Dark River wpot-2

by Erin Hunter

  She dropped into a crouch, trembling with cold and fear as she spotted the stone-colored pelt of Mistyfoot through the reeds. The RiverClan deputy was stalking something. Hollypaw backed away as Mistyfoot drew nearer. She pressed herself against the earth, hoping that her drenched pelt was too wet to betray her scent.

  Suddenly, Mistyfoot sprang forward, paws outstretched. A moment later she straightened, her whiskers twitching with triumph and a water vole dangling from her jaws. Hollypaw sighed with relief as the RiverClan deputy turned and padded away. Mistyfoot looked thin and her usually glossy pelt was dull. Clearly, RiverClan was going hungry.

  Hollypaw waited a few moments before she began to pad on gingerly. The island was not far ahead now, the tree-bridge distinct on the shoreline. How would she cross it without being seen? She stiffened herself against the anxiety that nagged at her bones. I’ve come this far. . . . Slipping from the cover of the reeds, she darted over the marshy shore and dived among the tangle of roots at the foot of the tree-bridge.

  Pressing herself into them she scanned the shore, blood pulsing in her ears. She sniffed the air.

  No sign of any cat.

  Cautiously, she clambered up through the roots and hauled herself onto the tree-bridge. Keeping low, she crept along the trunk, gripping the slimy bark with her claws.

  Hardly daring to breath, she pricked her ears, listening for an alarm call. She reached the other side, shaking with relief, and slid down through the branches onto the shore.

  Which way now?

  This wasn’t a Gathering. She couldn’t just push through the undergrowth and head for the clearing. How was she going to find Willowpaw?

  Hope tingled in her paws when she realized that, not far along the shore, the beach was overtaken by undergrowth.

  The trees reached the water here, their roots snaking into the lake, and ferns and brambles tumbled over the lip of the island.

  Hollypaw took a deep breath and raced across the small stretch of open beach. She dived under the cover of a clump of ferns. The fronds spilled into the water, forming a tunnel around the edge of the island.

  Where in StarClan is the medicine den? Hollypaw prayed she would detect Willowpaw’s familiar scent soon. But what if it led her inland, toward the heart of RiverClan’s new camp?

  She crept through the fern tunnel, clambering over tree roots and hauling herself through clumps of bramble, her paws occasionally slipping off the muddy bank and into the cold lake.

  Suddenly, the undergrowth ended. Rocks stretched ahead of her, rough and flat and black against the water. They reached into the lake, forming a small causeway that ended in a rocky outcrop, jutting up from the water. Hollypaw lifted her head, ears pricked, and tasted the air. She could hear the sounds of RiverClan drifting from the center of the island: queens talking, kits mewling, an elder complaining about ticks. No sound of warriors or apprentices, though. Hollypaw

  frowned. At the Gathering, the island had been teeming with RiverClan cats. Where were the rest of them now?

  No time to worry about that!

  Where was Willowpaw?

  Hollypaw shivered. She was freezing. Her wet pelt clung to her. She was far from home. Panic started to rise in her chest.

  What if she couldn’t find her friend?

  Then she heard a squeal. A kit was wailing somewhere up ahead. “That hurt!”

  The soft mew of a queen soothed it. “It’ll only hurt for a bit.”

  Hollypaw could smell herbs. Someone was treating the kit with marigold!

  She crept out onto the rough, flat causeway, following the scent. It was coming from the rocky outcrop. Crouching lower than ever, Hollypaw slithered around the edge and peered through a gap in the stones.

  “We’ll need more marigold soon.”

  Willowpaw!

  The RiverClan medicine cat apprentice was crouched in a hollow in the heart of the outcrop, crushing leaves against the rough stone floor with her paws. “The kits keep getting pine needles stuck in their pads.”

  Mothwing sat on a ledge nearby, licking herbs into the mewling kit’s paw. A white she-cat held the kit in her paws as it struggled against Mothwing’s lapping tongue.

  “Try to keep her out of the pine needles, Icewing,” Mothwing advised.

  “It’s not easy,” the queen sighed.

  “I know,” Mothwing agreed. “I’ll come back to the nursery with you and sweep some of the needles away from the entrance.”

  The queen lifted the kit by its scruff and began to carry it, still mewling, out from the sheltering rocks and along the causeway that led back to the island. Mothwing followed her.

  When she was sure there was no other cat close enough to hear, Hollypaw hissed through the gap in the rock.

  “Willowpaw!”

  The medicine cat apprentice froze. “Who’s that?”

  “It’s me, Hollypaw!”

  Hollypaw quickly clambered back around the jutting rocks and slipped into the hollow beside Willowpaw. There was more space inside the outcrop than she had imagined. It was a cave, hollowed out by countless moons of wind and water, protected from the wind and rain by a low roof.

  Willowpaw crouched at the back, her eyes round with shock. “What are you doing here?”

  “I promised I’d come,” Hollypaw reminded her.

  “Does anyone know you’re here?”

  Hollypaw shook her head. Then she tensed. Mothwing’s scent was wafting into the cave.

  “Hollypaw?” Mothwing’s mew was sharp.

  Hollypaw spun around.

  “I came back for poppy seeds.” The RiverClan medicine cat was standing in the cave entrance. Her bones looked sharp beneath her pelt. “Hollypaw! What are you doing here?”

  “I had to do something!” Hollypaw mewed desperately.

  “ThunderClan are getting ready to fight WindClan.

  Everyone’s scared about what will happen if RiverClan is driven out of its home.”

  Mothwing looked at her. “RiverClan is not going to be driven out of anywhere.”

  “How can you be sure?” Hollypaw gazed back at her thin frame, unconvinced. “You’re half starved, and you’re still living on the island.”

  Willowpaw brushed against her. “It won’t be for long.”

  Hollypaw glanced at the rows of herbs carefully stacked against the cave wall. It looked like RiverClan was planning to be here for some time. “But you’ve brought everything from your old camp,” she pointed out.

  The RiverClan medicine cat sighed. “You’d better show her.”

  “Really?” Willowpaw looked surprised. “Now?”

  Mothwing nodded. “Just don’t let yourselves be seen.”

  Willowpaw nodded and streaked from the cave. Hollypaw hurried after her, pelt ruffled with curiosity. She followed Willowpaw across the tiny causeway and back around the shoreline.

  “Let’s swim across to the mainland,” Willowpaw mewed.

  “It’ll be easier to stay out of sight.”

  Hollypaw’s wet fur spiked in alarm. “I know I’m soaked, but there’s no way I’m swimming!” The tree-bridge lay only a few fox-lengths ahead of them.

  “Okay, okay,” Willowpaw mewed impatiently. “But we’d

  better disguise you somehow. Your scent’s seeping through.”

  She scanned the shoreline, whiskers twitching. “Follow me.”

  The medicine cat apprentice pushed her way among some clumps of grass that grew half in, half out of the water.

  “Here.” Before Hollypaw could complain, she scooped up a pawful of brown muck and smeared it over Hollypaw’s pelt.

  Hollypaw gagged. “What’s that?” The goo clung to her fur, sticky and smelly.

  “Otter dung,” Willowpaw mewed. “It should hide your ThunderClan scent.”

  Hollypaw coughed. “You’re kidding!”

  “You can wash it off later,” Willowpaw hissed. “Just be quiet and keep still.”

  She smeared another few pawfuls along Hollypaw’s flank.r />
  Hollypaw began to wish she had never come. Then Willowpaw reared up and scanned the shore on both sides of the lake.

  “Quick!” She scrambled across the beach and up onto the tree-bridge.

  Hollypaw followed, swallowing the nausea that rose in her throat at the smell of the otter dung. “Are you sure this stuff will disguise me?” she hissed as they crossed the bridge. “It’s so strong, I bet ThunderClan can smell me.”

  “Certain.” Willowpaw leaped down from the tree, crossed the shore, and dived into a forest of reeds. Hollypaw followed, struggling in the soft ground. Mud clung to her legs and coated her belly fur. Willowpaw seemed to be hopping among the clumps of reeds, staying free of the mud.

  Hollypaw watched her closely and began to follow her path exactly, relieved to find that, so long as she kept to her friend’s paw steps, she kept her paws and belly dry.

  At last the ground became firmer and Hollypaw felt grass underpaw. Willowpaw was leading her up a slope. There were trees here and the undergrowth grew thick and lush. The slope grew steeper until Hollypaw found she was scrambling up a red sandy cliff. She followed Willowpaw as the RiverClan apprentice leaped up and up, using rocks that jutted from the earth to haul herself higher. At last the two cats clawed their way onto the grassy bank at the top. Panting, Hollypaw looked down. The lake shone far below, glimmering through the fresh green leaves.

  “Where are we going?” Hollypaw panted.

  “You’ll see in a moment.” Willowpaw headed up the bank and disappeared into a swath of long grass.

  Hollypaw hurried after her.

  “Look.” Willowpaw had stopped.

  Hollypaw crept to her side as Willowpaw gently parted the grass. She peered through. Below them, a wide stream followed the line of the slope. An island rose in the middle, parting the water abruptly so that eddies swirled where the stream was forced to divide. The island was crowded with small trees and bushes, green amid the rolling brown water.

  “That’s our old camp,” Willowpaw explained.

  Hollypaw heard the clatter of rocks and stiffened. “What’s that?”

  “The warriors are working.”

  “Working?” Hollypaw blinked.

  Suddenly, she spotted the pelts of RiverClan warriors and apprentices weaving through the grass on either side of the stream. On the near side, she recognized the apprentices Pouncepaw and Minnowpaw. They were helping Reedwhisker and Voletooth to shift stones, pushing them toward the stream and tipping them over the edge so that they fell with a loud splash into the water.

  “What are they doing?”

  “Blocking the stream to make it deeper and wider,”

  Willowpaw replied.

  Blackclaw, a muscular, broad-shouldered black tom, called from the far side of the stream. “Hurry! Grab what you can!”

  He stood near the water’s edge, calling orders to warriors who were bravely leaping across the channel with wads of mossy bedding dangling from their jaws.

  “We need to rescue as much stuff as we can,” Willowpaw explained. “The pine needles on the island are no good for making the nests weatherproof.”

  “But why are you doing all this?” Hollypaw couldn’t understand what was going on. The old camp looked safe enough, almost as well protected by the divided stream as ThunderClan was by the cliffs of stone.

  A warning yowl sounded upstream and Minnowpaw came hurtling down the bank. “They’re coming!”

  Every RiverClan cat instantly dropped whatever they were carrying or pushing and scrambled away from the island, heading down toward the lake.

  Hollypaw’s fur bristled. “What’s the matter?”

  “You’ll see,” Willowpaw mewed.

  Tramping through the grass, along the far side of the stream, came a gang of Twoleg kits. They were sweeping jagged branches through the grass and mewling loudly to one another. As Hollypaw watched, the largest of the kits hopped from the shore and onto a stone that barely broke the surface of the stream, then onto another and another. Balancing pre-cariously on one leg, it leaned toward the island, and began to poke the bushes with its stick. The other kits yelped their approval and encouraged him by waving their hairless paws in the air.

  Hollypaw stared at her friend in dismay.

  Willowpaw lashed her tail. “Now do you see why we had to leave?”

  Chapter 13

  “It was Blackclaw’s idea to push the stones into the stream,”

  Willowpaw explained as they picked their way down the sandy cliff.

  Hollypaw put her head on one side. “But that will stop the water flowing.”

  “Exactly, so the stream above gets deeper and wider, and the island will be better protected.”

  Hollypaw was impressed. “But will it be enough to keep the Twoleg kits away?”

  “Once the stream’s flooded, we’re going to put up barri-cades of gorse.” Willowpaw stopped to catch her breath. “The Twolegs aren’t trying to hurt us. I think they’re just playing.”

  She bent her head to wash the red sand from her pads.

  “They’re like our kits. If we make it too hard for them to get near the island, they’ll give up and play somewhere else.”

  “And then you can move back to the island!” Hollypaw guessed. RiverClan had no intention of moving onto WindClan territory. Her paws tingled. She couldn’t wait to get back to her own camp and tell Firestar. WindClan’s borders were perfectly safe, and they’d have no need to try to

  take any of ThunderClan’s territory. There wasn’t going to be a battle after all!

  Willowpaw bounded down the rest of the slope and wove in among the reeds.

  Hollypaw hurried after her. “But why didn’t Leopardstar just tell the other Clans what was going on?”

  “And look weak because we’d been driven out of our home?”

  “But the other Clans might have helped.”

  “RiverClan can sort out their own problems!”

  Hollypaw lowered her gaze. “I didn’t mean to say that you couldn’t, but—”

  Willowpaw’s pelt was bristling. “It’s hard living on the island. There’s not enough fish because the boats scare them away, and we can’t hunt in the rest of our territory until we get rid of the Twoleg kits. The Clan is hungry and hungry warriors don’t win battles.”

  Hollypaw remembered Mistyfoot’s dull pelt and the way Mothwing’s bones jutted out on her hips and along her spine.

  “Do you really think Leopardstar can trust the other Clans not to take advantage?” Willowpaw went on, pushing her way through a clump of marsh grass. “We need all our strength to rescue our camp from the Twolegs.”

  “I won’t tell ThunderClan that you’re hungry,” Hollypaw promised. “Only that you’ll be back in your old camp soon and there’s no reason to think you’ll have to leave your territory.”

  Willowpaw blinked gratefully. “But first you have to get

  home,” she reminded her. “Your Clan must be wondering where you are.”

  Hollypaw felt a twinge of guilt. Had her Clanmates noticed she was missing yet? “I’ll just go back the way I came.”

  Willowpaw stretched up on her hind legs and peered above the spiky grass. “The shore’s quiet,” she announced, dropping down onto four paws. She began to weave through the marsh toward the firmer ground inland, where bushes and ferns crowded the shoreline.

  “Let’s head up there,” Willowpaw suggested. “It’ll be easier to hide.” Her eyes sparkled mischievously. “And the otter dung will stop any cats from noticing your scent.”

  “Wasn’t there anything else you could have used?”

  “Tansy might have worked,” Willowpaw admitted. “But our supplies are a bit low.” She pushed her way past a clump of ferns, and Hollypaw padded after her.

  They followed the shoreline until Hollypaw began to smell the scent of horseplace. “We’re near WindClan territory,” she whispered. “You can leave me here.”

  Willowpaw’s eyes clouded with worry. “Not till we re
ach the border.”

  The brown fences around the horseplace loomed larger and the ferns began to thin out as the lush foliage of RiverClan’s territory gave way to WindClan moorland.

  Willowpaw paused behind a stunted bramble bush at the edge of a stretch of open grass lay. “There’s the border.” She pointed with her tail.

  The wind raced down from the moors, tugging at

  Hollypaw’s pelt. She could smell the WindClan scent-line only a few fox-lengths ahead.

  Willowpaw rested her tail-tip on Hollypaw’s shoulder.

  “Promise you’ll be careful.”

  Suddenly, stones clattered on the shore. Willowpaw whipped around.

  A RiverClan patrol was haring toward them.

  Hollypaw stiffened, fear shooting through her like lightning. Then she felt Willowpaw’s teeth grab her scruff and drag her behind the bramble.

  “Did they see us?” Hollypaw whispered, trembling.

  “I don’t know.” Willowpaw flicked her tail over Hollypaw’s mouth. “Keep quiet!”

  Hollypaw peered through the leaves. Reedwhisker headed the patrol, his apprentice, Pouncepaw, racing behind him.

  Voletooth was at Reedwhisker’s heels with Minnowpaw at his side. The young she-cat’s dappled fur was slicked back by the wind, her whiskers blown against her cheeks, running as though her life depended on it.

  “Are they hunting?” Hollypaw asked.

  Willowpaw glanced around the empty shore. “Hunting what?”

  “Well, are they coming for us?”

  “Doesn’t look like it,” Willowpaw replied as the patrol streaked past the bramble without even looking at it.

  Hollypaw realized that the RiverClan cats’ eyes had been stretched wide with terror. Her pelt bristled. “Something’s wrong.”

  Willowpaw hissed, flattening her ears. “Look!”

  A rough-haired black-and-white dog was hurtling after the RiverClan patrol. Its eyes were wild, its lips drawn back to show shining white fangs.

  “The horseplace dog!” Willowpaw yowled. “Run!” She pelted after her Clanmates.

  Before Hollypaw could move, the black-and-white dog spotted her and skidded toward her, howling with excitement. Hollypaw shrieked and shot after Willowpaw. Her claws threw up clods of soil as she tore over the grassy slope.