Though his heart was torn about leaving, he wanted to see what lay beyond the forest, and to find the cats who had once been SkyClan.
At the top of the ravine he halted and turned to face his deputy—his best friend, and the cat without whom he would never have been able to lead his Clan. “Will you come to the edge of the forest with us, Graystripe?”
The gray warrior shook his head. “This is your journey, yours and Sandstorm’s. I’ll say good-bye here. Good luck, both of you.”
Sandstorm and Firestar leaned forward to touch noses with their old friend. “I couldn’t leave if I didn’t have you to look after things while I’m gone,” Firestar murmured.
“Every cat knows I can’t fill your pawprints,” Graystripe replied. “But I’ll do my best.”
“You’ll have to take Firestar’s place at Gatherings,” Sandstorm reminded him.
Graystripe nodded. “We mustn’t let ThunderClan seem weak. I’ll tell them you’ve been called away by StarClan, but you’ll be back soon.”
“I hope you’re right,” Firestar meowed softly. “But if I don’t come back—”
“Don’t say that!” Graystripe’s tail lashed. “You will return; I know it in my heart. I’ll wait for you however long it takes.
Whenever you come back, I will be here, just the same.”
“Which way first?” Sandstorm asked.
They had left Graystripe behind and were heading through the forest toward Sunningrocks.
“The SkyClan warrior told me that his Clan fled upstream,” Firestar replied. “I guess that means we should follow the river.”
“How far?”
Firestar felt his neck fur begin to bristle, and he made himself relax until it lay flat. He didn’t have a clue where to find the scattered Clan, or a place where they might live. He was even less sure what he would have to do to bring the Clan together again. He had hoped for more guidance, but his dreams since the night he spent in Smudge’s garden had been dark and empty. Did that mean that the SkyClan ancestor wasn’t watching him any longer? He felt as if he were stepping into a dark, dark night without moon or stars to guide him.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I suppose StarClan will show us, or maybe it’ll be obvious.”
Sandstorm’s green eyes glinted, and Firestar braced himself for a scathing comment, but his mate only twitched her whiskers and went on in silence.
From Sunningrocks, Firestar led the way along the RiverClan border until the Twoleg bridge over the river came in sight. Here he paused, tasting the air. The RiverClan scent markers were strong, but there was no fresh scent to suggest that a patrol might be nearby.
“Okay, come on,” he muttered.
He and Sandstorm slipped cautiously down the slope as far as the bridge, dodging between rocks and clumps of gorse to stay out of sight. From there they headed upstream, along the top of the gorge. Firestar half expected to see the leaping forms of SkyClan cats around him, reassuring him that this was the way he should go, but there was no sign of them.
Looking down at the foaming white water, he remembered how Bluestar had hurled herself over, taking with her the leader of the dog pack. Firestar had plunged in to save her; he shivered at the memory of the roar of water in his ears, the weight of his soaking fur, the exhaustion in his legs as he tried to swim with Bluestar’s body gripped in his teeth.
Then he thought of the last time he had seen her, with starshine in her pelt and frosty starlight around her paws. She hadn’t wanted to tell him about SkyClan, and she had done her best to discourage him from going on this journey.
Determination flared in Firestar like a flame in dry grass.
This was his quest, not StarClan’s, and if he had to, he would carry it out without any help from his warrior ancestors.
He felt exposed along the bare edge of the gorge, but he and Sandstorm reached the border between RiverClan and WindClan without being spotted by a patrol. A stiff breeze was blowing from the moorland, flattening the tough grass and making Firestar feel it might blow him off his paws and into the tumbling river below. It brought the strong, fresh scent of WindClan cats with it.
“There could be a patrol about,” Sandstorm mewed.
Firestar tasted the air again; with the wind so strong, it was hard to be sure how far away the cats were.
“We’d better keep going,” he murmured. “Keep a lookout behind.”
“I would if I had eyes in my tail,” Sandstorm retorted.
They headed across the border, but they had hardly set paw in WindClan’s territory when a rabbit streaked across the crest of the moor with a WindClan warrior hard on its paws.
“Get down!” Firestar crouched instinctively, but there was no cover in sight. They stayed unseen only because the hunter was so intent on his prey.
Then he noticed a spot on the edge of the gorge where the ground had crumbled away. “Quick—that way!” he hissed.
Pushing Sandstorm ahead of him, he crept down the cliff face for a tail-length or so, and into the shelter of an overhanging rock. He was pulling his tail into hiding when he heard the rabbit’s shriek abruptly cut off, and another cat call out, “Good catch!”
“That was close!” Sandstorm breathed.
Firestar peered out of his hiding place to see two cats standing on the edge of the cliff, their heads outlined against the sky. He couldn’t make out their features, but he recognized his friend Onewhisker’s voice.
“You know, I swear I can smell ThunderClan scent, but I can’t see any cat.”
“They’d better not set paw here.” The second voice, an aggressive growl, belonged to Mudclaw, the WindClan deputy. “If I catch them, they’ll wish they’d never been kitted.”
“Maybe some cat is going to Highstones,” Onewhisker suggested.
Mudclaw’s reply was an ill-tempered snort. “This isn’t the way to Highstones, mouse-brain.”
Firestar pulled his nose back into cover and pressed himself even closer to Sandstorm.
“You know,” she murmured, “you could just tell them where we’re going.”
Firestar shook his head. He didn’t want the other Clans to know that he had left the forest; they would find out at the next Gathering, and that was soon enough for him.
Gradually the WindClan scent faded and Firestar dared to emerge from their hiding place. Scrambling back up the crumbling stones, he had time to glance down into the gorge and imagine what it would be like to lose his footing and go plummeting down into the turbulent river. Every hair on his pelt was on end by the time he regained the safety of the cliff top.
“Have they gone?” Sandstorm asked from just behind him.
“I think so. Let’s keep going quickly in case they come back.”
Picking up the pace, he bounded along the edge of the gorge with Sandstorm beside him. When he next paused to check for patrols, the ginger she-cat meowed, “You don’t have to be so secretive about this, you know. You didn’t even tell the whole story to your own Clan.”
“The SkyClan cats came to me alone,” Firestar told her.
“There’s no need to tell every cat about them. It’s not as if I’m going to bring SkyClan back to the forest.”
“Then what’s all this about?” Sandstorm demanded, her neck fur beginning to fluff up. “If you don’t plan on bringing SkyClan back, what are you going to do?”