricked with anticipation. A heartbeat or two later Sandstar heard pawsteps from up above, and Scratch, Tiny, and Lark appeared from the cliff top.

"We're ready for our hunting lesson," Tiny meowed, his eyes shining.

"That's good." Fireheart twitched her tail approvingly. "We'll be able to take out two full patrols."

"Can we lead them?" Scratch bounded forward to stand in front of Sandstar. "Please! We know all the good places for prey."

"No, you're not warriors yet." Sandstar didn't want to dampen the young cats' enthusiasm, but they had to get used to the way things were done in a Clan. "Don't worry," he added when Scratch flattened her ears in disappointment. "You'll be leading patrols before you know it."

"Tiny and Poppy, you come with me," Fireheart mewed. "We'll pick up Callum on the way, and see what we can find in the bushes downstream. Is that okay with you, Sandstar?"

"Fine. The rest of us can hunt on the cliff top."

When Fireheart had left with her patrol, Sandstar led Scratch, Lark, and Clover up the trail and through the bushes on the edge of the cliff. The sky was bright where the sun would rise, but there was still no sign of movement from the Twolegplace.

"Let's head that way," Sandstar suggested, waving his tail toward the huge Twoleg barn. "I haven't tried hunting there yet."

Not much later he was starting to think he had made the wrong decision. The trees and bushes near the fence of the huge nest were oddly lacking in prey. The scent of crow-food and rats from the fence made it almost impossible to taste anything else on the air.

"Fireheart's patrol will catch much more," Scratch muttered. "And Tiny will never let me hear the end of it!"

Almost ready to give up and go somewhere else, Sandstar stopped trying to track down prey to give Lark and Clover their first lesson in the hunter's crouch and the right way to stalk. Lark concentrated very hard, but found it difficult to get her haunches into the proper position, while Clover had it almost right the first time. Of course, the rogue cats had been hunting for themselves since they were kits; they would need to learn only the skills of hunting in a group before they were as good as any forest warrior.