STARLIGHT

She took a pace forward, glancing back when she realised that none of the others had followed her. “Look,” she went on, “we lived near the old Thunderpaths for seasons and seasons, and they never did any cat any harm, so long as we were careful. This one is quieter already—we haven’t heard a single monster today. There’s no need to lose your fur over it. Now come on.”

Brambleclaw gave himself a shake. He felt a bit cross that he had frozen at the first hint of danger, leaving Mistyfoot to take charge of the patrol. He padded forward warily with the others bunched around him. The scent of the Thunderpath strengthened and soon he spotted the hard, black surface, winding through the grass like a flattened snake. It was much narrower than the old Thunderpath, and as Mistyfoot had pointed out there were no monsters charging back and forth on it.

“What’s it for?” Crowfeather wondered, walking right up to the edge. “Look—it just goes down to the lake and stops.”

Brambleclaw realised he was right. The Thunderpath ended beside the lake in a wide area covered with the same hard, black stuff. At one side was a small Twoleg nest made of wood.

“The Twoleg scent is faint and stale,” Tawnypelt remarked. “I’d guess they haven’t been here for moons.”

“Look what I’ve found!”

Brambleclaw spun around and froze when he saw that Squirrelflight had ventured right out onto the half-bridge, and was gazing down into the water.

“Be careful!” he called, bounding over to her. His paws made a soft thudding sound on the planks of wood, and every few paces one of them rattled ominously. He tried not to think what it would feel like to plunge through into the icy grey water.

“Look!” Squirrelflight leaned over the edge and pricked her ears.

Following where she pointed, Brambleclaw saw another Twoleg object floating on the water. It looked like an upturned leaf, but it was much bigger and was made of wood. It was partly hidden by the half-bridge, so they hadn’t seen it from the shore.

“What is it?”

“Twolegs call it a boat,” Mistyfoot told them, padding up. Her fur lay flat on her shoulders, and she obviously wasn’t bothered by the rattling half-bridge. “They used to bring them onto our river sometimes—did you never see one? Sometimes they used them for fishing.”

Brambleclaw tried to picture a Twoleg crouching in this boat, waiting to hook out a fish with its big clumsy paws. He found it hard to believe they’d be quick enough to catch anything, but if Mistyfoot said so, it must be true.

“I think this must be a place where the Twolegs come in greenleaf, like the river,” Mistyfoot went on. “That means we don’t have to worry about them now.”

“We’ll need to worry in greenleaf, though,” Squirrelflight meowed.

Mistyfoot shrugged. “We’ll think about that when the time comes. There’ll be thicker growth everywhere by then. We can keep out of the Twolegs’ way, just as we did before.” She lifted her head to look squarely at Brambleclaw and Squirrelflight, and her gaze took in Crowfeather and Tawnypelt, who were waiting anxiously where the half-bridge joined with the shore. “Of course there will be dangers in our new home, wherever we end up,” she meowed, “but we mustn’t forget that we had enemies back in the forest, even before the Twolegs brought their monsters. If StarClan brought us here, it was not because there were no dangers here at all, but because we could learn to live among them, just as we did before.”

Squirrelflight nodded, chastened, but Brambleclaw curled his lip. He didn’t like the way Mistyfoot was treating them all like anxious apprentices. She had no idea of the dangers they had faced on the first journey to sun-drown-place! More Thunderpaths than she had crossed in her entire life, as well as dogs, hostile kittypets, Twolegs who wanted to trap them, hungry foxes . . .

“Are you going to stay here forever?” Squirrelflight had padded past him and was looking over her shoulder with her tail raised questioningly. Mistyfoot was already back on the shore with the others.

“No, I’m coming,” Brambleclaw muttered. He followed Squirrelflight off the half-bridge and tried not to feel mutinous when Mistyfoot led the way out of the clearing, away from the Thunderpath.

“She’s the deputy of her Clan,” Squirrelflight murmured, dropping back to walk close beside him. “You can’t blame her for having more experience than us.”

Brambleclaw was about to reply fiercely that their journey to sun-drown-place made them more experienced than any other forest cat when he saw that Squirrelflight was looking at him with sympathy in her green eyes. It wasn’t fair to take out his temper on her. If he was honest with himself, he was mostly feeling embarrassed because he had frozen with fear at the sight of the Thunderpath, afraid that what had driven them out of the forest was going to happen all over again.

He stretched his head forward to lick Squirrelflight’s ear. “I know,” he meowed. “And everything she says is true. Come on, let’s not get left behind.”

They broke into a run, and Brambleclaw felt a jolt of relief as they left the Twolegplace and the half-bridge behind and headed into the next part of the territory.

They were approaching the dark green smudge that he had seen across the lake from their temporary camp. As he had guessed, it was a pinewood, like the part of the forest in ThunderClan’s old territory that had surrounded Treecutplace. He sniffed the air, but there was no sign of the bitter stench left by tree-cutting monsters, and the ground was smooth and flat, unscarred by the ruts that monsters left behind.

The sun had started to go down, and a red light shone through the trees, casting dark shadows across their path. Tawnypelt’s tortoiseshell fur smouldered as the light glanced across her shoulders, and her eyes gleamed.

Brambleclaw realised that it wasn’t just the woods around Treecutplace that were like this; ShadowClan’s old territory had also had lots of pine trees, giving way to sticky, marshy ground where only a few stunted trees grew.

“Do you think ShadowClan would like to settle here?” he asked his sister.

“Maybe.” Tawnypelt’s tail twitched. “But back in the forest there were more trees with lower branches. We’d have trouble climbing most of these.”

Brambleclaw saw that she was right. The pines around them grew straight up, with smooth, slippery trunks, and the lowest branches began well above a cat’s head. An energetic warrior could claw his way up the trunk, but elders or queens and their kits would have trouble. If foxes or badgers attacked, the weakest cats in the Clan would find it hard to escape.

“But you won’t camp in the trees,” Crowfeather meowed. “If you make this your territory, you’ll need somewhere easy to defend for your camp.”

Tawnypelt nodded and looked around. The old ShadowClan camp had been in the shelter of a clump of bramble bushes, dense enough to keep the cats hidden and prickly enough to discourage even the most curious foxes. “I can’t see anywhere here,” she commented.

The ground sloped gently upwards from the lake, which was just visible through the trees as a glimmer of silver. As far as Brambleclaw could see the forest floor was smooth and clear, with little undergrowth where prey might be found. When he tasted the air, the strongest scent except for their own was squirrel—but a Clan could not survive by waiting for squirrels to come down from the trees.

A pang of sympathy for his sister tore through him like a claw. In the forest they had left, ShadowClan’s territory had been dreary and unwelcoming: partly bog, partly scrubby forest with few tall trees. He had always wondered if the darkness in the hearts of some of the ShadowClan cats came from their gloomy surroundings. This wasn’t quite as forbidding, but it still wasn’t right for cats.

“It might be different further on,” he mewed encouragingly. “Let’s head away from the lake.”

Tawnypelt took the lead as they moved warily up the slope. The thick covering of brittle pine needles muffled their pawsteps; everything was so quiet that their meows sounded too loud, and gradually every cat fell silent. Brambleclaw nearly jumped out of his fur when a bird shot up with a loud alarm call.

Squirrelflight sniffed at a clump of yellowish fungi and drew back with her lip curled in disgust. “I wouldn’t want to live here,” she muttered to Brambleclaw. “Do you think there’s any point in going further?”

“It’s up to Tawnypelt,” he replied. “This is more like ShadowClan territory than anything we’ve seen so far.”

They padded on, but before they had gone many more pawsteps Mistyfoot stopped. “This is no good,” she meowed. “We’re getting further and further away from the lake, and it’s going to get dark soon.”

“I need to find somewhere for a ShadowClan camp,” Tawnypelt insisted stubbornly.

“But the Clans sent us to patrol the whole lake.” Mistyfoot’s tail twitched. “We can’t waste time exploring one place more than anywhere else. You’ve already said that these trees remind you of your old home, so maybe this should be ShadowClan territory.”

“And what do you think I’m going to say to Blackstar about where we’ll actually live?” Tawnypelt’s voice had grown sharper, and her neck fur began to rise. “You needn’t think ShadowClan are going to take the worst territory. If there’s nowhere to camp, then forget it!”

Mistyfoot’s neck fur bristled too. “Trust ShadowClan to be difficult!”

“It’s all right for you, isn’t it? RiverClan’s got everything sorted out. You were pretty quick to stake a claim when we found that stream!”

Mistyfoot let out a furious hiss, unsheathing her claws, and Brambleclaw quickly stepped forward to push himself between the quarrelling she-cats. Much as he sympathised with Tawnypelt, it would be a disaster if she got into a fight with the RiverClan deputy. There was no way they could deal with injuries out here, with no medicine cats and no healing herbs; and how would they ever finish their mission if they were quarrelling among themselves?

“Stop! Tawnypelt, no cat will force ShadowClan to settle in a place they don’t want.”

“Huh!” Tawnypelt shot a last glare at Mistyfoot before turning away.

“I think we should go on a bit further,” Brambleclaw mewed to Mistyfoot. “We need to find somewhere to spend the night.”

“I know.” Mistyfoot still sounded out of temper. “I just think we should head back to the lake.”

“But—” Brambleclaw broke off. A faint breeze had sprung up, bringing with it an unexpected scent. He tasted the air, just to be sure. “More cats!” he exclaimed.

“What?” Squirrelflight bounded over. “Where?”