Starlight

Chapter 12

Fox!

Brambleclaw lifted his head to taste the air more carefully.

The scent clung to the bramble thicket beside him, strongest around a rough-edged tunnel that looked as if it had been made by slender bodies pushing regularly through it.

“It was here not long ago,” he warned Brackenfur. “There might be an earth nearby.”

They were leading a patrol to find landmarks for the boundaries of the new territory, and to put down the first scent markers. Rainwhisker was with them, and Dustpelt had come too, leaving Whitepaw and Spiderpaw dragging thorns into place to block the camp entrance.

“We’ll report it to Firestar,” Brackenfur decided. “We need to be careful until we find out whether it lives here or was just passing through.”

Brambleclaw nodded. His fur tingled with excitement, all his doubts about the hollow forgotten now that it was daylight and the cats could see what a good place it made for a camp. He had been glad when Firestar chose him to patrol the new boundaries; every pawstep made the woods feel more like ThunderClan territory, and he deliberately brushed against brambles and tree trunks as he walked along, to leave a scent trail that was unmistakably theirs.

He let Brackenfur take the lead as they padded on. As they skirted a clump of hazel, Dustpelt stopped to sniff a low-hanging branch. He looked up, and his eyes were so full of concern that the other three went over to examine the scent as well. They looked apprehensively at each other as they scented Twolegs.

“At least it’s stale,” Brackenfur pointed out. “Days old, I’d say.”

“But they come here.” Dustpelt curled his lip. “If I never see another Twoleg, it’ll be too soon.”

Brambleclaw took a deep breath to stop his heart pounding. He felt exactly the same way, but it would be a sign of weakness to show his fear in front of these warriors. This was their home now, and they couldn’t live every day expecting to have it snatched away from them. He let his tail-tip rest briefly on the older warrior’s shoulder. “This is the first scent we’ve picked up since leaving the hollow,” he pointed out.

“And we’re a long way away from a Thunderpath. There won’t be any monsters.”

Dustpelt flicked his ears and padded on without speaking.

The others followed, Brambleclaw keeping to the back, half-afraid the others would see the terror in his eyes as he tried to push away images of the forest crashing down around them.

“Let’s hunt!” Brackenfur suggested.

“Good idea,” Rainwhisker agreed. No cat mentioned that it would be a welcome diversion from thoughts of Twolegs and monsters, but they all concentrated on tracking prey as if they had been starving for a moon.

Brambleclaw slowed down to drink in the mingled scent of squirrel and rabbit and birds. He jumped when he heard an alarm call, and saw that Rainwhisker had brought down a starling. Nodding appreciatively, he headed past the young warrior, farther into the forest, until he spotted a thrush pecking among the gnarled roots of a dead tree. Crouching low enough for his belly fur to brush the fallen leaves, he crept forward until he could pounce on it and dispatch it with a swift blow to the neck.

As he lowered his head to take a bite, a weight landed on his back and he felt claws digging into him. Instinctively he flung himself sideways and rolled over to dislodge his attacker. Scrambling away from slashing claws, he caught a glimpse of ginger fur and at first thought it was Brackenfur.

Had his Clanmate gone mad? But when he scrabbled for a foothold and managed to spin around, he saw that he was facing a snarling ShadowClan warrior.

“Rowanclaw! What are you doing?”

“What do you think?” growled the ginger tom. “Defending the ShadowClan boundary, of course.”

“What?” Brambleclaw looked around and realized that the beeches and oak trees that grew around the ThunderClan camp were mixed with pine here.

“Don’t pretend you didn’t know! You crossed our scent markers.”

“I didn’t notice any scent marks at all!” Brambleclaw protested. “They must be too faint.” He shied away from the other possibility—that the Clans’ scents had become so mixed while they were traveling together that no cat could tell one from the other now. If that were true, it would be impossible to set any boundaries at all.

“Too faint!” Rowanclaw sneered. “Mouse dung! Admit it, you were trying to steal our territory.”

“You’re trying to steal ours,” Brambleclaw retorted furiously.

“Back at the horseplace, we said we’d use the clearing on either side of the stream as the boundary. You must have crossed it, because I certainly haven’t.”

“There isn’t a clearing here, mouse brain,” Rowanclaw snarled. “The stream veers deeper into our territory and the trees grow right up to both banks. We have set the boundary in a straight line, carrying on from where the stream runs through the clearing. Try looking out for the scent marks next time, and you’ll know exactly where ShadowClan begins.”

He unsheathed his claws, bunching his hindquarters under him, and Brambleclaw braced himself for a fight. But before Rowanclaw could pounce, a tortoiseshell streak burst out of the bushes and bowled him over. It was Tawnypelt.

“What are you doing?” she spat. “It’s much too soon to start fighting over territory.”

Rowanclaw glared at his Clanmate. “What a surprise, it’s the half-Clan warrior!” he hissed. “We all know you’d rather defend your brother than your Clan.”

“That’s not true!” Tawnypelt protested.

“No, it’s not.” Brambleclaw padded forward to stand next to his sister. “I know Tawnypelt is loyal to ShadowClan.”

Rowanclaw’s disbelieving gaze raked him like a claw. “If you ask me,” he growled, “all the cats who went to see that badger have forgotten which Clan they belong to.”

With a furious yowl, Brambleclaw was about to spring at him when three more ShadowClan cats appeared: Cedarheart, Oakfur, and Talonpaw. Brambleclaw’s belly clenched. He could hardly take on an entire ShadowClan patrol, and what would Tawnypelt do if her Clanmates forced her to join in the fight against her brother?

To his relief he heard Brackenfur’s voice behind him.

“Brambleclaw! What’s going on?”

Glancing back, he saw his three Clanmates racing through the trees. The ShadowClan warriors crouched down, unsheathing their claws, but before the warriors could leap on one another a new voice rang out.

“Stop!”

Firestar padded out from a patch of thorns behind Brambleclaw, his eyes narrowed in fury. “I can’t believe how stupid you are being, all of you. If we can’t establish our boundaries peacefully, we’ll end up shedding the blood of every cat in the forest.”

Stung, Brambleclaw took a step back, and saw his Clanmates flatten their neck fur as well. The ShadowClan warriors did the same, though their tails twitched angrily.

“They crossed our scent markers,” Rowanclaw muttered.

“No, we didn’t,” Brambleclaw insisted. He had expected support from his Clan leader; instead, Firestar was behaving as if he didn’t even want him to defend their territory. “We might need to fight,” he argued. “This is our home now, and we have to be ready—”

“That’s enough.” Firestar’s eyes were cold. “If ShadowClan has set scent markers already, then this is their territory.”

“If they did,” Dustpelt put in. “I didn’t smell any.”

“We will not accuse another Clan’s cats of lying,” Firestar hissed. “Rowanclaw, where is the stream and the clearing that we said we’d use as a boundary?”

The ShadowClan warrior jerked his head toward his own territory. “The stream’s back there, and there isn’t a clearing this far away from the lake.” Twitching his tail contemptuously toward Brambleclaw, he added, “I already told him that.”

“Then ShadowClan has the right to be here,” Firestar decided. “ThunderClan will find other places to hunt. Come on, we’re going back to camp.”

Brambleclaw couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He clamped his teeth together to stop himself from challenging his leader in front of warriors from another Clan. The most he could do was glare at the ShadowClan patrol as he swung around and followed Firestar back through the trees.

As he approached the dead tree where he had killed the thrush he noticed a faint scent hanging in the air; it was the ShadowClan marker, but it was so weak that he hardly recognized it, and it definitely held traces of ThunderClan, WindClan, and RiverClan scents as well. Brambleclaw didn’t feel any less furious now that he knew ShadowClan hadn’t been lying. It wasn’t ShadowClan he was angry with; it was Firestar.

Why had his leader assumed that Brambleclaw and the other ThunderClan cats were in the wrong? Why hadn’t he stopped to listen to their explanation for crossing the boundary? Brambleclaw curled his lip. If he carried on like this, Firestar would end up handing the entire forest over to the other Clans.

On their journey to sun-drown-place, he and the other five cats had discussed everything, and even when Brambleclaw emerged as the natural leader, they had still made all the important decisions together. Why couldn’t Firestar be more like that? Every cat in the Clan had an opinion about their new home, and blindly following orders wasn’t always the best solution.

Before they reached the hollow, Firestar stopped.

“Brackenfur, I want you to go that way.” He pointed with his tail to an area no cat had explored yet, where the trees grew more thickly. “See what you can find, and whether there are any good landmarks for the boundary. But I need one of you to come back with me—Brambleclaw, you’ll do.”

Brambleclaw watched the other three cats vanish into the bracken before turning to follow Firestar. “What do you want me to do?”

“We need a lot of moss and bedding for the new nests,” Firestar replied. “I want you to collect as much as you can before it gets dark.”

“What?” Brambleclaw stopped dead, his anger surging up again. “That’s a job for an apprentice!”

“Usually, yes, but the apprentices are busy building a barrier at the camp entrance. Just do it, Brambleclaw. You know every cat has to pitch in until our new home is fully established.”

“Okay,” Brambleclaw muttered.

He let Firestar go on, and stopped at the foot of a tree to claw at the moss between the roots, taking out his anger on the close-packed stems. Whatever Firestar said about every cat pitching in, this was a punishment for his scrap with the ShadowClan patrol. Brambleclaw had only been trying to defend his Clan’s territory. He wanted to be trusted, to be given responsibility, and here he was collecting moss.

Padding back with a ball of moss clenched between his teeth, he met Squirrelflight and the rest of the hunting patrol, laden with fresh-kill.

“Hi, Brambleclaw!” Squirrelflight called to him, setting down the squirrel she was carrying. “This place is great for prey!”

Brambleclaw couldn’t share her excitement. The only thing he’d been allowed to hunt for his Clan was a heap of bedding. Not bothering to put the moss down so he could answer, he brushed past his Clanmate and stalked into the camp.