Outcast

Chapter 17

“We’ve got to get out!” The WindClan apprentice abandoned the remains of his mouse and bounded toward the entrance, only to skid to a halt a couple of fox-lengths away. Three skinny black-and-white shapes had appeared in the gap, their jaws hanging open and their eyes shining as they surveyed the cats.

“One each.” Lionpaw’s voice was dry with fear. “Great.”

Hollypaw looked around. There were no other entrances to the nest and no gaps in the stone walls, except for those where the light came in, too high for a cat to leap.

The dogs began to creep forward, their heads lowered and their legs bent, ready to sprint after the cats. Now I know what prey feels like, Hollypaw thought. She and the two toms backed away nervously.

“Try to dodge around them,” Lionpaw mewed quietly. “If we can get out, we can outrun them.”

The first dog leaped forward. Hollypaw spun around and fled, imagining she could feel its breath hot on her hind paws.

Her muscles flexed as she tried to make her legs move faster, but she was tired from journeying, and her paws slipped on the dusty stone floor. Ahead of her, at the far end of the nest, was an enormous pile of dried grass. Despairingly Hollypaw wondered if they could hide in it, but she knew the dogs would be able to plunge into it and drag them out. Beyond it was the bare wall.

Why did we let ourselves get trapped? I can’t believe we were so stupid!

“StarClan, help us!” she panted, but at the same time she hoped the starry warriors weren’t watching and didn’t know how disobedient they’d been.

“Up here!”

The yowl came from above her. Glancing up, she spotted a cat’s head and shoulders in one of the narrow slits high in the wall. Her jaws gaped in astonishment. It was Purdy!

“Climb the hay!” the old cat urged. “D’you want to stay and be eaten?”

Lionpaw flung himself at the pile of dried grass and began to claw his way up it. Hollypaw plunged after him, just as she heard the snap of teeth a mouse-length from her hind paws.

Behind her she heard a shriek. Glancing back she saw Breezepaw trying to climb, only to be dragged back by a dog with its teeth fastened in his tail.

Hollypaw tensed. She would have to go back and help. She didn’t like Breezepaw, but he was a Clan cat, and she couldn’t abandon him to be torn apart. But before she could scramble down Breezepaw gave a panic-stricken heave, tore his tail free, and struggled upward, away from the gaping jaws.

The dogs tried to follow him, but they were too heavy for the piled grass to bear their weight. They floundered around in it, snuffling and slavering over the trail of Breezepaw’s blood.

Hollypaw fought her way up again, half buried in the grass.

It caught in her pelt; seeds got into her nose and made her sneeze. Just ahead of her, Lionpaw reached the slit where Purdy waited. The old tabby grabbed him by the scruff and pulled him through, then dropped him somewhere out of Hollypaw’s sight.

He reached for Hollypaw, grabbed her, and swung her off all four of her paws into the air. In a blur of fear she thought she would fall all the way to the ground. She tensed herself for the impact, only to drop, juddering, onto a sloping red roof a couple of tail-lengths below the slit in the wall. Caught off-balance, she felt herself slipping to the edge, until Lionpaw thrust himself in front of her and brought her to a halt.

“Thanks!” she gasped.

Looking back, she saw Purdy hauling Breezepaw through the gap.

“What about my tail?” the WindClan cat complained as Purdy dropped him to join the others. “It’s bleeding!”

“Shut up and follow me,” Purdy meowed, leaping down beside them with a thump. “Or you’ll have more to worry about than your tail. This way,” he added, creeping to the edge of the roof.

He jumped down onto the edge of a container filled with water, and from there to the ground, gesturing urgently for them to follow. Lionpaw went first, leaping down easily.

Hollypaw followed him with more caution, imagining the cold shock of a plunge into the water. Breezepaw landed beside her and immediately flicked his tail forward to examine the ragged and bleeding end.

“Stop that,” Purdy hissed. “We’ve got to run!”

A flurry of yelping sounded from inside the nest, followed by the thunder of paws breaking out into the open. Purdy took off, running as fast as any warrior, back the way the apprentices had come. The apprentices raced after him.

Hollypaw’s heart pounded even harder as they approached the fence; would they be able to squeeze through before the dogs caught them?

But Purdy led them to a different part of the fence and shoved Lionpaw roughly through a hole. Hollypaw scrambled through after him; it was easier and faster than squeezing underneath. Breezepaw followed, and last of all Purdy, who turned to face the dogs as they came bounding up, barking fit to wake StarClan.

“Get back to your Upwalkers,” he taunted them. “Ask them to feed you. You won’t get no cat today.”

Hollypaw didn’t think the dogs understood him. They flung themselves at the fence, but it didn’t give way, and the hole was too small for them to get through. A moment later a Twoleg appeared around the corner of the nearest nest and yowled at them. The dogs’ barking changed to whines and they slunk away, casting furious glances back at the cats.

“Right, let’s go,” Purdy meowed.

He led them back to the shelter of the hedge, where all three of them collapsed in the long grass. Hollypaw closed her eyes. When she opened them again Purdy had gone.

Instead, Brambleclaw and Crowfeather were standing over her.

“Are the three of you completely mouse-brained?”

Brambleclaw’s voice was icy. “You were told there were dogs at the farm. Yet you still go putting yourselves in danger. And for what? A few mice!”

“Sorry,” Hollypaw muttered, unable to meet her father’s gaze.

“We weren’t thinking,” Lionpaw confessed.

“Obviously,” Brambleclaw retorted.

“It’s not all our fault, though.” Breezepaw looked up from licking his tail. “If you hadn’t let us get so hungry—”

“None of you has ever known what it means to be really hungry,” Crowfeather spat.

“And I hope all three of you have thanked Purdy,” Brambleclaw continued. “You’re lucky he guessed where you’d gone. If he hadn’t—”

“We could have found our own way up the hay,” Breezepaw interrupted. “We don’t owe anything to that crazy old cat.”

Hollypaw gaped at him. Okay, maybe they could have found their own way out if they hadn’t been so terrified, and if they had known which slit offered an easy way to the ground. But she was sure that if it hadn’t been for Purdy, they would all three be lying dead in the Twoleg nest, torn apart by the dogs.

Crowfeather let out an irritable hiss and turned his back.

Hollypaw felt an unexpected pang of sympathy for Breezepaw. She would rather be scolded by Brambleclaw than face Crowfeather’s coldness. Did he even like Breezepaw? She and her littermates couldn’t stand the WindClan apprentice, but Crowfeather was his father, for StarClan’s sake!

I’m glad he’s not my father, she thought.

A rustling along the hedgerow made her jump, but it was only Jaypaw, padding up with a mouthful of herbs. “Chervil,” he announced, dropping the leaves beside Breezepaw. “I’d rather use horsetail, but I can’t find any. Chew it up and put the pulp on your tail,” he told Breezepaw. He turned to Hollypaw and Lionpaw. “Are you hurt?”

“No, we’re fine,” Lionpaw assured him.

“I’d better check.” Jaypaw nosed Lionpaw thoroughly from ears to tail tip, then went on to Hollypaw.

“We’re really okay,” she meowed, realizing that her brother was quivering with tension. “I’m sorry we couldn’t bring you back a mouse.”

“You shouldn’t be sorry for that.” Hollypaw was shocked at the fear and anger in her brother’s voice. “Be sorry you went off and did something so mouse-brained. You didn’t think about me, did you? What would I do if I lost you?”

Hollypaw swallowed hard. She hadn’t thought about Jaypaw, except to check that he didn’t know they were leaving.

She’d forgotten how much Jaypaw needed her and Lionpaw, and how much harder it would be for him to lead a normal life if they weren’t there.

“We are sorry,” she mewed, touching her nose to her brother’s shoulder. “We—”

“‘Sorry’ catches no prey.” Jaypaw pulled away from her, gave a quick sniff at the pulped chervil on Breezepaw’s tail, and stalked off down the line of the hedge. “They’re fine, we can carry on.” He tossed the words at Brambleclaw over his shoulder as he went.

“Come on,” Brambleclaw meowed. “We’ve wasted enough time already.”

He led the way back to the other cats, who were waiting in the shadow of the hedge. Purdy was curled up, apparently asleep. Squirrelflight and Tawnypelt were keeping watch, while Stormfur and Brook shared tongues and the two Tribe cats crouched close together, muttering.

“About time,” Tawnypelt grunted, rising to her paws.

“Are you all okay?” Squirrelflight asked. Her voice was stern, but Hollypaw could sense her anxiety.

“We’re fine,” Lionpaw mewed quietly. “We won’t do it again.”

Brambleclaw’s voice was grim. “You’d better not.”

Stormfur prodded Purdy awake, and the journeying cats set off again. Hollypaw’s pads stung from where they had scraped on the stone floor of the nest. Her fur felt hot and uncomfortable from the seeds and dried grasses still caught up in it. Soon they had to leave the shade of the hedge and trek across an open field. The sun beat down; thirst clawed at her throat and her belly was yowling with hunger. Her legs were trembling with exhaustion by the time they reached the forest on the other side of the valley.

Brambleclaw stopped under the trees. “We’ll stay here for the night,” he announced.

“But it’s still daylight,” Talon objected. “We can go farther before it’s too dark to travel.”

“I hope you’re not stopping because of these apprentices,” Crowfeather added, giving his son an unfriendly glare. “If they’re tired, it’s their own fault.”

“No, I’m not.” Brambleclaw spoke quietly. “Though none of us will get very far if they collapse. But if we rest here now we can get an early start tomorrow and reach the mountains before nightfall.”

The warriors went off to hunt among the ferns and brambles at the edge of the wood. Lionpaw and Breezepaw flopped down side by side on the moss between some tree roots and fell instantly asleep.

Hollypaw would have liked to join them, but there was something else she had to do first. Tottering on exhausted legs, she forced herself farther into the wood until she spotted a mouse scuttling across the open space between two bushes. As she pounced, it darted under a heap of dead leaves; she scrambled after it and managed to trap it between her claws.

That was a really messy kill, she thought, though she was almost too tired to care.

Picking up the limp body, she padded back to the edge of the wood where Purdy was crouching, his paws tucked under him as he gazed with slitted eyes across the valley.

One amber eye opened wider as she approached. “What d’you want?” he asked. Hollypaw had expected him to be hostile, but his voice was gentle, even friendly.

“I brought you this.” She dropped the mouse in front of him. “Food, and something else.” She scraped the grass with one forepaw, suddenly embarrassed. “I… er… I couldn’t help noticing you’ve got lots of ticks,” she stumbled. “I’ll get them off, if you like.”

Purdy raised one hind leg and scratched vigorously behind his ear. “I wouldn’t say no.”

Carefully Hollypaw extracted the mouse bile, trying not to gag at the dreadful smell. Fetching a scrap of moss to soak it up, she explained to Purdy, “This is what medicine cats do in the Clans. I was a medicine cat apprentice for a while, so I learned how.”

“That’s certainly some smell,” Purdy meowed, turning his face away as Hollypaw began dabbing the bile on the ticks that swelled among his rumpled tabby fur. But he kept still and let out a sigh of relief as the creatures started to drop off.

“Don’t your Twolegs take care of your ticks?” Hollypaw asked as she worked.

Purdy shook his head. “My Upwalker died. I’ve found a few others who feed me now an’ then, but they don’t mess with my pelt. It don’t bother me none,” he added unconvincingly.

Pity for him clawed Hollypaw’s belly. So he’s not even a kittypet anymore! Just a loner who’s getting old. “There, I’m done,” she told him.

A rumbling purr started up in Purdy’s chest. “Thanks, that feels a whole lot better,” he meowed. “So that’s what you learn when you’re a medicine cat, eh? At least the Clan cats get one thing right.”

“We’re all sorry about today,” Hollypaw mewed quietly.

“We’re really grateful for what you did, coming to rescue us like that.”

“’T’weren’t nothin’,” the old cat responded. “Takin’ on them dogs, it made me feel young again.”

“I think there’s a lot we could learn from you,” Hollypaw told him.

The old cat just gave an amused snort and bent his head to devour the remains of the mouse. Hollypaw curled up beside him in the long grass, and the sound of his contented purr filled her ears as she slept.