Dappled Pelt padded closer. “We weren’t even this exposed in the mountains!” she called. “We had the cave to protect us.”
“But there’s better hunting here,” Thunder reminded her.
“There was,” she agreed, “before the sickness killed half of it!”
Thunder’s pelt pricked uneasily. “Do you want to move to the forest and become part of Clear Sky’s group?” He could hardly believe it. They’d fought a battle to protect their life on the moor!
“Of course not,” Dappled Pelt snorted. “But the moor’s not the only place to live.”
Thunder nodded slowly. River Ripple had his island. And Clear Sky’s forest was not the only shelter nearby. The floor of the pine forest must be so sheltered by the thick canopy of needles that it never felt snow.
Mud Paws joined them. “I thought the spirit cats wanted us to move on.”
“Spirit cats!” Mouse Ear puffed. “You don’t believe that, do you? Dead cats talking to the living?”
Dappled Pelt blinked at the old tom slowly. “Thunder, Tall Shadow, and Gray Wing all saw them.”
“Nothing but dreams.” Mouse Ear tipped his head to one side. “They’d probably shared a rotten mouse before they went to their nests.”
Thunder met his gaze with annoyance. “So you want to stay on the moor.”
“I didn’t say that,” Mouse Ear snapped back. “I just don’t intend to move because some imaginary cats told me to.”
Jagged Peak swished his tail. “We have to settle this before everyone starts arguing.”
Thunder blinked as Jagged Peak marched toward Tall Shadow’s rock and leaped up beside her.
Tall Shadow reared in surprise. “Jagged Peak?”
“We need to settle where we are going to live before every cat starts fighting about it.” The tom’s mew rang across the clearing.
Holly’s head poked out from beneath the broom. Cloud Spots’s den shivered as Clear Sky pushed his way out.
Gray Wing crossed the clearing, his eyes round. “Jagged Peak? What are you doing?”
Thunder hurried toward the rock. Clear Sky’s eyes were bright with hope as he stared up at Jagged Peak. Did Clear Sky think that his younger brother was about to agree with his plan to join together? Alarm twisted Thunder’s belly. “Let’s discuss this later!” he called to Jagged Peak. Did he have to make such a fuss while Clear Sky was still here? No one was going to join Clear Sky’s group.
Surely they could settle this without embarrassing the misguided tom.
Dappled Pelt stopped beside Thunder. “Let him speak,” she murmured softly. “We’ve already put off this decision too long.”
Mud Paws and Mouse Ear halted below the rock while Holly hurried toward them. Storm Pelt bounded after his mother.
She called to Eagle Feather and Dew Nose. “Come here, little ones!”
The kits were covered in snow from digging around the rock. A wad of moss dangled from Dew
Nose’s jaws. It trembled as she hurried toward her mother.
Holly swept her close with a paw and tucked her against her warm belly. She scooped up Eagle
Feather too. Storm Pelt burrowed in beside them.
“We found moss for the nest,” Eagle Feather mewed excitedly.
“Hush.” Holly leaned down and licked the snow from his nose.
Paw steps sounded outside camp. A moment later Lightning Tail and Shattered Ice pushed through the gorse tunnel.
Shattered Ice blinked. “What’s going on?”
Lightning Tail was holding a bunch of heather between his jaws. He dropped it and slid between
Dappled Pelt and Mud Paws. “Is this a meeting?”
Jagged Peak gazed down at him. “We need to decide where we’re going to live.”
“At last!” Tall Shadow pummeled the rock beside her excitedly.
Holly curled her lip. “But I’ve just finished building a new nest!”
“I don’t want to move to the pine forest!” Shattered Ice called. “It’s as damp as a marsh in there.”
“I don’t want to stay here!” Mud Paws mewed. “We’ll freeze to death by newleaf.”
Mouse Ear growled in agreement. “I’m tired of hunting in rabbit tunnels!”
“I want to live near fresh water,” Dappled Pelt called. “The water here tastes like peat.”
Thunder stared in disbelief at the cats he’d shared a camp with for so long. Had they always been dissatisfied? Sadness jabbed at his chest. He’d grown up in the hollow. It was home. How could they abandon it? He stepped forward. “We can’t leave the moor!”
“We’ll starve if we stay!” Mouse Ear returned.
Clear Sky lifted his tail. “Let’s do as the spirit cats ask. Let’s be like the Blazing Star and gather like petals around the heart of a flower.” His eyes shone. “Come live in the forest with me!”
Jagged Peak glared at him. “Do you think we’re hare-brained?”
“I’m not living anywhere near you,” Shattered Ice growled. “And I’m not living under trees—I need to see the sky above my head.”
“But trees will shelter us,” Tall Shadow argued.
Thunder’s thoughts spun. “How can we leave when we can’t decide where to go?”
Jagged Peak padded to the front to the rock and looked around at the gathered cats. “Let’s decide the same way we decided last time.”
Thunder frowned. Last time?
Jagged Peak’s gaze reached Gray Wing’s and halted. “Remember?”
Gray Wing nodded solemnly. “Let’s cast stones.”
Chapter 3
Thunder frowned as Jagged Peak and Tall Shadow jumped down from the rock. Cast stones? What was Gray Wing talking about? “How?” he murmured to himself.
A warm muzzle nudged his flank, and he turned to see Dappled Pelt looking at him, her eyes sparkling. “We’ve done it before, when Clear Sky broke away from the group to set up his own camp in the forest—and before that, when he wanted to leave the mountains.”
Gray Wing began to dig through the snow at the bottom of the rock. As he unearthed pebbles from the soil below, he kicked them out behind him. Jagged Peak scooped them into a pile while Tall Shadow hurried to the edge of the clearing and began to scrape a wide hole in the snow.
Pebble Heart and Cloud Spots slid from beneath the jutting gorse where they’d treated Clear Sky.
The scent of herbs swirled around them, and Thunder noticed that Pebble Heart’s paws were stained green.
Sparrow Fur and Owl Eyes nosed their way from the snowy grass at the edge of the clearing and padded toward the others. Owl Eyes was yawning, and Sparrow Fur blinked sleep from her eyes.
“We’re casting stones,” Dappled Pelt called to them excitedly.
“Casting stones?” Owl Eyes sat down beside the tortoiseshell. “On what?”
“We’re deciding where each cat will live,” she told him.
Sparrow Fur’s eyes widened. “Why now?”
Dappled Pelt glanced sharply at Clear Sky.
Thunder shifted his paws uneasily. The cats clearly knew that his father’s interference had pushed them to make this decision. “We shared a dream of the spirit cats last night,” he explained to Sparrow
Fur. “They want us to spread and grow like the Blazing Star.”
Sparrow Fur rolled her eyes. “We’ve known that for ages.”
“Last night, they told us to hurry up.”
Sparrow Fur tipped her head, curious. “Why?”