Bramblestar’s Storm

It was Millie who replied. “She’s getting sores on her belly from the damp bedding. Bramblestar, you have to do something!”

“I’ll be okay,” Briarlight muttered. “Don’t fuss!”

“Jayfeather?” Bramblestar glanced toward his medicine cat. “What do you think?”

Jayfeather padded up to Briarlight. “Why didn’t you tell me you were getting sores?” he asked brusquely.

Briarlight looked at her paws. “I didn’t want to bother you.”

“StarClan help us!” Jayfeather puffed out a sigh. “What do you think a medicine cat is for?” To Bramblestar he added, “I’ll examine her sores and find her some herbs, but Millie is right. Sleeping on stone and wet bedding won’t do Briarlight any good at all.”

Before Bramblestar could respond, a squeal sounded from the tunnel entrance. He glanced over his shoulder to see that Minty had appeared with Amberpaw.

“Oh, wow!” the kittypet exclaimed, her blue eyes round with shock. “That cat has no legs!”

Stupid furball, Bramblestar thought, as Briarlight shrank with embarrassment.

“Of course she’s got legs,” Amberpaw mewed, brisk and sensible. “The back ones don’t work, that’s all.”

“And she’s still alive?” Minty asked. “Don’t you have to feed her and stuff?”

“Yes, we catch prey for her,” Amberpaw replied. “What do you take us for? She’s our Clanmate! Do you think we wouldn’t help her?”

Minty gave Briarlight a fascinated glance. “You’re not really wild at all, then,” she murmured.

“Yes, we are,” Amberpaw meowed with a decisive flick of her tail. “Wild’s not the same as savage.”

Bramblestar gave the apprentice a nod of approval. He still couldn’t see any answer to the problem of the wet bedding, and hoped that something would occur to him on patrol. It would be a relief to get away from the makeshift camp for a while.

“Dovewing,” he began, beckoning to the cat nearest him. “I want you to come with me to patrol the ShadowClan border.”

“Sure,” Dovewing mewed. “I need some exercise to take the stiffness out of my legs.”

“Let’s take the two older apprentices,” Bramblestar suggested. “They’ve missed out on a lot of training lately. And their mentors, of course.”

“I’ll round them up.” Dovewing padded into the tunnel with a whisk of her tail. Moments later she reappeared with Poppyfrost and Bumblestripe, Lilypaw and Seedpaw bouncing with anticipation behind their mentors.

“We’re really going to patrol the ShadowClan border?” Seedpaw chirped.

Bramblestar nodded. “What’s left of it. And there might be dangers we’re not used to, so both of you need to be sensible and not go dashing off.”

“We won’t,” Lilypaw promised.

Bramblestar led the patrol along the ridge toward ShadowClan, setting scent markers at the edge of the territory until they reached the border stream. Swollen by the heavy rain, it had burst its banks and become a brown, churning torrent as it rolled toward the lake. Pausing to taste the air, Bramblestar realized that he could only pick up faint traces of ShadowClan scent. “They haven’t renewed their scent markers since yesterday,” he mewed.

“We haven’t renewed ours yet, either,” Poppyfrost pointed out. “There’s not much point in all this wet,” she added with a shiver.

“No cat will try to cross this stream, that’s for sure,” Bumblestripe agreed.

“Still, I think we will go on leaving markers,” Bramblestar decided. “The apprentices can practice setting them.”

“Yes!” Lilypaw jumped into the air. “We’ll feel like real warriors.”

Gradually they worked their way downstream, finding new places to set the markers at the edge of the water. The boundary was farther into ThunderClan territory than it used to be, thanks to the flooded stream.

“I hope ShadowClan doesn’t think we’re giving them more territory when the floods go down,” Bumblestripe murmured.

“If they do, they’ll soon find out they’re wrong,” Bramblestar responded grimly.

A thin drizzle began to fall, soaking their pelts and striking a chill right through to their bones. Apart from the patter of droplets, the forest was silent. Bramblestar felt his neck fur begin to rise at the strangeness of pushing through the drenched undergrowth, under dripping trees, and finding no trace of prey or any other cats. Even the birds had stopped singing.

The apprentices, who had been scampering a few paw steps ahead, slithered to a halt.

“Wow, look at that!” Lilypaw exclaimed.

Bramblestar trotted forward to join the young cats. They had reached the edge of the flooded lake. The water stretched in front of them in an endless silver pool, with the tops of trees poking out of it.

“The water’s risen above the old Thunderpath,” Seedpaw meowed. “That’s more fox-lengths from the lake than I can count!”

Lilypaw was blinking unhappily as she gazed out over the flood.

“What’s the matter?” Seedpaw asked.

“I was thinking of all the drowned prey,” Lilypaw mewed. “How are we going to find enough to eat?”

“That’s easy!” Seedpaw replied. “We’ll have to expand our territory over the other side of the ridge.”