Leafpool's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

The warrior drank from the river at moonrise, and now he was dying in Leafpool's den. She was RiverClan's healer, and she had sworn to stop this plague before it emptied the clan. Four cats had already drunk at moonrise. Four cats had collapsed. She still did not know why the water turned to poison when the moon rose, only that it did, and that this warrior would die tonight unless she acted. He thrashed on the moss. His breath came in short, wet gasps. Heat rolled off his pelt like sun off a stone. Leafpool pressed her nose to his flank and smelled something sour under the fur. The fever was climbing fast. If it did not break, his heart would. "Ashpaw," she called. "Bring me the frosted fern. The one by the cold spring." Ashpaw was her apprentice, a young warrior-in-training who followed her orders without flinching. He had run every errand she asked since the plague began. He darted out and returned fast, a frost-kissed fern frond clamped in his jaws. White crystals still clung to its leaflets. "Hold his head," Leafpool said. Ashpaw pinned the warrior's shoulders with his paws. Leafpool laid the cold frond flat against the burning forehead. The warrior jerked, then stilled. She watched the crystals melt and darken. She pressed harder, dragging the chill across his skin. Slowly his gasping slowed to breathing. "It's working," Ashpaw whispered. But the fever was only half of it. Leafpool parted the fur along his neck and found the swelling she feared. A hard black knot sat under the skin. The poison had gathered there. If she left it, it would spread to his heart by dawn. She needed to open it. She looked around the den and found a stick near the entrance, its tip worn to a hard point. She gripped it between her teeth. "Hold him still," she told Ashpaw. "This will hurt." She set the point against the knot and pushed. The skin split. Dark fluid welled up, thick and foul. The warrior screamed and bucked. Ashpaw threw his weight across him and held. Leafpool kept pressing, squeezing the poison out until the fluid ran red and clean. Then the warrior went limp. His chest rose. It fell. It rose again. He was breathing deep and even. He would live. Leafpool sat back, shaking. Ashpaw stared at the dark fluid pooling in the moss. "Leafpool," he said quietly. "That came out of him. That was inside the water." She looked at the black stain. She had seen it before, but never so much. The poison did not just sicken cats. It settled in them and grew. "Then it isn't the moon," she said. "Something is in the river. Something the moonrise wakes." She stood. "We find its source before anyone else drinks. Tonight."