Outcast

“You could go for a visit,” Lionpaw suggested.

“No, it’s too far,” Stormfur mewed briskly. He rose to his paws and gave his fur a shake. “Come on, it’s time we were going back to camp.”

Glancing over his shoulder, Lionpaw saw that the training session was over. Ashfur and the other apprentices were heading toward the stone hollow. There was no sign of Berrynose.

“You go ahead,” he meowed to Stormfur. “I’ll be back in a while.”

“Okay.” Stormfur bounded off to catch up with Ashfur and the others.

“Thanks, Stormfur!” Lionpaw called after him.

Stormfur waved his tail in reply as he vanished into the bushes.

Lionpaw turned and padded into the trees in the opposite direction from the camp. He paused to make sure that Stormfur really had gone, then picked up the pace until he was racing toward the WindClan border. Panting, he halted at the edge of the stream, looking across the open moorland.

The sun was going down, washing the surface of the lake with scarlet and throwing his long shadow to one side. Lionpaw enjoyed the warmth of its rays and the gentle breeze that ruffled his fur.

But the landscape ahead of him looked bleak and unwelcoming. There was no cover, no soft moss, no undergrowth where prey could hide. Lionpaw knew he could never live in WindClan. He would miss the trees: He could hear them now, just behind him, the faint creak of branches and the rustle of their leaves in the wind. He could never have given that up, however much he loved Heatherpaw.

And she could never have lived in ThunderClan, he realized. She felt trapped under the trees; she loved the open moorland, the tough, springy grass and the wild dash across the slopes in pursuit of rabbits. Stormfur must really have loved Brook, to give up his home and stay with her in the mountains.

Lionpaw raised his head and gazed into the distance. He could just make out a dark, misty band on the horizon, where the mountains lay. Brook had pointed it out to him once, on a border patrol; he wondered if she felt her paws tugging her toward it.

What do the mountains look like? he wondered. All his life he had heard about the Great Journey and the territories the Clans had crossed to find their new home by the lake.

Lionpaw felt his paws itching to explore. He longed to discover what lay beyond ThunderClan’s borders, beyond all the Clans’ borders. The world was so wide, and he had seen so little of it. There was so much out there, beyond the reach of the warrior code, beyond the knowledge even of the medicine cats and elders.

It was hard to wrench his paws away from the border and start padding back toward the camp. It’s as though the mountains are calling me…

But how could he ever answer the call?

Chapter 7

“I’ve got a plan,” Hollypaw announced. She and Cinderpaw had cleared the old bedding out of the elders’ den and were clawing fresh moss from around the roots of an oak tree. Shreds of mist drifted among the trees, while overhead the sun was struggling to break through a covering of cloud.

Cinderpaw stopped with her claws deep in the soft green covering. “What plan?”

“It’s about becoming a warrior.” Hollypaw left the ball of moss she was gathering and padded over to sit on a twisted root beside her friend. “It’s so confusing, learning about fighting and hunting and all the stuff about the warrior code.

I can’t think of everything at once, so I’m going to concentrate on one thing at a time.”

Cinderpaw blinked. “I don’t get it.”

Hollypaw sighed; it seemed straightforward enough to her.

“I’m going to start with hunting. If a Clan isn’t well fed, it can’t defend its borders and fight battles. I’ll practice and practice until I’m really good at it. Then I’ll go on to something else.”

Her friend started clawing up the moss again. “I think that sounds mouse-brained,” she mewed. “I mean, you can’t stop doing everything else, can you? Are you going to leave me to finish the bedding while you go off looking for prey?”

Hollypaw swiped out a paw, claws sheathed, just missing Cinderpaw’s ear. “No, of course I’m not. I know I’ll have to do duties and training sessions and all that. But I’m going to concentrate on hunting.”

Cinderpaw let out a faint snort of amusement. “I’d like to hear what Brackenfur has to say if he thinks you’re not concentrating on fighting.”

Exasperated, Hollypaw snagged up a bit of moss and tossed it at her friend. She expected Cinderpaw to toss some back at her, but instead the young she-cat stopped what she was doing and looked up at her, blue eyes serious.

“Honestly, Hollypaw, I don’t think this is a good idea.

Being a warrior means you have to do everything together.

You can’t put stuff in order. I know I’m not explaining it very well, but—”

“No, you’re not,” Hollypaw snapped, then stopped herself.