“It’s great up here,” she mewed as Hollyleaf struggled up the last fox-length to join her. “Sometimes I come just to look.”

You come up here even if you don’t have to? Hollyleaf felt as if her claws had been worn away in the desperate climb. A sharp ridge stretched away in both directions; it felt far too narrow to balance on. Wind buffeted her fur and plastered her whiskers to the side of her face.

Not wanting to let Jingo know how uneasy she was, she forced herself to look up from her clinging claws. Instantly she forgot to be scared. She could see forever! All the way across the tumbled roofs of the Twolegplace, to the flat stretch of rough grass that covered the cliffs above the sun-drown-place. And beyond that, over the gray, heaving waves as far as the horizon.

“Look!” Lionblaze yowled, dragging himself up to balance on the ridge beside Hollyleaf. “You can see the mountains!”

Hollyleaf twisted around to stare in the opposite direction. After the edge of the forest, the mountains lay like a smudge of cloud on the horizon. She could make out gray slopes and cliffs, and peaks tipped with snow reaching up to the sky.

“Do you think we’re as high as we were in the mountains?” she asked wonderingly.

“Of course not.” There was a hint of scorn in Lionblaze’s voice. “It took us ages to climb up to the waterfall.”

Hollyleaf realized he was right, and yet the mountains seemed so close she could almost imagine leaping off the roof and landing on the ledge that led behind the waterfall to the cave where the Tribe of Rushing Water lived.

“I wonder what they’re doing,” she murmured, half to herself. “Will we ever see Stormfur and Brook again?”

No cat answered her. As soon as the rest of the patrol had reached the roof ridge, Jingo rose to her paws. “For this next bit, you have to be extra careful,” she warned. “Going down is far harder than going up. If you slip…well, just don’t slip, that’s all.”

Cautiously, in a half-crouch, Jingo led the way down the other side of the roof. Hollyleaf’s paws skidded on the smooth stone of the roof; there was nothing to hold on to, and the downward slope seemed to end in empty air. When she was halfway down, a big white bird swooped past her, letting out a raucous cry and filling the air with the beating of its wings. Hollyleaf froze, trying to dig her claws into the stone, until it was gone.

“I’m never doing this again!” Birchfall hissed behind her.

Hollyleaf was shaking by the time they reached the edge of the roof and perched on a narrow channel half choked with leaves and other debris. A couple of fox-lengths below was a flat roof, and just beyond that, a narrow Thunderpath.

“Is that another monster nest?” Hazeltail asked.

Jingo nodded. “We’ll have to come down to the ground here,” she meowed, “because we have to cross that Thunderpath. But I think we’re safe now. The wild dogs don’t often come this far.”