“Harley.” Stick spat the name out through gritted teeth. “His name is Harley. And he must have tricked Red, or threatened her, if she’s still with him. He needs to be taught a lesson!”
Leafstar exchanged a glance with Sharpclaw; she could see her deputy shared her thoughts. Stick has a personal grudge against this cat. But still, it sounds as if Dodge and his friends are treating the others unfairly. There must be something we can do.
“How far does your territory extend?” she asked the Twolegplace cats. “And how often does Dodge trespass?”
Percy looked puzzled. “Territory? Trespass?”
“We don’t have borders here like you do in SkyClan,” Coal explained. “Cats can go anywhere.”
“What about prey?” Sharpclaw prompted with a twitch of his tail.
“We eat what we catch.” Cora shrugged. “If every cat can hunt for themselves, then we should all have enough to eat.”
“Then how are we going to stop Dodge threatening you if you don’t have a border to keep him out?” Leafstar meowed.
“We have to get rid of him once and for all,” Stick growled.
Cherrytail shot Leafstar an anxious glance. “That’s not part of the warrior code,” she pointed out. “We chase cats out of our territory, and patrol the border to make sure that they stay out. How far would we have to chase Dodge before he agreed not to come back?”
Good question, Leafstar thought. She was feeling worse about the battle with every heartbeat that passed. Just what does Stick want us to achieve?
“You have to fight him,” Sharpclaw meowed to Stick. “And we’ll help you. Do you have a plan?”
“We’ll wait until nightfall,” Stick replied. “Then I’ll show you Dodge’s camp. Meanwhile, you can hunt here. There’s usually some prey in the waste ground we just passed.”
He led the way back to the mouth of the alley. Leafstar glanced around the stretch of rough ground; it felt odd to be hunting for herself, not in a patrol. She watched Cherrytail and Sparrowpelt dive into the bushes nearby, while Sharpclaw, Egg, and Waspwhisker set out for the long grass at the foot of the opposite wall.
From the corner of her eye Leafstar glimpsed movement in one of the scrubby trees; her ears pricked as she made out a squirrel, half-hidden among the leaves. Pressing herself to the ground, she crept up to the tree and clawed her way up the trunk on the far side from the squirrel. She was fairly confident of making her catch; there was no other tree close enough for the squirrel to leap into.
But the squirrel was alerted by her progress through the rustling leaves. It sat straight up on the branch, then took a flying leap to the ground.
“Mouse dung!” Leafstar spat.
Then she spotted Billystorm near the foot of the tree. Panicking, the squirrel launched itself almost into his paws, and he killed it with a neat bite to its throat.
“Well done!” Leafstar exclaimed, dropping to the ground beside her Clanmate. “That was a great catch.”
“You set it up,” Billystorm meowed. “Let’s share.”
Even in this strange and disturbing place, joy washed through Leafstar from ears to tail-tip as she settled down beside Billystorm to eat the squirrel.
“Thank you, StarClan, for giving us this prey,” she murmured, adding to herself, Are you still watching over us, even here?
She took a mouthful of the prey, her whiskers brushing the side of Billystorm’s face. “I’m glad you’re here,” she purred.
Billystorm blinked at her, his green eyes warm. “So am I,” he mewed.
Chapter 34
A paw prodding in her side woke Leafstar; she opened her eyes on glaring orange light that cast thick shadows across her sleeping Clanmates. For a few heartbeats she wasn’t sure where she was. Then Cora’s face came into focus as the black she-cat bent over her.
“Wake up!” she hissed. “Stick says it’s time.”
Memory flooded back into Leafstar, of the long journey to the Twolegplace and Stick’s promise to show them Dodge’s camp. She stumbled to her paws, realizing that she had been sleeping with her back pressed against Billystorm. Her movement woke him, and their eyes met for a moment in embarrassment.
Then Billystorm leaped up. “I’m ready,” he announced.
Urgency swept through Leafstar, overpowering her doubts and pumping energy into her paws. She woke her other Clanmates and led them to where Stick was waiting with Shorty and Cora.
“Let’s go,” Stick meowed.
Whipping around, he led the way across the waste ground and down another alley. Leafstar and the other SkyClan cats bounded after him, along alleys and tiny paths that led through piles of split wood and past sleeping monsters, with scarcely a glance to make sure that they wouldn’t wake. They passed so close to Twoleg nests that Leafstar’s fur brushed against the rough red stone.
Eventually Stick led them up onto the top of a small wooden nest. As Leafstar leaped up, she saw him crouching at the far side of the roof, staring down at what lay beyond. She padded across the roof and crouched down beside him. The orange light showed her a pile of square Twoleg things, tumbled together on the bank of the shallow stream that they had crossed on their way into the Twolegplace. Its banks were muddy, with only a sluggish trickle of water at the bottom.
“Those boxes are where Dodge lives,” Stick told her.
As Leafstar looked more closely, she could make out the shadows of cats slinking between the boxes, and caught the occasional gleam from their eyes. Then a sturdy-looking cat emerged into the open and called out, looking back over his shoulder.
A cheerful chirrup answered him, and a slender she-cat pushed her way out of the nearest box to join him. Although the harsh light drained all the color from their pelts, Leafstar guessed that they were Stick’s daughter, Red, and her mate, Harley; she could feel Stick stiffening, and heard a faint snarl coming from the depths of his throat.
It was clear that Red wasn’t a prisoner in Dodge’s camp; she looked relaxed and happy to be there. With their tails twined together, the two cats strolled across the ditch and vanished into the woods.
Stick had sunk his claws so deeply into the wooden roof that he had to yank them out before he could sit up. His gaze swept over the cats who were crowding up behind him. “We’ll attack now,” he growled.
“Wait.” Shorty stepped forward, his ears flicking anxiously. “What about Coal, Snowy, and Percy?”
“Go fetch them,” Stick directed. “If we wait until tomorrow night, Dodge will know there are strangers here, and he might be on his guard.”
Waspwhisker leaned over to murmur into Leafstar’s ear. “He wants to attack while his daughter is out of the camp.”
Leafstar nodded. She could understand why Stick had made his decision, but she was reluctant to go into battle unprepared. They didn’t know anything about the layout of the camp beyond what they could see from the roof of the little den, nor how many cats were inside the boxes.
“Don’t worry,” Stick mewed, as if he could read her mind. “We’ll outnumber them.”
His eyes burned with a cold fire; Leafstar shivered, reminding herself that these cats did not live by the warrior code. They’ll kill, if that’s the only way to win.
“I want to take a closer look at the camp,” Sharpclaw announced, beckoning Egg and Sparrowpelt with his tail. “We can’t go into battle blind,” he added as Stick seemed about to object, “and there’ll be plenty of time before Shorty and the others get here.”
Stick nodded; Leafstar felt her fur start to bristle at the way he was taking charge, just as he had done when Sharpclaw took the patrol into the Twolegplace.
“Good idea, Sharpclaw,” she meowed. Just so he’s sure who is Clan leader here.