Twilight

Chapter 2

It was the first time Squirrelflight had left the camp since the battle with Mudclaw, and she found herself enjoying the feel of wind in her fur and the crackle of leaves underpaw. Here and there she glimpsed early signs of newleaf: a few pale snow-drops scattered under a tree, and a single early coltsfoot flower like a splash of sunlight against a mossy green trunk.

Squirrelflight reminded herself to tell her sister, Leafpool, where it could be found. Coltsfoot was a good remedy for shortness of breath.

Once they were well away from camp, Brambleclaw stopped. “Why don’t you two take the lead?” he suggested, nodding to Ashfur and Rainwhisker. “Let’s see how well you know the territory.”

“Sure,” Rainwhisker agreed enthusiastically, picking up the pace.

But Ashfur gave the tabby warrior a hard stare before sliding through the bracken after Rainwhisker. Squirrelflight knew why.

“What did you say that for?” she mewed crossly to Brambleclaw when they were alone. “You’re treating them as if they’re your apprentices. Ashfur’s older than you, don’t forget.”

“And I’m leading this patrol,” Brambleclaw pointed out.

“If you don’t like my orders, you’d better go back.”

Squirrelflight opened her mouth for a stinging reply, then closed it again. She didn’t want to get dragged into yet another quarrel. Instead, she whisked past Brambleclaw and bounded around the edge of a clump of brambles, following the scent trail Rainwhisker and Ashfur had left.

Ashfur must have heard her brushing through the bracken; he waited for her to catch up and slowed his pace to pad next to her. “The buds on the trees are swelling,” he remarked, flicking his tail toward the branches of an oak. “Not long now till newleaf.”

“I can’t wait,” Squirrelflight mewed. “No more ice and snow, lots more prey.”

“The Clan could do with some extra fresh-kill,” Ashfur agreed. “Talking of fresh-kill, how about we hunt? Do you think Brambleclaw would mind?”

“I don’t give a mousetail whether Brambleclaw minds or not,” Squirrelflight hissed.

She opened her jaws to taste the air. At first she thought she caught a trace of badger, and wondered if she should mention it to Brambleclaw—badgers were trouble, especially if their territory overlapped with a Clan’s. But he was the last cat in the forest she wanted to speak to right now, and she guessed he wouldn’t listen to anything she had to say anyway.

She tasted the air again; the scent of squirrel flooded over her, and when she spotted the bushy-tailed creature stooped busily over a nut a few fox-lengths ahead, she pushed the badger to the back of her mind. Checking the direction of the wind, she dropped into a hunter’s crouch and crept up on her prey. As she launched herself forward the squirrel leapt for a nearby tree trunk, but Squirrelflight sprang quickly. Her claws sank into its shoulder and she dispatched it with a swift bite to the neck.

A loud alarm call made her swing around to see a blackbird fluttering up from a clump of bracken while Ashfur watched it in frustration.

“Bad luck!” Squirrelflight called. “I probably startled it by going after the squirrel.”

Ashfur shook his head. “No, I stepped on a twig.”

“Never mind, you can come and share this.” Squirrelflight waved her tail invitingly. “There’s plenty.”

As Ashfur joined her beside the fresh-kill, Brambleclaw appeared from the undergrowth. “What are you doing?” he growled. “We’re on our way to see WindClan, or had you forgotten?”

Squirrelflight swallowed a mouthful of prey. “Come on, Brambleclaw—lighten up, for StarClan’s sake. None of us have eaten this morning.” Awkwardly, not sure how Brambleclaw would react if she tried to be friendly, she drew back from the squirrel. “You can have some if you want.”

“No thanks.” The tabby warrior’s voice was curt. “Where’s Rainwhisker?”

“He went on ahead,” meowed Ashfur, with a wave of his tail.

Without another word, Brambleclaw strode off in the direction the gray tom had indicated, shouldering through the long grass until his dark pelt was swallowed up by damp green fronds.

Squirrelflight let out a hiss of annoyance.

Ashfur flicked her ear lightly with the tip of his tail. “Don’t let him get to you so easily.”

“He doesn’t,” Squirrelflight muttered, trying to convince herself it was true. Once more she remembered how close she and Brambleclaw had been on their journeys, how they had relied on each other and come to need each other. How did we get from there to here? she wondered despairingly.

Glancing up at Ashfur, she saw that his eyes were dark with concern. She knew he wanted to be closer to her, more than just fellow warriors. It was tempting to tell him she felt the same way, but it was too soon for her to be sure her feelings were real. She needed to get over the quarrel with Brambleclaw first. And in the meantime we have a job to do, she reminded herself with a flash of impatience. You’re a warrior, not a moonstruck rabbit!

She and Ashfur finished the squirrel in a few swift bites and set out again toward the WindClan border. Soon they overtook Brambleclaw and Rainwhisker. Brambleclaw had brought down a starling and was tearing into it hungrily, while Rainwhisker was gulping down a vole. He glanced up as his Clanmates appeared.

“I thought you’d got lost,” he meowed.

Brambleclaw took his last mouthful of starling and rose to his paws. Without saying a word, he turned and stalked off.

Squirrelflight exchanged a glance with Ashfur, shrugged, and followed.

The trees were thinning out when Squirrelflight began to hear the chattering of water over stones. The patrol emerged at the top of a slope that led down to the stream bordering WindClan. Gusts of WindClan scent drifted across on the breeze, but there was no sign of any cats.

“We must have just missed a patrol,” Ashfur meowed quietly. “Those scent marks are fresh.”

That was a good sign, Squirrelflight thought. If WindClan were organized enough to be patrolling their boundaries, they must be on their way to recovering from Mudclaw’s rebellion. Did that mean Onewhisker had been able to travel to the Moonpool to receive his nine lives and his leader’s name from StarClan?

“Let’s head for the stepping stones,” Brambleclaw suggested. “We might catch up to them.”

He bounded down the slope and headed upstream with the rest of the patrol hard on his paws. The trees soon gave way to open moorland; Squirrelflight turned her head to look at the gray sweep of leafless branches below her. Beyond them, the lake reflected the pale blue sky, where the sun had nearly reached its peak.

The stream tumbled more steeply here, between banks fringed by sedge and reeds. Water foamed around stepping stones that formed a path to the moorland on the other side, easy for a cat to leap, even when the stream was full.

Wind gusted into Squirrelflight’s face, buffeting her fur and making her eyes water. “I don’t know how WindClan puts up with it,” she grumbled to Ashfur. “There isn’t a tree in sight!”

Ashfur let out a small mrrow of amusement. “They probably wonder how ThunderClan puts up with all those branches blocking out the sky.”

“Ask me that when it rains,” Squirrelflight muttered.

A flash of pale brown caught her eye: a rabbit fleeing over the crest of the hill. Squirrelflight’s paws itched to dash after it, but it was well inside WindClan’s territory. Heartbeats later a lean, gray-black cat appeared, racing after the rabbit with his belly brushing the turf. Blinking to clear her watering eyes, Squirrelflight recognized Crowfeather. Like Brambleclaw, he had been one of the cats chosen by StarClan to make the journey to the sun-drown-place.

Hunter and prey disappeared into a hollow and a high-pitched squeal, quickly cut off, told Squirrelflight that the WindClan warrior had made his kill.

“Hunting patrol,” meowed Rainwhisker, nodding to the top of the hill.

Two more WindClan cats followed Crowfeather more slowly over the crest. Squirrelflight made out the dark gray tabby pelt of Webfoot; the smaller cat behind him was his apprentice, Weaselpaw. A third cat, Whitetail, joined them as they stood looking down at the ThunderClan patrol.

Brambleclaw called out, “We’ve brought a message from Firestar!”

Webfoot and Whitetail exchanged a glance, then Webfoot led the way down the slope until all three cats stood on the opposite side of the stream.

“What message?” Webfoot demanded.

Squirrelflight studied the WindClan warrior. He had been one of Mudclaw’s fiercest supporters, and he still showed marks of the battle in a torn ear and a patch of fur missing from one shoulder. But Onewhisker must have decided to trust him again, if he had been put in charge of this patrol.

Brambleclaw dipped his head in greeting. “Firestar sent us to make sure everything’s okay,” he mewed. “He asked us to check that Onewhisker had made his journey to the Moonpool.”

“One star,” Whitetail corrected him.

Squirrelflight’s belly lurched. Calling the Clan leader by his ordinary warrior name had been a really bad mistake, as if Brambleclaw didn’t expect him to have received his new name from StarClan.

“Sorry—Onestar.” Brambleclaw twitched one ear, but his voice remained steady. “That’s good news. Congratulate him for us, will you?”

Webfoot’s eyes narrowed. “Why did Firestar send you?

Does he think StarClan wouldn’t give nine lives to Onestar?”

Squirrelflight’s eyes stretched wide. Had Webfoot forgotten that Onestar might have been crowfood by now if it wasn’t for Firestar and ThunderClan?

Brambleclaw blinked. “He just wanted to be sure.”

“Perhaps Firestar should concentrate on ThunderClan, and let WindClan get on with their own lives,” Webfoot suggested.

“Onestar wouldn’t be leader if it wasn’t for ThunderClan!”

Squirrelflight pointed out hotly. “You know that as well as any cat, Webfoot. You and Mudclaw—” She broke off, choking on a mouthful of fur as Brambleclaw flicked his tail across her mouth.

Webfoot’s eyes burned. “I wasn’t the only cat to believe Mudclaw was our rightful leader,” he snarled. “But since StarClan killed him with the falling tree, and gave Onestar his nine lives and his name, I know that I was wrong.”

“If Onestar trusts him he’s got bees in his brain.”

Squirrelflight dropped back to mutter in Ashfur’s ear. “If I was Onestar, I’d watch my tail.”

To her relief, she spotted Crowfeather appear over the rim of the hollow, dragging the rabbit’s body. Even though the WindClan warrior was as prickly as a holly bush, he wouldn’t be as cold and suspicious as Webfoot among his old friends.

“Hi, Crowfeather,” she meowed. “Good catch!”

To her surprise, the dark gray warrior gave her a curt nod and glanced away without saying anything. He kept his jaws clamped on his fresh-kill, his nostrils flaring.

“If that’s all,” Webfoot meowed, “you can all go home.”

“Don’t tell us what to do on our own territory!”

Squirrelflight snapped.

“Leave it,” Brambleclaw warned in a low growl.

Squirrelflight knew he was right—this was not the time to pick a fight, however hostile the WindClan cats were being.

Webfoot and the other WindClan warriors watched silently from their side of the stream as Brambleclaw turned and led his patrol back toward camp. Squirrelflight felt the WindClan cats’ gaze pricking her pelt all the way down the hill, and when she glanced back at the edge of the trees, the four cats were still there. She bounded forward, not stopping until she had put a thick bramble thicket between herself and WindClan.

“Thank StarClan!” She skidded to a halt in a clearing and shook herself as if she had just climbed out of icy water. “I don’t know what’s got into them.”

“Me neither,” Rainwhisker agreed.

“I would have thought it was obvious,” Brambleclaw meowed. “WindClan don’t want to be allied with ThunderClan anymore. Everything’s different now.”

“After all we did for them!” Squirrelflight’s frustration and anxiety spilled over into anger; she couldn’t believe Brambleclaw was accepting WindClan’s new hostility without question. “I was a whisker from clawing Webfoot’s ears off back there.”

“It’s a good thing you didn’t,” Brambleclaw pointed out dryly. “There’s more than one cat in ThunderClan who’d say that Firestar shouldn’t interfere in another Clan’s business.”

“Mouse dung! Does that mean you think Firestar should have done nothing, and just let Mudclaw take over?”

Squirrelflight sprang forward, but before she could reach Brambleclaw, Ashfur pushed his way between them.

“There’s no need for this,” he meowed. “WindClan probably want to prove they’re strong again, now that they have their new leader. Give them time. They’ll calm down.”

Squirrelflight suspected the gray tomcat was right, but that didn’t mean she was willing to let Brambleclaw get away with insulting her father. She forced her neck fur to flatten again, but she still quivered with fury as they set off toward the ThunderClan camp.

“Firestar will always want to help Onestar.” She addressed the back of Brambleclaw’s head as he slipped through a patch of ferns ahead of her. “They’ve been friends forever.”

“Maybe, but Onestar clearly doesn’t need his help anymore,” Brambleclaw mewed without looking back. The certainty in his tone infuriated Squirrelflight all over again. “It’s natural for Clans to be rivals. We were right to help WindClan when they were in trouble, but we can’t keep on looking out for them.”

“Stupid furball!” Squirrelflight growled, not loud enough for Brambleclaw to hear her. She hated the way the Clans had separated like flowing water into their new territories; what had happened to their closeness during the journey from the forest, when every cat had tried to help each other without stopping to remember which Clan they belonged to? It felt much too soon to turn their backs on that and let hostility and Clan rivalry take over. How would they survive in this new and unfamiliar place if they couldn’t rely on each other?

“And what will happen if ThunderClan need WindClan’s help?” Rainwhisker meowed ominously, as if he had followed Squirrelflight’s thoughts. “Have any of you thought of that?”

Brambleclaw led the patrol home by a different route, hunting on the way to take fresh-kill back for the Clan.

Pausing underneath an oak tree, Squirrelflight once again picked up the scent of badger. It was stronger this time, and fresh; she guessed that it was not long since the creature had passed that way.

“Brambleclaw, do you smell that too?”

The tabby warrior padded up with a squirrel he had just caught. He put the fresh-kill down and swiped his tongue around his jaws before drawing in a stream of air. Alarm flared at once in his amber eyes. “Badger! Close by, too.”

Squirrelflight’s pelt prickled. A badger in their territory was the last thing any cat wanted. Hawkfrost had already driven one away from RiverClan, and it looked like ThunderClan had been lucky not to encounter one before now. “We’ll have to do something,” she mewed.

Brambleclaw nodded. A badger would make a tasty meal of a young kit if it had the chance. They were unlikely to prey on an adult cat, but that didn’t mean full-grown warriors were safe if they met one. A badger would kill out of pure savagery, trampling its prey into the ground or clamping it in its jaws and never letting go until its victim was dead.

Squirrelflight reminded herself that not all badgers were like that. Her first journey from the forest had led her to Midnight, the wise badger who lived at the sun-drown-place.

Midnight had warned them that Twolegs would destroy the forest, and told them that the Clans would have to leave. But Midnight was unique; the rest of her kin could be bloodthirsty marauders if the mood took them.

“Is there a problem?” Ashfur came to join Squirrelflight and Brambleclaw; his words were indistinct because he carried a mouthful of mice, dangling from their tails.

Brambleclaw beckoned with his tail to Rainwhisker, who had just brought down a blackbird; the young warrior came trotting over with a satisfied look on his face and a feather on his nose.

“A badger—maybe more than one—has been here,” Brambleclaw meowed. “We can’t go back to camp without checking it out.”

“You mean, follow the trail?” Rainwhisker mewed in alarm. “Are you sure?”

“We have to find out if it’s left our territory. Squirrelflight, can you tell which way it went?”

Squirrelflight nosed at the scent the badger had left in the grass. “That way.” She pointed with her tail.

Brambleclaw padded over to sniff the trail. “Keep quiet, all of you. I don’t want them to know we’re here until we see how many there are and decide what’s best to do. We’re lucky that the wind’s in the right direction, so it won’t carry our scent to them.”

The cats left their prey among the roots of the oak tree, scratching earth over the pile until they could come and collect it later. Then with Brambleclaw in the lead, they set out after the badger.

The trail led them deeper into the forest, in the direction of the ShadowClan border. Here and there were freshly turned patches of earth, as if the badger had been digging for grubs. Squirrelflight felt a pang of concern for her friend Tawnypelt and the rest of ShadowClan; if they failed to track the badger down in their territory, some cat would need to warn Blackstar.

The scent grew steadily stronger, a powerful reek that swallowed up all other scents of the forest. Squirrelflight felt her fur stand up along her spine. It looked as if ShadowClan would be safe after all; the badger was still close by.

Suddenly Brambleclaw halted in the shadow of a boulder and held up his tail as a sign for the others to stay back. He clawed his way silently up the rough stone until he could poke his head above it and see to the other side.

Instantly he ducked down again. Squirrelflight crept forward until she could peer around the side of the boulder.

The ground on the other side was flat and pebbly, leading to a scattering of more smooth gray boulders. Between two of the rocks there was a gaping hole flanked by piles of freshly dug earth; Squirrelflight almost sneezed as a harsh scent reached her from the damp soil, a mingled reek of badger and fox. The badger must be building a set in an old fox den, she thought.

In front of the hole, three badger cubs scuffled about, making high-pitched fretful noises as if they didn’t like having to trek through the forest in daylight. Squirrelflight stared, her neck fur rising in horror, then she slid back to join Ashfur and Rainwhisker in the shelter of the rock.

“There’s a whole family of them!” she hissed. “Great StarClan, they’ll be all over the territory in a couple of seasons!”

Ashfur looked puzzled. “It’s unusual for a badger to move with cubs.”

“Maybe they were forced out of their old home,” Rainwhisker suggested.

Brambleclaw slid down from the top of the boulder and crouched beside them. “We can’t do anything until we know how many adults there are,” he meowed. “We’ll stay here and keep watch. Don’t do anything unless I say so, okay?”

All three cats nodded, though Squirrelflight seethed at the way Brambleclaw was ordering them about like wet-eared apprentices.

“Badgers mostly come out at night,” Brambleclaw went on.

“If they’re in the set now, there’s not much we can do. No cat is going in there.” His amber gaze rested on Squirrelflight.

“I’m not stupid!” she hissed.

“I didn’t say you were,” Brambleclaw retorted. “But there are times when you do stupid things.”

Ashfur took a breath as if he were going to leap to her defense, but she flicked her tail at him for silence. “Really, it’s not worth it,” she muttered.

“If we find there’s just one full-grown badger with the cubs, we’ll attack,” Brambleclaw mewed. “We can’t let them settle in our territory. Four of us should be able to cope with one badger. Hawkfrost managed to drive one off, after all.

This could even be the same badger.”

Squirrelflight’s neck fur began to rise again at the mention of Brambleclaw’s half brother. It was bad enough that Brambleclaw refused to admit that Hawkfrost was untrustworthy, without having him held up as a model of courage and fighting skill as well.

“We might drive it into ShadowClan territory,” she pointed out.

“Then ShadowClan’s warriors will have to deal with it.”

Brambleclaw’s eyes were intense, and his voice cold. “We have to protect our own Clan first.”

“And if there’s more than one badger?” Ashfur wondered.

“Then we’ll gather as much information as we can and report back to Firestar. Find somewhere to hide where you can see the mouth of the set.”

Squirrelflight returned to her vantage point in the clump of fern. The badger cubs were still scuffling in front of the pile of earth. The sun climbed higher, and Squirrelflight would have dozed off if hunger hadn’t gnawed at her belly.

The squirrel she had shared with Ashfur seemed a long time ago, and she thought longingly of the heap of fresh-kill left under the oak tree.

Her jaws gaped in a yawn, and she clamped them shut again as an even stronger reek of badger flooded into her mouth. The undergrowth on the far side of the clearing rustled briefly before the ferns parted to reveal a powerful, broad-shouldered body and a long muzzle with a white stripe down the middle. The female badger lumbered into the clearing and her three cubs scampered up to her. She dropped a mouthful of beetles onto the ground and the cubs gulped them up with high-pitched cries of joy.

Brambleclaw sprang on top of the boulder and let out a challenging yowl. The female badger’s head shot up and she roared in defiance, showing two rows of sharp yellow teeth.

Brambleclaw yowled again. “Attack!” He leapt from the boulder, landing among the cubs who scurried out of the way, yelping with fear. They huddled together in the mouth of the set, staring at the warrior with wide, scared eyes.

Ashfur hurtled out of his hiding place farther around the clearing, with Rainwhisker hard on his paws. Squirrelflight pelted forward to stand beside Brambleclaw. “Get out!” she hissed at the badgers, even though she knew they wouldn’t understand what she was saying. “This is our territory!”

Brambleclaw lashed at the badger’s muzzle with both forepaws. She reared backward, swiping at him with massive claws, but Brambleclaw dodged the blow.

Squirrelflight ran forward until she was close enough to rake her claws down the badger’s side; blood welled out of the clawmarks and she shook her paw fiercely to dislodge the trapped black fur. She ducked to avoid the snapping jaws, then darted back just as Ashfur dashed in from the other side.

The badger swung her head from side to side as if she couldn’t decide which swift-moving target to attack first.

This is easy! Squirrelflight thought. She’s too slow and clumsy!

She let out a screech of alarm as a massive white-furred paw slammed down less than a mouse-length away from her haunches. If it had landed on her it would have snapped her spine. Startled and shaking, she rolled out of range in a tangle of paws and tail. She wanted to run all the way back to the camp, but she knew they couldn’t give up now. This ferocious creature could not be allowed to make a home in their territory, or no cat would be safe, from the youngest kits to the most battle-hardy warriors.

She scrambled to her feet in time to see Brambleclaw swipe his claws down the badger’s shoulder. Leaping up, he tried to fasten his teeth in her throat, but the badger shook him off. He flew through the air, landed with a loud thump, and lay motionless.

Squirrelflight raced to his side, her belly churning in fear.

But before she reached him, he shook his head as if he were coming out of deep water, then he staggered to his paws. “I’m okay,” he rasped.

Squirrelflight veered away to meet the badger head-on.

Rearing up on her hindlegs, she clawed her enemy’s nose while her other paw slashed for the tiny bright eyes. Ashfur battered at the creature’s haunches, angling his body to make room for Brambleclaw, who was biting down on the badger’s hindpaw. Rainwhisker had his front paws hooked in the badger’s rough pelt while his teeth clamped down on her ear.

The badger had had enough. Shaking off Brambleclaw and Rainwhisker, she let out a roar of fury and defeat and turned tail. Lumbering across to the mouth of the foxhole, she nudged her cubs to their paws and herded them in front of her as they fled the clearing.

“And don’t come back!” Ashfur yowled.

The badger wouldn’t understand his words, but the meaning was plain enough. All four cats stood shoulder to shoulder while the badger’s roars and the high-pitched cries of the cubs faded away through the trees.

“Well fought, all of you,” Brambleclaw panted. “Let’s hope that’s the last we see of them.”

“And that there aren’t any more,” Ashfur commented.

Brambleclaw nodded. “We’ll fill in the hole and keep watch to make sure they don’t come back.”

“What? Now?” Squirrelflight protested. “I’m worn out, and my belly’s yowling!”

“No, not now. We’ll go back to camp and get a couple of other warriors to deal with the set. The regular patrols can keep an eye on it after that.”

“Thank StarClan!” Squirrelflight sighed. “Let’s go and collect that fresh-kill.”

The four cats limped back through the forest. Squirrelflight felt the sting of new wounds on top of her scratches from the battle against Mudclaw. “I won’t have any fur left at this rate,” she muttered.

Ashfur padded to her side and drew his tongue gently across a clawmark on her shoulder. “You fought well,” he murmured.

“So did you.” Squirrelflight could see how battered he was, with blood seeping from a patch on his hindquarters where the fur had been clawed off. She touched her nose to his ear.

“I bet that badger wishes she’d never set foot on our territory!” she mewed.

She pictured the huge creature crashing through the undergrowth with her cubs stumbling along behind. For a few heartbeats she shared their fear, and a pang of sympathy pierced her. She knew what it felt like to lose your home, and have to travel far to find a new one.

I hope she finds somewhere safe for her cubs, Squirrelflight thought. But a long, long way from ThunderClan.