Willowpaw nodded and streaked from the cave. Hollypaw hurried after her, pelt ruffled with curiosity. She followed Willowpaw across the tiny causeway and back around the shoreline.
“Let’s swim across to the mainland,” Willowpaw mewed.
“It’ll be easier to stay out of sight.”
Hollypaw’s wet fur spiked in alarm. “I know I’m soaked, but there’s no way I’m swimming!” The tree-bridge lay only a few fox-lengths ahead of them.
“Okay, okay,” Willowpaw mewed impatiently. “But we’d
better disguise you somehow. Your scent’s seeping through.”
She scanned the shoreline, whiskers twitching. “Follow me.”
The medicine cat apprentice pushed her way among some clumps of grass that grew half in, half out of the water.
“Here.” Before Hollypaw could complain, she scooped up a pawful of brown muck and smeared it over Hollypaw’s pelt.
Hollypaw gagged. “What’s that?” The goo clung to her fur, sticky and smelly.
“Otter dung,” Willowpaw mewed. “It should hide your ThunderClan scent.”
Hollypaw coughed. “You’re kidding!”
“You can wash it off later,” Willowpaw hissed. “Just be quiet and keep still.”
She smeared another few pawfuls along Hollypaw’s flank.
Hollypaw began to wish she had never come. Then Willowpaw reared up and scanned the shore on both sides of the lake.
“Quick!” She scrambled across the beach and up onto the tree-bridge.
Hollypaw followed, swallowing the nausea that rose in her throat at the smell of the otter dung. “Are you sure this stuff will disguise me?” she hissed as they crossed the bridge. “It’s so strong, I bet
“Certain.” Willowpaw leaped down from the tree, crossed the shore, and dived into a forest of reeds. Hollypaw followed, struggling in the soft ground. Mud clung to her legs and coated her belly fur. Willowpaw seemed to be hopping among the clumps of reeds, staying free of the mud.
Hollypaw watched her closely and began to follow her path exactly, relieved to find that, so long as she kept to her friend’s paw steps, she kept her paws and belly dry.
At last the ground became firmer and Hollypaw felt grass underpaw. Willowpaw was leading her up a slope. There were trees here and the undergrowth grew thick and lush. The slope grew steeper until Hollypaw found she was scrambling up a red sandy cliff. She followed Willowpaw as the RiverClan apprentice leaped up and up, using rocks that jutted from the earth to haul herself higher. At last the two cats clawed their way onto the grassy bank at the top. Panting, Hollypaw looked down. The lake shone far below, glimmering through the fresh green leaves.
“Where are we going?” Hollypaw panted.
“You’ll see in a moment.” Willowpaw headed up the bank and disappeared into a swath of long grass.
Hollypaw hurried after her.
“Look.” Willowpaw had stopped.
Hollypaw crept to her side as Willowpaw gently parted the grass. She peered through. Below them, a wide stream followed the line of the slope. An island rose in the middle, parting the water abruptly so that eddies swirled where the stream was forced to divide. The island was crowded with small trees and bushes, green amid the rolling brown water.
“That’s our old camp,” Willowpaw explained.
Hollypaw heard the clatter of rocks and stiffened. “What’s that?”
“The warriors are working.”
“Working?” Hollypaw blinked.
Suddenly, she spotted the pelts of RiverClan warriors and apprentices weaving through the grass on either side of the stream. On the near side, she recognized the apprentices Pouncepaw and Minnowpaw. They were helping Reedwhisker and Voletooth to shift stones, pushing them toward the stream and tipping them over the edge so that they fell with a loud splash into the water.
“What are they doing?”
“Blocking the stream to make it deeper and wider,”
Willowpaw replied.
Blackclaw, a muscular, broad-shouldered black tom, called from the far side of the stream. “Hurry! Grab what you can!”
He stood near the water’s edge, calling orders to warriors who were bravely leaping across the channel with wads of mossy bedding dangling from their jaws.
“We need to rescue as much stuff as we can,” Willowpaw explained. “The pine needles on the island are no good for making the nests weatherproof.”
“But why are you doing all this?” Hollypaw couldn’t understand what was going on. The old camp looked safe enough, almost as well protected by the divided stream as ThunderClan was by the cliffs of stone.
A warning yowl sounded upstream and Minnowpaw came hurtling down the bank. “They’re coming!”
Every RiverClan cat instantly dropped whatever they were carrying or pushing and scrambled away from the island, heading down toward the lake.
Hollypaw’s fur bristled. “What’s the matter?”
“You’ll see,” Willowpaw mewed.
Tramping through the grass, along the far side of the stream, came a gang of Twoleg kits. They were sweeping jagged branches through the grass and mewling loudly to one another. As Hollypaw watched, the largest of the kits hopped from the shore and onto a stone that barely broke the surface of the stream, then onto another and another. Balancing pre-cariously on one leg, it leaned toward the island, and began to poke the bushes with its stick. The other kits yelped their approval and encouraged him by waving their hairless paws in the air.
Hollypaw stared at her friend in dismay.
Willowpaw lashed her tail. “Now do you see why we had to leave?”
Chapter 13
Willowpaw explained as they picked their way down the sandy cliff.
Hollypaw put her head on one side. “But that will stop the water flowing.”
“Exactly, so the stream above gets deeper and wider, and the island will be better protected.”
Hollypaw was impressed. “But will it be enough to keep the Twoleg kits away?”
“Once the stream’s flooded, we’re going to put up barri-cades of gorse.” Willowpaw stopped to catch her breath. “The Twolegs aren’t trying to hurt us. I think they’re just playing.”
She bent her head to wash the red sand from her pads.
“They’re like our kits. If we make it too hard for them to get near the island, they’ll give up and play somewhere else.”
“And then you can move back to the island!” Hollypaw guessed. RiverClan had no intention of moving onto WindClan territory. Her paws tingled. She couldn’t wait to get back to her own camp and tell Firestar. WindClan’s borders were perfectly safe, and they’d have no need to try to
take any of ThunderClan’s territory. There wasn’t going to be a battle after all!
Willowpaw bounded down the rest of the slope and wove in among the reeds.
Hollypaw hurried after her. “But why didn’t Leopardstar just tell the other Clans what was going on?”
“And look weak because we’d been driven out of our home?”
“But the other Clans might have helped.”
“RiverClan can sort out their own problems!”
