The Fourth Apprentice

By now both dogs were jumping up at the tree, snapping wildly at Sedgewhisker’s dangling tail. For a moment Lionblaze was convinced that Toadfoot had leaped short and would fall into their jaws. Then the branch lurched alarmingly as he landed beside Lionblaze and reached down, sinking his front claws into Sedgewhisker’s scruff.

Slowly the two warriors dragged the WindClan cat upward until she could sink her claws into the branch again. “Thank you! Oh, thank you!” she gasped, shaking so hard that she almost fell off again.

Lionblaze steadied her with his tail. “Thanks,” he mewed to Toadfoot.

The ShadowClan cat grunted, with a barely visible nod, as if he was embarrassed to be caught helping cats from rival Clans.

Lionblaze heard Twolegs yowling through the trees. The two dogs turned and loped off in the direction of the voices, casting reluctant glances back at the cats. When their noise had died away and the forest was quiet once more, Lionblaze guided Sedgewhisker down to the ground, while Toadfoot went back to his original tree to help Petalfur. All the cats descended shakily and gathered together beside the stream, crouching among the brittle stems of sun-dried grass.

“I think I’ve wrenched my shoulder,” Sedgewhisker mewed, flexing her foreleg with a grimace. “I’m so sorry, Lionblaze. I’m being such a nuisance.”

“Nonsense, you’re fine,” Lionblaze reassured her. “We can’t all be good at everything. If we had to run away from something, you and Whitetail would outpace every cat.”

“Not when my shoulder’s hurting,” Sedgewhisker muttered miserably.

“Mothwing taught me a bit about herbs before we left,” Rippletail put in, giving Sedgewhisker’s shoulder a sniff. “She says a poultice of elder leaves is good for sprains. Should I go look for some?”

“Good idea,” Lionblaze replied. “But don’t go far.”

“I won’t.” Rippletail darted off, looking glad to be doing something useful.

“What are we going to do, if some of us can’t even climb trees?” Tigerheart asked when the RiverClan cat had gone. “How can we hope to do what we have to?”

The young warrior’s anxiety struck Lionblaze like a claw, especially since he had been so optimistic earlier. The other cats were murmuring in agreement.

“We don’t even know what we have to face,” Sedgewhisker pointed out. “I mean, how do we know that the stream has been blocked at all? It might just have dried up in the heat. We could be walking forever!” she ended with a wail.

Glancing at his apprentice, Lionblaze noticed that she was looking worried. He edged over to her and bent his head to whisper into her ear. “You’re not wrong. I trust you.”

Dovepaw looked a little more relieved, though Lionblaze saw that her claws were still working in the earth in front of her.

By this time the sun had almost gone; the sky above the trees was stained red, and shadows were gathering around the trunks.

“I think we should stay here for the night,” Whitetail meowed. “We all need to rest—Sedgewhisker especially.”

“But is it safe?” Petalfur asked, her voice edged with fear. “What if the dogs come back? Maybe we should sleep in the trees.”

“No, you would probably fall out when you fell asleep,” Toadfoot told her brusquely.

Petalfur’s eyes stretched wide with alarm. “Then what are we going to do?”

“It’ll be okay,” Lionblaze reassured her. “We’ll take turns to keep watch.” Before any other cat could argue, he sprang to his paws. “Let’s collect some fern and moss for bedding.”

Dovepaw and Petalfur jumped down into the stream to look for moss, while Lionblaze and the others started to tear up fronds of dried bracken.

“You stay here and rest your shoulder,” Lionblaze told Sedgewhisker. “Rippletail should be back soon.”

By the time the RiverClan warrior came back with a bundle of elder leaves in his jaws, the other cats had formed bracken fronds into rough den walls, while Petalfur and Dovepaw had patted moss into nests.

“Here we are,” Rippletail mewed cheerfully, dropping the leaves beside Sedgewhisker. “We’ll chew these up and put them on your shoulder, and by morning you shouldn’t have any more trouble.”

Sedgewhisker blinked at him. “Thank you.”

As the patrol found places for themselves in the makeshift den, Lionblaze realized how awkward it felt to be settling down with cats from rival Clans; each cat was huddling together with their Clanmate, and Tigerheart practically jumped out of his pelt when Petalfur accidentally flicked him with her tail.

“Sorry,” she whispered, looking embarrassed.

Lionblaze nearly put his paw down on Whitetail’s ear, and he flew back, brushing Toadfoot’s pelt as he did so.

“Watch it!” the ShadowClan warrior growled.

Lionblaze gave him a brief nod of apology and jumped over the bracken wall to stand on the edge of the stream. “I’ll take the first watch,” he announced.