He stared around at the SkyClan cats, his gaze focused and confident. Leafstar realized he was sure his plan would work. And it just might, she thought. It’s worth a try.
“We could try pulling the heap apart, too,” Stick went on. “That would drive the rats out.”
Patchfoot wrinkled his nose. “Yuck!” he spat. “Have you seen that dump? It’s disgusting!”
Stick shrugged. “You don’t have to do that. But it’s a way of finding food.”
“You eat rats?” Sparrowpelt asked, his eyes stretched wide with dismay. “I’d sooner starve.”
“So would I,” Cherrytail agreed. “Just thinking about it makes me sick.”
“Where I come from,” Stick mewed drily, “you’ll eat any sort of fresh-kill. I’ve often been thankful for a good plump rat.”
Leafstar looked at her Clan, feeling ashamed and a bit guilty that they were being so picky. We’ve never been really hungry, she thought. Maybe the time will come when rats won’t seem so disgusting.
“Right,” Sharpclaw meowed, rising to his paws. “Stick, will you organize some training patrols to prepare for the attack? We weren’t properly prepared last time; that’s how we lost Rainfur.”
A stab of anger pierced Leafstar like a claw. Have I said that we’ll go with Stick’s plan?
“Are you saying Firestar didn’t know what he was doing?” she challenged, rising to confront Sharpclaw. “He’s the cat who created this Clan out of nothing, or have you forgotten that?”
“That’s not the point,” Sharpclaw retorted, with a single lash of his tail. “I respect Firestar, but he didn’t have Stick’s experience with rats. And experience is what we need here. This time things will be different.”
Leafstar gazed at the ginger warrior, shocked that he seemed to be rejecting everything that Firestar had done for SkyClan. Sharpclaw’s green gaze met hers boldly. Sooner or later, I’ll have to talk to Sharpclaw about what’s appropriate for a deputy and what isn’t. But not now.
Suppressing her anger, Leafstar dipped her head. “Stick, we’d all be grateful for your help. Sharpclaw will help you organize patrols.”
“Fine.” Stick turned to go, with Sharpclaw following.
The other warriors made their way out of the den after them, until only Echosong remained. Her eyes were calm and sympathetic as she padded up to Leafstar and brushed her pelt against her leader’s.
“The Clan will face new challenges which we have to deal with on our own,” she mewed. “Firestar didn’t have time to teach us all he knew.”
Leafstar guessed that Echosong was trying to say that Sharpclaw was still a loyal Clan cat. But it troubled her that Sharpclaw seemed to have more respect for Stick than he did for Firestar.
Firestar did everything for us. None of us know anything about Stick.
Thinking back, Leafstar had always known that there was tension between Firestar and Sharpclaw, especially when she had become leader and Sharpclaw was only deputy.
“Do you think Sharpclaw blames me for taking the leadership of SkyClan?” she asked Echosong.
The young medicine cat regarded her gravely. “You didn’t take anything,” she reminded her. “StarClan sent me a sign—a vision of dappled leaves to represent your name, Leafdapple. Firestar and I knew that our warrior ancestors had chosen you.”
“But does Sharpclaw know it?” Leafstar muttered, half to herself.
“That’s not the problem now.” Echosong’s voice was firm. “Every cat has to focus on getting rid of the rats.”
Her certainty soothed Leafstar, though she still wondered if she had made the right decision. Sharpclaw didn’t give me time to think! “Maybe we should let the rats stay and use them for fresh-kill,” she suggested.
Echosong shook her head. “No, you were right with your first instinct. We should get rid of them as fast as we can.” She paused to give her white chest fur a couple of licks. “Rats are SkyClan’s oldest enemy,” she meowed. Her green gaze seemed to travel out of the den and back into the distant past when the first cats of SkyClan had made their home in the gorge. “They are not prey. They are rivals for everything that SkyClan needs to survive.”
When Leafstar climbed down from her den she spotted Mintpaw, Snookpaw, and Frecklepaw struggling to carry sticks and bramble tendrils up the gorge past the Rockpile.
“What are you doing?” she called.
Mintpaw dropped her bundle to answer. “Stick is building a waste pile in the training area. It’s going to be huge! He says it’ll help us learn how to fight the rats.”
“I’ve got to see this,” Leafstar meowed.
She padded alongside the apprentices; rounding the spur of rock that separated the camp from the training area, she stopped dead in surprise. An enormous mound of twigs, bracken, brambles, and other debris covered the middle of the open space.
How did Stick build something that big so quickly?
Most of the Clan cats were watching from the edge of the training area. Billystorm and Ebonyclaw were sitting under the overhang of the cliff, while Rockshade, Bouncefire, and Tinycloud crouched in the shadow of the mound; the young warriors were quivering with excitement, as if they could see their enemies in front of them and were ready to pounce. Shrewtooth, however, was hanging back, shifting uneasily from paw to paw. Cherrytail and Sparrowpelt were huddled together with Patchfoot at the far side of the area; Leafstar could hear that he was telling them more about the place where they had found the rats, in all its disgusting detail.
Meanwhile, Stick and Shorty stood beside the heap, their heads close together. Sharpclaw waited a fox-length away, listening intently.
“It should still be a couple of tail-lengths higher,” Shorty decided. “And it was more… more close-packed. You could climb up it and it would take the weight of a cat.”
“It would take too long to build something like that,” Stick argued. “This will do to work out our plans. Well done,” he added to the apprentices as they staggered up and dropped their burdens at the edge of the pile. “That’s enough for now. Can you make some of this bracken into bundles about the size of rats?”
The apprentices got to work while Leafstar padded across the training area to join Sharpclaw.
Her deputy turned toward her, his eyes gleaming. “With the help of our guests, we’ll soon show the rats they’re not welcome here.”
“We’ll turn them into crow-food,” Snookpaw growled. “Stick knows just what he’s doing.”
“Right!” Mintpaw exclaimed as she clawed a bunch of bracken into a rat-shape. “Maybe if he’d been here before, my father wouldn’t have died.”
Leafstar shook her head; she didn’t believe that any cat could have changed the result of the first battle, however much they knew about rats. You can’t understand if you weren’t there, she thought.
Hearing a sigh, she glanced over her shoulder to see Petalnose standing close by, her eyes full of sorrow at the mention of her dead mate. Leafstar eased back until she stood at her side.
“Rainfur didn’t make any mistakes,” Petalnose whispered to her leader. “He died fighting for his Clan.”
“He was a fine warrior,” Leafstar agreed, touching her nose to Petalnose’s ear.
“Now they’re talking as if he was stupid,” Petalnose went on, her voice quivering with grief. “As if he went out unprepared to tackle an enemy that was too strong for him.”