Forest Of Secrets

Chapter 26

Fireheart tried to hide his misgivings as he led the three RiverClan warriors down the tunnel and into the camp. Clan cats rarely visited each other’s territory, and he wondered what was so urgent that it couldn’t wait until the next Gathering.

Alerted by Cloudpaw, Bluestar was already seated at the foot of the Highrock, and Fireheart’s apprehension increased when he saw Tigerclaw was beside her.

“Thank you, Cloudpaw.” Bluestar dismissed the apprentice as Fireheart approached with the newcomers. “Take your fresh-kill to the elders.”

Cloudpaw looked disappointed to be sent away, but he went without protest.

Leopardfur walked up to Bluestar and dipped her head respectfully. “Bluestar, we come to your camp in peace,” she began. “There’s something we must discuss.”

Tigerclaw let out a low disbelieving growl, as if he would rather be ripping the fur off the intruding cats, but Bluestar ignored him. “I can guess what brings you here,” she meowed. “But what is there to discuss? What’s done is done. Any punishment for Graystripe will be handled by his own Clan.”

While she spoke to Leopardfur, Fireheart noticed, her eyes kept straying to Mistyfoot and Stonefur. It was the first time Fireheart had seen his leader with the RiverClan warriors since she had admitted to him that they were her kits. He did not think he was imagining the wistfulness in her blue eyes as she looked at them.

“What you say is true,” Leopardfur agreed. “The two young cats were foolish, but Silverstream is dead, and Graystripe’s punishment is not for RiverClan to decide. We’ve come here about the kits.”

“What about them?” asked Bluestar.

“They’re RiverClan kits,” meowed Leopardfur. “We’ve come to take them home.”

“RiverClan kits?” Bluestar’s eyes narrowed. “Why do you say that?”

“And how do you know about them?” Tigerclaw demanded, glaring in fury as he sprang to his paws. “Have you been spying? Or did some cat tell you?”

He turned on Fireheart as he spoke, but Fireheart stood his ground, and Mistyfoot kept quiet, not betraying him by so much as a glance. Tigerclaw couldn’t know for sure that he had told Mistyfoot, and Fireheart refused to regret what he had done. RiverClan had the right to know.

“Sit down, Tigerclaw,” murmured Bluestar. She flashed a look at Fireheart, and he realized that his leader guessed what he had done, as surely as if she had seen him cross the river. But she didn’t intend to give him away. “Who knows, perhaps a RiverClan patrol saw what happened? Such things can’t be hidden for long. But Leopardfur,” she went on, turning back to the visiting deputy, “the kits are also half ThunderClan, and one of our queens is taking good care of them. Why should I give them to you?”

“Kits belong with their mother’s Clan,” Leopardfur explained. “RiverClan would have raised these kits if Silverstream had lived, without knowing who the father was, and that makes them ours by right.”

“Bluestar, you can’t send the kits away!” Fireheart couldn’t stop himself from interrupting. “They’re all Graystripe has to live for.”

A growl rumbled once again in Tigerclaw’s throat, but it was Bluestar who answered. “Fireheart, be quiet. This doesn’t concern you.”

“Yes, it does,” Fireheart dared to meow. “Graystripe’s my friend.”

“Silence!” hissed Tigerclaw. “Does your leader have to tell you twice? Graystripe is a traitor to his Clan. He has no right to the kits, or anything else.”

Rage flooded through Fireheart. Had Tigerclaw no respect for Graystripe’s terrible grief? He whirled on the deputy, held back from springing at him only because cats of another Clan were looking on. Tigerclaw bared his teeth in a snarl.

Bluestar flicked her tail angrily at both of them. “Enough!” she ordered. “Leopardfur, I admit RiverClan has some right to the kits. But so does ThunderClan. Besides, the kits are small and weak. They can’t travel yet, especially across the river. It’s too dangerous.”

Leopardfur’s hackles began to rise and her eyes narrowed to slits. “You are just making excuses.”

“No,” Bluestar insisted. “Not excuses. Would you risk the kits’ lives? I’ll think about what you have said and discuss it with my warriors, and give you our answer at the next Gathering.”

“Now get out of our camp,” growled Tigerclaw.

Leopardfur hesitated, as if she would have liked to say more, but it was clear that Bluestar had dismissed her. After a few tense moments, she dipped her head again and turned to go, with Mistyfoot and Stonefur behind her. Tigerclaw stalked across the clearing with them as far as the tunnel.

Left alone with Bluestar, Fireheart felt his anger begin to fade, but he couldn’t help renewing his pleas. “We can’t let them take the kits! You know how Graystripe would feel.”

The bleak look Bluestar gave him made him wonder if he had gone too far, but her voice was soft as she replied, “Yes, Fireheart, I know. And I would give much to keep these kits. But how far will RiverClan go to take them? Will they fight? How many ThunderClan warriors would risk their lives for kits that are half-RiverClan?”

Fireheart’s fur prickled with fear of the picture she painted. Clans at war over mewling kits—or ThunderClan split against itself as warriors fought among themselves. Was that the fate that StarClan had decreed for his Clan when Spottedleaf warned that water could quench fire? Perhaps it wasn’t the floodwater that could destroy ThunderClan, but the cats that came from the territory by the river.

“Have courage, Fireheart,” urged Bluestar. “It hasn’t come to a battle just yet. I’ve won us time until the Gathering, and who knows what will happen before then?”

Fireheart couldn’t share her confidence. The problem of the kits would not go away. But he could do nothing except bow his head respectfully and withdraw to the warriors’ den.

And now, he thought despairingly, what am I going to tell Graystripe?

By the time Silverpelt stretched across the sky, the whole of ThunderClan seemed to know why the RiverClan cats had come. Fireheart guessed that Tigerclaw had told his favourite warriors, and they had spread the news to the rest of the Clan.

As Bluestar had predicted, opinions were divided. Many cats thought that the sooner the Clan was rid of these half-breed kits, the better. But there were still several who were prepared to fight, if only because to give up the kits would mean that RiverClan had won.

Through it all, Graystripe remained silent, brooding in the warriors’ den. He left it only once to visit the nursery. When Fireheart brought him fresh-kill, he turned his head away. He hadn’t eaten since Silverstream died, as far as Fireheart could tell, and he was looking gaunt and ill.

“Is there anything you can do for him?” Fireheart asked Yellowfang, going to her den as soon as he woke the following day. “He won’t eat, he can’t sleep…”

The old medicine cat shook her head. “There’s no herb to heal a broken heart,” she murmured. “Only time will do that.”

“I feel so helpless,” Fireheart confessed.

“Your friendship helps,” Yellowfang rasped. “He might not realize it now, but one day he—”

She broke off as Cinderpaw appeared and dropped a bunch of herbs at Yellowfang’s feet. “Are these the right ones?” she asked.

Yellowfang gave the herbs a quick sniff. “Yes, that’s right,” she mewed. “You can’t eat before the ceremony,” she added, “but I will. I’m too old and creaky to get to Highstones and back without something to keep me going.” She crouched in front of the herbs and began to gulp them down.

“Highstones?” Fireheart echoed. “Ceremony? Cinderpaw, what’s going on?”

“It’s the half moon tonight,” Cinderpaw mewed happily. “Yellowfang and I are going to Mothermouth so I can be made a proper apprentice.” She gave a joyful wriggle. Fireheart felt a wave of relief that she seemed to be over her despair after Silverstream’s death, and was looking forward again to her new life as a medicine cat. Her eyes had recovered all their old sparkle, but there was a new wisdom and thoughtfulness in their blue depths now.

She was growing up, Fireheart thought, with an odd feeling of regret. His enthusiastic, sometimes scatterbrained apprentice was maturing into a cat of great inner strength and power. He knew he should rejoice in the path StarClan had chosen for her, but part of him wished that they could still go out together on the hunting trail. “I’ll come with you tonight, if you like,” he offered. “As far as Fourtrees, anyway.”

“Oh, would you, Fireheart? Thank you!” Cinderpaw mewed.

“But no farther than Fourtrees,” warned Yellowfang, getting to her paws and swiping her tongue around her mouth. “Tonight at Mothermouth is for medicine cats only.” She gave herself a brisk shake and led the way through the ferns to the clearing.

As Fireheart followed behind Cinderpaw, he saw Cloudpaw washing himself by the tree stump outside the apprentices’ den.

The white tom sprang up as soon as he saw Fireheart and raced across to him. “Where are you going?” he demanded. “Can I come?”

Fireheart glanced at Yellowfang, and when the old cat voiced no objection, he replied, “All right. It’ll be a good exercise for you, and we can hunt on the way back.” Trotting up the ravine behind the she-cats, he explained to Cloudpaw where they were going, and how Yellowfang and Cinderpaw would carry on alone to Highstones. Deep within the tunnel known as Mothermouth was the Moonstone, which glittered dazzling white when the moon shone upon it. Cinderpaw’s ceremony would take place in its unearthly light.

“What happens then?” Cloudpaw asked curiously.

“The ceremonies are secret,” growled Yellowfang. “So don’t ask Cinderpaw when she comes back. She isn’t allowed to tell you.”

“But every cat knows that she’ll receive special powers from StarClan,” Fireheart added.

“Special powers!” Cloudpaw’s eyes grew round, and he gazed at Cinderpaw as if he expected her to start uttering prophecies there and then.

“Don’t worry; I’ll still be the same old Cinderpaw,” she assured him with an amused purr. “That won’t ever change.”

The sun grew hot as the four cats made their way to Fourtrees. Fireheart was thankful for the deep shade under the trees and the cool freshness of long grass and clumps of fern as they brushed against his orange fur. All his senses were alert, and he kept Cloudpaw busy, scenting the air and reporting on what he could smell. Fireheart hadn’t forgotten the attack from ShadowClan and WindClan. They had been defeated once, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t try again to kill Brokentail. Besides that, Fireheart was half expecting trouble from RiverClan over Graystripe’s kits. He sighed. On a beautiful morning like this, with fresh green on the trees and prey practically leaping out of the bushes and waiting to be caught, it was hard to be thinking of attacks and death.

In spite of his worries, the group of cats reached Fourtrees without trouble. As they slid through the bushes down into the hollow, Fireheart dropped back to match Cinderpaw’s uneven steps. “Are you sure about what you’re doing?” he asked quietly. “Is it what you really want?”

“Of course! Don’t you see, Fireheart?” Cinderpaw’s eyes searched his, suddenly serious. “I have to learn as much as I can so that no cat dies because I couldn’t save them, like Silverstream.”

Fireheart flinched. He longed for a way to persuade his friend that Silverstream’s death was not her fault, but he knew he would be wasting his breath. “And will that make you happy? You know medicine cats can’t ever have kits,” he reminded her, thinking of how Yellowfang had been forced to give up Brokentail and keep her bond with him a secret.

Cinderpaw purred to comfort him. “The whole Clan will be my kits,” she promised. “Even the warriors. Yellowfang says they have about as much sense as newborns sometimes!” She took a pace forward that brought her to Fireheart’s side, and rubbed her face affectionately against his. “But you’ll always be my best friend, Fireheart. I’ll never forget you were my first mentor.”

Fireheart licked her ear. “Good-bye, Cinderpaw,” he mewed softly.

“I’m not going away forever,” Cinderpaw protested. “I’ll be back by sunset tomorrow.”

But Fireheart knew that in some ways, Cinderpaw was going away forever. When she returned, she would have new powers and responsibilities, given to her not by a Clan leader, but by StarClan. Side by side, they crossed the hollow beneath the four massive oaks and climbed the far slope to where Yellowfang and Cloudpaw were already waiting. The vast open moor stretched in front of them, a cool wind bending the sturdy clumps of heather.

“Won’t WindClan attack you if you go through their territory?” Cloudpaw mewed anxiously.

“All the Clans may pass through safely on the way to Highstones,” Yellowfang told him. “And no warrior would dare to attack medicine cats. StarClan forbid!” Turning to Cinderpaw, she asked, “Are you ready?”

“Yes, I’m coming.” Cinderpaw gave Fireheart one final lick and followed the old cat out onto the springy moorland grass. The breeze ruffled her fur as she limped swiftly away without a backward glance.

Fireheart watched her go, his heart heavy. He knew his friend was at the beginning of a new and happier life, but all the same he could not stifle a pang of bittersweet regret for the life that could have been hers.

Fireheart watched the sun climbing the trees. “Tigerclaw wants me to send Cloudpaw on a solo hunting mission today,” he meowed to Graystripe.

The big gray warrior looked up in surprise. “That’s early, isn’t it? He’s barely been made apprentice.”

Fireheart shrugged. “Tigerclaw thinks he’s ready. He told me to follow him and see how he does, anyway. Would you like to come and help?”

It was the morning after Cinderpaw had returned from Mothermouth. Fireheart had met her as she slipped down the ravine in the twilight. Though she greeted him affectionately, they both knew she could not tell him what she had gone through. Her face still wore a look of rapture, and the moon itself seemed to shine from her eyes. Fireheart tried hard not to feel that he had lost her to an unknown path.

Now he sat beside the nettle patch, enjoying a juicy mouse. Graystripe, crouching nearby, had taken a magpie from the pile of fresh-kill but had barely touched it.

“No, thanks, Fireheart,” he mewed. “I promised Goldenflower I’d look in on the kits. Their eyes are open now,” he added with a touch of pride.

Fireheart guessed that Goldenflower would rather that Graystripe stayed away, but he knew Graystripe would never be persuaded to leave his kits. “Okay,” he meowed. “I’ll see you later.” Swallowing the last morsel of mouse, he went to find Cloudpaw.

Tigerclaw had been busy that morning, sending out one patrol with Whitestorm to renew the scent markings along the RiverClan boundary, and another with Sandstorm to hunt around Snakerocks, so he had neglected to tell Fireheart where Cloudpaw should go for his hunting mission. Fireheart hadn’t felt the need to remind him.

“You can make for Twolegplace,” he meowed to Cloudpaw. “Then you won’t get in the way of the other patrols. You won’t see me, but I’ll be watching you. I’ll meet you by Princess’s fence.”

“Can I talk to her if she’s there?” Cloudpaw asked.

“Okay, as long as you’ve caught plenty of fresh-kill by then. But you’re not to go looking for her in the Twoleg gardens. Or their nests.”

“I won’t.” Cloudpaw’s eyes gleamed, and his snowy fur was fluffed up with excitement. Fireheart couldn’t help remembering how nervous he had felt before his own first assessment; Cloudpaw, in contrast, was bursting with confidence.

“Off you go, then,” Fireheart meowed. “Try to get there by sunhigh.” He watched the young apprentice race off toward the tunnel. “Pace yourself!” he called after him. “You’ve a long way to go!”

But Cloudpaw didn’t slow down as he disappeared into the gorse. Shrugging, more amused than annoyed, Fireheart glanced around at Graystripe, but his friend was nowhere to be seen. His half-eaten magpie was left beside the nettle patch. He must be in the nursery already, Fireheart thought, and turned to follow Cloudpaw out of the camp.

The apprentice’s scent was strong, showing where the young cat had ranged back and forth through the woods in search of prey. A flurry of loose feathers told of a caught thrush, and specks of blood on the grass showed that a mouse had fallen to his claws. Not far from the edge of the Tallpines, Fireheart found the spot where Cloudpaw had buried his fresh-kill so he could return for it later.

Impressed that his apprentice was hunting well so early in his training, Fireheart put on speed, hoping to catch up and watch him stalking his prey. But before he reached Twolegplace he caught sight of Cloudpaw racing back along his own scent trail, his fur bristling and a wild light in his eyes.

“Cloudpaw!” Fireheart ran forward to meet him, his body tingling with sudden fear.

Cloudpaw skidded to a halt, his claws scattering pine needles, barely managing to avoid a collision with Fireheart. “Something’s wrong!” he panted.

“What?” Icy claws clutched at Fireheart’s belly. “Not Princess?”

“No, nothing like that. But I saw Tigerclaw, and there were some strange cats with him.”

“At Twolegplace?” Fireheart meowed sharply. “Where we smelled them the day we visited Princess?”

“That’s right.” Cloudpaw’s whiskers twitched. “They were huddled together, just on the edge of the trees. I tried to get closer to hear what they were saying, but I was afraid they would see my white fur. So I came to find you.”

“You did the right thing,” Fireheart told him, his mind racing frantically. “What were these cats like? Did they have a Clan scent?”

“No.” Cloudpaw wrinkled his nose. “They smelled of crowfood.”

“And you didn’t recognize them?”

Cloudpaw shook his head. “They were thin and hungry-looking. Their fur was all mangy. They were horrible, Fireheart!”

“And they were talking to Tigerclaw.” Fireheart frowned. That was the detail that worried him. He could take a guess at who the strange cats were—the former ShadowClan warriors who had left their Clan with Brokentail when he had been driven out. They had caused trouble before, and there were no other rogues that Fireheart knew of in the forest now—but what Tigerclaw was doing with them was a mystery.

“All right,” he mewed to Cloudpaw. “Follow me. And keep as quiet as if you were creeping up on a mouse.” He headed cautiously toward Twolegplace, stalking from paw to paw over the softly cracking pine needles. Long before he reached the edge of the forest he picked up the strong reek of cats. The only one he could identify was Tigerclaw, and as if the thought had summoned him the deputy came into sight at that moment, bounding through the trees in the direction of the camp.

There was no undergrowth to provide cover under the pine trees. All Fireheart and Cloudpaw could do was flatten themselves in one of the deep furrows carved out by the Treecut monster and pray to StarClan they wouldn’t be seen.

A group of scrawny warriors poured after Tigerclaw. Their jaws were parted eagerly and their eyes blazed. All the cats were so intent on the trail that they never noticed Fireheart and Cloudpaw, crouching in their scant cover a few rabbit-hops away.

Fireheart lifted his head and watched them race out of sight. For a moment he was frozen with horror and disbelief. There were more of them, he realized, than the group who had left ShadowClan with Brokentail moons before. Tigerclaw must have recruited more loners from somewhere. And he was leading them straight toward the ThunderClan camp!