Dark River wpot-2

by Erin Hunter

  “When we heard that the kits were missing, Lionpaw guessed they might be here.”

  “How did you know there was another entrance in WindClan territory?” Breezepaw flexed his claws.

  “It was just a guess.” Lionpaw shrugged. “There are so many tunnels. They might lead to ShadowClan territory as far as I know.”

  Breezepaw stared at him. The damp, stuffy air was thick with mistrust. “Is there any scent of the kits in your tunnel?”

  “No,” Hollypaw replied, her voice taut.

  “We followed their trail here, but it’s disappeared,”

  Heatherpaw explained.

  Jaypaw had cautiously crept forward and was sniffing at the river. Its usually sleek surface was rippling as though blown by the wind, and dark water lapped over the edges, forming pools in the dimpled rock on either side. “Is the water always this high?” he asked.

  “Only after it’s been raining,” Heatherpaw answered.

  “Does it get higher?”

  Heatherpaw tipped her head on one side, puzzled. “I don’t think so.”

  Lionpaw felt hot with embarrassment. Why did Jaypaw keep fussing about the rain? He wanted to find the kits and get out of here.

  Breezepaw paced around his Clanmate. “These intruders might as well go home,” he mewed. “We’re looking for the kits.

  There’s no need for them to help.” He glared at Lionpaw.

  “Why are you bothered about WindClan kits anyway?”

  Hollypaw flicked her tail. “There’s going to be a battle over them, or haven’t you heard?”

  “Can we stop chatting and get on with the search?”

  Heatherpaw snapped.

  Breezepaw shot her an angry look. “What about them?”

  “We may as well let them come with us,” Heatherpaw mewed. “How are we going to carry three kits by ourselves?”

  Before he could answer, she headed for the tunnel nearest her. “We have to find those kits before any of our Clanmates gets hurt.”

  “I agree!” Hollypaw leaped the wide river and glanced back at Jaypaw. “The water is about two foxtails wide,” she told him.

  Jaypaw crouched, preparing to jump. Lionpaw could see his paws trembling. Let him make it! He tensed, ready to dive into the rushing river if he had to, but Jaypaw sprang high over the river, clearing it with a tail-length to spare.

  As Lionpaw jumped after him, Heatherpaw ducked out of the tunnel she had been sniffing. “They haven’t been this way.”

  Lionpaw crept into another dark opening, tasting the air.

  No scent.

  “This way!” Jaypaw was crouching in front of a narrow entrance, his whiskers twitching.

  Hollypaw pushed past him and peered at the ground.

  “He’s right! There’s a paw print.”

  Lionpaw squeezed past her to look. Sure enough, there on the silty ground was a tiny fresh print. “They went this way.”

  He glanced up and met Heatherpaw’s gaze. Fear glittered in her hazy blue eyes.

  “Oh, Lionpaw,” she whispered. “What have we done?”

  Chapter 19

  “I’ll go first.”

  Jaypaw hardly realized he had said the words out loud until he heard Breezepaw snort scornfully.

  “You’re blind!”

  “And you can see perfectly in the dark, I suppose!” Hollypaw snapped.

  Jaypaw sensed Breezepaw bristle, but the WindClan cat didn’t argue. He was glad, because he was on the verge of turning tail and fleeing back along the tunnel to the forest, where rain pattered on leaves and earth and didn’t collect in cold stone tunnels to sweep away everything inside them. . . .

  All he could think of ever since he set foot in the first tunnel was racing for his life, terrified, with Fallen Leaves. Images filled his mind: the dark tunnel, the roaring of the water, the shock as the wave hit him and swept him up like a leaf caught in a storm, gasping for air and finding only water to breathe.

  Don’t think about it! At least this time there would be no glimmers of light to distract him; instead he could focus on his instincts.

  Lionpaw stepped out of the way to let Jaypaw pass. As

  Jaypaw brushed past him, he felt relief flooding from his brother’s pelt. He thinks I’ll do better in the dark than he will. I hope he’s right. Cold air blasted over him, making his whiskers tremble. But the breeze carried something else, whispers he felt rather than heard, flooding from deep inside the tunnel like the pulsing of blood in his veins. He padded into the tunnel, feeling the darkness swallow him up. This wasn’t darkness he was used to. Blind in the forest, he could feel the warmth of the sun on his pelt, smell the fresh tangs that flavored the air, hear the wind that rustled the leaves. This darkness was suffocating, musty, and cold, pressing against his fur and filling his nose and mouth. Nothing but blackness, thick as fur, soft as water, drawing him in.

  The rock beneath his paws was covered in fine silt, the walls so narrow they grazed his pelt as he crept slowly forward.

  “Can’t you go any faster?” Breezepaw’s mew was as jagged as the walls.

  “Shh!” He tried to block out the fear pulsing from the other cats, and padded on, feeling the path slope downward, the tunnel widen, cold air jab his pelt as they passed under a slit in the roof. Was this really the right way? The draft flowing through the tunnel like water carried no kit scent, only forest air seeping through fissures in the roof.

  Suddenly, a pelt brushed his flank.

  Jaypaw bristled. “I’m leading, Breezepaw!” He barged the cat away.

  “What are you talking about? I’m back here!” Breezepaw snapped from behind.

  Hollypaw’s nose brushed his tail-tip. “There’s no one near you, Jaypaw.”

  Surprised, Jaypaw tasted the air. A new scent bathed his tongue. Not a Clan scent, but still faintly familiar. He tasted the air again, his pelt pricking with unease as the other cat pressed against him, matching him step for step.

  “I will walk with you, my friend, as you once walked with me,” the voice whispered in his ear.

  Fallen Leaves! Jaypaw’s heart lurched. The memory of a great, black wave engulfing him made him stop dead. He fought the urge to turn and run, to pelt back to the cave and the forest and the safety of the open sky.

  “I could not leave you here to walk alone, when you walked with me like a brother.”

  Jaypaw blinked, trying to see. “Am I dreaming?”

  “No,” Fallen Leaves whispered. “I have come to help. I know where the kits are.”

  “Why have we stopped?” Breezepaw mewed crossly from behind.

  Hollypaw’s nose flicked Jaypaw’s tail. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine,” he told her, then he lowered his mew to less than a whisper, breathing the words so that only Fallen Leaves could hear. “Have you seen them?”

  “I know where they are.” Fallen Leaves pressed his pelt to Jaypaw’s, urging him forward. “But we must hurry.”

  Jaypaw resisted. “Why should I trust you? You couldn’t even get yourself out of these tunnels!”

  “I have walked them ever since,” Fallen Leaves murmured sadly, “and I know them better than the moors above us.”

  Jaypaw steadied his breath. “You’ve really seen the kits?”

  “They are alive, but they are cold. We must hurry.”

  Instinct alone might not be enough down here. Touching his tail to Fallen Leaves’s flank, Jaypaw let the tom guide him forward into a tunnel that branched to one side. The passage sloped steeply down; Jaypaw’s pads slipped on the floor. The rock was slick with rain.

  “Are you sure you know where you’re going?” Breezepaw called.

  “Can you still smell them?” Lionpaw asked anxiously.

  “They went this way,” Jaypaw replied.

  Fallen Leaves swerved again, nudging him toward another tunnel. “Duck!” he warned. Jaypaw dipped his head just in time, squeezing through a shallow gap.

  “Keep down!” he warned his Clanmates as he wrig
gled beneath the pressing rock. The gap grew lower and lower until he was scrabbling on his belly.

  “This feels like a dead end!” Hollypaw panted as she squeezed after him.

  “It opens up in a moment,” Fallen Leaves promised in Jaypaw’s ear.

  Jaypaw smelled the sweet scent of heather and felt rain on his face. There must be an opening in the roof ahead. He slithered out of the gap, relieved to feel space around him.

  “Which way now?” Heatherpaw’s fur brushed the rock as she squirmed out after him.

  “There are three tunnels,” Lionpaw told him.

  Jaypaw tasted the air, but there was no scent of the kits.

  “This way,” Fallen Leaves whispered. Jaypaw felt his whiskers brush rock on either side as he let Fallen Leaves guide him into another tunnel.

  “How do you know we’re going the right way?” Breezepaw’s mew was sharp, but Jaypaw could sense the panic throbbing beneath his pelt. It came from every cat, filling the darkness with a suffocating dread that Jaypaw tried to block from his mind.

  “I can smell them,” he lied. He mustn’t let their fear overwhelm him. Listen to Fallen Leaves!

  The tunnel twisted and veered upward, then widened. Air filtered through a gap overhead. The patter of paw steps slowed behind him.

  “I knew it was a dead end,” Heatherpaw sighed, stopping.

  Jaypaw halted. A boulder was blocking the tunnel ahead.

  He sensed its unyielding bulk.

  “We’ll never get past that,” Breezepaw mewed.

  Rain pounded overhead, dripping through a gap into the tunnel and echoing off the rocks as Jaypaw sniffed the wet stone. He ran his nose along the boulder, following its smooth contours until his whiskers touched the tunnel wall.

  A tiny gap opened between boulder and wall, too small to squeeze through.

  “Now what?” Breezepaw snapped. “Do you think you can lead us back?” He didn’t sound convinced. “Or did you just bring us here to show us this boulder? Let me guess, it’s a special StarClan rock and it’s going to tell us where the kits are.”

  “Shut up!” Heatherpaw hissed at her Clanmate.

  “Why?” Breezepaw snarled. “We’re lost underground! Do you want me to thank him?”

  “Shh!” Hollypaw mewed suddenly.

  “I’ll say what I like!” Breezepaw retorted. “Just because he’s your brother—”

  “I can hear something!” Hollypaw hissed.

  “What is it?” Lionpaw’s pelt was tingling with excitement.

  Jaypaw strained to hear.

  A tiny squeaking sound, just louder than the rain, echoed ahead of him.

  The kits?

  “Anyone there?” he called.

  The squeak turned into an excited mewling.

  They were behind the boulder!

  Jaypaw felt Fallen Leaves breathe in his ear. “I told you I’d help you find them.”

  “I think I can climb over it!” Lionpaw mewed. Jaypaw heard claws scrabbling against stone as his brother clambered over the boulder. Shallow water splashed faintly when he jumped down the other side.

  “They’re here!” His joyful mew echoed around the tunnel.

  More claws scraped against rock as Hollypaw, Heatherpaw, and Breezepaw scrambled over to join him.

  “Thank StarClan we found you!” Heatherpaw purred.

  Paws splashed and a frightened mew answered her. “We couldn’t climb back over!”

  “We thought we were stuck forever!”

  “We’ll take you home,” Breezepaw reassured them.

  “Go on, Swallowkit,” Heatherpaw urged. Tiny claws scraped stone and a soggy bundle of fur slid clumsily down onto the ground beside Jaypaw.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. The rain was pounding harder.

  They had to get out quick.

  “I’m fine but—”

  Breezepaw’s mew interrupted her. “Your turn, Sedgekit.”

  Fur brushed rock and another kit thudded lightly on the floor. Jaypaw reached out his nose to the newest arrival. “Are you hurt?”

  “No.”

  Jaypaw swept the two kits together with his tail, pressing against their sodden pelts to warm them.

  Breezepaw landed beside him. Jaypaw stiffened. He was holding the third kit in his jaws. She was barely breathing and when Breezepaw laid her on the ground, she didn’t move.

  “Thistlekit went to sleep and now she won’t wake up!”

  Swallowkit wailed.

  Jaypaw pushed the trembling kits against Breezepaw and crouched beside the limp, wet body at his feet. She was cold, shivering with small convulsions. Jaypaw began to massage her body with his paws, trying to rub some warmth into her pelt.

  Heatherpaw slithered back over the boulder. “Is she okay?”

  “Help Breezepaw warm the other two!” Jaypaw ordered.

  “We’re hungry!” Sedgekit’s mew was muffled by Heatherpaw’s fur.

  “It serves you right for wandering off!” Heatherpaw scolded. She sounded cross but Jaypaw could feel her fearful gaze jabbing his pelt as he worked on Thistlekit. Rain dripped down harder through the gap in the roof. The silt had turned to slimy mud around his paws. He rubbed Thistlekit more urgently. He had to get them out of here.

  Lionpaw and Hollypaw leaped down from the boulder.

  “Do you know the way out?” Swallowkit asked, trembling.

  “Of course we do,” Breezepaw declared. “We found our way in, didn’t we? Getting out will be even easier.”

  He doesn’t believe that.

  “We’ll get out,” Jaypaw mewed softly. He waited for Fallen Leaves to whisper encouragement but he only felt the quiver of the young tom’s tail against his flank.

  Thistlekit began to cough and fidget beneath his paws.

  Warmth was seeping back into her body. She struggled to her paws. “You found us!” she gasped.

  Hollypaw folded herself around the shivering kit. “Did you think we’d leave you in this horrible place?”

  Surprise pulsed from the kit. “You’re from ThunderClan.”

  “We’ve been helping your Clanmates to find you,” Hollypaw explained.

  “You’ve caused a lot of trouble,” Breezepaw growled.

  Lionpaw’s tail swished over the floor. “We can worry about that once we’re out.”

  A noise like rushing air suddenly filled the tunnels.

  “The rain’s getting harder,” Hollypaw mewed.

  “That’s not rain,” Lionpaw murmured. “It’s coming from inside the tunnels.”

  “Inside?” Sedgekit squeaked.

  “What is it?” Breezepaw demanded.

  Jaypaw felt sick. He knew what it meant. “The river is overflowing.”

  Lionpaw darted to Jaypaw’s side, pelt bristling with alarm.

  “How do you know?”

  Jaypaw closed his eyes. “I’ve heard it before. The tunnels are going to flood.”

  Energy exploded from Lionpaw. “We’ve got to get out of here!” Swallowkit squealed as he snatched her up in his jaws.

  “Breezepaw, Heatherpaw, take the other two,” he hissed out of the corner of his mouth.

  “I’ll lead,” Jaypaw mewed. He had brought them here. He had to get them out. He pelted back along the tunnel. Fur brushed stone and claws skittered after him.

  Fallen Leaves fell in beside him and matched the rhythm of his stride.

  “You’ve got to get us back to the cave!” Jaypaw hissed.

  “I will,” Fallen Leaves promised. The young tom’s paws made no sound on the tunnel floor as they raced onward, but his pelt was hot with fear and his mind flashed with memories that echoed in Jaypaw’s mind: paws churning through muddy water, struggling against currents too strong to fight, gasping for air and finding only water, disbelief as the world closed in and life ebbed from his body. He’s remembering how we drowned!

  Jaypaw pushed on harder, ducking just in time to squirm under the low roof. He wriggled forward, the rock scraping his spine, his claws splinte
ring against the stone. Struggling out the other side he paused, waiting until he heard the others emerge. The kits squealed with fear and pain as they were dragged over the rough stone.

  “Nearly there!” Jaypaw encouraged. The tunnel was slop-ing upward now. Water washed his paws. One more twist, another turn. He could smell the scent of fresh air. He burst into the cave, hope springing in his belly.

  We’ve made it! He could feel Fallen Leaves trembling with relief beside him.

  Ahead, the river was roaring.

  Lionpaw shot out behind him. “Take Swallowkit!” He thrust the kit at Jaypaw.

  Jaypaw snatched her in his teeth.

  “What’s he doing?” Hollypaw exploded from the tunnel with Heatherpaw and Breezepaw.

  Jaypaw heard water splash as Lionpaw plunged into the river.

  “Lionpaw!” he yowled, dropping Swallowkit. He strained to hear over the roaring of the water. “Can you see him?” he begged Hollypaw.

  “He’s swimming!”

  “He’s crazy!” Breezepaw gasped.

  “I’m okay!” Lionpaw coughed as he struggled, splashing, from the far side of the river.

  “How are we going to get the kits across?” Heatherpaw called.

  “There’s no point!” Lionpaw yowled back. “The tunnel’s blocked!” Panic edged his mew. “The rain has washed soil into the entrance. There’s too much mud to dig through.”

  “What about our tunnel?” Heatherpaw called.

  Breezepaw bounded away as Lionpaw splashed back across the river.

  “Blocked, too! Boulders have fallen from the roof!”

  Breezepaw called from the WindClan tunnel. “It’s like a waterfall in here. We’d never get the kits up it!”

  “We have to try!” Heatherpaw screeched.

  “I don’t think there’s enough space at the top to get through,” Breezepaw argued. Fear made him angry. “If a kit got swept down over the rocks, it might die!”

  “We have to do something,” Hollypaw yowled.

  Jaypaw pressed against Fallen Leaves, trying to read his thoughts, but the young tom’s flank seemed to be fading, and Jaypaw’s shoulder passed with a shiver through the soft fur.

  “Fallen Leaves?” he hissed.

  “I’m sorry!” Guilt and grief hung like mist in the air.