Returning through the tunnel to the twilit clearing, Firestar still felt choked by pity—and fury, too, that this should happen to one of his warriors. He remembered the life that Brindleface had given him when he became Clan leader—a life for protection, the care of a mother for her kits.
He had expected that life to be warm and gentle, but instead it had entered him with the shock of fire and ice together. He had felt the raw, ravenous urge to fight and kill, to spill rivers of blood to protect young, helpless cats. Now, thinking of Longtail as he struggled to cope with losing his sight, Firestar understood more clearly what that instinct meant. As Clan leader, he would rip out all his claws to protect any one of his Clanmates.
His den under the Highrock was cool and quiet.
Sandstorm had left a rabbit for him, and Firestar settled down to eat. Now that he was alone, he felt as limp as a drooping leaf. Yet he was beginning to see a way forward, a way to care for his Clan even though his trust in StarClan had been shattered.
He was curling up comfortably when a shadow fell across the den entrance. He looked up to see Cinderpelt, her head and shoulders thrusting back the screen of lichen. “Longtail’s asleep now,” she explained. “So I thought I’d take the chance to come and ask what happened at the Moonstone. Did you find the answers you were seeking?”
“Yes, but they weren’t the answers that I wanted to hear.”
He felt it was still too soon to tell what had happened, even to his medicine cat.
To his relief, Cinderpelt didn’t press him. Coming into his den, she bent her head to give his ear a comforting lick. “Have faith,” she urged him. “StarClan are watching over us, and everything will be all right.”
A claw of anger pierced Firestar. He longed to tell her that StarClan had lied to them, that their ancestors had allowed a Clan to leave the forest in spite of everything in the warrior code.
But he could not bring himself to poison Cinderpelt’s faith, to spill bile onto everything she believed. Somehow he knew that this was his problem, and his alone. Without the help of StarClan, without any remnant of faith in his warrior ancestors, he must find a way of dealing with it.
Chapter 6
Wind swept across the moorland, shredding the mist, and Firestar saw the fleeing cats clearly for the first time. They were following a river; the familiar tang of water in the air told him this was the forest river he knew, though here, beyond WindClan territory, it flowed more swiftly through the hills.
“Wait!” Firestar called to them. “Cats of SkyClan, wait for me! I’ve come to help you.”
He raced across the springy turf, but the SkyClan cats sped away from him as if they had not heard his cries.
Suddenly a kit tumbled into the river, its mother letting out a yowl of dismay as the current swept it away. Then a young apprentice, straying away from the main group, was picked off by a fox. Firestar heard its squeals of terror cut off abruptly as the fox bounded away, outpacing a couple of warriors who tried to chase it. An elder lagged farther and farther behind; she kept limping after her Clan, though her paws left smears of blood on the grass. Another staggered to a halt, then fell on one side and didn’t get up again.
At the head of the journeying Clan Firestar spotted the gray-and-white cat. Thin, hungry-looking warriors clustered around him. Even though Firestar still couldn’t catch up to them, their voices came clearly to him.
“Where are we going?” one of them meowed. “We can’t live here… there’s no prey, and nowhere to camp.”
“I don’t know where we’re going,” the gray-and-white cat replied. “We just have to keep on until we find somewhere.”
“But how long?” one of the other warriors asked. No cat replied.
Firestar saw a small, light brown tabby she-cat shouldering her way through the warriors until she reached the gray-and-white cat. “Let me speak to StarClan,” she begged. “They might know of a place for us.”
The cat rounded on her. “No, Fawnstep!” he spat. “Our warrior ancestors have failed us. As far as we’re concerned, StarClan no longer exist.”
He must be the Clan leader! There was authority in his voice, and the small tabby—SkyClan’s medicine cat, Firestar guessed—bowed her head, and didn’t try to argue.
Firestar called out to the SkyClan cats again and made one last effort to catch up to them, but he was falling farther and farther behind. Mist swirled around him again, cutting him off from the fleeing Clan. At last his paws wouldn’t carry him any longer. He sank down, and opened his eyes to find himself in his own den.
Gradually he became aware of another cat sitting in the shadows. “Sandstorm?” he murmured, longing for the warmth and comfort of his mate’s presence.
The cat turned toward him, and the light from the den entrance fell onto a soft tortoiseshell pelt.
“Spottedleaf!”
The former ThunderClan medicine cat rose and came toward him, gently touching her nose to his. Firestar drank in her familiar sweet scent. He couldn’t think of her as one of the warrior ancestors who had betrayed him; no matter what the rest of StarClan might do, he would always trust Spottedleaf.
Gazing at the shape of her head and her slender, graceful body, he found himself thinking of the gray-and-white cat, the SkyClan leader he had seen in his dreams.
“Have you come to tell me about SkyClan?” he asked.
“Yes,” Spottedleaf replied gravely. “When I lived in ThunderClan, I never knew there had once been five Clans living in the forest. I learned their story after I joined StarClan.”
“I don’t understand.” Firestar scratched restlessly at a piece of moss. “How could StarClan allow a whole Clan to leave the forest?”
Spottedleaf crouched beside him. He could feel the vibra-tions of her soothing purr. “I know it is hard for you,” she mewed. “But StarClan do not control everything in the forest. We could not banish the dog pack that threatened you, or drive out Scourge and BloodClan.”
Firestar sighed; he knew that was true. But it didn’t explain why StarClan had lied, and pretended that SkyClan had never existed. “Have you met any of the SkyClan cats?”
Spottedleaf shook her head. “We do not walk the same skies.”
“I spoke to Bluestar,” Firestar meowed. “She told me my duty is to ThunderClan. She said there is nothing I can do for SkyClan. But if that’s true, why do I keep seeing them?”
“If the SkyClan leader has appeared to you in dreams,” Spottedleaf replied, touching his shoulder with her tail, “then he must believe you can help him.”
“But how?” Firestar persisted. “What can I do? It all happened so long ago.”
“The answer will be shown to you,” Spottedleaf promised.
“Rest now.”
She pressed closer to his side, and Firestar drifted more deeply into sleep, comforted by her warm scent. This time no dreams disturbed him.
Bright sunlight shone into his den when Firestar woke.
Spottedleaf was gone, though he caught a trace of her scent among his bedding. He rose and stretched, feeling new energy coursing through him.
Skirting the Highrock, he found Graystripe in the main clearing with several cats standing around him as he arranged hunting patrols. “Cloudtail, you can go with Thornclaw,” he was telling the white warrior. “Who do you want for a third?
Willowpelt?”
“I’ll go,” Firestar interrupted, bounding up to them. “I feel as if I haven’t had a good hunt for moons.”
“Thanks.” Graystripe nodded to him. “In that case, Willowpelt, you can come with Brackenfur and me. We’ll head toward Fourtrees and see if we can spot that fox.”