Rising Storm

Chapter 17

Fireheart padded heavily back to the Thunderpath. The smell of Tigerclaw and the rogue cats was still heavy in the air, but he could hear no noises other than birdsong and the whispering of the breeze through the leaves. In the calm after the battle, he noticed how strongly the scent of ShadowClan mingled with the other smells. Had there been other ShadowClan cats, as well as Whitethroat, among the rogues? He wondered if the sickness in the ShadowClan camp was so bad that its warriors were imposing their own exile and joining up with Tigerclaw’s band of outcasts for protection. Or perhaps the scent had simply wafted from the territory on the other side of the Thunderpath.

Fireheart stared across the hard gray path at the body of the black-and-white warrior. If Whitethroat had joined the rogue cats because his Clan was too sick to support him, it didn’t explain the look of horror on his face when he’d seen Tigerclaw. Why would Whitethroat have been so terrified if Tigerclaw were now his leader? With a flicker of guilt, Fireheart suddenly wondered if Whitethroat had stumbled on Runningwind’s body by sheer accident, after Tigerclaw had led the attack on the ThunderClan patrol. But what was he doing in ThunderClan territory? And where was Littlecloud? There were too many questions, and none of the answers made sense.

One thing was certain: Fireheart could not leave Whitethroat’s body to be battered by monsters on the Thunderpath. It was quiet now, and Fireheart crossed to the middle and grasped the warrior’s scruff in his teeth. He dragged him gently across to the verge on the far side, hoping that his Clanmates would find him soon and give him an honorable burial. Whatever Whitethroat had or had not done, StarClan would judge him now.

When Fireheart entered the moonlit ThunderClan camp, Runningwind’s body lay in the center of the clearing. He looked peaceful, stretched out as if he were asleep. Bluestar was pacing around the warrior’s body, her broad gray head swinging from side to side.

The rest of the Clan hung back, keeping to the shadows at the edge of the clearing. The air was thick with distress. The cats weaved silently among one another, glancing anxiously at their leader as she padded back and forth, muttering under her breath. She didn’t even try to control her grief, as she would have done once. Fireheart remembered how quietly she had mourned her old friend and deputy, Lionheart, many moons ago. She showed none of that silent dignity now.

Fireheart could feel the Clan watching him as he approached their leader. Bluestar looked up, and he felt a stab of alarm when he saw that her eyes were clouded with fear and shock.

“They say Tigerclaw did this,” she rasped.

“It might have been one of his rogues.”

“How many are there?”

“I don’t know,” Fireheart admitted. It had been impossible to count in the thick of battle. “Many.”

Bluestar began to shake her head again, but Fireheart knew she had to be told everything, whether she wanted to know what was going on in the forest or not. “Tigerclaw wants vengeance against ThunderClan,” he reported. “He told me he is going to kill our warriors one by one.”

Behind him the Clan exploded into horrified yowls. Fireheart let them wail, keeping his eyes fixed on Bluestar. He felt his heart flutter like a trapped bird as he begged StarClan to give her the strength to cope with this openly declared threat. Gradually the Clan fell silent, and Fireheart waited with them for Bluestar to speak. An owl screeched in the distance as it dived through the trees.

Bluestar lifted her head. “It’s only me he wants to kill,” she murmured, so quietly that only Fireheart could hear her. “For the sake of the Clan—”

“No!” Fireheart spat, cutting her off. Did Bluestar really intend to give herself up to Tigerclaw? “He wants revenge on the whole Clan, not just you!”

She dropped her head. “Such vicious betrayal!” she hissed. “How could I not have seen his treachery when he lived among us? What a fool I’ve been!” She shook her head, her eyes closed. “What a mouse-brained fool.”

Fireheart’s paws trembled. Bluestar seemed determined to torture herself by claiming all responsibility for Tigerclaw’s wickedness. With a sickening jolt he realized he would have to take charge.

“We must make sure the camp is guarded day and night from now on. Longtail.” He looked over at the striped warrior. “You will sit guard till moonhigh.” Then he swung his head toward Frostfur. “You will take over then.” The two cats nodded, and Fireheart bent his head toward Runningwind’s body. “Mousefur and Brackenfur can bury Runningwind at dawn. Bluestar will sit vigil with him until then.” He glanced at his leader, who was staring blankly at the ground, and hoped that she’d heard him.

“I will join her,” meowed Whitestorm. The white warrior shouldered his way through the crowd and sat beside Bluestar, pressing his pelt against hers.

One by one the Clan padded forward to pay their respects to their lost friend. Willowpelt slipped from the nursery and touched the dead warrior gently with her muzzle, whispering her sorrowful farewell. Goldenflower followed her, signaling to her kits to stay back. Fireheart felt a chilling sense of foreboding as he saw the dark tabby kit peering curiously around his mother. He couldn’t help feeling that this kit, however innocent, kept Tigerclaw’s menace alive inside the Clan. Fireheart shook away the thought as he watched Goldenflower gently lick Runningwind’s cheek. He must have faith in her and the Clan to raise the kit to be a truer warrior than his father had been.

After Goldenflower had padded away, Fireheart stepped forward and leaned down to lick Runningwind’s dull pelt. “I will avenge your death,” he promised softly.

As he backed away, he saw a figure step forward from the shadow of the Highrock. It was Darkstripe. Fireheart watched his eyes flick from Runningwind to Bluestar and back, burning, not with fear or grief, but with a brooding thoughtfulness.

Unsettled, Fireheart headed for one place he knew he would find comfort. He padded through the ferns to Yellowfang’s den, his bites and scratches beginning to sting as much as the thorn-sharp doubts that fretted in his mind.

Thornpaw sat in the well-trampled grass clearing. Cinderpelt and Yellowfang crouched beside him while he held up a paw for them to examine. Cinderpelt peeled a wad of cobwebs away from the pad, making Thornpaw grimace. “It’s still bleeding,” the apprentice medicine cat reported.

“It should have stopped by now,” rasped Yellowfang. “We need to dry this wound before infection creeps in.”

Cinderpelt’s eyes narrowed. “We have those horsetail stems I gathered yesterday. What if we drip some sap onto the cobwebs before we bind them onto the paw? That might stop the bleeding.”

Yellowfang let out a rumbling purr. “Good thinking.” The old medicine cat turned at once and hurried toward her den while Cinderpelt pressed on Thornpaw’s wound with her paw. Only then did she notice Fireheart standing in the tunnel entrance.

“Fireheart!” she mewed, her blue eyes showing her concern. “Are you okay?”

“Just a few scratches and a bite or two,” Fireheart replied, padding forward to join them.

“I heard that it was rogue cats who attacked us,” meowed Thornpaw, twisting his head to look up at Fireheart. “And that Tigerclaw was with them. Is it true?”

“It’s true,” Fireheart told him gravely.

Cinderpelt glanced at Fireheart, then shook the ginger apprentice’s paw. “Here, press on this.”

“Me?” mewed Thornpaw in surprise.

“It’s your paw! Hurry up, or you’ll have to change your name to Nopaw.”

Thornpaw lifted his paw higher and clamped his jaws carefully around the wound.

“Bluestar should never have let Tigerclaw leave the Clan,” Cinderpelt mewed quietly to Fireheart. “She should have killed him while she had the chance.”

Fireheart shook his head. “She would never have killed him in cold blood. You know that.”

Cinderpelt didn’t argue. “Why has he come back now? And how could he kill a warrior he once fought beside?”

“He told me he is going to kill as many of us as he can,” Fireheart meowed darkly.

Thornpaw let out a muffled mew, and Cinderpelt’s whiskers quivered with shock. “But why?” asked the young medicine cat.

Fireheart felt his eyes cloud with anger. “Because ThunderClan didn’t give him what he wanted.”

“What did he want?”

“To be leader,” Fireheart answered simply.

“Well, he’ll never get to be a leader this way. He’s hardly going to make himself popular with the Clan if he starts attacking our patrols like this.”

Doubt flickered through Fireheart at Cinderpelt’s confident words. Bluestar was so weak. Who else had the strength to replace her if she…Fireheart winced. He knew the Clan’s deep fear of the massive tom and his rogue cats. They might prefer to accept Tigerclaw as their leader rather than allow ThunderClan to be destroyed fighting him.

“Do you really believe that?” he pressed.

The noise of Yellowfang’s pawsteps as she returned from her den startled them, and all three cats turned. A wad of cobwebs dangled from the old medicine cat’s jaws. She dropped them beside Cinderpelt and meowed, “Believe what?”

“That Tigerclaw will never become Clan leader,” Cinderpelt explained.

Yellowfang’s eyes darkened and she didn’t speak for several long heartbeats. “I think Tigerclaw has the strength of ambition to become whatever he wants to be,” she meowed at last.