Dawn

Chapter 6

The waning moon cast just enough light through the leafless branches to make the forest glow with eerie silver. Frost traced the outline of the dying ferns as Squirrelpaw padded through the trees beside Brambletuft.

"It'll be cold at Fourtrees," she fretted, hoping that her sister and brother were warm, wherever they were.

"But at least it's clear," Brambletuft answered in a low voice. "Silverpelt will be shining."

They were following Skystar and Cinderpelt through the forest. The pace was slower than the two younger cats had been used to on their long journey, but Cinderpelt was still struggling to keep up. Cold and hunger made her limp worse than usual.

"If there is a sign," Squirrelpaw wondered out loud, "how long do you think it'll be before we go?" She wanted a chance to find her siblings before the Clans left the forest.

"I don't know," Brambletuft replied. "You saw what happened last night. Skystar can't force the Clan to leave. She's bound by the warrior code as much as any cat, and even though she's our leader, she has to obey the will of the Clan."

Squirrelpaw's belly tightened as she remembered the Clan's reaction. Beneath the stars, huddled against the icy wind that whipped the rock, Skystar had told them the message she and Brambletuft had brought back from StarClan. A shocked cry had rippled around the gathered cats.

"We can't leave the forest!" Frostfur had wailed. "We'll all die."

"We'll die if we stay!" Sorreltail had pointed out.

"But this is our home." Speckletail's rasping mew had cracked as she'd raised her voice.

At least Shrewpaw had sounded eager. "When are we going?" he'd asked.

But the memory of Larchkit's piteous mew made Squirrelpaw's pelt prickle even now. "We don't have to go, do we?" the kit had cried.

"What if Dustpelt is right?" Squirrelpaw hissed to Brambletuft as they leaned over an abandoned foxhole, a yawning black mouth amid the shadows. "What he said in the den made sense— why should any cat follow the advice of a badger they'd never met?"

"But StarClan sent us to see Midnight," Brambletuft argued. "What Midnight told us must be true."

Squirrelpaw guessed he was trying to convince himself as much as her.

"We just have to hope that we see the sign at Fourtrees tonight," she meowed. "If StarClan has something to say to the Clan—to any of the Clans—it's not up to us to prove it." She trembled to think what Midnight had meant by 'a dying warrior,' but if the sign told them what to do next, they might still be able to save the Clans.

Their journey to Fourtrees took longer than usual, not just because of the slow pace but because they had to skirt the parts of the forest that the Twolegs had ruined, keeping low as they passed swath after swath of mud and felled trees. After a while, Squirrelpaw stopped to look at the empty, ravaged spaces.

"How could any cat think this is still our home?" she murmured.

Brambletuft just shook his head and padded after Skystar toward the top of the slope that led down into Fourtrees.

For a moment, it felt like the start of every other Gathering Squirrelpaw had attended, and when she closed her eyes she could almost hear the murmur of cats below, sharing tongues as the four Clans met in peace under the full moon. But there was no full moon, and this was not a Gathering. Her eyes snapped open, and she peered over the crest of the rise. As her eyes adjusted to the dark, her breath caught in her throat. Even though Cinderpelt had warned them that the Twolegs had cut down the four great oak trees, Squirrelpaw hadn't let herself imagine what it would look like. Not in nine lifetimes could she have imagined anything as terrible as what she saw now.