Firestar’s Quest

Sandstorm rose to her paws. “Okay, but I’m not going to look until we’ve had a drink. My mouth feels as dry as the gorge.”

She began to pick her way down the pile of boulders on the other side, following the river until she reached the pool where the river flowed out. Firestar joined her as she crouched down and began to lap. The water was icy cold; it soaked through his scorched fur and Firestar thought that he would never want to stop drinking.

The water flowed swiftly but without making a sound. A blue-green light sparkled under the surface, but further under the heap of boulders everything was dark. The cave gaped like an open mouth, silently waiting…

Firestar shivered and sat up, shaking droplets from his whiskers. Sandstorm was staring at something on the dried mud beside the pool.

“Look at that,” she mewed.

In the mud were the clear pawprints of a cat! “It could be a rogue, just passing through,” Firestar pointed out, “or even an adventurous kittypet.”

Sandstorm sniffed. “Very adventurous, for a kittypet. Let’s have a look at those caves.”

The side of the gorge was even steeper here than where they had climbed down. Firestar struggled to keep his footing among the loose pebbles, convinced he was about to slip.

After the first few tail-lengths he left the shadows behind, and the blazing heat struck him like a blow. Dust puffed up under his paws, making him as thirsty as ever.

But when he reached the first of the trails, the going became easier. It looked as if the cliff face had been scraped out to expose a flattened trail that led back and forth in a gentle slope, connecting each of the caves. Firestar headed for the highest entrance, which also looked to be the biggest. He pressed close to the cliff, avoiding the drop on the other side. Sandstorm was just behind him, puffing her breath out in a sigh of relief as she followed him onto the level floor of the cave.

Firestar stared around him. He had been here before. The cave was several times the size of his den in the ThunderClan camp. Inside it was cool and shadowy, with sheer walls and a sandy floor. It was sheltered from rain or blistering heat, and it would be difficult for enemies to reach.

For a few heartbeats he stood still, imagining how the SkyClan cats would have felt when they reached this refuge.

Had they been joyful to find shelter, or wary of danger lurking in the shadows? Had they longed for their camp in the forest? Or were they just too tired to care? For a moment they were all around him again; he could hear their mews and feel their pelts brushing against his own.

“What do you think of those?” Sandstorm asked, pointing with her tail to a few shallow scrapes in the floor at the back of the cave. “Filled with moss and bracken, they’d make pretty good nests.”

“Yes, but where would they find moss and bracken around here?” Firestar asked. “I didn’t see any growing in the gorge.”

“There might be some on the cliffs.”

Firestar nodded, tasting the air again. The cave was full of animal scents: he could discern mouse and vole, and even cat, but none of them smelled fresh. He padded forward, nosing around the scrapes Sandstorm had spotted; only the memory of his dream assured him that they really were nests, not just natural dips in the cave floor.

“Let’s go and explore some of the other caves.” Firestar headed for the entrance, only to stop dead a tail-length inside. His heart had started to thump again. “Look at that,” he whispered.

At one side of the entrance was a narrow column of rock, attached on one side to the cave wall. Thickly scored down the lower half were the marks of claws. Hardly daring to breathe, Firestar padded across, raised his forepaws, and placed his own claws in the marks.

“A perfect fit!” Sandstorm breathed.

She was right. Firestar’s claws slipped into the marks as if he had made them himself. He shivered to think that his paws were resting where those other cats had been, so long ago.

“Look at those other marks.” Sandstorm padded up to the stone trunk and laid one paw against it, close to the bottom.

For the first time Firestar noticed some tiny scratches running sideways across the trunk. “Maybe kits made them.”

Sandstorm looked doubtful. “Why would they scratch crosswise, instead of up and down?”

Firestar shrugged. “Why do kits do anything? Anyway, it doesn’t matter. This is the place,” he meowed, suddenly more confident than ever. “This is where SkyClan made their camp.”

Sandstorm’s green eyes glinted. “Then where are they now?”

They spent the rest of the day exploring the other caves.

Firestar’s paws tingled as they kept discovering more of the claw marks, proof that all these caves had once been inhabited by cats.

“Look!” Sandstorm murmured in the next cave they visited, resting her tail tip gently against the wall. “Nothing but tiny marks! This must have been the nursery.”