“Did you chase off the kittypets?” meowed Frankie.
Bramblestar listened while Jessy described the battle, apparently relishing the danger and pleased that they had defeated Victor and his friends. Frankie and Minty listened breathlessly.
“Wow!” Frankie looked more impressed than scared. “I wish I’d been with you.”
Minty shuddered. “I don’t.”
“It was great!” Jessy’s eyes glowed with the memory. “I know we got hurt, but it was worth it to teach those arrogant kittypets a lesson!”
Bramblestar realized that while the kittypets were talking, Brackenfur had padded up to his side. “Are you sure you weren’t settling kittypet scores?” he murmured.
For a heartbeat, Bramblestar wasn’t sure. No, he told himself firmly. Jessy was only trying to help.
Before he could reply to Brackenfur, a groan from Lionblaze distracted him. The golden-furred warrior staggered and flopped over on his side. “The pain . . .” he gasped.
“I told you so!” Cinderheart shrieked as she ran to his side. “When will you learn that you’re not invulnerable anymore?”
She nudged Lionblaze to his paws while Jayfeather helped to support him on the other side. Together the two cats half carried, half dragged him into the tunnel to have his wounds treated. The rest of the patrol followed.
“Mouse-brain!” Jayfeather muttered angrily as he went. “You’re all mouse-brained. And all over a bunch of kittypets!”
Discouraged, Bramblestar watched them go. He could sense the depression among the Clan, the sense that although they had won the battle, it was a hollow victory. Only the kittypets seemed to be happy.
“Come on,” he meowed to Jessy, touching her shoulder with his tail. “You need to go to Jayfeather and have your wounds treated.” As she turned away from her friends and followed him to the tunnel, he added, “Thank you for your courage, Jessy. I know the battle was harder for you than for any of us.”
Jessy halted, gazing into his eyes. “I just copied what you did,” she mewed. “I had the best teacher.”
For a moment Bramblestar didn’t know what to say to her. But before the silence could stretch out, Squirrelflight came padding up. Jessy dipped her head to Bramblestar and headed inside to see Jayfeather.
Bramblestar braced himself for a scolding from his deputy, ready to defend himself. But to his surprise, Squirrelflight’s gaze was sympathetic.
“You had to do something,” she meowed. “We can’t have ShadowClan hunting in our territory, and this was a way to stop them.”
“That’s what I wanted to do,” Bramblestar responded.
“The trouble is,” Squirrelflight went on, “it could be seen as interfering, insulting to ShadowClan, and a stupid risk to our own warriors.”
Bramblestar sighed. “You’re right,” he admitted.
Squirrelflight leaned toward him and gave his ears a brisk lick. “It’s behind us,” she told him. “We need to focus on our own Clanmates now.”
As she finished speaking, Sandstorm padded up with a mouse dangling from her jaws. “Come on, Bramblestar, you need to eat.”
Bramblestar realized that his belly was growling with hunger. The warm scent of the mouse made his jaws water, but he hesitated for a moment, looking around until he had checked that all his patrol had headed into the tunnel to have Jayfeather deal with their injuries. Then he crouched down and bit into the mouse.
“Thanks, Sandstorm,” he mumbled around his mouthful.
While he was eating, Graystripe appeared, giving him a friendly nod. “I know you’re worried about whether you did the right thing,” he began. “But you shouldn’t. Firestar would have done exactly the same.”
Bramblestar winced. “That’s what Rowanstar said.”
Graystripe was quiet for a moment, while Bramblestar gulped down the rest of the mouse. When he spoke again, he seemed to be aware of exactly what Bramblestar was thinking. “You know, Firestar wouldn’t have seen it as interfering. He truly believed that if another Clan needed our help, it was our duty to give it.”
“But it’s not,” Bramblestar pointed out, swiping his tongue around his whiskers. “Not according to the warrior code. My loyalty should be to my own Clanmates, no other cats.”
Graystripe snorted. “There’s such a thing as basic decency,” he pointed out.
“What would you have done?” Bramblestar asked.
“Followed Firestar,” Graystripe replied without hesitation.
While Bramblestar was thinking that over, Purdy ambled out of the tunnel and settled down beside him. “Y’know, this reminds me of when I was a young cat, livin’ with my Upwalker,” he began.
Bramblestar suppressed a sigh. Purdy, this isn’t the time for one of your long-winded stories. But there was no stopping Purdy, who embarked on a complicated tale of how he had helped a cat in the den next door deal with his Upwalker’s new dog, and how the cat had then crept into Purdy’s den and stolen his food.
“Well, I said to myself, I’m not puttin’ up with that, so I . . .”
Bramblestar stopped listening as a clump of fern at the edge of the clearing shivered and Leafpool emerged. Her fur was ruffled and she had an agitated air.
Bramblestar bounded across the clearing to her side. “Leafpool! Are you okay?”
“Rowanstar asked me to leave!” Leafpool’s eyes were sparkling with indignation. “He said he’d had enough of ThunderClan interference. Bramblestar, what have you done?”
Ivypool and Cinderheart appeared from the tunnel at that moment, their wounds treated with cobwebs and poultices of marigold. They helped Bramblestar explain to Leafpool what had happened in the battle with the kittypets.
“How could you be so mouse-brained?” Leafpool sighed, shaking her head. “The medicine-cat code extends to helping other Clans, but not the warrior code. You should stop trying to imagine what Firestar would have done, and be true to yourself.”
“And Lionblaze is badly hurt,” Cinderheart added.
“What?” Leafpool paused for a heartbeat, her eyes stretched wide with shock. Then without another word she raced to the tunnel and vanished inside.
Be true to myself? Bramblestar thought, looking after her glumly. His responsibilities weighed as heavy on his shoulders as if he were trying to carry the whole forest.
I wish I knew how.
CHAPTER 23
Bramblestar sat in the shelter of a hazel bush, watching Minty creep up on a mouse. Frankie and Jessy, the other members of the patrol, were watching from farther around the edge of the clearing.
I can’t believe this! Bramblestar thought wryly. A hunting patrol of kittypets!
But in the quarter moon since the expedition into ShadowClan’s hunting grounds, all three of them were improving their tracking skills—even Minty, who had the twin advantages of being small and light-pawed. The mouse, nibbling something among the roots of a beech tree, had no idea that she was stalking it. She had even remembered to check the wind direction.
Suddenly Minty leaped forward and trapped the mouse under an outstretched paw. “Got it!” she exclaimed.
The mouse let out a squeal of terror.
“Oh, poor thing!” Minty sprang back, raising her paw, and the mouse scuttled off.
Frankie shook his head with an exaggerated sigh, then took off after the mouse and killed it with a quick blow to the head.
“Neat catch!” Bramblestar praised him as he padded back with the body dangling from his jaws.
Minty’s head was hanging as she rejoined the patrol. “I’m sorry,” she mewed. “It freaks me out when they squeal.”
“It doesn’t freak you out anymore when you eat them, though,” Jessy pointed out.
“I know. I’ll try to do better next time,” Minty promised.
“Your stalking was very good,” Bramblestar told her. “Why don’t you see if you can scent some more prey?”
Obediently Minty began sniffing around, and soon picked up another scent trail, foll
owing it across the clearing with her nose to the ground.
“Well done!” Bramblestar called to her.
“This is odd,” Minty muttered. “I don’t know this scent, but it must be prey, right?”
Bramblestar and the others watched as she vanished among some brambles at the other side of the clearing, then froze with only her hindquarters and her tail sticking out. Feeling his pelt begin to prickle with apprehension, Bramblestar opened his jaws to taste the air. In the same heartbeat, Minty began to back slowly out of the thicket.
“Er . . . this isn’t prey at all,” she mewed.
The reek of fox hit Bramblestar in the throat as a snarl sounded from the midst of the brambles. Minty turned and fled across the clearing, her belly fur brushing the grass and her tail streaming out. A young fox exploded out of the thicket behind her.
“Stay back!” Bramblestar snapped at the kittypets.
Bounding forward, Bramblestar met the fox at the center of the clearing and reared up on his hind legs to rake the claws of both forepaws across the fox’s muzzle. The fox let out a bark of mingled pain and surprise, and lunged at Bramblestar, its jaws gaping. Bramblestar ducked aside and managed to land a blow on the fox’s flank before he darted back out of range.
The fox whirled to follow him, but it was already looking confused. It didn’t expect its prey to fight back, Bramblestar thought with satisfaction as he dashed in again and clawed its ears with a swift slash of his paw. Letting out a high-pitched screech of terror, the fox backed off, then spun around and fled out of the clearing, vanishing among a thick clump of ferns. At the same moment another ThunderClan hunting patrol raced into the clearing, with Mousewhisker in the lead.
“We heard the fight!” Mousewhisker gasped. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” Bramblestar panted. “Take your patrol and follow it,” he added, “all the way to its den.”
“Right.” Mousewhisker waved his tail to the rest of his patrol, and vanished into the ferns on the trail of the fox.
It’s a good thing they turned up, Bramblestar thought. We can’t hope to clear all the forest of foxes, but we need to know where they are, especially now that we’re hunting across the border.
The three kittypets crowded around Bramblestar, their eyes wide with shock.
“That was amazing!” Frankie exclaimed.
“I never thought a cat could take on a fox like that,” Jessy added, her eyes glowing. “It was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen!”
“It wasn’t hard,” Bramblestar mewed, wanting to scuffle his paws in the earth like an embarrassed apprentice. “It was a young fox, and easy to confuse. Besides, it’s quite common for us to have to chase off a fox or a badger.”
“A badger!” Minty squeaked. “Purdy told me about those. They’re huge!” She glanced around her fearfully as if she expected a massive black-and-white animal to erupt out of the bushes at any moment.
“Believe me, they’re really rare,” Bramblestar reassured. “We chased the badgers out of the forest a long time ago. But I can show you a few techniques to keep in mind, if you like.”
Minty took a pace back, looking as if she might never leave the tunnels again. But Jessy and Frankie both pricked their ears with interest.
“Yes, show us,” Frankie mewed. “You never know; we might meet something nasty.”
“Mostly you use the fighting techniques you’re already learning,” Bramblestar explained. “But you need to practice dashing in to strike and then away again, like I did just now. That works even better with badgers, because they’re slower than foxes. Another move you can try is to spring onto the badger’s back. You can claw it to your heart’s content up there, and it can’t get at you.”
“On its back?” Minty breathed, horrified.
“Show me the spring,” Jessy urged.
“Okay.” Bramblestar took a pace forward that brought him to her side. “First, get into the hunter’s crouch.” As Jessy pressed herself to the ground, he added, “Now, remember that your hind legs—”
He broke off as he spotted movement in the corner of his eye, and looked around to see Squirrelflight emerge into the clearing. She bounded over to him with an anxious look in her green eyes.
“I heard about the fox,” she told him. “Is everything okay?” Glancing down at Jessy, she went on, “Uh . . . what are you doing?”
“Discussing ways to fight off a badger,” Bramblestar meowed.
“Oh . . . are you?” There was an odd note of strain in Squirrelflight’s voice. “We met a badger once in the old forest; do you remember? Me and you and Thornclaw, when I was your apprentice.”
She raised her head, and her eyes locked with Bramblestar’s. His memories came flooding back. She looked at me like that back then, too, he recalled. Just for a heartbeat, as we ran from that badger.
Squirrelflight gave her pelt a shake. “I’ll go check for any more traces of that fox,” she mewed.
“Be careful,” Bramblestar warned her.
“I can look after myself,” Squirrelflight responded. “You trained me well.” There was warmth in her voice, but the brilliance of her gaze faded as she looked down at Jessy. She swung around abruptly and loped out of the clearing.
Bramblestar glanced down at Jessy, patiently waiting. Great StarClan! he thought. Is Squirrelflight jealous because I’m training Jessy now? That’s ridiculous!
Jessy wriggled out of the crouch and turned half away, giving her chest fur a few vigorous licks. Bramblestar thought she looked embarrassed.
“We should head back to the tunnels,” he decided. “Frankie, don’t forget your mouse.”
“I’ve decided that if I meet any foxes or badgers I’m going to run away very fast,” Minty announced as they trekked back toward the camp. “Or climb a tree. They can’t climb trees, can they?” she added anxiously to Bramblestar.
“No, they can’t,” he reassured her.
“Then that’s what I’ll do,” Minty decided.
On the way back, a light rain began to fall, quickly becoming heavier. Bramblestar lashed his tail with frustration. After a few dry days, he had hoped that the bad weather was over.
When they arrived at the tunnel entrance, he found Lilypaw, Snowpaw, Dewpaw, and Amberpaw dashing up with bunches of leaves in their jaws to cover up the fresh-kill pile, which had only been moved into the open the day before. Poppyfrost, Lilypaw’s mentor, was supervising them.
“Hurry up,” she urged them. “Or we’ll all be eating soggy mice!”
“Amberpaw!” Spiderleg called from the tunnel mouth. “Get in here right away! Your cough will get worse if you stay out in the rain.”
“My cough’s fine,” Amberpaw grumbled, though she obeyed her mentor and trotted into the tunnel.
The remaining apprentices quickly covered the fresh-kill pile, pausing for a moment so that Frankie could deposit his mouse. Graystripe and Millie appeared, dragging a squirrel between them, then headed for shelter, pausing to shake rain off their pelts before they slipped past the mudfall. Poppyfrost and the apprentices raced after them.
Bramblestar thought how much easier it was to cope with rain in the stone hollow, where all the den roofs were reinforced with brambles and ivy to keep the nests dry. We could settle in to talk or take a nap, and wait for the sun to come out again. Here, it’s uncomfortable whatever we do.
The kittypets headed for the tunnel, and Bramblestar was about to follow when he spotted Leafpool brushing through the sodden undergrowth with a bundle of herbs gripped in her mouth. Bramblestar nodded to her as she padded up, rain dripping from her whiskers. “That looks like a good haul,” he commented.
“I went nearly to the top border to find them,” Leafpool told him, setting her bundle down. “They’re daisy leaves, to help ease the aches and pains in the older cats. Purdy, of course, and Graystripe, Sandstorm, and Dustpelt. Not that they’ll admit they’re old,” she added with a half-amused, half-impatient snort.
“Don’t look at me,” Bramblest
ar protested. “It’s not up to me to tell them when to become elders.”
“I know.” Leafpool sighed. “But living in this tunnel isn’t helping, I can tell you.”
She picked up her herbs again and slid past the mudfall. Bramblestar followed her to see that most of the Clan was already there. The tunnel was unpleasantly crowded, the air thick with the scent of wet fur.
From farther down the passage, Bramblestar could hear Daisy’s voice raised in annoyance. “What were you apprentices thinking of?” she scolded. “How many times have you been told not to go farther down the tunnel than the last nests? Does every cat have to watch you every moment of the day? And as for you, Cherryfall and Molewhisker, you should be ashamed of yourselves for encouraging them.”
“Sorry,” Cherryfall muttered.
“But it’s boring down here,” Molewhisker retorted. “I’ve been stuck in this tunnel for moons!”
“Boring?” Daisy was unimpressed. “I’ll show you boring. If you need something to do, you can play hunt the tick on Purdy.”
“What, all of them?” Purdy grunted. “I’ll be prodded to death!”
The thick air and the voices of his Clanmates seemed to press in on Bramblestar. For a moment he felt that he couldn’t breathe. I have to get out of here. “I’m going to check the water levels,” he announced to no cat in particular.
“I’ll come with you,” Lionblaze offered, rising from his nest and pushing between Birchfall and Cloudtail to reach his leader.
Bramblestar noticed that the golden-furred warrior was still limping badly from the wounds he had suffered in the battle with the kittypets. “No, you need to rest,” he ordered.
“I’ve rested until I’m sick of it!” Lionblaze snapped.
“Bramblestar’s right,” Cinderheart mewed, stroking Lionblaze’s side with her tail. “You need to be more patient.”
Lionblaze glared at his mate. “I’ve been patient!”
“I’ll come with you, Bramblestar,” Cloudtail offered, heaving himself to his paws.
“Thanks. Let’s go,” Bramblestar meowed, turning away from Lionblaze. He’ll have to accept that things are different for him now.