He wished he could feel the same certainty. All along he had clung to the belief that their troubles would be over when they reached their new territory. Now, daunted by the strangeness of everything around him, he could see they were only just beginning.
Squirrelpaw’s voice broke into his thoughts. “Dustpelt, do you want us to hunt for you?”
Her mentor flicked her ear with his tail. “No, we’ll all hunt later. Look at you; you’re asleep on your paws. Go with Brambleclaw and get some rest.”
“Okay.” Squirrelpaw’s jaws split into an enormous yawn.
“What about under that gorse bush?” Brambleclaw led the way to the spot he had pointed out a few tail-lengths up the slope, and crawled under the lowest boughs.
Squirrelpaw followed him and curled into a tight ball with her tail over her nose. “Good night,” she murmured indistinctly.
Brambleclaw scrabbled in the debris underneath the bush until he had made a comfortable nest. Curling up close to Squirrelpaw, he breathed in her warm, familiar scent. He was glad that they had not made a proper camp yet, where warriors and apprentices would have their separate dens. He would miss sleeping next to Squirrelpaw, he realized with the last flicker of conscious thought. Then sleep covered him like the lapping of a soft black wave.
Brambleclaw’s dreams were dark and confused. He was searching for something in the middle of a thick forest, but he could not remember what he was looking for, and every path he took ended abruptly in tangles of briar or impassable walls of thorn. In desperation, he tried to force his way through, but a branch poked him painfully in the side.
“Wake up, Brambleclaw! You’ve been asleep forever—what do you think you are, a hedgehog?”
Brambleclaw’s eyes flew open to see Squirrelpaw prodding him with her forepaw. Watery yellow daylight was seeping through the branches of the gorse bush.
“It’s morning,” Squirrelpaw went on. “Let’s go and see if we can hunt. If you can stop hibernating, that is.”
Blinking sleep from his eyes, Brambleclaw staggered to his paws, shook scraps of dead leaves from his pelt, and followed Squirrelpaw into the open.
The confusion of his dream slipped away when he remembered where he was. But it was replaced with a renewed feeling of anxiety as he looked at the landscape in daylight for the first time. He wondered if this vast, unfamiliar place would ever seem like home.
A cold breeze blew, ridging the surface of the lake and rattling through the reeds that edged the shore. The shining gray water stretched in front of Brambleclaw for almost as far as he could see; above the hills that rose on one side, a glow in the sky showed where the sun would shortly rise. Back the way they had come, the land sloped up more gently to bare moorland. The Twoleg fence stretched across it, and in the growing light Brambleclaw could just make out a couple of Twoleg nests in the distance. He let out a faint sound of approval; such small nests couldn’t hold many Twolegs, and being so far away they were unlikely to interfere with the Clans.
Farther around the lake, below the hills, was a smudge that looked like gray-green mist; Brambleclaw realized it was a mass of leafless branches, stretching along the shore and up to the crest of the ridge. His heart lifted to think that soon he could be underneath trees again, however strange they might be.
At the far end of the lake the gray smudge of trees darkened, and Brambleclaw guessed that they were pines, still green in the depths of leaf-bare. They covered the ground like a gently rippling pelt as the wind stirred them.
The glow on the horizon grew too bright to look at as the sun edged up; the last stars were fading, and the sky was a clear, pale blue.
“Time to hunt,” Brambleclaw meowed to Squirrelpaw, who was standing beside him.
He looked around for Firestar or one of the senior warriors, to find out if any patrols were being sent out. His leader was emerging from a nearby gorse thicket with Leopardstar, Blackstar, and Mudclaw. The leaders must have been holding a meeting, Brambleclaw guessed, and he felt a twinge of apprehension to see Mudclaw in Tallstar’s place, representing WindClan.
“I wonder if Tallstar went to join StarClan during the night,” he muttered, his belly clenching with grief at the thought.
Squirrelpaw shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she mewed. “Or they would have brought his body out so his Clan could pay their respects.”
Brambleclaw hoped she was right. Before he could say anything else, Firestar leaped onto the tree stump where the leaders had addressed the Clans yesterday. Blackstar jumped up beside him, and Mudclaw scrambled up on the other side.
There was barely room for all three cats to stand together on the flat top of the stump, so Leopardstar did not try to join them, but sat on a twisted root at the base.
“We’ll need a new place to hold Gatherings,” Squirrelpaw remarked.
Firestar’s yowl, calling the Clans together, interrupted her.
Stems of grass and fern parted, and the branches of bushes shook as the cats emerged from their sleeping places. They all looked thin and worn, easy prey for any hostile creatures the territory might conceal, and they glanced around nervously, as if they could feel hungry eyes burning into their pelts on every side.
Brambleclaw bounded down the slope toward the stump, with Squirrelpaw close behind. Halfway down he spotted Tallstar’s black-and-white shape curled in the grass where he had gone to sleep the night before. The WindClan medicine cat, Barkface, was sitting beside him, sniffing anxiously at his fur. Neither cat made any attempt to join the others gathered around the tree stump; it was obvious Tallstar wasn’t well enough to take part in the meeting.
“Cats of all Clans,” Firestar was announcing as Brambleclaw reached his Clanmates. “Today there are decisions to be made and tasks to be carried out—”
“Hunting patrols will go out right away,” Mudclaw interrupted, shouldering Firestar aside. “WindClan will take the hills and RiverClan can fish in the lake. ThunderClan_”
His Clanmate Onewhisker sprang to his paws with a hiss of anger. “Mudclaw, what are you doing, giving orders like this?” he growled. “The last time I looked, Tallstar was still leader of WindClan.”
“Not for much longer.”
Brambleclaw blinked in surprise at the deputy’s cold voice.
He hoped Tallstar hadn’t heard, and, craning his neck, he was relieved to see that the old cat was still asleep in his grassy nest with Barkface beside him.
“Some cat has to take charge,” Mudclaw went on. “Or do you want the other Clans to divide the territory among themselves and leave WindClan out?”
“As if we would!” Squirrelpaw mewed indignantly.
Onewhisker glared at Mudclaw, his fur bristling and his eyes blazing with fury. “Show a bit of respect!” he spat.
“Tallstar was the leader of our Clan when you were a kit mewling in the nursery.”
“I’m not a kit now,” Mudclaw retorted. “I’m the deputy.
And Tallstar hasn’t done much to lead us since we left the forest.”
“That’s enough.” Firestar silenced the WindClan deputy with a wave of his tail. “Onewhisker, I know you’re worried about Tallstar. Mudclaw is only doing his duty.”
“He needn’t act like he’s leader already,” Onewhisker growled. He sat down with a sharp glance from side to side, as if he were challenging any other cat to make a comment.
“Onewhisker has a fair point,” Firestar went on to Mudclaw. “It’s difficult for a deputy to stand in for their leader—difficult for the rest of the Clan as well as for the deputy.”
Mudclaw, who had raised his head arrogantly when Firestar seemed to be backing him up, looked furious. His jaws parted, but before he could speak he was forestalled by Blackstar.
“If WindClan has a problem over their leadership, let them discuss it in private. We’re wasting time.”