Sunrise

He took the lead as the patrol scrambled back across the rocks. Lionblaze staggered as water foamed around him as high as his belly fur, but he managed to stay on his paws and drag himself to safety, up the steep slope of the gully where Brambleclaw and Hazeltail had already taken refuge. Hollyleaf dragged herself after him, her black pelt soaked and flattened to her sides from the spray.

“I hate this place!” she spat as she tried to shake herself dry. “Midnight must be mouse-brained to live here.”

A sharp cry of alarm cut through her words. As Birchfall tried to leap up into the gully, a huge wave crashed over him. Hollyleaf stretched out a paw, but before she could grab him, the wave swept him back out of reach. Lionblaze caught a glimpse of him struggling in the gray water, his jaws wide in a yowl of terror, before his head went under.

“He’ll drown!” Hollyleaf screeched.

At the same instant a dark shadow flashed over Lionblaze’s head; Brambleclaw had leaped down into the water and was swimming strongly to where Birchfall had disappeared. Brackenfur, still precariously balanced on the rocks below, launched himself after the Clan deputy.

Lionblaze bunched his muscles to leap down and join them, only to find Hollyleaf blocking his way. “You can’t,” she rasped. “More cats will die!”

“There must be something we can do,” Lionblaze meowed desperately.

Glancing around, he saw a straggling bush growing between the rocks a couple of tail-lengths above them.

“Hazeltail,” he called. “Can you break a branch off that bush?”

The young she-cat was staring at the sun-drown water, frozen with horror as she watched her Clanmates struggling in the waves. She started as Lionblaze spoke, then turned and began tugging at the longest branch.

Lionblaze scrambled up to help her. To his relief the bush was dry; the branch cracked away from the main trunk, so that he and Hazeltail could claw it free and drag it down the gully to the edge of the water. Lionblaze let out a gasp of relief when he saw that Birchfall had resurfaced; Brambleclaw had his teeth fastened in the younger warrior’s neck fur, while Brackenfur swam on his other side, trying to push him toward the cliff.

Dropping the branch at the bottom of the gully, Lionblaze beckoned his sister with his tail. “Grab the end,” he directed. “Sink your teeth and claws in, and don’t let go.”

Hollyleaf obeyed, pushing the branch so that it stuck out into the water as far as it would go. Lionblaze and Hazeltail crouched beside her, all three cats hanging on to the end of the branch, trying to keep it steady among the crashing waves. More water swirled around them.

We can’t keep this up for long, Lionblaze thought grimly. We’ll be swept away as well.

He narrowed his eyes to peer across the roaring water and spotted his Clanmates bob above the surface as a wave drove them inshore. The short leaf-bare day was drawing to an end; the sinking sun flooded the surface of the water with scarlet so that the cats’ heads were just shadows bobbing in a sea of blood.

The wave swept them closer still; Brackenfur reached out and managed to sink the claws of one paw into the end of the branch. “Grab it!” he yowled to Birchfall.

The young tom looked frozen with fear, his eyes staring vacantly, but as Brambleclaw let go his scruff, he clutched wildly at the branch and dragged himself along it until he could scramble onto the rocks at the bottom of the gully. Lionblaze let go of his end of the branch to haul Birchfall’s limp body up higher; water streamed from his pelt and he vomited up a huge mouthful of liquid.

Brackenfur clawed his way along the branch to safety, and stood shaking the water out of his ginger fur. “Brambleclaw!” he yowled. “Brambleclaw, where are you?”

Cold horror flooded over Lionblaze as he realized that the deputy had disappeared. He can’t have drowned. What will we do without him?

Then he spotted Brambleclaw’s dark head break the surface a couple of fox-lengths away from the end of the branch. He was trying to swim, but his efforts were much feebler now.

Waves were tugging at Hollyleaf and Hazeltail as they clung to the branch. Hollyleaf’s tail streamed out into the water.

“Get back, but don’t let go!” Lionblaze ordered, his heart pounding as hard as the waves on the shore. Then he raised his voice to a yowl. “Brambleclaw! Over here!”

The deputy heard him and seemed to find new strength. Struggling to keep afloat, he let the next wave carry him up to the branch, then struck out toward it. He managed to fasten his claws into it and haul himself out before the retreating wave swept him back again.

“Fox dung!” he spat, standing on the stones of the gully with water eddying around his paws. “I thought I was on my way to StarClan for sure.”