“We have no reason to fear leaf-bare,” he meowed. “We can always eat rats from Carrionplace.”
Cinderpelt twitched her ears impatiently. “Have you forgotten what happened last time you tried that? Half your Clan died from sickness.”
“That’s true.” A small tabby tom, crouched at the end of the line, spoke up boldly. Leafpaw recognised Littlecloud, the ShadowClan medicine cat. “I was ill myself. I would have died if it hadn’t been for you, Cinderpelt.”
“Be quiet, Littlecloud,” Blackstar ordered. “The sickness was a punishment from StarClan because Nightstar was not a properly chosen leader. There’s no danger in eating food from Carrionplace now.”
“There’s danger if a leader silences his medicine cat,” Cinderpelt retorted tartly. “Or pretends to know more than they do about the will of StarClan.”
Blackstar glared at her, but said nothing.
“Listen to me,” Firestar began again desperately. “I believe that great trouble is coming to the forest, trouble that we’ll survive only if we work together.”
“Mouse dung!” Blackstar snarled. “Don’t try to tell me what to do, Firestar. I’m not one of your warriors. If you have anything to say, you should do what we have always done, and bring it to the next Gathering at Fourtrees.”
Part of Leafpaw felt that the ShadowClan leader was right. The warrior code dictated that the business of the forest should be discussed at Gatherings. There was nowhere else that cats could meet under the sacred truce of StarClan. At the same time, she knew that the Twolegs wouldn’t wait until after the next full moon to continue their destruction of the forest. What else might happen by the time of the next Gathering?
“Very well, Blackstar.” Firestar’s voice was hollow with defeat. It’s happening, Leafpaw thought in panic. He’s giving up. The forest is going to be destroyed. “If that’s the way you want it. But if the Twolegs come back, you have my permission to send a messenger into ThunderClan territory, and we will talk again.”
“Generous as always, Firestar.” Blackstar meowed scornfully. “But nothing’s going to happen that we can’t handle ourselves.”
“Mouse-brain!” Greystripe hissed.
Firestar shot Greystripe a warning glance, but the ShadowClan leader did not reply. Instead, he swept his tail towards Russetfur.
“Take some warriors and escort these cats off our territory,” he ordered. “And in case you were thinking of paying us another uninvited visit,” he added to Firestar, “we’ll be increasing our patrols along that border. Now go.”
There was nothing to do but obey. Firestar turned and signalled to his own cats to follow him. Russetfur and her warriors gathered around them in a threatening semicircle, letting them walk away but keeping them bunched tightly together. Leafpaw was glad when the tunnel under the Thunderpath came into sight, and more relieved still to be through it and heading for their own part of the forest.
“And don’t come back!” Russetfur spat as they crossed the border.
“We won’t!” Greystripe hurled a parting shot over his shoulder. “We were only trying to help, you stupid furball.”
“Leave it, Greystripe.” Now that they were back in their own territory, Firestar let his disappointment show. Leafpaw felt a sharp stab of compassion for him; it wasn’t his fault that ShadowClan had refused to listen to reason.
“Maybe we should try talking to WindClan?” she suggested quietly to Cinderpelt as the patrol headed for camp. “Perhaps they’ve had trouble too. That could be why they’ve been stealing fish from RiverClan.” She was referring to the furious accusations made by Hawkfrost, a RiverClan warrior, at the last Gathering.
“If they have. It was never proved,” Cinderpelt reminded her. “All the same, Leafpaw, you might have a point. Ravenpaw said there were more Twolegs than usual on that part of the Thunderpath.”
“Then perhaps Firestar should talk to Tallstar?”
“I don’t think Firestar will be talking to any more Clan leaders for a while,” Cinderpelt meowed, with a sympathetic glance at the flame-coloured tom. “Besides, Tallstar is a proud leader. He’d never admit that his Clan is starving.”
“But Firestar has to do something!”
“Perhaps Blackstar was right, and he should wait for the Gathering. But if I get the chance”—Cinderpelt interrupted her apprentice’s protest—“I’ll have a word with him.” She lifted her blue gaze to the cloud-covered sky. “And let’s just pray that StarClan has mercy on us, whatever happens.”
“Sorreltail, are you there?”
Leafpaw stood outside the warriors’ den and tried to peer through the branches. It was early the following morning; a thick fog covered the camp and misted her fur with tiny droplets of water.
“Sorreltail?” she repeated.
There was a scuffling sound inside the den, and Sorreltail poked her head out, blinking sleep from her eyes.
“Leafpaw?” Her jaws gaped wide in a yawn. “What’s the matter? The sun’s not up yet. I was having this terrific dream about a mouse . . .”
“Sorry,” Leafpaw mewed. “But I want you to do something with me. Are you due to go out with the dawn patrol?”
“No.” Sorreltail squeezed out between the branches and gave the fur on her shoulders a quick lick. “What’s all this about?”
Leafpaw took a deep breath. “I want to go and visit WindClan. Will you come with me?”
Sorreltail’s eyes stretched wide, and her tail curled up in surprise. “What if we meet a WindClan patrol?”
“It should be OK—I’m a medicine cat apprentice, so I’m allowed to go into the territories between here and Highstones. Please, Sorreltail! I really need to know whether WindClan is having trouble too.” Though she couldn’t tell Sorreltail, Leafpaw knew that a cat from every Clan had been chosen by StarClan for the journey. Because of that, she suspected that every Clan would be invaded by the Twolegs, but she wanted to be sure.
The light of adventure was already sparkling in Sorreltail’s eyes. “I’m up for it,” she declared. “Let’s get a move on, before any cat catches us and starts asking questions.”
She darted across the clearing and into the gorse tunnel. Leafpaw followed, with a last glance back at the silent, sleeping camp. The fog hung thickly in the ravine, deadening the sound of their pawsteps. Everything was grey, and though the dawn light was strengthening, there was no sign of the sun. The bracken was bent double with the weight of water drops, and soon the two cats’ pelts were soaked.
Sorreltail shivered. “Why did I ever leave my warm nest?” she complained, only half joking. “Still, if it’s like this on the moor, the fog will help to hide us.”
“And muffle our scent,” Leafpaw agreed.
But before she and Sorreltail reached Fourtrees, the mist had begun to thin out. It still lay heavy on the stream, but when they climbed the opposite bank they broke out into sunlight. Leafpaw shook the moisture from her fur, but there was little heat in the sun’s rays; she looked forward to a good run across the moor to warm herself up.
As they skirted the top of the hollow at Fourtrees, Leafpaw felt a breeze blowing directly off the moorland. She and Sorreltail paused for a moment at the far side of the hollow, their fur blown back and their jaws parted to scent the air.
“WindClan,” Sorreltail meowed. She put her head to one side, uncertainly. “There’s something odd about it, though.”
“Yes. And there’s no sign of any rabbits,” Leafpaw added.
She hesitated for a couple more heartbeats, then led the way across the border. The two cats darted from one clump of gorse to the next, making what use they could of the scant cover on the moorland. Leafpaw’s fur prickled; her tabby-and-white pelt would show up starkly against the short grass. In the ThunderClan camp she had been confident that as a medicine cat she would not be challenged; now she felt small and vulnerable. She wanted to find out what she could, then hurry back to the safety of her own territory.
She headed for the crest of a low hill that looked down over the Thunderpath, and flattened herself in the grass to peer down. Beside her, Sorreltail let out a long hiss.
“Well, there’s not much doubt about that,” she mewed.
Leading from the Thunderpath on the far side of the territory was a long scar where the moorland grass had been torn away. The track was marked by short stakes of wood like the ones Leafpaw had seen in ShadowClan territory the day before. It gouged a path across the moor and came to an abrupt halt at the foot of the hill where she and Sorreltail were crouching. A glittering monster sat silent where it ended. Leafpaw’s breath came in short gasps as she imagined it scanning the moorland, ready to leap on its prey with a roar.
“Where are its Twolegs?” Sorreltail muttered.
Leafpaw glanced from side to side, but everything was quiet; an air of menace lay thick as fog on the scarred landscape. There was still no scent of rabbits—had they been frightened away, Leafpaw wondered, or had the Twolegs taken them? Perhaps they had moved to a different part of the moor when the monster dug up their burrows.
“Yuck!” Sorreltail exclaimed suddenly. “Can you smell that?”
As she spoke, Leafpaw picked it up too, a harsh tang like nothing she had ever scented before. Instinctively her stomach churned and she curled her lip. “What is it?”
