“And there are dogs on the moor,” Gray Wing added, feeling his chest beginning to tighten again as he realized what might happen to Owl Eyes. “Why didn’t you tell Jagged Peak?” he asked Sparrow Fur, his tone harsh with fear and anger.
She flinched away. “Because I didn’t think he meant it!” she wailed. “I thought he was just boasting. I never believed he would be flea-brained enough to actually do it.”
Gray Wing paused for a heartbeat. He knew that Owl Eyes had good hunting instincts, but deciding to go out alone was one of the most reckless things he had ever heard of. “We have to go after him,” he decided.
No way am I going to leave a kit to be killed in a dog attack or a fight with a hare.
With a wave of his tail, Gray Wing called the other cats to him. “Turtle Tail, Wind Runner, you stay here and look after the kits,” he ordered, ignoring Jagged Peak’s hurt look. I can’t trust him with the kits again! “Jackdaw’s Cry, I want you with me. Gorse Fur, will you take charge of another group?”
As the cats began to organize themselves, Gray Wing padded across to Tall Shadow, the only cat who had not answered his summons. She was sitting at the foot of the tall rock, staring into the distance.
“Tall Shadow, Owl Eyes has gone out onto the moor by himself to hunt,” Gray Wing explained. “We’re going to look for him. Will you come with me?” When Tall Shadow didn’t respond immediately, he added, “I know you’re grieving for Moon Shadow, but I need you by my side now.”
Tall Shadow rose and gave her pelt a shake, as if she was trying to get rid of clinging burrs. She finally turned to look at Gray Wing, and her eyes were blazing.
“My brother is buried,” she meowed. “I won’t see another cat die. Of course I’ll help. Where do we start?”
Chapter 22
As Gray Wing led the way up the slope, he paused to speak to Rainswept Flower, who was watching, her eyes wide with concern. Angling his ears toward Jagged Peak, he meowed, “Look after him, will you?”
Rainswept Flower nodded. “Don’t worry, Gray Wing. I will.”
At the edge of the hollow Gray Wing sniffed around until he picked up Owl Eyes’s scent. “This way!” he exclaimed, waving his tail to beckon Tall Shadow and Jackdaw’s Cry.
But as the three cats headed across the moor, the kit’s faint scent was drowned in the reek of dogs.
“We’ll never find him at this rate,” Jackdaw’s Cry muttered.
Fear crept through Gray Wing as if the blood in his veins had turned to snowmelt. Gazing around, he realized how unlikely they were to find the kit he’d come to love as his own before he fell into danger. It could already be too late.
“He seemed to be going this way,” he meowed, setting out in the direction the scent had led.
His denmates followed as he forged onward, all his senses at full stretch to pick up the least trace of the kit. Weaving a path through a clump of gorse bushes, he spotted a smear of blood on one of the low branches. For a heartbeat his paws froze to the ground, he was so afraid that the blood belonged to Owl Eyes.
Tall Shadow padded across and sniffed at the smear. “I’m sorry,” she mewed. “The dog-scent is so strong, I can’t tell where the blood came from.”
That wasn’t much comfort for Gray Wing, but he forced himself to get moving again.
On the other side of the gorse bushes all three cats cast around to try to pick up Owl Eyes’s scent again. Eventually Tall Shadow raised her tail. “Over here!” she called out. “The trail is leading toward the forest.”
Gray Wing gazed at the line of trees in the distance. Somewhere among them was Clear Sky’s camp. Would he protect Owl Eyes if the kit was in danger?
The moor gradually sloped downward into a valley with a narrow stream trickling along the bottom. The dog-scent wasn’t as strong here, and everything seemed peaceful, but Gray Wing’s pads prickled with apprehension.
It’s too peaceful…
Glancing around he realized that if they were attacked there was nowhere to hide, not a tree or bush they could scramble into. The only cover was sparse clumps of reeds and long grass by the waterside.
They were heading downstream, still following Owl Eyes’s scent trail, when Gray Wing heard a shrill voice calling his name. He stiffened, gazing across the stream, and spotted Owl Eyes’s head popping out between the reeds.
“Look what I caught!” the kit called triumphantly, tossing a dead vole into the air.
Relief surged through Gray Wing, followed by a hot rush of anger. “You stupid, stupid furball!” he yowled, leaping the stream and bounding toward the kit. His chest had begun to ache again from stress and the effort of running.
Tall Shadow and Jackdaw’s Cry crossed the stream behind him, but as they reached Owl Eyes the clouds which had been lowering over the moor for most of the day suddenly released their rain. Fat drops splashed onto Gray Wing’s pelt and stippled the surface of the water.
“Now we’ll get soaked through!” Jackdaw’s Cry grumbled.
Gray Wing’s breath was wheezing in his chest. He couldn’t face racing back across the moor to the shelter of the camp. Hunching his shoulders as the rain grew heavier, he spotted a hole in the bank of the stream above their heads. “Up there!” he snapped at Owl Eyes, thrusting the kit in front of him and following him into the hole. “Come on!” he called to the others.
Little light filtered in from the entrance to the burrow, and there was a stale scent of rabbit. But there was enough space to move forward, Gray Wing’s pelt brushing the earthen sides. He could scent Tall Shadow and Jackdaw’s Cry following him, and when he glanced over his shoulder he could just make out Tall Shadow’s ears outlined against the dim light.
In the next heartbeat there was a slippery sound and the light was cut off, leaving the cats in pitch darkness.
“What happened?” Gray Wing called out, feeling his belly clench with the first stirrings of panic.
“The entrance collapsed,” Jackdaw’s Cry replied, sounding more annoyed than frightened. “The rain must have weakened it.”
“Then we’re trapped,” Tall Shadow rasped.
Guilt washed through Gray Wing, as overwhelming as the rain outside. He struggled to catch his breath, knowing that the others would be able to hear his wheezing in the silence. He had never felt so useless in his life. If it wasn’t for my bad chest, we would be halfway back to the camp by now.
“I… I’m sorry… ,” he choked out. “I shouldn’t have…” His voice was trembling too much from his sense of failure and he couldn’t finish what he wanted to say.
“It’s not your fault,” Jackdaw’s Cry meowed sturdily. “And it’s no big deal. All we have to do is keep going. There’s bound to be another way out.”
Gray Wing began to creep forward, gently pushing Owl Eyes ahead of him. “This is exciting!” the little kit squeaked, then added, “Mouse dung! I dropped my vole by the stream.”
Gradually Gray Wing realized that the darkness was giving way to a faint gray light, coming from up ahead. At the same time he began to pick up a strange scent: a strong reek that reminded him of the smell of foxes, though it wasn’t quite the same. The fur on his neck and shoulders began to prickle.
A few paces farther on, the tunnel widened into an open space where the cats could stand side by side and look around. More than one tunnel led away from the central cave where they were. Light was trickling down through small chinks in the roof, the earth held up by a tangle of roots. The floor of the cave was covered with dead leaves and bracken; Gray Wing wrinkled his nose at the smell.