MIDNIGHT

“You’d better go back to camp right away,” Thornclaw decided.

Anger flared up in Squirrelpaw’s eyes, and she took a step forward that brought her nose-to-nose with Thornclaw. “You’re not my mentor, so don’t order me around!”

Thornclaw’s nostrils flared minutely as he let out a patient sigh, and Brambleclaw admired his self-control. If Squirrel paw had spoken to him like that, he would have been tempted to rake his claws over her ear.

Even Squirrelpaw seemed to realise she had gone too far. “I’m sorry, Thornclaw,” she meowed. “But it’s true I haven’t been on patrol for days. Please can I come?”

Thornclaw exchanged a glance with Ashfur and Bramble claw. “All right,” he mewed. “But don’t blame me if Dustpelt turns you into crowfood when we get back.”

Squirrelpaw gave a little skip of excitement. “Thank you, Thornclaw! Where are we going? Are we looking for anything special? Is there going to be trouble?”

Thornclaw swished his tail across her mouth to silence her. “Snakerocks,” he replied. “And it’s up to us to make sure there won’t be trouble.”

“Watch out for adders, though,” Brambleclaw added.

“I know that!” Squirrelpaw flashed back at him.

“And we do it quietly,” Thornclaw ordered her. “I don’t want to hear another squeak out of you unless there’s something I need to know.”

Squirrelpaw opened her mouth to reply, then took in what he had said and nodded vigorously.

The patrol set off again. Brambleclaw had to admit that now she had gotten her own way, Squirrelpaw was behaving sensibly, slipping quietly along behind the leader and staying alert for every sound and movement in the undergrowth.

The sun was well risen by the time the four cats emerged from the trees and saw the smooth, rounded shapes of Snakerocks in front of them. A dark hole gaped at the foot of one of them; it was the cave where the dog pack had hidden. Brambleclaw shuddered, remembering that Tigerstar, his own father, had tried to lead the savage animals to the Thunder Clan camp in deadly revenge against his former Clan mates.

Squirrelpaw noticed his expression. “Scared of adders?” she taunted him.

“Yes,” Brambleclaw replied. “And so should you be.”

“Whatever.” She shrugged. “They’re probably more scared of us.”

Before Brambleclaw could stop her, she bounded forward into the clearing, obviously meaning to poke her nose into the hole.

“Stop!” Thornclaw’s voice brought her skidding to a halt. “Hasn’t Dustpelt told you that we don’t go dashing in anywhere before we’re sure of what we’re going to find?”

Squirrelpaw looked embarrassed. “Of course he has.”

“Well, then, act like you might have listened to him once or twice.” Thornclaw padded up beside the apprentice. “Have a good sniff,” he suggested. “See if you can scent anything.”

The young she-cat stood with her head raised, drawing the morning air into her mouth. “Mouse,” she meowed brightly after a moment. “Can we hunt, Thornclaw?”

“Later,” the warrior replied. “Now concentrate.”

Squirrelpaw tasted the air again. “The Thunderpath, just over there”—she waved her tail—“and a Twoleg with a dog. But that’s stale,” she added. “I’d guess they were here yesterday.”

“Very good.” Thornclaw sounded impressed, and Squirrel paw curled her tail up in delight.

“There’s something else,” she went on. “A horrible scent . . . I don’t think I’ve smelled it before.”

Brambleclaw raised his head and sniffed. He quickly identified the scents Squirrelpaw had mentioned, and the new, unfamiliar one. “Badger,” he meowed.

Thornclaw nodded. “That’s right. It looks as if it’s moved into the cave where the dogs were.”

Ashfur groaned. “Just our luck!”

“Why?” Squirrelpaw asked. “What are badgers like? Are they a problem?”

“Are they ever!” Brambleclaw growled. “They’re no good to any cat, and they’d kill you as soon as look at you.”

Squirrelpaw’s eyes widened, though she looked more impressed than frightened.

Ashfur cautiously approached the dark cave mouth, sniffed, and peered inside. “It’s dark as a fox’s heart in there,” he reported, “but I don’t think the badger is at home.”

While he was speaking Brambleclaw suddenly caught the scent again, much stronger this time, washing over him from somewhere behind them. He leaped around to see a pointed, striped face appear from behind the trunk of a nearby tree, its huge pads crushing the grass, its muzzle snuffling along the ground.

“Look out!” he yowled, every hair on his pelt bristling in fear. He had never been this close to a badger before. Whirling around, he dashed out into the clearing. “Squirrelpaw, run!”

As soon as Brambleclaw gave the alarm, Ashfur dived into the undergrowth, while Thornclaw bounded toward the safety of the trees. But Squirrelpaw stayed where she was, her gaze fixed on the huge creature.

“This way, Squirrelpaw!” Thornclaw called, starting to come back.

The apprentice still hesitated; Brambleclaw barrelled into her, thrusting her toward the trees. “I said run!”

Her green eyes, blazing with fear and excitement, met his for a heartbeat. The badger was lumbering forward, its small eyes glittering as it scented cats intruding onto its territory. Squirrelpaw pelted toward the edge of the clearing and launched herself up the nearest tree. Reaching a low branch she dug in her claws and crouched there, her ginger fur fluffed out.

Brambleclaw clawed his way up beside her. Down below the badger was blundering back and forth, as if it could not tell where the cats had gone. Its black-and-white head swung threateningly from side to side. Brambleclaw knew that it could not see very well; usually badgers only came out after dark, and this one would be on its way back to the cave after a night’s feeding on worms and grubs.

“Would it eat us?” Squirrelpaw asked breathlessly.

“No,” Brambleclaw replied, trying to slow his pounding heart. “Even a fox kills to eat, but a badger will kill you just for getting in its way. We’re not prey to them, but they won’t tolerate any trespassers on their territory. Why did you hang about down there instead of running like we told you?”

“I’ve never seen a badger before, and I wanted to. Dustpelt says we should get all the experience we can.”

“Does that include the experience of having your fur ripped off?” Brambleclaw asked dryly, but for once Squirrel paw didn’t reply.

While he was speaking Brambleclaw hadn’t taken his eyes off the creature below. He breathed a sigh of relief as it gave up the search and padded over to the cave mouth, where it squeezed itself inside and was gone.

Thornclaw leaped down from the tree where he had taken refuge. “That was closer than I’d like,” he meowed as Brambleclaw and Squirrelpaw scrambled down to join him. “Where’s Ashfur?”

“Here.” Ashfur’s pale grey head popped out of a tangle of briars. “Do you think that badger is the same one that killed Willowpelt last leaf-bare?”

“Maybe,” Thornclaw replied. “Cloudtail and Mousefur drove it away from the camp, but we never found out where it went.”

A pang of sadness went through Brambleclaw as he remembered the silver-grey she-cat. Willowpelt was the mother of Sorreltail, Sootfur, and Rainwhisker, but she had not lived to see her kits become warriors.

“So what are we going to do about it?” Squirrelpaw asked eagerly. “Shall we go in there and kill it? There are four of us, and only one badger. How hard could it be?”

Brambleclaw winced, while Thornclaw closed his eyes and waited a moment before speaking. “Squirrelpaw, you never go into a badger’s den. Or a fox’s, for that matter. They’ll attack right away, there isn’t enough room to manoeuvre, and you can’t see what you’re doing.”

“But—”

“No. We’ll head back to camp and report it. Firestar will decide what to do.”

Without waiting for Squirrelpaw to argue any more, he set off in the direction they had come. Ashfur fell in behind him, but Squirrelpaw paused at the edge of the clearing. “We could have dealt with it,” she grumbled, glancing back longingly at the dark mouth of the cave. “I could have lured it out, and then—”

“And then it would have killed you with one swipe of its paw, and we’d still have to go back and report it,” Brambleclaw meowed discouragingly. “What do you think we would have said? ‘Sorry, Firestar, but we accidentally let a badger get your daughter’? He would have our fur off. Badgers are bad news, and that’s that.”

“Well, you wouldn’t catch Firestar leaving a badger in ThunderClan territory without doing anything.” Squirrel paw swung her tail up defiantly and plunged into the undergrowth to catch up with Thornclaw and Ashfur.

Brambleclaw raised his eyes, murmured, “Great StarClan!” and followed.

When he emerged from the gorse tunnel into the clearing, the first cat he saw was Dustpelt. The brown tabby warrior was pacing up and down outside the apprentices’ den, his tail lashing from side to side. Two of the other apprentices, Spiderpaw and Whitepaw, were crouched in the shade of the ferns, watching him apprehensively.

As soon as Dustpelt spotted Squirrelpaw, he marched across the clearing towards her.

“Uh-oh,” Squirrelpaw muttered.

“Well?” the tabby warrior’s voice was icy. Brambleclaw winced, knowing how short-tempered he was; the only cat who had never felt the rough side of his tongue was Ferncloud. “What have you got to say for yourself?”

Squirrelpaw met his glare bravely, but there was a quaver in her voice as she replied, “I went on patrol, Dustpelt.”

“Oh, on patrol! I see. And which cat ordered you to go? Greystripe? Firestar?”

“No cat ordered me. But I thought—”

“No, you didn’t think.” Dustpelt’s voice was scathing. “I told you we would train today. Mousefur and Brackenfur took their apprentices to the training hollow to practise their fighting moves. We could have gone with them, but we didn’t, because you weren’t here. Do you realise that every cat has been searching the camp for you?”

Squirrelpaw shook her head, scuffling the ground with her front paws.

“When no cat could find you, Firestar took out a patrol to try following your scent. Did you see anything of him?”

Another shake of the head. Brambleclaw realised that following a scent in the heavy dew that morning would have been next to impossible.

“Your Clan leader has better things to do than chase after apprentices who can’t do as they’re told,” Dustpelt went on. “Thornclaw, why did you let her go with you?”

“I’m sorry, Dustpelt,” Thornclaw apologised. “I thought she’d be safer with us than wandering around the forest by herself.”

Dustpelt snorted. “That’s true.”

“We could still go and do the training,” Squirrelpaw suggested.

“Oh, no. No more training for you until you learn what being an apprentice really means.” Dustpelt paused for a heartbeat. “You can spend the rest of the day looking after the elders. Make sure they have enough fresh-kill. Change their bedding. Go over their pelts for ticks.” He blinked. “I’m sure Cinderpelt has plenty of mouse bile for you.”

Squirrelpaw’s eyes flew wide in dismay. “Oh, yuck!”

“Well, what are you waiting for?”

The young apprentice stared at him for a moment longer, as if she couldn’t believe he really meant it. When there was no change in her mentor’s hard stare, she whisked around and flounced across the clearing toward the elders’ den.

“If Firestar’s out looking for Squirrelpaw, we’ll have to wait for him to get back before we can report the badger,” Thornclaw observed.

“Badger? What badger?” asked Dustpelt.

While Thornclaw and Ashfur began to describe what they had seen at Snakerocks, Brambleclaw bounded across the clearing and caught up with Squirrelpaw just outside the elders’ den.

“What do you want?” she spat.

“Don’t be angry,” Brambleclaw mewed. He couldn’t help feeling sorry for her, even though she had deserved some sort of punishment for leaving the camp without any cat knowing where she was going. “I’ll help you with the elders, if you like.”

Squirrelpaw opened her mouth as if she were about to make a rude retort, and then clearly thought better of it. “OK, thanks,” she muttered ungraciously.

“You go and get the mouse bile, and I’ll make a start on the bedding.”

Squirrelpaw’s eyes opened wide in a winning expression. “You wouldn’t rather get the mouse bile, would you?”

“No, I wouldn’t. Dustpelt especially told you to do that. Don’t you think he’ll check?”

Squirrelpaw shrugged. “No harm in trying.” With a flick of her tail, she stalked off to find Cinderpelt.

Brambleclaw headed for the elders’ den, which was in a patch of grass sheltered by a fallen tree. The tree was a burned-out shell; Brambleclaw could still scent the acrid tang from the fire that had swept through the camp more than four seasons ago, when he was only a kit. But the grass had grown up again around the tree trunk, thick and luxuriant, making a comfortable home for the elderly cats whose service to the Clan was done.

When he pushed his way through the grasses he found the elders sunning themselves in the small, flattened clearing. Dappletail, the oldest cat in ThunderClan, was curled up asleep, her patchy tortoiseshell pelt rising and falling with each breath. Frostfur, a still beautiful white queen, was dabbing lazily at a beetle in the grass. Speckletail and Longtail were crouched together as if they were in the middle of a good gossip. Brambleclaw felt the familiar jolt of sympathy when he looked at Longtail; the pale tabby tom was still a young warrior, but his eyesight had begun to fail so that he could no longer fight or hunt for himself.

“Hi, there, Brambleclaw.” Longtail’s head swung around as Brambleclaw entered the clearing, his jaws parted to take in the newcomer’s scent. “What can we do for you?”

“I’ve come to help Squirrelpaw,” Brambleclaw explained. “Dustpelt sent her to look after you today.”

Speckletail broke into rasping laughter. “I heard she went missing. The whole camp was in an uproar, looking for her. But I knew she’d just have gone off by herself.”

“She tagged onto the dawn patrol,” Brambleclaw meowed.

Before he could say any more, there was the sound of another cat pushing through the grasses, and Squirrelpaw appeared. She had a twig clamped in her jaws; hanging from it was a ball of moss soaked in mouse bile. Brambleclaw wrinkled his nose at the bitter scent.

“Right, who’s got ticks?” Squirrelpaw mumbled around the twig.

“You’re supposed to look for them yourself,” Brambleclaw pointed out.

Squirrelpaw shot him a glare.

“You can start with me,” Frostfur offered. “I’m sure there’s one on my shoulder, just where I can’t get at it.”

Squirrelpaw padded over to the she-cat, parting her white fur with a forepaw and grunting when she discovered the tick. She dabbed at it with the damp moss until it dropped off; ticks obviously found mouse bile as disgusting as cats did, thought Brambleclaw.

“Don’t worry, youngster,” Speckletail mewed as Squirrel paw went on searching Frostfur’s pelt. “Your father was punished many a time when he was an apprentice. Even after he became a warrior. I never knew such a cat for getting into trouble, and look at him now!”

Squirrelpaw swung around to look at the elder, her green eyes sparkling, obviously begging for a tale.

“Well, now.” Speckletail settled herself more comfortably in her grassy nest. “There was the time when Firestar and Greystripe were caught feeding RiverClan with prey from our own territory. . . .”

Brambleclaw had heard the story before, so he began to collect the elders’ used bedding, rolling the moss together until he had gathered it up in a ball. When he took it out into the clearing he spotted Firestar emerging from the gorse tunnel, with Sandstorm and Cloudtail behind him. Thornclaw was hurrying across to meet them from the other side of the clearing.

“Thank StarClan Squirrelpaw’s safe,” Firestar was mewing as Brambleclaw came into earshot. “One of these days she’ll get into real trouble.”

“She’s in real trouble now,” Sandstorm growled. “Just wait till I get my paws on her!”

“Dustpelt already did.” Thornclaw gave a mrrow of amusement. “He sent her to help the elders for the rest of the day.”

Firestar nodded. “Good.”

“And there’s something else,” Thornclaw went on. “We found a badger up at Snakerocks, living in the cave where the dogs used to be.”

“We think it might be the one that killed Willowpelt,” Brambleclaw put in, setting his ball of moss down. “We’ve not seen any trace of a badger anywhere else in the forest.”

Cloudtail let out a growl. “Oh, I hope it is. I’d give anything to get my claws on that brute.”

Firestar swung around to face him. “You’ll do nothing of the kind without orders. I don’t want to lose more cats.” He paused for a moment, then added, “We’ll keep watch on it for a while. Pass the word around not to hunt at Snakerocks for the time being. With any luck, it will move on before leaf-bare, when prey gets scarce.”

“And hedgehogs might fly,” Cloudtail grumbled, stalking past Brambleclaw toward the warriors’ den. “Badgers and cats don’t mix, and that’s the end of it.”

CHAPTER 3

“Squirrelpaw is upset,” Leafpaw remarked, watching her sister leave the medicine cat’s clearing with the twig of mouse bile clenched in her jaws.

“She deserves to be.” Cinderpelt glanced up from counting juniper berries. She spoke firmly, though not unsympathetically. “If apprentices think they can go off by themselves, without telling any cat, then where would we be?”

“I know.” While Leafpaw prepared the mouse bile, she had listened to her sister raging about how unfair the punishment was. Squirrelpaw’s anger churned deep within Leafpaw’s belly, as if the air in the camp were water and her sister was sending ripples of cold frustration into the medicine cat’s den. Ever since they were tiny kits they had always known what the other was feeling. Leafpaw remembered how her fur had tingled with excitement when Squirrelpaw was made apprentice, and how her sister had been unable to sleep on the night when Leafpaw had been apprenticed as a medicine cat at the Moonstone. Once she had felt an excruciating pain in her paw, and limped around the camp from sunhigh to sunset, until Squirrelpaw returned from a hunting patrol with a thorn driven deep into her pad.

Leafpaw shook her head as if she had a burr clinging to her pelt, trying to push away her sister’s emotions and concentrate on her task of sorting yarrow leaves.

“Squirrelpaw will be fine,” Cinderpelt reassured her. “It’ll all be forgotten tomorrow. Now, did you get any of that mouse bile on your fur? If you did, you’d better go and wash it off.”

“No, Cinderpelt, I’m fine.” Leafpaw knew her voice was filled with the strain she was feeling, however hard she tried to hide it.

“Cheer up.” Cinderpelt limped out of her den to join her apprentice, pressing her muzzle comfortingly against Leafpaw’s side. “Do you want to come to the Gathering tonight?”

“May I?” Leafpaw spun to face her mentor. Then she hesitated. “Squirrelpaw won’t be allowed to come, will she?”

“After today? Certainly not!” Cinderpelt’s blue eyes glowed with understanding. “Leafpaw, you and your sister aren’t kits anymore. And you have chosen a very different path from hers, to be a medicine cat. You will always be friends, but you can’t do everything together, and the sooner you both accept that, the better.”

Leafpaw nodded and bent over the yarrow leaves again. She struggled to calm her feelings of excitement over the Gathering, so that Squirrelpaw would not feel even more upset over being left out. Cinderpelt was right, but all the same she couldn’t help wishing that she and Squirrelpaw had been able to attend the Gathering together.

The full moon rode high in the sky as Firestar led the cats from ThunderClan up the slope toward Fourtrees. Padding along beside Cinderpelt, Leafpaw shivered with anticipation. This was the place where the territories of all four Clans joined together. At every full moon, the Clan leaders met here with their warriors under the sacred truce of StarClan to exchange news and make decisions that would affect the whole forest.

Firestar paused at the top of the slope and gazed down into the clearing. Leafpaw, near the back of the group, could only just see the tops of the four great oak trees that gave the clearing its name, but she could hear the sounds of many cats, and the breeze brought to her the mingled scents of ShadowClan, RiverClan, and WindClan.

Before her first Gathering, the only other cats Leafpaw had met were the three medicine cats from the other Clans, when she made her journey to Highstones at the half moon to be formally apprenticed. When she had attended a Gathering for the first time, she and Squirrelpaw had been overwhelmed by all the strangers, and had stayed close to their mentors. But this time Leafpaw felt more confident, and she was looking forward to meeting warriors and apprentices from other Clans.

Crouching in the undergrowth, she watched her father for the signal to move down into the clearing. Brambleclaw was standing just in front of her with Mousefur and Sorreltail. Leafpaw could see from the tautness in the young tabby’s muscles that he was eagerly waiting for the Gathering to start, while Sorreltail’s whole body quivered with excitement at the prospect of her first Gathering as a warrior. Further ahead, Greystripe and Sandstorm were exchanging a few words, while Cloudtail shifted impatiently from paw to paw. Briefly Leafpaw felt a pang of sadness that Squirrelpaw was not there as well, but to her relief her sister had not minded too much about being left behind, saying that she was looking forward to a good night’s sleep after caring for the elders all day.

At last Firestar raised his tail as the sign for his cats to move forward. Leafpaw sprang over the edge of the hollow and found herself racing down the slope just behind Brambleclaw, weaving her way through the bushes until she came out into the clearing.

The shimmering moonlight revealed a mass of cats, some already seated around the Great Rock in the centre, others trotting across the clearing to greet cats they had not seen for a moon, or lying in the shelter of the bushes to gossip and share tongues. Brambleclaw slipped into the throng right away, and Cinderpelt went over to speak to Littlecloud, the ShadowClan medicine cat. Leafpaw hesitated, still a little daunted by the number of warriors in front of her, the unfamiliar scents, and the glowing of so many eyes that all seemed to be trained on her.

Then she caught sight of Greystripe with a group of cats who all had the scent of RiverClan. Leafpaw recognised a warrior with dense blue-grey fur whom they had met at the last Gathering, and remembered her name: Mistyfoot, the RiverClan deputy. The two younger warriors were strangers to her, but Greystripe greeted them affectionately, pressing his muzzle against theirs.

Leafpaw was just wondering if she would be welcome to go and talk to them when Mistyfoot caught her eye and beckoned to her with her tail. “Hi—it’s Leafpaw, isn’t it? Cinderpelt’s apprentice?”

“That’s right.” Leafpaw padded over. “How are you?”

“We’re all well, and the Clan is thriving,” Mistyfoot replied. “Have you met Stormfur and Feathertail?”

“My kits,” Greystripe added proudly, though it was several moons since these strong cats had left the nursery.

Leafpaw touched noses with the young warriors, realising that she should have guessed Stormfur was Greystripe’s kin. The two cats had the same muscular bodies and long grey pelt. Feathertail’s fur was a lighter silver-grey tabby; her blue eyes glowed with warmth and friendliness as she greeted Leafpaw.

“I know Cinderpelt well,” she meowed. “She looked after me once when I was ill. You must be proud to be her apprentice.”