Chapter 7, climbing

The seven cats stared up at the tall blue-and-white peaks.

"I can't believe we're going up there," Smokepaw murmured.

"Me too!" Splashpaw told him.

Ravenpaw had found out a few things about the other apprentices.

Volepaw was mean, bossy, and stuck up.

Smokepaw was kind, and liked to lead. He made good decisions too.

Splashpaw was loving and beautiful, but dim-witted. She was quick to agree on everything.

Owlpaw was quiet, but sneaky. He was mean, but not like Volepaw.

Ravenpaw gazed up at the wide expanse. "Come on," she meowed, "We are wasting daylight."

Smokepaw hopped up on a boulder. "It's okay," he called down to them.

Splashpaw was next. She bunched her short legs and jumped. Her hind legs churned air. Smokepaw lunged and caught her between his sturdy jaws.

"Thank you," Splashpaw whispered breathlessly. She gazed at the well-built ShadowClan tom with admiration.

Owlpaw silently leaped easily onto the top, his long legs mastering it easily. Squirrelpaw and Volepaw jumped together. Then Ravenpaw and Spiderpaw jumped on top.

"We're stuck," Volepaw spat, looking up. In front of them a sheer rock edge went straight up. Ravenpaw imagined being on top, and tumbling down the dizzying drop. She shivered.

"There's a way," Smokepaw meowed. He pointed with his muzzle to a narrow stone path low on the edge of the cliff. It climbed up swiftly and curved around the mountain. Ravenpaw could see places where part of the path had fell down. (AN: sounds scary, huh?)

Smokepaw stepped carefully onto the path. He had to squeeze his paws close together and he hugged the rock face. Although he was only about four fox-lengths above the ground, wind whistled past the cliff and buffeted his fur.

"It's okay!" he shouted, raising his voice above the wind.

Ravenpaw pushed past the others. No one seemed to want to climb on the dizzying path so she decided she would go first.

She bunched her muscles and leapt as hard as she could off the boulder. She sailed through the air and smashed into the rock face. Her bones clashed into the hard side and she bounced over to the edge of the path. She felt her claws shred on the thick surface and scrabbled for a pawhold. She clawed up loose stones and they showered onto her. Smokepaw lunged foreword and grasped her scruff, pulling her safely onto the narrow path.

"Push yourself against the edge!" he shouted over the rising sound of the wind, "Place one paw in front of another and walk slowly! I've got to help the others!"

Ravenpaw nodded, to full of fear to speak. She walked slowly, calming herself by hearing Smokepaw's confident voice shouting, "Don't jump as hard as Ravenpaw did!"

Soon the others made it across. Smokepaw was in the back, with, terrifyingly, Ravenpaw in the front.

Slowly, slowly, she led the way. Rain whipped her face, and she could smell snow on the way.

"Go faster!' Squirrelpaw spat suddenly. She leaped over Ravenpaw, and all the cats yowled "No!" ahead the path made a sharp turn and Squirrelpaw almost plummeted right off the edge. Her eyes grew round with terror. Behind them, in the back, Smokepaw bunched his legs and prepared to jump over all the cats and save Squirrelpaw, but Ravenpaw knew he couldn't. He would jump somewhere in the middle of the journeying cats, and fall off the edge, maybe bring a few other cats over with him. The ground was far, far below by now.

Spiderpaw turned around so fast he looked like a blur of black fur, narrowly missing falling off the edge himself. In one swift moment he leapt on Smokepaw while Splashpaw yowled in terror. Spiderpaw wrestled Smokepaw onto the ground. Both cats began to roll down the slope, and Ravenpaw saw that in a few more rolls they would tumble off a turn and fall into space, wailing all the way.

Ravenpaw was to far away to jump and help them, so all she could do was yowl, "Grab something!" and fell dread sink into her heart. She was torn with fear. On one side of her, Squirrelpaw was clawing at the edge, and on the other, two toms teetering on the point of the needle of death.

But Spiderpaw heard her warning. He hooked a claw into the rock and let go of Smokepaw. One hind leg already hung off the edge.

Then all the other cats saw trouble. "Don't let him go!" Ravenpaw screamed. She couldn't stand around doing nothing any more. She pushed past the cats, almost toppling off the edge at the narrowness, and shouted to Volepaw. "Get Squirrelpaw!" she jumped over Splashpaw, who was lying in the middle of the path, a paw over her eyes and screaming her head off.

When Spiderpaw had let go of Smokepaw, the smoky black tom had slipped down. The pupils of his blue eyes grew round with terror.

Ravenpaw lunged at him. Her claws skittered on the slick and wet surface of the rock, but slowed her down. She grasped Smokepaw in her mouth and dragged him back onto the rock. She lay down, panting.

Smokepaw stood up, his legs shaking. "L-lets keep going!" he stammered, his teeth chattering with cold. "Walk slowly and carefully!"

"Is Squirrelpaw okay?" Ravenpaw asked.

"Yes!" Owlpaw called down, "Volepaw saved her!"

"Good." Ravenpaw sighed with relief. She walked to the back of the line with Spiderpaw, then Smokepaw behind her.

Volepaw was now in the lead. He walked slowly and carefully, leading the way up the hill.

When they had gone much farther it began to snow. White specks littered the cat's pelts. Ravenpaw's bottom jaw clattered against the top. Her pads were hard and stiff from walking on the freezing rock. She could hear Smokepaw panting behind her.

Suddenly Ravenpaw's eyes blurred over with cold and exhaustion. She doubled over, coughing, spasms racking her now-frail body. She was hungry and tired, and very, very, cold.

"Stop!" she rasped, "Stop!"

Smokepaw raised his voice to tell Volepaw, but as soon as he started talking it shrunk down to a puny size, "Stop, Volepaw! Ravenpaw's sick!"

Volepaw stopped. "There is no shelter here!" he yowled.

"Wait," Owlpaw murmured, slipping past him. "There is a hole in the path a little way up! It should shelter at least one of us from the wind!"

The small party of cats padded the small way up.

"We can out Ravenpaw in the hole!" Smokepaw rasped.

Owlpaw padded over with a few pieces of lichen in his mouth and dropped them into the shallow dip. Ravenpaw stumbled in, and the sound of the wind lessened.

Suddenly Owlpaw padded over with his jaws packed with snow. He dropped it on Ravenpaw.

"What are you doing?" Spiderpaw yowled, "That'll freeze her!"

"No, it will isolate her. WindClan cats sleep in the open, and when it snows it falls on us and we're warm and sheltered."

"Alright." Spiderpaw was to tired to argue. He helped the other cats gather snow and pack it onto Ravenpaw.

Inside her little den, Ravenpaw wasn't cold anymore. She wasn't warm, but she wasn't cold. She was dry and growing sleepy. All she was now was hungry.

The other cats formed a circle around the dip, and bowed their heads, trying to fall asleep.

Ravenpaw listened to the howl of the wind. Soon the sun sank, leaving her in an eerie darkness. Owls hooted in the distance, and it calmed her, so soon she fell asleep.

OoOoO

Ravenpaw opened her eyes groggily. Something tasty was in front of her nose. She cleared her sight and realized where she was. The snow was still on her, and her limbs were stiff from lying on the hard surface for so long. But right in front of her was a tiny, scrawny, skinny…mouse.

She gasped and did her best not to gobble it down. She poked her head through the blanket of snow.

Snow covered the entire path, the entire world. Ravenpaw gasped and looked around. The faint shapes of two cats were coming toward her, blurred by the heavily falling snow.

It was Smokepaw and Spiderpaw. Ravenpaw realized that, slowly, the two toms had formed a friendship.

"Where are the others?" she asked when they were nearer.

"They are off hunting," Spiderpaw told her.

"We scanned ahead," Smokepaw reported, "And we're almost all the way around the mountain and the path ends!"

"Good," Ravenpaw meowed.

"Did you eat the mouse?" Smokepaw asked, "It was all we could find in our search, and we new you were weak, so we gave it to you."

"You did? Oh thank you!" Ravenpaw dipped her head back under the blanket and began to eat. It lined the gnawing hunger that growled in her stomach.

"Better?" Spiderpaw asked, his amber eyes glowing.

Ravenpaw couldn't help but smile with an odd twinge of happiness that stirred in her heart.

There was a yowling and Volepaw, Squirrelpaw, Splashpaw and Owlpaw appeared. Owlpaw and Squirrelpaw were carrying prey, a mouse and a vole.

"You can share with Squirrelpaw," Smokepaw told Volepaw, "And Splashpaw and Owlpaw can share too. And me and Spiderpaw…well…we'll just have to go hungry."

"No, that isn't fair," Ravenpaw told him. "I'll hunt for you two."

She pulled her exhausted body out of the dip and padded up the path. It was slippery with ice. She looked over the edge. Every thing went down…down…down…

Her stomach flipped with fear. A Twolegplace was far, far below her, the nests looked like ants. She gagged with fear and dizziness. If she fell…well, she didn't want to think about that.

She continued padding up the path, her claws unsheathed so she wouldn't slip off the edge. She rounded a bend and the path broke away from the mountain. It was just a sheer string with nothing to grip onto. She crouched low on her belly and slid across it very slowly. She came a little closer, and realized there was another mountain on one side, and the another one on the other side.

Suddenly she saw that there was a hole in the path, and she would have to jump to get onto the other side.

She took a deep breath and sprang from her perilous perch. But she jumped on an angle and plummeted into space.

Her yowls and screams of terror echoed off the mountains. She screwed up her eyes, and landed.

She wasn't dead.

Slowly, carefully, Ravenpaw opened her eyes. She was caught on a tiny bush that grew in a scarce bit of soil on the side of a steep stone slope. The bush bucked and swayed with her weight, and she knew that it would break.

She looked around, feeling utterly trapped. Then she saw a tiny slope carved into the side. She padded carefully onto it and then slipped down, wailing all the way, until she landed in a cave.

The bottom was littered with moss. There was a squeal from under her and Ravenpaw jumped aside. And beneath her was…

A kit.

It was white with silver specks. She looked about five moons old, with wide blue eyes.

"Get me out of here!" was the first thing it said.

"Where's your mother?" Ravenpaw asked.

"She's dead. My guardian left me here to days ago, and she hasn't come back. Will you take me away?"

"Alright," Ravenpaw meowed slowly, her mind spinning with confusion. "What's your name?"

"Glacier," she squeaked, "Now can we go?"

"Yes," Ravenpaw meowed, scooping it up in her jaws.

She padded onto the steep slope until she reached the bush. 'How do we get out?" Ravenpaw asked Glacier, "I need to go up."

"Follow me," the kit said energetically. She scrambled in front of Ravenpaw, and jumped off the bush and landed on a narrow ledge on the mountain.

"There are a lot of little ledges you can jump to," She told Ravenpaw, "But you have to look carefully, because they are very small ledges."

Glacier jumped to another ledge, this one higher up. Ravenpaw followed her, carefully jumping from one ledge to the next. Her whiskers twitched at the kit's confidence. Glacier seemed to act like the mountains weren't dangerous at all.

She followed the kit until thy reached the tiny path that wasn't connected to a mountain. She leapt carefully onto it, then padded after the Glacier, who wasn't afraid at all of the sheer ledge.

"Where are you going to take me?" the kit asked, stopping.

"This way," Ravenpaw passed the kit and scrambled down the path that curled around the mountain until she reached the place where the others were waiting.

"Who's this?" Volepaw snarled, "What are you doing with a kit, Ravenpaw?"

Weeeell…not a very good cliffy, I know. But Glacier will have a big part in the rest of the story! Whoa, this story is sure fun to write at the moment. And, remember to review!

Please?