Lionblaze charged forward, letting out an earsplitting yowl. The dog stopped jumping and whipped around, fixing its yellow-eyed glare on him.
“Over here, mange-pelt!” Lionblaze jumped as a voice rang out beside him and he turned his head to see Toadstep scrambling to his side. “Come and get us!”
“You were supposed to stay with Cinderheart!” Lionblaze snapped.
Toadstep’s eyes were blazing. “I want to help you!”
“Get back!” Lionblaze shouldered the black-and-white tom back into the bracken. “Bumblestripe, you’ll be okay,” he called to his other Clanmate. “Try to climb a bit higher.”
He didn’t look to see if Bumblestripe obeyed. All his attention was on the dog. For a moment it had paused, looking baffled, its head swinging from Lionblaze to Bumblestripe and back again. Now it hurtled across the clearing, its jaws wide; Lionblaze could hear its panting breath.
“Stay there!” he hissed at Toadstep, who had lost his balance after Lionblaze shoved him, and was struggling to his paws in the middle of the bracken clump. Leaping out in front of the dog, Lionblaze swerved toward the other side of the clearing, hoping that he could draw it away from his Clanmates.
“No!” Bumblestripe screeched, bouncing on his low branch. “Don’t go that way—Briarlight is there!”
“What?” How could a crippled cat be out in the forest? He couldn’t see Briarlight, but the dog’s breath was hot on his tail, and there was no time to ask questions. Lionblaze knew that he could attack the dog and not be hurt, but that would give away too much with Toadstep and Bumblestripe watching. Especially Toadstep: He has to learn to be more defensive, not just blindly copy me.
As he doubled back, he spotted Cinderheart and Rosepetal at the edge of the clearing, with wide eyes and identical expressions of horror.
“Briarlight is over there!” Lionblaze yowled, gesturing with his tail.
Cinderheart gasped, then began to work her way around the edge of the clearing. The dog immediately veered away and raced after her with a flurry of excited yelps. Lionblaze hurled himself forward to intercept it, keeping his claws sheathed but brushing past its muzzle so that it picked up his scent and swerved away from the she-cats once again. Plunging into the trees, he led it away from the clearing, racing through the ferns in the direction of the lake, with the dog so close that he could hear the rasp of its breath and the pounding of its paws on the ground. He could have saved himself by climbing a tree, but he was afraid that if he did, the dog would turn back into the clearing where Briarlight was lying defenseless.
He could see the glitter of the lake through the trees ahead. And what then? he asked himself. Do I start swimming? His heart thumped and his breath became short; a sharp pain pierced his paw as he trod on a thorn, but he still raced on.
A bramble thicket appeared in front of him; Lionblaze leaped over the outlying tendrils. But he had misjudged the leap; one tendril wrapped around his paw and brought him crashing to the ground. With a startled yowl Lionblaze rolled over and over, halting only when he thumped into a tree. He tried to struggle to his paws, but the tendril was still gripping him tightly. The dog pounded into view, its eyes gleaming when it saw he was trapped.
StarClan help me! Lionblaze prayed.
A screech from overhead made him look up. To his astonishment he spotted Toadstep balancing on the branch of a beech tree. He must have followed us through the forest, like a squirrel!
The black-and-white tom leaped down in front of the dog, his tail lashing. “Come and get me, flea-pelt!” he challenged.
The dog turned on its haunches, its paws spraying turf and soil as it bore down on Toadstep. Horror at the thought of seeing his Clanmate torn apart gave Lionblaze extra strength. He wrenched himself away from the brambles, leaving tufts of golden fur on the thorns. Racing toward the dog, he caught its tail in his jaws and bit down hard, before turning and fleeing toward the lake.
The dog let out a howl of pain and pounded after him. Lionblaze glanced over his shoulder and saw it was no more than a tail-length behind, with Toadstep bounding along in the rear.
“Stay back!” Lionblaze yowled, but the young tom ignored his order.
With the dog snapping at his paws, Lionblaze exploded out of the bushes and onto the lakeshore. He thought of flinging himself into the water, but he knew that dogs could swim.
I’ll never get away from it!
Then he spotted a male Twoleg a few fox-lengths farther along the shore. He was calling into the trees, and waving a long tendril gripped in one of his forepaws. When he saw the dog, he let out an angry yowl. The dog skidded to a halt, then turned and trotted off in the direction of the Twoleg with its ears down. The Twoleg fastened the tendril to its collar and dragged it away.
Lionblaze watched it go, then circled back and joined Toadstep in the undergrowth at the edge of the shore. “Thanks,” he panted, flopping down in a clump of ferns. “It would have got me for sure if you hadn’t been there.”
Toadstep sank down beside him. “I couldn’t leave you to face it alone.”
“Exactly.” Lionblaze realized that he had a chance to drive home the point he had been trying to make earlier. “It’s a good lesson in not trying to tackle enemies by yourself. It’s always better to fight in pairs.”
The younger warrior nodded, his eyes wide with wonder. “Yeah, but you fell in that patch of brambles, and you still don’t have a scratch on you!”
“It’s a good thing I have a thick pelt,” Lionblaze mewed, glad of the excuse. Glancing at his flanks, he added, “And I think I left most of it on the thorns!”
When Lionblaze and Toadstep returned to the clearing, they found Cinderheart, Bumblestripe, and Rosepetal clustered around Briarlight. The she-cat was lying crookedly beneath a holly bush; Lionblaze guessed that Bumblestripe had shoved her under there when the dog first appeared.
“Has it gone?” Cinderheart asked, swinging around as Lionblaze and Toadstep approached.
Lionblaze nodded. “A Twoleg took it away.” Peering under the bush, he called, “Are you okay, Briarlight?”
“I would be, if you’d just get me out of here,” Briarlight retorted, sounding fed up and embarrassed.
“We don’t want to hurt you,” Cinderheart meowed. “We’ll get you out now that Lionblaze is here to help.”
“Oh, just drag me out like an old stick!” Briarlight snapped. “It’s not like you can hurt me any more, can you?”
“Take it easy.” Cinderheart reached under the bush to rest a comforting paw on the young she-cat’s shoulder.
Briarlight shrugged her off. “I’m going to get into so much trouble!” she wailed. “But I can’t stand to be stuck in that den any longer.”
“It’s my fault,” Bumblestripe admitted. “I’m the one who brought you out here.”
Lionblaze looked at the young warrior, impressed by his dedication to his littermate. It must have been a struggle to drag her all the way from the camp.
“I won’t let any cat blame you, Bumblestripe,” Briarlight insisted, her voice strained and high-pitched. “I talked you into it!”
This isn’t getting us anywhere, Lionblaze thought. Feeling uncomfortable in the face of so much emotion, he added, “We need to get both of you back to camp.”
Working together, Lionblaze and Cinderheart gently drew Briarlight out of the holly bush. Lionblaze crouched down so that the other cats could drape her over his back. He rose to his paws, unsteady under her weight, and set out for the hollow, with Bumblestripe and Toadstep steadying her on either side.
“There’s some thyme.” Cinderheart pointed with her tail to where a few green leaves were growing in the shelter of a rock. “It’ll calm you down, Briarlight, and help if you have any muscle pain after this.” She bounded across to the herb and brought back some leaves.