Midnight

Chapter 11

"Where are we going to sleep?" Squirrelpaw asked.

They had since found Swiftpaw burying a thrush not far from the clearing Skystar had found them in.

"Hush!" Brambletuft hissed. "If any cat is looking for us, they'll be able to hear you right across the forest."

"Oh, calm your tail, Brambletuft," Swiftpaw meowed, rolling his eyes. "The only cats due to be out right now are the late patrols and they won't be out for a while longer. Don't forget, I'm Graystripe's apprentice, I know when he sends the patrols out."

Brambletuft opened his mouth to retort, lips drawn slightly back, until he realized that Swiftpaw was right. "We'll sleep somewhere not too far from Fourtrees," he meowed. "Then we'll be ready to meet the others at sunrise."

Darkness had fallen as they picked their way through the undergrowth. Clouds had massed to cover the sky, so that no gleam of star or moon broke through. A cold breeze whispered in the grass, and once again Squirrelpaw could taste the approaching leaf-fall.

Brambletuft led the apprentices toward the Thunderpath, likely hoping the acrid stench would hide their scents.

"I know a good tree by the Thunderpath," Squirrelpaw suggested. "You can get right inside. We could hide there."

"And have spiders and beetles crawling through our fur all night?" Brambletuft mewed discouragingly. "No, thanks."

Squirrelpaw sniffed. "Why do you always know better?"

"Maybe because I'm a warrior?"

"A warrior with the thought process of a kit," Swiftpaw hissed softly in Squirrelpaw's ear. It took all her might not to break out laughing. Rustling in the undergrowth distracted her quickly. Barely pausing to track her prey, Squirrelpaw dived into a clump of bracken and returned not long after with a mouse dangling in her jaws.

"Well done," meowed Brambletuft.

Swiftpaw broke away next, and Squirrelpaw could hear the rustling as he hunted for his own meal. She sat down as Brambletuft, too, left to hunt for himself. Eventually, the warrior and apprentice returned with a mouse and vole respectively, and the three cats ate in quick, wary gulps, their ears pricked for the faintest traces of a ThunderClan patrol. But Squirrelpaw could hear nothing except the ordinary night sounds of the forest and the nearby roar of monsters on the Thunderpath. Their stench was strong and hid almost all scents, but Squirrelpaw dreaded spending the night with that in her nostrils.

While they ate, a thin, cold rain began to fall, growing steadily heavier until Squirrelpaw's fur was soaked and she was colder than she ever was.

"We need to find shelter," Swiftpaw meowed, pressing against his sister.

"What about finding that tree?" Squirrelpaw suggested, shivering. Her fur was flattened against her body, making her seem even smaller than she looked normally.

Swiftpaw readily agreed and Brambletuft was about to reply when they emerged from the undergrowth at the top of a grassy bank, and the three stopped dead as they looked down at the Thunderpath. A Twoleg monster roared past, its glaring eyes cutting shafts of yellow brightness through the night. Before it swept by, the light showed the cats a looming dark shape, the biggest monster Squirrelpaw had ever seen, squatting on the verge of the Thunderpath. The reek of it flooded her senses.

"What's that?" exclaimed Squirrelpaw, brushing close between the other two.

"I don't know," Brambletuft admitted. "I've never seen anything like it before. Stay here while I take a look."

Cautiously he padded forward until he was hardly a fox-length from the monster. Squirrelpaw shared a look with her brother, who nodded, and the two trotted forward to join Brambletuft beside the massive beast. Perhaps it was sleeping, Squirrelpaw wondered for a moment, or maybe it was dead and that's why its Twolegs abandoned it here.