Creeping stiffly out of the cave, Firestar looked up and saw that the clouds were parting. A watery sun shone down into the gorge. The breeze ruffled his damp fur, showering him with a few last drops of rain.
“That’s better,” he meowed. “Let’s get moving.”
“In a moment,” Sandstorm replied. “I want a drink first.”
“Haven’t you had enough water?” Firestar asked, as he followed her to a pool in a hollow between two twisted thorn trees.
At the edge of the pool Sandstorm froze, staring down at the ground in front of her paws. “Firestar, look!”
He bounded over. There in the newly wet mud at the edge of the pool were the pawprints of a cat! They were crisp and fresh, larger than his prints or Sandstorm’s.
“They could be Moony’s!” Sandstorm exclaimed. “Or at least, a cat who might know where to find him. And they must have been made recently—since the rain stopped.”
Firestar lashed his tail. If they hadn’t gone to sleep in the cave, they might have spotted the cat when it came to drink.
“Whoever it is, they might still be close by,” he meowed.
“You search that side of the gorge, and I’ll look on this side.”
He padded slowly along the base of the cliff, alert for any more footprints or the scent of a cat. Then Sandstorm let out a yowl and signaled with her tail. “Over here!”
Firestar bounded across to her. Before he reached her he began to pick up a strong, fresh scent. “I’m sure that’s the same scent that was in the cave where we’ve been sleeping,” he meowed.
Sandstorm nodded, tasting the air again. “It was stale there, but it’s the same cat. It must be Moony who made those prints.”
Following the scent, Firestar reached a narrow path that wound behind a huge boulder. The cats could barely squeeze between the rock and the cliff face. On the other side of the boulder the path led steeply upward until it reached a gnarled tree clinging to the side of the cliff. Firestar scrabbled his way up to it, showers of pebbles pattering down under his paws.
Sandstorm followed a tail-length behind.
Drawing closer to the tree, Firestar saw that its roots arched out of the reddish stone, forming a den of hard, twisted branches. Outside was a scattering of bones and scraps of fur and a bundle of soiled moss. The cat scent was stronger still.
“This is it,” he panted, glancing over his shoulder at Sandstorm. “This must be where Moony lives.”
As he began to climb farther up, a dark gray shape shot out from beneath the roots. “Get away from here!” he snarled.
“Leave me alone! Haven’t you tormented me enough?”
Chapter 18
“It’s all right,” Firestar meowed. “We haven’t come to harm you. We just want to talk.”
Moony glared at him from huge, pale blue eyes. He must have once been a big, powerful cat, but now he was shrunken and scrawny. His gray fur was thin and staring, his muzzle white with age. “Well, I don’t want to talk to you,” he growled.
Whirling around, he stumbled back into his den. His gray pelt merged into the shadows; all Firestar could see clearly were his pale eyes, gleaming with a mixture of fear and anger.
They were exactly the same color as the eyes of the SkyClan leader he had seen in his dreams. He felt so close to SkyClan, it was as if a single pawstep would lead him to that caveful of warriors.
Slowly, with his claws sheathed, he padded up to within a tail-length of the den. Sandstorm came to stand at his shoulder.
“Please,” she mewed. “There’s so much we want to ask you.”
Moony’s reply was a defiant hiss. “Leave me alone.”
“Is that what you really want?” Sandstorm’s voice was gentle. “Haven’t you been alone long enough? We want to help you.”
“Go away,” growled the old cat. “I don’t need your help. I don’t need any other cats. This is my life now.”
Firestar knew he could have bullied the old warrior into answering his questions, but Moony had already suffered enough at the paws of the kittypets—and probably any rogues or loners who came across him, too. Besides, he looked quite capable of giving any attacker a nasty scratch. Firestar wanted to earn his respect, not his hostility. Fighting wasn’t the answer.
Beckoning with his tail to Sandstorm, he withdrew a few paces down the path. “Come on; let’s leave him alone,” he murmured.
Sandstorm’s tail went up in surprise. “We’ve only just found him!”
“Yes, but we’re not doing any good here. We’ll never force him to talk when he’s protecting his own den.”
“Then what are we going to do?” Sandstorm asked.
“The moon will be full in four sunrises,” Firestar explained. “We must go back to the cave and wait until he comes to the gorge. He might not be so defensive out in the open, and at the time of the Gathering he might be more willing to talk about his ancestors.”
Sandstorm blinked thoughtfully. “You’re right. I’m sure he’d never break the Gathering truce.”
Firestar dipped his head to the shadows beneath the tree roots before he turned away from Moony’s den. “Maybe at the full moon we’ll find out what we need to know,” he murmured.
Firestar hauled himself into the cave with a mouthful of feathers, and carried them to where Sandstorm was lining their nests with bracken. “I found these on the cliff top,” he told her. “There was a scent of fox; I think it must have caught a bird.”
“Fox?” Sandstorm gave him a worried look from her pale green eyes. “I hoped there weren’t any foxes around here.”
“There are foxes everywhere,” Firestar meowed. “Anyway, the feathers should make the nests a bit more comfortable.”
“We really need moss.” Sandstorm gave the bracken a dis-satisfied prod with one paw. “Ferns alone aren’t nearly as good. But there doesn’t seem to be any moss at all around here.”
“Why don’t we go down and search beside the river?”
Firestar suggested. “I could do with a drink.”
Sandstorm looked doubtful. “It’s worth a try.”
She took the lead as the two cats headed down the trail to the bottom of the gorge. The heavy rain of the day before had passed, and the sky was blue again, with a scattering of puffy white clouds. Beside the river, puddles gleamed in hollows in the rock.
Firestar made for a sandy slope where the river had scooped out a dip in the bank, and jerked back quickly as his paw sank deep into mud. “Mouse dung!” he exclaimed, shaking his paw. “Did SkyClan get their paws filthy every time they wanted a drink?”
Sandstorm let out a faint purr of amusement. “If they weren’t as impatient as you, they could find the best places—like this,” she added, waving her tail at a broad, flat rock that sloped gently down into the water. “Even kits could drink safely from here.”
“Yes, they could.” Firestar padded down the slanting rock and crouched to lap, with Sandstorm at his side.
“We still haven’t found any moss.” Sandstorm sat up again, twitching droplets from her whiskers. “Let’s try farther downstream.”
They hadn’t explored this stretch of the river before.
Before they had gone many pawsteps, they had to pick their way around huge boulders that came between them and the water. Sandstorm swiped her paw across one of them, and examined the faint greenish smear on her fur. “It’s like tiny moss!” She sniffed. “But what good is that for lining a nest?”
“SkyClan would have had a hard time living here without moss,” Firestar pointed out. “It’s not just important for lining nests. You need moss to carry water to kits and elders.”