The Fourth Apprentice Page 12

  Excellent!

  Dropping into the hunter’s crouch, Lionblaze crept silently up on his prey, his belly fur brushing the ground. There was no wind to carry his scent, and he was sure he hadn’t made a sound, but before he had covered half the distance the squirrel started up in alarm and launched itself toward the nearest tree.

  “Mouse dung!” Lionblaze spat.

  He hurled himself after it, realizing with a surge of triumph that there was something wrong with the squirrel; it was limping, so that he soon overtook it and killed it with a blow to the spine before it reached the tree.

  I hope it hasn’t got some horrible disease, he thought as he looked down at the limp body. He gave it a cautious sniff. It smelled fine—mouthwateringly good, in fact. Picking up his fresh-kill, he headed back toward the border. Dovepaw caught up to him when he was almost there, with a tiny mouse dangling from her jaws.

  “Sorry,” she mumbled around it. “This was all I could find.”

  Lionblaze sighed. If Dovepaw couldn’t find any prey, then there wasn’t any prey to be found. “Don’t worry,” he mewed. “It’s better than nothing.”

  When they returned to the spot where the other cats were waiting, he found Rippletail and Petalfur drowsing in the shade of the ferns. Whitetail and Sedgewhisker sat beside them alertly, as if they were on watch.

  “That squirrel looks good,” Whitetail congratulated him as he dropped the fresh-kill on the edge of the stream. “And so does the mouse,” she added to Dovepaw.

  “No, it doesn’t.” Dovepaw dropped her prey with an annoyed flick of her tail. “If it was any smaller it would be a beetle.”

  “It’s fine.” Whitetail reached out to touch Dovepaw on the shoulder with her tail-tip. “We need every scrap of prey we can get.”

  “Hey, Toadfoot and Tigerheart are coming back!” Sedgewhisker meowed.

  Lionblaze turned to see Toadfoot padding confidently through the pine trees, carrying a blackbird in his jaws. Tigerheart was a little way behind him, dragging something along the ground.

  “The squirrel’s not bad,” Toadfoot mewed as he leaped over the stream and dropped his prey beside Lionblaze’s. “Pity about the mouse.”

  Lionblaze ignored him, watching as Tigerheart lugged his prey up to the bank of the stream, dropped it down into the dried-up bottom, then leaped down after it and clambered up the other side with the prey gripped in his jaws. It was a huge pigeon; tiny gray feathers clung all over Tigerheart’s dark brown tabby pelt.

  “Great catch!” Sedgewhisker exclaimed.

  “Yes, great,” Lionblaze added, stifling feelings of envy. He’d wanted to show Toadfoot that ThunderClan warriors were better hunters than ShadowClan any day. But Tigerheart’s catch was impressive, and he wouldn’t spoil the younger warrior’s pride in it.

  Toadfoot was looking quietly triumphant, but at least he didn’t boast about his Clanmate’s catch.

  Tigerheart seemed a bit flustered. “I nearly missed it,” he meowed. “It flew off, and I had to leap really high to get it.”

  “That’s great!” Lionblaze told him. He was pleased to see the glow in Tigerheart’s eyes and hoped he had made up for being unfriendly to him at the Gathering. Cinderheart had been right: It was better to have friends than enemies in the other Clans. And the young warrior was a real asset to his Clan.

  I wonder if Tigerstar realizes that yet? Lionblaze wondered, feeling a cold claw run down his spine in spite of the heat.

  The cats divided the prey and crouched down to eat. For the first time, Lionblaze felt a sense of companionship with these cats who only the day before had been his rivals. Perhaps we can work together after all.

  Roused from their sleep, Petalfur and Rippletail ate as if they hadn’t seen prey for a moon. By silent agreement the other cats drew back and let them fill their bellies.

  “It won’t help any of us if they’re too weak to carry on,” Whitetail whispered to Lionblaze.

  When they had finished eating, Toadfoot took the lead again as the stream left the border and wound its way among the pine trees of ShadowClan territory. Lionblaze felt uneasy at the open spaces and the sight of so much sky above them; the sun cast the shadows of the pines over brown needles on the ground until he felt as if he were trekking across an enormous tabby pelt. After a while they spotted a ShadowClan patrol in the distance, headed by Rowanclaw; Toadfoot called out a greeting, but the ShadowClan cats didn’t approach.

  The sun was sliding down the sky when the patrol reached the edge of ShadowClan territory. Lionblaze halted as he crossed the scent markers and peered into the forest ahead. The stream ran between gray boulders covered with moss. A few fox-lengths ahead the ground changed; it became more broken, strewn with tumbled stones, and the pines gave way to gnarled trees, smaller and older than the ones he was used to in his own territory. Their branches were woven together like the roof of a den, with moss and ivy clinging to their pale trunks. But there still wasn’t much undergrowth.

  Not many places to hide, Lionblaze thought uneasily.

  Whitetail padded up beside him with her jaws parted to taste the air. “I think we should take turns leading,” she meowed. She spoke with conviction, her air of authority reminding Lionblaze that she was the most senior warrior, even though she was so small.

  “Fine,” he responded, taking a pace back and waving his tail to let her go ahead.

  Toadfoot opened his jaws as if he was going to object, then closed them again. With Whitetail in the lead, the cats jumped down into the bed of the stream and headed into the unknown forest. The trees closed over their heads; they padded forward in the dim green light, turning their heads to check for danger on each side. Lionblaze realized that the WindClan warrior had chosen the best cover available by keeping them in the empty stream, where they could duck down to hide if necessary.

  “There’s mud here!” Dovepaw exclaimed, shaking one forepaw in disgust. “I walked right into it.”

  “That’s good,” Rippletail meowed. “Where there’s mud there might be water. It looks as if the stream here doesn’t get as much direct sunlight.”

  The RiverClan warrior was right. A few tail-lengths farther on, Whitetail spotted a small puddle of water underneath the overhanging bank, behind the roots of an oak tree. All the cats gathered around to drink. It was warm and tasted muddy, but Lionblaze didn’t think he’d ever lapped up anything so delicious.

  When the cats had drunk their fill, they trudged onward. Every so often, Whitetail told one of them to leap up onto the bank and take a look around. When it was Lionblaze’s turn, he spotted a pair of deer bounding light-footed through the trees. We don’t see many of those in ThunderClan, he mused, but there are plenty around here. He spotted their cloven hoofprints marking the bank of the stream, and the moss on the trees had been chewed off as high as a deer could reach.

  “I saw deer up there,” he reported to Whitetail, leaping down into the streambed again.

  The WindClan she-cat nodded. “They shouldn’t bother us.”

  Padding onward, Lionblaze realized that he was beginning to enjoy himself, and he guessed his companions felt the same. The air under the trees was cool and damp; their bellies were full and their thirst quenched. They walked peacefully in silence, broken only by the occasional rustle of leaves from the forest, or the splash of a paw hitting a patch of mud. It would be easy, Lionblaze thought, to forget how serious their mission was.

  Suddenly Dovepaw stopped dead, her neck fur bristling up. Her eyes were wide and scared as she turned to Lionblaze. “Dogs!” she whispered. “Coming from over there.” She flicked her tail at an angle to the stream.

  Lionblaze took a quick mouthful of air, but he couldn’t detect any dog scent. He couldn’t hear anything, either. But that didn’t mean Dovepaw was wrong. There was no point in trying to outrun dogs, especially in unfamiliar territory, and they couldn’t risk losing sight of the stream. There was only one answer.

  “Dogs!” Lionblaze yowled, turning to face th
e rest of the patrol. “Quick! Climb a tree!”

  The cats started milling around in confusion, tripping over one another in the narrow stream.

  “What? Where?”

  “I don’t smell any dogs.”

  “How do you know?” Rippletail asked, genuine curiosity in his voice.

  “There isn’t time for this.” Lionblaze forced his voice to carry above the babble. “Just climb a tree, okay?”

  To his relief, Toadfoot and Tigerheart spun around and scrambled up the far bank of the stream, shooting up a nearby tree and peering down from a high branch. At least they’re safe.

  But the WindClan and RiverClan cats hadn’t moved; they just shuffled their paws and cast awkward glances at one another.

  “We don’t climb trees,” Whitetail pointed out.

  “Oh, for StarClan’s sake!” Without waiting to argue, Lionblaze, with Dovepaw helping him, bundled the four cats out of the streambed and nudged them toward the nearest tree. “Now climb!”

  Sedgewhisker veered away, heading for a low-growing tree with twisted branches that made it easier to climb. “I think I can get up here,” she meowed.

  “No—come back!” Lionblaze called to her. “The dogs would follow you up there in no time. Look, you just dig your claws in,” he explained as the she-cat bounded back. “Then use your hind paws to push you up the trunk. It’s easy.”

  The cats looked scared and baffled. “I’ll never do it.” Sedgewhisker was shaking. “You go. I’ll take my chances down here.”

  “We’re not leaving you!” Dovepaw meowed fiercely.

  Lionblaze struggled with fear and exasperation. He could hear the dogs now, their barking still faint in the distance, but growing louder with every heartbeat.

  “Try this.” Dovepaw bounded over to the nearest tree and leaped up the trunk until she could balance on the lowest branch. Scrambling down again, she added, “Come on, you can do it.”

  To Lionblaze’s relief, Toadfoot and Tigerheart reappeared at his side. “We’ll take one each,” Toadfoot meowed, heading for Petalfur.

  “Great, thanks.” Lionblaze beckoned Sedgewhisker with a flick of his tail. “Tigerheart, you take Rippletail; Dovepaw, go with Whitetail.”

  The older WindClan warrior would be more confident, he guessed, and easier for an apprentice to cope with; besides, he suspected that Whitetail might have climbed a tree or two in the wooded area near the border with ThunderClan. Free to concentrate on the terrified Sedgewhisker, he shoved her over to the nearest tree. “Put your front claws here,” he instructed, “and use that knot-hole there to give one hind paw leverage. Now, up you go.”

  Sedgewhisker did as he said, then froze, splayed out against the tree trunk with all four sets of claws digging into the bark. “I can’t move,” she choked out.

  “Yes, you can,” Lionblaze encouraged her. “And if you fall, you’ll fall on your paws. Now bring one hind paw up to that hollow there….”

  Gradually, paw step by paw step, the WindClan cat edged up the tree with Lionblaze beside her. The dogs had almost reached them, noisily barking and plunging about in the sparse undergrowth. Their scent drifted thickly on the air, and Lionblaze took quick, shallow breaths as he tried not to taste it.

  The trees they had chosen were hard to climb, to make sure that the dogs couldn’t follow them, but it was slow going for the inexperienced cats. Glancing around, Lionblaze could see that Dovepaw and Whitetail had reached the safety of a high branch, while Tigerheart was shoving Rippletail into the fork between two branches. Toadfoot was still coaxing Petalfur up the trunk of the tree next to Lionblaze’s.

  “You’re doing fine,” the ShadowClan warrior growled, “but for StarClan’s sake, don’t look down.”

  Just as Sedgewhisker managed to claw her way onto a branch, the dogs erupted into view. There were two of them, with smooth, shiny pelts, one yellow and one black. They gamboled about, leaping into the stream and out again, and sniffing around the roots of the trees.

  “At least they’re not hunting us,” Lionblaze meowed, crouching on the branch beside Sedgewhisker. “Stupid creatures; they have no idea we’re here.”

  Just then, one of the dogs scented him and Sedgewhisker. It burst into a flurry of excited barking as it bounded over to their tree and jumped, reaching up the trunk with its front paws. Its jaws gaped and its long pink tongue lolled out.

  Sedgewhisker let out a terrified squeal and slipped off the branch, her paws flailing uselessly as she fell. Lionblaze flung himself forward, digging his hind claws into the branch while he grabbed at Sedgewhisker with his front paws. But he was a heartbeat too slow to get a firm hold. He could feel Sedgewhisker slipping through his grip, while the dog below leaped and barked in a frenzy of excitement. Sedgewhisker’s eyes were stretched wide with terror, and her jaws gaped in a soundless wail for help.

  Just as Lionblaze thought she was bound to fall, he saw Toadfoot hurtle through the air from the neighboring tree, leaving a panic-stricken Petalfur with both front legs wrapped around a branch.

  By now both dogs were jumping up at the tree, snapping wildly at Sedgewhisker’s dangling tail. For a moment Lionblaze was convinced that Toadfoot had leaped short and would fall into their jaws. Then the branch lurched alarmingly as he landed beside Lionblaze and reached down, sinking his front claws into Sedgewhisker’s scruff.

  Slowly the two warriors dragged the WindClan cat upward until she could sink her claws into the branch again. “Thank you! Oh, thank you!” she gasped, shaking so hard that she almost fell off again.

  Lionblaze steadied her with his tail. “Thanks,” he mewed to Toadfoot.

  The ShadowClan cat grunted, with a barely visible nod, as if he was embarrassed to be caught helping cats from rival Clans.

  Lionblaze heard Twolegs yowling through the trees. The two dogs turned and loped off in the direction of the voices, casting reluctant glances back at the cats. When their noise had died away and the forest was quiet once more, Lionblaze guided Sedgewhisker down to the ground, while Toadfoot went back to his original tree to help Petalfur. All the cats descended shakily and gathered together beside the stream, crouching among the brittle stems of sun-dried grass.

  “I think I’ve wrenched my shoulder,” Sedgewhisker mewed, flexing her foreleg with a grimace. “I’m so sorry, Lionblaze. I’m being such a nuisance.”

  “Nonsense, you’re fine,” Lionblaze reassured her. “We can’t all be good at everything. If we had to run away from something, you and Whitetail would outpace every cat.”

  “Not when my shoulder’s hurting,” Sedgewhisker muttered miserably.

  “Mothwing taught me a bit about herbs before we left,” Rippletail put in, giving Sedgewhisker’s shoulder a sniff. “She says a poultice of elder leaves is good for sprains. Should I go look for some?”

  “Good idea,” Lionblaze replied. “But don’t go far.”

  “I won’t.” Rippletail darted off, looking glad to be doing something useful.

  “What are we going to do, if some of us can’t even climb trees?” Tigerheart asked when the RiverClan cat had gone. “How can we hope to do what we have to?”

  The young warrior’s anxiety struck Lionblaze like a claw, especially since he had been so optimistic earlier. The other cats were murmuring in agreement.

  “We don’t even know what we have to face,” Sedgewhisker pointed out. “I mean, how do we know that the stream has been blocked at all? It might just have dried up in the heat. We could be walking forever!” she ended with a wail.

  Glancing at his apprentice, Lionblaze noticed that she was looking worried. He edged over to her and bent his head to whisper into her ear. “You’re not wrong. I trust you.”

  Dovepaw looked a little more relieved, though Lionblaze saw that her claws were still working in the earth in front of her.

  By this time the sun had almost gone; the sky above the trees was stained red, and shadows were gathering around the trunks.

  “I think we should stay here f
or the night,” Whitetail meowed. “We all need to rest—Sedgewhisker especially.”

  “But is it safe?” Petalfur asked, her voice edged with fear. “What if the dogs come back? Maybe we should sleep in the trees.”

  “No, you would probably fall out when you fell asleep,” Toadfoot told her brusquely.

  Petalfur’s eyes stretched wide with alarm. “Then what are we going to do?”

  “It’ll be okay,” Lionblaze reassured her. “We’ll take turns to keep watch.” Before any other cat could argue, he sprang to his paws. “Let’s collect some fern and moss for bedding.”

  Dovepaw and Petalfur jumped down into the stream to look for moss, while Lionblaze and the others started to tear up fronds of dried bracken.

  “You stay here and rest your shoulder,” Lionblaze told Sedgewhisker. “Rippletail should be back soon.”

  By the time the RiverClan warrior came back with a bundle of elder leaves in his jaws, the other cats had formed bracken fronds into rough den walls, while Petalfur and Dovepaw had patted moss into nests.

  “Here we are,” Rippletail mewed cheerfully, dropping the leaves beside Sedgewhisker. “We’ll chew these up and put them on your shoulder, and by morning you shouldn’t have any more trouble.”

  Sedgewhisker blinked at him. “Thank you.”

  As the patrol found places for themselves in the makeshift den, Lionblaze realized how awkward it felt to be settling down with cats from rival Clans; each cat was huddling together with their Clanmate, and Tigerheart practically jumped out of his pelt when Petalfur accidentally flicked him with her tail.

  “Sorry,” she whispered, looking embarrassed.

  Lionblaze nearly put his paw down on Whitetail’s ear, and he flew back, brushing Toadfoot’s pelt as he did so.

  “Watch it!” the ShadowClan warrior growled.

  Lionblaze gave him a brief nod of apology and jumped over the bracken wall to stand on the edge of the stream. “I’ll take the first watch,” he announced.

  He crouched on the bank with his paws tucked under him but soon realized he was tired enough to sleep unless he kept moving. Forcing himself to his paws again, he patrolled up and down the bank, always keeping the den in sight. His ears were pricked and he kept tasting the air for any signs of danger. There was nothing: The scent of the dogs was growing stale by now, and once he thought he caught a distant whiff of badger, but it was too far away to be a threat.