“Breezepaw, keep watch below,” Brambleclaw whispered.
“Tell me if there’s any sign of the intruders.”
Looking pleased to be singled out, Breezepaw wriggled forward on his belly until he could overlook the ground at the bottom of the slope. Brambleclaw and the apprentices spread out, examining the area around the tilted rocks.
Lionpaw sniffed around the boulders piled along the ridge. There was a strong scent of cat, the scent he was beginning to recognize as the intruders’. But he couldn’t see where it was coming from. Then he spotted a gap between two rocks; the scent was especially strong there.
“I think I’ve found something!” he called softly.
Brambleclaw, Hollypaw, and Pebble joined him, brushing against his flanks. Thrusting his head into the gap, Lionpaw saw a shaft leading down through the rock. At the very bottom was a circle of sand, with the shadow of his own head outlined on it in moonlight. There was no sign of cats, but the scent was stronger still.
“Let me look,” Pebble mewed impatiently.
Lionpaw stepped back to let the Tribe to-be into the gap.
She stared down for a few heartbeats, then raised her head, her blue eyes glittering. “They’ll never be able to get out this way. But I could climb down.”
“Yes!” Lionpaw wanted to bounce up and down like an excited kit. “We could all go. We could chase the cats out into the open where our warriors are waiting.”
Brambleclaw shook his head. “Not a chance. It’s far too dangerous.”
“No, it isn’t.” Hollypaw butted his shoulder with her head.
“They won’t be expecting us. They’ll be too scared to do anything but run.”
“Then I’ll go,” Brambleclaw countered.
Lionpaw let out a small mrrow of laughter. “Think you would get those shoulders through that hole? This is a job for small cats. Hey, Breezepaw!”
He beckoned the WindClan apprentice over and explained the plan. Breezepaw swallowed nervously. “I’m in.”
“I haven’t said you’re going yet,” Brambleclaw pointed out.
“It’s a good plan, but you could fall and break your necks. Not to mention what the intruders might do to you.”
“I won’t fall,” Pebble meowed confidently. “And the others won’t, either, if they’re careful. There are plenty of cracks to dig your claws into,” she explained, “and you need to make sure your paw hold is safe before you move. It’s easy as eating prey.”
For you, maybe, Lionpaw thought. But he wasn’t going to back out now. “We’ve got to do it,” he argued. “It could make all the difference to the battle and the Tribe.”
Brambleclaw sighed. “You’re right. And you’re apprentices, not kits to be protected in the nursery. Very well, you can do it.”
Lionpaw gazed into Hollypaw’s glowing eyes and hoped that he looked as certain.
“I’ll go down and tell the others,” Brambleclaw went on.
“Wait until you see me down there. Then go; we’ll be ready and waiting.”
His amber gaze rested for a heartbeat on Lionpaw, then Hollypaw, before he turned and vanished down the trail.
Breezepaw took up his lookout post again while Pebble quickly repeated her instructions about climbing down. “And don’t look down,” she finished. “If you get dizzy, you’ll fall.”
Breezepaw crept back. “He’s there.”
“Then let’s go,” mewed Lionpaw.
“I’ll go first.” Pebble was already turning to lower her hindquarters into the hole. “Watch what I do.”
There wasn’t much room for all three remaining apprentices to gather around and watch Pebble. Despite Breezepaw’s ear in the way, Lionpaw managed to spot how she crept cautiously down, testing each paw hold before she put her weight on it.
“I’m going next,” he murmured. “She shouldn’t be on her own down there.”
Hollypaw and Breezepaw moved back to give him room. As he slid backward through the gap, Lionpaw had a moment’s panic that he was too big to fit. His shoulders scraped the rocky sides of the hole, but then he was through, clinging with all four sets of claws to the inside of the shaft. Below him he heard Pebble mew softly, “That’s fine. Take it slowly.”
Remembering what she had said about not looking down, Lionpaw edged his way cautiously down the shaft, digging his claws deep into the cracks. Once the stone crumbled under his weight and he slipped, gasping with terror as he scrabbled against the rock face in a frantic search for another paw hold.
When he found it, he had to rest for a few moments, his heart pounding at his rib cage so loudly that he thought it must wake every cat from here to the lake.
He heard Breezepaw’s annoyed whisper just above him.
“Are you going to hang there all night?”
Lionpaw gritted his teeth. He wasn’t going to let the WindClan apprentice see that he was scared. He searched for the next paw hold to take him down safely. Sooner than he expected, Pebble’s voice came softly from just below him.
“You can let go now.”
Lionpaw tensed and pushed himself off the rock face to land on his paws on the sand a couple of tail-lengths below.
Breezepaw thudded down beside him a moment later with Hollypaw just behind.
“Brilliant!” Pebble’s eyes shone in the moonlight. “Now what?”
Lionpaw shook the grit out of his pelt and looked around.
A passage led off from the sandy area where they stood, curving so he couldn’t see what lay beyond the first few paw steps.
The intruders’ scent was overwhelming.
“Wait here,” he whispered.
With paw steps as light as if he were stalking a mouse, Lionpaw crept up to the corner and peered around. Beyond the curve in the passage he saw a wider space, covered with sand, with moss piled along both walls. He could just make out the pricked ears of a cat lying in the moss and hear the squeaking of very young kits. Tasting the air, he detected the milky scent of a nursing queen. From farther down the passage came the sound of movement and murmuring voices, the noise of many cats settling down for the night.
Stealthily he drew back toward his companions. “There’s a nursery just here,” he reported in a low voice. “We don’t touch the queens or the kits, okay? The other cats are farther down, nearer to the entrance. I don’t think they know we’re here.”
“So what do we do?” Hollypaw asked.
“We don’t want to fight in here, just scare them out, so we dash through, yowling like a whole bunch of badgers is after us.”
Pebble looked confused. “What?”
Breezepaw rolled his eyes. “Big, scary animals with teeth.”
“Try not to get trapped in here.” Lionpaw crouched, tensing his muscles to spring. “Okay— go!”
He leaped forward, letting out an earsplitting screech. His companions sprang with him, yowling like a whole Clan of fighting cats. Wails of alarm answered them from the cats down the passage. Lionpaw caught a glimpse of a ginger-and-white queen cowering against the rock wall with her kits huddled against her belly. He swept past and into the middle of the intruders’ den.
The trespassing cats were blundering about, caterwauling in shock and terror as they scrambled for the entrance.
Lionpaw was prepared to fight, but no cat tried to stop him as he bounded across the den. The narrow cleft that led outside was jammed with the writhing bodies of cats desperately trying to get through. Lionpaw spun around with the wall at his back, claws unsheathed, but the nearest cat, a rangy ginger tom, gave him a single horrified glance, then thrust himself into the cleft to escape. Within heartbeats the den was empty of all but the four apprentices.