A Dangerous Path

Chapter 14

When Fireheart returned to the clearing, there was still no sign of Ravenpaw. His belly churned. The moon was high in the sky. Before long, Bluestar would lead her warriors into battle against WindClan, and all hope of a peaceful solution would be lost.

Where was Ravenpaw? Perhaps Onewhisker hadn’t been able to find him. Or perhaps he couldn’t come—or he was on his way but would arrive too late. Fireheart wanted to dash out into the forest and look for him, but he knew that would serve no purpose.

Then he saw a flicker of movement at the entrance to the camp, and heard a mewed challenge from Ashpaw. Another cat answered, and Fireheart shivered with relief as he recognized Ravenpaw’s voice. Springing forward, he bounded across the clearing.

“Okay, Ashpaw,” he meowed to the apprentice. “I’ll look after Ravenpaw—you stay on guard.” He touched noses with the sleek cat who emerged from the gorse tunnel. “It’s good to see you, Ravenpaw. How are you?”

Even as he asked the question he could see that the former apprentice was looking well. His black pelt shone in the moonlight and his strong muscles rippled beneath the fur.

“I’m fine,” Ravepaw replied. He looked around the clearing, his amber eyes very wide. “It seems strange to be here again, Fireheart. I’m sorry to hear you’re having trouble with WindClan. Onewhisker told me everything, and he swore they haven’t been stealing prey.”

“Try convincing Bluestar of that,” Fireheart meowed grimly. “Look, I hate to rush you—I know you must have run like the wind to get here so fast—but we don’t have much time. Follow me.”

He led the way to Bluestar’s den. The ThunderClan leader was curled in her nest, but when Fireheart looked closely at her he could see a gleam of moonlight reflected from her narrowed eyes. She was not asleep.

“What’s the matter, Fireheart?” she asked, sounding annoyed. “It’s not time to go yet. And who’s that with you?”

“It’s Ravenpaw, Bluestar,” the loner meowed, stepping forward. “I’ve come with a message from Windclan.”

“WindClan!” Bluestar sprang to her paws. “What does that Clan of thieves want to say to me?”

To Ravenpaw’s credit, he didn’t flinch, though Fireheart knew he must remember the days when he was a Clan apprentice and Bluestar’s anger was something to be feared. “Tallstar wants to meet with you, to discuss the loss of prey,” he told her.

“Does he?” Briefly Bluestar glared at her deputy, her eyes blazing with blue fire. For a heartbeat Fireheart was sure she had guessed what he had done. There was an ominous pause.

“Bluestar, surely it would be better to talk than fight?” he ventured.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Bluestar snapped. Her tail-tip twitched irritably. “Get out of here. Ravenpaw and I will discuss this together.”

Fireheart had no choice but to leave the den. He hovered around outside, listening to the murmur of voices but unable to make out what Bluestar and Ravenpaw were saying.

After a while Whitestorm emerged from the warriors’ den and padded over to join him. “The moon’s going down,” the white warrior meowed. “Bluestar will want to leave soon. Is Ravenpaw here yet?”

“Yes, he is,” mewed Fireheart. “But I don’t know whether—”

He broke off at a movement from inside the den. A heartbeat later, Bluestar stalked out with Ravenpaw behind her. She paced forward until she reached Fireheart, her tail lashing. “Gather a patrol,” she ordered. “We go to Fourtrees.”

“Does that mean you are going to talk with Tallstar?” Fireheart asked bravely.

His leader’s tail lashed again. “I will talk,” she meowed. “But if there is no agreement, then we will fight.”

The night was still dark when Bluestar led her warriors into the hollow where the four great oaks stood. Fireheart padded at her shoulder; the smallest of rustles told him that the other cats were following. His heart lurched as an owl hooted in the distance. He had barely had a chance to murmur his thanks to Ravenpaw for bringing Tallstar’s message before the black cat had slipped away from the ThunderClan warriors. He would follow a different route back to his farmland home, keeping well clear of Fourtrees.

Bluestar paused at the top of the slope. As the other warriors caught up with her, starlight cast a faint sheen on their fur, touching their pricked ears and reflecting from their wide eyes. Fireheart could almost taste their anticipation.

When he looked across the border into WindClan territory, he thought at first that the sweep of moorland was empty, stretching up to the night sky. Wind swept across it and rustled the oak trees in the hollow behind him. Then he caught sight of movement up ahead, and he realized that a line of cats was standing there, with Tallstar at their center. His stomach clenched as Fireheart realized that Tallstar, too, had brought his warriors with him.

“What’s that?” Bluestar hissed, turning to glare into his eyes. “So many WindClan cats? I thought I was coming here to talk.” Her eyes glared furiously at Fireheart, some sharpened instinct flooding her expression with understanding. “This looks more like an ambush than a meeting of leaders.”

At a flick of her tail, the ThunderClan warriors moved up in purposeful silence to form a tight line on either side of their leader, facing the WindClan cats. Fireheart felt the air crackle with tension, and he realized that it would be all too easy for fighting to break out, even if WindClan did not attack first. Would Tallstar keep his word, and try to talk to Bluestar rather than fight?

“Tallstar?” Bluestar meowed coldly. “What have you to say to me?”

Waiting for the WindClan leader’s response, Fireheart nervously sheathed and unsheathed his claws. He did not know if the line would hold. If just one cat moved forward, battle could engulf them all. He saw Dustpelt exchange a tense glance with Brindleface, as if both cats were thinking the same as he was. Next to him, Sandstorm kept her gaze fixed on the WindClan cats, her ears flat to her head. Swiftpaw stared nervously at his leader, but he held his place in the line. Cloudpaw, on Fireheart’s other side, had dropped into the hunter’s crouch, his rump wriggling as if he were about to spring.

“Keep still!” Fireheart hissed.

A few fox-lengths away, Tallstar stood a pace or two ahead of his own warriors. As the first pale light of dawn crept into the sky, Fireheart could make him out more clearly. His black-and-white fur was fluffed up, and his tail held erect. Behind him Fireheart spotted Onewhisker and Morningflower, and the young apprentice Gorsepaw. I don’t want to fight these cats, he thought. He waited, feeling his heart pound like that of a trapped bird.

“No cat is to move,” Tallstar ordered his warriors at last, his voice carrying easily in the still air.

“You must be mad!” That was Mudclaw, padding to Tallstar’s side. “That’s a fighting force she’s brought with her. We’ve got to attack!”

“No.” Tallstar took another pace forward, flicking his tail to summon Deadfoot, his deputy, to his side. Looking directly at Bluestar, he dipped his head. “No battle will be fought here today. I said that I would come here to talk, and that’s what I intend to do.”

Bluestar did not respond. She crouched on the ground, her fur bristling and her teeth bared in a snarl of defiance. Fireheart was suddenly afraid that she had changed her mind, and wondered what would happen if she launched herself at the WindClan leader. He sent up a fervent prayer to StarClan that she would not order her warriors to attack.

Meanwhile, Onewhisker came up to Mudclaw and nudged him roughly back into line. For a moment that seemed to Fireheart to last several moons, the two lines of cats faced each other, their fur blowing in the wind, their eyes gleaming with a tension that teetered on the brink of breaking out into squalling, biting rage.

“Bluestar,” Tallstar spoke again. “Will you come here to me, between our warriors? Bring your deputy with you, and let us see if we can make peace.”

“Peace?” Bluestar spat. “How can I make peace with prey stealers and rogues?”

Yowls of protest rose from the WindClan cats. Mudclaw sprang forward, but Onewhisker leaped after him and bowled him over, holding him writhing on the turf. Fireheart saw Darkstripe lashing his tail to and fro; if Mudclaw attacked, Darkstripe would meet him, and all hope of peace would be over.

“Do as Tallstar says,” Fireheart mewed desperately to Bluestar. “That’s why we’re here. WindClan have suffered from stolen prey, just like ThunderClan.”

Bluestar rounded on him, a look of venomous hatred blazing in her blue eyes. “It seems we have no choice,” she hissed at him. “But there’ll be a reckoning for this, Fireheart. You can be sure of that.”

Stiff-legged, her fur bristling, she paced forward until she stood in front of Tallstar, right on the border of WindClan territory. Fireheart followed, murmuring to Sandstorm, “Keep an eye on Darkstripe,” as he left the line of warriors.

Tallstar watched Bluestar coolly as she approached. The WindClan leader had never forgiven her, Fireheart knew, for sheltering his old enemy Brokentail, but he had the wisdom not to let his grudge influence him now. “Bluestar,” he meowed, “I swear by StarClan that WindClan have not hunted on your territory.”

“StarClan!” Bluestar sneered. “What’s the worth of an oath by StarClan?”

The black-and-white tom looked taken aback, his gaze flickering to Fireheart as if he were looking for an explanation. “Then I will swear it by anything you hold sacred,” he went on. “By our kits, by our hopes for our Clans, by our honor as leaders. WindClan did not do what you accuse us of.”

For the first time his words seemed to reach Bluestar. Fireheart saw her fur begin to lie flat. “How can I believe you?” she rasped.

“We have lost prey too,” Tallstar told her. “It may be dogs, or rogues. It is not cats from WindClan.”

“So you say,” meowed Bluestar. She sounded uncertain now. Fireheart thought that perhaps Tallstar was beginning to convince her, but she did not know how to back down without losing dignity.

“Bluestar,” Fireheart mewed urgently, “a noble leader doesn’t take her warriors into battle without need. If there’s the least doubt that—”

“Do you think you know more than I do about how to lead a Clan?” Bluestar interrupted. Her fur had bristled again, but this time it was Fireheart who was the target of her anger. He caught a glimpse of the old, formidable ThunderClan leader, and it was all he could do not to flinch from her.

“Young cats think they know everything,” Tallstar meowed. There was a hint of sympathetic humor in his voice, and Fireheart felt a flash of gratitude toward the WindClan leader for his sensitivity to Bluestar’s fears. “But sometimes we have to listen to them. There is no need for this battle.”

Bluestar’s ears twitched irritably. “Very well,” she mewed reluctantly. “I accept your word—for now. But if my patrols scent WindClan one tail-length over our border…” She whipped around and called to the ThunderClan cats. “Back to camp!” she ordered, leaping ahead of them.

As Fireheart turned to follow her, Tallstar dipped his head to him. “Thank you, Fireheart. You did well, and my Clan honors your courage in averting this battle—but I don’t envy you now.”

Fireheart shrugged, and followed the rest of his Clan. Just before he plunged into the hollow at Fourtrees, he glanced over his shoulder to see the WindClan cats racing back across the open moor toward their camp. The turf gleamed pale in the soft dawn light, unstained by the blood of any cat.

“Thank you, Spottedleaf,” Fireheart murmured as he turned away.

Bluestar led her warriors back to camp in tense silence. At the entrance to the clearing, Fireheart bounded ahead to talk to Mousefur, who was sitting outside the warriors’ den.

“Any problems?” he asked.

Mousefur shook her head. “No trouble at all,” she reported. “Frostfur has taken out the dawn patrol with Brackenfur and a couple of the apprentices.” Looking him over, she added, “You don’t seem to be missing any fur. I suppose the peace talk worked.”

“Yes, it did. Thanks for taking care of things here, Mousefur.”

Mousefur dipped her head. “I’m going to get some sleep,” she meowed. “You’ll need to send some cats out to hunt. There’s hardly any fresh-kill left.”

“I’ll lead a hunting party,” Fireheart promised.

“No, you won’t.” Bluestar came padding up behind him. Her eyes were chips of blue ice. “I want to see you in my den, Fireheart. Now.” She stalked across the clearing without looking back to see if he was following.

Fireheart’s fur prickled with dread. He had expected some sort of recrimination from his leader, but that didn’t make it any easier now that it was about to happen.

“I’ll see to the hunting party,” Whitestorm meowed, giving him a sympathetic look as he came up with Sandstorm and Dustpelt.

Fireheart nodded his thanks and headed toward Bluestar’s den. By the time he reached it, his leader was seated on her bedding with her paws tucked under her. The tip of her tail twitched back and forth.

“Fireheart.” Her voice was quiet; Fireheart would have been less afraid if she had yowled at him. “Tallstar couldn’t have picked a more convenient time to talk to me about the prey theft than if StarClan had told him themselves. That was your doing, wasn’t it? You’re the only cat who knew that I was planning to attack WindClan. Only you could have betrayed us.”

She sounded as if her mind was clearer than it had been for some time, as if the instinct that had sharpened her senses on the moor had settled into hard certainty. She was behaving like the noble leader he had once respected, giving Fireheart an even more agonizing sense of what they had lost. He still believed that he had not betrayed his Clan, but he had given away the advantage of surprise, because Tallstar had been wise enough to realize that battle must be close. Would Bluestar send him into exile? Fireheart shivered at the thought of being forced to live as a rogue, stealing prey and with no Clan to call his own.

He came to stand in front of Bluestar and dipped his head. “I thought it was the right thing to do,” he meowed quietly. “Neither of the Clans needed to fight this battle.”

“I trusted you, Fireheart,” Bluestar rasped. “You, out of all my warriors.”

Fireheart forced himself to meet her flinty gaze. “I did it for the good of the Clan, Bluestar. And I didn’t tell him about the attack. I only asked him to try making peace. I thought—”

“Silence!” Bluestar hissed, lashing her tail. “That is no excuse. And why should I care if the whole Clan had been slaughtered? Why should I care what happens to traitors?”

A wild light was growing in her eyes again, and Fireheart realized that the moment’s clarity had gone.

“If only I’d kept my kits!” she whispered. “Mistyfoot and Stonefur are noble cats. Far nobler than any of this ragtag bunch in ThunderClan. My children would never have betrayed me.”

“Bluestar…” Fireheart tried to interrupt, but she ignored him.

“I gave them up to become deputy, and now StarClan are punishing me. Oh, StarClan are clever, Fireheart! They knew the cruelest way to break me. They made me leader and then let my cats betray me! What is it worth, now, to be leader of ThunderClan? Nothing! It’s all empty, all…” Her paws worked furiously among the moss. Her eyes were glazed, staring at nothing, and her mouth gaped in a soundless wail.

Fireheart shuddered in dismay. “I’ll fetch Cinderpelt,” he meowed.

“Stay…where…you…are.” Each word was rasped out separately. “I need to punish you, Fireheart. Tell me a good punishment for a traitor.”

Nearly sick with fear and shock, Fireheart forced himself to reply. “I don’t know, Bluestar.”

“But I do.” Now her voice was a low purr, with a strange note of amusement in it. Her gaze locked with Fireheart’s. “I know the best punishment of all. I’ll do nothing. I’ll let you be deputy still, and leader after me. Oh, that should please StarClan—a traitor leading a Clan of traitors! May they give you joy of it, Fireheart. Now get out of my sight!”

The last words were spat out. Fireheart backed away from her, into the clearing. He felt as if he had been in a battle after all. Bluestar’s despair pierced him like sharpened claws. But he couldn’t help feeling that Bluestar had let him down too, by not even trying to understand his motives; she had labeled him a traitor without even considering what would have happened if they had fought WindClan.

Head down, Fireheart padded across the clearing, not even aware that another cat had approached him until he heard Sandstorm’s voice.

“What happened, Fireheart? Has she sent you away?”

Fireheart looked up. Sandstorm’s green eyes were anxious, though she did not move close enough to comfort him with her touch.

“No,” he replied. “She didn’t do anything.”

“Then that’s all right.” Sandstorm sounded as if she were forcing optimism into her voice. “Why are you looking like that?”

“She’s…ill.” Fireheart couldn’t begin to describe what he had just witnessed in Bluestar’s den. “I’m going to get Cinderpelt to see her. Then maybe we can eat together.”

“No, I…I said I’d go hunting with Cloudpaw and Brindleface.” Sandstorm scuffled her front paws, not looking at him. “Don’t worry about Bluestar, Fireheart. She’ll be all right.”

“I don’t know.” Fireheart couldn’t repress a shiver. “I thought I could make her understand, but she thinks I betrayed her.”

Sandstorm said nothing. Fireheart saw her give him a quick glance and then look away. There was longing in her eyes, but it was mingled with uneasiness, and he remembered how she had resented deceiving Bluestar.

Does Sandstorm think I’m a traitor too? he thought desperately.

After Fireheart had sent Cinderpelt to Bluestar, he headed for the warriors’ den. He felt as if his legs could hardly hold him up, and he could think of nothing except sinking into the soft darkness of sleep. His heart sank when he saw Longtail stalking across the clearing toward him.

“I want a word with you, Fireheart,” he growled.

Fireheart sat down. “What is it?”

“You ordered my apprentice to go with you this morning.”

“Yes, and I told you why.”

“He didn’t like it, but he did his duty,” Longtail meowed harshly.

That was true, Fireheart reflected. He had admired the apprentice’s courage in a tough situation, but he wasn’t sure why Longtail was making such a fuss now.

“I think it’s time he was made a warrior,” Longtail went on. “In fact, Fireheart, he should have been a warrior long ago.”

“Yes, I know,” Fireheart replied. “You’re right, Longtail, he should.”

Longtail looked taken aback at his ready agreement. “So what are you going to do about it?” he blustered.

“Right now, nothing,” Fireheart meowed. “Don’t flatten your ears at me, Longtail. Just think, will you? Bluestar is distressed at the moment. She didn’t like what happened this morning, and she won’t want to think about promoting apprentices. No, wait.” He flicked his tail to silence Longtail as the pale warrior opened his mouth to protest. “Leave it with me. Sooner or later Bluestar has to realize that what happened was for the best. Then I’ll talk to her about making Swiftpaw a warrior, I promise.”

Longtail sniffed. Fireheart could see he wasn’t happy, but he couldn’t think of any reason to object. “All right,” the pale tabby warrior mewed. “But it had better be soon.”

He stalked off again, leaving Fireheart to head for his nest. As he curled into the soft moss, shutting his eyes tight against the early morning light, he couldn’t help worrying about the four older apprentices. Cloudpaw, Brightpaw, and Thornpaw all deserved to be warriors as well as Swiftpaw. And the Clan desperately needed them to take on full warrior duties. But in her present mood, convinced that she was surrounded by traitors, Bluestar would never agree to give them warrior status.

Fireheart’s dreams were dark and confused, and he woke to find that a cat was nudging him. A voice meowed, “Wake up, Fireheart!”

Blinking, he focused his eyes on Cinderpelt’s face. Her gray fur was ruffled and her eyes wide with anxiety; Fireheart was awake in a heartbeat.

“What’s the matter?”

“It’s Bluestar,” Cinderpelt replied. “I can’t find her anywhere!”