Firestar’s ears flicked as if he had heard what the young warrior said, but he didn’t stop to reply before vanishing down the tunnel.
“Things are pretty peaceful right now,” Whitewing pointed out.
“Whitewing’s right.” Ashfur rose from where he was sitting between Cloudtail and Brightheart. “We can easily spare a few warriors. Brambleclaw’s doing the right thing by helping the Tribe. Remember what they did for us when we made the Great Journey? We would have died in the snow if they hadn’t found us.”
“Well, I think that’s all nonsense!” Mousefur stalked up to Ashfur, her skinny brown tail lashing. “If the Tribe cats can’t defend their own borders, that’s their problem, not ours.”
Longtail padded up beside her and touched her shoulder briefly with his tail tip. “I’d love to go back to the mountains.”
His voice was wistful. “I know I couldn’t see where the Tribe lived, but I could feel the wide open spaces and the wind in my fur, and all the scents the wind carried from far away.”
“I’d like to go back, too!” Birchfall’s eyes glowed with memories. “The Great Journey was fun! I had three good friends in ShadowClan: Toadkit, Applekit, and Marshkit. I wonder how they are now.”
“Who cares?” Berrynose flicked his tail; Lionpaw thought he could see jealousy in the cream warrior’s eyes. “ShadowClan cats can’t be your friends anymore. Have you forgotten how you nearly got your fur clawed off on the border?”
And whose fault was that? Lionpaw asked silently, while Birchfall looked downcast, his tail drooping.
“Anyway,” Berrynose went on, “I don’t see what’s so great about the mountains. It sounds bare and cold up there, with no prey.”
“You know nothing about it,” Dustpelt rasped, narrowing his eyes. “You weren’t there.”
As Berrynose rudely turned his back on the senior warrior, Lionpaw beckoned with his tail for his littermates to follow him out of earshot of the group.
“That does it!” he exclaimed. “If Birchfall could travel through the mountains and survive when he was just a kit, why shouldn’t apprentices go? You’d be okay too,” he added to Jaypaw. “Longtail coped, after all.”
He saw Jaypaw’s neck fur begin to fluff up, but Lionpaw was too excited to fret about offending his brother. If Jaypaw wanted to be prickly every time some cat mentioned his blindness, that was his problem.
“We’ve got to find Firestar and ask him right now,” he meowed. “Before Brambleclaw and the others leave.” He glanced around to see if any cat was paying attention to them.
By now the group of cats was beginning to break up.
Cloudtail called Sorreltail and Dustpelt to go out on a hunting patrol, while the elders returned to their den. Two or three of the other warriors padded over to the fresh-kill pile and picked out prey. Outside the nursery, Daisy and Millie stretched out in the sunshine and began sharing tongues, with Daisy’s kits skipping around them.
“Quick, while our mentors aren’t looking!” Hollypaw urged, angling her ears to where Ashfur and Brackenfur were talking together in the middle of the clearing.
Lionpaw dived after her as she bounded across the clearing and thrust her way through the thorn tunnel. When all three apprentices were out in the forest, she turned to Jaypaw.
“Come on, you’re best at scenting. Which way did Firestar go?”
The scent trail left by the Clan leader and the other cats had begun to fade, but Lionpaw could still distinguish it among the competing scents of the forest, especially the unfamiliar scent of the Tribe cats.
“You know,” he mewed to Hollypaw as they followed Jaypaw through the trees, “I’ve just realized that Brook smells like a ThunderClan cat now. Do you think she’ll be able to settle in when she goes back to her Tribemates?”
Hollypaw flashed him a brief glance. “That’s for Stoneteller to say. He seems to speak for the Tribe.”
“Stoneteller speaks too much, by the sound of it,” Jaypaw mewed. “I’m glad Firestar isn’t like that.”
He led the way through the forest until Lionpaw could hear the ripple of waves on the lakeshore. The scent of cats was very strong here. Jaypaw crept quietly up to the top of a gentle rise and parted a clump of bracken carefully with one paw. Without speaking, he signaled with his tail for his brother and sister to join him.
Beyond the bracken, the ground fell away into a sunlit clearing with a soft covering of moss and leaf-mold. On the opposite side the lake was just visible between the trees. A breeze rustled through the leaves, blowing toward the three apprentices, so the group of warriors would be unlikely to pick up their scents.
Firestar was sitting in the middle of the clearing with his paws tucked under him. “Squirrelflight, you’ll need to find a temporary mentor for Foxpaw,” he was saying.
Squirrelflight dipped her head in agreement. “I’d like to ask Sorreltail, if that’s okay with you. She’s never had an apprentice, so it would be good experience for her as well.”
“Sorreltail would be great,” Leafpool added warmly.
“Fine, I’ll have a word with her when we get back to camp.”
Firestar turned to Brambleclaw. “I’m not sure that four extra cats are going to be enough to help the Tribe. But I daren’t weaken ThunderClan by sending more warriors with you.”
Hollypaw nudged Lionpaw. “Maybe that’s a chance for us,” she whispered.
“I thought of that,” Brambleclaw replied to Firestar. “I’d like to take cats from all four Clans with us. The ones who went with us on the first journey to find Midnight at the sun-drown-place.”
Lionpaw pushed Jaypaw and beckoned Hollypaw with a flick of his ears to creep along the top of the rise as far as a holly bush, where they could hide and still see and hear everything that was going on. Firestar began to speak again as they settled among the debris under the branches, their pelts brushing.
“That makes sense,” Firestar meowed in reply to Brambleclaw. “The cats who’ve known the Tribe longest should be the ones most willing to go.”
“It would be good to see Crowfeather and Tawnypelt again,” Talon murmured.
“This isn’t part of the warrior code,” Firestar went on. “I can’t ask any cat to go unless he or she already wants to—and of course I can’t speak for cats in other Clans. But I believe that helping the Tribe is the right thing to do.”
Lionpaw was puzzled. “If it’s the right thing, why isn’t it in the warrior code?”
“It is in the code,” Hollypaw insisted. “The warrior code says that we’re allowed to help other Clans in trouble. Firestar’s obviously thinking of the Tribe as another Clan.”
“That’s decided, then,” Firestar meowed. “Squirrelflight, you’ll go to WindClan to ask Crowfeather, and Brambleclaw can go to ShadowClan to ask Tawnypelt.”
“There’s no need to go to RiverClan.” Lionpaw’s pelt prickled with sympathy at the sorrow in Stormfur’s eyes.
“Feathertail was the chosen cat, and she died in the mountains. I went with her, so I shall stand for RiverClan now.”
The cats in the clearing were silent for a moment.
Squirrelflight rested her tail comfortingly on Stormfur’s shoulder.
“The Tribe will always honor Feathertail’s memory,” Night mewed softly.
Jaypaw twitched.
“This is a good plan.” Talon broke the silence at last.
“Stoneteller knows the five of you better than any other Clan cats, so he’s more likely to trust you.”
“What?” Brook’s ears flattened, and she turned her head to stare at her brother. “Stoneteller did send you to fetch us, didn’t he?”