“No! You can’t!” she hissed.

“I can!” Lionblaze insisted, turning glowing amber eyes on her. “I won’t get hurt, you know I won’t.”

He pushed his way to the edge of the silver boulder, squeezing past Brambleclaw and Brackenfur, and ignoring the Clan deputy when he asked what in StarClan’s name Lionblaze thought he was doing.

“Lionblaze, no!” Hollyleaf screeched. “Stop!”

CHAPTER 11

Lionblaze heard his sister screeching, but he ignored it. He knew, with every hair on his pelt, that he could fight the dogs. He could feel his blood pumping hot and fierce through his veins, and every fighting move he had ever learned was at his claw-tips.

The dogs seemed to approach in slow motion. He had all the time he needed to watch the drool waving from their lips and their paws pounding over the ground. His gaze flicked from one to another.

I’ll take out that black-and-tan one first. When it falls, it’ll trip the thin gray one, and the white one too, if I’m lucky. Then I’ll go for that yapping little horror with the black paws….

He was dimly aware that his Clanmates were yowling behind him, but he still didn’t respond. This is my fight. I’m the only one who can save them!

Lionblaze braced himself to leap, spotting the surprise in the leading dog’s yellow eyes. “You didn’t think a cat would turn and fight!” he taunted. “Well, now’s your chance to learn!”

His last words were drowned by a shattering crash; he glanced behind to see that one of the silver boulders had toppled over, sending a silver disc spinning across the ground. It rolled into the pack of dogs; they swerved to avoid it, the rush of their attack halted.

To Lionblaze’s surprise, a dark brown tabby she-cat popped up from behind the fallen boulder, closer to the fence than the terrified Clan cats were. “Quick!” she meowed. “Help me push this one over.”

She reared up, resting her forepaws against the side of the next shiny boulder. Brambleclaw sprang up beside her, and together they pushed. The boulder crashed over like the other one, the silver disc on top of it spinning away. Twoleg rubbish spilled out from inside.

The dogs were yelping in frustration, scrabbling at the boulders in their efforts to get around them and sink their jaws into their prey.

“Come on!” the strange she-cat ordered. “It won’t hold them off for long.”

She dove through a narrow gap at the bottom of the hedge that had been hidden by the silver boulders, and the patrol followed her at full pelt, racing across a wide stretch of pale gray stone.

Renewed barking made Lionblaze glance over his shoulder as he fled. The small brown-and-white dog and the thin gray one had pushed their way through the gap and were bounding across the expanse of stone.

“They’re coming!” he gasped.

“This way!” the she-cat mewed tersely. She led them down a narrow path between two high fences and halted beside a small hole with jagged edges. “Through there.”