Moonrise

Chapter 5

Stormfur's paws scrabbled on smooth gray rock. Heaving himself upward, he reached the top of the boulder and turned to look down at his friend, his fur buffeted by the icy breeze.

"Come on," he meowed. "It's not so bad if you take a leap at it."

Following the rising sun, he and the other cats had left the moorland behind and begun to climb. Now, as sunhigh approached on the second day of their homeward journey, the mountains they had seen from a distance stretched up in front of them even bigger than they had imagined, their sheer slopes black and forbidding, with wisps of cloud floating around their peaks. The soil beneath the cats' paws was rough with pebbles, and little grew there except sparse grass and twisted thorn trees. There was no clear path; instead they followed winding narrow clefts and often had to turn back when they came up against rock walls with no way through. Thinking wistfully of the river sliding through deep, cool grasses at home, Stormfur half wished they had decided to return through Twolegplace instead.

Squirrelpaw bunched her hind legs and launched herself in a massive leap, following Stormfur up the boulder that blocked their path. "Mouse dung!" she gasped as she missed the top and began to slide back. Stormfur leaned over and sank his teeth into her neck fur, steadying her until her scraping claws propelled her up the last tail-length to sit beside him.

"Thanks!" her green eyes glowed at him. "I know my name is Squirrelpaw, but I never thought I'd wish I was a squirrel!"

Stormfur let out a mrrow of laughter. "We'll all wish we were squirrels if we get much more of this."

"Hey!" Crowpaw's voice rose aggressively from below. "Stand back, will you? How can I get up there with you two furballs standing in the way?"

Stormfur and Squirrelpaw stepped back from the top of the boulder, and a moment later Crowpaw joined them, his long limbs managing the jump easily. Ignoring the others, he turned back to help Feathertail, who scrambled up with a muttered curse as one of her claws snagged on the rock.

Stormfur was worried that the rat bite on Tawnypelt's shoulder would stop her from climbing the boulder, and wondered if they would have to try finding a way around it, but to his relief her leap brought her almost to the top, where Crowpaw grabbed her by the scruff and hauled her up. Swiftpaw followed immediately after, far easier than his sister, having taken more after his father, Longtail, than Squirrelpaw did. Brambletuft joined them last of all, shaking his ruffled tabby fur as he stood on top of the boulder and looked around. This close to sunhigh, there were few shadows to point them in the right direction and nothing but a sheer precipice in front of them, hiding what lay ahead.

"I suppose we can only go that way," he meowed, flicking his tail toward a narrow ledge leading across the face of the rock. "What do you think?" he asked Stormfur.

Stormfur felt his pelt prickle as he looked at the ledge. A few straggling bushes had rooted themselves in cracks, but apart from that the rock was bare and if they slipped there would be nothing to hold on to.

"We can try," he mewed doubtfully, rather surprised that Brambletuft had asked for his opinion. "There's nowhere else, unless we go back."

Brambletuft nodded. Feathertail, having overheard, took her place at the front of the group while Stormfur took the rear.

"I've changed my mind," Squirrelpaw announced as Feathertail squeezed her way along the ledge. "I don't want to be a squirrel anymore. I'd rather be a bird!"

Stormfur brought up the rear as he usually did, his ears pricked for danger while he tried to hide his nervousness about the sheer drop, which tugged at him like an invisible weight. He hugged the rock face, placing each paw carefully and using his tail for balance. After a little while the breeze grew stronger, and Stormfur's mind filled with terrifying images of himself or one of his friends blown right off the ledge and down to the ground below.