He seemed to understand. “Come on.” He beckoned Sol and his littermates with a flick of his tail. “Let’s go home.”
“Wait!” Russetfur ordered.
Hollypaw froze. They weren’t going to get away so easily after all.
“You’re coming to explain to Blackstar what you’re doing on our borders.”
Jaypaw spat, “We haven’t even crossed the scent line!”
“You’re close enough.” Russetfur flicked her tail, and her patrol dashed over the border and surrounded the ThunderClan cats.
Lionpaw arched his back, hissing. Hollypaw unsheathed her claws, but Sol just stared at the ShadowClan cats. His calm gaze seemed to unnerve them, and they backed away.
“What kind of loner are you?” Russetfur looked him over, her pelt ruffled. “Don’t you know we’re warriors?”
“Yes, I know.” Sol kept staring at her. “Blackstar is your leader, right?”
Russetfur flattened her ears. “Yes,” she answered warily.
“I’d be interested in meeting him.”
Hollypaw’s heart sank. There wasn’t time to go to the ShadowClan camp! Firestar was sure to notice they were missing any moment now.
Jaypaw began to pad toward the ShadowClan border. “We might as well go,” he mewed. “Think how much Sol can learn from another Clan.”
He can teach us ShadowClan’s secrets! Perhaps this wasn’t such a bad idea after all. And compared with what they could learn about another Clan, Firestar’s anger didn’t seem so important.
Hollypaw followed Jaypaw, enjoying the puzzlement clouding the eyes of their ShadowClan captors. She guided her brother through the unfamiliar woods, pressing against his shoulder to keep him on the faint path. Lionpaw walked a few paces ahead, calling out every time there was a twig to trip on or a prey-hole to stumble into. Sol padded alongside them, gazing around the forest with fascination.
Russetfur didn’t take her eyes off the stranger. Was she regretting bringing him into the heart of her territory?
After a while, Hollypaw began to recognize the landscape.
A slope led up to a small ridge. She had followed this path when she had come to beg Blackstar for help. A few more paw steps through the trees, and she spotted the great bramble wall of the ShadowClan camp.
Rowanclaw was guarding the entrance this time, his dark ginger pelt the only color in the darkening forest. He stared in surprise at the approaching patrol, but Russetfur simply swept past him with her prisoners.
Ivytail and Toadfoot leaped to their paws as the ThunderClan cats entered the camp. A half-eaten mouse lay between them. Snaketail and Scorchpaw stood in the middle of the clearing, staring in unconcealed shock at Sol.
“Who is he?” Scorchpaw whispered.
Snaketail tasted the air. “Not a Clan cat, that’s for sure.”
“Where is everyone?” Lionpaw hissed in Hollypaw’s ear.
Hollypaw looked around the camp. It was strangely empty.
“They must be resting after the battle,” she guessed.
“Wait there,” Russetfur ordered, and disappeared into Blackstar’s den.
The brambles rustled at one side of the camp. Hollypaw recognized the nursery entrance, where Snowbird had gathered Tawnypelt’s kits. Flamekit, Dawnkit, and Tigerkit were tumbling out now, their eyes bright with excitement.
“Hollypaw!” Flamekit reached her first and started jumping up to grab her tail. She spun around and greeted him with a playful cuff over his ear.
Tigerkit was bouncing around Lionpaw. “Have I grown?” the kit demanded, stretching himself up to his full height.
Dawnkit leaped on her brother, bowling him over. “You must have grown, the amount you eat!” She pummeled his back with her hind paws, then stopped when she spotted Sol.
She scrambled to her paws and stared at the stranger. “Who’s he?”
Tigerkit followed her gaze. “What’s he doing here?” He frowned and gazed up at Hollypaw. “Why are you here?” Was he worried they’d come to take his mother away again?
Flamekit was padding around Jaypaw. “Who are you?”
“He’s Jaypaw, our brother,” Lionpaw told her.
Jaypaw stared blankly ahead as Flamekit circled him.
“Why isn’t he looking at me?” he asked.
Jaypaw leaned down suddenly. “Do you want me to look at you?” His nose was a whisker away from Flamekit’s eyes.
Flamekit leaped back with surprise. “His eyes are all stare-y!”
Hollypaw glanced nervously at Jaypaw.
“I’m blind,” he explained more softly.
Flamekit padded closer. “How did you get here, then?”
“I walked,” Jaypaw mewed.
“Without bumping into anything?” Tigerkit sounded impressed.
“I hope you’re not being rude!” Tawnypelt’s stern mew sounded from the nursery. The ShadowClan she-cat padded out, yawning and ruffled. She blinked in surprise as she caught sight of Hollypaw. “You’re back again!” Then her gaze flicked to Jaypaw, Lionpaw, and finally Sol. “What in StarClan’s name are you doing here?” She pawed her kits back toward their den. “And who’s he?” Tigerkit tried to leap out of the way, but she caught him with an expert flick of her tail and sent him bundling toward the den. “Go inside,” she ordered.
“You can come out and say good-bye when they leave.”
“But—” Dawnkit began to argue.
“But nothing.” Tawnypelt gave the kits a final gentle shove, and they disappeared into the brambles.
Tawnypelt looked warily at Sol. “Who are you?”
“I’ve come to meet Blackstar.”
As he spoke, Russetfur appeared from Blackstar’s den and stood to one side to let her leader pass. Blackstar’s white pelt was unwashed. His long tail drooped behind him, and he padded across the clearing as though his soot-black paws were too heavy for him.
“Russetfur tells me there is a stranger among us,” he growled. He glanced at Hollypaw, Lionpaw, and Jaypaw. “She said you were showing him around our border.”
“We weren’t showing him anything!” Jaypaw mewed hotly.
“We were on our way home.”
“Why were you there at all?” Blackstar sat down and looked at them. His eyes were strangely dull, considering he was the leader of a Clan who’d just been involved in a terrible battle.
Hollypaw stepped forward. “We went to find Sol.”
Blackstar looked at the stranger for the first time. “And this is Sol, I suppose.”
“It is.” Sol dipped his head. “I’m honored to meet the leader of ShadowClan.”
“You know about ShadowClan?” A glimmer of interest sparked in Blackstar’s eyes.
“I have heard much about you.”
Blackstar tilted his head. “From these three trespassers?”
“We never crossed your border!” Jaypaw growled. He stared toward Russetfur as though challenging her to deny it.
Lionpaw moved closer to his brother. “We were looking for Sol.”
“So you said. But why? He’s just a loner, isn’t he?”
“A traveler,” Sol corrected him.
Blackstar blinked. “Why would three apprentices be so interested in a traveler?”
Jaypaw flicked his tail. “Because he told us the sun was going to disappear and it did!”
Russetfur’s pelt bristled. Behind her, Ivytail and Toadfoot stared wide-eyed.
Tawnypelt shifted on her paws. “You knew it would happen?”
Sol nodded. “I saw a great darkness fall over the Clans.”
“Did StarClan tell you?” ShadowClan’s medicine cat, Littlecloud, had come out of his den and was staring at Sol.
Sol swung his head around to face the medicine cat. “The great darkness had nothing to do with StarClan.”