The Fourth Apprentice

Chapter 22

Lionblaze jumped up onto the bank of the stream and turned to look back down at his ragged patrol. Seville, Snowdrop, and Jigsaw were standing with their mouths wide open as they stared up at the dam.

“That’s seriously huge!” Jigsaw breathed.

Snowdrop blinked at Lionblaze. “You really think we can move that?”

Lionblaze nodded, trying to hide his own doubts and give the kittypets confidence. “With all of us working together, yes, I do.”

“Come on,” Dovepaw urged them, leaping up to stand beside Lionblaze. “Let’s go find the others.”

Lionblaze led the way up the slope and into the clearing where he had left the other Clan cats. Pushing through the undergrowth into the open, he halted, eyes wide with surprise at the sight of a pile of logs in the middle of the clearing. Sedgewhisker was just heaving a branch onto the top of the stack, before leaping lightly down.

“Hi, you’re back,” she panted.

“I figured if we could stack branches, we could work out how to pull them apart,” Toadfoot explained, padding over to meet Lionblaze. His pelt was covered with scraps of twig and bark and he was breathing hard.

“Good idea,” Lionblaze meowed admiringly. “You’re doing a great job.”

At the opposite side of the clearing Petalfur was dragging a branch that was far, far bigger than she was. She didn’t stop until she reached the stack of logs and pushed her branch up to the foot of it. Then she limped wearily across the clearing to join Lionblaze and the others; her eyes as she gazed at the new arrivals were old and full of determination.

As Tigerheart and Whitetail trotted up with Woody, Lionblaze began to introduce the kittypets.

“I’m not a Clan cat,” Woody explained. “I’m just passing through.”

“I think I’ve seen you before, in the woods,” Seville meowed; he looked relieved to meet a cat who was even slightly familiar.

“We’ve got to discuss the plan,” Toadfoot announced as soon as the introductions were over. “We need to decide—”

“Hunt first,” Whitetail interrupted with a flick of her tail. “We can’t do this if we don’t eat and rest for a bit.”

Toadfoot looked briefly offended at being contradicted, then gave the WindClan she-cat a nod. “Okay,” he agreed. “But we’d better be quick about it.”

To Lionblaze’s relief, there was still plenty of prey in the woods, and it wasn’t long before the cats had gathered in the clearing again, crouching to eat their catch.

“We’ve already eaten, thanks,” Seville mewed when Whitetail offered him a mouse.

Snowdrop drew back, her green eyes wide with horror, but Jigsaw looked cautiously interested, and he leaned over to sniff the squirrel Dovepaw had caught.

“Go on, take a bite,” she encouraged him.

Jigsaw hesitated, then buried his teeth in the squirrel and tore off a mouthful.

“What do you think?” Dovepaw asked as he gulped it down.

“Er…not bad,” the tabby tom replied. “Just a bit…fluffy.” Night was falling by the time the cats had finished eating. The moon shone fitfully from behind drifting banks of cloud, and the air felt damp and heavy.

“I think Whitetail and Sedgewhisker should be the ones to lure the beavers away,” Lionblaze began as the rest of the cats clustered around him beneath the trees.

“Why?” The tip of Whitetail’s tail twitched. “We’re not scared to work on the dam.” Sedgewhisker nodded.

“Because WindClan cats are the fastest runners,” Toadfoot replied. “We all have to do what we’re best at.”

“Oh…okay.” Whitetail looked satisfied.

“I’ll come with you,” Woody meowed. “I know these woods. We’ll start off from the beavers’ lodge, and then go this way…” Picking up a twig in his jaws, he traced a line in the leaf-mold to represent the stream, and then a winding route through the trees. “There’s plenty of cover; they’ll have no idea what’s happening back at the dam,” he added, dropping the twig.

“That’s great, Woody,” Lionblaze told him.

“We’ll distract the beavers for as long as we possibly can,” Whitetail mewed.

“And if they do decide to come back, I’ll run ahead and warn you,” Sedgewhisker added.

Lionblaze nodded, with a sideways glance at Dovepaw. She can use her senses to track the beavers, too.

“So what about the dam?” Tigerheart prompted. “Once the beavers are out of the way—what then?”

“We’d be better off tackling it from the other side,” Lionblaze meowed. “That way we’ll be even farther from the beavers.”

“That’s a good idea,” Petalfur agreed. “And I’ve been thinking. Look at this.” She pointed with her paw to a small pile of twigs. “It’s easiest to knock the top logs off the dam”—she demonstrated by swiping at the topmost twig with a claw—“but if we can somehow get inside and shift the logs farther down, then the whole thing might collapse.” Delicately she removed a twig from the middle of her pile, and the heap crumbled, sending twigs rolling down the slope. “The weight of water would crush it.”

“Brilliant!” Tigerheart exclaimed.

“Hang on a moment.” Seville, the orange kittypet, spoke up. “You want us to go inside the dam and collapse it…and we would still be inside it, yes?”

Lionblaze nodded. “It’s risky, but it looks like it’s the only way.” He hesitated, gazing around at the worried faces of his friends. “We’ll just have to see what it’s like when we get there,” he ended with a shrug.

With a last glance at their companions, Whitetail, Sedgewhisker, and Woody headed upstream toward the lodge, while Lionblaze led the rest of the cats across the stream below the dam to the bank on the opposite side. Farther up the slope, they could see the Twoleg pelt-dens glowing with light and echoing with murmuring voices.

“What about them?” Toadfoot asked, flicking his tail in the direction of the pelt-dens.

Lionblaze paused at the bottom of the dam. “There’s nothing we can do about them,” he replied at last. “We don’t have enough cats to distract them. We’ll just have to hope that they don’t cause any trouble.”

“Hope’s the easy part,” Toadfoot responded caustically.

Lionblaze’s pelt prickled with tension as he waited for the signal from Whitetail. He could tell that the other cats felt the same. Dovepaw was scraping at the ground with the tips of her claws, while Tigerheart’s tail twitched back and forth. All three kittypets looked terrified, their eyes wide and their ears laid back.

Come on, Whitetail, Lionblaze urged. Get a move on, before one of us starts to panic.

“Remember,” he mewed aloud. “No cat is to fight. If the beavers come back and challenge you, don’t try to be a hero. We’ve learned that lesson the hard way.”

“Right,” Toadfoot agreed. “If the beavers attack, run. Climb a tree. I don’t think they can—”

A piercing yowl from across the stream interrupted him.

“Something’s happening,” Lionblaze murmured, with a glance at Dovepaw.

She nodded. “The beavers are moving inside their den,” she whispered, so faintly that no other cat could hear.

Lionblaze peered upstream toward the lodge. At first the night was so black that he could see nothing. Then the moon drifted out from behind a cloud, and he spotted movement beside the mound of sticks. The beavers’ heads broke the surface of the pool and they scrambled up onto the outside of the lodge, their bodies swarming over the logs like bulky shadows.

On the bank, Lionblaze made out Whitetail’s pale pelt, with Woody and Sedgewhisker dark shadows beside her. He could just hear their mocking hisses, taunting the beavers to draw them off their den and away from the pool. One of the beavers grunted, then waddled down the hill of sticks and onto the bank. It started bustling toward the cats, its tail whispering over the leaves. The other beavers followed, clumsy but surprisingly fast. Sedgewhisker darted forward and dealt the leader a swift blow on the nose before dancing away again.

“Great StarClan!” Toadfoot spat. “Has she no sense?”

The beavers lumbered in pursuit as Whitetail and the others slipped back into the trees, drawing them deeper into the forest. Within a few heartbeats, Lionblaze lost sight of them.

“Go!” Toadfoot hissed.

As the cats jumped up onto the dam, a claw of lightning split the sky from top to bottom, and thunder cracked above their heads. Snowdrop flinched, pressing herself to the log where she was balancing, then forced herself to her paws again and kept climbing.

“We should split up,” Petalfur panted. “Some cat should come with me and start looking for a gap where we can get inside. The rest of you can start pushing logs off the top.”

“I’ll come with you,” Toadfoot offered.

Petalfur led the way across the dam, just above the level of the pool, with Toadfoot following her. Lionblaze watched as she halted and started prodding one of the logs; then he headed for the top of the barrier. Lightning crackled out again; Lionblaze was almost deafened by the roll of thunder that followed it, and his ears kept ringing afterward. He shook his head impatiently. Then fat drops of rain began to fall, splashing on the logs and on the cats’ pelts.

“This is all we need,” Tigerheart grumbled.

“We’d have been happy about it back at the lake,” Dovepaw pointed out. “I hope it rains there, too.”

As Lionblaze scrambled over the topmost log and stood looking down at the pool, the clouds burst. Rain poured down in a hissing screen that blotted out everything except the logs beneath his paws. His pelt was drenched within heartbeats; he shivered as the cold rain reached his skin.

“Okay,” he yowled, raising his voice to be heard above the drumming of the raindrops. “See if you can loosen some of these logs and branches. Push them down into the streambed.”

He grabbed a long, thin branch in his jaws and hurled it down, then bent his head to grapple with a bigger log. Jigsaw pushed at it from the other end; it rolled slowly to the edge and landed in the stream with a satisfying crash.

“Yes!” Jigsaw yowled.

Farther along the dam Tigerheart and Snowdrop were struggling with a tree trunk, while Seville was showering down twigs and smaller branches into the streambed. Dovepaw was crouched close to Lionblaze, her eyes closed; he guessed she was sending out her senses to find out what the beavers were doing.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

Dovepaw blinked up at him through the driving rain. “Fine,” she replied. “Whitetail and the others are keeping the beavers busy.”

Lionblaze twitched his ears. “Good. Now come help me with this log. Otherwise every cat will start wondering what you’re doing.”

Dovepaw glared at him; Lionblaze knew how she felt about keeping her powers a secret, but he didn’t see what else they could do. Slipping on the wet logs, she struggled to his side and put her shoulder to the log he was trying to shift. Lionblaze thrust hard at it and felt it start to move, rolling faster and faster until it tipped over the edge and fell into the stream.

“Well done!” Lionblaze panted. “We—”

He broke off as the terrified screech of a cat cut through the hiss of the rain. A couple of tail-lengths farther along the dam, Lionblaze spotted Tigerheart’s paws skid from under him; the young warrior went plummeting down toward the stream, landing with a splash where rain was pooling on the stony bed.

Before Lionblaze could find a way to help him, he made out movement down below and Tigerheart appeared, clawing his way determinedly up the stack of logs. His mud-soaked fur stuck out in spikes, but his eyes gleamed with determination.

“Are you okay?” Lionblaze called out.

“No, I’m furious!” Tigerheart hauled himself onto the top of the dam. “I’d like to turn every one of those beavers into fresh-kill.”

“He’s okay,” Dovepaw murmured.

Lionblaze waved his tail at the ShadowClan cat, then began testing which of the logs around him could be dislodged next. They all seemed to be stuck fast, bound together with mud and twigs.

Then he heard Petalfur calling from farther down the mound. “Hey, we need some help down here!”

Heading toward the sound of the she-cat’s voice, Lionblaze was joined by the three kittypets. Their fur was plastered to their bodies and their eyes were wild with fear. But they didn’t hesitate, scrambling across the logs to answer Petalfur’s call.

I’ll never feel the same about kittypets after tonight, Lionblaze thought.

Petalfur and Toadfoot were clinging to the dam two or three tail-lengths above the pool. Rain stippled the surface while black water sucked at the lowest logs. A dark hole gaped in the mound beside Toadfoot and Petalfur, with a huge tree trunk poking out of it. “We pulled out some of the mud and twigs,” Petalfur explained. “If we can shift that trunk, I think a lot of the dam will go with it.”

“Okay, let’s try,” Lionblaze meowed.

Glancing around, he saw that Dovepaw and Tigerheart had also clambered down to join them. “Dovepaw, you’re the smallest,” he called. “Can you go right inside and push from there?”

Dovepaw gave him a tense nod and vanished into the hole. The rest of the cats lined up against the tree trunk and started to push. At first Lionblaze couldn’t feel it move at all.

“Harder!” he yowled. “Jigsaw, push more from your end! Toadfoot, can you wriggle underneath and pull out more of the mud?”

Gradually, as all the cats struggled and panted, the tree trunk began to shift. The outer end swung around; Lionblaze heard a crunching sound from inside the dam.

“Dovepaw, get out!” he screeched.

The apprentice popped out into the open again as more mud poured down into the hole, which quickly closed up. The tree swung further, tearing several more logs along with it, then ripped free and tumbled down the slope. Jigsaw was knocked off his paws as it slid past him; Snowdrop fastened her teeth in his shoulder and hauled him upright again. Tigerheart flung himself flat and the tree trunk bounced right over him, skimming his bristling fur. Lionblaze suddenly realized that the log under his paws was moving. He looked around for a solid place to jump to, but there was no time. As the log where he had been standing fell into the pool, he dug the claws of one paw into another branch and hung there, dangling in the air, with water lapping against his tail.

The pool was pushing hungrily at the dam. Lionblaze clawed his way onto a bigger log, feeling it shift under his weight. The whole structure was starting to shiver.

“Pull out those twigs!” Petalfur ordered Seville, gesturing with her tail. “Tigerheart, scoop the mud out of that hole. Toadfoot, you and Jigsaw help me roll this log down.”

Lionblaze took a gulping breath. How does Petalfur know what the water is going to do? He started to claw out pawfuls of twigs, realizing as he did that the level of water in the pool was rising—or was the dam sinking into it? A wave lapped over his head, leaving him spluttering; he caught a glimpse of Dovepaw and Snowdrop, working side by side, under the level of the trapped water.

We’ve got to work faster! he thought as Dovepaw popped her head up to take a breath. His legs ached as he forced them to tear at the branches and kick the debris away behind him as he worked. Suddenly he realized that Dovepaw was beside him again, water streaming from her pelt.

“The beavers!” she gasped. “They’re coming back!” A heartbeat later, Lionblaze heard terrified yowling; Whitetail, Sedgewhisker, and Woody dashed onto the top of the broken dam. Peering through the rain, Lionblaze made out the bulky, menacing shapes of the beavers just behind them.

“Quick!” he screeched. “Pull the logs out!” Every cat was tearing and scrabbling at the branches, but they were too tightly woven. Fury surged up in Lionblaze as he realized that they were going to fail, only because their time was running out.

Then he heard a rumbling sound coming from farther upstream. The dam began to shake.

“Flood!” Toadfoot shrieked. “Coming straight at us!”

Lionblaze whipped around, almost losing his footing on the unsteady logs, and saw a surge of water traveling downstream, a huge swelling wave that rose higher and higher as it drew closer. “Get off the dam!” he yowled.

Snowdrop was nearest to him; he grabbed her by the scruff, ignoring her outraged screech, and swung her down to the safety of the bank. Seville and Jigsaw leaped after her, followed by Woody.

Farther up the slope, yellow beams of Twoleg lights were slicing through the trees. Lionblaze spotted Twolegs charging down toward the stream, their voices raised. One beam of light picked out Dovepaw, clinging to a branch in the middle of the dam with all four sets of claws.

“Get back to the bank!” Lionblaze ordered.

But it was too late. The rumbling grew louder until it filled the whole world, cutting off the yowling of the Twolegs and the screeches of the cats. The dam was shaking too much to jump off now. Rushing water roared in Lionblaze’s ears as the storm surge struck.

“Hang on!” he shrieked.

He drove his claws hard into a log as the dam exploded, logs and branches flying up like twigs. The trapped water gushed through, pouring into the streambed and overflowing the banks. Lionblaze caught a glimpse of Woody and the three kittypets huddled together halfway up the slope, their jaws gaping, as the wall of water swept him away.