Moonrise

Chapter 18

What was that? Every hair on Stormfur's pelt shot up in fear. He and his friends were trapped in this dark hole; whoever had just spoken was blocking the entrance, and there was nowhere else to go. Desperately he tasted the air and picked out the scents of several cats, all of them smelling of Tribe, and yet not Tribe.

"Who are you?" he demanded.

For an answer he felt a powerful shoulder thrusting him aside as the strange cat entered the cave. There was the soft sound of pawsteps as the others followed.

Then he heard Brambletuft's voice, tense but still calm. "We are traveling to our home far from here and we took shelter only for the night. We have no quarrel with you."

The mystery cat spoke again. "This is our place."

"Then we'll leave," Tawnypelt meowed. She padded toward the entrance, and the other cats shuffled around to follow her.

Stormfur felt his fur begin to lie flat again. With any luck they could get out of here without a fight. These cats couldn't have come from the Tribe of Rushing Water, or they would have known who he and his friends were. Yet they carried the Tribe's scent; Stormfur was puzzled, but he was content to leave the mystery behind him if they could just get away safely.

"Not so fast," the newcomer growled. "How do we know you're telling the truth? I don't know you, and I don't know your scent."

"Swooping Talon, we should take them prisoner." A soft hiss came from one of the other cats. "We might be able to use them as bait for Sharptooth."

"You know about Sharptooth?" Stormfur exclaimed.

"Of course we know about Sharptooth," rumbled the first voice, the one called Swooping Talon. "Every cat in these mountains knows about Sharptooth."

As he spoke, Stormfur realized that the darkness was no longer unbroken. Gradually the shapes of the strange cats were outlined in faint gray light as dawn filtered down the tunnel. Every hair on Stormfur's pelt prickled with fear as he looked at them.

The first of them, Swooping Talon, was one of the biggest Tribe cats he had ever seen, a dark brown tabby with massive shoulders and huge paws. His ragged pelt was bristling with hostility, and a deep scar stretched across one side of his face, curling his lip in a frozen snarl. His amber eyes were narrowed, his gaze flicking suspiciously over the forest cats.

Behind him were three other cats, a scrawny black-and-white tom whose tail was little more than a jagged stump, a pale brown she-cat, and a black she-cat. All of them flexed their claws as if they could hardly wait to sink them into the Clan cats' fur.

Although the Clan cats outnumbered the strangers two to one, Stormfur didn't like their chances in a fight. They certainly wouldn't get away without serious injuries. He could see his friends were thinking the same; even the aggressive Crowpaw was silent, his gaze fixed warily on the strangers.

"We have seen Sharptooth and we know how savage he is." Brambletuft was still trying to keep the exchange peaceful. "But we're on an urgent mission and we have to leave."

"You'll go when I say you can," Swooping Talon growled.

"You can't keep us here!" Stormfur winced as Squirrelpaw spoke up, her green eyes blazing. There was nothing wrong with her courage, but sometimes she hadn't the sense of a mayfly. "We've already escaped the Tribe of Rushing Water, we can get away from you too."

Crowpaw let out a warning hiss, and for once Stormfur agreed with him. Squirrelpaw needed to be a lot more careful about what she told these terrifying cats.

But to Stormfur's surprise, the suspicion in Swooping Talon's gaze seemed to fade. "You have been with the Tribe?"

"That's right," meowed Brambletuft. "You know them, then?"