Warriors AU: Forest of Secrets

Chapter 2

Sandstorm sniffed warily at a path where the snow had been trampled down by Twolegs. Lights shone from the Twoleg nest, and somewhere close by he could hear a dog barking. He remembered Raven telling him that the Twolegs let their dogs off the chains at night. He just hoped that he could locate Patchpaw before he and Silverstream were noticed.

Silverstream slipped through the fence and padded up to him. The icy wind flattened his silver tabby fur against his body. "Smell anything?" he asked.

Sandstorm lifted his head to taste the air, and almost at once he caught the scent he was searching for, faint but familiar. Patchpaw! "This way," he mewed.

He crept along the path, the hard surface icy under his paws. Cautiously he followed the scent to a gap at the bottom of a barn door where the wood had rotted away.

He sniffed, drinking in the smell of hay and the strong, fresh scent of cats. "Patchpaw?" he whispered. When there was no reply, he repeated, louder, "Patchpaw?"

"Sandstorm, is that you?" A surprised mew came from the darkness on the other side of the door.

"Patchpaw!" Sandstorm squeezed through the gap, thankful to be out of the wind. The scents of the barn flowed around him, and his mouth began to water as he detected the smell of mouse. The barn was dimly lit by moonlight filtering through a small window high under the roof. As his eyes adjusted, Sandstorm saw another cat standing a few tail-lengths away.

His friend looked even sleeker and better fed than when Sandstorm had seen her last. Sandstorm realized how scrawny and bedraggled he must look in comparison.

Patchpaw purred happily as she padded over to Sandstorm and touched noses with him. "Welcome," she mewed. "It's good to see you."

"It's good to see you," Silverstream meowed, pushing his way through the gap in the door after Sandstorm.

"Did you get Windclan back to their camp safely?" Patchpaw asked. Sandstorm and Silverstream had stayed with her during their journey to bring Windclan home.

"Yes," mewed Sandstorm, "but it's a long story. We can't—"

"Well, what's going on here?" Another cat's meow interrupted them.

Sandstorm spun around, flattening his ears, ready to fight if this newcomer was a threat. Then he recognized Raven, the black loner who had willingly shared her home with Patchpaw. "Hi, Raven," Sandstorm meowed, calming down. "We need to talk to Patchpaw."

"So I see," Raven mewed. "And it must be important, to bring you across the moor in this weather."

"Yes, it is." Sandstorm agreed. He glanced at the former Thunderclan apprentice, the urgency of his mission prickling through his fur. "Patchpaw, we haven't any time to waste."

Patchpaw looked puzzled. "You know you can talk to me as much as you want."

"I'll leave you to it, then," Raven offered. "Feel free to hunt. We've plenty of mice here." She gave a friendly node to the visiting cats, and squeezed out under the door.

"Hunt? Really?" meowed Silverstream. Sandstorm felt sharp pangs of hunger grip his belly.

"Of course," mewed Patchpaw. "Look, why don't you eat first? Then you can tell me why you're here."

"I know Goldenflower killed Redtail," Patchpaw insisted. "I was there, and I saw him do it."

The three cats were crouched in the hayloft of the Twoleg barn. Hunting had not taken very long. After the desperate struggle to find prey in the snow-covered forest, the barn seemed to the hungry Thunderclan warriors to be overflowing with mice. Now Sandstorm was warm, and his stomach felt comfortably full. He would have liked to curl up and sleep in the soft, fragrant hay, but he knew that he had to talk to Patchpaw right away if he and Silverstream were to get back to camp before their absence was noticed. "Tell us everything you remember," he urged, giving Patchpaw an encouraging nod.