The Apprentice's Quest (24 page)

At first Alderpaw lay in an
exhausted stupor with Needlepaw by his side, but the thought of his Clanmates soon roused him. “We should get up,” he panted. “Try to figure out a way to get back to the others.”

Needlepaw gave her shoulder fur a couple of feeble licks. “I don't know about you,” she meowed, “but I need to rest.”

“But we don't know what happened to them!” Alderpaw asked, with a fretful look upstream. “We need to find them!”

And how are we going to find SkyClan now?

Needlepaw snorted. “
You
need to quit worrying about the others so much and start worrying about yourself. Let
them
find
us
. Meanwhile, we need to rest.”

Alderpaw realized that Needlepaw was right. Staggering to his paws, he gazed around, only to see monsters dashing to and fro on a Thunderpath a few fox-lengths away, with a row of Twoleg dens on the far side. The air was filled with the reek of monsters and Twolegs.

“I don't believe it!” he groaned. “Twolegs everywhere!”

“It's fine,” Needlepaw responded, waving her tail toward a tangle of elder bushes growing between the water's edge and
the Thunderpath. “We can make a nest here. The Twolegs won't find us.”

Hoping she was right, Alderpaw followed her as she thrust her way deep into the bushes and flattened a clump of long grass for a makeshift nest. His legs aching with weariness, Alderpaw curled up beside her.

Soon Needlepaw's snores echoed around their den. But in spite of his exhaustion, Alderpaw found it hard to sleep. The sound and stink of the monsters was too close, and the events of their desperate escape from the rogues kept flickering through his mind. Snuggling up to Needlepaw, Alderpaw filled his nose with her scent, trying to imagine that he was back in camp, snoozing in the apprentices' den with Sparkpaw. Finally he slept.

When Alderpaw awoke, bright sunlight was filtering through the branches of the elder bushes. Anxiety stabbed at him as he saw that Needlepaw had vanished. The sound of Twoleg voices drifted into Alderpaw's ears, and when he crept cautiously out of the bushes he spotted several Twoleg kits playing beside the nests, tossing something brightly colored to each other.

A wave of homesickness for the lake and the forest flooded over Alderpaw.
Those kits are so noisy! When will we ever get a bit of peace?

Then the grass parted to reveal Needlepaw, trotting up to him with a plump sparrow clamped in her jaws. “Fresh-kill!” she announced, dropping it at Alderpaw's paws.

“Thank StarClan you're back!” Alderpaw exclaimed. “I was worried about you.”

Needlepaw flicked her tail. “No need. Come on, eat.”

“What do you think we ought to do next?” Alderpaw asked, his jaws watering as he gulped down warm bites of the sparrow. It was good to sit in the shelter of the bushes and let the sun warm his damp fur, but he knew they shouldn't stay there any longer.

“Look for the others, I guess,” Needlepaw replied with her mouth full.

Alderpaw was glad that he didn't have to argue with her. He couldn't imagine turning for home without at least trying to find his Clanmates.

When they had finished eating, he and Needlepaw headed back upstream as far as the waterfall. “I guess we have to go this way,” he muttered, gazing up at the moss-covered rocks that jutted from the cliff face beside the cascading water.

“It doesn't look too hard,” Needlepaw meowed, springing up onto the first of the rocks.

Not sure he agreed, Alderpaw followed. The river thundered down beside him, and his legs began to shake as he remembered how he had been swept away and almost drowned. The rocks were slippery from spray, and if he sank his claws into the moss, it pulled away and almost made him lose his balance. Needlepaw was climbing determinedly ahead of him, showering him with grit and drops of water.

Alderpaw was panting hard by the time he reached the top. He would have liked to rest again, but urgency gave strength
to his paws as he thought about his Clanmates.

He and Needlepaw trudged on beside the stream, now and again calling out to their friends and casting back and forth as they tried to pick up their scent. Alderpaw began to grow discouraged as they drew closer to the gorge again.
Maybe the rogues recaptured them. They could all be dead by now!

“Hey!” Needlepaw exclaimed at last, pausing to taste the air among the roots of an elm tree that grew close to the waterside. “Over here!”

Alderpaw padded over to join her and sniffed into the leaf-lined hollow made by the roots. He could discern the scents of all three of his Clanmates.

“They must have stopped here to rest,” he mewed, his voice shaking with relief. “Sparkpaw! Molewhisker! Cherryfall!” he called, hoping that they might still be within earshot. But no cat replied.

“I'll tell you something,” Needlepaw murmured, concentrating hard as she followed the scent away from the tree. “They were traveling downstream. I'll bet you a moon of dawn patrols they were looking for us.”

Alderpaw's heart began to thump with excitement. “Then did we pass them on the way?”

“I don't see how we could have.” Needlepaw looked puzzled for a moment.

“Anyway,” Alderpaw went on, energy surging back into his paws, “all we have to do is follow their scent. Come on!”

“And climb back down that StarClan-cursed waterfall!” Needlepaw groaned as she followed him.

The scent trail led downstream, sometimes by the waterside, sometimes ranging farther away. Now and again individual scents split off from the main trail, but they always joined it again.

“They're searching for us,” Needlepaw mewed. “I can't think how we missed them.”

But when they reached the bushes near the Twoleg dens where they had curled up to rest, they found that the scent trail led onward, past their makeshift den and along the grass between the river and the Thunderpath.

“I don't believe it!” Needlepaw snarled with a lash of her tail. “
They
missed
us
! They must have walked straight past while we were asleep.”

Alderpaw bit back a growl of frustration. “We were so wet, the water would have washed out our scent,” he meowed. “And all these Twoleg scents don't help. But it's not so bad. At least we know that they're alive, and they haven't been recaptured by Darktail. All we have to do is follow them.”

But when he and Needlepaw headed downstream, they found it wasn't as easy as that. There were so many conflicting reeks of Twolegs and monsters covering the scent trail. Finally they came to a place where Alderpaw guessed that a monster must have stopped, leaving splashes of something dark and foul-smelling on the grass. The cat scent was completely swamped, and they couldn't pick it up again on the other side.

“We've lost them,” Alderpaw mewed.

“They probably think we drowned,” Needlepaw responded in a tiny voice. “Who knows where they went after this?”

“They must still be following the river,” Alderpaw pointed out. “Where else is there for them to go? There's no way of crossing here.”

“Maybe.” Needlepaw seemed unusually despondent. “But what if we're wrong? What if we never find them?”

Alderpaw swallowed hard. “Then we have to find our own way back to camp from here,” he stated, trying to sound confident. “If they give up looking for us, that's where they'll go.”

Glancing around, Alderpaw realized that he had no idea where they were. They had approached the gorge from the opposite bank, and everything looked different from where he was standing now. He wasn't even certain if they had been swept past the point where they had first come upon the river.

“We have to cross back to the other side,” he meowed, “and then head toward the setting sun.”

“That's a bit vague,” Needlepaw pointed out with a sniff. “We could completely miss the lake and the Clan territory. And don't even think about swimming across the river, because I'm not going to.”

“No cat asked you to,” Alderpaw meowed mildly. “We'll head downstream on this side to start with, and maybe there'll be a fallen tree or something where we can cross. We might even catch up with the others, if we're lucky.”

Needlepaw let out a snort. “We could use a bit of luck!”

By this time the sun was starting to go down, casting scarlet light over the river. Alderpaw realized they would soon have to look for somewhere to spend the night.
At least we're far from those Twoleg dens,
he thought.

Soon the Thunderpath veered away from the river, so that a grassy stretch of ground opened up, dotted here and there with clumps of bushes.

“This would be a good place to rest,” Alderpaw meowed, stretching his jaws in a yawn. “Any chance of prey?”

Needlepaw perked up at the thought of hunting. “Just watch me!”

She disappeared into the nearest bushes and returned a few moments later with the limp body of a blackbird dangling from her jaws. Meanwhile Alderpaw found a sheltered hollow underneath the branches of a hazel bush and scraped together some dead leaves to make a nest. As he ate his share of the fresh-kill, he realized how exhausted he was. Not even his worries about finding his way home were enough to keep him from falling into a deep sleep. But StarClan still did not visit him in his dreams.

For three more sunrises Alderpaw and Needlepaw trekked along the river. Their hopes revived when now and again they picked up traces of their friends' scents and knew that they were still following in their paw steps. The river rolled on, wider and stronger now; there was nowhere safe for the cats to cross.

During the third day Alderpaw began to pick up the reek of monsters again, and there was a haze in the air ahead of them. Shortly after sunhigh more Twoleg dens loomed on the horizon.

“That's a really big Twolegplace,” Alderpaw meowed, stifling a groan. “And I know we never passed it on the way to
the gorge. We've come too far downriver.”

Needlepaw shrugged. “We didn't have much choice.”

“And we still don't.” Alderpaw cast a glance at the surging river, the far bank looking impossibly far away. “We're going to have to travel through the filthy place.”

“You know, that might not be a bad thing,” Needlepaw mused as the two cats padded on side by side and the first of the Twoleg dens grew closer and closer.

Alderpaw was already feeling oppressed by the stinks and noises of the Twolegplace. “Not funny, Needlepaw,” he snapped.

“I'm not joking.” Needlepaw halted and turned to face him. Amusement was glimmering in her green eyes, but her tone was serious as she added, “We need to find a kittypet.”

“A
kittypet
?” Alderpaw was outraged. “Are you feeling okay? I don't think there's an herb for a cat with bees in her brain.”

“No, listen, idiot.” Needlepaw gave her ears and impatient flick. “A kittypet might be able to tell us where we can cross the river.”

Alderpaw snorted. “What makes you think that?”

“A kittypet would know this area well,” Needlepaw replied, “which we do not. And maybe they would even give us some kittypet food.”

Alderpaw wanted to retch with disgust. “You're joking now, right?”

“No. We still have a long journey ahead,” Needlepaw meowed. “It makes sense to fill up while we can.”

“I'm not filling up on that stuff,” Alderpaw muttered as
they set off again. “It's totally against the warrior code to eat kittypet food. And they say it looks like mouse droppings!”

Alderpaw knew there was no point in protesting any more as he followed Needlepaw toward the Twolegplace. She kept marching on determinedly until they reached a Thunderpath that ran alongside the nearest dens. Needlepaw halted, glancing up and down for monsters, then stretched out a paw and rested it gently on the hard black surface of the Thunderpath.