“No problem. Follow me.”
Shorty led them back across the gardens. They crossed a small Thunderpath, quiet but lit by the glare of orange
Twoleg lights, and padded down yet another passage between two Twoleg nests.
“Not far now,” Shorty announced cheerfully.
At the end of the gardens the passage came out into a rough grassy space. Firestar lifted his muzzle as the scent of the river washed over him. He could hear the soft rush of water in the distance.
“Thank you,” he meowed to Shorty. “Thank you for everything. I’d never have found Sandstorm without your help.”
Sandstorm dipped her head. “Thanks for scaring off those Twoleg kits, too.”
The brown tabby gave his chest fur a few licks to hide his embarrassment. “Good luck.” His eyes narrowed. “I reckon you’re up to something where you might need all the luck you can get.”
“You’re right; we do,” Sandstorm agreed.
“I hope we might see you again someday,” Shorty meowed.
“I hope so too,” Firestar replied.
Shorty waved the stump of his tail in farewell. He stood watching at the mouth of the passage while Firestar and Sandstorm padded side by side across the tussocky grass and down to the river.
Chapter 14
Throughout the night, Firestar and Sandstorm traveled slowly upstream beneath a claw scratch of moon. They left behind the familiar stretch of river with the Twolegplace standing forlornly in a sea of mud, and the path that led to the deserted Twolegplace. The river shrank and flowed more swiftly, chattering over stones; a thick hedge bordered it, leaving only a narrow path for the cats to pass.
Firestar didn’t feel the need to talk; it was enough to have Sandstorm back with him, padding alongside him.
At last the first traces of dawn appeared on the horizon.
The sky grew milky pale, and one by one the warriors of StarClan winked out.
“Do you think we should eat now?” Firestar suggested. He didn’t want Sandstorm to think he was making all the decisions. “Then we could rest for a bit.”
“What?” Sandstorm’s green eyes flew wide with shock.
“Rest? Eat? Are you completely mouse-brained? We should keep going.”
Firestar stared at her. “Well, if that’s what you want…”
Amusement glimmered in Sandstorm’s eyes, and she let 1 7 3
out a tiny snort of laughter. “No, you daft furball, I’m only joking. Eating’s a great idea, and as for resting, I’m practically asleep on my paws!”
Flicking her ear with his tail tip, Firestar halted and stretched his jaws wide to taste the air. There was a strong scent of vole. Sandstorm angled her ears forward. “There,” she murmured.
Firestar caught sight of the creature pulling itself out of the water a couple of tail lengths farther up the bank. “If we’re not careful, it’ll go straight back into the river.”
“Stay there,” Sandstorm breathed.
Slinking up the side of the hedge, she passed the vole and started creeping back toward it. When she was close to it, she leaped to the edge of the river, the water splashing up around her paws. Startled, the vole dashed up the bank, straight into Firestar’s paws. He killed it with a swift bite to the neck.
“That was brilliant!” he exclaimed as Sandstorm joined him, shaking her wet paws.
“Don’t expect me to make a habit of it,” she replied, flicking a droplet of water crossly from her nose. “I’m not a RiverClan cat.”
As they shared the vole, the daylight grew stronger and the sun came up. The sky was blue, with only a few faint traces of cloud, high and misty. Firestar felt the warmth of the sun soaking into his fur.
“Let’s find a comfortable place to sleep,” he suggested when he had finished the last mouthful of vole.
Sandstorm’s only reply was a yawn.
Not much farther along the path, they discovered a soft patch of moss among the hedge roots. Sunlight shone through the branches, dappling their pelts as they curled up together. Feeling Sandstorm’s tongue rasping along his neck, Firestar relaxed for what felt like the first time in days. He bent his head to his mate’s, sharing tongues until sleep drifted over them both.
Firestar stood on the riverbank. It looked like the place where he had fallen asleep, but the hedge wasn’t so tall and bushy, and there was no sign of Sandstorm. Panic clawed at him for a moment. Then he realized that he was standing at the edge of a large group of cats. Some of them were sitting at the water’s edge, while others lay stretched out as if they were exhausted.
Sound gradually faded up around him, the fretful mewling of kits and wails of distress from older cats.
“How much farther?” a tabby kit was asking his mother.
“My paws are sore!” a little tortoiseshell added.
Their mother, a beautiful gray-furred queen, bent to give them both a comforting lick. “Not far now,” she promised them. “And then we’ll find a nice new home.”
“I don’t want a new home,” the tortoiseshell kit protested.
“I want to go back to our camp.”
Her mother gave her ears a gentle lick. “Our camp is gone,” she mewed. “Twolegs have taken it. But we’ll find a better one; you’ll see.”
The anxiety in her green eyes told Firestar that she wasn’t sure she was telling her kits the truth. He followed her gaze over the cats sprawled on the bank until he spotted the gray-and-white cat he had seen so many times, who had spoken to him in Smudge’s garden. He stood commandingly on the brink of the river, his head turned upstream.
“Is this the right way?” he meowed quietly.
A small tabby she-cat, sitting on the bank beside him, replied, “You’re our leader, so you have to decide. I’ve had no signs from StarClan since we left the forest.”
“StarClan don’t care about us, Fawnstep,” growled the gray-and-white cat. “If they did, they would never have let the other Clans drive us out of the forest.” He bowed his head. “All we can do is keep going until we find a place to live.”
Movement in the corner of his eye distracted Firestar. He froze as a long-furred tabby kit darted straight at him. He waited for it to spot him and raise the alarm, but it bundled past him, so close that their pelts almost brushed, and never noticed him.
Suddenly realizing that none of the cats could see him, Firestar began to pad among them. He was horrified by how thin they were, their ribs visible through dull, ungroomed pelts.
A black-and-white elder was lying on his side, his breath coming in short gasps. “I can’t go any farther,” he rasped.
“You’ll have to go on without me.”
“Rubbish,” a ginger warrior growled. “No cat is staying behind.”
The elder closed his eyes. “We should never have left the forest.”
A brown tabby she-cat came to stand beside the ginger tom. “We’ll find a good place to stay; I promise.”
“Better than the one we left,” the ginger warrior agreed, lashing his tail. “Without the other Clans to bother us. No more border raids, no more prey stealing. And especially no more Twolegs. We’ll have it all to ourselves.”
The black-and-white elder let out a faint hiss.
“Buzzardtail, there have always been five Clans in the forest.”
“Not anymore,” the ginger tom muttered.
“We’ll find you some fresh-kill,” the tabby meowed, “and you’ll soon feel better.” Glancing at the tom, she added, “Let’s hunt.”
The two cats left their Clanmates and began to prowl up the hedge. A squirrel sat chittering in a tree that spread its branches over the riverbank; the tabby she-cat gave an enormous leap and grabbed it in strong jaws, falling back to the ground with her prey between her paws.