“Very well, then,” Firestar responded wearily. “If you’re convinced that Dovepaw is right, I’ll let you look into it. There doesn’t seem to be anything else we can do to help. But I still won’t allow a patrol of ThunderClan cats to travel upstream alone. You would never reach the blockage, even if it exists.”
“But—” Lionblaze began.
“I said alone,” Firestar interrupted. “If ShadowClan would join us, the mission would be a lot less dangerous. In fact, it would be best if we could form an expedition from all the Clans. Four Clans working together would be much stronger than one patrol alone.”
“Would they agree?” Lionblaze asked doubtfully.
“We’re all suffering from the lack of water.” Firestar sounded more energetic now, as if the plan was renewing his strength. “Why shouldn’t we all do something about it?”
Lionblaze shrugged. He found it hard to imagine Blackstar, Leopardstar, and Onestar agreeing to send warriors off into the unknown when life was so tough around the lake. But maybe they were desperate enough to consider it. And if it’s the only way to ease the drought, he decided, I’m sure I won’t be the only cat who’s up for it.
“I will propose it at tomorrow’s Gathering,” Firestar mewed decisively.
When Lionblaze climbed down the tumbled rocks into the clearing, he found Dovepaw and Jayfeather waiting anxiously for him.
“I heard you in there with Firestar!” Dovepaw whispered. “What did he say?”
“If you heard us, don’t you know what he said?” Lionblaze asked, disconcerted to realize that his apprentice might have been listening to everything that he and Firestar had discussed.
“I don’t eavesdrop!” Dovepaw twitched her whiskers indignantly. “That would be wrong.”
“So what did he say?” Jayfeather prompted.
“He wants to send a patrol from all four Clans upstream, to see if we can unblock the stream,” Lionblaze replied. “He’s going to mention it at the Gathering tomorrow night.”
“All the Clans?” Dovepaw’s eyes stretched wide with dismay. “But—but what if they don’t believe me?”
“Don’t worry.” Lionblaze rested his tail on his apprentice’s shoulder. “Firestar isn’t going to say it was your idea.”
“He’ll probably tell the other Clans that we should explore the area upstream, to find out where the water has gone.” To Lionblaze’s surprise, Jayfeather’s eyes were gleaming.
Lionblaze couldn’t share his brother’s enthusiasm. Forcing the Clans to cooperate with one another seemed likely to cause more trouble than he was prepared to deal with. “You sound very keen on this idea,” he commented.
“Of course.” Jayfeather waved his tail. “All the Clans are suffering. It makes sense that we should work together to solve the problem.”
Chapter 9
Lionblaze gazed up at the full moon hanging above the empty bowl of the lake. It outlined the WindClan cats in silver as they headed around the shore on their way to the Gathering. They looked thinner than ever, and they trudged along with their heads down and their tails drooping as if they were too tired to go on putting one paw in front of another.
Lionblaze looked around at his Clanmates and realized they were just as exhausted. Only Dovepaw seemed to have any energy. Her fur was fluffed up with excitement, and every so often she would run on a few paces, then wait for Cinderheart and Lionblaze to catch up. Her ears were pricked and her whiskers quivering. Lionblaze wondered what she could sense, whether she was already listening to murmurs from the island.
There was no need to use the fallen tree to cross the lake to the island. There was no water left in this narrow channel; the lake bottom was exposed to the stars, tumbled with pebbles and bits of wood. Firestar led the way down, jumping gracefully through the scattered debris, his paws silent on the stones.
“I don’t know why we came all this way around,” Foxleap muttered. “We could have just walked straight across the lake from our own territory.
“I suppose so,” Cinderheart agreed. “But we’ve always done it this way. Somehow it doesn’t seem respectful to change.”
Foxleap shrugged with a tired sigh.
Moonlight showed the lake robbed of all its old magnificence, reduced to a bowl of dust and stones. It felt strange to Lionblaze to be padding over an arid waste of pebbles where deep water had once rippled. Above him, the fallen tree didn’t seem so high, either, as when he had to balance carefully on it with the dark lake lapping hungrily below.
The undergrowth on the island was brown and brittle all the way down to the shore. ThunderClan and WindClan mingled together as they padded quietly through it toward the clearing. Lionblaze spotted the WindClan deputy, Ashfoot, pacing beside Crowfeather; the deputy was Crowfeather’s mother, Lionblaze remembered, with a sudden shock at the realization that he had more kin in WindClan.
He dropped back, hoping that Ashfoot and Crowfeather hadn’t noticed him, and found himself walking just behind Squirrelflight and Thornclaw. Cinderheart was beside him, with Birchfall on his other side and Ivypaw and Dovepaw following. Together they pushed through the bushes that surrounded the clearing and emerged in the cold starlight, circled by pine trees. ShadowClan had already arrived. They greeted ThunderClan and WindClan with subdued nods. The shadows that flitted over the ground were as light and frail as fallen leaves; was it Lionblaze’s imagination, or were the cats really making less noise with their half-starved paws?
While Firestar and Onestar were climbing the tree to join Blackstar, Lionblaze spotted Jayfeather padding over to touch noses with Littlecloud, the ShadowClan medicine cat. Nearby, Littlecloud’s apprentice, Flametail, was sitting with his littermates Tigerheart and Dawnpelt.
Tigerheart sprang to his paws as soon as he saw Lionblaze. “Hi!” he called. “How are you doing?”
“Fine, thanks,” Lionblaze replied curtly. As he turned away, he tried to ignore the hurt in the younger cat’s eyes.
Moons ago, when Tigerheart and his littermates were newly apprenticed, their mother, Tawnypelt, had brought them to ThunderClan because a loner named Sol had taken over ShadowClan. Tawnypelt had been born and raised in ThunderClan; she and her kits had been welcomed, though cautiously, but had gone back to ShadowClan as soon as Sol had been driven out.
I thought they were my kin then, Lionblaze reflected sadly. Brambleclaw is Tawnypelt’s brother… I liked them, especially Tigerheart. But now…
“I wish they would leave me alone,” he muttered aloud to Cinderheart. “They know I’m not their kin.”
Cinderheart’s blue eyes softened. “You can be friends without being kin,” she pointed out. “And isn’t it a good thing to have friends in another Clan instead of enemies?”
How could Cinderheart understand? She hasn’t been betrayed by her parents. Lionblaze’s gaze rested on Tigerheart and Dawnpelt. I wonder if Tigerstar has visited them in their dreams, like he used to visit me in mine? Tigerstar was Brambleclaw and Tawnypelt’s father. He had been a warrior and deputy of ThunderClan, but he had been banished by Bluestar for plotting her death and became leader of ShadowClan. He had dreamed of ruling over all four Clans when he was alive, and he nursed that dream still, even though he now walked in the Dark Forest, with other cats who were denied entry to StarClan. He had come to Lionblaze at night, preying on their shared blood, to train him in the art of merciless fighting and brutal ambition. Lionblaze had learned everything eagerly, but as soon as he found out that Tigerstar was not his kin, he realized that the dead warrior had been using him for his own dark purposes.