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 frighteningly 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. 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 roo
t. “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.
The trees were more widely spaced here. Jaykit could feel the wind in his fur, and sunlight reached down to the forest floor, mottling his pelt with warmth. The fox’s milky scent grew stronger and as they neared a clump of bracken that shielded a small lump in the ground, Jaykit scented a new smell. The cubs?
“Wait here!” Hollykit ordered.
“Why?” Lionkit objected.
“Just wait while I take a look behind this bracken!”
“I’m coming too,” Lionkit insisted.
“We don’t want the cubs to know we’re here,” Hollykit mewed. “If all three of us go blundering in, they’ll know something’s up and we’ll lose the element of surprise.”
“My golden pelt will blend in better against the bracken than your black fur,” Lionkit pointed out.
“What about me?” Jaykit mewed.
“We won’t attack the den without you,” Hollykit promised. “But first, you and I will wait here while Lionkit finds the way in.”
Jaykit felt a twinge of frustration, but he knew Hollykit’s plan was sensible. “Come back as soon as you find it,” he called in a whisper as Lionkit disappeared into the bracken. For the first time he wondered if taking on the fox cubs was a wise idea. But how else was he going to persuade the Clan that there was no need to treat him like a helpless kit?
He strained his ears for the sound of Lionkit returning. It seemed an age before his brother finally pushed his way out of the bracken.
“The main entrance to the den is right behind this clump,” Lionkit whispered, shaking leaves from his pelt. “But there’s a smaller entrance on the other side of the lump of earth—probably an escape route—that leads into the back.”
“Are the cubs inside?” Jaykit asked.
“I didn’t go in, but I could hear them crying for food.”
“They must still be young, then,” Hollykit guessed. “Otherwise they’d have come out by now.”
“It’ll be easier to flush them out if we go down the escape passage,” Lionkit proposed. “If we rush them, the surprise will be enough to get them out of the den, and then we can chase them toward the border.”
“Which way is the border?” Hollykit asked.
Lionkit snorted impatiently. “There’ll be a border whichever way we drive them!” he snapped. “ThunderClan territory doesn’t go on forever. Let’s get on with it, before Thornclaw finds them and takes all the glory.”
He surged away into the bracken before either Jaykit or Hollykit could reply. He led them up the slope, out of the bracken, and over the top of the leaf-strewn mound of earth.
“The escape route is here,” he announced, skidding to a halt.
“It’s no bigger than a rabbit hole!” Hollykit mewed in surprise.
“Perhaps that’s what it used to be,” Lionkit answered. “Who cares, so long as we can fit down it?”
Thornclaw’s meow sounded in the trees not far away. The warrior patrol must have given up searching the bracken near the dead fox and were heading toward the mound of earth.
“Hurry!” Lionkit hissed. “Or Thornclaw will find the cubs first!”
Taking a deep breath, Jaykit plunged into the hole. Its earthen sides pressed against his pelt as he scrabbled down it. He didn’t mind that there would be no light down here; he trusted his nose to lead him to the den. He could feel Lionkit pressing behind him and pushed onward until he exploded into the foxes’ den.
The air was warm and stank of fox—more than one. Jaykit let out a threatening hiss. Lionkit, at his side in an instant, spat ferociously, and Hollykit gave a vicious yowl.
Jaykit could not see the foxes, but as soon as he heard them scramble to their paws, he realized that they were far bigger than they had expected. Fear shot through him as the cubs let out a shrieking cry.
“They’re huge!” wailed Lionkit.
“Let’s get out of here!” Jaykit screeched.
He turned and shot back up the escape tunnel. The hot breath of a fox cub blasted his tail fur. Were Hollykit and Lionkit trapped in the den? He could not stop and turn to find out. The fox cub’s jaws were snapping at his heels as it pursued him out of the hole.
Wild with terror, Jaykit hurtled down the bank and through the bracken. “Thornclaw!” he yowled.
The warrior did not answer, and Jaykit fled toward the bramble thicket. He hoped the thorns would stop the fox, but it chased him into the bush. Thorns tore at Jaykit’s nose and ears, but the fox plunged through them as though racing through grass. He floundered on, tearing free of the brambles and running for the camp. He could smell the familiar scents of the hollow and headed straight for them. The fox cub was still at his heels, growling and snapping.
I must be near the camp now! he thought desperately, his paws skidding on the loose leaves.
Pain pierced his tail as the fox cub snapped at it with thorn-sharp teeth. Jaykit dug his claws into the ground, running faster and faster, until, without warning, the ground disappeared from beneath his paws.
With a jolt of horror, Jaykit felt himself plunging into empty air.
I’ve fallen into the hollow!
CHAPTER 3
Jaykit tried to move, but pain shot through his limbs and gripped his chest like claws.
Panic flooded him. I’m broken!
He tried to mew for help.
“Hush, little one.” Warm breath stirred his fur, and a soft nose nuzzled his flank.
He figured it must be Leafpool, though she sounded strange. Perhaps the throbbing in his head was confusing him. Jaykit knew he was in the cleft in the wall of the hollow that formed Leafpool’s den. Moss softened the ground beneath him. Cold air flowed down the smooth rock walls, soft as water. Tendrils of bramble shielded the entrance. The scent of herbs filled the air; instinctively Jaykit tried to distinguish one from another. He identified juniper easily—Leafpool had fed it to Lionkit for bellyache after he had eaten too much fresh-kill. Borage he remembered from when Ferncloud had a fever after Icekit and Foxkit were born.
Where were Hollykit and Lionkit?
He couldn’t smell them anywhere.
He writhed in his nest, trying to find them.
“Lie still, little one.”
Jaykit opened his eyes and saw a she-cat crouched beside him. He realized he must be dreaming. She wasn’t a cat he recognized, but she had ThunderClan scent. Her image was hazy, a jumble of shapes, but he could make out the beautiful orange and brown markings on her lithe body as she sniffed along his pelt.
Her eyes were large and pale, one rimmed with darker fur than the other, and her mottled face narrowed to a soft white muzzle. “Don’t look so frightened,” she told him. “You are safe.”
“What about Hollykit and Lionkit?”
“They are safe too.”
Jaykit let his head rest back into the moss as the she-cat continued to nuzzle his fur, gently touching every aching spot on his body. The parts she touched seemed to flood with heat until he felt warm all over.
“Drink now, precious,” she urged. She dragged a leaf to
his mouth. It held a tiny pool of water. It was cool and sweet and made him feel sleepy. He closed his eyes.
When Jaykit awoke the she-cat was gone. His body still ached, but not as much as before.
“You’re awake.” Leafpool’s voice surprised him.
“Where is the other cat?” he asked groggily.
“What other cat?”
“The one that brought me water to drink.” He recalled the distinctive mottled markings on her body. “She was a tortoiseshell, with a white muzzle.”
“Tortoiseshell with a white muzzle?” Leafpool’s mew sharpened with interest.
Jaykit couldn’t understand why Leafpool was just repeating everything he said. He tried lifting his head, but his neck felt too stiff and he winced in pain.
“You’ll be sore for a while,” Leafpool warned him. “But you were lucky that no bones were broken.” She rolled a ball of water-soaked moss to his muzzle. “Here, you should drink something.”
“I’m not thirsty,” Jaykit mewed. “I told you, that other cat brought me some water.”
Leafpool pawed the moss away from his mouth. “Tell me about her,” she prompted gently.
Jaykit started to feel uneasy, as if he might have done something wrong. He was puzzled by the tension in Leafpool’s shoulders, and the way the tip of her tail stirred the moss-covered ground. “I’d never seen her before, but she smelled of ThunderClan and she was here in your den, so I guessed it was okay to drink the water she gave me.”
There was a long pause, then: “It was Spottedleaf,” Leafpool meowed. “One of our warrior ancestors.”
“Like in StarClan? I…I’m not dead, am I?”
“No, of course not. It must have been a dream.”
“But why would I dream of a cat I’ve never met?”
“StarClan works in its own way. Spottedleaf chose to come to you for a reason,” Leafpool murmured. She turned away to tidy a wrap of herbs. “Thank StarClan your ancestors took pity on you,” she told him briskly. “You could have died falling over the cliff. You were lucky you weren’t badly hurt!”
“I feel hurt enough,” Jaykit complained.
“You have no one to blame but yourself. You should never have gone hunting foxes. You’re mouse-brains, the three of you! And you most of all. What were you thinking of, leaving the camp like that?”