For a moment all the cats stared at it in horrified silence, broken by yelps of panic as they realized that the unthinkable was happening.
“Lilypaw! Seedpaw! Over here!” their father, Brackenfur, called, while Cloudtail and Brightheart rounded up the younger apprentices.
“Bramblestar!” Millie was staring at him, her eyes wide with terror and her claws raking frenziedly at the wet stone of the Highledge. “What about Briarlight? She won’t be able to swim if the hollow floods!”
“No cat will have to swim,” Bramblestar reassured her. “There are other ways out of the hollow.”
Leafpool, who was standing outside the medicine cats’ den, waved her tail to attract every cat’s attention. “Follow me!” she ordered.
Bramblestar silently thanked StarClan for the steep, twisting path that led up the cliff from the bushes near the entrance to the medicine cats’ den. It would be a hard climb, he knew, but it was their only escape route from the rising water. He turned to face the cats clustered on the ledge behind him. “Graystripe,” he ordered, “get the others to help you bring Briarlight down. I’ll see you at the bottom of the path.”
Graystripe crouched down while Dustpelt and Sandstorm began lifting Briarlight onto his back. Bramblestar left them to it and ran down the tumbled rocks to join Leafpool.
By now most of the Clan was clustered around the medicine cats’ den, while Leafpool and Squirrelflight forced a way through the bushes, revealing the first few tail-lengths of the path. The cats crowded into the space behind the thorns, which was slightly sheltered from the force of the storm.
“Wow!” Snowpaw squeaked, tipping back her head to follow the path up the cliff. “How did Leafpool know about this?”
Brightheart gave her daughter a flick around the ear. “Medicine cats know a lot of things,” she mewed.
Bramblestar swallowed hard as he gazed up at the path. It was a tricky scramble at the best of times, but it was going to be treacherous in this pouring rain and fierce wind. What if a cat falls? They could break their neck, and it would be my fault. He shook himself to clear his head. I’m the leader of this Clan. It’s my responsibility to protect these cats, and there’s no other way to leave the hollow.
“Brackenfur, Spiderleg,” he meowed briskly. “You go up first. Make sure we can still get out that way. And for StarClan’s sake, be careful.”
With a grim nod, Brackenfur sprang up the path with Spiderleg hard on his paws. Bramblestar narrowed his eyes against the driving rain, trying to watch their progress. From time to time he lost sight of them as they vanished behind bushes or jutting rocks, but at last he made out Brackenfur’s light brown pelt at the edge of the cliff top.
“It’s okay!” Brackenfur yowled. “But the path is very slippery… Don’t try to rush it.”
“Right, let’s get moving,” Bramblestar ordered. “Daisy, you next.” He beckoned with his tail to the shivering she-cat, whose long, cream-colored pelt hung like rats’ tails around her. “Lionblaze, follow her up and make sure she’s okay.”
“I’ll be fine,” Daisy mewed. “I’ve done it before.”
Bramblestar remembered how Squirrelflight, Brightheart, and Cloudtail had climbed the path with Daisy and her kits to rescue them from the badger attack, so many moons ago. Now—in spite of how he had longed for a nursery full of kits—he was thankful that there were no tiny cats who had to be carried out of the hollow. Moving Briarlight will be hard enough…
Once Lionblaze and Daisy were halfway up, Bramblestar sent the apprentices, each with their mentor to keep an eye on them. He sent Cloudtail with Amberpaw, since Spiderleg had already made the climb. The young cats showed no fear at all, sure-pawed and nimble as they followed the narrow path back and forth across the cliff face.
“Dovewing next!” Bramblestar called.
The pale gray she-cat splashed forward through the puddles, her ears twitching. “I’m not sure I can do this,” she muttered. “I keep looking for stuff that isn’t here, and I can’t see what’s right under my nose.”
“Of course you can do it.” Her father, Birchfall, padded up to her. “I’ll be right behind you. I won’t let you fall.”
Taking a deep breath, Dovewing began to climb. At first she was slow and nervous, but gradually she seemed more sure of herself and her pace quickened.
“Take your time,” Birchfall urged. “This isn’t a race!”
“Now you, Thornclaw,” Bramblestar meowed. “Once you get to the top, find a bush or something to take shelter. You’ve had a terrible night.”
Thornclaw gave his Clan leader a brief nod. “I’ve had better.”
By now the daylight had strengthened a little, but the sky was covered with heaving gray clouds. There would be no sunrise. The rain still pelted down, sweeping in waves across the hollow as it was buffeted by the wind.
Peering upward, Bramblestar could see a growing crowd of cats at the top of the cliff. None of them had lost their footing so far. Maybe we’ll all make it. “Molewhisker and Cherryfall, off you go,” he ordered.
Cherryfall set off first, scrambling confidently from one paw hold to the next, disappearing into the driving rain, but when Molewhisker tried to follow he halted a few tail-lengths above the ground, his ears flat and his eyes staring in terror.
“I can’t do it!” he wailed. “I’m going to fall!”
Bramblestar’s heart began to thud. “You’ll be fine!” he called up to the panicking young tom. “All the other cats have done it.”
“I’m slipping! Help!”
“Mouse dung!” Bramblestar muttered.
He was about to start climbing to give Molewhisker a boost from below, when he spotted Lionblaze making his way carefully down from the top of the cliff.
“Hang on, Molewhisker!” the warrior yowled. “I’m coming! You see that rock just there… the flat one?” Lionblaze slithered to a halt, leaning into the cliff face with his hind paws gripping the loose stones. “Put your forepaw there. Now bring your hind paws up to that crack. That’s right…”
Very slowly Molewhisker started to move. The two cats climbed together until Bramblestar lost sight of them, and Lionblaze’s reassuring tones were lost in the howl of the wind.
Brightheart and Cinderheart shuffled up to the end of the path. “We’re ready, Bramblestar,” Brightheart mewed.
“Wait a moment,” Bramblestar warned. “I want to be sure Molewhisker gets up safely. If he falls, he could knock any cat below him off the path.”
As he finished speaking, he heard Lionblaze again, yowling from the cliff top. “We made it!”
Thank StarClan, Bramblestar thought. And thank Lionblaze! “Okay, off you go,” he told the two she-cats.
They set off well, taking small, cautious steps and keeping their bodies low and close to the rock. Then a gust of wind caught Brightheart, who was climbing a fox-length behind Cinderheart. She slipped and hung off the edge of the path, her paws scrabbling wildly, letting out a screech of terror. “Help!”
Bramblestar bunched his muscles to leap up to her, but before he could move Cinderheart had turned back, her claws clinging to the rock. She fastened her teeth in Brightheart’s scruff and hauled her back onto the path.
Brightheart crouched, trembling. “Thanks, Cinderheart,” she gasped.
“Are you okay?” Cinderheart mewed. “Can you keep going?”
Brightheart nodded. “Let’s go.”
As Bramblestar watched them struggling slowly up the cliff face, he felt water washing against his belly fur and he realized that the flood in the hollow was getting deeper. Time is running out! Glancing around at the cats who were left, he saw that Graystripe had arrived with Briarlight and the other cats who had spent the night in the den on the Highledge. Purdy had joined them. The two medicine cats were standing near their den, while Berrynose and Mousewhisker were closer to the bottom of the path, their claws working impatiently as they waited for their turn. Rosepetal was hanging farther back with Squirrelflight.