They crossed ShadowClan territory and reached the ThunderClan border near the gra.s.sy clearing.

"Now get out and stay out," Rowanstar growled. With a nod of his head he gathered his patrol and headed back into his own territory.

"The ungrateful, mange-ridden furb.a.l.l.s!" Snowpaw's words exploded from him as soon as the ShadowClan cats had vanished into the undergrowth. "We were helping them! They should be thanking us!"

"Hmm . . ." Ivypool flicked her ears. "Maybe we should have waited to be asked before we helped."

"Maybe we shouldn't have helped at all," Thornclaw mewed.

"I can't believe they were so angry," Jessy murmured, her eyes still wide with shock. "I'm sorry, Bramblestar. I didn't mean to get you into trouble."

"It's not your fault," Bramblestar told her. "I made the decision, and if it keeps ShadowClan patrols out of our territory, it was the right one."

I wish I was really convinced of that, he thought to himself. Gazing at his battered warriors, he wondered if he had gone into battle for the right reasons, or if he had allowed himself to be swayed by Jessy's bold ideas.

It was after sunhigh by the time Bramblestar led his cats back into their camp. Most of the cats were stretched out in the clearing, trying to warm themselves in a few pale gleams of sunlight that pierced the ragged cloud. Squirrelflight, who was talking to Brackenfur near the tunnel entrance, sprang to her paws as soon as she spotted the returning patrol.

"Great StarClan!" she exclaimed, bounding over to them. "What happened?"

"The kittypets happened," Bramblestar responded briefly.

"But . . . you're so badly hurt!" Squirrelflight's green gaze was filled with horror as she turned and raced back to the tunnel. "Jayfeather!" she yowled. "Come here! You're needed!"

Immediately the medicine cat popped out of the tunnel. His jaws parted to taste the air; Bramblestar realized he would recognize the reek of blood at once.

"I knew this was a mistake," Jayfeather mewed as he approached the patrol and began to sniff at their wounds. "Especially when Leafpool is still in the ShadowClan camp. I need her here!"

Oh, StarClan! Bramblestar thought. I hope Rowanstar isn't taking out his anger on my medicine cat!

Frankie and Minty bounded across the clearing to Jessy, looking shocked when they saw the blood welling from the scratches on her shoulders.

"Did you really fight?" Minty asked, her eyes stretched wide.

"Did you chase off the kittypets?" meowed Frankie.

Bramblestar listened while Jessy described the battle, apparently relishing the danger and pleased that they had defeated Victor and his friends. Frankie and Minty listened breathlessly.

"Wow!" Frankie looked more impressed than scared. "I wish I'd been with you."

Minty shuddered. "I don't."

"It was great!" Jessy's eyes glowed with the memory. "I know we got hurt, but it was worth it to teach those arrogant kittypets a lesson!"

Bramblestar realized that while the kittypets were talking, Brackenfur had padded up to his side. "Are you sure you weren't settling kittypet scores?" he murmured.

For a heartbeat, Bramblestar wasn't sure. No, he told himself firmly. Jessy was only trying to help.

Before he could reply to Brackenfur, a groan from Lionblaze distracted him. The golden-furred warrior staggered and flopped over on his side. "The pain . . ." he gasped.

"I told you so!" Cinderheart shrieked as she ran to his side. "When will you learn that you're not invulnerable anymore?"

She nudged Lionblaze to his paws while Jayfeather helped to support him on the other side. Together the two cats half carried, half dragged him into the tunnel to have his wounds treated. The rest of the patrol followed.

"Mouse-brain!" Jayfeather muttered angrily as he went. "You're all mouse-brained. And all over a bunch of kittypets!"

Discouraged, Bramblestar watched them go. He could sense the depression among the Clan, the sense that although they had won the battle, it was a hollow victory. Only the kittypets seemed to be happy.

"Come on," he meowed to Jessy, touching her shoulder with his tail. "You need to go to Jayfeather and have your wounds treated." As she turned away from her friends and followed him to the tunnel, he added, "Thank you for your courage, Jessy. I know the battle was harder for you than for any of us."

Jessy halted, gazing into his eyes. "I just copied what you did," she mewed. "I had the best teacher."

For a moment Bramblestar didn't know what to say to her. But before the silence could stretch out, Squirrelflight came padding up. Jessy dipped her head to Bramblestar and headed inside to see Jayfeather.

Bramblestar braced himself for a scolding from his deputy, ready to defend himself. But to his surprise, Squirrelflight's gaze was sympathetic.

"You had to do something," she meowed. "We can't have ShadowClan hunting in our territory, and this was a way to stop them."

"That's what I wanted to do," Bramblestar responded.

"The trouble is," Squirrelflight went on, "it could be seen as interfering, insulting to ShadowClan, and a stupid risk to our own warriors."

Bramblestar sighed. "You're right," he admitted.

Squirrelflight leaned toward him and gave his ears a brisk lick. "It's behind us," she told him. "We need to focus on our own Clanmates now."

As she finished speaking, Sandstorm padded up with a mouse dangling from her jaws. "Come on, Bramblestar, you need to eat."

Bramblestar realized that his belly was growling with hunger. The warm scent of the mouse made his jaws water, but he hesitated for a moment, looking around until he had checked that all his patrol had headed into the tunnel to have Jayfeather deal with their injuries. Then he crouched down and bit into the mouse.

"Thanks, Sandstorm," he mumbled around his mouthful.

While he was eating, Graystripe appeared, giving him a friendly nod. "I know you're worried about whether you did the right thing," he began. "But you shouldn't. Firestar would have done exactly the same."

Bramblestar winced. "That's what Rowanstar said."

Graystripe was quiet for a moment, while Bramblestar gulped down the rest of the mouse. When he spoke again, he seemed to be aware of exactly what Bramblestar was thinking. "You know, Firestar wouldn't have seen it as interfering. He truly believed that if another Clan needed our help, it was our duty to give it."

"But it's not," Bramblestar pointed out, swiping his tongue around his whiskers. "Not according to the warrior code. My loyalty should be to my own Clanmates, no other cats."

Graystripe snorted. "There's such a thing as basic decency," he pointed out.

"What would you have done?" Bramblestar asked.

"Followed Firestar," Graystripe replied without hesitation.

While Bramblestar was thinking that over, Purdy ambled out of the tunnel and settled down beside him. "Y'know, this reminds me of when I was a young cat, livin' with my Upwalker," he began.

Bramblestar suppressed a sigh. Purdy, this isn't the time for one of your long-winded stories. But there was no stopping Purdy, who embarked on a complicated tale of how he had helped a cat in the den next door deal with his Upwalker's new dog, and how the cat had then crept into Purdy's den and stolen his food.

"Well, I said to myself, I'm not puttin' up with that, so I . . ."

Bramblestar stopped listening as a clump of fern at the edge of the clearing shivered and Leafpool emerged. Her fur was ruffled and she had an agitated air.

Bramblestar bounded across the clearing to her side. "Leafpool! Are you okay?"

"Rowanstar asked me to leave!" Leafpool's eyes were sparkling with indignation. "He said he'd had enough of ThunderClan interference. Bramblestar, what have you done?"

Ivypool and Cinderheart appeared from the tunnel at that moment, their wounds treated with cobwebs and poultices of marigold. They helped Bramblestar explain to Leafpool what had happened in the battle with the kittypets.

"How could you be so mouse-brained?" Leafpool sighed, shaking her head. "The medicine-cat code extends to helping other Clans, but not the warrior code. You should stop trying to imagine what Firestar would have done, and be true to yourself."

"And Lionblaze is badly hurt," Cinderheart added.

"What?" Leafpool paused for a heartbeat, her eyes stretched wide with shock. Then without another word she raced to the tunnel and vanished inside.

Be true to myself? Bramblestar thought, looking after her glumly. His responsibilities weighed as heavy on his shoulders as if he were trying to carry the whole forest.

I wish I knew how.

CHAPTER 23.

Bramblestar sat in the shelter of a hazel bush, watching Minty creep up on a mouse. Frankie and Jessy, the other members of the patrol, were watching from farther around the edge of the clearing.

I can't believe this! Bramblestar thought wryly. A hunting patrol of kittypets!

But in the quarter moon since the expedition into ShadowClan's hunting grounds, all three of them were improving their tracking skills-even Minty, who had the twin advantages of being small and light-pawed. The mouse, nibbling something among the roots of a beech tree, had no idea that she was stalking it. She had even remembered to check the wind direction.

Suddenly Minty leaped forward and trapped the mouse under an outstretched paw. "Got it!" she exclaimed.

The mouse let out a squeal of terror.

"Oh, poor thing!" Minty sprang back, raising her paw, and the mouse scuttled off.

Frankie shook his head with an exaggerated sigh, then took off after the mouse and killed it with a quick blow to the head.

"Neat catch!" Bramblestar praised him as he padded back with the body dangling from his jaws.

Minty's head was hanging as she rejoined the patrol. "I'm sorry," she mewed. "It freaks me out when they squeal."

"It doesn't freak you out anymore when you eat them, though," Jessy pointed out.

"I know. I'll try to do better next time," Minty promised.

"Your stalking was very good," Bramblestar told her. "Why don't you see if you can scent some more prey?"

Obediently Minty began sniffing around, and soon picked up another scent trail, following it across the clearing with her nose to the ground.

"Well done!" Bramblestar called to her.

"This is odd," Minty muttered. "I don't know this scent, but it must be prey, right?"

Bramblestar and the others watched as she vanished among some brambles at the other side of the clearing, then froze with only her hindquarters and her tail sticking out. Feeling his pelt begin to p.r.i.c.kle with apprehension, Bramblestar opened his jaws to taste the air. In the same heartbeat, Minty began to back slowly out of the thicket.

"Er . . . this isn't prey at all," she mewed.

The reek of fox hit Bramblestar in the throat as a snarl sounded from the midst of the brambles. Minty turned and fled across the clearing, her belly fur brushing the gra.s.s and her tail streaming out. A young fox exploded out of the thicket behind her.

"Stay back!" Bramblestar snapped at the kittypets.

Bounding forward, Bramblestar met the fox at the center of the clearing and reared up on his hind legs to rake the claws of both forepaws across the fox's muzzle. The fox let out a bark of mingled pain and surprise, and lunged at Bramblestar, its jaws gaping. Bramblestar ducked aside and managed to land a blow on the fox's flank before he darted back out of range.

The fox whirled to follow him, but it was already looking confused. It didn't expect its prey to fight back, Bramblestar thought with satisfaction as he dashed in again and clawed its ears with a swift slash of his paw. Letting out a high-pitched screech of terror, the fox backed off, then spun around and fled out of the clearing, vanishing among a thick clump of ferns. At the same moment another ThunderClan hunting patrol raced into the clearing, with Mousewhisker in the lead.

"We heard the fight!" Mousewhisker gasped. "Are you okay?"

"Fine," Bramblestar panted. "Take your patrol and follow it," he added, "all the way to its den."

"Right." Mousewhisker waved his tail to the rest of his patrol, and vanished into the ferns on the trail of the fox.

It's a good thing they turned up, Bramblestar thought. We can't hope to clear all the forest of foxes, but we need to know where they are, especially now that we're hunting across the border.

The three kittypets crowded around Bramblestar, their eyes wide with shock.

"That was amazing!" Frankie exclaimed.

"I never thought a cat could take on a fox like that," Jessy added, her eyes glowing. "It was the bravest thing I've ever seen!"

"It wasn't hard," Bramblestar mewed, wanting to scuffle his paws in the earth like an embarra.s.sed apprentice. "It was a young fox, and easy to confuse. Besides, it's quite common for us to have to chase off a fox or a badger."

"A badger!" Minty squeaked. "Purdy told me about those. They're huge!" She glanced around her fearfully as if she expected a ma.s.sive black-and-white animal to erupt out of the bushes at any moment.

"Believe me, they're really rare," Bramblestar rea.s.sured. "We chased the badgers out of the forest a long time ago. But I can show you a few techniques to keep in mind, if you like."

Minty took a pace back, looking as if she might never leave the tunnels again. But Jessy and Frankie both p.r.i.c.ked their ears with interest.

"Yes, show us," Frankie mewed. "You never know; we might meet something nasty."

"Mostly you use the fighting techniques you're already learning," Bramblestar explained. "But you need to practice dashing in to strike and then away again, like I did just now. That works even better with badgers, because they're slower than foxes. Another move you can try is to spring onto the badger's back. You can claw it to your heart's content up there, and it can't get at you."

"On its back?" Minty breathed, horrified.