Moonrise

Chapter 8

Stormfur stared in amazement. The cave was at least as broad as the waterfall that screened it from the outside world, and stretched far back into the mountainside, until the farthest recesses were lost in shadow. He could just make out a narrow passage leading off on either side of the wall opposite the sheet of water. The roof, far above his head, was shadowed too; here and there, stones like fangs emerged to point straight down at the cave floor.

The only light came through the rushing water, pale and wavering, so that it was like standing in the depths of a pool. As the cats ushered them farther into the cave, Stormfur heard more running water beneath the roar of the falls, and saw a stream trickling over a mossy rock to fall into a shallow pool on the floor of the cave. Two or three cats—a skinny elder and a couple who looked young enough to be apprentices—were crouched beside it to drink. All of them looked up warily at the arrival of the newcomers, as if they were expecting danger.

Just beyond the pool was a pile of fresh-kill and, as Stormfur watched, a couple more of the mountain cats came in and deposited prey. It was the first thing he had seen that looked at all familiar, and his belly growled with hunger at the sight of the rabbits.

"Do you think they'll let us eat?" Squirrelpaw muttered close to his ear. "I'm starving!"

"No," Crowpaw scoffed from Squirrelpaw's other side. "They probably tricked us to hold us prisoner."

"They haven't done anything to harm us yet," Brambletuft pointed out.

Stormfur tried to share his optimism, but Sharp Cliff and Small Brook had vanished, and for a few moments none of the other cats came up to speak to them. Instead, the cats who had been drinking sidled over to their guards, and the elder whispered something, all the while darting glances at him. The two apprentices murmured excitedly to each other. The roar of the waterfall drowned their voices, though Stormfur noticed that the mountain cats seemed to have no trouble hearing one another. He also noticed that many of the cats wore a feather or two, others bearing patches of blue or black on their fur, like they'd rolled in a blackberry bush.

Trying to ignore the muttering—most of which seemed to be directed at him, though he told himself to stop being paranoid—Stormfur identified what looked like sleeping places beside the cave walls: shallow scoops in the earth floor, lined with moss and feathers. One cluster of sleeping places lay close to the entrance and the other two were farther back, at opposite sides of the cave. He wondered if one set was for warriors, one for apprentices, and one for elders. Spotting a couple of kits scuffling outside the entrance to one of the passages, he guessed that led to the nursery. Suddenly he saw the dark, noisy, frightening cave in a different way: This was a camp! The Tribe shared some of the ways of the Clans in the forest; Stormfur began to feel more hopeful of getting food and rest, and help for Tawnypelt, who had sunk shivering to the ground.

In that short time, the pair of kits that had once been scuffling had bounded over to them, their stubby legs making them slow. One of the kits was a dark gray tabby with white splotches all over his fur, and his sister was a brown tabby with similar splotches but they instead covered her nose, ears, chest, and legs.

"Hi!" the gray-and-white kit exclaimed. He and his sister bounced to Squirrelpaw, circling her excitedly. "You look weird. What's your name?"

Squirrelpaw twisted her neck to keep an eye on the kits, lifting her single white paw so they had more room to run. "I'm Squirrelpaw," she meowed.

"That's a weird name," the she-kit giggled. "Why are you called that? Why is your fur so dark? It looks like the sky when Shadowed Wings lets us outside!"

"My name is Squirrelpaw because I'm training to be a warrior for my Clan," Squirrelpaw meowed. Stormfur was surprised at how gentle she was and couldn't stop himself from imagining that one day she'd have her own kits, maybe even with him. "And my mother looks like me, but she has lighter fur and stripes like a tabby. This is my brother, Swiftpaw, we have two more littermates back home where we come from."