Erin Hunter - Midnight

A shadow moved, not wholly black, but patched with white.

Then lumbering into the dim light came a shape that was terrifyingly familiar: one of the deadliest enemies of the forest cats.

A badger!

Brambleclaw glanced wildly over his shoulder, but there was nowhere to flee except into the water; the difficult climb back to the hole in the cave roof would take too long. Guilt crashed over him with the cold force of the waves that had almost drowned him. All his visions, all his certainty, had led his companions to this dreadful place, where they would find no knowledge, no vision from StarClan, only a pointless and horrible death.

What use were faith and courage now, when they were trapped like rabbits in a hole?

Crowpaw had flattened himself to the ground and was creeping forward with his teeth bared in a snarl. Stormfur was edging around the badger to attack it from the side.

Despairingly Brambleclaw knew that they were heading to meet their death. Even all six of them, weak and starving as they were and worn out by their travels and the struggle in the water, could not hope to defeat a badger. Caught as they were by the choking waves, it would not be long before the blunt claws and snapping jaws picked them off one by one.

The badger had paused on the edge of the shadows that filled the back of the cave. Its powerful shoulders were hunched and its claws scraped on rock. Its head swung to and fro, the white stripe glimmering, as if it were deciding which of them to attack first.

Then it spoke.

“Midnight has come.”

Brambleclaw’s mouth fell open, and for a moment he felt as if the ground had given way beneath him again. That a badger could speak, could say words he understood, words that actually meant something… He stared in disbelief, his heart pounding.

“ I am Midnight.” The badger’s voice was deep and rasping, like the sound of the pebbles turning under the waves. “With you I must speak.”

“Mouse dung!” Crowpaw spat. The WindClan apprentice was still crouched ready to spring. “Make one move and you’ll have my claws in your eyes.”

“No, Crowpaw, wait—”

The badger’s throaty laughter interrupted Brambleclaw.

“Fierce, is he not? StarClan have chosen well. But there will be no clawing this day. Here is talk, not fight.”

Brambleclaw and his companions uncertainly looked at each other, their tails bristling. Crowpaw put words to what they were all thinking. “Are we going to trust it?”

“What else can we do?” Feathertail responded, blinking.

Brambleclaw weighed up the badger again. It was smaller than the one he had seen at Snakerocks—probably a female—but no less dangerous for that. Believing what she said went against everything he had been taught as a kit. Yet so far she had made no move to attack them; he even thought that he could make out a gleam of humor in her eyes.

He glanced back at his friends. Crowpaw, Stormfur, and Feathertail might have managed to fight well, but he and Squirrelpaw were exhausted from their near-drowning, while Tawnypelt had sunk down onto the floor of the cave with her injured shoulder held awkwardly, and hardly seemed to be conscious.

“Come,” the badger rasped. “All night we cannot wait.”

Brambleclaw knew for certain that this was no ordinary badger. Never before had he heard of a badger who could speak in a language that cats understood—still less one that spoke of StarClan, as if she knew more of their wishes than any cat alive.

“Feathertail’s right,” he hissed. “What choice do we have?

She could have turned us all into crowfood by now. This must be what Bluestar meant in my dream when she told me to listen to midnight. She didn’t mean a time at all.” Turning to the badger, he asked out loud, “You are Midnight? And you have a message for us from StarClan?”

The badger nodded. “Midnight am I called. And it was shown to me that here I would meet with you… though four were numbered to me, not six.”

“Then we’ll listen to what you have to say,” Brambleclaw told her. “You’re right; four were chosen, but six have come, and all deserve to be here.”

“But make one wrong move…” Crowpaw threatened.

“Oh, shut up, mouse-brain!” Squirrelpaw growled. “Can’t you see, this is what we came here to find? ‘Listen to what midnight tells us.’ This is Midnight.”

Crowpaw glared at her through the gathering darkness, but did not reply.

Midnight turned with the single word, “Follow,” and headed for the back of the cave. Brambleclaw could just make out the dark opening of a tunnel. Taking a deep breath, he meowed, “Okay, let’s do it.”

Stormfur took the lead, with Crowpaw just behind him; Brambleclaw hoped that the apprentice would stop looking for a fight long enough to hear what the badger had to say.

Feathertail gently nudged Tawnypelt to her paws and lent her shoulder for support as she staggered into the tunnel.

Brambleclaw exchanged a glance with Squirrelpaw and was surprised to see that in spite of her wet, exhausted state her eyes were sparkling with excitement.

“What a story we’ll have to tell when we get home!” she meowed, getting up and trotting into the tunnel after Feathertail.

Brambleclaw brought up the rear, with a final glance over his shoulder at the rocky teeth that framed the mouth of the cave and the waves that still surged back and forth. The last crimson rays of the drowned sun still stained the sky; in a single heartbeat Brambleclaw seemed to see an endless river of blood pouring down upon him, filling his ears with the screams of dying cats.

“Brambleclaw?” Squirrelpaw’s voice cut through the terrified sounds. “Are you coming?”

The vision was gone; Brambleclaw found himself back in the wave-filled cave to see that the color was rapidly fading from the sky and a single warrior of StarClan shone down on him. Shivering, he followed his friends and Midnight.

The tunnel sloped upward. Brambleclaw could see nothing in the pitch darkness, but he felt sandy soil beneath his paws, rather than pebbles or rock. As well as the wary cat-scent of his friends, there was a powerful reek of badger.

Then he came out into another cave. Fresher air moved against his fur, and at the far end a hole led into the open. A faint silvery gleam filtered through it, telling Brambleclaw that outside, the moon was crossing the sky. By its light he saw that this cave had been dug out of the earth, with twisting roots entangled in the roof and the floor covered with a thick layer of bracken. Feathertail was already helping Tawnypelt to make a nest among the soft fronds, and settled down beside her to lick her wound again.

“You have injury?” Midnight asked the ShadowClan warrior. “What gave it?”

“It’s a rat bite,” Tawnypelt replied through gritted teeth.

The badger made a spitting noise. “Is bad. Wait.” She vanished into the shadows at one side of the cave and returned a moment later with a root clamped in her jaws.

“Burdock root!” Squirrelpaw exclaimed, with a triumphant glance at Brambleclaw. “You use it too?”

“Good for bite, good for infected paw, good for all sores.”

The badger chomped up the root and laid the pulp on Tawnypelt’s wound, just as Squirrelpaw had done in the wood.

“Now,” she went on when she had finished, “is time for talk.”

She waited until all the cats had settled themselves among the bracken. Brambleclaw felt his excitement rising. He was only just beginning to realize that they had reached the end of their journey. They had found the place where StarClan had sent them, and now they were about to hear what Midnight had to tell them.