Erin Hunter - Long Shadows

Suddenly Lionblaze heard rustling from the other side of the marsh. He pricked his ears and opened his jaws to taste the air. ShadowClan scent!

“Get to the trees,” Jaypaw whispered.

Lionblaze was just about to creep into position when Flamepaw hissed, “Wait! That’s not Blackfoot!”

Lionblaze froze. The lower branches of a bush at the edge of the marsh waved up and down; then a dark brown tom emerged, sniffing the air suspiciously.

Dawnpaw’s claws dug into the ground. “Toadfoot!”

“Fox dung!” Jaypaw spat.

Flamepaw’s eyes stretched wide with dismay. “ Now what do we do?”

For a few heartbeats Lionblaze felt as helpless as a piece of prey under a warrior’s claws. He guessed that the ShadowClan warrior was following the scent trail left by Tigerpaw and Hollyleaf. What would they do if Blackfoot turned up now? Then he gave himself a mental shake. This was no time to panic!

“Flamepaw,” he whispered, signaling with a twitch of his ears. “Creep around the marsh on that side, and make sure Toadfoot doesn’t see you. I’ll go this way. When I leap on him, you come and help.”

The apprentice gave him a tense nod and crept away, his belly f lat to the ground. Lionblaze headed in the opposite direction, and took cover in a clump of bracken a couple of tail-lengths from Toadfoot. He caught a glimpse of Flamepaw’s ginger pelt under a bush opposite.

The ShadowClan warrior stalked forward, an aggressive light in his eyes. A low growl came from his throat. “I know you’re there. Come out!”

“Now!” Lionblaze yowled.

He leaped out of the clump of bracken and bowled over the astonished Toadfoot. At the same moment Flamepaw hurtled across the boggy ground and flung himself on top of his Clanmate. Lionblaze pinned Toadfoot down with both forepaws on his belly.

Toadfoot battered at Lionblaze with strong hindpaws. His forepaws flailed, scoring down Flamepaw’s neck and shoulder, but the apprentice held on, stretching himself across Toadfoot’s neck and shoulders.

“Get him into cover!” Lionblaze ordered.

Together he and Flamepaw dragged the struggling ShadowClan warrior behind the clump of bracken. Toadfoot lashed out with his claws, landing a painful blow on Lionblaze’s f lank, but he couldn’t free himself. His screeches of fury were cut off when Flamepaw pushed his head to the ground and kept a paw over his jaws.

As soon as the thrashing and yowling stopped, Lionblaze heard the sounds of more cats approaching through the trees.

Breathing heavily, he raised his head. Through the bracken fronds he could see Tigerpaw with Littlecloud pacing alongside him, and Blackfoot a tail-length or so behind.

The ShadowClan leader paused and looked suspiciously around him. “I heard something,” he growled.

“Some cat hunting, maybe,” Tigerpaw lied easily. “This way, Blackfoot. Flamepaw and Dawnpaw are waiting by the border.”

At the sound of his leader’s voice, Toadfoot heaved himself up in another attempt to escape. Lionblaze thrust him down again.

“Keep quiet if you want to save your Clan!” he hissed, planting a paw on Toadfoot’s neck.

Toadfoot glared at him furiously, but couldn’t move.

While Lionblaze and Flamepaw were fighting with Toadfoot, Jaypaw and Dawnpaw had slipped back into the marsh and taken up their positions by the saplings they had loosened. Almost covered by the mud, they were hardly visible to any cat who wasn’t looking for them.

The thin branches were waving as though the trees could fall at any moment. Tigerpaw led Blackfoot and Littlecloud forward as if he was going to skirt the marsh at the very edge.

Lionblaze caught a glimpse of Hollyleaf creeping from behind a gorse bush and plunging into the mud to help Dawnpaw.

His chest heaved. Now! Now!

Jaypaw raised his tail and slapped it down on the surface of the mud; then he thrust at the trunk of his tree with out-stretched forepaws. Hollyleaf and Dawnpaw pushed their tree. Slowly the trunks tilted. There was a sucking noise and the surface of the marsh churned with brown bubbles.

Blackfoot let out a yowl of alarm, but it was too late to flee.

The trees crashed down, their branches locking together as they fell, the roots rising out of the mud and lashing the air like enormous tails. Peering through the bracken, Lionblaze spotted Tigerpaw scrambling through the branches and taking refuge underneath one of the trunks. He could see Blackfoot, clawing vainly at a mesh of twigs; for a moment he was worried that Littlecloud was hurt, but then he heard the medicine cat’s voice.

“Blackfoot? Are you okay?”

“No, I feel as if my pelt’s torn off,” the ShadowClan leader growled. “What happened? Where’s Tigerpaw?”

“I can’t see him. Tigerpaw!”

Jaypaw hauled himself out of the mud and balanced among the roots of the nearest tree, out of sight of the trapped cats.

“Tigerpaw has vanished…” he whispered, loud enough for the ShadowClan cats to hear.

“What? Who’s that?” Blackfoot demanded.

“I am one of the spirits you have denied. More cats than Tigerpaw will be lost if you go on rejecting your warrior ancestors.” Jaypaw’s whisper became more intense. “The forest will fall…”

“What do you mean?” Lionblaze could just make out Blackfoot’s face, his lips drawn back in a snarl, and Littlecloud peering out of the branches beside him. The medicine cat’s eyes were wide with awe.

“A StarClan warrior is speaking to us!” he meowed.

Toadfoot started struggling again; Lionblaze crouched down on top of him while Flamepaw lay across his neck and shoulders, keeping a paw over his jaws. Keeping the writhing cat pinned down, Lionblaze peered out from hiding.

Blackfoot was clawing furiously at the branches. “Superstitious nonsense!” he spat, though Lionblaze thought there was uncertainty in his voice.

“We must listen,” Littlecloud insisted. “StarClan has a message for us. What if they’ve taken Tigerpaw and we never see him again?”

Blackfoot let out a snort of contempt. “If that’s a StarClan warrior, let it show itself.”

Lionblaze’s belly churned. Jaypaw wasn’t a warrior with stars in his fur, just an undersized tabby apprentice, covered with mud. If Blackfoot wouldn’t believe him without seeing him, their plan would fail.

“The forest will fall…” Jaypaw repeated. Lionblaze could just see him, crouched among the roots, his muscles tensed and his claws digging into the bark. “The trees will die. Your warriors will be scattered, and when they die they will never find a place among the stars.”

It’s not working , Lionblaze thought hopelessly. Blackfoot still wasn’t listening, just making more and more frenzied efforts to claw his way into the open. “Show yourself!” he snarled.

“The forest will fall…” Jaypaw’s voice had an echoing quality, as if another voice had joined it. “The forest will fall…”

Now there was a third, all the voices twining together.

Lionblaze thought he saw a shimmer on the surface of the marsh. He blinked; then every hair on his pelt stood on end.

Two cats balanced on the surface of the mud: one a big tabby with a torn ear, the other a small gray-and-white tom. Frost sparkled at their paws and starlight was ref lected in their eyes.

“Raggedstar! Runningnose!” Littlecloud exclaimed from among the uprooted trees.

Blackfoot stopped his frantic clawing and stared, his mouth dropping open.

“Sol’s time in ShadowClan must come to an end,” Raggedstar meowed, his gaze locked with Blackfoot’s. “He is like the darkness that covered the sun.”

“He seems to have taken over your Clan,” Runningnose put in, “but he will pass and be forgotten in the brightness that follows. Brightness that will shine on ShadowClan for countless moons.”