Yellowfang’s Secret

Yellowpaw nodded. Silverflame used to enjoy frogs, she thought, remembering how the elder hadn’t been eating properly for ages. She realized that Deerleap had asked her a question and had paused, waiting for an answer.

“Sorry,” Yellowpaw muttered. “What was that?”

Deerleap sighed. “I asked what you thought would be the best way to catch a frog.”

“I… um…” Yellowpaw thought fast. “Hide in the reeds and jump out at it?” she suggested.

Her mentor twitched her whiskers. “That might work. But remember frogs can swim too. It’s best to find one on land. Two cats can hunt better than one: one to cut the frog off from the pool it came out of, and one to catch it. We’ll practice with the other apprentices when newleaf comes.”

“Great!” Yellowpaw responded, though her thoughts of Silverflame moaning in agony dampened her enthusiasm.

They came to the edge of the marsh and padded through another belt of pine trees. The trees grew more sparsely here, and reddish, hard-edged shapes loomed beyond the last of them, as tall as the highest trunks.

“We’re coming to the edge of ShadowClan territory,” Deerleap mewed. “Can you smell our scent markers?”

Yellowpaw sniffed and nodded. She felt proud that the ShadowClan scent was so strong. That warns other Clans not to mess with us!

“Over in that direction,” Deerleap went on, angling her ears toward the ominous shapes, “is Twolegplace. We don’t go there. It’s a place for dogs and kittypets, not warriors. Those are the dens where Twolegs live.”

Yellowpaw gazed at the unnaturally straight walls with square holes dotted across their sides, some high up and some closer to the ground. Low wooden barriers surrounded each den, rather like the thorns that surrounded ShadowClan’s camp. As Yellowpaw watched, a kittypet appeared, balancing carefully on the top of the wooden wall before jumping down to the other side.

“That cat was wearing something around its neck,” she observed.

Deerleap nodded. “A collar. Most kittypets have them. It signifies that they belong to Twolegs, and can never be free. Just be thankful you’ll never have to wear one.”

Yellowpaw watched for a little longer, but the kittypet didn’t reappear. She wondered what it would be like to live in the Twolegplace. It looked cold and hard and empty, and she was glad when Deerleap moved on again, through another belt of woodland where pines were mixed with other trees. The bare branches creaked over Yellowpaw’s head.

Yellowpaw soon became aware of an acrid stench in the air, and a dull roaring that grew and died away again. “Is that thunder?” she mewed.

“You’ll see what it is in a few heartbeats,” Deerleap told her.

When Yellowpaw came to the edge of the trees she stumbled to a halt. In front of her lay a narrow stretch of ground that led away in both directions as far as she could see. The snow that lay upon it had been churned up in straight lines, leaving dirty brown ridges. Underneath, Yellowpaw could make out a hard, black surface. The acrid stench rose from it in waves, smothering all the other scents of the forest.

“What’s that?” Yellowpaw gasped. She stretched out a paw to touch the surface.

Immediately Deerleap flicked her tail in front of Yellowpaw. “Keep back,” she warned.

At the same moment the weird roaring sound began again. Yellowpaw tensed as a small creature appeared at the far end of the path; it grew bigger as the roaring grew louder. Soon she could make it out more clearly: It was an unnatural glittering scarlet, and it had round black paws that seemed to eat up the ground. Heartbeats later it swept past, spattering Yellowpaw with dirty, half-melted snow. For a moment its bellowing and vile reek filled the air; then it was gone, dwindling into the distance as the sound died away.

“It didn’t spot us!” Yellowpaw mewed in relief.

“Mostly they don’t,” Deerleap responded. “They keep to the Thunderpath, and don’t bother us provided we stay away from it. But cats have died trying to cross, so don’t even think about it.”

“That’s the Thunderpath?” Yellowpaw asked. “Then that must have been a monster! Brackenfoot told us about them when we were in the nursery. He said the monsters have Twolegs in their bellies, but I thought that was just a tale for kits.”

“No, it’s true,” Deerleap meowed.

“Those things eat Twolegs?”

“Not exactly.” Deerleap sounded puzzled. “The Twolegs get out of them again, and they seem okay. I don’t know what it’s all about, but then, Twolegs are strange.”

The stink of the monster was dying away, and as she tasted the air Yellowpaw could pick up another scent she didn’t recognize. It was the scent of cats, but harsher than the warm, comforting ShadowClan scent she was used to.

“What’s that yucky smell?”

“That’s ThunderClan,” Deerleap explained, waving her tail toward the trees on the other side of the Thunderpath. “Their territory is over there.”