Chapter 4

It was many minutes until Aquaflower suggested sending Toadkit in.

"I'll go," Applepaw offered, "You need Toadkit's smarts."

"Okay, you go, and we'll wait," Applepaw climbed into the hole and looked around. The tunnel was dark and as she looked around she saw leaves and old bones that cats had buried. When she came out a large paw covered her mouth.

"Don't move, we are in control, don't you try to escape," a cat mewed.

"Yeah," another cat agreed.

"Do you have . . ." Applepaw started pushing the paw off her mouth.

"Yeah, that lousy queen, yeah we do," the cat answered.

Actually, she was going to ask if they had caught Dewkit, Gingerkit and Marshkit, but she caught herself before she gave them away.

"And now," she thought, "we get to see what happened to the warriors."

There were three cats that escorted her to wherever she was going. One had dark grey fur which was clearly a tom; another had dark-creamish fur he was clearly a tom too, and the last was a she-cat with pure black fur. Applepaw recognized her as Slitherpelt one of the cats that had come on the first patrol.

"We are we going?" Applepaw managed to squeak out. One tom was holding her, the other her mother, and the she-cat led the group. She was obviously of some importance seeing as how every cat listened to her every word following her orders.

"We are going to our leader to tell him what you were doing," the dark grey fur tom said.

"Shhhhh, what did I tell you about giving away orders to the enemy?" Slitherpelt sent a dark and angry glare to the tom, "I'll let you off this time but don't do that in the future."

"Yes, Slitherpelt," the tom bowed letting Applepaw slip for a moment, because as you know, you can't hold on to something three quarters of your size and weight, and bow correctly. She slipped away into the bushes without looking back and ran until she couldn't run anymore. Then, she heard cats talking "Must be NightClan cats, I'd better be careful." She listened from her hideout; after a while she figured clearly they were up to something.

"Drag the bodies of the warriors to their den, then put a big log in front of it in our signature style, and don't wake them up!" a cat ordered, "Remember, this is different than dragging dead bodies, they are only asleep."

A big sigh left Applepaw but she was far enough away that the cats took no notice.

Then a familiar feeling pounced on Applepaw, "Here we go again," she thought. A big strong paw grabbed her and carried her back to the camp, her eyes and mouth were covered so she couldn't see or yell for help.

Rats, they caught me Applepaw thought. On the way back the paw moved down so she could see. She saw many caves that she had seen on patrols and training that had huge logs in front of them. When they walked into the camp the warrior that had carried her moved the big log in front of the warriors den and threw her in.

"Glad you joined the club," Grassblade called to her from a corner where he stood alone surrounded by many cats flung onto the floor.

"What happened?" she asked looking at the cats, she could see Shimmertail and Cedarheart, and both cats she knew and was friends with.

"Well, we were foolishly tricked," he began, "a patrol came back that had scented a badger so 3 patrols were sent out to find it and get rid of it. They all came to the same place, this grassy area, and when we investigated the ground caved in; we were stuck in a pit all together. We found some dead rabbits and passed a portion around to everyone and as soon as we ate it we fell dead asleep, except for me of course. The other patrol leaders thought it was a good idea, but I didn't because I saw some black seeds coming out from one paw, so I didn't have any and well, look at me now. 3 cats came and I had to surrender, I was no match for them. I watched helplessly as more and more cats came and. . . ."

". . . and dragged the bodies away, I saw," Applepaw finished, "Oh and the seeds I bet they were Poppy seeds, small and black? They would make a cat sleepy."

"Yeah exactly, but you saw?"

"Yeah, I had escaped and saw a little of that when this tom found me and dragged me back and threw me in here. I wonder what happened to the kits and queens," she looked away, "When I left them they weren't in good shape."

"What are we going to do now? Applepaw hasn't come back, and the NightClan cats haven't come back, and Lightcloud hasn't come back, and the other kits haven't come back." Toadkit pondered, "If we don't get out of here soon we will be in worse shape than we are now."

He was right, the cats didn't have it too bad, and they had only been in there for a little while.

"I'm tired," Heatkit complained, "when are we going to get out of here?"

"Honey," Cherryblossom replied, "I don't know."