Bramblestar got up and gave his pelt a shake. “It’s too dangerous down here,” he meowed. “I’m going to order every cat to stay away from the lake until the water level goes down.”
“Good idea!” Molewhisker agreed.
Turning to Sandstorm, Bramblestar continued, “Will you take Blossomfall back and have Jayfeather check her out? Molewhisker and I can finish the patrol on our own.”
“No, I’m okay,” Blossomfall objected, struggling to her paws. “I can keep going.”
Bramblestar hesitated. I wonder if she’s trying to prove her loyalty. Then he told himself to stop second-guessing the motives of every cat who had been connected with the Dark Forest. He gave a brisk nod. “Tell me if you want to stop,” he warned her. “There’s no shame in needing to rest after what you’ve been through.”
“I’m fine,” Blossomfall insisted. Her pelt was still wet, sticking up in spikes, but her eyes were bright and determined.
Bramblestar led his patrol a safe distance from the water’s edge and turned inland to follow the stream at the WindClan border. He spotted a WindClan patrol racing across the moor after a couple of bulky, low-flying white birds. As he watched, two of the cats leaped into the air and almost clawed one of the birds out of the sky. At the last moment it gave a vigorous beat of its wings and lurched away, gaining height.
“I’ve never seen WindClan hunting like that before!” Sandstorm exclaimed.
“It’s pretty brave of them.” Molewhisker sounded impressed. “Those birds are big!”
“I wonder how hungry they must be to try learning how to fly after prey,” Bramblestar mused. “The Tribe cats hunt birds like that, but it doesn’t seem natural for us.”
The wind was blowing strongly over the moor, bringing so much WindClan scent that it seemed to fill the forest.
“It’s hopeless trying to tell if they’ve trespassed,” Molewhisker growled. “I can’t smell anything but WindClan!”
The patrol renewed their own scent markers, but the wind whisked the scent away into the forest almost immediately. Battling through the gusts, the cats finally reached the ridge and gazed down at the churning gray lake. It’s definitely bigger than usual, Bramblestar realized.
“It’s hard to believe it was once empty,” Sandstorm murmured.
“Was that in the Long Dry?” Molewhisker asked. “Purdy started telling me about it, but he never said how the water came back.”
Purdy hardly ever gets to the end of his stories, Bramblestar thought, twitching his whiskers in amusement.
“Well,” Blossomfall began, “all the Clans sent two cats to form a patrol, and they traveled up the dried-out stream until—”
“Which cats went from ThunderClan?” Molewhisker interrupted.
“Dovewing—she was Dovepaw then—and Lionblaze,” Blossomfall replied.
The tortoiseshell she-cat broke off with a startled squeal as a huge white bird flew unsteadily over their heads. Bramblestar ducked to avoid its erratic wingbeats. A moment later it crashed into a holly bush and struggled in the branches, trapped.
Bramblestar raced over to it with Molewhisker beside him. Reaching the bush, he stood back to let the younger warrior make the easy kill.
Molewhisker dived into the bush and sank his teeth into the bird’s neck. It stopped struggling and went limp; Molewhisker backed out of the bush, dragging his prey with him.
“Good job!” Bramblestar praised him.
Blossomfall let out a snort. “You’ve made a bit of a mess of its wings,” she pointed out. “You should be more careful.”
“I only bit its neck!” Molewhisker protested.
Looking more closely, Bramblestar saw claw marks on the wings, and a spattering of blood on the white feathers. “This must be the bird we saw the WindClan warriors attacking,” he meowed. “They’ve wounded it badly enough to bring it down, but it managed to get onto our territory.” He let out a satisfied purr. “It’ll make a great addition to the fresh-kill pile,” he added, “but it’s so heavy we might need more warriors to carry it back, so we don’t do any more damage.”
“Hey—what are you doing?” An outraged yowl came from the other side of the stream.
Bramblestar turned to see Nightcloud at the head of a WindClan patrol. Her apprentice, Hootpaw, and gray-and-white Gorsetail were just behind her.
“That’s our catch!” the black she-cat growled. “We should have it.”
“It is not your catch,” Molewhisker defended himself. “I killed it, so it’s mine!”
“It was alive when it entered ThunderClan territory,” Bramblestar pointed out, “and that makes it ours.”
All three WindClan cats were bristling with fury. “Look at this,” Nightcloud snarled, holding up one paw to show scraps of white feathers stuck between her claws. “That proves we wounded it. If we hadn’t, you would never have caught it.”
“And we need it more than you,” Hootpaw put in. “Rabbits are scarcer than usual, so these white birds are all we have.”
“Be quiet!” Nightcloud hissed, giving her apprentice a cuff around the ear.
Sandstorm spoke softly to Bramblestar. “We have plenty of prey. I think Firestar would have let WindClan have this bird.”
“I’m not Firestar,” Bramblestar retorted. “We caught this fairly, so it belongs to us.”
“Absolutely right, you’re not Firestar,” Gorsetail muttered, overhearing.
Bramblestar felt a flash of anger. Snatching up the white bird, he stalked away with it, even though it was almost too heavy for him to carry and the trailing wings threatened to trip him. Sandstorm and Molewhisker hurried to help him, one on each side, while Blossomfall padded ahead to clear any twigs or bramble tendrils out of the way. As they headed into the trees, Bramblestar could hear the WindClan cats hissing behind him, but he paid no attention.
“You made the right decision,” Sandstorm meowed after a moment. “You’re the leader now, and you can’t show weakness to another Clan.”
Bramblestar shrugged. “Whatever,” he mumbled around his mouthful of feathers. He was thinking about what Hootpaw had said: Rabbits were getting scarce in WindClan, and they were relying on birds that didn’t usually come to the moor. There’s something very familiar about the scent of the white bird’s wings…
The ThunderClan cats gathered around to stare at the white bird when the patrol returned to the hollow.
“Wow, it’s huge!” Berrynose exclaimed.
“I never saw a bird like that before,” Ivypool meowed. “It’s enough to feed the whole Clan!”
“I caught it,” Molewhisker announced, giving his shoulder a couple of proud licks.
His sister Cherryfall blinked at him. “Great catch! Those wings could really have hurt you.”
“Oh, it wasn’t that difficult,” Molewhisker mewed.
No, because the bird was already wounded and trapped in a bush, Bramblestar thought, suppressing a mrrow of amusement. He said nothing. Let Molewhisker have his moment of glory!
“Squirrelflight!” he called, beckoning to his deputy with his tail. He led her up to the white bird and angled his ears toward it. “Smell it,” he mewed. “What does it remind you of?”
Squirrelflight took a deep sniff, then looked up, puzzled. “Er… dead birds?” she guessed.
Bramblestar twitched the tip of his tail. “No, think of a place,” he urged.
Squirrelflight sniffed again, and understanding began to dawn in her eyes. “Now I remember! There’s a salt-tasting tang on the feathers, like the water in the sun-drown-place. Do you think that’s where it came from?”