Fading Echoes

Dovepaw was balancing at the tip of the willow’s longest branch. An ancient oak sprouted beyond it, gnarled and twisted with age. “I’m going to try this one,” she mewed over her shoulder.

“The bark’s very rough,” Lionblaze warned. “It looks old. There may be cracks in the branches you can’t see.” He quickened his pace, leaping past Cinderheart. “Wait until I’ve checked it!”

Too late!

Dovepaw was already leaping onto a branch of the oak. It cracked as she landed, snapping like a dry twig, and, with a yelp, she plummeted downward.

It was only three tail-lengths to the soft forest floor and she landed on her paws. But Lionblaze knew what was coming next.

“Look out!” He leaped from the willow, skidding across the forest floor and grabbing Dovepaw by the scruff.

“What?” she squawked as he dragged her backward. A moment later the ancient oak branch came crashing down.

Lionblaze screwed up his eyes, shielding Dovepaw with his body. When the branch had stopped rocking he turned on her angrily.

“However much you think you know, sometimes I’m right, okay?” he growled.

Dovepaw lifted her nose and sniffed. Then she turned and stalked away.

Chapter 5

Dovepaw stretched her aching legs. Her nest rustled as she fidgeted. Her denmates were fast asleep. They’d dozed off by the time the moon had risen above the hollow, tired after their training.

But Dovepaw felt wide-awake. She’d seen Sedgewhisker limping back to camp, supported by her Clanmates. She could smell the blood crusting over Sedgewhisker’s wound, feel the heat pulsing from her swollen leg. She needed to know how badly injured her WindClan friend was!

“Are you okay?” Ivypaw peered over the rim of her nest. Her eyes were round with worry. “Did the fall hurt you?”

“No,” Dovepaw answered honestly. Only her pride had been hurt. Lionblaze was so bossy! And now he was trying to tell her how to use her power. He should respect her, like Jayfeather did, not treat her like some dumb apprentice.

Ivypaw sat up. “You’re not tired at all?”

Dovepaw flicked her tail. “No.”

“Come on.” Ivypaw stepped from her nest. Blossompaw was snoring again. “Let’s go into the forest.”

Dovepaw’s heart gave a jolt as hope flashed through it. She sat up. What was Ivypaw planning?

Briarpaw rolled onto her back, her paws folded in the air like a rabbit’s.

“We haven’t been out at night since you went to find the beavers.” Ivypaw tiptoed to the entrance and slid out. The low branches of the yew den slicked Dovepaw’s fur as she followed eagerly. The starlit clearing glowed like a pool in the center of the shadowy hollow. Dovepaw could smell the forest above, musty with the scent of leaf-fall, damp with night dew.

She cast her senses out past the thorn barrier and scented Rosepetal guarding the camp entrance, her paws shifting on the ground, her breath coming in billows.

“I know a secret way out,” she told Ivypaw.

“Through the dirtplace tunnel?” Ivypaw guessed.

“Better than that.” Dovepaw crept around the edge of the clearing, past the entrance to the medicine den. She squeezed through the tangle of brambles beside it until she reached the rock wall beyond. Stretching up through the twisted stems, she reached for a low ledge and hauled herself up.

“Are you coming?” she hissed down to Ivypaw.

Her sister’s silver-and-white pelt was flashing beneath the bramble. “Coming,” Ivypaw breathed.

Dovepaw jumped up to the next ledge, then the next, until the dens of the camp looked like small clumps of scrub below her. Fizzing with excitement, she scrambled over the lip of the cliff and onto soft grass.

Ivypaw bounded up after her. “How did you find out about that?”

“Lionblaze.” He’d told her in case she ever needed to escape camp without being seen. I bet he didn’t expect me to use it so soon, she thought with a glimmer of satisfaction. I make my own decisions.

A half-moon lit the treetops, filtering through the bare branches and striping the forest floor silver. Breathing the musty scents of the night-damp forest, Dovepaw scampered into the trees.

Ivypaw ran beside her. “I wonder if anyone else is out?”

Dovepaw cast her senses through the trees, feeling for signs of movement. The waves on the lakeshore murmured softly, like the lapping of her mother’s tongue against her fur. Beyond the border, a ShadowClan kit wailed, waking from a bad dream, and across the lake, on the far side of RiverClan territory, Twolegs yowled in their nest.

“Where should we go?” Ivypaw’s question jerked her back. “What about the old Twoleg nest? It’s really spooky. I bet you’re not brave enough!”

No. Dovepaw knew exactly where she wanted to go. She could sense Sedgewhisker stirring in her nest, her eyes flickering as though the pain in her leg wouldn’t let her rest. “Let’s go to the moorland.”

Ivypaw skidded to a halt. “WindClan territory?”

“Right to their camp.” Dovepaw paused beside her. She needed to make a challenge that Ivypaw couldn’t resist.