The Fourth Apprentice

Lionblaze spotted Dovepaw crouching beside a jutting rock, her eyes glazed with fear. “I should have heard the Twolegs coming!” she whispered. “I should have known what was going to happen and warned you.”

Lionblaze glanced over his shoulder at the other cats, who were getting ready to move off again. “Dovepaw has some gravel in her pad,” he called. “We need to lick it out; we’ll be with you in a couple of heartbeats.”

Then he leaned over Dovepaw so that no other cat could hear what he was saying. “You’re not responsible for all of us. You’re on this mission because you were the first to sense the brown animals blocking the stream, but that doesn’t mean that the rest of us can’t hear and see things and protect ourselves.”

Dovepaw blinked up at him unhappily. “I hate it here, so close to the Twolegplace,” she murmured. “It’s too much—all the sounds and scents and images in my head. I can’t cope with it! I can only concentrate on what is close by.” Her eyes widened into huge pools of misery. “It’s like being blind!”

Lionblaze bent his head and touched his nose to her ear in a gesture of comfort. At the same time he pushed away a stab of worry that Dovepaw had needed to block out so much to cope with the stress of being in a strange territory. He realized how much he had been depending on her to tell them what was up ahead.

We’ll be fine without her powers, he reassured himself. After all, other cats have made journeys with just their ordinary senses.

“It’ll be okay,” he mewed. “At least we’ve found the stream again.” He could still hear the noise of Twolegs beyond the tall grass, their loud voices interspersed with thumps of the smooth boulder-thing.

“That can’t possibly be a rock,” Sedgewhisker observed, her ears quivering. “They would break their paws if it was.”

Just as she finished speaking, the boulder crashed into the long grass ahead of them and lodged at the very edge of the bank. Tigerheart and Sedgewhisker darted forward to take a look at it.

“Be careful!” Whitetail and Toadfoot called out in the same heartbeat, then gave each other an embarrassed glance.

The two younger warriors didn’t take any notice. Tigerheart scrambled up the side of the streambed and gave the boulder a nudge with his nose.

“It’s not a rock!” he meowed in surprise. “Look!” He gave the boulder another nudge and it bounced away from him, lighter than a twig.

“Mouse-brain!” Lionblaze hissed. He ran forward and gave the boulder a harder shove, sending it farther off. “Keep away,” he warned Tigerheart and Sedgewhisker. “It’s a Twoleg thing!”

Before the three cats could hide in the streambed again, one of the young Twolegs came blundering through the long grass, yowling to his companions. Lionblaze guessed that he was looking for the round thing.

“Hide!” he hissed. “Keep down!”

He crouched down beside Tigerheart and Sedgewhisker, feeling very exposed with only the grass stems to hide him. Tigerheart was tense with alarm, but Sedgewhisker seemed perfectly comfortable, keeping still and silent, not even blinking, as her gaze followed the young Twoleg.

That figures, Lionblaze thought. WindClan cats are used to hunting without ground cover.

Several moons seemed to pass before the Twoleg found the round thing and ran off with it. Gradually the noise from the Twolegs died away. The three cats slid down into the stream again; Toadfoot was waiting for his Clanmate with his neck fur bristling.

“Are you completely mouse-brained?” he demanded. “Do you want Twolegs to catch you?”

“Sorry,” Tigerheart mumbled.

Whitetail glared at Sedgewhisker, who ducked her head apologetically.

“Let’s get a move on,” Toadfoot meowed. “We’ve wasted enough time here.” He set off at a run, glancing back to add, “The brown animals won’t be anywhere around here, right?”

“Er…right,” Dovepaw stammered.

The stream skirted the green expanse where the Twolegs were playing, then ran between rows of Twoleg nests, with neat patches of grass that stretched down to the bank. Trees overhung the channel; Lionblaze was thankful for the shade and the cover, especially when he heard the yowls of young Twolegs coming from their nests.

Popping his head up above the bank from time to time, he spotted Twoleg kits chasing one another or kicking more of the smooth, round things. Once he saw a young Twoleg screeching happily as it swung from a tree on a piece of wood suspended between two long tendrils.

“What do you think that is?” he asked Whitetail, who had climbed up beside him.

“I have no idea.” The WindClan she-cat shrugged. “Whatever it is, the kit is having fun.”