Sunrise

The cats began to retreat from the hungry water. Brambleclaw scrambled up the gully until he stood beside Birchfall, who was still slumped on the stones with his eyes closed. Only his heaving chest showed that he was alive.

Brambleclaw prodded him with one paw. “Birchfall?”

The young tabby’s eyes opened and he let out a shuddering sigh. “I might have drowned.” His voice shook with fear. “I might never have seen Whitewing again—or our kits!”

“But you’re fine now.” Brambleclaw’s voice rasped in his throat, rubbed raw by the bitter water. “It’s time we started moving.”

The Clan deputy didn’t allow his patrol to rest until they reached the shallow gully that ran along the top of the cliff. Out of the wind, with the waves booming against the cliffs below, they could collapse and try to groom the water out of their fur. Lionblaze winced at the bitter taste of salt, and saw that his Clanmates were making faces as they licked.

“Thanks, Brambleclaw and Brackenfur,” Birchfall mumbled. “You saved my life back there.”

Brackenfur touched the young tom’s shoulder with the tip of his tail. “It’s all over, and thank StarClan, no cat died. Brambleclaw, what do you think we should do next, seeing that Midnight isn’t here?”

Brambleclaw accepted his Clanmate’s tactful change of subject with a flick of his ears. “We’ll keep looking for Sol. There’ll be cats in the Twolegplace who have seen him.”

The hair on Brackenfur’s neck lifted at the mention of Sol’s name. “Yes, he had a look of kittypet about him.”

That cat’s no kittypet. Lionblaze didn’t dare say the words out loud, in case some cat asked him how he knew so much about Sol. He exchanged a doubtful glance with Hollyleaf. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to visit the Twolegplace, and he could tell that his sister felt the same. Hazeltail was looking nervous, too, but it was Birchfall who spoke what they were all thinking.

“Do we have to go so close to Twolegs? It’s not right for Clan cats.”

“We’ve got no choice,” Brambleclaw growled. “We’re not going back to ThunderClan without Sol!”

I wonder whether Brambleclaw would be so keen to hunt down Ashfur’s killer if he knew that Ashfur had tried to destroy Squirrelflight? Lionblaze thought.

But Brambleclaw also didn’t know that Squirrelflight had lied to him. She let him believe he was our father. Would he be so loyal to her if he found out the truth?

Lionblaze shook his head, trying to clear it of all the lies. He had to fix his mind on the one thing he could control: being the best warrior for ThunderClan that he could possibly be. I know I can still fight without being hurt. I just need a chance to prove it….

“What’s the matter?” Hollyleaf muttered into his ear. “Have you heard something?” Her black pelt was bristling.

Lionblaze realized that he had sunk his claws into the ground as if he were about to attack. “No, it’s okay,” he replied, forcing himself to relax. “I was just thinking about Sol.”

Brambleclaw hadn’t heard their exchange. “This is what we’re going to do,” he announced. “There’s nowhere for cats to live near the edge of the cliff, and nowhere to catch prey. So we’ll have to head for the outskirts of the Twolegplace and look for any cats who might have seen Sol.”

“So long as we stay on the outskirts,” Hollyleaf muttered.

The patrol slunk cautiously over the edge of the gully and made for the red blur of Twoleg nests on the far side of the open stretch of cliff. Lionblaze felt thankful that the noise of crashing water was dying away behind him, though the wind still thrust at him.

The sun had vanished, swallowed up by the sun-drown-place, and shadows were stretching across the grass. Lionblaze’s stomach growled, and he remembered that he hadn’t had so much as a sniff of fresh-kill since early that morning.

“We’ll look for prey as soon as we get to the Twolegplace,” Brackenfur promised when he heard the rumble of Lionblaze’s belly.

And what sort of prey will we find there? Lionblaze wondered. I’m not eating kittypet food!

As they drew closer to the Twoleg nests, Lionblaze grew more and more anxious; he could tell from his Clanmates’ bristling fur and flickering glances that they felt the same. Something black swooped down on them with a high-pitched chittering sound; Lionblaze threw himself to the ground and rolled over, his teeth bared and his claws extended, in time to spot a bat fluttering away and vanishing into the growing darkness.

Birchfall suppressed a small mrrow of laughter. “I wish you’d caught it,” he mewed. “Then we might all have had a bite to eat.”

“A pretty small bite for the six of us,” Lionblaze growled.