Moonrise

Chapter 6

Stormfur opened his eyes and blinked in light that was sharp as a claw. His breath rasped in his throat and every muscle in his body ached. He felt too exhausted to even move.

As his vision cleared he saw that he was lying on rain-wet rock, beside a pool of churning black water. His ears were ringing; when he raised his head feebly he saw a waterfall thundering down into the pool in a whirl of foam and spray, and realized that what he could hear was the roar and crash of falling water.

At once he remembered the flood that had swept him down from the rocks and plunged him into the pool. How had he survived? He remembered the roar, the foam, the darkness. . . Fear for his friends stabbed through him.

"Feathertail? Squirrelpaw?" he mewed hoarsely.

"Over here."

The reply was so faint, it was nearly lost in the endless pounding of the waterfall. Stormfur turned his head to see Squirrelpaw splayed out on the rock beside him, her dark ginger fur sodden.

"Got to sleep. . ." she muttered, closing her eyes.

Just beyond her, Stormfur could see Brambletuft, stretched limply on his side. The ThunderClan warrior was staring up at the sky, his breathing fast and shallow. Crowpaw and Swiftpaw lay back-to-back on Stormfur's other side; with a feeling of horror, he thought the two apprentices were dead until he saw the faint rise and fall of their flanks.

What about Feathertail and Tawnypelt? Beginning to panic, Stormfur struggled to sit up. At first he could not see either his sister or the brown-and-ginger she-cat. Then a movement farther around the pool caught his eye. Near the waterfall, Feathertail was helping Tawnypelt out onto the rock. The ShadowClan warrior was tottering on three legs, and as soon as she reached solid ground she collapsed and lay without moving. Feathertail hauled herself out, her silver fur plastered to her sides so it looked almost black. She settled down beside Tawnypelt and gave her shoulder a couple of feeble licks.

"Thank StarClan!" Stormfur rasped aloud. "We all made it."

He vaguely knew they had to find shelter, that if they went on lying here they were vulnerable to predators like the eagle, but he was too exhausted to move. He gave his drying fur a few licks, but even that was too much effort. He lay still, his senses drifting, his gaze fixed unseeingly on the rocks beside the pool.

As his senses gradually returned he noticed that they were lying in a curved bowl of rock, open on the side where the stream surged out of the pool and headed down the valley. Boulders covered the ground on either bank, a couple of spindly trees rooted among them. Light shivered on the water; the rain had almost stopped and the clouds were thinning out. Above Stormfur's head, rainbows danced in the spray thrown by the waterfall. A thin beam of sunlight splashed on the rocks a tail-length away from him; he dragged himself painfully into it and sighed with pleasure at the warmth on his fur.

A few heartbeats later he thought he saw a flash of movement. He blinked, straining to focus his eyes. For a moment all was still; then he caught another flicker on the far side of the pool. His fur prickled. They were being watched!

Stormfur narrowed his eyes, gazing hard at the boulders near the waterfall. "Brambletuft," he whispered. "Look over there."

"What?" The ThunderClan warrior raised his head, peered around, and lay down again. "Can't see anything."

"There!" Stormfur hissed as movement flickered again, this time a tail-length closer. He flexed his claws, knowing how helpless he and his friends were to defend themselves.

Then a gray-brown shape detached itself from the rock and began padding toward him around the edge of the pool. It was a cat! Before Stormfur could move, another cat appeared and then another, a whole group of cats moving silently away from the rocks where they had been hidden, camouflaged against the boulders, as if they were carved from stone themselves. They sat on the edge of the pool, staring unblinking at the group of half-drowned travelers.