Lionpaw’s pelt had begun to dry, the hairs clumping together in untidy tufts. He sat down and gave himself a thorough washing, stretching his neck over his back to reach every last scrap of fur. When he had finished there were still no ShadowClan warriors in sight.
“Don’t they ever patrol their borders?” he grumbled, batting at a beetle that was climbing a grass stem near his nose.
Brambleclaw had settled into a crouch, his paws tucked comfortably under him and his eyes slitted, enjoying the sun.
“They’ll be along soon. You can hunt if you want, but make sure you stay on this side of the border.”
Lionpaw sprang up, but before he could pinpoint any prey he heard the sound of pelts swishing through the bracken a few fox-lengths away. A ShadowClan patrol appeared from the arching fronds and stalked toward the border. Lionpaw recognized Russetfur, the ShadowClan deputy, but the other two—a young dark brown tom and a tortoiseshell she-cat—were strangers to him.
As soon as he spotted Brambleclaw and Lionpaw waiting by the border, the young tom exclaimed, “Intruders! I knew I’d scented them.” He bounded forward, his fur bristling.
“Toadfoot, wait!” Russetfur overtook her Clanmate and padded up to Brambleclaw. “What do you want?”
“Greetings.” Brambleclaw dipped his head, ignoring the deputy’s hostile tone. “We’re not intruding, Russetfur, just waiting for an escort to your camp. We need to speak to Blackstar.”
Russetfur’s whiskers twitched suspiciously. “What’s so important that it can’t wait until the Gathering?”
“A decision that Blackstar must make now.”
The ShadowClan deputy lashed her tail; Lionpaw guessed she was furious that Brambleclaw wouldn’t tell her what his business was. Reluctantly she stepped back, jerking her head to invite Brambleclaw and Lionpaw across the border.
“Ivytail, run back to the camp and warn Blackstar,” she ordered. “Toadfoot, keep an eye out behind. We need to be sure that there aren’t any more ThunderClan warriors lurking about.”
She turned and stalked off, with Brambleclaw padding quietly at her shoulder, while Toadfoot drew close to Lionpaw, fixing him with a fierce glare. “Don’t even think about unsheathing your claws,” he hissed.
“Don’t worry, I won’t,” Lionpaw retorted. He remembered Birchfall, back in camp, talking about his friendship with ShadowClan kits during the Great Journey. Toadkit was one of the names he mentioned; this young warrior must be the same cat.
“Do you remember Birchkit?” he asked, trying to be more friendly. “He’s Birchfall now.”
“So?” Toadfoot sounded just as hostile.
“He was telling us about you earlier today. He said what good friends he was with you and your littermates.”
For a heartbeat he thought he saw a shadow of sadness in Toadfoot’s eyes, but it was gone before he could be sure.
“That was on the Great Journey,” Toadfoot meowed.
“Things were different then. I’m a ShadowClan warrior now.”
Lionpaw stifled a sigh. Why couldn’t you be a loyal warrior and still have friends in other Clans? He wondered if things had been better on the Great Journey, when there were no borders, so you didn’t have to be enemies with other cats just because of where they lived.
But he couldn’t go on thinking about that now, not when Russetfur was leading them deeper into ShadowClan territory. Lionpaw’s whiskers twitched as they skirted the empty stretch of grass where Twolegs came in greenleaf. He had seen the flat green pelts they put there when he was on border patrols, but he had never set paw anywhere near them.
He tasted Twoleg scent as Russetfur led them past, creeping close to the ground in the shadow of the ferns, but there was no noise of Twoleg yowling or any sign of the Twolegs themselves.
As they left the clearing behind, Lionpaw was surprised to find that the woodland on the other side looked just like ThunderClan territory. But gradually the familiar oaks and beeches gave way to tall, dark pines, with spiky shadows trapped in their branches. Birdsong echoed strangely from the narrow, leafless trunks. The undergrowth of fern and bramble thinned out until the cats were padding across ground that was bare except for a thick covering of brown pine needles.
Suppressing a shiver, Lionpaw hurried so he could catch up to Brambleclaw and walk at his side. His father flashed him a sympathetic glance and brushed his tail comfortingly across his shoulder.
At last Lionpaw began to pick up the mingled scents of many cats, coming from just ahead. Russetfur led them up a short slope and through a barrier of bushes that grew along the top.
“Wait here,” she ordered.
She headed down a shallower slope into a wide hollow, while Toadfoot stayed to guard the two ThunderClan cats, glaring through narrowed eyes from a couple of tail-lengths away.
“Is this the ShadowClan camp?” Lionpaw whispered to Brambleclaw. “It looks so open.”
“We’re lucky to have the hollow to shelter us,” Brambleclaw replied.
When he looked closer, Lionpaw began to see that this was a Clan camp very like his own, even though it looked so different. Russetfur had vanished into a gap behind a huge boulder, which he guessed was the Clan leader’s den. Not far away from it was a straggly bramble thicket that was probably the apprentices’ den; there was a dead log just outside it, thickly scored with scratch marks, which would be the place where the apprentices sharpened their claws.
He started at a yowl from a yew bush on the slope just below him. “This moss is dripping wet! I’ll scratch that apprentice when I catch him!”
“The elders’ den,” Lionpaw muttered to his father. “I guess they’re just the same everywhere.”
He was distracted from his study of the camp by the reappearance of Russetfur. Blackstar followed her out of the gap behind the boulder and leaped onto a tree stump in the middle of the hollow. Russetfur gestured to Toadfoot with her tail, and the brown tom escorted Brambleclaw and Lionpaw down the slope until they stood in front of the ShadowClan leader. Lionpaw felt curious stares from the ShadowClan warriors scorch his pelt and heard the cats muttering to one another. They didn’t sound friendly.
He had seen Blackstar before at Gatherings, but he had never been so close to him. Swallowing nervously, he realized that the white tom was a very powerful warrior. One swat from those huge black paws could shred a cat’s ear. He wondered what Brambleclaw would do if Blackstar attacked him.
Was he strong and skillful enough to fight him off and escape from the rival Clan’s territory?
But for the moment Blackstar seemed calm, if not exactly welcoming. “Brambleclaw,” he meowed. “What are you doing in our territory?”
“I’ve come to speak to my sister, Tawnypelt.”
“What if she doesn’t want to speak to you?” Russetfur’s tone was sharp.
Blackstar raised his tail, warning his deputy to be quiet.
“What do you want with her?”
Lionpaw’s belly churned as Brambleclaw told the ShadowClan cats about the appearance of Talon and Night and the trouble that had come upon the Tribe of Rushing Water. “Firestar has agreed to let me and Squirrelflight go back to the mountains to help the Tribe cats,” he finished.
“We thought we should invite Tawnypelt and Crowfeather to come too. They know the Tribe well from the first journey we made together.”
“What!” Russetfur exclaimed, before Blackstar could respond. “You dare to come here and expect to take one of our warriors away? Of course Tawnypelt’s not going. She has kits, for StarClan’s sake!”