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“I can’t smell her,” complained Graypaw. “It’s too wet.”
“It’s there,” Firepaw assured him.
“I can smell that though,” Graypaw spat suddenly.
“What?” Firepaw hissed. He stopped, alarmed.
“Kitscent. There’s kit blood here!”
Firepaw sniffed again, seeking out the smell of ThunderClan offspring. “I smell it too,” he agreed. “And something else!” He flicked his tail down sharply, warning Graypaw to keep quiet. Then, silently, he signaled with his whiskers toward a blackened ash tree up ahead.
Graypaw twitched his ears questioningly. Firepaw gave him a tiny nod. Yellowfang was sheltering behind the wide, split trunk.
Instinctively the two cats separated, each moving toward the tree, one on either side. They crept over the soft forest floor, using all the tricks of basic training, stepping lightly, keeping their bodies low.
Then they leaped.
Yellowfang yowled with surprise as the two cats landed beside her and pinned her to the ground. She struggled free, spitting, and backed into a sheltered hollow at the base of the trunk. Firepaw and Graypaw moved forward, blocking her way out.
“I knew ThunderClan would blame me!” she hissed, her eyes flashing with all her old hostility.
“Where are the kits?” Firepaw demanded.
“We can smell their blood!” spat Graypaw. “Have you harmed them?”
“I don’t have them,” snarled Yellowfang angrily. “I’ve come to find them and take them back. I stopped because I smelled blood too. But they’re not here.”
Firepaw and Graypaw looked at one another.
“I don’t have them!” insisted Yellowfang.
“Why did you run away, then? Why did you kill Spottedleaf?” Graypaw asked the questions Firepaw couldn’t bring himself to say out loud.
“Spottedleaf is dead?” There was no mistaking the shock in Yellowfang’s voice.
Relief washed over Firepaw. “You didn’t know?” he croaked.
“How could I? I left the camp as soon as I heard the kits were missing.”
Graypaw looked suspicious, but Firepaw could hear the truth in her voice.
“I know who has taken the kits,” she continued. “I smelled his scent near the nursery.”
“Who was it?” Firepaw asked.
“Clawface—one of Brokenstar’s warriors. And as long as the kits are with ShadowClan, they’re in great danger.”
“But surely even ShadowClan wouldn’t harm kits!” Firepaw protested.
“Don’t be so sure,” spat Yellowfang. “Brokenstar intends to use them as warriors.”
“But they are only three moons old!” Graypaw gasped.
“That hasn’t stopped him before. He has been training kits as young as three moons since he became leader. At five moons he sends them out as warriors!”
“Surely they’d be too small to fight!” Firepaw protested. But in his mind’s eye he pictured the undersize ShadowClan apprentices he had seen at the Gathering. They weren’t just small; they were kits!
Yellowfang hissed scornfully, “Brokenstar doesn’t care about that. He has plenty more kits to spare, and if they run out, he can steal them from other Clans!” Her voice was filled with rage. “After all, we’re talking about a cat who killed kits from his own Clan!”
Firepaw and Graypaw were stunned.
“If he killed ShadowClan’s kits, why wasn’t he punished?” Firepaw asked at last.
“Because he lied,” growled Yellowfang. Bitterness made her voice hard. “He accused me of their murder, and ShadowClan believed him!”
Firepaw suddenly understood. “Is that why you were driven out of ShadowClan?” he asked. “You have to come back with us and tell all this to Bluestar.”
“Not before I have rescued your kits!” Yellowfang spat.
Firepaw lifted his head and sniffed the air. The rain had stopped, and the wind was dying down. The ThunderClan patrol would be well on its way. They were not safe here.
Graypaw still seemed shocked by Yellowfang’s accusation. “How could a leader kill kits from his own Clan?” he demanded.
“Brokenstar insisted on training them too hard and too young. He took two of the kits away for battle practice.” Yellowfang took a deep, wheezing breath. “They were only four moons old. They were already dead when he brought them back to me. They bore the scratches and bites of a full warrior, not of apprentices. He must have fought them himself. There was nothing I could do. When their mother came to see them, Brokenstar was with me. He said that he had found me standing over their dead bodies.” Her voice cracked and she looked away.
“Why didn’t you tell her it was Brokenstar?” Firepaw asked in disbelief.
Yellowfang shook her head. “I couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
The old she-cat hesitated. When she spoke, her voice was heavy with regret. “Brokenstar is ShadowClan’s leader. Noble Raggedstar was his father. His word is law.”
Firepaw looked away and the three cats sat in silence for a moment. Then Firepaw meowed, “We’ll rescue the kits together. Tonight. But we can’t stay here. I can smell the ThunderClan patrol coming.” He paused. “If Tigerclaw is with them, Yellowfang doesn’t stand a chance. He’ll kill her before we can explain.”
Yellowfang looked at him, alert and determined again. “There’s peat this way; it’ll be wet after the rain,” she told him. “Our scents will be disguised there.”
She leaped into a clump of ferns and Firepaw and Graypaw quickly followed her. They could hear the rustling of undergrowth in the distance now. It was no longer the wind that disturbed the bushes, but an approaching patrol, no doubt hungry for revenge and fired up by Tigerclaw’s lies.
An eerie stillness settled over the woods, and a thin fog was beginning to gather between the tree trunks. Firepaw shook the droplets off his coat and impatiently pulled a burr off his chest.
Yellowfang led them onward. The ground grew soggier, and their paws began to sink into the soft peat. The musty smell choked Firepaw’s nostrils, but at least it would mask their own trail. Behind them, the noise of cats grew louder.
“Quick, under here,” Yellowfang urged, ducking under a broad-leaved bush. The three cats crouched beneath it, drawing in their tails. Firepaw kept as still as he could, trying to ignore the rank wetness of the ground seeping into his belly fur, and listening to the rustling of the ThunderClan patrol as it came nearer and nearer.
CHAPTER 23
Firepaw could tell there were several cats in the patrol, traveling fast. He couldn’t recognize the individual scents of the cats through the earthy bog odors, but he knew it was ThunderClan. He held his breath as the pawsteps raced past and away.
“Are we really going to try to rescue the kits from ShadowClan alone?” whispered Graypaw.
Yellowfang answered him first. “I might be able to find us some help from inside ShadowClan. Not all the cats support Brokenstar.”
Firepaw pricked up his ears and Graypaw flicked his tail in surprise.
“When he became leader,” Yellowfang explained, “Brokenstar forced the elders to leave the security of the inner camp. They had to live on the boundary and hunt for themselves. These are cats who have grown up with the warrior code. Some of them might help us.”
Firepaw stared into her old eyes, thinking quickly. “And I might be able to persuade the ThunderClan hunting party to help us too,” he meowed. “If I can speak to them before they see Yellowfang, I might be able to make them believe her story. Graypaw, you wait at the dead ash, where we smelled the kit blood, till one of us returns.”
Graypaw looked worried. “But do you really trust Yellowfang to bring back help?” he murmured to Firepaw.
“You must trust me,” growled Yellowfang. “I will return.”
Graypaw looked at Firepaw, who nodded.
Without another word Yellowfang sprang past the two apprentices and disappeared into the bushes.
“Have we done
the right thing?” asked Graypaw.
“I don’t know,” Firepaw admitted. “If we have, we are heroes and the kits are safe. If we are wrong, then we are as good as dead.”
Firepaw sprinted after the patrol, around brambles, past gorse, and through nettles. The trail was easy to follow. The angry ThunderClan cats weren’t trying to disguise their presence in ShadowClan’s territory.
Overhead, the thick layer of cloud had finally rolled away. Beyond the treetops, Silverpelt glittered across the night sky. The moon was just rising, but its cold light couldn’t pierce the mist that clung to the shadowy undergrowth.
