“Think, small warrior,” Midnight replied to his question.
“When you set out, you were four. Six with friends who would not stay behind. Now you are one.” Her voice grew deeper and seemed to Brambleclaw to be full of foreboding as she went on, “In days coming now, all Clans must be one. If not, trouble destroy you.”
Brambleclaw felt icy claws rake down his spine. The shudder that ran through him had nothing to do with his sodden fur. “What is the trouble?” he whispered.
Midnight hesitated, her deep, dark gaze resting on each cat in turn. “You must leave the forest,” she growled at last. “All cats must leave.”
“What?” Stormfur leaped to his paws. “That’s mouse-brained! There have always been cats in the forest.”
The badger heaved a long sigh. “No longer.”
“But why?” Feathertail asked, anxiously kneading her paws on the bed of bracken.
“Twolegs.” Midnight sighed again. “Always is Twolegs.
Soon they come with machines… monsters is your word, not? Trees will they uproot, rocks break, the earth itself tear apart. No place left for cats. You stay, monsters tear you too, or you starve with no prey.”
There was silence in the moonlit cave. Brambleclaw struggled with the dreadful vision the badger had summoned. He imagined Twoleg monsters—huge shining things in bright unnatural colors, roaring through his beloved camp. He could almost hear again the screams he had heard in the cave with teeth, though now they were the terrified cries of his Clan mates as they fled. Everything in him strained against what he had heard, yet he could not tell Midnight that he did not believe her. Every word she had spoken was filled with truth.
“How do you know all this?” Stormfur meowed quietly; there was no challenge in his voice, only a desperate need for an explanation.
“It happened to my sett, many seasons ago. I have seen all before; I can see what will come now. Just as the stars speak to you, they talk to me also. All that you need to know is written there. Is not hard to read, once you know.”
“No more Sunningrocks?” Squirrelpaw mewed in a small voice; she sounded as scared as a kit without its mother. “No more training hollow? No more Fourtrees?”
Midnight shook her head, her eyes tiny bright berries in the shadows.
“But why would the Twolegs do that?” Brambleclaw demanded. “What harm have we ever done them?”
“Is no harm,” Midnight replied. “Twolegs hardly know you there. They do it for build new Thunderpath—go here, there, more faster.”
“It won’t happen.” Crowpaw stood up with a fierce gleam in his eyes, as if he were ready to take on the whole race of Twolegs single-pawed. “StarClan won’t allow it.”
“StarClan cannot stop it.”
Crowpaw opened his mouth to protest again, but nothing came out. He looked utterly bewildered to think of a disaster that was beyond the power of StarClan to stop.
“Then why did they bring us here?” mewed a faint voice.
Tawnypelt had raised her head from her nest of ferns to fix her gaze on Midnight. “Are we supposed to go home and watch our Clans being destroyed?”
“No, indeed, injured warrior.” The badger’s voice was suddenly gentle. “For hope is given to you. Hope you shall bring.
You must lead your Clans away from the forest and find new home.”
“Just like that?” Crowpaw let out a snort of disgust. “I’m supposed to go to my Clan leader and say, ‘Sorry, Tallstar, we’ve all got to leave’? He would claw my ears off, if he didn’t die laughing first.”
Midnight’s reply rumbled from deep in her chest.
“When you reach home I think you will find that even your Clan leaders will listen.”
Terror seized Brambleclaw. What more had the badger seen in the stars? When they returned to the forest, would they find that the destruction had already begun?
He sprang to his paws. “We must go now!”
“No, no.” Midnight shook her head from side to side.
“Time is for rest tonight. Hunt in moonlight. Eat well. Let injured friend sleep. Tomorrow is better for travel.”
Brambleclaw glanced at his friends and nodded reluctantly. “That makes sense.”
“But you haven’t told us where to go,” Feathertail pointed out, her blue eyes full of trouble. “Where can we find another forest where all the Clans can live in peace?”
“Fear not. You will find, far from Twolegplaces, where is peace. Hills, oak woods for shelter, running streams.”
“But how?” Brambleclaw persisted. “Will you come with us and show us?”
“No,” Midnight rasped. “Much have I traveled, but no longer. Now enough is this cave, roar of sea, wind in grasses.
But you will not be without a guide. When return, stand on Great Rock when Silverpelt shines above. A dying warrior the way will show.”
Fear clutched harder at Brambleclaw. Midnight’s words sounded more like a threat than a promise. “One of us will die?” he whispered.
“I did not say. Do so, and you will see.”
Evidently the badger was not prepared to say more, if indeed she knew. Brambleclaw did not doubt her wisdom, but he realized that not everything had been revealed to her. His breath grew shaky as he caught a glimpse of other powers beyond StarClan—perhaps a power so great that the whole blaze of Silverpelt was no more than the dazzle of moonlight on water.
“Okay,” he meowed, letting out a long breath. “Thank you, Midnight. We’ll do as you say.”
“And now we’d better hunt,” added Stormfur.
Dipping his head in deep respect to the badger, he padded past her up the tunnel and out into the night. Crowpaw and Feathertail followed him.
“Squirrelpaw, you stay with Tawnypelt,” Brambleclaw mewed. “Rest and get your fur dry.”
To his surprise, Squirrelpaw agreed without question, even giving his ear a quick lick before settling down in the bracken beside his sister. Brambleclaw watched them for a moment, realizing how much they meant to him—even the pesky ginger apprentice whom he had tried so hard to leave behind.
Stormfur and Feathertail, too, were true friends, and even Crowpaw had become an ally he would want beside him in any battle.
“You were right,” he meowed thoughtfully to Midnight.
“We have become one.”
The badger nodded gravely. “In days to come, you need each other.” She pronounced the words with all the force of a prophecy from StarClan. “Your journey not end here, small warrior. It only just begin.”
Epilogue
The long grass beside the Thunderpath parted and Firestar prowled into the open, the weakening leaf-fall sun shining on his flame-colored pelt. Beside him Graystripe sniffed suspiciously at the air.
“Great StarClan, it smells foul today!” he exclaimed.
Cloudtail and Sandstorm padded up to join them, and Leafpaw, the last member of the patrol, turned away from the clump of marigold she was examining. Cloudtail let out a snort of disgust. “Every time I come up here, it takes me all day to get the reek out of my fur,” he complained.
Sandstorm rolled her eyes but said nothing.
“You know, there’s something strange about today,” Firestar meowed, glancing up and down the Thunderpath.
“There aren’t any monsters in sight, but the smell’s worse than ever.”
“And I can hear something,” Leafpaw added, her ears pricked.
The wind carried a deep-toned roaring sound toward the group of cats, faint with distance but growing gradually louder.