Sootface

"Just keep going! Almost there!"

"Why?" Sootface complained, raising his voice above the whipping wind. "There's no point! The Windclan scent-markers were barren. None of us could detect a trace of them along the border-stream."

"It doesn't matter," Crescentpaw said. "Thunderclan's scent marks were undetectable as well. There might be a cat left in their camp, like Trufflefur!"

Hillflower was nodding and looking over at her. Crescentpaw just pushed harder, willing her legs to slice through the wind easier than they would water.

But it was plowing into her face, making her eyes water and her ears bend backwards. All of the cats walked with their legs braced, and Crescentpaw felt they were making agonizing progress.

Mouse-dung to this. "I'm going to run the rest of the way!" The apprentice yowled, forcing her legs into a run. Her tail streamed out behind her, and she was pulled by the wind. She felt some sense of relief. Crescentpaw was now part of the swirling breeze rather than against it.

How's that for Riverclan not being agile, Sootface? She'd left him behind.

Her paws were barely touching the ground. Air bent her whiskers flat against her face. A resounding whistle was howling over the moorland.

Trufflefur and Rainpaw picked up speed far behind her, while the kits did the same. Crescentpaw left them on fleeting paws, cresting a rise and finally catching a glimpse of the moorland camp.

She saw a ring of gorse bush engrossed with large stones at the foothills of a circular rise. In a fold between two hills was the gap for an entrance.

The line of gorse stretched across one foothill and over to the edge of another. Crescentpaw thought it was neat how Winclan's camp was lopsided. And it was nestled in the middle of a valley.

Even though it looks easily floodable, it's well-protected from the moorland winds. She skidded to a halt.

"Cool camp!" Oatkit trilled as he slowed to a walk behind her. Crescentpaw padded toward the camp opening more slowly, inhaling cautiously for any sign of Windclan warriors.

She didn't like what she smelled. Crowfood filled her scent-glands.

Something long-dead was in there, and she hadn't been able to see it from afar.

Swiveling her head around, Crescentpaw tried to keep her voice level as she spoke to the others.

"Hillflower, come with me. The rest of the cats should stay back here until we find the source of that scent."

"Uh-okay." Cloverkit scrunched up her nose. Her brother stood on tall, lanky-apprentice legs, then sat obeditently and nodded.

"Okay, but hurry." He looked curious as he rushed them.

"You should be the one to go," Sootface leaned over and whispered into Jadestar's ear. "Not some fish-eating oversized know-it-all apprentice."

She let her jaw drop open with astonishment, offended. Crescentpaw flattened her ears and narrowed her eyes, but really she was looking for Jadestar's reaction.

"Let Crescentpaw go if she wants to," Jadestar said calmly.

Her passive gaze flitted over the Riverclan apprentice. "Maybe it'll teach her a lesson about blind bravery."

Crescentpaw huffed and fought to keep her fur flat. Blind bravery? I should snatch her those words right out of her mouth!

"That's not fair," Oatkit meowed defensively. "She's done more to unite what's left of the clans than you have." He looked up at his leader with a puzzled expression.

Jadestar ignored him, but her hackles fluffed up and her eyes stretched. Sootface gave the young tom a repugnant scowl. He lifted a paw as if he wanted to cuff the kit, but didn't.

Crescentpaw turned around and left the other cats. Despite her silent leave, inside she was furious.

Talking about me all the time isn't helping anything! Are these cats mad?

I'm not doing this to try and be some hero. She rounded the first line of gorse bush, brushing lightly against it as she climbed the lowest crest of Windclan's expansive camp hills. There were den entrances dug out between and under the lines of gorse; as well as hollows between chunks and cracks of stone.

Hillflower trailed behind her, paws silent and ears pricked. The she-cat stayed quiet and watchful, most likely nervous about what might lie ahead.

"Hopefully just a dead wolf," Crescentpaw said after awhile. "Maybe Windclan killed one," she said in an attempt to comfort both Hillflower and herself.

Have clan cats ever killed a wolf? None in Riverclan while I've been alive... The dark tabby-she-cat wondered.

"But then where are they? It's seems like... " Hillflower trailed off, looking around while Crescentpaw had her ears pricked.

"I know. If they were still here, they'd have disposed of it."

Crescentpaw's words were bleak as she padded along, slinking beside the empty and scentless dens.

"My hope is that we don't find any Windclan bodies. Just a wolf's.

Or perhaps their old rotted fresh-kill pile, if it's all the way up there where their one maple tree is."

You're kidding yourself, Crescentpaw. She knew she was.

That smell didn't come off as an old prey pile. Instead it flowed down the slope in a pungent festering wind, filling Windclan's entire camp with a corrosive odor.

"It's an odd smell, isn't it? Like spoiled crow-food but... stronger."

Crescentpaw nodded, the fur on her shoulders beginning to rise with nerves.

"Let's hurry and find it."

They crossed the last rise, up to a hillock peak full of waving switchgrass. The maple tree stood tall and lonely, a few of its branches clattering together in the wind.

Stale wolf-scent was whispy but traceable. A few tufts of thick grey hairs were flattened into the trampled grass.

By the time she emerged from under the maple's trees cool covering she saw it. Sprawled figures barely visible above the turf, if not for their ear-tips.

Dead cats. Crescentpaw's stomach turned.

The tabby-and-white apprentice felt her mind fog with the roiling scent. It filled her nose and her mouth, making her eyes sting.

Somehow the scent was touching her brain. She wanted to throw up.

With a clenched knot in her belly, Crescentpaw edged close enough to glimpse the color of the cat's pelts; sandy yellow and tortishelle. She avoided looking into their eyes- which they didn't actually have.

Instead the sockets were caved in and full of maggots. Writhing white pits with sinewy gaping jaws resting on the earth beneath them.

I shouldn't have looked that long!

She could hardly tell which one was a she-cat versus a tom. Their overlain Windclan scent was gone. Their features were destroyed, with flies landing on their bloody, rotting lips.

Crescentpaw deliberately tore her gaze away and padded around. She was relieved to find no other dead cats.

"Their injures are entensive," Hillflower commented in a high vibrato tone, her voice critical.

"I can see the wounds that killed this one." She crouched beside one of the fallen cats, peering close but unwilling to touch them. "Their pelts look familiar. I think I know who they are."

The medicine cat couldn't pull her eyes away from their crumpled, deteriorating bodies. Her neck-fur was standing on edge.

"One has a removed jaw. The other one's shoulder has been torn apart and eaten... but they've been here for awhile, rotting in the sun. Scavengers are still eating them."

Yeah, half of that cat's body is gone. She was too shocked to say it out loud, but now recognized that one of the cats had no torso and back legs. It was deceivingly covered with tall prairie grass.

A crow cawed as it circled high above them. "We ought to get out of here," Hillflower meowed. Crescentpaw turned her head.

"Sunset will fall before we make it back to Riverclan. And a storm is coming!"

"That gives us more of a reason to go now!" Hillflower chided. The medicine cat was standing on her paws with her ears flattened to keep out the wind. Her gaze, too, had worry in it.

"What about burying them?" The medicine cat looked skeptical. "Or a vigil?"

Finally the she-cat all but hissed, "We have to worry about the cats that are left alive, Crescentpaw. That's very honorable but as you like to say; We have to go."

Crescentpaw thought for a moment, then came to the conclusion that she was right. If we get trapped on Windclan land during the storm, we might not make it back before sunrise tomorrow.

Especially if we run into some wolves.

"Alright. Let's go back and tell the other cats."

When Crescentpaw and the Skyclan medicine cat made it back to Jadestar and the others, they didn't look optimistic. Crescentpaw didn't blame them. The scent of rotting flesh flowed down the slope with the interchanging breeze. She could still catch wind of it even from here.

Jadestar wanted to see it for herself. It was decided that Pepperpelt and the Skyclan leader would accompany the original two cats back. Crescentpaw led them at a slow pace, crestfallen for what she was about to show them.

Pepperpelt gasped, while Jadestar set her face in a disgusted lour, shaking her head.

"That's Sunrunner. I'd recognize her yellow pelt anywhere. She was a patient senior warrior, always listening to the elders at Gatherings."

"And that's Stalkpaw, I think." Pepperpelt meowed. "I knew his mother before she died. I didn't expect he-..." the speckled gray she-cat lashed her tail in distress.

"So there's no Windclan warriors here. None left." Jadestar declared, her stormy grey-and-tan pelt rippling under the looming clouds above.

"Are they all dead, or have the others fled somewhere?" Crescentpaw pondered aloud, but no cat answered her.

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Pepperpelt