“Come on,” he meowed. “It’s not so bad if you take a leap at it.”
Following the rising sun, he and the other cats had left the moorland behind and begun to climb. Now, as sunhigh approached on the second day of their homeward journey, the mountains they had seen from a distance stretched up in front of them even bigger than they had imagined, their sheer slopes black and forbidding, with wisps of cloud floating around their peaks. The soil beneath the cats’ paws was rough with pebbles, and little grew there except sparse grass and twisted thorn trees. There was no clear path; instead they followed winding narrow clefts and often had to turn back when they came up against rock walls with no way through.
Thinking wistfully of the river sliding through deep, cool grasses at home, Stormfur half wished they had decided to return through Twolegplace instead.
Squirrelpaw bunched her hind legs and launched herself in a massive leap, following Stormfur up the boulder that blocked their path. “Mouse dung!” she gasped as she missed the top and began to slide back. Stormfur leaned over and sank his teeth into her neck fur, steadying her until her scraping claws pro-pelled her up the last tail-length to sit beside him.
“Thanks!” Her green eyes glowed at him. “I know my name’s Squirrelpaw, but I never thought I’d wish that I was a squirrel!”
Stormfur let out a mrrow of laughter. “We’ll all wish we were squirrels if we get much more of this.”
“Hey!” Crowpaw’s voice rose aggressively from below.
“Stand back, will you? How can I get up there with you two furballs standing in the way?”
Stormfur and Squirrelpaw stepped back from the top of the boulder, and a moment later Crowpaw joined them, his long limbs managing the jump easily. Ignoring the others, he turned back to help Feathertail, who scrambled up with a muttered curse as one of her claws snagged on the rock.
Stormfur was worried that the rat bite in Tawnypelt’s shoulder would stop her from climbing the boulder, and wondered if they would have to try finding a way around it, but to his relief her leap brought her almost to the top, where Crowpaw grabbed her by the scruff and hauled her up.
Brambleclaw joined them last of all, shaking his ruffled tabby fur as he stood on top of the boulder and looked around. This close to sunhigh, there were few shadows to point them in the right direction and nothing but a sheer precipice in front of them, hiding what lay ahead.
“I suppose we go that way,” he meowed, flicking his tail toward a narrow ledge leading across the face of the rock.
“What do you think?” he asked Stormfur.
Stormfur felt his pelt prickle as he looked at the ledge. A few straggling bushes had rooted themselves in cracks, but apart from that the rock was bare and if they slipped there would be nothing to hold on to.
“We can try,” he mewed doubtfully, rather surprised that Brambleclaw had asked his opinion. “There’s nowhere else, unless we go back.”
Brambleclaw nodded. “Bring up the rear, will you?” he asked. “We don’t know what might be lurking around here, and we need a strong cat to watch our back.”
Stormfur murmured agreement, feeling a warm glow that spread from his ears to his tail-tip at the ThunderClan cat’s praise. Brambleclaw was neither his leader nor his mentor, but Stormfur couldn’t help feeling strong admiration for the young warrior’s courage and the way he had taken the lead on this difficult journey.
“I’ve changed my mind,” Squirrelpaw announced as Brambleclaw squeezed his way along the ledge. “I don’t want to be a squirrel anymore. I’d rather be a bird!”
Stormfur brought up the rear as Brambleclaw had asked, his ears pricked for danger while he tried to hide his nervousness about the sheer drop, which tugged at him like an invisible weight. He hugged the rock face, placing each paw carefully and using his tail for balance. After a little while the breeze grew stronger, and Stormfur’s mind filled with terrifying images of himself or one of his friends blown right off the ledge and down to the ground below.
After a short while the ledge curved around the rock face, out of sight. Before Stormfur reached the turn, Tawnypelt, who was just in front of him, stopped abruptly, and from farther ahead he heard Feathertail exclaim, “Oh, no!”
“What’s the matter?” Stormfur asked.
Tawnypelt edged forward more slowly, and Stormfur followed until he could see what was ahead. His belly lurched. A gap had opened up between their ledge and the rock face; the ledge became a spur of rock, jutting out from the side of the mountain and narrowing to a point. On both sides was a dizzying drop to a valley below where a mountain stream flowed, looking thin as a mousetail.
“Do you want to go back?” he called to Brambleclaw.
“Hang on a minute,” the ThunderClan warrior replied.
“There might be a way. Look over there.”
Stormfur looked where his tail was pointing: On the mountainside beyond the gap the rock face had broken away, and a narrow rift had opened up between two steep slopes.
Bushes were growing there and one or two small trees. A stream trickled down one side, overhung by grasses.
“The going looks easier there,” Feathertail meowed. “But can we get across?”
Squirrelpaw lifted her head and tasted the air. “I can smell rabbits,” she mewed longingly.
Stormfur measured the gap. It was wider than he liked, especially from a standing start. He thought he could manage it, but what about Tawnypelt? The ShadowClan warrior had started to limp again since they had started their climb, and even though she hadn’t said anything, it was obvious the wound hadn’t healed properly yet.
Before he could voice his doubts he heard Crowpaw mew, “What are we waiting for? Are we going to stand around here until we grow wings?”
Without any more hesitation the WindClan apprentice launched himself across the gap. For a heartbeat his gray-black body seemed to hang in the air; then he was across, landing lightly on the loose stones at the edge of the drop.
“Come on!” he called. “It’s easy.”
Catching Brambleclaw’s eye, Stormfur knew that the tabby warrior shared his annoyance that the apprentice hadn’t waited for the rest of them to agree. Now they all had to try the leap, whether they wanted to or not, because Crowpaw would never manage to jump back onto the narrow spur of rock, and they could not leave him on his own over there.
He was even less pleased when he saw Feathertail crouching at the edge of the rock with the wind buffeting her fur.
Crowpaw was waiting to steady her at the other side, and she waved her plumy tail with pleasure as she realized that she had made it safely.
The remaining cats bunched together on the rock.
Stormfur’s pelt pricked with fear as he felt the breeze grow stronger.
“Okay, who’s next?” Brambleclaw asked steadily.
“I’ll go,” Squirrelpaw meowed. “See you over there.”
She pushed herself off from the rock in a tremendous leap, landing a tail-length from the edge on the other side.
“She’s quite something,” Brambleclaw murmured, then looked confused, as if he hadn’t meant to speak his thoughts aloud.
“She certainly is,” Stormfur agreed.
“Tawnypelt, are you ready?” Brambleclaw asked, turning away. “Is your shoulder okay?”
“I’ll be fine,” Tawnypelt mewed grimly.
She measured the distance with a glance and then took off.
For one horrible instant, Stormfur thought she had jumped short. Her body slammed into the edge of the rock and her front paws scrabbled frantically for a grip among the loose stones. A heartbeat later Feathertail was on one side of her, and Squirrelpaw on the other, sinking their teeth into her neck fur and pulling her up the rest of the way.