Firestar's Quest (21 page)

“No—”

“Why not?” Sandstorm twitched the tip of her tail. “You have to start somewhere.”

“I haven't decided whether I want to start at all.”

She tipped her head to one side. “So you're going to let Sky down?”

Firestar couldn't answer. He still felt it was too late to rebuild the lost Clan, but guilt swept over him when he thought of the pain Sky would suffer if he refused to try.

“I think we can do it,” Sandstorm went on. “But we can't
stay here forever. We have Clanmates of our own who need us, so we ought to start collecting the scattered SkyClan cats as soon as we can.”

She knew him so well, putting her paw on the reason for his doubts. How could he reconcile his duty to his own Clan with the task that Sky had set him? Which path must he choose if he was to stay faithful to the warrior code?

“Cherry and Boris are strong-willed cats,” he began. “If they're going to live by the warrior code, they need to adapt to it of their own accord. At the moment, they see nothing wrong with their lives. They have to choose the warrior code because they really believe it's the right way to live.”

Sandstorm gave him a doubtful look, clearly wondering if he was just making excuses. Firestar wasn't sure himself.

“Have some fresh-kill,” he mewed, patting the squirrel toward Sandstorm. “I'll think about what Sky said. Maybe it will be clearer in the morning.”

StarClan, show me the way! Show me how I can help this Clan!

“Firestar! Firestar!”

Firestar opened his eyes to see the dark shapes of two cats outlined against the light in the cave entrance. “For StarClan's sake, what's the matter?” he grumbled, scrambling to his paws.

As the two cats bounced into the cave he could make them out more clearly: Cherry and Boris, their ears pricked and their eyes bright.

“We want another hunting lesson!” Cherry announced.

“Please,” her brother added, giving her a nudge.

Sandstorm was stirring too, her green eyes no more than slits. She stretched her jaws in a huge yawn. “I thought all kittypets slept until sunhigh,” she grunted, crawling out of her nest and giving herself a shake.

“Sometimes we do,” meowed Boris. “But it was so exciting yesterday, and—”

“We had such fun!” Cherry interrupted. “You will take us with you today, won't you?”

Their enthusiasm surprised Firestar, but it pleased him too. A sudden pang of homesickness struck him: these two
young cats could easily have been ThunderClan apprentices, begging to be taken out on a hunting patrol.

“We can take one each,” Sandstorm suggested with another yawn. “We'll split up; too many cats together will scare off all the prey.”

“True,” Firestar agreed. “Especially here, where there's so little cover. You take Boris, and I'll have Cherry.”

The young tortoiseshell gave an excited little bounce. “I bet we catch more prey than you!” she boasted to her brother.

With Boris following her, Sandstorm left the cave and took the trail that led to the thickets at the top of the cliff. Firestar led Cherry in the other direction, down to the river. The sun had risen into a blue sky dotted with white clouds. Sunlight sparkled on the surface of the water, but the day was still cool. A fresh breeze rippled Firestar's fur.

“Are we going back to where we hunted yesterday?” Cherry asked excitedly.

Firestar paused halfway down the trail. They would find plenty of prey downstream, but he couldn't forget the sense of cold malice that he had felt there the day before. Even though he knew they couldn't afford to abandon a good hunting ground, he wasn't in any hurry to meet what lay behind those invisible watching eyes.

“No,” he decided. “We'll go upstream instead today.”

For a heartbeat Cherry looked as if she might argue, then obviously thought better of it. Firestar picked his way down to the tumbled rocks where the river welled out into the light. As he leaped the last tail-length to the ground, he set one paw
on a sharp chip of rock; pain stabbed through his pad like a claw. Letting out a hiss of anger, he paused to give the injured pad a quick lick. It wasn't bleeding, but it was sore enough to make him limp.

Cherry had bounded ahead, but when she realized Firestar wasn't with her, she came running back. “What's the matter?”

Firestar looked at her. “Aren't your pads sore?”

Cherry shook her head, and lifted one paw to show him. Her pads were tougher than his, with hard gray skin good for walking on rocks. Ruefully Firestar showed Cherry his own pads, the soft black skin scarred and rubbed raw from the rough ground.

Cherry blinked in surprise. “I never thought a cat's pads could get like that!”

“Remember, I don't come from around here,” Firestar explained. “I'm more used to walking on soft forest ground.” He wondered if this was the opportunity he had been waiting for. Should he tell Cherry about her ancestry? She would need to know if she was ever to become a SkyClan warrior.

He took a deep breath. “You remember that I told you how you inherited your ability to jump from your ancestors? Well, you inherited your strong paws from them too. Your ancestors were able to settle here because they had the right kind of bodies and the right skills.”

The young tortoiseshell stared at him, her eyes stretched wide. “Do you mean that? You're not just telling a story?”

“No, it's true.”

“How do you know so much about my ancestors?”

With a wave of his tail, Firestar led her into a patch of shade cast by a scrubby thorn tree at the foot of the cliff. When they were sitting side by side, their pelts brushing, he told her about the forest where he came from, and how four Clans of cats lived there.

“Once there were five Clans, but the fifth Clan, SkyClan, was sent away a long, long time ago. The cats came here and settled in the caves, but then they broke up and scattered. There's no SkyClan anymore, but some cats—like you and Boris—are descended from the original Clan.”

Cherry's whiskers quivered with excitement. “Wow!”

“Look.” Firestar pointed with his tail to the caves in the cliff face and the stony trails that connected them. “This was the SkyClan camp. The warriors lived in the cave where Sandstorm and I sleep. That cave there with the boulder at the entrance was the nursery—”

“Yes, I can see there's room for lots of cats,” Cherry interrupted. “But why are you telling me all this?”

“Because Sky believes—”

The young tortoiseshell blinked. “Sky? Who's Sky?”

“The cat you call Moony,” Firestar meowed. “Yes, the one you were so rude to. His real name is Sky. He is the last warrior of SkyClan—and he's your kin.”

Cherry's fur fluffed up and her eyes stretched wider than ever. “Our
kin
? But we're kittypets!”

“You and Sky are all descended from the cats of SkyClan. And that's why I have come here—to find the scattered Clan and rebuild it.”

“Starting with me and Boris?” Cherry's voice was a squeak of surprise.

Firestar suppressed a
mrrow
of amusement. “You'll have to make your own minds up about that,” he replied. “I'll show you as much of Clan life and the warrior code as I can, and then you must decide.”

For once Cherry was silent. Her gaze traveled up the cliff face where the caves were. Firestar wondered if she was trying to imagine what it would be like to live there with a whole Clan of cats.

And he realized that somehow, without consciously making the decision, he had accepted that he must stay.

 

They returned to the warriors' cave at sunhigh, laden with fresh-kill. The gorge basked in the heat like a huge, sandy-furred animal. Firestar winced as he set down his pads on the hot rock, but Cherry ran ahead without seeming to notice.

Sandstorm and Boris had already returned. They sat beside a small pile of fresh-kill; Boris was gulping down a sparrow.

Cherry pattered across the cave and dropped her prey on the pile. “Guess what, Boris? We're not kittypets at all! We're from SkyClan! They came from the forest where Firestar and Sandstorm live, all the way down the river, and they made their camp here. They—”

“Sandstorm told me too,” Boris interrupted. His amber eyes shone with excitement. “She says we can be SkyClan warriors if we want.”

“You'd make good warriors,” Sandstorm put in, with an approving glance at the young tabby tom. “Boris hunted really well today.”

“So did Cherry.” Firestar twitched his ears toward the fresh-kill pile. “Go on; help yourself.”

Cherry seized a mouse and began to devour it ravenously. Both cats seemed to have forgotten their worries about not being able to manage their Twoleg food as well.

“That tasted great!” Boris finished his sparrow and cleaned his whiskers with one paw. “Can we come again tomorrow?”

“Of course,” Sandstorm replied. “You'll have to, if you want to learn about the warrior code.”

“We do!” Cherry meowed enthusiastically.

“Just a moment.” Firestar padded across the cave and sat down in front of the two young cats. “You do realize that the warrior code isn't just about having fun? It's a way of life. You can't live with your housefolk and pop to the gorge whenever you feel like it. If you want to be warriors, this has to be your home.”

“Leave our housefolk?” Boris looked up from his sparrow, his eyes huge and serious. “I don't know…they're kind and they feed us, and they'd worry about us if we went away.”

“But if we're really SkyClan cats, then this is where we need to live,” Cherry argued. She gave her brother a nudge. “Come
on
! Don't you want to stay out as long as we want, even when it's dark? Wouldn't you rather eat mice and squirrels than that stupid kittypet food?”

Firestar exchanged a glance with Sandstorm. Cherry couldn't understand yet what it truly meant to be a warrior. In leaf-bare, with prey scarce and snow on the ground, she might have second thoughts.

“You don't have to make your minds up yet,” he went on; he felt he had to warn her, even though he didn't want to dampen her enthusiasm. “Living by the warrior code can be hard.”

“But you said we've got the right sort of bodies.” Cherry gave her brother another vigorous nudge, so he almost toppled over. “You know you want to do this, don't you?”

“I guess….” Boris was still thoughtful. Then he rose to his paws, a determined look in his eyes. “Well, I'll give it a try.”

“Me too!” Cherry sprang up, gulping down the last mouthful of prey. “Come on, Boris. We can practice stalking in our garden.”

Both young cats charged out of the cave. A heartbeat later, Cherry whisked back to mew, “Thanks! Bye!” and vanished again.

Sandstorm's green eyes glinted with amusement. “It looks as if we've found our first two apprentices.”

 

Firestar and Sandstorm slept through the heat of the day. When the shadows were gathering, they set off to explore farther up the gorge.

“Sky showed us the downstream borders of the territory,” Firestar meowed, “but he never told us how far it stretches in this direction.”

“We could ask him.”

Firestar glanced across to the other side of the gorge. They were just passing the huge boulder that hid the twisting path to Sky's den among the roots of the thorn tree. There was no sign of the old cat, and Firestar didn't want to go looking for him. He wanted more to report than a couple of possible apprentices before he talked to Sky again.

“Let's see what we can find for ourselves,” he mewed.

The gorge grew narrower until a cat could almost have leaped from one side to the other. The sky above their heads was still bright, but little sunlight penetrated between the soaring cliffs on either side. The ground beneath their paws was dry and sandy, and the air was still.

Suddenly Sandstorm checked. “Fox!”

At the same instant the reek flooded over Firestar, and he heard a drawn-out snarling from the shadows ahead. It was followed by the screech of a cat.

“Come on!” Firestar's paws flew over the ground, his sore pads forgotten.

Sandstorm raced beside him. Around the next curve in the gorge, they saw the fox. It stood stiff-legged, its lips drawn back to bare sharp fangs. Firestar guessed it was starving; its ribs stuck out from a thin, ragged pelt.

In front of the fox crouched a pale brown she-cat; her fur bristled defiantly, but her eyes were wide with fear. Behind her was a pile of sandy rocks surrounded by thick thorn-bushes. Firestar spotted a dark opening in the rocks, and heard the mewling of terrified kits.

“She's protecting her kits!” Sandstorm gasped.

Firestar let out a yowl and flung himself on the fox. It turned on him, its jaws snapping for his throat. Sandstorm dashed in and raked her claws down its other side before it spun around and batted her away with one paw. Spitting with rage, Firestar leaped for its shoulder, snagging his claws in its pelt and trying to bury his teeth in its neck.

Even though the fox was starving, it could still fight furiously, or perhaps hunger had maddened it. Lashing its head from side to side, it dropped to the ground, trying to crush Firestar beneath it. His muzzle was buried in its fur; its hot scent was all around him as he struggled to breathe. He felt the sharp pain of claws in his belly. With a massive heave he managed to break free and scramble to his paws. Blood from his wound spattered in the sand, and his legs felt unsteady.

Sandstorm attacked again, darting rapidly in and out to deal a swift blow before the fox could retaliate, in an effort to lead it away from the kits. The she-cat still crouched in the mouth of the den, protecting her litter. With another vicious snarl the fox lunged for Sandstorm and grabbed her by the hind leg. Sandstorm let out a shriek of pain. Firestar staggered toward them, but pain blurred his vision, and though he clawed at the fox's haunches he couldn't get any strength behind the blow.

StarClan, help us!

A yowl sounded from farther down the gorge. Another cat was racing to join the battle; it was the dark ginger tom who had been hunting among the bushes downstream.

Letting out another furious screech, the rogue sprang up onto the rocks above the mouth of the den. He clung there for a couple of heartbeats, his claws gripping the rough surface, then hurled himself down to land on the fox's head.

The fox let out a squeal of pain and released Sandstorm. She leaped up on three paws and flung herself back into the battle, scoring a deep gash down the fox's side. Firestar's head was clearing now; he bit down on the fox's tail and heard it shriek.

The rogue was balanced on the fox's head, the claws of all four paws sunk deep into its fur. Blood welled from the scratches and began to trickle into the creature's eyes. Suddenly it gave up and began to stumble away. The ginger tom jumped down, and Firestar aimed a final blow at the fox's haunches as it limped into the shadows.

Breathing heavily, the three cats gazed at one another. “Thanks,” Firestar panted. “That could have been nasty if you hadn't turned up.”

“Don't thank me.” The tomcat narrowed his eyes. “I don't like foxes any more than you do. You look a bit battered,” he added, his gaze flicking from Firestar to Sandstorm and back again.