Outcast

Every hair on Lionpaw’s pelt prickled with excitement. The moment he’d longed for had come—the chance to go to the mountains! Four ThunderClan cats wouldn’t be enough to deal with the invaders, not if they were as strong as Stormfur and Talon said. Surely StarClan had arranged this, so that he could go visit the Tribe and find out about them, and show them how real warriors lived.

His claws scratched the earth floor of the hollow as the walls loomed overhead, closing him in. He had never felt so confined before. The weight of stone seemed to press on his fur. He wanted to race up the nearest cliff and run through the forest, across the hills, all the way to the mountains, with the wind in his fur.

“Calm down,” Jaypaw mewed. “They’re hardly going to take apprentices along!”

Lionpaw rolled his eyes. “Jaypaw, I wish you wouldn’t keep reading my mind.”

“You mean you want to go to the mountains?” Hollypaw asked.

“They’ll need more cats,” Lionpaw pointed out, ready to defend himself. “Four’s not enough. But Jaypaw’s probably right,” he added, his excitement fading as he realized that what the Tribe needed was help from experienced warriors.

“They won’t take apprentices.”

“Hollypaw wants to go, and so do I,” Jaypaw announced unexpectedly. “Brambleclaw and Squirrelflight are going, so why shouldn’t we see if we can go too? Even if they say no, they can’t claw us just for asking.”

“You really want to go?” Lionpaw meowed to Hollypaw.

She bounced to her paws, her tail fluffed out and her whiskers quivering. “I want to find out how the Tribe cats live. I’ve never met cats who are different from us. We could learn a lot.”

Jaypaw murmured agreement, though he said nothing about his own reasons for wanting to go. But that was Jaypaw, Lionpaw reflected; he always buried his thoughts deeper than hidden prey.

“I want to know what else there is besides the forest, too,” he confessed. “I know this is ThunderClan’s home, but there are loads of other territories out there. What are they like?”

“Well, then, we should—” Hollypaw began, breaking off as Firestar rose to his paws.

“We need to discuss this,” he meowed, “but my den is too small for all the cats who are going. Let’s go into the forest.”

Glancing at the other cats who stood listening, he added, “Graystripe, Sandstorm, Leafpool, you come too.”

Lionpaw watched as the cats headed toward the thorn tunnel. The rest of the Clan seemed reluctant to go back to their dens or return to their duties. They huddled together, their eyes doubtful.

“There’s no way we should risk our own warriors to help the Tribe,” Spiderleg complained, loud enough for the departing cats to hear him. “Haven’t we got enough problems of our own?”

Firestar’s ears flicked as if he had heard what the young warrior said, but he didn’t stop to reply before vanishing down the tunnel.

“Things are pretty peaceful right now,” Whitewing pointed out.

“Whitewing’s right.” Ashfur rose from where he was sitting between Cloudtail and Brightheart. “We can easily spare a few warriors. Brambleclaw’s doing the right thing by helping the Tribe. Remember what they did for us when we made the Great Journey? We would have died in the snow if they hadn’t found us.”

“Well, I think that’s all nonsense!” Mousefur stalked up to Ashfur, her skinny brown tail lashing. “If the Tribe cats can’t defend their own borders, that’s their problem, not ours.”

Longtail padded up beside her and touched her shoulder briefly with his tail tip. “I’d love to go back to the mountains.”

His voice was wistful. “I know I couldn’t see where the Tribe lived, but I could feel the wide open spaces and the wind in my fur, and all the scents the wind carried from far away.”

“I’d like to go back, too!” Birchfall’s eyes glowed with memories. “The Great Journey was fun! I had three good friends in ShadowClan: Toadkit, Applekit, and Marshkit. I wonder how they are now.”

“Who cares?” Berrynose flicked his tail; Lionpaw thought he could see jealousy in the cream warrior’s eyes. “ShadowClan cats can’t be your friends anymore. Have you forgotten how you nearly got your fur clawed off on the border?”

And whose fault was that? Lionpaw asked silently, while Birchfall looked downcast, his tail drooping.

“Anyway,” Berrynose went on, “I don’t see what’s so great about the mountains. It sounds bare and cold up there, with no prey.”

“You know nothing about it,” Dustpelt rasped, narrowing his eyes. “You weren’t there.”

As Berrynose rudely turned his back on the senior warrior, Lionpaw beckoned with his tail for his littermates to follow him out of earshot of the group.

“That does it!” he exclaimed. “If Birchfall could travel through the mountains and survive when he was just a kit, why shouldn’t apprentices go? You’d be okay too,” he added to Jaypaw. “Longtail coped, after all.”