Midnight

  Long before sunhigh they came to the edge of the forest. Ahead of them was open country for as far as they could see. The ground rose and fell in a series of gentle slopes. Wind rippled over short, springy grass interspersed with creeping trefoil and wild thyme. It looked to be easy going, and the air had a fresh tang.

  “Like home!” Crowpaw murmured, obviously remembering the open moorland of WindClan.

  Unlike the WindClan apprentice, Brambleclaw was reluctant to leave the trees behind. The shelter of the canopy had been comforting. But the food and rest had given them all new strength, and he hoped that at last they were coming to the end of their journey.

  To his surprise, Purdy said goodbye to them before they left the trees. “I don’t feel right under the open sky,” he confessed, echoing Brambleclaw’s own thoughts. “I guess I’ve had too many Upwalkers chasing me. I like to be somewhere I can hide. Besides, you don’t need me anymore. StarClan, whatever they might be, won’t be waiting for me at midnight,” he added with a glint in his eye.

  “Maybe not,” meowed Brambleclaw. “Thanks for everything, anyway. We’ll miss you.” Surprisingly he realised that was true; he had come to feel something like affection for the exasperating old cat. “If you’re ever in our forest, you’ll be welcome to visit ThunderClan.”

  As he finished speaking, he couldn’t help hearing Crowpaw mew under his breath to Tawnypelt, “Your brother might miss him, but I won’t!”

  Brambleclaw curled his lip in warning at the WindClan cat, but Purdy hadn’t caught the apprentice’s muttered words. “I’ll wait here two or three days for you,” he promised. “In case you need help to find your way back.”

  Brambleclaw glanced at Crowpaw in time to see him rolling his eyes at Feathertail, who just shrugged.

  “Always supposin’ you come back of course,” Purdy went on as he padded away with his tail high. “You wouldn’t catch me so close to the sun-drown place. Shouldn’t wonder if you all end up drowned.”

  “That’s right,” Squirrelpaw muttered into Brambleclaw’s ear. “Way to keep our hopes up!”

  But by the end of that day, even Brambleclaw’s hopes were fading. The heat of the sun had drained his energy, and with no water on these rolling uplands his mouth felt like the floor of the sandy training hollow. His companions were no better off, plodding along with their heads down and tails drooping. Tawnypelt was limping again; though she didn’t want any cat to examine her wound, Brambleclaw could see the swelling had returned, and wondered how much longer she could keep going. There was no more burdock root here.

  Straight in front of them, the sun was sinking in a blaze of scarlet fire, tongues of flame spreading halfway across the sky.

  “At least we’re heading the right way,” Feathertail murmured.

  “Yes, but how far do we still have to go?” Brambleclaw had tried not to share his doubts, but his anxiety was becoming too much for him. “The sun-drown place could be days away.”

  “I always said this was a mouse-brained idea,” Crowpaw remarked, though he sounded too exhausted to be aggressive.

  “Well, how long do we carry on?” asked Stormfur. As all the other cats turned to look at him, he went on: “If we don’t find the place, sooner or later we have to decide . . . do we give up or keep trying?”

  Brambleclaw knew he was right. At some point they might have to admit defeat. But what would that mean for their Clans, to ignore the will of StarClan and go home with the journey unfinished?

  Then Squirrelpaw, who had been facing into the wind to drink in the scents it carried, spun around to face the others, her eyes blazing with excitement.

  “Brambleclaw!” She gasped. “I can smell salt!”

  CHAPTER 23

  Brambleclaw stared at the apprentice for a moment before opening his mouth and tasting the air for himself. Squirrelpaw was right. The salt tang was unmistakable, carrying him right back to his dream, and the bitter taste of the water that had surged around him.

  “It is salt!” he meowed. “We must be close. Come on!”

  He raced into the wind with the sun dazzling his eyes. A swift glance behind showed that his companions were following. Even Tawnypelt was managing to hobble faster. Brambleclaw felt new strength pouring into his limbs, as if he could go on running forever until he soared into the fiery sky like one of the white birds that wheeled and screamed above them.

  Instead, he came to a skidding, terrified halt on the edge of a huge cliff. Steep sandy slopes fell away barely a mouse-length in front of his paws. Waves crashed at the bottom, and stretching out ahead of him was a heaving expanse of blue-green water. The sun was sinking into it on the horizon, its flames so bright that Brambleclaw had to narrow his eyes against them. The orange fire burned a path like blood across the water, almost reaching the foot of the cliff.

  For a few moments no cat could do anything but stare. Then Brambleclaw shook himself. “We’ve got to hurry,” he meowed. “We have to find the cave with teeth before it gets dark.”

  “And then wait for midnight,” Feathertail added.

  Brambleclaw glanced from side to side, but he couldn’t see anything to tell him which way to go. Choosing a direction at random, he led the way along the cliff top. From time to time they stopped and peered over the edge to look for the cave. Brambleclaw dug his claws firmly into the tough grass; it was too easy to imagine slipping over and falling, falling, falling into the hungry waves.

  Gradually the land sloped down until the water was only the height of a tree below them. The cliff top jutted out so they could not see the bottom, and the almost sheer surface was deeply scored with ancient runnels of rain. As the cliff grew less steep, the cats scrabbled a little way down and made their way along closer to the water, sometimes even within reach of a salty burst of wave. Clefts, riven by ancient streams, split the rock, sometimes so wide that the cats had to leap over them, and the grass frequently gave way to hollows where a few twisted shrubs clung to the scant soil.

  “There are plenty of places to shelter for the night if we don’t find the cave,” Stormfur pointed out.

  Brambleclaw was beginning to think they might need to find somewhere to stop. The sun had sunk beneath the water by now, though great orange flares still streaked the sky. The breeze was growing colder. Tawnypelt at least could lie down, he thought, while the rest of them went on searching.

  His sister had fallen a little way behind. Brambleclaw was just bounding back to her, skirting the edge of one of the clefts, when his paws slipped and he found himself sliding helplessly into the hollow. He scrabbled at the loose soil but it gave way under his claws, showering him with dirt. He kept on sliding; in the shadows he could not see the bottom and he let out a yowl of alarm.

  “Brambleclaw!” Stormfur leaped into the hollow beside him and tried to sink his claws into Brambleclaw’s shoulder, but Brambleclaw felt more of the soil give way and they both slid downward more rapidly than before. Soil spattered over Brambleclaw’s face, stinging his eyes and choking him. From somewhere above he heard an earsplitting yowl and Squirrelpaw launched herself practically on top of him.

  “No—go back!” he choked out, getting a mouthful of soil.

  Then even the shifting soil vanished and there was nothing beneath him at all; he fell, howling, for a few terrified heartbeats and landed with a thump on damp pebbles.

  For a moment he lay stunned. A booming echo thundered in his ears, and he felt as if the whole world were spinning around. Then he opened his eyes and stared in horror as he saw the shape of a massive gaping mouth with teeth closing on him, outlined against the red evening sky. He tried to scramble up, but a sudden rush of water swept him off his paws. His yowl of terror was cut off abruptly as water swirled into his mouth, with the terrifying salt taste of his dream.

  Brambleclaw flailed with all his strength but the waves hurled him mercilessly toward the teeth and then tossed him back again, far under the cliff. He did not know where he was or which way he should try to swim. Wate
r filled his eyes and ears, roaring around him. He gasped for breath, only to swallow more of the salt water.

  His frantic struggles were growing weaker, and the cold, stifling waves were closing over his head when he felt a sharp pain in one shoulder. Suddenly the pressure on his fur vanished and he could breathe again. Coughing up water, he turned his head and saw Squirrelpaw’s eyes blazing at him, her teeth fastened firmly in his fur.

  “No!” He gasped. “You can’t—you’ll drown. . . .”

  Squirrelpaw could not reply without letting go of him. Her only response was to kick out strongly with all four paws. Brambleclaw felt pebbles shifting underneath his feet, and then the waves washed them back toward the teeth.

  Summoning the last scrap of his strength he thrashed at the water, trying to drive himself and Squirrelpaw away from those spiky rocks. The water surged and lifted them up; he got a brief glimpse of sodden dark grey fur—Stormfur—beside him, before the waves sent them crashing down on hard ground.

  The breath driven out of him, Brambleclaw scrabbled among the rolling pebbles while the shallow, sucking water threatened to drag him back again. Squirrelpaw, still gripping his shoulder, pulled him up, and he felt another cat give him a shove from behind. At last he collapsed on solid rock and lay still, letting the world drift away.

  A paw prodding against his flank roused him.

  “Brambleclaw?” It was Squirrelpaw, sounding desperately anxious. “Brambleclaw, are you all right?”

  Brambleclaw opened his mouth and let out a moan. His fur was soaked and he was ice-cold. He felt too exhausted to move; every muscle shrieked with pain, and his stomach felt distended from all the water he had swallowed. But at least he was alive.

  He managed to raise his head. “I’m fine,” he rasped.

  “Oh, Brambleclaw, I thought you were dead!”

  As his vision cleared he could make out Squirrelpaw bending over him. He could not remember ever seeing her look so upset, not even when her father had been angry with her back in the forest. The sight of her troubled eyes urged him to make an effort: he sat up, and instantly vomited up several mouthfuls of salt water.

  “I’m not dead.” He coughed. “Thanks to you. You were great, Squirrelpaw.”

  “She took a huge risk.” That was Stormfur’s voice; the grey warrior was standing over Brambleclaw. With his fur plastered to his body he looked much smaller than Brambleclaw was used to. He sounded disapproving, and yet there was a glow in his eyes as he looked at Squirrelpaw. “But it was a very brave thing she did.”

  “And a stupid one.” With a start of surprise Brambleclaw realised that Tawnypelt was there as well, standing close by with water washing around her paws and her eyes narrowed in anger. “What if you’d both drowned?”

  “Well, we didn’t,” Squirrelpaw flashed at her.

  “I could have helped.”

  “With that infected bite?” Stormfur pressed his muzzle briefly against Tawnypelt’s flank. “StarClan know how you managed to get down here at all.”

  “I fell, like the rest of you.” Tawnypelt’s voice was wry, and she relaxed a little as she looked at Squirrelpaw. “I’m sorry,” she meowed. “You were brave. It’s just that I’m finding it hard being injured and not able to help. Like you, I . . . I thought we’d lost Brambleclaw for good.”

  By now Brambleclaw was beginning to feel better, enough to look around and recognise the cave of his dream. He was inside it. The gaping mouth with its ring of teeth was at one end. Water washed through it in a strange, ceaseless rhythm, crashing in with a roar and then hissing out again, rolling the pebbles over the floor as it went. The rock walls were smooth and rounded. The ground sloped upward to the back of the cave, which was lost in shadows; the only light came through the mouth and from a small hole high in the roof, where Feathertail and Crowpaw were peering anxiously down.

  “Are you all right?” Feathertail called.

  “I’m fine.” Brambleclaw rose shakily to his paws. “I think we’ve found what we were looking for.”

  “Hold on, we’re coming down,” meowed Crowpaw. Brambleclaw almost called out an order to stay where they were—which Crowpaw would certainly have disobeyed—but when he looked more closely he could see a series of ledges and clefts in the rock wall where it would be possible to climb safely down and then to get out again. Feathertail and Crowpaw picked their way down carefully until they reached the cave floor and stood looking around, blinking.

  “Do we have to stay here until midnight?” Squirrelpaw asked, raising her head from licking her damp chest fur. Her voice echoed strangely around the walls.

  “I suppose—” Brambleclaw began, then stopped, his muscles tensing.

  From the darkness at the back of the cave came a heavy scratching noise. A powerful, rank scent reached his nostrils. A shadow moved, not wholly black, but patched with white. Then lumbering into the dim light came a shape that was terrifyingly familiar: one of the deadliest enemies of the forest cats.

  A badger!

  CHAPTER 24

  Brambleclaw glanced wildly over his shoulder, but there was nowhere to flee except into the water; the difficult climb back to the hole in the cave roof would take too long. Guilt crashed over him with the cold force of the waves that had almost drowned him. All his visions, all his certainty, had led his companions to this dreadful place, where they would find no knowledge, no vision from StarClan, only a pointless and horrible death. What use were faith and courage now, when they were trapped like rabbits in a hole?

  Crowpaw had flattened himself to the ground and was creeping forward with his teeth bared in a snarl. Stormfur was edging around the badger to attack it from the side. Despairingly Brambleclaw knew that they were heading to meet their death. Even all six of them, weak and starving as they were and worn out by their travels and the struggle in the water, could not hope to defeat a badger. Caught as they were by the choking waves, it would not be long before the blunt claws and snapping jaws picked them off one by one.

  The badger had paused on the edge of the shadows that filled the back of the cave. Its powerful shoulders were hunched and its claws scraped on rock. Its head swung to and fro, the white stripe glimmering, as if it were deciding which of them to attack first.

  Then it spoke.

  “Midnight has come.”

  Brambleclaw’s mouth fell open, and for a moment he felt as if the ground had given way beneath him again. That a badger could speak, could say words he understood, words that actually meant something . . . He stared in disbelief, his heart pounding.

  “I am Midnight.” The badger’s voice was deep and rasping, like the sound of the pebbles turning under the waves. “With you I must speak.”

  “Mouse dung!” Crowpaw spat. The WindClan apprentice was still crouched ready to spring. “Make one move and you’ll have my claws in your eyes.”

  “No, Crowpaw, wait—”

  The badger’s throaty laughter interrupted Brambleclaw. “Fierce, is he not? StarClan have chosen well. But there will be no clawing this day. Here is talk, not fight.”

  Brambleclaw and his companions uncertainly looked at each other, their tails bristling. Crowpaw put words to what they were all thinking. “Are we going to trust it?”

  “What else can we do?” Feathertail responded, blinking.

  Brambleclaw weighed up the badger again. It was smaller than the one he had seen at Snakerocks—probably a female—but no less dangerous for that. Believing what she said went against everything he had been taught as a kit. Yet so far she had made no move to attack them; he even thought that he could make out a gleam of humour in her eyes.

  He glanced back at his friends. Crowpaw, Stormfur, and Feathertail might have managed to fight well, but he and Squirrelpaw were exhausted from their near-drowning, while Tawnypelt had sunk down onto the floor of the cave with her injured shoulder held awkwardly, and hardly seemed to be conscious.

  “Come,” the badger rasped. “All night we cannot wait.”

  B
rambleclaw knew for certain that this was no ordinary badger. Never before had he heard of a badger who could speak in a language that cats understood—still less one that spoke of StarClan, as if she knew more of their wishes than any cat alive.

  “Feathertail’s right,” he hissed. “What choice do we have? She could have turned us all into crowfood by now. This must be what Bluestar meant in my dream when she told me to listen to midnight. She didn’t mean a time at all.” Turning to the badger, he asked out loud, “You are Midnight? And you have a message for us from StarClan?”

  The badger nodded. “Midnight am I called. And it was shown to me that here I would meet with you . . . though four were numbered to me, not six.”

  “Then we’ll listen to what you have to say,” Brambleclaw told her. “You’re right; four were chosen, but six have come, and all deserve to be here.”

  “But make one wrong move . . .” Crowpaw threatened.

  “Oh, shut up, mouse-brain!” Squirrelpaw growled. “Can’t you see, this is what we came here to find? ‘Listen to what midnight tells us.’ This is Midnight.”

  Crowpaw glared at her through the gathering darkness, but did not reply.

  Midnight turned with the single word, “Follow,” and headed for the back of the cave. Brambleclaw could just make out the dark opening of a tunnel. Taking a deep breath, he meowed, “OK, let’s do it.”

  Stormfur took the lead, with Crowpaw just behind him; Brambleclaw hoped that the apprentice would stop looking for a fight long enough to hear what the badger had to say. Feathertail gently nudged Tawnypelt to her paws and lent her shoulder for support as she staggered into the tunnel. Brambleclaw exchanged a glance with Squirrelpaw and was surprised to see that in spite of her wet, exhausted state her eyes were sparkling with excitement.

  “What a story we’ll have to tell when we get home!” she meowed, getting up and trotting into the tunnel after Feathertail.