“My Clanmate!” she coughed. She twitched her tail downriver.
“She’s still in there!”
“Mouse-brains!” hissed the second cat. He braced his thick-pelted gray shoulders and headed for the river. “Owlfur, you stay here and make sure this feather-head doesn’t try to follow me.” He broke into a run and disappeared into the river, his pace staying the same even when he started swimming.
“You’re from ThunderClan, aren’t you?” Owlfur mewed disapprovingly.
Dappletail nodded, her whiskers heavy with drops.
“Let me guess. You were trying to steal our fish.”
Dappletail’s head drooped even lower. “S-sorry,” she muttered.
The brown-and-white tom hissed, then raised his head.
“Looks like Hailstar found your Clanmate,” he meowed.
Hailstar? Oh, great. We’ve been rescued by the leader of RiverClan.
“Dappletail! Look!”
Noisy splashing behind her made Dappletail turn around.
White-eye was stumbling out of the water with Hailstar shoving her from behind. Her pelt was slicked to her sides and her ears looked huge against her wet head, but his eyes shone as she dropped a twitching silver fish onto the stones.
“I caught a fish!”
Hailstar rolled his eyes. “You squashed it against a rock,” he corrected. “And it wasn’t yours to catch in the first place.” His eyes narrowed. “You’re trespassing and stealing. What do you say about that?”
“Hey! Are those our missing ThunderClan warriors?”
There was a shout from across the river. On the far shore, Pinestar and his deputy, Sunfall, were standing at the edge of the water, their fur frosted by starlight.
“We caught some unusual prey tonight,” Hailstar called back.
“Why not come across and see if it suits your appetite better?”
The ThunderClan cats ran along the shore and jumped across the stepping-stones, clearly visible in the low greenleaf river.
Dappletail glanced sideways at White-eye as they waited for their Clan leader to arrive.
“I am never, ever listening to you again!” she hissed.
The four older cats stood in a line in front of Dappletail and White-eye and surveyed them.
“Just how many rules of the warrior code did you want to break tonight?” Pinestar began. “Trespassing, stealing prey, catching food for yourself…”
“I wanted to see what fish tasted like,” White-eye mumbled.
Pinestar leaned closer to her. “We are from ThunderClan,” he growled. “We. Don’t. Eat. Fish.”
Owlfur stepped forward. “Wait, I have an idea. Since these mouse-brains seem so determined to be RiverClan cats, why not let them eat their fresh-kill? After all, White-eye caught it.”
Dappletail looked up in surprise. Weren’t they going to be punished?
Pinestar’s eyes gleamed. “What a good idea, Owlfur. White-eye, Dappletail, eat up. Don’t waste a scrap, or that would be very insulting to your hosts.”
White-eye didn’t wait to be asked again. She opened her mouth wide and sank her jaws into the fish just behind its head. Feeling very uncomfortable with the other cats watching, Dappletail crouched by the tail of the fish and took a bite.
Yuck!
Both cats sprang back, their lips curling. Wet, cold, slimy, tasting of stones and weeds and mud…
Hailstar cocked his head on one side. “What’s the matter?”
“It’s disgusting!” White-eye spluttered.
Sunfall looked shocked. “You can’t say that when RiverClan is so generously letting you eat your catch.”
Dappletail forced herself to swallow and concentrated very hard on not being sick. “Please don’t make us eat any more,” she meowed.
Pinestar looked at them both. “The warrior code exists for a reason. ThunderClan cats don’t eat fish, don’t catch fish, don’t swim, don’t have anything to do with the river at all. RiverClan cats don’t eat squirrels, so they don’t live in the woods. ShadowClan cats don’t eat rabbits, so they don’t live on the moor.”
Hailstar spoke up. “I think nearly being drowned is enough of a lesson for now. Go back to your Clan and leave the fish to us.”
White-eye nodded hard. “No more fishing,” she promised.
“No more adventures ever,” Dappletail meowed. ThunderClan cats ate ThunderClan fresh-kill; as far as she cared, RiverClan cats could have all the fish in the world.
29
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Code Three
ELDERS AND KITS MUST BE FED BEFORE
APPRENTICES AND WARRIORS.
Caring for the weaker members of the Clan lies at the heart of the way we live. We are taught to respect elders who fought for the Clan in the past and kits who can’t yet hunt for themselves. However, moons ago, when the blood of warriors flowed thick and fast over Sunningrocks, if you had asked a warrior what he or she fought for, the warlike answer would have shocked you. All that would change thanks to a visionary warrior called Splashheart, who went on to lead RiverClan and bring peace to the forest. Let me take you back…
A Mystical Battle
The shape was little more than a flicker beneath the surface of the water, a trembling shadow cast on the stones crisscrossed with waving green fronds. Splashheart kept absolutely still, waiting for the fish to come closer. Another flicker, less than a tail-length away, and Splashheart shot out one paw, his unsheathed claws slicing through the cold water. When he felt his pad brush against the fat, slick body, he curled his paw and swiped it toward him. The fish flew out of the water, scattering silver droplets, and landed on the bank beside him, where he finished it off with a swift blow.
“Good catch,” said a voice behind him. It was Reedshine, the dark orange she-cat who had mentored him until two sunrises ago, when he received his warrior name.
“Thanks,” Splashheart purred. “Want to share?”
Reedshine padded closer and sniffed at the fish before taking a bite. Splashheart bent down and took a mouthful from the other side of the fish. This was only his second catch as a warrior, and it tasted as good as the first.
On the other side of the river, Sunningrocks loomed, casting a heavy black shadow onto the water. These smooth gray rocks quickly grew warm in the sun, making them perfect to lie on and share tongues or just watch the river sliding past below. Some of RiverClan’s elders could remember when the river flowed on the other side of Sunningrocks, cutting off RiverClan from ThunderClan’s wooded territory. But then a great flood came one leaf-fall and the river burst its banks to surround the rocks, until they resembled a bleak gray island. When the floodwater went away, the river had carved a new course on RiverClan’s side of the rocks. Before the next sunrise, ThunderClan had claimed Sunningrocks as its own, swarming across the dried-out riverbed to set scent markers along the new riverbank. The Clans had fought over them many times since, and at the moment the scent markers lay on the far side of the rocks, keeping ThunderClan firmly out.
Splashheart narrowed his eyes. There was a cat creeping along the far riverbank, head and tail low. The cat was half hidden by the shadow from the rocks, but it was a leaner, sleeker-furred shape than RiverClan cats, who grew plump and thick-pelted thanks to their watery prey. ThunderClan!
“ThunderClan intruders on Sunningrocks!” he yowled.