“There are cats living down here!”

CHAPTER 17

A thick, heavy silence surrounded Jayfeather. Everything was dark and for a moment he thought that he was blind again. Then he realized that ice crystals were sealing his eyes shut; in spite of the pain he forced them open, only to see nothing but glimmering white all around him. When he tried to gasp in air, beads of snow stung the back of his throat.

I’m buried!

The light seemed to be coming from somewhere above his head. Jayfeather scrabbled toward it; a few heartbeats later his head broke out into the air and he looked around. The storm was over. Stillness covered the valley; the peaks were dark shapes cutting into an indigo sky where the last scarlet streaks of sunset were beginning to fade. He was completely alone.

Terror that the other cats had died in the snowfall rooted Jayfeather to the ground, but he forced himself to start moving. Kicking out with his hind legs, he climbed out of the snow and stood for a moment shaking clots of it from his pelt.

“Jay’s Wing!”

The shout came from behind him; Jayfeather spun around to see Stone Song fighting his way out of a drift a little farther up the valley. Jayfeather floundered through the loose snow and dragged him out. At first the gray tabby tom was silent with shock, gazing at the mountains as if he didn’t remember where they were.

“Are you okay?” Jayfeather prompted. “We have to look for the others.”

Stone Song shook his head to clear it. “I’m okay,” he panted. “Have you seen them?”

Jayfeather shook his head.

“They have to be here somewhere,” Stone Song muttered. “We have to find them.”

By digging up all this snow? Jayfeather thought, appalled. Then he spotted a dark patch of color on top of the snow a few fox-lengths away. Plodding over to it, he saw that it was blood. “Over here!” he called to Stone Song. “Chasing Clouds was hurt; this must be his blood.”

Working together, the two cats scraped away the snow until Chasing Clouds’s body appeared. Jayfeather’s heart beat faster when he saw how still the cat lay, a limp scrap of fur tossed aside by the power of the snow.

Then Chasing Clouds coughed and opened his eyes. “What happened?”

“The snow fell on us,” Stone Song explained. “I think we must have dislodged it, fighting that giant bird. Come on, let’s get you out of there.”

Jayfeather and Stone Song hauled Chasing Clouds out of the hole; he crouched on the surface of the snow, still looking dazed, and occasionally licking at the raw flesh on his shoulder where the bird had torn out his fur.

“Half Moon?” Jayfeather called. “Half Moon!”

There was no reply, but a slight movement on the surface a couple of tail-lengths away caught his eye. He thrust his way through the snow toward it; relief crashed over him when he saw Half Moon’s ears and nose emerge from the white covering, followed a heartbeat later by the rest of her head.