Chapter Text
All of the apprentices were summoned to Outlook Rock the next day. The morning dew had already been burned away, and now it seemed that the harsh greenleaf sun was turning its direct attention to the tips of Blackpaw’s ears as all five WindClan apprentices bounded through their territory.
They didn’t need to be in any hurry to meet with their mentors—Talltail still needed to finish assigning patrols for the day. Blackpaw was grateful for that at the very least, as it had given him a sliver more time to sleep. His eyelids didn’t feel nearly as heavy as they had these past couple of days.
Wrenflight had been incredibly secretive about the curriculum for today when they’d asked, so Ashpaw and Morningpaw were bouncing around the elder apprentices with their speculations on why the mentors wanted all of them together.
“It can’t be for hunting,” Morningpaw reasoned. “What did Talltail say about us the first day of our training again?”
“That your chattering scared off every piece of prey from the abandoned badger set to Fourtrees?” Blackpaw prompted, and the tortoiseshell-and-white molly had the audacity to turn and give him a smug grin. He twitched his whiskers. “Not something to be proud of, Morningpaw.”
“We weren’t hunting anyway,” Morningpaw said with a toss of her head.
“I was,” Blackpaw bickered, just for the sake of it.
“Maybe our mentors are going to set up a mock battle for us!” Ashpaw suggested. She nudged Mudpaw’s flank. “Have you ever done anything like that? It probably would’ve been hard to do while you and Tornpaw were the only apprentices in the Clan.”
“I’ve been in real battles, Ashpaw.” Mudpaw sniffed. He took a small step away from the younger apprentice, letting the cool long grass brush against his dark tabby pelt.
Morningpaw stopped short, her fur prickling. She turned a heated gaze to Mudpaw. “We’ll see real battles too! We’re expecting an attack from RiverClan any day now.”
“And you’d better pray to StarClan you don’t take part in those battles,” Tornpaw said, shouldering Morningpaw out of his way. “You two are little more than kits.”
“Someone’s talking like an elder.” Ashpaw flicked her ear dismissively. “You’re forgetting that Heatherstar made me and Morningpaw apprentices so that WindClan could have more fighters if it came to war.”
“No, she made you apprentices so Tornpaw and I could become warriors,” Mudpaw grouched. “And so that Blackpaw wouldn’t be training alone.”
“So then why is your name still Mudpaw?” Morningpaw chirped up. “Why didn’t she perform your warrior ceremony after we were made apprentices? You’re way overdue.”
Mudpaw flattened his ears and glared at the tortoiseshell molly.
“Maybe she thinks we’ll be more helpful as apprentices in the meantime,” Tornpaw said calmly. He didn’t seem as frustrated as Mudpaw that Heatherstar was taking her time in giving them their full warrior names. “Blackpaw doesn’t fight like Mudpaw and Mudpaw doesn’t fight like me. It’s good to expose you to different fighting and hunting techniques.”
“I don’t fight like you because I’m smaller than you,” Blackpaw deadpanned, and Morningpaw and Ashpaw stifled their giggles.
“You don’t fight like us because your mentor is Deadfoot,” Tornpaw corrected.
Blackpaw puffed out his chest. Perhaps Tornpaw had merely made the comment as an observation and not as a compliment, but he couldn’t help but be proud that the other apprentices had noticed. He had learned both how to fight like Deadfoot and how to counter his mentor’s unconventional battle tactics. Blackpaw pranced ahead of the other apprentices.
“And also because you’re small,” Mudpaw called out after him, because of course he wouldn’t want Blackpaw to get too big of a head.
Blackpaw glanced back at his friends to see that Mudpaw had finally cracked a smile, and his amber eyes were glowing with mischief.
The apprentices all arrived to Outlook Rock to find it abandoned. For the past few days, a sentry had been posted on Outlook Rock at all times, but today it had been left alone. Talltail had wanted the space to be completely dedicated to today’s training session. The guard would return at the end of the day.
Ashpaw shook her coat out and began to wash her ears while Morningpaw found a butterfly to amuse herself with while they waited for their mentors to make an appearance.
Blackpaw opened his mouth to scent the air, but he couldn’t taste the scents of any of their mentors in the wind. “Maybe we should hunt while we wait.”
“Or we could set up a mock battle ourselves!” Ashpaw said, jumping to her paws.
Morningpaw gave up her butterfly chase and went back to stand beside her sister. She frowned, looking across the group, and shook her head. “We’re an odd number. One of us would have to sit out.”
“I can take two cats at once,” Tornpaw boasted. He reared up onto his hind legs and swiped at his brother’s ear. Mudpaw dodged with practiced swiftness and swung out at Tornpaw’s left hind leg to unbalance him, but Tornpaw rolled away and dropped back onto all fours. He looked at the younger apprentices and puffed out his chest. “Every cat has to learn how to take on multiple enemies.”
“Teach us then, O Great Powerful Warrior,” Ashpaw said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
Tornpaw and Mudpaw glanced at each other and shrugged.
“Ashpaw, Morningpaw, and Blackpaw on one team?” Mudpaw suggested.
“Is that fair?” Blackpaw wondered. “You and Tornpaw are warriors in all but name!”
“You’ll have the advantage of numbers,” Tornpaw said. “And you’re not an inexperienced apprentice anymore. How would you divide the teams up?”
Blackpaw hesitated. “Mudpaw with Morningpaw and Ashpaw. Tornpaw with me.”
“You’re giving them Mudpaw?” Tornpaw asked.
But Mudpaw’s eyes were sparkling. He nudged his brother’s shoulder. “Weren’t you just bragging about being able to take two cats in a fight?” Now he looked at Blackpaw, lingering his gaze on the younger apprentice’s neck. Blackpaw could guess that Mudpaw was remembering the day that he had ripped off Blackpaw’s collar. Finally Mudpaw met Blackpaw’s eyes. “I’d say it’s a fair match.”
“What’s a fair match?” Deadfoot’s voice cut in, and Blackpaw jolted. He hadn’t noticed the warriors’ scents in the wind, but Deadfoot, Talltail, and Wrenflight came through the grass as he turned his head over to follow his mentor’s voice. Cloudrunner and Redclaw were absent today, but that wasn’t altogether strange; they had been showing up to training practices less and less now that Mudpaw and Tornpaw were just about fully trained. Instead, Dawnstripe picked her way out of the long grass behind the mentors.
Morningpaw stood straight as the warriors appeared. “We were going to set up a mock battle!”
“I didn’t realize your mentors were already among you,” Deadfoot said dryly. He glanced at Mudpaw and Tornpaw with a scowl.
Blackpaw shuffled his paws—he hadn’t expected Deadfoot to be in such a bad mood. Even in his grief, his mentor usually made a concentrated effort in practicing patience towards the apprentices.
Ashpaw looked desperately to her mentor Wrenflight. “We just wanted to have some fun.”
“We will,” Talltail said, his tail brushing comfortingly against Deadfoot’s flank. “Deadfoot, the apprentices didn’t do anything wrong. They just got ahead of themselves.”
Deadfoot closed his eyes painfully for a moment. “Yes. Right. Sorry. We do have something fun planned.”
“Is it a mock battle?” Blackpaw ventured.
Deadfoot sighed. “No.” He paused and seemed to muster up all his positive energy. When he spoke next, his tone was forcibly lighter: “We’re going to have a race.”
“A race!” Morningpaw jumped to her paws. “I’m the fastest, I know it! I’ll win!”
“Running is a skill,” Blackpaw reminded her. It was something Deadfoot had drilled into him time and time again. When he glanced over at his mentor, it was to find Deadfoot nodding with approval. “It requires stamina too, not just speed.”
“That’s just something slow cats say,” Tornpaw said.
Dawnstripe purred and lightly cuffed Tornpaw’s ear. “Cheek!”
“It’s not just going to be any race,” Talltail began to explain. “We are here at Outlook Rock to see how you would fare in the case of an enemy attack. How fast would you get to camp to warn us of intruders? We are here to test your speed and stamina.”
Tornpaw scowled. “I’ve already done that! For real.”
“Which is why we wanted to include you in this training session,” Deadfoot said.
“You want us to run all the way back to camp?” Blackpaw asked, slumping his shoulders. He wasn’t really looking forward to that, and he couldn’t figure out how the mentors would be able to track them besides.
“Not quite.” It was Wrenflight who responded. She jumped up onto Outlook Rock. “We thought we would make it a little more fun.”
“A relay race,” Dawnstripe put in. “We will split up into teams of three, spaced between here—” Dawnstripe pointed with her muzzle to a large lavender bush and then to a small pile of rocks directly across from them. “—That bush of lavender, and that pile of rocks. When you reach your teammate, touch their nose and they will take over the next stretch of the race.” The apprentices exploded into excited chatter, beginning to bicker over how the teams would be divided, but Dawnstripe waved her tail. “I’ve already split up the teams.”
“Will we be on the same team as our mentors?” Ashpaw asked.
Dawnstripe shook her head. “There will be three teams: Team Feather, Team Leaf, and Team Daisy. Team Feather will be Wrenflight, Morningpaw, and Blackpaw. Team Leaf will be Talltail, Deadfoot, and Tornpaw.” She dipped her head to the remaining two apprentices. “And Ashpaw and Mudpaw will be with me on Team Daisy.”
“Team Feather! Team Feather! Team Feather!” Morningpaw started to chant.
Ashpaw tried to drown her sister out. “Team Daisy! Team Daisy! Team Daisy!”
Dawnstipe waved her tail again for the two youngest apprentices to quiet down before she explained the terms: while she’d chosen the teams ahead of time, it was up to the teams themselves to delegate in what order the cats would run. The apprentices on the winning team would automatically get to go to the Gathering.
At this, Wrenflight immediately turned to Morningpaw and Blackpaw with a clever glint to her eye. “Morningpaw, I think you should go first. Blackpaw goes second, and I’ll run last.”
Blackpaw bristled. He couldn’t help but feel like he was being overlooked by Wrenflight. The last runner was the most important in a race like this. Wrenflight would be the one to finish in an event thought up for the apprentices. “Why’s that?”
“A fast runner should go first to give a good head start,” Wrenflight explained levelly, “but the fastest runner should go last to recover any time lost in the previous stages of the relay race.”
Morningpaw nodded along with Wrenflight as though she found sense in the warrior’s words. She nudged Blackpaw’s shoulder. “Being second runner won’t make you try any less, would it?”
“Of course not,” Blackpaw said. “It’s only that I think an apprentice should finish off a race meant for the apprentices. I agree with the strategy, but won’t it be easier to see where Morningpaw or I fall if one of us finishes the race?”
“You don’t want to win?” Wrenflight teased. “But I see your point. I’ll go first, and Morningpaw can finish the race.”
“Is everyone ready?” Talltail called. At the affirmative responses, everyone began to head to their places.
.
“Go!” Blackpaw could just hear Dawnstripe’s voice over the wind. He watched Wrenflight, Dawnstripe, and Deadfoot launch themselves from Outlook Rock and charge towards the lavender bush where he, Mudpaw, and Talltail were waiting. His whiskers twitched. Blackpaw was glad to have a little extra sleep for today’s training session. He had never taken part in a relay race before, and his main experience with his running had been to do laps around the moor to build his speed and stamina.
This was something more like he would be expected to do when taking messages to and from the sentries at Outlook Rock: tearing through a certain distance, making sure not to tire himself out before reaching his Clanmates. His paws tingled. Blackpaw itched for Wrenflight to reach him so he could blast off.
Wrenflight’s youth and long legs allowed her to take a lead over the other two warriors. She looked completely at home under the sunny clear sky, the wind caressing her brown tabby fur. Dawnstripe and Deadfoot were not far behind the younger warrior. Blackpaw could see that his mentor’s eyes were narrowed with concentration. He glanced at Talltail next to him, who was on Deadfoot’s team, and set his jaw. He could scarcely hope to beat his father in an even race, so he just hoped that Wrenflight could give him an ample head start.
Mudpaw was tense underneath his dark pelt as he watched the warriors approach. Blackpaw crouched beside him and purred, “Nervous?”
The older apprentice snorted. “You’re no challenge for me. But for a race against Talltail, definitely.”
“I’m not going to go easy on you,” Talltail said with a twinkle of amusement in his eye.
“Not asking you to!” Blackpaw said, digging his claws into the earth. He knew that he’d improved with his training, but Blackpaw was curious to see just how far he’d come. A simple race could show his skill much better than a hunting assessment, where luck played a far larger factor in catching a rabbit.
Dawnstripe slowly gained on Wrenflight, but with a final push the younger molly shot forward and reached the lavender bush. Wrenflight touched Blackpaw’s nose with her own and Blackpaw was off before she had even fully stopped.
In a heartbeat, he could feel Mudpaw’s breaths at his heels and he knew that the advantage that Wrenflight had given him was slim. Blackpaw trained his eyes on Morningpaw in the distance, who would be running the last stretch of the race back to Outlook Rock. She, Ashpaw, and Tornpaw were waiting for their team members at the rock pile.
He just needed to get to Morningpaw and she might bring their team the win. But Blackpaw figured that he would need to go even faster if he wanted to give Morningpaw an edge against the other teams. He dared to take a look at his competitors and wished immediately that he hadn’t.
Already Talltail was beginning to overtake him despite being the last cat to leave the lavender bush. Mudpaw was still on his heels. He sucked in a breath and narrowed his eyes, trying to judge the distance from where he was pelting past the cool waves of grass to where Morningpaw waited for him.
“Remember your endurance, Blackpaw!” Deadfoot called out from behind him. Blackpaw felt a little glow of delight in his chest. Even though they were on competing teams, Deadfoot was still his mentor. He wanted to see Blackpaw succeed. “You’re going too fast!”
Easy for him to say! Deadfoot wasn’t running against the fastest cat in the Clan. Still, he knew that his mentor was right: this speed was unsustainable for the entire duration of his stretch. If Blackpaw tried to keep up this pace, he would crash long before he reached Morningpaw. Begrudgingly, he let his pace drop enough for Talltail to fully take the lead. He was paw-to-paw with Mudpaw now.
“Giving up so soon?” Mudpaw puffed out.
“I should be asking you that!” Blackpaw shot back.
At the rock pile, Morningpaw had jumped to her paws. She and Ashpaw were wriggling around excitedly as they watched their teammates race ever closer, while Tornpaw only looked focused. Now a few fox-lengths away from them, Blackpaw put on a final burst of speed to break away from his near-tie with Mudpaw. He came to Talltail’s shoulder, but Mudpaw reacted quickly. He was on top of Blackpaw. This race would be closer than he thought.
“I’m back!” he chirped up to his father.
Talltail started and glanced over to him, delight twitching his whiskers. “I was wondering where you’d gone.”
“Only ever right behind you!” Blackpaw panted out.
Talltail reached the rock pile and touched noses with Tornpaw first, but his lead was minor: Blackpaw and Mudpaw skidded to a halt right behind him, and Morningpaw and Ashpaw took off heartbeats later. Blackpaw fell back onto the sun-warmed stones and stretched out, fighting to catch his breath.
Mudpaw shoved one of Blackpaw’s hind legs out of the way and collapsed beside him. Between his panting breaths, Mudpaw managed to get out, “You’re no slug anymore, are you?”
The older apprentice’s praise warmed Blackpaw far more than the greenleaf sun overhead, and he purred.
“Of course not,” Talltail said fondly, dropping down on Blackpaw’s other side. He rested his chin on his kit’s heaving flank and Blackpaw flicked his ears. “Soon he’ll be faster than Windstar herself.”
“Oh, I doubt that,” Blackpaw mewed. He gently turned over, leaving Talltail to catch himself as Blackpaw slipped from under him. Blackpaw wanted to see how Morningpaw was faring against Ashpaw and Tornpaw in the final stretch of the relay. He squinted, but couldn’t quite tell who was in the lead. Tornpaw and Ashpaw were both blurs of gray, and Morningpaw’s tortoiseshell tail poked up over the heather.
He heard a yowl come from Outlook Rock, but it didn’t belong to any of the previous runners. Dawnstripe, Wrenflight, and Deadfoot were still on their way back to the starting place. At the call, they picked up their pace and Blackpaw looked to Outlook Rock to see Doespring standing there, her tail bushed. Instantly Talltail and Mudpaw had scrambled up to their paws and began sprinting back to Outlook Rock, relay race forgotten. Blackpaw lagged behind them. He had given the race his all and didn’t have it in him to put on his top speed anymore.
When they arrived to Outlook Rock, Dawnstripe filled Talltail in: a RiverClan patrol had caught Doespring’s hunting party within their borders.
“We retreated and left the prey,” Doespring meowed. “I know it seems like I came here for reinforcements, but I didn’t see reason in staying to fight on RiverClan land. I sent the rest of my patrol to hunt within our own borders. As we left, Oakheart said he couldn’t wait for the Gathering tonight.”
Talltail shook his head. “A border skirmish on the day of the Gathering, no less. Tonight will be interesting.”
“StarClan won’t be pleased,” Deadfoot agreed. “But I’m curious about what Hailstar will say to explain himself.”
“I doubt there’ll be a Gathering tonight,” Dawnstripe said with a look to the sky. Clouds had started forming, muting the golden sun rays. If the clouds lingered and blocked the moon completely, the Gathering would be canceled altogether.
Morningpaw and Ashpaw looked disappointed at this turn of events. Not only had the relay race been interrupted, but now it seemed as though neither of them would be getting to meet the other Clans tonight.
Deadfoot too looked frustrated, but Blackpaw knew it was for different reasons. Neither his words nor his tone had betrayed whether he believed Heatherstar was in the right to decide to hunt on RiverClan land. But at the very least he had wanted Hailstar to answer to the other Clans for Hickorynose's death.
“We don’t know for sure,” Talltail said. “Barkface will make the call after sundown. We should go home to let Heatherstar know. She will want to be prepared for hostility tonight in any case.”
“As though we weren’t expecting any hostility already,” Wrenflight muttered as they all got ready to head back to camp.
Once evening fell, the sky had become totally overcast. There would be no Gathering this moon.