Sign Of The Moon

Dovewing dipped her head in greeting, eyeing the Tribe cats curiously. They were much smaller than the Clan cats, and they all looked as if they could do with a good meal.

“This to-be,” Wing went on, pointing with her tail toward the black tom, “the one who has no more sense than to attack four cats all by himself, is Dark Shadow on Water, and this is Rain That Passes Quickly.”

The gray speckled cat ducked her head politely.

“To-be?” Dovewing murmured.

“Like our apprentices,” Jayfeather hissed into her ear.

“No cat expected to see you here again,” Sheer meowed to Squirrelflight. “Are the Clans in trouble? Do you need help?”

“No, everything’s fine,” Squirrelflight purred. “We just wanted to pay a visit to our old friends.”

Wing twitched her whiskers, and Dovewing figured she had guessed that the Clan cats had more reason than that for trekking so far in leaf-bare, but all she said was “We’d better take you to the cave. It will be dark soon.”

Following the Tribe cats, the ThunderClan patrol headed deeper into the mountains. The sun had disappeared, and the last streaks of scarlet were fading from the sky. Twilight gathered, making the path even harder to see, but the Tribe cats bounded confidently forward, standing poised on the top of rocks as they waited for the Clan cats to catch up. Wind whined among the peaks; Dovewing blinked as it drove showers of ice into her eyes.

“Why any cat wants to live in such a StarClan-forsaken place as this,” Jayfeather panted as he hauled himself over a boulder, “I’ll never understand.” He hesitated, crouching on the rock; the ground ahead was uneven and Dovewing realized that he could injure himself if he jumped down in the wrong place.

“Wait a moment,” she mewed. She let herself drop onto a patch of snow and checked that it was clear of sharp edges. “Jump over here,” she instructed Jayfeather. “Follow my voice.”

Jayfeather leaped, landing awkwardly; Dovewing steadied him as he staggered. “Thanks,” he mumbled.

As they began to toil up a long slope, following Squirrelflight and Foxleap, who had drawn a little way ahead, Dovewing picked up a new sound: a deep, continuous roar that grew louder with every paw step they took.

“What’s that noise?” she asked Jayfeather.

“Oh, you can hear it already?” Jayfeather spoke in a low voice, and Dovewing guessed that without knowing it she had been using her special senses. “It’s the waterfall. That’s where the Tribe of Rushing Water lives.”

Soon all the cats could hear the rumble of the falls. They scrambled up one last steep slope and came out onto a flat stretch of rock where a river flowed past between boulders. Wind scoured across it, buffeting Dovewing’s fur and threatening to sweep her off her paws, but the sound of it was drowned by the deafening thunder of the cascade.

Dovewing padded to the edge of the cliff, where water slid over the lip of the rocks in a smooth curve. “Wow!” she exclaimed to Sheer, who stood beside her, one paw stretched out as if warning her to be careful. “You really live here?”

“Our cave is behind the waterfall,” he explained with pride in his voice.

“Awesome!” We actually have to walk behind that wall of foaming water? she thought privately. That’s no place for cats to live!

Sheer guided the Clan cats down the rocks beside the falls. The surface was wet and slippery; Dovewing tried to dig her claws into the hard surface and waved her tail wildly for balance. Her heart beat fast as she fought not to show these strange cats how scared she was. Jayfeather struggled down between Wing and Squirrelflight, grunting with every paw step.

Finally, every cat stood on a narrow path that led behind the waterfall. Dovewing walked along it carefully, keeping to Sheer’s paw steps, with the rock face on one side and the endlessly falling water on the other. She shivered as spray soaked her fur.

By now it was almost completely dark. The waterfall was a screen of rippling gray, shot through with silver where it reflected the moon and the slowly emerging stars. As Dovewing padded forward, a dark space opened up on the opposite side from the water; Sheer vanished into it and his voice came back to Dovewing, echoing strangely.

“Welcome to the Tribe of Rushing Water!”

Blinking, Dovewing entered the cave, followed by Squirrelflight, Jayfeather, and Foxleap, with the other Tribe cats bringing up the rear. Shaking her pelt dry, she gazed at the soaring cave walls, the roof lost in shadows high above her head. At the far end, two tunnels led away into darkness. Cats were crouching on ledges, staring down at the new arrivals. Others stalked around one another on the floor of the cave; it looked to Dovewing as if they were in the middle of some kind of training exercise. All of them froze as the visitors halted, bunched together, near the entrance. Dovewing’s pelt prickled.

Almost at once a voice yowled from the other side of the cavern. “I don’t believe it! Squirrelflight! Jaypaw!”

“Jayfeather,” he muttered.