“I’m not sure,” Firestar replied. “But I know that SkyClan need help that only I can give.”
“And what if that help means sharing ThunderClan territory with them?”
“It won’t. The SkyClan cat said there would be a place for them to live.”
Sandstorm didn’t look reassured. “What if he’s wrong?”
Meeting the challenge in his mate’s green eyes, Firestar realized he couldn’t answer.
The gorge came to an end, and the cliffs sloped down to rejoin the river as shallow, sandy banks once more. Firestar breathed a sigh of relief when they crossed the border scent markings and left WindClan territory behind. Soon after, the moor gave way to farmland, small fields divided by Twoleg paths and hedges; Firestar led the way down a narrow track between a hedge and a field of wheat.
“Smell those mice!” Sandstorm exclaimed. “I’m starving!”
She plunged in among the crackling stems, and, with a quick look around for dogs or Twolegs, Firestar followed. He caught one mouse with a swift blow of his paw as it ran along a furrow, and a second only heartbeats later. Carrying his prey to the edge of the field he found Sandstorm already there, crouching down to eat.
Firestar joined her, water flooding his jaws at the warm scent of food. Neither of them would take prey from another Clan’s territory, so they hadn’t eaten since they left ThunderClan that morning. When the last bite was gone, Firestar swiped his tongue around his jaws and arched his back in a long stretch. “Let’s rest for a bit,” he suggested. “If we wait until sunset, there won’t be so many Twolegs about.”
Sandstorm yawned, murmured agreement, and curled up in a patch of sunlight. Settling down beside her, enjoying the warmth of the sun on his fur and the comfortable fullness of his belly, Firestar tried to imagine how SkyClan had felt when they came this way. They must have been terrified, driven out of their home with no clear idea of where they were going.
And so many cats—a whole Clan!—would be terribly vulnerable to dogs or foxes. He looked around, searching the shadowy places under the hedge for a familiar pale pelt, and strained his ears to catch the sound of the lost Clan’s wailing.
But all he could hear was the rustle of wind in the wheat and birdsong high in the sky. He blinked drowsily, rasped his tongue a few times over Sandstorm’s ear, and slept.
Loud voices broke into his dreams. Not the yowls of the fleeing cats of SkyClan, but real, and closer, and getting even louder. Firestar scrambled to his paws to see Sandstorm standing rigid beside him, her pelt bristling as she stared up the line of the hedge. Coming toward them were two young Twolegs and a brown-and-white dog. The dog ran a little way ahead of its Twolegs, then bounced back to them, letting out a flurry of high-pitched yaps.
“Into the hedge!” Firestar ordered.
Thorns tearing at his pelt, he flattened his belly to the ground and crept into the middle of the hedge. Then he began to claw his way up the trunk of a hawthorn bush, forcing the spiny branches to let him through.
Sandstorm was scrabbling her way up another bush, but the branches crisscrossed so thickly that she came to a stop, unable to go any farther. Her green gaze, full of terror and frustration, met Firestar’s.
The dog was whining alongside the hedge. Firestar caught a glimpse of it trying to thrust its way through a gap, its tongue lolling and its white teeth gleaming.
“It’s found our scent,” Sandstorm whispered.
Firestar searched for a way to reach her and drag her higher, but they were separated by too many prickly branches.
The dog’s forepaws tore at the earth as it tried to force its way through the gap to reach the cats. Its jaws were no more than a tail-length away from Sandstorm’s hind paws.
Then Firestar heard a Twoleg yowling. A Twoleg paw appeared in the gap, grabbed the dog’s collar, and dragged it out again. The dog let out a bark of protest. Firestar waited, hardly daring to breathe, as the sounds died away and the scents of dog and Twolegs gradually faded.
“I think they’ve gone,” he murmured. “Stay there while I check.”
Leaving tufts of his flame-colored fur on the thorns, he crept to the edge of the bushes and looked out warily. The wheatfield was empty, the rays of the setting sun pouring over it like honey.
“It’s okay,” Firestar meowed, glancing back to where Sandstorm still clung to her branch.
He padded a little farther out, taking deep breaths as he tried to control his trembling. It was Sandstorm’s danger, not his own, that had turned his blood to ice. Would it have been easier to have made this journey on his own, with no other cat to worry about? But when Sandstorm joined him, shaken but unhurt, he kept the disloyal thought to himself.
They padded through the night, under the light of the half-moon. This was the best time to travel without being seen, and they kept going until both cats were too weary to take another pawstep. They found a place to sleep in a hollow among the roots of a beech tree.
For the next two days they continued to follow the river through fields of wheat that stretched as far as they could see on either side. On the third day they left the fields and slid through a gap in the hedge onto a stretch of rough grass that sloped gently down to the river. Rushes thickly fringed the bank. Hot gusts of wind rattled them together; as Firestar drew closer he picked up the scents of voles and waterbirds, and heard small creatures rustling among the stems. The sun was going down, turning the river to flame.
Before they had gone far along the bank, Firestar heard the roaring of monsters in the distance. Tasting the air, he picked up a familiar harsh tang. “There’s a Thunderpath up ahead.”
“Then we’ll have to cross it.” Sandstorm’s tail twitched.
“There might not be so many monsters out now.”
Soon Firestar made out a line of trees, black against the scarlet sky. The setting sun glinted on the bright, unnatural colors of swift-pawed monsters. Rounding a bend in the river, he caught sight of a Twoleg bridge made of stone, with monsters hurtling across it.
“The Thunderpath goes over the river. We’ll be safe underneath.” Sandstorm sounded pleased.
But Firestar felt uneasy as they approached the bridge. It cast a dark shadow over the path, and as the daylight died the monsters shot brilliant beams of light from their eyes, sweeping across the riverbank. He froze as one beam picked them out, and heard a gasp from Sandstorm, but the monster snarled and rushed on.
Firestar let out a sigh of relief. “It didn’t spot us.”
“I don’t like this,” Sandstorm meowed. “Let’s get out of here.”
Firestar let her take the lead as they ran under the bridge.
The stones were damp, and water dripped from the arch into the river. From the depths of the shadows Firestar saw the light beams of another monster, approaching fast along the Thunderpath above their heads. Suddenly its roar was all around them, echoing and reechoing from stone and water.
Firestar froze, imagining the creature’s huge jaws parted to swallow them.
Sandstorm let out a panic-stricken yowl. “Run!”
Terror crashed through Firestar; his legs propelled him forward until he was racing along the riverbank. He fled along the edge of the reed beds until the bridge was left far behind and he couldn’t hear the monsters above the rasping of his own breath.
Only exhaustion slowed him down. He stood panting on the bank, his paws stinging and every hair on his pelt bristling. Sandstorm crouched beside him, looking back the way they had come, her tail lashing.
“Are you okay?” she asked when she had caught her breath.
Firestar tried to make his pelt lie flat. “I thought we were crow-food for sure. And I feel I’ve lost every scrap of skin from my pads. I don’t know if we’ll be able to go much farther tonight.”