Dawn

Brambleclaw charged away over the moor, and the three other cats followed close behind. As they raced across the grass, the weak leaf-fall sunshine scarcely warmed the fur on Squirrelpaw’s back. They ran in silence, and she felt their mood darken as though a cloud had covered the sky. Ever since leaving the mountains, they had concentrated on nothing but reaching the forest, all equally desperate to return home. Squirrelpaw was beginning to think it might have been easier to keep traveling, to journey forever through unfamiliar territory, rather than face the responsibility of having to tell the Clans that they would have to leave their homes or else face a terrible death. But there was still the sign of the dying warrior to come—they had to see this through.

The reek of Twoleg monsters stung her nostrils as they approached the border. There was no sign of any prey: no birds in the sky and no scent of rabbits among the gorse.

WindClan had never been an easy territory to hunt in, but there had always been traces of prey on the breeze or in the sandy soil. Even the buzzards, which often hovered over the wide stretch of moorland, were gone.

The four cats reached the crest of a rise, and Squirrelpaw swallowed hard, fighting the urge to retch as the tang of monsters grew stronger. Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to look down the slope. A whole slice of land had been carved out of the moorland, brown and gray and broken instead of the smooth green expanse that had been there when the cats began their journey. In the distance, Twoleg monsters growled across the ground, chewing the earth with their heavy paws to leave a trail of useless mud.

Trembling, Squirrelpaw whispered, “No wonder WindClan moved to the rabbit warrens! The Twolegs must have destroyed their camp.”

“They’ve destroyed everything,” Brambleclaw breathed.

“Let’s get out of here,” Tawnypelt hissed. Squirrelpaw heard anger in her voice, and saw her long, hooked claws sink into the grass.

Brambleclaw continued to stare at the ravaged landscape.

“I can’t believe how much they’ve destroyed.”

Squirrelpaw’s throat tightened. Seeing Brambleclaw’s misery was almost as bad as looking at the ruined moor. “Come on,” she urged. “We have to get home and find out what has happened to our Clans.”

He nodded. Squirrelpaw saw him brace his shoulders as if he were literally carrying the weight of the message they had to take to their Clan. Without saying anything else, he headed down the slope, keeping well away from the Twoleg monsters, and together the cats picked their way across the swath of churned-up ground. Squirrelpaw was grateful for the cold night that had set the mud hard; if it rained, this would turn into a clogging brown river, enough to swallow kits and suck at the bellies of the longest-legged warriors.

When they reached the WindClan border where the land swept down to the forest, Tawnypelt paused. “I’ll leave you here,” she meowed. Her voice was calm but her eyes betrayed her sadness. “We’ll meet at Fourtrees tomorrow, whatever the Twolegs have done,” she promised.

“Good luck with Blackstar,” Brambleclaw meowed, rubbing his muzzle along his sister’s cheek.

“I don’t need luck,” she replied grimly. “I will do whatever it takes to persuade Blackstar to come with me. Our quest isn’t over yet. We have to keep going for the sake of our Clans.”

Squirrelpaw felt a renewed burst of energy as the tortoiseshell warrior pelted away toward the ShadowClan border.

“And we’ll persuade Firestar!” she called after her.

The grass grew softer under their paws as Brambleclaw, Squirrelpaw, and Stormfur approached the RiverClan border; soon Squirrelpaw could scent the markers and hear the distant thundering of water in the gorge. RiverClan territory lay on the other side, and just beyond the gorge there was a Twoleg bridge that would take Stormfur across the river to his camp.

Brambleclaw paused as if he expected Stormfur to leave them there, but Stormfur just looked into his eyes. “I’m coming with you to the ThunderClan camp,” he meowed quietly.

“Coming with us? Why?” Squirrelpaw exclaimed.

“I want to tell my father about Feathertail,” he replied.

“But we can tell him,” she offered, wanting to spare Stormfur the pain of telling Graystripe, the ThunderClan deputy, about his daughter’s death. Graystripe had fallen in love with a RiverClan she-cat, Silverstream, many moons ago. She had died bearing his kits, and though Stormfur and Feathertail had grown up in RiverClan, they had always known their ThunderClan father.

Stormfur shook his head. “He has already lost our mother,” he reminded her. “I want to be the one to tell him about Feathertail.”

Brambleclaw nodded. “Then come with us,” he mewed gently.