Despite Icestar's best efforts to dissuade both Rowanfall and the rogues, both continued to needle Gorseclan's side, until, suddenly, Rowanfall was not detected in the territory for several days. No sight, no scent, not even in the area where he had been scaling the cliffs to enter the territory..It was like he had vanished. Maybe he had decided the risk wasn't worth it anymore…

The rogues, though, showed absolutely no sign of going away that easily. Their scent continued to appear, deeper and deeper into Gorseclan land. The number of cats coming in seemed to be growing too. Every patrol that reported the news back of a new excursion -something that had become a daily occurrence- was filled with anger and frustration at their lack of ability to respond. When Dappledshade had gone out on dawn patrol that morning, she had been expecting to find evidence of them far more than not.

Sure enough, as the patrol fanned out once they had moved away from the Fernclan border, heading back towards home, she noticed the now familiar smell of rogue mixed with that of blood. Not cat. Her eyes flicked back and forth around the undergrowth till she saw the source. Padding up to it, there was a mostly-eaten kill of a hare. Seeing it, she snarled to herself. A hare! Of all the things for these filching rogues to catch! It hadn't rained in a long time, the territory was dry, and a large prey animal like this would have been a valuable meal to the clan.

With a final snort of disgust and her claws digging in the dirt as she turned to go and report this to the rest of the patrol, something just happened to catch her eye… A flash of black on a tangle of thorns. Focusing on it, she saw it was fur. Padding up to get a good sniff, the scent was of a cat; the strong, almost acidic smell of the rogue band. But then, something made her linger, as she opened her mouth to let the smell in even more, she was almost certain she could smell something else. Gorseclan. Specifically, she could detect the faint hint of Spiderstrike on the fur.

What had Spiderstrike been doing here? The hare kill was not especially fresh, nor old. Probably made just before dawn… The fur tuft, still strong with scent, couldn't be any older either. No Gorseclan cat had any reason to have been here since then. Spiderstrike had been on night watch; she had seen him leave it to go sleep in his nest before she came out on dawn patrol.

No… he had no reason to have been here at roughly the same time as the rogues at all… There was a small feeling of vindication, that her suspicions about him looked to be right after all. Dappledshade could easily envision him meeting the rogues in secret.

Filled with a certain righteous fury, Dappledshade turned to head for camp. The rest of the patrol had broken off to hunt on their way home, but she wasn't hungry anymore, and telling them about this could wait… She intended to confront the slippery, stinking worm herself. She'd get him to spill his guts one way or another!

However, her fervour deflated when she stalked into camp only to be unable to find Spiderstrike anywhere. He wasn't sleeping in his nest like she expected, not lazing around camp. His scent was in the air, but older. He must have left camp again… Icestar was here though, talking to Sorrelwind near his den about prey rations. Well, if she couldn't confront Spiderstrike himself, she could at least report it to her leader! He needed to know he had misplaced his trust in a rare lapse in judgement.

"Icestar, Sorrelwind." She called as she approached, tail lifted high in the air to show her urgency to speak with him. "I apologise for interrupting, but I have news from the dawn patrol."

Icestar looked her up and down, his orange eyes narrowing slightly. He appeared to expect more bad news. "You are back before the rest of your patrol, Dappledshade." He observed, gaze roving slowly over camp before returning to her.

"They're hunting. I came back early… I was looking for Spiderstrike, actually."

"He's on a special mission for me." Icestar informed her plainly, rolling his shoulders.

Sorrelwind addressed Dappledshade next. "What is the news from patrol?"

"That's why I needed to find him, actually. I found his fur, right next to rogue scent and a mostly eaten kill. They practically came right into the middle of our territory this time!"

Sorrelwind's ears flattened. "Filth." She spat. "And you found Spiderstrike's fur there?" The troubled tone of her voice told Dappledshade the deputy was thinking along the same lines as her.

"By the smell, it was caught on the thorns around the same time as the rogues were there."

Sorrelwind seemed to be about to ask another question, but Icestar's rumble stopped her. "Spiderstrike is investigating the rogues for me. That is his mission. His former life among them makes him familiar with their habits and an ideal spy."

"But-" Dappledshade was cut off, Icestar's stiff flick of a tail a signal to silence herself.

"Do not let paranoia and clan gossip get the better of you, Dappledshade. I thought I taught you better than that. Should I be thinking I made you an elite guard too soon after all, if you cannot trust your clanmates, or my judgement?"

Feeling rather mortified and cowed under Icestar's harsh gaze, Dappledshade bowed her head deeply. "...No, Icestar, I'm sorry. It won't happen again."

"It better not. I will call a meeting later when the rest of the clan is back at sunhigh to report your findings on the rogues. That they are coming so far into our territory is troubling." His voice softened as he mused, turning to Sorrelwind to confer. "You're dismissed." He said to Dappledshade over his shoulder as an afterthought.

She was quick to make herself scarce to the other side of camp, adjusting a fallen branch near the elders' den just to make herself busy and show she could do her job.

Hailstorm watched her progress with cloudy eyes from where he lay stretched out in the sun. He couldn't see very far these days. The scarred old tom let out a raspy laugh. "My son is a blowhard, but he'll probably forget all about something like that by tomorrow. Don't worry about it too much, young warrior."

"You heard all that?" Dappledshade paused in what she was doing, only feeling even more embarrassed now.

"We may be old, but we still pay attention!" Chiveclaw's typically ornery voice came from inside the den, where Dappledshade could only imagine her fussing with her nest obsessively, as she liked to do. It made changing her bedding as an apprentice a nightmare. It was never right.

Hailstorm snickered lowly. "My eyes are bad; my ears still work fine. What else can we do for entertainment but listen to clan drama now we're broken down?" He yawned, showing cracked and yellowing teeth as if to prove his point further. "Chiveclaw likes to predict who's going to pair up; myself though, I'm interested in politics. A young up-and-comer like you, I keep an eye on, so to speak."

"You're no good to me anymore though!" Chiveclaw's voice rang out again, and Hailstorm must have seen the confusion on Dappledshade's face in response, for he chuckled again.

"Don't worry about it." He shook his head slightly. "Just don't dwell on what Icestar said, that's all. Keep your head down, and it will be fine. Now, get to work cleaning up some around here, if you have nothing better to do."

Thankful for something to occupy herself until sunhigh came around, Dappledshade dipped her head to the former deputy and went to work.

Other cats slowly returned to camp as she repaired thorn walls and removed moss, bringing the two elders prey later. Like being teleported back to her apprentice days. But then, caring for the elders who had done their duty to the clan was a task that all were responsible for, not just apprentices.

"Dappledshade." Hailstorm called just as she was about to tell him she was finished. His cloudy eyes shifted to look past her, and they narrowed slightly. "It seems my son intends to call a meeting."

Indeed, Icestar had ascended the High Stone as Dappledshade turned to look. "Let all cats old enough to catch their own prey, gather around the High Stone for a clan meeting!"

"How about so old you can't catch your own prey? It's always been a grey area to me." Chiveclaw, who had come out to sunbathe with Hailstorm grumbled. The white tom hushed her, nodding his head towards Dappledshade to urge her to go.

Icestar didn't waste any time; he was already relaying the morning find of the mostly eaten hare deep in their territory. "As they are getting more and more bold as to come so deep into our land, I repeat the importance of not going anywhere alone… perhaps even in pairs is no longer enough if they are entering in groups. I don't expect them to be as adept in combat as a Gorseclan warrior, of course, but if they strike with surprise on their side as they have been doing to Tussockclan…"

"We should take the fight to them!" Thrushwing called out. Dappledshade's father had always been direct, it did not surprise her that was what he wanted to do. He wasn't the only one.

Icestar swiped his paw across the top of the High Stone, flicking an errant pebble away that clacked its way down to the ground. He was obviously angry about this whole situation. "We still don't know how many there are or where exactly they are hiding out… All we know is they are coming from the mountains, and the mountains are dangerous. I am not risking any warriors on such an uncertain endeavour." His whiskers quivered with a barely contained snarl. Dappledshade could tell he was trying to keep his composure for the clan's benefit. "But they will pay for all of this. I promise all of you that."

"So, what do we do about these dirt-lickers?" Mottledtail questioned. She almost looked bored, and certainly too blase about it all, as she lounged on her back a short distance away from the bulk of the other gathered cats. It was clear she never feared repercussions for a lack of propriety, or cared to watch her words for fear of the thoughts of others. How nice living in her world must be, Dappledshade thought.

"I'm working on it." Icestar replied through thinly veiled annoyance at Mottledtail's rudeness. "In the meantime, I will be overseeing a rush on the training of our two apprentices. We need them battle-ready as soon as possible between the rogues and the other clans… I also encourage any of you considering having kits that now may be a good time; if you wish, you shall be well-supported. Gorseclan needs more warriors." His ear twitched in a way that told Dappledshade through moons of experience as his apprentice that something was making him uncomfortable. What, she was not sure. He always seemed a bit uncomfortable about the subject of kits. Maybe because he and Sorrelwind had never been able to have any? "What a pity, that we lost both Kowhaifall and her unborn litter…" He lamented solemnly, bowing his head a moment in a gesture some of the other cats, including Horsefoot, Blackbird and Rimuleaf mirrored. "It really is such a loss."

Icestar's head lifted again after the brief moment of silence, and it was again in its bold and confident stance. As he began to passionately move onto talking once again about the prophecy and how Gorseclan was destined to lead the clans united under his leadership into defeating the rogue menace, Dappledshade couldn't find herself getting fired up like some of her clanmates around her did.

Instead, her mind wandered elsewhere, to a nagging thought that Stoatberry had not spoken with her since just after Rowanfall left. Why, she did not know… but as she half-listened to Icestar go on, she was reminded of the previous conversation with the former herbalist. How she laughed at her and called her a stupid lost puppy for following after Icestar.

Dappledshade's head shook slightly as she dismissed the thought. It was just Stoatberry's weird anti-tom talk. She looked back up at her leader while the clan cheered around her after a bold proclamation for future victory. Why should she believe a ghost over her leader and mentor?

Icestar was right, she was just being paranoid.