Warriors: The Gates of StarClan

Chapter 12

When the four cats reached Horseplace, the snap of a twig behind them made them stop.  "What was that?" Tigerpelt turned around.

Ivysplash padded toward the bush where the snap had sounded.  A small lump of black fur was crouched behind it, clearly trying to hide.  Ivysplash nudged it with her paw.  "Fernpaw!  What are you doing here?"

"I tracked you!" the young apprentice meowed proudly as she stood up, her tail curling in excitement.  "All the way from the ShadowClan boarder!"  Fernpaw turned and saw the other three cats.  "What are they doing here?"

"If I tell you, you can't tell any cat why they're here, okay?"

"Okay."

"Remember the prophecy Amberstar shared with the Clan?"

"Yes."  Fernpaw gave her mentor an inquisitive look.

"I am one of the cats in the prophecy.  I'm Ivy.  And these--" she motioned toward the other three cats "--are Lionstorm, Ravenfrost, and Tigerpelt.  They are the others: Lion, Raven, and Tiger."

Fernpaw gazed at them with a new admiration in her blue eyes.  "Can I come with you?"

"Oh, let her come."  Tigerpelt stepped forward and laid her tail across the black apprentice's shoulders.  Fernpaw looked pleadingly at her mentor.

"She might be helpful," Ravenfrost put in.  Lionstorm nodded in agreement.

"Okay, but we have to keep going," Ivysplash meowed curtly.  "We can't waste any more daylight."

The five cats set off at a brisk pace through the woods, growing ever closer to the Twolegplace. When their shadows grew long, they reached the edge of Twolegplace.  They had begun to venture into the new sounds and strange scents when Tigerpelt glanced up at the sky.  "We'd better stop for the night.  It's getting dark."

Lionstorm padded over to one of the Twoleg nests and pointed with his tail to a cave made of Twoleg rubbish. "Here's a covered place.  We can sleep here."

Ravenfrost padded toward the den.  "Looks good.  Besides, I'm too tired to take another step.  My pads are killing me."

Ivysplash padded forward to inspect the black tom's torn paws.  "Some dock leaves would do you well," she mewed, remembering what Stonestream had rubbed on her pads when she had trodden on a sharp stone in the river back home.  Her heart suddenly longed to see Amberstar and Dawnpetal, to swim in the cool, rushing current of the river, and to sleep in the warm comfort of the warriors' den.

Ravenfrost's sarcastic mew snapped her out of her homesickness.  "Can't you hurry up?  My pads are bleeding, you know!"

Muttering a hurried sorry to Ravenfrost, she ran off in search of dock.  After picking some of the wide leaves in a Twoleg garden, she hurried back to the other four cats as fast as she could.  Ravenfrost was rolling on the ground in pretended agony when she returned.  "He was really impatient, as you can see," Tigerpelt meowed, twitching her tail contemptuously.  Ravenfrost sat up at once and gazed expectantly at Ivysplash.  "Well?"

"Hold your pad out," Ivysplash ordered, her voice edged with annoyance.  Ravenfrost did so without complaining.  Fernpaw watched her mentor with rapt attention as Ivysplash chewed up the large green leaves and pressed the pulp into the WindClan tom's torn pads.

"Ouch!"  Ravenfrost drew his paw away from Ivysplash, but she warned, "Don't lick it off.  It's helping to get rid of the infection."

"Okay. Thank you."  Ravenfrost nodded obediently.  "And it's about time we went to sleep."

"Good idea," Lionstorm yawned.  "I'm going to sleep until sunhigh."

"No, you're not," Ivysplash argued good-naturedly.  "We need to get moving as fast as we can.  If anything, we should leave at dawn."