The Fourth Apprentice

by Erin Hunter

  “Well, that’s not going to happen,” Jayfeather pointed out.

  “I know that!” Daisy snapped. “But Poppyfrost isn’t being logical.”

  You can say that again! Jayfeather sighed inwardly.

  Daisy scraped the packed earth with her claws. “What if she’s decided to leave the Clan forever?”

  “She wouldn’t do that,” Jayfeather reassured her. StarClan save me from fussing she-cats! “But I’ll have a word with Firestar when he gets back from his water patrol. Maybe some cats can go looking for her.” Though I’m not sure which cats we can spare, with so many needed for hunting and training and water patrols.

  Gently he guided Daisy out of his den and across the clearing to the nursery. He could sense that she still wasn’t happy, but he didn’t see what more he could do.

  Once she was back inside, Jayfeather headed for the rock wall to check the holes for any sign that the snake might have paid another visit. Sunhigh was just past, and the ground was scorching hot, burning his pads; the basking rock was far too hot for the elders to be sunning themselves there.

  At least I don’t have to deal with Purdy this time!

  As he pulled out the stones that were blocking the holes so that he could get a good sniff, Jayfeather pictured the day when Honeyfern died. Wincing, he let Berrynose’s horror flood over him as he watched the young she-cat writhing in agony from the poison. The warrior’s grief lingered at the foot of the cliff like a memory, soaking into the stones themselves.

  It was enough to make Berrynose wish that he had been bitten by the snake instead of Honeyfern. If Poppyfrost knows that, she has good reason to run away.

  Jayfeather paused halfway through rolling the last stone back into its hole. He suddenly had an awful suspicion about where Poppyfrost might be.

  Leaving the hollow, he slipped under the forest trees, thankful for the cool shade and the air that felt so damp he could almost drink it. Poking out his parched tongue, he tried to lap it, but that only made him feel thirstier than ever.

  Mouse-brain! What are you, a kit?

  Giving himself a shake, Jayfeather headed through the trees up to the ridge that overlooked the lake. The air was hot and dry, sweeping across him in a scorching wind that carried the scents and sounds of cats up from the waterside. He knew what the lake looked like from his dreams; now he tried to picture it as much smaller, surrounded by dried mud and stones.

  Even the underground tunnels will be dry by now.

  Padding along the ridge, Jayfeather stopped every few paces to taste the air. Finally he picked up Poppyfrost’s scent on a clump of long grass. Yes! I was right. He followed the traces along the spine of the hill until he reached the WindClan border. Poppyfrost’s scent was just discernible beneath the WindClan scent markers.

  Jayfeather’s heart sank as he confirmed what he had suspected all along. Poppyfrost was trying to retrace the path she had followed in her dreams, all the way to the Moonpool.

  Mouse-brained cat!

  Following his Clanmate’s scent, Jayfeather set off along the path to the Moonpool. But before he had taken many paw steps, he picked up another scent, slightly fresher than Poppyfrost’s and overlying it, as if the cat it belonged to was following her.

  Breezepelt! What’s he doing here?

  CHAPTER 18

  Dovepaw felt her pelt stand on end with excitement as she looked at her mentor, his eyes glimmering in the moonlight that shone through the cleft in the hollow tree.

  “What can you sense?” he asked in a murmur low enough not to wake the sleeping cats, or to reach Petalfur on watch outside.

  Dovepaw closed her eyes. “Scraping sounds through the ground,” she whispered. “The sound of teeth gnawing wood…and the crash of trees falling! The brown animals are dragging the trees to the stream and setting them in place, lodged tightly together like a wall.” She took a deep breath. “Oh—I can sense the water! It’s trapped behind the trees…. What are these creatures?”

  She opened her eyes again to see Lionblaze looking alarmed, though his expression quickly changed to a look of determination when he saw she was watching him. “How many animals are there?” he meowed.

  “I’m not sure….” Dovepaw tried to concentrate on the brown animals as they moved among the fallen trees, but she couldn’t get the picture clear enough to count them all. “Fewer than our patrol, I think.”

  Lionblaze touched her shoulder with the tip of his tail. “It’ll be okay,” he reassured her.

  Dovepaw couldn’t share his confidence. What she hadn’t told her mentor was that these animals wouldn’t be easy to fight. They were much heavier than cats, dense and low to the ground, so it would be hard to flip them onto their bellies. They had long, sharp teeth and powerful clawed feet; she shivered at the thought of the wounds they could inflict. The fear that she could be leading the patrol into a battle they couldn’t win weighed in her belly like a stone.

  Lionblaze crept out of the hollow tree to relieve Petalfur on her watch. Dovepaw had already done her shift, so she settled down to sleep, but she couldn’t block out the sounds from further upstream. She jerked back into wakefulness every time a tree crashed down, or a branch grated harshly as it was dragged across another. She was still trying to rest when pale dawn light filtered into the hollow tree and the other cats began to stir around her.

  “Great StarClan!” Tigerheart exclaimed, sitting up and shaking dead leaves from his pelt. “Dovepaw, you’re wrigglier than a pile of worms!”

  “Sorry,” Dovepaw muttered.

  Tigerheart pushed his nose briefly into her fur to show that he hadn’t meant to be unkind, before squeezing through the cleft and out into the open. Dovepaw and the other cats followed him out, and they finished off the rest of the fresh-kill pile. Dovepaw noticed that Rippletail and Petalfur didn’t look so hollow and frail anymore.

  They must be really starving in RiverClan if they’re fattening up on what we’ve managed to catch out here!

  Above the trees, the sky was milky-pale. A cold wind drove gray clouds across the sky, ruffling the cats’ fur the wrong way.

  “It’s moons since it’s been as cold as this,” Petalfur meowed, shivering. “Maybe the weather is changing at last.”

  “We can deal with it,” Toadfoot grunted.

  When the cats had finished eating, Lionblaze took the lead, waving his tail for the others to follow him. “It’s not far now,” he encouraged them. “We’re really close to the brown animals.”

  “How do you know?” Toadfoot demanded, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.

  “The dream from StarClan said that they were just beyond the Twolegplace,” Lionblaze explained, with a discreet nod to Dovepaw.

  Even though she was worried about what other cats would say if they knew about her abilities, Dovepaw found she was annoyed by her mentor’s secrecy. He’s willing enough to use my power, so why is he treating it like it’s some sort of embarrassment for ThunderClan?

  “Don’t forget to watch out for falling trees,” she warned them. “And when we get to the place, the water will be really deep, so be careful not to fall in.”

  “All this was in your dream?” Toadfoot asked, sounding as if he didn’t believe her.

  “That’s right.” Lionblaze paused to give his chest fur a couple of licks, as if he was thinking fast. “She saw the brown animals pushing trees over, and—and StarClan warned her about the water, isn’t that right, Dovepaw?”

  Reluctantly Dovepaw nodded.

  “That was some dream!” Rippletail exclaimed. “Firestar never said anything about that at the Gathering.”

  “Yeah, well, he didn’t need to,” Lionblaze mewed uncomfortably, with a glare at Dovepaw.

  Dovepaw met his glare innocently. You got yourself into this mess, so get yourself out of it!

  As the patrol made its way along the streambed, up the gently sloping valley, the rush of the rising wind in the trees made it hard for Dovepaw to hear what was up ahead. She strained to make
out the sounds of the brown animals, and she jumped when she heard Tigerheart’s voice close beside her.

  “Isn’t this cool?” he mewed. “We’re going to find these animals, and then—pow! Give us back our water! They won’t refuse. If they do—well…” He crouched down, then sprang into the air, swiping his forepaws in a strong clawing move.

  Dovepaw didn’t think it would be as easy as that, and she wished that the chatty young warrior would just shut up. She stifled a sigh as Sedgewhisker came bounding up on her other side.

  “Boasting—just like ShadowClan!” she meowed. “Watch this.” Turning to face Tigerheart so the young warrior nearly tripped over her, she launched herself into the air with a terrifying shriek, twisting as she leaped and landing just behind him.

  “Ha—missed!” Tigerheart exclaimed.

  “I wasn’t trying to grab you,” Sedgewhisker retorted. “You’d know about it if I was.”

  “Oh, would I? Try it, then, and see!”

  Dovepaw dodged aside as Tigerheart launched himself at the WindClan she-cat and cuffed her around the head, with his claws sheathed. Sedgewhisker let herself fall on one side, hooking Tigerheart’s paws out from under him so that he lost his balance. The two young cats rolled over and over in the narrow streambed; Petalfur had to scramble up the bank so she wouldn’t be squashed.

  “Stop that right now!” Lionblaze growled, wading into the middle of the fight. “Mouse-brains! Do you want to get hurt before we even arrive?”

  The two young cats broke apart and sat up; their fur was sticking out all over the place and coated with dust.

  “I’d have won with the next move,” Tigerheart muttered.

  “In your dreams!” Sedgewhisker gave him a parting flick over the ear with her tail before drawing back.

  Dovepaw spotted Lionblaze giving Sedgewhisker a worried look; she seemed to be moving awkwardly, as if she’d wrenched her shoulder again. Then his gaze swiveled back to Tigerheart; the look he gave the younger warrior was unreadable.

  Now what’s on his mind? Dovepaw wondered.

  At the top of the valley, the land opened out into flatter, sparser woodland. The wind had dropped, and Dovepaw could hear the scraping and gnawing of the brown animals even more clearly than before. Her sense of urgency seemed to spread to the others, and Toadfoot, who was in the lead, picked up the pace until the cats were almost running along the stream bottom.

  Lionblaze jumped onto the bank of the stream to look ahead and halted, his tail flicking up in surprise. “Look at that!”

  “What?” Whitetail called up to him.

  Lionblaze didn’t reply; he just signaled with his tail for the rest of the patrol to join him on the bank.

  As she scrambled up beside him and looked, Dovepaw felt her heart start to pound. She had known from the beginning of their journey what they would find, and yet it was all so much clearer and more frightening now that she was faced with it.

  Ahead of them, the stream led through a stretch of patchy woodland. Several of the trees had been lopped off neatly about two tail-lengths from the ground, the top of the stump rising to a sharp, splintered point. It looked as if an enormous animal had crashed along the streambed, flattening the trees on either side.

  But that wouldn’t look so…so deliberate.

  Stretching across the stream, clearly visible above the fallen trees, was an enormous barrier of logs. It rose in a curve like a hill, almost as big as a Twoleg nest.

  Dovepaw shrank down, closing her eyes and pressing herself to the ground. The noise that surged through her was deafening: grunts and scratches, gnawing and scraping, the thump of heavy paws on wood. It took all the strength she had to control the sounds until she could cope with them and still stay aware of what was going on around her.

  “So that’s what’s blocking the stream,” Rippletail whispered.

  A moment of shocked quiet followed his words; it was broken by Petalfur. “We’ll have to push the logs away.”

  “No, better drag them out of the stream,” Toadfoot argued. “Otherwise who knows where they’ll end up?”

  “Whatever, as long as we let the water out,” meowed Lionblaze.

  “And we’ll need to keep well back when the logs give way,” Whitetail pointed out.

  “Wait.” Dovepaw’s voice was a hoarse croak as she struggled to her paws again. “The brown animals are still here. They built that barrier deliberately to trap the water.”

  Another shocked silence greeted her words. Then Toadfoot shrugged. “We’ll just have to chase them away, then.”

  Dovepaw was sure it wouldn’t be as easy as that, but she couldn’t think of anything helpful to say.

  “Don’t be scared,” Tigerheart whispered, padding up to stand beside her, with his pelt brushing hers. “I’ll look after you.”

  Dovepaw felt too shaken to protest. She followed Lionblaze as he beckoned the rest of the patrol back into the cover of the streambed.

  “I suggest that we wait until after dark before we attack,” he meowed. “First we need to scout around on both sides of the logs, because right now the brown animals have the advantage of knowing the territory much better than we do.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Whitetail commented.

  “And we have to remember that each Clan should fight to its strengths,” Lionblaze added. “We—”

  “I’m confident of my strength, Lionblaze,” Toadfoot interrupted. “You just worry about yours.”

  Lionblaze held the ShadowClan warrior’s gaze for a couple of heartbeats, but he didn’t rise to the veiled challenge. Dovepaw was unnerved by the tension between the two cats, as well as the anxiety she could sense from the rest of the patrol. They couldn’t argue now! More than ever, they needed to work together to free the water.

  Whitetail took the lead as the cats crept out of the streambed and up a slope through the trees, circling around the fallen logs. She paused at the first of the lopped-off trees and gave it a curious sniff. “Big teeth,” she murmured to Lionblaze, angling her ears toward the spiky top of the stump, where the jaw marks of the brown animals were clearly visible.

  Lionblaze replied with a cautious nod, while Dovepaw’s belly churned at the thought of those teeth meeting in her pelt. The scent of the brown animals was everywhere; Dovepaw had been aware of it before now, but the reek here was much stronger, a mixture of musk and fish.

  “Hey, they smell a bit like RiverClan!” Tigerheart whispered with a playful gleam in his eyes.

  “Don’t let Rippletail or Petalfur hear you say that,” Dovepaw warned him, in no mood for jokes.

  Following Whitetail up the slope, she gradually became aware of something else up ahead. Twolegs! She nearly called out the word, but she realized that she would be in trouble again, trying to explain how she knew. There are green pelt-dens, too, like the ones on the ShadowClan border.

  Putting on a spurt, she caught up to Whitetail and hissed, “I think I can scent Twolegs.”

  “Really?” The white she-cat halted and opened her jaws to taste the air. “Yes, I think you might be right.” Turning to the rest of the patrol, she added, “Twolegs up ahead. Be careful.”

  The cats padded on more slowly, using the logs and stumps for cover. At the top, Whitetail signaled with her tail for the others to crouch down, and they crawled the last few tail-lengths on their bellies. Gazing out from the shelter of a clump of grass, Dovepaw made out several pelt-dens in the clearing ahead. A full-grown Twoleg was sitting outside the entrance to one of them, while two others were examining something on the ground a few fox-lengths away. There didn’t seem to be any of the young Twolegs playing about, like the ones in the other clearing.

  Just as well, Dovepaw thought with a sigh of relief.

  “What do you think the Twolegs are doing here?” Rippletail asked, getting up to pad a little farther forward. “Do you think they have anything to do with the brown animals?”

  “Maybe they’ve come to watch them,” Petalfur guessed.

>   Around the edges of the open space were hard, black Twoleg things, with long black tendrils trailing along the ground. More of the Twolegs were gathered around them, muttering and occasionally touching the black things, which made sharp clicking sounds. Dovepaw bent down to lick one of the tendrils that was snaking past her, and jumped back at the bitter taste, which was similar to the stench on the Thunderpath.

  “Hey, look!” Tigerheart padded up to her. “Some of those Twolegs have fur on their face! They look weird.”

  “Twolegs are weird,” Toadfoot pointed out sourly from just behind him. “We don’t have to go on about it.”

  “I wonder what they have in that den,” Sedgewhisker murmured, peering around the trunk of a tree. “It smells so good!”

  Dovepaw gave a long sniff, her nose twitching as she picked up the scent from the farthest pelt-den. It smelled like some sort of fresh-kill, though it was mixed up with Twoleg scents as well. Her belly rumbled. She was hungry enough to eat anything.

  “I’m going to check it out,” Sedgewhisker announced, bounding into the clearing toward the pelt-den.

  “Hey, wait!” Whitetail called, but her Clanmate didn’t reappear.

  “I’ll get her,” Petalfur meowed, heading off in the WindClan cat’s paw steps.

  “Now there are two of them in danger.” Whitetail lashed her tail angrily.

  Dovepaw watched, holding her breath. Sedgewhisker was heading straight for the pelt-den; Petalfur followed, but she was focused so closely on the WindClan warrior that she didn’t spot the Twoleg moving toward her.

  “Oh, no!” Dovepaw whispered. She didn’t want to see what happened next, but she couldn’t tear her gaze away.

  The Twoleg yowled something, bent down, and scooped up Petalfur in its huge paws. Petalfur let out a startled squeal and began wriggling, but the Twoleg held her firmly. The Twoleg was meowing something to her; Dovepaw didn’t think it sounded hostile.

  “I’ll claw its ears off!” Toadfoot hissed, bunching his muscles to leap out into the clearing.