She slipped between two bushes; Leafpaw and Sorreltail followed. A few moments later they came into the open and found themselves on the slope that led up to the ThunderClan border.
“If your Clan is short of prey, come and see me,” Mothwing mewed. “We can always spare a few fish. Now run!”
Leafpaw and Sorreltail streaked up the slope and plunged for cover into more bushes. Though Leafpaw braced herself for accusing snarls behind her, they reached the border unseen.
“Thank StarClan for that!” Sorreltail exclaimed as they crossed into their own territory.
Leafpaw looked back through the branches. Mothwing was standing where they had left her; a moment later the undergrowth parted and a large, sleek-furred tabby warrior emerged. Leafpaw recognised Mothwing’s brother Hawkfrost; two other warriors followed him. Hawkfrost stopped to talk to his sister, but never once glanced in the direction of the ThunderClan cats.
Looking at the warrior’s massive shoulders and strong muscles, Leafpaw was relieved that he had not caught them trespassing. Unlike Mothwing, he kept strictly to the warrior code, and he was unlikely to listen to explanations. Not for the first time, Leafpaw felt that he reminded her of some other cat, but however hard she stared at him, she could not remember who.
“Come on,” Sorreltail meowed. “Are you going to stare at those RiverClan warriors all day? It’s time we were getting back, and then you can decide how much you’re going to tell Firestar.”
CHAPTER 5 (#ulink_f0d1195f-4f78-58f0-bd8a-585cf99342a8)
Stormfur’s paws scrabbled on smooth grey rock. Heaving himself upwards, he reached the top of the boulder and turned to look down at his friends, his fur buffeted by the icy breeze.
“Come on,” he meowed. “It’s not so bad if you take a leap at it.”
Following the rising sun, he and the other cats had left the moorland behind and begun to climb. Now, as sunhigh approached on the second day of their homeward journey, the mountains they had seen from a distance stretched up in front of them even bigger than they had imagined, their sheer slopes black and forbidding, with wisps of cloud floating around their peaks. The soil beneath the cats’ paws was rough with pebbles, and little grew there except sparse grass and twisted thorn trees. There was no clear path; instead they followed winding narrow clefts and often had to turn back when they came up against rock walls with no way through. Thinking wistfully of the river sliding through deep, cool grasses at home, Stormfur half wished they had decided to return through Twolegplace instead.
Squirrelpaw bunched her hind legs and launched herself in a massive leap, following Stormfur up the boulder that blocked their path. “Mouse dung!” she gasped as she missed the top and began to slide back. Stormfur leaned over and sank his teeth into her neck fur, steadying her until her scraping claws propelled her up the last tail-length to sit beside him.
“Thanks!” Her green eyes glowed at him. “I know my name’s Squirrelpaw, but I never thought I’d wish that I was a squirrel!”
Stormfur let out a mrrow of laughter. “We’ll all wish we were squirrels if we get much more of this.”
“Hey!” Crowpaw’s voice rose aggressively from below. “Stand back, will you? How can I get up there with you two furballs standing in the way?”
Stormfur and Squirrelpaw stepped back from the top of the boulder, and a moment later Crowpaw joined them, his long limbs managing the jump easily. Ignoring the others, he turned back to help Feathertail, who scrambled up with a muttered curse as one of her claws snagged on the rock.
Stormfur was worried that the rat bite in Tawnypelt’s shoulder would stop her from climbing the boulder, and wondered if they would have to try finding a way round it, but to his relief her leap brought her almost to the top, where Crowpaw grabbed her by the scruff and hauled her up. Brambleclaw joined them last of all, shaking his ruffled tabby fur as he stood on top of the boulder and looked around. This close to sunhigh, there were few shadows to point them in the right direction and nothing but a sheer precipice in front of them, hiding what lay ahead.
“I suppose we go that way,” he meowed, flicking his tail towards a narrow ledge leading across the face of the rock. “What do you think?” he asked Stormfur.
Stormfur felt his pelt prickle as he looked at the ledge. A few straggling bushes had rooted themselves in cracks, but apart from that the rock was bare and if they slipped there would be nothing to hold on to.
“We can try,” he mewed doubtfully, rather surprised that Brambleclaw had asked his opinion. “There’s nowhere else, unless we go back.”
Brambleclaw nodded. “Bring up the rear, will you?” he asked. “We don’t know what might be lurking around here, and we need a strong cat to watch our back.”
Stormfur murmured agreement, feeling a warm glow that spread from his ears to his tail-tip at the ThunderClan cat’s praise. Brambleclaw was neither his leader nor his mentor, but Stormfur couldn’t help feeling strong admiration for the young warrior’s courage and the way he had taken the lead on this difficult journey.
“I’ve changed my mind,” Squirrelpaw announced as Brambleclaw squeezed his way along the ledge. “I don’t want to be a squirrel anymore. I’d rather be a bird!”
Stormfur brought up the rear as Brambleclaw had asked, his ears pricked for danger while he tried to hide his nervousness about the sheer drop, which tugged at him like an invisible weight. He hugged the rock face, placing each paw carefully and using his tail for balance. After a little while the breeze grew stronger, and Stormfur’s mind filled with terrifying images of himself or one of his friends blown right off the ledge and down to the ground below.
After a short while the ledge curved around the rock face, out of sight. Before Stormfur reached the turn, Tawnypelt, who was just in front of him, stopped abruptly, and from further ahead he heard Feathertail exclaim, “Oh, no!”
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