“Let’s find out a bit more about the place first,” Hawkwing meowed. “What can you scent?”
Curlypaw stood still, her jaws parted to drink in the air.
Watching her, Hawkwing reflected that since he had lost
Pebbleshine, his heart hadn’t been in Curlypaw’s training. Am I teaching her anything? he wondered. I’ve got to start making more of an effort.
“M ouse,” Curlypaw murmured after a few heartbeats. “And squirrel… oh, and rabbit. And… I think there’s fox, Hawkwing, but I’m not sure.” She glanced around as if she expected to see the red-pelted creature slinking toward her with its fangs bared.
“Very good,” Hawkwing told her with an approving nod.
“You’re right, a fox has been through here, but two or three days ago. The scent is faint, so I don’t think it stayed long.”
As he finished speaking he heard a yowl of triumph from farther into the woods, and Parsleyseed appeared, dragging the body of a plump rabbit. “Look what I caught!” he announced, obviously pleased with himself. “We can all share.”
“Great catch!” Hawkwing praised him.
M acgyver and Birdwing reappeared a moment later, Birdwing carrying a mouse, and the patrol settled down to eat.
“I’ve got something to show you,” M acgyver mewed between mouthfuls. “Something good. But it can wait.”
With the rabbit picked clean, M acgyver led the way farther into the trees, around a bramble thicket and up a steep bank to a flat shelf of rock. “Look down there,” he meowed, pointing with his tail.
Hawkwing looked out over a deep hollow, the sides formed from rocks and the tangled roots of trees. Long grass and ferns covered the ground at the bottom. Just below Hawkwing’s paws a small spring bubbled out between two boulders and trickled out across the hollow in the direction of the lake.
“What about that?” M acgyver asked proudly. “Isn’t it a perfect place to camp?”
Hawkwing nodded slowly. There were plenty of sheltered spots for dens, with room enough for every cat, and the steep sides would provide some protection. There was even a source of water.
“It’s a bit like the gorge,” Curlypaw murmured. There was a hint of wistfulness in her voice, telling Hawkwing how homesick she must feel.
“Let’s go find Leafstar,” Hawkwing suggested. “We’ll get her to come and see it.”
Heading out of the wood again, Hawkwing reflected that this could be the perfect place for SkyClan to settle, except for one thing.
There were no other cats here.
If this is where StarClan intends us to be, where are the other warrior Clans?
Hawkwing tasted the air once more, wondering if somehow they could have missed picking up the traces of a large number of cats. This time he did smell cat, but only one, and there was something not quite right about the scent.
Emerging from the undergrowth, Hawkwing spotted the cat: a plump dark tabby tom, sitting on a tree stump at the edge of the wood, grooming his long glossy pelt. Hawkwing didn’t need to see the collar around his neck to recognize a kittypet.
I should have known, he thought. Is this territory so unfamiliar that I can’t even tell when I’m smelling kittypet scent?
“Greetings,” he meowed, approaching the kittypet and dipping his head politely. “Do you live around here?”
The kittypet looked up, mildly surprised. “You’re the second group I’ve seen today,” he mewed. “There are plenty of you, aren’t there?”
The second group? Hawkwing was briefly excited, until he realized that the kittypet must mean he’d seen one of the other patrols. Trying to keep irritation out of his voice, he repeated his question.
“Oh, no, my nest is a long way away, with my housefolk,” the kittypet replied with a vague wave of his tail. “M y name’s M ax.
Who are you?”
“We are SkyClan,” Hawkwing replied proudly, introducing himself and the rest of his patrol.
“You’re a scruffy-looking bunch, if you ask me,” M ax commented, looking the patrol up and down, then licking one forepaw and drawing it over his ear.
No cat did ask you, Hawkwing thought, beginning to feel annoyed.
“You would look scruffy too if you’d had to fight for your life and then traveled for days and days looking for a new home,” M acgyver snapped.
“Keep your fur on,” M ax responded, not at all offended. “I know all about traveling. I stay out away from my housefolk all the time.” He riffled his whiskers. “It drives them crazy. But I always get a really good meal when I come home,” he finished, swiping his tongue around his jaws.
M acgyver flashed Hawkwing a glance, as if he was asking, Do we have to put up with this idiot?
“We’re looking for more cats,” Hawkwing began, determined to get as much information from M ax as he could.
“Aren’t there enough of you already?”
The heat of anger roiled in Hawkwing’s belly, but he pushed it down. No, I will not claw his ears off. But oh, it’s tempting…
“A specific group of cats,” Birdwing explained patiently, as if she guessed that Hawkwing was close to losing his temper.
“They’re called ThunderClan. Their leader is—was, I suppose—a tom called Firestar, with a flame-colored pelt.”
M ax yawned. “Never heard of them. In fact, there aren’t many cats around here. And none living by the lake.”
Hawkwing acknowledged his words with a brief nod. “Thank you for your help.”
“Any time.” M ax went back to his grooming.
By now, Hawkwing could see that some of his Clanmates were gathering by the lake, and led his patrol to join them. They arrived at the same time as Leafstar and her group; the other patrols were already waiting.
“What do you think?” Blossomheart asked, bounding up to Hawkwing as soon as he reached the rest of the Clan. “Isn’t it great?”
“It seems okay.” Hawkwing still had his reservations, especially now that he was sure there were no other Clans here.
Leafstar called a Clan meeting, speaking from a rock at the water’s edge while her Clan sat around her. “This is the first place we’ve found where it seems possible to settle,” she began. “But we need to decide if it’s the right place. Let’s start by hearing from the patrols.”
Waspwhisker, Sparrowpelt, and Hawkwing all made their reports.
“There’s good hunting here,” Waspwhisker meowed. “And we didn’t spot many signs of predators. A fox here and there, maybe, but no trace of badgers.”
“And there are plenty of places we might make our camp,” Sparrowpelt added.
“We could do worse,” Waspwhisker summed up at last. “There doesn’t seem to be much danger, and the Twoleg nests are far enough away that the Twolegs won’t bother us.”
“But there aren’t any other cats,” Hawkwing objected. “If this is the place StarClan wanted us to find, then where is ThunderClan?”
“Well, maybe they—” Waspwhisker began.
He broke off as Echosong rose to her paws and came to stand beside the rock where Leafstar sat. “This is not the place where we’re supposed to be,” she announced.
Gasps of shock and protest came from the cats gathered around her.
“You mean we have to do more traveling?” Rabbitleap asked.
“M y paws are worn away already!”
“What’s wrong with it here?” Firefern mewed. “I don’t want to go on.”
“I can’t go on,” Plumwillow added. “Not until my kits are born—and that won’t be long now.”
“Plumwillow has a point,” Sparrowpelt agreed with a nod to the gray she-cat. “We should stay here, at least until she gives birth and her kits are old enough to travel. We have to stop somewhere for that, and this is a good place, near water, with plenty of prey.