Stick felt his neck fur bristle. “They shouldn’t be here.”
Drawing closer, he soon spotted Dodge. The huge brown tabby tom stood stiff-legged, his back arched and all his fur fluffed out. A low growl came from his throat. Just behind him stood Skipper and Misha, their eyes gleaming and their lips drawn back in a snarl.
Pinned up in the angle of the fence were Coal and Percy. Stick’s heart thumped as he realized they were alone. “Where’s Red?” he muttered to himself.
A few scraps of food lay at his friends’ paws: a couple of scrawny mice and a bone dragged out of a Twoleg garbage can.
“But it took us all night to get this!” Coal was protesting as Stick and Shorty bounded up.
“Are you too idle to hunt now, Dodge?” Stick snarled.
The brown tabby tom spun around; his eyes glittered with hostility. “We have an agreement, remember? Sunrise belongs to us.”
Stick turned to look at the horizon where the sun would come up. A jumble of Twoleg rooftops was outlined against a sky that was barely turning pale with the first light of dawn.
“You’re splitting whiskers,” he hissed. “It’s still dark.”
Ignoring him, Dodge took a menacing step forward. “If you can’t keep to the rules, I’ll force you to.”
Stick curled his lip. “I’ve had enough of your threats. We were here first!”
Dodge nodded to Misha. The cream-colored she-cat padded forward. Then without warning she sprang forward. Percy let out a shriek as her claws scored down the side of his face, slashing at his eye.
Yowling with fury, Stick hurled himself at Dodge and knocked him onto the ground. The brown tabby tom let out a screech and battered at him with all four paws. Stick could hear hisses and thuds behind him as the other cats clashed, and a thin wail from Percy, who was trying to stagger away with blood streaming from his face.
There was a crash as a Twoleg door was flung open. Twoleg yowling split the air, along with the barking of dogs. Scrabbling on the ground under Dodge’s weight, Stick saw the nearby gate swing open and two dogs ran out. Their tongues lolled and they let out a flurry of high-pitched barking as they bounded toward the cats.
Dodge and his two followers scrambled to their paws and streaked away, their belly fur brushing the ground. The dogs hurtled after them.
Stick limped over to the fence where Percy had come to a stop, blinded and dazed. Beckoning Shorty with his tail, Stick gripped Percy’s scruff and the two toms half dragged, half carried him into hiding behind a stack of wood.
“Hurry!” Coal urged. “The dogs are coming back.”
Stick crouched in the shadow of the wood. He could hear the padding of the dogs’ paws, their panting breath and their snuffling as they nosed around the wood stack. But they were too big to squeeze their way behind it and get at the cats.
“Help me! Please help me!” Percy wailed, his uninjured eye wide with terror. “I’m going to die!”
“No, you’re not,” Stick told him bluntly. “You’ve lost an eye, that’s all.”
Percy let out another wail.
“Don’t make such a racket,” Cora meowed; the black she-cat was wriggling her way along the back of the stack to crouch close to Percy. “Here, let me clean you up.”
She began to lick away the blood from his rumpled gray pelt, and his agonized wails sank to faint whimpering.
Stick could no longer hear the dogs. Peering around the edge of the stack, he saw the Twoleg holding the gate open and the dogs trotting back inside. Dodge and the other cats had vanished. Gazing across the rough ground, Stick couldn’t see any other cats except for Snowy, who had fled up a tree when the fight started. Now she clung to a branch, staring down with frightened blue eyes.
Stick looked over his shoulder at the cats crouched behind the wood. “Where’s Red?”
“I have no idea,” Coal replied. “She started hunting with us, but then she went off on her own.”
“How could you let her out of your sight?” Stick snapped, digging his claws into the ground. “I told you, no cat should be alone just now.”
Coal shrugged. “You can’t stop Red that easily.”
“I’m going to look for her.”
But before Stick could move, Cora looked up and flicked out her tail to rest it on his shoulder. “Red’s full grown now,” she pointed out. “She can take care of herself.”
Stick shook off Cora’s tail. “It’s my fault,” he growled. “If she had been raised by her mother…”
“It’s not your fault Red’s mother isn’t here,” Cora snapped. “Look, with any luck Dodge will feel he’s won enough battles for today. If Red’s not back by sunhigh, we’ll go and look for her.”
Leaving the others with Percy, Stick slid out from behind the wood stack and raced across the rough ground to leap onto the roof of a shed. From there he looked out over the place he had always called home. The milky light of dawn uncovered thin grass and scrubby trees, surrounded by Twoleg fences and dens.
I know every hiding place, every puddle, every corner where mice make nests.
But now everything had changed. The familiar alleys and rooftops hid an enemy: Dodge and the cats he had brought with him to steal this place from those who had lived here forever. Cats who would rather fight than hunt, who enjoyed inflicting fear and pain. Cats who prowled around looking for trouble.
And Red is out there…
CHAPTER 9
“We may not have rival Clans on our borders, but there are always enemies out there!” Patchfoot announced as he beckoned his patrol with his tail. “We have to make sure the border markings are good and fresh.”
Leafstar watched as Billystorm and Ebonyclaw padded up to join the black-and-white warrior at the foot of the Rockpile. Their apprentices bounced eagerly behind them. It was the day after Sharpclaw’s training exercises, and the Clan leader was pleased to see her Clanmates so enthusiastic about regular tasks.
“I’ve never reset the markers before,” Frecklepaw meowed. “This is really exciting!”
Snookpaw lashed his tail and fluffed up his neck fur. “Those foxes and rogue cats had better watch out! We’ll see off anything that tries to set paw on SkyClan territory.”
Amusement prickled Leafstar’s pelt and she let out a soft purr of pride. I hope these apprentices decide to stay with the Clan. They’ll make fine warriors.
She noticed Cora and Shorty standing a few tail-lengths away, sharing bemused glances at the talk of border markers. “Would you like to join the patrol?” Leafstar invited. “If there’s trouble, we could do with a few more paws.”
Cora hesitated, then gave a restrained nod; Shorty kneaded the ground with his front paws, his eyes gleaming. “Let’s go!” he mewed.
Leafstar padded up to Patchfoot with the Twolegplace cats following. “Okay if we join you?”
Surprise flickered in Patchfoot’s eyes as he dipped his head. “Of course, Leafstar.”
He led the way up the trail, winding back and forth across the face of the cliff. Leafstar enjoyed the feeling of the breeze blowing through her pelt and the warmth of the stone under her pads. It’s good to be out of the camp. I haven’t patrolled the borders for ages.
When the patrol reached the top of the cliff, Shorty pushed forward until he could squeeze between Patchfoot and Leafstar as they weaved through the undergrowth. “What do you do if you meet a fox?” he puffed. “How can you practice fighting one?”
Leafstar flicked her ears to Patchfoot, indicating that he should answer.
“We practice the usual battle moves,” the black-and-white warrior meowed. “They work on anything … foxes, other cats—”
“Badgers!” Snookpaw put in, waving his tail wildly.
“If you spot a badger, you tell a senior warrior right away,” Billystorm warned him, flicking his tail sharply over his apprentice’s ear. “Do not try fighting one on your own.”
Leafstar nodded. “Even senior warriors wouldn’t tackle a badger without plenty of b
ackup,” she meowed. “And you’d have to be pretty stupid to attack a fox alone. That’s why we train apprentices to fight as a team.”
“We’d like to learn that,” Shorty commented, glancing over his shoulder at the other Twolegplace cat. “Wouldn’t we, Cora?”
The black she-cat twitched her whiskers. “It would be useful.”
“And what would you do if you found a strange scent on the border?” Shorty went on eagerly.
“The first job would be to protect the camp—” Leafstar began.
“We’d follow the scent and track down the intruder,” Ebonyclaw meowed at the same moment.
“Huh?” Shorty glanced from one to the other, looking baffled.
Ebonyclaw seemed to realize that she had interrupted her Clan leader, and had given advice that directly contradicted her. She slapped her tail over her jaws and took a step back. “Sorry,” she muttered through a mouthful of fur.
Leafstar took a pace toward her and rested her tail-tip on the embarrassed she-cat’s shoulder. “We’re both right,” she purred. “Protecting the camp and tracking down the intruder are equally important. What we did first would depend on the number of warriors available.”
“And apprentices!” Frecklepaw squeaked, her eyes gleaming.
The patrol prowled on through the undergrowth, setting scent markers as they went. With a mrrow of satisfaction Leafstar skirted the boulder where Firestar had set a marker when he first defined the SkyClan borders. The Clan had grown since then, and Leafstar had expanded the territory by setting the next marker on an ivy-covered tree stump several fox-lengths farther from the edge of the gorge. The change had brought a wide stretch of prey-rich woodland inside SkyClan’s borders.
Patchfoot was heading for the Twolegplace when he suddenly halted; his jaws were open to taste the air and the fur on his neck began to rise. Leafstar stopped beside him and tasted the air for herself.
No! It can’t be! Panic jumped in Leafstar’s throat. Not now, when the Clan is doing so well!
The rest of the patrol was milling around confusedly, not knowing why Patchfoot and Leafstar had halted.
“What is it?” Frecklepaw called; the young cat sounded scared, and she flattened her ears as she gazed around as if she expected a fox to leap out of the undergrowth.
Shorty stepped forward to Leafstar’s side and took a good sniff of the air. “Hey!” he exclaimed. “Even though we’re on a border patrol, we’re still allowed to hunt, right?” When none of the others replied, he glanced around, puzzled. “You do eat rats, don’t you?”
The name of her Clan’s worst enemy plunged Leafstar back into the memories she had tried so hard to forget: narrow rat faces with cruel eyes, snakelike tails, sharp claws, the overwhelming stench of rotting things. She felt once again the powerless surge of fury as the rat swarm rushed over her and her Clanmates, drowning them in a choking brown tide. She struggled to escape the barn; she gazed once more at Rainfur’s body, bleeding from countless bites.
“Oh, wow! Rats! Just like in the stories!”
Frecklepaw’s awed whisper brought Leafstar back to the present. She dug her claws into the ground to stop herself from fleeing back to the camp, chased by scenes she would never forget.
“Is something wrong?” Cora prompted, padding up with concern in her eyes.
Leafstar swallowed, forcing herself to speak calmly. “SkyClan had a lot of trouble with rats a couple of seasons ago,” she explained. “We—”
“There were more rats than you could count!” Frecklepaw interrupted. “Cherrytail told me about it. They wanted to kill all the cats and take the gorge—”
“That’s enough.” Leafstar’s voice was curt. If the rats are back, we have troubles enough, without an apprentice frightening the whole Clan. “We need to work out what to do.”
“Maybe we should go back to camp,” Ebonyclaw suggested, shuffling her paws.
Leafstar could see Patchfoot nodding; she would have liked nothing better than to agree, to turn her back on the problem and flee to the safety of the dens. But that’s not why StarClan made me Clan leader.
“We need to check this out first,” she meowed firmly, “and find out where the scent is coming from.” To Cora and Shorty she added, “We won’t hunt today.”
Leafstar took the lead, creeping through the undergrowth with the patrol hard on her hindquarters. The scent of rat grew stronger, along with Twoleg scent and the stink of crow-food. The undergrowth around them became thicker and thicker, until it was hard to force a path through the stems; tendrils of bramble snagged the cats’ fur and leaves clogged their ears and eyes, leaving them stumbling blindly.
Just when she thought they would have to turn back or risk getting lost, Leafstar crawled under a low-growing hazel branch and emerged into a clearing. In front of her rose a huge pile of Twoleg waste: bulging, shiny black pelts, some of them split and spilling out their contents onto the ground; squared-off red and gray stones like the ones Twolegs used to build their dens; huge things almost as big as monsters made of wood and some sort of soft pelt. The disgusting smells rolled out of the heap until they filled the air like fog.
“That … that’s truly horrible,” Leafstar whispered.
The other cats were pushing up behind her, and Leafstar stepped forward a couple of paces to let them into the clearing. For a few heartbeats they stood staring up at the mountain of waste.
“It’s Twoleg stuff,” Snookpaw declared, his voice full of contempt. “Why do they have to come and dump it here, in our territory?”
Ebonyclaw padded forward and sniffed at one of the huge things made of wood and pelts. “Why do they want to get rid of this?” she asked, bewildered. “It’s a sofa!”
“What’s a sofa?” Patchfoot growled, eyeing the object suspiciously.
“Twolegs keep them in their dens,” Snookpaw explained, unable to hide his glee that he knew something his Clanmate didn’t. “And that thing there’s a chair. The Twolegs sit on them.” He licked one front paw. “They’re pretty comfortable, actually.”
“Chairs, bricks, cushions…” Shorty was stalking around the outer edge of the pile. “Some Twoleg has cleared out the whole of their den!”
“There’s chicken here.” Cora had padded closer to the pile and was sniffing something that had spilled out of one of the black pelts. “Any cat want some?”
“You’d eat that?” Patchfoot gasped. “It looks as if it’s been dead for a moon!”
“Where we come from, you’d be glad of it,” Cora replied, gulping down some of the pale crow-food.
Leafstar was appalled, though she tried to hide it. These cats must be starving! She crept closer to the mound. With every heartbeat she was more outraged that Twolegs would leave a disgusting heap like this in the middle of the forest, destroying the territory with its stink and filth.
She was just stretching out her neck to sniff one of the soft pelt-things, when she heard the scuttle of tiny paws coming from inside the heap. The wedge-shaped head of a rat poked out from a gap beneath a piece of wood, its eyes glittering with hostility.
Startled, Leafstar leaped back. Even though the rat vanished at the same time, she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the dark hole where it had appeared. Now she could hear the sounds of more rats inside the pile, squeaking and chewing and rustling with sharp yellow teeth and pointed paws, their naked tails flicking and coiling like tiny snakes…
The whole heap is infested with them!
“We’d better get back to camp and report this,” Patchfoot meowed at her shoulder.
“You’re right,” Leafstar replied, striving to make her voice as steady as his. “We must call a Clan meeting and decide what to do.”
“But it’s no big deal, surely?” Shorty protested as the patrol began to move off. “What’s wrong with a few rats?”
“I don’t see why we can’t hunt them,” Cora put in. “The Clan would eat well for days with the prey from here.”
Leafstar didn’t stop to arg
ue. Cats who hadn’t survived the terrible battle at the edge of Twolegplace would find it hard to understand why every hair on her pelt was prickling with horror.
As she sprang down the last couple of tail-lengths into the camp, Leafstar spotted Sparrowpelt returning with his patrol; they had been renewing the scent markers on the other side of the gorge. Sharpclaw was padding along the trail beside the river with his hunting patrol behind him; all of them carried fresh-kill.
Leafstar bounded across to intercept Sharpclaw as he headed for the fresh-kill pile. “I want you to round up all the senior warriors,” she meowed. “Every cat who was here when we had the battle with the rats.”
Sharpclaw cocked his head to one side. “Trouble?”
Leafstar nodded tensely. “I’ll tell you when we’re all together. Make sure Clovertail and Echosong come as well. We’ll meet in my den.”
“Can I come, too?” Stick asked, rising from a flat rock on the edge of the stream and bounding over to them.
“Sure you can,” Sharpclaw replied, just as Leafstar was opening her jaws to refuse.
The Clan leader flashed an annoyed look at her deputy. This is Clan business! We’re not even including the daylight-warriors, and it affects them. But she couldn’t argue with Sharpclaw in front of Stick, so she gave the Twolegplace cat a curt nod and headed toward the trail that led up to her den.
By the time she reached it her Clanmates were beginning to arrive. Cherrytail and Sparrowpelt padded through the entrance together, dipping their heads to their leader before sitting side by side with their tails wrapped around their paws. Patchfoot appeared, looking grim, and a few heartbeats later Clovertail followed, with Petalnose at her side. Clovertail’s belly was bigger than ever, and she was panting from the effort of the climb.
Sharpclaw and Stick were the last to appear, just behind Echosong, who slipped into the den and crouched beside the wall, her eyes fixed on Leafstar.