“Thank you!” Lionpaw touched his nose gratefully to his mother’s shoulder.
“I was tired of listening to your belly growling,” Squirrelflight mewed, her tail curling up in amusement. “I reckon they could hear it back in ThunderClan.”
She ran ahead to join Brambleclaw, while Lionpaw crouched over the mouse and devoured it in a few famished bites.
By the time he had finished his companions were out of sight, but he could hear their voices ahead and followed their scent trail until he caught up. Strength had flooded back into his paws. Passing the rest of the group, he bounded up to his father.
“What do you know about these invading cats?” Brambleclaw was asking Talon. “How many are there?”
“Too many,” Talon replied.
Brambleclaw twitched his ears. Lionpaw guessed that he didn’t find the Tribe cat’s answer much use in planning what they would do when they reached the mountains.
“Well, what have you done so far?” Brambleclaw went on.
“Have you worked out their ways of hunting and fighting? And what about regular patrols—”
“We’re not Clan cats, you know.” Talon’s neck fur bristled.
“We need help, but that doesn’t mean we want to be treated like a bunch of to-bes.”
“Calm down, Talon.” Night touched her Tribemate’s shoulder with the tip of her tail. “Brambleclaw’s only trying to work out the best way of helping us.”
For a heartbeat Lionpaw thought that the tabby cave-guard would snap at her too, but then his fur lay flat again and he gave Brambleclaw an awkward nod as if he was trying to apologize.
“We’ve never needed to set boundaries before,” he explained. “We just chose some rocks around our cave and set guards to keep watch for the intruders. Stoneteller said…”
Growing bored with this talk of strategy, Lionpaw let his father and the others go ahead and waited for his littermates to catch up.
“The Tribe cats seem really tense,” he meowed as he fell in beside Hollypaw. “I thought Talon was going to claw Brambleclaw’s ear off.”
Hollypaw blinked thoughtfully. “I think it’s because they never told Stoneteller what they planned to do. He might be angry when a bunch of Clan cats turn up in his territory.”
“Angry?” Lionpaw’s pelt grew hot with outrage. “He should be grateful to us!”
His sister let out a snort. “Maybe his pride would be hurt.
Leaders ought to be able to deal with problems without asking for help from outside. How do you think Firestar would feel if we were having trouble and you went to ask for help from WindClan?”
“He would probably line his nest with my pelt,” Lionpaw admitted.
“So what would you do if you were Stoneteller?” Jaypaw’s voice was curious as he flicked his sister’s shoulder with his tail tip.
Hollypaw paused for a few heartbeats before she replied.
“I’d set up border patrols—”
“But they don’t have borders,” Lionpaw reminded her.
“Then I’d mark some.” Hollypaw’s ears twitched. “I’d make sure they were patrolled regularly, and I’d teach all my cats to fight. That would keep the intruders out.”
Jaypaw shook his head. “You’re thinking like a Clan cat.
The Tribe’s ways are different. I’m not sure we should try to change them.”
“We should if they’re being driven out of their territory and starved to death,” Lionpaw argued. “What the Tribe needs is the warrior code, and we’re going to teach it to them!”
The setting sun cast long shadows in front of them as they came to the edge of the trees. Lionpaw fluffed out his pelt against the breeze that whispered through the undergrowth.
Ahead he could see a stretch of dusty grass sloping down into a narrow valley. More trees stretched up the far side, and beyond them hung the gray smudge of the mountains. Over to one side Lionpaw spotted the reddish stone of Twoleg nests, just visible through the trees.
“We’ll stop here for the night,” Brambleclaw announced.
“It’s sheltered, and there’ll be plenty of prey.”
Before he had finished speaking, Crowfeather broke away from the group, streaking across the open ground with his belly fur brushing the grass. Breezepaw raced after him.
Lionpaw didn’t spot the rabbit they were chasing until it broke for cover. The two WindClan cats separated, and as the rabbit dodged away from Crowfeather, it practically threw itself under Breezepaw’s paws. The WindClan apprentice dispatched it with a swift bite to the neck.
“Great catch!” Lionpaw meowed as he came back dragging his prey.
Breezepaw ignored him, but Crowfeather gave him a nod as the two WindClan cats settled down to share their prey.
Lionpaw turned back into the woodland to find some prey of his own. Tasting the air, he found a mouse scrabbling among the debris at the edge of a bramble thicket. He leaped with paws outstretched, but as he sank his claws into the little creature he felt a tendril of bramble wrap itself around his shoulders. He pulled away, leaving a tuft of orange fur behind.
His pelt prickled with embarrassment at the clumsy kill, and as he padded back to the edge of the trees with his prey he hoped that Breezepaw hadn’t been watching.
Hollypaw and Jaypaw were already crouching in the shelter of a clump of bracken with their fresh-kill; Hollypaw was devouring a plump vole, while Jaypaw gulped down a sparrow.
“I wish we could stay here a bit longer,” Hollypaw mumbled with her mouth full. “This place is crawling with prey!”
“Well, we can’t,” Jaypaw mewed unsympathetically. “And I don’t think some of us would be happy if we did.”
He flicked his tail toward Talon and Night, who had finished eating and were trying to settle down for the night between two gnarled tree roots. They were turning around uneasily, as if they couldn’t get comfortable.
Night stiffened as the hoot of an owl sounded from somewhere close by. “What was that?”
“Only an owl.” Brook padded up to her Tribemate and touched her nose to the black she-cat’s shoulder. “It’s okay.
Squirrelflight is going to keep watch, then Stormfur.”
“Well, I don’t like it,” Talon grumbled, whipping his head around at the sound of a creaking tree. “I’d rather be out in the open, where I can see if something is sneaking up on me.”
“We will be soon,” Brook promised. “And that noise was only a branch.” She let out a soft mrrow, a mixture of sympathy and amusement. “Trees don’t sneak up on you.”
Lionpaw stretched his jaws in a huge yawn before curling up nose to tail with his littermates in a nest of long grass. He was warm and comfortable, and his belly was full. His eyes closed and the crisp mountain voices of the Tribe cats began to blur together with the hooting of the owls, like rain falling into a pool.
Then his ears pricked as he heard the complaining tones of Breezepaw, coming from a dip in the ground just beyond the outlying branches of the trees. “I don’t see why we have to come at all. What can we do to help these weird cats—and why does it matter anyway? What has the Tribe ever done for us?”
“Feathertail gave her life saving them from Sharptooth. If they were worthy of our help then, they deserve it now.
Otherwise she died for nothing,” Crowfeather murmured.
Lionpaw raised his head to see the skinny WindClan cat sitting with his back to the trees, his shape outlined against the darkening sky. Breezepaw was a sprawled heap in the grass.
“Well, from the sounds of it we’ve helped them enough,” Breezepaw objected.
Crowfeather sighed; Lionpaw thought he had never heard a cat sound so bone-weary. “You’ll never understand loyalty,” the gray-black tom meowed.