Long Shadows

“StarClan hasn’t abandoned us!” Littlecloud’s voice was shaken, but ecstatic.

Blackfoot shook his head. “They spoke to us,” he murmured.

“You were right, Littlecloud. We can’t ignore the spirits of our warrior ancestors. Not when they’re still watching over us.”

“What will you do now?” Littlecloud asked.

“Get rid of Sol, to begin with.” Blackfoot flexed his claws until the tips disappeared into the wet ground. “I can’t believe I let myself listen to that mange-ridden trickster. He told me StarClan didn’t care what happened to us! But they brought us here, made the trees fall so that we had to hear them. I’ll make sure that no ShadowClan cat is led astray by Sol again.

You don’t think I’ve left it too long?” he added anxiously.

“I know you haven’t,” Littlecloud reassured him, touching his leader’s shoulder with the tip of his tail. “The warrior code lives within every one of the cats born in ShadowClan. One cat alone cannot quench that flame.”

“Then let’s go,” Blackfoot meowed, turning toward the ShadowClan camp.

Littlecloud hesitated. “Tigerpaw, are you there?”

Lionblaze saw the apprentice clamber out of his hiding place under the trunk and splash his way through the mud to his Clanmates.

“Are you okay?” Littlecloud asked. “Did you see what happened?”

“Yes.” Tigerpaw’s amber eyes were shining. “I never thought I’d get to see real StarClan warriors!”

Nor did I, Lionblaze thought.

Tigerpaw dipped his head to Blackfoot. “Can we come back now?”

Blackfoot nodded. “Of course. ShadowClan needs you.”

Tigerpaw straightened proudly. “Then I’ll go and find Flamepaw and Dawnpaw.”

“Get back to camp as soon as you can,” Blackfoot ordered.

Waving his tail to Littlecloud, he added, “Let’s go. I can’t wait to tell our Clan they can look to their warrior ancestors again.”

“I know they’ll all be glad to hear it, Blackfoot,” Littlecloud meowed.

The white cat drew himself to his full height, his muscles rippling beneath his ruffled pelt. “Black star,” he corrected.

“My name is Blackstar.”

Raising his tail, the ShadowClan leader stalked off into the forest, with his medicine cat padding behind him.

From the moment when the StarClan warriors started to speak, Toadfoot had lain still as a stone under Lionblaze’s paws. When Lionblaze and Flamepaw let him get up, he sat staring at the marsh as if he couldn’t believe what had happened. “Were those really cats from StarClan?” he whispered.

“Yes, they were,” Flamepaw replied solemnly. “Our warrior ancestors are still watching over us. They want the warrior code to be preserved.”

Toadfoot blinked, still stunned.

“What are you going to do now?” Lionblaze asked him. If Blackstar knew what they had done, would he still want his Clan to look to their warrior ancestors?

Toadfoot’s glance f licked from Lionblaze to Flamepaw and back again, a low growl beginning to build in his throat.

“You faked that sign!”

“Only to start with.” Flamepaw faced his Clanmate. “We made the trees fall and brought Blackstar here. But we didn’t make the StarClan cats appear. They came of their own accord, and that made it a real sign after all.”

Toadfoot shook bits of bracken off his dark brown pelt, his eyes still indecisive. “You’re lucky they did come,” he muttered.

“Otherwise ShadowClan would have torn ThunderClan apart for interfering and lying.”

“You could try,” Lionblaze meowed, his fur bristling.

“But StarClan really did come,” Flamepaw persisted. “They proved that they are still watching over us, that we should still listen to them and live by the warrior code. They have the Clan’s best interests at heart; we have to believe what they say for our own sake.”

“Isn’t that what you want?” Lionblaze demanded.

Toadfoot paused, then nodded. “I suppose I should thank you,” he meowed grudgingly.

“No,” Lionblaze replied, “it’s StarClan you should thank.”

Hollyleaf padded up, mud dripping from her pelt, and gave Toadfoot a disapproving sniff. “What are we going to do about him?” she asked Lionblaze.

It was Toadfoot who answered. “I promise I won’t tell any cat what I saw.”

Hollyleaf’s ears flicked up. “Can we trust him?”

“It’s trust him or kill him.” Jaypaw joined them and sat down with a gusty sigh. “I don’t know about you, but I didn’t go through all this to start killing ShadowClan cats.”

“Then we have to trust you.” Lionblaze turned to Toadfoot. “Swear by StarClan that you’ll keep the secret.”

“Of course I will, mouse-brain.” Toadfoot lashed his tail.

“I swear it. Unless keeping your secret will harm my Clan,” he added instantly.

“Which it won’t.” Lionblaze gave Toadfoot a brusque nod.

“You can go.”

Toadfoot turned and stalked away, with a last fearful glance at the marsh where the two StarClan warriors had appeared.

“Come on.” Tigerpaw waved his tail at his two littermates.

“We’ve got to get back, too.”

The apprentices dipped their heads to the ThunderClan cats.

“We’ll never be able to thank you enough,” Flamepaw mewed.

“We did this for ThunderClan, too. And we couldn’t have done it without you,” Lionblaze replied.