“Never!” the gray-and-white she-cat replied.
She surged upward, her teeth bared and the claws of her one free paw aimed at Clear Sky’s face. But Clear Sky was faster. His claws tore at her throat and sank deeply through her pelt. Blood gushed out, bubbling as Misty tried to yowl a last few words. Then she fell back, limp, her blood spattering over the grass and brambles.
Clear Sky stepped back. “Stupid flea-pelt,” he meowed. “If she hadn’t been so stubborn, she wouldn’t have had to die.” In spite of his harsh words, he sounded as if he genuinely regretted the she-cat’s death. He glanced at Petal, who had risen to her paws and was shaking bits of debris out of her fur. “You fought well,” he told her with an approving flick of his tail. “Now she has finally paid for what she did to you and Fox.”
Petal made no response except for a curt nod.
Thunder forced himself not to flinch as his father turned and padded up to him. Does he think I’m a coward because I didn’t join in the fight? I would have helped Petal if he hadn’t stopped me!
But to his surprise Clear Sky’s eyes were shining as he spoke. “Congratulations. You showed compassion when Misty was defeated. That takes spirit—the spirit of a leader.”
He padded around Thunder, inspecting him closely, making Thunder feel nervous rather than relieved that his father wasn’t angry. “I see so much of me in you,” Clear Sky mewed.
Thunder felt every hair on his pelt begin to rise with the tension. Why does it feel like he’s threatening me?
“Gray Wing trained you well,” Clear Sky continued, coming to stand in front of Thunder. “But I will make you a leader. You’ve shown promise today. Now, let’s get on with marking the new boundary. Petal,” he added, pointing with his tail, “you can go that way.”
“Right.” Petal bounded off upstream without a backward glance at her enemy’s body.
As he padded over to the bramble thicket and started to look for a way down to the bank of the stream, Thunder struggled to feel pleased by his father’s praise. How many more cats will have to die before Clear Sky is satisfied?
As he was wriggling through the outer tendrils of the thicket, he heard a faint squeaking that came from farther inside. Mice, he thought hopefully, his belly rumbling again to remind him that he hadn’t eaten that morning. Surely Clear Sky won’t mind if we stop for a moment or two to hunt.
Though Thunder tasted the air in an attempt to pinpoint his prey, everything was blotted out by the reek of Misty’s blood. But he could still hear the squeaking, so he pushed his way through the brambles toward it.
A couple of heartbeats later he halted, his heart beginning to pound uncomfortably. Lying in a nest of bracken among the brambles, their tiny jaws gaping as they let out shrill cries, were two tiny kits. Their eyes were open, but Thunder could see that they were still very young.
So that’s why Misty fought so fiercely! he thought. And that’s why she wouldn’t leave. She was protecting her kits… and now we’ve killed their mother.
Thunder cleared his throat. “Clear Sky!” he called. “You have to come and see this!”
There was a rustling beside him and a moment later Clear Sky pushed up beside him. “This had better be worth a peltful of thorns,” he grumbled, “or I’ll—” He broke off, staring. “Oh, mouse dung!” he mewed softly.
“What are we going to do?” Thunder asked. The pitiful cries of the kits were piercing his heart.
For a moment Clear Sky did not respond. Then he stepped forward, stooping over the kits. “We’d better get them out of here, at least,” he meowed, picking up the closest kit by the scruff. She was a gray-and-white she-cat just like her mother, Misty, and she waved her paws frantically in the air as Clear Sky carried her off.
Thunder picked up the second kit—a ginger tom—and backed carefully out of the thicket, making sure that the thorns didn’t snag in the little one’s pelt.
When he emerged into the open, Clear Sky had already set the she-cat down and was gazing at her with a somber expression. Thunder put the little ginger tom down beside his littermate. The two kits huddled together on the grass, letting out shrill, frightened mews.
“We can’t leave them here. They’ll die,” Thunder mewed, positioning himself between the kits and Misty, so that they wouldn’t see their mother’s body.
Before Clear Sky could reply, Petal came bounding up from setting scent markers farther upstream. “What have you got there?” she asked.
Clear Sky’s only reply was a wave of his tail.
“Misty had kits!” Petal’s voice was shocked. “So that’s why she fought so hard,” she added more thoughtfully. “She was brave…”
Thunder could see deep distress in Clear Sky’s blue eyes. “They’ll die without their mother,” he mewed. “Perhaps we should kill them quickly so that they don’t suffer.”
“No!” Thunder let out a yowl of protest.
“Then what do you suggest?” Clear Sky asked. “There’s no she-cat with milk that I know of.”
Petal stepped forward, placing herself between the kits and Clear Sky. “I will look after them,” she asserted.
Clear Sky stared at her. “But Misty was the cat who rejected you and Fox when you were kits.”
“And now Misty is dead,” Petal retorted. “These kits haven’t done me any harm. I’ll take care of them, because I know what it feels like to be a helpless kit with no cat to give me food or warmth or teach me how to live.”
Thunder gazed wonderingly at the yellow tabby she-cat. He had always thought of Petal as harsh, hard-bitten perhaps because of her brother Fox’s death. He would never have expected her to show so much compassion for the kits of her enemy.
“I’ll help you,” he blurted out. “I can hunt for you, while you look after the kits.”
Petal dipped her head. “Thank you. You can help me now by carrying one of them back to camp.” Stooping over the squirming, terrified kits, she murmured, “Don’t be afraid, little ones. You shall soon have a warm nest and something to eat.”
She picked up the little she-cat, her teeth meeting gently in her scruff, and headed for the camp without a backward glance at Clear Sky. Thunder hesitated, not knowing how his father would react.
But Clear Sky merely shrugged. “Go on,” he meowed to Thunder. “Do as she says.”
Thunder picked up the tiny ginger tom and followed Petal. As he brushed through the undergrowth, keeping the soft waving paws just clear of the grass, he couldn’t rid his mind of the picture of Misty, lying dead with her blood pooling around her.
She didn’t have to die, he thought sorrowfully. Clear Sky doesn’t need all this territory. If we hadn’t come here, none of this would have happened. And would he really have killed these kits, if Petal hadn’t offered to take them?
Horror filled Thunder, a cold, creeping fungus, as he realized he didn’t know the answer to that question.
Chapter 25
Gray Wing stretched luxuriously in his nest of moss and bracken, and finished the last mouthfuls of the portion of young hare Hawk Swoop had brought him. The sun was rising over the moor and he let the warm rays soak into his pelt. The sky was a pale, clear blue, with scarcely a wisp of cloud.
The cats are doing a fantastic job of pulling together while I’m ill, he thought. And they’re being so good to me… if only it didn’t make me feel so useless.
He spotted Lightning Tail dragging a rabbit across the camp toward him, and reflected on what a fine hunter the young cat was becoming. But he can hardly manage the weight of his prey!