She backed away, looking scared. “How do you know me?”
“I’m Alderheart,” he told her. “I’m ThunderClan’s medicine cat. I saw you in the battle with the rogues.”
The tom stretched his muzzle forward and tasted the air. “You helped fight the rogues?” he asked.
“I didn’t exactly fight,” Alderheart told him. For the first time in moons, he felt self-conscious about his role as a medicine cat. Would these cats understand that fighting wasn’t always the bravest thing a cat could do?
The tom padded forward and sniffed him. “I’m Loki.” He stood back, clearly satisfied that Alderheart wasn’t a threat. “Who are you looking for? There aren’t any Clan cats here.”
“I know.” Alderheart’s pelt smoothed. “The cat I’m looking for doesn’t have to be a Clan cat. It just needs to have six toes.”
Zelda’s eyes widened. “Six toes?”
“Cats don’t have six toes,” Loki grunted.
“Sometimes they have four.” Loki glanced at the fence behind Alderheart. “Like Jasper.”
Alderheart looked around, his heart lurching as he saw a stocky kittypet crouching on top of the fence. The russet tom was glaring at him.
“Jasper lost a toe after it got infected,” Zelda explained.
“That must have hurt,” Alderheart mewed to the russet tom kindly.
“Why do you care?” Jasper curled his lip.
“I’m a medicine cat,” he explained. “It’s my duty to care.”
Jasper hissed. “I don’t need the sympathy of a mangy old stray.”
“He’s a Clan cat, Jasper.” Zelda padded to Alderheart’s side.
“I’ve heard enough about Clan cats to know that they’re a bunch of mangy old strays,” Jasper hissed. “Didn’t you say they held you prisoner?”
“That was the rogues,” Loki told him. “Rogues are different.”
“Wild cats are all the same.” Jasper watched Alderheart coldly.
Zelda blinked apologetically at Alderheart. “Jasper’s okay, really,” she mewed.
“It’s all right.” Alderheart tried to pretend he wasn’t unnerved by Jasper’s open hostility. “We have bad-tempered cats in the Clans too.”
Jasper slid off the fence and stalked away, his tail high.
Relieved, Alderheart blinked hopefully at Zelda. “Do you know of any six-toed cats?”
Zelda shook her head. “Not around here.”
“I’ve never heard of any,” Loki agreed.
“Sorry we can’t help.” Zelda whisked her tail. “Why are you looking for one?”
Would kittypets understand the importance of a StarClan prophecy? Probably not. Alderheart dipped his head. “It doesn’t matter,” he mewed. “I should go home. Thanks for your help.”
“I wish we could have helped more,” Loki meowed.
“Are you hungry?” Zelda asked. “There’s food outside my Twoleg’s nest. It’s really tasty.”
Alderheart tried not to let his shudder show. He’d heard about kittypet food. Graystripe had told him that it tasted like dried leaf mold. “No, thanks,” he meowed politely. “I need to go home.”
“Okay.” Zelda headed across the grass. “Take care.”
Loki followed her. “Bye, Alderheart. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”
“Thanks.” Alderheart headed for the fence and squeezed under it. Disappointment weighed in his paws. He knew there had only been a slim chance that he’d find the answer to StarClan’s prophecy here, but hope had kept his spirits high. Where else could he look for a six-toed kittypet? Perhaps he needed to head farther out of Clan territory. But not today. His Clanmates would worry if he didn’t return soon. He headed along the dirt Thunderpath that led out of the Twoleg camp.
Flattening his ears against the cold, he cut across the grass, leaving the Twoleg camp behind. The wind whistled past his ears, and he narrowed his eyes against it so that he could barely hear or see.
Suddenly, paws slammed into his side. A flurry of russet fur caught his eye as he staggered sideways. The smell of kittypet washed over him. Instinctively, he lashed out, hooking thick folds of pelt, but his attacker was bigger and tugged easily free before swiping Alderheart’s cheek with a hefty blow. Pain scorched through Alderheart’s head as he felt claws rake his flesh. With a yowl he hit out blindly, gasping as another powerful blow knocked him off-balance. He fell and felt the weight of the other cat pin him to the ground. Thrashing his hind legs, he tried to wriggle free, but the kittypet held him fast. Jasper! He recognized the pelt and the scent now. Rage swelled in his chest as he tried to fight the tom off.
“So you have bad-tempered cats in your Clan, do you?” Jasper sneered, looming over Alderheart, pressing him into the earth. “Are they as bad-tempered as this?” Jasper lifted a wide paw and began to swing it toward Alderheart’s muzzle.
Alderheart braced himself for pain, furious at being so helpless.
But the blow didn’t land, and suddenly, the weight lifted from his chest. Alderheart scrambled to his paws, confused. Had Jasper just been trying to scare him? Then he heard a yowl and saw a flash of Sparkpelt’s orange fur. Jasper staggered as Sparkpelt lunged at his forepaws and knocked them from under him. As he collapsed onto his chin, she reared and thumped his flank with her paws. He rolled onto his side, his hind legs churning frantically. Sparkpelt hopped clear of the kittypet’s flailing claws and grabbed Jasper’s throat from behind. She jerked his head backward and hissed in his ear. “If my brother tells you we have bad-tempered cats in our Clan, you’d better believe it.” She sliced her claws along his throat, not hard enough to draw blood, but tugging out fur. Then she let him go.
Jasper leaped to his paws and faced Sparkpelt and Alderheart, his eyes flashing with shock. As he backed away, Alderheart felt relief flood him, and yet his pelt prickled with embarrassment. Medicine cat or not, he should have been able to defend himself from a kittypet.
Sparkpelt hissed at Jasper, and the russet tom turned and fled. “So brave!” she yowled after him. Purring with amusement, she turned to Alderheart. “Are you okay?”
He ran a paw over his cheek. It was wet with blood and it stung, but the cuts didn’t feel deep. “I’ll be fine.” He met her eye, feeling hot with shame. “Thanks.”
She shrugged. “It was nothing.”
Nothing? She’d just fought off a tom nearly twice her size. Alderheart hadn’t even been able to defend himself. Was she trying to rub it in?
Alderheart headed upslope.
Sparkpelt hurried after him. “Where are you going now?”
“Home,” he mewed curtly. “Have you been following me?”
“Of course I’ve been following you.” Sparkpelt fell in beside him. “You slunk out of camp like you were up to something. I wanted to know what. And it’s a good thing I did. That cat would have shredded you.”
“No, he wouldn’t,” Alderheart snapped. “I was just planning my next move.”
Sparkpelt didn’t respond. Instead she changed the subject. “Why did you come here?”
“Medicine-cat stuff,” he answered. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
Alderheart kept walking. He felt mean. She’d just saved him and he was acting ungrateful, but he couldn’t shake the embarrassment from his pelt. Was she going to tell their Clanmates that she’d had to rescue him like a kit?
Sparkpelt blocked his path. “What’s wrong?” She gazed into his eyes anxiously. “Are you annoyed with me?”
Thoughts flashed like shooting stars through Alderheart’s mind. Where should he start? She had wanted SkyClan to go back to the gorge after he’d spent moons finding them. She’d been so busy flirting with Larksong like a feather-headed apprentice that she hadn’t even noticed that Alderheart had hardly spoken to her in a moon. And now she had totally humiliated him and didn’t even realize it. He glared at her. “What’s wrong with you?” he snapped. “We were always close. Now I feel like I hardly know you!”