Dark River

brambles.

Hazelpaw stiffened. “Look!” she mewed, staring over the border.

Breezepaw and Harepaw were pelting toward the stream.

Ahead of them raced a squirrel, its tail bobbing. The WindClan apprentices weaved skillfully through the thick undergrowth; it was strange to see them hunting in woodland.

Dustpelt padded to Sandstorm’s side. “Why are they hunting here?”

“It is their territory,” Sandstorm pointed out

“But WindClan don’t eat squirrels!” Honeypaw had scrabbled up from the stream, alerted by Hazelpaw’s warning.

Dustpelt narrowed his eyes. “Yes, I thought they only hunted rabbits.”

Two more WindClan pelts appeared. Tornear and Whitetail were watching their apprentices from the edge of the moor.

“A hunting party so near to our border?” Dustpelt’s mew was sharp with suspicion.

“They’re still heading for us,” Hazelpaw warned.

Breezepaw and Harepaw pelted after the squirrel; their eyes were fixed on their quarry.

“They’re not slowing down,” Dustpelt warned.

“They won’t cross the border on purpose,” Sandstorm reassured him.

“But they might do it accidentally,” Dustpelt replied. “The stream’s hardly visible here.” He dropped into a crouch and crept to the edge of the gully, ducking behind the brambles that covered it.

Breezepaw’s and Harepaw’s pads thumped the ground as they hurtled nearer. They still weren’t slowing.

“Stop!” Dustpelt reared up and yowled across the stream at the WindClan apprentices.

Breezepaw and Harepaw skidded to a halt, their eyes wide with alarm. The squirrel leaped the gully and disappeared up a tall birch.

“What in StarClan’s name are you doing?” Tornear’s angry mew rang through the trees. The WindClan warrior broke into a run, racing down to the border with Whitetail on his heels.

“How dare you frighten our apprentices?” Tornear halted at the edge of the gully and glared at Dustpelt.

“They were about to cross the border!” Dustpelt arched his back aggressively.

“How do you know?” hissed Breezepaw.

“You weren’t even slowing down!” Dustpelt accused him.

“I’d have caught the squirrel in one more stride!”

Lionpaw curled his lip. “You were nowhere near it!”

Breezepaw bristled. “Was too!”

“Everyone knows WindClan can only catch rabbits!”

Lionpaw spat back. “ThunderClan are the best squirrel hunters.”

“Not anymore!” Harepaw squared his shoulders beside his denmate. “Every WindClan apprentice has special training in the woods so we don’t have to rely on rabbits anymore.”

Sandstorm’s eyes grew round. “Really? Why?”

Tornear turned his glittering gaze on her. “It’s none of your business!”

“Is it so you can invade our territory?” Dustpelt paced the borderline, lashing his tail.

Whitetail stepped forward, her ruffled fur smoothing.

“We have woodland in our territory,” she meowed evenly. “It makes sense to use it. And we don’t want to be dependent on one sort of prey anymore. The elders still speak of the hunger WindClan suffered when Twolegs started poisoning the rabbits before the Great Journey.”

That made sense. Lionpaw let his claws curve back into their sheaths. But it still felt odd to think of WindClan hunting ThunderClan prey.

Harepaw was nodding. “And there are sheep on the moorland now, with Twolegs and their dogs—”

Tornear silenced his apprentice by flicking his tail across his mouth. “That’s none of ThunderClan’s business either,”

he snapped. “So long as we stay on our side of the border, we can hunt what we like.”

“But squirrels don’t know about the border. They cross over it. You’d be eating our prey.”

“If it’s on WindClan territory it becomes our prey!”

Tornear snapped.

“Squirrels have always been ThunderClan prey!” Dustpelt stopped pacing and let the fur stand up on his neck.

“Is that part of the warrior code?” sneered Tornear. He took a step forward, his eyes glittering.

Dustpelt dropped into a crouch, ready to spring. Blood pounded in Lionpaw’s ears. He unsheathed his claws again; his tiredness forgotten, he was more than ready to show these pushy WindClan cats what happened to warriors who dare invade ThunderClan’s hunting grounds.

“Leave it,” Whitetail murmured to her Clanmate. “This isn’t worth losing fur over.”

Tornear dragged his gaze from Dustpelt and looked at Whitetail. Lionpaw held his breath, then Tornear nodded.

“Okay. For now.”

Dustpelt watched through narrowed eyes as the WindClan cats turned and padded away along the border, deliberately not hurrying.

“Come on.” Sandstorm flicked her tail toward home.

Dustpelt didn’t move. “Not until they’ve left the trees.”

Sandstorm sat down and began to wash her face. “You three may as well see if you can find any prey to take back while we’re waiting.”

Lionpaw reluctantly stopped watching the dawdling WindClan patrol and followed Honeypaw and Hazelpaw over to a patch of brambles.

“Do you think WindClan are planning to invade?” Hazelpaw whispered.

Honeypaw’s eyes stretched wide. “What makes you think that?”

“Chasing squirrels is what forest cats do. But they’re moorland cats,” Hazelpaw mewed. “It’s a bit suspicious.”

“Well, Dustpelt’s acting like they are,” Lionpaw commented.

Honeypaw glanced back over her shoulder. “But why would they want to take our territory?”

“Perhaps the Twolegs and their dogs are more of a problem for WindClan than we realized,” Lionpaw suggested.

“They coped with it last newleaf,” Hazelpaw pointed out.

Foreboding clawed at Lionpaw’s belly. “It might be worse this time.”

“Anything to report?” Firestar called down from Highledge as the dawn patrol padded into camp.

“WindClan are hunting in the forest,” Dustpelt answered.

“In our forest?” Firestar leaped down from the ledge.

Lionpaw padded quickly to the fresh-kill pile and dropped the mouse he had caught, then hurried back to join Dustpelt. He was ready to defend his Clan’s prey from any marauding WindClan cats, but what if one of those cats was Heatherpaw?

“Lionpaw!” Hollypaw stopped him halfway. “What’s going on?”

Jaypaw was with her; his ears pricked with interest.

“WindClan were at the border,” Lionpaw explained. He glanced at the patrol.

The ThunderClan leader had reached Dustpelt and Sandstorm. He was lashing his tail, clearly disturbed by Dustpelt’s news.

“They haven’t crossed the border,” Sandstorm explained.

The tip of Dustpelt’s tail twitched. “They almost did.”

Brambleclaw emerged from the warriors’ den. “What’s going on?”

“Two WindClan apprentices near our border,” Sandstorm meowed. “They were chasing a squirrel and nearly crossed the stream by mistake.”

Hollypaw bristled. “A squirrel!”

“They should have known better,” Dustpelt growled.