A Dangerous Path (Warriors 4)

“Oh, no,” whispered Sandstorm, as she drew herself up to crouch on the trunk beside Fireheart.

“Brightpaw!” yowled Cloudtail. Without waiting for Fireheart’s order he launched himself across the clearing toward her.

Fireheart tensed, waiting for whatever had hunted down these apprentices to emerge from the trees and attack, but nothing stirred. Feeling as if his legs hardly belonged to him, he sprang down and stumbled across to Swiftpaw.

The apprentice lay on his side, his legs splayed out. His black-and-white fur was torn, and his body was covered with dreadful wounds, ripped by teeth far bigger than any cat’s. His jaws still snarled and his eyes glared. He was dead, and Fireheart could see that he had died fighting.

“Great StarClan, what did this to him?” he whispered. For moons he had been afraid, and now it was far worse than he ever could have imagined. Swiftpaw had been slaughtered like prey. The hunters in the forest had become the hunted. Something had happened in the forest, the balance of life had changed, and for a moment Fireheart felt the ground beneath his paws shift.

Graystripe and Sandstorm stared down at Swiftpaw’s body, too stunned to reply. Fireheart knew that Graystripe was remembering another bloodstained body, all his grief for Silverstream reawakening.

“What a waste,” Fireheart murmured sadly. “If only Bluestar had made him a warrior. If only I’d let him fight, instead of sending him—”

He was interrupted by a screech from Cloudtail. “Fireheart! Fireheart, Brightpaw isn’t dead!”

Fireheart spun around and raced across the clearing to crouch beside Brightpaw. Her white-and-ginger fur, which she had always kept so neatly groomed, was spiky with drying blood. On one side of her face the fur was torn away, and there was blood where her eye should have been. One ear had been shredded, and there were huge claw marks scored across her muzzle.

Fireheart heard a choking sound as Sandstorm came up behind him. “No…” the ginger she-cat whispered. “Oh, StarClan, no!”

At first Fireheart thought Cloudtail was wrong and that Brightpaw must be dead, until he saw the very faint rise and fall of her breathing, and the blood bubbling in her nostrils. “Fetch Cinderpelt,” he ordered.

Sandstorm dashed off while Graystripe stood beside Swiftpaw’s body, all his senses alert in case their fearsome enemy should return. Fireheart went on looking down at the injured Brightpaw. Somehow his fear had drained away. He felt nothing but an icy calm, and a stern, ferocious determination to avenge the young apprentices. He asked StarClan to be with him and to give him the strength to unleash all their fury on whatever had dared to wreak such havoc.

Cloudtail curled himself close to the motionless apprentice and began licking her face and the fur around her ears. “Don’t die, Brightpaw,” he begged. “I’m with you now. Cinderpelt’s coming. Hold on just a bit longer.”

Fireheart had never heard him sound so distraught. He hoped the white cat would not have to suffer the pain he had felt when Spottedleaf died, or Graystripe’s when he lost Silverstream.

One of Brightpaw’s ears twitched under Cloudtail’s gentle tongue. Her remaining eye opened a slit and closed again.

“Brightpaw.” Fireheart leaned close to her and spoke urgently. “Brightpaw, can you tell us what did this to you?”

Brightpaw’s eye opened wider and she fixed a cloudy gaze on Fireheart.

“What happened?” he repeated. “What did this?”

A thin wailing came from Brightpaw, which gradually formed into words. Fireheart stared at her in horror as he made out what she was trying to say.

“Pack, pack,” she whispered. “Kill, kill.”

CHAPTER 20

“Will she live?” Fireheart asked anxiously.

Cinderpelt let out a weary sigh. She had come to Snakerocks as fast as her uneven legs could run and done her best to patch up the worst of Brightpaw’s injuries with cobwebs to stop the bleeding and poppy seeds for the pain. At last the apprentice had recovered enough to be dragged back through the forest to the camp, and now she lay unconscious in a nest among the ferns near Cinderpelt’s den.

“I don’t know,” Cinderpelt admitted. “I’ve done the best I can. She’s in the paws of StarClan now.”

“She’s a strong cat,” Fireheart meowed, trying to reassure himself. When he looked at Brightpaw now, curled among the ferns, she looked anything but strong. She seemed smaller than a kit, no more than a scrap of fur. Fireheart half expected each shallow breath to be her last.

“Even if she recovers, she’ll be hideously scarred,” Cinderpelt warned him. “I couldn’t save her ear or eye. I don’t know that she’ll ever be a warrior.”

Fireheart nodded. He felt sick as he forced himself to look at the side of Brightpaw’s face, now swathed in cobwebs. All this reminded him of Cinderpelt’s accident, when Yellowfang had told him that the young she-cat’s leg would never heal properly.

“She said something about the ‘pack,’” he murmured. “I wonder what it was she really saw.”

Cinderpelt shook her head. “It’s what we’ve been afraid of all along. There’s something in the forest hunting us down. I heard it in my dream.”

“I know.” Fireheart’s muscles tensed with regret. “I should have done something long ago. StarClan sent that warning to Bluestar too.”

“But Bluestar has no respect for StarClan anymore. I’m surprised she even listened to them.”

“Do you think that’s why this happened?” Fireheart spun around and faced the medicine cat.

“No.” Cinderpelt’s voice was strained as she moved closer to Fireheart and pressed herself against him. “StarClan did not send the evil; I’m sure of that.”

As she spoke, a rustling in the fern tunnel announced the arrival of Cloudtail.

“I thought I told you to get some rest,” Cinderpelt meowed.

“I couldn’t sleep.” The white cat padded over to settle himself in the ferns beside his friend. “I want to be with Brightpaw.” He bent his head to give her shoulder a gentle lick. “Sleep well, Brightpaw. You’re still beautiful,” he murmured. “Come back to us. I don’t know where you are now, but you have to come back.”

He went on licking her for a moment more and then looked up to fix a hostile glare on Fireheart. “This is all your fault!” he burst out. “She and Swiftpaw should have been made warriors, and then they wouldn’t have gone off on their own.”

Fireheart met his kin’s gaze steadily. “Yes, I know,” he mewed. “I tried, believe me.”

He broke off as he heard the soft pawsteps of another cat, and turned to see that Bluestar was approaching. Fireheart had sent Sandstorm to fetch her, and the ginger warrior followed her into the medicine cat’s clearing.

The Clan leader stood and looked down at Brightpaw in silence. Cloudtail raised his head challengingly, and for a heartbeat Fireheart thought he was going to accuse Bluestar of being responsible for Brightpaw’s terrible injuries as well, but Cloudtail stayed silent.

Bluestar blinked a couple of times and asked, “Is she dying?”

“That’s up to StarClan,” Cinderpelt told her, catching Fireheart’s eye.

“And what mercy can we expect from them?” Bluestar growled. “If it’s up to StarClan, Brightpaw will die.”

“Without ever being a warrior,” mewed Cloudtail; his voice was quiet and sorrowful, and he bent his head again to lick Brightpaw’s shoulder.

“Not necessarily.” Bluestar spoke reluctantly. “There is a ritual—thankfully little used—if a dying apprentice is worthy, she can be made into a warrior so that she may take a warrior name to StarClan.” She hesitated.

Fireheart held his breath in disbelief. Would Bluestar really put aside her anger at their ancestors to acknowledge the importance of StarClan in a warrior’s life? Was she about to admit that Brightpaw had been denied the warrior status she deserved?

Cloudtail looked up at the gray she-cat again. “Then do it,” he growled.

Bluestar did not react

to being ordered around by her newest warrior. As Fireheart and Cinderpelt looked on, pelts touching for comfort, and Sandstorm approached to bear silent witness, the Clan leader dipped her head and began to speak. “I ask my warrior ancestors to look down on this apprentice. She has learned the warrior code and has given up her life in the service of her Clan. Let StarClan receive her as a warrior.” Then she paused, and her eyes blazed with anger that burned like cold fire. “She will be known as Lostface, so that every cat knows what StarClan did to take her from us,” she growled.

Fireheart stared at his leader in horror. How could she use this terribly wounded apprentice in her war against her warrior ancestors?

“But that’s a cruel name!” Cloudtail protested. “What if she lives?”