Bumble padded off through the ferns, her tail held high, casting a final glance over her shoulder before she disappeared.
“You know,” Gray Wing mewed thoughtfully, “it’s not a good idea to get too friendly with kittypets.”
Turtle Tail’s neck fur fluffed up. “Why not?”
Gray Wing couldn’t give her a clear answer. “It bothers me, that’s all,” he replied.
It’s like I said. We don’t belong with Twolegs.
Gray Wing lay in his nest under a gorse bush at the bottom of the hollow. The half-moon shed enough light for him to see the top of the slope and beyond it a clear sky glittering with stars. He was warm and full-fed.
This is a good place, he thought. We can live here.
Suddenly a dark shape came between him and the stars. Gray Wing narrowed his eyes and made out a sharp snout outlined against the sky. A rank scent drifted to his nose, and he remembered the thin, red-furred creature he had seen soon after they left the Twolegplace. He had smelled the scent in the forest, too, though he’d never seen the animal that left it.
The dark shape moved, slipping down into the hollow. It was followed by another, and then a third. A terrible awareness of danger swept over Gray Wing. He sprang to his paws.
“Attack!” he screeched.
The dreadful squeal of a cat in pain drowned out his warning. In the next heartbeat the hollow erupted into yowling and thrashing. Gray Wing stared around in panic, his paws frozen to the ground. He caught a glimpse of one of the creatures with his fangs sunk deep in Shattered Ice’s shoulder, shaking the silver-furred tom as if he was a piece of prey.
We are prey, Gray Wing realized with a thrill of horror. We’ll all be killed!
Chapter 17
Gray Wing’s first instinct was to throw himself into the battle. But he knew how that would end; he would be torn to pieces. I can’t just leave the others! There must be some way I can help.
Turtle Tail appeared at his side. “Foxes!” she gasped.
“What?”
“Foxes—that’s what these things are. Bumble warned me about them. What are we going to do?”
At that moment Clear Sky tore past, claws out and teeth bared. Swiftly Gray Wing moved to block him.
“Let me get at them!” Clear Sky snarled.
“Wait!” Gray Wing meowed urgently. “We need a plan!”
As the sounds of wailing and growling rose up around him, louder with every heartbeat, Gray Wing knew that he had to think fast. A picture rose in his mind of how they had hunted eagles in the mountains, when one cat would pull the bird down and the others pile in to make the kill.
“The three of us together.” He glanced from Clear Sky to Turtle Tail and back again, willing them to cooperate. “We attack one fox, and kill it if we can. Then go for the next.”
Turtle Tail nodded eagerly. “That makes sense.”
“But what about the others?” Clear Sky asked. “They could be dying while we attack one fox.”
“If we split up, we can’t do anything,” Turtle Tail responded.
“We’ll just have to be quick,” Gray Wing continued. “Clear Sky, when we find a fox, you attack it from one side. Turtle Tail, from the other. Confuse it.”
“What about you?” Clear Sky asked.
“I’ll be there, don’t worry,” Gray Wing replied grimly.
He took the lead as the three cats prowled around the edge of the hollow, trying to make sense of the chaos below. At last Gray Wing spotted a fox at the edge of the fighting, standing over Hawk Swoop, who was twitching feebly.
“Now!” Gray Wing screeched.
Clear Sky leaped and began clawing at the fox’s flank. As it turned on him with a snarl, Turtle Tail attacked from the other side. The fox turned its head this way and that, snapping its jaws but unable to reach Clear Sky or Turtle Tail, as they darted in to claw it and leaped back out of range.
It’s working! Gray Wing launched himself into the air and landed on the fox’s back. Digging his hind claws into its shoulders, he leaned over its face and tore at its eyes and muzzle. The fox let out a shriek. It reared up, trying to shake Gray Wing off, but he clung tight.
Still harried from both sides by Clear Sky and Turtle Tail, the fox headed for the edge of the hollow. Once it was out on the moorland, Gray Wing leaped clear of it, and watched it flee yelping into the darkness.
“Another!” Clear Sky yowled triumphantly. “And this time I get to leap onto it.”
Spinning around, he led the way back to the bottom of the hollow. Tall Shadow and Jackdaw’s Cry were battling a second fox, but Jackdaw’s Cry was staggering with exhaustion, and blood dripped into Tall Shadow’s eyes from a scratch on her forehead.
Turtle Tail and Gray Wing hurled themselves into the battle, attacking the fox from both sides. With a fearsome screech, Clear Sky leaped onto its back, slashing at its ears as it weaved from side to side in an attempt to escape.
Within heartbeats it too gave up and fled. The third fox turned from worrying at Cloud Spots, who was feebly swiping at it with his hind paws, and realized that it was alone. With a yelp of fear it scrambled up the slope after the others and was gone.
Clear Sky bounded after it and halted at the rim of the hollow. “Good riddance!” he yowled. “Don’t come back!”
Gray Wing glanced around. Jackdaw’s Cry had sunk to the ground, panting, but he didn’t seem to be badly injured. Moon Shadow was limping, and Rainswept Flower had had clumps of fur torn from her pelt. Jagged Peak was bleeding from scratches on his side. The others bore their own signs of the foxes’ savagery, but at least they were all moving. Gray Wing had been afraid that Hawk Swoop had been killed, but even she had managed to stagger to her paws.
Cloud Spots turned to examine Tall Shadow’s scratch. Dappled Pelt twitched her whiskers approvingly, then padded over. Working together, they began to move from one cat to another, examining their wounds.
Turtle Tail and Clear Sky trotted up to Gray Wing.
“We won!” Turtle Tail exclaimed. “Gray Wing, you were awesome!”
Clear Sky gave his brother an approving nod. “Fighting together worked well,” he meowed. “Maybe we should practice, in case there’s more trouble.”
Gray Wing gave him a somber glance. “You’re right,” he agreed. “Because there will be more trouble.” And it won’t be long in coming.
A cold dawn light showed Gray Wing the devastation in the hollow. All the nests had been scattered and trampled in the fight, the turf scored by claws, and branches broken from the gorse bushes. The injured cats huddled in whatever shelter they could find.
We’re lucky to be alive, Gray Wing thought. But what’s going to happen to us now?
He sat licking the wound on his shoulder as the dawn light gradually strengthened. After a while he saw Clear Sky get up and speak briefly to Moon Shadow; then both cats padded across the hollow until they reached Tall Shadow. Curious, Gray Wing rose to his paws and followed.
“There’s something we want to say,” Clear Sky began.
Tall Shadow looked up; she and Rainswept Flower were helping each other pick thorns out of their pads. “Go on, then,” she meowed.
It was Moon Shadow who continued. “We think we should go and live among the trees. The hunting is easier there, and we’d be better hidden.”
“We’re too exposed here,” Clear Sky added, waving his tail to indicate the wreckage around them. “There’s no defense against foxes, or anything else that feels like attacking us.”