“Sorry, Lionblaze,” Toadstep stammered. “I only wanted to show you…”

“I know.” Lionblaze twitched his whiskers. “Just remember that every cat has limits, and you need to know what yours are.”

Toadstep nodded, withdrawing a pace or two into the clearing, his gaze still on Lionblaze as if he felt that the golden tabby was likely to spring at him without warning.

“Mouse-brained young idiot,” Lionblaze murmured to Cinderheart, his voice a soft, frustrated growl. “How do you think I would feel if he got his pelt ripped off trying to be like me?”

Cinderheart nodded understandingly. “You’ll sort him out,” she mewed.

Warmed by her response, Lionblaze turned back to the two younger warriors. “Right, let’s see if we’ve frightened off all the prey in the forest,” he began. “Can you scent anything?”

Toadstep raised his head at once, jaws parted to taste the air, while Rosepetal sniffed around the tangled roots of the fallen tree.

“Squirrel!” Toadstep exclaimed.

“Okay, but don’t tell the whole forest,” Lionblaze murmured. “The idea is that the prey doesn’t know we’re here.”

Toadstep ducked his head, forepaws scrabbling among the dead leaves. “Sorry. I forgot.”

“So where’s this squirrel?” Cinderheart asked.

Toadstep pointed with his tail toward a bramble thicket. The squirrel was almost completely hidden by a tangle of tendrils, only the tip of its tail visible. Toadstep had tracked it by its scent alone.

“Well done.” Lionblaze gave him an approving nod. “Now let’s see your hunter’s crouch. Both of you.”

Toadstep crouched down, and after a heartbeat’s pause Rosepetal padded to his side and joined him. Lionblaze and Cinderheart eyed their stance critically.

“Not bad,” Lionblaze told Toadstep, flicking his hindquarters with his tail. “Pull your hind legs in a bit farther. You’ll get more power in your pounce that way.”

“Rosepetal, that’s very good,” Cinderheart added. “Your weight’s nicely balanced.”

“Okay, we’ll practice hunting in pairs. Toadstep, it’s your squirrel,” Lionblaze went on, checking that the animal was still there. “You’ll creep up on it. Rosepetal, move over toward that tree”—he angled his ears toward an ivy-covered oak—“so if the squirrel tries to flee that way, you’ll be in the right place to catch it.”

Rosepetal nodded and began padding toward the oak, while Toadstep slid through the grass. He was almost within striking distance of the squirrel when one of his hind paws brushed against a bracken frond. The squirrel sat up, alert, at the faint rustling sound, then broke away from the thicket and fled across the clearing, straight toward Rosepetal’s oak.

Rosepetal reached out, but the squirrel shot past her a mouse-length from her paws and hurled itself up the tree. Rosepetal jumped and spun around, but by then only the shaking tendrils of ivy showed where the prey had gone.

“Fox dung!” Toadstep exclaimed, bounding over in a fury. “Rosepetal, you should have caught that!”

“Rosepetal, you have to focus,” Cinderheart admonished.

“Yes, anything could happen at any time.” Lionblaze looked sternly at the young warrior. “We have to be ready.”