of this patrol.
Brambleclaw dipped his head in greeting. “Firestar sent us to make sure everything’s OK,” he mewed. “He asked us to check that Onewhisker had made his journey to the Moonpool.”
“Onestar,” Whitetail corrected him.
Squirrelflight’s belly lurched. Calling the Clan leader by his ordinary warrior name had been a really bad mistake, as if Brambleclaw didn’t expect him to have received his new name from StarClan.
“Sorry—Onestar.” Brambleclaw twitched one ear, but his voice remained steady. “That’s good news. Congratulate him for us, will you?”
Webfoot’s eyes narrowed. “Why did Firestar send you? Does he think StarClan wouldn’t give nine lives to Onestar?”
Squirrelflight’s eyes stretched wide. Had Webfoot forgotten that Onestar might have been crowfood by now if it wasn’t for Firestar and ThunderClan?
Brambleclaw blinked. “He just wanted to be sure.”
“Perhaps Firestar should concentrate on ThunderClan, and let WindClan get on with their own lives,” Webfoot suggested.
“Onestar wouldn’t be leader if it wasn’t for ThunderClan!” Squirrelflight pointed out hotly. “You know that as well as any cat, Webfoot. You and Mudclaw—” She broke off, choking on a mouthful of fur as Brambleclaw flicked his tail across her mouth.
Webfoot’s eyes burned. “I wasn’t the only cat to believe Mudclaw was our rightful leader,” he snarled. “But since StarClan killed him with the falling tree, and gave Onestar his nine lives and his name, I know that I was wrong.”
“If Onestar trusts him he’s got bees in his brain.” Squirrelflight dropped back to mutter in Ashfur’s ear. “If I was Onestar, I’d watch my tail.”
To her relief, she spotted Crowfeather appear over the rim of the hollow, dragging the rabbit’s body. Even though the WindClan warrior was as prickly as a holly bush, he wouldn’t be as cold and suspicious as Webfoot among his old friends.
“Hi, Crowfeather,” she meowed. “Good catch!”
To her surprise, the dark grey warrior gave her a curt nod and glanced away without saying anything. He kept his jaws clamped on his fresh-kill, his nostrils flaring.
“If that’s all,” Webfoot meowed, “you can all go home.”
“Don’t tell us what to do on our own territory!” Squirrelflight snapped.
“Leave it,” Brambleclaw warned in a low growl. Squirrelflight knew he was right—this was not the time to pick a fight, however hostile the WindClan cats were being.
Webfoot and the other WindClan warriors watched silently from their side of the stream as Brambleclaw turned and led his patrol back towards camp. Squirrelflight felt the WindClan cats’ gaze pricking her pelt all the way down the hill, and when she glanced back at the edge of the trees, the four cats were still there. She bounded forward, not stopping until she had put a thick bramble thicket between herself and WindClan.
“Thank StarClan!” She skidded to a halt in a clearing and shook herself as if she had just climbed out of icy water. “I don’t know what’s got into them.”
“Me neither,” Rainwhisker agreed.
“I would have thought it was obvious,” Brambleclaw meowed. “WindClan don’t want to be allied with ThunderClan anymore. Everything’s different now.”
“After all we did for them!” Squirrelflight’s frustration and anxiety spilled over into anger; she couldn’t believe Brambleclaw was accepting WindClan’s new hostility without question. “I was a whisker from clawing Webfoot’s ears off back there.”
“It’s a good thing you didn’t,” Brambleclaw pointed out dryly. “There’s more than one cat in ThunderClan who’d say that Firestar shouldn’t interfere in another Clan’s business.”
“Mouse dung! Does that mean you think Firestar should have done nothing, and just let Mudclaw take over?” Squirrelflight sprang forward, but before she could reach Brambleclaw, Ashfur pushed his way between them.
“There’s no need for this,” he meowed. “WindClan probably want to prove they’re strong again, now that they have their new leader. Give them time. They’ll calm down.”
Squirrelflight suspected the grey tomcat was right, but that didn’t mean she was willing to let Brambleclaw get away with insulting her father. She forced her neck fur to flatten again, but she still quivered with fury as they set off towards the ThunderClan camp.
“Firestar will always want to help Onestar.” She addressed the back of Brambleclaw’s head as he slipped through a patch of ferns ahead of her. “They’ve been friends forever.”
“Maybe, but Onestar clearly doesn’t need his help any more,” Brambleclaw mewed without looking back. The certainty in his tone infuriated Squirrelflight all over again. “It’s natural for Clans to be rivals. We were right to help WindClan when they were in trouble, but we can’t keep on looking out for them.”
“Stupid furball!” Squirrelflight growled, not loud enough for Brambleclaw to hear her. She hated the way the Clans had separated like flowing water into their new territories; what had happened to their closeness during the journey from the forest, when every cat had tried to help each other without stopping to remember which Clan they belonged to? It felt much too soon to turn their backs on that and let hostility and Clan rivalry take over. How would they survive in this new and unfamiliar place if they couldn’t rely on each other?
“And what will happen if ThunderClan need WindClan’s help?” Rainwhisker meowed ominously, as if he had followed Squirrelflight’s thoughts. “Have any of you thought of that?”
Brambleclaw led the patrol home by a different route, hunting on the way to take fresh-kill back for the Clan. Pausing underneath an oak tree, Squirrelflight once again picked up the scent of badger. It was stronger this time, and fresh; she guessed that it was not long since the creature had passed that way.
“Brambleclaw, do you smell that too?”
The tabby warrior padded up with a squirrel he had just caught. He put the fresh-kill down and swiped his tongue around his jaws before drawing in a stream of air. Alarm flared at once in his amber eyes. “Badger! Close by, too.”
Squirrelflight’s pelt prickled. A badger in their territory was the last thing any cat wanted. Hawkfrost had already driven one away from RiverClan, and it looked like ThunderClan had been lucky not to encounter one before now. “We’ll have to do something,” she mewed.
Brambleclaw nodded. A badger would make a tasty meal of a young kit if it had the chance. They were unlikely to prey on an adult cat, but that didn’t mean full-grown warriors were safe if they met one. A badger would kill out of pure savagery, trampling its prey into the ground or clamping it in its jaws and never letting go until its victim was dead.
Squirrelflight reminded herself that not all badgers were like that. Her first journey from the forest had led her to Midnight, the wise badger who lived at the sun-drown-place. Midnight had warned them that Twolegs would destroy the forest, and told them that the Clans would have to leave.
