Sign Of The Moon

As Jayfeather hauled himself upward, spitting annoyance, Dovewing glanced back to see Squirrelflight standing with her back to the hedge. Her fur was fluffed out so that she looked twice her size; her back was arched and she was snarling as the dog galloped closer.

“Stay back, mange-pelt!” she growled.

Safe for the moment in the tangle of bushes, Dovewing admired Squirrelflight’s courage. She thought of Jayfeather first, she mused, remembering the stories of how the ginger warrior had raised Jayfeather and his littermates as if they were her own, even though Leafpool was their real mother.

Squirrelflight still feels as if she is their mother, Dovewing realized with a pang of sympathy. Even now.

Peering out through the thorny branches, she saw that the dog had halted in front of Squirrelflight, letting out a flurry of excited yelps but not making any move to attack. StarClan, please make it go away.

“Oh, no!” Foxleap’s voice broke in on her prayer.

Dovewing peered out again and saw another dog crest the rise and bound across the field toward them. Two of them!

They’re bound to attack now.

Squirrelflight stayed on guard, and Dovewing started to struggle out of the thorns again to help her. But before she cleared the hedge, the second dog halted beside the first and started barking at him. Noticing that his muzzle was gray with age, Dovewing realized that the second dog was much older. “He sounds like a mentor telling off an apprentice!” she whispered to Foxleap.

The younger dog crouched low to the ground and let out a whimper. After a few heartbeats, while all the cats waited tensely, both dogs turned and ran off across the field. They started to run after the scattered sheep, herding them into a flock.

“He did!” Foxleap’s eyes were sparkling with amusement. “He said, ‘Leave those cats alone, you stupid furball, and get on with the job!’”

Sighing with relief, Dovewing clambered out of the hedge, while Foxleap helped Jayfeather down. The medicine cat emerged into the open with a grunt of indignation, craning his neck to pick debris out of his pelt.

“I’ve got a thorn in my pad,” he muttered. “Some cat look for a dock leaf.”

Dovewing detected the scent of a clump of dock at the bottom of the hedge and tore off a couple of leaves to give to Jayfeather. While he rubbed the soothing juice on his pad, she sent her senses out after the dogs and the sheep. They had disappeared from view, but she could still track them; the dogs were herding the sheep in a tight cluster to the far end of the field and through a gap into another field. A Twoleg was with them.

“I don’t think we’ll have any more trouble with them,” she mewed.

“I hope you’re right.” Squirrelflight was smoothing down her pelt. She was the only one of them not to look shaken. “We’ll get out of this field and then make camp for the night,” the ginger warrior went on. “We could all do with a rest after that.”

Dovewing glanced back the way they had come as Squirrelflight set out again along the hedge. Sunlight had broken through a gap in the clouds, bathing the field in scarlet as it went down. Dovewing could still see the range of hills they had crossed, and she tried to picture the lake and the Clans on the far side. Her Clanmates would be returning from the evening patrols and settling down in their dens for the night.

She sent out her senses and felt a shudder deep within her as she discovered that for the first time she couldn’t connect with the world she had left behind. There were too many sounds, too many impressions in between.

I’m a long, long way from home.

Chapter 10

Ivypool blinked open her eyes to see the pale light of the Dark Forest all around her. She was curled up in the shade of an elder bush, its leaves casting dark patterns on her silver-white fur. Yawning, she scrambled to her paws and slid out. The trees clustered close together here, their branches entwined over Ivypool’s head. It was a relief not to be able to see the starless sky, always the most frightening reminder that she wasn’t in ThunderClan.

“But it still feels a long, long way from home,” she muttered.

Tasting the air, she picked up the scent of many cats, and heard voices coming faintly from among the trees several fox-lengths away. Ivypool padded in that direction and found herself on the edge of a clearing. Halting, she peered out from the shelter of a clump of bracken. Hawkfrost stood in the center with a ragged circle of younger cats around him. Ivypool recognized Tigerheart and Breezepelt, and a white RiverClan she-cat whose name she couldn’t remember. Others weren’t familiar at all.

Hawkfrost’s ice-blue eyes shone in the pallid light. “In a battle, you won’t be fighting one-on-one,” he meowed. “Cats will come at you from all directions, and you have to be ready. Now, I want all of you to attack me at once.”

“All of us?” Breezepelt sounded disbelieving.

“That’s what I said.” Hawkfrost’s voice had an edge. “I’ll take you on by myself later, if you want.”