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Her blue eyes glowed in the moonlight as she glanced at the leaders of ShadowClan and RiverClan. Nightstar turned away from her gaze, and Crookedstar dipped his head, his expression unreadable.
It had been ShadowClan, under Brokenstar’s cruel command, who had first driven WindClan away, so that they could extend their own hunting grounds. RiverClan had taken advantage of their exile to hunt in the deserted territory. But after Brokenstar’s exile, Bluestar had convinced the other leaders that the life of the forest depended on all four Clans, and that WindClan should return. Fireheart shivered as he remembered the long and difficult journey he had made with Graystripe to find WindClan and bring them home to their bleak upland territory.
That reminded him of how he meant to cross the uplands again to find Ravenpaw, and he shifted uneasily. He was not looking forward to the journey. At least WindClan are friendly toward ThunderClan, he thought. So we shouldn’t get attacked on the way.
“ThunderClan’s cats are also recovering,” Bluestar went on. “And since the last Gathering two of our apprentices have become warriors. They will now be known as Dustpelt and Sandstorm.”
Yowls of approval came up from the mass of cats below the Great Rock—mostly, Fireheart noticed, from ThunderClan and WindClan. He caught a glimpse of Sandstorm, sitting with her pale ginger head raised proudly.
The Gathering proceeded more peacefully now. Fireheart remembered the previous Gathering, when the leaders had accused one another of hunting outside their own territory, but no cat mentioned this now. A group of rogue cats, led by Brokentail, had been responsible, but the news that these rogues had attacked the ThunderClan camp, and had been soundly defeated, did not seem to have spread. Bluestar’s secret about blind Brokentail was safe.
When the meeting was over, Fireheart looked around for Graystripe. If they were going to see Ravenpaw, they needed to leave soon, while the other ThunderClan cats were still in the hollow, and would not notice which way they went.
Fireheart caught the eye of Swiftpaw, Longtail’s apprentice, sitting in the middle of a group of young cats from ShadowClan. Swiftpaw looked away guiltily. At any other time Fireheart might have called him over and told him to find his mentor for the journey home, but right now all he cared about was finding Graystripe immediately. He forgot Swiftpaw as soon as he saw his friend weaving his way toward him. There was no sign of Silverstream.
“There you are!” Graystripe called, his yellow eyes shining.
Fireheart could see that he had enjoyed the Gathering, though he doubted that his friend had listened to much of the talk. “Are you ready?” he meowed.
“To go and see Ravenpaw, you mean?”
“Not so loud!” Fireheart hissed, anxiously looking around.
“Yes, I’m ready,” Graystripe mewed, more softly. “I can’t say I’m looking forward to it. Still, anything to get Tigerclaw out of my fur—unless you’ve had a better idea?”
Fireheart shook his head. “This is the only way.”
The hollow was still full of cats, preparing to leave in four directions. No cat seemed to pay any attention to Fireheart and Graystripe until they had almost reached the slope that led to WindClan’s upland territory. Then a meow sounded behind them.
“Hey, Fireheart! Where are you going?”
It was Sandstorm.
“Er…” Fireheart shot a desperate glance at Graystripe. “We’re going the long way around,” he improvised quickly. “Mudclaw from WindClan told us about a warren of young rabbits just inside our territory. We thought we’d bring back some fresh-kill.” Suddenly alarmed by the thought that Sandstorm might offer to come with them, he added, “Tell Bluestar, will you, if she asks where we are?”
“Sure.” Sandstorm yawned, showing a mouthful of sharp white teeth. “I’ll think about you, dashing after rabbits, when I’m curled up in a nice warm nest!” She padded off with a flick of her tail.
Fireheart was relieved; he didn’t like lying to her. “Let’s go,” he meowed to Graystripe. “Before any other cat sees us.”
The two young warriors slid into the shelter of the bushes and crept up the slope. At the top, Fireheart paused for a moment, looking back to make sure they had not been followed. Then he and Graystripe bounded over the rim of the hollow and raced toward the moorland and, beyond that, the Twoleg farm.
This is the only way, Fireheart repeated to himself as he ran. He had to find out the truth. Not just for Redtail and Ravenpaw, but for the sake of the whole Clan. Tigerclaw had to be stopped…before he had the chance to kill again.
CHAPTER 2
Fireheart sniffed warily at a path where the snow had been trampled down by Twolegs. Lights shone from the Twoleg nest, and somewhere close by he could hear a dog barking. He remembered Barley telling him that the Twolegs let their dogs off the chains at night. He just hoped that he could locate Ravenpaw before he and Graystripe were noticed.
Graystripe slipped through the fence and padded up to him. The icy wind flattened his gray fur against his body. “Smell anything?” he asked.
Fireheart lifted his head to taste the air, and almost at once he caught the scent he was searching for, faint but familiar. Ravenpaw! “This way,” he mewed.
He crept along the path, the hard surface icy under his paws. Cautiously he followed the scent to a gap at the bottom of a barn door where the wood had rotted away.
He sniffed, drinking in the smell of hay and the strong, fresh scent of cats. “Ravenpaw?” he whispered. When there was no reply, he repeated, louder, “Ravenpaw?”
“Fireheart, is that you?” A surprised mew came from the darkness on the other side of the door.
“Ravenpaw!” Fireheart squeezed through the gap, thankful to be out of the wind. The scents of the barn flowed around him, and his mouth began to water as he detected the smell of mouse. The barn was dimly lit by moonlight filtering through a small window high under the roof. As his eyes adjusted, Fireheart saw another cat standing a few tail-lengths away.
His friend looked even sleeker and better fed than when Fireheart had seen him last. Fireheart realized how scrawny and bedraggled he must look in comparison.
Ravenpaw purred happily as he padded over to Fireheart and touched noses with him. “Welcome,” he mewed. “It’s good to see you.”
“It’s good to see you,” Graystripe meowed, pushing his way through the gap in the door after Fireheart.
“Did you get WindClan back to their camp safely?” Ravenpaw asked. Fireheart and Graystripe had stayed with him during their journey to bring WindClan home.
“Yes,” mewed Fireheart, “but it’s a long story. We can’t—”
“Well, what’s going on here?” Another cat’s meow interrupted them.
Fireheart spun around, flattening his ears, ready to fight if this newcomer was a threat. Then he recognized Barley, the black-and-white loner who had willingly shared his home with Ravenpaw. “Hi, Barley,” Fireheart meowed, calming down. “We need to talk to Ravenpaw.”
“So I see,” Barley mewed. “And it must be important, to bring you across the moors in this weather.”
“Yes, it is,” Fireheart agreed. He glanced at the former ThunderClan apprentice, the urgency of his mission prickling through his fur. “Ravenpaw, we haven’t any time to waste.”
Ravenpaw looked puzzled. “You know you can talk to me as much as you want.”
“I’ll leave you to it, then,” Barley offered. “Feel free to hunt. We’ve plenty of mice here.” He gave a friendly nod to the visiting cats, and squeezed out under the door.
“Hunt? Really?” meowed Graystripe. Fireheart felt sharp pangs of hunger grip his belly.
“Of course,” mewed Ravenpaw. “Look, why don’t you eat first? Then you can tell me why you’re here.”
“I know Tigerclaw killed Redtail,” Ravenpaw insisted. “I was there, and I saw him do it.”
The three cats were crouched in the hayloft of the Twoleg barn. Hunting had not taken very long. After the desparate struggle to
find prey in the snow-covered forest, the barn seemed to the hungry ThunderClan warriors to be overflowing with mice. Now Fireheart was warm, and his stomach felt comfortably full. He would have liked to curl up and sleep in the soft, fragrant hay, but he knew that he had to talk to Ravenpaw right away if he and Graystripe were to get back to camp before their absence was noticed. “Tell us everything you remember,” he urged, giving Ravenpaw an encouraging nod.
Ravenpaw stared ahead of him, his eyes dark as he journeyed back in his mind to the battle at the Sunningrocks. Fireheart could see his confidence beginning to ebb. The black cat was losing himself in his memories, reliving the fear and the burden of what he knew.
“I’d been wounded in the shoulder,” he began, “and Redtail—he was our deputy then, as you know—told me to hide in a crack in the rock until it was safe to get away. I was just going to make a dash for it when I saw Redtail attack a RiverClan cat. I think it was that gray warrior called Stonefur. Redtail knocked Stonefur off his paws, and looked as if he was about to sink in his claws for some serious injury.”
“Why didn’t he?” Graystripe put in.
“Oakheart came out of nowhere,” Ravenpaw explained. “He sank his teeth into Redtail’s scruff and pulled him off Stonefur.” His voice shook as the memories flooded through his mind’s eye. “Stonefur ran away.” The cat paused, unconsciously crouching down as if he were scared of something very close by.
