Pebbleshine was frozen in disbelief. All she could do was keep her gaze fixed on Hawkwing’s sturdy gray figure as it dwindled into a tiny dot and was lost to her sight.
When she couldn’t see her mate anymore, Pebbleshine dropped down onto the platform. She wanted to wail like an abandoned kit, but she knew that wouldn’t do any good. She would have to keep up her strength and stay alert if she was to get back to Hawkwing and the rest of her Clan.
What’s going to happen to me when the monster stops? she asked herself. Would it try to make her its prey? No! she thought, giving her pelt a determined shake. My kits and I aren’t going to end up as monster food.
At least she had prey of her own. Crouching beside the chicken she had killed, Pebbleshine tore aside the feathers and began to eat. The flesh was just as delicious as Waspwhisker had promised, but she couldn’t enjoy it; she might as well have been eating rotten leaves. To make things even more awkward, the living chickens seemed to watch her from their nests, clucking accusingly. I’m not sure I like chickens, she thought.
At the same time, she tried to peer over the wall beside her, watching carefully where the monster was going, searching for landmarks that could help her find her way back. A dead tree there … and three Twoleg dens close together … and here the Thunderpath crosses a stream …
But as the monster sped on and on, taking Pebbleshine farther and farther away from her Clan, her brain began to whirl with the effort of observing. Her muscles ached from her struggle with the chicken, and her belly was full of its flesh.
For a little while Pebbleshine fought off exhaustion, but at last she had to give in, letting out a long sigh as the chickens’ clucking eased her into a cloud of soft darkness.
Chapter 2
The monster had stopped. Pebbleshine blinked awake and raised her head to look around. A moment later the vibration beneath her paws and belly stilled and the monster’s throaty growl was abruptly cut off. Her muscles tensing, Pebbleshine shook off the last vestiges of sleep and braced herself. She glanced at the chickens, looking for signs of panic. What happens now? she asked them silently. Is this where the Twolegs try to eat us? Or do they feed us to the monster? She flexed her legs, preparing to run.
A bang from the front of the monster made Pebbleshine jump. Crouching low again, not daring even to twitch a whisker, she caught a glimpse of the Twoleg’s head, then heard the thump of its huge paws dying away into silence. The monster didn’t move at all, and gradually Pebbleshine began to relax as she guessed it must have fallen asleep again. Thank StarClan! I’ll have another chance to escape.
The chickens were clucking quietly in their shiny nests. Pebbleshine tore a few last bites from the one she had killed. Then she got up and rested her paws on the side of the platform while she looked around.
The monster had come to a halt on a narrow Thunderpath that cut through wide stretches of tall, rustling grass. Not far away, a big Twoleg den rose up among a cluster of smaller dens. The sun was low in the sky, casting long shadows; Pebbleshine could see that she must have been traveling on the monster’s back for most of the day.
With a last cautious glance around, Pebbleshine leaped down from the monster. She almost expected it to rumble to life and pursue her, but it didn’t move. She let out a sigh of relief and began to head away from it, stealthily at first but then at a fast lope.
The Thunderpath was made of earth, and the monster’s huge black paws had churned the surface up into deep tracks. Hope fluttered in Pebbleshine’s chest; maybe all she had to do was follow the tracks backward until she found Hawkwing and her Clan again.
For a while she padded along beside the monster tracks, trying to spot some of the landmarks she had noticed on her outward journey. Then she realized that for the last part she had been asleep; anything she might recognize would be farther away. She began to grow discouraged when she hadn’t seen anything familiar by the time the Thunderpath came to an end, melting into a wider one. Glittering monsters whizzed back and forth along the hard, black surface. Where the earth met the edge of this Thunderpath, the chicken-hunting monster’s tracks vanished.
Half choking on the acrid stink of the passing monsters, Pebbleshine eased back from the edge of the Thunderpath and sat down to think. There was no hope of following the monster’s trail anymore. She could tell the general direction she should travel, from the position of the sun, but she knew that wasn’t enough to reunite her with her Clan. The monster had carried her too far away. There weren’t even any familiar scents for her to follow.
And once it gets dark, I won’t even have the sun to help me.
When she looked around for some kind of guidance, Pebbleshine spotted a Twoleg den in the distance, surrounded by a straggling copse of trees; it reminded her of Barley’s barn, where her Clan had stopped about a moon before to rest and feast on the mice that lived among the straw there.
“Maybe there’ll be friendly cats in this barn,” she murmured hopefully to herself.
As she set out toward the distant den, Pebbleshine let herself hope that the cats might be able to point the way to the monster camp where she had lost her Clanmates, or maybe even to the lake where the other Clans lived, the cats SkyClan was looking for.
The thought quickened her paw steps. How much fun would that be—I’d be there to greet Hawkwing when he and the others arrived!
Then Pebbleshine realized it wouldn’t be fun at all. She shook her head as she thought of how worried Hawkwing would be, through every paw step of the long, weary journey.
No. I have to find SkyClan first.
The sun had disappeared, leaving only a few last streaks of red in the sky, by the time Pebbleshine reached the barn. She hurried through the twilight, her jaws watering as she anticipated sinking her teeth into a juicy mouse, just like the ones in Barley’s barn.
Pebbleshine was skirting the trees, bounding across the last stretch of open ground, when a sudden spate of barking burst out behind her. Whirling around, she spotted a huge brown dog charging at her, its tongue lolling and its plumy tail waving.
For a heartbeat, Pebbleshine froze. The dog was between her and the trees. Should she try to dodge around it and hope to scramble to safety in the branches, or should she head for the barn? In the end she did neither, crouching down instead, her fur bristling as she let out a defiant hiss.
“Hey, knock it off, idiot!”
A loud meow sounded from the direction of the barn. To Pebbleshine’s surprise, the dog skidded to a halt and sat back on its haunches, panting and twitching its ears in what looked like embarrassment. A small black cat strolled out from behind Pebbleshine, glancing from her to the dog and back again with amused green eyes.
“Hi. My name’s Bug,” the newcomer announced. “Don’t worry about Bunny. He’s harmless.”
For a moment all Pebbleshine could do was stare in astonishment. Dogs have names? And this one is called Bunny?
“I’m Pebbleshine,” she choked out at last.
“That’s a bit of a mouthful,” Bug commented. “Don’t your housefolk call you anything for short?”
It’s a warrior name! Pebbleshine thought, her fur beginning to bristle. I’m proud of it! But then she had a horrible realization. Had she traveled so far from Clan territory that these cats hadn’t ever heard a Clan name? I’d better not act offended, she thought. Not when I need her help.