Shrewtooth blinked, but he was still shaking with terror. “Yes… you did… but this place… It’s evil… Evil…”
Leafstar guessed that for whatever reason the Twoleg den had driven Shrewtooth into a daze of fear. She decided that pointing out there was no sign of danger right now wouldn’t help at all. “Yes, it’s a foul place, so we won’t stay here,” she meowed. “We’ll find somewhere else to hunt. Come on.”
She nudged Shrewtooth to his paws and guided him with her tail across his shoulders, back around the bramble thicket and through the woods until they crossed the border into SkyClan territory.
But Shrewtooth was still in no state to hunt. His eyes were unfocused as if inwardly they were still fixed on the dark den. He kept on shaking, and stumbled over every pebble and twig in his path. Leafstar realized that all she could do was lead him back to camp.
“Leafstar, what happened?” Echosong popped her head out of her den as Leafstar guided Shrewtooth into the medicine cat’s outer cave.
The young black tom sank to the ground, shivering, and covered his nose with his tail. Leafstar sat beside him, exhausted by the long journey back, nudging Shrewtooth every paw step of the way.
“Is he hurt?” Echosong queried, padding up to Shrewtooth and giving him a sniff.
“No, I don’t know what the matter is,” Leafstar replied. “We were out hunting, and we ended up beside that Twoleg den—the one where Petalnose was shut up. And suddenly Shrewtooth was like this. He won’t explain why.”
“Shrewtooth?” Echosong bent closer to the quivering black tom and touched his ear lightly with her nose. “You’re safe here. Tell us what we can do to help.”
But Shrewtooth’s only reply was a low moaning sound.
Echosong sighed and shook her head. “I think the best I can do is give him some poppy seeds to help him sleep. Maybe when he wakes he’ll be able to talk about it.”
Leafstar nodded. “If you think that’s best.”
While Echosong went to fetch poppy seeds from the niche in the rock where she kept her supplies, Leafstar slipped out of the den. Glancing around, she spotted Mintpaw padding past with a mouse dangling from her jaws.
“Mintpaw, I need you to fetch Petalnose,” she meowed. “Tell her it’s urgent.”
The apprentice sped off, tossing her prey onto the fresh-kill pile as she went. Maybe Petalnose can get some sense out of Shrewtooth, Leafstar thought as she returned to the den.
She found that Echosong had moved Shrewtooth into one of the scrapes in the floor of the outer cave, where sick cats lay to be treated. She was shaking out a poppy head so that the black seeds fell out near Shrewtooth’s nose.
“Lick those up,” she ordered.
The black warrior shuddered, but raised his head to do as he was told, then sank back into the nest with a sigh. Gradually his breathing steadied and his shivering died away. Leafstar thought that he might be drifting into sleep, when Petalnose appeared at the mouth of the den.
“Mintpaw said you wanted me,” the gray she-cat meowed, with a polite nod to Echosong.
As quickly as she could, Leafstar told her about their visit to the old Twoleg den, and how it had affected Shrewtooth.
Understanding flooded into Petalnose’s blue eyes. “Can’t you see?” she asked when Leafstar had finished. “That Twoleg must have shut Shrewtooth up there, too.”
Without waiting for Leafstar to reply, she padded across the outer cave to Shrewtooth and crouched down beside him, stroking his shoulder with her tail. “You were there, weren’t you, in that horrible den?” she mewed softly. “Do you want to tell us about it?”
“I was born on a farm,” Shrewtooth began, his voice a drowsy whisper. “My mother died when I was still a kit, and I strayed off into the woods. I was managing all right, hunting mice and shrews, and then this filthy old Twoleg came and grabbed me.”
A shudder ran through him. Petalnose went on stroking him and murmured, “But it’s over now. You’re safe.”
“He shut me in his den with a nest of dirty old pelts,” Shrewtooth went on. His voice had sunk even lower, so that Leafstar and Echosong had to creep closer to hear. “He fed me on crow-food… when he fed me at all. Even the smell made me sick. His dog was always barking and snuffling around the den where I was shut in, and I was terrified that it would get at me.”
“A dog?” Petalnose sounded shocked. “That’s awful. There was no dog when I was there.”
“It’s a huge brute, with such big teeth…” Another shudder rippled through Shrewtooth.
“It’s not here now. You’ll never have to see it again,” Petalnose promised.
“But what if it gets loose in the woods?”
Leafstar wondered if that was the reason for Shrewtooth’s nervousness. Is he always expecting the Twoleg’s dog to leap out at him? “The dog won’t come after you here,” she meowed. “And even if it does, we have warriors who can deal with it.”
“How did you escape?” Echosong prompted him.
“I climbed up and up.” Sleep, brought on by the poppy seeds, was blurring Shrewtooth’s words. “Up through a long, dark tunnel that led into the sky. And then I fell down and down until I landed in a bramble thicket.”
“You were very brave.” Petalnose gave the black tom’s ear a lick.
“The dog knew I was there,” Shrewtooth went on. “But I was in the middle of the thicket, and it couldn’t get at me. At last it went away, and I got out. I’d wrenched one of my legs, but I managed to make it as far as the cliffs.”
“And Waspwhisker found you there,” Leafstar finished for him. “I’m glad he did, Shrewtooth. I’m proud to have you as a warrior of SkyClan.”
Shrewtooth shook his head, rustling the bracken underneath him. “I was ashamed because the Twoleg kept me a prisoner,” he confessed. “That’s why I never told any cat where I came from.”
“There’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Petalnose assured him gently. “I was a prisoner there, too, with Mintpaw and Sagepaw, when they were kits.”
Shrewtooth blinked and struggled to focus on the pale gray she-cat. “You were?”
“I don’t like to talk about it either,” Petalnose continued. “And I had to be rescued. You escaped all by yourself. You should be proud, not ashamed.”
Shrewtooth’s only reply was a long sigh; he seemed to relax.
“He’s sleeping now,” Echosong murmured, giving him another sniff. “You’d better leave him to rest.”
Leafstar padded out of the den with Petalnose close behind. Her belly churned with a mixture of fury and helplessness. “Twolegs!” she spat, scraping her claws on the path. “They think they can do anything they want!”
“How dare he do that to Shrewtooth!” Petalnose was just as angry, flexing her claws and lashing her tail. “I hate thinking that more cats have suffered like I did. Leafstar, we need to teach that Twoleg a lesson!”
Leafstar stared at her. “We’re just cats. What can we do against Twolegs?”
“Plenty.” A threatening meow came from behind Leafstar; she glanced over her shoulder to see Sharpclaw padding up, his green eyes flashing fury. Obviously he had overheard enough to work out what was going on. “That Twoleg is an enemy of SkyClan,” he announced, swiping one forepaw through the air to emphasize his words. “And he’ll be treated as such!”
Leafstar wasn’t sure what Sharpclaw intended to do, but she told him everything that Shrewtooth had said.
“So there’s a dog there now,” Sharpclaw mused when she had finished. “That makes it more complicated. We’d have to deal with it…” His voice died away thoughtfully.