Warriors: Legends of the Clans

by Erin Hunter

  The river! He had heard so much about it and tried so hard to picture it. He burst out of the ferns and stood on the shore. It’s like a watery Thunderpath, he thought, feeling slightly disappointed. From the way the elders talked about it, the river seemed like a terrible place, waiting to suck young cats under the surface. The fact that RiverClan warriors liked to swim just made them more sinister and terrifying.

  Mistpelt padded past him over the crunchy stones. “Come dip your paws!” she called as she stepped delicately into the water.

  Pinepaw backed away, imagining the water lapping hungrily at his belly, dragging him off his feet. “I’m okay, thanks,” he mewed. He stared across the river to the willow trees on the other side. Their leaves shimmered gray and silver in the breeze, and the reeds beneath them whispered. Were they being watched by RiverClan cats? Pinepaw shuddered. He didn’t want to meet any of those fish-breaths today. Not before he’d learned how to fight properly.

  Mistpelt returned, shaking droplets from each paw in turn. “Let’s head back,” she meowed.

  “Really? I’ve seen the whole territory?” Pinepaw asked.

  Mistpelt purred. “Well, most of the borders. We’ll leave everywhere else for another day.” She ducked into the ferns and picked up a tiny path, strongly scented with rabbit and something else, sharp and bitter. “That’s fox,” Mistpelt commented, noticing Pinepaw wrinkle his nose.

  Pinepaw blinked. “Is it near?” he squeaked.

  “No, this is an old scent.” Mistpelt picked up speed as the path widened, and suddenly Pinepaw realized he had seen these trees before, and smelled these exact scents . . . and there was the path at the top of the ravine that led down into ThunderClan’s camp. Home!

  He followed his mentor down the stony path and pushed his way through the gorse into the clearing. Before he could catch his breath, a brown tabby she-cat with green eyes was nuzzling him, licking the fur on his back and purring.

  “Well, what do you think?” Sweetbriar demanded. Before Pinepaw could reply, she turned to Mistpelt. “Was he good? Did he listen to you?”

  Pinepaw wriggled free. “Of course I did!” he mewed. His mother was so embarrassing.

  Mistpelt nodded. “He was a perfect apprentice.”

  “Of course he was,” rumbled Oakstar, coming to join them. His dark brown fur gleamed in the sun, and his eyes were warm as he gazed at Pinepaw. “My son is going to be the finest warrior this Clan has ever known!”

  Pinepaw straightened up. “I’ll try!” he promised.

  “You must listen to everything Mistpelt tells you about training for battle. I want you to be ready to fight those mangy RiverClan cats!” Oakstar meowed. “They will not take another son from me!”

  Pinepaw watched his father’s eyes cloud with sorrow. He had never known his half brother Birchface; he just knew that Birchface had died in a battle with RiverClan.

  A cream-and-white she-cat joined them. “He might fight ShadowClan warriors before then,” she warned. “Those Twolegs will finish the tunnel soon, and ShadowClan will have direct access to our territory.”

  Oakstar nodded. “You’re right, Doefeather, but I think they’ll turn back if we renew the scent markers there every day. Can you make sure the dawn patrols do that, please?”

  Doefeather nodded. “Of course.”

  There was a crackle of gorse and Flashpaw, Daisypaw, and Littlepaw burst into the camp, closely followed by their mentors.

  “We just had a great battle practice!” Daisypaw mewed. Her gray-and-white fur was sticking up along her spine and there was a piece of bracken hanging from one ear.

  Doefeather studied her. “You look as if you lost,” she pointed out.

  “She did,” Daisypaw’s sister, Flashpaw, declared. “Littlepaw and me nearly squashed her!”

  “Not necessarily a move to take into battle,” commented Littlepaw’s mentor, Squirrelwhisker. She nodded to Doefeather. “Your apprentice fought well, though. Very brave, even when the other two joined against her.”

  Doefeather purred. “I’m glad to hear it. Thanks for taking her.”

  Flashpaw’s mentor, Nettlebreeze, was drinking water from some soaked moss at the side of the clearing. Swallowing, he turned to Pinepaw. “How was your first walk around the territory?”

  “Amazing!” Pinepaw mewed. “I saw a kittypet and some Twolegs!”

  “Ooh, scary,” teased Daisypaw.

  “He did very well,” Mistpelt meowed. “In fact, I think he can join your practice tomorrow to help Daisypaw out. What do you think, Squirrelwhisker?”

  The brown tabby warrior dipped her head. “We’d be honored to have you with us, Pinepaw and Mistpelt.”

  Pinepaw bounced on his toes. Being an apprentice was the best thing ever!

  Crack! A twig snapped beneath Pinepaw’s foot and he stopped dead, holding his breath. Ahead of him, the blackbird was still pecking in the leaf mulch. He let out a sigh of relief. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Flashpaw mouth, Lucky! at him, and Pinepaw nodded. Just a few more steps and he’d be within pouncing range.

  He had been an apprentice for almost one moon, and this was his fourth hunting patrol. He had caught something on every single patrol so far, and he wasn’t going to let that change now! He eased his weight onto his front paws and gathered his haunches beneath him in the hunter’s crouch.

  “Sssshhhh!”

  Pinepaw looked around. Who said that? Flashpaw had vanished and he seemed to be alone among the ferns.

  “Get off my tail!” hissed a different voice. “Do you want to let the whole of ThunderClan know we’re here?”

  Pinepaw froze. That wasn’t one of his Clanmates. Were they being invaded? He sniffed the air. This close to the Thunderpath, the scent of leaves and prey was mostly smothered by the stench of monsters, but today there was something else, the faintest hint of a cat scent that he hadn’t smelled before. . . .

  His pelt bristling along his spine, he prowled toward the bush where he had heard the voices. He had forgotten about the blackbird. It flew up with a squawk, and there was a flurry of movement among the brambles. Pinepaw glimpsed flashes of brown, gray, and orange fur, and the glint of unsheathed claws. He had lost his chance to creep up on them now.

  “Intruders!” he yowled, spinning around and racing toward where he had left the rest of his patrol. “Come quick!”

  Doefeather leaped out in front of him, her fur standing on end. A splash of blood on her muzzle showed she had just made a successful catch. “Where?” she demanded.

  Pinepaw nodded over his shoulder. “In those brambles,” he panted.

  “Wait here,” the deputy told him. She bounded toward the bush, letting out a screech. “ThunderClan warriors, to me!”

  The undergrowth around Pinepaw came alive as Mistpelt, Squirrelwhisker, Daisypaw, and Littlepaw burst out. Mistpelt paused beside Pinepaw. “What’s going on?”

  “We’re being invaded!” Pinepaw told her.

  Squirrelwhisker sniffed the air and bared her teeth. “A ShadowClan patrol has come through that wretched tunnel! Come on, let’s chase them back where they came from!”

  As she raced away with Littlepaw at her heels, Mistpelt mewed, “Pinepaw, go to the camp for more warriors!” Then she disappeared after her Clanmates.

  Pinepaw was about to plunge into the bracken toward the camp when something struck him. He was sure he had only seen three or four cats among the brambles. That meant they were already outnumbered by the ThunderClan patrol. Rather than waste time by fetching more cats, why didn’t he join the others and give chase now, before the intruders got too far into the forest?

  Whirling around, he set off after his mentor. A volley of yowls and hisses told him that the invaders had been confronted. Pinepaw launched himself through a dense thicket of elder and scrambled out on the other side. In a small clearing, the rest of his patrol faced four ShadowClan warriors. Their heads were lowered and their tails lashed from side to side. Pinepaw gaped at the moment, struck by ho
w lean and strong the ShadowClan cats looked, how calm and ready for battle.

  Then he looked at his own Clanmates, standing their ground with their fur bristling. He knew which side he wanted to fight on! He bounded over to stand beside Mistpelt, who hissed, “I told you to fetch help!”

  “That would take too long. I can be of more use here!” Pinepaw whispered back. He sank his claws into the damp earth and ran through every battle move in his head.

  Littlepaw touched him with the tip of his tail. “Fight alongside me,” he murmured. “We’ll cause more trouble if we stick together!”

  Pinepaw nodded and shifted closer to the black-and-white tom.

  “You want us to leave?” sneered one of the ShadowClan warriors, an orange-and-gray she-cat with mean amber eyes. “You’ll have to make us!”

  “We will!” Doefeather retorted. She sprang at the intruder, clearing the gap with a single stride. At once the other ShadowClan cats rushed forward and the ThunderClan cats leaped to meet them.

  Pinepaw and Littlepaw threw themselves at a light brown tom with a distinctive snaggletooth. Pinepaw clung onto the warrior’s neck while Littlepaw nipped his ears. The cat flung himself to the ground, dislodging Littlepaw, but Pinepaw held on, sinking his claws into the warrior’s fur. When the cat tried to roll over and crush him, Pinepaw sprang sideways, then jumped back onto the warrior’s shoulders as he scrambled to his paws.

  “Nice move!” Littlepaw panted, ducking around to bite the ShadowClan cat’s tail. The warrior let out a yowl and staggered. Pinepaw took the opportunity to cuff his broad head, and the cat sank to his knees.

  On the other side of the clearing, Mistpelt was snarling at a dark gray tom. Blood dripped from the she-cat’s ear, but her eyes were fierce as she lashed out at the intruder. He tried to step back but was blocked by a bramble; trapped, he could only duck as Mistpelt rained blows on his head.

  “Go, Mistpelt!” yowled Pinepaw.

  The orange-and-gray cat rolled away from Doefeather and stood up. “ShadowClan warriors, retreat!” she growled.

  The fourth intruder, a gray-and-white she-cat, snapped at Daisypaw’s ears once more, and got clouted by Squirrelwhisker in return. Pinepaw braced himself for another attack, but the orange-and-gray warrior hissed, and as one, the ShadowClan warriors turned and sprinted away. Doefeather charged after them and the rest of the patrol fell in behind. In spite of his scratches and bruised paws, Pinepaw felt himself fly over the ground. We won!

  They chased the intruders all the way to the tunnel under the Thunderpath, then stopped just beyond the churned-up earth and watched them flounder back into the damp-smelling hole.

  “And stay out!” Doefeather screeched.

  There was a rustle of bracken on the far side of the Thunderpath as the ShadowClan cats emerged, then silence. Even the Thunderpath was empty and quiet, save for the panting of the ThunderClan warriors.

  Mistpelt nudged Pinepaw, and he looked up at her. “You fought well, youngster,” she mewed. “Your father will be very proud.”

  Pinepaw felt his pelt grow hot with pride.

  Doefeather nodded. “Good decision to stay with us,” she grunted. “Brave, too. We’ll make a leader of you yet, Pinepaw. Just wait and see.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “But Mapleshade hadn’t finished her revenge. She wasn’t going to rest until she had tortured every cat that she blamed for the death of her kits! She came back to ThunderClan looking for one cat in particular: poor, helpless Frecklewish.” Nettlebreeze lowered his voice and Pinepaw shivered. He had heard this story many times, all the apprentices had, but that didn’t stop them from begging Nettlebreeze to tell them the tale again.

  “Tell us what happened when she found her!” begged Daisypaw, her yellow eyes huge. The skirmish with ShadowClan warriors had left her with a deep bite on her foreleg, so she had been staying in the medicine cat’s den for the last few days, but she would be back in training soon.

  Nettlebreeze crouched down and let the fur rise along his spine. “Mapleshade found her, all right, patrolling by Snakerocks. Mapleshade forced her into a pile of stones where snakes were hiding, and one of them spat venom right in Frecklewish’s eye!”

  He paused, screwing up his own eyes to show what Frecklewish would have looked like.

  “Bloomheart found her,” Nettlebreeze went on, his voice growing husky with grief. “But there was nothing he could do. ThunderClan had no medicine cat then, because Mapleshade had killed Ravenwing without an apprentice to take over. Frecklewish died a few sunrises later, when the poison took hold of her from the inside.” He shook his head. “Perhaps that was a sign of mercy from StarClan. If she had survived, she would have been blind and driven mad by the horrors she had seen. If Mapleshade is not in the Place of No Stars, there is no justice!”

  “No justice!” echoed the apprentices faintly, shaking their heads.

  “Nettlebreeze, are you telling them about Mapleshade again?” Fallowsong pushed her way into the apprentices’ den, shaking raindrops from her fur. “For StarClan’s sake, stop! You keep giving them bad dreams!”

  “No, he doesn’t,” Littlepaw protested.

  Fallowsong tipped her head on one side. “My nest is just the other side of the den wall,” she pointed out. “I can hear you! Okay, Doefeather has sent most of your mentors to renew the border marks by the tunnel, so she has asked us to take you on a hunting patrol. We’ll try not to stumble across any intruders this time, okay?”

  Pinepaw scrambled to his feet and followed the others out of the den. The rain had eased to a fine drizzle that clung to his fur and tickled his eyelashes. He blinked, then broke into a run so that he didn’t have to linger under the dripping gorse.

  Fallowsong and Nettlebreeze took them to the pine trees near treecutplace. It was silent and shadowy under the brittle branches, and the cats didn’t say a word as they spread out, looking for prey. Pinepaw watched the other apprentices cover the needle-strewn ground and decided to head closer to Twolegplace in the hope of finding something in the long grass at the edge of the trees. He had patrolled along the fence several times now and never stopped to peek through the hole again. He wasn’t afraid of a lazy kittypet, he told himself. He just didn’t see any need to cross their path.

  As he approached the edge of the forest, he saw the sharply pointed red roofs of the Twoleg dens. There was a chatter of high-pitched Twoleg voices, abruptly cut off by a thud, then a monster began rumbling, loud at first but fainter as it rolled away. Pinepaw swerved around a dripping dock leaf, letting the scents of the forest fill his muzzle. There was definitely a hint of prey—rabbit, possibly—and something else, mustier and almost hidden beneath the scent of rain-soaked leaves.

  A fallen tree lay ahead, the ground around it sandy and bare of grass where the roots had disturbed the earth. Pinepaw crept toward it, pinpointing the scents to the roots that reached into the air above a deep, sandy hole. The air began to taste warm and furry. This is going to be a great catch! Pinepaw thought gleefully.

  Suddenly there was an explosion from the trees beside him and a deafening screech of barking. Pinepaw spun around to see a fox snarling at the edge of the grass. Her russet-colored hackles were raised and drool dripped from her teeth. Behind him, he heard the faintest of yaps from beneath the roots of the tree, and his heart sank. He hadn’t been following the scent of prey. He had picked up the trail of some fox cubs!

  The mother fox took a step closer, and now Pinepaw could smell her breath, meaty and hot and foul. Her eyes gleamed with fury and hunger. Pinepaw scanned the gap between the fox and the tree trunk. Could he make a run for it before she caught him? His heart pounded so hard that he couldn’t think clearly, and his legs trembled until it was an effort to stand upright.

  The fox leaned forward, ready to strike. Pinepaw closed his eyes and braced himself. He knew he wasn’t fast enough to run away. He would have to hope that he could somehow fight his way out.

  Just as the fox was about to leap, there
was a thunder of paws along the fallen tree. A ginger-and-white shape flew down to land in front of Pinepaw. It was a cat, her fur fluffed up and her tail bristling.

  “Get away from him!” the cat hissed. She lashed out with one forepaw, and sharp claws glinted briefly in the air. “Leave him alone!”

  To Pinepaw’s astonishment, the fox lowered its muzzle and took a step back. Its ears flicked as if it was trying to work out what this fierce cat was saying.

  “Get onto the fence,” the cat muttered to Pinepaw out of the side of her mouth. “Go on, now!”

  Pinepaw turned and jumped onto the fallen tree. Without looking back, he raced along the trunk and leaped from there onto the Twoleg fence. It wobbled under his weight and for a moment he thought he would fall down into the grass to be snapped up by the fox . . . but then he dug in with his claws and found his balance and stood triumphantly on top of the fence. The ginger-and-white cat joined while the fox barked in frustration below.

  “Ha!” jeered Pinepaw. “Can’t catch me!”

  The ginger-and-white cat looked at him with cool blue eyes. “And you did what, exactly, to save yourself?” she meowed. “You would have been fed to those cubs if I hadn’t turned up in time.”

  “You don’t know that,” Pinepaw argued, feeling his fur grow hot. “I’m a ThunderClan warrior! I know how to fight!”

  “You should also know not to come between a fox and her cubs,” mewed the she-cat. “Clearly they aren’t training warriors properly these days.”

  “Are you from another Clan?” Pinepaw asked, staring at her glossy fur.

  The she-cat rolled her eyes. “What, and chase prey all over the place to catch my dinner every day? Don’t be ridiculous. I live here.” She nodded to the Twoleg den behind them.

  Pinepaw gaped. “You’re . . . you’re a kittypet! But kittypets don’t know how to fight!”

  The she-cat blinked. “You might have noticed that I didn’t fight that fox. I just scared it long enough to let you get away. We’re not all cowards, you know.” She stood up and kinked her tail over her back. “Especially if we have kits. Like that fox, we’d do anything to protect our young.” She padded lightly along the top of the fence. “Now, go back to your territory, and stay away from foxes! I won’t always be here to save you.”