"You will have two kits. Both female. And they will be culled unless you get away."

Silver jerked awake, trying to escape from the terrible whispered words that echoed again and again in her dreams. She couldn't 'get away.' She couldn't even hunt for herself. Females stayed in camp all of their lives unless they were escorted by a tom. Those treacherous thoughts would lead to nothing but trouble.

Shivering as the words still echoed between her ears, she crept through the shadows to the dirtplace. If only she could bury those words the way she buried dirt…

Her dark silver fur seemed to have lost its beautiful gloss. No light reflected on her pelt and it felt like she was part of the shadows. She squeezed carefully into the stinky place, and her tail was just inside when she heard the padding of paws beyond the screen of bushes.

"…in two or three days." Badgerheart, the clan's Enforcer rumbled in his harsh and grating voice.

Silver's ears twitched and she locked onto the quiet conversation happening only a tail length from the entrance of the dirt place.

"Very well. We shall inspect all of the kits when she gives birth. We have too many she-cats. If Silver's kits are female, we will…deal with them." That was Bane, the clan leader.

"And if Silver objects?" Badgerheart asked coolly.

"Cull her too, of course."

Silver's breathing was suddenly too fast. It was one thing to hear words in dreams, where things were not real. It was another to hear her own leader plainly state that it was time for another bloody ritual in the name of Rancor Law. And Badgerheart… Silver swallowed painfully. It squeezed her heart to hear her brother speak so casually about his own kin's upcoming death.

Later, she would not be able to say what she had been thinking, other than the overwhelming need to be away. She did not think of the dangers that awaited her outside the clan. She did not think of how she would get food. She did not think of what the Clan Rancor toms would do when they found her gone. There were only two words echoing again and again, in the voice of the Ancestor she had never seen, but only heard.

"Get away."

"Get away!"

.

Silver huddled in her hiding place, filthy water soaking her up to the middle of her ribs. Her frantic, terrified breathing echoed back and forth around her until it sounded like several cats panted in fear with her. In a way, they did. One of the kits in her belly gave a wriggle, as though sensing her mother's terror.

"Her scent leads in here," Badgerheart sounded pleased, and she could imagine the blood lust flaring in his eyes as he said it.

"You think a she-cat would hide in a place like this?" Sneered Blackfog; he was the father of Silver's kits, but not through any real love of the queen.

"Do you want to be the one to wriggle through the muck to prove Badgerheart wrong? No? Then shut up. I'll deal with this. It's my duty as her brother, after all." That was Quickclaw. The light at the end of the tunnel was briefly blotted out as a large, powerful tom slid into the entrance of the half flooded tunnel. "Don't follow, and don't distract me: this stuff makes footing treacherous."

Silver swallowed and slid back slowly and carefully until she was pressed against one of the walls, with only the dried remains of some sort of plant to screen her. Her heart pounded in her chest.

"I know you're here, dear sister." Quickclaw hissed, "You might as well come out. Better to let me kill you now than to be dragged back to be killed before the clan."

"I won't go back." Silver's voice was quiet. "I'd rather die, alone out here, than among the cats that used to be my clan."

"You could have lived." He was coming closer, the scant cover of the plant seeming to cover less and less of her as he did, "So too could your kits, if they were valuable toms." His eyes were glittering green fire, but held no warmth. "Now you've doomed yourself, and them."

"I had a dream. An ancestor told me my kits would have been female, and that they would be culled. They had no life. And I couldn't bear to let the clan end their tiny lives, simply because we had too many females."

He leaped, smashing through the brittle twigs like a badger tears through stalks of grass. His dark fur seemed to be blacker than a fox's heart as he pinned her down. "Ancestors don't talk to females!" he snarled. "Your lies would corrupt the clan and destroy us all! I must put an end to this before you poison us all!" He raised a paw, soiled claws gleaming in the dim light as he prepared to strike her down.

Desperation lent Silver strength, and she kicked out with both hind paws. By some miracle, she caught the powerful tom by surprise and he yowled in shock before pitching backward, and vanishing into the muck.

The dazed queen stared. There must be a hole on the other side of the room, she realized, hidden beneath the surface of the filthy water.

Coughing, spluttering and thrashing, her brother broke the surface and splashed clumsily back toward his sister, and solid ground.

"They were going to kill my kits, Quickclaw!" Silver poised herself carefully at the edge of the hole by using her paws to check for the brink. "Kits that would be your kin, females or no females. My daughters. I need to live, and so do they."

A flash of alarm darted through his eyes, "So you would drown me? To keep them safe, you would trap me in this pit until I drown?"

Silver stared at him, emotions chasing one another through her eyes in the span of two heartbeats: sorrow, determination, desperation, and finally… resignation. "No, brother. You may be willing to murder your own kin, but I am not."

She sprang away and grabbed the end of a branch, dragging it over and swinging it out to him. A strange silvery light seemed to blaze around her, "I extend this branch to you," her voice sounded strange, strong, and not at all like a properly submissive female. "Take it or do not, but understand what it is I offer beyond the branch itself."

Quickclaw's eyes widened, then he seized the branch with both front paws. He could feel himself being hauled through the water to the edge as though he were nothing more than a kit.

His paws came to rest on solid ground and he simply stood and gasped as the filthy water sloshed around his paws and streamed from his fur. He would not look at her. Not even when he heard the branch being dropped and felt the warmth of her body coming close to him. As he breathed, her scent wafted to him. Delicate, female, and achingly familiar.

It was strange. For a flash, a memory sprang in his mind; he was nursing at his mother's side, and a strange emotion washing through his tiny body. He'd scented his sister, even before his eyes had opened. Her scent made him feel strong, and protective, and whenever his older brother tried to shove his sister aside to nurse first, Quick had shoved back and stood strong while his little sister huddled in his shadow.

"I want a chance to live. I will never return to the clan. I will go away. Far away. But at least our family will have the chance to exist." Her voice was very soft, almost pleading with him. The strength was gone and she sounded as weak and female as she always did.

The memory bothered him. When had he lost that part of himself?

"When you die, you will not join the Clan Rancor ancestors." His voice was a dark warning.

She lifted her chin for a heartbeat, "You say that as if I would want to."

This made him whip around to stare at her in shock. His mouth was open but no words were coming out.

"Quickclaw? What happened?" Badgerheart's harsh voice echoed to him through the tunnel, almost too distorted to understand.

Silver sucked in a breath and tensed, her eyes wide and her pupils dilated in terror.

Anger roared through his veins at the thought of his sister's life being extinguished beneath Baderheart's terrible claws. Before the plan was completely formed in his brain, he rolled in the sloppy, rank smelling water to wash any trace of his sister's scent from his fur. "There's a big pit in here!" he snarled, "I fell right into it! I thought her scent went down one of the tunnels, but now I can't smell anything!"

Turning toward his sister he stared at her for a heartbeat, as though drinking in the sight of her for the last time. "We may call upon the Red Claws. Make sure you're gone before then." He whispered, his gaze turning hard and unyielding.

"Fine," growled Badgerheart voice, "Then I'll come in and sniff her out myself."

"Don't bother," Quickclaw snapped, shoving himself into the tunnel so he blocked the way in, "She's not here, the footing is treacherous, and it looks like the tunnels get tight in here. I've had enough of this place. Let someone else hunt that stupid female down. If she doesn't starve to death on her own, there are plenty of Rogues, foxes, hawks and badgers willing to finish the job…" his voice grew too distorted then for Silver to understand but she knew he was warning her the best way he could.

The queen closed her eyes and sent a rush of love toward her brother's disappearing tail in the hope that somehow he could feel it. Then she turned down another tunnel and padded through it, in the opposite direction of her pursuers. Quickclaw was right of course. Badgerheart liked all lose ends tied up, nice and neat and bloody.

It was best if she didn't stay here.

.

It was a wet Newleaf day, but prey was active and plentiful, the wind was warm and even the light, constant drizzle failed to drop the temperatures more than a few degrees.

Quickclaw, Blackfog and Badgerheart wove carefully through the trees, each carrying a choice bit of prey.

"Where are they?" Blackfog groused around the rabbit in his jaws. "You would think the Red Claws would challenge us for entering their territory by now. We're practically in the heart of their territory."

"That's not the way they work," Badgerheart growled bluntly, "We take the food into the heart of the territory, set it down, and wait."

A pair of blue eyes, deep in the shadows afforded by the lush green leaves above the forest floor, watched their passage. With the flick of a paw, the owner sent three leaves fluttering down to the trespassers below.

"So, they don't patrol their borders, they let total strangers wander around at will, and don't even attack when they sit right in the middle of their territory?" Quickclaw wasn't as critical as Blackfog of this strange revelation, but even he felt confusion capering about between his ears. "So, help me understand, Badgerclaw. Could we enter the territory, do whatever we want here, and leave at our leisure without them ever knowing?"

Three leaves fluttered down from the treetops and tapped each cat on the nose one after the other on their way to the forest floor. An annoyed Blackfog snorted the leaf away. Quickclaw blinked, surprised that three random leaves could hit each of them by chance on the softly shifting breezes that wove through the trees. Badgerheart's eyes narrowed fractionally and he simply turned his head and let the leaf flutter away.

"Don't be tick brained," Badgerheart snapped, finally coming to a stop and putting down his plump bird in a shallow dip in the ground. "Don't you get it? They knew we were here the instant we left our territory. They've been stalking us, listening and watching, the entire time."

"Even across the open field? Come on Badgerheart, we would have seen something. Scented something." Blackfog snorted.

"Are you sure about that?" Badgerheart narrowed his eyes fractionally and looked at his two clanmates. "Would you bet your life on it?"

Quickclaw dropped his squirrel and spun in a circle, trying to spot something, anything in the underbrush. There was no sound, no scent, not hint that anything lived in this forest but birds and other prey creatures. The only thing he could smell was pine sap and various plants.

"I don't feel like I'm being hunted." Blackfog muttered dismissively, dropping his rabbit and rolling his eyes.

"Um," said Quickclaw. "Where'd my squirrel go?"

"I feel like you're playing a prank on me like I'm a kit and the Red Claws are really some spooky story told to make me behave." Blackfog ignored his clan mate's attempt to interject.

"Blackfog, did you move the rabbit?" Quickclaw's voice quavered.

"I swear Badgerheart, if you start laughing at me, I will call Challenge right here, right now. Look around! There's nobody here."

"Our prey is gone!" Quickclaw thrust himself between the two cats in a desperate bid to be heard.

"And that," Badgerheard meowed, sweetly as honey, "Is why they're so feared, even by our clan."

Blackfog blinked stupidly at the dip. "That's not funny. Which of you did it? I was watching Badgerheart the entire time. Quickclaw? Is this your idea of a joke?"

"Oh yeah, because I'm laughing so hard right now! Fox breath!" Quickclaw put his ears back.

"What did you call me?" Blackfog shoved his face into Quickclaw's, teeth bared to the gums.

"Honestly," came a new voice, silky as Newleaf grass ticking a kit's belly, "If this is how Clan Rancor members act nowadays, perhaps it is falling apart. Perhaps there is blood on the grass, hmm? Do I smell… weakness?"

Blackfog jumped and whipped around, struggling to see anyone, or anything close enough to him to be the owner of that silky voice.

The trees left a dappled pattern on the mulch that made up the forest floor, but that was all that seemed to be nearby. The nearest bush was several fox lengths away.

Then a pair of green eyes opened a tail length from Blackfog's paws and the forest floor seemed to move! The dappled shadows slid and caressed the stranger's body, which was a ghostly gray in color. His most striking feature were his eyes. No spot, bar or stripe marred his body. As such, whether sun or shadow hit it, his fur took on the exact pattern as the rest of the forest; either lighting up to the same brilliant white of the sun spots, or the dark, colorless gray of the shadows. Long, silky fur was fluffed in the gentle breeze, breaking up his outline like wisy, gently waving fog.

"Hello Ghost." Badgerheart's voice was perfectly calm as his other two companions tightened ranks at his shoulders. "Please forgive my clan mates. We've had a… bit of a rough morning."

"So we… smelled." Ghost turned his emotionless green eyes upon Quickclaw, who still bore evidence of his unpleasant dunking.

Quickclaw grimaced. The drizzling rain seemed to have done nothing but keep the muck fresh and smelly on his fur. Badgerheart hadn't even let him rinse off in a stream, demanding instead that they hunt prey and immediately go to the Red Claw's territory.

"So, you approve of our offering?" Badgerheart asked rhetorically. It was obvious that it had been accepted, since the prey was gone and one of the Red Claws was talking to him.

Ghost merely flicked his tail. "So… what favor do you seek from us?"

"A member of our clan has defied our laws and fled. She needs to be hunted down, and punishment meted out." Blackfog spat.

Ghost blinked lazily, as though the vehement declaration bored him thoroughly. "And in return?"

"Clan Rancor has agreed to allow the Red Claws use of our stream and the prey in it for a full moon." Badgerheart replied calmly.

"Out of curiosity," Ghost asked blandly, "How exactly could your clan stop us from doing that anyway, if that was what we really wanted?"

There was silence for a long moment. Badgerheart merely continued to stare at the Red Claw. "It is what I am offering, without the trouble that would come with coming in uninvited."

Finally, Ghost shrugged, "Well, I certainly don't know what 'trouble' you could be referring to. None of your clan members are capable of being 'trouble' to any of us. As I recall, we taught you cats a proper lesson the last time you mouthy, hot headed, fur balls thought to pick a fight. How is the little ringleader of that escapade by the way? He seemed to be in a rather bad way last we saw of him."

"Crippled, useless to the clan, and culled immediately, as you well know! And three more were wounded so badly they were unable to hunt for moons! And then! And then you somehow lured our most skilled fighter into the grass and flat out killed him! I don't even know how you pulled that off! But somehow you did! But you know all this!" Blackfog stepped forward aggressively and glowered into Ghost's bored face.

Quickclaw snatched at his clan mate's tail in a desperate effort to stop him from doing something stupid.

"Why would you ask that unless you wanted to…" Blackfog trailed off, realizing that the Red Claw had brought up that painful defeat simply because it was a humiliation, and because he wanted to rub their noses in the fact that they couldn't take out a few measly Rogues. Blackfog finished with a wordless snarl of fury.

"Is that so?" Ghost meowed. He showed no fear of Blackfog's seething anger, nor did he look pleased, or even triumphant at having antagonized the tom. He sounded like a lazy she-cat after hearing a fascinating, new bit of gossip and nothing more. "My, my. Well with luck, such 'misunderstandings' can be avoided in the future then hmm?" He rose unhurriedly, gave a short leap to the base of a tree and glided up the trunk.

Quickclaw released Backfog's tail. "Don't ever do that again! Don't you remember? There are four of them! There's only three of us!"

"There was only one of him, and I-" Blackfog's jeer was cut short by Badgerheart's cuff to the back of the head.

"And you would have been killed the second you actually tried to lay your paws on him." The Enforcer snarled. "Three of them are known to me, and only because I have been trying to salvage the relationship between us and them ever since that pack of stupid hunters got it into their heads to prove our clan's strength. No cat in living memory has ever seen the fourth!"

"Do… do you know their names?" Quickclaw asked.

"You've met Ghost. His full name is Ghost Of a Chance. Very appropriate, and you've already seen what he can do. Otter In Darkness is a dark brown all over. Pale green eyes. Likes to explode out of holes or out of the river and drag his victims where they can't be easily rescued. Gives him plenty of time to do whatever he wants with them."

Quickclaw swallowed. There was only one thing to do with a victim trapped in water or beneath the ground.

"Then there's Mist Over Stone Teeth. I hear he earned that name by pitching an enemy over a waterfall and onto the deadly stone teeth at the base. He strikes and then flees before he can be caught. His victims rarely rise from the blow he deals." Badgerheart licked a paw and ran it over one ear.

"And the fourth?" Quickclaw asked.

"No one has seen or met this cat. No one knows what they look like or what they do. I've only heard the name once: Lightning That Strikes at Night."

"So, four toms living all the way out here, a deadly fighting force that defeated a patrol of clan warriors? Impressive." Blackfog mused.

Quickclaw's fur prickled. Blackfog had immediately assumed that the fourth was a tom. But he hadn't missed the strange way Badgerheart had failed to just state the gender of the fourth. Could it be? Could one of the Red Claws be a she-cat? Raised and trained to fight?

The thought sent emotions roiling through the tom's skull. Everything he had been raised on said that females were weak, useless in battle or hunting, and only good for raising kits. But… no one ever claimed that there were only three Red Claws. Everyone knew there were four, despite never seeing the mysterious fourth member. And… a she cat? It would explain why she was never seen. Clan Rancor would do more than send a patrol to strike against the quartet. All four of them would be hunted by every tom in Clan Rancor, and the fighting female declared an abomination. She would be killed, and the other three with her for allowing her to fight.

But if females could fight, could hunt, could be just as good as any tom… if elsewhere, beyond the clan, she-cats lived lives free of dominating toms, free to be fierce and strong…

The thought send a shiver through him that was half fear for daring to think of such things, half thrill at the thought of a she-cat as wild and strong and fierce as an equal, a partner… his sister could be one of them.

Ghost swarmed down the tree trunk, interrupting Quickclaw's thoughts, his eyes amused. "Done telling stories to the little kits?" He purred. "We have decided. Mist has agreed to pursue the she-cat."

Quickclaw stirred briefly but did not open his mouth. Ghost's cool gaze flicked to him and then away. "Mist! Come down, brother, and greet our guests!"

A mottled gray tom dropped out of the cover of the leaves above, and down to the ground next to Blackfog, who jumped and spat. His silver eyes gleamed with dark humor at Blackfog.

"Lead me to her scent trail, please." Mist had a voice that was low and soothing, on the verge of a purr that would send all the females of Clan Rancor flocking to him. It was the kind of voice that would let him get right up close and personal with his target. The kind of voice that gave no hint to the deadly killer within. In a way, his pleasant, purring voice and Ghost's silky voice were two of a kind.

Blackfog scooted a bit farther away, his eyes never leaving the closed expression and darkly humorous silver eyes. He too seemed uncomfortable around Mist.

Badgerheart simply nodded and turned around. The two warriors followed, fur prickling as Mist walked behind them. His paws made no sound on the loam and his gaze wandered around the forest as though curious about everything but the cats he was with.

Quickclaw swallowed, his throat seemingly very dry all of a sudden. What he was about to do was dangerous in so very many ways. He slowed his steps, dropping back to walk by Mist's left shoulder. He struggled with what he wanted to say.

Finally Mist spoke up. "You want to talk to me." It was a statement, not a question.

"Um, well… er… I take it you know Clan Rancor's laws?"

Mist's chuckle was dark, and harsh. "I do indeed."

"Well, um. You... You four live outside them, right?" Quickclaw's fur felt like it was going to twitch right off, and his gut clenched.

He figured that the Red Claws were called that because of the blood they spilled and the lives they ended. And what he was going to ask would be an immediate death sentence if Badgerheart or Blackfog overheard him.

"We aren't bound by your laws." Mist agreed, his silver eyes inscrutable.

"Okay… well… could you… I dunno… That is… She's my sister." He whispered it all in a rush. "She broke Rancor Law, but she's left the clan. Could you… um… judge her according to laws outside of the clan? I'll… I'll do what I can to make it worthwhile to you."

Those alien silver eyes blinked slowly, thoughtfully. Quickclaw could have sworn that they looked… gleeful for half a heartbeat. But then it was gone. "Be very, very careful about asking favors from a Red Claw. We will collect, whether or not it seems to be a reasonable price."

"I... I want her to live happily. I want her to be safe." The words popped out of his mouth before he even realized that he did indeed want Silver to live. What shocked him even more was the pleading note in his voice.

"Fascinating." Mist sounded bored. "Oh look, here we are." He sped up to join the other two toms at the entrance to the tunnel, leaving the Rancor tom behind.

Quickclaw slowed, his heart sinking. Had he just failed? Had he risked everything, uttered the words of treachery, for nothing? These were the Red Claws. They probably took pleasure in killing. And what if they demanded something terrible in return for sparing his sister's life? He turned his back on the group and let an expression of grief and fear spill over his face.

His sister… and her kits… they would not survive without her. If Mist killed her as the Clan decreed, there would be multiple deaths; not just one. And, he realized, he didn't want her daughters to die either, even if they were only she-cats. In silent horror, he realized that one whispered word from the Rancor Ancestors about his treacherous thoughts would end his life too.