Beyond the cavern the tunnels seemed to grow warmer. Fritti knew that aboveground it was winter; snow and freezing rain were falling. Here, deep in the earth-how deep Tailchaser had no way of knowing-the air was becoming thick with heat and moisture.
Eatbugs was up and moving now. He mumbled quietly to himself as he walked, but otherwise showed no signs of resistance to their captors. Longtooth, his muzzle not yet completely healed from the swipe that Eatbugs had given him, was taking great delight in harassing the old cat, who gamely resisted all attempts by the Guard to enrage him.
Tailchaser, trudging on leaden paws, once again began to feel the throb of the mound. Here, beneath the ground, the sensation was different, the vibration digging deeper into his bones and nerves. The pulse of the mound seemed lower and more basic- all-pervading, but, strangely, more natural. Tailchaser knew that they were approaching their destination.
"You can feel it, can you?"
The harsh croak made Fritti jump. Scratchnail was following close behind, watching him, the unpleasant yellow eyes observing his every movement.
"I see that you've started to hear the song of Vastnir. You're a sharp-sensing little bug, aren't you, star-face?" The chief moved up to Tailchaser's side. The massive, thick-muscled form looming over him intimidated Fritti, and made it difficult to speak.
"I… I feel something," he stammered. "I felt it before… above ground."
"Well," Scratchnail leered, "aren't you the clever-quick one?! Don't you worry… there'll be some Folk who'll pay plenty of attention to a smart young torn like you where we're going-more attention than you'll like, perhaps." With a cold, bleak grin that exposed few teeth, the Clawguard chief dropped back to pace behind Fritti once more. The skin around the young cat's whiskers itched and crawled. He didn't want anyone or anything more interested in him than was already the case. He hurried forward to catch up with Eatbugs and Pouncequick. The earth throbbed.
Soon the tunnel began to broaden. Every hundred or so jumps now, the company passed branching tunnels or caves-it was difficult to tell which, since they were just dark holes in the wall of the main shaft. The air continued to warm, a damp heat that made Fritti and his companions feel sluggish. Eatbugs twitched his head from side to side as if to throw off something binding.
"Here now, back to the holes-never do, never do…" The mad old torn looked imploringly, first at the unresponsive Pouncequick, then at Fritti, who could only shake his head. "All this bim-bam bashing and gnashing… can't… can't…?" Eatbugs rolled his eyes and subsided into muttering. Tailchaser pushed at Pouncequick gently with his head.
"Did you hear him, Pounce? What do you think of all this, hmmm? Got your whiskers up, does it?" Fritti waited vainly for a response, then tried again. "What a storv this will make when we get back to Meeting Wall, won't it? D'you think the Folk will believe us?" After a moment, Pouncequick raised his head and looked at Fritti plaintively.
"Where's my friend Roofshadow?" he asked. His voice was so quiet that Tailchaser had to cock his ears forward to make out the words.
"We'll find her, Pounce, I promise. I swear on my tail name-we'll get away from here and find her!"
The kitten looked at him for a moment with a puzzled expression, then lowered his gaze to the ground once more.
Skydancer's Ears and Tears! Fritti cursed himself. When am I going to stop making promises I have not the slightest chance of keeping? Still, he thought. I had to say something to Pounce. He has the look of someone who's going to lie down and float to the Fields Beyond any moment. At least I got a word or two out of him.
Now Tailchaser noticed that the sound of the tunnel had changed. Below the near-silent padding of their paws, he thought he could discern a thin wash of voices-cat voices, but very distant.
Bitefast, the nearest Guard, turned and hissed: "We'll be home, soon. Your home, too-for a short while, anyway."
Finally the underground path widened again and turned downward. The pulsing had become constant and almost familiar, and the voices Fritti had noticed earlier sounded louder and louder. Then, when it seemed as if any moment they must come upon the source, Scratchnail stopped the procession.
"Now," he said, fixing Fritti and his comrades with a hard stare, "we are about to enter Vastnir by one of the Lesser Gates. If you make any movement to escape I will tear you to ribbons, and be pleased to do it. And just in case you decide to try your luck" -here he narrowed his gaze on Eatbugs, who turned his eyes away uncomfortably-"even if you're fast and tricky enough to get by me-which I doubt- you'll come to wish you'd died at my claws, I promise you. The Clawguard are not the worst who home in the Vastnir Mound."
Scratchnail turned to his fellows. "And you two. Remember, no one is to interfere-especially not the Toothguard. The prisoners stay with us until I say otherwise, understood? It had better be."
They all followed Scratchnail downward, and shortly rounded a bend in the tunnel to find themselves in a wide entranceway before the gate. Silhouetted at the end of the tunnel by a fitful blue-green light stood two massive Clawguard, silent and terrible, bigger even than Fritti's captors. On either side of the entrance they guarded, on small piles of raised earth, were skulls. One was of an enormous Growler, the eyesockets dark as sorrow. The other was the skull of a large horned beast. All four of these sentries looked down pitilessly on Tailchaser and his companions as they were led through.
As he passed beneath the arched tunnel mouth into the depths of Vastnir, Fritti felt a strange sensation. As he had in his catmint nightmare, he began to experience a burning feeling on his forehead. Whatever it might be, though, neither his friends nor the Clawguard took any notice of him.
Beyond the threshold was a vision that would stay with Tailchaser as long as he lived.
Before them sprawled a vast cavern, the roof as high above as the treetops of Rootwood. It was lit by the luminescent earth they had seen in the tunnel, and also by the faint blue glow of stones that protruded down through the ceiling rock. The phantom light rendered all in the cavern into spirits and vaulting shadows.
Below, on the cavern floor, countless cats moved back and forth like termites in rotten wood. Most of them appeared to be normal Folk, although their faces were so full of despair and pain that they seemed almost a different race. Among them moved the Clawguard, lumpish and huge, directing the streaming, insectlike hordes as they crept to and fro.
It's like some horrible dream ofFirsthome, Fritti thought.
The stench of fear and blood and unburied me'mre rose up on the hot air currents and filled his nostrils, choking him. With a snarl, Scratchnail herded them down to the cave floor, across the jutting rocks and warm, moist soil. They maneuvered among the lines of cats, brushing past Folk who did not even look up, but only plodded on toward whatever grim destination the ubiquitous Clawguard were leading them to.
As they passed one group Fritti saw a smallish cat, eyes and ribs bulging, who appeared to be sick. He coughed and staggered, then collapsed to the stones. Before Fritti could move to help him, a Clawguard shouldered his way past and bent over the sick one. Then the brute picked him up by the neck and shook him violently. Tailchaser could hear the sound of bones snapping; the Claw flung the broken body to the side with an impatient head-flip, and the line of cats moved on. Tailchaser stared after them, then over at the crumpled body lying unnoticed and unmourned in the dirt. His hatred flared, then settled into a low flame, banked deep inside himself. He, also, turned away.
As Scratchnail's procession reached the far side of the great cavern and was approaching the gaping maw of another tunnel, a thin, piercing voice called out: "Ssscratchnail!" The sound seemed to come from one of the innumerable caves in the rock wall before them. The chief halted the group as a dim shape appeared in the darkness of a cave mouth.