"Adderpaw! Maybe listening next time will help!" Barkfur snapped, bringing the apprentice back to reality.
Adderpaw shrunk back guiltily. She's right. Maybe if I spent more time listening, I wouldn't have to imagine hunting and fighting and being a great warrior.
It had been five moons of apprenticeship so far and Adderpaw was starting to think that she just wasn't cut out for it. She was constantly making a fool of herself whenever her mentor tried to teach her something.
Her mentor sighed and shook her head. "I'm sorry, Adderpaw. It's only your first moon of training, maybe I shouldn't be treating you so harshly," then Barkfur lightened, joking, "I'm used to certain circumstances of trying to train Swayingfern. Now she was a cat in need of scolding,"
Adderpaw could hear a muffled "Hey!" from the bracken further on and stifled a laugh. Her sister's mentor was a bit cloud-headed.
Barkfur chuckled and began walking towards the noise. "Come on, Adderpaw. If you want to learn how to battle our enemies, then you should come with me. The apprentices are having a training session in the mossy clearing."
Adderpaw's eyes lit up and she stopped slouching. Yes! Battle training!
She sped towards the mossy clearing where her fellow apprentices were waiting for her and Barkfur. Snakepaw and Shrrompaw had recently reached the age of six moons and had become apprentices, so Adderpaw was looking around for the younger apprentices.
She could make out Fishpaw and Frogpaw sharing tongues where the canopy of trees broke to let a shaft of sunlight onto the grass. Her sister, Cherrypaw, was showing Fernpaw and Mintpaw the new hunting technique that she had learned and when Snakepaw saw her, he commented that she was doing it all wrong and that she was standing backwards.
Adderpaw laughed and the other apprentices stopped what they were doing to bound over to their friend. Frogpaw brushed against her and mewed, "There's a Gathering tonight and I overheard Mosspelt and Flutteringleaf saying that they were going to bring some of the apprentices tonight!"
Adderpaw purred and exclaimed, "That's great!"
"Yeah, hopefully you can go! It would be fun for us to go together, but I think the warriors were talking about taking you, Mintpaw, and Cherrypaw to your first Gathering!"
Adderpaw leaned back, surprised. Although she should've expected it, she wasn't thinking about the Gathering and how it was going to be her first one. Her heart thumped with excitement and she leapt in the air, bounding around with a fresh wave of joy.
Then, curious, she asked, "Hey, where's Shroompaw?"
Mintpaw answered for her, saying that Rabbitear had told her to go out and fetch some herbs for him. Adderpaw felt sorry for the young apprentice—she had to miss out on training to collect herbs for the sarcastic medicine cat.
Adderpaw figured that she could teach the little she-cat some of the moves that they had learned that day to make her feel better.
Once the tactics session had ceased to nothing but playful training, Barkfur pulled her aside right before she was going to attack Fishpaw from behind, her eyes twinkling.
"Guess what?" Barkfur stifled a grin. "You and your littermates are going to the Gathering tonight!"
Even though she had already received this information prior to this conversation, that rumour had been nothing but that—a rumour. Now that she was receiving the confirmed news, Adderpaw was feeling much more certain about where she stood as an apprentice. She must be doing something right if she and her siblings were deemed worthy of attending a Gathering!
"Really?" Adderpaw's eyes shone with undisguised pleasure.
"Yes! Trilliumstar said that it would be a great experience for young apprentices, like you, so that you can . . ." Barkfur's eager chattering had faded just like the early morning birdsong always dissolved eventually.
Adderpaw couldn't feel her paws. She felt as if she were leaping around on the fluffy white clouds overhead of her. Her eyes sparkled and she couldn't help but interrupt her mentor.
". . . so I also think that'll be great—"
"Thank you so much, Barkfur,"
Adderpaw exclaimed, unable to hide her excitement any longer.
"For what? Bringing you to the Gathering was Trilliumstar's call. But don't get me wrong—I would've done everything that I possibly could to get you into the Gathering—"
"No," Adderpaw interrupted gently. "Thanks for being such a great mentor,"
Barkfur's eyes softened and her smile gradually grew wider. Adderpaw's heart warmed at the chance to finally go to her first Gathering.
A shrieking yowl pierced through the talkative warm night air. Adderpaw had noticed that none of the RiverClan cats had been speaking to anyone and they kept throwing glances towards the leaders as if they wanted the Gathering to start already.
Adderpaw couldn't blame them. The Gathering was already so exciting! She shot a grateful glance to her mentor and sat a little straighter, looking up at the leaders who were perched precariously in the branches of an ancient-looking tree.
The deputies were situated lower to the crowd, at the base of a huge boulder that was laying down under the tree and its branches. The medicine cats were near the edge of the large rock.
Adderpaw blinked happily at Fallowpaw, the medicine cat apprentice. She had been kind to Adderpaw when she was a little kit and Adderpaw sometimes thought of her as an older littermate.
"ThunderClan will speak first," Trilliumstar's magnificent amber eyes shone in the moonlight. "We are running low on prey, but that is to be expected in leaf-bare. Hopefully, StarClan will bring us a warm and verdant newleaf. We have two new apprentices—Shroompaw and Snakepaw."
"Thank you, Trilliumstar," a lithe, brown tomcat mewed.
"That's Adderstar," Barkfur murmured.
"That silver she-cat over there is RiverClan's leader—Kingfisherstar. The ginger she-cat is ShadowClan's Briarstar and the brown tabby tom is Thistlestar of SkyClan."
Adderstar continued. "Everything has been going well. We have two new warriors; Petalsnap and Shallowpool!"
Cats from RiverClan, SkyClan, and, of course, WindClan, cheered on the new warriors that looked quite proud of themselves at the front of the crowd.
RiverClan and SkyClan were allied with WindClan, while ThunderClan was allied with ShadowClan, RiverClan, and SkyClan. They weren't on the worst terms, but a few moons ago, there was a border skirmish in which a few cats got gravely injured and one of them even ended up dying.
Adderpaw wondered whether she could someday grow up to be a leader. Adderstar. Adderpaw thought. Only Adderstar of ThunderClan, not WindClan. But it seemed all so confusing and difficult—how did they make the decisions that they made?
"Congratulations, Adderstar," a polite but cool voice mewed from the darkness of a higher branch of the tree.
It was the dark ginger she-cat that Barkfur had pointed out before. She nodded curtly before mewing, "ShadowClan has had an amazing leaf-bare. The little pond that's near us has frozen over, so it's harder to get water directly from our original water source, but we've managed by taking chunks of the ice and bringing them back to camp. They eventually melt, so it gives us time to put the ice in rock bowls so that we have places to drink our water from."
Adderpaw saw Trilliumstar nod, not missing a thing, before saying, "I think that's a genius idea, Briarstar,"
Briarstar gave the faintest of smiles, though it was genuine, and nodded to the RiverClan leader, Kingfisherstar.
The silver she-cat tossed her sleek silver head elegantly. She looked beautiful and looked well-kept as though she didn't make it out of her den very much—or she just cleaned herself very well before coming to the Gathering. But underneath the layers of charm, there was a spooked look in her eyes.
"Greetings, cats of the Clans. I have some . . . unsettling news," she chose her words carefully, speaking slowly. "One of our warriors—Cloverfrond—was patrolling a few sunrises ago. He stumbled across an odd scent in our little section of woodland. He described it as a scent that reminded him of ThunderClan, but with an odd smell to it."
At the part about ThunderClan, many cats started talking and chatting with each other, yowling and muttering. Adderpaw was confused.
"Are you accusing us of trespassing on your territory?" One ThunderClan warrior, Hedgehogfur, voiced Adderpaw's thoughts.
"No, no!" The RiverClan deputy, Eveningflame, tried to calm everyone down, his eyes wide.
"Why would we want your lousy fish?" Another warrior from Adderpaw's clan, Patteringrain, yelped.
Almost as soon as the fighting began, it ceased. Adderpaw wondered why everyone was suddenly quiet, and why everyone was glancing up at the dark sky. The cats of the Clans had angered StarClan by their bickering and they had sent a warning to the Clans by covering the moon with dark, wispy clouds to show their discontent.
The once moonlit hollow was becoming darker and darker until the leaders in the highest branches weren't visible anymore. The sky was a gloomy dark purple shade and the clouds were dark and looked pointy. They seemed to be threatening the Clans with bad luck and misfortune if they didn't stop fighting.
Kingfisherstar was the one to break the silence. "I was not implying by any means that this scent was ThunderClan. And now we know for a fact that it wasn't."
"What are you saying, Kingfisherstar?" Trilliumstar spoke, her voice steady as she watched the sleek she-cat explain her clan's story.
"I am saying that cats are invading our territory. I sent out a patrol and they decided to approach these cats for . . . personal reasons," Kingfisherstar glanced at the ShadowClan leader, Briarstar before continuing. "And while they were trying to find the leader of the cats, they attacked my patrol. I am saying that we should be wary. One of my warriors, Goosefur, is gravely injured. An infected bite is the cause. And to make matters worse, my medicine cat has compared this bite to one of a fox and they are shockingly similar in effects. They are closest to our border with ShadowClan, although they are very far inside of our territory."
Adderpaw gasped, shocked with this new information.
"From what the older warriors always said about Gatherings, usually, it just sounded like reports about new kits and things like that!" Adderpaw hissed to Cherrypaw.
"I know," Cherrypaw leaned closer to her sister, whispering into her ear. "And the last thing I expected from my first Gathering was news about intruders in one of our closest allies' territories."
Adderpaw continued to watch as the Clan leaders threw around questions and advice. But nothing seemed to satisfy Kingfisherstar. Adderpaw couldn't blame her—she wouldn't feel amazing either if there were foreign intruders trespassing on her territory. And if one of the warriors that battled them was now sick because of an infected bite that one of the cats had left.
Adderpaw watched as the Gathering ended and her leader leapt down from her branch, her long, plumy tail bouncing as she hit the ground. Trilliumstar's eyes were wide with compassion—Adderpaw guessed she was thinking about her Clan and how she could help them if something went wrong and the rogues wandered onto their territory. The thought frightened her and to make matters worse, it was realistic.
Even though she was walking perilously along the skinny tree bridge with her clanmates, she felt more alone than ever. If there were intruders in RiverClan, then what would they do to the Clans before they left? How many of them were there?
Who were they?