Firestar’s Quest

“Full moon tonight.” Firestar emerged from the warriors’ cave; the dawn chill reminded him that greenleaf was drawing to an end. There was just enough light to make out the cliff at the opposite side of the river. A stiff breeze flattened his fur against his sides. “We’ve got to be ready to meet Moony.”

Sandstorm, still curled in her nest, answered him with a yawn. “He won’t be here until moonhigh. Go back to sleep.”

Her green eyes were no more than slits; as Firestar watched they closed completely, and she wrapped her tail tip over her nose.

The nest looked tempting, but Firestar felt too restless to lie down again. His paws itched to be doing something. “I’ll go and find us some fresh-kill,” he meowed.

Sandstorm’s ears twitched to show that she had heard.

Luck was with Firestar; when he scrambled up to the cliff top he found himself nose-to-nose with a mouse and killed it before it had the chance to run. Scratching earth over it, he prowled through the bushes, but there was no other prey about.

By the time he emerged on the other side of the thicket the sun was edging above the top of the Twolegplace, flooding the stretch of scrubland with warm light and glittering on monsters racing past the Twoleg nests in the distance.

Firestar hadn’t ventured far in that direction before. Without consciously deciding, he found that his paws were carrying him toward the Twolegplace. He wasn’t trying to hunt anymore, just scouting this unfamiliar territory.

Darting into the shelter of a gorse bush for cover, he was met by a furious hiss and a paw swiped past his nose, the claws missing him by less than a mouse-length. Firestar reared back in astonishment. A tabby she-cat crouched in front of him, her cream-and-brown neck fur bristling and her amber eyes glaring. Her scent told Firestar she was a rogue.

“Keep your paws off me!” she spat.

“I’m sorry.” Firestar dipped his head. “I didn’t see you there.”

The she-cat relaxed slightly, but her look was still unfriendly. “Stupid furball. Just be a bit more careful next time.” She turned and began to stalk off, her tail in the air.

“Hang on.” Firestar bounded forward and caught up with her. “I want to talk to you. I need to know—”

“I don’t want to talk to you,” the she-cat interrupted, sounding just like Moony. “Go away and leave me alone.” To show she meant it, she picked up speed until she was racing across the scrubby ground toward the Twoleg nests.

Firestar stood looking after her, tail lashing in frustration.

Why was every cat in this place so hostile? None of them seemed to care about one another. There wasn’t a trace of the warrior code left. Apart from the two kittypets, all the cats he had seen were rogues through and through.

A heavy stone seemed to settle in his heart. Ever since he and Sandstorm found the caves, he had clung to the hope of finding a few SkyClan cats living together, troubled and defiant, but still stubbornly surviving and clinging to the warrior code. Now he realized he was wrong. SkyClan had gone, lost seasons before he ever came to this place.

Why did you send me here? he wailed silently, not knowing if he was speaking to StarClan or to the SkyClan cat who had haunted his pawsteps for so long.

There was no reply.

Turning back toward the gorge, Firestar spotted the two kittypets, Boris and Cherry, sitting side by side on a Twoleg fence. He thought they were watching him. He couldn’t see any point in going to speak to them; they wouldn’t be pleased to see him after the encounter on the cliff top. He just hoped that they had learned their lesson, and would stay away from Moony in the future.

Moony was their last hope of discovering anything about the lost Clan. He and Sandstorm would do their best to persuade him to tell them what he knew that night. Then, once they found out what had happened to SkyClan, they could go home. No cat could do more; SkyClan were lost forever.

Firestar leaped across the cleft and landed on the jutting rock. During the day the last wisps of cloud had disappeared and now Silverpelt blazed down from a clear sky and glittered on the river far below. The moon, still low in the sky, covered everything with a silver sheen and cast Firestar’s shadow huge behind him.

“If Moony sees us here, he might not come,” Sandstorm meowed, leaping over the gap to stand beside Firestar. “Do you think we should hide?”

“Good idea.” Firestar pointed with his tail toward a heap of boulders where the flat rock met the cliff face. “Over there.”

He padded across and slid into deep shadow; Sandstorm squeezed in beside him. Through a gap between two of the boulders they could see most of the surface of the jutting rock and the last section of the stony trail that led up from the gorge. Now there was nothing to do but wait.

The moon crawled higher in the sky and the moon shadows grew shorter. Firestar felt his legs protest with cramps; he would have given anything for a good stretch.