As the sun came up the clouds cleared away and the dew dried from the grass. The day grew hotter, and it was harder to keep putting one paw in front of another with the sun beating down on their backs. With Stick urging them on, the cats kept going until sunhigh, then stopped to hunt and take a brief rest. When they went on, the ground began to slope away from them; the river tumbled over rocks in a series of shallow waterfalls, gurgling into pools where foam spun on the surface.
“The water looks so cool,” Cherrytail murmured. “I’m going to rest my paws in it.” She padded down the bank and waded into the water, letting out an appreciative little trill. “It’s lovely! Come and try it!”
The Twolegplace cats looked doubtful, but all the Clan cats followed Cherrytail into the water. Leafstar enjoyed the cool touch on her paws. We’ve come so far, even SkyClan pads get sore!
“I’m getting out,” Rockshade announced after a few moments. “I’m being splashed, and my fur’s cold.”
“Yes, come on,” Stick called from the bank. “We’ll never get there at this rate.”
The river grew wider, with trees shading it on either side. The flow seemed almost sluggish here, after the bubble and chatter of the waterfalls.
“This is where we had the flood two seasons ago,” Coal told Leafstar. “Firestar and Sandstorm were caught in it. That’s how we met them: Firestar came looking for Sandstorm in our Twolegplace.”
Leafstar nodded; Firestar had told them the story while he was with SkyClan. She shuddered at the thought of a wall of water thundering down this quiet river. If Firestar had drowned, SkyClan would never have been reborn.
The sun was starting to go down again when the river curved in a wide loop and Leafstar spotted the walls and rooftops of a Twolegplace in the distance. “Is that where we’re going?” she asked Cora, who was padding next to her.
The black she-cat nodded. At the same moment, Stick veered away from the river and led the patrol across a stretch of open ground and into a patch of sparse woodland, made up mostly of spindly hazel saplings. Leafstar could detect faint scents of cat among the trees, and tried to decide if any of them belonged to Stick and his friends, from when they lived and hunted here. She picked up one scent that seemed familiar, but it was a she-cat scent, and not Cora’s.
I wonder if that could be Red?
Stick led the way through the wood to a narrow, shallow stream at the other side. A fallen tree lay across it; Stick ran nimbly over to the other bank, and the rest of the patrol followed him. The walls of the Twolegplace lay in front of them on the other side.
“Dodge lives up there,” Coal told the patrol, angling his ears upstream. Leafstar glanced in the direction he pointed, but there were no cats in sight, and no scents; Dodge’s camp must be a good way away.
She and her warriors followed Stick down an alley and into the depths of the Twolegplace. Leafstar’s pelt prickled as the walls closed around her. This wasn’t like the Twolegplace near the gorge. There was crumbling stone everywhere she looked; debris lay in the alleys, and with each breath she took in the faint stench of crow-food.
The SkyClan cats bunched closer together as Stick led them onward. Leafstar felt comfort in Billystorm’s pelt brushing hers on one side, and Cherrytail’s on the other. Their route led around corners, over walls, and through tunnels that led underneath Thunderpaths, until Leafstar had lost all sense of direction.
I hope we can follow our scent trail back if we need to get out quickly.
Stick increased the pace as they headed farther into the Twolegplace, until he was bounding along. Cora, Shorty, and Coal ran faster too, their eyes shining. They’re really glad to be back, Leafstar thought, amazed that any cat could actually enjoy living in this dirty, Twoleg-scented place.
Shorty and Cora raced past Stick as the cats emerged into a stretch of open ground where a few straggling bushes grew, with the occasional twisted tree. They pelted across the rough grass and into the mouth of an alley on the opposite side.
“Snowy! Are you here?” Shorty yowled.
There was a pause, then Cora let out a gasp. “Percy! You’re back!”
Stick and Coal raced after their friends into the alley. Leafstar and the Clan cats followed. As they entered the narrow passageway, Leafstar saw the Twolegplace cats crowding around a dark gray tabby tom, with a white she-cat beside him; Leafstar flinched when she saw the raw pink scars around the tom’s eye. Dodge did that to him.
“He just appeared!” the she-cat, Snowy, was explaining. “The Twolegs brought him back.”
Shorty was giving his friend a thorough inspection. “You smell different,” he pronounced.
Percy nodded. “I feel kind of different, too.”
Sparrowpelt shouldered his way into the crowd around the gray tom and sniffed at him curiously. “You’ve been to the Cutter, haven’t you?” Glancing around, he realized that every cat was staring at him, and gave his chest fur a couple of embarrassed licks. “It happened to some of the cats back when I lived in my Twolegplace.”
Billystorm nodded. “You can tell when a tom has been, because when they come back they’re really different.”
“Yeah,” Sparrowpelt added. “Fatter and lazier!”
Faintly amused, Leafstar wondered when Sparrowpelt would stop sticking his paw in his mouth. A look of horror spread across his face as he realized what he had said.
“Sorry… er… Percy,” he stammered. “I didn’t mean…”
“That’s okay,” mewed Cora, giving Sparrowpelt a friendly nudge. “He was lazy to start with!”
Leafstar felt herself begin to relax. She had imagined that they would be walking into a place tense with the threat of war but this could be the reunion of any Clanmates separated by a longer than usual patrol.
“It’s great to have you back,” Snowy purred. “We thought we’d never see you again.”
“And you found the fighting cats,” Percy added. “That’s even better!”
“We’re not just fighting cats.” Leafstar felt that she had to explain what it was like to be part of a Clan. “We live by the warrior code, and train apprentices to hunt for the whole Clan as well as to protect our borders.”
Snowy and Percy exchanged a look. “That’s nice,” Snowy mewed politely, though Leafstar could tell that neither of the Twolegplace cats understood what she was trying to tell them.
“Anyway, you’re here now,” Percy went on. “We’ll soon show Dodge and his friends what’s what.”
“Has Dodge been causing any more trouble?” Stick asked.
Snowy’s cheerful look died away and her tail drooped. “A couple of kittypets got badly hurt trying to protect their housefolk’s guinea pig.”
While Stick and the other Twolegplace cats shot one another dismayed glances, Leafstar leaned closer to Billystorm. “What’s a guinea pig?” she whispered.
“It’s like a rabbit, but smaller and with tiny ears,” Billystorm explained. “They squeak a lot. And they don’t have legs, just spiky feet.”
Leafstar found it hard to imagine such a weird creature. “That sounds like prey,” she murmured. “Why would the kittypets want to protect it?”
Before Billystorm could reply, Shorty broke in, his voice outraged. “The Twolegs will drive us all out if Dodge keeps attacking the animals that live by their nests!”
Leafstar began to understand. For these cats, living on the fringes of Twoleg dens, it was essential not to make the Twolegs angry.
Thinking about that, she missed the rest of the Twolegplace cats’ comments, only paying attention again when Shorty asked quietly, “Have you seen Red?”
Snowy studied her paws. “Sometimes,” she admitted. “Always with the brown-and-gray tom.”