“Well, I won’t join.” It was Lichen who spoke, politely but with no hesitation in her voice. “I’m sorry, but I don’t feel comfortable around so many cats. I like my privacy too much.”
“That’s your decision.” Firestar was disappointed; he liked what he had seen of the mottled she-cat. “And if you change your mind, you know where we are.”
“Thanks, but I won’t. I wish you well, though.” With a dip of her head she turned and padded away down the riverbank.
Rainfur watched her go, then rose to his paws. “I haven’t heard anything that makes me want to join,” he growled. “All I can see is, other cats will be telling me what to do all the time.”
“That’s not how it works—” Firestar protested. But part of him could understand why the gray tom felt like that. Firestar had no right to tell these cats how to live their lives; why should they listen when so far they had gotten on perfectly well without him?
“I’d sooner hunt for myself,” Rainfur went on. “I don’t need SkyClan.”
“I’m sorry,” Firestar mewed. “SkyClan could use you.”
Rainfur’s pelt bristled. “I don’t want to be used, thanks,” he spat. Whirling around, he bounded downstream after Lichen.
Firestar stared after him, angry that he had spoken so clumsily. Then he noticed that Leaf was gazing up at him with sympathy in her eyes.
“Don’t mind Rainfur,” she meowed. “He always was a bit touchy. Maybe we can persuade him later, when he sees how the Clan works.”
Firestar’s ears twitched. “We?”
“Yes, I’ll join,” Leaf assured him. “If the Clan really works how you say it will, then cats will have a purpose. We’ll be more than just rogues, just living to stay alive.”
Firestar was impressed. Her words might have come from a true Clan cat. He felt a purr rising in his chest.
“Thank you,” he mewed. Glancing at the cats who so far had not decided—Patch, Hutch, and Oscar—he added, “All I can tell you is that SkyClan lived here once and could live here again, following the warrior code for the benefit of every cat. Do you want to be part of it?”
Patch rasped his tongue over his chest fur. “Okay, I’ll give it a go.”
Cherry gave Hutch a nudge with her shoulder. “Come on, Hutch. What about it?”
Hutch looked up at Firestar, embarrassment in his amber eyes. “I’d like to, I really would, but I’m afraid I won’t be good enough at all this hunting and fighting. I’ve always been a kittypet.”
“We’re kittypets too,” Boris pointed out. “Firestar can teach you all that stuff.”
“If you join us, you’ll be very welcome,” Firestar told him.
The tabby tom nodded. “Okay, then. I’d miss Cherry and Boris if they went off without me.”
Firestar flicked his ears toward the one cat who so far had not spoken. “What about you, Oscar?”
The black kittypet rose slowly from the ledge where he had been crouching. “You don’t think I came here to join, do you? Why would I leave a couple of perfectly good housefolk who give me everything I want? I didn’t spend moons training them for nothing.”
“Why are you here, then?” Boris demanded.
Oscar’s jaws stretched in an insolent yawn. “I just wanted to find out what stupid ideas you’d come up with. And they are stupid. You’re all mouse-brained.” With a flick of his tail he set off up the trail, back toward the cliff top.
“Mouse-brained yourself!” Cherry yowled after him.
Sky padded forward to the edge of the Rockpile and looked down at the remaining cats. “SkyClan lives again!” he announced. Raising his head to the misty half-moon, he yowled, “SkyClan! SkyClan!”
“SkyClan! SkyClan!” the cats down in the gorge replied.
Firestar shivered from ears to tail tip. What had once seemed so impossible, so far off, was now real. The cats who stood around the Rockpile, yowling to the stars, were the beginnings of a new Clan to replace the one lost so long ago.
Then cold claws seemed to grip his heart. That sense of anger and hatred he had felt in the undergrowth downstream washed over him again. He raised his head to scan the bushes on the cliff top, and was sure he could spot glittering eyes among the branches.
Chapter 25
The following day dawned clear and cool. Firestar stepped out onto the ledge outside the warriors’ cave to see Patch and Leaf scrambling over the spur of rock on their way upstream.
After the meeting, all the new Clan cats had returned to their own homes; one of the first tasks would be to collect more bedding and sort out the dens so that the caves in the gorge could become a real Clan camp.
Sandstorm joined him, yawning and giving one ear a vigorous scratch with her hind paw. “We’ll have to move Clover down to the nursery,” she mewed, flicking her ears toward where the mother cat and her kits were sleeping against the far wall of the cave. “There won’t be room in here once the warriors arrive.”
“We need a den for the apprentices, too,” Firestar pointed out. “And the elders, the leader, the medicine cat…”
“Well, we’ll have one elder, when Sky moves in with us.”
Sandstorm blinked thoughtfully. “But there’s no leader yet, apart from you.”
“No! I’m leader of ThunderClan. StarClan will show us which cat is meant to be leader of SkyClan.”
“And a medicine cat,” Sandstorm added. “You can’t have a Clan without a medicine cat.”
Firestar murmured agreement. He suspected that finding a medicine cat could be even harder than finding a leader, and he hadn’t begun to tackle that problem yet. Until the night before, he hadn’t been certain that there would be a Clan at all.
He had to push his worries to the back of his mind as Leaf and Patch came into view a little way down the stony trail, calling out a greeting. Patch looked nervous, but Leaf’s ears were pricked with anticipation. A heartbeat or two later Firestar heard pawsteps from up above, and Cherry, Boris, and Hutch appeared from the cliff top.
“We’re ready for our hunting lesson,” Boris meowed, his eyes shining.
“That’s good.” Sandstorm twitched her tail approvingly.
“We’ll be able to take out two full patrols.”
“Can we lead them?” Cherry bounced forward to stand in front of Firestar. “Please! We know all the good places for prey.”
“No, you’re not warriors yet.” Firestar didn’t want to dampen the young cats’ enthusiasm, but they had to get used to the way things were done in a Clan. “Don’t worry,” he added when Cherry flattened her ears in disappointment.
“You’ll be leading patrols before you know it.”
“Boris and Leaf, you come with me,” Sandstorm mewed.
“We’ll pick up Scratch on the way, and see what we can find in the bushes downstream. Is that okay with you, Firestar?”
“Fine. The rest of us can hunt on the cliff top.”
When Sandstorm had left with her patrol, Firestar led Cherry, Hutch, and Patch up the trail and through the bushes on the edge of the cliff. The sky was bright where the sun would rise, but there was still no sign of movement from the Twolegplace.
“Let’s head that way,” Firestar suggested, waving his tail toward the huge Twoleg barn. “I haven’t tried hunting there yet.”
Not much later he was starting to think he had made the wrong decision. The trees and bushes near the fence of the huge nest were oddly lacking in prey. The scent of crow-food and rats from the fence made it almost impossible to taste anything else on the air.
“Sandstorm’s patrol will catch much more,” Cherry muttered. “And Boris will never let me hear the end of it!”