The Fourth Apprentice

“Okay, we’ll rest.” Lionblaze raised his voice so all the cats could hear him. “ThunderClan and ShadowClan will hunt, each in our own territories.”

“We can hunt for ourselves,” Whitetail pointed out with a glance at Sedgewhisker.

“Sure,” the tabby she-cat agreed.

“That would be prey-stealing!” Toadfoot snapped.

Whitetail sighed. “But it’s not stealing if you catch it and give it to us? Can’t you just give us permission and make it easier for every cat?”

Lionblaze guessed she wanted to add mouse-brain, but she restrained herself. At least Toadfoot didn’t insult them by saying they only know how to catch rabbits, he thought.

“We’ll do it Toadfoot’s way,” he mewed peaceably to Whitetail. “I’m sure you’ll get a chance to hunt for us all later.” Even though he could see the WindClan warrior’s point, he didn’t want to risk them running into a ThunderClan or ShadowClan patrol. They’d had enough delays already with the Twolegs.

The WindClan she-cat hesitated for a moment, then gave him a curt nod.

Lionblaze led Dovepaw deeper into ThunderClan territory, feeling safer and more relaxed to be on familiar ground. “You go that way,” he suggested to his apprentice, angling his ears around the edge of a hazel thicket. “There might be some prey under the bushes. I’ll go this way and meet you back at the border.”

“Okay.” Dovepaw stalked off, setting her paws down lightly, her ears pricked and her jaws parted to scent the air.

I hope she finds something really good, Lionblaze thought as he watched her out of sight. That’ll show Toadfoot! He padded into the trees in the opposite direction and almost at once spotted a squirrel out in the open, scraping at something underneath the leaves on the forest floor.

Excellent!

Dropping into the hunter’s crouch, Lionblaze crept silently up on his prey, his belly fur brushing the ground. There was no wind to carry his scent, and he was sure he hadn’t made a sound, but before he had covered half the distance the squirrel started up in alarm and launched itself toward the nearest tree.

“Mouse dung!” Lionblaze spat.

He hurled himself after it, realizing with a surge of triumph that there was something wrong with the squirrel; it was limping, so that he soon overtook it and killed it with a blow to the spine before it reached the tree.

I hope it hasn’t got some horrible disease, he thought as he looked down at the limp body. He gave it a cautious sniff. It smelled fine-mouthwateringly good, in fact. Picking up his fresh-kill, he headed back toward the border. Dovepaw caught up to him when he was almost there, with a tiny mouse dangling from her jaws.

“Sorry,” she mumbled around it. “This was all I could find.”

Lionblaze sighed. If Dovepaw couldn’t find any prey, then there wasn’t any prey to be found. “Don’t worry,” he mewed. “It’s better than nothing.”

When they returned to the spot where the other cats were waiting, he found Rippletail and Petalfur drowsing in the shade of the ferns. Whitetail and Sedgewhisker sat beside them alertly, as if they were on watch.

“That squirrel looks good,” Whitetail congratulated him as he dropped the fresh-kill on the edge of the stream. “And so does the mouse,” she added to Dovepaw.

“No, it doesn’t.” Dovepaw dropped her prey with an annoyed flick of her tail. “If it was any smaller it would be a beetle.”

“It’s fine.” Whitetail reached out to touch Dovepaw on the shoulder with her tail-tip. “We need every scrap of prey we can get.”

“Hey, Toadfoot and Tigerheart are coming back!” Sedgewhisker meowed.

Lionblaze turned to see Toadfoot padding confidently through the pine trees, carrying a blackbird in his jaws. Tigerheart was a little way behind him, dragging something along the ground.

“The squirrel’s not bad,” Toadfoot mewed as he leaped over the stream and dropped his prey beside Lionblaze’s. “Pity about the mouse.”

Lionblaze ignored him, watching as Tigerheart lugged his prey up to the bank of the stream, dropped it down into the dried-up bottom, then leaped down after it and clambered up the other side with the prey gripped in his jaws. It was a huge pigeon; tiny gray feathers clung all over Tigerheart’s dark brown tabby pelt.

“Great catch!” Sedgewhisker exclaimed.

“Yes, great,” Lionblaze added, stifling feelings of envy. He’d wanted to show Toadfoot that ThunderClan warriors were better hunters than ShadowClan any day. But Tigerheart’s catch was impressive, and he wouldn’t spoil the younger warrior’s pride in it.

Toadfoot was looking quietly triumphant, but at least he didn’t boast about his Clanmate’s catch.

Tigerheart seemed a bit flustered. “I nearly missed it,” he meowed. “It flew off, and I had to leap really high to get it.”

“That’s great!” Lionblaze told him. He was pleased to see the glow in Tigerheart’s eyes and hoped he had made up for being unfriendly to him at the Gathering. Cinderheart had been right: It was better to have friends than enemies in the other Clans. And the young warrior was a real asset to his Clan.

I wonder if Tigerstar realizes that yet? Lionblaze wondered, feeling a cold claw run down his spine in spite of the heat.

The cats divided the prey and crouched down to eat. For the first time, Lionblaze felt a sense of companionship with these cats who only the day before had been his rivals. Perhaps we can work together after all.

Roused from their sleep, Petalfur and Rippletail ate as if they hadn’t seen prey for a moon. By silent agreement the other cats drew back and let them fill their bellies.

“It won’t help any of us if they’re too weak to carry on,” Whitetail whispered to Lionblaze.

When they had finished eating, Toadfoot took the lead again as the stream left the border and wound its way among the pine trees of ShadowClan territory. Lionblaze felt uneasy at the open spaces and the sight of so much sky above them; the sun cast the shadows of the pines over brown needles on the ground until he felt as if he were trekking across an enormous tabby pelt. After a while they spotted a ShadowClan patrol in the distance, headed by Rowanclaw; Toadfoot called out a greeting, but the ShadowClan cats didn’t approach.

The sun was sliding down the sky when the patrol reached the edge of ShadowClan territory. Lionblaze halted as he crossed the scent markers and peered into the forest ahead. The stream ran between gray boulders covered with moss. A few fox-lengths ahead the ground changed; it became more broken, strewn with tumbled stones, and the pines gave way to gnarled trees, smaller and older than the ones he was used to in his own territory. Their branches were woven together like the roof of a den, with moss and ivy clinging to their pale trunks. But there still wasn’t much undergrowth.

Not many places to hide, Lionblaze thought uneasily.

Whitetail padded up beside him with her jaws parted to taste the air. “I think we should take turns leading,” she meowed. She spoke with conviction, her air of authority reminding Lionblaze that she was the most senior warrior, even though she was so small.

“Fine,” he responded, taking a pace back and waving his tail to let her go ahead.

Toadfoot opened his jaws as if he was going to object, then closed them again. With Whitetail in the lead, the cats jumped down into the bed of the stream and headed into the unknown forest. The trees closed over their heads; they padded forward in the dim green light, turning their heads to check for danger on each side. Lionblaze realized that the WindClan warrior had chosen the best cover available by keeping them in the empty stream, where they could duck down to hide if necessary.

“There’s mud here!” Dovepaw exclaimed, shaking one forepaw in disgust. “I walked right into it.”

“That’s good,” Rippletail meowed. “Where there’s mud there might be water. It looks as if the stream here doesn’t get as much direct sunlight.”

The RiverClan warrior was right. A few tail-lengths farther on, Whitetail spotted a small puddle of water underneath the overhanging bank, behind the roots of an oak tree. All the cats gathered around to drink. It was warm and tasted muddy, but Lionblaze didn’t think he’d ever lapped up anything so delicious.

When the cats had drunk their fill, they trudged onward. Every so often, Whitetail told one of them to leap up