Brambleclaw jumped and looked around. His eyes narrowed into a furious glare as he recognized the cat with smoky gray-black fur, lean limbs, and small, neat head. “You!” he spat.
Standing a couple of fox-lengths away was the WindClan apprentice Crowpaw, who had trespassed on ThunderClan territory and stolen a vole.
“Yes, me,” he retorted, his fur bristling as if at any moment he might spring and finish off the fight.
Tawnypelt pricked her ears. “This is a WindClan cat, right?” She looked Crowpaw up and down dismissively.
“Undersized specimen, isn’t he?”
“He’s an apprentice,” Brambleclaw explained, as Crowpaw drew his lips back in a snarl. “His name’s Crowpaw.”
He glanced at Squirrelpaw, willing her to keep silent about the incident with the vole. He wanted WindClan brought to justice over the prey stealing, but properly, at a Gathering, not by provoking a fight here. After all, what they were doing here was already a long way outside the warrior code.
Squirrelpaw twitched the tip of her tail, but to Brambleclaw’s relief she said nothing.
“You had the dream too?” Feathertail asked; Brambleclaw saw the anxiety beginning to fade from her blue eyes, as if she were drawing courage from a growing certainty that the dreams were true.
Crowpaw gave her a curt nod. “I spoke with our old deputy, Deadfoot,” he meowed. “He told me to meet three other cats at the new moon.”
“Then that’s one cat from each Clan,” replied Feathertail.
“We’re all here.”
“Now we just have to wait for midnight,” Brambleclaw added.
“Do you know what this is about?” Crowpaw turned his back on Brambleclaw and appealed directly to Feathertail.
“If it were me,” Squirrelpaw meowed before Feathertail could reply, “I’d be a bit less quick to believe in these dreams.
If there was really trouble on its way, do you think StarClan would come to you first, before the Clan leaders or medicine cats?”
“Then how do you explain it?” Brambleclaw asked, all the more defensive because he had felt exactly the same doubts that Squirrelpaw was voicing now. “Why else would we all have had the same dream?”
“Maybe you’ve all been stuffing yourselves with too much fresh-kill?” Squirrelpaw suggested.
Crowpaw whipped around with an angry hiss. “Who asked you, anyway?” he demanded.
“I can say what I like,” Squirrelpaw shot back at him. “I don’t need your permission. You’re not even a warrior.”
“Nor are you,” the gray-black cat snapped. “What are you doing here, anyway? You didn’t have the dream. No cat wants you here.”
Brambleclaw opened his jaws to defend Squirrelpaw. Even though he had been annoyed with her for following him, it was no business of Crowpaw’s to tell her what to do. Then he realized that Squirrelpaw wouldn’t thank him; with her ready tongue she was quite capable of defending herself.
“I don’t see them falling over themselves to welcome you, either,” she growled.
Crowpaw spat, his ears flattened and his eyes glaring fury.
“There’s no need to get angry,” Feathertail began.
The small black cat ignored her. Lashing his tail from side to side, he sprang at Squirrelpaw. An instant later Brambleclaw leaped too, barreling into him and rolling him over before his claws could score down her flank.
“Back off,” he hissed, pinning Crowpaw down with a paw on his neck. He could hardly believe that the WindClan apprentice would start a fight now, when they were waiting for a message from StarClan, and linked in the prophecy through their dreams. If StarClan had really chosen them for a mysterious destiny, they would surely not fulfill it by shed-ding one another’s blood.
The light of battle died from Crowpaw’s eyes, though he still looked furious. Brambleclaw let him get up; he turned his back and started to groom his ruffled fur.
“Thanks for nothing!” Brambleclaw was hardly surprised to see that Squirrelpaw was glaring at him with just as much hostility as Crowpaw. “I can fight my own battles.”
Brambleclaw let out a hiss of exasperation. “You can’t start fighting here. There are more important things to think about. And if these dreams are true, then StarClan wants the Clans to work together.”
He glanced around the clearing, half hoping that a cat from StarClan would appear to tell them what they were supposed to be doing, before a fight broke out that he couldn’t stop. But Silverpelt shone on a clearing empty of any cats but themselves. He could smell nothing but the ordinary night scents of growing plants and distant prey, and hear nothing but the sigh of wind through the branches of the oaks.
“It must be after midnight now,” Tawnypelt meowed. “I don’t think StarClan are coming.”
Feathertail turned to look all around the clearing, her blue eyes once more wide with anxiety. “But they have to come!
Why did we all have the same dream, if it wasn’t true?”
“Then why is nothing happening?” Tawnypelt challenged her. “Here we are, meeting at the new moon, just as StarClan told us. We can’t do any more.”
“We were fools to come.” Crowpaw gave them all another unfriendly stare. “The dreams meant nothing. There’s no prophecy, no danger—and even if there were, the warrior code should be enough to protect the forest.” He began to stalk across the clearing to the slope on the WindClan side, and his last words were flung over his shoulder. “I’m going back to camp.”
“Good riddance!” Squirrelpaw yowled after him.
He ignored her, and a moment later had disappeared into the bushes.
“Tawnypelt’s right. Nothing is going to happen,” Stormfur meowed. “We might as well go too. Come on, Feathertail.”
“Just a minute,” mewed Brambleclaw. “Maybe we got it wrong—maybe StarClan was angry because of the fighting.
We can’t just pretend that nothing has happened, that none of us had those dreams. We ought to decide what we’re going to do next.”
“What can we do?” Tawnypelt asked. She flicked her tail toward Squirrelpaw. “Maybe she’s right. Why would StarClan choose us and not our leaders?”
“I don’t know, but I think they have chosen us,” Feathertail meowed gently. “But somehow we haven’t understood properly. Maybe they’ll send us all another dream to explain.”
“Maybe.” Her brother didn’t sound convinced.
“Let’s all try to come to the next Gathering,” Brambleclaw suggested. “There might be another sign by then.”
“Crowpaw won’t know to meet us there,” Feathertail murmured, glancing at the spot in the bushes where the WindClan apprentice had vanished.
“No loss,” Stormfur remarked, but at his sister’s anxious look he added, “We can keep an eye open for him when he comes to the river to drink. If we see him we’ll pass the message on.”
“All right, that’s decided,” meowed Tawnypelt. “We meet at the Gathering.”
“And what do we tell our Clans?” Stormfur asked. “It’s against the warrior code to hide things from them.”
“StarClan never said we had to keep the dream secret,” Tawnypelt put in.
“I know, but…” Feathertail hesitated and then went on, “I just feel it’s wrong to talk about it.”
Brambleclaw knew Stormfur and Tawnypelt were right; he was already feeling guilty that he had said nothing about his dream to Firestar and Cinderpelt. At the same time he shared Feathertail’s instinct to keep silent.
“I’m not sure,” he meowed. “Suppose our leaders forbade us to meet again? We could end up having to choose between obeying them or obeying StarClan.” Aware of uneasy glances from the others, he went on earnestly; “We don’t know enough to tell them. Suppose we wait until the next Gathering, at least. We might have other signs by then that will explain it all to us.”