by Erin Hunter
Rogues? Alderpaw stiffened. What rogues?
Thornclaw lashed his tail. “If WindClan wants to fight rogues, they can do it on their own territory!”
Bramblestar stared at Cloudtail. “Couldn’t you have driven them off?”
Cloudtail shook his head. “There were too many of them. The rogues look vicious. I think WindClan needs help.”
Alarm prickled through Alderpaw’s pelt. If there was a fight, there’d be wounds. What herbs would they need? Quickly he began running through the list in his head: marigold, oak leaf, goldenrod, comfrey.
Bramblestar nodded. “Cloudtail, Birchfall, Lionblaze, and Rosepetal. Come with me.”
“I’m coming too.” Squirrelflight stepped forward.
“And me!” Sparkpaw hurried to stand beside her mother.
“You two can guard the camp with the others,” Bramblestar told them. “Until we know what’s going on, keep the kits in the nursery.” He shot a look at Graystripe. “The elders too. It’s the easiest den to protect.”
Alderpaw’s thoughts whirled in confusion. Why was the fighting on their territory? Was WindClan attacking? Were the rogues invading?
“Alderpaw and I will come with you.” Jayfeather stared steadily at Bramblestar, his blind blue eyes calm. “There will be injuries.”
Alderpaw’s heart was racing. This was his first battle. Had he learned enough to help properly? Would the wounds be bad? Fear and excitement fizzed in his belly. “Should I fetch herbs?”
Jayfeather shook his head. “We can use what we find in the area and bring any injured cats back to camp.”
Bramblestar nodded curtly and raced for the thorn barrier. He disappeared through the tunnel, and Cloudtail chased after him, Birchfall, Lionblaze, and Rosepetal at his heels.
Alderpaw started after them, surprised as Jayfeather dodged past him and into the tunnel. He couldn’t imagine running blind, but Jayfeather burst from the camp without missing a paw step. The patrol streaked up the rise. Jayfeather raced after them, his nose to Rosepetal’s tail. As though he could sense the forest, he leaped over roots and swerved around brambles. Alderpaw raced to keep up.
Ahead, shrieks and yowls rang through the trees.
Alderpaw’s chest burned as they reached the top of a rise near the edge of the forest. Mousewhisker pulled up first, scrambling to a halt and looking downslope. Bramblestar stopped beside him and followed his gaze.
As Alderpaw caught up to them, he saw the fight below. His pelt bristled with shock as he took in Oatclaw, Emberfoot, Furzepelt, and Onestar clearly fighting for their lives. Screeches ripped through the air and fur flew like thistledown in the slanting sunshine. The scent of blood and fear soured the breeze.
“WindClan is outnumbered,” Birchfall gasped.
“By rogues?” Rosepetal sounded shocked.
Sometimes a loner or two passed through the forest, but it had been moons since a gang of rogues had dared cross Clan territory.
“Help them!” Yowling the order, Bramblestar charged downslope.
His Clanmates followed, fanning out as they neared the fighting cats. Bramblestar reached the rogues first. Their pelts were tattered, their tails bushed, but they twisted as nimbly as weasels as they fought. Their musky stench reached Alderpaw’s nose as their malicious snarls echoed among the trees. Bramblestar flung his paws out and hooked his claws into the pelt of a rogue. With a yowl he hauled the tom away from Oatclaw.
Cloudtail threw himself between a tabby and Furzepelt. The rogue turned on him, hissing, and lunged, knocking Cloudtail’s legs from beneath him. Rearing, the tabby slammed his paws onto Cloudtail’s spine.
“Get off him!” Birchfall clamped his jaws around the rogue’s scruff. Grunting with effort, he flung the tabby aside while Cloudtail flipped himself back onto his paws.
Rosepetal grappled with a mangy white she-cat while Birchfall aimed sharp blows at a black she-cat. Lionblaze fell, hissing, onto a silver-gray tom.
Alderpaw watched, his claws itching to join in. But he had never learned battle moves. He’d be no help. Guilt twisted in his belly.
Emberfoot reared up beside Bramblestar and began batting a muscular white tom back through the trampled ferns at the borderline.
Oatclaw found his paws and dived to help Rosepetal pin the white she-cat to the ground.
“Stop!” The white tom ducked away from a blow and glared at Bramblestar. At his command, the other rogues fell still.
Alderpaw froze. These were no ordinary rogues. His heart seemed to jump into his throat. Darktail! He recognized the leader of the gang of cats that had driven SkyClan from the gorge.
Bramblestar lashed his tail, his sharp gaze flitting from cat to cat. “Let them go,” he growled to his Clanmates.
Cloudtail released the tabby, and Rosepetal and Oatclaw backed away from the she-cat. Lionblaze and Birchfall stood protectively in front of Emberfoot and Furzepelt. They stared at the rogues, who huddled together, their eyes glittering with hate.
Now that he could see them better, some of the others looked familiar to Alderpaw, too. Rain, a long-furred gray tom; Raven, a black she-cat. Beside them were a silver-gray tom and a shabby white she-cat. Beside them crouched a tabby, its ears flat. His hackles lifted. Where were the rest of the cats? There had been more in the gorge than this. He scanned the undergrowth anxiously. Had the rest of their group traveled to the lake too? Were they waiting to join in the fight?
“What is it?” Jayfeather jerked his muzzle toward Alderpaw. “Do you know them?”
Alderpaw blinked at the medicine cat. “I-I’ve seen some of them before,” he stammered. “On the quest.” As he spoke, Darktail caught his eye. The rogue leader glared at him, eyes flashing with malice.
Alderpaw felt sick. He recognizes me. He fought the urge to back away as Darktail’s gaze bored into his.
“Jayfeather!” Bramblestar called up the slope. “We need help here. Some WindClan cats are wounded.”
Jayfeather raced down the slope. Urgency tugging at his paws, Alderpaw broke away from Darktail’s glittering gaze and bounded after his mentor.
“Leave.” Bramblestar stepped toward the huddled rogues. “Before we rip the pelts from your backs.”
Alderpaw watched Darktail turn his gaze on the ThunderClan leader. Would he give in so easily?
The rogue leader snarled, his teeth showing blood as he spoke. “This won’t be the last you see of us. We have a mission here, and we know more about your so-called Clans than you think.”
Fear ran along Alderpaw’s spine like icy water as the rogue leader turned and headed away through the ferns. Growling, his campmates followed. Is he talking about what I told him at the gorge? Alderpaw shivered as he wondered whether the rogue gang had followed them back to the lake.
Bramblestar glanced around his warriors. “Who’s hurt?”
“I’m fine.” Cloudtail ran a paw over his bloody ear tip.
“Just a scratch or two,” Rosepetal reported.
Lionblaze was licking a few wounds of his own, but Alderpaw could see from where he stood that they were no more than shallow scratches.
“Alderpaw, find some cobwebs.”
At Jayfeather’s order, he hurried to the roots of a tree where cobwebs crowded the gaps. His paws were trembling as he pulled long strips out and carried them back to Jayfeather.
The ThunderClan medicine cat was crouched over Oatclaw. The WindClan tom lay limp, blood oozing from deep cuts along his flank. “Cover them and stop the bleeding,” Jayfeather ordered, taking a clump of cobweb from Alderpaw and heading toward Emberfoot.
Alderpaw spread the remaining cobwebs over Oatclaw’s wounds, packing them in where the cuts were deepest, as Jayfeather had taught him.
“Onestar is badly hurt,” Birchfall meowed, leaning over the brown tabby tom.
As Jayfeather hurried to look, Alderpaw glanced at the WindClan leader. He was on his side, his fur matted with blood.
Alderpaw quickly finished dressing Oatclaw’s cut
s. “Stay still until the bleeding eases,” he told him before turning to help Jayfeather.
Onestar lay as still as fresh-kill, a bloody wound opening the pale brown pelt below his neck. “I’ll fetch more cobwebs.” Alderpaw gasped. “He’s blee—”
Before he could finish, a groan sounded behind him. He turned to see Furzepelt stagger, then collapse.
“Furzepelt!” Alderpaw darted toward her, his throat tightening as he saw her flanks shudder, then fall still. He sniffed her, shivering. His heart sank to see her sagging limbs. “She’s dead!”
“Dead?” Bramblestar darted to his side, his pelt spiking.
Birchfall and Rosepetal approached slowly. Oatclaw lifted his head, his eyes round with shock as he stared at his fallen Clanmate.
Emberfoot limped closer. “They killed her?” Disbelief edged his mew.
Alderpaw looked for wounds, finding bitemarks on Furzepelt’s spine and scratches along her flank. Then he saw the ugly lump at the back of her head. “She must have hit her head.” He scanned the ground and noticed, for the first time, the sharp points of deeply buried rocks jutting from the forest floor. Blood and fur clung to one nearby. He glanced toward Jayfeather.
The medicine cat hadn’t moved. His blind eyes had turned to Onestar. Blood was pulsing from the WindClan leader’s throat.
Alderpaw touched Furzepelt’s lifeless body with his paw. There was nothing he could do for this cat, but perhaps he could help Onestar. “I’ll get cobwebs.” He headed for the tree roots.
“No.” Jayfeather’s mew was grave.
“But the bleeding!” Alderpaw darted to his mentor’s side.
The ground beneath Onestar was stained ruby red. The fur at his throat was scarlet and glistening.
Why wasn’t Jayfeather doing something? Alderpaw’s throat tightened with dread. “We must help him!”
“There’s nothing we can do,” Jayfeather murmured softly.
Alderpaw looked up. Cloudtail and Rosepetal had backed away, their eyes wide. Bramblestar hadn’t moved. He was staring at the WindClan leader, his amber eyes as dark as night. Birchfall and Lionblaze exchanged glances as Oatclaw staggered to his paws and padded closer to his leader. Alderpaw could see him trembling.
Then Onestar gasped, as though taking his first breath after a near drowning. Shuddering, he gulped in air and opened his eyes.
Alderpaw blinked in surprise as he saw that the leader’s wound had disappeared. Blood still stained his fur, but the gash had closed as though it had never been there.
Understanding washed through him. “He lost a life,” he whispered to Jayfeather.
Jayfeather nodded.
Alderpaw swallowed. He knew that leaders had nine lives, but he’d never imagined what it must be like to lose one. Did dying hurt? How did it feel to come back to life?
Lionblaze looked questioningly at Oatclaw. “Has he many more?”
Oatclaw shrugged. “Only Onestar knows that.”
The WindClan leader flashed Oatclaw an angry look. Growling, he pushed himself to his paws. Oatclaw dipped his head.
Alderpaw frowned. Surely Onestar’s Clan knew. They must count each passing life. And yet a casual observer could never know how many lives a leader had left. Alderpaw searched the leader’s gaze, wondering what he would see.
Onestar lifted his chin, his gaze murderous. Staring between the trees, he flattened his ears. “Where have the rogues gone?”
“Away,” Bramblestar told him. “For now.”
“We must follow them.”
Bramblestar’s gaze flicked around the WindClan cats. “Furzepelt is dead,” he told Onestar softly. “Oatclaw and Emberfoot are injured. Come back to our camp, where Jayfeather and Alderpaw can treat their wounds properly.”
Onestar glanced back toward the edge of the trees, as though he hadn’t heard the ThunderClan leader. “We should go home.”
“Oatclaw and Emberfoot are in no state to travel that far right now,” Jayfeather put in.
Onestar narrowed his eyes, glancing at the injured warriors. Oatclaw was leaning against Birchfall, blood welling on his flank. Emberfoot was staring at their fallen Clanmate, his eyes shimmering with grief. “What about Furzepelt’s body?”
Alderpaw was surprised to see coldness in the WindClan leader’s gaze. Had losing a life robbed him of feelings? Perhaps he was numb with shock.
Bramblestar nodded to Cloudtail. “You and Rosepetal, sit with her. Make sure nothing disturbs her body until a patrol can fetch her.” He turned to Onestar, softening his mew. “Come home with us. We can take care of you.”
“We can take care of ourselves,” Onestar snapped.
Jayfeather snorted. “If Oatclaw doesn’t bleed to death first.”
The WindClan leader looked to where the moor rose toward a darkening sky. A storm was moving in. He nodded briefly. “Very well.”
“Chew up more horsetail and marigold,” Jayfeather ordered.
Alderpaw was helping treat the injured WindClan cats in the shelter of the medicine den while the rain thrummed outside. He’d already made enough pulp to put on Oatclaw’s and Emberfoot’s wounds, and his Clanmates’ scratches, and his tongue was numb from the herbs. He wished Leafpool were here to help. Should someone warn her that dangerous rogues are in the forest?
Alderpaw had seen Darktail kill the only SkyClan cat he’d found near the gorge. Now he’d brought his rogues here and had killed again. We have a mission here, and we know more about your so-called Clans than you think. He remembered Darktail’s words with a shudder. What in StarClan did they want? “They are so vicious,” he muttered to himself.
Jayfeather’s ears twitched. “I haven’t seen cats like them since the Dark Forest.”
Alderpaw blinked at the medicine cat. Every kit had heard nursery tales about the Dark Forest. His father and many of his Clanmates had fought in a battle against the evil cats who lurked there. “Do you think that’s where they’re from?” he asked.
Jayfeather shook his head. “No. Only Clan cats find their way to the Place of No Stars, and these rogues have clearly never belonged to any Clan.”
Oatclaw was sleeping now, in a makeshift nest beside Briarlight’s, drowsy from the poppy seeds Jayfeather had given him. Emberfoot moaned softly as Jayfeather licked pulp into his wound.
Sparkpaw pushed through the trailing brambles. Her rain-soaked pelt dripped water onto the medicine-den floor. “Are they hungry?” She glanced at Oatclaw and lowered her voice. “The hunting patrol is back. There’s plenty of prey on the fresh-kill pile.”
“I want to make sure there’s no infection in these wounds before they eat,” Jayfeather told her.
“Those rogues sound hateful,” Sparkpaw commented. “The whole Clan is talking about them.”
Alderpaw glanced at her. Should he tell her they were the same rogues who’d driven SkyClan from their home? That they might have followed them back to the lake? No. He must say nothing to Sparkpaw yet. He needed to tell Bramblestar first. He wondered if his father had already guessed where the rogues had come from. After all, it had only been a few days since Squirrelflight had reported that they had abandoned the gorge. Alderpaw had never imagined they’d show up by the lake. He spat the herbs he’d been chewing onto a waxy leaf and carried it to Jayfeather. “Can Sparkpaw help you for a bit?”
Jayfeather stared at him, eyes narrowed, but said nothing.
Sparkpaw sniffed. “I’m not a medicine cat.”
“You can chew, can’t you?” Jayfeather grunted.
“I guess.” Sparkpaw looked bemused.
“So I can go?” Alderpaw stared at Jayfeather. “It’s important. I won’t be long. I need to speak to Bramblestar.”
“What about?” Sparkpaw pricked her ears.
Alderpaw ignored her and kept his gaze fixed on Jayfeather.
Jayfeather nodded. “Don’t be long.”
“But if it’s something important, I want to know,” Sparkpaw fluffed out her wet fur.
Jayfeather paw
ed a pile of marigold leaves toward her. “When you’re Clan leader, you can be the first to hear everything. Until then, you can help by chewing these leaves.”
Muttering crossly, Sparkpaw crouched beside the medicine cat and grabbed a mouthful of herbs. “Ewww!” she gasped. “How do you stand this?”
“You get used to it.” Alderpaw nosed his way through the trailing brambles. Rain battered his face. Outside, his Clanmates were sheltering beneath the ferns edging the camp. Alderpaw could sense tension in the air. Graystripe looked out from the elders’ den. Snowbush and Ambermoon huddled beneath the thorn barrier. Cinderheart sat in the downpour, guarding the entrance to the nursery.
Bramblestar sheltered with Onestar, Lionblaze, and Birchfall beneath a jutting branch of the fallen beech. Alderpaw hurried toward them, slowing as he neared.
“Did you chase them onto ThunderClan territory?” Bramblestar asked Onestar.
“They were already on your territory.” The WindClan leader’s eyes were still dark with fury. “They were scouting for something. I’m not sure what. We crossed the border to warn them off. I was planning to come and tell you once they were gone.”
Lionblaze narrowed his eyes. “But they attacked you.”
“Did you provoke them?” Birchfall asked.
Onestar growled. “If you mean did we ask them why they were nosing around Clan territory, then yes.”
Alderpaw caught Bramblestar’s eye. “Can I speak to you alone?” He was aware that he was interrupting. But this was important.
Bramblestar’s ears twitched.
Onestar scowled at him. “What is it?”
“I need to speak with my father.” Alderpaw met the WindClan leader’s gaze.
Onestar growled and looked away.
Bramblestar frowned, his fur rippling uneasily. “What is it?” He guided Alderpaw quickly to a clump of ferns sprouting near the camp entrance. They ducked beneath the browning fronds.
Alderpaw shivered as rain dripped onto his spine. “The rogues who attacked WindClan are the same rogues we found in the gorge.”
Bramblestar closed his eyes, sighing. “I feared as much. It was too much of a coincidence for a band of rogues to show up now.”