A Dangerous Path

Chapter 20

"Will she live?" Skyfall asked anxiously.

Cinderpelt let out a weary sigh. She had come to Snakerocks as fast as her uneven legs could run and worked frantically to help Yellowfang patch her sister up with cobwebs and forced poppy seeds into her mouth. At last the apprentice had recovered enough to be dragged back through the forest to the camp, and now she lay unconscious in a nest among the ferns near the medicine den.

"I don't know," Cinderpelt admitted. "I've done the best I can. She's in the paws of StarClan now."

"She's a strong cat," Skyfall meowed, trying to reassure her. When she looked at Brightpaw now, curled among the ferns, she looked anything but strong. She seemed smaller than a kit, no more than a scrap of fur. Skyfall half expected each shallow breath to be her last.

"You did all you could do," Yellowfang rasped, coming back from the side of the clearing where Swiftpaw's body was being cleaned for his Clan to mourn him. She smelled strongly of mint. "There was nothing either of us could do for her eye and ear."

Skyfall nodded. She felt sick as she forced herself to look at the side of Brightpaw's face, now swathed in cobwebs. All this reminded her of Cinderpelt's accident, when Yellowfang had told her that the young she-cat's leg would never heal properly.

"She said something about a 'pack,'" she murmured. "I wonder what it was she really saw."

Cinderpelt shook her head. "It's what we've been afraid of all along. There's something in the forest hunting us down. I heard it in my dream."

"I know." Skyfall's muscles tensed with regret. "I should have done something long ago. StarClan sent that warning to Bluestar too."

"But Bluestar has no respect for StarClan anymore. I'm surprised she even listened to them."

"Do you think that's why this happened?" Skyfall turned to look between the medicine cats.

"No." Cinderpelt's voice was strained as she moved closer to Skyfall and pressed herself against her. "StarClan did not send this evil; I'm sure of it."

As she spoke, a rustling in the fern tunnel announced the arrival of Cinderpelt's and Brightpaw's family, Frostfur leading her sons.

"How is she doing?" Brackenfur asked.

"I don't know," Cinderpelt admitted. "Yellowfang and I can only do so much to help her. The rest of her fate is up to StarClan now."

Frostfur snarled furiously while Brackenfur and Thornpaw curled around Brightpaw. She turned on Skyfall. "This is all your fault!" she burst out. "She should have been made a warrior, then she wouldn't have gone off on her own!"

Skyfall met her gaze steadily. "Hold your tongue, Frostfur," she mewed. "I did everything I could. But it was also Brightpaw's decision to go with Swiftpaw. He's dead now, if you hadn't forgotten, and his death is on my paws."

She broke off as she heard the soft pawsteps of another cat, and turned to see that Bluestar was approaching. Skyfall had sent Sandstorm to fetch her, and the pale ginger warrior followed her into the medicine cats' clearing.

The Clan leader stood and looked down at Brightpaw in silence. Brackenfur and Thornpaw respectfully stepped back for her and watched with their mother as Bluestar made no motion of moving or speaking.

Bluestar blinked a couple of times before finally asking, "Is she dying?"

"That's up to StarClan," Cinderpelt told her, catching Skyfall's eye.

"And what mercy can we expect from them?" Bluestar growled. "If it's up to StarClan, Brightpaw will die."

"Without ever being a warrior," mewed Thornpaw; his voice was quiet and sorrowful.