Erin Hunter - Sunset

“How does that feel?” he asked Berrykit.

“Better,” the kit mewed. “Not so tight.”

“Keep still,” Brambleclaw told him. “It won’t be long now.”

“Stand back!” Squirrelflight gasped. “I’m nearly there.” She fastened her teeth in the stick and tugged hard; her paws shot out from under her as it sprang out of the ground. Berrykit scrambled forward when he felt the trap release him, dragging the stick with his injured tail.

“Stop!” Stormfur meowed. “Let’s get this thing off first.”

Now that the stick was out of the ground, the tendril was much looser. Delicately Brambleclaw worked one claw under it, then loosened it a little more with his teeth. “Try pulling your tail free,” he instructed Berrykit.

Relief flooded over him from ears to tail-tip as the kit managed to draw his tail out of the shining loop. Berrykit tried to get to his paws, staggered, and slumped down on one side, his eyes closed.

“Rest for a moment,” Brook mewed. “We’ll clean your tail up a bit.”

She crouched beside Berrykit and began to lick his wounded tail. Squirrelflight joined in with swift rasps of her tongue. Brambleclaw winced when he saw Berrykit’s torn flesh and the blood that was still trickling out of the wound.

He gathered a pawful of leaves and pressed them down over the worst of the bleeding—they wouldn’t be as effective as cobwebs, but there wasn’t time to look for anything else.

“As soon as we get back to camp, Leafpool will take a look at you,” he promised.

Berrykit didn’t reply, and his eyes stayed closed; Brambleclaw wondered if the kit had even heard him.

Meanwhile Stormfur had taken a few paces toward the ShadowClan patrol, who were still watching from the shelter of the hazel bush. “Seen enough?” he snarled. “At least you’ve had a lesson from ThunderClan on how to deal with a fox trap.”

“ShadowClan can deal with fox traps, thanks,” Russetfur replied with a flick of her tail. “We’ve seen a couple of them in our territory, but we have the sense to stay clear of them.”

“More sense than a kit?” Stormfur took another step forward until he stood right on the border. “That must make you so proud. You’re really fierce warriors, I can see that.”

A growl rose in Oakfur’s throat and he sprang to his paws.

“Take one step over the border and you’ll find out how fierce we are—deserter!”

Stormfur’s neck fur bristled. “I was one of the cats who made the journey to the sun-drown-place. I helped the Clans find their new home. And I’ll tell you this—I didn’t do it so that the four Clans would grow too far apart to even help an injured kit.”

“But that’s not a Clan kit,” Cedarheart sneered, coming over to stand beside Oakfur. “Maybe you’ve been in the mountains for so long, you’ve forgotten the warrior code. If you ever knew it in the first place, halfClan .”

Stormfur unsheathed his claws, and Brambleclaw knew that the insults were on the brink of giving way to a full-blown fight. That was more than he wanted to cope with now, especially when they still had to carry Berrykit back to camp.

He bounded up to Stormfur and nudged him. “We don’t want a fight right now,” he mewed quietly in his ear. “They’re not worth it. Ignore them.”

Stormfur’s gaze locked with his; his blue eyes were hot with anger. Then he took a deep breath, and the fur on his shoulders began to lie flat. “You’re right,” he agreed. “But crow-food is still too good for them.”

Both cats turned away and padded back to Berrykit. A scornful yowl rose up from the ShadowClan warriors, but neither Brambleclaw nor Stormfur looked back.

When they reached Berrykit, Brambleclaw thought he was still unconscious, but as he bent over to sniff him the kit’s eyes flickered open. “Thank you,” he whispered. “I’m really sorry.”

“That’s okay,” meowed Squirrelflight.

“Will Firestar still let me be an apprentice?”

Brambleclaw gave Berrykit a comforting lick on the shoulder. “I’ll tell you a secret,” he meowed. “When Firestar was an apprentice, he got into no end of trouble—isn’t that so, Squirrelflight?”

Squirrelflight nodded solemnly. “It’s no secret! The whole Clan knows it.”

Berrykit blinked. “Firestar? Really?”

“Really,” Brambleclaw reassured him. “What you did was wrong, but it was brave too. Firestar will understand that.”

Reassured, Berrykit let out a sigh, and his eyes closed again.

“Come on,” mewed Brambleclaw, looking up at his companions. “Let’s get him back to camp.”

Brambleclaw and Stormfur shuffled through the thorn tunnel, carrying Berrykit’s limp body between them. His mangled tail was still bleeding. Brambleclaw was sure that the kit was still alive only from the faint rise and fall of his chest.

He desperately needed Leafpool’s care before they lost him to StarClan.

Squirrelflight followed the two tomcats into the camp and raced off at once to her sister’s den. Brook brought up the rear. “I’ll tell Daisy,” she mewed, heading for the nursery.

As Brambleclaw and Stormfur carried Berrykit across the clearing a shrill wail broke out behind them. Glancing over his shoulder, Brambleclaw saw Daisy shoot out of the nursery entrance; Cloudtail was just behind her, meowing, “Daisy, wait!”

The cream-colored she-cat skidded to a halt in front of Brambleclaw, her eyes wild with terror. “Berrykit! Oh, he’s dead, he’s dead!”

Brambleclaw, with a mouthful of the kit’s fur, couldn’t reply.

“He’s not dead,” Cloudtail panted as he raced up. “Brook said he wasn’t, remember? Look, you can see him breathing.”

Daisy just stared numbly at Berrykit, as if she couldn’t understand what the white warrior was saying. Then she flung herself at her kit and began covering him with desperate licks. Brambleclaw’s ears twitched impatiently. Didn’t the mousebrained kittypet realize she was in the way? Couldn’t she understand that the most important thing was to get her kit to a medicine cat quickly?

“Come on.” Cloudtail laid his tail gently on Daisy’s shoulder. “Let them take Berrykit to Leafpool. Come and tell Mousekit and Hazelkit that he’s going to be okay. They’ve been worried, too.”

Daisy gave him a doubtful look, then let him draw her away, back toward the nursery.

Leafpool rushed out to meet Brambleclaw and Stormfur before they were halfway to her den. “Poor little scrap!” she exclaimed, giving the wounded tail a rapid sniff. “Bring him straight in, please. Brightheart is making a nest for him.”

Brambleclaw and Stormfur carried the kit around the bramble screen and laid him in a nest of moss and ferns just outside the entrance to Leafpool’s den. He lay on one side, not moving. Brightheart stroked his fur with one paw while Squirrelflight looked on worriedly.

“I’d better tell Firestar,” she muttered after a moment, and slipped away.

Leafpool dived through the cleft into her den, and emerged a moment later with a pawful of cobwebs. “We have to stop the bleeding first,” she meowed as she bound them around the ragged wounds in Berrykit’s tail. The leaves Brambleclaw had used had fallen off during the long trek back through the forest. “Then he can have some marigold to stop infection.”

“He’s going to be okay, isn’t he?” Brambleclaw asked in a low voice.

Leafpool looked up at him, her amber eyes shadowed. “I hope so, but I don’t know,” she replied honestly. “I’ll do the best I can, but he’s in the paws of StarClan now.”

When he left Leafpool’s den, Brambleclaw found Dustpelt and Thornclaw about to go out on patrol. He bounded over to join them, hoping to put his worries about Berrykit out of his mind for a while. But all the way along the stream bordering WindClan, he couldn’t forget the kit’s limp shape, lying so still. If he died, Daisy would probably take her other kits straight back to the horseplace, as she’d been threatening to do already. And then there would be no more apprentices until Sorreltail’s kits were old enough. That was almost six moons away!