Firestar’s Quest

Chapter 16

The sound of rustling and faint voices woke Firestar. Stretching his jaws in a yawn, he thought it must be time to get up and make sure the dawn patrol had left. When he blinked his eyes open he saw the unfamiliar cave with its sandy walls and bare scrapes in the rock, and the memory of where he was flooded back into his mind. For a moment he had thought that he was back in his old den under the Highrock, sleeping in warm moss and bracken with sunlight filtering through the curtain of lichen at the entrance. Instead he was in a deserted cave that had once been part of the SkyClan camp, with Sandstorm stirring at his side.

Sandstorm raised her head. “I thought I heard something.”

“So did I.” Firestar sprang to his paws. He could still hear movement from the cliff top, and when he tasted the air he picked up a strong, fresh scent of cat.

Raising his tail to warn Sandstorm to stay still and quiet, he padded toward the entrance. Daylight slanted into the cave from a pale sky; the sun hadn’t yet risen above the gorge, and the air was cool. He peered out of the cave mouth.

Looking up, he was just in time to see a dark tabby tail whisk-1 9 9

ing out of sight into the bushes that grew on the cliff top.

“Is he there?” a cat meowed nervously.

“I think so!”

Stretching his neck out further, Firestar took a breath to call out, but before he could make a sound a pebble flew down from the cliff top, skimming past less than a mouse-length from his nose, and pattered down into the gorge.

More sounds of scrabbling came from above, and a half-stifled mrrow of laughter.

The first voice called out, “Did you find what you were looking for in the sky, stupid old furball?”

“I’m not surprised you don’t have any friends, dog-breath!” the second voice added. “Bet you can’t catch us!”

Another stone came bouncing down the cliff, barely missing Firestar, and he heard the sound of two cats scrambling through the bushes with loud, triumphant meows.

Furious, he launched himself upward. But by the time he clawed his way over the cliff and thrust his way through the undergrowth, the two cats were too far away to be worth chasing. He spotted them, a dark tabby and a tortoiseshell, racing toward the distant Twolegplace.

“Mouse dung!” he exclaimed.

Rustling in the bushes behind him announced the arrival of Sandstorm. “What was all that about?”

“I don’t know. But if any Clanmate of mine spoke to me like that, they would spend the next moon searching the elders for ticks.”

Sandstorm rubbed her muzzle against his. “Well, they don’t know that you’re Firestar, leader of ThunderClan,” she consoled him. “For all they know, we might be rogues trying to muscle in on their territory.”

“I’m not so sure.” Firestar gazed across the scrubby grass-land to the Twolegplace, where the two cats had now vanished. “They thought there was only one cat there, so they can’t have seen us arrive. And their insults meant something; they seemed to know exactly who they were talking to.”

“Then there must be another cat around here,” Sandstorm mewed. “Maybe the one who left those bones in the cave?”

“Maybe.” He turned back into the thicket and began to explore more thoroughly. He managed to pick up several different cat scents among the bushes, as well as mice and birds.

“No foxes or badgers,” Sandstorm commented, coming face-to-face with him around the trunk of a holly bush.

“At least that’s something,” Firestar mewed. “Most of the cat scents are kittypet, including fresh ones from our visitors.

I’d like to talk to them. They might know if cats once lived in the caves.”

“They might.” Sandstorm gave a disgusted sniff. “But will they be willing to tell us?”

Firestar didn’t reply. Turning away from Twolegplace, the two cats hunted in the bushes, then climbed down the stony trails into the bottom of the gorge. Reaching the river, Firestar spotted more caves on the opposite side, lower down than the ones they had already explored.

“I wonder if SkyClan used those caves too,” he meowed, pointing with his tail.

“They must have been a big Clan, if they did,” Sandstorm replied. “There’s plenty of space in the caves we’ve already seen.”

“Still, we’d better check them out.”

They climbed the pile of rocks where the river flowed out, and crossed to the far side of the gorge. There was no cat scent in the other caves, and no evidence of claw marks or bones to suggest that cats had ever been there.

“I expect it’s because these caves don’t get much sun,” Sandstorm suggested. “It’d be cold and dark for most of the day.”

Firestar thought she must be right. He was thankful to leave the last cave and head for the river again.

A sudden yowl from the top of the gorge froze his paws to the ground. Four Twolegs stood outlined against the sky.

“This way—quick!” Sandstorm hissed at him from the shelter of a boulder.

Firestar bounded over to her and crouched by her side, hoping the Twolegs hadn’t spotted him. Peering out, he saw that they were all young males. Yowling loudly, they clambered down the side of the gorge as far as the pool. Firestar didn’t know whether they were looking for him and Sandstorm; he could feel her heart racing as he pressed against her side.

Then he saw the young Twolegs pulling off some of their pelts. With the loudest yowl of all, one of them leaped from a boulder at the side of the pool and plunged into the water.

His three friends jumped in after him, then climbed out of the pool, shaking water from their head fur, and then leaped in again.

“Thank StarClan!” Firestar let out a sigh of relief. “They don’t know we’re here. They’ve just come to play in the water, like those others downstream.”

Sandstorm shrugged. “I keep telling you, Twolegs are mad.”

They stayed out of sight until the young Twolegs were tired of their game. Once they had put their pelts back on and begun the climb back to the cliff top, the two cats ventured out of the shelter of the boulder.

“I wonder if they come down here a lot,” Sandstorm mewed. “SkyClan wouldn’t have been happy living so close to Twolegs.”

“True,” Firestar agreed. “But at least they make enough noise. A cat would always know when they’re coming.”

He leaped across the rocks to the opposite side of the river, thankful to emerge into sunlight again. “I haven’t seen any fish here,” he remarked as Sandstorm joined him.

“I haven’t seen any fish since below the waterfall,” she meowed. “Prey here is mice and voles and birds. And maybe a few rabbits.”

“And most of that at the top of the cliffs,” Firestar mused.

“It can’t have been an easy life.”

“Maybe that’s why they’re not here now.”

Firestar wondered if she was right. He and Sandstorm had managed to feed themselves without much trouble, but would there be enough for a whole Clan?

They were climbing back to the warriors’ cave when Sandstorm halted. “There’s another trail here,” she announced, angling her ears toward a narrow, stony path that led slantwise up the rock. Firestar could just make out faint pawprints in the dust, as if at least one cat had been that way recently. “I didn’t notice it before. Do you think we should follow it?”

Firestar nodded. “It can’t do any harm.”

The trail led farther up the gorge until it ended at a deep cleft in the cliff face. Beyond the cleft was a flat rock that jutted out over the gorge.

Sandstorm glanced back at Firestar, looking puzzled. “It’s a dead end. Why did they come this way when there’s nothing here?”

Firestar studied the ledge, the rock, and the sheer walls of the rift. A cat who lost its footing here would go plummeting right down to the floor of the gorge.

“I’m not sure,” he replied. “Maybe…”

He crouched down, then pushed off with powerful hind legs and leaped, to land with all four paws on the flat rock.

“Firestar!” Sandstorm yowled. “Have you lost your mind?”

He didn’t reply, but stood upright on the rock, facing into the breeze that ruffled his fur and brought to him the mingled scents of stone and water, undergrowth and prey. If he looked up the gorge he could see the dry valley growing narrower still as it wound upward; just below was the place where water flowed out from the heap of red rocks, and he followed the river with his gaze until it became lost in the misty distance. The rock beneath his paws was smooth and warm; he wanted to sprawl there and bask in the sunlight, as his Clan did at Sunningrocks.

“Come over!” he called to Sandstorm. “It’s wonderful!”

Sandstorm paused, her tail flicking. Then she seemed to make her mind up, gathered herself for the leap, and landed neatly beside Firestar. “Do you want us to get our necks broken?” she asked crossly.

“Just look!” Firestar swept his tail around. “A cat on watch here could see danger coming from anywhere.”

As Sandstorm scanned the gorge, her annoyed look vanished and the fur on her shoulders lay flat again. “You’re right,” she admitted. With a sudden change of mood she lay on her side and dabbed one paw playfully toward Firestar.

“It’s great up here. Why don’t we rest for a bit?”

Firestar settled down beside her on the sun-warmed stone, feeling the heat soak into his fur. Drowsily sharing tongues with his mate, he found his mind drifting back to Sunningrocks and the forest. There would be a Gathering soon, and the other Clans would discover that he had left.

What would they do then? Firestar felt his paws itching to carry him home, and had to remind himself that SkyClan still needed him. If he ever found them…

As the sun sank they hunted again and ate their prey before they returned to the warriors’ cave.

“Where are all the cats we scented?” Firestar wondered.

“We haven’t seen a single one, not since those rude kittypets first thing this morning.”

Sandstorm limped inside the cave and rasped her tongue over one paw. “I’m not surprised they don’t come here. This isn’t a good place for cats. Okay, there’s water and shelter, but prey is hard to come by. My paws are rubbed sore from scrambling up and down rocks all day. I can’t even find any dock to rub on them. And my claws are nearly wrenched out from hauling myself into caves.”

Firestar’s paws were sore too, with dust and grit stuck between the pads. He longed for the cool touch of lush grass and fern. For a couple of heartbeats he was tempted to climb down and soothe his paws by wading in the shallows at the edge of the river, but he would only have the long climb back afterward.

“SkyClan must have had paws made of stone if they lived here,” Sandstorm added as she finished cleaning one paw and started on another.

Firestar was about to agree with her when he remembered his dream of SkyClan beside the river, and how one cat had jumped up powerfully into a tree. That skill would come in useful here, too, to leap from boulders and into caves without scraping their pads and claws on the rough stone.

Suddenly curious, he padded to the cave entrance and examined the rocks outside. There were fresh scratch marks that he and Sandstorm had made, but hardly any old markings that might have been made by SkyClan. They would have jumped up and down the cliff face instead of having to scramble; even the leap to the flat rock would have been easy for them.

“It wouldn’t suit us here,” he meowed slowly to Sandstorm. “But it suited SkyClan. They knew how to jump. They already had the skills they needed. This was their home—but where are they now?”

Mist lay thick in the gorge and pressed against the cliff face when Firestar woke the next morning. He looked out cautiously, half expecting another stone to be hurled at him by the kittypets. But everything was silent, even the sound of the river deadened by the fog.

He roused Sandstorm, and they climbed to the cliff top to hunt. Prey scent was harder to pick up in the cool, damp air; Firestar prowled through the thickets without success. “Not even a mouse tail!” he muttered.

Frustrated, he emerged from the bushes and stared across the open ground toward Twolegplace, wondering what the chances would be of tracking down a rabbit. Then he heard a fluttering of wings; glancing to one side, he spotted a sparrow pecking at the ground underneath a bush.

As silently as he could he glided forward, one paw after another, gradually closing the distance between himself and his prey. He was readying himself to pounce when there was a commotion in the bushes and another cat burst out, front paws extended toward the sparrow.

The bird let out a loud alarm call and took off; the newcomer sprang up at once in a tremendous leap. His claws just grazed the sparrow’s wings as it fluttered to safety in a tree. A couple of feathers spiraled down. The cat, a dark brown rogue, stood panting, gazing up at the bird and lashing his tail.

Stiff-legged with fury, Firestar stalked up to him until the two cats were standing nose-to-nose. “That was my prey,” Firestar hissed. His frustration spilled over; he was hungry, he and Sandstorm had traveled all this way to find nothing but empty caves, and now this mangy, crow-food-eating tom had just frightened away his first chance of food that day.

“Rubbish,” the rogue retorted. “It was mine.”

Firestar let out a snort of disgust. “I would have caught it if you hadn’t come crashing through the bushes like that. Has no cat ever taught you to hunt?”

The rogue’s neck fur bristled and he peeled back his lips in a snarl. Firestar arched his back, hissing in anger and flashing out a paw with claws extended. For a heartbeat both cats stood frozen, glaring angrily at each other. Firestar braced himself to spring, but then the rogue flattened his ears and took a couple of paces back. Letting out a last snarl, he whipped around and slunk off down the line of bushes.

“Oh, great!” At the sound of Sandstorm’s voice Firestar turned to see her poking her head out from behind a bramble bush. “We’re supposed to be talking to the local cats, not scaring them off.”

Firestar’s fur grew hot with embarrassment. He glanced after the rogue, only to see the stocky brown shape bounding away along the edge of the gorge.

“Sorry,” he meowed. “I suppose I was a bit hasty. But it should have been obvious that the sparrow was mine.” He gave his chest fur a few quick licks to help himself calm down.

“I’m not used to sharing territory with cats who’ve never heard of the warrior code.”

“Well, you’ll have to get used to it.” Sandstorm emerged from the bush and padded over to him. “You can’t expect the cats here to live by the rules we have at home. I don’t suppose they even know about StarClan.”

Her words chilled Firestar. She was right; they couldn’t expect that StarClan had followed them so far. How could he carry out his mission without his warrior ancestors to protect and guide him? He couldn’t even be sure that SkyClan’s warrior ancestors walked these skies. He glanced up, wondering if the gray-and-white leader was watching him, but nothing broke the white blanket of fog.

Eventually they managed to catch a couple of mice, and headed back toward the cave. As they were weaving their way among the bushes, Firestar heard rustling ahead of them, and picked up a familiar kittypet scent. He flipped the end of his tail across Sandstorm’s mouth for silence, and slipped into the shelter of a gorse bush.

Before many heartbeats had gone by, two cats came into view, thrusting their way through the bushes from the direction of the cliff edge. One was a dark tabby tom, the other a smaller tortoiseshell. Firestar was certain that they were the same two cats who had taunted him the day before.

His paws itched to confront them, but he was too far away to surprise them and he didn’t want to make a fool of himself. Besides, if he did speak to them they would probably just deny they had done anything wrong. He let them go back toward the Twolegplace.

“What’s the matter?” Sandstorm batted irritably at his tail.

“I think they’re the cats who threw stones at me yesterday,” Firestar explained. “I need to talk to them, but I want to figure out what to say first.”

He headed for the cave, hoping to settle down and think, but as they scrambled down the steep, slippery trail to the entrance a foul smell rolled out to meet them.

Sandstorm curled her lip. “What’s that disgusting reek?”

She pushed past Firestar and leaped up into the cave.

When Firestar joined her he found her standing over the body of a mouse. It had obviously been dead for days; white maggots were wriggling through the remains of its fur. The stink of it filled the whole cave.

“It must be those kittypets!” Firestar snarled. “I suppose it’s their idea of a joke, leaving crow-food in a cave where cats are living.”

“If I catch them, I’ll show them it’s no joke,” Sandstorm growled.

“Better get it out of here.” Firestar sighed.

Dabbing at it with their paws, they managed to push the mouse out of the cave and over the rocks until it fell down the cliff. Back in the cave, Sandstorm scraped sand over the damp, stinking patch where it had lain.

“It’ll take forever to get rid of the smell,” she complained.

“And it’s all over my paws. I’ll have to go down to the river to wash.”

Firestar padded to the cave entrance and took in gulps of clean air. He hadn’t expected this sort of welcome. The cats who lived here were rude and interfering, and if they lived by any kind of code he couldn’t imagine what it was.

“Rogues aren’t like this in the forest,” he mewed to Sandstorm. “Mostly they keep to themselves, and stay away from the Clans’ territories.”

“But there aren’t any Clans here,” Sandstorm pointed out.

“Back in the forest, most cats know about the warrior code.

And if they don’t want to live by it, they know how to stay away from us.”

Firestar watched the mist at the bottom of the gorge. The warrior code was the basis of life in all the Clans. Kits drank it in with their mother’s milk. Out here no cat knew of it—but they had once, as well as any cat in the forest. He wondered if he would ever be able to awaken the memory of the warrior code in this scorched place.

“I’ll have to make a start somewhere,” he muttered, speaking half to himself. “And I think I know where.” Straightening up, he added, “Sandstorm, tomorrow we’re going to talk to those kittypets.”