Warriors: Crow's Carrion

Chapter Fourteen

     At first, Crabpaw showed promising signs of recovery.

     Ospreypaw visited him for several days, so much that they almost neglected their training to see him. His left eye sported a deep wound, which he said he could only see blurry shapes through. After a few days, he lost sight in that eye completely. Despite this, both he and Riverflower remained positive that he would recover.

     On one of the first few days, he told Ospreypaw about the fight. He mentioned then that some of the NightClan warriors tried to intervene as well. A huge grey NightClan tom named Stormrunner had to break the fight up, and he wasn't the first to try, according to Crabpaw.

     "I'm really grateful to him," he had said, his uninjured eye glistening. "I don't remember much after that, but I know he helped end the battle. They're not all bad, Osprey."

     Clearly, he intended to comfort or inspire Ospreypaw with his words, but all they could feel at that moment was a lurching, nauseating horror. The knowledge that their brothers had been so brutally attacked that some of their enemies had to intervene—they didn't even know what to say to their brother.

     After this, Crabpaw's condition plummeted. Infection, sickness, Ospreypaw didn't know what it was, but they spent every last moment with their brother until he passed away. They'd never seen anyone's health decline so quickly—not their own, nor Mudbreath's after the battle that led to his infections. Riverflower remained confident he would recover, as well—at least, up until the last few sunrises.

     The days blurred together since Crabpaw passed. Ospreypaw couldn't remember how many times the sun had risen and set; they knew that at some point, Sticklefur surrendered his apprentice, Poolpaw, to Eveningshell. Like Ospreypaw and their parents, the grief wore him down quickly. He kept his distance from the remaining apprentice, too, though they often felt his watchful gaze.

     At first, sorrow gripped Ospreypaw as badly as it did their parents and uncle. It twisted their heart with its ice-cold claws until all they could feel was an agonizing ache. Days passed, of course: the only reason they registered such a fact was due to the pain ebbing away until it left nothing behind. Following the presence of grief was a strange absence of feeling. They could only relate it to the idea of an old, rotten tree trunk they saw once—hollow and ready to wither away.

     The only thing they had the motivation to continue was their training. In fact, it was as if their drive had been renewed; energized by a desire to become a warrior for both of their littermates.

     "Your energy today was remarkable," Darkshadow praised slowly, pulling Ospreypaw from their thoughts. "I can tell you've been practicing with someone else."

     "Someone else?" Ospreypaw echoed in surprise. Surely he didn't know about their training with Teacher. They saw the spectral cat every night, and though they didn't tell her what had happened, she seemed to know.

     "Yes," he said. "Ran and Current, maybe?"

     "Oh, um, yeah," the apprentice nodded slowly. "I asked them to keep quiet about it. Riverflower says I train too much."

     "That's why we don't listen to Riverflower, hm?" Darkshadow purred and shook his head before they entered the camp. "Oh, it looks like Ripplestar is picking her Gathering troupe."

     Ospreypaw perked up and stared at the leader. She sat with Eveningshell on the Daystones while the rest of the Clan gathered below, excitement and anticipation crackling through the air. They briefly wondered if they'd get chosen, and imagined seeing Falconstar and his underlings for the first time since the battle.