by Erin Hunter
MAP
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks to Rosie Best
DEDICATION
For Jessie, who sleeps like the dead.
PACK LIST
WILD PACK (IN ORDER OF RANK)
ALPHA:
female swift-dog with short gray fur (also known as Sweet)
BETA:
gold-and-white thick-furred male (also known as Lucky)
HUNTERS:
SNAP—small female with tan-and-white fur
BRUNO—large thick-furred brown male Fight Dog with a hard face
BELLA—gold-and-white thick-furred female
MICKEY—sleek black-and-white male Farm Dog
STORM—brown-and-tan female Fierce Dog
ARROW—black-and-tan male Fierce Dog
WHISPER—skinny gray male
WOODY—stocky brown male
PATROL DOGS:
MOON—black-and-white female Farm Dog
TWITCH—tan male chase-dog with black patches and three legs
DART—lean brown-and-white female chase-dog
DAISY—small white-furred female with a brown tail
RAKE—scrawny male with wiry fur and a scarred muzzle
BREEZE—small brown female with large ears and short fur
CHASE—small ginger-furred female
BEETLE—black-and-white shaggy-furred male
THORN—black shaggy-furred female
RUFF—small black female
OMEGA:
small female with long white fur (also known as Sunshine)
CONTENTS
Map
Acknowledgments
Dedication
Pack List
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Back Ads
About the Author
Books by Erin Hunter
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
PROLOGUE
“A Fierce Dog never hides!” Grunt snarled up at the big golden dog, planting his oversized puppy paws firmly in the leaf mulch. Lick’s heart pounded fearfully as she watched him. Their other litter-brother, Wiggle, gave a nervous whine and shuffled closer to the black-and-white dog’s flank.
Lick knew why Grunt was angry.
Something is coming for us, and the golden dog knows what it is.
The two grown-up dogs had been talking in low growls as they walked, thinking the pups couldn’t hear them or smell their growing fear-scent. Lick stared up at the golden dog, Lucky, and shuddered from her ears to her drooping tail. He was a big, brave dog. If he was afraid of whatever had made those strange howls in the night, then it must be something very bad.
For a moment Lucky seemed to hesitate, staring at Grunt as if the angry pup was as frightening as the danger that stalked them through the darkness.
“Pups, do what we do,” said Mickey, Lucky’s black-and-white Packmate. He threw himself to the ground and rolled until his fur was thick with mud and mulch.
Lick rolled too, coating herself until she felt as if she was more mud than pup. Normally she would have enjoyed rolling on the forest floor with her litter-brothers and their new friends, but this was no time for play. She gave little Wiggle an encouraging nudge with her wet nose, helping him to cover himself until his familiar warm, milky smell was lost under the scent of the forest.
“You must resist the urge to wash yourselves,” Mickey said, and Wiggle froze, his little pink tongue half out to clean the muck from his coat. “That’s good. Now we need to be very quiet and still.” Mickey crawled underneath a bush, and Lick and Wiggle followed. Lick’s litter-brother burrowed in close to Mickey’s side and hid his trembling muzzle in the big dog’s fur. Lick wanted to hide her face too, but she couldn’t make herself look away. Whatever the monsters were, she had to see them coming.
I wish our Mother-Dog were here. She was big and strong. She would drive the monsters away.
But there was no Mother-Dog in the Garden now, no Pack or longpaws to look after them. Their Mother-Dog had gone away—to be with the Earth-Dog, Lucky had said—and there was no food and had been no dog to tell them what to do now, until the two strange dogs had arrived.
Lick hoped that the Earth-Dog was taking care of her Mother-Dog. They had buried her body before they left the Garden, along with the cold, still pup they had found lying in the long grass.
Lick’s ears pressed themselves down against her skull, and she suppressed the urge to whimper. She could smell the monsters now. For a moment she thought that they were dogs, but this wasn’t like the scent that had lingered in the Dog-Garden or the one Mickey and Lucky carried around with them. It was sharper, unfamiliar.
When the pups had left their home, the grown-up dogs had promised to look after them, and Lick had believed them. Now she looked up at Lucky, still standing stiff-legged outside the bush, and hoped the golden-furred dog could keep his promise.
“I’m not hiding from anything,” Grunt snarled at Lucky. A tiny growl vibrated in Lick’s chest. She wanted to snarl too, and tell her silly litter-brother not to be such a fuzz-head, but she didn’t dare draw any more attention.
Grunt turned to walk away, and Lick tensed her haunches, ready to spring out and drag him back to safety by his scruff if she had to. But then she heard the voices, and her courage faltered.
“Where’s go cubs?”
“Close, cohorts. Smell cubs . . .”
What are those? Lick thought, horror flattening her belly to the earth.
Lucky lunged forward and shoved Grunt toward the bush. Grunt resisted, his paws scrabbling for a hold in the mud.
Do you have rocks for brains? Lick wanted to howl. Stop fighting him!
Finally Grunt slid into the space in the undergrowth beside Lick, and Lucky scrambled in after him, keeping him close. He was muttering something to Grunt that Lick couldn’t quite hear, but she heard Grunt’s shuddering response. “Coyotes? What are they?”
“I eats the cubs. Starts with the tender snouts!” hissed a rasping voice from nearby.
“I crunch the tails!”
Even Grunt went silent at that, his sides trembling. Lick peered out between the twigs, her eyes wide, and caught a glimpse of shapes moving at the top of the hill. Their outlines were similar to those of dogs, except that their furry bodies were carried on long, thin legs that looked like nothing but skin stretched over bones.
Wiggle burrowed deeper into Mickey’s thick fur, and even Grunt squeezed his eyes shut. But Lick refused to look away.
I’m not afraid of going to see the Earth-Dog, she snarled inside her head, as the coyotes came closer and closer. But no half-dog thing is going to crunch my tail. . . .
CHAPTER ONE
In the clearing outside the Pack’s camp, dogs swarmed around the edges of Storm’s vision like panicking shadows, howling and yapping in grief and terror.
The weak paws of the Sun-Dog were brushing the tops of the trees, but they hadn’t reached the ground. The light that filtered down to the corpse at Storm’s forepaws was gray, matching the ragged fur of the dog’s coat.
Only the vivid splashes of blood stood out against the dimness o
f the dawn.
A dog did this.
Storm sank down to her belly, staring into Whisper’s lifeless eyes. His wounds were terrible. No dog could have survived them, let alone sweet, scrawny Whisper. His flank and stomach had been raked with strong claws, and his throat had been torn away. Storm’s paws rested at the edge of a patch of dark earth, almost black, where Whisper had given all his blood to the Earth-Dog.
Storm had seen dead dogs before—lots of them. She remembered their faces. Her Mother-Dog’s ears had been flopped forward in sadness. Blade’s pup had seemed peaceful, though his death had been anything but. Terror’s upper lip had been twisted in a crazed, furious snarl, right to the end.
But Whisper’s eyes were wide, his jaw slightly open, as if in surprise.
Who has done this to you?
Storm realized she was panting, shuddering as she breathed. She felt cold, but she didn’t know if it was true cold or just the chill of horror.
Her Packmates were still whining and circling Whisper’s body. Bruno paced anxiously back and forth, his big paws skittering across the ground, as if he was afraid to touch the earth where Whisper had died. The Pack’s Omega, Sunshine, quivered at the foot of a tree, hiding her face behind a clump of grass.
Storm was vaguely aware of some dog howling, “Follow the scent—find them!” A few of the dogs crashed through the bushes and into the trees, little white Daisy and tall, scruffy Rake among them. A moment later they were joined by Mickey, the black-and-white Farm Dog.
It’s too late. You can’t save Whisper now, Storm thought. And you won’t find his killer. He’s been dead too long. His wounds were drying, and he smelled cold. Whoever had murdered Whisper would be far away by now.
Once again, the thought hit Storm: A dog did this to Whisper. But which dog?
“How could this have happened?” Alpha howled, anger overtaking shock in her voice. “This is our territory! Where are the dogs who were on patrol last night?”
“I—I was, Alpha,” said Thorn, stepping forward on shaking legs.
“I was leading the patrol, Alpha,” said Breeze, coming to Thorn’s side. She gave the young dog a reassuring nudge with her nose. Breeze’s paws were steady, but when she glanced over at Whisper’s body, her brown eyes were deep and dark. “We were running the border of the camp all night. Neither of us saw anything.”
It takes a while to get all the way around the camp and back, Storm thought. It would be easy to avoid the patrol, if a dog didn’t want to be seen. But to know that, the killer must have been watching the Pack and learning the Patrol Dogs’ habits . . . and that meant that some dog was out there, a dog they didn’t know about, and that dog had chosen to come into their territory to murder poor Whisper.
It didn’t make sense.
Unless . . . that dog hadn’t needed to pass the patrol at all.
Storm shook her head, as if she could dislodge the thought before it took hold. But it forced its way to the front of her mind despite her efforts. It felt like a betrayal to even consider it, but . . .
What if Whisper’s killer had come from within the camp?
Storm glanced around at the other dogs, fearing and hoping at the same time that she wasn’t the only one to have thought this. But the rest of the Pack was still focused on Alpha and the Patrol Dogs, who stood with their tails held low.
Alpha glared at Breeze and Thorn, her thin legs trembling with rage and the effort of standing for so long when her belly was swollen with unborn pups. “You didn’t see anything. You didn’t scent anything. So your patrol failed us.”
Dart, Beetle, and Omega all howled in agreement and distress.
“What does this mean?” Omega whined.
Dart dipped her head, and her ears flattened to her skull. “Are our patrols useless?”
“They certainly weren’t any use to Whisper,” Woody said in a hollow growl.
“The whole point of having Patrol Dogs is to keep danger outside the Pack,” Alpha said. She drew herself up to her full height, pricking her ears, and looked down her long nose at Moon and the other Patrol Dogs. “We need better, more frequent patrols. I want twice as many dogs on watch at all times.”
Storm’s panting breath caught for a moment as all eyes in the Pack turned toward Moon. She was still the lead Patrol Dog, even though Alpha had put her on High Watch as a punishment for the crime of stealing food from the prey pile. A crime Storm was certain Moon had not committed. She must have run down from the cliff at the sound of the dogs’ grief. Now she sniffed the air defensively.
“We can double the patrols, Alpha,” she said stiffly, “if the Patrol Dogs give up sleeping properly. With the greatest respect,” she added, dipping her head in deference to Alpha’s glare, “we simply don’t have enough dogs, not now that we have scouts going off with the hunters every day. The Patrol Dogs have to rest sometime! Perhaps if I came off High Watch, then—”
“If our enemies do not rest, then neither will we,” Alpha snapped. “And you will remain on High Watch until I say otherwise!”
Lucky stepped closer to Alpha, and she leaned against her Beta’s golden flank with a grateful sigh. “Alpha is right. We must defend the Pack. And Whisper’s death must be avenged,” he added. “We have been attacked! We must strike back, and quickly.”
Barks of agreement echoed around the clearing as one by one the Pack Dogs’ ears pricked up. Bella gave her litter-brother a stern nod. Snap’s lips curled back in a snarl, and Woody raked the earth beneath his claws impatiently.
Storm barked a quiet “Yes” along with the rest, but she couldn’t summon up any of her Fierce Dog fury right now. Whisper’s blank eyes and lifeless paws kept drawing her gaze back, stealing her attention from the Pack’s rallying cries.
At least when she looked at Lucky, she felt a small spark of hope.
He has a plan! He must have an idea how we can find out who did this. She sat up attentively, waiting to hear it.
“We know who must have done this,” Lucky announced. “Those mangy creatures, the foxes!”
Storm cocked her torn ear, confused. Why would he think that?
“They attacked our camp,” Lucky went on, his voice rising into an angry howl. “They believe we killed one of their pups, and this is their revenge! They are insane, evil . . . not-dogs! And this time they have gone too far. We will strike back!”
The dogs howled and their tails thudded against the earth in approval.
“Revenge for Whisper!” Breeze said, and Thorn and Beetle both yapped along with her.
“Drive them out of our territory!”
“They’ll never hurt a dog again!”
Storm glanced from dog to dog, a whine vibrating in her throat, too quiet for the others to hear. Had any of these dogs actually looked at Whisper’s wounds? Did Lucky not realize that there was no fox-scent in the clearing?
“That’s right! We’ll—” Lucky began, then stopped abruptly, his head snapping around to look at his mate. Alpha was nodding along with the Pack’s anger, but her legs were trembling, and she blinked slowly, as if she was losing strength, and fast.
“You must get some rest,” said Moon, padding over to Alpha, their arguments forgotten. “The pups need you to be still.”
“The pups will be fine,” said Alpha, but she didn’t resist when Beta gently nudged her into a walk, steering her away toward the camp and their den.
Without their Alpha or Beta to lead the discussion, the other dogs had started to gather around Twitch, the Pack’s Third Dog, barking over one another in their enthusiasm.
“We’ll need to find those fiends’ den if we’re going to take revenge,” said Bruno.
But it wasn’t the foxes. . . .
Storm pawed the ground anxiously. She had to tell some dog—but she knew that she couldn’t simply bound over to the others and contradict what their Beta had just said.
Alpha and Lucky had to be told what had really happened.
She almost couldn’t bring herself to lea
ve Whisper. Even his old Packmates had left his side now, turning away to hunt for his killer or join in the talk of revenge. Surely some dog had to stay with him? But it was Storm’s duty to tell the two leaders what she’d seen, and so she cast a sad glance back at Whisper and then pushed through the undergrowth, running after them.
It took her only a couple of long strides to reach the edge of the forest and leave the shadows of the trees behind. She ran over the soft, damp grass with the early light of the Sun-Dog gleaming down on her back. The Wind-Dogs carried the faint scent of the Endless Lake over the cliffs to the high, sunlit camp where the Pack had made their home.
Alpha and Lucky weren’t moving very fast, hampered by the swift-dog’s tiredness and the extra weight of their pups, and Storm caught up with them as they passed the small pond just outside the camp.
“Alpha! Beta, wait,” she barked. With all the dogs out in the forest, the place was eerily quiet, and her bark seemed louder than she’d meant it to. A small bird that had been perched by the edge of the still water startled and flew away. The two older dogs paused.
“What’s the matter, Storm? Has something happened?” Lucky asked.
“I—I wanted to talk to you about Whisper.”
“Alpha must get some rest.” Lucky shook his head. “Can it wait until I get back?”
“I’m all right, Lucky,” said Alpha, and gave him an affectionate nudge with the top of her head. “Why don’t you stay and talk to Storm? I can get myself to the den.”
“Are you sure?” Lucky said, looking around, as if to search for foxes hiding in the long grass by the pond.
“Are you challenging your Alpha?” his mate teased. “I can walk a few steps by myself. Stay with Storm.” She turned her back on him and walked, slowly but with dignity, up the slope toward the den. Lucky kept his eyes fixed on her, watching every step she took until she was out of sight. Storm shifted from paw to paw, feeling a strange prickle of impatience as she waited for her Beta to give her his attention. Her resolve wavered—she suspected he wasn’t going to like what she had to say, and it would be so easy to turn around and join the others. . . .