He padded across the clearing and sat at the base of the Great Rock. His ears were pricked to catch the smallest sound, and every nerve from ears to tail-tip was stretched with anticipation. Who would the other cats be? As moments slipped by, his excitement was replaced by anxiety. Not even Tawnypelt had arrived. Perhaps she had changed her mind, or perhaps this was the wrong meeting place after all.
At last he saw movement in the bushes about halfway up the side of the hollow. Brambleclaw tensed. The breeze was blowing away from him, so he could not pick up the scent; from the direction it was coming it could have been either a RiverClan or WindClan cat.
He followed the movement with his eyes as far as a clump of bracken at the bottom of the slope. The fronds waved wildly, and a cat stepped into the clearing.
Brambleclaw stared, frozen for a heartbeat, then sprang to his paws, his neck fur bristling in fury.
“Squirrelpaw!”
Chapter 5
Brambleclaw stalked stiff-legged across the clearing until he stood face to face with the apprentice. “Just what do you think you’re doing here?” he hissed.
“Hi, Brambleclaw.” Squirrelpaw tried to sound calm, but her sparkling eyes betrayed her excitement. “I couldn’t sleep, and I saw you leaving, so I’ve been following you.” She gave a little purr of delight. “I was good, wasn’t I? You never knew I was there, all the way through the forest.”
That was true, though Brambleclaw would have died rather than tell her he was impressed. Instead, he let out a low growl. For two mousetails he felt like springing at the ginger she-cat to claw the smug expression off her face. “Why can’t you mind your own business?”
The she-cat narrowed her eyes. “It’s any cat’s business when a Clan warrior sneaks out of camp at night.”
“I wasn’t sneaking,” Brambleclaw protested guiltily.
“Oh, no?” Squirrelpaw sounded scornful. “You leave camp, come straight up here to Fourtrees, and sit waiting for ages, looking like you expect every warrior in the forest to jump out at you. Don’t tell me you’re just enjoying the beautiful night.”
“I don’t have to tell you anything.” Brambleclaw heard his voice grow desperate; all he wanted was to get rid of this annoying apprentice before any cats from other Clans arrived. She hadn’t mentioned the dream, which meant she couldn’t have had it as well, so she had no right to be here and find out the next part of the prophecy—if that was what was really going to happen. “This has got nothing to do with you, Squirrelpaw.
Why don’t you just go home?”
“No.” Squirrelpaw sat down and curled her tail around her front paws, glaring at Brambleclaw with wide green eyes. “I’m not leaving until I find out what’s going on.”
Brambleclaw let out a snarl of sheer frustration, only to jump when a voice growled behind him, “What’s she doing here?”
It was Tawnypelt, slipping out from behind the Great Rock.
She padded across the clearing and narrowed her eyes at Squirrelpaw. “I thought we weren’t going to tell any other cats?”
Brambleclaw felt his fur prickle. “I didn’t tell her. She saw me leaving and followed me.”
“And it’s a good thing I did.” Squirrelpaw stood up and met Tawnypelt’s gaze, her ears flat against her head. “You creep out at night and come up here to meet a ShadowClan warrior!
What’s Firestar going to think about that when I tell him?”
Brambleclaw’s belly lurched uncomfortably. Perhaps he ought to have told Firestar about the dream right from the start, but it was too late now.
“Listen,” he meowed urgently. “Tawnypelt isn’t just a ShadowClan warrior; she’s my sister. You know that as well as any cat. We’re not plotting anything.”
“Then why all the secrecy?” Squirrelpaw demanded.
Brambleclaw was searching for a reply when Tawnypelt interrupted him, flicking her tail toward the slope. “Look.”
Brambleclaw caught a glimpse of something gray moving among the bushes, and a heartbeat later Feathertail and Stormfur stepped into the clearing. They glanced around warily, but as soon as Feathertail spotted the other cats she raced across the clearing toward them.
“I was right!” she exclaimed, skidding to a halt in front of Brambleclaw and the two she-cats. Her eyes widened, beginning to look puzzled and a little daunted. “Did you have the dream as well? Is it the four of us?”
“Tawnypelt and I have had it,” Brambleclaw replied, at the same moment Squirrelpaw asked, “What dream?”
“The dream from StarClan, telling us that there’s trouble ahead.” Feathertail sounded more uncertain still, and her gaze flicked tensely from cat to cat.
“Did you both have the dream?” Brambleclaw asked, glancing at Stormfur as the RiverClan warrior caught up with his sister.
Stormfur shook his head. “No, only Feathertail.”
“It scared me so much,” Feathertail confessed. “I couldn’t eat or sleep for thinking about it. Stormfur knew something was wrong, and he pestered me so much that I told him what I’d dreamed. We decided that I should come to Fourtrees tonight, at the new moon, and Stormfur wouldn’t let me come by myself.” She gave her brother’s ear a friendly lick.
“He… he didn’t want me to be in danger. But I’m not, am I? I mean, we all know each other.”
“Don’t be so quick to trust every cat,” Stormfur growled. “I don’t like meeting cats from other Clans in secret like this.
It’s not what the warrior code tells us.”
“But we have each had a message from StarClan, telling us to come,” Tawnypelt pointed out. “Bluestar visited Brambleclaw, and Nightstar came to me.”
“And I saw Oakheart,” Feathertail meowed. “He said great trouble was coming to the forest, and I would have to meet with three other cats at the new moon to hear what midnight tells us.”
“I was told that, too,” Tawnypelt confirmed. With a twitch of her ears at Stormfur she added, “I don’t much like it either, but we should wait and see what StarClan want.”
“At midnight, I suppose,” Stormfur meowed, glancing up at the stars. “It must be nearly that now.”
Brambleclaw’s heart sank as he noticed Squirrelpaw’s eyes getting wider and wider. “You mean that StarClan told all of you to meet here?” the young she-cat burst out. “And they say there’s trouble coming? What kind of trouble?”
“We don’t know,” Feathertail replied. “At least, Oakheart didn’t tell me…” She trailed off, looking flus-tered, but Brambleclaw and Tawnypelt shook their heads to show that their dream-cats hadn’t shared this with them either.
Stormfur’s eyes narrowed. “Your Clan mate hasn’t had the dream,” he mewed to Brambleclaw. “What’s she doing here?”
“You didn’t have it either.” Squirrelpaw wasn’t afraid to stand up to the RiverClan warrior. “I’ve as much right to be here as you.”
“Except I didn’t invite you,” Brambleclaw growled.
“Chase her off, then,” Tawnypelt suggested. “I’ll help.”
Squirrelpaw took a step toward the ShadowClan warrior, her fur fluffed out and her tail bristling. “Just lay one paw on me…”
Brambleclaw sighed. “If we chase her off now she’ll go straight to Firestar,” he meowed. “She’s heard pretty much everything, so she might as well stay.”
Squirrelpaw gave a disdainful sniff and sat down again.
She drew her tongue down her paw and calmly began to wash her face.
“Honestly, Brambleclaw,” Tawnypelt growled. “You should have been more careful. Letting an apprentice track you!”
“What’s going on?” A new voice came from behind them, high-pitched and aggressive. “This can’t be right—Deadfoot said there were only supposed to be four of us.”