Firestar’s Quest

Chapter 31

“Rats! Rats!”

Firestar struggled awake as the terrified yowl split the silence of the night. Darkness filled the warriors’ den, and for a few heartbeats he couldn’t work out where the entrance was. Guided by the movement of air against his whiskers, he headed outside, only to blunder over another warrior.

“Fox dung!” the other cat spat; Firestar identified Sharpclaw’s scent. “Get out of the way.”

He scrambled past Firestar and out of the cave. Firestar followed; in the entrance he brushed against another cat’s pelt, and Sandstorm’s scent wreathed around him. The yowling was drawing closer, and now Firestar could recognize Cherrypaw’s voice.

It was the night after he had discovered Echosong in the Whispering Cave. Rain had fallen all night, and clouds still covered the sky, blotting out the stars and the thin sliver of moon. Firestar’s paws slipped on the wet rock, and he saw himself plummeting into the gorge below. For a heartbeat his paws froze to the ledge; then as his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness he could just make out the trail leading upward, and a cat pelting toward him.

“It’s the rats!” Cherrypaw gasped. “So many rats! They came over the cliff top…”

Firestar looked up. Where the trail met the edge of the gorge, a dark mass was flowing down toward him like water.

He couldn’t make out individual creatures, but a strong reek rolled ahead of them, and he knew Cherrypaw was right. The rats were attacking at last.

His belly clenched, but his voice was surprisingly steady when he spoke. “Sandstorm, go and make sure that the queens in the nursery know what’s happening. Then warn Echosong and Patchfoot. Stay down there and help them.”

“I’m on my way.” He felt Sandstorm’s tail tip brush his ear; then she was gone.

“Cherrypaw.” Firestar rested his tail on the panting tortoiseshell’s shoulder. “Sparrowpaw will be in your cave. Go and warn him. Then fight where you can do most good.”

“Right.” The apprentice squeezed past him and vanished down the trail.

“Sharpclaw, are you still there?”

A snarl came out of the darkness just ahead. “I’m over here. What are we waiting for?”

By now the other warriors were emerging from the cave.

Firestar picked up Rainfur’s scent and Leafdapple’s, and a strong reek of fear from Shortwhisker.

“Let’s go,” he meowed. “Stay in the open if you can. Don’t let them trap you in any caves—your advantage lies in being able to run and jump away from them.”

He raced up the trail toward the oncoming mass of rats.

Sharpclaw bounded beside him, and the others were hard on his paws. Firestar just had time to think, This is what they were waiting for—a night with no moon! Then the rats were on him.

Tiny claws gripped his pelt and sank into his shoulders as the sleek brown bodies surged around him. Their hot stink filled his throat, choking his breath. He felt teeth stab into the side of his neck and swatted at the rat with one forepaw.

It vanished with a thin shriek. Two more instantly took its place, and Firestar struggled to stay on his paws. If he fell, more rats would be on him and he would have no chance.

Firestar heard a drawn-out caterwaul from the bottom of the gorge, but he couldn’t tell which cat it was. Please, not the nursery! He could make out the glittering eyes of his enemies now, and their sharp white teeth. Peering among them, he looked for the rat leader, but he couldn’t spot him. Either he was hidden by the darkness, or he had stayed behind.

Firestar caught a glimpse of Sharpclaw tossing rats off the boulders to fall into the gorge with shrill wails of fear. Nearby Leafdapple was rolling on the ground with two rats clinging to her pelt. Firestar tried to push his way through the bodies to help her, but just then she bit down hard on the throat of one, and it went limp. The other rat let out a screech of fear and leaped away.

Firestar staggered as another rat jumped onto his back; he scraped himself along a boulder in an effort to throw it off, but it still clung there. Its teeth sank into his shoulder and he felt blood begin to flow. He twisted, vainly trying to grab it with teeth or claws. One hind paw slipped; there was nothing underneath it, and Firestar tottered on the edge of the trail, unbalanced by the weight of the rat on his shoulders.

Then the rat let out a scream, abruptly cut off. Its teeth lost their grip and its weight vanished. Cat claws fastened in Firestar’s shoulder fur and hauled him away from the terrifying drop.

“You okay?” Rainfur’s voice meowed in his ear.

“Fine, thanks,” Firestar panted.

And still the rats came, more and more of them, pouring over the cliff and down the rocks. No matter how many the SkyClan warriors killed, there were still more. Firestar realized that they were being pushed back, past the opening of the warriors’ cave, down toward the nursery.

Then another outbreak of screeching and caterwauling broke out far below. Firestar stiffened with his teeth in a rat’s throat, and stood peering down for a couple of heartbeats.

He couldn’t see anything, but terror flowed through his limbs. There must be rats down by the river! A second group must have come along the gorge to attack the SkyClan camp from below.

Tossing his dead enemy aside, Firestar struggled through the writhing swarm of rats. Fear for the apprentices, for Echosong, for the kits, almost overwhelmed him. His claws slashed out and the rats in his path whimpered and fled.

Suddenly the fighting stopped. The rats turned as one, scrambling up the rocks toward the cliff top. Sharpclaw sprang after them with a screech of triumph.

“No!” Firestar yowled. “Wait!”

Sharpclaw turned and looked down at him in furious disbelief. “They’re running away! We should go after them.”

“No,” Firestar repeated. “It could be a trap.”

“But we could finish them off once and for all!”

Firestar scrambled up to block Sharpclaw, while the skit-tering of rats’ paws on the rocks faded away. “They could be waiting on the cliff top to ambush us,” he insisted. “Think, Sharpclaw! Why should they go on fighting to the death? All they need to do is frighten us off. Maybe they think they’ve already done that.”

“Never!” Sharpclaw let out a snarl, but he stayed where he was, glaring into the darkness where the last of the rats had vanished. The noise of fighting in the gorge had died away, too.

Firestar glanced around. As well as Sharpclaw, he could make out the pale blur of Leafdapple’s pelt, and the darker bulk of Rainfur. There was no sign of Shortwhisker, and Firestar’s belly clenched at the thought of the tabby tom’s body broken in the gorge, or lying somewhere among the rocks, bleeding out his life.

“Let’s go down,” he meowed. “We’ll check the nursery first, then Echosong’s cave.”

The other cats bunched together behind him as he limped down the trail. When he rounded a curve in the rock a furious hiss came out of the darkness. Clovertail was crouched in the narrow entrance between the boulder and the cliff face.

Firestar scarcely recognized the cat who had joined the Clan for protection and easy shelter. Her eyes were narrowed with rage and her teeth bared in a snarl.

A heartbeat later she relaxed. “Oh, it’s you, Firestar. I thought you were more of those rats.”

“The kits?” Firestar asked anxiously.

“The kits are fine.” It was Petal who replied, appearing out of the darkness inside the nursery. Rainfur pushed forward to meet her and the two cats touched noses. “Clovertail blocked the entrance and wouldn’t let any of them in,” Petal added.

Firestar rested his tail on Clovertail’s shoulder. “Well done.”

The she-cat rose painfully to her paws, revealing the marks of rat bites on her chest and shoulders.

“You should go see Echosong,” Petalnose told her. “I can look after the kits.”

Clovertail muttered something in agreement; she was obviously exhausted, and staggered as she joined Firestar and the others on their way down the trail. Firestar let her lean on his shoulder until they reached the medicine cat’s den.

To his relief, Sandstorm was with Echosong in the outer cave; Echosong was already pulling out her store of herbs.

“We’ll need a lot of burdock root,” she mewed. “It’s a good thing Petal and I found a good supply the other day.”

“And cobwebs,” Sandstorm added. Her gaze traveled over the cats who had just arrived, and locked for a heartbeat with Firestar’s eyes before she asked, “Which of you is hurt worst?”

Firestar pushed Clovertail forward. “Where’s Patchfoot?”

“He went out to fight,” Sandstorm replied. “We realized there were rats coming up the river only when a couple of them tried to get in here. Patchfoot and I attacked them, but there were swarms of them outside. We got separated in the darkness and I haven’t seen him since.”

Firestar tried not to let the alarm show in his eyes.

Patchfoot would have been in more danger than the other warriors because he didn’t have his full strength yet. And what about the two apprentices?

Bracing himself against his bone-numbing weariness, he headed out of the cave to look for them. But when he reached the entrance, he spotted movement among the rocks, and a moment later all three cats appeared, Patchfoot and Sparrowpaw supporting Cherrypaw between them. Blood was flowing from a wound in her neck.

“What happened?” Firestar asked.

“The rats trapped us in our den,” Sparrowpaw explained.

“We didn’t have room to use our fighting moves properly. I think we’d have been in real trouble if Patchfoot hadn’t come to help.”

“We killed lots of them, though,” Cherrypaw rasped, raising her head.

Her Clanmates helped her into Echosong’s cave, where she flopped to the ground and closed her eyes. Sandstorm hurried over and started to lick the wound clean. After a moment, glancing up at Firestar, she meowed, “I don’t think it’s too bad. She’ll live.”

“Course I’ll live,” Cherrypaw muttered without opening her eyes. “I’m going to kill more rats.”

“That leaves only Shortwhisker unaccounted for,” Firestar mewed. “Did any cat see him?”

“Not after the battle started,” Sharpclaw replied.

“I’ll go and look, if you like,” Leafdapple offered. “Though it might be better to wait until dawn. It can’t be far off.”

“I think you’re right,” Firestar began, reluctant to let any cat go wandering about in the darkness. They couldn’t be sure that the danger from the rats was over. “We’ll both go when—”

He was interrupted by a plaintive cry from outside. “Hi! Is any cat there?”

“Shortwhisker!” Sandstorm exclaimed.

Full of relief, Firestar went to the cave entrance again. The first pale trace of dawn had begun to appear in the sky. By its light, he could see Shortwhisker hauling himself up from the river, looking as if he was almost too exhausted to put one paw in front of the other.

“Over here!” Firestar called.

Shortwhisker raised his head and quickened his pace a little. Firestar studied him as he drew closer. He had clumps of fur torn off both shoulders, and the marks of rats’ claws stretched along one flank, but apart from that he seemed okay.

“It’s good to see you.” Firestar touched noses with him as he reached the cave. “That’s every cat. And none of us is seriously hurt, thank StarClan.”

“I thought I was crow-food for sure.” Shortwhisker’s eyes were wide with fear. “Three of them drove me into a tiny cave. All I could do was try to keep them off. Then suddenly they turned and vanished.”

Firestar nodded. Trapping the cats in confined spaces where they couldn’t defend themselves had obviously been part of the rats’ strategy. Even if the rats’ leader hadn’t joined in the attack himself, his clever, controlling mind was behind it.

Gesturing with his tail for Shortwhisker to enter the cave ahead of him, Firestar gazed around at the Clan. Echosong had finished with Clovertail and was examining Patchfoot’s old wound, while Sandstorm tended to Cherrypaw. The rest of the cats were lying close together, licking one another’s scratches. All of them looked exhausted.

Sparrowpaw raised his head. “We didn’t win, did we? The rats chose to stop fighting.”

“That’s true,” Firestar replied. “But we didn’t lose either.

And the battle’s not over yet. We’re not waiting for them any longer. We must take the fight to them.”

Sharpclaw pricked his ears. “Is that wise?”

Firestar realized that the fight had taught Sharpclaw cau-tion. “We don’t want the rats to have the advantage of planning the next attack. There won’t be so many places to trap cats outside the barn. The time is right.”

A murmur of agreement came from the rest of the Clan.

“I’m coming with you,” Patchfoot announced. “I fought tonight. No cat can say I’m not fit enough.”

“And me.” Clovertail lashed her tail. “Petal can look after the kits.”

Firestar felt humbled by their courage: Patchfoot, whose wound would have given him the excuse to stay behind in safety; Clovertail, who was ready to fight not only for her kits but for her Clan; Shortwhisker, who was terrified but determined to overcome his fear. All of them had given up their old lives to make the dream of SkyClan a reality—and they had succeeded. The warrior code lived on in the gorge.

Sharpclaw rose to his paws. “Then we’ll go tomorrow night, once the Twolegs are back in their nests,” he meowed.

“And let’s hope there’s a moon. I like an enemy I can see.”

The Clan yowled in approval of his words. Sharpclaw would make a good leader, Firestar thought. He met the ginger tom’s gaze; there was a challenge there, almost as if the same thought was going through Sharpclaw’s mind too.

But something held Firestar back from offering him the leadership. He still felt it wasn’t his choice to make. And while Sharpclaw would be superb at leading his warriors into battle, Firestar wasn’t sure he appreciated everything that being Clan leader meant.

It’s in the paws of his warrior ancestors, he told himself. And after tomorrow, who knows whether there will be a Clan left to lead?

The Clan rested during the morning, but they were awake by sunhigh, gathering in the training area for a last session to hone their battle skills. Firestar felt fresh energy running through his limbs as he practiced fighting moves with Rainfur: this was what he had been trained to do, even if this time he wasn’t fighting for his own Clan. Looking at the determined faces around him, watching the expert use of teeth and claws, he knew that SkyClan wouldn’t be driven from the gorge a second time. The descendants of the first Clan had returned, and they would fight to their last breath for the right to live here.

Sandstorm was drawing the training session to an end when Echosong and Petal came padding up the gorge, their eyes gleaming with satisfaction.

“We’ve collected a whole pile of burdock root,” Petal announced proudly.

“And poppyseed,” Echosong added. “Sandstorm, you said it’s good for pain, but I didn’t know where to find it before.”

“My old Twoleg has poppies in his garden,” Petal explained.

“I hope you didn’t have any trouble with the Twoleg,” Firestar meowed.

Petal flicked her tail dismissively. “He came out of the nest and yowled a bit, but he couldn’t catch us.”

Firestar couldn’t bring himself to warn her about taking risks. There would be wounded warriors after the battle who would be glad of the relief poppyseeds would give them.

Echosong’s eyes were brimming with amusement.

“Clovertail sent her kits to look for cobwebs,” she reported.

“You’ve never seen so many—all over the kits! They worked really hard.”

“It’s time they were apprenticed,” mewed Sandstorm.

“Soon,” Firestar agreed. His heart was warmed by the thought of a future for the Clan. SkyClan had so much to lose—but so much to win as well!

Petal padded over to Rainfur and murmured something into his ear. The gray rogue nodded; then both cats approached Firestar.

“We talked things over this morning,” Rainfur began, looking unusually hesitant. “We’ve decided that we want to become members of SkyClan—if you will have us, that is.”

“That’s great news!” Firestar exclaimed.

Rainfur met his gaze, his eyes wide and serious. “We’ve seen for ourselves how the warrior code works.”

“Yes,” Petal agreed. “And there’s no other life we want for ourselves and our kits.”

Sharpclaw stepped forward to stand beside Firestar.

“You’re welcome to join us,” he meowed, and the rest of the Clan murmured agreement. “You know how much we need strong warriors. We receive you humbly and we give you our thanks.”

As the sun went down, Firestar called Rainfur and Petal to the foot of the Rockpile for their warrior ceremony. The rest of the Clan stood in a circle, their eyes bright and their fur already fluffed up in anticipation of the battle.

“I, Firestar, leader of ThunderClan and mentor to SkyClan, call upon their warrior ancestors to look down upon these cats,” he began. “They have dedicated themselves to your warrior code, and I commend them to you as warriors in their turn.” Padding up to Rainfur, he went on. “Rainfur, do you promise to uphold the warrior code and to protect and defend this Clan, even at the cost of your life?”

Rainfur held his head high; there was no doubt in his voice as he meowed, “I do.”

“Then by the powers of StarClan I confirm your warrior name. Rainfur, StarClan trusts you will serve your new Clan with honor and courage.”

He rested his muzzle on Rainfur’s head, and the gray warrior licked his shoulder.

“Petal,” Firestar went on, turning to the pale gray she-cat, “do you promise to uphold the warrior code and to protect and defend this Clan, even at the cost of your life?”

“I do.” Petal sounded just as certain as her mate.

“Then by the powers of StarClan I give you your warrior name. Petal, from this moment you will be known as Petalnose. StarClan honors your endurance and your strength, and SkyClan welcomes you.”

As he completed the ceremony, the cats of SkyClan called out the names of the new warriors, yowling them like a challenge to the darkening sky. Firestar glowed with pride for all the SkyClan cats; thanks to them, the Clan had gained two strong warriors and two healthy kits. He could see a great future in the Clan for Petalnose and Rainfur.

The yowling died away as the sun sank behind the cliffs and night covered the gorge. The waxing moon gave a fitful light as it appeared from behind the clouds that scudded across the sky. There was a stiff breeze with a hint of frost.

Firestar sent his warriors up to the top of the cliff while he paid a final visit to the nursery. Echosong and Petalnose had returned there with the five kits, who crouched in their nests among the moss and bracken, gazing at Firestar with a mixture of fear and excitement.

“You’ll be as safe here as anywhere,” Firestar told them.

“The entrance is narrow.”

Petalnose nodded. “We’ll be fine. Don’t worry about us, Firestar. And we’ll look after the kits, or die trying.”

“If the worst happens,” Firestar promised, “every warrior who survives will come back here and help you defend them.”

“The worst won’t happen.” Echosong’s voice was clear and certain as she padded up to Firestar. “Go now—I’ll see you when you come back.”

Firestar thought of the brutal battle that lay ahead.

Though he still had six lives, they could all be torn from him at once if his wounds were severe enough. He remembered how Tigerstar had died, ripped open by Scourge, and he shivered.

Though he said nothing, he knew that Echosong had guessed where his thoughts were leading. “I will see you again,” she mewed, and her words had the conviction of a prophecy.