Dewstar watched his clanmates awake long before dawn, their bodies little more than the suggestion of form in the hazy, frigid land between leaf-bare nights and dawns. It was not he who had ordered them to awake, though he pitied their ragged step and admired their devotion. He did not need to walk amongst them to know that they were troubled, and the monotony of work they had once dreaded was now a distraction from the war that clung to the camp like smoke, omnipresent and thick enough to choke on.

On the bright, side, though, this generation of apprentices fought like Creekrush, hunted like Cranewing, and were obedient to an extent he had never seen with the troublemakers of the past. It would have made his own mentor proud. He remembered the light in Featherstep's eyes when he had done something right, rarely as that had been, and he found that he missed his older sister's face dearly. No other cats had the dark-pointed faces that had distinguished his family, no one knew their secret: Shallow Step had been adopted. His white fur and dark markings gave him away as something much greater than the forest peasantry could ever aspire to. He had adopted this way of life and made it most his own, he and his kin, and for what?

The blood of this clan's founders, of ancient cats with minds quicker than the river, ran through Dewstar. It would die with him. They would speak of them, in passing, but they would never call upon Dewstar by name. What a disappointing, small print he left when faced with his own kin...

He did not regret his decision not to have kits, but when he looked at his clanmates, so foreign in form, he wished that it was not he alone who bore the mantle of Shallowstar's legacy.

As he searched the clan, his eyes fell upon Ottersoul, who was hustling some of the older warriors into dawn patrols, and his loneliness abated.

In many ways, she was kin to his kin, or at the very least kin to his legacy. He doubted she would have kittens, either, but though what she had was not easily taught, it was quite unlikely that it was bred. In fact, in his years, which had been many, he had never seen such fierce devotion or brilliance. She lead the clan more efficiently than he ever could from the deputy position.

He rose to his shaking feet, the weakness of his own body far from lost on him. His most trusted associates, Ottersoul included, watched him descend from his den on the hill into the midst of the cats. Circling around to the Highledge, which he strode atop, he hoped for all the stars' wisdom and patience in the coming day. The clan looked upwards, confusion crescendoing into caterwauls of desperate noise and Dewstar spoke with all the authority that age had stripped from him: "All cats old enough to swim in the shallows gather here for a clan meeting."

His warriors filed into a sizeable mass. The morning sun pierced the trees, enrobing clan and leader both in an armor of light. "I understand the past moon has been hard unlike anything this clan has gone through since the time of Dewstar himself. We believed these battles over. We believed peace had finally found our corner of the forest and nested there. Clanmates, we were strong to believe so, and this hope will take us far... but we were wrong."

"What now, then?" asked Rainfern, in the crowd.

Voices joined hers:

"Are we going to keep taking this?"

"What about the apprentices who went missing?"

"Swiftspring is dead! We can't let them get away with it."

He said these words with a heavy heart, but he said them still, tail aloft and pride bright in his blue eyes. "In three day's time, as the sun rises, we fight."