Wind didn’t budge a single paw, but gave Frost a disdainful stare.
“You’ve crossed our boundary, flea-pelt,” Frost snarled. “Get off our territory!”
The other cat widened her eyes and gazed around her with an elaborate pretense of confusion. “My name is Wind Runner,” she meowed. “And I lived here long before any of you newcomers showed up. I think you should be the one to get out of my way.”
Her cool tones clearly infuriated Frost. With a growl of rage he flung himself on top of Wind Runner, and the two cats rolled over and over on the forest floor in a hissing, clawing tangle of fur.
Thunder started forward a couple of paw steps and stopped, not sure what he wanted to do. He saw that Petal had come up, too, and was watching the fight with steady green eyes. Thunder guessed she would join in if Frost seemed to be getting the worst of it.
But there was no need for Petal to intervene. Frost, who was bigger and more powerful, soon had Wind Runner pinned down underneath his body. Thunder tried to hide his surprise. Frost’s injuries hadn’t stopped him from being a formidable fighter.
Wind Runner’s eyes rolled in her head. As she gazed at Thunder, who stood watching helplessly, he had no doubt what message she was trying to send.
Help me!
But Thunder was conscious of Petal watching him across the fighting cats’ bodies, and knew that she would report any betrayal to Clear Sky.
Wind Runner saved him from having to decide. Twisting her neck, she sank her teeth into the big white tom’s paw. With a hiss of shock at the unexpected pain, Frost pulled away, giving Wind Runner the chance to wriggle free. Petal started forward, but within a heartbeat Wind Runner had vanished down a nearby rabbit hole.
Thunder let relief wash over him. She’ll escape through the tunnels. She’ll be fine.
But the feeling didn’t last long. Both Frost and Petal rounded on him, standing shoulder to shoulder.
“You saw that cat!” Frost accused him. “Why didn’t you attack sooner?”
“Yeah, why are you even out on patrol if you won’t guard the borders?” Petal demanded.
Thunder didn’t try to defend himself. He could easily imagine a fight developing, and he didn’t want an account of the incident getting back to Clear Sky. Maybe if I let it go, they won’t say anything. . . .
Petal and Frost glared at him for a moment longer, then Petal gave a snort of disgust. “Come on, let’s get back. We don’t want to miss Clear Sky’s announcement.” She turned and padded off with Frost beside her.
Feeling thoroughly depressed, Thunder followed.
Darkness had fallen over the camp. Thunder sat unobtrusively in the shelter of a bramble thicket while the rest of Clear Sky’s group, fluid shadows in the black night, gathered around the pool in the center of the clearing. The air tingled with excitement as the cats murmured together, speculating about the reason for the meeting.
At last, when Thunder thought he couldn’t endure the waiting a heartbeat longer, Clear Sky leaped onto the tree stump from which he usually addressed the group and surveyed his cats. His eyes glittered in the moonlight and his gray pelt shone with a silvery gleam. Thunder drew in a sharp breath, in awe of his father, who stood above every cat with such authority.
Clear Sky waited until the murmuring voices had sunk into silence. “Greetings, everyone,” he began. “I have called you here tonight because I have decided it is time to adjust our territory lines.”
Thunder heard a few cats gasp with surprise. His belly stirred uneasily. What does he mean by that?
“The forest fire has made hunting harder than ever,” Clear Sky continued. “It’s my duty as your leader to make sure that no cat goes hungry.” A pained look crossed his face as he added, “I would never forgive myself.”
Thunder heard one or two cats let out mews of sympathy. Frost raised his head and called out, “You have nothing to forgive yourself for, Clear Sky. Tell us what to do!”
Clear Sky dipped his head in acknowledgment. “Thank you, Frost. Your loyalty means a great deal to me.”
Thunder was feeling even more uneasy, as if ants were crawling all through his pelt. He talks about adjusting the borders, but I know he means to expand them. Thunder blinked unhappily. Why am I doubting him? He’s my father!
Thunder glanced around at the other cats to see if any of them shared his discomfort. The gaze of every cat was fixed on their leader; only Quick Water met Thunder’s glance and then quickly looked away.
“The territory adjustments will begin first thing tomorrow,” Clear Sky continued. “At dawn I will personally summon the cats I have chosen to help me on this first expedition. For now, you should all get a good night’s sleep. Who knows what lies ahead of us?”
Excited mewing broke out again as the cats moved away to their resting places. Clear Sky remained on the tree stump until the gathering had broken up. Then he beckoned with his tail. “Thunder! Over here!”
Surprised and a little intimidated, Thunder sprang to his paws and bounded across the clearing to the stump.
Clear Sky leaped down to meet him. “Come with me,” he meowed. He led the way to a sheltered spot among the roots of an oak tree just outside the camp. Glancing around to make sure they weren’t overheard, he continued, “Thunder, there’s a reason why I’ve been taking you out in the morning for training. I want you to be part of the first group that sets out at dawn to mark the new borders.”
Thunder couldn’t stop himself from gaping. “Me?”
His father nodded. “I’m calling on you to do your duty. It’s a great honor—are you up to it?”
Thunder felt as if he was being torn in two. He wasn’t sure that it was right to expand the territory, and yet he wanted desperately to prove himself to his father.
“I . . . I know the forest needs time to recover from the fire,” he stammered. “But I haven’t seen any cats struggling to find something to eat.”
Clear Sky turned his head away with that same look of anguish. Thunder waited, realizing that he had said the wrong thing, until his father returned his attention to him, looking deep into his eyes. Thunder tried not to shrink beneath that brilliant blue gaze.
“Of course, you can’t see the signs of starvation,” Clear Sky explained patiently. “You’ve never had to struggle for food. You can’t possibly recognize the slow, cruel progress of hunger.”
“But—” Thunder tried to interrupt, knowing perfectly well how easy it was to find prey, and how hunting patrols never came back empty-pawed.
Clear Sky ignored his interruption. “I know it only too well, from my time in the mountains,” he continued. “One day a cat looks healthy, and then after a few sunrises you can count their ribs. I’ve already seen some of the early warning signs.” He dug his claws hard into the ground. “I won’t let the mountain tragedies of hunger visit any of my cats!”
Thunder saw how deeply moved his father was, and regretted that he had ever questioned him. We’ve only been together two moons, he thought. I have to learn to trust his judgment.
“Of course I’ll come with you tomorrow,” he meowed, trying to sound excited. “I’ll do everything I can to help.”
Clear Sky dipped his head and touched Thunder’s ear briefly with his nose. “Then we’ll meet at dawn. You will be the first cat to mark the new territory boundary.”
CHAPTER 24
White mist curled through the trees, drenching the grass and undergrowth and striking a chill across Thunder’s pelt as he padded through the camp. Clear Sky was waiting for him at the edge of the clearing, his gaze distant, fixed on something only he could see.
A deeper cold invaded Thunder’s body, as if all the blood in his veins were turning to ice. What is my father planning?
As Thunder reached his father’s side, Clear Sky acknowledged his presence with a nod, but made no move to leave. Thunder sat silently beside him; embarrassment flooded over him and he shifted on his haunches as his belly rumbled with morning hunger.
A heartbeat later, a rustle in the long grass announced the arrival of Petal.
“Good,” Clear Sky meowed. “Let’s go.”
He led the way out of the camp and through the trees, heading in the direction of the clearing with the four oak trees. Will he try to include that in his territory? Thunder wondered as they crossed the old boundary.
But Clear Sky halted at the edge of a stream, still far short of the four oaks, its banks edged with lush growth of ferns and brambles. “This will be our new boundary,” he announced. “Thunder, you may have the honor of setting the first scent markers.”
Thunder heard a derisive snort from Petal, as if she thought the honor should have been hers, but he forced himself not to react.
Relieved that for once his task didn’t involve fighting, Thunder began working his way along the bank of the stream, setting the markers as he went. Soon he came to a large bramble thicket that grew so close to the water’s edge, he had to circle around it and set the markers on the landward side.
Clear Sky let out a hiss of annoyance. “Can’t you get any closer to the stream?” he asked.
Yes, if I want the thorns to tear my pelt off, Thunder thought, but didn’t dare say so out loud. “Okay, I’ll—” he began, only to break off as a gray-and-white she-cat leaped out of the thicket in front of him, her lips drawn back in a snarl.
“Get out of here, dungface!” she spat.
For a heartbeat Thunder stared at her, too taken aback by her aggressive stance to react at all.
“Well?” Clear Sky growled from behind him. “What are you waiting for? Do what you have to do.”
Thunder crouched to spring, but in the same heartbeat the gray-and-white cat swiped him hard across the side of the head, throwing him off balance. His ears rang with the force of the blow as he scrabbled to regain his paws. A hot flash of humiliation passed through him.
“Leave this to me!” Petal snarled, diving past him. “I know this cat!” She flung herself on the gray-and-white she-cat, and the two of them rolled over together at the edge of the thicket, spitting and clawing at each other, paws and tails flailing. The forest echoed with their furious screeches.
Thunder managed to stand at last and gave his pelt a shake. He knew he should help Petal, but the two she-cats were locked so closely together that if he had tried to strike he would have risked injuring his denmate. He started to pad forward uncertainly, until a voice made him freeze.
“Don’t,” Clear Sky meowed. “This isn’t your fight.”
Thunder’s father was watching the skirmish from a couple of tail-lengths away. He looked calm, as if he was used to seeing cats grappling together with such ferocity.
“Petal has a history with this cat,” he explained after a moment. “Her name is Misty. When Petal and her brother were kits their mother died. They asked Misty for help, and she refused. Petal has never forgotten that.”
“I can’t blame her,” Thunder murmured. I might have been that kit, if it hadn’t been for Gray Wing.
Meanwhile Petal had managed to pin her opponent down. Misty writhed under her paws, her green eyes glaring in rage. Both cats were bleeding from scratches along their sides, and blood was trickling down Misty’s muzzle.
“This is our territory now,” Petal hissed. “Get out of here, and no cat will hurt you.”
“No chance, mange-pelt!” Misty snarled. Heaving herself up, she threw Petal off and jumped on top of her. Her teeth snapped as they met in Petal’s ear. Petal let out a shriek, lashing out with her hind paws, but she couldn’t make contact.
“Fox dung!” Clear Sky bounded forward and flung himself into the battle, thrusting Misty aside so that she had to let go of Petal. Between them they pinned Misty down again, with Petal lying across her hindquarters. Clear Sky kept one paw clamped on her shoulder while the other was raised to strike at her throat.
“Give her a chance to leave!” Thunder gasped, before the killing blow could fall.
Clear Sky flicked him a glance. “She’s had a chance. Will you leave quietly?” he asked Misty.
“Never!” the gray-and-white she-cat replied.
She surged upward, her teeth bared and the claws of her one free paw aimed at Clear Sky’s face. But Clear Sky was faster. His claws tore at her throat and sank deeply through her pelt. Blood gushed out, bubbling as Misty tried to yowl a last few words. Then she fell back, limp, her blood spattering over the grass and brambles.
Clear Sky stepped back. “Stupid flea-pelt,” he meowed. “If she hadn’t been so stubborn, she wouldn’t have had to die.” In spite of his harsh words, he sounded as if he genuinely regretted the she-cat’s death. He glanced at Petal, who had risen to her paws and was shaking bits of debris out of her fur. “You fought well,” he told her with an approving flick of his tail. “Now she has finally paid for what she did to you and Fox.”
Petal made no response except for a curt nod.
Thunder forced himself not to flinch as his father turned and padded up to him. Does he think I’m a coward because I didn’t join in the fight? I would have helped Petal if he hadn’t stopped me!
But to his surprise Clear Sky’s eyes were shining as he spoke. “Congratulations. You showed compassion when Misty was defeated. That takes spirit—the spirit of a leader.”
He padded around Thunder, inspecting him closely, making Thunder feel nervous rather than relieved that his father wasn’t angry. “I see so much of me in you,” Clear Sky mewed.
Thunder felt every hair on his pelt begin to rise with the tension. Why does it feel like he’s threatening me?
“Gray Wing trained you well,” Clear Sky continued, coming to stand in front of Thunder. “But I will make you a leader. You’ve shown promise today. Now, let’s get on with marking the new boundary. Petal,” he added, pointing with his tail, “you can go that way.”
“Right.” Petal bounded off upstream without a backward glance at her enemy’s body.
As he padded over to the bramble thicket and started to look for a way down to the bank of the stream, Thunder struggled to feel pleased by his father’s praise. How many more cats will have to die before Clear Sky is satisfied?
As he was wriggling through the outer tendrils of the thicket, he heard a faint squeaking that came from farther inside. Mice, he thought hopefully, his belly rumbling again to remind him that he hadn’t eaten that morning. Surely Clear Sky won’t mind if we stop for a moment or two to hunt.
Though Thunder tasted the air in an attempt to pinpoint his prey, everything was blotted out by the reek of Misty’s blood. But he could still hear the squeaking, so he pushed his way through the brambles toward it.
A couple of heartbeats later he halted, his heart beginning to pound uncomfortably. Lying in a nest of bracken among the brambles, their tiny jaws gaping as they let out shrill cries, were two tiny kits. Their eyes were open, but Thunder could see that they were still very young.
So that’s why Misty fought so fiercely! he thought. And that’s why she wouldn’t leave. She was protecting her kits . . . and now we’ve killed their mother.
Thunder cleared his throat. “Clear Sky!” he called. “You have to come and see this!”
There was a rustling beside him and a moment later Clear Sky pushed up beside him. “This had better be worth a peltful of thorns,” he grumbled, “or I’ll—” He broke off, staring. “Oh, mouse dung!” he mewed softly.
“What are we going to do?” Thunder asked. The pitiful cries of the kits were piercing his heart.
For a moment Clear Sky did not respond. Then he stepped forward, stooping over the kits. “We’d better get them out of here, at least,” he meowed, picking up the closest kit by the scruff. She was a gray-and-white she-cat just like her mother, Misty, and she waved her paws frantically in the air as Clear Sky carried her off.
Thunder picked up the second kit—a ginger tom—and backed carefully out of the thicket, making sure that the thorns didn’t snag in the little one’s pelt.
When
he emerged into the open, Clear Sky had already set the she-cat down and was gazing at her with a somber expression. Thunder put the little ginger tom down beside his littermate. The two kits huddled together on the grass, letting out shrill, frightened mews.
“We can’t leave them here. They’ll die,” Thunder mewed, positioning himself between the kits and Misty, so that they wouldn’t see their mother’s body.
Before Clear Sky could reply, Petal came bounding up from setting scent markers farther upstream. “What have you got there?” she asked.
Clear Sky’s only reply was a wave of his tail.
“Misty had kits!” Petal’s voice was shocked. “So that’s why she fought so hard,” she added more thoughtfully. “She was brave . . .”
Thunder could see deep distress in Clear Sky’s blue eyes. “They’ll die without their mother,” he mewed. “Perhaps we should kill them quickly so that they don’t suffer.”
“No!” Thunder let out a yowl of protest.
“Then what do you suggest?” Clear Sky asked. “There’s no she-cat with milk that I know of.”
Petal stepped forward, placing herself between the kits and Clear Sky. “I will look after them,” she asserted.
Clear Sky stared at her. “But Misty was the cat who rejected you and Fox when you were kits.”
“And now Misty is dead,” Petal retorted. “These kits haven’t done me any harm. I’ll take care of them, because I know what it feels like to be a helpless kit with no cat to give me food or warmth or teach me how to live.”
Thunder gazed wonderingly at the yellow tabby she-cat. He had always thought of Petal as harsh, hard-bitten perhaps because of her brother Fox’s death. He would never have expected her to show so much compassion for the kits of her enemy.
“I’ll help you,” he blurted out. “I can hunt for you, while you look after the kits.”
Petal dipped her head. “Thank you. You can help me now by carrying one of them back to camp.” Stooping over the squirming, terrified kits, she murmured, “Don’t be afraid, little ones. You shall soon have a warm nest and something to eat.”