The Fourth Apprentice

Dovepaw flung herself back into the swirling chaos of the Twolegplace. This time she slowed down, listening at each corner, letting the images fill her mind until she could see the smallest details: the shadows of leaves on the dark green bushes, the wide pink faces of Twoleg kits, the gleam of sleeping monsters.

Cats. You’re looking for cats… There’s one!

Dovepaw picked up the whisk of a tail, the sound of paw steps scrabbling up a wall and down onto some grass. Carefully focusing, she let her senses follow it and tasted the scent.

No, it’s not one of the kittypets we met. Too young and skittish.

As her senses reached out again, a meow a little farther away caught her attention. That sounds familiar… Tracing the sound, she spotted Seville, the big ginger tom, calling out to Jigsaw as he basked in the sun. And Jigsaw is…Dovepaw heard the scrape of claws on wood, and she knew the fat black-and-brown tom was balancing on a fence above Seville.

“I’ve found them!” she exclaimed joyfully. Opening her eyes wide, she gazed at Lionblaze. “Come on!”

Taking the lead, she padded along the edge of the stream, past the place with the rabbits, until they reached a narrow path leading between two of the Twoleg nests. Dovepaw’s fur bristled as she emerged onto a Thunderpath; the reek of monsters and the noise of Twolegs in their dens flooded over her until all she wanted to do was turn tail and run back to the forest to stuff leaves into her ears and nose.

The growl of a monster sounded from farther down the Thunderpath. Dovepaw leaped back, crashing into Lionblaze. “Sorry!” she gasped as the sleek, brightly colored monster swept past. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

“Yes, you can.” Lionblaze pushed his nose into her shoulder fur. “You can do it for the Clans. Now, do we have to cross this Thunderpath?”

Dovepaw nodded. Her heart was thumping so hard she thought it would burst out of her chest as her mentor nudged her gently to the edge of the hard black strip.

“When I say run, run,” he instructed her. He looked carefully both ways, his ears pricked for the sound of monsters, then raised his tail. “Run!”

Biting back a yowl of terror, Dovepaw launched herself forward. Her pads skimmed the surface of the Thunderpath; then she was safely across, shivering as she pressed herself into the shelter of a hedge.

“Well done!” Lionblaze purred. “Now where do we go?”

Pull yourself together! Dovepaw told herself fiercely. “This way.” She led Lionblaze along the edge of the Thunderpath, slipping behind a tree to hide as a slow-moving monster prowled past. “Do you think it’s looking for us?” she whispered.

Lionblaze shrugged. “I doubt it. But no cat knows what monsters are thinking.”

Turning away from the Thunderpath, following her sense of Seville’s and Jigsaw’s presence, Dovepaw found herself in a maze of narrow paths between walls of red stone and high wooden fences. As she rounded a corner, she almost stepped on a sleeping kittypet; the black tom sprang up, hissing, and leaped onto a fence before vanishing into the next garden.

Dovepaw let out a gusty breath of relief, then jumped, startled by the sound of a dog barking behind the fence on the other side.

“It’s okay,” Lionblaze mewed, though Dovepaw saw that his neck fur was bristling. “It can’t get at us.”

“I hope you’re right,” Dovepaw muttered.

The crisscrossing paths didn’t seem to lead anywhere. Have I gotten us lost? Dovepaw wondered. Then, where two paths crossed, she scented the sharp tang of chopped grass and spotted a bush with strong-smelling red flowers. Yes! I’ve scented those before…and I remember that pattern of shadows the bush is casting on the path.

“We need to go around this corner,” she explained to Lionblaze over her shoulder as she quickened her pace. “Now over this wall…”

She leaped up, with her mentor beside her, and down onto a square of smooth green grass. Seville was basking at the foot of the fence on the other side.

“Hi, Seville!” Dovepaw called, racing across the grass to touch noses with the big orange tom.

Seville’s green eyes widened with surprise. “It’s the journeying cats!” he meowed. “What are you doing here? Did you find the animals you were looking for? Did you free the water?”

“We found the animals,” Lionblaze told him. “But we can’t free the water. We…we need help.”

“Do you mean our help?” a voice called from above. “Wow!”

Dovepaw looked up to see Jigsaw perched on top of the fence, his black-and-brown tabby pelt almost hidden in the shade of a holly tree. He jumped down, his fur fluffing up as he touched noses with Dovepaw and then Lionblaze.

Seville blinked, his eyes wary as he looked from Lionblaze to Dovepaw and then back again. “What exactly do you mean?” he rumbled.