“Hi,” he mewed, bounding over to join her. “Can I help?”
“If you like,” Dovewing replied, pushing a few twigs toward him. “We need every defense we can get against this icy wind.”
“When will this leaf-bare pass?” Shadowpaw asked his mother as he fitted the flexible twigs into place. “It seems to have gone on forever.”
“You’ve lived through a leaf-bare before,” Dovewing told him. “Don’t you remember?”
Shadowpaw shook his head. “Not really. I can remember some of the journey from the big Twolegplace, with Spiresight and the other cats, but nothing about the weather.”
“It was pretty cold, but not as bad as this,” Dovewing meowed. “But this leaf-bare won’t last forever, I promise. Even the worst leaf-bares end. Then we’ll have newleaf, when the snow disappears and the trees begin to bud again. And then, before we know it, it will be greenleaf, when the air is warm.”
“And after that leaf-fall, and then leaf-bare again,” Shadowpaw murmured. He understood the seasons, though they hadn’t been as pronounced in the Twolegplace. Now he wondered what would have happened if Tigerheart and Dovewing hadn’t regretted their decision to leave the Clans and decided to take their family back. We’d be safe and warm inside the big den. How many more times will I have to go through this?
Glancing around the camp, he saw that the early patrols had returned, and that most of the Clan was in the clearing, gathered around the fresh-kill pile or gossiping outside their dens. They all looked thin and bedraggled; every cat was hungry, he knew, and would be until the weather grew warmer again.
Still thinking about the journey from the big Twolegplace where he had been born, Shadowpaw noticed that two of the cats from there, Cinnamontail and Blazefire, were nowhere to be seen.
I don’t think I’ve seen them since yesterday, he realized.
He turned to ask Dovewing if she knew where they had gone, but before he could speak, he was distracted by a bout of furious hissing.
Glancing over his shoulder, Shadowpaw spotted Strikestone and Whorlpelt standing nose to nose with lashing tails and bristling fur, their lips drawn back as they hissed defiance at each other. A heartbeat later Strikestone leaped at Whorlpelt, and the two cats began rolling around on the ground in a snarling, clawing knot of fur.
“Great StarClan!” Dovewing exclaimed, racing across the camp toward them.
Shadowpaw followed, and watched his mother stand poised beside the grappling cats until she could swoop forward and give each of them a sharp swipe over the ear. The two warriors broke apart and sat up, shaking earth and debris off their pelts.
“What’s going on?” Dovewing demanded.
“He put thorns in my bedding,” Strikestone meowed, glaring at Whorlpelt.
“Did not!” Whorlpelt retorted.
Dovewing heaved an exaggerated sigh. “For StarClan’s sake, are you kits?” she asked. “If you have so much energy, you should be using it to help your Clan.”
For a few heartbeats both cats turned their furious glares on Dovewing. Then Whorlpelt hung his head. “Sorry,” he muttered.
“It won’t happen again,” Strikestone promised Dovewing.
“I should think not!” Dovewing snapped, turning and padding back toward her den.
Shadowpaw followed, reflecting how irritable the cold weather was making every cat. Now that the skirmish was over, he remembered his uneasiness about the cats from the Twolegplace, and he veered aside to the fresh-kill pile, where his littermates were sharing a vole.
“Have either of you seen Cinnamontail and Blazefire?” he asked.
Pouncestep gulped down a mouthful of prey. “Not a whisker,” she replied.
“I haven’t, either,” Lightleap added. “Not since yesterday.”
By now Shadowpaw was becoming even more anxious. Glancing around, he saw that Tigerstar had appeared and was talking to Dovewing outside their den. Shadowpaw raced over to them.
“That is worrying,” Tigerstar agreed, when Shadowpaw had told him about his concerns. “I haven’t heard of any foxes or badgers moving into our territory, but in this kind of weather, we can’t be too careful. I’ll send out a search party.”
“I’ll lead the patrol,” Dovewing offered instantly.
“Thanks,” Tigerstar responded. “Choose your cats, and start off by going down toward the lake and the halfbridge. The patrol from the far border just returned, so they’re unlikely to be up there.”
“Can I come with you?” Shadowpaw asked his mother, eager for something to do that would take his mind off the misty StarClan cats at the Moonpool.
His mother shook her head. “It’s too cold, and there could be danger,” she told him. “Besides, you’re a medicine-cat apprentice, and this is warrior business. But you can tell Puddleshine to prepare in case our missing Clanmates have been injured.”
She headed off, calling Whorlpelt and Strikestone with a wave of her tail, and beckoning Snowbird from beside the fresh-kill pile, before leading the way out through the bramble tunnel.
Shadowpaw watched them go with a frustrated twitch of his tail, reminding himself to tell Puddleshine when his mentor returned with the catmint. Then he padded over to join his littermates and choose a blackbird for himself from the pile of prey.
“Cinnamontail and Blazefire are missing. Dovewing has gone to look for them,” he reported.
Lightleap blinked nervously. “I hope she finds them. I can’t think why they would go wandering off in this weather.”
“Tigerstar was talking about foxes and badgers,” Shadowpaw murmured unhappily, imagining how dangerous hungry predators would be.
“But I’m sure there aren’t any on our territory,” Pouncestep meowed, giving her shoulder a quick lick. “Cloverfoot told all the patrols to keep a special lookout, and there hasn’t been so much as a sniff.”
“Then why aren’t Cinnamontail and Blazefire here?” Lightleap asked.
Shadowpaw had no answer to that. He finished his blackbird, then chose a mouse for Puddleshine and carried it to their den, checking on Grassheart while he was there. To his relief, the she-cat seemed to have fallen into a quieter sleep, and he felt confident enough to leave her and head back into the clearing to wait for the patrol to return.
He had barely rejoined his Clanmates when there was a stir of movement at the mouth of the bramble tunnel. Dovewing appeared, with Cinnamontail and Blazefire just behind her and the rest of the patrol following. Puddleshine brought up the rear, a few stalks of catmint in his jaws.
Tigerstar emerged from his den to meet the returning cats in the middle of the camp. Shadowpaw padded up to listen, and several more of his Clanmates gathered around.
“Well?” Tigerstar asked. “What happened?”
“My patrol met these two crossing the border.” Dovewing angled her ears toward Blazefire and Cinnamontail. “Crossing back into our territory. They’d been in the Twolegplace.”
“I spotted them lurking around a Twoleg den,” Puddleshine added, speaking around his mouthful of herbs. “I made them come back to camp with me.”
Tigerstar let out a hiss of fury, and glared at the two straying cats with narrowed eyes. “And why were you there?” he demanded.
Cinnamontail scuffled her forepaws in the earth. “Dunno,” she mumbled. “We sort of thought it might be a good place to hunt.”
“Really?” Tigerstar snarled with a lash of his tail. “Now tell me something I’m going to believe.”
Blazefire took a deep breath. “Honestly, we didn’t mean to do it,” he began. “We were just walking in the forest, trying to keep warm, and tasting the air for prey—only there wasn’t any. And then we picked up this other scent, coming from the Twolegplace. It smelled of food. . . .” His voice died away miserably.
“Have I got this straight?” Tigerstar asked. His voice was soft, but Shadowpaw knew how angry his father was. “You went into the Twolegplace to get Twolegs to give you food?”