Firestar’s Quest

“I don’t know. But if any Clanmate of mine spoke to me like that, they would spend the next moon searching the elders for ticks.”

Sandstorm rubbed her muzzle against his. “Well, they don’t know that you’re Firestar, leader of ThunderClan,” she consoled him. “For all they know, we might be rogues trying to muscle in on their territory.”

“I’m not so sure.” Firestar gazed across the scrubby grass-land to the Twolegplace, where the two cats had now vanished. “They thought there was only one cat there, so they can’t have seen us arrive. And their insults meant something; they seemed to know exactly who they were talking to.”

“Then there must be another cat around here,” Sandstorm mewed. “Maybe the one who left those bones in the cave?”

“Maybe.” He turned back into the thicket and began to explore more thoroughly. He managed to pick up several different cat scents among the bushes, as well as mice and birds.

“No foxes or badgers,” Sandstorm commented, coming face-to-face with him around the trunk of a holly bush.

“At least that’s something,” Firestar mewed. “Most of the cat scents are kittypet, including fresh ones from our visitors.

I’d like to talk to them. They might know if cats once lived in the caves.”

“They might.” Sandstorm gave a disgusted sniff. “But will they be willing to tell us?”

Firestar didn’t reply. Turning away from Twolegplace, the two cats hunted in the bushes, then climbed down the stony trails into the bottom of the gorge. Reaching the river, Firestar spotted more caves on the opposite side, lower down than the ones they had already explored.

“I wonder if SkyClan used those caves too,” he meowed, pointing with his tail.

“They must have been a big Clan, if they did,” Sandstorm replied. “There’s plenty of space in the caves we’ve already seen.”

“Still, we’d better check them out.”

They climbed the pile of rocks where the river flowed out, and crossed to the far side of the gorge. There was no cat scent in the other caves, and no evidence of claw marks or bones to suggest that cats had ever been there.

“I expect it’s because these caves don’t get much sun,” Sandstorm suggested. “It’d be cold and dark for most of the day.”

Firestar thought she must be right. He was thankful to leave the last cave and head for the river again.

A sudden yowl from the top of the gorge froze his paws to the ground. Four Twolegs stood outlined against the sky.

“This way—quick!” Sandstorm hissed at him from the shelter of a boulder.

Firestar bounded over to her and crouched by her side, hoping the Twolegs hadn’t spotted him. Peering out, he saw that they were all young males. Yowling loudly, they clambered down the side of the gorge as far as the pool. Firestar didn’t know whether they were looking for him and Sandstorm; he could feel her heart racing as he pressed against her side.

Then he saw the young Twolegs pulling off some of their pelts. With the loudest yowl of all, one of them leaped from a boulder at the side of the pool and plunged into the water.

His three friends jumped in after him, then climbed out of the pool, shaking water from their head fur, and then leaped in again.

“Thank StarClan!” Firestar let out a sigh of relief. “They don’t know we’re here. They’ve just come to play in the water, like those others downstream.”

Sandstorm shrugged. “I keep telling you, Twolegs are mad.”

They stayed out of sight until the young Twolegs were tired of their game. Once they had put their pelts back on and begun the climb back to the cliff top, the two cats ventured out of the shelter of the boulder.

“I wonder if they come down here a lot,” Sandstorm mewed. “SkyClan wouldn’t have been happy living so close to Twolegs.”

“True,” Firestar agreed. “But at least they make enough noise. A cat would always know when they’re coming.”

He leaped across the rocks to the opposite side of the river, thankful to emerge into sunlight again. “I haven’t seen any fish here,” he remarked as Sandstorm joined him.

“I haven’t seen any fish since below the waterfall,” she meowed. “Prey here is mice and voles and birds. And maybe a few rabbits.”

“And most of that at the top of the cliffs,” Firestar mused.

“It can’t have been an easy life.”

“Maybe that’s why they’re not here now.”

Firestar wondered if she was right. He and Sandstorm had managed to feed themselves without much trouble, but would there be enough for a whole Clan?

They were climbing back to the warriors’ cave when Sandstorm halted. “There’s another trail here,” she announced, angling her ears toward a narrow, stony path that led slantwise up the rock. Firestar could just make out faint pawprints in the dust, as if at least one cat had been that way recently. “I didn’t notice it before. Do you think we should follow it?”

Firestar nodded. “It can’t do any harm.”

The trail led farther up the gorge until it ended at a deep cleft in the cliff face. Beyond the cleft was a flat rock that jutted out over the gorge.