He ate, then pushed his way out of the cat flap into the garden. The day promised to be warm, and the garden was heavy with the smell of early blossoms.
“Hello, Rusty!” mewed a voice from the fence. It was Smudge. “You should have been awake an hour ago. The baby sparrows were out stretching their wings.”
“Did you catch any?” Rusty asked.
Smudge yawned and licked his nose. “Couldn’t be bothered. I’d already eaten enough at home. Anyway, why weren’t you out earlier? Yesterday you were complaining about Henry sleeping his time away, and today you’re not much better yourself.”
Rusty sat down on the cool earth beside the fence and curled his tail neatly over his front paws. “I was in the woods last night,” he reminded his friend. At once he felt the blood stir in his veins and his fur stiffen.
Smudge looked down at him, his eyes wide. “Oh, yes, I forgot! How was it? Did you catch anything? Or did anything catch you?”
Rusty paused, not sure how to tell his old friend what had happened. “I met some wild cats,” he began.
“What!” Smudge was clearly shocked. “Did you get into a fight?”
“Sort of.” Rusty could feel the energy surging through his body again as he recalled the strength and power of the Clan cats.
“Were you hurt? What happened?” Smudge prompted him eagerly.
“There were three of them. Bigger and stronger than any of us.”
“And you fought all three of them!” Smudge interrupted, his tail twitching with excitement.
“No!” Rusty mewed hastily. “Just the youngest one; the other two came later.”
“How come they didn’t shred you to pieces?”
“They just warned me to leave their territory. But then . . .” Rusty hesitated.
“What!” mewed Smudge impatiently.
“They asked me to join their Clan.”
Smudge’s whiskers quivered disbelievingly.
“They did!” Rusty insisted.
“Why would they do that?”
“I don’t know,” Rusty admitted. “I think they need extra paws in their Clan.”
“Sounds a bit odd to me,” Smudge mewed doubtfully. “I wouldn’t trust them if I were you.”
Rusty looked at Smudge. His black-and-white friend had never shown any interest in venturing into the woods. He was perfectly content living with his housefolk. He would never understand the restless longing that Rusty’s dreams stirred in him night after night.
“But I do trust them,” Rusty purred softly. “And I’ve made up my mind. I’m going to join them.”
Smudge scrambled down from the fence and stood in front of Rusty. “Please don’t go, Rusty,” he mewed in alarm. “I might never see you again.”
Rusty nudged him affectionately with his head. “Don’t worry. My housefolk will get another cat. You’ll get on with him fine. You get along with everyone!”
“But it won’t be the same!” Smudge wailed.
Rusty twitched his tail impatiently. “That’s just the point. If I stay around here till they take me to the Cutter, I won’t be the same either.”
Smudge looked puzzled. “The Cutter?” he echoed.
“The vet,” Rusty explained. “To be altered, like Henry was.”
Smudge shrugged and stared down at his paws. “But Henry’s all right,” he mumbled. “I mean, I know he’s a bit lazier now, but he’s not unhappy. We could still have fun.”
Rusty felt his heart fill with sadness at the thought of leaving his friend. “I’m sorry, Smudge. I’ll miss you, but I have to go.”
Smudge didn’t reply, but stepped forward and gently touched Rusty’s nose with his own. “Fair enough. I can see I can’t stop you, but at least let’s spend one more morning together.”
Rusty found himself enjoying the morning even more than usual, visiting his old haunts with Smudge, sharing words with the cats he had grown up with. Every one of his senses felt supercharged, as if he were poised before a huge jump. As sunhigh approached, Rusty grew more and more impatient to see if Lionheart would really be waiting for him. The idle buzz of meows from his old friends seemed to fade into the background as all his senses strained toward the woods.
Rusty jumped down from his garden fence for the last time and crept into the woods. He had said his good-byes to Smudge. Now all his thoughts were focused on the forest and the cats who lived in it.
As he approached the spot where he had met with the Clan cats the night before, he sat down and tasted the air. Tall trees shielded the ground from the midday sunshine, making it comfortably cool. Here and there a patch of sunlight shone through a gap in the leaves and lit up the forest floor. Rusty could smell the same cat-scent as last night, but he had no idea whether it was old or new. He lifted his head and sniffed uncertainly.
“You have a lot to learn,” meowed a deep voice. “Even the tiniest Clan kit knows when another cat is nearby.”
Rusty saw a pair of green eyes glinting from beneath a bramble bush. Now he recognized the scent: it was Lionheart.
“Can you tell if I am alone?” asked the golden tabby, stepping into the light.
Hastily, Rusty sniffed again. The scents of Bluestar and Graypaw were still there, but not as strong as the previous night. Hesitantly, he mewed, “Bluestar and Graypaw aren’t with you this time.”
“That’s right,” meowed Lionheart. “But someone else is.”
Rusty stiffened as a second Clan cat strode into the clearing.
“This is Whitestorm,” purred Lionheart. “One of ThunderClan’s senior warriors.”
Rusty looked at the tom and felt his spine tingle with cold fear. Was this a trap? Long-bodied and muscular, Whitestorm stood in front of Rusty and gazed down at him. His white coat was thick and unmarked and his eyes were the yellow of sunbaked sand. Rusty flattened his ears warily, and tensed his muscles in preparation for a fight.
“Relax, before your fear-scent brings unwanted attention,” growled Lionheart. “We are here only to take you to our camp.”
Rusty sat very still, hardly daring to breathe, as Whitestorm stretched his nose forward and gave him a curious sniff.
“Hello, young one,” murmured the white cat. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Rusty dipped his head in greeting.
“Come, we can speak more once we are in the camp,” ordered Lionheart, and, without pausing, he and Whitestorm leaped away into the undergrowth. Rusty jumped to his paws and followed as quickly as he could.
The two warriors made no allowances for Rusty as they sped through the forest, and before long he was struggling to keep up. Their pace barely slowed as they led him over fallen trees that they cleared in a single leap, but which Rusty had to scramble over paw by paw. They passed through sharply fragrant pine trees, where they had to jump across deep gullies churned up by a Twoleg tree-eater. From the safety of his garden fence, Rusty had often heard it roaring and snarling in the distance. One gully was too wide to jump, half-filled with slimy, foul-smelling water. The Clan cats waded through without hesitating.
Rusty had never put a paw in water before. But he was determined not to show any signs of weakness, so he narrowed his eyes and followed, trying to ignore the uncomfortable wetness that soaked his belly fur.
At last Lionheart and Whitestorm paused. Rusty skidded to a halt behind them and stood panting while the two warriors stepped onto a rock that rested on the edge of a small ravine.
“We are very close to our camp now,” meowed Lionheart.
Rusty strained to see any signs of life—moving leaves, a glimpse of fur among the bushes below, but his eyes saw nothing except the same undergrowth that covered the rest of the forest floor.
“Use your nose. You must be able to scent it,” hissed Whitestorm impatiently.
Rusty closed his eyes and sniffed. Whitestorm was right. The scents here were very different from the cat-scent he was used to. The air smelled stronger, speaking of many, many different cats.
He n
odded thoughtfully and announced, “I can smell cats.”
Lionheart and Whitestorm exchanged amused looks.
“There will come a time, if you are accepted into the Clan, when you will know each cat-scent by name,” Lionheart meowed. “Follow me!” He led the way nimbly down the boulders to the bottom of the ravine, and pushed his way through a thick patch of gorse. Rusty followed, and Whitestorm took up the rear. As his sides scraped against the prickly gorse, Rusty looked down and noticed that the grass beneath his paws was flattened into a broad, strong-smelling track. This must be the main entrance into the camp, he thought.
Beyond the gorse, a clearing opened up. The ground at the center was bare, hard earth, shaped by many generations of pawsteps. This camp had been here a long time. The clearing was dappled by sunshine, and the air felt warm and still.
Rusty looked around, his eyes wide. There were cats everywhere, sitting alone or in groups, sharing food or purring quietly as they groomed one another.
“Just after sunhigh, when the day is hottest, is a time for sharing tongues,” Lionheart explained.
“Sharing tongues?” Rusty echoed.
“Clan cats always spend time grooming each other and sharing the news of the day,” Whitestorm told him. “We call it sharing tongues. It is a custom that binds the members of the Clan together.”
The cats had obviously smelled Rusty’s foreign scent, for heads began to turn and stare curiously in his direction.
Suddenly shy of meeting any cat’s gaze directly, Rusty looked around the clearing. It was edged with thick grass, dotted with treestumps and a fallen tree. A thick curtain of ferns and gorse shielded the camp from the rest of the woods.
“Over there,” meowed Lionheart, flicking his tail toward an impenetrable-looking tangle of brambles, “is the nursery, where the kits are cared for.”
Rusty swiveled his ears toward the bushes. He couldn’t see through the knot of prickly branches, but he could hear the mewling of several kittens from somewhere inside. As he watched, a ginger she-cat squirmed out through a small gap in the front. That must be one of the queens, Rusty thought.
A tabby queen with distinctive black markings appeared around the bramble bush. The two she-cats exchanged a friendly lick between the ears before the tabby slipped inside the nursery, murmuring to the squealing kits.
“The care of our kits is shared by all of the queens,” meowed Lionheart. “All cats serve the Clan. Loyalty to the Clan is the first law in our warrior code, a lesson you must learn quickly if you wish to stay with us.”
“Here comes Bluestar,” meowed Whitestorm, sniffing the air.
Rusty sniffed the air too, and was pleased that he was able to recognize the scent of the gray she-cat a moment before she appeared from the shadow of a large boulder that lay beside them at the head of the clearing.
“He came,” Bluestar purred, addressing the warriors.
Whitestorm replied, “Lionheart was convinced he would not.”
Rusty noticed the tip of Bluestar’s tail twitch impatiently. “Well, what do you think of him?” she asked.
“He kept up well on the return journey, despite his puny size,” Whitestorm admitted. “He certainly seems strong for a kittypet.”
“So it is agreed?” Bluestar looked at Lionheart and Whitestorm.
Both cats nodded.
“Then I shall announce his arrival to the Clan.” Bluestar leaped up onto the boulder and yowled, “Let all those cats old enough to catch their own prey join here beneath the Highrock for a Clan meeting.”
Her clear call brought all the cats trotting toward her, emerging like liquid shadows from the edges of the clearing. Rusty stayed where he was, flanked by Lionheart and Whitestorm. The other cats settled themselves below the Highrock and looked expectantly up at their leader.
Rusty felt a rush of relief as he recognized Graypaw’s thick gray fur among the cats. Beside him sat a young tortoiseshell queen, her black-tipped tail tucked neatly over small white paws. A large dark gray tabby crouched behind them, the black stripes on his fur looking like shadows on a moonlit forest floor.
When the cats were still, Bluestar spoke. “ThunderClan needs more warriors,” she began. “Never before have we had so few apprentices in training. It has been decided that ThunderClan will take in an outsider to train as a warrior. . . . ”
Rusty heard indignant mutterings erupt among the Clan cats, but Bluestar silenced them with a firm yowl. “I have found a cat who is willing to become an apprentice of ThunderClan.”
“Lucky to become an apprentice,” caterwauled a loud voice above the ripple of shock that spread through the cats.
Rusty craned his neck and saw a pale tabby cat standing up and glaring defiantly at the leader.
Bluestar ignored the tabby and addressed all of her Clan. “Lionheart and Whitestorm have met this young cat, and they agree with me that we should train him with the other apprentices.”
Rusty looked up at Lionheart, then back at the Clan, to find all eyes were on him now. His fur prickled and he swallowed nervously. There was silence for a moment. Rusty was sure they must all be able to hear his heart pulsing and smell his fear-scent.
Now a deafening crescendo of caterwauling rose from the crowd.
“Where does he come from?”
“Which Clan does he belong to?”
“What a strange scent he carries! That’s not the scent of any Clan I know!”
Then one yowl in particular sounded out above the rest. “Look at his collar! He’s a kittypet!” It was the pale tabby again. “Once a kittypet, always a kittypet. This Clan needs wildborn warriors to defend it, not another soft mouth to feed.”
Lionheart bent down and hissed into Rusty’s ear, “That tabby is Longtail. He smells your fear. They all do. You must prove to him and the other cats that your fear won’t hold you back.”
But Rusty couldn’t move. How could he ever prove to these fierce cats that he wasn’t just a kittypet?
The tabby continued to jeer at him. “Your collar is a mark of the Twolegs, and that noisy jingling will make you a poor hunter at best. At worst, it will bring the Twolegs into our territory, looking for the poor lost kittypet who fills the woods with his pitiful tinkling.”
All the cats howled in agreement.
Longtail went on, well aware that he had the support of his audience. “The noise of your treacherous bell will alert our enemies, even if your Twoleg stench doesn’t!”
Lionheart hissed into Rusty’s ear once more: “Do you back down from a challenge?”
Rusty still did not move. But this time he was trying to pinpoint Longtail’s position. There he was, just behind a dusky brown queen. Rusty flattened his ears, narrowed his eyes, and, hissing, leaped through the startled cats to fling himself onto his tormentor.
Longtail was completely unprepared for Rusty’s attack. He staggered sideways, losing his footing on the hard-baked earth. Filled with rage and desperate to prove himself, Rusty dug his claws deep into the tabby cat’s fur and sank in his teeth. No subtle rituals of swiping and boxing preceded this fight. The two cats were locked in a screaming, writhing tussle that flipped and somersaulted around the clearing at the heart of the camp. The other cats had to spring out of the way to avoid the screeching whirlwind of fur.
As Rusty scratched and struggled, he was suddenly aware that he felt no fear, only exhilaration. Through the roaring of the blood in his ears, he could hear the cats around them wailing with excitement.
Then Rusty felt his collar tighten around his neck. Longtail had gripped it between his teeth and was tugging, and tugging hard. Rusty felt a terrible pressure at his throat. Unable to breathe, he started to panic. He writhed and twisted, but each movement only made the pressure worse. Retching and gulping for air, he summoned up all his strength and tried to pull away from Longtail’s grip. And suddenly, with a loud snap, he was free.
Longtail tumbled away from him. Rusty scrambled to his paws and looked around. Longtail was crouc
hing three tail-lengths away. And, dangling from Longtail’s mouth, Rusty saw his collar, mangled and broken.
At once, Bluestar leaped down from the Highrock and silenced the noisy crowd with a thunderous caterwaul. Rusty and Longtail remained fixed to the spot, gasping for breath. Clumps of fur hung from their ruffled coats. Rusty could feel a cut stinging above his eye. Longtail’s left ear was badly torn, and blood dripped down his lean shoulders onto the dusty ground. They stared at each other, their hostility not yet spent.
Bluestar stepped forward and took the collar from Longtail. She placed it on the ground in front of her and meowed, “The newcomer has lost his Twoleg collar in a battle for his honor. StarClan has spoken its approval—this cat has been released from the hold of his Twoleg owners, and is free to join ThunderClan as an apprentice.”
Rusty looked at Bluestar and solemnly nodded his acceptance. He stood up and stepped forward into a shaft of sunshine, welcoming the warmth on his sore muscles. The pool of light blazed bright on his orange pelt, making his fur glow. Rusty lifted his head proudly and looked at the cats that surrounded him. This time no cat argued or jeered. He had shown himself to be a worthy opponent in battle.
Bluestar approached Rusty and placed the shredded collar on the ground in front of him. She touched his ear gently with her nose. “You look like a brand of fire in this sunlight,” she murmured. Her eyes flashed briefly, as if her words had more meaning for her than Rusty knew. “You have fought well.” Then she turned to the Clan and announced, “From this day forward, until he has earned his warrior name, this apprentice will be called Firepaw, in honor of his flame-colored coat.”
She stepped back and, with the other cats, waited silently for his next move. Without hesitating, Rusty turned and kicked dust and grass over his collar as though burying his dirt.
Longtail growled and limped out of the clearing toward a fern-shaded corner. The cats split into groups, murmuring to each other excitedly.
“Hey, Firepaw!”
Rusty heard Graypaw’s friendly voice behind him. Firepaw! A thrill of pride surged through him at the sound of his new name. He turned to greet the gray apprentice with a welcoming sniff.