Sunrise

And there was some point to that journey, Lionblaze added silently. We weren’t just looking for a cat I know isn’t a murderer.

Leaving the cows behind, the cats trekked through the snow toward the other side of the field. Lionblaze tasted the air for Sol’s scent, but he couldn’t pick up a trace of it.

I can’t smell anything except cow, he grumbled silently. I can barely find my own Clanmates!

To his relief, he soon made out the next hedge, looming black against the swirling snow. The patrol plodded up to it and halted in the shelter of the thickly packed thorns.

“We’ll never get through there!” Birchfall exclaimed, his eyes wide with dismay. “We’ll be ripped to pieces.”

“No, we won’t,” Brambleclaw mewed. “We just need to look for a place where the hedge is thinner.”

He began to lead the way along the bottom of the hedge. I hope we don’t have to go back, Lionblaze thought miserably, trying to shake the snow off his pelt.

His heart fell even further when he made out the roar of another Thunderpath, somewhere on the other side of the hedge. “Not again!” he muttered.

At last Brambleclaw halted. “This might do.” He pointed with his muzzle at a spot in the hedge where two arching branches left a tiny gap between them. “Lionblaze, will you give it a try?”

Lionblaze nodded and stepped forward, testing the width of the gap with his whiskers. Then he flattened himself to the ground and dragged himself forward. Thorns raked across his back, and he felt his fur snag on them as he struggled through to the other side and scrambled to his paws.

“It’s okay,” he called.

As Hollyleaf and Birchfall followed, Lionblaze looked out over a vast white landscape. The ground sloped gently down to the Thunderpath he had heard: It was much wider than the first one, with monsters roaring up and down in both directions. Glaring Twoleg lights edged it on both sides.

We’ll never get across that! he thought despairingly.

A startled yowl distracted him; spinning around, he saw Hazeltail emerging from the hedge and pawing frantically at her muzzle.

“I’ve got a thorn in my nose!” she wailed.

“Let me see.” Hollyleaf padded up to her. “Keep still, and stop clawing at it.”

Hazeltail sat down, her eyes filled with pain. The thorn was a huge one, firmly embedded in her nose. Bright blood welled out around it.

Lionblaze watched his sister using the medicine cat skills she had learned long ago from Leafpool. Hollyleaf licked the area around the thorn and got a good grip on it with her teeth. Pulling firmly, she drew out the thorn and spat it onto the ground. More blood gushed out of Hazeltail’s nose and splashed onto the snow.

“Ouch!” Hazeltail protested.

“We really need some water to rinse the blood away and close the wound,” Hollyleaf meowed.

Lionblaze glanced around, ready to fetch some for her, but there was no sign of any streams….

“Press your muzzle into the snow,” Hollyleaf instructed Hazeltail. “That will stop the bleeding.”

Blinking doubtfully, Hazeltail dipped her head and buried her nose in a patch of clean white snow. “It’s very cold!” came a muffled meow.

“Stay there a bit longer,” Hollyleaf urged. “I promise it will help.”

I hope it will, Lionblaze thought, or Hollyleaf could just be freezing Hazeltail’s nose off. He could see how worried his sister looked as she watched her Clanmate.

Hazeltail kept her face pressed into the snow for several long moments, then lifted her head. Clumps of white clung to her face, making her look as if she were turning into Cloudtail, with his long, snow-colored pelt. “I-it doesn’t h-hurt so much now,” she reported through chattering teeth.

Hollyleaf bent forward to inspect the wound left by the thorn. Carefully she brushed the snow away with her paw. The injury looked like a neat, clean hole, almost sealed up already. “I think that did the trick,” she meowed.

“Well done.” Brambleclaw’s rumbling purr sounded behind Hollyleaf. Lionblaze saw him blinking warmly at her with the same fatherly pride in his eyes that Smoky had shown when he was watching Hazeltail.

Hollyleaf turned away; Lionblaze knew how much she must want to respond, but she couldn’t. Once Brambleclaw’s approval had meant so much to all of them. But not anymore. Whatever skills we have, they didn’t come from you.

The snow was starting to ease off, but the cloud covering the sky made it impossible to tell where the sun was. Maybe it’s nearly sunset, Lionblaze thought, shivering. Straight ahead lay the huge Thunderpath, and beyond it the land stretched flat as far as they could see, unbroken except for a small copse in the middle of the openness. Beyond it, over to one side, Lionblaze made out a mass of twinkling lights.