“Are you okay?” Brightheart panted, catching up with him.
Jaypaw struggled out of the heather, then gave his chest a couple of brisk licks. “I’m fine,” he mewed.
“That was quite a tumble. We can rest if you want,”
Brightheart offered.
“I told you, I’m fine,” Jaypaw hissed. He shook the last scraps of heather from his pelt. “Which way now?”
He could feel Brightheart looking closely at him, but she didn’t say anything else about his fall. “Come on,” she meowed. “We can head around to the old Thunderpath from here.”
Jaypaw padded after her, furious with himself for losing his footing so easily just when Brightheart seemed to be treating him like a normal apprentice.
The wind had picked up by the time they reached the old Thunderpath. Jaypaw smelled rain on its way.
“We’ll head back to the camp from here,” Brightheart told him when they reached the gap in the trees where Twolegs had once cut a path, now overgrown and deserted.
“But there must be more ThunderClan territory than this!” Jaypaw objected.
“Too much to explore today,” Brightheart meowed.
Crossly Jaypaw turned away from the Thunderpath and followed Brightheart back into the trees. He didn’t believe that they couldn’t circle the whole territory in one day.
Brightheart obviously thought he wouldn’t be able to cope with a long day out of the camp.
They padded through the trees. Rain was beginning to fall, spattering on the leaves above them. Jaypaw looked up just as a raindrop found its way through the canopy and splashed onto his nose. He shivered and shook off the wetness.
Perhaps it was not so bad that they were going back to the hollow. The rain was cold, and the wind that carried it over the lake even colder. He heard Brightheart’s step quicken and guessed she must be feeling the same way.
Then he stiffened.
There was another scent on the breeze, sharper than the rain and the leaves. Memories flooded him of his terrifying dash through the forest. Fox! Another sniff showed it was the same fox that had chased him over the edge of the hollow, with the scent of earth and bracken in its pelt. And it was close. Jaypaw dropped into a defensive crouch and opened his mouth to warn Brightheart, but her fear-scent told him that she had smelled the creature already.
“We must find Thornclaw’s patrol!” she hissed.
Jaypaw sniffed the air, searching for a scent-trace of the patrol. It would tell them which way to run. With relief, he picked up a faint smell of Thornclaw, but it was too late. The bracken up ahead rustled, and the fox hurled itself out and charged toward them. Jaypaw’s heart almost burst with fear.
The fox cub’s paws pounded on the forest floor; its stench was stronger and its snarl was deeper than he remembered.
The fox had grown since their last encounter.
“Run!” Brightheart ordered, throwing herself between the fox and Jaypaw.
“I won’t leave you!” Jaypaw yowled. “I can fight!”
He heard the clack of teeth as the fox snapped at Brightheart. She hissed, her paws skidding as she dodged.
The fox’s pained screech told Jaypaw that she had caught it with a claw as it had lunged past.
A rush of air tugged his fur as the fox darted past him. He twisted, claws unsheathed, and prepared to lunge forward. The fox was scrabbling to turn on the slippery leaves for another attack. Jaypaw leaped, spitting, but something tugged him back.
His tail was caught in a bramble bush! He collapsed on the ground, dragged back by the thorns. A heavy paw landed on his back, knocking the wind from him. The fox had thundered straight over him, heading once more for Brightheart.
The one-eyed warrior screeched, anger and fear com-bined, and Jaypaw froze with terror.
Then he heard Thornclaw’s yowl only rabbit-lengths away.
The patrol had come!
The air filled with the battle cries as warriors and apprentices streamed into the clearing, ears flattened and claws unsheathed. The fox let out an angry yelp and raced into the trees, with Dustpelt and Hazelpaw pounding after it.
Jaypaw struggled to his paws, yanking his tail to unsnag it from the bramble bush.
“Jaypaw!” Poppypaw was at his side. “Are you okay?”
He wrenched his tail free with the sound of ripping fur.
“I’m fine!” he snapped.
“Did the fox hurt you?” Brightheart called.
Jaypaw was relieved to hear his mentor. He smelled no blood on her, and her voice was strong. The fox had not wounded her.
“Don’t tell me you tried to fight the fox?” Thornclaw demanded. “You should have run for help!”
“I couldn’t leave Brightheart alone with it,” Jaypaw objected.
“I thought you would have learned by now that you’re no match for a fox!” Thornclaw growled. Jaypaw curled his lip but said nothing.
“Is your tail okay?” Poppypaw asked sympathetically.
Jaypaw lashed it over the leaf-covered ground, ignoring the pain of the thorns still stuck in it. “It’s fine,” he muttered.
The whole patrol must have seen him struggling like a helpless kit, defeated by a bramble bush. A hot wave of embarrassment washed over him from nose to tail.
“Will Dustpelt and Hazelpaw be all right?” he asked.
“They’ll chase the fox away from the camp,” Thornclaw told him. “I don’t think it’ll turn on them. Not after the fright we gave it.”
“We should get Brightheart and Jaypaw back to camp and send a patrol after them,” Poppypaw suggested.
“Good idea,” Thornclaw agreed.
The rain eased as dusk began to chill the air. Jaypaw lay pressed into the same sheltered clump of grass where Brightheart had taken him that morning. He had wanted to
be alone, and the thorny wall of the warriors’ den hid him from the rest of the camp. But now Lionpaw had returned with Ashfur; he could hear them in the center of the clearing.
“Where’s Jaypaw?” Lionpaw sounded worried.
Hollypaw answered from outside the medicine cat’s den.
“I haven’t seen him, but Brightheart’s back. He must be in the camp.”
“Shall we ask her where he is?”
Jaypaw didn’t want Brightheart to tell them what an idiot he had made of himself today. He slipped out and headed Hollypaw and Lionpaw off at the fresh-kill pile.
“There you are!” Hollypaw called.
“Hi,” Jaypaw muttered. He padded past them and pulled a mouse from the top of the pile.
Hollypaw followed him and picked up a sparrow. She dropped it on the ground next to Jaypaw while Lionpaw rooted among the prey until he found the fresh-smelling body of a vole. “I caught this myself!” he announced proudly, tossing it onto the ground beside Hollypaw.
“You caught prey on your first day?” Hollypaw sounded impressed.
“Well,” Lionpaw admitted, “Ashfur spotted it and showed me how to stalk it.”
“He probably held it down for you to finish off,” Jaypaw growled.
There was a moment’s silence; then Hollypaw brushed her tail over Jaypaw’s pelt. “I heard you ran into trouble,” she mewed. “It could have happened to any cat.”
Jaypaw shrugged away her tail. “But it happened to me,” he growled.
“It’s only your first day,” Lionpaw reminded him.
