Alderpaw’s belly rumbled, and he realized how hungry he was. He had barely eaten anything since he and his friends had arrived in the gorge two days before. He wondered if he would be in trouble if he caught the bird for himself instead of taking it back to camp, then reminded himself that he wasn’t in ThunderClan now.
He stalked the thrush as it fluttered deeper into the forest; then, keeping two trees back, he scrambled up the trunk of a beech tree and out onto a branch. He tried to remember everything he had been taught before he’d been told he was a terrible hunter and would be much better off as a medicine cat.
Creeping forward stealthily, Alderpaw managed to cross into the tree where the thrush was perching. It seemed to be unaware of him.
He was bunching his muscles to pounce when another cat exploded upward from the forest floor in a massive leap. Its forepaws were outstretched to grab the bird, but it missed by a mouse-length. With a yowl of rage the cat fell backward, tumbling back to the ground. The thrush, startled, flew away.
“Fox dung!” Alderpaw hissed.
The strange cat—a ragged, skinny gray tom—scrambled to his paws and glared up at Alderpaw. “It’s your fault I missed it!” he snarled. “Didn’t you see I was already stalking it? You made me rush.”
But Alderpaw had forgotten all about the thrush. Now that he got a clear sight of the newcomer, he was too stunned to do anything but stare.
He remembered seeing the gray tom in the circle of cats who had watched the ceremony when Leafstar had made a new warrior. But then he had been a healthy Clan cat with a glossy pelt. Now he looked just like a mangy rogue, all his ribs showing through matted fur.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“My name’s Mistfeather,” the cat replied roughly. “What’s it to you?”
Cautiously, never taking his gaze from the gray tom, Alderpaw climbed down the tree trunk. Keeping his distance so that Mistfeather wouldn’t think he was looking for a fight, he dipped his head politely.
“Greetings,” he mewed. “I’m sorry about the thrush. My name is Alderpaw, and I come from ThunderClan.”
The gray tom’s eyes widened in a mixture of wonder and disbelief. “ThunderClan!” he exclaimed. “Then you must know Firestar. I wasn’t born when he came to restore my Clan, but his story was told at every full moon upon the Skyrock. We honored him above all cats.”
Alderpaw felt as if every hair on his pelt was rising in excitement. He opened his jaws to tell Mistfeather that Firestar was dead, then decided this wasn’t the moment. Instead he asked, “Were you exiled from your Clan?”
The gray tom stared back at him. “Was
“No,
“What do you mean?” Alderpaw asked, staring at him incredulously.
Mistfeather beckoned him nearer with a twitch of his tail. Alderpaw sat among the roots of the tree where he had stalked the thrush, and the gray tom crouched close beside him.
“You’ve met those cats in the gorge, right?”
Mistfeather began. “I bet they let you think they were SkyClan, but they’re not. They’re vicious rogues who attacked the real SkyClan and took our territory for themselves.”
Alderpaw’s first reaction was a profound relief.
But he was also surprised to hear that such a terrible fate had come to SkyClan.
“Where did the rogues come from?” he asked.
“I have no idea,” Mistfeather replied. “And I have no idea what rules they follow—if they follow any at all. They’re evil!”
In the wake of his relief, doubts began to creep into Alderpaw’s mind. “Surely a whole
Clan should have been able to fight them off?”
Mistfeather couldn’t meet his gaze; his whiskers drooped in shame. “Times had been hard for us, and to tell you the truth, we had as many daylight-warriors as we did cats who lived all the time in the gorge.”
“Daylight-warriors?”
Alderpaw asked, mystified.
“Cats who came to hunt and train with us warriors during the day,” Mistfeather explained.
“Then at night they would go back to their Twolegs.”
“You mean they were