Erin Hunter - Midnight

“What are those ?” Brambleclaw asked.

Three days had passed since the trouble in the Twoleg gardens, and the journeying cats had traveled on across farmland, avoiding the Twoleg nests dotted here and there, and meeting nothing more threatening than sheep. Now they were crouched in a ditch that ran along the line of a hedge between two fields. They were peering out at two of the biggest animals Brambleclaw had ever seen, which were running back and forth across the field, snorting and tossing up their heads. The impact of their huge feet made the ground shudder.

“Horses,” Crowpaw replied loftily; his eyes gleamed as if he was delighted to know something that Brambleclaw didn’t. “They run across our territory sometimes with Twolegs on their backs.”

Brambleclaw thought he had never heard anything so mad in his life. “I guess even Twolegs want four legs sometimes,” he joked.

Crowpaw shrugged.

“Can we please get going?” Squirrelpaw mewed plaintively.

“There’s water in this ditch, and my tail is getting wet.”

“Fine, go,” Brambleclaw muttered. “But I don’t fancy getting crushed.”

“I don’t think horses are dangerous,” Stormfur meowed.

“We’ve seen them at the farm on the edge of RiverClan territory. They never pay much attention to us.”

“If they did tread on us, they wouldn’t mean to,” Feathertail added.

Brambleclaw felt that wouldn’t be much consolation; a blow from one of those feet, which looked like chunks of weathered stone, could break a cat’s spine.

“We just need to run across while they’re down at the other end,” Tawnypelt pointed out. “I doubt they’d follow us.

They must be quite stupid, or they wouldn’t let Twolegs on their backs.”

“Okay.” That sounded like good sense to Brambleclaw.

“Straight across this field and through that hedge opposite.

And for StarClan’s sake, let’s stay together this time.”

They waited until the horses had cantered off to the other end of the field.

“Now!” mewed Brambleclaw.

He launched himself into the open, wind streaming through his fur, aware of his companions racing beside him. He thought he could hear the pounding of the horses’ massive feet, but he did not dare slow down to take a look. Then he was leaping the ditch that bordered the hedge on the far side, and plunging into the shelter of low-growing bushes.

Peering out cautiously, he saw that the others had reached safety with him. “Great!” he meowed. “I think we’re starting to get the hang of this.”

“It’s about time.” Crowpaw sniffed.

There were large animals in the next field too, this time standing together in the shade of a couple of trees, swishing their tails and munching grass. These were cows: Brambleclaw had seen them near Ravenpaw’s barn on his apprentice journey to Highstones. They had smooth black-and-white pelts and enormous eyes like giant peaty pools.

The cows seemed to take no notice of the group of cats, and so they crossed this field more slowly, keeping an eye on the animals as they brushed through the long, cool grass. It was almost sunhigh, and Brambleclaw would have been happy to settle down for a nap, but he knew that they had to go on. He kept checking the position of the sun in the sky, impatient for it to start going down so that he could be sure they were still traveling in the right direction. Where the sun touched the horizon, that was the sun-drown place. Brambleclaw pushed away his nagging worry that they would have nothing to guide them if clouds came to hide the sun, and he hoped the good weather would hold.

Leaving the cows behind, they came to a field so huge they could not see the other side. Instead of grass, it was covered by thicker stems, yellow and stiff like the straw in Ravenpaw’s barn, cut short so they were hard and spiky to walk on. In the distance they could hear the roar of a monster.

“It’s over there.” Squirrelpaw had leaped onto a low branch of an elder tree that was growing in the hedge. “A huge monster, in the field ! This far from any Thunderpath!”

“What? It can’t be!” Brambleclaw leaped up to the branch beside her. To his amazement, Squirrelpaw was right. A monster far bigger than most of the ones that traveled along the Thunderpath was roaring slowly across the field. Some sort of cloud surrounded it, filling the air with churning yellow dust.

“Satisfied?” Squirrelpaw meowed sarcastically.

“Sorry.” Brambleclaw jumped down to rejoin the others.

“Squirrelpaw’s right. There is a monster in the field.”

“Then we’d better get on as quickly as we can, before it sees us,” Stormfur meowed.

“They’re supposed to stay on the Thunderpath,” Feathertail complained. “It’s not fair !”

Crowpaw dabbed warily at the thick, spiky stems in the field. “This is no good,” he spat. “We’ll all have scratched pads if we try walking across that. We’ll have to go around the edge.”

He glared at the other cats as he spoke, as if he were expecting one of them to contradict him, but there was no reply except a murmur of agreement from Feathertail.

Crowpaw had good ideas, Brambleclaw decided, if only he’d be less aggressive about sharing them.

The WindClan apprentice led the way and the rest followed, keeping close to the hedge so that they would be able to hide if the monster came after them. There was a narrow grassy space between the hedge and the rough yellow stems, just wide enough for the cats to walk in single file.

“Look at that!” Tawnypelt exclaimed.

She twitched her ears toward a mouse crouched among the spikes, nibbling at seeds that were strewn on the ground.

Before any other cat could move, Squirrelpaw pounced, rolled over among the crackling stems, and scrambled to her paws again with the mouse in her jaws.

“Here,” she meowed, dropping it in front of Tawnypelt.

“You saw it first.”

“I can catch my own, thanks,” Tawnypelt mewed dryly.

Now that Brambleclaw knew what to look for, he realized there were more mice scuffling among the stems, stuffing themselves on the scattered seeds. It was almost as if StarClan had sent them the chance to hunt and feed well. Once Squirrelpaw had eaten he sent her to keep watch in another tree, to report if the monster changed direction and came toward them.

But the monster kept its distance. Brambleclaw felt more hopeful and stronger from the food when they went on, especially as the sun started to sink and he could check their direction. Before long they were able to leave the strange, spiky field, and the going became easier. The air was heavy with the heat of the day; bees hummed in the grasses and a butterfly flew past. Squirrelpaw dabbed a paw at it, but she looked too drowsy to chase it.

Tawnypelt had taken the lead as they approached the edge of the meadow, with Stormfur and Squirrelpaw just behind her and Crowpaw with Feathertail. Brambleclaw, bringing up the rear, kept a lookout behind for possible danger.

This time there was no hedge, but a Twoleg fence, made of some thin, shiny material. It was a kind of mesh, like inter-laced twigs, except that the spaces were regular. They were too small to climb through, but there was a gap at the bottom where a cat could flatten itself against the ground and squeeze underneath.

Brambleclaw scrabbled his way under, feeling the fence stuff scrape against his back. Beside him, Stormfur was doing the same. As Brambleclaw straightened up again, he heard a furious wail from farther down the fence.

“I’m stuck!”

The voice was Squirrelpaw’s. Heaving a sigh, Brambleclaw padded along the fence toward her, with Stormfur beside him.

Crowpaw and Feathertail were already standing beside the young apprentice, and Tawnypelt came up a moment later.