Outcast

“He’ll have your tails for fresh-kill if he catches you.”

“We’ll make sure he doesn’t catch us.” Lionpaw’s amber eyes glowed with a strange light. A shiver ran through Hollypaw from her ears to her tail tip. She didn’t want to let her brother go off in this mood, especially with Breezepaw, who’d already shown he couldn’t be trusted in a crisis. But she knew that she couldn’t stop him, unless she told the senior warriors what he was planning.

“Okay,” she meowed. “I’m coming with you.”

Breezepaw glared at her. “No cat invited you.”

“Let her come.” Lionpaw rested the tip of his tail on Hollypaw’s shoulder. “Three will be better than two when we’re searching for prey. And Hollypaw is one of the best hunters in the Clan. She’s nearly as good as Sandstorm!”

“Okay, then,” Breezepaw meowed ungraciously.

Hollypaw cast another glance up the line of the hedge.

The other cats had disappeared, though their scent told her they weren’t far away.

“Come on,” Lionpaw whispered.

He spun around and raced across a stretch of open ground toward the Twoleg fence. Hollypaw and Breezepaw followed, the grass brushing their belly fur and their tails streaming out. Hollypaw pricked her ears for yowls of anger behind them, but all was quiet.

The fence was made of the same shiny stuff as the fence around the horseplace. Lionpaw flattened himself to the ground and wriggled underneath the lowest strand, springing to his paws as soon as he reached the other side.

“Hurry up!” he urged.

Hollypaw wriggled underneath, feeling the shiny fence-stuff scrape against her back, and remembering her mother’s story of getting stuck on a fence like this during her first journey. Her paws tingled with the fear that she would get stuck too.

Then she was safely through, and Breezepaw was scrabbling under the fence after her. Lionpaw was already racing down a narrow gap between the Twoleg nests. Water flooded Hollypaw’s mouth again at the overwhelming scent of mice.

Following her brother, she halted briefly at the edge of another open space, this one covered with stone.

Opposite where the three apprentices were standing was one of the big Twoleg nests. Across the entrance was a wooden barrier that stood slightly ajar; inside, the nest was dark. Lionpaw glanced around. Although Hollypaw could scent both dogs and Twolegs, there was no sign of either.

“Get on with it!” Breezepaw muttered.

Lionpaw signaled with his tail, and the three young cats bounded across the open space and slipped through the gap into the nest.

Once inside, Hollypaw stood still, panting from exertion and fear, until her eyes got used to the dim light. The walls of the nest were made of rough stone. Light angled in from the entrance and from a few narrow gaps high in the walls. Dust motes danced golden in the greenish rays, but the rest of the nest lay in shadow. The scent of mouse was stronger still, but Hollypaw was too edgy to hunt. She turned and looked back the way they had come.

Behind her she heard the scamper of paws, and a thin shriek that cut off abruptly.

“First kill!” Breezepaw declared with glee. Hollypaw glanced back to see him crouched over the body of a plump mouse.

Lionpaw had dropped into the hunter’s crouch, his haunches waggling from side to side and his eyes fixed on something in the shadows. Hollypaw bit back a gasp as she made out the shape of an enormous rat. It was nearly as big as Lionpaw.

Lionpaw pounced; there was a brief flurry of movement and a squeal from the rat that broke off a heartbeat later as Lionpaw bit down hard on its neck. He stood over his prey, his eyes glowing with pride.

“Brilliant catch!” Hollypaw exclaimed.

“Not bad,” Breezepaw mumbled around a mouthful of mouse.

Lionpaw started dragging his prey by its tail into the center of the nest. “Come and share,” he invited Hollypaw. “I can’t possibly eat all this by myself.”

“Thanks, I—” Hollypaw broke off at the sound of movement from outside and a sudden sharp scent.

For a couple of heartbeats she stared, frozen, at the gap leading out into the open. She couldn’t see anything, but she heard snuffling at the bottom of the wooden barrier, the thud of heavy paws, and a low-pitched growling.

Breezepaw’s eyes stretched wide. “Dogs!”

Chapter 17

“We’ve got to get out!” The WindClan apprentice abandoned the remains of his mouse and bounded toward the entrance, only to skid to a halt a couple of fox-lengths away. Three skinny black-and-white shapes had appeared in the gap, their jaws hanging open and their eyes shining as they surveyed the cats.

“One each.” Lionpaw’s voice was dry with fear. “Great.”

Hollypaw looked around. There were no other entrances to the nest and no gaps in the stone walls, except for those where the light came in, too high for a cat to leap.

The dogs began to creep forward, their heads lowered and their legs bent, ready to sprint after the cats. Now I know what prey feels like, Hollypaw thought. She and the two toms backed away nervously.