“Great catch!” Hollyleaf exclaimed.

“You set it up,” Hazeltail mewed; she looked a lot more cheerful now.

As Hollyleaf padded over to her friend, Lionblaze came bounding out from behind a bramble thicket. “Birchfall and I got a really fat rabbit.”

Birchfall appeared as he spoke, staggering as he dragged the rabbit between his forepaws. Dropping it with a gusty sigh, he stumbled into the low-growing branches of a hazel bush. A load of snow slid down and covered him; he emerged hissing with disgust, shaking snow from his pelt.

Hollyleaf couldn’t suppress a small mrrow of laughter. “Watch out, or we’ll have to call you Snowfall,” she purred.

The four young cats dragged their prey into a sheltered hollow beside the stream, where the ground was covered with a drift of dead leaves. Soon Brackenfur appeared with another squirrel, and Brambleclaw with a couple of mice. As they ate, the warmth of their bodies spread throughout the hollow; with the branches of the bushes straggling overhead, Hollyleaf thought it almost felt like a den.

Full and comfortable, she swept her tongue around her jaws. “I could sleep for a moon,” she announced drowsily.

“Fine,” meowed Brambleclaw, “but we’d better set a watch.”

“I’ll go first,” Lionblaze offered.

“Okay.” Brambleclaw stretched his jaws in an enormous yawn. “Wake me when you’re ready, and I’ll take the next one.”

As Hollyleaf settled down to sleep, the last thing she saw was her brother’s golden tabby shape, his ears pricked as he stared through the trees.

A paw prodding into her side woke Hollyleaf. Blinking in confusion, she thought at first she was in the warriors’ den. But where’s all the moss and bracken? And why can I hear running water?

Then she remembered she was on the journey to the sun-drown-place, with Brambleclaw and the others. The ThunderClan camp lay a day’s travel behind them, and everything here was new and strange.

Hazeltail was gazing down at her. “It’s your watch,” she mewed. “You’re the last.”

Hollyleaf staggered to her paws and arched her back in a stretch. Lionblaze, Birchfall, and Brackenfur were all curled up close by. “Where’s Brambleclaw?” she yawned.

“He woke up while I was on watch,” Hazeltail explained. “He said he was going to scout ahead.” She settled herself comfortably among the leaves and wrapped her tail over her nose. “I’m going to get some more sleep while I can,” she murmured.

Hollyleaf groomed the scraps of dead leaf out of her pelt, then padded the two or three paw steps to the edge of the stream. Before she bent to lap, she let her gaze travel over the trees that surrounded her; she could just make out their branches against the sky, which was beginning to fade from black to gray. Everything was quiet.

She took a long drink of the icy water; as she shook the drops from her whiskers, she heard a loud alarm call and caught a glimpse of a blackbird shooting upward. A moment later Brambleclaw came stalking through the trees, carrying a rabbit in his jaws.