Outcast

Ashfur and Berrynose had drawn slightly ahead, discussing something in voices too low for Lionpaw to catch. After a few moments Berrynose glanced over his shoulder. “Don’t lag behind, Lionpaw,” he meowed loudly. “And watch out for fox traps.”

“Watch out yourself,” Lionpaw muttered. The cream-colored tom had been a warrior for three whole days, and already he was acting like a mentor. But he needn’t think I’m going to obey his orders!

Lionpaw let himself drop even farther behind. His paws were tingling with memory as he rounded a bramble thicket and saw the entrance to the tunnels. It looked like a disused rabbit hole, half-hidden by bracken, but once it had led down to a cave with an underground river and then up again into WindClan territory. Pain stabbed Lionpaw’s heart as he remembered how he used to plunge into the tunnels at night and meet Heatherpaw in the cave. He wished they could go back to the time when she had been Heatherstar, leader of DarkClan, and he was her loyal deputy.

He hesitated outside the entrance for a heartbeat, then couldn’t resist squeezing through it and crawling along the tunnel until he came to the avalanche of mud left behind when the tunnels flooded. He opened his mouth, but all he could taste was wet soil and worms.

“Lionpaw! I know you’re in there!” Berrynose called.

“Come out now!”

For a moment Lionpaw felt like ignoring him, but he realized how stupid that would be. He didn’t want to stay in this damp, stifling hole. Slowly he wriggled backward until he could stand up and shake the mud out of his fur.

Berrynose was standing in front of him, cream-colored fur bristling. Ashfur was a couple of tail-lengths away; his blue eyes were calm and unreadable.

“What do you think you’re doing, exploring in a dangerous place like that?” Berrynose demanded. “What if the roof had fallen in? You’d expect us to dig you out, I suppose, like last time.”

Lionpaw had almost suffocated when he fell into an old badger set during the daylight Gathering. But that was completely different. And anyway, Berrynose hadn’t been the one to dig him out.

“Stop ordering me around,” he snapped. “You’re not my mentor.”

“Then stop behaving like a stupid kit!”

Lionpaw dug his claws into the ground to stop himself from taking a swipe at the arrogant tom. “Don’t call me a kit,” he growled. “Your scent hasn’t faded out of the apprentice den, and you’re already—”

“That’s enough,” Ashfur interrupted. “Berrynose, I’ll do the mentoring, thanks. But he’s right, Lionpaw. There’s no point in sticking your nose down every hole between here and WindClan. Unless there were any suspicious scents down there.”

“No. But there might have been!” Lionpaw defended himself.

Ashfur made no comment, except for an impatient twitch of the tail. “Let’s get moving.”

Lionpaw gave Berrynose a final glare and padded after his mentor. He could still feel a tug of longing for Heatherpaw, drawing him down into the caves. But he knew he would never walk there again—and not just because mud had blocked the tunnels.

He wanted to be the greatest ThunderClan warrior ever.

And he couldn’t be that if his best friend was a cat from another Clan.

“Jump! High as you can—now!”

Lionpaw leaped into the air, twisting as he landed so that he was facing his opponent. He managed to land a blow on Poppypaw’s haunches before she scrambled around to face him. Flashing a glance toward the edge of the clearing, he could just make out the shadow of a tabby-striped pelt and the gleam of amber eyes.

Thanks, Tigerstar!

Poppypaw sprang at him, and Lionpaw launched himself forward, slipping underneath her with his belly brushing the moss. Hooking her hind legs out from under her, he planted his forepaws on her belly as she rolled over.

“Well done, Lionpaw.” Ashfur gave him a nod of approval, though there was no warmth in his blue eyes.

What am I doing wrong now? Lionpaw wondered. He had understood Ashfur’s annoyance with him when he was spending every night in the caves with Heatherpaw. Then he’d been almost too tired to put one paw in front of another during the day. But I’m training well now. I’m working really hard!

“I’ve never seen that last move before.” Thornclaw, Poppypaw’s mentor, padded up to the two apprentices. “Where did you learn it?”

“Er… I just figured it out, I suppose,” Lionpaw mumbled.

He had learned the move from Tigerstar, during a training bout with Hawkfrost. The two shadowy cats visited him so often, he felt as if he always had voices in his ears, telling him to jump higher, strike harder, twist out of the way. The constant practice had made his muscles harder and stronger. He knew without any cat telling him that his battle skills had improved faster than any other apprentice’s. But it was difficult sometimes to explain where the skills came from.

“You can let me up now,” Poppypaw mewed.

“Oh, sorry.”