Gray Wing knew that she was right. River Ripple’s home on the island was proof of that.
“Then look after yourself and your family,” he mewed. “I’d better be getting back. Would you like the other vole?”
Wind Runner shook her head. “We’ll be fine, but thanks.”
Gray Wing was relieved that she had refused. I want something to take back to Turtle Tail’s kits. They’re almost grown now, but they’ll still enjoy a treat.
As he turned to leave, he paused, spotting another cat watching him from the shadow of one of the rocks: a she-cat with a thick, dark gray pelt and wide, amber eyes.
“Slate,” Wind Runner called, beckoning with her tail. “Come and meet Gray Wing. He’s one of the cats from that big group I told you about.”
Slate padded forward and dipped her head to Gray Wing, giving him an interested stare. “It’s good to meet you,” she mewed. “I see we both have colors in our names.”
As she spoke her eyes were alight with mischief, and for the first time in moons Gray Wing felt an amused purr bubbling up in his throat. “Great to meet you, too,” he responded politely.
“Are you coming to live with us here?” Slate asked.
Gray Wing shook his head. “I have my own home to go to in the hollow,” he explained. Home for now, he realized. An idea was forming in his mind that he hardly dared put into words; seeing Wind Runner had made that plan seem a little more real.
“I see,” Slate murmured. “Can I come with you for part of the way?”
Surprised and pleased, Gray Wing agreed. Saying good-bye to Wind Runner and Gorse Fur, they padded along side by side.
“How is Wind Runner managing?” Gray Wing asked, feeling awkward as he mumbled his question around the vole in his jaws.
Slate dipped her head thoughtfully. “She’s surviving, but it’s hard. I know what it’s like to lose someone I loved. My brother died saving me from a fox attack—look.”
She slid to the ground and rolled over so that Gray Wing could see a healed scar on the tender part of her belly. His heart softened in sympathy. There’s something very special about a cat who can show her vulnerable side like this to some cat she’s only just met.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “Your brother must have been a great cat.”
Slate walked with Gray Wing in comfortable silence until the hollow came in sight. Then she halted. “I’ll leave you here,” she meowed. “Good luck.”
“Luck?” Gray Wing was puzzled. “What for?”
The gray she-cat’s amber eyes were glinting again: with merriment or wisdom, Gray Wing couldn’t tell. “For the challenges ahead,” she replied. “I can feel them resting heavy on your shoulders.”
She brushed her tail along his side and turned to go.
“Good luck to you, too,” Gray Wing called after her, unable to tear his gaze away as she strode confidently across the moor. She knows more about me from a few moments’ talk than some cats I’ve lived with for seasons. Where in the world did Wind Runner find her?
As Gray Wing approached the camp, he spotted Tall Shadow standing at the edge of the hollow.
Her gaze was fixed on the horizon, toward where the Thunderpath stretched. Her tail curled up in welcome when she noticed Gray Wing.
“You’re back,” she meowed in tones of deep satisfaction as she touched noses with him. “Are you glad to be home again?”
“I think so,” Gray Wing responded, looking around for the kits and spotting Pebble Heart at the entrance to their den.
“You think so?” Tall Shadow called after him as he headed toward the den.
Gray Wing glanced over his shoulder. “It’s good for now,” he called back.
But for how long…?
Chapter 17
Thunder crouched behind a tussock of grass and narrowed his eyes as he stared at the rabbits feeding outside their burrows. The sun was slipping down in the sky, and a chilly breeze whispered across the moor. On either side of Thunder, Owl Eyes and Lightning Tail waited, looking stiff and tense. Owl Eyes’s tail-tip flicked impatiently to and fro.
“Don’t you dare move before I tell you to,” Thunder warned him. “This is what we’re going to do. You see the rabbit over there by that rock?” He angled his ears toward the rabbit that was farthest away from the burrows. It was nibbling the grass, unaware that the cats were watching it.
Lightning Tail nodded. “I see it.”
“Right. Lightning Tail, I want you to run out between the rabbit and the burrows. Make it run the other way. Owl Eyes, you stay here and leap out at it if it doubles back this way.” Thunder swiped his tongue around his jaws. “And I’ll kill it. It looks nice and plump.”
“I’m ready, Thunder,” Owl Eyes mewed, his whiskers quivering with excitement.
“Okay. Lightning Tail, go!”
Pushing off with powerful back legs, Lightning Tail launched himself out of cover. The rabbits closer to the burrows jumped up in alarm and fled, their white tails bobbing as they vanished into safety. The cats’ chosen prey tried to follow, but Lightning Tail intercepted it, his teeth bared. For a moment the rabbit seemed not to know which way to run, then dashed off in a panic. As Thunder bore down on it, the prey dodged his pouncing paws and headed straight for Owl Eyes. The kit leaped out of hiding, his tail lashing and his claws tearing at the grass. Letting out a terrified squeal, the rabbit crouched trembling in the grass, not even trying to flee any longer. Thunder brought down one huge paw on its neck—a killing strike.
“Great catch!” Owl Eyes exclaimed, coming up to look at the limp body.
“You both helped,” Thunder meowed, with a nod to Lightning Tail as he came padding up. “Owl
Eyes, you looked really scary!”
But Thunder’s satisfaction with the hunt ebbed away rapidly as he took a closer look at what they had caught. The prey was not succulent and plump—it was actually just bloated and swollen from the sickness. There was froth around its jaws, and a faint, rank smell rising from the body.
“Owl Eyes, keep back,” Thunder ordered sharply. “Lightning Tail, we’d better find some leaves to wrap it. If we leave it here some other cat might take it.” No wonder it was easy to cut it out from the rest, he added silently to himself.
When he and Lightning Tail had found enough leaves to wrap the rabbit, and shoved it deep into a cleft in a nearby rock, Thunder led the way back to camp.
“It’s getting harder and harder to catch enough prey,” Owl Eyes complained. “It’s like everything is sick.”
“I know,” Lightning Tail agreed. “We decided separating might help, but we couldn’t tell that to the prey. The illness is spreading farther and farther.”
His denmates were saying out loud what Thunder was already thinking privately. “That may be true,” he meowed, “but as we haven’t found a cure yet, all we can do is avoid the sickness as much as we can.”
I touched that rabbit, he thought, with a tremor of fear in his belly. Does that mean that I’m carrying the sickness with me now?
Halfway back to camp they stopped to collect the prey they had caught earlier, which they had hidden under some stones. “One scrawny rabbit and a couple of mice,” Thunder muttered. “It looks like a lean leaf-bare. But Gray Wing would probably say it’s still better down here than in the mountains.”