The Forgotten Warrior

Dovewing batted at him with one paw, trying not to feel annoyed. If I’d had my proper senses, I’d have heard you stomping along like a fox in a fit!

“Do you want to come hunting?” Mousewhisker went on. “The border patrol heard squirrels fighting in the grass clearing near the ShadowClan border. And tired, injured squirrels make easy prey!”

Icecloud and Toadstep emerged from the ferns behind Mousewhisker.

“Yes, come,” Icecloud mewed. “It’ll be fun!”

Dovewing glanced at her mother. “I’m supposed to take this moss back…”

“I can do that,” Whitewing meowed cheerfully. “You go and hunt.”

“Thanks!”

While Whitewing gathered the moss balls together, Dovewing joined Mousewhisker and the others, heading into the forest. Mousewhisker picked up the pace until they were running full-pelt through the trees. Dovewing felt her night fears and exhaustion melt away as she bunched and stretched her muscles, her paws skimming the ground.

“Bet I can jump higher than any cat!” Toadstep announced.

“Bet you can’t!” Icecloud retorted, leaping over a fallen tree trunk to show off her skills.

Toadstep sprang over the trunk after the white she-cat and landed hard on top of her.

“Oof! Get off!” Icecloud spluttered, shoving Toadstep away and jumping to her paws. “You’re as heavy as a badger.”

“Let’s race,” Mousewhisker suggested. “Last cat to reach the dead tree is a mouse!”

He streaked off before he had finished speaking, leaving the other three to scramble after him. Dovewing sprinted with her belly fur brushing the ground and her tail streaming out behind her. Toadstep overtook her and Mousewhisker, but Dovewing gradually drew ahead of Icecloud.

It’s easier to run fast and dodge trees when I can’t hear everything from far away, she realized in surprise. There’s nothing to distract me. This is what it must be like for other cats!

She passed Mousewhisker as they skirted a bramble thicket so that only Toadstep was in front of her, his black-and-white shape pelting easily along. Dovewing gathered herself and put on a spurt, her paws barely touching the ground with each bound. The dead tree was within sight when she came up alongside her Clanmate, glimpsing his astonished look as she scampered past him and hurled herself at the tree, scoring her claws down the trunk.

“I win!” she yowled.

Toadstep ran up after her, followed by Mousewhisker and last of all a panting Icecloud.

“Okay, I’m a mouse.” The white she-cat let herself flop to the ground. “Dovewing, that was a great race!”

“Yes, you even beat Toadstep,” Mousewhisker meowed. “And he’s fast!”

Toadstep gave her an approving nod. “Well done.”

When all the cats had caught their breath, Mousewhisker rose to his paws. “It’s time to start looking for those squirrels. We’d better be quiet now; we’re pretty close to the clearing.”

He took the lead; Dovewing and the others followed him, brushing through the undergrowth on stealthy paws. At the edge of the clearing Dovewing peered out of a clump of long grass to see that Twolegs were already starting to build their green pelt-dens there.

“Mouse dung!” she muttered as three Twoleg kits ran across the open space, yowling and tossing something red from paw to paw. “They’ll scare away all the prey from here to the lake.”

Mousewhisker led his patrol around the edge of the clearing, slinking through the shadows so that the Twolegs wouldn’t notice them. Dovewing shivered to the tips of her claws as she crossed the old ShadowClan boundary. There were still traces of ShadowClan scent, and she half-expected to hear the challenge of a ShadowClan patrol.

That’s the bush where I first met Tigerheart, she thought as she passed it. Everything was so different back then…

At the other side of the clearing the patrol scattered, tasting the air to pick up the scent of squirrel.

“Over here,” Icecloud called in a low voice. She was standing at the foot of a tree, gazing up into the branches. “There’s a squirrel up there. I think it’s injured.”

Mousewhisker bounded over. “You’re right. You climb this side, and I’ll take the other.”

Dovewing and Toadstep watched as their Clanmates clawed their way up the tree. But as they reached the lowest branches there was a rustling among the leaves and the squirrel leaped out, skimming the top of Icecloud’s head, and sprang to the ground, streaking straight past Dovewing and Toadstep. Dovewing whirled and gave chase with Toadstep beside her. The squirrel made a dash for the clearing.

It’s not so badly injured that it can’t run, Dovewing thought as she pelted after it.