Leafpaw risked a glance to see if the WindClan patrol was still pursuing them. They were—they must be so furious that they hadn’t noticed the border, or did not care.
“They’re gaining on us!” she gasped. “We’ll have to fight. We can’t lead them on to our territory.”
She and Sorreltail whirled to face their attackers. Leafpaw braced herself, wishing desperately that she had never thought of entering WindClan territory, and especially that she had not brought Sorreltail into danger with her.
As Mudclaw leaped at her, Leafpaw saw a streak of golden fur shoot out from a nearby bush. It was Mothwing, the medicine cat apprentice from RiverClan. Then Mudclaw’s body crashed against her and she was rolling on the ground, squirming to escape the flurry of raking claws. She tried to twist round and sink her teeth into his neck, but there was a wiry strength in the deputy’s lean body that trapped her helplessly like a piece of prey. Leafpaw felt his claws rake across her side and bury themselves in her shoulder. With a massive effort she shook him off, trying to bring her hind paws up to attack his belly.
Suddenly the weight lifted and Mudclaw was scrabbling for a foothold beside her. Leafpaw staggered to her paws to see Mothwing cuffing him hard over both ears. “Get off our territory!” she spat. “And take your mangy friends with you.”
Mudclaw aimed a final blow at her, but he was already backing away. Sorreltail sprang up from where she had Tornear pinned down and bit hard on his tail before releasing him. He fled, yowling after the Clan deputy; the other tabby warrior had already vanished.
Mothwing turned back to the ThunderClan cats. Her golden tabby fur was hardly ruffled and her amber eyes gleamed with satisfaction. “Having trouble?” she murmured.
Leafpaw fought for breath and shook leaves and scraps of twig from her pelt. “Thanks, Mothwing,” she replied. “I don’t know what we’d have done without you.” Turning to her friend, she added, “Sorreltail, have you met Mothwing? She’s Mudfur’s apprentice, but she was trained as a warrior first.”
“A good thing she was,” Sorreltail mewed, with a nod of thanks to the RiverClan cat. “We bit off more than we could chew there.”
“I’m sorry we’re on your territory,” Leafpaw went on. “We’ll go right away.”
“Oh, there’s no hurry.” Mothwing did not try to question them about why they were there, or what they had done to annoy WindClan. “You look pretty shaken. Rest for a bit and I’ll find you some herbs to calm you down.”
She vanished among the bushes, leaving Leafpaw and Sorreltail with nothing to do but sit and wait for her.
“Is she always this careless about the warrior code?” Sorreltail muttered. “She doesn’t seem to understand that we shouldn’t be here!”
“I think it’s because I’m a medicine cat apprentice too.”
“Even medicine cats have to stick to the warrior code,” mewed Sorreltail. “And I can’t see Cinderpelt being so welcoming to other Clans! Of course, Mothwing’s mother was a rogue, wasn’t she? That could explain it.”
“Mothwing is a loyal RiverClan cat!” Leafpaw fired up in defence of her friend. “It doesn’t matter who her mother was.”
“I never said it did,” Sorreltail soothed her, touching Leafpaw’s shoulder with her tail-tip. “But that might be why she’s more relaxed about Clan boundaries.”
Mothwing returned at that moment with a wad of herbs in her jaws. The ThunderClan apprentice drank in the scent of thyme; she remembered Cinderpelt telling her how good it was for calming anxieties.
“There,” Mothwing meowed. “Eat some of that and you’ll soon feel better.”
Leafpaw and Sorreltail crouched down and chewed up some of the leaves. Leafpaw imagined the juices soaking into every scrap of her body, healing the shock of their terrifying encounter with WindClan.
“Are you hurt at all?” Mothwing asked. “I can fetch some cobwebs.”
“No, there’s no need, thanks,” Leafpaw assured her. She and Sorreltail both had a few scratches, but they would stop bleeding by themselves without need for a poultice of cobwebs. “We really ought to be going.”
“So what was all that about?” Mothwing queried, as Leafpaw and Sorreltail swallowed the last of the herbs. She wasn’t quite as uninterested as the ThunderClan cats had thought. “What were you doing on WindClan territory?”
“We went to see what the Twolegs are up to,” Leafpaw explained. When Mothwing still looked mystified, she described how she had seen the monster roaring into the forest two days before, tearing up the ground, and then found evidence that WindClan and ShadowClan were being destroyed in the same way. She was aware of a doubtful glance from Sorreltail; the young warrior was clearly unhappy about revealing ThunderClan’s problems to a cat from a rival Clan. Leafpaw shook her head impatiently; there could be no harm in taking another medicine cat into her confidence.
“Firestar wants to ask the other Clans what they think,” she finished. “But ShadowClan won’t admit anything is wrong, and—well, you’ve seen how WindClan reacted.”
“What can you expect?” Sorreltail broke in. She passed her tongue over her lips as if she didn’t much like the taste of the herbs. “No Clan is going to be in a hurry to tell us they’re starving and losing their territory to Twolegs.”
“We’ve seen nothing of these monsters in RiverClan,” Mothwing meowed. “Everything’s fine here. But it explains one thing . . .” Her amber eyes widened. “I’ve sensed panic over WindClan territory. Their scent markers on the border are filled with fear.”
“I’m not surprised,” Sorreltail mewed. “They’re thin as anything, and there’s no scent of rabbits anywhere.”
“Everything’s changing,” Leafpaw murmured.
“And inside the Clans, as well. An ambitious cat might take the chance of—” Mothwing spoke quickly, urgently, and then broke off awkwardly.
“What do you mean?” Leafpaw prompted.
“Oh . . . no . . . I don’t know.” Mothwing trailed off and looked away.
Leafpaw stared at her, wondering what was going on inside that beautiful golden head. She was too young to remember Tigerstar, the bloodthirsty cat who had plotted to make himself leader of ThunderClan. When his murderous plans failed, he had been prepared to destroy the whole Clan for vengeance. She shivered. Did Mothwing know of another cat with ambition like this? Surely the forest could never produce another Tigerstar?
Her thoughts were interrupted when Mothwing sprang to her paws, her head turned towards the river. “A patrol is coming!” she exclaimed. “Come this way—quickly!”
She slipped between two bushes; Leafpaw and Sorreltail followed. A few moments later they came into the open and found themselves on the slope that led up to the ThunderClan border.
“If your Clan is short of prey, come and see me,” Mothwing mewed. “We can always spare a few fish. Now run!”
Leafpaw and Sorreltail streaked up the slope and plunged for cover into more bushes. Though Leafpaw braced herself for accusing snarls behind her, they reached the border unseen.
“Thank StarClan for that!” Sorreltail exclaimed as they crossed into their own territory.
Leafpaw looked back through the branches. Mothwing was standing where they had left her; a moment later the undergrowth parted and a large, sleek-furred tabby warrior emerged. Leafpaw recognised Mothwing’s brother Hawkfrost; two other warriors followed him. Hawkfrost stopped to talk to his sister, but never once glanced in the direction of the ThunderClan cats.
Looking at the warrior’s massive shoulders