A Forest Divided (2 page)

P
ROLOGUE

Cold mist pooled in the moonlit
hollow. It swirled like water around the paws of the cats pacing restlessly beneath the oaks.

Clear Sky watched them from the edge of the clearing. Their pelts seemed to sparkle as though dusted with starlight. He shivered as he caught sight of Gray Wing, waiting at the far side of the clearing.
The dead outnumber the living,
Clear Sky thought, as he glanced toward the shallow mound at the edge of the hollow. Beneath the slow-settling earth lay the bodies of cats he had once hunted beside, killed in the Great Battle.

The spirit cats paused and glanced at him, then began moving once more, murmuring to one another in hushed whispers. Above them, the four great oaks creaked in the wind, their frost-whitened branches stripped clean by the cold.

Leaf-bare gripped the earth like a wolf holding prey. The earth felt like stone beneath Clear Sky's paws. Couldn't the spirit cats have summoned him to a greenleaf clearing, where warm winds could bathe his fur? After all, this
was
a dream.

A dark gray she-cat split from the others and padded toward him. “You came.”

“Yes, Storm. I came.” Clear Sky's heart ached with familiar
grief. How different his life would be now if he hadn't let her leave the forest when she was heavy with his kits. “But why have you called me here?”

Storm's gaze hardened. “We're growing tired of waiting.”

Waiting? For what?
Before Clear Sky could ask, bracken cracked on the slope. River Ripple was pushing his way through the frosty stems, his thick gray pelt silvered by the moonlight as he made his way down to the smooth earth at the bottom. Close by, Tall Shadow blinked near the roots of an oak. She looked surprised as though just awakening. Thunder's ginger pelt glowed in the shadows. The spirit cats must have summoned all the leaders to the dream.

Fur brushed the frost-wilted grass behind Clear Sky, and he turned to see Wind Runner slip silently past him. She had separated from Gray Wing's group. Had the spirit cats called her too?

Clear Sky shifted his paws uneasily. The living stood separately while the dead stood together. Were the spirit cats all that united them now?

“Well?” Storm's sharp mew jerked him back from his thoughts.

“What?”

“We told you to grow and spread like the Blazing Star. . . .” Storm glanced back at the living cats. “You haven't begun yet. Is fear holding you back?”

“Never!” Clear Sky puffed out his chest. “But how far can we spread? We already rule the forest and the moor. We recruit more cats whenever we can.” He thought of how his
own group had grown since the last dream.

“It's not enough!” An angry mew sounded beside Storm.

Clear Sky stepped back in surprise as he looked down and recognized the clear, bold gaze of a young cat he thought he'd never see again. The last time he'd seen this kit, her brown pelt had clung to jutting ribs. Hunger had killed her in the mountains before she'd ever left their mother's nest. Now she stood, chin high, eyes blazing. Her sleek pelt sparkled in the starlight; firm muscle showed beneath.

His throat tightened as he gazed at his younger sister. “Fluttering Bird!” he rasped. “It's you!”

“Of course it's me.” Her yellow eyes blazed.

“I must go and speak with Thunder.” Storm dipped her head and backed away, leaving Clear Sky alone with his sister.

“It's so good to see you—”

Fluttering Bird cut Clear Sky off. “Listen, you mouse-heart!”

Clear Sky stiffened. She was still a kit. How dare she speak to him like that? And yet . . . He frowned, puzzled. How long had she been with the spirit cats? She still looked like a kit, but she could see things he couldn't. His pelt rippled uneasily. Could his younger sister be
wiser
than him now?

She held his gaze. “There were still leaves on the trees when we told you to spread like the Blazing Star. You
talked
about it, but you've
done
nothing!”

“We've
survived
,” Clear Sky argued. “Food is scarce and leaf-bare's here.”

Fluttering Bird's ears twitched. “You should be thinking
of your kits and your kits' kits. Strength doesn't come from cowering in hollows and glades like frightened prey.”

Clear Sky leaned over her, pelt bristling. “I
never
cower!”

“Then act!” Fluttering Bird stood her ground. “Follow your hearts! They will lead you home.”

Clear Sky frowned. “You want us back in the mountains?”

“Not your
old
home!”

“Then where?”

“We can't make every paw step for you. That will weaken you all! We have told you all you need to know.” Fluttering Bird's gaze scorched into his. “Now you must start thinking for yourselves.”

Clear Sky stared past her, his gaze lighting on Tall Shadow as she shared words with Moon Shadow, Hawk Swoop, and Jackdaw's Cry. Wind Runner was with her lost kits. She nuzzled them, and he could hear her urgent purr throbbing through the cold night air. Her mew was sharp with grief. “My dear kits. Come closer. We won't be together for long.”

Thunder paced to and fro, lifting his head eagerly as Storm padded to join them. Fox, Petal, and Frost crowded around River Ripple, their soft mews lost in the breeze. Gray Wing was several tail-lengths away, speaking with Shaded Moss and Turtle Tail. How separate they seemed. “We traveled here together,” Clear Sky murmured, half to himself, “but now we don't even share prey.” Sadness tugged in his belly.

“And who's to blame for that?” Fluttering Bird growled. “
You
turned against your own.”

“That's not true!” he snapped back. “I've always done what
I thought was best! I tried to take care of my own.”

“Then why do you stand here alone?” Fluttering Bird demanded. “Who do you have to care for you?”

Clear Sky swallowed, unable to answer her. Gray Wing seemed suddenly far away, the clearing stretching like a deep gorge between them. Thunder had not even met his eye since arriving in the hollow. Clear Sky knew they still silently blamed him for the battle and for taking One Eye into his group and nurturing him until he became a threat to all the cats. There was a time when they
wanted
to be near him. But he had driven them away. And now? Would any of them come now if he needed them?

He stared at Fluttering Bird. Was she
trying
to hurt him? “Why are you saying this?”

“You have followed your head, not your heart, Clear Sky.” She flicked her tail. “Each cat here has a home waiting. Even you. But you have to find it for yourselves, and you must find it soon.”

“How?” Where
was
home? How would they know when they found it?

“Follow your hearts.” Fluttering Bird began to fade before his eyes. He stiffened.
Not yet!
The other cats were fading too, growing transparent as the dream began to disappear. The stars blurred above his head and the hollow grew hazy.

“Fluttering Bird!” Clear Sky struggled to see her. “Where should our hearts lead?”

Who do you have to care for you?
Her words rang in his mind.
Did she want him to be close to his kin once more? Perhaps the only way to spread and grow like the Blazing Star was to join forces—be like a Tribe once more.

Darkness swamped him, and he blinked open his eyes.

He was back in his nest again. He gazed across the moonlit hollow where the forest cats had made their camp. His hackles smoothed as calm enfolded him.
I understand!
Fluttering Bird was trying to tell him how foolish he'd been to split from the others and mark out his own territory.

Determination surged through him. Wide awake now, he stood and crossed the clearing. He slipped past the brambles that shielded the camp, then bounded out into the forest. Starlight sparkled on his pelt as he glanced up at the sky.
I understand now, Fluttering Bird! I must draw the cats close—together once more—so that we can grow strong and spread like the Blazing Star.

Clear Sky yawned and stretched his
forepaws until they trembled. He looked over the edge of his nest. A biting wind sliced beneath the arching root, which usually shielded him as he slept. It nipped his ears, and he narrowed his eyes against its sting as he gazed over the clearing.

Quick Water was crossing the camp, her fur fluffed up against the cold. A shriveled mouse hung from her jaws. Birch and Alder peeked out from beneath the low, spreading yew. Petal had made their nest beneath its dark green branches after she'd adopted them. Their own mother had been killed, and they hardly remembered her scent. Now Petal was dead too, taken by the sickness that had swept the forest before leaf-bare had come. Birch and Alder had nearly died, but the Blazing Star had saved them.

The Blazing Star.
Clear Sky felt a pang of grief. If only Star Flower had told them about it sooner. It was the only healing herb that could cure the sickness. Now it shaped their future. He stood and shook out his fur as Alder and Birch hurried out to meet Quick Water.

“Is that for us?” Birch's eyes were hopeful.

His sister, Alder, dipped her head to Quick Water. “If you tell us where you found it, we could go and catch our own.” The littermates were almost fully grown, lithe and fast and always eager to hunt. Clear Sky felt proud of the cats they'd become, and was pleased that he'd decided to let Petal take them in.

“Don't be squirrel-brained.” Quick Water dropped the mouse at their paws. “We can share this one and hunt together later.”

Alder and Birch blinked at her gratefully.

Clear Sky felt a prickle of worry as he watched them crouch close to Quick Water, taking turns to snatch a bite of the skinny prey. Prey was scarce. The sickness had killed much of it, and the forest was eerily silent, even for leaf-bare.

He shook the chill from his fur and hopped out of his nest. He'd wandered in the forest until dawn and had returned to rest, weary from the cold. The memory of the dream had followed him into sleep. Fluttering Bird wanted the cats to join together. They must be like the Blazing Star and gather like petals around the heart of a flower. He was sure of it. It made sense. If the cold had reached this deep into the forest, it would be bitter on the high moor. And with prey so scarce, the moor cats would surely freeze or starve if they stayed in their hollow. They'd be safer here, sheltered by the trees, hunting together, as Fluttering Bird had ordered.

He must tell them.

Perhaps they already know?
For the first time he wondered what the spirit cats had shared with the others. Hope flickered in
his belly. Perhaps they were ready to unite.

He slid out from beneath the root, its gnarled bark scraping his spine, and padded across the frozen earth.

Pink Eyes was crouching in the shelter of the spreading holly, squinting against the wind. Tiny flecks of snow swirled in the air and clung to his fur. Pink Eyes's tail twitched with annoyance and he drew his paws tighter under him.

Clear Sky nodded to him. “Where's Blossom?” he asked.

The old tom had arrived at the border with the tortoiseshell-and-white she-cat when the moon was only a scratch of silver in the sky, not long after the battle with One Eye.

“Still asleep,” Pink Eyes answered, flicking his muzzle toward the holly bush. In the shadows beneath, Clear Sky could make out Blossom's pelt. When she was awake, the young she-cat hardly stood still. She was skittish and full of energy.

When Clear Sky had first met her, she'd been leaping for a dead leaf as it fluttered toward the forest floor while Pink Eyes sat a few tail-lengths away, his thin white tail curled neatly over two dead mice. He'd stood when Clear Sky had approached and had spoken before Clear Sky had a chance to challenge them for loitering near his border. “May we join your group?”

There had been a time when Clear Sky would have driven the two strays from his border—especially Pink Eyes, whose sight was so poor he couldn't see a bird in a tree—but these cats had respected his scent line and kept their hackles soft, and Clear Sky had learned that friends were better than enemies.
So they'd joined the group, and Clear Sky was soon glad that they had. Pink Eyes's weak eyesight had strengthened his other senses. The white tom could hear a mouse in the next glade and smell a rabbit through a patch of wild garlic.

Alder looked up from her meal, her splotchy gray-and-white pelt pricking where tiny snowflakes had settled along her spine. As she licked her lips, her gaze flashed toward Pink Eyes's twitching tail. Clear Sky saw mischief light up her eyes. She lunged and grabbed it, rolling onto her back. With a purr, she began pummeling it playfully with her hind legs.

“Hey!” Pink Eyes turned on her angrily. “Chase your own tail!”

“Why?” Alder froze, her paws in the air, and blinked at him innocently. “I'm not a dog!”

Pink Eyes glared at her. “And my tail isn't
prey
.”

Birch padded to his sister's side, his ginger pelt bright in the weak morning light. “I just wish prey was so easy to catch,” he said lightly.

The old tom snorted and marched away. He circled in a sheltered spot between the roots of an oak, then sat down and stared pointedly at Birch and Alder.

The brambles at the far end of the camp rattled. Nettle padded through the gap at one side. His thick gray pelt was damp. Acorn Fur followed him, a battered starling hanging from her jaws. Leaf padded after them, carrying a scrawny squirrel.

“I've never seen prey so scarce.” Nettle padded past his campmates and stopped beside Clear Sky. “I don't know
how we'll make it to newleaf.”

Anxiety wormed in Clear Sky's belly. Alder and Birch were staring hungrily at Acorn Fur's starling. Quick Water's mouse clearly hadn't filled their bellies.
We must survive!
Clear Sky glanced through the trees. Was there more prey on the moor? Suddenly the boundaries he'd fought so hard to establish seemed to trap him.
We need to
share
what we have, not guard it.
Fluttering Bird must have known that.

“I'm going to Gray Wing's camp,” he told Nettle.

Nettle's ear twitched. “Why?”

Clear Sky shifted his paws. Nettle had fought beside him to keep the boundaries they'd made. What would he say when he heard Clear Sky had suddenly decided that the cats should share their land and live as one group? He would understand once he knew that it was what the spirit cats wanted. But there wasn't time to explain now. “I want to see Jagged Peak's kits.” This was true. He hadn't visited his brother's litter yet.

“The weather's closing in.” Nettle glanced at the thick yellow clouds crowding the treetops. “There'll be heavy snow before the day's out, and if the wind picks up—”

Clear Sky interrupted. “I come from the mountains, remember? I'm used to getting snow in my whiskers.”

Nettle shrugged. “It's your pelt.” He glanced across the clearing as Blossom slid out from beneath the holly.

“Do I smell prey?” she asked brightly. Her gaze swiveled toward Acorn Fur.

Acorn Fur dropped her starling. “There's not much, but we can share.”

Leaf laid his squirrel on the ground. “It'll do for now.” His mew was cheerful, but Clear Sky could see worry darkening his gaze. The sooner he persuaded the cats they'd be safer working together, the better. He headed for the gap in the brambles. “Make sure Pink Eyes gets some food,” he called over his shoulder. “His hungry belly is making him grouchy.” He shot a teasing look at the white cat.

Pink Eyes stared stiffly ahead, as though deaf. Clear Sky knew his sharp hearing hadn't missed his jibe. Affection surged beneath his pelt.
Proud old fleabag!

Blossom leaped onto a root beside Pink Eyes. “Do you want to share the starling or the squirrel?”

“I guess a bite of squirrel might be nice,” the tom huffed grudgingly.

Purring, Clear Sky slipped through the bramble tunnel.

Outside camp, the wind was brisker. The branches above him swished in the breeze. He opened his mouth and tasted snow. It carried the stone tang of the mountains. Nettle had been right. A heavy snowfall was on its way. He hurried between the trees. The sooner he reached the moor cats' hollow, the better.

He followed the ridge until it dipped, then he leaped a fallen tree and climbed the slope beyond. Bare brambles snaked over the ground, and he had to watch where he put each paw. The ferns had withered long ago, but in their musty stumps Clear Sky could smell a hint of the forest's greenleaf lushness. Stiff bracken crowded the top of the slope. Clear Sky pushed through it, narrowing his eyes against the light as he
neared the edge of the forest. He broke from the trees, ducking instinctively as he hit open country.

The icy wind streamed through his whiskers, and he flattened his ears. He glanced one way, then the other, tasting the air for danger. Dog scent clung to the grass, but it was stale, and he crossed the swath of withered ferns edging the woods and began to climb through the rough grass.

He paused as he neared a stunted thorn tree standing alone on the barren moorside. Beneath it, a mound of soil marked the grave where they had buried One Eye, the bloodthirsty rogue. The cats from moor, forest, and river had joined together to defeat him. Snow flecked the soil, and thrushes sang in the branches above.

He was a true ray of light.

Bitterness rose in Clear Sky's throat as he remembered Star Flower's words at the burial. How could she have been so deluded? One Eye might have been her father, but even she must have been shocked by his cruelty.

How could she have betrayed Thunder for
him
?
Clear Sky snorted. He still couldn't believe that the treacherous she-cat had deceived his son.

The wind blew harder. Heather swayed ahead of him, and he hurried for its shelter, ducking among the brown bushes until he found a rabbit trail between the stems. He followed it, relieved to be out of the wind, zigzagging this way and that as he made his way up the winding path.

The heather gave way to a smooth grassy slope. In the open once more, Clear Sky spied the dip in the hillside where
the moor cats' camp lay. He quickened his pace. Snowflakes streamed around him, falling thicker now.

Movement caught his eyes. A small flash of fur against the grass ahead made him freeze.

Prey.

A small rabbit was hopping toward the heather. Clear Sky dropped into a crouch and pricked his ears. Excitement surged through him as warm rabbit scent filled his nose. His tail twitched. He waggled his hindquarters, preparing to pounce.

Suddenly, the rabbit stopped and looked around, ears high.

Clear Sky froze.

The rabbit blinked, then bolted for the heather.

Now!
Clear Sky surged forward. His paws rang on the frozen earth.

The rabbit fled. Fear-scent trailed in its wake. Clear Sky was closing in. He pushed harder against the frosty grass, fixing his gaze on the space in front of it.

Then he leaped. Stretching his forepaws, he landed squarely on his prey. It struggled beneath him. He was surprised at its strength. Quickly, he dug in his claws and sank his teeth into its neck. The spine snapped cleanly and the rabbit fell limp.

Clear Sky's mouth watered as blood bathed his tongue. He sat up and licked his lips. Should he leave his catch to take back to his own cats? He glanced toward the hollow. The moor cats might have greater need. And it would make a generous offering to Jagged Peak and Holly, in honor of their first litter.

He grabbed the rabbit's scruff in his jaws and carried it up the slope.

As he neared the moor cats' camp, he scanned the top of its gorse wall. Where was Tall Shadow? She was usually watching from her rock, scanning the moor with her solemn, wary gaze. He slowed as he reached the camp entrance. There was no cat guarding it. He pricked his ears. Had the weather driven them into their tunnels?