Once he had gone, Brambleclaw beckoned with his tail for all his friends to gather round. “We need to talk,” he mewed. “How long do you think we should stay here?”
Crowpaw’s tail lashed from side to side. “I don’t know how you can ask that!” he rasped. “I thought we were on a mission. What about taking Midnight’s news to the forest?”
“Crowpaw’s right,” Stormfur meowed, stifling a brief stab of annoyance that he had to agree with the WindClan apprentice. “I think we should leave right away.”
“Me too,” mewed Tawnypelt. “Leaf-bare’s coming, and there’ll be snow up here.”
“But what about your shoulder?” Brambleclaw reminded her. Since their plunge over the waterfall, she’d been limping on three legs, and a trickle of dried blood ran down her shoulder, seeping between her claws. “We’ve got to stay until the rat bite is better. We’d all get on faster after that.”
Tawnypelt’s neck fur bristled. “I knocked it again, that’s all. If you think I’m holding you back,” she spat, “then just come out and say so.”
“Brambleclaw didn’t mean that.” Feathertail brushed her side comfortingly against Tawnypelt’s flank, taking care to avoid the injury. “That’s more than just a knock. It looks like you’ve done as much damage as before, and it won’t heal if you don’t rest.”
Squirrelpaw looked thoughtful. “It sounded as if the Tribe cats don’t think we should leave at all. What are they all so frightened of? Are we going to meet more danger further on?”
The other cats looked uneasily at one another. Stormfur admitted to himself that the thought had crossed his mind too. Part of him wanted to stay safely in the cave for as long as they could, if the alternative was unknown terror among the rocks and precipices of the mountains.
“It’ll be risky whenever we leave,” Crowpaw pointed out. “OK, I agree about Tawnypelt, but let’s get Stoneteller to fix her shoulder, and then go.”
“That’s all very well,” Squirrelpaw broke in, her green eyes sparkling in the moonlight. “But we’re all assuming we can leave whenever we want.”
“What do you mean? They wouldn’t dare stop us!” Crow -paw exclaimed.
Squirrelpaw snorted. “I’ll bet you my next piece of fresh-kill that they would. Look over there.”
She flicked her ears toward the cave entrance. A cave-guard was seated on either side, making no secret of the fact that they were keeping an eye on the newcomers.
“Perhaps they’re guarding the cave from enemies outside,” Feathertail meowed.
“We could always try leaving,” Crowpaw suggested, the tip of his grey-black tail twitching. “Then we’d see what happened.”
“No.” Brambleclaw’s voice was firm. “It would be mouse-brained to leave right now. We’re all tired out, and we need to sleep. Tomorrow we’ll see how Tawnypelt’s shoulder is, and figure out when we can leave.”
There was a murmur of agreement. Not even Crowpaw wanted more trouble just then, and it was not long before the forest cats were settling into their sleeping hollows, huddled together against the curious stares that darted at them from all around the cave.
As Stormfur prodded his bedding into place, he heard a pawstep behind him, and turned to see one of the mountain cats padding across the cave toward him. Warm recognition swept through his pelt as he recognised Brook by her soft tabby fur and lithe walk. She carried a wad of feathers in her jaws.
Dropping them in the sleeping hollow Stormfur had chosen, she dipped her head to him. “Stoneteller sent me to make sure you’re comfortable.”
“Er, thanks,” Stormfur replied. Did Brook mean that Stoneteller had sent her to all the cats, or to him in particular? She showed no signs of going to fetch more feathers for the rest of them. True, Stormfur still felt battered from the fall into the pool, but so did all his friends. He was not their leader either, who would get special treatment.
“I . . . I hope you’ll be happy here,” Brook went on hesitantly. “This must be very different from what you’re used to. Do you have caves for sleeping in your forest?”
“No, we sleep in nests of reeds and bushes. RiverClan’s camp—that’s my Clan—is on an island.” A pang of homesickness stabbed Stormfur as he spoke, and he wondered if he would ever again lie curled up in the warriors’ den, listening to the soft sighing of the wind in the reeds. If Midnight was right, and all the Clans had to leave the forest, he might never find another home that was so peaceful.
Brook’s eyes shone in the moonlight. “Are you a cave-guard or—” She broke off, scuffling her paws in embarrassment. “No, of course not, if you have no caves there will be no cave-guards. Do you guard your camp, or are you a prey-hunter?”
“Our Clans don’t work like that,” Stormfur told her. “We all guard and hunt and patrol.”
“That must be hard,” Brook meowed. “We are born to our duties, so we know exactly what we have to do. I am a prey-hunter,” she added. “If Stoneteller allows it, perhaps you would like to hunt with me tomorrow?”
Stormfur swallowed. It sounded as if Brook assumed that the forest cats would be staying for a while. He was not sure either that he liked the idea of asking Stoneteller’s permission for everything; they would respect the Tribe’s leader while they stayed in his territory, but he had no right to give them orders. All the same, it would be fun to hunt with Brook.
He wondered whether to ask her outright if they were prisoners, but before he could speak, the pretty young tabby dipped her head in farewell. “You’re tired; I’ll leave you alone now,” she mewed. “Sleep well. I hope we will hunt together soon.”
Stormfur said goodbye to her and watched her retreat across the cave before he settled into the feathers. All around him were the soft murmurs of his sleeping friends. But although his muscles ached and his head spun with exhaustion, it was some time before sleep claimed him as well.
The sound of pawsteps padding past his sleeping hollow woke Stormfur the next morning; he opened his eyes to see sunlight spilling through the cascade of water and into the cave. It reminded him of how they should be following the rising sun back to the forest, and he scrambled out of his hollow, shaking off a feather that clung to his pelt.
Brambleclaw was already up, standing a few tail-lengths away and watching a patrol of cave-guards leaving through the main entrance. Their quiet sense of purpose reminded Stormfur of the patrols at home. He padded over to Brambleclaw, who twitched his whiskers in greeting.
“Tawnypelt’s shoulder started bleeding in the night. I think the muscles have torn open again,” the ThunderClan warrior meowed. “I told her to get some more sleep, but it means we’ll have to stay here for a day or two at least.”
Stormfur glanced back to where he could see the smooth curve of Tawnypelt’s tortoiseshell fur as she lay curled in her sleeping hollow. Feathertail was anxiously bending over her, examining her injured shoulder, while Crowpaw looked on. Squirrelpaw was still sleeping.
The sight of his sister so close to the WindClan apprentice did nothing to improve Stormfur’s temper. “Well, if we must, we must,” he muttered. “But sooner or later we’ll have to find out why these Tribe cats have been quite so welcoming. We know there’s something they’re not telling us.”
“True.” Brambleclaw was calm, his amber eyes meeting Stonefur’s in a level stare. “But we’ll learn more if we cooperate with them—to begin with, anyway.”
“You could be right,” Stormfur grunted.
Movement at the back of the cave caught his eye, and he spotted Stoneteller emerging from one of the tunnels and heading towards them. Crowpaw and Feathertail spotted him too; Crowpaw prodded Squirrelpaw to wake her, and all three cats came bounding over to Stormfur and Brambleclaw.
Tawnypelt raised her head as Feathertail moved away. “Are we leaving?” she meowed; Stormfur could hear the pain grating in her voice. “I can go on if I have to.”
Feathertail glanced back at her. “No, we’re not going anywhere yet. Try to get some sleep.?
??
“Are you going to ask Stoneteller to let us out of here?” Crowpaw hissed to Brambleclaw. “If he thinks he can keep us prisoner, I’ll claw his ears off!”
“No, you won’t,” Brambleclaw said swiftly. “You know very well Tawnypelt needs to rest until that rat bite is better. Besides, the last thing we want to do is offend any of these cats. Let me do the talking.”
Crowpaw shot the tabby warrior a glare, but said nothing more.
“I’m sure we’re not prisoners.” Stormfur spoke more confidently than he felt, trying to convince himself that he had imagined the eerie interest the Tribe cats took in him. “Why should we be? We’ve done them no harm.”
“Maybe we have something they want,” Squirrelpaw suggested.
That idea was so close to what Stormfur himself had been thinking that he found nothing to say in reply. Besides, Stoneteller was approaching; there was no more chance to talk among themselves.
“Good morning,” the Healer meowed. “Have you slept well?”
“Very well, thank you,” Brambleclaw replied. “But Tawnypelt’s shoulder is badly hurt, so we’d like to stay for a day or two until she’s better, if that’s all right with you.”
“Good.” Stoneteller’s head swivelled towards Stormfur as he spoke, and the glow in his green eyes made Stormfur even more apprehensive. “I will look at your friend’s shoulder, and find some herbs to heal her.”
“The rest of us would like to go hunting,” Brambleclaw continued. “We need to stretch our legs, and we’d like to catch our own prey. You can’t go on feeding six of us while we sit around doing nothing.”
Stoneteller’s ears pricked forwards, and his eyes narrowed. Stormfur got the idea that he was not pleased by Brambleclaw’s request.
However, the Healer scarcely hesitated. “Of course,” he meowed. “We will be glad for your help. Some prey-hunters are about to leave, so you can go with them.”
As he spoke, Stormfur saw several of the Tribe cats gathering beside the cave entrance; Brook was among them, and Mist, the prey-hunter they had met the day before. Stoneteller led the Clan cats over to them.
“Our new friends want to go hunting,” he announced. “Take them with you, and teach them the way we hunt.”
The order given, he padded away again. Stormfur glanced after him, slightly stung that he thought Clan warriors would need to be taught how to hunt. Then he realised that Brook was beside him again.
“Greetings,” she mewed. “There are so many of us, we’d better split into two groups. Will you hunt with me?”
“Yes, I’d like that,” Stormfur replied, slightly surprised at how pleased he felt that Brook had remembered her invitation of the previous night.
Quickly the Tribe cats divided into two groups. One of them, with Mist in the lead, took Crowpaw and Feathertail, while Stormfur joined Brook’s group, along with Brambleclaw and Squirrelpaw.
Tawnypelt watched them go with a brief flash of fear in her eyes, but as Stormfur left the cave, he spotted the kit-mother Star padding over to her with a piece of fresh-kill.
“She’ll be fine,” Brambleclaw murmured. “With any luck, she’ll sleep until we get back. It doesn’t look like the Tribe cats mean her any harm.”
Seeing the friendliness with which Star spoke to Tawnypelt, Stormfur realised that the tabby warrior was right. He stepped cautiously along the ledge behind the waterfall, shivering as the spray soaked into his fur, and out on to the rocks beside the pool.
As he shook off most of the moisture, he noticed that Crag and a number of other cats were already waiting, their fur streaked with fresh mud. They were strong cats with massive shoulders, unlike the lithe prey-hunters. Stormfur guessed they were all cave-guards.
Catching Brambleclaw’s eye, he muttered, “What are they doing here?”
Brook heard his low-voiced comment. “We take cave-guards with us on our hunts,” she explained. “We need them to watch for eagles, and—”
She broke off with a nervous glance at Stormfur, who wondered what she had been about to say. Still, he felt relieved at her explanation. The thought had crossed his mind that the cave-guards might be there to keep an eye on him and his friends, and make sure that they did not try to escape. Of course, they would never leave Tawnypelt, but Stoneteller didn’t know that.
When Brook had explained to Crag that the visitors were joining them for the hunt, the cave-guards joined the two groups. One of them, with Crowpaw and Feathertail, began to climb the rocks where Stormfur and the others had fallen the day before, while Brook led Stormfur’s group further down into the valley.
The ground here was hard earth, where a few scanty clumps of grass poked up among broken rocks. A few bushes straggled here and there beneath the steep rock walls. Though the rain had stopped, the boulders gleamed wet in the morning light. The prospects for prey looked meager to Stormfur’s eyes, and he wondered how the Tribe cats had managed to find the fresh-kill they had shared so generously. He tasted the air, and picked up only the faintest traces of prey-scent.
Brook led her group along one side of the valley, in the shadow of the bushes. Now Stormfur could see why they streaked their pelts with mud; it made them blend into the rock so that when they were still it was hard to see them at all. In contrast Squirrelpaw’s dark ginger fur looked like a splash of blood, though Stormfur’s grey pelt and Brambleclaw’s dark tabby were inconspicuous enough. All the Tribe cats moved silently; Stormfur had to concentrate to make sure his pawsteps were just as quiet.
Before long he saw Squirrelpaw halt, her ears flicking up in excitement. “Look—a mouse!” she whispered.
Stormfur spotted it too, nibbling on a grass-seed a few tail-lengths ahead. Squirrelpaw dropped into the hunter’s crouch, but instantly Brook swung her tail in front of her, barring her way. Her jaws formed the word, “Wait.”
Stormfur expected Squirrelpaw to make an indignant protest, but the ThunderClan apprentice obviously figured that if she did she would frighten the prey. She glared at Brook instead, but the young she-cat didn’t notice. Her eyes were fixed on the mouse.
A shadow flicked over Stormfur. A heartbeat later a falcon swooped down from the sky and gripped the mouse in its powerful talons. At the same moment Brook launched herself forward. She sprang onto the bird’s back, sinking her claws into its shoulders. Its wings beat furiously; for a couple of heartbeats it lifted Brook off the ground, only to fall back under her weight. A second prey-hunter ran up, and helped Brook finish the falcon off. Its wings stopped beating and it lay limp on the rocky ground.
“And we get the mouse too,” Crag pointed out to Stormfur, swiping his tongue around his jaws.
Stormfur’s eyes stretched wide with admiration at Brook’s hunting skills. What a warrior she would make, if she’d been forest-born! Briefly he imagined her in RiverClan, teaching them this new way of hunting, but he banished the picture almost at once. Brook belonged here in the mountains, and within the next day or two he would have to part from her. He felt a strange stab of regret at the thought and was surprised. How could he already feel attached to a cat he barely knew?
Squirrelpaw was staring in disbelief at the dead falcon, all her indignation forgotten. “That was brilliant!” she meowed. “I want to try it.” To Brambleclaw she added, “Could we hunt like this at home, do you think?”
“There aren’t as many hawks,” Brambleclaw pointed out. “WindClan might try, I suppose—Crowpaw said he’d seen eagles on the moors.”
Stormfur noticed that instead of scraping earth over her prey until she was ready to collect it, Brook hid the mouse and the falcon by dragging both of them into a crevice in the rock. Then she set off again at the head of her group.
This time she led them up the wall of the valley, bounding over some loose rocks and then along a ledge. Stormfur couldn’t think what prey she hoped to find out here, but by now he was content to wait and see, aware that these mountain cats had tricks he and his friends had never heard of.
The
y came to a flattened heap of twigs and dried grass, blocking the ledge. There was a strong reek of stale prey. Brook sprang nimbly over it, and the rest of the cats followed.
“This is a hawk’s nest,” she explained. “In the freed-water season, we can sometimes find hawk chicks.”
“‘Freed water’?” Squirrelpaw echoed.
“I expect she means newleaf,” Brambleclaw replied in a low voice. “When the water’s freed from ice, I guess. That’s when there would be chicks in the nest.”
“Very good they are, too,” Crag added, coming up from behind. “And it means there are fewer hawks to grow up and prey on us. Like this one,” he added, with a massive leap into the air.
Stormfur jerked his head up with a gasp. Just above him a huge hawk had swooped down, its talons extended, but as Crag leaped upward it veered off, shedding air from under its wings as it slid sideways.
Crag came down perilously close to the edge of the rock, regaining his balance with the ease of long practice. Stormfur’s respect for him increased; the courage and speed with which the cave-guard had attacked the fierce bird matched any skills possessed by the best Clan warriors.
“Thanks,” he gasped as he crouched on the ledge and watched the falcon swoop away, many tail-lengths below.
Crag turned to him, amber eyes gleaming. “That’s the first thing a to-be learns,” he meowed with a purr of amusement. “Never forget to look up!”
CHAPTER 12
Stormfur crouched on a jutting spur of rock and looked down into the valley a couple of tail-lengths below. The sun was going down on the fourth day since he and his friends had come to the cave of the Tribe cats. Although the thought of what was happening in the forest hung over their heads like a swollen rain cloud, they had been unable to move on. Tawnypelt’s shoulder was healing again, thanks to the herbs Stoneteller had given her, but it was still too stiff for her to walk.
Meanwhile, Stormfur was beginning to think he had gotten the hang of the Tribe cats’ way of hunting. It depended much more on keeping still and silent than on stalking prey, for among the rocks there was not as much cover as in the forest or even by the river where he used to fish.