The stream bubbled up beside them, splashing over the rocks that were already wet and slippery with rain, which was falling more heavily again. Stormfur kept a wary eye on the stream, half expecting it to overflow and sweep them off the rocks. He stayed to the back of the group, trying to watch every cat, well aware that if any of them slipped they could be washed into the pool below the waterfall.
Almost as soon as that thought crossed his mind he saw Feathertail’s paws skid from under her. She slid sideways into the stream; water surged around her as she clung to the rocks by a single paw, her jaws wide in a silent wail of shock.
Stormfur bounded towards her, pushing past Tawnypelt, but before he reached her, Crowpaw had leaned out precariously over the foaming water, sunk his teeth into the scruff of Feathertail’s neck, and dragged her back on to the path.
“Thank you, Crowpaw,” she gasped. Stormfur saw with annoyance that her blue eyes were glowing with gratitude—and something more.
“You should be more careful,” Crowpaw meowed gruffly. “Do you think you’re a Clan leader, with nine lives to throw away? I saved you this once—don’t make me save you again.”
“I won’t.” Feathertail blinked and pressed her nose against Crowpaw’s muzzle. “I’m sorry for not watching out.”
“So you should be,” Stormfur snapped, not sure whether he was more annoyed by his sister’s carelessness or by the fact that Crowpaw had been the one to save her. He shouldered the apprentice away so that he could examine Feathertail more closely. “Are you OK?”
“Yes, fine,” Feathertail replied, trying to shake water from her fur.
A louder rumbling from farther up the mountain interrupted her, drowning even the roar of the waterfall below. Stormfur looked up and froze in horror at the sight of a wall of mud, branches, and water hurtling down on them. His worst fears had come true: The mountain stream was in flood. Squirrelpaw let out a terrified yowl and Brambleclaw sprang back towards her.
But the water was upon them before they could do anything. It struck Stormfur like a blow, carrying him off his paws. His legs flailed as the flood carried him down, driving him against rocks where he clawed in vain for a grip before the water swept him on again. He choked as water filled his mouth and one of his paws caught painfully against a rock. Then there was nothing beneath him at all, and he knew he was plunging over the waterfall.
There was a moment of eerie silence, broken by the whisper of rushing water. Then the roaring and pounding started up again, waiting to swallow him as he plummeted into the pool. Whirled around in the icy water, he caught a brief glimpse of Crowpaw floundering wildly before the surge closed over his head. Then more water crashed down on him, driving him under and filling his senses with churning white foam, a deafening roar, and then nothing.
I’m sorry, StarClan, Stormfur thought desperately as his senses faded. I know it wasn’t my mission, but I tried so hard. Please look after our Clans . . .
CHAPTER 6
Leafpaw burst up through the surface of the water, gasping for air as she scrambled to find solid ground. Managing to stand in spite of the river flowing strongly around her legs, she shook icy drops of water from her pelt. The riverbank was only a couple of tail-lengths away. She shivered in the pale sun of leaf-fall as she looked up to see Mothwing peering down at her from an overhanging rock.
The RiverClan cat’s amber eyes were narrowed in amusement. “You don’t fish by jumping in the river,” she pointed out.
“I know that!” Leafpaw retorted crossly. “I slipped, that’s all.”
“I believe you,” Mothwing purred, giving her golden chest fur a quick lick. “Now come out, and we’ll have another go. I’ll teach you to fish if it’s the last thing I do.”
“I’m still not sure we should be doing this,” Leafpaw meowed as she waded back to the bank.
“Of course we should. The rabbits and squirrels are starting to disappear, thanks to the Twolegs, but there’s still plenty of fish for every cat.”
“But I had to come onto RiverClan territory to get it,” Leafpaw pointed out anxiously. “What would Leopardstar say if she knew?”
Mothwing blinked. “We’re both medicine cats, so Clan boundaries don’t matter for us like they do for other cats.”
Leafpaw didn’t think that was how the warrior code worked. Her friend had said much the same a couple of days earlier, when she had rescued Leafpaw and Sorreltail from the pursuing WindClan warriors. This morning she had called to Leafpaw while she was gathering herbs near Sunningrocks, and offered to give her a fishing lesson. Leafpaw had felt very nervous about crossing the Clan border, but her hunger had driven her on now that prey was becoming even scarcer in ThunderClan territory. All the same, her ears and nose were alert for the first signs of a RiverClan patrol.
“OK,” Mothwing went on, “crouch here beside me, and look down into the water. When you see a fish, scoop it out with your paw. It’s easy.”
A couple of glittering fish lying on the bank showed just how easy it was for Mothwing. Leafpaw gave them a longing glance, wondering if she would ever learn.
“Want some?” Mothwing offered, following her gaze.
Leafpaw felt guilty at the thought of being full-fed while the rest of her Clan went hungry. But she had not tasted fresh-kill since the night before, and that had been only a stringy vole. “I shouldn’t . . .” she murmured, trying to convince herself that it wouldn’t help her Clan if she starved as well.
“Of course you can. Where’s the harm?”
Leafpaw did not wait to be asked again. She crouched down in front of the fish, tucking her paws in, and sank her teeth into the cool flesh. “Delicious,” she mumbled.
Mothwing looked pleased. “Learn how to do it, and you can take lots more for your Clan.” She took a few dainty bites, as if she were full-fed already and didn’t care whether or not she ate.
Gulping down the rest of the fish, Leafpaw told herself that she would find food for her Clan to make up for it. As soon as she had finished, she settled down on the rock beside Mothwing and concentrated on the water just below, to wait for a fish of her own.
An unfamiliar scent swept over her at the same instant as Mothwing hissed, “Hawkfrost!” Leafpaw felt a paw jab hard into her ribs, tipping her over the edge of the rock and back into the river. She thrashed wildly, wondering why Mothwing was trying to drown her. Then as her head broke the surface she saw the huge tabby shape of Hawkfrost approaching the bank, and realised that Mothwing had done the only thing she could to hide her quickly.
Her paws working gently to keep her nose just above the water, Leafpaw let herself drift downriver for a few tail-lengths until she came to a clump of reeds where she could crawl out on the ThunderClan side of the river and hide.
Hawkfrost had stopped to talk to his sister, and Leafpaw realised that she would have to crouch where she was, soaked and shivering, until he went away and she could make a break across open ground to the ThunderClan border.
“. . . keeping my eyes open for WindClan,” she heard him meow when her ears were clear of water. “I know very well they’re stealing fish, and one day I’ll catch them at it.”
“Not down here, surely?” Mothwing replied innocently. “WindClan would fish closer to Fourtrees—if they’re fishing at all.”
“WindClan and ThunderClan,” Hawkfrost growled. He added, “I can scent a ThunderClan cat now.”
Leafpaw shivered and shrank down in her clump of reeds.
“So? The border’s over there,” Mothwing pointed out. “It would be odd if you didn’t scent ThunderClan.”
Hawkfrost grunted. “There’s something not right in the forest. Cats have gone missing from all the Clans, for one thing. Do you remember what the other leaders said at the last Gathering? That’s four more cats, beside Stormfur and Feathertail. I don’t know what’s going on, but I’ll find out.”
Leafpaw tensed. She had told Mothwing about the Twoleg monsters, but obviously Mothwing had not passed on the ne
ws to the rest of her Clan. Chilled by the hunger in Hawkfrost’s voice, Leafpaw prayed to StarClan that she would say nothing about it now. To her relief, her friend meowed calmly, “There’s nothing wrong in RiverClan, so why should we care?”
“Have you got bees in your brain?” Hawkfrost snapped. “This could be our chance to make RiverClan great. If the other Clans are weak, we could rule over the whole forest.”
“What?” Mothwing sounded disgusted. “You’re the one with bees in your brain. Who do you think you are—Tigerstar?”
“There are worse cats to imitate,” Hawkfrost meowed.
Pure icy fear lanced through Leafpaw. Tigerstar had been prepared to kill any cat who opposed him in his quest for supreme power. And now another cat was preparing to follow in his pawsteps.
Another thought sprang into her mind. This was what Mothwing must have meant when she talked about a cat with ambitions, on the day she rescued Leafpaw and Sorreltail from WindClan. She had been worried about her own brother! A few days before, Leafpaw had been sure that the forest would never produce another Tigerstar; now she could only strain her ears, horrified, to make out what Hawkfrost would say next.
“Have you forgotten what happened to Tigerstar?” Mothwing snapped. “He failed, and now he’s just a name to frighten kits with.”
“I shall learn from his mistakes.” Hawkfrost’s voice rumbled deep in his chest. “Our mother told us enough about him, after all. He broke the warrior code, and he deserved to fail. I shall know better.”
Leafpaw stared at the reeds in front of her, puzzled. Hawkfrost’s mother, Sasha, the rogue cat, had told them about Tigerstar? How did she know? Leafpaw had never met Sasha—the Clanless she-cat had stayed in RiverClan for only a short while, long enough to decide that she wanted her kits to be raised as part of the Clan. No cat knew where she had been before then.
In her bewilderment Leafpaw had not noticed that the wind had changed, and that a playful breeze, twisting its way upriver, had carried her scent with it.
“I can smell ThunderClan,” Hawkfrost declared suddenly. Leafpaw’s heart nearly jumped out of her chest. “The scent’s fresh too. If one of their warriors is on our territory, I’ll claw his fur off.”
Above her head, Leafpaw heard Mothwing scramble to her paws. “You’re right!” she exclaimed. “It’s this way. Come on!”
Leafpaw heard her voice growing fainter as she bounded away in the opposite direction. “Mouse-brain!” Hawkfrost argued. “It’s downstream . . .”
Leafpaw didn’t wait to hear any more. While he was following Mothwing, she broke out of the reeds and streaked up the bank towards the ThunderClan border. She plunged thankfully into thick bracken just on the ThunderClan side of the border.
Turning to peer out again, she saw Hawkfrost padding downstream, stopping to give the clump of reeds where she had just been hiding a good sniff before turning back to Mothwing with a frustrated growl. Once again Leafpaw was struck by the powerful tabby’s resemblance to some other cat; the thought bothered her like a tick she couldn’t reach, because she still couldn’t remember who.
She was too far away to hear what the two RiverClan cats said to each other, but after a few moments, they both continued downstream to the stepping-stones and crossed to the RiverClan side of the river. When they finally disappeared into the reeds, Leafpaw drew a huge breath of relief and started trotting back to camp.
The guilt she felt about her full belly was almost forgotten amid pricklings of unease about what Mothwing had said. Hawkfrost sounded as ambitious as Tigerstar—and there was no place for that when the forest was on the brink of destruction.
A gleam of dying sunlight pierced the clouds and lay like a streak of blood on the forest floor. Leafpaw guessed that Cinderpelt would be wondering where she was, but she needed time to figure out how Hawkfrost and Mothwing knew so much about Tigerstar. She sat down and began to groom her drying fur.
Sasha had been a rogue cat wandering the forest, until she had come to RiverClan with her kits and settled briefly there. She might have visited ShadowClan when Tigerstar was leader. It was possible . . .
Leafpaw froze. She realised which cat Hawkfrost resembled so strongly. Brambleclaw! And every cat knew who Brambleclaw’s father was. Could it be possible that Tigerstar was Hawkfrost’s and Mothwing’s father as well? If he was, that would make Hawkfrost and Brambleclaw half brothers.
She was staring into the trees as if she could see the answer there when her thoughts were interrupted by the frantic beating of wings. She looked up to see a magpie fluttering out of the bushes to land on a branch above her head. At the same time a loud voice exclaimed, “Mouse dung!”
The bushes just ahead of her rustled violently and Greystripe appeared, glaring up at the magpie with frustration in his yellow eyes. “Missed it,” he muttered. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me.”
Leafpaw rose to her paws as the deputy approached, dipping her head respectfully and letting out a sympathetic purr. She hoped that her pelt was dry enough for Greystripe not to notice that she had been swimming.
“Hello, Leafpaw,” he meowed. “Sorry if I startled you. Actually, I do know what’s wrong with me,” he went on, the tip of his tail twitching uneasily. “I can’t get Feathertail and Stormfur out of my head. I wish I knew where they’ve gone. Brambleclaw and Squirrelpaw too.”
Leafpaw felt another pang of guilt. She could save Greystripe so much worry if she told him what she knew about the prophecy, but she had promised the journeying cats that she would keep silent.
“I feel that they’re all safe,” she ventured, “and that they’ll come back to us.”
Greystripe looked up with a flicker of hope in his amber eyes. “Has StarClan told you that?”
“Not exactly, but—”
“I can’t help wondering if it has something to do with the Twolegs,” Greystripe interrupted. “Cats go missing—Twolegs invade us. . . .” His paws worked against the ground, tearing up the grass with his claws.
“Greystripe, can I ask you something?” Leafpaw meowed, desperate to change the subject.
“Sure, go ahead.”
“Did you ever meet Sasha—Hawkfrost and Mothwing’s mother?”
Greystripe looked at her in surprise. “Once. At a Gathering.”
“What was she like?” Leafpaw asked curiously.
“Nice enough,” Greystripe told her. “Quiet and ready to be friendly. A lot like Mothwing to look at. But it was clear that being among a lot of cats spooked her. I wasn’t surprised when she left the forest as soon as Mothwing and Hawkfrost were old enough to do without her.”
“Does any cat know who their father was?”
The deputy shook his head. “No. I always assumed it was another rogue.”
“Rogues?”
There was the sound of pawsteps behind them, and Leafpaw spun around to see Firestar approaching from the direction of the camp.
“Have you seen rogues?” he demanded, tension clear in every hair on his flame-coloured pelt. “For StarClan’s sake, that’s the last thing we need right now.”
“No, no, not at all.” Greystripe meowed quickly. “Leafpaw was just asking about Sasha, and which cat fathered Mothwing and Hawkfrost.”
Firestar turned to look at Leafpaw, his green eyes puzzled. “Why do you want to know?”
Leafpaw hesitated. She wasn’t about to admit that she had been spending time with Mothwing in RiverClan territory. “Oh, I just saw Hawkfrost,” she meowed. “He was patrolling on the border.” Well, she comforted herself, that was not entirely a lie. There was no way she was going to mention her suspicions that Tigerstar had fathered Hawkfrost and Mothwing, not when he and Firestar had been such bitter enemies.
Firestar nodded. “Well, I’ve no idea. Sasha might have told some cat in RiverClan, I suppose.”
He padded across to Greystripe and touched noses with his old friend as if he guessed the thoughts that were troubling him. Both cats had lost children among the si
x cats that had vanished from the forest. They stared up into the trees, where a chilly wind was tugging leaves from the branches until they drifted down to join the other dead leaves on the forest floor.
“They must be cold, with no Clan to shelter them each night,” Greystripe murmured.
“At least they have one another,” Firestar mewed, pressing himself against Greystripe’s side.
For a moment both cats remained silent; then Firestar turned to his daughter. “Leafpaw, you sometimes know what Squirrelpaw is thinking, don’t you? You told us she was with the RiverClan cats. Have you any idea where they are now?”
Leafpaw blinked. She couldn’t deny her father the chance to know if Squirrelpaw was alive—and she wanted to know just as fiercely. She shut her eyes and summoned up her old rapport with her sister. Emptying her mind, she concentrated fiercely. She gasped to feel a surge of cold and wet, shuddering as a blast of cold wind probed her drying fur. But there was no sign of Squirrelpaw anywhere—just water, blasting air, and endless rock.
Opening her eyes, Leafpaw blinked in confusion as she realised that her fur was dry and the forest was still. She had made contact with her sister after all!
“She’s alive,” she murmured. Beside her, Firestar’s eyes lit up. “And wherever she is, I think it must be raining . . .”
CHAPTER 7
Stormfur opened his eyes and blinked in light that was sharp as a claw. His breath rasped in his throat and every muscle in his body ached. He felt too exhausted even to move.
As his vision cleared he saw that he was lying on rain-wet rock, beside a pool of churning black water. His ears were ringing; when he raised his head feebly he saw a waterfall thundering down into the pool in a whirl of foam and spray, and realised that what he could hear was the roar and crash of falling water.
At once he remembered the flood that had swept him down from the rocks and plunged him into the pool. How had he survived? He remembered the roar, the foam, the darkness . . . Fear for his friends stabbed through him.