The Apprentice's Quest

“Anyway,” Alderpaw went on, energy surging back into his paws, “all we have to do is follow their scent. Come on!”

“And climb back down that StarClan-cursed waterfall!” Needlepaw groaned as she followed him.

The scent trail led downstream, sometimes by the waterside, sometimes ranging farther away. Now and again individual scents split off from the main trail, but they always joined it again.

“They’re searching for us,” Needlepaw mewed. “I can’t think how we missed them.”

But when they reached the bushes near the Twoleg dens where they had curled up to rest, they found that the scent trail led onward, past their makeshift den and along the grass between the river and the Thunderpath.

“I don’t believe it!” Needlepaw snarled with a lash of her tail. “They missed us! They must have walked straight past while we were asleep.”

Alderpaw bit back a growl of frustration.

“We were so wet, the water would have washed out our scent,” he meowed. “And all these

Twoleg scents don’t help. But it’s not so bad. At least we know that they’re alive, and they haven’t been recaptured by Darktail. All we have to do is follow them.”

But when he and Needlepaw headed downstream, they found it wasn’t as easy as that. There were so many conflicting reeks of Twolegs and monsters covering the scent trail.

Finally they came to a place where Alderpaw guessed that a monster must have stopped, leaving splashes of something dark and foul-smelling on the grass. The cat scent was completely swamped, and they couldn’t pick it up again on the other side.

“We’ve lost them,” Alderpaw mewed.

“They probably think we drowned,” Needlepaw responded in a tiny voice. “Who knows where they went after this?”

“They must still be following the river,” Alderpaw pointed out. “Where else is there for them to go? There’s no way of crossing here.”

“Maybe.” Needlepaw seemed unusually despondent. “But what if we’re wrong? What if we never find them?”

Alderpaw swallowed hard. “Then we have to find our own way back to camp from here,” he stated, trying to sound confident. “If they give up looking for us, that’s where they’ll go.”

Glancing around, Alderpaw realized that he had no idea where they were. They had approached the gorge from the opposite bank, and everything looked different from where he was standing now. He wasn’t even certain if they had been swept past the point where they had first come upon the river.

“We have to cross back to the other side,” he meowed, “and then head toward the setting sun.”

“That’s a bit vague,” Needlepaw pointed out with a sniff. “We could completely miss the lake and the Clan territory. And don’t even think about swimming across the river, because I’m not going to.”

“No cat asked you to,” Alderpaw meowed mildly. “We’ll head downstream on this side to start with, and maybe there’ll be a fallen tree or something where we can cross. We might even catch up with the others, if we’re lucky.”

Needlepaw let out a snort. “We could use a bit of luck!”

By this time the sun was starting to go down, casting scarlet light over the river.

Alderpaw realized they would soon have to look for somewhere to spend the night. At least we’re far from those Twoleg dens, he thought.

Soon the Thunderpath veered away from the river, so that a grassy stretch of ground opened up, dotted here and there with clumps of bushes.

“This would be a good place to rest,” Alderpaw meowed, stretching his jaws in a yawn. “Any chance of prey?”

Needlepaw perked up at the thought of hunting. “Just watch me!”

She disappeared into the nearest bushes and returned a few moments later with the limp body of a blackbird dangling from her jaws.

Meanwhile Alderpaw found a sheltered hollow underneath the branches of a hazel bush and scraped together some dead leaves to make a nest. As he ate his share of the fresh-kill, he realized how exhausted he was. Not even his worries about finding his way home were enough to keep him from falling into a deep sleep. But StarClan still did not visit him in his dreams.

For three more sunrises Alderpaw and Needlepaw trekked along the river. Their hopes revived when now and again they picked up traces of their friends’ scents and knew that they were still following in their paw steps. The river rolled on, wider and stronger now; there was nowhere safe for the cats to cross.

During the third day Alderpaw began to pick up the reek of monsters again, and there was a haze in the air ahead of them. Shortly after sunhigh more Twoleg dens loomed on the horizon.

“That’s a really big Twolegplace,” Alderpaw meowed, stifling a groan. “And I know we never passed it on the way to the gorge. We’ve come too far downriver.”

Needlepaw shrugged. “We didn’t have much choice.”

“And we still don’t.” Alderpaw cast a glance at the surging river, the far bank looking impossibly far away. “We’re going to have to travel through the filthy place.”