by Erin Hunter
“Any cat want to try?” Stick asked.
Sparrowpelt nodded agreement, then took a run up to the wall as Cora had done. His jump was strong and focused, but his claws slipped on the stone and it took an undignified scramble before he could haul himself up to stand beside Cora. Cherrytail followed him; her strong SkyClan haunches sent her flying upward, and she managed to push off again and reach the top of the wall on her second leap.
“You’re lighter; it’s easier for you,” Sparrowpelt grumbled.
Leafstar watched as Rockshade tried the leap in his turn; the black tom’s claws scraped vainly at the stone and he slid back to the ground again, hissing in annoyance.
“Never mind,” Stick consoled him. “You’ll get it in the end.”
“I hope so,” Rockshade muttered. “It’s all so different from what I’m used to.”
Leafstar could understand why the young warrior would be embarrassed by failing at something that Twolegplace cats and even former kittypets could do. But it doesn’t seem as if Cherrytail and Sparrowpelt remember much about being kittypets, Leafstar thought. They’re nearly as nervous here as gorge-born cats.
“Meanwhile, we’ll go this way,” Stick meowed, leading the rest of the patrol along the bottom of the wall. A few fox-lengths farther on, he pushed his way between the wooden strips of a gate into the enclosed space beyond. The cats balancing on the wall jumped down to join their Clanmates.
Leafstar tracked their paw steps as Stick padded along a path of bare earth between leafy plants on either side, then headed through a gap in the fence opposite into the next space. Her pelt rose as she heard the loud barking of a dog inside the Twoleg nest.
“Dogs!” Rockshade’s fur bristled and he turned to flee.
Leafstar crouched under a bush, afraid that the black warrior would run straight into her, but Stick slipped in front of him and blocked him.
“Don’t worry,” the brown tom mewed. “The dog won’t come out.”
Rockshade cast uneasy glances at the nest as the patrol padded across the garden. Once again Leafstar followed, clinging to the shadows, trying not to shiver as the terrifying barking went on. Suddenly the door at the back of the nest was flung open. The barking grew louder as the dog raced into the open: a lean, long-bodied animal, its gray pelt turned to silver in the moonlight.
Rockshade let out a panic-stricken yowl. “You said it wouldn’t come out!”
“Sometimes they do!” Stick yowled in reply.
“Scatter!” Shorty ordered. “It’s easier here for one cat to hide on its own.”
The patrol shot apart as the dog bounded among them; its teeth came within a whisker of grabbing Sparrowpelt’s tail. Leafstar fled back the way she had come, clawing her way up the wooden side of a small den at the end of the garden and hauling herself up onto its flat roof. She crouched on the edge, watching the dog as it ranged around the grass, its jaws wide and its tongue lolling.
A voice growled behind her. “What are you doing here?”
Leafstar spun around. “Billystorm!”
The ginger-and-white tom’s gaze traveled over her; his expression was wary.
“I—I didn’t know you come out at night,” she stammered.
Billystorm shrugged. “Sometimes. My housefolk’s den isn’t far away. But you still haven’t answered my question,” he went on, with an edge of hostility to his tone. “I thought you didn’t believe me about Sharpclaw’s night visits here. And now you’re taking part in one!”
“Of course I’m not taking part!” Leafstar retorted. “I saw them leaving the gorge, and I followed.”
“So you believe me now?”
Leafstar twitched her whiskers. I’m his Clan leader; he doesn’t have the right to interrogate me! “I didn’t disbelieve you, okay? The important thing is, what are they doing?”
“I’m not sure,” Billystorm replied with another shrug. “I haven’t seen them for a while. And it’s not always the same cats that Sharpclaw brings. Last time, it was Patchfoot, Tinycloud, and Bouncefire.”
Leafstar’s anxiety rose. How many cats are involved in this?
“I’ve seen them crossing Thunderpaths,” Billystorm went on. “Back and forth, like they weren’t going anywhere. And learning how to climb walls. But always in different places, as if they weren’t targeting any cat in particular.”
I’ve seen some of that myself, Leafstar realized, staring at Billystorm. “They’re training, aren’t they?” she whispered. “But why? They would never launch an attack on the Twolegplace.”
“You might not,” Billystorm meowed with a flick of his ears. “But maybe they would.”
Leafstar wondered if he was right. She and Sharpclaw had differences of opinion, but she could still trust him, couldn’t she? The sharp fangs of her anxiety bit deeper. “I’m going to find Sharpclaw and the others and ask him what’s going on,” she decided.
Billystorm padded to her side as she crouched at the edge of the roof and gazed down, trying to work out where the patrol had gone. At least there was no sign of the dog anymore, and the door to the den was closed.
“I’m coming with you,” Billystorm told her.
“No—stay here,” Leafstar responded.
She could see the hurt in Billystorm’s green eyes. “I’m supposed to be your Clanmate,” he protested. “Or doesn’t that count when I’m not actually in the gorge?”
I don’t have time for this right now, Leafstar thought. “This is an issue between me and Sharpclaw,” she told Billystorm, trying to keep her voice crisp and impersonal. “No other cat.”
Deep down, she wasn’t sure that was entirely true. She was doubtful about turning up to challenge the others with a Twolegplace cat by her side. It would draw too much attention to the split in SkyClan, in spite of all her efforts to heal it.
“I see,” Billystorm murmured, in a tone that suggested he understood Leafstar’s concerns only too well. He lifted his head, his ears erect and his jaws parted to taste the air. “They went that way,” he meowed after a moment, pointing with his tail.
“Thank you.” Leafstar was grateful for her Clanmate’s familiarity with the sounds and scents of the Twolegplace. She wished she could tell him how much she wanted him to go with her. But it would cause only more trouble. “I’ll see you in camp tomorrow.”
Billystorm didn’t respond, but watched Leafstar as she leaped down from the roof. Before she headed across the grass in the direction he had shown her, she glanced over her shoulder to see him looking down at her. His eyes glowed with the harsh orange light that filled the Twolegplace. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking. Does he really think I don’t need him?
Trying to push Billystorm out of her mind, Leafstar raced through the next fence, scrambling through dense shrubbery until she popped out at the edge of a path covered with sharp white stones. A moment later she slid back into hiding as a gray-and-white kittypet padded slowly along the edge of the path and disappeared through a small flap at the bottom of the door to the den.
The next enclosed space was filled with a strong scent of dog. With nowhere to hide, Leafstar slunk along the bottom of the fence on the tips of her paws in case she alerted the animal. Thankfully she spotted a gate, and squeezed through into another alley. Her heart was pounding and she halted for a moment to catch her breath in the shelter of a big green Twoleg thing with round black paws.
Snookthorn’s housefolk had one of these, she remembered, wrinkling her nose with disgust. That stank of crow-food, too.
“Water won’t do you any harm.” Leafstar stiffened as she heard Stick’s voice coming from somewhere up ahead. “Just roll in it. It will hide your scent.”
“I don’t want to hide my scent!” Rockshade’s voice was horrified. “In the forest, SkyClan scent is something to be proud of. It’s part of defending our territory.”
“But you’re not in your territory now, are you?” Shorty pointed out quietly.
Peering out from behind the Twoleg thing
, Leafstar spotted the patrol at the corner of the alley where it joined a small Thunderpath. Harsh orange light spilled down from another of the stone trees, gleaming on the surface of a puddle. The acrid stench reached Leafstar, even drowning the scent of crow-food.
“Just roll,” Sharpclaw growled. “You’re keeping us all waiting.”
Leafstar heard the sounds of splashing as Rockshade lowered himself into the puddle and rolled over. Anger surged up inside her. She leaped out from her hiding place and stalked up to the patrol.
“What in StarClan’s name is going on?”
Concentrating on Rockshade, none of the patrol had heard or scented her approach. They spun around to face her; behind them, Rockshade scrambled up out of the puddle, shaking himself to try to get rid of the water. His black pelt was clumped and messy. His eyes were clouded with guilt; Sparrowpelt and Cherrytail looked uncomfortable, too, but the Twolegplace cats were quite calm.
Sharpclaw was the first to speak. “What does it look like?” he meowed. “We’re exploring Twoleg territory in case we ever need to fight here.”
His confident reply took Leafstar by surprise. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You’ve been too busy,” Sharpclaw replied.
Meeting his calm green gaze, Leafstar barely managed to stop herself from raking her claws over his ears. Words exploded from her, fierce as a greenleaf storm. “Not too busy to know that my warriors are leaving the gorge at night! And why do we need to know how to fight in the Twolegplace? What are you planning?”
The cool look Sharpclaw gave her made Leafstar feel as if she were some crazy elder with burrs in her pelt. “We’re planning nothing,” he meowed, as if that should have been obvious. “We’re preparing for the future, which cannot be seen. Stick brought knowledge that we don’t have, and I thought it would make us even stronger.”
Leafstar took a deep breath; with a massive effort she made herself calm down. Sharpclaw was undermining her in front of her Clanmates, and widening the rift between these cats and the daylight-warriors, but screeching and fighting was not the answer.
“Don’t you think you’re endangering our regular hunting and border patrols, if our cats are tired after being out all night?” she queried evenly.
“That’s why we bring only two or three cats at a time,” Sharpclaw explained, his voice as patient as if he was telling a new apprentice how to stalk a mouse.
Leafstar could tell he thought she was making an antheap out of a single grain of dirt. Desperately she held on to her resolve to be calm, but it was growing harder with every breath she took. “You mean you do this regularly? I can’t believe you’d go behind my back like this!” She heard her voice growing shrill, and forced herself to lower it. “I am the leader of SkyClan. Does the warrior code mean nothing to you?”
Sharpclaw blinked. “It means everything. Which is why I want to learn how I can fight wherever I need to, so that I can protect my Clanmates.”
Tension burning through her pelt, Leafstar took a paw step forward, so that she stood nose to nose with her deputy. “You should have told me what you were doing,” she hissed. “You can’t give one half of the Clan extra training and ignore the others.”
“You mean the kitty-warriors? It’s not my problem if they aren’t here for night training.”
“That’s not the issue, and you know it!” Leafstar crouched, lashing her tail; a red mist was filling her vision. I can’t believe Sharpclaw brings everything back to this!
She was about to spring, when Cora’s quiet voice broke through her fury. “Leafstar, wait.” The black she-cat turned to Stick and addressed him. “Stick, please. It’s time to tell them the truth.”
The long-legged brown tom glared at her, bristling. “I’ll decide when it’s time,” he snapped.
Shorty padded up to him and gave him a nudge on the shoulder. “Cora’s right,” he mewed. “The SkyClan cats deserve to know.”
Stick hesitated a heartbeat longer, glancing at Sharpclaw, then nodded. “It was my idea to train your cats to fight in a Twolegplace,” he told Leafstar. “We didn’t come here to join your Clan. We came because we need your help.”
CHAPTER 31
Stick jumped onto the top of the wall and looked down into the Twoleg yard. His pelt prickled with uneasiness. The place should have been familiar, but it had been a long time since he had come this way, and he was unsettled by how much had changed.
That bush has grown much bigger, he thought, jumping at the unexpected throaty bark of a dog from the next garden. And that dog was a yapping little puppy.
Stick parted his jaws to taste the air and realized regretfully that the clump of catmint that once grew beside the door of the Twoleg nest had vanished. It was the catmint that brought me here in the first place. He had followed the scent and jumped down from the rough stone wall to bury his nose in the leaves. And a voice, quiet and wary, had spoken behind him.…
“Why have you come here?” It was the same voice, but harsher than Stick remembered. A sleek, gray-furred she-cat had emerged from the nest and stood looking up at him, every hair on her pelt oozing hostility, her lips drawn back in a snarl.
Stick leaped down from the wall and faced her. “It’s Red.”
The gray she-cat gave him a cautious look. “Is she all right?”
“She’s fine, I think.”
“What do you mean, you think?” The she-cat’s claws slid out. “You promised you would look after her.”
“Velvet, I didn’t come here to fight,” Stick mewed wearily. “I know you made your choice, but our daughter needs our help.”
Velvet paused for a heartbeat, then waved her tail toward the low-growing branches of a bush. “Okay, come under here. I don’t want my housefolk seeing you.”
Stick pressed his belly to the ground and slid underneath the bush behind Velvet. Memories pressed around him, clutched in the thick leafy scents. “Do you remember catching your first mouse here? You said you’d never tasted anything so good.”
Velvet flicked her ears. “That was a long time ago.”
“I know. And then you made me go into your nest and try your Twoleg food, and you thought it was so funny when I spat it out.” Stick let out a faint sigh. “How did we grow so far apart?”
“We share our daughter, nothing else,” Velvet replied coldly. “I thought you came to talk about her?”
“I did. There’s a problem.” As briefly as he could, Stick told his former mate about Dodge and his followers, how they had moved into his part of the Twolegplace and were terrorizing the other cats, not allowing them to hunt. While he was talking, he looked in vain for any spark of sympathy in Velvet’s eyes.
“You chose to live like that, fighting for your food like foxes,” she meowed when Stick had finished. “You can’t stop other cats from moving in.”
“That’s not the point!” Stick snapped. “I’d be willing to share prey in a fair fight, but these cats seem intent on taking everything. Including Red.”
Velvet’s eyes stretched wide. “Have they stolen her?”
“Not exactly. But I think that Red has become … attached … to one of Dodge’s cats.”
“You mean she’s fallen in love with a cat who lives by a different set of rules?” Mockery glinted in Velvet’s blue eyes. “You wouldn’t dream of doing anything like that, would you?”
Stick felt his fur prick along his spine. “It’s more than that. I think Red helped those cats to plan a Twoleg attack on the alley where we sleep.”
“Red would never do that!” Velvet hissed. Stick wasn’t sure; he knew his doubt must have shown in his eyes, because the gray she-cat went on, “Being in love doesn’t change who you are! Do you distrust your own daughter, just because she has feelings?” More gently, she added, “Stick, you and I stayed true to ourselves, didn’t we? I never told you I would give up my home for you, but that didn’t mean I didn’t love you. I gave you our daughter, remember?”
Stick looked down at the earth bene
ath his front paws. “And I’ve lost her!”
“No, you haven’t,” Velvet meowed, stretching out her tail-tip to touch him on the shoulder. “You know exactly where she is. Go talk to her; maybe she doesn’t even know about the attack in the alley.”
“Oh, she knows.” Stick slid his claws into the soil. “She was there—and she escaped just in time.”
Velvet’s blue eyes clouded. “You’re assuming too much.” She hesitated, then added, “You’re planning to attack these cats, aren’t you? Turn your daughter into a scrap of food to be fought over? Red won’t thank you for that. She knows her own mind.”
And you know me—too well, Stick thought ruefully. “These cats know only about fighting.”
“No. You know only about fighting.” Velvet started to crawl backward, retreating out of the shelter of the bush.
“Wait!” Stick called. “I… I thought you could talk to Red.”
“Me?” Velvet’s blue eyes chilled. “Oh, no. My life is here, with my housefolk. Red knows where I am if she wants to see me.”
“You can’t hide here with your kittypet slop while our daughter is in danger!”
“Why can’t I? Are you going to force me to come with you? I’ve told you, Stick, what we did was a mistake. I will never understand the way you live.”
“But—but you let me take Red!” Stick hissed.
“I like my life the way it is,” Velvet replied. “A kit would have changed that. You told me that Red would be safe, and I believe that she is. It’s only your stubbornness and pride that put her in danger.” Stick opened his jaws to protest, but Velvet swept on. “You’re just angry that she could do something that you don’t want her to. Leave her be, or she’ll end up hating you.”
Not waiting for a reply, she slid out from under the bush and headed for her nest. By the time Stick scrambled out after her, she had vanished.
Shaking leaf-mold from his pelt, Stick climbed the wall again and leaped down into the alley. As he landed, he spotted Shorty sitting a few tail-lengths away, his stumpy tail wrapped over his paws.
