Rising Storm

“No!” Fireheart spat, cutting her off. Did Bluestar really intend to give herself up to Tigerclaw? “He wants revenge on the whole Clan, not just you!”

She dropped her head. “Such vicious betrayal!” she hissed. “How could I not have seen his treachery when he lived among us? What a fool I’ve been!” She shook her head, her eyes closed. “What a mouse-brained fool.”

Fireheart’s paws trembled. Bluestar seemed determined to torture herself by claiming all responsibility for Tigerclaw’s wickedness. With a sickening jolt he realized he would have to take charge.

“We must make sure the camp is guarded day and night from now on. Longtail.” He looked over at the striped warrior. “You will sit guard till moonhigh.” Then he swung his head toward Frostfur. “You will take over then.” The two cats nodded, and Fireheart bent his head toward Runningwind’s body. “Mousefur and Brackenfur can bury Runningwind at dawn. Bluestar will sit vigil with him until then.” He glanced at his leader, who was staring blankly at the ground, and hoped that she’d heard him.

“I will join her,” meowed Whitestorm. The white warrior shouldered his way through the crowd and sat beside Bluestar, pressing his pelt against hers.

One by one the Clan padded forward to pay their respects to their lost friend. Willowpelt slipped from the nursery and touched the dead warrior gently with her muzzle, whispering her sorrowful farewell. Goldenflower followed her, signaling to her kits to stay back. Fireheart felt a chilling sense of foreboding as he saw the dark tabby kit peering curiously around his mother. He couldn’t help feeling that this kit, however innocent, kept Tigerclaw’s menace alive inside the Clan. Fireheart shook away the thought as he watched Goldenflower gently lick Runningwind’s cheek. He must have faith in her and the Clan to raise the kit to be a truer warrior than his father had been.

After Goldenflower had padded away, Fireheart stepped forward and leaned down to lick Runningwind’s dull pelt. “I will avenge your death,” he promised softly.

As he backed away, he saw a figure step forward from the shadow of the Highrock. It was Darkstripe. Fireheart watched his eyes flick from Runningwind to Bluestar and back, burning, not with fear or grief, but with a brooding thoughtfulness.

Unsettled, Fireheart headed for one place he knew he would find comfort. He padded through the ferns to Yellowfang’s den, his bites and scratches beginning to sting as much as the thorn-sharp doubts that fretted in his mind.

Thornpaw sat in the well-trampled grass clearing. Cinderpelt and Yellowfang crouched beside him while he held up a paw for them to examine. Cinderpelt peeled a wad of cobwebs away from the pad, making Thornpaw grimace. “It’s still bleeding,” the apprentice medicine cat reported.

“It should have stopped by now,” rasped Yellowfang. “We need to dry this wound before infection creeps in.”

Cinderpelt’s eyes narrowed. “We have those horsetail stems I gathered yesterday. What if we drip some sap onto the cobwebs before we bind them onto the paw? That might stop the bleeding.”

Yellowfang let out a rumbling purr. “Good thinking.” The old medicine cat turned at once and hurried toward her den while Cinderpelt pressed on Thornpaw’s wound with her paw. Only then did she notice Fireheart standing in the tunnel entrance.

“Fireheart!” she mewed, her blue eyes showing her concern. “Are you okay?”

“Just a few scratches and a bite or two,” Fireheart replied, padding forward to join them.

“I heard that it was rogue cats who attacked us,” meowed Thornpaw, twisting his head to look up at Fireheart. “And that Tigerclaw was with them. Is it true?”

“It’s true,” Fireheart told him gravely.

Cinderpelt glanced at Fireheart, then shook the ginger apprentice’s paw. “Here, press on this.”

“Me?” mewed Thornpaw in surprise.

“It’s your paw! Hurry up, or you’ll have to change your name to Nopaw.”

Thornpaw lifted his paw higher and clamped his jaws carefully around the wound.

“Bluestar should never have let Tigerclaw leave the Clan,” Cinderpelt mewed quietly to Fireheart. “She should have killed him while she had the chance.”

Fireheart shook his head. “She would never have killed him in cold blood. You know that.”

Cinderpelt didn’t argue. “Why has he come back now? And how could he kill a warrior he once fought beside?”

“He told me he is going to kill as many of us as he can,” Fireheart meowed darkly.

Thornpaw let out a muffled mew, and Cinderpelt’s whiskers quivered with shock. “But why?” asked the young medicine cat.

Fireheart felt his eyes cloud with anger. “Because ThunderClan didn’t give him what he wanted.”

“What did he want?”

“To be leader,” Fireheart answered simply.

“Well, he’ll never get to be a leader this way. He’s hardly going to make himself popular with the Clan if he starts attacking our patrols like this.”