“Great StarClan!” Feathertail gasped in his ear. “Those kittypets are bigger than most warriors!”
Brambleclaw wasn’t sure that mattered. Size and a glossy pelt didn’t make a warrior. He didn’t have any doubts that he and his friends would win the battle, but the two kittypets were defending their territory, and they looked capable of inflicting nasty wounds—wounds the Clan cats could not afford if they were to keep on with their journey.
He tensed his muscles, preparing to leap on the kittypets from behind, but before he could move, a flame-coloured streak flashed down from the fence and across the garden.
“Squirrelpaw, no!” Brambleclaw yowled.
The apprentice took no notice; he was not even sure she had heard. Hurling herself into the midst of the bristling cats, she clawed at the nearest kittypet. Both of them swung around, snarling.
At once Brambleclaw called out, “Stormfur, Crowpaw! Over here!”
Crowpaw shot across the grass and crashed into Feathertail’s flank as he charged under the hedge, but Stormfur stayed where he was, screeching at the advancing kittypets with Squirrelpaw beside him. At the same moment Tawnypelt appeared on top of the fence from the next garden and leaped down to join them.
“Back off, fox dung!” Squirrelpaw spat as the two kittypets closed in.
The nearest of them lashed at her with one paw, missing her by a whisker. Then the door to the Twoleg nest was flung open and a female Twoleg appeared, shouting and waving her arms. The kittypets fled around the side of the nest, while the Clan cats dashed for the refuge of the hedge. The Twoleg glared after them for a moment and then retreated into her nest, banging the door behind her.
“Squirrelpaw!” Brambleclaw hissed as the apprentice skidded to a halt. “What were you thinking of out there? Those two could have clawed your fur off.”
Squirrelpaw shrugged, quite unrepentant. “No, they couldn’t. All kittypets are soft,” she meowed. “Anyway, Stormfur and Crowpaw were there.”
“Brambleclaw, don’t scold her.” Stormfur’s amber eyes glowed as he gazed at Squirrelpaw. “That was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Feathertail murmured agreement, and Brambleclaw began to feel uncomfortable. Tawnypelt gave the young cat a nod of approval, too; only Crowpaw looked cross, perhaps aware that Squirrelpaw had come off better than him, perhaps regretting that in the moment of crisis he had obeyed an order from Brambleclaw.
“I never said she wasn’t brave,” Brambleclaw defended himself hotly. “Just that she needs to think first. We’ve still got a long way to go, and if any of us is injured it’s going to hold us back.”
“Well, we’re all here now,” Tawnypelt pointed out. “Let’s get going.”
Brambleclaw led the way back to the patch of rough ground where he had waited with Feathertail. By now the sun had gone, but red streaks stained the sky, showing them the path they must follow.
“We could spend the night here,” Feathertail suggested. “There’s shelter, and prey.”
“It’s too close to the Twoleg nests,” Stormfur argued. “If we cross the Thunderpath into those fields, we’ll be able to find a safer place.”
No cat disagreed with that. StarClan sent them an easy crossing of the second Thunderpath, and as twilight gathered they began the trek across the fields. The surface was rough, with boggy patches and heaps of stone, as if once there had been Twoleg nests here that had been allowed to fall into ruin.
It was almost dark when they came to a stretch of broken-down wall. Ferns and grasses had rooted in the cracks, giving some shelter, and moss covered the fallen stones.
“This doesn’t look too bad,” Stormfur meowed. “We could stop here.”
“Oh, yes, please!” Squirrelpaw agreed. “I’m so tired I think my paws will drop off!”
“Well, I think we should go on a bit further,” Crowpaw objected stubbornly. Brambleclaw suspected he was just trying to be difficult. “There’s no prey-scent here.”
“We’ve travelled a long way today,” Brambleclaw meowed. “If we go any further we could run into more trouble, or have to spend the night in the open. Let’s look around first, though, and make sure there aren’t any nasty surprises. No badgers or foxes holed up nearby.”
The rest of the cats agreed, all except Crowpaw, who grunted disagreeably. Squirrelpaw went to investigate on the other side of the wall. When she had been gone for a while, Brambleclaw set off after her, bracing himself to find that she had run into trouble again, only to meet her bouncing back around the line of stones.
“This is a great place!” she announced, shaking droplets of water from her whiskers, while Brambleclaw wondered where all her energy came from. “There’s a puddle on the other side, with plenty of water.”
“Water? Lead me to it,” Tawnypelt mewed, trotting in the direction Squirrelpaw indicated. “My mouth’s as dry as last season’s leaves.”
A moment later she came back, and stalked threateningly across to Squirrelpaw with her tail bristling. “That was a dirty trick,” she growled.
Squirrelpaw looked bewildered. “Trick? I don’t know what you mean.”
Tawnypelt spat. “The water tastes disgusting. Full of salt or something.”
“No, it doesn’t!” Squirrelpaw protested. “I had a good long drink, and it was as fresh as anything.”
Tawnypelt turned away and snatched angrily at some juicy stalks of grass. Stormfur shot Squirrelpaw a worried glance. “Wait there,” he ordered. A moment later he reappeared with drops gleaming on his whiskers. “No, it’s fine,” he reported.
“Then why did I get a mouthful of salt?” Tawnypelt mewed.
A shiver ran down Brambleclaw’s spine. “What if . . .” he began, his gaze darting from one cat to another. He swallowed. “What if it’s a sign from StarClan that we’re doing the right thing, trying to find the sun-drown place? My dream was about salt water, remember.”
The four chosen cats looked at each other, eyes stretched wide with awe and, Brambleclaw thought, apprehension.
“If you’re right,” Feathertail murmured, “it would mean that StarClan are watching us, all the time.” She glanced around as if she expected to see starry shapes stalking toward them across the darkening field.
Brambleclaw dug his claws into the earth, feeling the need to anchor himself in something real and solid. “Then that’s a good thing,” he meowed.
“So why haven’t we all had a sign?” Crowpaw asked challengingly. “Why just the two of you?”
“Perhaps we’ll have one later,” Feathertail suggested, brushing her tail against Crowpaw’s flank. “Maybe they’re spread out to let us know we’re staying on the right path.”
“Perhaps.” Crowpaw shrugged angrily and went off to curl up by himself at one end of the wall.
The rest of the party settled down too. Brambleclaw thought longingly of the mice in Ravenpaw’s barn; there was no prey-scent here, and they would have to go to sleep hungry. The next day they would have to spend some time hunting before they went much further.
The first stars of Silverpelt were beginning to appear above his head. Warriors of StarClan, Brambleclaw thought drowsily, watching us and guiding us on our journey.
If only I could speak to you right now, he thought. I wish I could ask you if we’re really doing the right thing, and why we have to travel so far. I wish I could ask you what trouble you have foreseen for the forest.
The stars glittered more brightly still, but no answers came.
CHAPTER 17
Brambleclaw jumped awake when a paw prodded him in the side.
Squirrelpaw’s voice meowed urgently, “Wake up, Brambleclaw! Feathertail and Crowpaw—are gone!”
Brambleclaw sat up, blinking. Tawnypelt was on her paws, and Stormfur was just emerging from the nest he had made for himself under a clump of ferns. But Squirrelpaw was right. There was no sign of Feathertail and Crowpaw.
His head whirling, he staggered to his paws. The sun had already climbed above the h
orizon in a bright blue sky dotted with puffs of white cloud. A stiff breeze was blowing, rippling the grass in the field, but it brought no scent of the missing cats. For a couple of heartbeats Brambleclaw wondered if they had gone home. They had not received the saltwater sign from StarClan; had that made them feel like giving up, as if they had been judged and found lacking? And if Feathertail and Crowpaw had turned back, could he and Tawnypelt succeed if they went on alone?
Then he realised he was being stupid. Crowpaw might think like that, but Feathertail never would, and wherever the two cats had gone they must be together. And it was unlikely that a predator had taken them; there were no scents of danger here, and in any case the noise would have woken the rest of them.
“See if they’ve gone for a drink at the pool,” he suggested to Squirrelpaw, who was still gazing at him with panic in her green eyes.
“I already have,” she mewed. “I’m not mouse-brained.”
“No, OK, then . . .” Brambleclaw glanced around wildly, desperate to come up with a plan, and caught sight of two small figures, pale grey and black, approaching across the field. The wind, blowing toward the broken-down wall, had carried their scent away. “There they are!” he exclaimed.
Feathertail and Crowpaw trotted briskly up to the stones. Their mouths were full of fresh-kill, and their eyes gleamed with satisfaction.
“Where have you been?” Brambleclaw demanded. “We were worried about you.”
“You shouldn’t wander off like that,” Stormfur added to his sister.
“What does it look like?” Crowpaw snapped, dropping the two mice he was carrying. “You were all snoring like hedgehogs in winter, so we thought we’d go and hunt.”
“There’s lots of prey over there.” Feathertail gestured with her tail towards a thicket in the next field. “We caught a whole pile, but we’ll have to go back and fetch the rest.”
“Let these lazy lumps do it themselves,” Crowpaw muttered.
“Of course we’ll help,” meowed Brambleclaw, his mouth already starting to water at the smell of the fresh-kill. “You’ve done brilliantly. You stay and eat, and we’ll fetch the rest of the prey.”
Crowpaw had already crouched down, ready to take a bite from one of the mice. “Don’t talk to us as if you’re our mentor,” he growled.
He was obviously determined to be difficult, so Brambleclaw left him to it. In spite of the younger cat’s bad temper, he couldn’t help feeling optimistic. They had survived the trouble in the Twoleg gardens, Tawnypelt’s sign meant that they were still following the will of StarClan, and now they had a good meal to look forward to. As he led the way toward the thicket he decided that things could be a good deal worse.
“What are those?” Brambleclaw asked.
Three days had passed since the trouble in the Twoleg gardens, and the journeying cats had travelled on across farmland, avoiding the Twoleg nests dotted here and there, and meeting nothing more threatening than sheep. Now they were crouched in a ditch that ran along the line of a hedge between two fields. They were peering out at two of the biggest animals Brambleclaw had ever seen, which were running back and forth across the field, snorting and tossing up their heads. The impact of their huge feet made the ground shudder.
“Horses,” Crowpaw replied loftily; his eyes gleamed as if he was delighted to know something that Brambleclaw didn’t. “They run across our territory sometimes with Twolegs on their backs.”
Brambleclaw thought he had never heard anything so mad in his life. “I guess even Twolegs want four legs sometimes,” he joked.
Crowpaw shrugged.
“Can we please get going?” Squirrelpaw mewed plaintively. “There’s water in this ditch, and my tail is getting wet.”
“Fine, go,” Brambleclaw muttered. “But I don’t fancy getting crushed.”
“I don’t think horses are dangerous,” Stormfur meowed. “We’ve seen them at the farm on the edge of RiverClan territory. They never pay much attention to us.”
“If they did tread on us, they wouldn’t mean to,” Feathertail added.
Brambleclaw felt that wouldn’t be much consolation; a blow from one of those feet, which looked like chunks of weathered stone, could break a cat’s spine.
“We just need to run across while they’re down at the other end,” Tawnypelt pointed out. “I doubt they’d follow us. They must be quite stupid, or they wouldn’t let Twolegs on their backs.”
“OK.” That sounded like good sense to Brambleclaw. “Straight across this field and through that hedge opposite. And for StarClan’s sake, let’s stay together this time.”
They waited until the horses had cantered off to the other end of the field.
“Now!” mewed Brambleclaw.
He launched himself into the open, wind streaming through his fur, aware of his companions racing beside him. He thought he could hear the pounding of the horses’ massive feet, but he did not dare slow down to take a look. Then he was leaping the ditch that bordered the hedge on the far side, and plunging into the shelter of low-growing bushes.
Peering out cautiously, he saw that the others had reached safety with him. “Great!” he meowed. “I think we’re starting to get the hang of this.”
“It’s about time.” Crowpaw sniffed.
There were large animals in the next field too, this time standing together in the shade of a couple of trees, swishing their tails and munching grass. These were cows: Brambleclaw had seen them near Ravenpaw’s barn on his apprentice journey to Highstones. They had smooth black-and-white pelts and enormous eyes like giant peaty pools.
The cows seemed to take no notice of the group of cats, and so they crossed this field more slowly, keeping an eye on the animals as they brushed through the long, cool grass. It was almost sunhigh, and Brambleclaw would have been happy to settle down for a nap, but he knew that they had to go on. He kept checking the position of the sun in the sky, impatient for it to start going down so that he could be sure they were still travelling in the right direction. Where the sun touched the horizon, that was the sun-drown place. Brambleclaw pushed away his nagging worry that they would have nothing to guide them if clouds came to hide the sun, and he hoped the good weather would hold.
Leaving the cows behind, they came to a field so huge they could not see the other side. Instead of grass, it was covered by thicker stems, yellow and stiff like the straw in Ravenpaw’s barn, cut short so they were hard and spiky to walk on. In the distance they could hear the roar of a monster.
“It’s over there.” Squirrelpaw had leaped onto a low branch of an elder tree that was growing in the hedge. “A huge monster, in the field! This far from any Thunderpath!”
“What? It can’t be!” Brambleclaw leaped up to the branch beside her. To his amazement, Squirrelpaw was right. A monster far bigger than most of the ones that travelled along the Thunderpath was roaring slowly across the field. Some sort of cloud surrounded it, filling the air with churning yellow dust.
“Satisfied?” Squirrelpaw meowed sarcastically.
“Sorry.” Brambleclaw jumped down to rejoin the others. “Squirrelpaw’s right. There is a monster in the field.”
“Then we’d better get on as quickly as we can, before it sees us,” Stormfur meowed.
“They’re supposed to stay on the Thunderpath,” Feathertail complained. “It’s not fair!”
Crowpaw dabbed warily at the thick, spiky stems in the field. “This is no good,” he spat. “We’ll all have scratched pads if we try walking across that. We’ll have to go around the edge.”
He glared at the other cats as he spoke, as if he were expecting one of them to contradict him, but there was no reply except a murmur of agreement from Feathertail. Crowpaw had good ideas, Brambleclaw decided, if only he’d be less aggressive about sharing them.
The WindClan apprentice led the way and the rest followed, keeping close to the hedge so that they would be able to hide if the monster came after them. There was a narrow grassy space between the he
dge and the rough yellow stems, just wide enough for the cats to walk in single file.
“Look at that!” Tawnypelt exclaimed.
She twitched her ears towards a mouse crouched among the spikes, nibbling at seeds that were strewn on the ground. Before any other cat could move, Squirrelpaw pounced, rolled over among the crackling stems, and scrambled to her paws again with the mouse in her jaws.
“Here,” she meowed, dropping it in front of Tawnypelt. “You saw it first.”
“I can catch my own, thanks,” Tawnypelt mewed dryly.
Now that Brambleclaw knew what to look for, he realised there were more mice scuffling among the stems, stuffing themselves on the scattered seeds. It was almost as if StarClan had sent them the chance to hunt and feed well. Once Squirrelpaw had eaten he sent her to keep watch in another tree, to report if the monster changed direction and came toward them.
But the monster kept its distance. Brambleclaw felt more hopeful and stronger from the food when they went on, especially as the sun started to sink and he could check their direction. Before long they were able to leave the strange, spiky field, and the going became easier. The air was heavy with the heat of the day; bees hummed in the grasses and a butterfly flew past. Squirrelpaw dabbed a paw at it, but she looked too drowsy to chase it.
Tawnypelt had taken the lead as they approached the edge of the meadow, with Stormfur and Squirrelpaw just behind her and Crowpaw with Feathertail. Brambleclaw, bringing up the rear, kept a lookout behind for possible danger.
This time there was no hedge, but a Twoleg fence, made of some thin, shiny material. It was a kind of mesh, like interlaced twigs, except that the spaces were regular. They were too small to climb through, but there was a gap at the bottom where a cat could flatten itself against the ground and squeeze underneath.