A pang of regret for the friends he had lost in the great battle shook Clear Sky. Now he realized how precarious his position was.
Clear Sky tried not to let One Eye see his doubts. “Get out of here,” he meowed firmly. “Or we’ll rip your pelt off.”
One Eye didn’t move. “Don’t you remember what I said?” he sneered. “I may only have one eye, but I see everything. I watched these cats carefully when I joined your so-called group, and there’s something I noticed. Most of them don’t like you very much, Clear Sky.”
Mews of protest sounded from Petal and Acorn Fur, but before either of them could say more One Eye rounded on them furiously. “Shut up!” Turning back to Clear Sky, he added, “And there’s something else I noticed. You don’t actually know how to keep your cats in line. Oh, yes, you think you’re being very clever, guarding territories and hiding in the forest like a coward, but what does that actually achieve?”
“I don’t want to keep my cats in line,” Clear Sky argued. “I just want to help them survive.”
One Eye rolled his single eye. “What a fool!” he exclaimed. “What a deluded fool!”
Without shifting his gaze from Clear Sky, One Eye flicked his tail to beckon Petal forward. She stepped toward him, and for the first time Clear Sky noticed that she was limping. As she approached One Eye lunged toward her, and Petal instinctively jerked away. She fell on her back, paws flailing, and Clear Sky noticed a wound in the pad of her forepaw. It was a raw circle, as if the flesh had been drawn open by a claw.
It looks just like an eye. . . .
“She and Nettle carry my mark now,” One Eye stated proudly. “And the rest of them will too, before the night is out.”
“But what about the sickness?” Clear Sky asked, hardly able to believe the depths to which this cat’s lust for power would lead them. “There’s illness in the forest, and you want to open up a wound in every cat? Are you flea-brained?”
“Not flea-brained,” One Eye responded, baring his teeth. “Just strict. I like my cats to toe my line.” His voice became a low, threatening snarl. “It’s time for you to leave—now.”
Clear Sky stood his ground. Glancing back at his cats, he made a last, desperate attempt to rally them. “Come on! I need your help. He can’t kill all of us!”
He noticed that Acorn Fur and Thorn slid out their claws, but the rest of them didn’t move. Petal, who had struggled back onto her paws, shook her head and mewed in a hoarse voice, “No, Clear Sky. You don’t understand.”
As Clear Sky stared at her in confusion, One Eye raised his head. “Come out now!” he yowled.
At his words the undergrowth rustled and from all around the clearing cats emerged into the open: rogue cats who Clear Sky had never set eyes on before. He took in their scrawny bodies, their sharp teeth and claws, and their cold, malignant eyes. Their fur was clumped and spiky; they had rolled in mud and plant juices to disguise their scent from him and his cats, he realized, so that there would be nothing to warn them as they returned from the meeting. Every hair on Clear Sky’s pelt shivered in horror as the strangers stepped forward, surrounding him and his cats.
“Really, Clear Sky,” One Eye meowed in mockery. “You didn’t think I would move in without a few friends to back me up? Not even you would be that stupid!”
Clear Sky could see that he and his followers were badly outnumbered. If they tried to fight the rogues under One Eye’s leadership they would be torn to pieces. His heart began to race as fear throbbed through him, though he continued to face One Eye with a look of defiance.
“I told you to leave, Clear Sky,” One Eye meowed. “I’m not going to kill you. I know that you’ll suffer far more knowing that I took the leadership out of your paws because you couldn’t hold on to it. So leave, before I have to put my claw marks on you.”
Clear Sky cast one final glance at the group of cats. My cats! They were bunched together uneasily, thoroughly cowed by the appearance of the strange rogues. Fervently he tried to send them the silent message that he wouldn’t abandon them. Somehow, I’ll find a way to come back for you.
But Snake turned his head away, and Clear Sky felt something die inside him. Do they really want my help? he asked himself.
“As for the rest of you,” One Eye continued, “you’ll stay here and take my mark. You won’t be harmed, provided you behave yourselves.”
Defeated, Clear Sky turned to go. But as he took the first paw steps, his gaze lighted on the hollow tree, and Sparrow Fur peering out helplessly from between the branches that imprisoned her.
I won’t leave her to be tortured by One Eye, Clear Sky resolved.
Letting his head droop and his tail trail along the ground, Clear Sky padded across the clearing in the direction of the hollow tree. The two strange cats nearest to it fell back to let him pass between them.
As soon as he was out of the circle of One Eye’s rogues, Clear Sky sprang forward. Darting up to the hollow tree, he tore at the branches with paws given strength from desperation. A gap opened up and Sparrow Fur wriggled through it.
“Run!” Clear Sky yowled.
He thrust the kit in front of him as One Eye let out a screech of rage and the whole gang of rogues turned to pursue him. But Clear Sky knew the forest far better than any newcomer. He showed Sparrow Fur the way between trees, under bushes, through bramble thickets, splashing for several fox-lengths up a narrow stream to break their scent. He was thankful that the young cat’s wounds had almost healed, and her strength held out, though her chest heaved with the effort of running and her breath rasped.
At last the furious shrieks and caterwauls died away behind them. Clear Sky burst out of the forest with Sparrow Fur hard on his paws. As she collapsed panting, he turned and looked back at the line of trees, where the last few leaves clung to stark, bare branches.
My home . . . what was my home.
Throwing back his head, Clear Sky sent up a wordless yowling, a desperate cry to any of his cats who could hear him. The sound died away into silence, and there was no response.
Clear Sky glanced down at Sparrow Fur, who met his gaze with wide, troubled eyes.
“What are we going to do, Clear Sky?” she asked.
Clear Sky took a breath to answer, but said nothing. He had nothing to say. He had lost his home and his group of cats. One Eye had defeated him.
CHAPTER 16
Gray Wing crouched under a bush at the edge of River Ripple’s island and watched River Ripple and Night, the black she-cat. As the sun glinted on the water the two cats dipped in their paws and scooped fish out onto the bank. The fish writhed there, the rainbow-colored scales reflecting the sunlight.
In the days that Gray Wing had spent with River Ripple, he could not get used to the idea of cats who didn’t mind getting their paws wet. He was intrigued by the thought of hunting like that: no scenting the air, no stalking or pouncing, just patience and a swift paw. Gray Wing remembered how Dappled Pelt had sometimes caught fish that way on the journey out of the mountains.
So much has happened since then.
Gray Wing’s belly squirmed with guilt at the thought that he was completely reliant on River Ripple and his cats to provide him with food. None of them had complained, seeming to sense that he needed time to think. They had given him a soft nest and all the fish he could eat.
But Gray Wing knew that he couldn’t go on like this. Much more of it, and I’ll lose all my hunting skills. I was once a leader of cats, and now I’m being cared for like a kit!
He was pleased, however, that his breathing was much easier, and he hoped that Thunder was taking his rightful place as a leader.
Night hurled another fish out onto the bank and let out a mrrow of exultant laughter. “See that? It’s the biggest yet!”
“Nonsense!” River Ripple gave her a friendly nudge. “I’ve caught one at least a mouse-length bigger than that.”
Gray Wing rose to his paws and padded over to them. “I’d like to contribute some prey,
” he meowed. “I think I’ll leave for a while and go hunting on the moor.”
“Fine,” River Ripple responded. “I’ll come with you.”
He took the lead as the two cats made their way over the stepping-stones to the riverbank, but once there Gray Wing forged ahead through the long grasses, his ears pricked for the sound of prey. Before he had gone for many paw steps, he came upon Dew, another rogue who had joined River Ripple. Her gaze was fixed on a vole that was crouching under a nearby clump of fern.
Gray Wing halted, not wanting to disturb Dew’s hunt. Then as he looked more closely at the vole he saw that its belly was bloated, and that flecks of foam were spotted around its jaws.
“Don’t touch that,” he mewed. “It’s sick.”
Dew nodded. “It’s like the other one we found. Don’t worry. I’m not going near it.”
River Ripple peered over Gray Wing’s shoulder, then shook his head in frustration. “We’re seeing more and more of this. I don’t know what we can do to stop it.”
Dew let out a disgusted hiss. “It’s all well and good for us to separate, but now there’s no way of knowing if the others are having the same problem, or how far the illness has spread.”
“It has spread at least as far as the hollow,” Gray Wing told her somberly.
Dew shrugged, drawing back from the vole. “I’m going back to the island.”
River Ripple dipped his head to her. “Night and I caught plenty of fish. Help yourself.”
“Thanks.” Dew whipped around and vanished into the long grass.
Gray Wing and River Ripple continued, keeping well away from the sick vole.
“If you like, I’ll teach you some of my hunting techniques,” Gray Wing suggested. “On the moor they seem to think I’m pretty good at working out strategies and sniffing out prey.”
River Ripple murmured agreement, though Gray Wing noticed his whiskers twitching as if he was amused.
“Okay,” Gray Wing began, “there are obviously voles around here. So what we have to do is track some down. They live in tunnels, right?”
River Ripple nodded.
So hunting them must be much the same as hunting rabbits, Gray Wing decided. Though even Wind Runner couldn’t follow a vole down its hole!
“This way,” he meowed, veering back toward the bank, but farther downstream than the stepping-stones and River Ripple’s island. After a few paw steps he crouched down and pressed his ear to the ground.
“What in the world are you doing?” River Ripple asked, sounding astonished.
“Listening for voles,” Gray Wing explained, pleased there was something he knew that the silver tom didn’t. “But I don’t hear anything.”
“Let’s try farther on.” River Ripple seemed more interested now, and angled his ears toward a spot on the bank with a luxuriant growth of plants. “That’s the stuff voles like to eat.”
The second time Gray Wing listened he heard faint scratching noises under the ground. “There’s at least one vole under there.”
He scouted around, opening his jaws to taste the air, until he picked up the scent of vole and tracked it to a small hole in the ground among the roots of a hawthorn bush. “Stay there,” he instructed River Ripple.
Listening carefully for the scratching sounds, Gray Wing managed to follow the tunnel all the way to the other end, a hole in the side of the bank. He scrambled down carefully until he stood on the strip of mud and pebbles that separated the side of the bank from the water.
“Okay,” he called to River Ripple. “Scratch at that hole and yowl into it, as loud as you can.”
From his position he couldn’t see River Ripple, but he heard a fearsome screeching coming from the other end of the tunnel. That should get them moving, he thought, satisfied.
A moment later there was frantic squeaking and scuffling coming from inside the tunnel; first two—then three, then four—voles burst out into the open, their eyes wide with terror. Gray Wing felt a rush of exhilaration as he pounced on two of them, one under each paw. Expertly he snapped their necks, but as he turned to pursue the other two, a dark shadow flashed over him and a harsh cry sounded from above. He looked up and saw a hawk plummeting out of the sky, its talons extended. Gray Wing barely had time to leap out of the way, rolling over on the pebbles, while the hawk snatched up one of the other voles as it tried to flee. The fourth vole plopped into the river and vanished.
River Ripple bounded up, peering down at Gray Wing from the top of the bank. “Let’s get out of here,” he urged. “We don’t need all this prey. We have more than enough on the island.”
Gray Wing rose to his paws, listening to the faint wheezing of his own breath. Ignoring River Ripple, he padded back to where he had left the two dead voles, and checked them all over for signs of illness, giving them a good sniff and parting their fur with careful claws. Satisfied that they were healthy, he picked them up by their tails and scrambled up the bank to drop them at River Ripple’s paws.
“I just wanted to contribute,” he meowed, his eyes burning with hurt. “To feel useful.”
River Ripple’s shoulders sagged. “You don’t need to prove yourself to me,” he murmured. “I’ve seen everything you’ve done, the way you’ve led your cats. But any cat can see that you have been hurting, and I was happy to give you a place to retreat to.” Gently he pushed the dead voles back toward Gray Wing. “Maybe you know some other cats who could use some food? Some kits, maybe?”
Gray Wing stared at the silver tom. “How did you know?” he gasped, astonished by his friend’s wisdom. “It’s true; I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Pebble Heart and Owl Eyes . . . and poor Sparrow Fur.”
I don’t even know if her injuries are better, he thought guiltily. And how is Pebble Heart coping with being a healer? And Owl Eyes . . . I hope he isn’t being overlooked because his brother has grown up so quickly. Does he get the chance to play and enjoy being a kit?
“I think it’s time for me to go home,” he told River Ripple.
The silver-furred tom dipped his head in understanding. “I wondered how long it would take for you to realize that,” he mewed. “But should you ever need refuge, you know where we are.”
Gray Wing felt a pang at the thought of leaving this cat who had become such a good friend. “Would you like to come back to the hollow with me?” he asked. “Maybe you and Night and Dew could—”
He broke off as River Ripple shook his head.
“That’s not what we agreed at the four trees, remember? We need to separate and isolate this sickness. Besides, the island is my home. I could not live anywhere else.”
Gray Wing sighed regretfully. “I know. But I’ll miss you, River Ripple. Thank you for all your help. I’ll never forget what you have done for me.”
He touched noses with the silver tom, then turned and headed toward the hollow, picking up the pace as he felt the tough moorland grass under his paws once again. Excitement fluttered in his belly. He would miss River Ripple, but he had missed the kits, too, more than he had realized until now. Will they be glad to see me again? I hope so. . . .
On his way to the camp, Gray Wing was crossing the center of the moorland when he heard a faint mewing coming from a scattering of rocks just ahead. To reach them he had to cross a dip in the ground, a sandy hollow that felt itchy against his pads. Halfway across he spotted a cat perched on a flat-topped rock, watching him.
“Wind Runner!” he exclaimed, dropping his prey in his surprise. “What are you doing out here on your own? Are you okay?”
Wind Runner leaped down from the rock and ran across the hollow to touch noses with him. “I’m not on my own,” she replied. “Come and say hello to Gorse Fur and the kits.”
Retrieving his voles, Gray Wing followed Wind Runner along a winding path through the rocks until they reached a bank where a rabbit burrow had been dug out to make a den like the ones in the moorland camp. Gorse Fur was sitting at the entrance, Moth Flight and Dust Muzzle tussling togethe
r on the grass in front of him.
They sprang apart when they saw Gray Wing, and Gorse Fur rose to his paws and came out to meet him. “It’s good to see you again,” he purred.
Gray Wing couldn’t help noticing how scrawny the two kits looked. “Would you like one of these voles?” he asked, setting one down between them.
“Thank you!” the two kits squeaked in chorus, falling on the prey with hungry bites.
Wind Runner cast a grateful glance at Gray Wing, who motioned to her to follow him aside for a few paw steps.
“I was sorry to hear that Morning Whisker had died, when we met at the four trees,” he meowed. “I know what it’s like to grieve. How are you coping?”
Wind Runner’s whole body trembled, but she managed to control her emotion. “Look around you,” she responded. “I’m sheltered and dry here. I have my own space, and there’s room for my kits to grow and flourish.”
Gray Wing bit back a comment that her kits seemed to be doing anything but flourishing. “Life as a rogue is hard,” he murmured gently.
“We’re not rogues anymore!” Wind Runner snapped at him with some of her old tartness. “Yes, life is hard, but I’m setting up my own group here.”
“Really?” Gray Wing asked, surprised.
Wind Runner shrugged. “Okay, maybe now I’m making a home for my family. But I’m doing something that’s more than wandering around like a rogue cat, without a real home or friends. I’ve learned a lot from living with the others, and now I want to put that to use here. The hollow and the forest aren’t the only places a group of cats could live.”
Gray Wing knew that she was right. River Ripple’s home on the island was proof of that.
“Then look after yourself and your family,” he mewed. “I’d better be getting back. Would you like the other vole?”