Bramblestar’s Storm

Bramblestar looked at him, and at Minty, who was peering around his shoulder, her eyes wide with horror at the thought of going into battle. “No,” he meowed. “Thanks for offering, but you stay here and go on with your training. You too, Minty.” His gaze swept around his assembled warriors. “The rest of us leave at dawn!”

Chapter 21

Thin, gray light covered the forest. Long before the sun would crest the ridge, Bramblestar led his cats out of camp and brushed through the dew-soaked undergrowth, straight up the slope to the top border. His paws tingled with anticipation as he and his Clanmates passed their own scent markers and entered the unknown forest.

Crossing the ridge, Bramblestar let Jessy take the lead along the downward slope, well outside ShadowClan territory. None of them had ever set paw in this part of the forest before. They padded warily among huge oak trees, their gnarled roots stretched out as if to trip careless paws. Everything was silent in the dawn chill.

Gradually the oaks thinned out, to be replaced by dark, slender pines. The ground was thick with fallen needles that gave way slightly under every paw step. Blossomfall sprang a tail-length from the ground at the loud alarm call of some hidden bird, then licked her chest fur in embarrassment and tried to look unconcerned.

“Don’t worry,” Bramblestar told her. “We’re all getting nervous. This is new for all of us.”

“I don’t like the way we can be seen at such a distance,” Cloudtail meowed, waving his tail at the ranks of pine trees, the ground between them clear of undergrowth. “I’ll stick out like a mushroom.”

“So will I,” Snowpaw added worriedly.

“You could try rolling in mud and pine needles,” Thornclaw suggested. “Then these kittypets might think that you’re a couple of bushes.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Cloudtail responded. He spotted a muddy hollow underneath a tree and led Snowpaw over there. Bramblestar and the others watched as the two cats rolled over in the mud until their fur stood out in sticky spikes.

“That’s so weird!” Jessy exclaimed, intrigued and with a glint of amusement in her eyes. “The lengths you warriors will go to in order to stalk an enemy!”

Thornclaw gave her a defensive look. “We’re not kittypets, you know!”

As the cats set out again, Bramblestar began picking up traces of ShadowClan scent, but they were all stale, and though at one point the scent was mixed with a tang of squirrel blood, he didn’t think that ShadowClan had been this way for some days.

Before they had gone much farther, Cloudtail came to walk alongside Bramblestar, who tried not to let his nose twitch at the reek of mud coming from the warrior’s white pelt. “I’m a bit worried about Jessy,” Cloudtail whispered. “Should we really be taking a kittypet into battle?”

“I know she hasn’t had much training,” Bramblestar mewed. “We’ll just have to make sure she doesn’t get cornered one-on-one.”

Cloudtail grunted. “We might all be too busy watching out for our own tails.”

“I’m looking forward to this!” Bramblestar heard Lionblaze speaking just behind him, excitement in his voice. “It’s been moons since we’ve had to use our battle moves.”

“Which is a good thing,” Cinderheart replied.

“I know,” Lionblaze told her. “It’s not like I want to go through the Great Battle again; don’t think that. But how dangerous will it be, teaching a few kittypets to keep away from Clan cats?”

Bramblestar glanced back over his shoulder. “Kittypets who have already defeated ShadowClan,” he pointed out.

Lionblaze’s eyes gleamed. “Oh, ShadowClan!”

“Remember that you don’t have your—your power anymore,” Cinderheart warned him. “You can get injured, just like any other cat.”

“I’ll be careful,” Lionblaze told her, flexing his claws. “Don’t worry.”

Cinderheart looked doubtful, as if she didn’t quite believe him, but she said no more.

“Hey, Bramblestar!” Ivypool’s voice came from a few fox-lengths away. “Come and look at this!”

Ivypool and her apprentice had been ranging away on one side; now they were standing in front of a drift of white on the ground. Padding closer, Bramblestar picked up the scent of ShadowClan, and realized that the white stuff was a scatter of pigeon feathers.

“ShadowClan must have killed here,” Ivypool meowed.

Bramblestar nodded; the scent was fresh, too, much more recent than the other traces he had picked up.

“ShadowClan seems to be doing well enough on their own,” Thornclaw declared, bounding up and giving the feathers a sniff. “Do they really need our help with these kittypets?”

“One dead pigeon doesn’t mean a full fresh-kill pile,” Bramblestar meowed. “And remember that our borders will be threatened if ShadowClan goes hungry.”