Bounding across the garden, she pressed herself close to the gate and peered between the wooden strips. The patrol was standing in a huddle a couple of fox-lengths away.
“Remember your paw steps sound louder when you’re walking on stone,” Stick warned. “You need to practice being completely silent.”
“And use the shadows,” Cora added.
Stick nodded. “Cora’s right. Don’t forget that your eyes reflect the light more here. Cats will spot you even in the shadows if your eyes are gleaming.”
“Look sideways to check what’s ahead,” Shorty advised.
Leafstar felt her pelt start to prickle as she listened. Is Stick leading an attack on cats in the Twolegplace? Horror rooted her paws to the ground. They can’t be targeting our daylight-warriors! Sharpclaw would never do that. Then she remembered all the times Sharpclaw had criticized the kittypets or left them out of Clan duties, and she couldn’t be sure.
As soon as the patrol moved off again, Leafstar slipped under the gate and followed, remembering what the Twolegplace cats had said about the best ways to hide. She kept to the shadows and turned her head to look sideways along the alley so that her eyes didn’t catch the light full on. Her muscles were shrieking at her to leap forward and confront them, but she forced herself to watch and wait.
Stick led the patrol around a corner and halted in front of a high wall built of red stone. Orange light flooded over it from a glowing stone tree.
“If you can’t reach the top of the wall in one leap, you have to learn how to grip it,” Shorty explained, his voice a low murmur. “It’s not like a tree; you can’t dig your claws in. But look at the lines where the stones are put together.” He pointed with his tail. “There are tiny gaps in there. The trick is to drive your foreclaws into one set of gaps, and find another set to drive in your hind claws. Then you can push off and get to the top. Cora, show them.”
The black she-cat nodded and took a few paces back to get a good run at the wall. Leafstar had to admire her graceful leap and the way she hung poised for a heartbeat on the smooth surface before she propelled herself higher and landed lightly on the flat top.
“Any cat want to try?” Stick asked.
Sparrowpelt nodded agreement, then took a run up to the wall as Cora had done. His jump was strong and focused, but his claws slipped on the stone and it took an undignified scramble before he could haul himself up to stand beside Cora. Cherrytail followed him; her strong SkyClan haunches sent her flying upward, and she managed to push off again and reach the top of the wall on her second leap.
“You’re lighter; it’s easier for you,” Sparrowpelt grumbled.
Leafstar watched as Rockshade tried the leap in his turn; the black tom’s claws scraped vainly at the stone and he slid back to the ground again, hissing in annoyance.
“Never mind,” Stick consoled him. “You’ll get it in the end.”
“I hope so,” Rockshade muttered. “It’s all so different from what I’m used to.”
Leafstar could understand why the young warrior would be embarrassed by failing at something that Twolegplace cats and even former kittypets could do. But it doesn’t seem as if Cherrytail and Sparrowpelt remember much about being kittypets, Leafstar thought. They’re nearly as nervous here as gorge-born cats.
“Meanwhile, we’ll go this way,” Stick meowed, leading the rest of the patrol along the bottom of the wall. A few fox-lengths farther on, he pushed his way between the wooden strips of a gate into the enclosed space beyond. The cats balancing on the wall jumped down to join their Clanmates.
Leafstar tracked their paw steps as Stick padded along a path of bare earth between leafy plants on either side, then headed through a gap in the fence opposite into the next space. Her pelt rose as she heard the loud barking of a dog inside the Twoleg nest.
“Dogs!” Rockshade’s fur bristled and he turned to flee.
Leafstar crouched under a bush, afraid that the black warrior would run straight into her, but Stick slipped in front of him and blocked him.
“Don’t worry,” the brown tom mewed. “The dog won’t come out.”
Rockshade cast uneasy glances at the nest as the patrol padded across the garden. Once again Leafstar followed, clinging to the shadows, trying not to shiver as the terrifying barking went on. Suddenly the door at the back of the nest was flung open. The barking grew louder as the dog raced into the open: a lean, long-bodied animal, its gray pelt turned to silver in the moonlight.
Rockshade let out a panic-stricken yowl. “You said it wouldn’t come out!”
“Sometimes they do!” Stick yowled in reply.
“Scatter!” Shorty ordered. “It’s easier here for one cat to hide on its own.”
The patrol shot apart as the dog bounded among them; its teeth came within a whisker of grabbing Sparrowpelt’s tail. Leafstar fled back the way she had come, clawing her way up the wooden side of a small den at the end of the garden and hauling herself up onto its flat roof. She crouched on the edge, watching the dog as it ranged around the grass, its jaws wide and its tongue lolling.
A voice growled behind her. “What are you doing here?”
Leafstar spun around. “Billystorm!”
The ginger-and-white tom’s gaze traveled over her; his expression was wary.
“I—I didn’t know you come out at night,” she stammered.
Billystorm shrugged. “Sometimes. My housefolk’s den isn’t far away. But you still haven’t answered my question,” he went on, with an edge of hostility to his tone. “I thought you didn’t believe me about Sharpclaw’s night visits here. And now you’re taking part in one!”
“Of course I’m not taking part!” Leafstar retorted. “I saw them leaving the gorge, and I followed.”
“So you believe me now?”
Leafstar twitched her whiskers. I’m his Clan leader; he doesn’t have the right to interrogate me! “I didn’t disbelieve you, okay? The important thing is, what are they doing?”
“I’m not sure,” Billystorm replied with another shrug. “I haven’t seen them for a while. And it’s not always the same cats that Sharpclaw brings. Last time, it was Patchfoot, Tinycloud, and Bouncefire.”
Leafstar’s anxiety rose. How many cats are involved in this?
“I’ve seen them crossing Thunderpaths,” Billystorm went on. “Back and forth, like they weren’t going anywhere. And learning how to climb walls. But always in different places, as if they weren’t targeting any cat in particular.”
I’ve seen some of that myself, Leafstar realized, staring at Billystorm. “They’re training, aren’t they?” she whispered. “But why? They would never launch an attack on the Twolegplace.”
“You might not,” Billystorm meowed with a flick of his ears. “But maybe they would.”
Leafstar wondered if he was right. She and Sharpclaw had differences of opinion, but she could still trust him, couldn’t she? The sharp fangs of her anxiety bit deeper. “I’m going to find Sharpclaw and the others and ask him what’s going on,” she decided.
Billystorm padded to her side as she crouched at the edge of the roof and gazed down, trying to work out where the patrol had gone. At least there was no sign of the dog anymore, and the door to the den was closed.
“I’m coming with you,” Billystorm told her.
“No—stay here,” Leafstar responded.
She could see the hurt in Billystorm’s green eyes. “I’m supposed to be your Clanmate,” he protested. “Or doesn’t that count when I’m not actually in the gorge?”
I don’t have time for this right now, Leafstar thought. “This is an issue between me and Sharpclaw,” she told Billystorm, trying to keep her voice crisp and impersonal. “No other cat.”