Slowly the clearing emptied, with Birdflight helping Hazelwing round up the thoroughly overexcited kits and herd them back to the nursery. Cloudstar and Buzzardtail were left alone. Shadows gathered beneath the trees, and above them the purple sky was starting to show claw-pricks of starlight.
“When do you want to go to the border?” Buzzardtail asked.
Cloudstar tilted his head and listened for a moment. The forest was quiet now, and the earth beneath his feet was still. The Twolegs and the yellow monsters had stopped whatever they were doing. “Let’s round up a patrol right away,” Cloudstar suggested. “The sooner we’re back, the longer we’ll all have to rest before dawn.”
Accompanied by the gentle rustle of leaves and the occasional hoot of a lonely owl, Cloudstar led his warriors along one of their familiar hunting paths. His paws rang softly on the packed earth, and his breath clouded around his muzzle. Oh my precious home. I grieve for the wounds that have been done to you. I promise I will never leave you, not until it is time for me to walk in StarClan.
Cloudstar’s thoughts were jerked back to the present by a stifled curse from behind him.
“Great StarClan, what is that?” Weaselwhisker had stopped dead and was staring at the heap of splintered branches and fast-wilting leaves that blocked the path in front of them.
“Is that the tree you were in?” gasped Mousefang.
Cloudstar looked at the leaves. This was an oak, not a sycamore. “No,” he mewed. “Our tree is closer to the border.”
“Then they’ve come even farther than you thought,” Buzzardtail meowed. “How can we possibly tell our Clanmates that the camp is safe?” His voice rose with thinly veiled panic.
Cloudstar sank his claws into the damp earth. “There is no reason for the Twolegs to destroy our forest! We have lived here unchallenged for countless moons. StarClan has given me no warning that anything will change, so we have no option but to set new border marks and carry on as we always have done.” To make his point, he walked up to the crumpled branches and left his scent mark defiantly on the withered leaves.
“And you think the Twolegs will take notice of that, do you?” muttered Weaselwhisker. His brown-and-ginger pelt looked gray in the half-light.
“What else can we do?” Cloudstar retorted, trying to sound strong rather than bleak with despair. “The warrior code tells us to mark our borders daily. From now on, this is our border.”
“And if the Twolegs leave the fallen trees alone, we can still hunt as far as the old border,” Mousefang put in.
“Hunting what? Tasty morsels like this?” Stoatfur asked, flicking a squashed and shriveled worm toward his Clanmate. There were several littered on the path around them. “Even they’ve had the good sense to try to escape.”
“This is our home,” Cloudstar insisted through gritted teeth. “SkyClan will survive as it always has, by the skill of its hunting and the courage to adapt to a changed territory.” He lifted his head and stared at each of his warriors in turn. “Anything else will be considered a direct challenge to my leadership, and to the warrior code.”
One by one, the cats nodded.
“Stay strong,” Cloudstar urged them. “Have faith in our ancestors, and in the home they chose for us. We have a right to be here, more than the Twolegs and their monsters.”
Buzzardtail looked away, and Cloudstar heard him murmur, “I don’t think the Twolegs live by our code.”
“Go back to the camp and get some rest,” Cloudstar ordered. “I’ll stay here tonight to keep watch. From now on, one of us will be on guard at this border every night. We will not leave our territory unprotected for a moment.” As he watched his warriors file away into the trees, Cloudstar felt a pain deep in his chest that had nothing to do with his fall in the tree. May StarClan go with you, my precious Clanmates, he prayed silently. And may our ancestors keep you safe where I cannot.
Chapter 5
Cloudstar was jolted awake by a terrible clattering noise. He was curled on the trunk of one of the fallen trees, enclosed by leaves that dangled limply as they died with the broken branches. He sprang up and peered over the top of his makeshift den. In the harsh dawn light, the remains of SkyClan’s former border looked ravaged and horrifying. Shattered trees lay everywhere, with the brown earth churned up around them like an open wound. Cloudstar looked wildly at the line of trees still standing behind him. Were the Twolegs destroying even more of the territory?
But those trees were standing as tall as ever, though their branches trembled with the noise. Cloudstar looked back at the devastation and saw one of the fallen trees quivering as if it was trying to make its way back into the forest. With a jerk, it started to slide along the ground, in a din of scraping bark and snapping branches. Cloudstar realized it was being dragged on a long, silver tendril attached to a yellow monster, whose paws scrabbled at the mud as it tried to get a grip on the slippery leaf mulch. Slowly, slowly, the tree was hauled away from its stricken companions until it disappeared behind one of the huge mounds of earth. There was a volley of Twoleg shouts, and another yellow monster crawled forward, trailing a silver tendril that was bound tightly around the trunk of the next tree.
But somehow this didn’t seem as troubling as the devastation of the trees in the first place. And the Twolegs are leaving the standing trees alone today. Perhaps they have destroyed as many as they want. Cloudstar jumped down, set fresh border marks on the trunks of the trees still standing, and ran back into the woods.
When he entered the camp, Fawnstep met him. She looked as if she hadn’t slept for a moon; her fur stood on end and was littered with scraps of dirt, and her eyes were huge and bulging. “Have they destroyed more trees?” she demanded as soon as Cloudstar wriggled free from the brambles.
“Not today,” he reported. “The Twolegs seem to be moving the trees they pushed down yesterday.”
Fawnstep’s eyes narrowed. “Moving them? Where? Why?”
Cloudstar headed for his den, longing to wash the dust from his fur. “How am I supposed to know?” he snapped. “It’s bad enough having Twolegs troubling our borders. I’m not going to start knowing how their brains work!” He pushed his way into his den and flopped into his nest.
Fawnstep followed him and hovered at the edge of the quiet, shadowy space. “I’m sorry,” she mewed. “I know we’ll never understand the ways of Twolegs. But if we could just figure out what they’re doing, we might know how much danger we’re in.”
Cloudstar looked at her. “Have you received any more omens?” He was reluctantly starting to acknowledge the headless and wingless prey as a warning of what was happening now.
Fawnstep blinked. “No more omens, but my dreams are full of darkness and falling trees and the screams of kits.” She shuddered as she spoke, and Cloudstar felt a stab of pity for his gentle, intuitive medicine cat.
“I think all our dreams will be like that for a while,” he murmured. “Let me rest for a bit, and tell Buzzardtail to get on with organizing the patrols. We’ll hunt as normal, tell him.” He tucked his nose beneath his tail and closed his eyes as he listened to Fawnstep pad softly out of the den.
Cloudstar had barely dozed off when Stoatfur woke him up, prodding him with one paw. “Sorry to disturb you, Cloudstar,” he mewed. “Buzzardtail asked me to lead a border patrol, but with three of the apprentices out of action, I need you to make up the numbers.”