Tallstar’s Revenge

“Tallpaw,” he hissed under his breath.

Reena had joined Tallpaw for his training session while Shrewpaw patrolled the boundaries with Hareflight. Their pelts were wind ruffled after a morning practicing prey-hunting skills. Now they had a chance to test them for real.

“Should I stalk from behind while you two get either side?” Reena was proving to be a natural at planning an attack, even though she didn’t have the speed of a WindClan cat.

Dawnstripe narrowed her eyes. “Can you move in without alarming it, Reena?” She glanced at Tallpaw. “We’ll need time to cut off its escape routes.” She pointed her muzzle toward a cluster of sandy dips in the grass beside the grazing rabbit. “If it gets to that warren, we’ve lost it.”

“I’m good at moving quietly,” Reena promised. “And Tallpaw’s fast enough to catch that critter at the mouth of its hole!”

Tallpaw twitched his tail with pleasure. Training with Reena was far better than training with grouchy Shrewpaw. Dawnstripe nodded him to the wind side of the rabbit. She trusted him to gauge his own scent drift. Tallpaw licked his nose and felt for the breeze. He could probably get halfway to the rabbit before it picked up his smell. Dawnstripe began stalking over the grass, keeping low.

Tallpaw nodded to Reena. “Good luck,” he whispered, and crept slowly upslope, keeping to one side of the clear grass while Reena padded forward.

The rabbit bobbed farther along the hill, nibbling at greenleaf shoots. Dawnstripe moved in steadily. Tallpaw padded over the soft grass without ruffling it. He paused as he neared the rabbit. Any closer and the wind would carry his scent straight to it. He glanced across the slope at Dawnstripe. She was close to the warren. He waited until she’d slid into place and blocked the rabbit’s path to safety.

Reena was moving in behind, her ginger-and-white pelt bright against the grass. But she was creeping slowly with movements so tiny, no prey would notice. The rabbit hopped a few more steps. Tallpaw sped up. He saw Dawnstripe nod and broke into a run, racing for the kill. Reena surged forward. Dawnstripe leaped. The rabbit bolted, kicking grass in its wake as it fled upslope.

Tallpaw plunged into a flat-out sprint, Reena close on his heels. Dawnstripe closed in from the side. The rabbit was only a tail-length away. Tallpaw pounced, claws unsheathed.

He hit bare grass. “Where’d it go?” Blinking, he spun around. The rabbit had disappeared.

Reena scrambled to a halt, ears flat. “It found a hole.” She sniffed at an opening in the ground, covered by long grass that was crushed flat where the rabbit had plunged through.

Dawnstripe lashed her tail. “There’s no way we could have seen that hole—” As she spoke, paw steps echoed from inside. Fur exploded from it as the terrified rabbit hurtled out.

Tallpaw didn’t stop to think. He sprang forward, slamming his paws onto the rabbit’s spine, and sank his teeth into its neck to give a killing bite.

Gray fur flashed at the edge of his vision. “I thought I smelled rabbit.” Tallpaw looked up to see Woollytail emerge from the hole.

“What were you doing in there?” Reena blinked at the tunneler, her eyes clouded with confusion. “Were you waiting for it?”

“No,” Woollytail meowed. “It surprised me as much as I surprised it. One moment I was propping up a crumbling roof; the next, paws are thumping toward me. I’m not going to ignore prey if it’s running toward me, so I chased it.” He broke into a purr. “I didn’t realize I was part of a hunting team.”

Dawnstripe lifted her tail. “We’re lucky you were down there.”

Tallpaw licked blood from his lips, the warm tang making his belly rumble. “Who’s in there with you?”

“Sandgorse and Plumclaw are working on the second gorge tunnel,” Woollytail explained. “I was on my way back to camp when I saw the crumbling roof. I thought I’d fix it before it caved in.”

Dawnstripe was looking confused. “Second gorge tunnel?” she echoed. “Isn’t one enough?”

“Not with the river being so unpredictable,” Woollytail meowed. “After the first one flooded, we knew we were going to need more than one route. You never know—”

Dawnstripe cut him off. “The first one flooded?” Her gaze snapped to Tallpaw. “What does he mean?”

Tallpaw backed away from the rabbit. “The tunnel kind of flooded while I was working on it with Sandgorse.”

“Kind of flooded?” Dawnstripe’s eyes widened.

Woollytail shook earth from his pelt. “It was just a miscalculation,” he told her. “We dug too low the first time. The new tunnel’s at the right level now, but come leaf-bare and snowmelt, the river’s going to fill it, so we need a second one, higher up.”

Dawnstripe was staring at Tallpaw as though Woollytail hadn’t spoken. “Were you okay?”

Tallpaw tried to stop his pelt from pricking at the memory. “I didn’t even get my paws wet.”

Woollytail snorted, amused. “He’s a great tunnel runner.”

Dawnstripe’s tail bushed out. “You had to run?”

“It was either that or drown,” Woollytail told her.