invite Feathertail to be his hunting partner? “No, I’m fine on my own,” Stormfur retorted, spinning round and plunging into the undergrowth, trying to pretend he hadn’t seen the hurt in his sister’s blue eyes.
But once he slipped beneath the lowest branches of the bushes his irritation faded. His ears pricked up and all his senses were alert in the hunt for prey.
Before long he spotted a mouse scrabbling among fallen leaves, and dispatched it with one swift blow. Satisfied, he scraped earth over the little brown body until he was ready to collect it, and looked around for more. Soon he added a squirrel and another mouse to his hoard—which was as much as he could carry—and set off for the meeting place.
On the way he began to wonder how Feathertail was getting along, asking himself if he should have stayed with her after all. He was not one of StarClan’s chosen cats; he had come on this mission especially to look after his sister. He had been wrong to abandon her in this strange place, just because Crowpaw had annoyed him. What would he do if something happened to her?
When he reached the camping place he saw Tawnypelt stretched out in the shade of a hawthorn bush, her tortoiseshell fur hardly visible in the dappled sunlight. Midnight was beside her, dozing, and there was more chewed-up burdock root laid on Tawnypelt’s injured shoulder. The badger must have found some growing by the stream. Brambleclaw was perched above Tawnypelt on a steeply arching tree root, obviously keeping watch, while Feathertail and Crowpaw shared a squirrel just below. As Stormfur dropped his catch on the small pile of fresh-kill in the center of the hollow, Squirrelpaw appeared at the top of the slope, dragging a rabbit, and Purdy followed with a couple of mice in his jaws.
“Good, we’re all here,” meowed Brambleclaw. “Let’s eat and then get moving.”
He leaped down into the hollow and chose a starling from the pile. Stormfur took one of his mice over to Feathertail, settling down next to her on the opposite side from Crowpaw.
“Good hunting?” he asked.
Feathertail blinked at him. “Brilliant, thanks. There’s so much prey here! It’s a pity we can’t stay longer.”
Stormfur was tempted to agree, but he knew that the danger to their home was too desperate for them to delay. He began to devour his mouse in famished gulps, his paws already itching for the next stage of their journey.
He had swallowed the last of the fresh-kill and was beginning to groom his thick grey pelt when he heard a low snarling behind him. He saw Brambleclaw raise his head, alarm flaring in his yellow eyes.
Stormfur whipped round to see what had spooked the ThunderClan warrior. A familiar smell hit his scent glands a heartbeat before two slender, tawny shapes emerged from the bracken beside the stream.
Foxes!
Leafpaw wrinkled her nose at the foul scent and tried not to hiss in disgust. Shaking her head, she parted Sorreltail’s tortoiseshell fur with one paw and dabbed the wad of bile-soaked moss on the tick clinging to her shoulder.
Sorreltail wriggled as she felt the bile soak through her fur. “That’s better!” she meowed. “Has it gone yet?”
Leafpaw opened her mouth and dropped the twig that held the moss. “Give it time.”
“There’s only one good thing about ticks,” Sorreltail mewed. “They hate mouse bile just as much as we do.” Springing to her paws, she gave herself a vigorous shake and flicked the tick off her shoulder. “There! Thanks, Leafpaw.”
A breeze rustled through the trees that surrounded the medicine cat’s den. A few leaves drifted down; there was a chill in the morning air that warned Leafpaw of how few moons there were before leaf-bare. This time there would be more than the cold and shortage of prey to face. Leafpaw closed her eyes and shuddered as she remembered what she had seen the day before on patrol with her father, Firestar.
The biggest monster the cats had ever seen had been forging a dreadful path through the forest, scoring deep ruts into the earth and tearing up trees by their roots. The huge, shiny monster had rolled inexorably through the bracken, roaring and belching smoke while the cats scattered helplessly before it. For the first time, Leafpaw began to understand the danger to the forest, which had been prophesied twice now, once in Brambleclaw’s dream that had sent him on the journey with Squirrelpaw, and once in Cinderpelt’s vision of fire and tiger. The doom that had been foretold was coming upon the forest, and Leafpaw did not know what any cat could do to stop it.
“Are you ok, Leafpaw?” meowed Sorreltail.
Leafpaw blinked. The vision of smoke, splintered trees, and shrieking cats faded away, to be replaced by soft green ferns and the smooth grey rock where Cinderpelt made her den. She was safe, ThunderClan was still here—but for how long? “Yes, I’m fine,” she replied. Firestar had ordered the patrol to keep quiet about what they had seen until he had decided how to break the news to the Clan. “I’ve got to go and wash this mouse bile off my paws.”
“I’ll come with you,” Sorreltail offered. “Then we could go along the ravine and pick up some fresh-kill.”
Leafpaw led the way into the main clearing. Whitepaw and Shrewpaw were scuffling outside the apprentices’ den in warm shafts of early morning sunlight, while Ferncloud’s three kits watched them with huge admiring eyes. Their mother sat at the entrance to the nursery, washing herself while keeping one eye on her litter. The dawn patrol—Dustpelt, Mousefur, and Spiderpaw—were just pushing their way into the clearing through the gorse tunnel, Dustpelt’s eyes narrowing with pleasure as he caught sight of Ferncloud and his kits. Leafpaw gazed at the busy, peaceful camp, and could hardly keep back a wail of despair.
As soon as the apprentices spotted Leafpaw, they stopped their practice fight and stared at her, then started whispering urgently together. Even the cats in the returning patrol gave her an uneasy look as they padded over to the fresh-kill pile. Leafpaw knew that rumours about yesterday’s patrol were starting to fly around the camp. At daybreak Firestar had called his deputy, Greystripe; Leafpaw’s mother, Sandstorm; and Cinderpelt into a meeting in his den, and every cat had begun to suspect that something unusual had happened the day before.
Before she and Sorreltail could reach the gorse tunnel, Firestar appeared from his den at the foot of the Highrock. Greystripe and Sandstorm followed him out into the clearing with Cinderpelt limping after them. Firestar leaped to the top of the rock, leaving the other three cats to find comfortable places to sit at its base. In the slanting leaf-fall sun, his flame-coloured pelt blazed like the fire that gave him his name.
“Let all those cats old enough to catch their own prey join here beneath the Highrock for a Clan meeting,” he called.
Leafpaw felt her belly lurch as Sorreltail nudged her gently towards the front of the gathering cats. “You know what he’s going to say, don’t you?” the tortoiseshell warrior murmured.
Leafpaw nodded bleakly.
“I knew something weird happened yesterday,” Sorreltail went on. “You all came back looking as if the whole of ShadowClan were clawing at your tails.”
“I wish it were just that,” Leafpaw muttered.
“Cats of ThunderClan,” Firestar began, then paused to take a deep breath. “I . . . I don’t know if any
