The Blazing Star

Chapter 10

The sun shone, but wind whistled through the branches of the trees, whirling dead leaves around

Clear Sky. He sat on a hillock in a forest clearing, watching One Eye and Tom. They had gathered some of the other cats to train them in battle techniques.

“Quick Water, have you gone to sleep?” the former rogue snarled. “And you, Leaf? You’re as slow as a dying snail!”

One Eye is harsh, Clear Sky thought, watching him give the unfortunate Leaf a cuff around the ear.

But he certainly can fight!

Clear Sky and One Eye had never spoken again of the argument they had had in front of Thunder and Tall Shadow. Clear Sky didn’t know for sure whether the rogue had followed him across the Thunderpath to find the Blazing Star.

I saw no sign that he did, Clear Sky tried to reassure himself. But I wouldn’t put it past him.

One Eye’s challenge to his authority still rankled, although he kept telling himself what he had told

Mouse Ear: It would take time for a lifelong rogue like One Eye to learn the rules of group living.

Some flare-ups and squabbles were only natural. But if it happens again…

Focusing on the training, Clear Sky knew he couldn’t argue with one fact: One Eye fought very sneakily, with techniques and tricks that Clear Sky himself had never dreamed of. Tom, too, was losing his kittypet softness and learning to use his claws. And kittypet or not, he was full of ideas on how to trick his opponents and defeat them.

“Now watch this,” One Eye meowed, facing Thorn. “Fighting is about winning, right? And to win, you need to distract your enemy. Thorn, I’m coming at you. Fight me off!”

Thorn braced himself, letting out a fierce growl. One Eye crouched low to the ground, then leaped forward as if he was aiming for Thorn’s neck. Thorn instinctively brought up his paws to fend him off. Swift as a striking snake, One Eye ducked underneath his legs and pushed him over, raking his paws across Thorn’s soft belly. Then he stood back, waiting for the disconcerted tom to stand up again.

“If I’d been using my claws,” One Eye rasped, “your belly would have been torn open.”

Thorn clearly didn’t know how to respond to this. One Eye let out an amused snort. “Next time, you will know what to do.”

Thorn nodded, while nervous mrrow s of laughter came from the other cats who had watched the move.

Clear Sky twitched his tail in satisfaction. One Eye and Tom were giving his cats an advantage in battle that no other group would have. That will matter someday, he realized. None of his cats had been able to decide what the Blazing Star meant, and the future was still as dark to them as ever. But whatever the coming seasons held, being a skilled fighter could save a cat’s life. Not in battle, he reminded himself, feeling slightly nauseous at the terrible memory. Not unless we have no other choice.

“What about hidden weapons?” Tom asked, stepping up beside One Eye.

The old rogue turned to him with an enthusiastic swish of his tail. “Yes, good thinking! In a forest like this, no cat needs to rely just on their claws and teeth. There are a lot of things that can inflict pain. Tom, why don’t you go and look for a rock with a sharp edge.”

Tom immediately whipped around and raced into the trees, his tail streaming out behind him.

Clear Sky was impressed. I never thought of using rocks in battle.

“Okay.” One Eye turned back to the other cats. “Pair up, and I want to see you practicing that neck feint. Concentrate on speed. No claws… for now.”

But before the training exercise could begin, a small cat emerged from the undergrowth at the edge of the clearing and ran toward the group. Startled, Clear Sky peered at the little tortoiseshell and recognized Sparrow Fur, one of Turtle Tail’s kits who Gray Wing was raising. She had grown since he first saw her in Gray Wing’s camp after the forest fire. And even since Tom took her, he added to himself, still feeling guilty for not recognizing her then.

“Are you doing fight training?” she asked eagerly as she pattered up to One Eye. “I came looking for Tom—he’s my father, you know. He was just here… Where did he go?” When no cat responded, she added, “Can I train with you? I think I’m a pretty good fighter, but there’s always more to learn, isn’t there?”

Without warning, One Eye pounced in front of Sparrow Fur, pushing one paw into her forehead.

“Ow!” Sparrow Fur yowled. “You don’t have to use claws!”

One Eye didn’t move. “I don’t know you,” he told her in a low snarl. “And that makes you my enemy.”

“I’m not!” Sparrow Fur protested. “Tom’s my father. And can you put your claws away, please?

You’re hurting me.”

“If you love your father so much,” One Eye replied calmly, “then you should come and join him in this group, shouldn’t you? Until you do, you can’t be one of us.”

Clear Sky shifted his weight on the hillock, feeling a prickle of uncertainty in his pelt. The ghost cats had told them, Unite or die.

We aren’t supposed to fight over territory anymore, he thought. But then he reflected that, in a way, One Eye was right. There were reasons that his group and the group in the moorland hollow had stayed separate. And why should we share battle techniques with an outsider? No cat knows who our next enemy will be.

Narrowing his eyes, he settled down on the hillock again to see how this encounter would play out.

Sparrow Fur’s pelt was bristling in anger, and she arched her back. “You can’t keep me from seeing my father,” she meowed. “I’m not leaving until he comes back!” She swiped at One Eye’s nose with her claws.

The rogue easily dodged the blow. “Either you can leave or you can fight me,” he rasped. “Prove you’re serious by taking me down—if you can—and you can stay.”

“I’m a very good fighter!” Sparrow Fur retorted. “I fight with my brothers all the time.”

“I’m no kin of yours,” One Eye mewed darkly. “Whether you survive this fight is no concern of mine. So will you leave? Or fight?”

Clear Sky could see the kit’s frustration and uncertainty in her fluffed-up fur and twitching tail. I know how she feels; she can’t understand why a grown cat would be this mean to her.

“All right,” Sparrow Fur agreed, raising her head bravely. “If I have to prove how much I need to see my father, I will fight you!”

This is going too far, Clear Sky decided. Rising to his paws, he cleared his throat.

One Eye turned and gazed up at him, dark amusement smoldering in his eye. “The kits who live in these groups are so sheltered,” he began. “In the wild, kits learn from birth how the real world works.

If you challenge a cat, you must fight him. And if you made a mistake in challenging him, you learn.”

Clear Sky could understand the logic of what One Eye was saying. Sparrow Fur is a feisty little thing—maybe too feisty for her own good. But his pelt still prickled uncomfortably, and he was not sure why he felt that way. Has the forced peace of the last moon made me go soft? Or is it because she’s sort of my brother’s kit that I want to protect her?

At last Clear Sky decided that One Eye was right. It was just for that kind of blunt, unattractive wisdom that he had allowed the rogue to join his group. Sparrow Fur won’t be forever harmed by a few scratches! Nodding his head, he allowed the fight to begin.

Instantly Sparrow Fur hurled herself at One Eye, getting in a couple of stinging blows around his ears. Clear Sky stifled a mrrow of laughter. Maybe she was right to challenge the old rogue!

Perhaps she’s a born fighter…

But within a heartbeat, the fight changed. One Eye swiped the little tortoiseshell across the shoulder. Clear Sky could see blood welling from the scratches as Sparrow Fur staggered and fell.

One Eye glanced across at Clear Sky, and gave him a nod. Clear Sky understood. He’s just teaching her a lesson. He’ll back down now. Every hair on Clear Sky’s pelt was urging him to run down from the hillock and break up the fight. But he forced himself to stay where he was.

One Eye took a step back from the kit, lashing his tail as if challenging her to get up. Sparrow Fur struggled to her paws. She was clearly in pain, but she glared steadily at the rogue with fire in her eyes.

She’s just like her mother, Clear Sky thought, remembering Turtle Tail in the mountains.

Determined to the last…

With a howl of anger the kit leaped at One Eye, sinking her claws into his neck and back. Her hind paws barely touched the ground as she bit hard into his pelt and scrabbled to claw at his remaining eye. “I want to see my father!” she yowled.

Clear Sky could see the change come over the rogue cat in stiffening limbs and bristling pelt, but his own paws felt frozen to the hilltop, as if what he was seeing was some kind of dark dream.

One Eye threw the kit off his back effortlessly, then pounced on top of her. He dug his teeth into her flank and twisted his head, tearing at her flesh. Sparrow Fur let out a wail, her soft, small paws batting helplessly at her attacker. Without mercy One Eye rolled her onto her back and tore into her white belly fur.

The other cats stood around watching, their eyes wide with horror, but clearly not daring to intervene because their leader had allowed the fight. Acorn Fur and Quick Water looked particularly distressed, both she-cats turning a pleading gaze toward Clear Sky.

Stunned at the vicious attack, Clear Sky realized that the rogue was about to kill the kit to teach her a lesson. And I am letting it happen!

At last he forced his paws to move, hurling down from the hillock and racing across the clearing.

“Stop!” he yowled.

One Eye raised his head, baring teeth that were stained with Sparrow Fur’s blood, one paw still pinning down her feebly twitching body. With horror, Clear Sky realized that he was too late. He was not going to reach Sparrow Fur before One Eye dealt the killing blow.

But at the same moment an orange blur came flying out of the trees and leaped on top of One Eye, knocking him several paces away and digging claws into the side of his head. One Eye screeched in protest.

Tom! Relief washed over Clear Sky as he recognized the former kittypet.

“Leave her alone!” Tom growled, attacking One Eye in a whirl of teeth and claws. “She’s my kit!”

The two cats rolled over together on the ground, their paws locked around each other’s bodies, their jaws snapping.

Clear Sky hardly spared them a glance. He halted beside Sparrow Fur, who lay bleeding in the grass where One Eye had left her. His belly heaved with a mixture of revulsion and pity. The tortoiseshell kit was unconscious, her chest barely moving to show that she was still alive. Terrible wounds gaped in her flanks and belly.

A helpless kit! Clear Sky thought, guilt surging through him like storm water. What was I thinking?

Desperately he turned toward the other cats who were still watching, transfixed with horror. “I need help,” he mewed, his voice shaking. “Please. We need cobwebs to stop the bleeding.”

Instantly the cats scattered into the undergrowth. Clear Sky felt a brief glow of gratitude that they didn’t turn their backs on him after they had watched him allow the unequal fight to happen. But a heartbeat later he pushed the feeling away.

That’s not important now. What matters is saving Sparrow Fur!

Clear Sky was vaguely aware that Tom and One Eye were still fighting somewhere on the other side of the clearing, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. All his attention was on the injured kit.

Acorn Fur was the first cat to return with a thick pawful of cobwebs. She bent over her former denmate, gently licking the blood away from her wounds and pressing the cobwebs over them. They quickly soaked with blood, but when the other cats returned with more cobwebs, the bleeding was gradually brought under control. Sparrow Fur’s breathing grew deeper and more regular, though she didn’t open her eyes.

“Will she be okay now?” Acorn Fur asked anxiously.

Clear Sky heaved a huge sigh of relief. “I hope so,” he replied. “But we need to get her back to camp and care for her.”

He realized that the hissing and screeching from Tom and One Eye had died away to silence.

Good, the fight is over, he thought. Now I can deal with them both…

But when he glanced across at the other side of the clearing, his jaws gaped in shock. Tom lay with his legs splayed out and his eyes wide in a fixed stare. Blood clotted in his fur and on the grass around him. One Eye sat beside him, calmly licking his paws and cleaning blood off his whiskers.

“He fought well,” he meowed, “for a kittypet.”

Clear Sky heard gasps of horror from the other cats, feeling as though all the blood in his veins had turned to ice.

“Oh, no,” Thorn muttered, sounding sick. “Tom didn’t deserve to die like that.”

“He was only defending his kit,” Acorn Fur whispered.

With a massive effort, Clear Sky pulled himself together and gave his pelt a shake. “Carry

Sparrow Fur back to camp as quickly as you can,” he ordered. “Treat her like you would your own kit. And one of you should run ahead and tell Petal to make a soft nest out of moss.”

Acorn Fur raced off at once, while Thorn and Leaf gently picked up Sparrow Fur’s body, careful not to dislodge the cobwebs over her wounds. As they headed into the trees, Quick Water padded just in front of them, carefully holding back branches and bramble tendrils so that they didn’t catch on the kit’s pelt.

Once they had gone, Clear Sky slowly padded across the clearing toward One Eye, who was still grooming himself, his gaze firmly fixed on his paw.

Clear Sky halted a few paw steps in front of the rogue, then discovered that he had no idea what he wanted to say. “What…” he managed to stammer.

One Eye looked up at him, the fur around his mouth spiky with drying blood. “Stupid kittypet,” he rasped, his voice filled with contempt. “He should have known better than to challenge me. I’ve killed much tougher opponents than him.”

“Like the kit?” Clear Sky asked, unable to find words strong enough to express his disgust with the rogue. “The helpless kit you practically tore apart, for fun?”

One Eye flicked his tail dismissively. “That kit was too proud,” he mewed. “She didn’t know when to give up. Now she’s learned a valuable lesson.”

Clear Sky’s claws slid out, and his foreleg swiped a hard blow at the side of One Eye’s head.

The rogue dodged it with no trouble at all, giving Clear Sky a derisive look.

“You can’t stop me from defending my honor,” he told Clear Sky. “That’s how it works in the real world.”

Honor? Clear Sky thought. This cat has no honor!

He struck at One Eye again, but the rogue avoided that blow with as much ease as the first. “We have rules here!” Clear Sky hissed.

“Your so-called rules are a joke,” One Eye snarled back. “No cat really cares about anything but himself. Pretending otherwise just causes heartache… and sickness.”

Clear Sky’s heart thumped uncomfortably. Sickness? “What do you know about the sickness?” he demanded.

One Eye gave the same dismissive flick of his tail.

“That bird was very ill,” Clear Sky went on, his apprehension growing with every heartbeat. “Do you know more about it than you told us?”

“I know enough to tell you that some of the cats in your group are as good as dead.”

He didn’t know if One Eye’s words were to be trusted, but felt his fur bristling along his back.

“Which ones?” he demanded. “How do you know?”

One Eye flicked his tail again. “I could tell you, but I won’t bother. I guess I only care about myself.”

Clear Sky found the malevolence in his single eye sickening. A red mist clouded Clear Sky’s vision. He pounced on One Eye, holding him down with both forepaws while he dug into the rogue’s neck with his teeth. One Eye struggled, but rage gave Clear Sky new strength.

Every instinct was urging him to rip out the vile cat’s throat and let his blood run out into the grass, but he knew that would be to lower himself to the same disgusting level. Instead he stood back, releasing One Eye. The rogue leaped up, smoothing one paw over his ears.

“Get out of here,” Clear Sky ordered, forcing his voice to remain even as he spat out the words.

“Do not come back. Or I will kill you with my own claws.”

As One Eye glared for a moment, Clear Sky realized something that had always bothered him about the rogue. His eye had no expression, just a malignant yellow glow.

“You’ll kill me, will you?” the rogue asked. “Will you really?”

Clear Sky felt the blood pounding in his ears and braced himself, ready for battle. But One Eye turned away, heading for the edge of the clearing and into the trees.

Clear Sky took a deep breath. One Eye has gone—and I feel like he’s taken all of my honor with him. He realized that he should have driven One Eye out after he challenged his authority in front of Tall Shadow and Thunder. How will I ever explain what happened to my cats?

Ready to despair, Clear Sky closed his eyes. A heartbeat later he felt a hard blow on his back, and let out a startled yowl. Claws dug into his back, and One Eye snaked a paw around Clear Sky’s neck, aiming for his eye.

That’s a move Tom came up with! Clear Sky thought, struggling frantically to throw One Eye off.

Pain stabbed into his face as One Eye raked his claws over his cheek.

Clear Sky let himself go limp and collapsed to the ground, rolling over so that One Eye was underneath him. Then he wriggled around and swiped his claws across the rogue’s shoulder, breaking his grip. Clear Sky sprang to his paws, panting.

“You’ll kill me, will you?” One Eye sneered, rising to face him. “You’ll kill One Eye? If One Eye were that easy to kill, he’d never have survived kithood.” He spat at Clear Sky, pointing with his tail at the wound along his face. “Keep that to remember me by,” he snarled.

As the rogue slunk away into the forest, Clear Sky felt his legs trembling. He sank to the ground, taking in huge gulps of air. He felt so utterly defeated, as though he would never be able to get up again.

I’ve made a terrible mistake…