Millie twitched her shoulders. “I wasn’t comfortable in the tunnels at all,” she confessed. “I couldn’t stop thinking about the amount of rock above my head!”
“But you were brilliant,” Graystripe meowed, resting his tail on his mate’s shoulder. “I think we all felt the same. Fighting underground isn’t natural, but neither is Sol. What kind of cat would keep trying to befriend a Clan, only to betray them?” The gray warrior ducked under a hawthorn bough, and went on, “Sol did it with Blackstar and ShadowClan, and now he’s turning WindClan against ThunderClan. If he has a reason, I’d like to know what it is.”
Whitewing caught up in time to hear the gray warrior’s last few words. “Sol knew that the sun was going to vanish,” she pointed out, suppressing a shiver. “That suggests he has more power than any of us.”
Lionblaze snorted. No cat has the power to challenge me when it comes to a battle! His paws itched to take on Sol in single combat. He made me help him to escape from ThunderClan all those moons ago. The memory surged up inside Lionblaze, making him feel as if flames were scorching his pelt. I’d like to punish him for that. And for bringing more trouble to the Clans now, when we should be thinking about the Dark Forest.
A sudden thought struck Lionblaze, briefly freezing his paws to the ground. Was Sol sent by the Dark Forest cats to stir up trouble? Is this the beginning of the end?
Forcing himself to move on, he spotted Jayfeather a couple of tail-lengths away, slipping unerringly through the undergrowth. “I just had a horrible idea,” Lionblaze hissed. “Do you think Sol is helping the Dark Forest?”
Jayfeather paused, then shrugged. “I don’t know. But I wouldn’t be surprised.”
In the clearing around the Great Oak, the air was filled with tension, as if a greenleaf storm was about to break. Lionblaze noticed that the medicine cats especially seemed hostile, sitting loosely in a group underneath a pine tree, but not acknowledging one another. Every Clan is going it alone, he thought, twitching his whiskers apprehensively. It’s really bad when even the medicine cats are enemies.
Only Mothwing was speaking to her fellow medicine cats, but they barely replied. Lionblaze saw her flex her claws in exasperation and finally give up, sitting down beside her apprentice, Willowshine.
The rest of the cats settled down within their own Clans, without any of the mingling and gossiping that used to be part of a Gathering. Lionblaze watched carefully for any signs that cats knew one another in the Dark Forest. Once alerted, he spotted plenty of indications: Redwillow exchanging a glance with Breezepelt; Icewing of RiverClan nodding to Ivypool; the twitch of a tail as Tigerheart’s gaze met Hollowflight’s.
They know each other, Lionblaze thought, chilled. Better than any warrior should know a cat from another Clan. Then he gave his pelt a shake. Don’t get carried away, he told himself. Not every cat is being trained by unseen enemies.
He was distracted from thoughts of the Dark Forest when he noticed Crowfeather among the WindClan cats. The gray-black warrior had just spotted Hollyleaf, and he was staring as if his eyes were about to leap out of his head. Beside him, his mate, Nightcloud, followed his gaze and drew back her lips in a snarl.
Lionblaze realized that Hollyleaf had seen them, but she turned her back on them, staying close to her own Clanmates. Surprised murmurs spread around the clearing as more cats realized that she was there. One or two younger cats sprang to their paws to get a better view of her.
“This feels kind of weird,” Hollyleaf muttered, picking her way over to sit beside Lionblaze.
Lionblaze touched her ear with his nose. “You must have known it wouldn’t be easy.”
“It’s what kept me away for so long,” Hollyleaf admitted. “I can’t bear the whispers, the gossip…”
The compassion Lionblaze felt faded into a flash of annoyance. Jayfeather and I have had to put up with whispers and gossip for a very long time. But he realized that Hollyleaf felt genuinely uncomfortable, and pushed aside his resentment. Wrapping his tail around her shoulders, he stared straight ahead, ignoring the whispers.
The atmosphere seemed to be growing more and more hostile. Lionblaze was relieved when Mistystar rose to her paws on her branch of the Great Oak and announced that the Gathering would begin.
“We have had a few problems with Twolegs,” she reported. “As always in greenleaf, they come to fish in the lake and the streams around our camp. But we have managed to stay out of their way, and they didn’t catch enough fish to threaten our stocks of fresh-kill.”
“Huh!” Mistystar’s deputy, Reedwhisker, exclaimed. “Twolegs couldn’t catch a fish if it leaped out of the water and begged them.”
Mistystar gave her deputy an amused glance from glimmering blue eyes, and sat down again.
Firestar rose in his turn and advanced along his branch, carefully avoiding a cluster of oak leaves. “I have good news to report from ThunderClan,” he began, gazing down into the clearing. “Our warrior Hollyleaf has returned, after we believed she was dead for so many moons.”
Murmurs and gasps rose from the other Clans. “Where has she been?” some cat called out loudly. Beside him, Lionblaze felt Hollyleaf grow tense.
Firestar ignored the question. “We welcome her back,” he continued, turning his warm green gaze onto Hollyleaf. “We are glad to have her in ThunderClan once again, and I look forward to patrolling alongside her for many future moons.”
Lionblaze was relieved that Firestar had kept to his earlier intention of saying nothing about Sol or WindClan. But now he braced himself for cats from the other Clans to mention Ashfur and the time that Hollyleaf had disappeared, just after she revealed the terrible truth about Leafpool and Crowfeather at a Gathering.
But no cat asked the crucial questions, only murmured comments as they reacted to Firestar’s announcement.
“I’m surprised she showed her face after what she told us!”
“I bet Crowfeather isn’t pleased to see her.”
Nightcloud rose and lashed her tail, raking Hollyleaf with an icy gaze. “Does she think she’s welcome?” she snarled.
Firestar still refused to react to any of the comments; he dipped his head to Hollyleaf and retreated to sit down again farther back on his branch. Immediately Onestar took his place.
“This is surprising news, Firestar,” he mewed smoothly. “But I’m sure that any Clan leader would welcome back a trained and loyal warrior.”
Is he suggesting that Hollyleaf isn’t loyal? Lionblaze wondered, beginning to bristle.
“My patrols are as vigilant as ever,” Onestar continued. “We will do anything to defend our territory from rogues and strays.”
Lionblaze’s belly churned. Now he’s insulting all of us! He’s suggesting that ThunderClan is a bunch of rogues and strays! Glancing up at Firestar, half-hidden by the leaves of the Great Oak, Lionblaze could see that his Clan leader was struggling to keep his fur flat and his mouth closed.
With a triumphant glance at Firestar, Onestar sat down again. When Blackstar stood up, Lionblaze could see that he looked puzzled by the hostility between ThunderClan and WindClan, but after a moment’s hesitation he gave a tiny shrug and began to speak.
“Like RiverClan, we have had problems with Twolegs by the lake,” he began. “The warm weather brings them out like earthworms after rain. But they haven’t come into the forest far enough to bother us close to our camp.”