top of Cloudtail’s. And judging by the other rogues in here, she won’t be much help with planning a way to get out.
But as soon as the Twoleg left the nest she heard Mistyfoot exclaim in astonishment, “Sasha!”
Squirrelpaw raced ahead of Brambleclaw and Stormfur towards the ravine where the ThunderClan camp lay. The stench of Twoleg monsters hung in the air, and her heart grew as heavy as a stone when she heard a rumbling roar up ahead.
“They’re here already!” she whispered. There was an unfamiliar slash of brightness where a gap had appeared in the trees that bordered the ravine. Before, the forest had crowded right up to the edge of the steep slope that led down into the camp.
Squirrelpaw felt Brambleclaw’s pelt brush hers as he crept alongside and peered out from the trees. “Go carefully,” he murmured without looking at her.
A broad trail had been gouged through the forest. The ground, once hidden by ferns and smoothed by many moons’ pawsteps, was lumpy and muddy, churned up like the moorland. Their way to the ravine was blocked by monsters, roaring and growling as they chewed through more trees. Squirrelpaw shrank back under the bracken, flattening her ears.
“Midnight warned us it would be bad,” Brambleclaw reminded her. His voice was oddly calm, and Squirrelpaw pressed herself close to him, seeking comfort from the warmth of his fur. “We can’t cross here,” he went on. “It’s too dangerous. We’ll have to go around and approach the camp from the other side.”
“You lead the way,” Stormfur suggested. “You know the forest here better than I do.” He glanced at Squirrelpaw. “Are you OK?”
Squirrelpaw lifted her chin. “I’m fine. All I want to do is get back to the Clan.”
“Come on then,” mewed Brambleclaw, and he set off at a fast trot, away from the Twoleg devastation.
They turned away from the monsters and sped through the trees. As she raced towards the sandy clearing where she had trained with the other apprentices, Squirrelpaw wondered grimly how the Clan could have survived with the Twolegs and monsters so close. The sun was high in the sky, and the training hollow was crisscrossed with shafts of cold sunlight. She dug her paws into the soft ground and pushed on ahead of Brambleclaw and Stormfur, her chest tightening with fear as she tore along the trail that led to the gorse tunnel. Without hesitating, she ducked her head and raced into the thorns.
“Firestar!” she yowled as she exploded into the clearing.
It was completely empty. The whole camp was silent. No cat stirred, and the scent of the Clan was stale.
On trembling legs, Squirrelpaw padded to her father’s den underneath the tall grey rock where he normally stood to address the Clan. For one wild moment, she thought Firestar might still be there in spite of the danger that roared at the brink of the ravine. But his mossy bedding was damp and musty, unused for several days. Squirrelpaw slipped out of the cleft in the rock and found her way into the nursery. Kits and elders were always the last to leave the camp, and there was nowhere safer than in the heart of the bramble thicket that had protected many generations of ThunderClan cats.
There was nothing inside except the stench of a fox, almost hiding the faint scent of helpless kits and their mothers. Blind panic rose in her chest. There was a rustle of branches, and Brambleclaw appeared at her side.
“F-fox!” she stammered.
“It’s OK,” Brambleclaw reassured her. “The scent is stale. The fox must have been trying his luck, hoping the Clan had left unguarded kits behind. There’s no sign of bl—of a fight,” he amended hastily.
“But where has the Clan gone?” Squirrelpaw wailed. She knew Brambleclaw had been about to say blood. It seemed impossible that the whole Clan could have vanished without some blood being spilled. Oh, StarClan, what happened here?
Brambleclaw’s eyes glittered with fear. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But we’ll find them.”
Stormfur joined them. “Are we too late?” he whispered hoarsely.
“We should have come home quicker,” Squirrelpaw protested.
Stormfur shook his broad grey head as he looked around the abandoned nursery. “We should never have left in the first place,” he growled. “We should have stayed and helped our Clans!”
“We had to go!” Brambleclaw hissed, unsheathing his claws and sinking them into the moss. “It was StarClan’s will.”
“But where have our Clanmates gone?” Squirrelpaw cried. She pushed past the other cats back into the clearing. She heard them follow more slowly, Stormfur cursing under his breath as a bramble scraped against his flank.
The RiverClan warrior padded over to stand beside Squirrelpaw. He looked around the camp for a long moment, ignoring the scratch on his hind leg. “There’s no blood anywhere, no trace of a struggle,” he murmured.
Squirrelpaw followed his gaze and realised Stormfur was right. Even out here, the camp showed no signs that the Clan had been attacked. Surely that meant the Clan had been unharmed when they left? “They must have moved somewhere safer,” she meowed hopefully.
Brambleclaw nodded.
“We should keep looking for scents,” Stormfur suggested. “They might give us a clue to where the Clan has gone.”
“I’ll check Cinderpelt’s den,” Squirrelpaw offered. She charged down the fern tunnel that led to the medicine cat’s clearing, but the hollow amid the sheltering ferns was as empty and silent as the rest of the camp.
She skirted the edge, poking her nose into the bracken. Cinderpelt sometimes flattened out small nests here for sick cats, but there were no fresh scents now. She turned away and padded toward the split rock that formed one end of the clearing. This was where Cinderpelt made her own nest and kept her supplies of herbs safe and dry.
In the shadows, the pungent smell of roots and herbs was as strong as ever, but there was only the faintest trace of Cinderpelt’s scent, as stale as Firestar’s had been in his den.
Disappointed, Squirrelpaw backed out of the cleft and stared desperately around the clearing. A sudden, terrible realisation clutched at her belly: Cinderpelt’s scent was faint, but her sister’s scent was even fainter. Wherever ThunderClan had gone, Leafpaw had left before them.
A screeching warrior’s cry sounded from above, jerking her out of her thoughts. Squirrelpaw glimpsed a flurry of dark fur; then her legs buckled as a cat landed heavily on her back. Fury made her hair stand on end, and her paws scrabbled as she thrashed wildly. The journey to sun-drown-place had made her strong and lean, and she heard the cat gasp with the effort of clinging onto her pelt. Instinctively, Squirrelpaw rolled onto her side. She felt claws rake her flank as her assailant thudded to the ground.
Hissing with anger, Squirrelpaw spun to face her attacker, her hackles raised and her lips drawn back.
The other cat had scrambled up as well and was glaring at her with her tail fluffed up. “Trying to steal my supplies, were you?” she spat.
“Cinderpelt!”
