The Apprentice's Quest (15 page)

“What's that?” he whispered to Sandstorm.

“A monster,” Sandstorm murmured in reply. “They'll kill you if they catch you with those big black paws. But that one looks like it's asleep, so it's probably safe for now.”

“And what are the Twolegs sitting on?” Sparkpaw asked. “They look like tree trunks, but sort of flat.”

Alderpaw thought that was a good description. There was a bigger flat trunk, too, with big leaf wraps scattered upon it. They must have held prey, because the Twolegs were stuffing something into their mouths.

Sparkpaw passed her tongue over her jaws. “I'm hungry,” she complained. “And whatever that is, it smells
good
!”

Alderpaw's pelt bristled with fear to see the Twolegs so close, to hear their harsh voices and to pick up their weird scent. But he was fascinated too.

“They have hardly any fur,” he murmured. “Are they sick? I remember Leafpool telling me about a sickness that made cats lose their fur. But these Twolegs
all
seem to have it.” Turning to Sandstorm, he asked, “Why don't their medicine Twolegs help them?”

Sandstorm's green eyes were gleaming with amusement. “They're not sick,” she explained. “That's just what Twolegs look like.”

Then they look pretty stupid,
Alderpaw thought, his pelt smoothing out as he wondered why he had been scared of them at all.

Suddenly the smallest Twoleg kit leaped up from the flat tree, letting out a loud yowl. To Alderpaw's horror it set off at a stumbling run toward the cats, waving its forepaws in the air. Its round face was red, and crazy sounds were coming from its mouth.

“It's seen us!” Cherryfall gasped.

At the same moment Sandstorm snapped out a command. “Don't run! We'll get separated. Hide!”

Forcing himself to move, Alderpaw darted back to the bramble thicket and thrust his way into it, feeling the thorns rake through his pelt. He could hear Sparkpaw burrowing close by. “StarClan-forsaken thorns!” she muttered.

Molewhisker's voice came from further away. “We should have known! Twolegs are always trouble.”

Alderpaw could hear the Twoleg kit's voice rising to a shriek. Then the lower-pitched, adult Twoleg voices drew closer, and the ground shook with the trampling of their huge, clumsy paws. Alderpaw crouched as small as he could and hoped that all his Clanmates were well hidden.

Finally the sounds died away and the footsteps retreated. Alderpaw worked his way backward out of the thicket and stood shaking his pelt. He felt as if every thorn in the forest were sticking into him.

Then he noticed that Sparkpaw had emerged and returned to the edge of the clearing to peer through the ferns again.

“What do you think you're doing?” he hissed, creeping up to her side. “Do you want the Twolegs to catch you?”

“It's okay; they're leaving,” Sparkpaw replied. “Come and watch. It's really interesting.”

Curious in spite of himself, Alderpaw parted the fern fronds so that he could see. The three Twoleg kits were climbing into the monster. The adult Twolegs were collecting the leaf wraps from the big flat tree trunk; then they crossed the clearing and dropped them into a Twoleg thing that looked
like a rock with a tiny cave at the top.

“That's food!” Sparkpaw whispered. “I can smell it. But why are they putting it in there?”

“Maybe that's where Twolegs store food,” Alderpaw suggested. “I expect when they're hungry they'll come back for it.”

“No.” Alderpaw jumped to realize that Sandstorm had padded up beside him. “That's just where Twolegs leave their extra food when they don't want it anymore.”

“How could they not want it?” Sparkpaw asked. “It smells amazing!”

Alderpaw tasted the air, and his jaws began to water at the delicious scent that flooded over him. He realized how hungry he was.

“Twolegs are very strange,” Molewhisker commented, as he and Cherryfall padded up to join the others.

Alderpaw watched as the two adult Twolegs also got into the monster with their kits. He started as the monster woke up with a ferocious roar, flooding the air with an acrid scent, then swiveled around and moved off, its black paws rolling faster and faster on the black Thunderpath stuff until it disappeared among the trees.

“Did the monster just
eat
them?” Sparkpaw asked, her eyes stretched wide with horror.

Sandstorm shook her head. “No, the monsters just let Twolegs ride inside them. I don't even try to understand it.”

“I told you Twolegs are strange,” Molewhisker mewed. “And that goes for their monsters, too. Mind you,” he added
after a moment, “they may be strange, but some of their food is really tasty. I'm not too keen on Twolegs, but it would be mouse-brained to let their food go to waste when it's
right there
.” He waved his tail at the open-topped rock.

The cats glanced at one another.

“I'm not sure . . . ,” Sandstorm murmured. “You know that warriors don't eat kittypet food.”

“It's not
kittypet
food,” Cherryfall argued. “It's Twoleg food.”

“Well . . . okay,” Sandstorm agreed reluctantly. “You see if you can get it out of there. I'll keep watch.”

She stayed by the ferns at the edge of the clearing while Sparkpaw eagerly led the way over to the rock. Alderpaw looked up; there was shiny black stuff poking out of the cave at its top, and its sides were shiny silver with no paw holds.

“How are we going to get in?” Molewhisker asked, sounding as if he didn't really expect an answer.

Cherryfall tried climbing up, but her paws skidded on the smooth surface of the rock, and she slipped back before she got anywhere near the top. “Mouse dung!” she exclaimed.

“I've got an idea!” Sparkpaw's fur bristled and her tail bushed out with excitement. “Stand back, all of you.”

She trotted back for several fox-lengths, then raced and took a flying leap to the top of the rock, balancing precariously on the cave's edge.

“Come down!” Cherryfall yowled. “You'll fall in, and how will we get you out?”

“I'm fine!” Sparkpaw squealed.

She swayed to and fro as she gripped the top edge of the cave with her paws. The rock tilted with her weight and suddenly tipped over. Sparkpaw leaped to safety as the rock thumped to the ground and masses of Twoleg stuff spilled out of it.

“There you go,” Sparkpaw panted, a smug look on her face. “Easy.”

Molewhisker put his head into the cave, Twoleg leaf wraps crackling under his paws, and emerged with a lump of something in his jaws. Alderpaw breathed in more of the enticing smell.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Dunno,” Molewhisker mumbled around his prey. “Some kind of bird, I think. Go and get some. There's plenty.”

Sparkpaw instantly followed, dragging out a huge piece of the bird. “This is so big it must have been an eagle,” she meowed. “I'll share it with Sandstorm.”

Alderpaw and then Cherryfall ventured in and collected some of the prey for themselves. “Thanks, Sparkpaw,” Alderpaw murmured as he joined the group beside the ferns. “You're really good at hunting Twoleg prey, too!”

Biting into his piece of fresh-kill, Alderpaw realized that it tasted even better than it smelled. But as he gulped it down, he began to feel a prickling in his pelt, as if some creature was watching him. He tried to tell himself not to be stupid, but he couldn't shake off the feeling.

A rustling sound came from the trees. Alderpaw tensed, glancing back over his shoulder.

Maybe the crazy Twoleg kit came back? Or maybe the Twolegs weren't
really done with their food after all.

But the rustling died away, and there was nothing to be seen. Alderpaw tried to pick up a scent, but the aroma of the delicious Twoleg prey swamped everything else. He turned back to finish his food, trying to tell himself that he was imagining things.

It's weird . . . I just have the feeling that we're being watched.

The sun was going down, the
sky a blaze of scarlet, as the cats plodded on through the trees. Alderpaw's belly was growling with hunger; he had felt so tense since sunhigh, moving farther and farther away from his home, that he hadn't realized the pain in his belly was because he hadn't eaten. It felt like days since they had eaten the Twoleg food.

“I think we ought to stop and hunt,” Molewhisker meowed. “It'll be dark soon.”

Sandstorm looked undecided. “We still need to get across the Thunderpath,” she responded. “I thought we might cross first, and then hunt.”

Alderpaw noticed for the first time an acrid tang in the air, and a distant rumbling sound that he would have thought was thunder, except that the sky was clear. The scent reminded him of the monster that had swallowed the Twolegs, and he realized it must come from the Thunderpath.

“But I'm starving!” Sparkpaw protested to Sandstorm. “
Please
can we hunt first?”

Sandstorm twitched her whiskers. “Okay,” she agreed at last. “I'm hungry myself, I admit it.”

Before she had finished speaking, Sparkpaw plunged into the undergrowth and emerged a few moments later with the limp body of a vole in her jaws.

“Good job,” Sandstorm commented with a nod of approval.

“I don't know how she does it,” Molewhisker muttered.

At the same time as he admired Sparkpaw's skill, Alderpaw tried to subdue his feelings of envy. It was even harder when Molewhisker turned to him and mewed, “Do you want to hunt with me, Alderpaw?”

“Yeah . . . sure.” Alderpaw guessed that Molewhisker didn't think he was capable of catching prey by himself.
It's like being his apprentice again,
he thought as he followed his former mentor into a clump of thickly growing hazel bushes.

“Try the way I taught you before,” Molewhisker suggested. “Concentrate on one small area at a time. That seemed to be working well for you.”

Not well enough,
Alderpaw reflected, crouching down and focusing on the fallen leaves and twigs underneath the nearest hazel bush. Sniffing carefully, he caught the scent of mouse, and a moment later he spotted it almost hidden by a heap of dead leaves.

Trying to remember everything he had learned when he was Molewhisker's apprentice, Alderpaw crept forward. The mouse seemed unaware of him, scuffling about among the leaves. Then Alderpaw paused, his gaze flicking to a branch above his head.
Do I have room to pounce? Will I touch the branch and alert the mouse?

While he was hesitating, the mouse suddenly froze, then
scuttled away. It would have escaped if Molewhisker hadn't leaped for it and slapped a paw down on it.

“Try again,” Molewhisker suggested, clearly fed up with hunting with Alderpaw. “I'm going to see if I can find a squirrel.”

He padded off, leaving the mouse for Alderpaw to collect.

Alderpaw tried again, spotting a blackbird pecking in the grass at the edge of the hazel clump. He slipped into the hunter's crouch and began to creep up on it, determined that this time he wouldn't fail. He imagined himself trotting back to meet his Clanmates with the bird clamped in his jaws. His paws began to shake with excitement as he drew closer.

But then one of his forepaws slipped to one side, and he lost his balance. The blackbird flew off with a raucous cry. “Fox dung!” Alderpaw hissed as he righted himself and realized that he had stumbled over a small hollow in the ground, screened by overhanging grass.

That could have happened to any cat,
he thought, trying to defend himself, then added wretchedly,
but it had to happen to me.

He glanced around to spot more prey, but all he saw was Molewhisker, dragging a squirrel along the ground between his forepaws.

“No luck?” his former mentor asked sympathetically. “Never mind. You can share this. Don't forget to pick up the mouse.”

When he returned to the spot where he had left his Clanmates, Alderpaw saw that Sandstorm had caught a plump pigeon, while Cherryfall had two mice.

“Hey!” Sparkpaw exclaimed as Molewhisker and Alderpaw approached. “You caught a mouse!”

“No, I didn't,” Alderpaw replied, dropping the prey. “Molewhisker caught it.”

He felt more useless than ever as he and his Clanmates feasted on the prey.

By the time they had finished eating, the sun had gone down, and shadows were gathering under the trees. “It's getting late,” Sandstorm mewed. “If we want to cross the Thunderpath tonight, we'd better get a move on.”

As they set out, Alderpaw felt his pelt start to prickle again with the sensation that they were being followed. Eyeing some thick undergrowth as they padded past, he was almost sure that something was watching them from deep inside it. He wondered whether he should tell Sandstorm his suspicions, but when he tasted the air, he was so overwhelmed by his companions' scents that he couldn't make out anything strange.
They'd just think I was imagining things,
he told himself, trying to shrug off the feeling.
And maybe I am.

The roaring sound grew louder as the cats loped on, and the acrid stench filled the air, drowning out the scents of the forest. Before they had traveled many fox-lengths, the trees came to an end, and the cats emerged onto a strip of grass that bordered the Thunderpath.

Alderpaw stared at it, his heart pounding so hard that he thought it would break out of his chest. He had never seen anything so terrifying. Monsters were racing past in both directions, so close that the wind of their passing ruffled the
cats' fur. As they ran, they let out weird, high-pitched noises, as if they were talking to one another. Most of them had two blazing eyes that cut through the darkness in front of them.

Then Alderpaw spotted a monster that had only one eye. It looked even more dangerous than the others.

“A one-eyed monster!” Sparkpaw gasped, pressing close to Alderpaw and for once sounding just as scared as he was.

“You have to be brave,” Sandstorm meowed, her voice steady. “We need to cross before it's completely dark. Come with me, and remember what I told you. No cat is to cross until I give the word.”

Alderpaw took a deep breath and gathered all his strength. He closed his eyes and called up the memory of the cats in his vision.
I'm doing this for you.
Full of resolve, he opened his eyes again.
If we have to cross, then that's what we'll do.

He followed Sandstorm and stood in a line with his Clanmates at the very edge of the Thunderpath. He couldn't believe how close they were to the monsters as they whizzed by. Noise and wind and harsh scents buffeted him so that he hardly knew where he was. The monsters moved so quickly that he couldn't see their paws, just a blur of black as they raced by. Their roaring was so loud it hurt his ears, and their eyes were so bright that he couldn't bear to look at them.

“Don't worry,” meowed Sandstorm, standing next to him. “As long as we time our crossing right, the monsters won't get us.”

Alderpaw wanted to believe her, but he couldn't help noticing the fear in her voice and in her scent.

There was no gap between the monsters where the cats could safely cross. Alderpaw imagined himself squashed beneath those massive black paws, flattened onto the black surface of the Thunderpath.

Then something flew out of one of the monsters. It glittered in the light from their eyes, heading straight for Molewhisker. Sandstorm saw it, too.

“No!” she yowled, leaping at Molewhisker and shoving him out of the way.

Both cats lost their balance and fell over in a tangle of legs and tails, while the object smashed down on the edge of the Thunderpath and shattered into pieces.

“Thanks!” Molewhisker panted, scrambling to his paws. “Sandstorm, you probably saved my—”

He broke off as another object appeared from another monster, a dark shape hurtling through the air.

“Run!” Sandstorm yowled. “Back into the trees!”

No cat waited to find out what the second object was. Alderpaw heard it thump to the ground behind him as he raced back into the woodland with Sparkpaw by his side. At first he was scared that they would lose one another in the gathering darkness, but after a moment they all came together and huddled, trembling, in the shelter of some ferns.

“That does it!” Sandstorm's voice was shaking. “I'm not trying to cross in the dark, not with monsters throwing things at us. We'll make camp here and cross in the morning.”

Alderpaw felt a vast wave of relief that he didn't have to go back and face the monsters with their glowing eyes. He
tried to squash down the niggling anxiety that he felt when he thought about making the crossing on the following day.

Every cat was too exhausted to think of making real nests. They crawled more deeply into the patch of ferns and curled up close together. Alderpaw was grateful for the comforting feel of his sister's fur pressed against him on one side, and Molewhisker's on the other.

But as sleep washed over him, his pelt tingled with the certainty that he could still feel their mysterious follower's eyes.

Sunlight slanting through the ferns woke Alderpaw the next morning. Scrambling up, he pushed his way out into the open to see Sandstorm grooming herself at the foot of a beech tree. There was no sign of his other Clanmates.

“It's so late!” he gasped. “Why did you let me sleep? Where are the others?”

“Keep your fur on,” Sandstorm meowed, licking her paw and drawing it over one ear. “It's only just after sunrise. The others have gone hunting.”

As she spoke, the fern fronds waved and Cherryfall emerged, carrying a squirrel. Molewhisker and Sparkpaw followed her, each with a vole.

“Great catch,” Sandstorm commented. “Let's eat and be on our way.”

It was comforting to have a full belly when he followed his Clanmates to the edge of the trees and reached the Thunderpath once more. He was still scared as he crouched at the edge of the hard black path, his fur buffeted as the monsters roared
past. But it wasn't quite as terrifying as the night before.

At least we can see the monsters properly, not just their blazing eyes!

Sandstorm stood in the middle of their line, her head turning to and fro as she waited for a gap between the monsters. “When I say ‘run,'” she mewed, “then run as if the whole of ShadowClan were after you, and don't stop until you get to the other side.”

It seemed a long time to Alderpaw before the roaring of monsters died away and the last of them dwindled into the distance.

“Now!” Sandstorm exclaimed. “Run!”

Alderpaw leaped forward in massive bounds, his paws barely touching the hard surface of the Thunderpath as he raced toward the trees on the other side, Sparkpaw keeping pace next to him. Then the roar of a monster burst upon Alderpaw's ears, and he heard Sandstorm shriek, “Faster!”

Glancing over, Alderpaw saw the biggest monster yet bearing down on him, looming over him with its jaws gaping. All his instincts told him to freeze in terror, but Sparkpaw barreled into him, forcing him to keep running. The monster passed behind them with a blast of wind, and Alderpaw collapsed, panting, on the grass at the far side of the Thunderpath.

“Great StarClan, that was scary!” Sparkpaw exclaimed.

Alderpaw sat up, panting for breath. “Thanks, Sparkpaw. You saved—”

His sister gave him a hard nudge. “Shut up, stupid furball.”

“We ought to get under cover,” Molewhisker suggested.
“The monsters might start throwing things again.”

“Good idea,” Sandstorm agreed.

They trekked through the trees for the rest of the day, as clouds began to gather, casting a gloom over the forest. Wind rustled the upper branches, and a few drops of rain spattered down. Toward evening the sky cleared again, but the air remained chilly. Fluffing up his fur, Alderpaw wished he could look forward to his cozy nest in the apprentices' den.
At least I don't think we're being watched anymore. Maybe we lost the creature, whatever it was, back at the Thunderpath.