Erin Hunter - The Sight

It was a smell he’d never met before, but it sent a shiver down his spine.

“Can you smell that?” he asked Lionkit and Hollykit.

“Ugh!” Lionkit wrinkled his nose.

“It must be the dead fox!” Hollykit guessed. “We’re near the trap.”

“Can you see it?” Jaykit asked.

Hollykit wriggled away from him. “I can see over the root!” she whispered from just above his head. “The dead fox is lying under the oak. The patrol is beyond it, searching the bracken.”

“They’re looking in the wrong place,” Jaykit mewed. He suddenly realized that despite the scents of the patrol and the dead fox, he could smell a far subtler and sweeter smell—milk. It was right here beneath the sycamore. “The fox came past this tree,” he told the others. “I can smell her milk-scent.”

“We’ve found her trail!” Hollykit mewed.

Lionkit scrabbled out from under the root. “Let’s follow it! It’ll lead us to her cubs!”

Jaykit turned away from where Thornclaw, Spiderleg, Poppypaw, and Mousepaw were plunging through the frost-blackened undergrowth. Heading out from the sycamore roots, he padded along the scent of the milk-trail.

“Watch out!” Lionkit warned. “There are brambles ahead.”

His senses trained only on the milk-scent, Jaykit had not noticed the spiky bush.

“I’ll find a way through!” Hollykit offered. She pushed into the lead and wriggled into the branches.

“But the trail leads around it,” Jaykit objected.

“We can’t afford to stay in the open,” Lionkit told him.

“We can pick up the scent on the other side, once there are brambles between us and Thornclaw’s patrol.”

Reluctantly Jaykit followed Lionkit as their sister found a narrow tunnel through the tangle of branches. He was relieved when he picked up the fox’s scent quickly on the other side.

The trees were more widely spaced here. Jaykit could feel the wind in his fur, and sunlight reached down to the forest floor, mottling his pelt with warmth. The fox’s milky scent grew stronger and as they neared a clump of bracken that shielded a small lump in the ground, Jaykit scented a new smell. The cubs?

“Wait here!” Hollykit ordered.

“Why?” Lionkit objected.

“Just wait while I take a look behind this bracken!”

“I’m coming too,” Lionkit insisted.

“We don’t want the cubs to know we’re here,” Hollykit mewed. “If all three of us go blundering in, they’ll know something’s up and we’ll lose the element of surprise.”

“My golden pelt will blend in better against the bracken than your black fur,” Lionkit pointed out.

“What about me?” Jaykit mewed.

“We won’t attack the den without you,” Hollykit promised. “But first, you and I will wait here while Lionkit finds the way in.”

Jaykit felt a twinge of frustration, but he knew Hollykit’s plan was sensible. “Come back as soon as you find it,” he called in a whisper as Lionkit disappeared into the bracken.

For the first time he wondered if taking on the fox cubs was a wise idea. But how else was he going to persuade the Clan that there was no need to treat him like a helpless kit?

He strained his ears for the sound of Lionkit returning. It seemed an age before his brother finally pushed his way out of the bracken.

“The main entrance to the den is right behind this clump,” Lionkit whispered, shaking leaves from his pelt. “But there’s a smaller entrance on the other side of the lump of earth—probably an escape route—that leads into the back.”

“Are the cubs inside?” Jaykit asked.

“I didn’t go in, but I could hear them crying for food.”

“They must still be young, then,” Hollykit guessed.

“Otherwise they’d have come out by now.”

“It’ll be easier to flush them out if we go down the escape passage,” Lionkit proposed. “If we rush them, the surprise will be enough to get them out of the den, and then we can chase them toward the border.”

“Which way is the border?” Hollykit asked.

Lionkit snorted impatiently. “There’ll be a border whichever way we drive them!” he snapped. “ThunderClan territory doesn’t go on forever. Let’s get on with it, before Thornclaw finds them and takes all the glory.”

He surged away into the bracken before either Jaykit or Hollykit could reply. He led them up the slope, out of the bracken, and over the top of the leaf-strewn mound of earth.

“The escape route is here,” he announced, skidding to a halt.

“It’s no bigger than a rabbit hole!” Hollykit mewed in surprise.

“Perhaps that’s what it used to be,” Lionkit answered.

“Who cares, so long as we can fit down it?”

Thornclaw’s meow sounded in the trees not far away. The warrior patrol must have given up searching the bracken near the dead fox and were heading toward the mound of earth.

“Hurry!” Lionkit hissed. “Or Thornclaw will find the cubs first!”

Taking a deep breath, Jaykit plunged into the hole. Its earthen sides pressed against his pelt as he scrabbled down it.

He didn’t mind that there would be no light down here; he trusted his nose to lead him to the den. He could feel Lionkit pressing behind him and pushed onward until he exploded into the foxes’ den.

The air was warm and stank of fox—more than one. Jaykit let out a threatening hiss. Lionkit, at his side in an instant, spat ferociously, and Hollykit gave a vicious yowl.

Jaykit could not see the foxes, but as soon as he heard them scramble to their paws, he realized that they were far bigger than they had expected. Fear shot through him as the cubs let out a shrieking cry.

“They’re huge!” wailed Lionkit.

“Let’s get out of here!” Jaykit screeched.

He turned and shot back up the escape tunnel. The hot breath of a fox cub blasted his tail fur. Were Hollykit and Lionkit trapped in the den? He could not stop and turn to find out. The fox cub’s jaws were snapping at his heels as it pursued him out of the hole.

Wild with terror, Jaykit hurtled down the bank and through the bracken. “Thornclaw!” he yowled.

The warrior did not answer, and Jaykit fled toward the bramble thicket. He hoped the thorns would stop the fox, but it chased him into the bush. Thorns tore at Jaykit’s nose and ears, but the fox plunged through them as though racing through grass. He floundered on, tearing free of the brambles and running for the camp. He could smell the familiar scents of the hollow and headed straight for them. The fox cub was still at his heels, growling and snapping.

I must be near the camp now! he thought desperately, his paws skidding on the loose leaves.

Pain pierced his tail as the fox cub snapped at it with thorn-sharp teeth. Jaykit dug his claws into the ground, running faster and faster, until, without warning, the ground disappeared from beneath his paws.

With a jolt of horror, Jaykit felt himself plunging into empty air.

I’ve fallen into the hollow!

Jaykit tried to move, but pain shot through his limbs and gripped his chest like claws.

Panic flooded him. I’m broken!

He tried to mew for help.

“Hush, little one.” Warm breath stirred his fur, and a soft nose nuzzled his flank.

He figured it must be Leafpool, though she sounded strange. Perhaps the throbbing in his head was confusing him. Jaykit knew he was in the cleft in the wall of the hollow that formed Leafpool’s den. Moss softened the ground beneath him. Cold air flowed down the smooth rock walls, soft as water. Tendrils of bramble shielded the entrance. The scent of herbs filled the air; instinctively Jaykit tried to distinguish one from another. He identified juniper easily—Leafpool had fed it to Lionkit for bellyache after he had eaten too much fresh-kill. Borage he remembered from when Ferncloud had a fever after Icekit and Foxkit were born.