Smudge’s whiskers quivered disbelievingly.
“They did!” Rusty insisted.
“Why would they do that?”
“I don’t know,” Rusty admitted. “I think they need extra paws in their Clan.”
“Sounds a bit odd to me,” Smudge mewed doubtfully. “I wouldn’t trust them if I were you.”
Rusty looked at Smudge. His black-and-white friend had never shown any interest in venturing into the woods. He was perfectly content living with his housefolk. He would never understand the restless longing that Rusty’s dreams stirred in him night after night.
“But I do trust them,” Rusty purred softly. “And I’ve made up my mind. I’m going to join them.”
Smudge scrambled down from the fence and stood in front of Rusty. “Please don’t go, Rusty,” he mewed in alarm. “I might never see you again.”
Rusty nudged him affectionately with his head. “Don’t worry. My housefolk will get another cat. You’ll get on with him fine. You get along with everyone!”
“But it won’t be the same!” Smudge wailed.
Rusty twitched his tail impatiently. “That’s just the point. If I stay around here till they take me to the Cutter, I won’t be the same either.”
Smudge looked puzzled. “The Cutter?” he echoed.
“The vet,” Rusty explained. “To be altered, like Henry was.”
Smudge shrugged and stared down at his paws. “But Henry’s all right,” he mumbled. “I mean, I know he’s a bit lazier now, but he’s not unhappy. We could still have fun.”
Rusty felt his heart fill with sadness at the thought of leaving his friend. “I’m sorry, Smudge. I’ll miss you, but I have to go.”
Smudge didn’t reply, but stepped forward and gently touched Rusty’s nose with his own. “Fair enough. I can see I can’t stop you, but at least let’s spend one more morning together.”
Rusty found himself enjoying the morning even more than usual, visiting his old haunts with Smudge, sharing words with the cats he had grown up with. Every one of his senses felt supercharged, as if he were poised before a huge jump. As sunhigh approached, Rusty grew more and more impatient to see if Lionheart would really be waiting for him. The idle buzz of meows from his old friends seemed to fade into the background as all his senses strained toward the woods.
Rusty jumped down from his garden fence for the last time and crept into the woods. He had said his good-byes to Smudge. Now all his thoughts were focused on the forest and the cats who lived in it.
As he approached the spot where he had met with the Clan cats the night before, he sat down and tasted the air. Tall trees shielded the ground from the midday sunshine, making it comfortably cool. Here and there a patch of sunlight shone through a gap in the leaves and lit up the forest floor. Rusty could smell the same cat-scent as last night, but he had no idea whether it was old or new. He lifted his head and sniffed uncertainly.
“You have a lot to learn,” meowed a deep voice. “Even the tiniest Clan kit knows when another cat is nearby.”
Rusty saw a pair of green eyes glinting from beneath a bramble bush. Now he recognized the scent: it was Lionheart.
“Can you tell if I am alone?” asked the golden tabby, stepping into the light.
Hastily, Rusty sniffed again. The scents of Bluestar and Graypaw were still there, but not as strong as the previous night. Hesitantly, he mewed, “Bluestar and Graypaw aren’t with you this time.”
“That’s right,” meowed Lionheart. “But someone else is.”
Rusty stiffened as a second Clan cat strode into the clearing.
“This is Whitestorm,” purred Lionheart. “One of ThunderClan’s senior warriors.”
Rusty looked at the tom and felt his spine tingle with cold fear. Was this a trap? Long-bodied and muscular, Whitestorm stood in front of Rusty and gazed down at him. His white coat was thick and unmarked and his eyes were the yellow of sunbaked sand. Rusty flattened his ears warily, and tensed his muscles in preparation for a fight.
“Relax, before your fear-scent brings unwanted attention,” growled Lionheart. “We are here only to take you to our camp.”
Rusty sat very still, hardly daring to breathe, as Whitestorm stretched his nose forward and gave him a curious sniff.
“Hello, young one,” murmured the white cat. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Rusty dipped his head in greeting.
“Come, we can speak more once we are in the camp,” ordered Lionheart, and, without pausing, he and Whitestorm leaped away into the undergrowth. Rusty jumped to his paws and followed as quickly as he could.
The two warriors made no allowances for Rusty as they sped through the forest, and before long he was struggling to keep up. Their pace barely slowed as they led him over fallen trees that they cleared in a single leap, but which Rusty had to scramble over paw by paw. They passed through sharply fragrant pine trees, where they had to jump across deep gullies churned up by a Twoleg tree-eater. From the safety of his garden fence, Rusty had often heard it roaring and snarling in the distance. One gully was too wide to jump, half-filled with slimy, foul-smelling water. The Clan cats waded through without hesitating.
Rusty had never put a paw in water before. But he was determined not to show any signs of weakness, so he narrowed his eyes and followed, trying to ignore the uncomfortable wetness that soaked his belly fur.
At last Lionheart and Whitestorm paused. Rusty skidded to a halt behind them and stood panting while the two warriors stepped onto a rock that rested on the edge of a small ravine.
“We are very close to our camp now,” meowed Lionheart.
Rusty strained to see any signs of life—moving leaves, a glimpse of fur among the bushes below, but his eyes saw nothing except the same undergrowth that covered the rest of the forest floor.
“Use your nose. You must be able to scent it,” hissed Whitestorm impatiently.
Rusty closed his eyes and sniffed. Whitestorm was right. The scents here were very different from the cat-scent he was used to. The air smelled stronger, speaking of many, many different cats.
He nodded thoughtfully and announced, “I can smell cats.”
Lionheart and Whitestorm exchanged amused looks.
“There will come a time, if you are accepted into the Clan, when you will know each cat-scent by name,” Lionheart meowed. “Follow me!” He led the way nimbly down the boulders to the bottom of the ravine, and pushed his way through a thick patch of gorse. Rusty followed, and Whitestorm took up the rear. As his sides scraped against the prickly gorse, Rusty looked down and noticed that the grass beneath his paws was flattened into a broad, strong-smelling track. This must be the main entrance into the camp, he thought.
Beyond the gorse, a clearing opened up. The ground at the center was bare, hard earth, shaped by many generations of pawsteps. This camp had been here a long time. The clearing was dappled by sunshine, and the air felt warm and still.
Rusty looked around, his eyes wide. There were cats everywhere, sitting alone or in groups, sharing food or purring quietly as they groomed one another.
“Just after sunhigh, when the day is hottest, is a time for sharing tongues,” Lionheart explained.
“Sharing tongues?” Rusty echoed.
“Clan cats always spend time grooming each other and sharing the news of the day,” Whitestorm told him. “We call it sharing tongues. It is a custom that binds the members of the Clan together.”
The cats had obviously smelled Rusty’s foreign scent, for heads began to turn and stare curiously in his direction.
Suddenly shy of meeting any cat’s gaze directly, Rusty looked around the clearing. It was edged with thick grass, dotted with treestumps and a fallen tree. A thick curtain of ferns and gorse shielded the camp from the rest of the woods.