Firestar padded over to join Blackstar and Leopardstar, the leaders of ShadowClan and RiverClan. “I suggest we send a patrol ahead,” he meowed. “Just a couple of cats, to find out what it’s like down there.”
“Good idea—but we can’t just stand here and wait for them to return,” Leopardstar objected. “It’s much too exposed.”
Blackstar grunted in agreement. “If a fox came along now, it could pick off the weaker cats with no trouble at all.”
“But we need to rest.” Mudclaw of WindClan came up to join the discussion. His leader, Tallstar, lay on the ground a little way off, with the medicine cat Barkface crouching over him. “Tallstar can’t go much farther.”
“Then let’s send the patrol right away,” Firestar suggested, “and the rest of us will follow more slowly until we find somewhere more sheltered. Yes, Mudclaw,” he added, as the WindClan deputy opened his mouth to argue, “we’re all tired, but we’ll sleep more easily if we’re not stuck out on the open hillside like this.”
Blackstar called Russetfur over to him, while Leopardstar signaled with her tail for her deputy, Mistyfoot.
“I want you to go as far as the lake, then come straight back,” Leopardstar ordered. “Find out what you can, but be quick, and stay out of sight.”
The two cats flicked their ears, then whirled and raced away, loping along with their bellies close to the ground; within a couple of heartbeats they had vanished into the darkness.
Firestar watched them go before letting out a yowl to call the rest of the cats around him. Mudclaw went back to Tallstar and nudged the old leader to his paws. Their Clans clustered together behind the leaders of ThunderClan, RiverClan, and ShadowClan and began to follow them down the slope toward the lake.
“What’s the matter?” Squirrelpaw demanded, noticing that Brambleclaw wasn’t moving. “Why are you standing there like a frozen rabbit?”
“I want…” Brambleclaw glanced around and spotted his sister Tawnypelt padding past a little way off; he summoned her with a jerk of his head. “I want all of us to go down together,” he explained when the tortoiseshell she-cat joined them. “All the cats who made the first journey.”
Four cats remained from the six who had left the forest in search of a new home many moons ago. They had gained something very precious on that journey, as well as a safe place for their Clans to live: a strong bond of friendship had been forged between them, stronger than rock and deeper than the endless water that washed against the cliffs where Midnight the badger lived.
Now Brambleclaw wanted to travel with his friends one more time before their duties to their separate Clans forced them apart.
Tawnypelt let out a purr of approval. Meeting her green gaze, Brambleclaw knew that, like him, she understood they would soon be rivals again; that the next time they met could be in battle. The pain of parting swelled in his heart, and he pressed his muzzle to his sister’s, feeling her breath warm against his whiskers.
“Where’s Crowfeather?” she asked.
Brambleclaw looked up and spotted the young WindClan warrior a few tail-lengths away, anxiously pacing beside Tallstar. The WindClan leader looked so exhausted he could hardly put one paw in front of the other; his long tail dragged on the ground and he was leaning heavily on the brown tabby warrior Onewhisker. The WindClan medicine cat, Barkface, walked close behind, a worried look on his face.
“Hey, Crowfeather!” Squirrelpaw called.
The WindClan cat bounded across. “What do you want?”
Brambleclaw ignored his unwelcoming tone. Crowfeather’s tongue was sharp enough to slice your ears off, but if danger threatened he would fight to his last breath to defend his friends.
“Travel down to the lake with us,” he urged. “I want us to finish the journey how we started—together.”
Crowfeather bowed his head. “There’s no point,” he murmured. “We’ll never be together again. Stormfur lives in the mountains now, and Feathertail is dead.”
Brambleclaw ran his tail lightly over the young warrior’s shoulder. He shared his grief for the beautiful RiverClan cat who had sacrificed her life to save Crowfeather and the Tribe cats from the terrible lion-cat known as Sharptooth. Then Feathertail’s brother Stormfur had stayed with the Tribe of Rushing Water because of his love for the prey-hunter Brook. Brambleclaw missed him bitterly, but knew that pain was nothing compared to the agony Crowfeather felt over Feathertail’s death.
“Feathertail is with us now,” Squirrelpaw insisted, coming to join them. Her eyes shone with the strength of her belief.
“If you don’t know that, Crowfeather, you’re even more mousebrained than I thought. And we’ll see Stormfur again, I’m sure. We’re closer to the mountains here than we were in the forest.”
Crowfeather let out a long sigh. “Okay,” he meowed. “Let’s go.”
Most of the cats had gone past them already, moving cautiously across the unfamiliar territory, keeping close to each other as they had done throughout the long and dangerous journey to get here. A little way ahead, Brambleclaw saw Mothwing, the RiverClan medicine cat, walking beside a group of apprentices from all four Clans. On the far side of a patch of gorse, the ground fell away into a grassy hollow.
Tallpoppy, a ShadowClan queen, was struggling to guide her kits down the steep slope; Cloudtail and Brightheart from ThunderClan darted over to help, each picking up a kit in their jaws. Farther down the slope, Cedarheart, a gray ShadowClan tom, prowled along the edge of a thorn thicket, his gaze flicking back and forth as he kept watch for foxes and badgers that might be looking for easy prey.
If he had not known these cats all his life, Brambleclaw would not have been able to distinguish one Clan from another; they walked side by side, helping one another. He wondered grimly how long it would be before they were divided again, and how painful that separation would be.
At an impatient exclamation from Squirrelpaw—“Come on, Brambleclaw, or we’ll leave you to make a den for yourself here!”—he headed down the slope, pausing every so often to draw in the night air. The scent of cat was strongest, but beneath it he could detect the scents of mouse and vole and rabbit. He couldn’t remember when he had last eaten; surely the leaders would allow them to hunt soon?
He was imagining the delicious taste of fresh-kill when he was startled by a hiss from Tawnypelt, who was a couple of tail-lengths ahead of him. “Look at that,” spat the ShadowClan warrior, pointing with her tail.
Brambleclaw’s ears pricked when he saw the thin mesh of a Twoleg fence shining like a huge cobweb in the pale dawn light. Two or three of the other cats had paused to stare apprehensively at it as well.
“I knew we’d come across Twolegs sooner or later!”
Squirrelpaw meowed with a disgusted twitch of her tail.
Brambleclaw tasted the air again. He could pick up the scent of Twolegs, but it was faint and stale. There was another, less familiar scent too, and he had to think hard before he remembered what it was.
“Horses.” Crowfeather confirmed his guess. “There’s one over there.”
He gestured with his tail, and Brambleclaw noticed a large, dark shape standing under a clump of trees some way inside the fence. He thought there was another one beside it, though it was hard to tell in the shadows cast by the branches.
“What are horses?” Whitepaw mewed worriedly as she peered through the fence.
“Nothing to worry about,” Tornear from WindClan reassured her, touching the apprentice’s shoulder with the tip of his tail. “They used to run across our territory sometimes, with Twolegs on their backs.”
Whitetail blinked as if she couldn’t quite believe him.