Erin Hunter - The Sight

“You never know,” Hollykit mewed. “The fox cubs might head this way, and if they do I bet we could smell them first—especially with Jaykit helping.”

A surge of anger pulsed in Jaykit’s paws. “You’re just as bad as Brambleclaw,” he snapped. “Stop trying to pretend we’re important to the Clan when we’re not.”

Hollykit kneaded the ground with her forepaws. “We will be important one day,” she vowed.

Lionkit suddenly stood up and turned in an excited circle, his tail fluffing out. “We’ll be important today!” he declared.

“We’re going to chase those fox cubs off ThunderClan territory ourselves!”

Hollykit gasped. “But if we leave the camp without permission, we’ll be breaking the warrior code!”

“We’ll be doing it for the good of the Clan,” Lionkit argued. “How can that be against the warrior code?”

Jaykit thought of something else. “We’re not warriors yet—we’re not even apprentices! So why do we have to obey the warrior code?”

A purr rose in Hollykit’s throat. “If we did chase off those fox cubs, Icekit and Foxkit would be safe,” she mewed.

“Exactly.” Lionkit turned and padded to a shady part of the thorn barrier that cut the camp off from the forest. Jaykit knew where he was heading. There was a small tunnel there that led to the place where the cats made their dirt. No one would question them using that way out. He doubted if anyone would even notice them slipping away. The clearing was deserted as the warriors and their apprentices went about their guarding and patrolling duties. The elders, Mousefur and Longtail, were tucked away in their den, and Ferncloud was hiding with Daisy in the nursery. Leafpool was busy with the two whitecough patients in her den.

His heart pounding, Jaykit followed Lionkit through the narrow tunnel.

“No one saw us,” Hollykit whispered, close behind him.

He smelled the dirt place and veered away from it, following Lionkit up the sloping bank away from the camp. Ashfur’s pawsteps rustled the leaves outside the thorn barrier, where he was keeping guard.

“Can he see us?” Jaykit hissed.

“Not from where he is,” Hollykit reassured him. “The barrier’s blocking his view.”

“And the other patrols won’t see us if we stay off the main paths,” Lionkit meowed.

“But we don’t know where the main paths are,” Jaykit pointed out. The ground beneath his paws felt strange, littered with leaves and twigs, unlike the smooth, clear ground inside the hollow.

“We can guess where they are by where the scents are strongest,” Hollykit mewed. “There’s hardly any scent coming from up ahead. The slope is steep, and there aren’t any tracks through the bracken.”

“Let’s go that way, then,” Lionkit meowed.

“What do you think?” Hollykit asked Jaykit.

“Thornclaw said they’d found the fox lakeside of the camp, which is over there.” He flicked the tip of his tail away from the slope.

“How do you know which way the lake is?” Hollykit mewed, sounding puzzled.

“I can smell the wind from the water,” Jaykit explained. “It tastes fresher than the wind from the hills or the forest.”

The three kits ran back down the slope and began to climb a thickly wooded rise. The ground here felt damper underpaw, and Jaykit guessed it had less sunshine than the other slope. He shivered.

“Not scared, are you?” Hollykit teased.

“Of course not,” he mewed. “It’s just cold out of the sun.”

They carried on up the slope until they reached the crest where the trees thinned out. Jaykit felt the warmth of dappled sunlight flickering through the branches.

His nose flared in alarm. “Stop!” he warned. He stretched to sniff a bracken frond, trying to distinguish the many ThunderClan warrior scents. “The warriors come this way a lot.”

“I can’t see anyone,” Hollykit mewed.

“We’d better be careful, though,” Jaykit urged. “What if we bump into a patrol?”

“If only it were greenleaf!” Lionkit spat. “Then there’d be loads more undergrowth to hide in.”

“What about over there?” Hollykit mewed. “The trees are thicker…”

“…and there are brambles!” Lionkit finished.

He darted forward with Hollykit and Jaykit following, away from the strong-scented bracken and into the trees beyond. The air was clearer here, less laden with ThunderClan scents. The muscles in Jaykit’s shoulders began to relax.

And then he heard a familiar sound—Stormfur’s rumbling yowl.

“Brook?” The gray warrior was calling to his mate.

“Get down!” Jaykit hissed.

Instantly the kits crouched. Jaykit pressed his belly to the cold earth, aware of his heart thudding against the leaf mulch.

The ground vibrated with approaching pawsteps.

“They’re coming this way,” he whispered. How would they explain being this far from camp?

“Let’s hide under that holly bush,” Hollykit suggested.

Lionkit was already padding toward it, and Jaykit felt Hollykit nudge him from behind, urging him forward. He hissed crossly and shot forward after Lionkit. Prickly leaves scratched his nose and ears as Hollykit shoved him under its low branches.

“They won’t see us in here,” she whispered.

Stormfur’s call sounded again. “Let’s head to the ShadowClan border.” The warrior’s voice sounded frighteningly close.

Brook answered him, her low mew only tail-lengths away.

“Do you think they might be using the old fox den?”

“Probably not,” Stormfur meowed. “It still reeks of that she-badger Squirrelflight chased off. But it’s worth checking.”

“If only Stormfur and Brook smelled like ThunderClan cats, it would’ve been easier to detect them!” Lionkit complained.

“We’d never have smelled them whatever their scent,” Jaykit pointed out. “The wind was blowing the wrong way.”

“Sh!” Hollykit warned.

The warriors’ pawsteps were heading straight toward the holly bush. The branches quivered as Stormfur’s pelt brushed against them. Jaykit flattened himself against the ground and closed his eyes.

“Come on; let’s be quick!” Stormfur urged his mate. “Then we can head back and patrol the top of the hollow.” The warriors’ pawsteps faded away.

“Let’s get out of here,” Jaykit whispered.

“Which way?” Lionkit asked.

Jaykit smelled the air, once more tasting the fresh wind from the lake. “Over there,” he mewed, pointing with his tail.

The kits set off again, keeping low. Lionkit led them along a winding route through swathes of bracken and tangled undergrowth. “Through here,” he urged.

Jaykit squeezed after him into a clump of bracken, its stems so knotted that he could only just manage to haul himself through the narrow gaps. “I bet no warrior’s ever gotten through here,” he boasted.

“They should take us out on patrols all the time!” Lionkit mewed.

“We could explore places they’d never get close to,” Hollykit agreed.

They scrabbled under the arching roots of a sycamore, tunneling a path through the leaf litter bunched beneath it.

Jaykit stopped. He could scent the fresh mark of Spiderleg.

“Wait!” he ordered. “Thornclaw’s patrol has just passed this way.”

Immediately the kits scrambled back into the shadowy hole they had burrowed beneath the sycamore’s roots.

“We must be heading in the right direction,” Hollykit whispered.

“That must be the Sky Oak over there,” Lionkit mewed.

“It’s the tallest tree in the woods by a long way.”

“Where’s the patrol?” Jaykit asked.

“Listen!” Hollykit commanded.

Jaykit could hear the patrol thrashing around in the bracken several fox-lengths away. Then his fur bristled. He tasted the air, recoiling at the stench that bathed his tongue.