“I can see why they call him Runningnose,” Firepaw remarked. The medicine cat’s nose was wet at the tip and encrusted around the edges.
“Yep,” replied Graypaw with a scornful growl. “I can’t see why they appointed him when he can’t even cure his own cold!”
Runningnose was telling the cats about a herb that medicine cats had used in the old days to cure kitten-cough. “Since the Twolegs came and filled the place with hard earth and strange flowers,” he complained in a high-pitched yowl, “the herb has disappeared, and kittens die needlessly in cold weather.”
The cats gathered around him yowled their disapproval.
“It never would have happened in the time of the great Clan cats,” growled a black RiverClan queen.
“Indeed,” mewled a silver tabby. “The great cats would have killed any Twolegs that dared enter their territory. If TigerClan roamed this forest still, Twolegs would not have built this far into our land.”
Then Firepaw heard Spottedleaf’s quiet mew. “If TigerClan still roamed these forests, we would hardly have made our territory here, either.”
“What’s TigerClan?” mewed a small voice beside them. Firepaw noticed a little tabby apprentice from one of the other Clans sitting beside him.
“TigerClan is one of the great cat Clans that used to roam the forest,” Graypaw explained quietly. “TigerClan is cats of the night, big as horses, with jet-black stripes. Then there is LionClan. They’re…” Graypaw hesitated, frowning as he tried to remember.
“Oh! I’ve heard of them,” mewed the tabby. “They were as big as TigerClan cats, with yellow fur and golden manes like rays of the sun.”
Graypaw nodded. “And then there is the other one, SpottyClan or something like that…”
“I suspect you’re thinking of LeopardClan, young Graypaw,” meowed a voice from behind them.
“Lionheart!” Graypaw greeted his mentor with an affectionate touch of his nose.
Lionheart shook his head in mock despair. “Don’t you youngsters know your history? LeopardClan are the swiftest cats, huge and golden, spotted with black pawprints. You can thank LeopardClan for the speed and hunting skills you now possess.”
“Thank them? Why?” asked the tabby.
Lionheart gazed down at the little apprentice and answered, “There is a trace of all the great cats in every cat today. We would not be night hunters without our TigerClan ancestors, and our love of the sun’s warmth comes from LionClan.” He paused. “You are a ShadowClan apprentice, aren’t you? How many moons are you?”
The tabby stared awkwardly down at the ground. “S-six moons,” he stammered, not meeting Lionheart’s eye.
“Rather small for six moons,” Lionheart murmured. His tone was gentle, but his gaze was searching and serious.
“My mother was small too,” answered the tabby nervously. He bowed his head and backed away, disappearing into the crowd of cats with a twitch of his light brown tail.
Lionheart turned to Firepaw and Graypaw. “Well, he might be small, but at least he was curious. If only you two showed as much interest in the stories your elders tell!”
“Sorry, Lionheart,” Firepaw and Graypaw mewed, exchanging doubtful glances.
Lionheart grunted good-naturedly. “Oh, go away, the pair of you! Next time I hope Bluestar decides to bring apprentices who appreciate what they hear.” And with a half-hearted growl he chased them away from the group.
“Come on,” purred Graypaw as they leaped away. “Let’s see where Ravenpaw’s gotten to.”
Ravenpaw was in the middle of a group of apprentices who were clamoring for him to tell them about the battle with RiverClan.
“Go on, Ravenpaw; tell us what happened!” called a pretty black-and-white she-cat.
Ravenpaw shyly shuffled his paws and shook his head.
“Come on, Ravenpaw!” insisted another.
Ravenpaw looked around and saw Firepaw and Graypaw at the edge of the crowd. Firepaw nodded encouragingly. Ravenpaw flicked his tail in acknowledgment and began his story.
He stumbled a bit at first, but as he continued, the tremor disappeared from his voice and his audience leaned in, their eyes growing wider.
“Fur was flying everywhere. Blood spattered the leaves of the bramble bushes, bright red against green. I’d just fought off a huge warrior and sent him squealing into the bushes when the ground shook, and I heard a warrior scream. It was Oakheart! Redtail raced past me, his mouth dripping blood and his fur torn. ‘Oakheart is dead!’ he howled. Then he rushed off to help Tigerclaw as he fought another warrior.”
“Who would have thought Ravenpaw was such a good storyteller,” Graypaw murmured to Firepaw, sounding impressed.
But Firepaw was thinking of something else. What was it Ravenpaw had said? That Redtail had killed Oakheart? But according to Tigerclaw, Oakheart had killed Redtail and he, Tigerclaw, had killed Oakheart in revenge.
“If Redtail killed Oakheart, who killed Redtail?” Firepaw hissed to Graypaw.
“If who did what?” Graypaw echoed absentmindedly. He was only half listening to Firepaw.
Firepaw shook his head to clear it. Ravenpaw must have been mistaken, he thought. He must have meant Tigerclaw.
Ravenpaw was coming to the end of his story. “Finally, Redtail dragged the wailing cat off Tigerclaw by his tail and, with the strength of the whole of TigerClan, flung him into the bushes.”
A moving shadow caught Firepaw’s eye. He glanced around and saw Tigerclaw standing a short distance away. The warrior was watching Ravenpaw with an iron stare. Unaware of his mentor’s presence, Ravenpaw continued to answer question after question from his enthusiastic audience.
“What were Oakheart’s dying words?”
“Is it true that Oakheart had never lost a battle before?”
Ravenpaw replied promptly, with his voice high and clear and his eyes shining. But when Firepaw glanced back at Tigerclaw, he saw a look of horror and then fury creep over the warrior’s face. Clearly Tigerclaw wasn’t enjoying Ravenpaw’s story at all.
Firepaw was just about to say something to Graypaw when a loud yowl signaled to all the cats for quiet. Firepaw couldn’t help feeling relieved as Ravenpaw fell silent at last, and Tigerclaw turned away.
Firepaw looked up to see where the yowl had come from. Three cats sat silhouetted against the moonlit sky on top of the Great Rock. They were Bluestar, Brokenstar, and Crookedstar.
The Clan leaders were about to begin the meeting. But where was the WindClan leader?
“Surely they won’t start the meeting without Tallstar?”
Firepaw hissed under his breath.
“I don’t know,” Graypaw muttered back.
“Haven’t you noticed? There isn’t a single WindClan cat here,” whispered a RiverClan apprentice on the other side of Firepaw.
Firepaw guessed that similar conversations were going on all around him. As the other cats were gathering beneath the Great Rock, an unsettled murmuring rumbled in their throats.
“We can’t start yet,” yowled one voice above the noise. “Where are the WindClan representatives? We must wait until all the Clans are present.”
On top of the rock, Bluestar stepped forward. Her gray fur glowed almost white in the moonlight. “Cats of all Clans, welcome,” she meowed in a clear voice. “It is true that WindClan is not present, but Brokenstar wishes to speak anyway.”
Brokenstar padded noiselessly up to stand beside Bluestar. He surveyed the crowd for a few moments, his orange eyes burning. Then he took a deep breath and began. “Friends, I come to speak to you tonight about the needs of ShadowClan—”
But he was interrupted by raised, impatient voices from below.
“Where is Tallstar?” cried one.