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“The dogs were tied when we passed them earlier!”
“The Twoleg unties them at night. They guard his nest,” Barley panted, wheezing under the weight of Tigerclaw’s massive paws.
“Tigerclaw! Bluestar is injured!” Firepaw burst out.
Tigerclaw released Barley at once. Barley got up and shook the dust from his coat. The great warrior bounded over to Bluestar’s side and sniffed her wounds.
“Is there anything we can do?” Firepaw asked.
“She is in the hands of StarClan now,” meowed Tigerclaw solemnly, stepping back.
Firepaw opened his eyes wide with shock. Did Tigerclaw mean that Bluestar was dead? His fur prickled as he looked down at his leader. Is this what the spirits at the Moonstone had warned her about?
Graypaw and Ravenpaw had joined them and stood beside their leader, horror-struck. Barley hung back, craning his neck to see what was happening.
Bluestar’s eyes were open but glazed, and her gray body lay motionless. She didn’t even appear to be breathing.
“Is she dead?” whispered Ravenpaw.
“I don’t know. We must wait and see,” replied Tigerclaw.
The five cats waited in silence as the sun began to climb into the sky. Firepaw found himself wordlessly begging StarClan to protect his leader, to send her back to them.
Then Bluestar stirred. The end of her tail twitched and she lifted her head.
“Bluestar?” mewed Firepaw, his voice trembling.
“It’s all right,” Bluestar rasped. “I am still here. I have lost a life, but it wasn’t my ninth.”
Joy flooded Firepaw. He looked at Tigerclaw, expecting to see relief on his face, but the dark warrior was expressionless.
“Right,” Tigerclaw meowed in a commanding tone. “Ravenpaw, fetch cobwebs for Bluestar’s wounds. Graypaw, find marigold or horsetail.” The two apprentices dashed away. “Barley, I think you should leave us now.”
Firepaw looked over to the loner who had fought so bravely to help them. He wanted to thank him, but under Tigerclaw’s fierce gaze, he didn’t dare. Instead of speaking, Firepaw gave Barley a tiny nod. Barley seemed to understand, for he nodded in return and left without another word.
Bluestar was still lying on the dirt track. “Is everyone all right?” she asked hoarsely.
Tigerclaw nodded.
Ravenpaw came charging back, his left forepaw wrapped in a thick wad of cobwebs. “Here,” he mewed.
“Shall I put them on her wounds?” Firepaw asked Tigerclaw. “Yellowfang showed me how.”
“Very well,” agreed Tigerclaw. He walked away and scanned the ditch again, his ears pricked for more rats.
Firepaw peeled a clump of cobwebs from Ravenpaw’s paw and began to press them firmly onto Bluestar’s wounds.
She winced under his touch. “If it had not been for Tigerclaw, those rats would have eaten me alive,” she murmured, her voice tight with pain.
“It wasn’t Tigerclaw who saved you. It was Barley,” Firepaw whispered as he took some more cobwebs from Ravenpaw.
“Barley?” Bluestar sounded surprised. “Is he here?”
“Tigerclaw sent him away,” Firepaw answered quietly. “He thinks Barley sent us into a trap.”
“And what do you think?” Bluestar rasped.
Firepaw didn’t look up, but concentrated on pressing the last bit of cobweb into place. “Barley is a loner. What would he gain by sending us into a trap only to rescue us from it?” he mewed eventually.
Bluestar laid down her head and closed her eyes again.
Graypaw returned with some horsetail. Firepaw chewed the leaves and spat the juice onto Bluestar’s wounds. He knew it would help stop infection, but he still wished Spottedleaf were with him, with her knowledge of and confidence in healing.
“We should rest here while Bluestar recovers,” announced Tigerclaw, padding up.
“No,” Bluestar insisted. “We must return to the camp.” Narrowing her eyes in pain, she struggled to her paws. “Let’s keep going.”
The ThunderClan leader limped along the edge of the field. Tigerclaw walked at her side, his face dark with unknowable thoughts. The apprentices exchanged anxious glances, and then followed.
“It is a long time since I saw you lose a life, Bluestar.” Firepaw overheard Tigerclaw’s whispered words. “How many have you lost now?”
Firepaw couldn’t help feeling surprised at Tigerclaw’s open curiosity.
“That was my fifth,” replied Bluestar quietly.
Firepaw strained his ears, but Tigerclaw did not reply. He padded on, lost in thought.
CHAPTER 17
Sunhigh came and went as the cats made their way through WindClan’s old hunting grounds. Their heavy silence showed that they were still sore after the rat fight. Firepaw felt scratched and bitten all over. He could see Graypaw was limping, occasionally hopping on three legs to protect his injured back leg. But it was Bluestar who worried him most. Her pace was even slower now, but she refused to stop and rest. The grim look on her face, clouded by pain, told Firepaw how much she wanted to reach the ThunderClan camp.
“Don’t worry about ShadowClan warriors,” she meowed through gritted teeth as Tigerclaw paused to sniff the air. “You won’t find any here today.”
How could she be so sure? Firepaw wondered.
They picked their way carefully down the steep, rocky hillside that led to Fourtrees and joined the familiar trail that led home. It was late afternoon, and Firepaw began to think longingly of his nest, and a plump helping of fresh-kill.
“I can still smell the stench of ShadowClan,” Graypaw muttered to Firepaw as they trekked through ThunderClan’s hunting grounds.
“Perhaps the breeze has carried it down from WindClan’s territory,” Firepaw suggested. He could smell it too, and his whiskers were trembling.
Suddenly Ravenpaw stopped. “Can you hear that?” he mewed in a hushed voice.
Firepaw strained his ears. At first he heard only the familiar sounds of the forest—leaves rustling, a pigeon calling. Then his blood ran cold. In the distance he could hear battle-hungry yowls, and the shrill squeal of terrified kits.
“Quick!” Bluestar howled. “It is as StarClan warned me. Our camp is being attacked!” She tried to leap forward, but stumbled. She pushed herself up and limped onward.
Tigerclaw and Firepaw pelted forward side by side. Graypaw and Ravenpaw followed, their tail fur bristled to twice its usual size. Firepaw forgot his soreness as he charged toward the camp. His only concern was to protect the Clan.
The sounds of battle grew louder and louder as he neared the camp entrance, and the stench of ShadowClan filled his nostrils. He was right behind Tigerclaw as the cats dashed through the tunnel and into the clearing.
They were met by a frenzy of fighting, ThunderClan cats battling furiously with ShadowClan warriors. The kits were out of sight, and Firepaw hoped they were safely hidden in the nursery. He guessed the weakest elders would be sheltering inside the hollow trunk of their fallen tree.
Every corner of the camp seemed alive with warriors. Firepaw could see Frostfur and Goldenflower clawing and biting at a huge gray tom. Even the young tabby queen Brindleface was fighting, though she was very close to kitting. Darkstripe was locked in a fierce tussle with a black warrior. Three of the elders, Smallear, Patchpelt, and One-eye, were nipping bravely at a tortoiseshell that fought with twice their speed and ferocity.
The returning cats hurled themsel
ves into the battle. Firepaw caught hold of a tabby warrior queen, much larger than him, and sank his teeth deep into her leg. She yowled with pain and turned on him, lashing out with sharp claws and lunging at his neck with her teeth bared. He twisted and ducked to avoid her bite. She couldn’t match his speed, and he managed to grasp her from behind and pull her down into the dirt. With his strong hind legs he clawed at her back till she squealed and struggled away from him, running headlong into the thick undergrowth that surrounded the camp.
Firepaw glanced around to see that Bluestar had arrived. Despite her injuries, she was fighting another tabby. Firepaw had never seen her fight before, but even wounded, she was a powerful opponent. Her victim struggled to escape but she held him tightly and clawed him so fiercely that Firepaw knew he would bear the scars of this fight for many moons.
Then he saw a white ShadowClan cat with jet-black paws dragging a ThunderClan elder away from the nursery. Firepaw remembered those unusual dark paws from the Gathering. Blackfoot! The ShadowClan deputy made quick work of killing the elder, who had been guarding the kits, and began to reach into the bramble nest with one massive paw. The kits were squealing and mewling, undefended now as their mothers wrestled with other ShadowClan warriors in the clearing.
Firepaw prepared to spring toward the nursery, but a claw sliced painfully down his side and he whipped around to see a scrawny tortoiseshell leap on top of him. As he slammed into the ground, he tried to call out to the other ThunderClan cats that the kits were in danger. Fighting with all his strength to escape the tortoiseshell’s grip, he wrenched his head around so he could see the bramble nest.
Blackfoot had scooped two kits from their bedding already and was reaching in for a third.
Firepaw saw no more as the tortoiseshell raked his belly with her hind claws. Firepaw scrabbled onto his feet and crouched low, as if in defeat. The trick had worked before and it worked now. As the tortoiseshell gripped him triumphantly and began to sink her teeth into Firepaw’s neck, Firepaw sprang upward as hard as he could and flung the warrior away. He spun around and was on the winded warrior in an instant. This time he showed no mercy, plunging his teeth deep into the cat’s shoulder. The bite sent the she-cat howling into the undergrowth.
