Moonrise

Chapter 19

What was that? Every hair on Stormfur’s pelt shot up in fear. He and his friends were trapped in this dark hole; whoever had just spoken was blocking the entrance, and there was nowhere else to go. Desperately he tasted the air and picked out the scents of several cats, all of them smelling of Tribe, and yet not Tribe.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

For an answer he felt a powerful shoulder thrusting him aside as the strange cat entered the cave. There was the soft sound of pawsteps as the others followed.

Then he heard Brambleclaw’s voice, tense but still calm.

“We are traveling to our home far from here and we took shelter only for the night. We have no quarrel with you.”

The strange cat spoke again. “This is our place.”

“Then we’ll leave,” Tawnypelt mewed. She padded toward the entrance, and the other cats shuffled around to follow her.

Stormfur felt his fur begin to lie flat again. With any luck they could get out of here without a fight. These cats couldn’t have come from the Tribe of Rushing Water, or they would have known who he and his companions were. Yet they carried the Tribe’s scent; Stormfur was puzzled, but he was content to leave the mystery behind him if they could just get away safely.

“Not so fast,” the newcomer growled. “How do we know you’re telling the truth? I don’t know you, and I don’t know your scent.”

“Talon, we should take them prisoner.” A soft hiss came from one of the other cats. “We might be able to use them as bait for Sharptooth.”

“You know about Sharptooth?” Stormfur exclaimed.

“Of course we know about Sharptooth,” rumbled the first voice, the one called Talon. “Every cat in these mountains knows about Sharptooth.”

As he spoke, Stormfur realized that the darkness was no longer unbroken. Gradually the shapes of the strange cats were outlined in faint gray light as dawn filtered down the tunnel. Every hair on Stormfur’s pelt prickled with fear as he looked at them.

The first of them, Talon, was one of the biggest cats he had ever seen, a dark brown tabby with massive shoulders and huge paws. His ragged pelt was bristling with hostility, and a deep scar stretched across one side of his face, curling his lip in a frozen snarl. His amber eyes were narrowed, his gaze flicking suspiciously over the forest cats.

Behind him were two other cats, a scrawny black tom whose tail was little more than a jagged stump, and a gray-brown she-cat. Both of them flexed their claws as if they could hardly wait to sink them into the Clan cats’ fur.

Although the Clan cats outnumbered the strangers two to one, Stormfur didn’t like their chances in a fight. They certainly wouldn’t get away without serious injuries. He could see his friends were thinking the same; even the aggressive Crowpaw was silent, his gaze fixed warily on the strangers.

“We have seen Sharptooth and we know how savage he is.”

Brambleclaw was still trying to keep the exchange peaceful.

“But we’re on an urgent mission and we have to leave.”

“You’ll go when I say you can,” Talon growled.

“You can’t keep us here!” Stormfur winced as Squirrelpaw spoke up, her green eyes blazing. There was nothing wrong with her courage, but sometimes she hadn’t the sense of a mayfly.

“We’ve already escaped from the Tribe of Rushing Water.”

Crowpaw let out a furious hiss, and for once Stormfur sympathized with him. Squirrelpaw needed to be a lot more careful about what she told these terrifying cats.

But to Stormfur’s surprise, the suspicion in Talon’s gaze seemed to fade. “You have been with the Tribe?”

“That’s right,” meowed Brambleclaw. “You know of them, then?”

“We know much, and too much,” Talon replied, and the tabby she-cat added, “We were once Tribe cats too.”

Stormfur stared at her in astonishment; he had assumed that these cats were homeless rogues. It would explain the puzzling scent, if they had once belonged to the Tribe, but he remembered how the Tribe had refused to turn the Clan cats out at night in case they met Sharptooth. If they had been that concerned about strangers, it seemed odd that they would let their own Tribemates live outside the cave. Unless they had committed a crime that outweighed the threat of Sharptooth…

“Did the Tribe make you leave?” he asked.

“As good as,” Talon grunted. Slowly his bristling fur began to lie flat. He flicked his tail at his two companions, which they seemed to take as an order to guard the entrance, for they settled down one on either side of it. “Sit,” Talon said to the forest cats. “Sit and we will talk. But don’t try to leave, unless you want to lose your ears.”

Stormfur believed that he meant the threat. Cautiously he sat down; his friends did the same, making themselves as comfortable as they could on the bare sandy floor. As the light strengthened Stormfur made out his surroundings more clearly: The roof of the cave was thickly interlaced with roots, stretching above earth walls, with more roots and stones jutting out here and there. He could not see any bedding, any fresh-kill pile, or any other sign that these three cats lived here permanently. Yet Talon had said it was where they regularly came to shelter. It must be a harsh life that they led here.

“My name is Talon of Swooping Eagle,” the huge tabby began, raising one paw to the scar on his face. “An eagle’s talon did this when I was a kit, and gave me my name as well as a mark to remind me how close I came to losing my life.

This is Rock Where Snow Gathers and Bird Who Rides the Wind.” He pointed his tail at the black tom and the she-cat in turn.

Stormfur’s fear began to ebb. Somehow knowing the strangers’ names made them seem less like enemies.

“Many seasons ago,” Talon went on, “the Tribe of Endless Hunting sent a sign to Stoneteller. They chose six cats to leave the shelter of the caves and go out into the mountains to face Sharptooth and kill him. We are three of that six.”

“What happened to the others?” Crowpaw put in.

“Sharptooth happened,” Rock snarled from his place by the entrance. “He nearly had me, too. How do you think I lost my tail?”

“So, wait,” Tawnypelt mewed. “The Tribe sent you out to kill Sharptooth?”

Talon bowed his head. “Stoneteller ordered us not to come back without his pelt.”

“But that’s mouse-brained!” Squirrelpaw burst out. “How could six of you kill Sharptooth when the whole of the Tribe couldn’t do it?”

The tabby looked up again, and Stormfur winced at the depths of bitterness in his eyes. “I don’t know,” he replied.

“Do you think we haven’t asked ourselves that question? I’d give the fur off my back to save my Tribe, but what can any of us do?”

Feathertail let out a comforting murmur. “Could you not go to Stoneteller and tell him you’ve done your best? He might let you back in.”

“No!” Talon’s eyes blazed at her. “I won’t crawl to him and beg. Besides, what use would it be? We all obey the will of the Tribe of Endless Hunting.”

Stormfur blinked. There were times when the words of his own warrior ancestors seemed harsh and difficult to understand, but he could not remember StarClan ever banishing cats to a lonely existence that could only end in their death.

Would I have the courage to obey if they did? he wondered.

“I’m surprised we didn’t hear about you before,” Brambleclaw meowed. “They told us about Sharptooth, but no cat mentioned you.”

Talon snorted. “They’ve probably forgotten all about us.”

“Or they’re ashamed,” Bird added grimly.

“You’ve just left the Tribe recently?” Talon asked. When Brambleclaw nodded, he went on with longing in his voice.

“There’s a cat… her name is Brook Where Small Fish Swim.

Did you see her there?”

Stormfur’s ears pricked up. For a heartbeat, jealous fury swept through him at the obvious affection with which this ragged loner spoke of the prey-hunter.

“Yes, we met Brook,” Feathertail replied.

“Is she all right? Happy?”

“She’s fine,” Tawnypelt told him. “And as happy as any of them are with Sharptooth breathing down their necks.”

“Because we failed…” All Talon’s bitterness was in the three words. “Brook’s my sister,” he went on, letting out an awkward mrrow, half amused and half embarrassed. “You’d not think a pretty cat like that was related to me, would you?

She’s from a younger litter, and when Sharptooth took our mother I wanted to be there to look out for Brook.”

Stormfur relaxed. What was the matter with him? Why should he care that Brook was Talon’s sister, and not his mate?

“She would have come with me,” Talon went on. “But it wasn’t the will of the Tribe of Endless Hunting. I was glad.

This is no sort of life.”

Stormfur knew he was right. He flinched as he thought about the destruction that Sharptooth had brought to the Tribe: not only the cats he had killed for prey, but the lives he had destroyed in their desperate attempts to kill him. Cats driven into exile, separated from their kin…

And what if he really was the chosen cat, destined to save the Tribe from Sharptooth? Had he any right to refuse his destiny? The thought crossed his mind that he ought to go back, but the idea terrified him so much that he pushed it away. He and his friends had their own mission, to tell their Clans what they had learned from Midnight, and nothing must be allowed to interfere with that. They had to tell the Clans to leave the forest before it was destroyed by the Twolegs’ new Thunderpath.

The light in the cave had grown brighter and turned golden, as if the rain had stopped and the sun had risen above the mountaintops. Feeling as if he could not bear to be trapped belowground for another heartbeat, Stormfur rose to his paws.

“Will you let us out to hunt? We need fresh-kill.”

Talon glanced at his companions.

“We’re not going anywhere,” Brambleclaw assured him.

“We’re all exhausted, and we need to rest.”

After another pause, the tabby shrugged. “Go, stay, do what you want. It’s nothing to do with us. We wouldn’t feed you to Sharptooth, whatever Rock might say.”

Stormfur pushed his way through the narrow tunnel and out onto the mountainside. The sun hovered over the topmost peak; that was the way they should be going, following the sunrise until they came home to the forest.

Squirrelpaw followed him out, and stood looking around alertly, as if she had not spent all night scrambling about on the mountain in the pouring rain. “Right,” she meowed.

“Where’s the fresh-kill?”

In the rain and the darkness, Stormfur had seen very little of their surroundings before they found the cave. Now he saw that just below the entrance the rocks were broken up; thin soil had lodged in the cracks, enough for grass to grow and a few bushes. A trickle of water wound among them.

“Down there,” he suggested.

Squirrelpaw swept her tail back toward the hole. “The rest want to sleep, just as if they were hedgehogs in leaf-bare,” she meowed. “Let’s hunt, and surprise them when they wake up!”

“Okay.” Stormfur was pleased to be hunting with the determinedly cheerful apprentice, away from the ThunderClan warrior who took up so much of her attention. But since the beginning of their journey home he had been aware of how close she and Brambleclaw had become. It would always be easier for them to be together than for her to have any connection with Stormfur. Besides, he was starting to realize that he felt about Brook in a completely different way from how he felt about Squirrelpaw.

He had kept a check on his feelings for Squirrelpaw because they were in different Clans, but he was drawn to Brook in a way that he couldn’t ignore so easily. The sheen on her tabby fur, the glow in her eyes, her speed and skill, stayed with him even though he had escaped from the cave. Was that how Crowpaw and Feathertail felt about each other? he wondered suddenly, with a pang of sympathy he had never felt before. Would he cross boundaries like that to be with Brook?

Stormfur pushed the thought away. He would never see Brook again, so what was the point? He tried to focus instead on the sunny morning, and the pleasure of hunting with a skillful partner. It was good to have Squirrelpaw beside him as a friend, without the jealousy that might have threatened his friendship with Brambleclaw.

“Come on!” Squirrelpaw had already bounded down among the bushes. “I want you to teach me some of those new mountain moves.”

As the sun rose higher they stalked through the sparse mountain vegetation, beginning to build a pile of fresh-kill on the ledge outside the cave. Squirrelpaw learned the new ways of hunting quickly, and couldn’t stop herself bouncing like a kit with the delight of bringing down her first falcon.

“We need to teach this stuff at home,” she meowed, flicking a feather off her nose with one paw. “We always hunt in the undergrowth, but like this we could hunt out in the open as well.”

Bleak thoughts about the future of the forest rushed through Stormfur’s mind. Squirrelpaw clearly guessed what he was thinking, for her triumph faded and she added somberly, “We might need to.”

When they returned to the cave with more prey to add to the pile they had started, Stormfur saw Talon crouched on the ledge, his eyes half closed as he let the sun soak into his ragged fur.

He opened his eyes as the two Clan cats approached.

“You’ve hunted well,” he meowed.

“Help yourself,” Stormfur invited him.

“Thanks.” He padded over to the pile and dragged out a rabbit.

Squirrelpaw trotted back inside the hole. “I’m going to get our lazy friends,” she announced.

Stormfur noticed that Talon had stopped eating after just one bite, and was looking at him expectantly. Almost without realizing what he was doing, Stormfur pulled a falcon from the pile of fresh-kill, took a hasty bite, and shoved it toward Talon. The Tribe cat nodded and pushed his own piece of fresh-kill toward Stormfur.

“I see your Tribe shares as well,” was all he said, and Stormfur looked down at his paws, suddenly feeling uncomfortable.

For a few moments, they ate their prey in silence.

Stormfur was not sure how the exiled cats had changed from being enemies to something like friends, but he was certain that the Clan cats had nothing to fear from them now. He just wished that there were some way of helping them.

“I can tell you’re worried about the Tribe,” he began awkwardly, swallowing a mouthful of rabbit.

“Of course I’m worried.” Talon fixed him with a piercing amber gaze. “And so are you, even though you’re not one of us.”

Stormfur nodded slowly. He had been trying not to admit that, even to himself. Were his feelings so obvious, even to a stranger?

“Every day they live in fear,” Talon went on. “Every pawstep out of the cave is filled with terror, when every rock might be hiding Sharptooth.”

Stormfur nodded, thinking of the cave-guards who went out with the hunting parties. He tried to imagine what it would be like never to run freely through your own territory, always to feel the threat of claws and fangs. Cold shivers ran through his pelt as he remembered hunting with Brook in the first days of their stay with the Tribe. She had told him that Crag and the others were there to guard the prey-hunters from eagles, but now he understood that they were watching for Sharptooth as well. He and the Tribe cats had been in as much danger as any of the prey they hunted.

“I wish I knew what to do,” he meowed. “We made this journey because of a prophecy from StarClan—”

“StarClan?” Talon echoed.

“The spirits of our warrior ancestors,” Stormfur explained.

“Like your Tribe of Endless Hunting.”

He went on to explain how StarClan had prophesied great trouble for the forest and chosen four cats, one from each of the Clans, to make the journey and learn what Midnight had to tell them.

“I wasn’t one of the four,” he finished, “but I came to be with my sister.”

“And now you’re going home,” Talon meowed.

“Yes, but we don’t know whether we’ll be in time to help.”

Even while he was speaking, Stormfur reflected that at least they could go home; Talon and his Tribemates never could.

“Your Tribemate said that you’d escaped from the Tribe of Rushing Water.” Talon looked puzzled. “Does that mean they kept you prisoner? That is not the Tribe I knew.”

“It wasn’t quite like that.” Stormfur swallowed. If he wanted to earn the trust of this cat, he had to tell his story, but he didn’t know how Talon would react. There was every chance that the huge tabby would try to drag him back to the Tribe to fulfill the prophecy and win the right to return to his home. “There was another prophecy,” he admitted. “Stoneteller had a sign from the Tribe of Endless Hunting…”

Talon listened to the story with his unblinking amber gaze fixed on Stormfur. “A silver cat?” he rumbled, when the story was finished. “Do you believe you are the one?”

Stormfur started to deny it, and found he could not. “I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “At first I didn’t see how I could be, but now… The first prophecy, the one from StarClan, matters more than anything to me. But I’m not one of the chosen. I can’t help wondering whether I’m meant to do this instead.” He sighed. “But I can’t follow both prophecies.

Which one of them is right?”

Talon was silent for a few moments. Then he meowed heavily, “Neither of them is right. And neither is wrong.” He let out a soft growl from deep in his throat. “Prophecies are strange things. Their words are never clear.”

Stormfur nodded, remembering how he and his friends had thought that “midnight” meant just that, until they discovered that it was the name of the wise badger who had told them what they should do.

“Everything depends on how cats interpret the prophecy,” Talon went on. “And whether the prophecy is fulfilled depends on what they decide to do about it. It is up to us to choose the code we live by. Isn’t that true for your cats as well?”

Stormfur stared in surprise at the older cat. He was right.

StarClan and the Tribe of Endless Hunting made exactly the same demands on the cats they watched over, with the same promises of protection and guidance if only they knew how to read the signs.

“What do you think you should do?” Talon challenged him.

Stormfur shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“But you will.” The big tabby rose to his paws. “Your faith and your courage will tell you.” Amusement glinted faintly in his amber eyes. “Just don’t take too long about it,” he added as he squeezed back into the tunnel that led to the cave.

When he had gone, Stormfur let out an exhausted sigh.

These mysteries were too much for him; he was a warrior, and all he wanted was to follow the warrior code. But what should he do, when the code did not speak clearly to him?

The sun was warm on his fur, and it was a long time since he had slept. His belly was comfortably full of prey. He yawned, and his eyes closed.

Hardly any time seemed to have passed before he realized that he was lying in a forest clearing, though he could not have said exactly where it was. The scent of green, growing things was all around him, and he could hear the soft murmur of a stream. He opened his eyes to see moonlight filtering through the leaves above his head.

He stirred, puzzled. This was a forest at the height of green-leaf, though by now leaf-bare should be well on its way. Then another scent tickled his nose, something sweet and reassuring and somehow achingly familiar, though he had no memory of smelling it before. A voice behind him mewed, “Stormfur.”

He turned his head and for a heartbeat thought he was looking at Feathertail. No, this cat had a silvery gray pelt very like his sister’s, but he didn’t recognize her.

“Who are you?” he demanded, rising to his paws.

The cat did not reply, but padded over to him and touched noses with him. Stormfur saw the glitter of starshine around her paws. With a shiver, he knew that he was dreaming, and that a warrior of StarClan had come to visit him.

“Dearest Stormfur, I am so proud of you and Feathertail,” the strange warrior began. “You have come through great trials and proved your courage and faith, time and again. You have obeyed StarClan in everything, and we are well pleased with you.”

“Er… thank you,” Stormfur mewed uncertainly.

“Yet the cats of the Tribe have courage and faith too, even though they follow different warrior ancestors. You should honor them and the Tribe of Endless Hunting.”

“I know,” Stormfur agreed with feeling. Whoever this StarClan warrior was, she understood exactly how he felt.

“Please tell me what I should do—and tell me who you are.”

The cat bent close to him so that her sweet scent flooded his senses. “Don’t you know?” she murmured. “I am your mother, Silverstream. And as for what you must do—Stormfur, remember that a question can have many answers…”

The light around her began to fade. Stormfur was left alone in the clearing.

“Don’t go!” he pleaded.

He spun around, trying to see where she had gone. His eyes flew open, and he found himself lying on the ground outside the hole, with his friends dividing up the pile of fresh-kill a little way off.

He staggered to his paws. He had been sent a dream from StarClan! He had seen his own mother, who had died giving birth to him and Feathertail. But there was no time to mourn the fact that he had never known her alive. At last he knew what he had to do, although he had no idea how he was going to do it.

Feathertail looked up, her blue eyes startled. “What’s the matter?”

“I… I have to go back,” Stormfur rasped. “I have to fulfill the Tribe’s prophecy.”

“What?” That was Tawnypelt, leaving the mouse she was eating to come and stand over him. “Have bees swarmed in your brain?”

Stormfur shook his head. “I spoke to Silverstream. To our mother,” he went on to Feathertail. “She came to me in a dream.”

Feathertail’s eyes stretched wide. “And she told you to go back?”

“Well, not exactly. But she told me that a question can have many answers. I think one of those answers is for me to go back and accept the fate that the Tribe of Endless Hunting have laid down.”

“But Stormfur…” Brambleclaw looked puzzled. “What about your duty to StarClan? What about our prophecy?”

“I was never one of the four chosen cats,” Stormfur meowed. “And Silverstream said that the Tribe of Endless Hunting should be honored too. They are warrior ancestors, after all, even if they are not ours.”

He could see that Brambleclaw was unhappy about his decision, and he hoped that the ThunderClan warrior would not try to order him to continue the journey. He respected Brambleclaw, and had been content to follow his lead, but now that he knew that he had found the right path, nothing would turn him aside, not even the friendship that had grown between them.

“What do the rest of you think?” Brambleclaw meowed.

The Clan cats looked uncertainly at one another. While he was waiting for one of them to speak, Stormfur noticed Talon sitting a little way apart with Rock and Bird. For the first time Stormfur thought he could see a gleam of hope in his amber eyes, but when Talon caught his gaze he looked away, as if he would not allow himself a voice in this debate.

“Well, I think it’s a mouse-brained idea.” Tawnypelt’s tail twitched back and forth. “I’m staying with Brambleclaw and going back to the forest. Or have you forgotten about what’s happening there?”

“I’m not asking any cat to come with me,” Stormfur meowed hastily. “This is something that I have to do, but the rest of you can go on with the journey.”

Feathertail got up and padded toward him, pressing her nose against his shoulder. “Stupid furball,” she mewed. “You don’t think I’m going to let you do this alone, do you?”

“Then I’ll come too.” Stormfur was not surprised that Crowpaw wanted to go with Feathertail, but he was startled as the WindClan apprentice went on, “Actually, Stormfur, I think you’re right. Ever since we rescued you, you’ve been mooning around like a rabbit without its tail. It makes my fur ache, just looking at you. You’re obviously going to be no use at all until you’ve tried to help these cats.”

Stormfur gave him a nod of gratitude. Crowpaw’s bad-tempered words couldn’t disguise that he had just made a courageous offer. None of the Clan cats could be sure that the Tribe would welcome them, not to mention the danger from Sharptooth.

“I want to come too!” Squirrelpaw sprang to her paws, her green eyes blazing and her tail curled up with excitement.

Turning to Brambleclaw, she pleaded, “Can’t we all go? We can’t let Stormfur face Sharptooth by himself.”

“He isn’t by himself,” Brambleclaw mewed dryly. With a rueful glance at Tawnypelt, he added, “It looks as if we’re out-voted. If one goes, we all go. I haven’t forgotten about the forest—but we have to remember the warrior code, too.”

Squirrelpaw let out a wordless yowl of triumph.

Tawnypelt’s tail lashed once. “I think you’re all as crazy as hares in newleaf,” she growled. “But I said I’d stay with you, Brambleclaw, and I will.”

Stormfur looked around at them, warmed to the roots of his fur by their loyalty. Except for his sister, none of them had any reason to support him apart from the bonds that had been forged between them on their journey. Midnight had spoken the truth when she said that four clans had become one. Stormfur could see nothing but good in the way that the old Clan boundaries were melting away, and he wondered if in the forest the Clans were learning to be friends as well while facing the Twoleg threat. Perhaps at last the ache of his half-Clan heritage could be soothed, and he would find a place where he could truly belong. “Thank you,” he mewed solemnly.

“The Tribe of Endless Hunting will honor your courage,” Talon meowed. “But what exactly do you mean to do?”

“I have an idea!” Squirrelpaw looked almost ready to leap out of her fur.

Every cat looked at her. Talon let out a hiss of disbelief.

“Go on,” urged Brambleclaw.

“What Silverstream said,” Squirrelpaw began, “about every question having many answers. Well, lots of cats have tried to kill Sharptooth and failed, over and over again. Even fighters like Talon. So we have to find another answer, and I think I know what it is.”

“What?” Crowpaw’s voice was dry. “Are you going to go up to him and ask him nicely to go away?”

“Mouse-brain!” meowed Squirrelpaw. “No, if we can’t kill Sharptooth by ourselves, we have to find something else to do it for us.”