“I don’t think Sol would hide under there,” Dovewing objected. “He likes to be comfortable.”
“I’m not looking for a cozy hiding place,” Ivypool replied. She knew exactly what she was looking for. It has to be here somewhere.
At last she spotted what she was searching for; her paws tingled with a mixture of fear and excitement as she clawed aside a pawful of bramble tendrils to reveal a dark hole leading deep into the ground.
“Sol went down there?” Dovewing asked, sounding incredulous.
“It’s a tunnel,” Ivypool explained. “The hillside is full of them. Remember when Icecloud fell into one, when we were doing our assessment? Well…” She went on more hesitantly as Dovewing flicked her ears. “Blossomfall and I… er… went down there, too. We walked underground for ages.”
“You never told me!” Dovewing exclaimed indignantly.
Ivypool shrugged, unwilling to get into an argument. “If Sol knows about these tunnels,” she pointed out, “then he could have gone down one and be anywhere by now.”
Dovewing crept closer and took a deep sniff. “Sol’s scent is here,” she meowed. “It’s faint, but it’s definitely his.” She paused for a heartbeat, then added, “What do we do now?”
“Follow him,” Ivypool declared. She was half-scared by her own suggestion, but she didn’t see any other option. They couldn’t accuse a cat who was considered a hero by half her Clanmates of plotting with WindClan—not unless they had real evidence.
Dovewing’s eyes stretched wide, but she didn’t argue, just gave her sister a brief nod. “Lead on,” she mewed.
Ivypool squeezed into the tunnel. It was so narrow that her fur brushed the walls on either side, and their bodies blocked the dim light from outside. Her heart began to pound as she walked into the dark, but she made herself keep going.
“This shouldn’t be as bad as last time I was underground,” she whispered after a few moments, trying to reassure herself as much as Dovewing. “With your special senses, you should be able to work out where we’re going, just as easily as if we could see.”
“I’m not sure.” Dovewing’s voice quivered. “It’s all so strange down here… so confusing… Give me a moment to get used to it.”
To Ivypool’s relief, she felt her sister’s fear begin to ebb as they padded forward. She lost count of how much time had passed before she sensed that the passage was growing wider. She couldn’t feel the walls any longer, and the steep downward slope leveled out. There was hard stone beneath her paws, not close-packed earth, and the small sounds of their movement echoed eerily around them.
“Let’s stop a moment,” Dovewing mewed. “I think I can reach out now.”
Ivypool halted. All she could hear was the sound of their breathing, and the occasional drip of water, but she knew that the whole of this strange underground world would be open to Dovewing.
“Voices!” Dovewing whispered after a long, tense silence. “I can hear voices.”
“Where?” Ivypool asked.
“Let me go in front.”
There was enough space in the tunnel now for Dovewing to slip past her sister, and lead the way farther into the depths. Ivypool couldn’t see or hear anything; all she could do was follow her sister’s scent and the sound of her paw steps. The tunnel twisted in front of them, sometimes plunging deeper, sometimes leading upward again. Sometimes it felt as though they were turning back to follow their own trail. But Dove-wing walked without hesitating, taking side tunnels that were hidden to Ivypool, skirting pools and patches of broken rock.
Ivypool was acutely aware of the weight of earth and rock above their heads, and the cats who were sleeping above, not knowing that two Clan warriors were so far beneath them. With a shudder, she pushed these thoughts away.
Focus. Concentrate on what we have to do.
“You’re doing really well,” she told Dovewing encouragingly. “We’ll soon find out what’s going on.”
At last Ivypool thought she could hear the murmur of voices some way ahead of them. At first she thought she was imagining things. But as she followed in Dovewing’s paw steps, the sounds grew clearer. She felt every hair on her pelt rise as she began to make out some of the words.
“WindClan!” she whispered. “And Sol!”
“Shhh.” Dovewing’s voice was no more than a breath. “If you can hear them, they can hear us.” She led the way forward more cautiously, until the voices grew clearer still.
“I will lead you through the tunnels,” Sol was meowing. “I can bring you out above the ThunderClan camp. Those mouse-brains won’t know what’s happening.”
“Traitor!” Ivypool hissed, taking a pace forward.
Dovewing blocked her, and slapped her tail over her sister’s mouth. “Shut up and listen!”
“How do we know we can trust you?” Ivypool recognized Owlwhisker’s voice. “How do we know that you haven’t told ThunderClan to attack us?”
WindClan cats aren’t completely mouse-brained, Ivypool reflected.
“Of course I have.” Sol’s tone was scornful. “How else would I get them to trust me? But it’s WindClan that I’ll be leading into ThunderClan territory.”
Another WindClan cat spoke, the words too soft for Ivypool to make out. She leaned forward, and felt a pebble slip underneath her paw. The clinking sound it made seemed as loud as a crack of thunder.
Ivypool froze, but the damage was done.
“What was that?” Owlwhisker growled. “Who’s there? Is some cat eavesdropping on us?”
“Get us out of here!” Ivypool whispered into Dovewing’s ear.
But Dovewing didn’t move. “I followed the voices to get here,” she confessed. “I’m not sure of the way out.”
Ivypool heard movement from Sol and the WindClan cats. “They’re coming to look for us! We have to go.” But even as she spoke she was terrified at the thought of wandering blindly through the dark tunnels. Will we ever find our way out?
Before either of the she-cats could move, they heard paws padding toward them from the tunnel behind. Cat scent washed over Ivypool; she thought she ought to recognize it, but she was too scared to think clearly. She slid out her claws, her heart thumping in panic at the thought of being trapped between two enemies.
Then the newcomer spoke. “Come with me. Quick!”
“No way!” Ivypool hissed, bunching her muscles to spring. “You could be with them.”
“I’m not,” the strange cat mewed.
“Prove it,” Dovewing challenged her.
“I shouldn’t have to,” the newcomer replied irritably. “For StarClan’s sake, let’s go.”
Ivypool’s eyes widened in shock and she exchanged a glance with her sister, picking up the gleam of Dovewing’s eyes. “StarClan? Then you…”
“Do you want to get out of here or not?” the newcomer interrupted.
“Yes, we do,” Ivypool snapped back. “But how do we know you won’t lead us farther in?”
The strange cat let out a hiss of annoyance. “Because I’m a ThunderClan cat like you,” she replied, a darker shadow in the darkness of the tunnel. “My name is Hollyleaf.”
Ivypool felt her mouth drop open. “Hollyleaf? But you… you’re dead!”
“Obviously not,” the newcomer replied, with an edge to her voice. “And we don’t have time to stand here discussing ancient history. We have to leave now.”
The paw steps of the WindClan cats were drawing closer, speeding up as they sensed their quarry was near. Ivypool could picture them bounding along the tunnel toward them, jaws parted to take in their ThunderClan scent.