The Sight wpot-1 Page 2

  A rustle in the thorn barrier that protected the entrance to the camp signaled Berrypaw’s return. Daisy’s third kit charged over to the fresh-kill pile and threw down his catch—a plump wood pigeon.

  “Where’s Brambleclaw?” Berrypaw called out to the kits.

  Brambleclaw was Berrypaw’s mentor, and Jaykit could not help but feel a small pang of jealousy that Berrypaw spent so

  much time training with Brambleclaw when his own paws ached to hunt in the forest with his father.

  “He’s with Squirrelflight,” Jaykit replied. “They’re checking for loose stones.” He pricked his ears, listening for the sound of his mother’s and father’s voices. He could not hear them, but the breeze blowing down from the cliff behind the medicine den carried their scent.

  “Up there,” he told Berrypaw, lifting his nose toward them.

  “You’re sharp today, Jaykit!” Berrypaw meowed. “I wanted to show him my pigeon and ask him if we were doing battle training after sunhigh.”

  Jealousy gnawed harder in Jaykit’s belly. Why can’t I be an apprentice now?

  “You must be really good at hunting.” Lionkit sighed, clearly thinking the same thing.

  “It’s just practice,” Berrypaw told them. “Look.” He crouched down. “This is how you begin.”

  Lionkit’s belly swished against the ground as he tried to copy Berrypaw.

  “Get your tail down!” Berrypaw ordered. “It’s sticking up like a bluebell!”

  Lionkit’s tail slapped against the frozen earth.

  “Now pull yourself forward, smooth as a snake,” Berrypaw commanded.

  “You look like you’ve got wind!” Hollykit crowed.

  Lionkit gave a playful hiss and leaped at her, rolling her onto the ground. She fought back, purring with amusement

  while Lionkit pummeled her belly with his hind paws.

  They were so busy in their play fight that they did not notice the sudden noise outside the camp.

  But Jaykit did.

  Cats’ paws were pounding toward the camp entrance.

  Jaykit recognized the scents of Spiderleg and Thornclaw. The patrol was returning. But something was wrong. The warriors’ paws drummed the forest floor in a panicked rush, their scents bitter with fear.

  Jaykit’s fur stood on end as Spiderleg and Thornclaw burst through the entrance.

  Firestar and Sandstorm were on their paws in an instant.

  “What is it?” Firestar meowed.

  Spiderleg drew in a deep breath, then announced, “There’s a dead fox on our territory!”

  Chapter 2

  “Where?” Firestar’s meow was tense.

  “By the Sky Oak,” Thornclaw mewed, panting. “It was killed by a trap.”

  Jaykit heard loose pebbles clattering down the wall of the hollow. Brambleclaw was scrambling down into the camp, followed by Squirrelflight.

  “What’s happening?” he called.

  “Thornclaw and Spiderleg have found a dead fox,” Firestar explained. “Killed by a trap.”

  “Male or female?”

  “Female,” Spiderleg told her.

  “Then there may be cubs,” Brambleclaw growled.

  Jaykit was puzzled. “What harm can a couple of fox cubs do?” he whispered to Hollykit.

  “Cubs grow up into foxes, mouse-brain!” she hissed back.

  “An adult fox can kill a cat.”

  “The fox had the scent of milk on her,” Thornclaw reported.

  “So there are definitely cubs,” Firestar concluded.

  The warriors’ den rattled as Ashfur scrambled out.

  “Where was this trap?” Brambleclaw asked. Was that anxiety Jaykit heard in his voice? Surely his father knew enough about the Twolegs’ traps not to be scared by them? No, Jaykit decided, it wasn’t anxiety, but something else, some darker emotion Jaykit did not recognize.

  Thornclaw’s answer broke into his thoughts. “The trap is lakeside of the camp, not far from the Sky Oak.”

  “The cubs must be near,” Brambleclaw guessed. “Their mother will not have wandered far from them.”

  “What should we do?” Ferncloud had emerged from the nursery. “We can’t let the forest be overrun by foxes! What about my kits?”

  “We must find the den,” Brambleclaw replied without hesitation.

  “If the cubs are very young, they’ll starve without their mother,” Firestar meowed. “It would be best to kill them quickly.”

  There was nothing malicious in the ThunderClan leader’s voice; Firestar had to do what was best for the Clan.

  “What if they’re old enough to survive alone?” Hollykit asked curiously.

  “Then they must be driven out,” Firestar told her. “They can’t be allowed to settle in our territory.”

  “The cubs will be hungry by now,” Ashfur pointed out.

  “What if they’ve ventured out of their den already?”

  “They might find the camp!” Ferncloud gasped.

  “The camp will remain well guarded,” Firestar promised.

  “I’ll take Sandstorm and check the old Thunderpath up to

  the empty Twoleg nest. Brambleclaw, you sort out the other patrols.” The ThunderClan leader and his mate raced away through the prickly thorn barrier that shielded the camp from the forest.

  “Stormfur, Brook!” Brambleclaw called. “Patrol outside the hollow! Ashfur, guard the entrance.”

  Brightheart and Cloudtail paced in front of him. “What do you want us to do?”

  “Head toward the ShadowClan border,” Brambleclaw told them. “The earth is sandy there, ideal for a den. Squirrelflight will lead you. Do whatever she tells you. There may be more traps, and Squirrelflight is the best at springing them. Take Cinderpaw, but keep her close to you.”

  Cloudtail called his apprentice’s name, but the young gray tabby was already charging across the clearing.

  Squirrelflight headed toward the entrance. Jaykit felt her warm pelt brush past him.

  Brambleclaw called to Thornclaw and Spiderleg, “Go back to where you found the fox. See if you can trace its scent back to her den.”

  Sorreltail’s kit Poppypaw and Mousepaw were waiting expectantly, hardly able to stand still.

  “Can we go with them?” Poppypaw called.

  “Yes, but do everything your mentors tell you,”

  Brambleclaw warned.

  Jaykit felt their excitement crackle in the air like lightning as they headed out of the camp after Spiderleg and Thornclaw. His paws itched with frustration. Nearly all the

  apprentices were out hunting down the fox cubs. It wasn’t fair! He might be small, but he could still fight a cub.

  “We’re not going to be left behind!” Lionkit announced, echoing Jaykit’s thoughts. “Brambleclaw!”

  “What?” Brambleclaw’s voice was impatient.

  “Can’t we do something to help?” Lionkit begged. “We’re nearly apprentices.”

  “Nearly isn’t good enough,” Brambleclaw replied. He must have seen a look of disappointment on Lionkit’s face, because his voice softened as he added, “You, Hollykit, and Jaykit can help guard the camp. I’m taking Dustpelt and Hazelpaw to search the lakeshore. We need brave cats to make sure those fox cubs don’t come into the hollow. If you scent or see anything strange, send Leafpool to fetch me at once.”

  “Okay,” Lionkit mewed eagerly.

  He hurried back to his brother and sister. “We’ve got to guard the camp,” he told them. “In case the fox cubs try to get in.”

  “You don’t think the fox cubs would really get this far, do you?” Jaykit mewed grumpily. “There must be a ThunderClan apprentice behind every tree out there. Brambleclaw’s just trying to keep us busy.”

  Lionkit sat down with a bump, like a leaf that had been dropped by the breeze. “I thought he really wanted us to help.”

  “You never know,” Hollykit mewed. “The fox cubs might head this way, and if they do I bet we could smell them first—

  espec
ially with Jaykit helping.”

  A surge of anger pulsed in Jaykit’s paws. “You’re just as bad

  as Brambleclaw,” he snapped. “Stop trying to pretend we’re important to the Clan when we’re not.”

  Hollykit kneaded the ground with her forepaws. “We will be important one day,” she vowed.

  Lionkit suddenly stood up and turned in an excited circle, his tail fluffing out. “We’ll be important today!” he declared.

  “We’re going to chase those fox cubs off ThunderClan territory ourselves!”

  Hollykit gasped. “But if we leave the camp without permission, we’ll be breaking the warrior code!”

  “We’ll be doing it for the good of the Clan,” Lionkit argued. “How can that be against the warrior code?”

  Jaykit thought of something else. “We’re not warriors yet—we’re not even apprentices! So why do we have to obey the warrior code?”

  A purr rose in Hollykit’s throat. “If we did chase off those fox cubs, Icekit and Foxkit would be safe,” she mewed.

  “Exactly.” Lionkit turned and padded to a shady part of the thorn barrier that cut the camp off from the forest. Jaykit knew where he was heading. There was a small tunnel there that led to the place where the cats made their dirt. No one would question them using that way out. He doubted if anyone would even notice them slipping away. The clearing was deserted as the warriors and their apprentices went about their guarding and patrolling duties. The elders, Mousefur and Longtail, were tucked away in their den, and Ferncloud was hiding with Daisy in the nursery. Leafpool was busy with the two whitecough patients in her den.

  His heart pounding, Jaykit followed Lionkit through the narrow tunnel.

  “No one saw us,” Hollykit whispered, close behind him.

  He smelled the dirt place and veered away from it, following Lionkit up the sloping bank away from the camp. Ashfur’s pawsteps rustled the leaves outside the thorn barrier, where he was keeping guard.

  “Can he see us?” Jaykit hissed.

  “Not from where he is,” Hollykit reassured him. “The barrier’s blocking his view.”

  “And the other patrols won’t see us if we stay off the main paths,” Lionkit meowed.

  “But we don’t know where the main paths are,” Jaykit pointed out. The ground beneath his paws felt strange, littered with leaves and twigs, unlike the smooth, clear ground inside the hollow.

  “We can guess where they are by where the scents are strongest,” Hollykit mewed. “There’s hardly any scent coming from up ahead. The slope is steep, and there aren’t any tracks through the bracken.”

  “Let’s go that way, then,” Lionkit meowed.

  “What do you think?” Hollykit asked Jaykit.

  “Thornclaw said they’d found the fox lakeside of the camp, which is over there.” He flicked the tip of his tail away from the slope.

  “How do you know which way the lake is?” Hollykit mewed, sounding puzzled.

  “I can smell the wind from the water,” Jaykit explained. “It

  tastes fresher than the wind from the hills or the forest.”

  The three kits ran back down the slope and began to climb a thickly wooded rise. The ground here felt damper underpaw, and Jaykit guessed it had less sunshine than the other slope. He shivered.

  “Not scared, are you?” Hollykit teased.

  “Of course not,” he mewed. “It’s just cold out of the sun.”

  They carried on up the slope until they reached the crest where the trees thinned out. Jaykit felt the warmth of dappled sunlight flickering through the branches.

  His nose flared in alarm. “Stop!” he warned. He stretched to sniff a bracken frond, trying to distinguish the many ThunderClan warrior scents. “The warriors come this way a lot.”

  “I can’t see anyone,” Hollykit mewed.

  “We’d better be careful, though,” Jaykit urged. “What if we bump into a patrol?”

  “If only it were greenleaf!” Lionkit spat. “Then there’d be loads more undergrowth to hide in.”

  “What about over there?” Hollykit mewed. “The trees are thicker . . .”

  “. . . and there are brambles!” Lionkit finished.

  He darted forward with Hollykit and Jaykit following, away from the strong-scented bracken and into the trees beyond. The air was clearer here, less laden with ThunderClan scents. The muscles in Jaykit’s shoulders began to relax.

  And then he heard a familiar sound—Stormfur’s rumbling yowl.

  “Brook?” The gray warrior was calling to his mate.

  “Get down!” Jaykit hissed.

  Instantly the kits crouched. Jaykit pressed his belly to the cold earth, aware of his heart thudding against the leaf mulch.

  The ground vibrated with approaching pawsteps.

  “They’re coming this way,” he whispered. How would they explain being this far from camp?

  “Let’s hide under that holly bush,” Hollykit suggested.

  Lionkit was already padding toward it, and Jaykit felt Hollykit nudge him from behind, urging him forward. He hissed crossly and shot forward after Lionkit. Prickly leaves scratched his nose and ears as Hollykit shoved him under its low branches.

  “They won’t see us in here,” she whispered.

  Stormfur’s call sounded again. “Let’s head to the ShadowClan border.” The warrior’s voice sounded frighten-ingly close.

  Brook answered him, her low mew only tail-lengths away.

  “Do you think they might be using the old fox den?”

  “Probably not,” Stormfur meowed. “It still reeks of that she-badger Squirrelflight chased off. But it’s worth checking.”

  “If only Stormfur and Brook smelled like ThunderClan cats, it would’ve been easier to detect them!” Lionkit complained.

  “We’d never have smelled them whatever their scent,”

  Jaykit pointed out. “The wind was blowing the wrong way.”

  “Sh!” Hollykit warned.

  The warriors’ pawsteps were heading straight toward the

  holly bush. The branches quivered as Stormfur’s pelt brushed against them. Jaykit flattened himself against the ground and closed his eyes.

  “Come on; let’s be quick!” Stormfur urged his mate. “Then we can head back and patrol the top of the hollow.” The warriors’ pawsteps faded away.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Jaykit whispered.

  “Which way?” Lionkit asked.

  Jaykit smelled the air, once more tasting the fresh wind from the lake. “Over there,” he mewed, pointing with his tail.

  The kits set off again, keeping low. Lionkit led them along a winding route through swathes of bracken and tangled undergrowth. “Through here,” he urged.

  Jaykit squeezed after him into a clump of bracken, its stems so knotted that he could only just manage to haul himself through the narrow gaps. “I bet no warrior’s ever gotten through here,” he boasted.

  “They should take us out on patrols all the time!” Lionkit mewed.

  “We could explore places they’d never get close to,”

  Hollykit agreed.

  They scrabbled under the arching roots of a sycamore, tunneling a path through the leaf litter bunched beneath it.

  Jaykit stopped. He could scent the fresh mark of Spiderleg.

  “Wait!” he ordered. “Thornclaw’s patrol has just passed this way.”

  Immediately the kits scrambled back into the shadowy hole they had burrowed beneath the sycamore’s roots.

  “We must be heading in the right direction,” Hollykit whispered.

  “That must be the Sky Oak over there,” Lionkit mewed.

  “It’s the tallest tree in the woods by a long way.”

  “Where’s the patrol?” Jaykit asked.

  “Listen!” Hollykit commanded.

  Jaykit could hear the patrol thrashing around in the bracken several fox-lengths away. Then his fur bristled. He tasted the air, recoiling at the stench that bathed his tongue.

&nbs
p; It was a smell he’d never met before, but it sent a shiver down his spine.

  “Can you smell that?” he asked Lionkit and Hollykit.

  “Ugh!” Lionkit wrinkled his nose.

  “It must be the dead fox!” Hollykit guessed. “We’re near the trap.”

  “Can you see it?” Jaykit asked.

  Hollykit wriggled away from him. “I can see over the root!” she whispered from just above his head. “The dead fox is lying under the oak. The patrol is beyond it, searching the bracken.”

  “They’re looking in the wrong place,” Jaykit mewed. He suddenly realized that despite the scents of the patrol and the dead fox, he could smell a far subtler and sweeter smell—

  milk. It was right here beneath the sycamore. “The fox came past this tree,” he told the others. “I can smell her milk-scent.”

  “We’ve found her trail!” Hollykit mewed.

  Lionkit scrabbled out from under the root. “Let’s follow it!

  It’ll lead us to her cubs!”

  Jaykit turned away from where Thornclaw, Spiderleg, Poppypaw, and Mousepaw were plunging through the frost-blackened undergrowth. Heading out from the sycamore roots, he padded along the scent of the milk-trail.

  “Watch out!” Lionkit warned. “There are brambles ahead.”

  His senses trained only on the milk-scent, Jaykit had not noticed the spiky bush.

  “I’ll find a way through!” Hollykit offered. She pushed into the lead and wriggled into the branches.

  “But the trail leads around it,” Jaykit objected.

  “We can’t afford to stay in the open,” Lionkit told him.

  “We can pick up the scent on the other side, once there are brambles between us and Thornclaw’s patrol.”

  Reluctantly Jaykit followed Lionkit as their sister found a narrow tunnel through the tangle of branches. He was relieved when he picked up the fox’s scent quickly on the other side.