“You would really betray SkyClan?”
Parsleyseed shook his head miserably, looking at his paws. “I don’t want to betray any cat,” he mewed, “but—”
Leafstar interrupted him, still calm, though Hawkwing could see that she was as shocked as any cat. “Why, Parsleyseed?” she asked. “What makes you want to leave us?”
“I’m scared all the time here,” Parsleyseed confessed. “The territory is full of dogs and Twolegs…”
“So you want to go and live with Twolegs?” Sparrowpelt snapped. “That’s really smart of you!”
“It’s not like that!” Parsleyseed defended himself. “I met these
Twolegs—they live in one of the dens by the Thunderpath—and they started to put food out for me. I tried it—and I really like the taste! And I let them stroke me, and I liked that, too!” The last few words burst out of him defiantly, as if he was ashamed and trying not to show it.
Now that Hawkwing thought about it, he remembered seeing Parsleyseed slinking off alone into the woods more than once over the last half moon. I should have tried to find out what he was up to, he thought, and maybe it wouldn’t have come to this.
“Look, Parsleyseed.” M acgyver, who had once been a daylight warrior, rose to his paws and padded up to the younger cat, laying his tail over the brown tabby tom’s shoulders. “I know all about being a kittypet, and it’s not as easy as you think. You only eat when the Twolegs give you food. You only go in and out when the Twolegs say you can. Is that what you really want?” When Parsleyseed didn’t reply, he added, “And then there’s the Cutter.”
Parsleyseed looked sharply at him. “What’s the Cutter?”
“I’m not exactly sure,” M acgyver replied, “because my
Twolegs never took me there, thank StarClan. But the Cutter does something. I know this because all the cats who went to him came back very lazy, not like proper cats at all. They got so fat!”
A few gasps of horror came from his listening Clanmates.
“That’s terrible!” Firefern exclaimed.
“I don’t care,” Parsleyseed meowed stubbornly. “I’ve made up my mind. Being a kittypet is easier. And safer.”
Hawkwing saw the hurt in Leafstar’s eyes at the young warrior’s last words, but she didn’t try to argue with him. Because she knows that, these days, it’s true.
He couldn’t imagine ever wanting to leave his Clan for the life of a kittypet. It would feel like an insult to his parents, not to mention StarClan. But he could understand Parsleyseed’s fear. I still can’t help feeling that something’s wrong, and that something is coming that is even more terrifying than the dog attack…
The Clan leader had dipped her head. “Then may StarClan light your path, Parsleyseed.”
And on the following morning, Parsleyseed had left SkyClan for good.
Now Hawkwing led his hunting patrol deeper into the woods, well away from the lake. Though the Twolegs weren’t splashing around in the water anymore— and why in the name of StarClan would any sensible creature want to get wet? —they still roared around on their water monsters. Hawkwing had even seen them luring fish out of the water on strange sticks with long tendrils hanging from them.
“Hawkwing!” Curlypaw’s whisper brought Hawkwing out of his thoughts. “Rabbit!”
She was angling her ears toward a mossy bank where Hawkwing could see the openings to several burrows. The rabbit was nibbling on a patch of sorrel, hopping slowly from one clump to the next.
“Okay,” Hawkwing murmured. “Sagenose, Blossomheart, work your way around so you get between the rabbit and the burrows.
Curlypaw, you’re with me.”
“The wind’s blowing toward us,” Sagenose pointed out. “If we do what you say, the rabbit will scent us.”
“I know. I want it to scent you,” Hawkwing explained. “But it won’t be able to go underground, because you’ll be in the way. The only way it can run is over here, straight into our paws.”
“Brilliant!” Blossomheart breathed out.
When she and Sagenose had gone, circling around the rabbit from opposite directions, Hawkwing and Curlypaw crouched down in the long grass, a couple of tail-lengths separating them.
“Ready?” Hawkwing asked.
“Ready,” Curlypaw confirmed, her eyes bright.
Several moments dragged out until the rabbit sat up, its ears quivering, then made a dash for the burrows. But Sagenose was in the way, bounding toward the rabbit with teeth and claws bared.
The rabbit veered away, letting out a thin squeal of terror as it saw Blossomheart, then doubled back and raced toward Curlypaw.
Hawkwing almost sprang out of hiding, but stayed still, leaving the kill to his apprentice.
Curlypaw waited until exactly the right moment, then leaped out of the grass with a ferocious snarl and fell on top of the rabbit, biting down hard on its neck.
“Great catch!” Hawkwing congratulated her, padding over to give her prey a sniff.
“Yeah—fantastic!” Sagenose added as he bounded up.
“It was Hawkwing’s plan,” Curlypaw mewed, giving her chest fur an embarrassed lick at her father’s praise. “I couldn’t have done it without him.”
Hawkwing gazed at her proudly. His apprentice was becoming a great hunter, and he could imagine what an asset to her Clan she would be. It’s almost time to start thinking about her warrior ceremony.
Later, as the hunting patrol was returning, laden with prey, Curlypaw hung back to let Sagenose and Blossomheart go on ahead. “Hawkwing, can I talk to you in private?” she asked.
“Of course you can,” Hawkwing replied. He was surprised, until he remembered that Curlypaw had been gazing mistily at Rileypool for the past few days. She’s probably going to ask my advice about toms! He hid his amusement. Good luck with that, he thought. It’s not like I’m an expert on love!
Then his amusement faded as he remembered Pebbleshine, and how much he still missed her. But I can’t think of her now, he told himself. If Curlypaw needs me, I have to do the best I can for her.
Before Curlypaw could tell Hawkwing what was on her mind, they heard a distant barking from the direction of the camp. No!
Hawkwing thought. Not again…
Without a word all the patrol broke into a run, discarding their prey. Hawkwing led the way, hurtling through the trees until they were nothing but a blur as he sped past.
As he approached the camp, the direction of the barking changed, as if the dogs were moving off, farther into the woods.
Briefly Hawkwing hoped that the danger was over.
But then Plumwillow burst out of the undergrowth, her fur bushed up and her eyes wild and distraught. “The kits are gone!” she exclaimed.
Hawkwing halted, horror turning his bones to ice. “What?”
“Dogs attacked the camp,” Plumwillow gasped. “Only three—
but they were so big. They managed to corner the kits, and they chased them out of the camp…”
She broke off, her chest heaving as she fought for breath.
Hawkwing didn’t need to hear any more. “Check the camp!” he ordered the rest of the patrol, then took off in the direction of the barking, with Plumwillow hard on his paws. Soon his lungs were burning, his legs aching as he forced his muscles to flex faster and faster. But he couldn’t stop until he saw the kits again.
I’ll flay those dogs if they’ve hurt one hair of their pelts!
At last Hawkwing and Plumwillow halted beside a line of bushes that enclosed a Twoleg den. The sound of barking ripped through the air. With a glance at Plumwillow, Hawkwing pushed his way through the bushes and into the Twoleg garden.