“Are you okay?” he asked anxiously.

Dovewing floundered to her paws, the snow too loose to give her a proper footing. “I think so,” she mewed. Glancing up at the sheer stone walls that stretched up around her, she added, “I don’t think I can get out.”

“Okay, don’t panic.” Foxleap was replaced by Crag, his voice brisk and confident. “We’ll get you out.”

How? Dovewing wondered helplessly. She remembered what happened when Icecloud fell into the hole, back in the forest. They had used a branch and an ivy tendril to get her out. But there are no branches or ivy here!

“Here, I’ll do it. I’m the smallest,” Splash meowed. She backed over the edge of the gap, clinging to the top with her forepaws while she dangled her tail down to Dovewing. “Can you grab my tail?”

“But I’ll hurt you!” Dovewing exclaimed.

“No, I’ll be fine,” Splash assured her. “Just do it.”

Dovewing stretched up as far as she could and sank her teeth into Splash’s tail. Thankfully the wall of the cleft wasn’t as sheer as she had first thought; there were paw holds that she could use to balance herself and take at least part of the weight off Splash’s tail.

Crag and Stormfur were holding on to the she-cat, bracing her, as Dovewing scrambled over the edge of the cleft and collapsed on one side. “Thank you!” she gasped. “I’m really sorry!”

Splash gave her tail a couple of experimental flicks. “You’re welcome,” she replied. “No harm done.”

“Next time I’ll watch where I’m putting my paws,” Dovewing promised. Shivering, she hauled herself up. Her pelt was covered with snow and grit; she felt she would never be clean or warm again.

“Do you want to go back to the cave?” Stormfur asked. “Swoop will go with you.”

Dovewing shook her head. She didn’t want to be a nuisance and leave the patrol with only one cave-guard, especially with eagles about. “No, I can keep going,” she insisted.

Foxleap padded up and gave her ear a quick lick. “Just tell me if you need any help,” he whispered.

Dovewing’s muscles ached and her pads were sore from scrambling out of the cleft, but she kept pace with the others as Crag led the patrol down the gully and across a ridge before halting in front of a tall spike of stone where a narrow stream bubbled up from between two rocks and wound away into the distance. The surface was frozen, but Dovewing could hear water trickling underneath.

“This is a border marker,” Crag told the Clan cats, angling his ears at the rocky spike. “Gray, would you renew the scent markers?”

While they waited, Dovewing gazed across the rolling hills, the wind buffeting her fur. “Where’s the next marker?” she asked Crag.

The cave-guard pointed with his tail. “You see that dead tree, next to the stream? That’s it.”

On the far side of the valley, almost as far as the distance between ThunderClan’s camp and the ShadowClan border, was a tiny stunted tree clinging to the edge of a narrow gully. Dovewing stared at Crag; she hadn’t realized that the Tribe’s territory was so big. “But it’s so far away! How do you check the borders? It must take the whole day to do one patrol.”