Her paws hit the red stone of the wall and Jingo jumped forward to steady her.
“Well done,” the brown tabby mewed. “Move along to give the others space.”
Hollyleaf squeezed past her, turning in time to see Brackenfur leaping easily across the gap. Birchfall followed him; the young warrior’s front paws landed on the wall, but his hind paws dangled down. His eyes were huge with fear as the barking grew louder and two dogs raced round the corner. Quick as lightning, Brackenfur grabbed Birchfall’s scruff in his teeth and hauled him the rest of the way; his tail whisked up just in time, out of reach of the leading dog’s teeth.
Birchfall shuddered. “Thanks, Brackenfur. I thought I was dog food for sure.”
Hazeltail was shivering on the other side of the gap, gazing down in terror at the barking dogs as they reared up on their hind legs and scrabbled at the wall. “I can’t, Brambleclaw,” she whispered. “I just can’t. I know I’ll fall.”
“No, you won’t,” the Clan deputy assured her. “You’re good at jumping. You’ll be fine.”
“If you fall, I’ll leap down and fight the dogs,” Lionblaze promised.
With a despairing look at both of them, Hazeltail moved back a couple of fox-lengths and bounded up to the end of the wall. Both dogs hurled themselves at her as she leaped, but she cleared the gap with a tail-length to spare, and was welcomed on the other side by a quick lick on her ear from Birchfall.
Lionblaze followed and then Brambleclaw, and the cats set off again, with the dogs pacing alongside a fox-length below, whining and yelping in frustration at not being able to reach their prey. Hollyleaf wondered if there was any way of shaking them off. The Twolegplace wouldn’t last forever. Sooner or later they would have to come down to the ground, and then they would be ripped to pieces.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
A new voice came from up ahead: Hollyleaf spotted a huge blue-furred tom standing nose to nose with Jingo. He had the sleek, well-fed look of a kittypet, but his neck fur was beginning to fluff up and his blue eyes were unfriendly.
“Just passing through,” Jingo replied calmly.
“Well, get a move on,” the kittypet growled. “I’m going home for some sleep. I don’t want to listen to that racket all day. Those dogs wouldn’t even be here if you hadn’t brought them.”
Anger lit up Lionblaze’s eyes, and he began to push forward along the edge of the wall to stand beside Jingo. Hollyleaf’s fur prickled. Starting a fight here would probably end with both cats falling off the wall into the waiting jaws of the dogs.
Brambleclaw raised his tail to halt Lionblaze. “Stay out of it, unless the kittypet attacks,” he ordered. “Let Jingo handle it.”
Lionblaze obeyed, but he kept his furious gaze fixed on the kittypet.
“You’re the one who’s holding us up,” Jingo replied, still calm. “If you weren’t stuck there in the way, we’d be long gone.”
The blue-furred tom let out an angry snort, but said nothing more. Instead he leaped down into the Twoleg territory, raced across to the nest, and vanished through a small hole in the door.
Hollyleaf relaxed; they had more important things to do than teach kittypets some manners. Still with the dogs following, they padded farther along the wall until they came to another corner.
“This is where we can get rid of the dogs,” Jingo told them. Turning the corner, she led the way along a narrow wooden fence between two Twoleg dens. There was no way for the dogs to follow, even though they tried to push themselves into the gap at the foot of the fence. Their frustrated yelping sounded behind Hollyleaf as she and her Clanmates approached the nest.
“This way—and watch where you’re putting your paws.” Jingo sprang up onto a narrow, flat area above the entrance to the Twoleg nest, then clawed her way up a creeper that grew alongside it until she reached the edge of the Twoleg roof. “It’s not hard!” she called down, beckoning with her tail.
“And hedgehogs can fly!” Birchfall muttered.
But when it was Hollyleaf’s turn to climb, she realized that Jingo was right. The creeper had thick, twisted stems that created plenty of paw holds, and it was strong enough to bear even the weight of Brambleclaw and Lionblaze. But the edge of the roof felt unsteady, and Hollyleaf tried unsuccessfully to dig her claws in, terrified that the wind would blow her off.
“Where now?” Brambleclaw panted as he hauled himself over the edge to stand beside Jingo.
As an answer, the brown tabby she-cat began scrambling up the steep slope of the roof. “This is a good shortcut,” she meowed.
“We can’t go up there!” Hazeltail gasped. “We’ll fall!”
“If Jingo can do it, we can do it,” Brackenfur declared firmly. “Up you go, Hazeltail. I’ll be right behind you.”
Slipping and scrabbling, the Clan cats clawed their way up the slope to where Jingo was sitting with her tail curled round her paws, at the very top of the roof next to a couple of tree stumps made of stone.
“It’s great up here,” she mewed as Hollyleaf struggled up the last fox-length to join her. “Sometimes I come just to look.”
You come up here even if you don’t have to? Hollyleaf felt as if her claws had been worn away in the desperate climb. A sharp ridge stretched away in both directions; it felt far too narrow to balance on. Wind buffeted her fur and plastered her whiskers to the side of her face.
Not wanting to let Jingo know how uneasy she was, she forced herself to look up from her clinging claws. Instantly she forgot to be scared. She could see forever! All the way across the tumbled roofs of the Twolegplace, to the flat stretch of rough grass that covered the cliffs above the sun-drown-place. And beyond that, over the gray, heaving waves as far as the horizon.
“Look!” Lionblaze yowled, dragging himself up to balance on the ridge beside Hollyleaf. “You can see the mountains!”
Hollyleaf twisted around to stare in the opposite direction. After the edge of the forest, the mountains lay like a smudge of cloud on the horizon. She could make out gray slopes and cliffs, and peaks tipped with snow reaching up to the sky.
“Do you think we’re as high as we were in the mountains?” she asked wonderingly.
“Of course not.” There was a hint of scorn in Lionblaze’s voice. “It took us ages to climb up to the waterfall.”
Hollyleaf realized he was right, and yet the mountains seemed so close she could almost imagine leaping off the roof and landing on the ledge that led behind the waterfall to the cave where the Tribe of Rushing Water lived.
“I wonder what they’re doing,” she murmured, half to herself. “Will we ever see Stormfur and Brook again?”
No cat answered her. As soon as the rest of the patrol had reached the roof ridge, Jingo rose to her paws. “For this next bit, you have to be extra careful,” she warned. “Going down is far harder than going up. If you slip…well, just don’t slip, that’s all.”
Cautiously, in a half-crouch, Jingo led the way down the other side of the roof. Hollyleaf’s paws skidded on the smooth stone of the roof; there was nothing to hold on to, and the downward slope seemed to end in empty air. When she was halfway down, a big white bird swooped past her, letting out a raucous cry and filling the air with the beating of its wings. Hollyleaf froze, trying to dig her claws into the stone, until it was gone.
“I’m never doing this again!” Birchfall hissed behind her.
Hollyleaf was shaking by the time they reached the edge of the roof and perched on a narrow channel half choked with leaves and other debris. A couple of fox-lengths below was a flat roof, and just beyond that, a narrow Thunderpath.
“Is that another monster nest?” Hazeltail asked.