Tall Shadow balked at the entrance, gazing down into the gaping darkness. “There could be anything living down there,” she objected.
“It was a badger set, but the badgers are long gone,” River Ripple responded. “You’ll have to trust me. Do you want to save Clear Sky or not?”
Without waiting for a reply, he headed into the tunnel. Tall Shadow shrugged and followed, with the rest of the cats hard on her paws.
In the first few tail-lengths, Gray Wing could see white tree roots interlacing above his head, holding up the roof of the tunnel, but soon the light from the entrance faded and he padded along in darkness. He could feel damp soil beneath his paws, and smell earth all around him, and the scent of Tall Shadow just ahead of him.
In the lead, River Ripple was moving swiftly, passing a side tunnel with no hesitation. Gray Wing began to feel the familiar ache in his chest as he forced himself to keep up. He began to feel like he had been loping along forever in the darkness. Surely Clear Sky will be dead before we can get to him!
Then he realized that a faint light was filtering into the tunnel from somewhere ahead, and he could make out Tall Shadow and River Ripple in front of him. The light grew until it became a wide circle of daylight. We’re almost there! Gray Wing thought thankfully.
At the tunnel entrance, River Ripple halted. “We need to be careful,” he mewed softly. “Wait here while I see what’s outside.” He pressed himself flat to the ground and crept into the open.
Gray Wing could see him looking around; then he glanced back and beckoned with his tail. “You can come out,” he told the others.
The rest of the cats followed him cautiously. Gray Wing saw that they had emerged in the middle of a gorse thicket. Peering through the branches, he looked around for Clear Sky, then drew in a gasp of horror at what he saw.
One Eye and the rogues had backed Clear Sky against a rock and were surrounding him, caterwauling insults and threats of what they would do to him.
“Mange-pelt! Fox dung–eater!”
“We’ll spread your guts all over the moor!”
Each rogue in turn was padding up to him and aiming fierce kicks at his ribs with their hind legs.
Clear Sky was still on his paws, but just barely so, and Gray Wing feared that each kick might knock him over. Blood from his torn ear matted his pelt, but his eyes still blazed with defiance.
“We have to stop this, before they kill him,” Gray Wing meowed.
A rustle among the branches announced the arrival of Wind Runner and Gorse Fur. “We waited for you,” Wind Runner explained rapidly. “We knew you would come back. One Eye has been too busy torturing Clear Sky to worry about where you went. What should we do now?”
Gray Wing realized that the eyes of every cat had turned toward him. I’d better come up with a really good plan, he thought. The cold sun of leaf-bare was still high in the cloudless sky, shedding its brilliant light down on the moor. The beginnings of an idea stirred in Gray Wing’s mind.
“We can use the sun to help us,” he murmured, thinking aloud. “We need to get high up—maybe in the thorn tree where Sparrow Fur and Owl Eyes were hiding.” More confidently as his plan took shape, he went on, “We’ll climb into the tree and call out to One Eye. He’ll come to investigate, peering up with the sun in his eyes. He won’t be able to see that the tree is full of cats. And then we pounce!”
“Great plan!” Shattered Ice meowed warmly.
One by one the cats slid out of the gorse thicket and crept toward the tree, their bellies pressed to the ground as if they were stalking prey. When they reached it they climbed into the branches on the opposite side from One Eye and the rogues. As he clambered up, Gray Wing felt terribly exposed, and wished there were more leaves remaining to conceal the cats. But One Eye and his rogues were having too much fun tormenting Clear Sky to pay much attention to what was going on around them.
From his vantage point in the tree Gray Wing had a good view of Star Flower standing just outside the circle, watching as her father and the rogues attacked Clear Sky. He hoped that Thunder, crouching on the next branch, hadn’t spotted her, but when he glanced at him, the shocked look on his young kin’s face told him that he had seen everything.
“I’m sorry,” Gray Wing murmured.
“It’s fine.” Thunder’s voice was cold. “This just makes me more determined to defeat One Eye.”
“Who’s going to call out?” Wind Runner whispered, when all the cats had made it into the tree.
“It needs to be a cat who One Eye hates almost as much as Clear Sky.”
“That would be me,” Sparrow Fur meowed.
“But you’re only a kit,” Dappled Pelt objected. “It’s too dangerous.”
“One Eye killed my father!” Sparrow Fur bared her teeth. “I’m doing this for Tom. I’ll lure One
Eye over here.”
No cat argued any more. Gray Wing watched admiringly as Sparrow Fur bravely scrambled around the trunk of the tree and walked carefully out onto a branch. It trembled under her weight and she had trouble keeping her balance, but she never paused until she was in full view at the outer edge of the tree.
“Hey, One Eye!” she yowled. “Aren’t you going to come and finish what you started? You were so stupid, letting me escape with Clear Sky! You’d like another fight with me, wouldn’t you?” Gray Wing saw One Eye stiffen and slowly turn away from Clear Sky, who by now had slumped to the ground, his body writhing in agony. Yet he still kept trying to get to his paws and face his attackers.
Gray Wing felt like his heart would crack in two at the sight of his brother in such pain.
He’s so badly hurt. Even if we win the fight, will he survive?
“You and you!” One Eye snapped, pointing with his tail at a couple of the rogues. “Guard this piece of mangefur. The rest of you, follow me, and surround that tree!”
The rogues obeyed him, racing fluidly over the moor toward the thorn tree. When they were in position, One Eye followed more slowly. “Is that you, Sparrow Fur?” he snarled. “If you want a fight, I’ll give you one you won’t forget—because you’ll be dead.”
“Flea-pelt!” Sparrow Fur spat. Nimbly she leaped up to a higher branch, then one higher still, always moving into the sun.
His hunger for the fight blazing from his baleful eye, One Eye padded closer and closer to the tree, craning his neck upward to spot where Sparrow Fur had gone. He narrowed his eye against the bright rays of the sun.
“Now!” Gray Wing whispered.
On his word of command, the cats in the tree leaped down, pouncing on One Eye and the rogues nearest him. Yowls of shock and alarm rose into the air. Gray Wing saw most of the rogues streaking off across the moor, leaving only one or two to grapple with his cats.
“Cowards!” he snarled, though he was relieved to see so many of their enemies fleeing.
One of the rogues who had stayed was Star Flower. Confronting Thunder, she flashed out an angry paw, though as Thunder jerked backward her claws only riffled through his fur. Thunder raised his paw, claws extended, then froze for a heartbeat before dealing a raking blow down her side. Both cats snarled furiously and leaped at each other to tussle on the ground in a writhing bundle of fur.
Gray Wing couldn’t go on watching; he had other things to worry about. With Lightning Tail and Cloud Spots on either side of him, he launched himself at One Eye. The rogue went limp and fell to the ground, but as soon as Gray Wing landed on top of him he exploded into movement, battering Gray Wing’s belly with his hind paws.
Cloud Spots tried to get a grip on One Eye’s throat, but the rogue twisted his head aside and fastened his teeth in Cloud Spots’s shoulder. When Lightning Tail tried to grab the rogue from the other side, One Eye raked his claws over the young cat’s ear.