Milkweed gazed at him softly, nodding once. “Of course.”
“Can the group spare me?” He glanced at the sky. The sun was climbing. It would be dusk before he returned.
“How long will you be gone?”
“I’ll be back by tonight,” Thunder promised.
“I guess we can hunt without you,” Milkweed told him.
Thunder shifted his paws guiltily. “I have to go.”
“It’s okay.” Milkweed padded from the sorrel. “We followed you because we trusted you to do the right thing. And if you are helping these mountain cats, it must be the right thing.”
Gratitude flooded beneath Thunder’s pelt. He gazed warmly at the mottled queen. “Thank you.”
“You’d better get back to them,” Milkweed prompted. “It sounds like they need you.”
As Thunder turned, she called after him. “If you find any prey on your travels, bring it back to camp.”
“I will!” Thunder whisked his tail as he headed back to Sun Shadow and Quiet Rain.
They were waiting for him, eyes bright with hope. Sun Shadow paced in front of the beech while
Quiet Rain peered from the hollow trunk.
He could hear her rasping breath as he neared. “We’ll skirt the edge of the forest and cross the moor,” he told them as he stopped beside Sun Shadow. A journey through the forest would be too arduous for such weakened cats—leaping gullies and fallen trees would exhaust them.
And we might meet Clear Sky.
He pushed the thought away. “Follow me.”
He headed for the river, leading them out from the shelter of the trees and onto the sandy shore.
The sun glittered on the water as a freezing wind whisked over it. Thunder felt it through his thick fur. He glanced at Quiet Rain and Sun Shadow. They padded side by side, keeping their paws clear of the water. “Are you cold?” he asked.
Quiet Rain caught his eye. “Cold? In this wind?” She snorted. “We come from the mountains, remember?”
“Of course.” Thunder’s whiskers twitched. Quiet Rain might walk with a limp and need to stop to cough every now and then, but there was nothing wrong with her tongue.
They walked in silence as the sun crossed the sky, the sand turning to pebbles beneath Thunder’s paws. He tensed when he caught the scent of Clear Sky’s markers, tainting the breeze. They were passing his father’s territory. He glanced nervously into the forest, searching for movement among the trees. A blackbird chittered in the branches, but there was no sign of a patrol. Thunder was suddenly thankful that Clear Sky kept his cats confined to camp. He quickened his pace. He could see where the forest ended and the river bent toward the gorge. They could leave the shore and forest behind and head straight onto the moor.
“Not so fast!” Quiet Rain croaked. He glanced back, realizing that the mountain cats were falling behind.
He hurried back and took a spot beside Quiet Rain, shielding her from the forest while Sun
Shadow flanked her other side. The sooner they were past Clear Sky’s land, the better.
“Tell me about the mountains,” he meowed softly, one ear twisted toward the woods.
“You must know of it already if you know Gray Wing and Tall Shadow,” Quiet Rain answered.
“Surely they’ve told you stories of their old home?”
“They’ve told stories,” Thunder agreed. “But I don’t know how much is real and how much imagined.”
“What did they tell you?” Quiet Rain asked.
“That the snow fell so thick and so fast, it could drown a cat caught out in a blizzard,” Thunder told her.
“That much is true.” Quiet Rain flicked her thin tail. “Did they tell you about the eagles that can carry off a full-grown tom? And the drops so sheer, and valleys so deep, that if a stone fell, you would not hear it land?”
“What did you hunt?” Thunder only knew that hunger had driven Gray Wing and the others to the moor. “Are there mice and voles in the mountains?”
Sun Shadow purred. “There are mice everywhere. And in the warm season we can hunt the lower slopes for rabbits and small birds.”
“What do you hunt when the snows come?” Thunder asked, wondering how these cats could ever survive the rocky crags.
“Whatever we can,” Sun Shadow told him. “Sometimes we find the carcass of a deer left by a sharptooth.”
“A sharptooth?” Thunder’s pelt lifted along his spine.
“They’re giant cats,” Sun Shadow told him. “They are rare, but far more deadly than eagles.”
“Why do you stay there?” Thunder asked.
Sun Shadow shrugged. “It’s our home.”
Thunder didn’t understand. “But it sounds so cold and prey-poor.”
“Stoneteller found it,” Sun Shadow explained.
Thunder remembered Gray Wing and Clear Sky talking about Stoneteller. “Is that your leader?”
“She is more than a leader,” Quiet Rain rasped. “She is ancient, and speaks with the ancients who died before her. She tells us what is and what will be.”
Thunder could only blink. These certainly were strange cats.
Sun Shadow went on. “Long ago, she journeyed from far away, and the mountains were the first place to welcome her.”
Welcome her? Thunder didn’t comment. If these cats thought snowy mountains full of eagles and sharptooths were welcoming, they were even stranger than he’d thought.
Pebbles swished beneath their paws. The shore widened and the forest thinned beside them as the river curved away toward the gorge. Thunder could hear the faint roar of water where the river tumbled down between the cliffs. He could see the stepping-stones that crossed from the moor onto
River Ripple’s marshes.
Stones turned to grass as they climbed toward the moor. Wind streamed through his whiskers and he smelled the scent of heather. For a moment, memories swamped him. He was hunting with Lightning Tail, veering across the windblown grass as his friend drove a rabbit toward him. Hawk Swoop was calling them back to camp. Acorn Fur was pacing sulkily at the entrance to the hollow, complaining that they’d left her behind.
“Thunder!” A familiar call jerked him back into the present.
He turned his head.
River Ripple’s silver pelt showed on the shore behind them.
“Who’s that?” Sun Shadow’s pelt bristled along his spine. Quiet Rain flattened her ears.
“Don’t worry.” Thunder hailed the river cat with a flick of his tail. “He’s a friend.”
River Ripple bounded from the shore and hurried up the grassy slope after them. He slowed and stopped a few paces behind, his gaze flashing from Quiet Rain to Sun Shadow.
Quiet Rain’s eyes narrowed to slits. “You smell of water,” she hissed.
River Rippled dipped his head. “I live beside the river.”
Quiet Rain wrinkled her nose. “What cat would live beside water?”
“The fishing is good,” River Ripple told her.
Quiet Rain’s gaze flicked along his sleek, plump flank. “You catch fish?” she gasped. “How?”
“I swim.”
Quiet Rain turned to Sun Shadow, her eyes wide. “What kind of place have we come to?”
“A place like any other.” River Ripple’s mew was polite. “Where are you heading?”
“To the pine forest.” Thunder jerked his head toward the distant horizon.
“Why cross the moor?” River Ripple padded to his side. “You could have cut through the forest.”
Quiet Rain narrowed her eyes. “Is that true?”
Thunder stiffened. River Ripple didn’t know that he’d left Clear Sky to set up his own camp—and he didn’t want to explain now. Quiet Rain might demand he take them back to meet her son. “Sun