Crookedstar’s Promise

The RiverClan leader flattened his ears as he heard his mate’s terrified cry. He dug his claws into the mud, steadying himself against the water that swirled around his legs. The river had broken its banks and was streaming into camp. He twisted his head around, searching the shadows.

“Hailstar!” Echomist shrieked again. Her cry was muffled by the kit who swung from her jaws. Another clung to her back. She was staring at a nest of twigs that was spinning away from her on the floodwater. A small kit was struggling to cling to it as the woven twigs collapsed like loose leaves.

Hailstar dived for the nest and grabbed the kit just before he disappeared beneath the water. He thrust his son at Timberfur, who was chasing another nest. “Take Volekit to the elders’ den!” The brown tom took the dripping scrap of fur and bounded toward the high end of the camp where the elders’ den was still untouched by the rising water.

“Follow him!” Hailstar ordered Echomist. She nodded, her eyes huge with fear, her long gray fur flattened to her body by the rain.

Hailstar scanned the camp. Gleaming pelts darted in the darkness like panicked fish. A lithe ginger-and-white she-cat was clinging on to the remains of the warriors’ den, trying to claw together its fast-fraying walls. A stout tabby tom tried to block the foaming channel where nests swirled out into the river.

The sky lit up with a white flare as lightning blazed. Thunder crashed and the wind hardened. A new wave of water surged through the camp.

“Shellheart!” Hailstar called to his deputy. “What’s your opinion?”

A dappled gray tom, peering upriver from a beech stump among the reeds, called back, “The water’s rising fast, Hailstar! The elders’ den isn’t going to be safe for much longer.”

Hailstar lashed his tail. “We’ll have to abandon camp!”

“No!” The ginger-and-white she-cat let go of her den and faced the RiverClan leader.

“We must, Brightsky!” Hailstar urged.

“We can’t leave everything our ancestors built for us!”

“We can rebuild it!” Hailstar snapped.

“It won’t be the same!” Brightsky plunged through the floods and clamped her paws around a floating nest.

Shellheart bounded down from the stump and splashed toward his Clanmate. “Together we can rebuild anything,” he insisted. “Except cats who have drowned trying to save bits of twig.”

Brightsky reluctantly let go of the nest and watched it spin away into the reeds, then raced for the high end of camp.

Black, bubbling water surged around the edge of the elders’ den, making the woven willow stems sway with the flood. Hailstar bounded up the slope and shook the den with his paws. “Get out!”

Echomist slid through the entrance. Three kits, like half- drowned mice, followed her. She stared at her mate. “Where should we go?”

“Head for high ground.” Hailstar flicked his tail uphill, where the riverbank climbed toward a swath of trees and bushes.

A tangle-furred elder slid out of the den. “I’ve never seen a storm like this.”

A tabby-and-white she-cat followed. “Where are we going?” she rasped.

The tom stroked her spine with his tail. “Further inland, Birdsong, where it’s safe.”

Birdsong’s eyes widened. “Away from the river?”

“Just for now,” Hailstar promised. “Come on, everyone.”

“Wait!” Shellheart stopped halfway up the slope and stared over his shoulder. “Where’s Rainflower?”

“Here!” A pale gray queen picked her way carefully through the swirling water toward him. Her belly was swollen with unborn kits.

“Are you all right?” Shellheart asked, sniffing her.

“I will be when I get my paws dry.” She was out of breath, and rain ran off her fur in steady rivulets.

A small white she-cat wove around the queen, her eyes flashing. “She’s been having pains.”

Shellheart narrowed his eyes. “Are the kits coming, Brambleberry?”

“I don’t know yet,” the medicine cat meowed.

Rainflower gazed at the RiverClan deputy. “Go and help Hailstar. I’ll be fine.”

Shellheart blinked at her, then turned away. “Rippleclaw?”

“Here!” A black-and-silver tabby tom was holding open a gap in the reeds beside the elders’ den while his Clanmates streamed through, heading for higher ground.

“Make sure every cat heads straight into the trees.”

Rippleclaw nodded to the deputy and nudged a graying elder who was refusing to go through the gap.

“I can’t go without Duskwater!” The elder dug his claws into the wet earth. “She went to make dirt before the camp flooded. She hasn’t come back yet.”

“We’ll find her,” Rippleclaw called over the wind. He glanced at his leader, who was rooted on the slope, eyes wide as he stared at his devastated camp. “Can you see her, Hailstar?”

Hailstar shook his head. “I’ll make sure the dens are empty!” He plunged back toward the nursery, stuck his head through the entrance, and sniffed for warm bodies.