Author's Note: A lot of dialogue this chapter, which is really fun to write! As always, thank you for reading and reviewing! I hope you enjoy! Have a great rest of your day!

-Rosie ;)

Chapter Eighteen

No!

Briarpaw whipped around, stumbling towards the half-uncovered cache.

"Leave it, Briarpaw!" Smolderpaw cried. "We have to get out of here!"

Briarpaw glanced longingly back at the fresh prey, but followed him as he tried to maneuver his way through the sheep herd.

"Hurry!" she yelped as she nearly collided into him. "They're getting closer!" Although she couldn't see anything through the thickly flocking sheep, the distant barks weren't sounding so distant anymore.

"I can't see anything through all the sheep! I don't know which way to go!"

"Then let's go back to the cache and see if we can find our way from there-"

Suddenly, snarling barks exploded around them. The dogs were upon them.

"It's too late for that!" Smolderpaw screeched. "Just pick a direction and run!"

"Make sure to follow me!" Briarpaw called as she ducked under the legs of a nearby sheep. "We don't want to get separated from each other!"

After they had been running for a while, and there was a fair amount of sheep between them and the dogs, Briarpaw found herself able to breathe a little easier, although her heart was still pounding furiously.

"Which way now?" she gasped. "I have no idea how to get back to the open moor!"

"I don't know, but we don't have time to wait around until we figure it out!"

Briarpaw followed his gaze to see that the sheep behind them were trotting away from the approaching dogs, leaving a clearer route between them and the two apprentices.

For the first time, Briarpaw laid eyes on the creatures. There were two of them, moderately large sized dogs with lean builds, although that didn't make them look any less dangerous. Their pelts were sleek and white, with large patches of black, and their long legs indicated that they were swift runners.

Mouse-dung! That was the one advantage that we could've had over them!

"Come on! We have to run!" Smolderpaw cried.

"Where?"

"Anywhere but here! Come on!" The dark tom sprinted away, and Briarpaw darted after him.

"How are we going to get back to the moor?" She panted after a while.

"I don't know! How are we supposed to figure out where we're going with two vicious dogs on our tails? We have to escape from them before we can do anything else!"

"And how exactly do you plan to do that?"

"Hide! In the herd! They won't be able to reach us through all these sheep!"

"Ok… no offense, Smolderpaw, but I see a few flaws in that plan, the main one being that it won't' work!"

"Oh, and I suppose you've got a much better idea, have you?"

"No! That's not what I meant! Look!" She signaled her tail back towards the dogs behind them, still running as she glanced over her shoulder. They were a little distance away now, but as they ran through the herd, issuing sharp barks, the sheep scattered, leaving a path for them to run though. "These dogs… they know how to… steer the sheep, somehow. The twolegs must've trained them to do that. So there's no way we can hope to hide!"

"Um… I don't think we'll have to."

"What?" Suddenly, she collided with something. She turned to see Smolderpaw. "Hey, why'd you stop? In case you haven't noticed, we're being chased by-" She cut off abruptly as she followed his gaze.

In front of them, laid the moor. The moor that would take them home.

"Smolderpaw! How… how did you do that?"

The gray tom shifted his paws sheepishly. "I tried following our old scent trails."

"That's brilliant! Why didn't you tell me that's what you were doing?"

"I didn't want to get your hopes up… the scents were all so jumbled up, I wasn't sure it would work."

"Well, thank StarClan that it did! We're lucky that you're such a good tracker. Now, come on, let's go!" She turned to run, but Smolderpaw stopped her with a flick of her tail.

"Wait- where are you going?'

"Um… home?"

Smolderpaw rolled his eyes. "I'm not a feather-brain, Briarpaw. I mean, what's the plan? How are we going to get there?"

"I was thinking… run? Like, really fast?"

"Please tell me you're joking. Did you see those dogs? They'll outrun us in a heartbeat! If they spot us escaping, we're crowfood!"

"Probably, but… what other choice do we have?"

Smolderpaw glanced over his shoulder anxiously. "Are we really doing this?"

"If we are, we have to go now. The longer we wait, the shorter amount of time we get before they see us."

Smolderpaw took a shaky breath, then nodded. "Fine. Let's do it."

The words had barely left his mouth before Briarpaw shot out of the herd. She immediately wished she had waited until she was a few fox-lengths from the sheep before running, as the sheep behind her stumbled backwards, bleating loudly.

But it was too late now. The dogs would be upon them soon, and there was no turning back.

A heartbeat later, Smolderpaw was at her side, running faster than she had ever seen him go before.

Suddenly, she heard barking behind her. She turned to glance over her shoulder, but Smolderpaw shoved her gently. "Don't look!" he gasped. "Just run!"

All too soon, Briarpaw felt the thrum of pawsteps through the earth, heavier than just their own. She pushed her legs as fast as they would go, but still, she felt the dogs bearing down on them. Worse yet, she didn't know how long she could keep running for, and she was even more worried about Smolderpaw.

Please, StarClan- help us!

Just then, she sensed the dogs draw to a halt behind her. She stumbled slightly, gasping with relief, but she kept running until she couldn't go any further, and collapsed next to Smolderpaw, her chest heaving.

Glancing back, she saw the dogs pacing anxiously back and forth. They glanced at the cats, growling softly, before glancing back to the sheep pastures, where the sheep had been scattered from the commotion they had caused. After a moment of hesitation, and a last warning bark to the cats, they loped back to the sheep and quickly began to round them up.

"Come on, let's get out of here before they change their minds," Smolderpaw meowed, and the two apprentices scrambled to their paws, before dashing away.

…

"What were you two thinking?" Hazelgorse hissed, her russet fur spiking with agitation. "You could've gotten yourselves killed!"

"Sorry Hazelgorse…" Smolderpaw muttered.

"We were being careful, though!" Briarpaw added. "Those dogs just came out of nowhere!"

"Yeah. We never would've gone in if we had known that they were there."

"You should've never gone in the first place! I don't know how many times I've warned you to stay away from the sheep!"

"We were only trying to help the Clan," Briarpaw protested. "Thanks to them, we lost our prey!"

"We have plenty back home! There was no need to put yourselves in danger just so you could chase a rabbit!"

"We weren't chasing the rabbit!" Smolderpaw protested. "We were only trying to get the ground squirrels back! Now we won't have anything to bring back for the Clan!"

"You're lucky that you're coming back at all! Now, come on, I'm taking you back to camp." Whirling around, the russet warrior stormed away. Cherrytail shot them a pitying glance before hurrying after her, and the two apprentices followed close behind.

As they arrived in camp, Hazelgorse strided through the clearing, her head high and her tail twitching. Several cats turned to give the patrol curious stares, and Briarpaw lowered her head, refusing to meet any of their gazes.

As Cherrytail and Hazelgorse dropped their ground squirrels on top of the fresh-kill pile, Tanwystar and Thistlevine hurried over to them.

"Hazelgorse!" the Clan leader meowed. "Your patrol is late! Is everything alright?"

Briarpaw flinched, for a moment wondering if the senior warrior would lecture them in front of the whole Clan, but she dipped her head and murmured, "I would like to speak with you in your den."

Tanwystar shot her a questioning glance, but said nothing, giving only a slight nod of his head.

As Tawnystar, Thistlevine, Hazlegorse, Smolderpaw, and Briarpaw headed towards Tawnystar's den, Cherrytail cleared her throat behind them.

The cats turned to look at her. When she was silent, Tanwystar asked, "Yes?"

The brown tabby shuffled her paws before speaking. "Do you… do you want me to come with you?" Briarpaw guessed that she felt awkward standing around watching while the two apprentices were lectured.

"No, that's fine, you can stay here." Hazelgorse meowed. As Smolderpaw's ears shot up, she added sharply, "But you two are definitely coming with."

As the five cats arrived in the den, Hazelgorse told the WindClan leader and deputy what had happened.

By the time she finished, Tawnystar's fur was spiking. "Dogs! How many were there?"

"We only saw two," Briarpaw reported.

"Two is more than enough. Dogs have never brought anything but trouble. Thistlevine, I want you to organize extra patrols along the Horseplace, but make sure to tell them not to get too close."

"So you think we should inform the Clan of all that's going on?"

"Tell them that this is no cause for panic- we will get this under control. But I cannot keep a threat this big from the Clan, even if it does cause alarm."

"Very well," the deputy meowed with a dip of his head, before vanishing out of the den.

The two apprentices turned to follow him, but Tawnystar called them back with a growl. "We're not done yet."

They turned back to their leader, Smolderpaw casting his gaze downward, and Briarpaw trying to get her fur to lay flat.

"Is what Hazelgorse said true? Did you really willingly run into the sheep herd?"

They exchanged a glance, before Briarpaw stepped forward. "Yes, but-"

"What were you thinking?" Tawnystar's voice had an edge to it that she had never heard him use before. "Hazelgorse has shown herself to be an excellent mentor several times over, and young Spotfur has always shown promise- haven't they taught you better than this?"

"Of course they have," Briarpaw mumbled. "They've taught us well. This was all our doing. But we were just trying to help the Clan!"

"By running into a death trap?"

"But we lost our prey!" Smolderpaw insisted. "The sheep herd had wandered over our cache!"

"Do you think that a few measly pieces of prey are worth your lives? You two are well on your way to becoming warriors- it would be a great disservice to the Clan to lose you- not to mention, a tragic loss."

"Tawnystar, we had no idea the dogs were there!"

"It doesn't matter! You shouldn't go meddling around with anything related to twolegs! Since kithood, you have been raised to believe that twolegs are dangerous! Why do you think we teach our kits that?"

Briarpaw opened her mouth, but their leader didn't give either of them time to answer.

"Because it's true, that's why! I'm only trying to protect you!"

"Tawnystar, we really didn't mean to-"

But Tawnystar wasn't finished. "I am the leader of WindClan. They all rely on me to protect them! And I try my best to keep all my cats safe, but how do you expect me to do that when two troublemaking apprentices are just throwing themselves right in the path of danger? I have to keep you safe, and you don't understand what that's like! You don't understand what I go through!"

Briarpaw took a step backwards as Tawnystar flattened his bristling fur. The leader was regaining his regular, calm composure, but for a moment, they had seen the stress and sense of responsibility that had been brewing underneath the leader's gentle form.

Tawnystar took a deep breath. "Of course you don't understand. You're only an apprentice. But you need to be more considerate of the Clan."

Briarpaw didn't want to argue with him any further, but she was unable to hold back her outburst. "But that's what I was doing- considering the Clan! Perhaps I didn't go about it in the best way, but I was still trying to help!"

"Briarpaw, I admire your ambition and determination, but you really need to learn when to back off."

Briarpaw blinked at him, astonished. "You're telling me to give up?"

Tawnystar sighed. "Sometimes that is the only option."

"A good warrior will risk anything for her Clan!"

"Yes, but a great warrior knows when to retreat. It's better to live another day to serve your Clan."

Briarpaw lapsed into silence, and found herself unable to respond.

Smolderpaw stepped in when he saw she had grown silent. "We're sorry, Tawnystar. I think we've learned our lesson."

Tawnystar nodded. "I know you had the right intentions, but until you learned how to act properly on them, perhaps it would be best if you avoided the Horseplace for a little while."

Smolderpaw nodded, and after a second, Briarpaw quickly did the same.

"I best go speak to the Clan now. Thank you for coming to me right away, Hazelgorse. We must be prepared for anything that this may cause."

Hazelgorse nodded. "WindClan is stronger than ever. We'll be ready for anything that's thrown at us. I'm sure of it."