Ravenpaw's Farewell (5 page)

He jumped down onto the short green grass. Bella followed, but Riley paused, looking back at his mother. “I will think of you every day,” he meowed.

“And I of you,” Violet replied. Her eyes were liquid with sadness. “Go well, my darlings. Make me proud.”

“We will!” Bella called.

They trotted across the grass and squeezed through the hole in the fence. A gust of wind struck their faces on the other side, flattening their fur and filling their muzzles with the scent of monsters, trees, and distant hills. For a moment Ravenpaw was tempted to push the kits back through the hole. What was he doing, taking them on a journey to an unknown Clan?

Then Riley raced ahead, shouting, “We're going to be warriors!” Bella sprinted after him, and Ravenpaw followed. These young cats had chosen their destiny, and he had promised Silverstream he'd help them.

“You're really not coming with us?”
Ravenpaw spoke quietly so that he wouldn't disturb Riley and Bella, who were still sleeping. Tendrils of dawn light pierced the walls of the barn, and the air was already warm.

Barley shook his head. “We've been over this already,” he mewed. “I think you're making a massive mistake.”

“And I thought you trusted me!” Ravenpaw retorted. “I'll come straight back, as soon as I've delivered Riley and Bella to SkyClan. Firestar and Sandstorm made this journey safely. There's no reason I won't, too.”

“They were warriors,” Barley hissed. He sounded angry, but Ravenpaw could hear the pain beneath his words. “Is that what this is all about? You want to prove that you're as good as a Clan cat, even though you were only ever an apprentice?”

Ravenpaw flinched. “What are you talking about?”

“I don't believe you're doing this for Riley and Bella. I think you're doing it for yourself, because you want to be in a Clan again.”

“You're wrong!” Ravenpaw gasped.

“Am I? Ever since we went back to the forest, you haven't
stopped going on about what it was like when you lived there. I bet you wish you'd never left!”

Ravenpaw felt his shoulders sag. “You're being ridiculous. Is this really how it's going to end, Barley? With us at each other's throats?”

“You're the one who's leaving,” Barley growled.

“Well, you're making it easier!”

“Is it time to go?”

Both cats spun around. A small orange face was looking down at them from the top of the stack of hay. Bella was quickly joined by her brother, who had a wisp of dried grass stuck to one ear.

“We're awake!” Riley announced. He bounced down the hay and landed beside Ravenpaw. “Should we hunt first?”

Barley twitched his ears. “No need,” he meowed gruffly. “I caught extra for you last night.” He moved a pile of hay to reveal two mice and a young pigeon.

Ravenpaw blinked at him. “Thanks.”

“I didn't do it for you. I did it for them.” Raising his voice, Barley added, “I'm going for a walk. If you're not here when I get back, well, I hope you find what you're looking for.”

Bella looked up, her cheeks bulging with pigeon. “Aren't you going to see us off?” she mumbled.

“Ravenpaw knows the way out,” Barley replied. The tip of his tail twitched. “Don't do anything stupid. Make your mother proud.” He stalked out of the barn with a final sideways glare at Ravenpaw.

“Eat as much as you want,” Ravenpaw told the young cats,
forcing himself to sound cheerful.
I can't believe he didn't say good-bye.
“But not so much that it's uncomfortable to walk. We have a long way to go”—the thought struck him yet again that he had no idea how long—“so we'll be able to stop and hunt on the way.”

His belly was churning too much to leave room for food, but he munched down a few bites of mouse. He wished he could remember the traveling herbs that Spottedleaf had given him before the journey to the Moonstone, but it was too long ago, and he could only remember curling his lip at the bitter taste.

They finished eating and pushed the rest of the prey back under the hay. Ravenpaw looked at the cats in front of him, so similar to his old friends Firestar and Graystripe.
But these cats know nothing about living in the wild,
he reminded himself.
You will have to teach them everything.

Riley and Bella stared back at him expectantly, pelts groomed, eyes dazzling bright. They had made their choice, and they couldn't imagine that anything might go wrong.

Ravenpaw lifted his head. “Come on, you two. Let's go find SkyClan!”

He led them through the fields—one covered in lush grass, the other filled with springy green cornstalks—until they reached the river. It was broad and lazy here, flowing idly toward the gorge at the edge of the moor. Riley and Bella opened their eyes wide when they saw the water.

“We don't have to swim across, do we?” Bella hissed,
fluffing up her orange fur.

Ravenpaw thought for a moment. Firestar had described following the river all the way to the gorge, but had said nothing about crossing it. “No,” he replied.

“Phew,” puffed Bella.

They padded along the path that ran beside the river. It was broad and flat, and full of the scents of Twolegs and dogs. Riley and Bella stopped to sniff every stalk, every paw print, every tiny trail. Even a leaf blowing in the breeze had to be pounced on and shredded.

“How's my pounce?” Riley called, scraps of beech leaf clinging to his muzzle.

“Keep your weight on your hind legs right until you spring,” Ravenpaw told him. “If you lean on your front paws, you'll put yourself off balance.” Riley crouched down again, practicing. “But you'll wear yourself out if you don't stick to walking for a while,” Ravenpaw added. He noticed Bella staring into a clump of reeds. “We'll hunt later, I promise,” he told her.

“I'm not hunting. I'm watching that green stone with eyes.”

Ravenpaw padded over to her. “That's a frog. Not good for prey, unless you're starving. Or in ShadowClan.”

“Ooh, we've heard about ShadowClan!” mewed Riley. “Tell us a story about them!”

Ravenpaw sighed. “If it means you'll keep walking, okay.” He didn't want to frighten them with how vicious Clan life could be, so he made up a story about ShadowClan queens teaching their kits how to jump like frogs. It kept Riley and Bella distracted enough that they covered a decent stretch
before Ravenpaw realized it was sunhigh and time to rest. He sank down under the hedgerow at the side of the path and licked his haunches. His legs were aching, and his belly felt as if he had swallowed a stone.

There was a loud scrabbling noise in the scrubby grass behind him. Ravenpaw turned to see Bella stepping proudly through the brittle stalks with a shrew in her jaws. She dropped it in front of him. “Fresh-kill!” she declared with her tail curled high above her back.

“Great catch!” Ravenpaw purred.

There was a crack and a thud on the other side of the hedge, and Riley pushed his head through the branches. “Oops!” he panted. “I was chasing a sparrow, but it got away.”

“Don't worry; Bella's caught enough for all of us,” Ravenpaw meowed. “And I'm not surprised that sparrow escaped. You sounded like a herd of cows thundering through the hedge!”

Riley scrambled through the hedge and rubbed his muzzle on his sister's head. He had to stretch up to reach her. “You're practically a warrior already!” he mewed.

“There's still a lot to learn,” Ravenpaw warned.

At that moment a storm of barking sounded farther along the river. Ravenpaw sprang up, his fur bristling.

“We're used to dogs,” Riley boasted. “There was a fluffy white one in the garden next to ours. Bella and I used to scratch its nose whenever it looked under the fence.” Huge paws thundered along the path toward them, and Riley's eyes grew huge. “But it wasn't as big as this dog!” he yowled.

He leaped into the hedge as if he had grown wings. Bella followed, and Ravenpaw scrambled after them, giving Bella's rump a shove with his nose to boost her into the higher branches. They clung to the swaying twigs and looked down at the massive brown beast, which was snuffling up the remains of the shrew. When it finished, it looked up, its long pink tongue lolling, its hot breath stinking of prey.

“Is it going to eat us next?” Bella whimpered.

“Let's hope not,” Ravenpaw muttered. He sank his claws into the branch and tried to wriggle deeper into the hedge.

A Twoleg bellowed close by, making all the cats jump. The dog looked around; then its ears drooped and it trotted away. Ravenpaw let out a long breath.
That was way too close.
He waited until the sound of paw steps had faded, then slid down to the ground. Riley landed behind him, but Bella stayed where she was, clinging to a branch at the top of the hedge.

“Come on, Bella!” Ravenpaw meowed. “It's safe now!”

“What if that dog comes back?” Bella squeaked.

“It won't,” Ravenpaw replied.

“You don't know that!”

Ravenpaw sighed. “Well, not for sure, but I can't see it along the riverbank, and I can't hear it anymore. We're going in the opposite direction, so we have time to get away.”

“I'm scared,” Bella mewed in a tiny voice. “I want my mother.”

Riley crumpled a dead leaf under his paw. “Maybe this wasn't such a good idea,” he mumbled.

For a moment Ravenpaw wanted to agree with him. Then
he remembered Silverstream telling him that he was these cats' only chance of choosing their own path. “All warriors get scared sometimes,” he told them. “It's the only way to tell if you're being brave. You kept yourselves safe from that dog, didn't you? You did well, both of you. Violet would be very proud of you. But we need to keep going, before the dog comes back.”

Above his head there was a faint whimper. Ravenpaw looked up. “You can't stay up there forever, Bella! A hedge is no place for a cat, kittypet or warrior!”

“Do you promise the dog won't get me?” Bella mewed.

“I promise.”

There was a crackle of twigs and a few tumbling leaves; then Bella squeezed out from the bottom of the hedge. Her fur was full of scraps, and her eyes were wide with fear. Ravenpaw licked the top of her head. “Well done. You're doing great.”

He padded onto the path and looked up and down. There was no trace of life, Twoleg or dog, in either direction. “Let's go!” he called, and set off at a trot. Riley and Bella fell in behind him. Ravenpaw tried not to show that the incident with the dog had rattled him, too.

They had to dodge a few more Twolegs and dogs as they traveled on, but it was easy to spot them from a long way off and hide in the hedgerow. Bella was unusually quiet, and Riley stayed close to her, giving her encouraging licks. When it started to get too dark to see the edge of the riverbank, Ravenpaw looked for a place to spend the night. He found a squat,
angular, gray stone den at the edge of a field just on the other side of the hedge. The floor was damp earth, and it smelled sharply of cows, but there were no other animals in the field and no scents of foxes or badgers.

Ravenpaw led Riley and Bella into the den and waited while they lay down. They looked exhausted, their flanks heaving, and their pelts were dusty and matted. “Stay here and clean yourselves,” Ravenpaw told them before hauling his weary legs back outside and heading for the hedgerow. He found a nest of eggs halfway along the field and carried them one at a time under his chin to his companions. Bella made a face at the slimy texture of the eggs, but Riley ate more enthusiastically.

“I'm so hungry, I could eat grass!”

Ravenpaw clawed some moss from a log that lay at the entrance to the den and shaped it into a nest for all of them. Riley and Bella curled up together in a pool of gray and orange fur and fell asleep at once. Ravenpaw lay down beside them, feeling the warmth of their fur against his belly. Moonlight filtered through a small hole in the wall of the den, and Ravenpaw twisted around to look up at the glowing orb.
Is Barley looking up at the moon too?
he wondered. They had hardly spent a night apart since he'd first come to the barn. But in spite of his sadness, exhaustion dragged Ravenpaw into sleep.

Riley and Bella were still subdued the next day. Bella refused to eat the thrush that Ravenpaw had caught, saying it smelled funny. For a moment Ravenpaw was tempted to snap
at her for being ungrateful, but he reminded himself that they were a long way from everything they had ever known and must be missing their mother. He let Riley finish the thrush, then led them back to the riverbank.

They traveled faster now that Riley and Bella were less interested in stopping to sniff every new scent. Ravenpaw stayed in front, keeping watch for dogs or Twolegs. The sun warmed his black fur, and although his legs were still tired, he found himself looking forward to rounding each new corner, seeing the river and fields and hedges roll out before him. His whiskers quivered at every fresh sound or smell, and he felt younger than he had in a while. Even the ache in his belly seemed to have faded. Ravenpaw wished that Barley were with him, sharing the adventure.