Moonrise

Chapter 22

This was madness, sheer madness. The words echoed to the thud of Stormfur’s paws as he allowed Crag and another cave-guard to escort him back into the cave behind the waterfall. The other forest cats were ushered in close behind him, with more guards on either side, while Talon and his fellow outlaws brought up the rear. A patrol had spotted them as soon as they reached the river; Stormfur was pretty sure they were prisoners now rather than guests, and he did not know what the Tribe cats would do to them. They had fought their way out two nights before, so it was reasonable to expect hostility.

Talon and his friends were taking an even bigger risk, because they had been ordered not to come back until Sharptooth was dead.

The first rays of glimmering moonlight were creeping through the sheet of water at the cave entrance, and soon Sharptooth would be on the prowl. Stormfur was not even sure that he could make the Tribe listen to Squirrelpaw’s plan. As he sought inside himself for courage, Silverstream’s scent drifted faintly around him. Stormfur glanced back, wondering if Feathertail could sense it, too. His sister was just behind him, her blue eyes troubled. But none of them had flinched when the cave-guards swarmed out from behind the rocks, as well hidden as ever by their mud-streaked fur.

Stormfur felt humbled by his friends’ bravery, by their loyalty to him and to the warrior code even this far away from the forest. He knew they would do whatever it took to help the Tribe, or die trying.

Stoneteller had clearly been warned of their arrival, and was waiting for them in the middle of the main cave. Under his coating of mud, Stormfur could see that a slice of his fur had been torn away in the fight against Sharptooth, and he had a raw wound across one ear.

Stormfur strode over to him and laid at his feet the piece of prey he had carried all the way through the mountains: a mountain hare, its pelt just beginning to turn white for leaf-bare.

“What’s this?” Stoneteller’s voice was cold, and his eyes were hostile. “Why have you come back?”

“To help you defeat Sharptooth,” Stormfur replied.

His heart began to pound even faster when he saw neither welcome nor relief in the Healer’s expression. “And just what do you think you can do?”

His gaze swept around the cavern; following it, Stormfur saw the Tribe creeping out of the shadows. They looked curious but wary. The friendship they had begun to show toward the cats had been scorched by the shock of Sharptooth’s attack, and Stormfur’s failure to save them in spite of their warrior ancestors’ promise. Like Stoneteller, many of them bore raw scars or limped heavily from fresh wounds. Stormfur searched for Brook, but could not see her.

“Sharptooth took Star yesterday,” Stoneteller growled.

“Many cats were injured as we tried to drive him out. One has already died, and two others lie on the border of the Tribe of Endless Hunting. You didn’t help us then. You ran away.”

His contempt struck Stormfur like a claw. Even worse was the murmur of agreement from the gathering Tribe, as if they had felt betrayed by his flight, just as he had felt betrayed when they made him a prisoner. He heard a hostile hiss from one of the Clan cats—he guessed it was Crowpaw—and hoped that the apprentice would keep quiet.

“I didn’t believe I was the promised cat,” he meowed honestly. “And I didn’t like being trapped in the Cave of Pointed Stones. But since I escaped, I’ve been thinking… and I’ve come back freely. Even if I’m not the cat who was named in the prophecy, I’ll do all I can to help.”

“We all will,” Brambleclaw added, coming to stand at Stormfur’s shoulder.

The Tribe’s Healer began to relax. There were more murmurs from the cats around him, and some at least sounded approving.

Then he heard Brook’s voice behind him. “Stormfur! I knew you would come back.”

Stormfur turned to see her slipping through the crowd. A shiver ran through his pelt as he looked at her shining eyes and heard the welcome in her voice.

“We should listen to him,” she urged Stoneteller. “The Tribe of Endless Hunting has sent him to help us. Why else would he come back, after seeing what Sharptooth can do?”

Stoneteller looked as if he lacked energy to believe anything anymore, but he bowed his head. “Very well,” he said.

“But what are you going to do that we haven’t tried before?

Sharptooth has killed the best fighters in my Tribe as if they were puny kits.”

Stormfur flicked his ears to beckon Squirrelpaw forward.

She carried a wad of leaves in her jaws. “Show Stoneteller what you have,” he mewed, and added into her ear, “I hope you haven’t swallowed any.”

Squirrelpaw dropped the leaves. “I’m not mouse-brained!” she muttered indignantly.

Turning back to Stoneteller, Stormfur prodded the hare with one paw. “This prey is for Sharptooth,” he meowed.

“And inside it, we’ll put these.” Delicately he unwrapped the leaves to reveal a small heap of glossy red berries.

A kit who was crouched with its mother at the front of the tribe took a step forward to sniff them curiously; Squirrelpaw thrust her tail in its way and guided it back to its mother.

“Don’t touch,” she mewed. “Even one of those would give you the worst bellyache you’ve ever had—if you survived.”

The kit stared at her with huge eyes and said nothing.

Gazing at the berries, the Tribe’s healer let out a faint hiss and took a step back. “Night-seeds?”

“You know them?” Stormfur asked. “In our Clans, we call them deathberries.”

“I know all the herbs and berries that grow in these mountains,” Stoneteller responded. For a moment a gleam of interest showed in his eyes; then he bent his head again and when he spoke his voice was defeated. “And none of that knowledge is any use to protect my Tribe. Sharptooth is too strong. Not even your deathberries will defeat him.”

“Three will kill the strongest warrior.” Squirrelpaw spoke up boldly. “I think what we have here would be enough even for Sharptooth.”

Stoneteller looked surprised. “Are you sure?”

“Even if they don’t,” Stormfur added, “they’ll weaken him so we can finish him off.”

Stoneteller still looked undecided. His shoulders were bowed as if the whole weight of the mountains rested on them.

Then Stormfur heard a stir among the Tribe cats, hostile muttering that swelled to furious yowling. Talon was thrusting his way forward to stand before the Healer; thanks to the shadows that darkened the cave most of the Tribe had only just noticed that the outlaws had returned.

Talon stood stone-still, while his former Tribemates hurled accusations at him.

“You were supposed to kill Sharptooth!”

“You failed us!”

“Stoneteller, he’s disobeying you by coming here. Kill him!”

Instinctively, the Clan cats gathered around Talon, ready to defend him. Crowpaw’s neck fur stood on end, and Tawnypelt had unsheathed her claws. Even the gentle Feathertail lashed her tail from side to side. Stormfur felt as proud of his warriors as any Clan leader.

Stoneteller lifted his tail for silence, but it was several heartbeats before the clamor died away. “Well?” the Healer growled. “I hope you have good reason for coming here.”

“The best reason,” Talon replied. “You can kill me if you like, but that won’t make you any stronger against Sharptooth. Your enemy is outside this cave, not inside. The silver cat has come, and it is time to believe the prophecy of the Tribe of Endless Hunting. If we fail, then you can kill us.”

The Tribe fell silent. Their hostility had changed to uncertainty; Stormfur let his neck fur lie flat again.

“We cannot kill the creature in its lair,” Talon went on, “since we do not know where it lives. So we must bring it here to die.”

“Here?” Brook exclaimed, one voice among many cries of outrage. “In our cave?”

Stormfur reached out with his tail and rested it on her shoulder. She had to trust him, however dangerous their plan seemed.

“Yes, here,” Talon growled. “This is the place we know, where we have somewhere to hide, and where the whole Tribe can wait to ambush Sharptooth if we need to give him the death blow.”

“And how do you propose to bring him here?” Stoneteller asked icily.

“With blood.”

Talon lifted one huge paw and sliced it open with his teeth; scarlet drops spattered to the ground like rain. Then he raised his head and let out a ferocious yowl that echoed around the cavern, louder than the waterfall outside. He spun around and dashed out of the entrance, Rock and Bird racing on his heels.

They left behind them a dizzy, echoing silence, apart from the sound of water. Stormfur let out a long breath. The plan had begun. The trail of blood was being laid.

Brambleclaw was the first to speak. “Squirrelpaw and Stormfur, you stuff the hare. Be sure you don’t get any deathberry juice on your fur, and if you do, wash it off right away.”

“Yes, O medicine cat.” Squirrelpaw bowed her head with mock respect, her green eyes flashing. “We know what to do!”

Stormfur listened while Brambleclaw and Tawnypelt discussed the best place to leave the hare. Stoneteller was giving orders to his cave-guards, and sending the kits and kit-mothers to the nursery. Guards were placed at the entrance to that tunnel, while more of the cave-guards and the prey-hunters scrambled into places on the rocks around the cave walls where they could spring down on Sharptooth. Their mud-streaked fur blended into the walls so that Stormfur could hardly see where they were hiding.

All the while a sense of dread was growing inside him.

Somehow he felt like something terrible was going to happen. But why, if this was what the Tribe of Endless Hunting wanted him to do? He drank in the air, but he could scent nothing of Silverstream now, nor sense her reassuring presence.

“It will be all right.” Feathertail came up to him and pressed her muzzle against his. “I know you’re scared, but StarClan sent you here as well, with your dream about our mother. We have to do this.”

Crowpaw, a gray-black shadow hovering at Feathertail’s shoulder, nodded but said nothing.

An icy paw gripped Stormfur. Something was wrong; he knew it. There was something they had not understood, something they had not planned for. He looked around for Brambleclaw, wanting to share his fears with him, and saw him dragging the hare across the floor to lay it in front of the entrance, a few tail-lengths inside the cave. Tawnypelt watched, measuring the distance between the bait and the entrance, while Squirrelpaw made helpful gestures with her tail.

Stormfur padded over to them, feeling the eyes of the hidden Tribe staring at him from every corner of the cave. But before he could say anything, a screech split the air outside.

Talon, Rock, and Bird dashed into the cave and skidded to a halt.

“Sharptooth!” Bird gasped.

“He’s here!” Rock yowled, his voice rising to a wail. “He’s coming!”