Midnight

Chapter 24

Brambleclaw glanced wildly over his shoulder, but there was nowhere to flee except into the water; the difficult climb back to the hole in the cave roof would take too long. Guilt crashed over him with the cold force of the waves that had almost drowned him. All his visions, all his certainty, had led his companions to this dreadful place, where they would find no knowledge, no vision from StarClan, only a pointless and horrible death.

What use were faith and courage now, when they were trapped like rabbits in a hole?

Crowpaw had flattened himself to the ground and was creeping forward with his teeth bared in a snarl. Stormfur was edging around the badger to attack it from the side.

Despairingly Brambleclaw knew that they were heading to meet their death. Even all six of them, weak and starving as they were and worn out by their travels and the struggle in the water, could not hope to defeat a badger. Caught as they were by the choking waves, it would not be long before the blunt claws and snapping jaws picked them off one by one.

The badger had paused on the edge of the shadows that filled the back of the cave. Its powerful shoulders were hunched and its claws scraped on rock. Its head swung to and fro, the white stripe glimmering, as if it were deciding which of them to attack first.

Then it spoke.

“Midnight has come.”

Brambleclaw’s mouth fell open, and for a moment he felt as if the ground had given way beneath him again. That a badger could speak, could say words he understood, words that actually meant something… He stared in disbelief, his heart pounding.

“I am Midnight.” The badger’s voice was deep and rasping, like the sound of the pebbles turning under the waves. “With you I must speak.”

“Mouse dung!” Crowpaw spat. The WindClan apprentice was still crouched ready to spring. “Make one move and you’ll have my claws in your eyes.”

“No, Crowpaw, wait—”

The badger’s throaty laughter interrupted Brambleclaw.

“Fierce, is he not? StarClan have chosen well. But there will be no clawing this day. Here is talk, not fight.”

Brambleclaw and his companions uncertainly looked at each other, their tails bristling. Crowpaw put words to what they were all thinking. “Are we going to trust it?”

“What else can we do?” Feathertail responded, blinking.

Brambleclaw weighed up the badger again. It was smaller than the one he had seen at Snakerocks—probably a female—but no less dangerous for that. Believing what she said went against everything he had been taught as a kit. Yet so far she had made no move to attack them; he even thought that he could make out a gleam of humor in her eyes.

He glanced back at his friends. Crowpaw, Stormfur, and Feathertail might have managed to fight well, but he and Squirrelpaw were exhausted from their near-drowning, while Tawnypelt had sunk down onto the floor of the cave with her injured shoulder held awkwardly, and hardly seemed to be conscious.

“Come,” the badger rasped. “All night we cannot wait.”

Brambleclaw knew for certain that this was no ordinary badger. Never before had he heard of a badger who could speak in a language that cats understood—still less one that spoke of StarClan, as if she knew more of their wishes than any cat alive.

“Feathertail’s right,” he hissed. “What choice do we have?

She could have turned us all into crowfood by now. This must be what Bluestar meant in my dream when she told me to listen to midnight. She didn’t mean a time at all.” Turning to the badger, he asked out loud, “You are Midnight? And you have a message for us from StarClan?”

The badger nodded. “Midnight am I called. And it was shown to me that here I would meet with you… though four were numbered to me, not six.”

“Then we’ll listen to what you have to say,” Brambleclaw told her. “You’re right; four were chosen, but six have come, and all deserve to be here.”

“But make one wrong move…” Crowpaw threatened.

“Oh, shut up, mouse-brain!” Squirrelpaw growled. “Can’t you see, this is what we came here to find? ‘Listen to what midnight tells us.’ This is Midnight.”

Crowpaw glared at her through the gathering darkness, but did not reply.

Midnight turned with the single word, “Follow,” and headed for the back of the cave. Brambleclaw could just make out the dark opening of a tunnel. Taking a deep breath, he meowed, “Okay, let’s do it.”

Stormfur took the lead, with Crowpaw just behind him; Brambleclaw hoped that the apprentice would stop looking for a fight long enough to hear what the badger had to say.

Feathertail gently nudged Tawnypelt to her paws and lent her shoulder for support as she staggered into the tunnel.

Brambleclaw exchanged a glance with Squirrelpaw and was surprised to see that in spite of her wet, exhausted state her eyes were sparkling with excitement.

“What a story we’ll have to tell when we get home!” she meowed, getting up and trotting into the tunnel after Feathertail.

Brambleclaw brought up the rear, with a final glance over his shoulder at the rocky teeth that framed the mouth of the cave and the waves that still surged back and forth. The last crimson rays of the drowned sun still stained the sky; in a single heartbeat Brambleclaw seemed to see an endless river of blood pouring down upon him, filling his ears with the screams of dying cats.

“Brambleclaw?” Squirrelpaw’s voice cut through the terrified sounds. “Are you coming?”

The vision was gone; Brambleclaw found himself back in the wave-filled cave to see that the color was rapidly fading from the sky and a single warrior of StarClan shone down on him. Shivering, he followed his friends and Midnight.

The tunnel sloped upward. Brambleclaw could see nothing in the pitch darkness, but he felt sandy soil beneath his paws, rather than pebbles or rock. As well as the wary cat-scent of his friends, there was a powerful reek of badger.

Then he came out into another cave. Fresher air moved against his fur, and at the far end a hole led into the open. A faint silvery gleam filtered through it, telling Brambleclaw that outside, the moon was crossing the sky. By its light he saw that this cave had been dug out of the earth, with twisting roots entangled in the roof and the floor covered with a thick layer of bracken. Feathertail was already helping Tawnypelt to make a nest among the soft fronds, and settled down beside her to lick her wound again.

“You have injury?” Midnight asked the ShadowClan warrior. “What gave it?”

“It’s a rat bite,” Tawnypelt replied through gritted teeth.

The badger made a spitting noise. “Is bad. Wait.” She vanished into the shadows at one side of the cave and returned a moment later with a root clamped in her jaws.

“Burdock root!” Squirrelpaw exclaimed, with a triumphant glance at Brambleclaw. “You use it too?”

“Good for bite, good for infected paw, good for all sores.”

The badger chomped up the root and laid the pulp on Tawnypelt’s wound, just as Squirrelpaw had done in the wood.

“Now,” she went on when she had finished, “is time for talk.”

She waited until all the cats had settled themselves among the bracken. Brambleclaw felt his excitement rising. He was only just beginning to realize that they had reached the end of their journey. They had found the place where StarClan had sent them, and now they were about to hear what Midnight had to tell them.

“How is it you can speak to us?” he asked curiously.

“I have traveled far, and many tongues have learned,” Midnight told him. “Tongues of other cats, who speak not same as you. Of fox and rabbit also.” She grunted. “They speak not of interest. Fox talk is all of kill. Rabbit has thistledown for brain.”

Squirrelpaw let out a mrrow of laughter. Brambleclaw could see that her fur lay flat again and her ears were pricked. “So what do you want to tell us?” she meowed.

“Much, in good time,” replied the badger. “But first, tell me of your journey. How came you from your tribes?”

Stormfur looked puzzled. “Tribes?”

Midnight shook her head irritably. “My brain thistledown also. Forget which sort of cats here. You say Clans, not?”

“That’s right,” meowed Brambleclaw. He nudged away the uneasy thought that there were other cats like them, not loners, who lived in Clans known as tribes. They had not seen them on their journey—they probably lived far in a different direction.

With the others to help him, he began the story of their journey, from the first dreams that four of them had shared, to his own dream of the sun-drown place and the decision to leave the forest. Midnight listened intently, with a low chuckle as the cats told her of their misadventures with Purdy, and an understanding nod when they described how they had all, in the end, received their own saltwater sign.

“So here we are,” Brambleclaw finished. “We are ready to know what StarClan’s message is.”

“And why we had to come here to find out,” Crowpaw added. “Why couldn’t StarClan have told us what we needed to know back in the forest?”

His tone was still hostile, as if he had not accepted that Midnight was not a threat, but that didn’t seem to bother the badger. Feathertail flicked her tail out in a calming gesture, and at her touch the WindClan apprentice relaxed a little.

“Think, small warrior,” Midnight replied to his question.

“When you set out, you were four. Six with friends who would not stay behind. Now you are one.” Her voice grew deeper and seemed to Brambleclaw to be full of foreboding as she went on, “In days coming now, all Clans must be one. If not, trouble destroy you.”

Brambleclaw felt icy claws rake down his spine. The shudder that ran through him had nothing to do with his sodden fur. “What is the trouble?” he whispered.

Midnight hesitated, her deep, dark gaze resting on each cat in turn. “You must leave the forest,” she growled at last. “All cats must leave.”

“What?” Stormfur leaped to his paws. “That’s mouse-brained! There have always been cats in the forest.”

The badger heaved a long sigh. “No longer.”

“But why?” Feathertail asked, anxiously kneading her paws on the bed of bracken.

“Twolegs.” Midnight sighed again. “Always is Twolegs.

Soon they come with machines… monsters is your word, not? Trees will they uproot, rocks break, the earth itself tear apart. No place left for cats. You stay, monsters tear you too, or you starve with no prey.”

There was silence in the moonlit cave. Brambleclaw struggled with the dreadful vision the badger had summoned. He imagined Twoleg monsters—huge shining things in bright unnatural colors, roaring through his beloved camp. He could almost hear again the screams he had heard in the cave with teeth, though now they were the terrified cries of his Clan mates as they fled. Everything in him strained against what he had heard, yet he could not tell Midnight that he did not believe her. Every word she had spoken was filled with truth.

“How do you know all this?” Stormfur meowed quietly; there was no challenge in his voice, only a desperate need for an explanation.

“It happened to my sett, many seasons ago. I have seen all before; I can see what will come now. Just as the stars speak to you, they talk to me also. All that you need to know is written there. Is not hard to read, once you know.”

“No more Sunningrocks?” Squirrelpaw mewed in a small voice; she sounded as scared as a kit without its mother. “No more training hollow? No more Fourtrees?”

Midnight shook her head, her eyes tiny bright berries in the shadows.

“But why would the Twolegs do that?” Brambleclaw demanded. “What harm have we ever done them?”

“Is no harm,” Midnight replied. “Twolegs hardly know you there. They do it for build new Thunderpath—go here, there, more faster.”

“It won’t happen.” Crowpaw stood up with a fierce gleam in his eyes, as if he were ready to take on the whole race of Twolegs single-pawed. “StarClan won’t allow it.”

“StarClan cannot stop it.”

Crowpaw opened his mouth to protest again, but nothing came out. He looked utterly bewildered to think of a disaster that was beyond the power of StarClan to stop.

“Then why did they bring us here?” mewed a faint voice.

Tawnypelt had raised her head from her nest of ferns to fix her gaze on Midnight. “Are we supposed to go home and watch our Clans being destroyed?”

“No, indeed, injured warrior.” The badger’s voice was suddenly gentle. “For hope is given to you. Hope you shall bring.

You must lead your Clans away from the forest and find new home.”

“Just like that?” Crowpaw let out a snort of disgust. “I’m supposed to go to my Clan leader and say, ‘Sorry, Tallstar, we’ve all got to leave’? He would claw my ears off, if he didn’t die laughing first.”

Midnight’s reply rumbled from deep in her chest.

“When you reach home I think you will find that even your Clan leaders will listen.”

Terror seized Brambleclaw. What more had the badger seen in the stars? When they returned to the forest, would they find that the destruction had already begun?

He sprang to his paws. “We must go now!”

“No, no.” Midnight shook her head from side to side.

“Time is for rest tonight. Hunt in moonlight. Eat well. Let injured friend sleep. Tomorrow is better for travel.”

Brambleclaw glanced at his friends and nodded reluctantly. “That makes sense.”

“But you haven’t told us where to go,” Feathertail pointed out, her blue eyes full of trouble. “Where can we find another forest where all the Clans can live in peace?”

“Fear not. You will find, far from Twolegplaces, where is peace. Hills, oak woods for shelter, running streams.”

“But how?” Brambleclaw persisted. “Will you come with us and show us?”

“No,” Midnight rasped. “Much have I traveled, but no longer. Now enough is this cave, roar of sea, wind in grasses.

But you will not be without a guide. When return, stand on Great Rock when Silverpelt shines above. A dying warrior the way will show.”

Fear clutched harder at Brambleclaw. Midnight’s words sounded more like a threat than a promise. “One of us will die?” he whispered.

“I did not say. Do so, and you will see.”

Evidently the badger was not prepared to say more, if indeed she knew. Brambleclaw did not doubt her wisdom, but he realized that not everything had been revealed to her. His breath grew shaky as he caught a glimpse of other powers beyond StarClan—perhaps a power so great that the whole blaze of Silverpelt was no more than the dazzle of moonlight on water.

“Okay,” he meowed, letting out a long breath. “Thank you, Midnight. We’ll do as you say.”

“And now we’d better hunt,” added Stormfur.

Dipping his head in deep respect to the badger, he padded past her up the tunnel and out into the night. Crowpaw and Feathertail followed him.

“Squirrelpaw, you stay with Tawnypelt,” Brambleclaw mewed. “Rest and get your fur dry.”

To his surprise, Squirrelpaw agreed without question, even giving his ear a quick lick before settling down in the bracken beside his sister. Brambleclaw watched them for a moment, realizing how much they meant to him—even the pesky ginger apprentice whom he had tried so hard to leave behind.

Stormfur and Feathertail, too, were true friends, and even Crowpaw had become an ally he would want beside him in any battle.

“You were right,” he meowed thoughtfully to Midnight.

“We have become one.”

The badger nodded gravely. “In days to come, you need each other.” She pronounced the words with all the force of a prophecy from StarClan. “Your journey not end here, small warrior. It only just begin.”