“Over here!” Rainswept Flower gasped.
Darting after her across the tumbled heaps of grass, Gray Wing saw a tiny gap at the bottom of the shelter’s wooden wall. One by one the cats squeezed through, as the shelter filled with the noisy, restless sheep.
Waiting for his turn, Gray Wing heard a shriek of pain and saw Hawk Swoop fall to the ground while a sheep trampled over her. He leaped forward but Clear Sky was faster, grabbing her by the scruff and dragging her toward the gap. He shoved her through and followed; Gray Wing was right behind him, with Shaded Moss at his tail.
“Are we all here?” Shaded Moss asked, after they had all struggled out into the open.
Gray Wing checked, and saw to his relief that no cat had been left behind. They all seemed uninjured, too, except for Hawk Swoop, who was standing with one of her forelegs at a very strange angle.
“Can you walk?” Shaded Moss asked her.
“I’ll try,” Hawk Swoop replied, her breath hissing through her teeth. She limped a few paces, clearly in a lot of pain.
“I don’t think you can,” Gray Wing meowed. He spotted a clump of long grass and nettles beside the wooden wall, and let Hawk Swoop lean on his shoulder until she could collapse there out of the chill dawn wind.
Gray Wing beckoned Dappled Pelt with his tail. “You know the most about herbs,” he meowed. “What should we do for her?”
Dappled Pelt looked confused. “Daisy leaves, or elder,” she replied at last. “But I don’t know if they grow around here. Jackdaw’s Cry, Falling Feather, can you go and look for some?”
As the two young cats bounded off, Cloud Spots padded up to Hawk Swoop and examined her carefully; she drew in her breath with a gasp of pain as he prodded her injured leg.
“I’ve seen injuries like this before,” Cloud Spots mewed. “Her leg has come out of joint at the shoulder.”
“Then she’ll be stuck like that?” Quick Water sounded horrified.
“No, not at all,” Cloud Spots responded. “I once watched Quiet Rain treat one of the elders for this after they slipped off a rock. Herbs will only help the pain, not the injury.”
Hawk Swoop gasped in agony as Cloud Spots set his paws on her neck and shoulder. “This will hurt,” Cloud Spots told her, “but it will soon be over.” Flicking his ears at Gray Wing, he added, “Come here and hold her. Put your paws there… and there… and keep her absolutely still when I give the order.”
Gray Wing placed his paws where Cloud Spots had indicated. “I’m ready.”
“Good. Now!”
Cloud Spots yanked hard at Hawk Swoop’s leg; Gray Wing was nearly rocked off his paws by the force of it. Hawk Swoop let out a shriek. Then Cloud Spots stepped back and Gray Wing saw that the she-cat’s leg was back in position. She lay trembling, her breath coming in shallow gasps.
“Can you move your leg? Does it still hurt?” Cloud Spots asked.
Hawk Swoop flexed her leg. “It only aches a bit,” she meowed. “Oh, thank you, Cloud Spots!”
“Well done.” Shaded Moss touched Cloud Spots’s shoulder with his tail.
Cloud Spots shrugged. “It’s just lucky I saw what Quiet Rain did.”
At that moment Jackdaw’s Cry and Falling Feather returned, their mouths full of herbs. “Are these the right ones?” Falling Feather asked, dropping her bundle in front of Dappled Pelt.
Dappled Pelt sorted through the leaves. “Do you think these are okay?” she asked Cloud Spots.
Cloud Spots carefully picked out a couple of leaves with his claws. “These look like the ones we have in the mountains,” he mewed, giving them to Hawk Swoop. “Chew them well and swallow them to help the pain,” he told her.
While Hawk Swoop was eating the herbs Shaded Moss padded up to her. “You need to rest. We’ll stay here for the day.”
Gray Wing heard a few murmurs of discontent from his Tribemates.
“I’m freezing!” Quick Water complained. “We’re all getting soaked out here.”
She was right; the chilly breeze carried a sharp, stinging rain. But there wasn’t anything they could do about it, and Shaded Moss gave Quick Water a stern look. “You can go back into the shelter with the sheep if you like,” he mewed.
Quick Water scuffled her forepaws on the ground, looking embarrassed. “I suppose out here isn’t so bad.”
“We could hunt,” Clear Sky suggested, though he didn’t sound enthusiastic.
“Our bellies are still full,” Tall Shadow pointed out. “There’s no sense in catching prey we can’t eat.”
Moon Shadow nodded, letting out a groan. “I don’t think I’ll be able to face another mouse!”
In the end, all the cats settled down among the long grass and nettles and fell into a doze. When Gray Wing awoke, the sky was still covered in clouds, and a thin drizzle was falling, though the wind had dropped. He guessed it was just after sunhigh.
As he rose to his paws and stretched, Gray Wing noticed that Clear Sky was walking away from the den.
“Are you going somewhere?” Gray Wing asked, running to catch up. “Is everything okay?”
Clear Sky gave him a long look. “I just wanted to stretch my legs,” he replied. “I’m fine on my own, thanks.”
Gray Wing watched Clear Sky pad away, feeling as if he had been struck in the belly. I’d rather he raged at me for letting Bright Stream die, he thought. The cold politeness was far worse to bear, because it made him feel like a stranger to his own brother.
His tail drooping, Gray Wing padded back to the long grass.
Turtle Tail was waiting for him. “Let him grieve,” she whispered, brushing her tail along Gray Wing’s flank. “Everything will be all right in the end.”
Gray Wing wished he could believe her.
In the days that followed, Gray Wing began to believe that their encounter with the sheep had been a sign that the next stage of their journey was going to be even more difficult. The rain never stopped, and their only guide was a few glimpses of the sharp stones now and then through the mist.
How can we find our new home if we can’t see the sun trail? Gray Wing wondered.
Prey grew scarcer, the small animals and birds sheltering from the rain. Hawk Swoop quickly recovered, but as the cats crossed a barrier between two stretches of grass, Tall Shadow scratched one of her pads on a sharp, shiny tendril hidden among the stems.
“I’m fine,” she muttered, even though she was limping badly.
Dappled Pelt and Cloud Spots foraged for herbs, but Dappled Pelt looked doubtfully at everything they found. “I don’t want to give any cat something that will make them sick,” she meowed. “I’ve never seen most of these leaves before.”
As the days went by, even Jagged Peak lost his liveliness. Gray Wing could understand: He was the youngest and smallest, with the shortest legs, and yet he had to keep up with the others.
“I’m fed up with this rain,” he complained as he trudged through wet grass that soaked his pelt. “And I’m hungry!”
“We’ll find prey when we get where we’re going.” Falling Feather comforted him.
“We don’t know where we’re going,” Jagged Peak whined.
“Then maybe you should have stayed at home where you belonged,” Clear Sky snapped brusquely.
Jagged Peak flinched at his brother’s rebuke, looking so miserable that Gray Wing had to sympathize. “Every cat is grumpy,” he whispered to Jagged Peak, brushing against his side reassuringly.
A stretch of woodland loomed up in front of the cats, and as they entered it Jagged Peak went on muttering. As he walked with Gray Wing at the back of the group, he began twitching his ears or his tail and stopping to glance around.