Fireheart shook his head. “No. We’ll let her rest. I’ll speak to the Clan.”
He bounded onto the Highrock in a single leap and called the familiar summons. Below him, the Clan cats padded drowsily from the wreckage of their dens, their tails and ears flicking in surprise when they saw Fireheart waiting where their leader usually stood to address them.
“We must rebuild the camp,” he began once they had settled in front of him. “I know it looks a mess now, but it is the height of greenleaf. The forest will grow back quickly, stronger because of the injuries it has suffered.” He blinked as he repeated Cinderpelt’s words.
“Why isn’t Bluestar telling us this?” Fireheart stiffened as Darkstripe challenged him from the back of the group.
“Bluestar is exhausted,” Fireheart told him. “Cinderpelt has given her poppy seeds so that she can rest and recover.” Anxious murmurs rippled through the cats below.
“The more she rests, the quicker she’ll recover,” Fireheart reassured them. “Just like the forest.”
“The forest is empty,” fretted Brindleface. “The prey has run away or died in the fire. What will we eat?” She glanced anxiously at Ashpaw and Fernpaw, her face shadowed with a mother’s concern even though her kits had left the nursery.
“The prey will come back,” Fireheart assured her. “We must hunt as usual, and if we need to go a little farther to find fresh-kill, then we will.” Murmurs of agreement rose from the clearing, and Fireheart began to feel a surge of confidence.
“Longtail, Mousefur, Thornpaw, and Dustpelt—you’ll take the dawn patrol.” The four cats looked up at Fireheart and nodded, unquestioning. “Swiftpaw, you can replace Mousefur on guard duty and make sure Bluestar is not disturbed. The rest of us will start work on the camp. Whitestorm will organize parties to gather materials. Darkstripe, you can supervise the rebuilding of the camp wall.”
“And how am I supposed to do that?” demanded Darkstripe. “The ferns are all burned away.”
“Use whatever you can,” answered Fireheart. “But make sure it is strong. We mustn’t forget Tigerclaw’s threat. We need to stay alert. All kits shall remain in camp. Apprentices will travel only with warriors.” Fireheart gazed down on the silent Clan. “Are we agreed?”
Loud mews rose from the crowd. “We are!” they called.
“Right,” Fireheart meowed. “Let’s start work!”
The cats began to move away from the Highrock, weaving among one another swiftly to gather around Whitestorm and Darkstripe for their instructions.
Fireheart jumped down from the Highrock and padded to Sandstorm. “We need to organize a burial party for Yellowfang.”
“You didn’t mention her death,” Sandstorm pointed out, her green eyes puzzled.
“Or Halftail’s!” Fireheart glanced down as Cloudpaw’s mew sounded beside him. The young apprentice sounded reproachful.
“The Clan knows they are dead,” Fireheart told them, feeling his fur prickle uncomfortably. “It is for Bluestar to honor them with the proper words. She can do it when she’s better.”
“And what if she doesn’t recover?” ventured Sandstorm.
“She will!” Fireheart snapped. Sandstorm winced visibly, and he cursed himself. She was only voicing the fears of all the Clan. If Bluestar had really turned her back on the rituals of StarClan, Yellowfang and Halftail would never hear the proper words to send them on their journey to Silverpelt.
Fireheart felt his confidence slide away. What if the forest didn’t recover before leaf-bare? What if they couldn’t find enough fresh-kill to feed the Clan? What if Tigerclaw attacked? “If Bluestar doesn’t get better, I don’t know what will happen,” he murmured.
Fire flared in Sandstorm’s eyes. “Bluestar made you her deputy. She’d expect you to know what to do!”
Her words hit Fireheart like stinging hail. “Put your claws away, Sandstorm!” he spat. “Can’t you see that I’m doing the best I can? Instead of criticizing me, go and organize the apprentices to bury Yellowfang.” He glared at Cloudpaw. “You can go too. And try to keep out of trouble for once,” he added.
He turned away from the pair of startled-looking cats and marched across the clearing. He knew he had been unfair, but they had asked a question he wasn’t ready to answer, a question so frightening that he couldn’t begin to think what it might mean.
What if Bluestar never recovered?
Chapter 29
The sky stayed gray and cloudy over the next few days, but the showers didn’t hamper the rebuilding of the camp. In fact Fireheart welcomed the cleansing rain that would wash the ash into the soil and help the forest to recover.
But this morning the sun shone high overhead, the clouds billowing away over the horizon. The sky will be clear for tonight’s Gathering, Fireheart thought ruefully, wishing for once that the moon could be hidden so that the Gathering could not be held. Bluestar was still a long way from being her former self, emerging from her den only when Whitestorm persuaded her to come and see how the repairs were coming along. The ThunderClan leader had nodded blankly at the cats as they worked before limping back to the security of her nest. Fireheart wondered if she even remembered that the Gathering was tonight. Perhaps he should go and find out.
He padded around the edge of the clearing, feeling a ripple of pride at the work the Clan had done so far. The camp was already regaining some of its former shape. The trunk of the elders’ oak was blackened but still in one piece, although its maze of branches had burned away to nothing. The bramble nursery, which had been stripped of its protective leaves down to a tangle of stems, had been carefully patched with leafy twigs fetched from less damaged parts of the forest. And the camp wall had been shored up with the strongest branches the cats could find, although there was little they could do to replace the thick barrier of ferns that used to surround the camp. For that they would have to wait for the forest to grow again.
Fireheart heard a scratching behind the nursery. Through the patchy walls, he saw a familiar pelt of white fur. “Cloudpaw!” he called.
The apprentice emerged from behind the bramble bush, his jaws crammed with twigs that he’d been weaving through the nursery walls. Fireheart blinked in welcome. He hadn’t been the only cat to notice how hard Cloudpaw had worked these past few days to fix the camp. There had been no more questions about the white apprentice’s commitment to the Clan. Fireheart wondered if it had taken something as severe as a fire for Cloudpaw to discover the true meaning of loyalty. The young cat stood in front of him now without speaking, his fur flattened and blotchy with soot and mud, his eyes strained and exhausted.
“Go and rest,” Fireheart ordered gently. “You’ve earned it.”
Cloudpaw dropped his bundle of twigs. “Let me finish these first.”
“You can finish them later.”
“But I’ve only got a few left to do,” Cloudpaw argued.
“You look dead on your paws,” Fireheart insisted. “Go on.”
“Yes, Fireheart.” He turned to leave and glanced forlornly at the fallen oak where Smallear sat with Dappletail and One-Eye. “The elders’ den seems so empty,” he mewed.
“Patchpelt and Halftail are with StarClan now,” Fireheart reminded him. “They’ll be watching you tonight from Silverpelt.” A wave of regret tugged at his belly as he remembered that Bluestar had refused to conduct the proper ceremony for her dead Clanmates.
“I will not place them in the paws of StarClan,” she had told him bitterly. “Our warrior ancestors do not deserve the company of ThunderClan cats.” And so Whitestorm had soothed the anxious Clan by speaking the words that would send Yellowfang and Halftail safely to their old friends in Silverpelt, just as he had done for Patchpelt at the RiverClan camp.