must have heard her brushing through the bracken; he waited for her to catch up and slowed his pace to pad next to her. “The buds on the trees are swelling,” he remarked, flicking his tail towards the branches of an oak. “Not long now till newleaf.”
“I can’t wait,” Squirrelflight mewed. “No more ice and snow, lots more prey.”
“The Clan could do with some extra fresh-kill,” Ashfur agreed. “Talking of fresh-kill, how about we hunt? Do you think Brambleclaw would mind?”
“I don’t give a mousetail whether Brambleclaw minds or not,” Squirrelflight hissed.
She opened her jaws to taste the air. At first she thought she caught a trace of badger, and wondered if she should mention it to Brambleclaw—badgers were trouble, especially if their territory overlapped with a Clan’s. But he was the last cat in the forest she wanted to speak to right now, and she guessed he wouldn’t listen to anything she had to say anyway.
She tasted the air again; the scent of squirrel flooded over her, and when she spotted the bushy-tailed creature stooped busily over a nut a few fox-lengths ahead, she pushed the badger to the back of her mind. Checking the direction of the wind, she dropped into a hunter’s crouch and crept up on her prey. As she launched herself forward the squirrel leapt for a nearby tree trunk, but Squirrelflight sprang quickly. Her claws sank into its shoulder and she dispatched it with a swift bite to the neck.
A loud alarm call made her swing round to see a blackbird fluttering up from a clump of bracken while Ashfur watched it in frustration.
“Bad luck!” Squirrelflight called. “I probably startled it by going after the squirrel.”
Ashfur shook his head. “No, I stepped on a twig.”
“Never mind, you can come and share this.” Squirrelflight waved her tail invitingly. “There’s plenty.”
As Ashfur joined her beside the fresh-kill, Brambleclaw appeared from the undergrowth. “What are you doing?” he growled. “We’re on our way to see WindClan, or had you forgotten?”
Squirrelflight swallowed a mouthful of prey. “Come on, Brambleclaw—lighten up, for StarClan’s sake. None of us have eaten this morning.” Awkwardly, not sure how Brambleclaw would react if she tried to be friendly, she drew back from the squirrel. “You can have some if you want.”
“No thanks.” The tabby warrior’s voice was curt. “Where’s Rainwhisker?”
“He went on ahead,” meowed Ashfur, with a wave of his tail.
Without another word, Brambleclaw strode off in the direction the grey tom had indicated, shouldering through the long grass until his dark pelt was swallowed up by damp green fronds.
Squirrelflight let out a hiss of annoyance.
Ashfur flicked her ear lightly with the tip of his tail. “Don’t let him get to you so easily.”
“He doesn’t,” Squirrelflight muttered, trying to convince herself it was true. Once more she remembered how close she and Brambleclaw had been on their journeys, how they had relied on each other and come to need each other. How did we get from there to here? she wondered despairingly.
Glancing up at Ashfur, she saw that his eyes were dark with concern. She knew he wanted to be closer to her, more than just fellow warriors. It was tempting to tell him she felt the same way, but it was too soon for her to be sure her feelings were real. She needed to get over the quarrel with Brambleclaw first. And in the meantime we have a job to do, she reminded herself with a flash of impatience. You’re a warrior, not a moonstruck rabbit!
She and Ashfur finished the squirrel in a few swift bites and set out again towards the WindClan border. Soon they overtook Brambleclaw and Rainwhisker. Brambleclaw had brought down a starling and was tearing into it hungrily, while Rainwhisker was gulping down a vole. He glanced up as his Clanmates appeared.
“I thought you’d got lost,” he meowed.
Brambleclaw took his last mouthful of starling and rose to his paws. Without saying a word, he turned and stalked off. Squirrelflight exchanged a glance with Ashfur, shrugged, and followed.
The trees were thinning out when Squirrelflight began to hear the chattering of water over stones. The patrol emerged at the top of a slope that led down to the stream bordering WindClan. Gusts of WindClan scent drifted across on the breeze, but there was no sign of any cats.
“We must have just missed a patrol,” Ashfur meowed quietly. “Those scent marks are fresh.”
That was a good sign, Squirrelflight thought. If WindClan were organised enough to be patrolling their boundaries, they must be on their way to recovering from Mudclaw’s rebellion. Did that mean Onewhisker had been able to travel to the Moonpool to receive his nine lives and his leader’s name from StarClan?
“Let’s head for the stepping stones,” Brambleclaw suggested. “We might catch up to them.”
He bounded down the slope and headed upstream with the rest of the patrol hard on his paws. The trees soon gave way to open moorland; Squirrelflight turned her head to look at the grey sweep of leafless branches below her. Beyond them, the lake reflected the pale blue sky, where the sun had nearly reached its peak.
The stream tumbled more steeply here, between banks fringed by sedge and reeds. Water foamed around stepping stones that formed a path to the moorland on the other side, easy for a cat to leap, even when the stream was full.
Wind gusted into Squirrelflight’s face, buffeting her fur and making her eyes water. “I don’t know how WindClan puts up with it,” she grumbled to Ashfur. “There isn’t a tree in sight!”
Ashfur let out a small mrrow of amusement. “They probably wonder how ThunderClan puts up with all those branches blocking out the sky.”
“Ask me that when it rains,” Squirrelflight muttered.
A flash of pale brown caught her eye: a rabbit fleeing over the crest of the hill. Squirrelflight’s paws itched to dash after it, but it was well inside WindClan’s territory. Heartbeats later a lean, grey-black cat appeared, racing after the rabbit with his belly brushing the turf. Blinking to clear her watering eyes, Squirrelflight recognised Crowfeather. Like Brambleclaw, he had been one of the cats chosen by StarClan to make the journey to the sun-drown-place.
Hunter and prey disappeared into a hollow and a high-pitched squeal, quickly cut off, told Squirrelflight that the WindClan warrior had made his kill.
“Hunting patrol,” meowed Rainwhisker, nodding to the top of the hill.
Two more WindClan cats followed Crowfeather more slowly over the crest. Squirrelflight made out the dark grey tabby pelt of Webfoot; the smaller cat behind him was his apprentice, Weaselpaw. A third cat, Whitetail, joined them as they stood looking down at the ThunderClan patrol.
Brambleclaw called out, “We’ve brought a message from Firestar!”
Webfoot and Whitetail exchanged a glance, then Webfoot led the way down the slope until all three cats stood on the opposite side of the stream.
“What message?” Webfoot demanded.
Squirrelflight
