Eventually they reached the river and turned downstream. Molewhisker picked up the pace until they were loping swiftly over the rocks. Alderpaw shivered in the damp, chilly air; the sky was covered with cloud, and there was no sign of where the sun would rise.
Before they had gone very far, they came to a spot where a spur of rock jutted out from the cliff. The river curled around it, running fast and deep.
“Mouse dung!” Molewhisker muttered as he scrambled up to the top of the rock. “Can’t we ever get out of this filthy place?”
Alderpaw struggled up after him, driving his claws into tiny cracks and feeling the grit digging into his pads. To his relief, the rock sloped down more gently on the other side, and he was able to slide down easily to stand beside Molewhisker.
“At least now we can’t be seen from the camp,” Cherryfall mewed as the others joined them.
“We still have to get a move on,” Molewhisker commented. “Don’t forget that the rogues can follow our scent.”
“Then maybe we should cross the river,” Alderpaw suggested. “That would break our scent and make it harder for Darktail and the rest to follow us. It would give us a better chance of getting clear.”
“Good idea,” Cherryfall responded. “Let’s look for a place to cross.”
But as Molewhisker swung into motion again, Sparkpaw hung back.
“What’s the matter?” Molewhisker asked, a trace of irritation in his voice.
“I’m wondering if we should leave,” Sparkpaw replied hesitantly. “StarClan sent us here, and we haven’t found SkyClan. Maybe we should stay close by and look for them.”
“We can’t help SkyClan now,” Alderpaw responded grimly, even though he admired his littermate for her courage in making the suggestion. “We have no idea where they’ve gone. And if we try to stay in the woods, Darktail and his rogues will surely find us. Maybe when we get home, Bramblestar will have some idea of what we can do to help SkyClan, but this quest . . .” He paused, willing his voice not to shake. “This quest is a failure. The best we can do is get home safely.”
“He’s right,” Cherryfall meowed, touching her apprentice sympathetically on her shoulder. “We did everything we could, but we can’t save SkyClan right now.”
Sparkpaw sighed, nodding. “I guess so.”
Molewhisker took the lead again, padding along at the edge of the river. Alderpaw looked out for a place where it would be safe to cross, but it was still too dark to tell how deep the water was, and it was rushing past quickly, a tumbling current that could easily sweep a cat away.
RiverClan cats swim, he thought with a shudder. But we’re not RiverClan cats, and I don’t want to try it.
“There are trees farther downstream,” Sparkpaw pointed out, as if she shared her brother’s thoughts. “Maybe there’ll be a way to cross there.”
Cherryfall gave a brisk nod. “Good idea. Let’s hurry. The sun will be up soon, and the rogues will be waking.”
She set off, bounding toward the trees, and the others followed. The first trees they reached were small and spindly, and too far away from the water to be any help in crossing. Alderpaw had hoped for a fallen tree trunk, like the one that the Clans used to cross the lake for Gatherings, but the only log he spotted was wedged at an angle into the bank, the far end jutting out into the current.
A little farther on, bigger trees began to appear, interspersed by bushes. “This would be a good place to hunt,” Sparkpaw panted as she hurried along beside her brother.
“No time,” Alderpaw gasped in response.
“My belly feels so empty!” Sparkpaw complained. “I wish—”
“Look! Over there!” Cherryfall’s voice interrupted Sparkpaw. She ran up to a tree that was leaning toward the river; its long branches hung over the water, stretching almost as far as the opposite side. “This is perfect!”
As he bounded closer, Alderpaw thought the tree looked dangerous, but he didn’t object. Crossing here was obviously their best chance of avoiding the rogues.
“Hmm . . . ,” Molewhisker murmured, sizing up the tree with an intent gaze. “Those branches might be long enough. And if our scent disappears here, Darktail might think that we fell into the river and got swept away.”
“It’s worth a try,” Alderpaw agreed, though his belly was churning with apprehension.
“I’ll go first,” Sparkpaw volunteered, climbing swiftly up the slanting trunk of the tree, then edging out onto one of the longest branches. “Come on—it’s okay!”
As Sparkpaw ventured farther out over the river, Molewhisker followed her up the trunk, with Cherryfall hard on his paws. Alderpaw managed to tear his gaze away from his sister’s progress to peer upstream and check that none of the rogues had appeared in pursuit. Although the dawn light was gradually strengthening, there was no sign of movement.
I suppose it’s too much to hope that they won’t come. . . .
“You next!” Needlepaw’s voice drew Alderpaw’s attention back to the tree.
By now Sparkpaw had almost reached the point where she would have to leap from the branch to the far bank of the river. Molewhisker and Cherryfall were close behind her. Alderpaw hardly dared watch as they balanced precariously on the narrow branch.
“No, you go first,” he mewed to Needlepaw. “I’ll keep lookout.”
Needlepaw looked reluctant, but after a moment’s hesitation she shrugged. “If you say so.” She scrambled up the tree trunk with a whisk of her tail and headed out along the branch.
With no reason to delay any longer, Alderpaw followed. It was easy to clamber up the leaning trunk, and when he crept out onto the branch, it felt sturdy enough under his paws. But the weight of the cats up ahead made it dip low, toward the water.
It would have been smarter to go one by one, Alderpaw thought, digging his claws in hard, but we don’t have time for that.
His belly lurched as he saw Sparkpaw crouch and bunch her muscles, ready for the leap onto the bank. The branch bounced wildly as she took off, and Alderpaw let out a yelp of fear as he almost lost his grip. A moment later he drew in a long breath of relief as he saw his littermate land safely on the opposite bank. Within the next few heartbeats Molewhisker and Cherryfall joined her.
Just ahead of Alderpaw, Needlepaw edged forward, a mouse-length at a time, then halted, gripping the branch grimly with her claws. The branch was dipping and bending dangerously under her weight.
“Keep going!” Alderpaw urged her.
Needlepaw glanced back over her shoulder. “I’m scared of falling into the water,” she hissed. “Okay?”
“You’ll be fine,” Alderpaw meowed. “Better than if the rogues catch up with us!”
But as soon as Needlepaw started edging forward again, the branch started to groan and creak. So frozen by fear that he could hardly move, Alderpaw started to back up. But he was too late. He heard a tearing sound as the branch gave way, and a screech of terror from Needlepaw, abruptly cut off as the two cats plunged into the freezing cold stream.
Alderpaw flailed his legs in the surging water, terrified as the cold, unfamiliar touch enfolded him. The current was so fast that he was swept away, not knowing which way was up. A heavy, rushing pressure filled his ears, and when he tried to open his eyes, he was blinded by dark water. Desperately he kicked and kicked, pain growing in his chest until he thought he would lose consciousness.
Then his head broke the surface. Gratefully he took a gulp of air and thrashed his legs with the flow of the current to keep himself afloat. He glanced around to see if he could spot Needlepaw, but there was no sign of her.
It’s still too dark to see much, he thought, hoping that she was somewhere near him in this chaos of water.
He strained his ears to catch her cries, or calls from his Clanmates on the bank, but the river rushing in his ears cut off all other sounds.
The current seemed to be moving faster than ever. Looking ahead, Alderpaw saw the tumbled surface abruptly come to an end, with nothing but
gloomy sky beyond. The roaring in his ears grew louder.
A waterfall!
Alderpaw knew that he had to reach the bank. He kicked out across the current, struggling to drag himself to safety, but the force of the water was too strong.
I’m not going to make it. This is where I’m going to die.
Then Alderpaw felt his forepaw snag on something jutting out of the water. Somehow the contact pulled him toward the bank, and as the surge lifted him for a heartbeat, he realized he was clinging to Needlepaw.
The sight of the bank so close gave Alderpaw fresh hope. “Keep going!” he gasped to Needlepaw. “We can do it!”
But however hard the two cats fought, the river was stronger. Alderpaw glimpsed the smooth curve of the water as it reached the falls and let out a yelp of alarm as he realized he was going over.
He found himself falling, torn away from Needlepaw, his body tossed and thrown about by the waterfall. His panic-stricken yowl was cut off as he slammed down onto the surface below and all the breath was driven out of his body.
Everything went black as Alderpaw sank deep into the water. Then light seared his eyes as he bobbed back up to the surface, dazed and struggling feebly, surprised that he was still alive. Something shoved him hard at the back of his neck, propelling him toward the bank. Soon he felt his paws touch mud, and he hauled himself upward, clambering clear of the water. Turning, he saw Needlepaw dragging herself out after him, her fur plastered to her body.
Alderpaw collapsed onto his belly, his flanks heaving and shivering with cold, and with relief at having survived. Needlepaw sank down beside him.
Catching his breath at last, Alderpaw strained to catch any sight or sound of their companions. “I can’t hear the others,” he mewed. “Can you?”
Needlepaw just shook out her wet fur. “No!” she yowled. “I don’t hear them—I can’t hear anything over the water. I told you I didn’t like it!”
Alderpaw turned an anxious circle, but all he could see were trees and sky. All he could hear was the running water. All he could smell was the wet dirt beneath him, and the fear wafting off both him and Needlepaw.
What do we do now? he wondered.
CHAPTER 20
At first Alderpaw lay in an exhausted stupor with Needlepaw by his side, but the thought of his Clanmates soon roused him. “We should get up,” he panted. “Try to figure out a way to get back to the others.”
Needlepaw gave her shoulder fur a couple of feeble licks. “I don’t know about you,” she meowed, “but I need to rest.”
“But we don’t know what happened to them!” Alderpaw asked, with a fretful look upstream. “We need to find them!”
And how are we going to find SkyClan now?
Needlepaw snorted. “You need to quit worrying about the others so much and start worrying about yourself. Let them find us. Meanwhile, we need to rest.”
Alderpaw realized that Needlepaw was right. Staggering to his paws, he gazed around, only to see monsters dashing to and fro on a Thunderpath a few fox-lengths away, with a row of Twoleg dens on the far side. The air was filled with the reek of monsters and Twolegs.
“I don’t believe it!” he groaned. “Twolegs everywhere!”
“It’s fine,” Needlepaw responded, waving her tail toward a tangle of elder bushes growing between the water’s edge and the Thunderpath. “We can make a nest here. The Twolegs won’t find us.”
Hoping she was right, Alderpaw followed her as she thrust her way deep into the bushes and flattened a clump of long grass for a makeshift nest. His legs aching with weariness, Alderpaw curled up beside her.
Soon Needlepaw’s snores echoed around their den. But in spite of his exhaustion, Alderpaw found it hard to sleep. The sound and stink of the monsters was too close, and the events of their desperate escape from the rogues kept flickering through his mind. Snuggling up to Needlepaw, Alderpaw filled his nose with her scent, trying to imagine that he was back in camp, snoozing in the apprentices’ den with Sparkpaw. Finally he slept.
When Alderpaw awoke, bright sunlight was filtering through the branches of the elder bushes. Anxiety stabbed at him as he saw that Needlepaw had vanished. The sound of Twoleg voices drifted into Alderpaw’s ears, and when he crept cautiously out of the bushes he spotted several Twoleg kits playing beside the nests, tossing something brightly colored to each other.
A wave of homesickness for the lake and the forest flooded over Alderpaw. Those kits are so noisy! When will we ever get a bit of peace?
Then the grass parted to reveal Needlepaw, trotting up to him with a plump sparrow clamped in her jaws. “Fresh-kill!” she announced, dropping it at Alderpaw’s paws.
“Thank StarClan you’re back!” Alderpaw exclaimed. “I was worried about you.”
Needlepaw flicked her tail. “No need. Come on, eat.”
“What do you think we ought to do next?” Alderpaw asked, his jaws watering as he gulped down warm bites of the sparrow. It was good to sit in the shelter of the bushes and let the sun warm his damp fur, but he knew they shouldn’t stay there any longer.
“Look for the others, I guess,” Needlepaw replied with her mouth full.
Alderpaw was glad that he didn’t have to argue with her. He couldn’t imagine turning for home without at least trying to find his Clanmates.
When they had finished eating, he and Needlepaw headed back upstream as far as the waterfall. “I guess we have to go this way,” he muttered, gazing up at the moss-covered rocks that jutted from the cliff face beside the cascading water.
“It doesn’t look too hard,” Needlepaw meowed, springing up onto the first of the rocks.
Not sure he agreed, Alderpaw followed. The river thundered down beside him, and his legs began to shake as he remembered how he had been swept away and almost drowned. The rocks were slippery from spray, and if he sank his claws into the moss, it pulled away and almost made him lose his balance. Needlepaw was climbing determinedly ahead of him, showering him with grit and drops of water.
Alderpaw was panting hard by the time he reached the top. He would have liked to rest again, but urgency gave strength to his paws as he thought about his Clanmates.
He and Needlepaw trudged on beside the stream, now and again calling out to their friends and casting back and forth as they tried to pick up their scent. Alderpaw began to grow discouraged as they drew closer to the gorge again. Maybe the rogues recaptured them. They could all be dead by now!
“Hey!” Needlepaw exclaimed at last, pausing to taste the air among the roots of an elm tree that grew close to the waterside. “Over here!”
Alderpaw padded over to join her and sniffed into the leaf-lined hollow made by the roots. He could discern the scents of all three of his Clanmates.
“They must have stopped here to rest,” he mewed, his voice shaking with relief. “Sparkpaw! Molewhisker! Cherryfall!” he called, hoping that they might still be within earshot. But no cat replied.
“I’ll tell you something,” Needlepaw murmured, concentrating hard as she followed the scent away from the tree. “They were traveling downstream. I’ll bet you a moon of dawn patrols they were looking for us.”
Alderpaw’s heart began to thump with excitement. “Then did we pass them on the way?”
“I don’t see how we could have.” Needlepaw looked puzzled for a moment.
“Anyway,” Alderpaw went on, energy surging back into his paws, “all we have to do is follow their scent. Come on!”
“And climb back down that StarClan-cursed waterfall!” Needlepaw groaned as she followed him.
The scent trail led downstream, sometimes by the waterside, sometimes ranging farther away. Now and again individual scents split off from the main trail, but they always joined it again.
“They’re searching for us,” Needlepaw mewed. “I can’t think how we missed them.”
But when they reached the bushes near the Twoleg dens where they had curled up to rest, they found that the scent trail led onward, past their mak
eshift den and along the grass between the river and the Thunderpath.
“I don’t believe it!” Needlepaw snarled with a lash of her tail. “They missed us! They must have walked straight past while we were asleep.”
Alderpaw bit back a growl of frustration. “We were so wet, the water would have washed out our scent,” he meowed. “And all these Twoleg scents don’t help. But it’s not so bad. At least we know that they’re alive, and they haven’t been recaptured by Darktail. All we have to do is follow them.”
But when he and Needlepaw headed downstream, they found it wasn’t as easy as that. There were so many conflicting reeks of Twolegs and monsters covering the scent trail. Finally they came to a place where Alderpaw guessed that a monster must have stopped, leaving splashes of something dark and foul-smelling on the grass. The cat scent was completely swamped, and they couldn’t pick it up again on the other side.
“We’ve lost them,” Alderpaw mewed.
“They probably think we drowned,” Needlepaw responded in a tiny voice. “Who knows where they went after this?”
“They must still be following the river,” Alderpaw pointed out. “Where else is there for them to go? There’s no way of crossing here.”
“Maybe.” Needlepaw seemed unusually despondent. “But what if we’re wrong? What if we never find them?”
Alderpaw swallowed hard. “Then we have to find our own way back to camp from here,” he stated, trying to sound confident. “If they give up looking for us, that’s where they’ll go.”
Glancing around, Alderpaw realized that he had no idea where they were. They had approached the gorge from the opposite bank, and everything looked different from where he was standing now. He wasn’t even certain if they had been swept past the point where they had first come upon the river.
“We have to cross back to the other side,” he meowed, “and then head toward the setting sun.”
“That’s a bit vague,” Needlepaw pointed out with a sniff. “We could completely miss the lake and the Clan territory. And don’t even think about swimming across the river, because I’m not going to.”