“Oh, StarClan help her!” exclaimed Cinderpaw. “I’ll come. Wait there—I need to fetch supplies.” She vanished into the mouth of the gorse tunnel. Fireheart waited, scrabbling his paws with impatience, until at last he saw movement in the tunnel again. But it wasn’t Cinderpaw; it was Brackenfur.
“Cinderpaw sent me for Yellowfang,” he called as he bounded past Fireheart, heading up the ravine.
At last Cinderpaw reappeared. Her jaws were clamped on a leaf-wrapped bundle of herbs. She flicked her tail at Fireheart as she approached, signaling that he should lead the way.
Every step of that journey was torment for Fireheart. Cinderpaw did her best, but her damaged leg slowed her down. Time seemed to stretch out. With a pang of horror, Fireheart remembered his dream, of a faceless silver queen who faded away, leaving her kits crying helplessly in the dark. Had that been Silverstream?
As soon as the Sunningrocks came in sight, Fireheart bounded ahead of Cinderpaw. When he reached the foot of the rock, he saw another cat crouched on the top, looking down into the gully where Graystripe and Silverstream were. Cold paws clutched Fireheart’s heart. There was no mistaking Tigerclaw’s massive body and dark coat. Darkstripe must have notified him, and the deputy had followed Graystripe’s scent. Fireheart had passed him on his dash back to camp without realizing it.
“Fireheart,” growled Tigerclaw, turning his head as Fireheart scrambled up the rock. “What do you know about this?”
Fireheart looked down into the gully. Silverstream still lay on her side, but the powerful rippling down her body had ebbed away into weak spasms. She had stopped wailing now; Fireheart guessed she was too exhausted. Graystripe huddled close to her. He made a low, crooning noise deep in his chest, and his yellow eyes were fixed on the she-cat’s face. Fireheart didn’t think that either of them had realized Tigerclaw was there.
Before Fireheart could answer the deputy’s question, Cinderpaw came skidding around the bottom of the rock and squeezed along the gully to Silverstream’s side. She dropped the bundle of herbs and stooped to sniff the silver-gray queen.
“Fireheart!” she called a moment later. “Get down here! I need you!”
Ignoring a furious hiss from Tigerclaw, Fireheart leaped down into the gully, scraping his claws painfully on the sheer rock. As his paws touched the ground, Cinderpaw came to meet him. She was carrying a very small kit with its eyes closed and ears flat to its head, and dark gray fur plastered to its body.
“Is it dead?” Fireheart whispered.
“No!” Cinderpaw set down the kit and patted it toward him. “Lick, Fireheart! Make it warm, get its blood flowing.”
As soon as she had finished speaking she turned in the narrow space and went back to Silverstream. Her body blocked Fireheart’s view of what was happening, but he heard the apprentice medicine cat begin to meow reassuringly, and an anxious question from Graystripe.
Fireheart bent over the kit and rasped his tongue over its tiny body. For a long time it didn’t respond, and he began to think Cinderpaw had been wrong, and the kit was dead after all. Then he felt a tiny shiver run through it and it opened its jaws in a soundless mew. “It’s alive!” he gasped.
“Told you,” Cinderpaw called to him. “Keep licking. There’s another one coming, any moment now. That’s right, Silverstream…you’re doing fine.”
Tigerclaw had come down from the rock and was standing in the mouth of the gully with a look of thunder on his face. “That’s a RiverClan cat,” he hissed. “Will one of you tell me what’s going on?”
Before any cat had time to reply, Cinderpaw let out a shout of triumph. “You’ve done it, Silverstream!” Moments later she turned with a second tiny kit in her jaws, and set it down in front of Tigerclaw. “Here. Lick.”
Tigerclaw glared at her. “I’m not a medicine cat.”
Cinderpaw’s blue eyes blazed as she rounded on the deputy. “You’ve got a tongue, haven’t you? Lick, you useless lump of fur. Do you want the kit to die?”
Fireheart flinched, half expecting Tigerclaw to hurl himself at her and slash her open with his powerful claws. Instead, the dark tabby bowed his huge head and began to lick the second kit.
At once Cinderpaw turned back to Silverstream. Fireheart heard her meow, “You need to swallow this herb. Here, Graystripe, make her eat as much as she can. We’ve got to stop the bleeding.”
Fireheart paused for a moment in his own vigorous licking. His kit was breathing evenly now, and it seemed to be out of danger. He wished he knew what was happening in the gully ahead of him; he heard Cinderpaw growl, “Hold on, Silverstream,” and a louder, panicky meow from Graystripe: “Silverstream!”
At the sound of his friend’s distress, Fireheart could not stay back any longer. Leaving the kit, he pushed forward until he could crouch beside Cinderpaw. He was in time to see Silverstream raise her head and feebly lick Graystripe’s face. “Good-bye, Graystripe,” she whispered. “I love you. Take care of our kits.”
Then the silver tabby’s body gave a massive shudder. Her head fell back, her paws jerked, and she was still.
“Silverstream!” whispered Cinderpaw.
“No, Silverstream, no.” Graystripe’s mew was very soft. “Don’t go. Don’t leave me.” He bent over the limp body, nuzzling her gently. She did not move.
“Silverstream!” Graystripe reared up and flung back his head. His wails of grief split the quiet air. “Silverstream!”
Cinderpaw crouched over the body for a few moments more, nudging at Silverstream’s fur, but at last she admitted defeat. She sat up and stared ahead, her blue eyes bleak and cold.
Fireheart got up and padded over to her. “Cinderpaw, the kits are safe,” he murmured.
The look she gave him made his heart freeze. “But their mother is dead. I lost her, Fireheart.”
The rocks were still echoing to Graystripe’s dreadful wailing. Tigerclaw appeared, scrambling past the other cats, and reached out a massive paw to cuff the gray warrior behind the ear. “Stop that moaning.”
Graystripe fell silent, more out of shock and exhaustion, Fireheart thought, than obedience to the deputy’s order.
Tigerclaw glared around at all of them. “Now will some cat tell me what’s going on? Graystripe, do you know this RiverClan cat?”
Graystripe looked up. His eyes had gone dull and cold, like pebbles. “I loved her,” he whispered.
“What—these are your kits?” Tigerclaw seemed stunned.
“Mine and Silverstream’s.” A faint spark of defiance kindled in Graystripe. “I know what you’ll say, Tigerclaw. Don’t bother. I don’t care.” He turned back to Silverstream, pressing his nose against her fur and murmuring softly to her.
Meanwhile, Cinderpaw had roused herself enough to examine the two kits. “I think they’ll live,” she mewed, though to Fireheart she sounded less certain than before. “We need to get them back to camp, to find a queen to suckle them.”
Tigerclaw spun around to face her. “Are you mad? Why should ThunderClan raise them? They’re half-breeds. No Clan will want them.”
Cinderpaw ignored him. “Fireheart, you take that one,” she ordered. “I’ll carry the other.”
Fireheart twitched his whiskers in agreement, but before he picked up the kit he walked over to Graystripe and pressed his body against his friend’s broad gray shoulder. “Do you want to come with us?”
Graystripe shook his head. “I have to stay here and bury her,” he whispered. “Here, between RiverClan and ThunderClan. After this, not even her own Clan will want to mourn her.”
Fireheart felt his heart break for his friend, but there was nothing more he could do to help. “I’ll come back soon,” he promised. More softly, though he was past caring if Tigerclaw heard him or not, he added, “I will mourn her with you, Graystripe. She was brave, and I know she loved you.”