The Fourth Apprentice

to intercept any rabbit that might make a dash for safety. He saw Whitetail bunch her muscles to leap over the fence. A heartbeat later she froze as a loud yowl came from a tree a few tail-lengths away.

“Hey! You! Hold it right there!”

Lionblaze stared in astonishment as three kittypets leaped down from the tree and raced across the grass to stand between the WindClan cats and the rabbits. In the lead was an orange tom with glaring yellow eyes, followed by a small white she-cat and a fat black-and-brown tabby tom.

The orange tom planted himself right in front of Whitetail; his two companions stood just behind him. They both looked terrified, their fur fluffed out and their ears flattened.

“You can’t hunt these rabbits,” the orange tom declared, baring his teeth in the beginnings of a snarl.

“Oh, yeah?” Sedgewhisker rose from her hunter’s crouch to stand nose to nose with the kittypet. “We’ll fight you for them, if that’s what you want. You should lay more scent markers if you want cats to stay out of your territory!”

“Territory?” The white she-cat sounded confused. “What are you meowing about?”

“Territory!” Toadfoot snarled, padding up to stand beside Sedgewhisker. “Don’t pretend you’re so dumb that you don’t know what territory is.”

“This is my housefolk’s nest,” the black-and-brown tom mewed.

“But the rabbits aren’t in the nest, are they?” Whitetail sounded as if she was talking to particularly stupid kits. “Unless this territory is scent-marked, they’re free for any cat to hunt.”

“No, they’re not,” the orange tom insisted, his neck fur bristling up.

Tigerheart narrowed his eyes. “Look, kittypet-”

“This is ridiculous,” Sedgewhisker interrupted impatiently. “There are two perfectly good rabbits waiting to be caught, and all we can do is argue. Are you hunting them?” she asked the kittypets. “Because-”

All three kittypets let out gasps of horror, their eyes stretched wide.

“No!” the tabby tom exclaimed. “Those rabbits belong to my housefolk.”

“We would be in big trouble if we hunted them,” the orange tom added.

“That’s right,” the white she-cat meowed. “Every cat around here knows about the tom who hunted his housefolk’s rabbit.” Her voice grew hushed. “They took him to the Cutter, and he was never the same afterward.”

Lionblaze and the other Clan cats exchanged puzzled glances. “Now I’ve heard everything,” Rippletail remarked. “Kittypets guarding Twoleg rabbits!”

“So what?” Toadfoot growled. “I’m going to get the rabbits anyway. They look fat and slow enough for any cat to catch, not just WindClan.”

He hurled himself at the shiny fence and started to claw his way up it. Immediately the orange tom grabbed Toadfoot’s tail in his teeth and yanked him down again.

Toadfoot scrambled to his paws and spun around, claws extended. “Back off, kittypet!” he spat. “Do you think I’ll let you stop me?”

“No.” Lionblaze shouldered his way between the two cats. “We’ll look elsewhere for prey.”

“Right.” Whitetail sounded disappointed, but her voice was firm. “These rabbits are too well protected. We can’t risk getting injured now.”

Toadfoot went on glaring at the orange tom for a heartbeat longer, then shrugged angrily and turned away. The three kittypets stood in front of the fence and watched as the Clan cats padded across the grass and toward the streambed.

Even though Lionblaze had prevented the fight, he was still finding it hard to control his anger. What a waste of rabbits. We could all have had a good meal.

“Those kittypets think they’ve won!” Toadfoot exclaimed. He cast a last glance over his shoulder before he leaped back into the stream. “Look at them! I’d like to wipe those smug looks off their faces.”

“But Whitetail’s right: We can’t,” Petalfur reminded him. “We have to stay safe until we find the water.”

“Right,” Toadfoot muttered darkly. “But just wait till we’re on the way back…”

The patrol continued in silence until they left the Twoleg nests behind. The gardens gave way to a prickly copse with young trees poking out of a tangle of undergrowth.

“I think we should stop here and find something to eat,” Rippletail suggested.

Lionblaze could see that he and Petalfur were looking dull-eyed with exhaustion again. “Good idea,” he agreed, seeing Toadfoot curl his lip in frustration. “We don’t know when there’ll be another chance.”

The ShadowClan warrior let out an exaggerated sigh. “All right, let’s get it over with. And let’s hope we don’t have any more dumb kittypets getting in our way.”

Dovepaw’s tail shot up. “I can hear a bird over there,” she murmured to Lionblaze, angling her ears toward the other side of the copse. “It’s banging a snail against a stone.”

Lionblaze listened, but he couldn’t hear a thing. “Go for it,” he meowed, pleased that his apprentice was managing to use her extra-keen senses again.

Dovepaw scampered off happily, while Lionblaze stood for a moment tasting the air until he detected a squirrel near the top of a nearby tree. Swarming up the trunk, he had reached the branch underneath his quarry when a loud meow rang out from the ground below.

“Hello again!”

The squirrel sat straight up, startled, then bolted, hurling itself into the air and vanishing into the foliage of the next tree. Lionblaze let out an exasperated snort. Looking down, he spotted the white she-cat from the Twoleg nest with rabbits; she stood at the foot of his tree, gazing up at him with friendly green eyes.

“You just scared off my next meal,” Lionblaze complained, scrambling down to join her.

“Sorry.” The white kittypet blinked at him. “I just wanted to watch you hunting. I figured you’d stop here, since you tried to get those rabbits. Do you really have to feed yourselves? We sometimes catch mice, but it’s not like we have to. I mean, who’d want to eat fur and bones?”

Plenty of cats, Lionblaze thought when the kittypet paused for breath. Could she truly be that clueless? Spotting another squirrel at the edge of a bramble thicket, he gave her a quick nod of farewell and stalked off after it.

But the white she-cat followed him. “Are you hunting that squirrel?” she asked. “Can I watch? I’ll be quiet.”

Too late! Lionblaze groaned as the squirrel’s ears pricked; it leaped up the nearest tree to sit and chatter angrily at them from a low branch before disappearing.

“My name’s Snowdrop,” the white cat gabbled on, oblivious of what she had done. “The orange tom is called Seville, and the black-and-brown tabby is Jigsaw. Thanks for leaving the rabbits alone. It’s true about what happened to that other cat, the one who ate his housefolk’s rabbit.”

Lionblaze took a deep breath and turned to face her. “It’s nice to chat and all,” he mewed through gritted teeth, “but I’m kind of busy.”

He could have saved his breath; he could see Snowdrop wouldn’t have recognized a hint if it hit her over the head.

“What are you all doing here?” she meowed, peering through the trees at the other cats who were stalking their prey in peace. “Have you run away from your housefolk? Did you get lost? Are you looking for the way home?”

Lionblaze raised his tail in an effort to stem the flood of questions. “No, we’re not kittypets,” he meowed, trying not to feel offended. “We live in Clans, by a lake downstream from here.”

“Clans?” Snowdrop sounded bewildered.

“A whole bunch of cats who live together,” Lionblaze explained. “We have a leader-”

“What’s all this racket about?” Fronds of bracken parted to reveal Toadfoot, his fur bristling in annoyance. He dropped the mouse he was carrying. “For StarClan’s sake, you’re making enough noise to scare away all the prey between here and the lake.”

“Hello.” Snowdrop seemed quite unworried by the ShadowClan cat’s bad temper. “My name’s Snowdrop. What’s yours?”

Toadfoot exchanged a surprised glance with Lionblaze. “Never mind that,” he mewed briskly to Snowdrop. “We’re on a mission, and you can’t help us, so please leave us alone.”