Outcast

The words were hardly out of his mouth before he felt his paws slipping. For a heart-stopping moment he thought the wind would bowl him over to plummet down to the rocks below. The landscape whirled sickeningly around him. Then teeth fastened in his scruff and yanked him back to safety. He looked up to see Crowfeather.

“Thanks,” he gasped.

“Just remember you’re not a bird,” the WindClan cat growled.

Lionpaw sat down for a few heartbeats until the dizziness passed and his heart stopped pounding. When he looked up, he saw Talon, Tawnypelt, and Brambleclaw standing a few paw steps away. The Tribe cat waved his tail to point at something below the ridge.

“That’s where Stormfur led us into battle,” he meowed.

More cautiously this time, Lionpaw padded up to the edge and peered over. The ground fell away into a steep valley, with jagged rocks on either side. At the bottom a narrow stream wound its way among boulders. He shivered, imagining that he could see the slopes running with the blood of cats and hear their screeches as they hurled themselves into the fight.

“We don’t go that way anymore,” Talon continued. “The intruders think it belongs to them now.”

“Maybe we need to teach them they’re wrong,” Tawnypelt suggested with a lash of her tail.

Talon shook his head. “It’s not worth it. We never found much prey there. If we go a bit farther along this ridge, we come to another valley with a stream. There’s grass growing there and a few bushes, and you can generally pick up a mouse or two, or even a rabbit if you’re lucky. We get moss for bedding from there, too.”

Lionpaw looked in the direction he pointed. A few fox-lengths farther along the ridge there was a twisted spike of stone like a lightning-blasted tree. “That would make a good border marker,” he suggested to Brambleclaw.

Brambleclaw nodded. “Good thinking. And the valley with the stream should be part of the Tribe’s territory.”

The Tribe cats made no comment, though they exchanged doubtful glances. With a flash of sympathy Lionpaw guessed that they might feel they were losing their territory anyway, to the Clan cats who were telling them what to do.

“Can you take us there, Talon?” Brambleclaw asked.

“Sure.” The big cave-guard set out along the ridge and Lionpaw followed with the other Clan cats, being very careful where he put his paws. The eagle, he was relieved to see, had disappeared.

The next valley, when they came to it, looked more inviting for hunting, with plenty of cover for prey. Talon would have turned down into it, but Brambleclaw urged them on, following the top of the ridge.

“We need to walk all the way around the border,” he meowed, “or at least where we think the border might be.”

“What?” Bird looked startled. “We can’t possibly go all that way in a single day.”

“It takes longer here, you know,” Gray added. “It’s not like traveling on flat ground.”

“I know that,” Brambleclaw responded, understanding in his amber eyes. “But time isn’t on your side. The intruders aren’t going to wait for you.”

Talon let out a low growl. “You’re right. Let’s get going.”

He led the group of cats along the top of the valley, taking in the spike of stone as a border marker. The ridge dipped at the point where it crossed the head of the valley, where the stream poured out from a cleft between two rocks.

“This is another good place for a marker,” Brambleclaw explained. “Once the border is decided, you’ll need to place scent markers every day, and it’s best to choose places that are easy to remember.”

Talon nodded, but Lionpaw thought he still didn’t look convinced that marking the territory was what the Tribe wanted to do.

From here their route lay across a plateau covered by loose, sharp stones, then over several steep ridges where there were no paths to guide them. The sun climbed high in the sky.

Lionpaw’s legs ached, and he lost count of the number of times he scraped his pads on rough stone. He left smudges of blood behind him as he walked. Even the Tribe cats began to look exhausted.

Brambleclaw halted abruptly as he rounded a huge boulder and Lionpaw almost crashed into him. The dark tabby’s fur was bristling and Lionpaw picked up the scent of anger. Alert for danger, he stretched up to look over his father’s shoulder.

He was overlooking a hollow with a pool at the bottom and a few straggly bushes. Three cats were just emerging from the shelter of the branches; the first one had a mouse dangling from his jaws. All three of them paused and looked up curiously.

“What’s going on?” a black tom asked. “What do you want?”

“We could ask you the same question,” Brambleclaw replied, taking a few paces forward to stand on the lip of the hollow.

Talon stalked up to stand beside him, and Tawnypelt joined him on the other side. Lionpaw noticed Bird and Gray taking up positions where they could spot any other intruders approaching, while Crowfeather skirted the top of the hollow until he could keep watch on the bushes from the other side.