Daisy didn't look enthusiastic, but she followed Smoky and Coriander as they headed for the entrance to the barn. Bramblestar trotted just behind her. Inside, the wood-sided den was warm and musty. It was much smaller than the barn where Barley and Ravenpaw used to live near the old forest, but it smelled the same, of dust and dried gra.s.s and tempting scents of prey. Golden dust motes danced in shafts of sunlight that slanted in through holes just beneath the roof. Scuffling noises in the piles of hay showed the presence of mice, and Bramblestar's mouth watered.

"It's all changed," Daisy commented. "You used to have your nest over here."

"I know," Smoky responded. "But Coriander says it's less drafty over there." He indicated a deep hollow in the hay with a flick of his tail.

"Yes," Coriander agreed. "It's so comfortable!"

Bramblestar saw Daisy's claws slide out, and gave her a hasty nudge. "We really should be getting back," he mewed.

Daisy nodded. "Yes, there's loads to do back in the camp."

"Good-bye, then." Smoky sounded quite cheerful to let Daisy go, and Bramblestar noticed he didn't invite her to drop in again.

"Do be careful on your way home," Coriander added with a gleam in her amber eyes. "The horses can be quite scary if you're not used to them."

"I'm fine with horses, thanks," Daisy snapped, whipping around and stalking out of the barn with her tail held high. Resisting a purr of amus.e.m.e.nt, Bramblestar followed her.

On the journey back through WindClan territory, Daisy was unusually quiet.

Bramblestar thought he should say something. "It's always hard to go back," he offered sympathetically.

Daisy halted and stared at him. "I didn't want to go back!" she protested. "Not forever. I know I belong in ThunderClan now, but I hadn't expected things to change so much. Why didn't I know that Floss had died? Has Smoky forgotten about her already because of Coriander? I thought he loved Floss!"

For a moment, an image of Squirrelflight flashed into Bramblestar's mind. She was standing in the hollow surrounded by three fluffed-up kits, trying to coax them to eat a piece of vole.

"We want milk!" squeaked the she-cat, as black as a yew branch.

"Not that nasty stuff," put in the golden tabby tom, prodding the vole with one stubby paw.

"It smells like the dirtplace," chirped the smallest kit, whose pale gray fur blended with the cliffs behind him.

"It does not smell like the dirtplace!" Squirrelflight scolded. She looked up and met Bramblestar's gaze. She looked ruffled, her pelt ungroomed and her eyes clouded with exhaustion, but he had never loved her more.

"Any cat would think I was trying to poison them!" she hissed to him.

He blinked at her. "You're a great mother," he a.s.sured her. "They'll know that one day."

A stone rolling out from beneath his paw jolted Bramblestar back to the present. Beside him, Daisy looked sad as she mourned the loss of her friends.

"Nothing stays the same," Bramblestar told her, brushing her ear with his muzzle. However much you want it to.

CHAPTER 6.

On the day after the visit to the horseplace, the weather changed. A fierce wind lashed the trees and sent clouds scudding across the sky. The forest floor was littered with splintered branches, and Bramblestar warned all his cats to look out for signs of falling trees. He continued to keep a close watch on the ShadowClan border, but there were no more traces of trespa.s.sing.

"Maybe they've learned their lesson," he remarked as he led a patrol past the pelt-den clearing.

"And maybe they're just keeping quiet until we relax the watch," Molewhisker growled with a flick of his tail.

"Let's enjoy the peace while it lasts," Sandstorm suggested.

Bramblestar murmured agreement. He headed down the stream until the patrol emerged from the trees on the lakesh.o.r.e.

Blossomfall ran ahead and sprang onto a rock at the water's edge. She studied the smooth gray stone beneath her paws. "The lake is still rising!" she announced. "I've been scratching marks on this rock, and-" She broke off with a yowl as a wave rose up and engulfed the rock. As the water rolled back, it carried Blossomfall with it and she plunged into the lake. She flailed with her paws, managing to keep her head above water, but the waves buffeted her too much for her to make it back to the sh.o.r.e.

"Blossomfall!" Molewhisker wailed, dashing to the water's edge.

"Keep back!" Bramblestar warned him. "We don't want two of you in there."

"Bramblestar, over here!" Sandstorm's voice sounded behind him.

Turning, Bramblestar saw that she was trying to tug a tree branch out of the undergrowth at the edge of the forest, but the twigs were snagged among brambles, and she couldn't move it.

"Help me get this free!" she panted.

Bramblestar raced over and grabbed the branch in his jaws. Together they managed to wrench it free. Bramblestar dragged it across the pebbles until the lake water was lapping around his paws, and shoved it out into the waves. The branch bobbed madly, and Bramblestar braced his feet among the stones to hold it steady.

"Be careful!" Sandstorm called.

Blossomfall's head was still bobbing above the surface, but the end of the branch was just beyond her reach. Bramblestar could see that her long, thick fur was waterlogged and dragging her down. "Molewhisker, Sandstorm," he rasped. "Put your weight on this end. Don't let it move."

The warriors waded into the lake and gripped the branch with their front paws. Bramblestar pulled himself onto the narrow length of wood and began to work his way forward, balancing on his hind paws and digging his front claws into the branch after each step. Waves slapped against him and with every heartbeat he expected to be torn away into the swirling water. Blossomfall bobbed a tail-length beyond the end of the branch, spluttering and thrashing as she was dragged under by the weight of her fur.

When the branch narrowed too much to hold Bramblestar, he shuffled carefully around and held out his tail toward the drowning cat. "Blossomfall!" he yowled. "Here!"

Blossomfall shook her head to get water out of her eyes, then made a frantic lunge toward Bramblestar. He winced as she sank her teeth into the end of his tail. The she-cat's eyes bulged as she clamped her jaws shut. Bramblestar took a deep breath against the pain and pulled her toward him until she could grip the branch with her claws and release his tail. Drops of blood scattered into the lake and sank quickly.

"Hold on!" Bramblestar called.

Sandstorm and Molewhisker began to haul the branch in, dragging it up the sh.o.r.e until first Bramblestar and then Blossomfall managed to find a paw hold. They waded out of the lake and flopped down on the pebbles well above the waterline.

"Thank you, Bramblestar!" Blossomfall choked, coughing up several mouthfuls of water. "I thought I was going to drown!"

Bramblestar got up and gave his pelt a shake. "It's too dangerous down here," he meowed. "I'm going to order every cat to stay away from the lake until the water level goes down."

"Good idea!" Molewhisker agreed.

Turning to Sandstorm, Bramblestar continued, "Will you take Blossomfall back and have Jayfeather check her out? Molewhisker and I can finish the patrol on our own."

"No, I'm okay," Blossomfall objected, struggling to her paws. "I can keep going."

Bramblestar hesitated. I wonder if she's trying to prove her loyalty. Then he told himself to stop second-guessing the motives of every cat who had been connected with the Dark Forest. He gave a brisk nod. "Tell me if you want to stop," he warned her. "There's no shame in needing to rest after what you've been through."

"I'm fine," Blossomfall insisted. Her pelt was still wet, sticking up in spikes, but her eyes were bright and determined.

Bramblestar led his patrol a safe distance from the water's edge and turned inland to follow the stream at the WindClan border. He spotted a WindClan patrol racing across the moor after a couple of bulky, low-flying white birds. As he watched, two of the cats leaped into the air and almost clawed one of the birds out of the sky. At the last moment it gave a vigorous beat of its wings and lurched away, gaining height.

"I've never seen WindClan hunting like that before!" Sandstorm exclaimed.

"It's pretty brave of them." Molewhisker sounded impressed. "Those birds are big!"

"I wonder how hungry they must be to try learning how to fly after prey," Bramblestar mused. "The Tribe cats hunt birds like that, but it doesn't seem natural for us."

The wind was blowing strongly over the moor, bringing so much WindClan scent that it seemed to fill the forest.

"It's hopeless trying to tell if they've trespa.s.sed," Molewhisker growled. "I can't smell anything but WindClan!"

The patrol renewed their own scent markers, but the wind whisked the scent away into the forest almost immediately. Battling through the gusts, the cats finally reached the ridge and gazed down at the churning gray lake. It's definitely bigger than usual, Bramblestar realized.

"It's hard to believe it was once empty," Sandstorm murmured.

"Was that in the Long Dry?" Molewhisker asked. "Purdy started telling me about it, but he never said how the water came back."

Purdy hardly ever gets to the end of his stories, Bramblestar thought, twitching his whiskers in amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Well," Blossomfall began, "all the Clans sent two cats to form a patrol, and they traveled up the dried-out stream until-"

"Which cats went from ThunderClan?" Molewhisker interrupted.

"Dovewing-she was Dovepaw then-and Lionblaze," Blossomfall replied.

The tortoisesh.e.l.l she-cat broke off with a startled squeal as a huge white bird flew unsteadily over their heads. Bramblestar ducked to avoid its erratic wingbeats. A moment later it crashed into a holly bush and struggled in the branches, trapped.

Bramblestar raced over to it with Molewhisker beside him. Reaching the bush, he stood back to let the younger warrior make the easy kill.

Molewhisker dived into the bush and sank his teeth into the bird's neck. It stopped struggling and went limp; Molewhisker backed out of the bush, dragging his prey with him.

"Good job!" Bramblestar praised him.

Blossomfall let out a snort. "You've made a bit of a mess of its wings," she pointed out. "You should be more careful."

"I only bit its neck!" Molewhisker protested.

Looking more closely, Bramblestar saw claw marks on the wings, and a spattering of blood on the white feathers. "This must be the bird we saw the WindClan warriors attacking," he meowed. "They've wounded it badly enough to bring it down, but it managed to get onto our territory." He let out a satisfied purr. "It'll make a great addition to the fresh-kill pile," he added, "but it's so heavy we might need more warriors to carry it back, so we don't do any more damage."

"Hey-what are you doing?" An outraged yowl came from the other side of the stream.

Bramblestar turned to see Nightcloud at the head of a WindClan patrol. Her apprentice, Hootpaw, and gray-and-white Gorsetail were just behind her.

"That's our catch!" the black she-cat growled. "We should have it."

"It is not your catch," Molewhisker defended himself. "I killed it, so it's mine!"

"It was alive when it entered ThunderClan territory," Bramblestar pointed out, "and that makes it ours."

All three WindClan cats were bristling with fury. "Look at this," Nightcloud snarled, holding up one paw to show sc.r.a.ps of white feathers stuck between her claws. "That proves we wounded it. If we hadn't, you would never have caught it."

"And we need it more than you," Hootpaw put in. "Rabbits are scarcer than usual, so these white birds are all we have."

"Be quiet!" Nightcloud hissed, giving her apprentice a cuff around the ear.

Sandstorm spoke softly to Bramblestar. "We have plenty of prey. I think Firestar would have let WindClan have this bird."

"I'm not Firestar," Bramblestar retorted. "We caught this fairly, so it belongs to us."

"Absolutely right, you're not Firestar," Gorsetail muttered, overhearing.

Bramblestar felt a flash of anger. s.n.a.t.c.hing up the white bird, he stalked away with it, even though it was almost too heavy for him to carry and the trailing wings threatened to trip him. Sandstorm and Molewhisker hurried to help him, one on each side, while Blossomfall padded ahead to clear any twigs or bramble tendrils out of the way. As they headed into the trees, Bramblestar could hear the WindClan cats hissing behind him, but he paid no attention.

"You made the right decision," Sandstorm meowed after a moment. "You're the leader now, and you can't show weakness to another Clan."

Bramblestar shrugged. "Whatever," he mumbled around his mouthful of feathers. He was thinking about what Hootpaw had said: Rabbits were getting scarce in WindClan, and they were relying on birds that didn't usually come to the moor. There's something very familiar about the scent of the white bird's wings. . . .

The ThunderClan cats gathered around to stare at the white bird when the patrol returned to the hollow.

"Wow, it's huge!" Berrynose exclaimed.

"I never saw a bird like that before," Ivypool meowed. "It's enough to feed the whole Clan!"

"I caught it," Molewhisker announced, giving his shoulder a couple of proud licks.

His sister Cherryfall blinked at him. "Great catch! Those wings could really have hurt you."

"Oh, it wasn't that difficult," Molewhisker mewed.

No, because the bird was already wounded and trapped in a bush, Bramblestar thought, suppressing a mrrow of amus.e.m.e.nt. He said nothing. Let Molewhisker have his moment of glory!

"Squirrelflight!" he called, beckoning to his deputy with his tail. He led her up to the white bird and angled his ears toward it. "Smell it," he mewed. "What does it remind you of?"

Squirrelflight took a deep sniff, then looked up, puzzled. "Er . . . dead birds?" she guessed.

Bramblestar twitched the tip of his tail. "No, think of a place," he urged.

Squirrelflight sniffed again, and understanding began to dawn in her eyes. "Now I remember! There's a salt-tasting tang on the feathers, like the water in the sun-drown-place. Do you think that's where it came from?"

Bramblestar remembered that Onestar had mentioned at the Gathering that WindClan were hunting birds from the sun-drown-water. He hadn't paid much attention at the time, thinking that the WindClan leader must be imagining things. Now he wasn't so sure.

"The wind must be incredibly strong," he commented, "to blow these birds all the way here."

He gazed through the trees as though he could see all the way to the sun-drown-place. A shiver pa.s.sed through him from ears to tail-tip as he remembered the surging ma.s.s of blue-green water.