Эрин Хантер - Moonrise

The valley grew narrower and there was even less vegetation. Stormfur felt uncomfortably exposed, but the eagle did not return. As twilight gathered, a thin, cold rain began to fall. The cats’ fur was soon soaked, and there was nowhere to shelter.

“We’ve got to stop soon,” Squirrelpaw announced loudly.

“My paws are falling off.”

“Well, we can’t stop here.” Brambleclaw sounded irritable.

“We need to get out of the rain.”

“No, Squirrelpaw’s right,” Stormfur objected, facing up to the ThunderClan warrior. “We can’t go on in the dark; we risk falling.”

Brambleclaw’s neck fur rose and he fixed Stormfur with a furious glare. Behind him, Stormfur heard a faint murmur of distress from Feathertail. He realized they were within a couple of heartbeats of fighting among themselves. His growing respect for the ThunderClan cat meant that a fight was the last thing he wanted, but he could not back down and let Brambleclaw lead them on to slip over some precipice in the darkness.

Then he saw Brambleclaw’s fur begin to lie flat again as the tabby seemed to understand Stormfur’s concerns. “You’re right, Stormfur. Let’s shelter under the rock over there. It’s better than nothing.”

He led the way to an overhanging rock, open on one side to the wind and rain that grew heavier still as the cats settled down, huddling together in an attempt to keep warm and dry.

“Shelter?” Crowpaw muttered. “If this is shelter, then I’m a hedgehog!”

You’re just as prickly , Stormfur thought, but he kept the words to himself.

That night he slept only in brief, uncomfortable snatches, and whenever he woke, he could feel his friends shifting uneasily around him. When at last the darkness began to lift he heaved himself to his paws, feeling stiff and bleary-eyed, and peered out of the overhang to see dense white mist swirling around them.

“We must be in the clouds,” Brambleclaw murmured, coming to join him. “I hope it lifts soon.”

“Do you think we should go on?” Stormfur asked hesitantly, wanting to avoid another confrontation with the ThunderClan cat. “If we can’t see where we’re going, we could walk straight over a cliff.”

“We manage when the mist comes down on the moors,” Crowpaw pointed out, yawning as he staggered to his paws.

Then he added doubtfully, “But we know our own territory by scent as well as sight.”

“And what about fresh-kill?” Squirrelpaw mewed. “There’s no rabbit scent up here. I’m starving!”

Stormfur tried to ignore his own growling belly while Brambleclaw ventured out of their shelter and stood looking upward. “I can see for a few foxlengths,” he reported.

“This cleft seems to go on and on. I think we’ll be safe if we follow it.”

He glanced at Stormfur as he spoke, a questioning look in his eyes, as if he regretted their recent argument and wanted to be sure that the RiverClan cat agreed with him.

Stormfur stepped out to join him, shivering as the mist began to soak into his fur. “Okay,” he meowed. “Lead the way.

It’s not like we have much choice.”

Reluctantly the other cats followed Brambleclaw out into the cold, clinging mist and padded after him up the rift.

Stormfur noticed that Tawnypelt was limping worse today, as if her leg had stiffened in the night. Midnight’s burdock root had cured the infection, but Stormfur suspected her muscles had been damaged. She needed a medicine cat to look at it, but that was impossible out here.

Daylight gradually grew stronger, and the swirls of cloud became paler, as if somewhere above them the sun was rising.

The rift grew steadily narrower, with walls of rock closing in on either side.

“I hope this isn’t a dead end,” Feathertail mewed. “We can’t go back to that ledge.”

She had hardly spoken when the clouds began to thin out and the cats could see farther ahead. Stormfur found himself staring up at a sheer rock face where the sides of the valley came to a point. There didn’t seem any way of climbing up, not unless they all grew wings and flew. His fur was plastered to his body by the mist and he felt hollow with hunger.

“Now what?” Tawnypelt meowed, sounding as defeated as Stormfur felt.

The six cats stood looking upward, a fine rain drifting around them as if the drops were light enough to be blown by the wind. Stormfur struggled with black despair. What was the point of all this? Even if they reached home, the forest was going to be destroyed. Their hopes of helping their Clans rested on the word of a badger—a creature whom the cats had always regarded as an enemy. Stuck here among rain-wet rocks, it was hard to remember his trust in Midnight’s wisdom. And if Stormfur doubted her, what would his Clanmates say when he tried to pass her message on? They had never completely trusted him or Feathertail because of their half-Clan heritage, so why should they listen now?

Then Stormfur realized that he could hear a steady roaring sound. It reminded him of the river pouring through the ravine in his home territory.

“What’s that?” he meowed, lifting his head. “Can you hear it?”

“Over here, I think,” Brambleclaw called.

Stormfur followed him up to the valley’s point, and discovered a split in the rock winding upward, just wide enough for one cat at a time. Brambleclaw led the way into it, gesturing with his tail for the others to follow. Stormfur waited to bring up the rear, his fur brushing the rock on either side, with unpleasant thoughts going through his head of what would happen if the path became so narrow that they got stuck.

The roaring grew louder, and after a little while the path came out on an open ledge. Broken rocks lay in front of them, rising to a ridge above their heads. A stream poured over the ridge, foaming down past the place where the cats were standing until it vanished behind a jutting boulder.

“Hey, at least we can have a drink!” Squirrelpaw mewed.

“Be careful,” Brambleclaw warned her. “One slip, and you’ll be crowfood.”

Squirrelpaw shot him a glare, but said nothing. She crept forward cautiously to the edge of the stream and crouched to lap. Stormfur and the other cats followed her. The water was ice-cold, refreshing Stormfur and giving him new courage.

Perhaps their scramble over these hostile mountains would soon be over.

Rising to his paws again, he glanced downstream and froze in shock. Just below where the cats were drinking, the rocks fell away into a precipice. Padding warily a few paces toward it Stormfur stretched his neck to peer over the edge and saw the stream pounding down in a waterfall until it crashed into a pool many tail-lengths below. The sound of thundering water filled his ears, making him dizzy, so that he instinctively tried to dig his claws into the rain-wet rock.

The rest of the cats gathered around him, their eyes wide and horrified.

“Awesome!” Squirrelpaw murmured. Peering over, she added, “There’s prey down there, I bet.”

Through the mist of spray that rose from the pool Stormfur caught a glimpse of another valley like the one they had just left, where grass grew up between broken rocks and bushes lined the rock walls. Squirrelpaw was right—if there were any other living things to be found around here, it would be down there.

“But we need to go up,” Brambleclaw pointed out, flicking his ears toward the place far above their heads where the stream poured over the lip of the rock. “It doesn’t look too difficult to climb. If we go down, we might never get back again.”

“Big deal, if it meant we got something to eat,” Squirrelpaw muttered, but so softly that Stormfur wondered if her Clanmate had heard.

With Brambleclaw in the lead again, they began the scramble upward. They were all exhausted, their soaked fur making them clumsy. Tawnypelt in particular found the going tough, hauling herself painfully over every rock as if she had hardly any strength left.