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Darkstripe bowed his head in shame. His leader’s eyes narrowed coldly as he stared at the two young cats. They were huddled together, trembling with shock. They hardly seemed to realize that their own lives were hanging by a hair.
“No,” Tigerstar meowed at last. “For now I will let them live. They may be useful to me alive.”
Firestar flashed a look at Graystripe, who returned his glance with mingled relief and apprehension in his eyes.
Tigerstar summoned Jaggedtooth. “Take the apprentices back to their prison.”
The ShadowClan warrior dipped his head and herded the two stunned cats away through the reeds. Graystripe’s hungry gaze followed them out of sight.
“The meeting is at an end,” Tigerstar declared.
At once the cats in the clearing began to slip away. Tigerstar leaped down from the Bonehill and vanished into the reeds, flanked by Blackfoot and Darkstripe. Eventually only Leopardstar was left. She padded forward until she stood over the broken body of her former deputy. Slowly she bent her head and nosed Stonefur’s torn gray pelt. If she meowed a last farewell, Firestar did not hear it, and after a moment she turned and followed Tigerstar through the reeds.
“Now!” Graystripe sprang to his paws. “Firestar, we’ve got to rescue my kits.”
“Yes, but don’t go rushing off,” Firestar warned him. “We have to make sure all the cats have gone.”
His friend’s body was quivering with suppressed tension. “I don’t care!” he spat. “If they try to stop us, I’ll rip them all apart.”
“The kits are safe for the moment,” murmured Ravenpaw. “There’s no need to take risks.”
Firestar cautiously raised his head above the level of the reeds. By now it was quite dark; the only light came from Silverpelt and a pale glow from the moon low in the sky. The ShadowClan and RiverClan scents were rapidly fading. The only sound was the dry rustle of wind in the reeds.
Crouching down again, Firestar murmured, “They’ve gone for now. This is our chance. We’ve got to find where they’re keeping the apprentices, and—”
“And get them away,” Graystripe interrupted. “Whatever it takes.”
Firestar nodded. “Ravenpaw, are you up for it? It will be dangerous.”
The loner’s eyes widened. “You think I’d leave, after we saw that? No way. I’m with you, Firestar.”
“Good.” Firestar blinked in gratitude. “I thought you would be.”
Beckoning his two friends with his tail, he led the way into the clearing, his pawsteps growing hesitant as he left the shelter of the reeds. He knew what he was doing was against the warrior code, but what Tigerstar had done had left him no alternative. He did not know how his warrior ancestors could have watched the slaughter of Stonefur without doing anything to save him.
Creeping close to the ground, the three cats reached the stream where rotting fresh-kill lay strewn along the bank. In the midst of his cold fury, Firestar spared a moment to be angry at the waste of prey in such a hard season.
“Look at that!” he hissed.
“But we could roll in it,” Ravenpaw suggested. “It’ll disguise our scent.”
Firestar gave him a brief nod, approval calming his anger. Ravenpaw was thinking like a warrior. Firestar crouched down and pressed his fur into the decaying carcass of a rabbit. Graystripe and Ravenpaw followed. The gray warrior’s eyes were like chips of yellow flint.
When all three cats were thoroughly covered with the scent of crowfood, Firestar headed into the reeds where he had seen Jaggedtooth disappear with the two apprentices. There was a narrow path along the frozen mud, as if cats regularly came and went that way. All Firestar’s senses were alert.
As they headed away from the river toward the farmland on the other side of RiverClan territory, the reeds thinned out and the ground rose. When Firestar and his friends came to the edge of the cover, they saw a grassy slope in front of them with an occasional clump of gorse and hawthorn. About halfway up a dark hole yawned in the hillside. Jaggedtooth was crouched outside it.
“There are pawprints leading into that hole,” Firestar murmured.
Graystripe lifted his muzzle to taste the air and let out a faint sound of disgust. “Sick cats,” he meowed quietly. “You’re right, Firestar; this is the place.” He bared his teeth. “Jaggedtooth is mine.”
“No.” Firestar’s tail whipped out, signaling his friend to stay where he was. “We can’t afford a fight. The noise would bring every cat in the territory. We have to get rid of him another way.”
“I can do that.” Ravenpaw’s paws anxiously kneaded the ground, but his expression was determined. “He’ll recognize you two, but he doesn’t know me.”
Firestar hesitated, then nodded. “How will you do it?”
“I’ve got a plan.” Ravenpaw’s eyes shone with anticipation, and Firestar realized that the loner was almost relishing the danger, as if he had missed having a chance to use his warrior skills. “Don’t worry; it’ll be fine,” the black cat assured him.
Straightening up, he strolled out of the reeds and up the slope, his head and tail held high. Jaggedtooth got up and paced forward to meet him, the tabby fur on his neck bristling.
Firestar gathered himself, ready to spring if the ShadowClan warrior attacked. But though Jaggedtooth looked aggressive, he did nothing more than give Ravenpaw a suspicious sniff.
“I don’t know you,” he growled. “Who are you and what do you want?”
“Think you know all the RiverClan cats, do you?” Ravenpaw inquired coolly. “I’ve got a message from Tigerstar.”
Jaggedtooth grunted and his whiskers twitched as he sniffed Ravenpaw again. “Great StarClan, you stink!”
“You don’t smell so pleasan
t yourself,” Ravenpaw retorted. “Do you want this message or don’t you?”
Firestar and Graystripe exchanged a glance as Jaggedtooth hesitated. Firestar felt his heart thud painfully against his ribs.
“Go on, then,” the ShadowClan warrior meowed at last.
“Tigerstar wants you to go to him at once,” mewed Ravenpaw. “He sent me to take your place guarding the prisoners.”
“What?” Jaggedtooth lashed his tail in disbelief. “Only ShadowClan guards the prisoners. You RiverClan cats are all too soft. Why did Tigerstar send you and not one of our own Clan?”
Firestar flinched. Ravenpaw had made a potentially fatal mistake.
But the loner didn’t seem bothered. Turning away, he meowed, “I thought we were supposed to be all one Clan now. But suit yourself. I’ll tell Tigerstar you wouldn’t come.”
“No, wait.” Jaggedtooth twitched his ears. “I didn’t say that. If Tigerstar wants me…Where is he, then?”
“Over there.” Ravenpaw pointed with his tail in the direction of the RiverClan camp. “He had Darkstripe and Blackfoot with him.”
Jaggedtooth made up his mind. “Right,” he muttered. “But you stay out here till I get back. If I smell your stink inside the hole I’ll rip your fur off.”
He headed down the slope. Ravenpaw watched him go, then padded up and sat down just outside the hole. Firestar and Graystripe crouched in the reeds as Jaggedtooth passed within a couple of tail-lengths of them. He was hurrying now, and did not even stop to scent the air as he vanished down the path.
Once he had gone, Firestar and Graystripe bounded across the open ground to join Ravenpaw. Graystripe paused briefly to sniff and meowed, “Yes! They’re in there!” before he vanished inside the hole.
Firestar stopped in front of Ravenpaw. “Well done!”
Ravenpaw licked his paw and drew it over his ear two or three times to hide his embarrassment. “It was easy. He’s such a stupid furball.”
“Yes, but he’ll know something’s up as soon as he finds Tigerstar,” Firestar pointed out. “Keep watch, and call out if you see any cat.” With a last glance behind him, he plunged into the hole after Graystripe.
