Firestar blinked, not knowing what to say.
“All I hope for,” Whitestorm went on, “is that I’ll fight my hardest when the time comes.”
A shadow of uncertainty crossed his face, and Firestar realized that many cats would have joined the elders by Whitestorm’s age. It would be natural for him to fear that his fighting strength might fail.
“I know you will,” he agreed. “There’s no nobler warrior in the whole forest.”
Whitestorm held his gaze for a long moment, saying n o thing. Then he picked up his vole and padded into the camp.
Firestar stayed on the rock. Whitestorm’s words had disturbed him, and he was suddenly reluctant to go back into camp and settle in his shadowy den under the Highrock. He knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep.
After a few moments listening to the soft sounds of the gathering night, Firestar rose and headed back up the ravine. Faint red streaks showed where the sun had gone down, but overhead the sky was dark, and a few early warriors of StarClan looked down at him.
Firestar slipped silently through the undergrowth, and it was some time before he realized that his paws were taking him toward Sunningrocks. By the time he reached the edge of the trees it was completely dark. The rounded shapes of the rocks were outlined against the sky like the backs of crouching animals, with a shimmer of frost on the surface. Beyond them he could hear the soft bubble of the river over stones, and much closer a faint scuffling noise alerted him to the presence of prey.
Firestar’s mouth watered as he identified the scent of a mouse. Barely letting his paws touch the ground, he crept up on it and sprang. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was until his jaws closed on it, and he finished it in a few ravenous gulps.
Feeling better, Firestar sprang up to the top of the rock and found a place where he could sit and look down at the river. The dark water glittered with starlight. A breeze ruffled the surface, buffeting his fur and stirring the leafless forest around him.
Firestar turned his gaze upward to Silverpelt. The warriors of StarClan were watching—but they seemed cold and far away on this frosty night. Did they really care about what happened in the forest? Or had Bluestar been right all along, when she raged against them in her private war? For a moment Firestar caught a glimpse of his former leader’s terrible sense of isolation. He could not truly share it, for unlike Bluestar he had never lost faith in the warriors of his own Clan, but he was beginning to understand how she had come to doubt StarClan.
So many cats had already died in Tigerstar’s fierce struggle for power, and StarClan had not saved them. Firestar wondered if he was being foolish to think that his warrior ancestors would help him now.
But without StarClan, how could his Clan survive? Lifting his head, he yowled to the glory of Silverpelt: “Show me what I should do! Show me that you’re with us!”
No answer came from the white fire above him.
Painfully aware of how small and weak he was compared with the sky-spread StarClan, Firestar found a hollow in the rock that was sheltered from the chill breeze. He did not expect to sleep, but he was exhausted, and after a while his eyes closed.
He dreamed that he was seated in Fourtrees, his senses lulled by the warm air and sweet scents of greenleaf. The warriors of StarClan surrounded him on all four slopes, as they had done on his visit to the Moonstone when he received the nine lives of a Clan leader. He saw Spottedleaf and Yellowfang there, and all the warriors who were lost to ThunderClan, as well as others, newly added to the shining ranks: Stonefur and the young apprentice Gorsepaw.
In his dream Firestar sprang to his paws and confronted them. For the first time he did not feel in awe of his warrior ancestors. It seemed as if they had abandoned him, and the whole forest, to their terrifying fate. “You rule the forest!” hissed Firestar, letting all his anger at their betrayal spill out. “You sent the storm on the night of the Gathering, so that I couldn’t tell the Clans what Tigerstar had done. You allowed him to bring Scourge into the forest! Why are you doing this to us? Do you want us to be destroyed?”
A familiar figure stepped forward; Bluestar’s gray-blue fur shimmered in the starshine, and her eyes were blue fire. “Firestar, you don’t understand,” she meowed. “StarClan do not rule the forest.”
Firestar gaped at her, with nothing to say. Was everything wrong, then, that he had learned since he came into the forest as a kittypet, so long ago?
“StarClan cares for every cat in the forest,” Bluestar continued, “from the blind, helpless kit to the oldest elder lying in the sun. We watch over them. We send omens and dreams to the medicine cats. But the storm was no doing of ours. Scourge and Tigerstar wade through blood to power because that is their nature. We watch,” the former leader repeated, “but we do not interfere. If we did, would you truly be free? Firestar, you and every cat have the choice of whether or not to follow the warrior code. You are not the playthings of StarClan.”
“But—” Firestar tried to interrupt.
Bluestar ignored him. “And now we’re watching you. You are the cat we have chosen, Firestar. You are the fire who will save the Clan. No warrior of StarClan brought you here. You came of your own accord because you have a warrior’s spirit and the heart of a true Clan cat. Your faith in StarClan will give you the strength you need.”
As she spoke, a sense of peace crept over Firestar. He felt as though Bluestar’s strength and the strength of all the warriors of StarClan were flowing into him. Whatever happened w h en his Clan met BloodClan in battle, Firestar knew StarClan had not abandoned him.
Bluestar rested her muzzle on his head just as she had done on the day he was made a warrior. At her touch, the pale fire of the assembled warriors began to fade, and Firestar sank into the warm darkness of deep sleep. When he opened his eyes, it was to see the first light of dawn staining the sky.
Firestar rose and stretched, the memory of his dream filling his paws with energy. It was his duty as leader to save his Clan. And with the strength of StarClan to help him, he would find a way to do it.
CHAPTER 26
Firestar wondered if the rest of his Clan had noticed his absence, and if they were worrying about him. He knew that he should go back to the camp, but for a short time he stayed where he was on top of the rock, watching the dawn light spread above the forest.
The territory on the far side of the river was still and silent. Firestar tried to imagine how Leopardstar was coping. He guessed that the ShadowClan warriors who had fled into her territory would be unwelcome guests, with no prey to spare through the harsh moons of leaf-bare.
Then he sat bolt upright, fur bristling and ears pricked. Something had just occurred to him, and he couldn’t think why he hadn’t thought of it before. Maybe ThunderClan wasn’t as outnumbered as he feared. Across the river were the warriors of two Clans, and with Tigerstar dead none of them had any reason to support BloodClan.
“Mouse-brain!” he murmured aloud. There was a chance that all four forest Clans could join together to drive out the lethal cats that threatened every pawstep of their lives. Four would not become two—four would become one, but not in the way that Tigerstar had intended.
As the first glittering rays of the sun appeared above the horizon, Firestar leaped down from the rock and raced downstream toward the stepping-stones.
“Firestar! Firestar!” The yowl brought him up short just as he came in sight of the stones. He turned to see a ThunderClan patrol emerge from the trees behind him. Graystripe was in the lead, followed by Sandstorm, Cloudtail, and Bramblepaw.
“Where have you been?” Sandstorm mewed crossly as she picked her way toward him. “We’ve been worried sick.”
“Sorry.” Firestar gave her ear an apologetic lick. “I needed to think a few things out, that’s all.”
“Whitestorm said you would be okay,” Graystripe meowed. “And Cinderpelt didn’t seem worried. I got the feeling she knew more than she was telling.”
“Well, I’m here now,” Firestar mewed
briskly. “And I’m glad I’ve met you. I’m going over into RiverClan territory, and it’ll look better if I take some warriors with me.”
“RiverClan?” Cloudtail looked amazed. “What do you want with them?”
“I’m going to ask them to fight with us against Scourge tomorrow.”
The young warrior stared. “Are you out of your mind? Leopardstar will rip your fur off!”
“I don’t think she will. Now that Tigerstar’s dead, she won’t want BloodClan in the forest any more than we do.”
Cloudtail shrugged, and Graystripe was looking uncertain too, but Sandstorm’s green eyes glowed with delight.
“I knew you would think of a way to defeat BloodClan,” she purred. “Let’s go.”
Firestar turned to lead the way to the stepping-stones, but paused as Bramblepaw padded up to him.
“Firestar, can we talk to Tawnypaw if she’s there?” his apprentice asked hopefully. His voice quavered. “There might not be another chance.”