A Forest Divided (29 page)

Slate crouched in a patch of
sunlight, her paws tucked under her and her eyes slitted as she basked in the warmth. A half moon had passed since her fight with the fox, and the wound in her belly was healing well. But she didn't think that the wound in her heart, from the loss of Cricket, would ever heal. She still missed her brother every day.

A patter of small paws roused Slate and she opened her eyes to see the white she-kit, Moth Flight, scampering up to her. The little kit cast an approving glance over the rabbit bones scattered beside Slate's nest.

“You're eating better,” she mewed.

“Yes,” Slate agreed. “I'm feeling much stronger now.”

Moth Flight's whiskers drooped sadly at her words. “That means you'll have to leave soon. My mother says you can only stay in our camp until you're strong again.”

“I know,” Slate responded.

Moth Flight lifted her voice in a wail. “But I'll miss you so much!”

“Maybe I can come to visit,” Slate suggested, curling her tail gently around the white kit.

“It won't be the same,” Moth Flight protested, leaning her head against Slate's shoulder. “You're the only one who will play with me. Wind Runner and Gorse Fur are too busy hunting all the time, and Dust Muzzle says I'm too silly.”

“Maybe Dust Muzzle is right,” Slate mewed. “But there are times when it's okay to be silly. It's part of who you are.”

Moth Flight's only response was a sigh.

“So where is Wind Runner?” Slate asked, trying to change the subject. “It's almost sunhigh, and I haven't seen her or Gorse Fur today.”

Moth Flight looked up at her, stretching her eyes wide in mingled excitement and fear. “They're tracking the fox!” she whispered.

“The fox?” At first Slate didn't understand.

“Wind Runner spotted it outside the camp just before dawn,” Moth Flight explained. “And when she and Gorse Fur went to check it out, they found a dead stoat a little way across the moor, covered in fox scent.”

“A stoat?” Slate asked, beginning to be worried. “That's a tough fighter for a fox to kill.”

Moth Flight nodded eagerly. “I heard them talking about how the fox must be starving, because it's getting bolder. Look what it did to you!”

Slate nodded gravely.
Look what it did to Cricket!
she thought, but she did not speak the words aloud in front of the kit.

Before she could ask Moth Flight any more questions, Wind Runner appeared from behind the boulders that surrounded the camp, with Gorse Fur hard on her paws. Both
cats had serious expressions; Slate could guess what was bothering them.

As they approached Slate, Wind Runner flicked her tail at Moth Flight. “Go and find Dust Muzzle and play,” she ordered. “We have to talk to Slate.”

For a heartbeat Moth Flight seemed as if she was about to protest; then she met her mother's fierce amber gaze and bounded off.

“Slate, we haven't asked you any favors until now,” Gorse Fur began. Slate got the impression that his speech had been carefully rehearsed. “But we
have
taken very good care of you. We've kept you well fed, in spite of how hard it's been to hunt since the sickness came, and—”

“That's true,” Slate interrupted. “Are you saying that you want me to go?”

“No!” Gorse Fur responded immediately, looking horrified at the thought.

“Not
yet
,” Wind Runner put in sharply. “But we need a favor. We've seen the fox that attacked you, several times, close to the camp,” she continued. “This morning we found a stoat killed just a few tail-lengths away. I'm afraid it won't be long before the fox decides to try its luck with cats again. And with the kits so young and vulnerable . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“What are you planning to do?” Slate asked, mystified.

“We mean to kill it before it comes after us.” Wind Runner's eyes and voice were full of resolve, and cold as a frozen stream. “We need you to watch the kits tomorrow. We're
going to track it to its den and attack it while it sleeps.”

Anxiety like clouds of dark mist rose around Slate as she listened to Wind Runner's plan. “You don't know what you're in for,” she meowed. “This fox is
dangerous
. It killed my littermate!”

“But we have more experience in fighting than Cricket did,” Wind Runner retorted, unmoved by Slate's warning.

Slate let out a snort. “Oh, yes, you group cats! Always play fighting. This is
not
like that.” She didn't know how to describe to them how fast and vicious the fox had been.

Wind Runner's tail-tip twitched irritably. “We're grateful for your concern,” she mewed, clearly struggling to bite back an angry response. “But all we need is for you to watch the kits.”

Slate was not reassured. Gorse Fur looked anxious, as though her words had reached him. “If you and Wind Runner both go to attack the fox,” she began, turning to him, “and if the worst happens, then you'll be leaving your kits all alone to fend for themselves.” She faced Wind Runner again. “Do you want
that
to happen?”

Wind Runner sighed, her tail drooping. Slate realized that appealing to her love for her kits was what it took to make her listen.

“No,” the brown she-cat meowed wearily. “But what else can you suggest?”

“Let me kill the fox.” As Slate spoke, she realized that more than anything in the world she wanted to sink her claws into the vicious creature and see its life gush out. “That fox killed the cat I loved best.” She spoke her final words through gritted
teeth, with all the force of her hatred. “I want to be the one to kill it!”

Gorse Fur and Wind Runner exchanged a startled glance, as if they hadn't expected such a fierce reply. Then their gazes became more thoughtful.

“We can't let the fox keep coming around, getting closer and closer,” Gorse Fur mewed. To Slate, he added, “Do you really think you can kill it?”

A strong sense of purpose flooded through Slate. Now she realized why she hadn't let herself die on the moor after Gorse Fur found her.
It was because I need to kill that fox!
“I
will
avenge my littermate,” she assured Gorse Fur.

“I'll go with her,” Wind Runner told Gorse Fur, authority in her voice. “I'm the stronger fighter. You stay with the kits.”

Gorse Fur hesitated, then gave a reluctant nod. “Okay. But please be careful.”

“We will,” Wind Runner replied briskly. “Slate, we'll leave before dawn tomorrow. Better get a good rest before then.”

“Wind Runner!” Dust Muzzle's voice rose from behind a rock. “Moth Flight bit my tail!”

Wind Runner heaved a sigh. “Kits!” With a whisk of her tail, she was gone.

Gorse Fur was left with Slate, his green gaze fixed on her. “Thank you,” he meowed, his voice heavy with meaning. “You know,” he added, “even if you kill the fox, I can't guarantee that Wind Runner will let you stay here.”

“I don't want to stay here,” Slate retorted, surprised.

Gorse Fur nodded and walked off.

As she watched him go, Slate realized for the first time that she wasn't sure she meant what she had said.

Slate felt a paw prodding her shoulder and opened her eyes to see Wind Runner standing over her.

“It's time,” the brown she-cat meowed.

Stretching her jaws in a vast yawn, Slate stumbled to her paws. Overhead the stars were growing pale at the approach of dawn. She shivered in the chilly breeze that whispered over the moor.

“The fox was skulking around here again last night,” Wind Runner continued as she led Slate between two boulders and out onto the moor. “I've picked up its scent.”

“A rabbit without a nose couldn't miss that stink,” Slate muttered as the rank smell caught her in the throat. “It should be easy to track.”

Side by side the two she-cats followed the fox's trail across the moor. White mist wreathed over the ground, and the tough moorland grass was heavy with dew. The moisture damped down the fox scent, and sometimes they lost the trail altogether where the fox had crossed a stream, but they quickly picked it up again. The fox was heading directly toward the forest.

“That's where its den must be,” Slate murmured, pausing and raising her head to survey the dark barrier of trees that lay ahead.

Wind Runner paused at Slate's side, shifting her paws uncomfortably. Slate turned toward her, aware that the brown
she-cat wanted to say something but was finding it hard.

“We're both grateful to you,” Wind Runner mewed at last. “But I'm not sure why you're doing this. You know we can't give you anything in return.”

“I don't want anything,” Slate responded. “Only to kill that fox.”

Though she said nothing to Wind Runner, Slate admitted to herself that she didn't expect to survive the fight. She wasn't even sure that she cared. Killing the fox and protecting the kits—and yes, Wind Runner and Gorse Fur—would be enough.
It will be a noble death. And I won't have to go on trying to cope in a world without Cricket.

But as they continued toward the trees, a tiny thorn of doubt still stuck in her heart.

The sky was milky pale with dawn by the time Slate and Wind Runner reached the forest, and a golden glow on the horizon showed them where the sun would rise. But shadows still lay deep under the trees. The fox scent led the two cats around a bramble thicket and then as far as a gaping black hole among the roots of an oak tree.

“It's in there,” Slate murmured, gagging on the hot reek that flowed out of the den.

“Now what do we do?” Wind Runner twitched her tail angrily. “I don't mind chasing rabbits down their burrows, but I'm not going in there.”

“We have to get the fox to come out,” Slate meowed, thinking hard. “I know what to do. You go and hide in that clump of bracken.”

Wind Runner hesitated as if she was going to ask a question, then gave a single lash of her tail and slid out of sight among the ferns.

Once she had gone, Slate collapsed on one side just outside the den. “Help me! Help me!” she whimpered. “I've hurt my paw. . . .”

She knew that the fox wouldn't be able to understand her, but she hoped that the pain and fear in her voice would be clear enough to entice it into the open. Her heart was pounding so hard that she thought the fox must be able to hear that too.
I've never been so scared.

At first there was no movement in the black mouth of the den. But after a few moments Slate heard a scuffling sound, and a sharp snout poked into the open, sniffing. Then the fox's whole head appeared, its malignant eyes fixed on her.

Slate let out another piteous cry. But as the fox launched itself toward her, she rolled away and sprang to her paws, hissing defiance. In the same heartbeat Wind Runner exploded out of the bracken and hurled herself at the fox. Slate leaped in to attack it from the other side.

For a few moments the fox seemed bewildered, too surprised to fight back. But it quickly recovered, snapping at Wind Runner with all the viciousness Slate remembered.

Slate jerked back, too scared of getting her paws, or worse, her neck, caught between the fox's jaws to battle with it up close. She could see that Wind Runner shared her fear, darting in to rake her claws across the creature's pelt, then leaping back out of range. Slate concentrated, waiting until Wind
Runner had drawn the fox in one direction, then attacking from the other. She swiped at the fox's hindquarters, but it whipped around and snapped at her, forcing her back.

Slate waited until the fox turned away again. Then she lurched forward, stretching out her foreclaws to dig them deep into the fox's side, trying to open up a gash like the one it had made in her belly. The fox snarled and turned, stretching its jaws wide to snap at her. Slate ducked aside, wincing as she felt the fox tear out a chunk of her neck fur. She staggered backward, warm blood running down her neck, as Wind Runner threw herself at the fox again.