Bluestar's Prophecy

The clattering of branches woke Bluepaw. Cold dawn light filtered into the den, and the ferns rustled in the wind. She fought the urge to tuck her nose under her paw and go back to sleep. She’d promised Sunfall. Shivering, she nosed Snowpaw, curled in the nest beside her. “Do you still want to come hunting?” she whispered.

Lionpaw, Goldenpaw, and the others were still fast asleep, their gentle snores filling the den.

Snowpaw raised her head and blinked open her eyes. “Of course.” She yawned and stretched, arching her back till her legs quivered.

Bluepaw gave her chest and paws a quick wash to wake herself up, then tiptoed out of the den. The wind outside prickled against her fur and roared in the branches overhead. She tensed against the cold. Please let us catch something, she prayed to StarClan.

The clearing was empty. Outside the gorse tunnel, Thrushpelt huddled against the barrier as he stood guard, pelt fluffed up and ears flattened against the chilly wind. “You’re up early.” He shivered.

“Hunting,” Bluepaw mewed.

“May StarClan guide your paws!” Thrushpelt called after them as they headed for the ravine.

As they scrambled up the rocky cliff, the wind tugged their fur. At the top it roared like the Thunderpath, shaking the trees to their roots.

“Which way?” Bluepaw asked.

“What?” Snowpaw raised her voice against the wind.

“Where shall we hunt?” Bluepaw called louder.

“The forest’s thickest near the ShadowClan border,” Snowpaw suggested. “Let’s try there.”

She bounded into the trees, and Bluepaw followed. The thick trunks creaked around them as they ran, and the forest floor felt damp and cold underpaw. They slowed as the forest began to thicken. Bluepaw gazed into the branches in hopes of a bird they could track, and Snowpaw scanned the drifts of old leaves for signs of scurrying prey. Suddenly Bluepaw caught a scent.

“Rabbit!” she whispered.

“What?” Snowpaw’s eyes opened wide. Rabbits were rare in the forest; they lived on the moorland.

Excitement pulsed through Bluepaw as she tasted the air; it was definitely rabbit. It would feed half the Clan! She whipped her head around, searching the scrub.

There!

A white tail bobbed underneath a bramble.

She pressed Snowpaw into a crouch with her tail and began to creep forward over the damp forest floor. The rabbit bobbed out from under the bush and headed along a small trail between a swath of ferns. Bluepaw and Snowpaw followed, quickening their pace as the rabbit began to pick up speed. Had it caught their scent? Something must have spooked it, because it broke into a dash and began racing through the forest.

Bluepaw pelted forward. She wasn’t going to lose this one.

It dived under bushes and through patches of bracken. Bluepaw swerved and skidded, keeping up, the white bobtail always in sight. She was going to catch it. She could almost taste it. The forest sloped upward as a bank reared ahead of them. She would have it by the time it reached the top!

All of a sudden the rabbit disappeared down a hole.

Bluepaw skidded to a halt. “Mouse dung!”

“We have to follow it,” she told Snowpaw as her sister caught up.

“Down there?” Panting, Snowpaw stared down the dark opening in the bank.

They had been taught never to follow prey underground. Only StarClan knew what might be waiting in the darkness, and some burrows went on so far it would be easy to get lost and never find a way out.

Bluepaw sniffed at the hole. “The air smells fresh,” she announced. “There must be another hole nearby. Maybe it just darted through and popped out somewhere else.”

Snowpaw stared, unconvinced.

“We have to catch it!” Bluepaw insisted. “It’s the best piece of prey the Clan has found in moons.”

Without waiting for an answer, she squeezed into the hole.

Chapter 15

As Bluepaw scrambled into the darkness, cold earth pressed against her flank. She could hear rabbit paws scrabbling ahead. Blind in the blackness, she followed her nose, feeling the sides of the tunnel with her whiskers. The scent of rabbit was so strong, her mouth watered. It drew her on, even though the burrow sloped downward into the dark, airless earth.

I have to catch that rabbit. Losing the squirrel still pricked her conscience. She pushed away the fear growing in her belly.

“We should go back,” Snowpaw whispered behind her, “before we get lost.”

“We can’t get lost,” Bluepaw hissed. “There’s only one tunnel.”

She padded onward, relieved when the burrow began to slope upward and the fresh scents of forest began to mingle once more with the musty odor of rabbit and soil. She could taste stone and lichen and the tart tang of pines. They were near Snakerocks.

Daylight filtered into the tunnel ahead, and she quickened her pace. Once out in the open the rabbit could head anywhere, and its scent would be hard to follow in such windy weather. Bluepaw burst from the burrow and paused to taste the air as Snowpaw popped out behind her.