Outcast (20 page)

“Come on,” Pebble mewed, flicking his ear with her tail. “I'll show you where to sleep.”

She led the apprentices to a place where several shallow dips had been scooped out of the cave floor. They were warmly lined with moss and feathers.

“Choose any,” Pebble invited them.

Lionpaw curled up in one of the larger hollows with Hollypaw and Jaypaw. At least the sleeping place was com
fortable; for a moment he could almost believe they were back in the ThunderClan nursery. But in the nursery he had never had so many worries to keep him awake.

He lay with his eyes slitted, watching the constantly changing light flickering over the cave walls and listening to the endless rumble of the waterfall. So much for standing on the hill overlooking the lake and feeling as if he could do
anything
. Their journey had come to nothing; these strange, proud cats were turning them away without even giving them the chance to help.

Lionpaw let out a sigh. He had been desperate to make this journey for so long, to see the mountains for himself, and now that he was here, he just wanted to go home.

Jaypaw heard his brother's sigh and
felt disappointment rolling off him like the waves on the lakeshore. He had picked up the same feeling from Hollypaw before she fell asleep, but he couldn't share it. They had made it as far as the mountains, which was the main thing that mattered to him. His only worry was that he would be forced to go home before he had learned the secrets that awaited him here.

He lay quietly in the warm nest, trying to build up a picture of the cave. He could locate the waterfall from the sound it made and identify where the cats were from their scent. There was a difference between cave-guards and prey-hunters, he discovered, just as there was between Clan and Tribe.

Beneath their scents, he felt battered by the Tribe's emotions, their sense of fear and vulnerability in a situation they could not control. And in addition, a desperate weariness, as if they were ready to give up their claim to live in the mountains.

Where are their ancestors?
Jaypaw wondered.
Why aren't the Tribe of Endless Hunting doing something to help?

The image of Stoneteller rose in his mind, the grizzled
tabby he had seen when he shared Brook's memory of the battle and Stormfur's banishment. The roaring of the waterfall grew louder, pulsing in his ears, until suddenly his eyes flicked open. He was standing on the exposed rocky outcrop where he had confronted Rock before. Stars glittered frostily above his head and an icy wind ruffled his fur. Stoneteller stood barely a tail-length away, with his back to him.

Jaypaw darted into the shadow of a rock and peered out. Along the spine of stone another cat was approaching, a slender tabby like most of the Tribe cats, but with the shimmer of stars in his fur. Jaypaw pressed himself farther into the shadows. This must be one of the Tribe's ancestors, from the Tribe of Endless Hunting. Curiously he wondered why Rock had brought him here in his earlier dream, if it was a place sacred to the Tribe.

Stoneteller waited until the ancestor stood a fox-length away from him, then dipped his head. “Greetings,” he meowed. “What guidance have you come to give me?”

For a moment the ancestor did not reply. Jaypaw thought there was an air of defeat about him, as if even the Tribe of Endless Hunting was sick of the fighting and ready to give up.

“I have no guidance,” the ancestor replied at last. “Never in the Tribe's history have we tried to fight an endless battle. Until now, the mountains have been protection enough.” His sigh was like the whisper of wind over the rock. “We can see no end to it.”

“There must be an end!” Stoneteller protested. “My Tribe is dying. There must be something we can do.”

The ancestor shook his head. “Not this time,” he mewed sadly. “We thought this was a place of safety, but it is not.” He turned and began to pace away, fading into the shadows.

“Wait!” Stoneteller took a step forward, lashing his tail, then halted, his head lowered in defeat. As if he was too exhausted to stay on his paws, he staggered to the shelter of a rocky overhang, flopped down, and closed his eyes.

Instantly Jaypaw sprang out of hiding and raced along the stony ridge, ignoring the precipices on either side. After a few pounding heartbeats, the shape of the ancestor reappeared from the shadows, still pacing slowly away.

“Wait for me!” Jaypaw called.

The ancestor halted and glanced back over his shoulder. When his gaze fell on Jaypaw his ears flicked up and his eyes widened in shock. “You have come,” he whispered.

Jaypaw stared at him. What did he mean? How could a cat from the Tribe of Endless Hunting recognize a Clan cat who had never set paw in the mountains until now?

Before he could say anything, the cat spoke again. “Follow.”

Jaypaw gulped. This wasn't what he had imagined. But he was here now—and there were so many questions he wanted answers to. His paws carried him on almost against his will, as the ancestor crossed the last few fox-lengths of the ridge and set paw on a trail that led down into thick shadow.

The narrow path, faint against the surface of the rocks, zigzagged across the face of a cliff. In the dim starshine Jaypaw couldn't see the bottom.
But at least I
can
see
. This couldn't be as bad as that awful journey yesterday, and it
wouldn't end in the humiliation of being carried like a kit. He pressed himself close to the rock face and tried not to think of how far he might have to fall.

The ancestor padded on steadily, his pace never varying; now and again he glanced over his shoulder to make sure that Jaypaw was still following. Eventually he halted, beckoned Jaypaw with his tail, then leaped off the cliff and disappeared.

Jaypaw's claws scraped the stony surface of the ledge. Was he expected to launch himself into the shadows? If he didn't kill himself, it would still break his dream, and he couldn't bear to wake up until he'd had a chance to talk to the ancestor. But when he peered over the edge he saw the ground was only a couple of tail-lengths below. He jumped down easily and looked around.

The ancestor had brought him to the bottom of a stone hollow, a little like the ThunderClan camp, except that the sides were sheer and much, much taller. The only way up or down seemed to be by the trail that they had followed. In the center of the hollow, almost filling it, was a pool. Starlight shimmered on its surface. It reminded Jaypaw of the Moonpool, except it was much bigger, and instead of the constant plashing of the waterfall, the water was still and the hollow was utterly silent.

Jaypaw blinked. What he had thought was the reflection of starshine in the pool was a light that came from the ranks of starry cats sitting around it—or had they only just shown themselves? He shivered as he gazed around. He was used to StarClan now, but he had never imagined that one day he
would confront ancestors who were not his own.

Some of the cat shapes were barely visible, as if the spirits were so old that they had almost faded away. Others shone more strongly, and some still bore the wounds of battle, seeping blood, as if they had only just come to join the Tribe of Endless Hunting.

Jaypaw stayed frozen in place as one of the ancient cats rose to its paws and came close enough to sniff him. Jaypaw could see the water of the pool through the outline of his fur. “We heard you would come,” the ancestor murmured. His voice was muffled, as if he spoke through season upon season of dust. “But we did not expect you to come so soon.”

Soon?
Jaypaw could hardly imagine what “soon” meant to these old spirits. Surely they must have been waiting for a moon of lifetimes?

“Are you talking about the prophecy?” he asked.

“Yes.” The old cat breathed out the word. “Three will come, kin of the cat with fire in his pelt, who hold the power of the stars in their paws.”

Jaypaw's heart began to thud.
They knew! They knew, and so did StarClan! How long have they been waiting for us?

“Where are the other two?” the ancient spirit asked.

“In the cave.” Jaypaw wasn't going to admit that he hadn't told his littermates about the prophecy yet. “Where did the prophecy come from?” he whispered.

The ancient cat did not reply; instead, one of the brighter spirits spoke from farther around the pool. “Why did you bring him here?” she demanded, addressing the tabby cat who
had led Jaypaw down the cliff. “He doesn't belong with us.”

There was a murmur of agreement from some of the other cats. Their glowing eyes were hostile as their gaze raked across him. Jaypaw suppressed an impulse to make a dash for the trail that led back to the ridge.

I can walk where I like
, he told himself, defiantly raising his head.
I wouldn't be here if I didn't belong
.
And maybe I can do more than Stoneteller to help the Tribe….

“You need to take a message to the Tribe of Rushing Water,” he meowed. “Tell them that the Clan cats have come to help them with the trespassers.”

The ancestral spirits glanced at one another, then shook their heads. The bright she-cat who had spoken before rose to her paws. “The Tribe does not need help.”

“How can you say that?” Jaypaw gasped. “The Tribe is starving to death.”

“There is nothing we can do.” The ancestor who had led Jaypaw down from the ridge bowed his head in shame. “We have failed.”

“The mountains are not safe anymore,” another cat murmured. “We trusted them to protect us, and they have let us down.”

For a moment Jaypaw could not speak through the wave of shame and betrayal that surged from the starry cats. He struggled to shake it off and clear his mind again.

“The Tribe doesn't have to give in so easily,” he insisted. “They
must
fight to defend themselves.”

Two of the cats who bore recent wounds rose from their
places and padded around the pool until they stood in front of Jaypaw. “We died in battle,” the first of them mewed, glancing down at the deep slashes along his side. “No more blood must be spilled. The Tribe does not believe in fighting.”

Jaypaw twitched his tail. “But the trespassers do. My Clanmates
will
help the Tribe cats, whether they want it or not.”

The other wounded cat took a pace forward, his neck fur bristling. “The only way to do that is to make the Tribe more like a Clan. And that is not what they want. It is not the way of the Tribe to fight and kill other cats.”

“Things change,” Jaypaw pointed out with a flick of his ears.

“Not always for the better,” the spirit cat retorted.

The words echoed in Jaypaw's ears. A mist seemed to be rising from the pool, swirling around him until he couldn't see the Tribe of Endless Hunting any longer. The mist gradually grew darker, until Jaypaw realized he was back in the cave, with Hollypaw nudging him awake.

“Come on,” she urged him. “Stoneteller has called a meeting. All the cats are gathering in the middle of the cave.”

Jaypaw scrambled groggily to his paws. The hollow in the mountains and the pool surrounded by shining cats seemed more real to him than this cave.

“Okay, keep your fur on,” he grumbled. “I'm coming.”

Tracking Hollypaw and Lionpaw by their scent, he followed them out of the sleeping hollow and across the floor of the cave. They joined the other Clan cats and found a place to sit beside them. Jaypaw shifted uncomfortably on the cold
stone, the murmur of voices, Clan and Tribe, in his ears.

Suddenly the voices grew quiet. Jaypaw imagined the skinny old cat he had seen in his dreams appearing in front of the cats, perhaps leaping onto the boulder from where he had banished Stormfur.
So this is it
, he thought.
We're going to be made outcasts, too. I don't suppose they'll feed us before they throw us out, either
.

“Cats of the Tribe of Rushing Water,” Stoneteller began. “Last night I read the signs in water and starlight, and the Tribe of Endless Hunting spoke to me. They do not want us to be driven out of our mountain home, so I have decided to let the Clan cats help us.”

Jaypaw felt his mouth drop open. Stoneteller was lying! That wasn't what the Tribe of Endless Hunting had said at all. Stoneteller must have changed his own mind overnight, and decided to ignore his ancestors.

A babble of comment had broken out as soon as Stoneteller finished speaking. Jaypaw could hear some protests, but most cats sounded eager to hear what the Clan cats would suggest. Just as he suspected, the Tribe cats did whatever Stoneteller said. Yesterday he hadn't wanted the Clan cats to stay, so neither did his Tribe, and today he said they should accept their help.
Didn't these cats ever think for themselves?

“Silence!” Stoneteller raised his voice. “We will listen to what Brambleclaw has to say.”

There was a brief pause; Jaypaw heard his father's paw steps as he emerged from the group of cats and went to stand beside Stoneteller.

“What should we do first?” the Tribe's Healer asked him.

“Assess the situation.” Brambleclaw's tone was crisp and positive; Jaypaw knew that his father would have worked out what he would say long before. “We need to know what the real threat is. Where are these trespassers taking prey? Where are they clashing with the Tribe? And we must discover where they've made their camp.”

“We should work out how much territory the Tribe needs to survive, too,” Tawnypelt called out from somewhere near Jaypaw.

“That's right,” Stormfur put in, his voice deep but tense with excitement. “We can't sit here and wait to be attacked. We should establish borders and make sure they're properly defended.”

An eager chorus broke out again, but a new voice cut across it. “Wait.”

As the noise died down, Brambleclaw meowed, “Yes, Crag. What do you want to say?”

“We have known each other a long time, Brambleclaw,” the new speaker began. “I was the first Tribe cat you met when you dragged yourselves out of the pool, all those moons ago. I'm a cave-guard, and I fought in the great battle beside Stormfur. No cat can say that I'm afraid to fight. But I'm telling you now that you're wrong.”

“Why?” Even in the single word, Jaypaw could tell how much respect his father felt for this cat.

“Because you're trying to turn us into a Clan,” Crag replied. “We're not. We are the Tribe.”

“But this is the only way to survive!” Brambleclaw insisted.
“You've never had to share your hunting grounds with other cats before. You can't live here like prisoners, afraid to venture out in search of food.”

“That's right!” some cat called. “We need our own territory.”

“We need to defend it!” another added.

“But think what we risk losing.” Crag's strong meow rose above the voices of his Tribe. “All our traditions, everything that makes us who we are. Instead, we'll spend all our time running around trying to remember which rocks belong to us.”