by Erin Hunter
Leafpaw chewed the leaf and washed its green juice into Morningflower’s paw.
The old cat winced and Leafpaw drew back. “It’s OK,” Morningflower grunted. “Just a sting. Carry on.”
Mothwing bounded up, one forepaw swathed in sticky, white web.
“Great, thanks!” Carefully, Leafpaw teased the web from her outstretched paw and wrapped as much as she could around Morningflower’s swollen pad. “Let me know if it starts to throb.”
“I will.” Morningflower pressed her paw gingerly to the ground. “Not bad,” she mewed.
Brambleclaw hurried back to the head of the line, and the cats set off again. Squirrelpaw walked quietly beside Leafpaw, her head down.
“Is this the way you came home?” Leafpaw mewed after a while.
“I . . . I think so,” Squirrelpaw mumbled.
Leafpaw glanced at her in surprise. They had come this way because Tawnypelt said it would be easier to follow the route they’d used before. She had assumed Squirrelpaw knew the way. She peered ahead to where the valley narrowed until it was little more than a cleft between the rocks. “Doesn’t anything look familiar?”
Squirrelpaw blinked. “It looks different coming in this direction. The Tribe led us most of the way last time.”
Leafpaw gulped. She wondered if they would meet any of the Tribe cats on their journey, these mud-streaked cats who worshipped strange ancestors and survived in a world of rock and ice.
As the Clans trekked on, higher and higher, only Stormfur looked comfortable. He leaped from rock to rock so easily he seemed quite unlike a RiverClan cat, and even his fur blended smoothly into the bare grey world.
There seemed to be no end to the climbing, neither that day nor the next. The terrain grew steeper and rockier, but still the peaks towered above them. Morningflower’s paw had improved, and Leafpaw kept an eye out for more stocks of the herb she’d used to heal it.
“Are you sure we’re going the right way?” Sorreltail whispered. “This path is getting really narrow.”
She was right. The trail was leading them on to a ledge that spiralled around a dizzying gorge. The mountain fell away at one side of the path and rose up vertically on the other. The wind funnelled through the gap like water through a ditch, tugging at Leafpaw’s fur. She narrowed her eyes against the icy blast and kept her gaze fixed firmly ahead.
The cats fell into single file to pick their way along the ledge.
“Carry the kits!” Blackstar called down the line, and his yowl echoed eerily off the walls of the gorge.
The ledge followed the curve of the mountain, sloping up towards a narrow pass between two peaks. The mountain-side echoed with the rattle of stones as the edge of the path crumbled beneath the cats’ paws and sent grit showering down into the shadows below. Leafpaw walked as close as she could to the rock face, her heart hammering. She could feel Sorreltail’s warm breath behind her.
Suddenly a wail rang out from up ahead, and a large chunk of rock clattered endlessly down into the abyss. A hole yawned in the narrow path, sending Smokepaw, a ShadowClan apprentice, plummeting into nothingness. For a moment he clutched desperately at the ledge, his claws scratching against the stone. Russetfur, the ShadowClan deputy, lunged to grab him, but her extra weight only dislodged more stones, and the edge where Smokepaw clung suddenly dropped away. Russetfur leaped backwards, only just managing to save herself. The apprentice fell, twisting violently in the air, and disappeared into the darkness.
A ShadowClan queen leaned over the precipice. “Smokepaw!”
“Get back!” Stormfur yowled. He weaved like a fish back along the ledge and dragged her back.
As the cats stared in frozen horror, Leafpaw willed StarClan to take the apprentice quickly. Blackstar peered over the edge. “There’s nothing we can do,” he meowed, straightening up. “We have to keep going.”
“You’re going to leave him?” wailed the queen.
“He won’t have survived that fall,” Blackstar told. “And we can’t reach his body.” He touched the queen’s flank with his muzzle. “I’m sorry, Nightwing. ShadowClan won’t forget Smokepaw; I promise.”
Hollow-eyed with shock and grief, the cats set off once more, pressing so close to the cliff face that it scraped their fur. But Smokepaw’s fall had left a gap in the ledge. Fortunately Longtail was among the cats that had been ahead of the RiverClan apprentice—Leafpaw gulped at the thought of helping the sightless tom across a gap he had no way of measuring—but there were still several cats on the wrong side of the terrifying hole.
Stormfur crouched on the far side, bracing his claws against the rock. “Come on,” he called to Weaselpaw, a WindClan apprentice. “It’s safe on this side. You can jump it easily.”
Weaselpaw stared down at the shadows, his eyes stretched wide.
“The others will freeze waiting for you,” Stormfur growled, losing his patience. “Just jump!”
Weaselpaw looked up and blinked. He crouched, keeping his weight well back on his haunches, then leaped across with his front legs outstretched. Stormfur caught him by the scruff as he landed, grunting with the effort. He gave him a nudge up the path and turned to the next cat.
“My kits can’t jump that!” Tallpoppy shrank back.
“Can you pass them over?” Stormfur meowed.
Tallpoppy flattened her ears. “It’s too far!”
“I’ll take them.” Crowpaw squeezed carefully past Stormfur and jumped the gap to land in front of Tallpoppy. She stared at him, her eyes filled with fear. “I won’t drop them,” he promised. He picked up the smallest and padded to the edge of the hole. The kit struggled beneath his chin, its terrified mewls echoing around the chasm. Tallpoppy watched, huge-eyed, as Crowpaw jumped. Pebbles showered from the ledge as he landed beside Stormfur, but he kept his footing. Leafpaw was amazed by his agility.
“Make sure he stays put,” he meowed, placing the kit gently on the ledge. Then he turned and leaped back for the next.
When all three were safely over, Tallpoppy followed, clearing the gap easily with her long legs. “Thank you,” she breathed. She pressed her muzzle against each of her kits before nudging them gently onwards, up the slope.
“Let’s get the others across,” Crowpaw mewed to Stormfur. “You stay on this side; “I’ll go to the other.”
When it was Leafpaw’s turn, her paws trembled so hard that she was afraid they would shake her right over the edge.
“It’s OK,” Crowpaw murmured. “It’s not as hard as it looks.”
Leafpaw felt his warm breath on her fur and tried to concentrate on that instead of the gaping hole before her. She knew that back home, with nothing but the soft forest floor beneath her, she would leap this far without thinking. But here, the gap seemed to drag at her like a black river, pulling her down, down, down . . .
“Don’t think about it!” Stormfur called.
Leafpaw screwed up her eyes, feeling the lip of stone under her paws. StarClan, help me! She crouched down and sprang, landing in a skid that made her paws sting.
“Well done!” Stormfur yowled.
Leafpaw shuffled around and saw Sorreltail waiting to jump. She shrank back as Sorreltail hurtled towards her and skittered dangerously near the edge. Leafpaw lunged and grabbed her scruff.
“Thanks,” Sorreltail breathed shakily.
“That’s OK,” Leafpaw muttered through a mouthful of tortoiseshell fur.
“Hurry and catch up with the others,” Stormfur mewed. “We’ll make sure the rest get over in one piece.”
They padded gingerly up the slope. Tallpoppy had already disappeared through a narrow ravine, and Leafpaw followed her, eager to be away from the ledge. The ravine opened into a sloping valley that fell away towards another ridge. On one side, a great rock cliff soared towards the sky. On the other, a slope swept more gently upwards to where heather and grass fought for space among the jutting stones. The other cats hovered like shadows among the rocks. Cinderpelt was already weaving among them, che
cking that everyone was all right.
Leafpaw’s stomach growled. She hoped the hollows and crevices would conceal some small prey. The cats had hardly eaten since they had entered the mountains. The prey-rich fields of Twolegplace seemed a distant memory, and there didn’t seem to be enough food here to feed one Clan, let alone four.
“It looks like some of the cats are already hunting,” Sorreltail meowed. Tawnypelt was leading a small patrol up one side of the valley. Blackstar was heading for a rocky outcrop a little further down, flanked by a pair of ShadowClan warriors.
“Leafpaw! Sorreltail!”
Leafpaw heard her father calling and bounded down to him.
“Brambleclaw’s organising hunting patrols,” he meowed. “You two can join him.”
“Shouldn’t I help Cinderpelt?” Leafpaw asked.
Firestar glanced over to the grey medicine cat. “No cat is hurt, though a few are in shock. Cinderpelt told me she could manage.”
“OK,” Leafpaw mewed. She hurried to join Brambleclaw, with Sorreltail beside her.
“Is Birchkit OK?” Leafpaw paused as they passed Ferncloud.
“He’s fine,” Ferncloud assured her. She looked at the clouds. “But once the snow starts . . .”
Birchkit narrowed his eyes when he saw Leafpaw. “Why couldn’t Cody come with us?” he whined. “Did you tell her to go away?”
Leafpaw shook her head. “She has a home of her own,” she told him gently.
“But she was fun!”
“There’ll be plenty of time for fun when we get to our new home,” Ferncloud promised.
“If we ever get there,” Sorreltail muttered as they padded away.
“Of course we’ll get there,” Leafpaw told her, hoping she sounded as if she believed it.
Squirrelpaw looked up as they approached. “Brambleclaw’s explaining how the Tribe hunts,” she whispered. “We thought it might help.”
“Up here, you need to rely on stillness rather than stealth when you’re hunting,” Brambleclaw was meowing.
“But we’re not Tribe cats; we’re Clan cats!” argued Rainwhisker. “Why should we be expected to hunt like them?”
“This isn’t the forest,” Brambleclaw snapped. “Without the cover of undergrowth, prey will spot you in an instant. Here, you have to wait, and keep so still that you blend into the mountain. Then the prey will come to you.”
“What prey is going to be that stupid?” snorted Weaselpaw.
“That’s what the Tribe taught me!” Brambleclaw’s eyes flashed. “If you don’t want to starve, you’re going to have to learn to hunt like them!” He flicked his tail. “Spiderpaw, come with me. Squirrelpaw, you go with Rainwhisker, and you two”—he looked at Leafpaw and Sorreltail—“you two stick together.”
“Where shall we hunt?” Leafpaw looked around the valley, at its perilous ledges and shadowy crevices, and thought with a shudder of the giant cat that had killed Feathertail. “Will we be safe?”
“If you’re sensible, yes.” Brambleclaw pointed with his tail to a ledge jutting out above them. “Try up there first,” he suggested.
Sorreltail nodded and scrambled up the slope, sending a shower of dust and stones down on to the cats below. Leafpaw shook the grit from her fur and followed. Her tired legs ached, but she kept going till she reached the ledge. Sorreltail flicked her tail, signalling to her to be quiet, and Leafpaw smelled at once the familiar scent of mouse. She crouched beside Sorreltail to stare at a patch of coarse grass that sprang from a crack in the ledge. Stay still. She recalled Brambleclaw’s advice, but it was hard to wait patiently when she was this hungry.
When the grass began to tremble, Sorreltail pulled herself slowly forwards. Suddenly the grass shivered and the mouse darted out, heading for a crack in the rock. With a jolt of horror, Leafpaw watched Sorreltail leap after it and tumble straight over the edge.
Leafpaw’s mind filled with the memory of Smokepaw vanishing into the gorge, and she had to force herself to look down the side of the valley. To her relief, Sorreltail was very much alive, wailing in terror as she half fell, half skidded down the steep slope. She came to a bone-jarring halt against a stunted hawthorn bush that buckled and quivered under her weight, but stopped her from sliding any further.
“Sorreltail,” she called. “Are you OK?”
The ThunderClan warrior looked up at her, eyes huge with shock. “I’m OK,” she mewed. “Just grazed my paws.” She began to claw her way back up the slope.
Brambleclaw came dashing across the slope, alarmed by the shower of stones Sorreltail had dislodged. “What happened?”
“I slipped, that’s all,” Sorreltail told him, though her eyes still glittered with fear.
“You have to be careful!” Brambleclaw hissed. He stopped abruptly and stared past them.
“What is it?” Leafpaw spun around, her heart thudding. With a flood of relief she realised he had just spotted the mouse creeping out of the crack in the rock.
“Stay still,” Brambleclaw ordered in a whisper.
“But I could get it in one pounce,” Sorreltail breathed back.
“Wait,” Brambleclaw growled.
Leafpaw heard the faint beat of wings above her head. Looking up, she saw a huge bracken-coloured bird circling overhead. She gulped, wondering exactly what it had spotted as prey—the mouse, or them?
“If we’re lucky,” Brambleclaw murmured as the eagle folded its wings and swooped down towards them as swift and silent as a StarClan warrior, “it’ll go for that mouse and we’ll be able to take the Clan something big enough to share.”
“And if we’re not lucky?” muttered Sorreltail. Brambleclaw didn’t answer.
Above them, the eagle’s wings seemed to stretch wider than the river that had separated ThunderClan from RiverClan. Leafpaw fought against the urge to turn tail and run. Closer and closer the bird came, until she could see each feather on its massive wings, and its eyes gleaming like tiny black pebbles.
“Wait, wait,” Brambleclaw breathed through clenched teeth.
Just when Leafpaw could see the sinews on the bird’s yellow talons, it plummeted past them, ignoring the mouse and the three cats on the ledge. It was heading straight for the Clans in the valley below!
Brambleclaw sprang to the edge and peered over. “Look out!” he yowled.
The mass of golden-brown feathers seemed to explode among the cats, who screeched in terror as they raced in all directions. Only the warriors held their ground, leaping up on their hind legs and thrashing the air with unsheathed claws as the eagle climbed up once more, beating its powerful wings. As it began to rise into the sky, Leafpaw saw a small, struggling creature grasped in its long talons, and heard the pitiful mewls of a terrified kit. No!
“Marshkit!” Tallpoppy shrieked.
Suddenly Brackenfur sprang into the air as though lifted by the wind. With his outstretched claws he grasped the eagle’s talons a heartbeat before they rose out of reach. Yowling with rage, he clung on. The eagle screeched and shook the golden brown warrior off. Brackenfur collapsed onto the ground, but his attack had been enough to loosen the eagle’s grasp, and the kit plummeted down beside him.
Leafpaw hurled herself off the ledge, landed clumsily, and skidded down the valley. Stones tore at her claws as she slithered down. Brambleclaw and Sorreltail were scrambling behind her, zigzagging across the steep slope to stop themselves from falling headlong. But Leafpaw kept tumbling over and over. A bush broke her fall before she reached the bottom, its thin branches whipping her fur. It was enough to slow her down, and she managed to scrabble to her paws and dash across the valley floor.
“Check that Brackenfur’s OK!” Leafpaw ordered Sorreltail. “I’ll see to Marshkit.”
Tallpoppy was crouching over the scrap of fur that lay on the stony ground. Ferncloud pressed her flank against the ShadowClan queen, trying to soothe her but understanding her terror.
Leafpaw leaned over the kit and licked his chest. She could feel his flanks heaving an
d his tiny heart hammering in his chest. Blood welled on his shoulder, but the cut was not deep.
“He’ll be all right,” Leafpaw promised. “As long as we keep him warm, he’ll survive the shock.” She looked up and was relieved to see Cinderpelt limping towards her.
“Lick the wound as clean as you can,” Cinderpelt ordered. “We have precious few herbs to cure him if it gets infected.”
Leafpaw obeyed immediately, tasting the salty tang of the kit’s blood on her tongue.
Tallpoppy pulled her remaining kits close to her, shaking with fear. “Where have you brought us?” she yowled, looking around to find the cats who had led them into the mountain.
“I didn’t think an eagle would attack so many!” Squirrelpaw gasped as she bounded across the valley floor.
“Did you know this might happen?” Blackstar demanded furiously.
“We knew eagles preyed upon the Tribe, but they always fought them off,” Squirrelpaw mewed wretchedly.
“We are not the Tribe,” Blackstar hissed. “You should have warned us so that we could have found shelter.”
“What shelter?” Tallpoppy cried. “There’s nowhere to hide. There’s nowhere to hunt. We’re the prey here!”
“It’s true,” Dawnflower mewed, her voice rising in panic. “We’ll be picked off one by one.”
“Not if we stick together,” Dustpelt argued.
“Yes,” Russetfur agreed. “Next time, we’ll be more prepared.”
“If another bird attacks, we’ll drive it off before if gets close to the kits,” Hawkfrost promised.
“Ten Clans couldn’t drive off a bird like that!” Tallpoppy yowled.
“Maybe not,” Leopardstar meowed. “But any cat here would die trying, for the sake of our kits.” Her gaze flicked around the Clans, and mews of agreement rose from every warrior and apprentice.
Leafpaw blinked. There were no longer four Clans making this perilous journey. There was just one Clan, bound by fear and helplessness. She left Marshkit with Tallpoppy. Littlecloud was with them now.
“Is Brackenfur OK?” she called, padding to where Sorreltail was sitting beside the golden warrior.
