The Fourth Apprentice

“A monster,” Lionblaze told her, his voice tense. “They run along these Thunderpaths.” He waved his tail at the stretch of flat black stone. “We saw lots of them when we went to the Twolegplace to find Sol.”

“We had to cross Thunderpaths on the Great Journey, too,” Whitetail added, “and there was one that went past the old forest. They’re dangerous; we all need to be very careful.”

Dovepaw warily approached the edge of the Thunderpath and gave it an experimental sniff. Her nose wrinkled at the bitter scent. The rest of the patrol stood alongside her; Tigerheart set a paw cautiously on the hard black surface, then drew it back.

“We’d better stop hanging around,” Lionblaze meowed, “and get across while it’s still quiet.” Padding over to Dovepaw, he murmured, “Is it safe? Are there any more monsters coming?”

Dovepaw extended her senses, listening for another of the terrifying creatures, but there was nothing in either direction. “It’s okay,” she whispered.

“Right.” Lionblaze raised his voice. “Follow me as quick as you can, and don’t stop!”

He thrust off from the grass verge and bounded across the Thunderpath. Dovepaw followed, keeping her gaze fixed on him, but aware of the other cats running alongside. They reached the strip of grass on the far side only to be brought up short by a fence of shiny, crisscrossing silver stuff that stretched up far above Dovepaw’s head.

“Now what do we do?” Rippletail wailed. “We can’t go any farther this way.”

“Over here!” Toadfoot called from a few tail-lengths along the fence. “There’s a hole I think we can wriggle through.”

He flattened himself to the ground and pulled himself forward through a narrow gap at the bottom of the fence, standing up a few heartbeats later on the grass on the other side. “Come on, it’s easy,” he urged his companions.

Whitetail followed him through and then Dovepaw did the same, shivering at the touch of the hard Twoleg stuff against her back as she squirmed through the gap. The rest of the cats followed, with Lionblaze keeping watch until they were safely on the other side. Finally he struggled through, grunting with the effort as he pushed himself along.

Dovepaw stood still, looking around. A smooth field stretched in front of her, the grass much greener than she had seen it anywhere else since the heat and the drought began. Beyond it were Twoleg nests built of some kind of red rock. Dovepaw had never imagined that there could be so many Twoleg nests all in one place. Noise poured out from them like clap after clap of thunder; she shook as the din swept around her, flooding her senses. Twolegs were screeching and chattering, banging and roaring, in an endless surge of sound.

Desperately Dovepaw tried to block it out, to focus on the cats around her, and on what she could see directly in front of her. Only then did she realize what she couldn’t see.

“Where’s the stream?” she gasped.

Chapter 16

Lionblaze heard panic in his apprentice’s wail and saw the fear in her eyes. Quietly he padded over to her and rested his tail on her shoulders. “Calm down,” he murmured. “It’ll be okay.”

Rippletail was looking around. “Water doesn’t run uphill,” the RiverClan cat meowed, “so the stream must be somewhere over there.” He pointed with his tail to a line of long grass at the bottom of a green slope.

“Let’s check it out,” Toadfoot suggested.

He let Rippletail take the lead as the cats trotted in single file alongside the silver fence. Before they had covered many fox-lengths, Lionblaze heard loud Twoleg voices coming from the other side of the field. A group of Twoleg kits erupted into the open, shouting noisily and kicking what looked like a smooth, round boulder with their hind paws.

“Hurry!” he called to his companions as the young Twolegs ran across the grass toward them.

Every cat picked up the pace until they were racing with their tails streaming out. Lionblaze felt the ground shake under his paws as the young Twolegs came nearer, still yowling and kicking the boulder-thing back and forth between them. With a gasp of relief he plunged into the cover of the long grass at the bottom of the slope, but his gasp changed to a screech of alarm as the ground gave way under his paws. He rolled and bumped down a shallow cliff, paws and tail thrashing, and landed with a thump on hard, pebble-strewn earth.

“It’s the stream!” Petalfur mewed.

Dazed, Lionblaze sat up and looked around. He was back in the dry streambed, with overhanging grasses almost meeting above his head. His companions were scattered beside him, picking themselves up and examining scraped pads and snagged fur.

“I’ve swallowed every piece of the grit in this stream!” Tigerheart complained, spitting.

“No, you haven’t,” Toadfoot growled, giving his pelt a shake. “It’s all over my fur!”