“Thanks, Leafstar.” The ginger-and-white tom sounded relieved. His embarrassed gaze swept around the remainder of the cats; then he turned and slipped out of the den.
“Do you need to go too, Ebonyclaw?” Leafstar asked.
The black she-cat started. “Oh—no, Leafstar. I’ll stay. I’ll help with the clean-up.”
“Well done,” some cat murmured from the back of the crowd.
“I don’t think we should let Billystorm back tomorrow,” Sparrowpelt announced, his eyes still sparkling with indignation.
“Right,” Rockshade agreed. “He only wants to be involved in the fun stuff. When there’s work to do, he goes back to his housefolk.”
Leafstar suppressed a sigh. She knew she needed to head off quarrels between the full Clan cats and the daylight-warriors. She wanted every cat to be accepted as equal, but Billystorm wasn’t helping.
Before she could intervene, Sharpclaw stepped forward and faced the two warriors. “What happens to Billystorm is Leafstar’s decision, not yours. Now let’s get on with what we have to do.”
Sparrowpelt and Rockshade exchanged a glance. “Right, Sharpclaw,” Rockshade muttered.
“Mind you,” Sharpclaw murmured into Leafstar’s ear when the two warriors had turned away, “they’ve got a point. When Billystorm comes back we should find him some extra tasks. We don’t want these kitty-warriors getting the idea that they can have an easier time than the full Clan cats.”
Leafstar felt her neck fur begin to bristle as her deputy used the insulting term again, but she forced it to lie flat again. This wasn’t the time to start an argument.
Sharpclaw paused to give his ear a scratch with one hind paw, then added, “If they want to be part of the Clan, they’ll have to understand that tasks are shared equally.”
“You’re right,” Leafstar replied. She was grateful for her deputy’s support, when she knew that he really agreed with Sparrowpelt and Rockshade. “Maybe if we get them all involved in organizing the new dens, they’ll feel more like staying in the gorge.”
Sharpclaw gave her a disbelieving look and twitched one ear. “Yeah, maybe.”
Leafstar decided there was nothing to be gained by discussing the problem anymore. Instead, she waved her tail to beckon Rockshade and Bouncefire. “And you, Ebonyclaw,” she meowed. “You can come with me instead of Billystorm.”
Ebonyclaw blinked, obviously surprised and pleased to be picked out by her Clan leader, and followed Leafstar out of the den with the two young toms. Outside, the snow had almost stopped, only a few stray flakes still drifting down. But the trails were treacherous with snowmelt and the wind still swept across the rocks, nearly strong enough to blow a cat off the cliff.
“Watch where you’re putting your paws,” Leafstar warned.
She led the way down the trail to the apprentices’ den to collect Mintpaw and Sagepaw, and was pleased to see Snookpaw peering out when she reached the entrance to the cave. He stayed, too.
“Come on,” she meowed to the apprentices. “We’re going to start clearing out the caves farther up the gorge.”
“Great!” Sagepaw shot out past Snookpaw and onto the trail, nearly losing his balance when his paws struck a lump of ice. “What do you think we’ll find in there?”
“Bird bones and dust,” his sister replied, emerging more sedately. “Mouse-brain!”
Sagepaw raised a paw as if he was about to swipe his sister across the ear, then stopped when he saw that Leafstar had her eye on him.
“Let’s go,” Leafstar meowed, before the apprentices could start tussling. “It’s cold, so we can warm ourselves up with some exploration.”
Once they reached the bottom of the gorge, she picked up the pace until the cats were bounding along, muscles stretching and tails streaming out behind them. Their panting breath made white clouds in the cold air. The new caves were a couple of fox-lengths before the training area, now white with a light covering of snow. Looking up, Leafstar spotted four narrow openings, two close to the bottom of the cliff, and two others higher up.
Ebonyclaw approached the nearest gap and stuck her head and shoulders inside. “It’s really small,” she reported, her disappointment obvious even though her voice was muffled.
“Ebonyclaw, come out,” Leafstar ordered.
The black she-cat backed out of the cave and turned an inquiring look on Leafstar.
“What did you forget?” the Clan leader asked.
Ebonyclaw looked puzzled.
“She should have listened and sniffed first,” Rockshade meowed loudly.
Leafstar gave him an annoyed look. He’s right, but I shouldn’t have given him the chance to embarrass Ebonyclaw. I need to be more careful.
“You never know what might be lurking inside,” Leafstar explained. “There could be a fox or a badger, or even a bees’ nest. So you have to watch out when you’re going into a confined space.”
“Sorry.” Ebonyclaw hung her head and scraped one forepaw on the ground in front of her.
“So why don’t you have a look at this other cave and show us how to do it the right way?” Leafstar indicated the second lower cave with a flick of her tail.
Ebonyclaw padded up to the cave and halted a tail-length in front of it, opening her jaws to taste the air. After a few heartbeats she turned to Leafstar. “I can’t hear or scent anything. There’s nothing alive in there.”
“Go and look, then.”
Ebonyclaw approached the cave and slid cautiously inside, to reappear a moment later. “It’s empty, Leafstar. But I think it’s also too small to be much use.”
Leafstar took a look in both the lower caves. Ebonyclaw was right. They were too cramped to make comfortable dens; they didn’t go back far enough, and the roofs were low. Snail trails crisscrossed the stone floors with silver lines, and farther back leaves and debris were heaped against the walls.
“We’ll clean them out later,” she decided. “They might do for storage.”
Outside, Bouncefire was staring up at the other two caves. “I can climb up there,” he announced. “Do you want me to take a look?”
“We’ll all take a look,” Leafstar replied. “Follow me, and be careful. There’s no proper trail leading up there.”
The route up to the next cave was a hard scramble. Leafstar had to push herself up using cracks in the rock for paw holds, hauling herself over boulders and edging along narrow ledges. Glancing back she saw that the other cats were managing to follow; Rockshade grabbed Mintpaw by the scruff and dragged her up a slanting rock when the short-legged apprentice couldn’t reach the next crack.
If we want to use this cave as a den, we’ll have to make a better way of getting to it.
But when she reached the entrance to the cave and checked to see if it was safe, Leafstar was encouraged to see that it was much bigger than the two lower ones. Its roof arched at least a tail-length above her head, and she couldn’t see the back wall, it was so choked with debris.
Bouncefire scrambled panting onto the ledge beside her, and immediately let out a huge sneeze. “Dust!” he gasped.
“Right,” Leafstar mewed, feeling a spark of amusement at the young cat’s surprised look. “So let’s get on with clearing it out.”
She started by clawing at an old bird’s nest, which instantly came apart in her paws, sending up another cloud of dust and setting her sneezing, too. She heard a mrrow of laughter from Bouncefire as he set to work beside her.
The other cats arrived to help, pulling out twigs and leaves and bones of long-dead prey and sending it all cascading over the lip of the entrance into the gorge below. At last Leafstar began to get a better idea of how big the cave was: a wide space stretching deep into the cliff, dry and shielded from bad weather.