The Apprentice's Quest

Sparkpaw pushed Needlepaw ahead of her and brought up the rear. “I swear by StarClan,” Sparkpaw hissed as she emerged, “if you behave like this for much longer, I’m going to claw your ears off.”

Needlepaw swiped playfully at her. “You can always try.”

“Let’s go,” Alderpaw mewed curtly.

He headed out into the stretch of yellow-brown plants. Their stalks were hard and scratchy, and the ground underpaw was hard, bare earth. At least Needlepaw seemed to have calmed down as she slid through the gaps between the plants.

The rumbling sound Alderpaw could hear grew louder, and he guessed that they might be coming to the Thunderpath. Then he realized that the plants on one side were thinning.

Veering in that direction, he poked his head out of cover. His companions clustered around him, peering over his shoulder.

There was no

Thunderpath.

Instead

Alderpaw saw a stretch of ground where the plants had been cut down, leaving only stubble behind. Now he discovered where the rumbling came from: a huge monster with spinning jaws was moving straight toward them, slicing off the next swath of plants and tossing them into its belly! All around it the air was full of dust.

Alderpaw felt as if his whole body had been suddenly drenched in icy water. “It’s eating the field!” he gasped out.

“And it’ll eat us!” Sandstorm meowed. “It could gulp down all six of us at once. Run!”

Alderpaw whipped around and began to race through the plants, bobbing and weaving as gaps opened up. Behind him he heard Cherryfall yowl, “Stay together!”

Glancing over his shoulder, Alderpaw could spot all the other cats racing along with him.

The tall plants blocked his view of the monster, but he knew it was close—the noise it made seemed loud enough to rattle the air. We have to keep running!

As he fled, Alderpaw realized that the hard ground had given way to soft mud that clung to his paws and gave off a terrible smell. He was too scared to wonder what it was, or to do anything except keep on pelting away from the monster.

Alderpaw was glancing behind him again when he suddenly crashed into something hard but springy that bounced him back a tail-length into the plants. Regaining his balance, he looked up and let out a groan.

“No! I don’t believe it!”

He was facing another fence made out of the shiny tendrils with the spikes along the top.

His companions gathered around him.

“We’ll have to climb it,” Molewhisker meowed, “or the monster will get us.”

“Right.” Sparkpaw took the lead, climbing rapidly up the fence and hurling herself down on the other side into soft grass. “Hurry!” she urged the others.

Needlepaw went next. While Alderpaw was waiting for his turn, he noticed that some of the foul-smelling mud had got into Sandstorm’s wound, which was red and swollen now.

Alderpaw was certain that it was infected. And Sandstorm was standing with her head lowered and her chest heaving; she was clearly exhausted, much more so than her age and the race through the plants would explain.

It must be her wound, Alderpaw told himself. I can just feel it. With an inward start of surprise he realized that this must be part of what being a good medicine cat was all about. I can’t just see that she should probably rest; I can tell that she needs to.

“You ought to rest,” he mewed to Sandstorm.

Sandstorm raised her head and gave him an annoyed look. “I’m an elder,” she retorted. “I’ve been around for a long time. I know I’m okay.”

Alderpaw had heard that argument before, and this time he wasn’t about to accept it. “No!” he meowed sharply.

Sandstorm’s eyes stretched wide in outrage.

“What do you mean, no?”

“Sorry,” Alderpaw responded. “It’s just that I can tell how tired you are. I’m your medicine cat, and I’m saying you need to rest.”

The ginger she-cat hesitated for a moment.

“Maybe you’re right. But let’s get across this StarClan-cursed fence first.”

She began to climb without waiting for a reply. Alderpaw could see how hard it was for her to haul herself upward. When she reached the top, she toppled rather than jumped onto the far side, letting out a screech as she fell.

Alderpaw scrambled over the fence without even thinking about it, and ran to Sandstorm.

His eyes widened with horror as he saw her wound pooling with blood. She must have torn it on one of those spikes!

“That does it,” he growled. “We rest now.”

Turning to the others, he added, “Find me some cobwebs.”

The cats scattered to search among the bushes that were dotted here and there across the grassland. While he waited for them to return, Alderpaw licked the clinging mud out of Sandstorm’s wound. The old cat just lay on her side, panting.

When his companions returned, Alderpaw packed the wound with cobwebs, but blood still kept oozing out of it. He gazed down at Sandstorm, trying to ignore his rising panic.