Long Shadows

As he left Leafpool’s den, Lionblaze spotted Brambleclaw choosing a squirrel from the fresh-kill pile. Squirrelflight padded up, and her mate dropped the fresh-kill at her paws.

“This is for you,” he meowed. “I know how much you love young squirrel.”

“So do you,” Squirrelflight purred, touching her nose to his ear. “Let’s share it.”

Brambleclaw hesitated. “Okay, but you have as much as you want. The whole Clan wants you to get strong again.”

The two cats settled down side by side to share the squirrel.

A surge of warmth spread through Lionblaze as he watched them. Thank StarClan our parents are so close.

“Hey, Lionblaze!” Brambleclaw lifted his head from the squirrel. “Now that you’ve dealt with Spiderleg, what about a hunting patrol? Ashfur is waiting for you. The mice aren’t going to line up and come running into camp, you know.”

“Sure!” Lionblaze waved his tail and bounded across the clearing toward Ashfur. Yes, he loved his father, even if he was a bossy old furball!

Lionblaze padded along the old Twoleg path with a squirrel and two mice dangling from his jaws. It was his turn to take fresh-kill to the tree trunk outside the Twoleg nest. A thin drizzle was falling, misting on his pelt and turning the path to mud.

Two sunrises before, when Spiderleg had started coughing, the hopes of every cat in the Clan had plummeted, afraid that Firestar’s plan would come to nothing after all. But since then, no other cat had fallen ill. Lionblaze had begun to wonder if they had started to win the battle after all. He didn’t know much about the sick cats in the Twoleg nest except that all of them, even Millie, were still alive.

Everything was quiet as the walls of the Twoleg nest appeared through the trees. Lionblaze brushed through the wet grass to leave his prey in the hollow trunk. The trunk wasn’t empty as he had expected. A few pieces of fresh-kill, turning soggy from the rain, still lay at the bottom. The scent of cats around the tree stump was stale and faint.

Icy water, far colder than the rain, seemed to trickle down

Lionblaze’s spine. Why aren’t the sick cats eating? Are they all too weak to fetch the prey?

With one paw he scraped the old prey—rapidly turning to crow-food—out of the tree trunk, and replaced it with the fresh, pushing his catch farther back into the hollow to keep it dry. Then he hesitated, looking around. He was meant to continue hunting, but he couldn’t leave until he found out why the cats in the Twoleg nest hadn’t collected all their fresh-kill.

Slowly he padded toward the entrance to the den. Leafpool and Firestar had both forbidden the hunters to go any closer than the tree trunk, but Lionblaze told himself that this was an emergency, and both would want him to break the rules.

As he approached an eerie wailing rose from the Twoleg nest, the cry of a cat in deep distress.

Lionblaze stopped dead. “What’s happening?” he called out, hating the way his voice shook. Courage, he told himself fiercely.

For a heartbeat there was no response. Then Lionblaze leaped back as Cloudtail’s face loomed in front of him in the entrance, his white fur startling in the gloom.

“Firestar is dying,” the warrior rasped.

Lionblaze clenched his teeth on a wail of despair. Forgetting to be wary of the sickness, he brushed past Cloudtail and entered the nest.

Firestar was lying in a den on the far side. Most of the sick cats were sitting around him in a ragged circle; Brightheart and Honeyfern were bending over him, holding scraps of soaked moss to his lips. Lionblaze pushed through the line of cats and looked down at his Clan leader. Firestar’s breath was coming in hoarse gasps, his sides heaving with the effort of sucking in air. A stench of something more than sickness hung in the air.

As Lionblaze gazed at him, horrified, Brightheart looked up. “Firestar is losing a life,” she mewed gently.

Taking a step back, Lionblaze stood alongside the other sick cats and watched in silence as their leader struggled to breathe. Gradually the heaving of Firestar’s flanks slowed down; his breathing grew shallower, then stopped. His eyes closed and he lay still.

Lionblaze saw the faintest outline of a f lame-colored cat rise from Firestar’s body and pad away, to be lost in the shadows in one corner of the den.

Is that what it’s like to lose a life? he wondered. How many does Firestar have left? What if that was his last one?

It seemed as if he stood beside his leader’s body for countless moons, or perhaps it was no more than a heartbeat. Then he saw Firestar’s sides give a convulsive heave. Bright green eyes blinked open, struggling to focus.

“Firestar.” Brightheart’s tone was soft as she bent over him again. “You’re back with us.”

Lionblaze felt his mouth drop open. Firestar really had died and come back!