The Darkest Hour

“Steal her?” There was a purr in Tigerstar’s voice. “Not at all. Tawnypaw came to us willingly.”

Firestar didn’t know whether to believe him or not. Tawnypaw was looking down at the ground as if she didn’t w ant to meet the eyes of her brother and her former mentor. He had to admit that she didn’t look like a prisoner; instead she just looked uncomfortable at being the center of attention.

“Tawnypaw!” Bramblepaw called. “What are you doing? You’re a ThunderClan cat—come back to us!”

Firestar winced at the pain in the young cat’s voice. He remembered the agony of losing Graystripe when his friend chose to leave and join RiverClan.

Tawnypaw said nothing.

“No, Bramblepaw,” Tigerstar meowed. “You come to us. Your sister made the right choice. TigerClan will rule over the whole forest, and you can share our power.”

Firestar saw Bramblepaw’s muscles tense. At last, after all the doubts and suspicions Firestar had felt about him, the young cat was faced with a simple choice. Would he follow his father or stay loyal to his Clan?

“What do you say?” Tigerstar prompted. “ThunderClan is finished. There is nothing there for you.”

“Join you?” Bramblepaw growled. He paused, swallowing as he fought to control his anger. When he spoke again his words rang out clearly so that every cat in the clearing could hear him.

“Join you?” he repeated. “After everything you’ve done? I’d rather die!”

A murmur of approval broke out among the ThunderClan cats.

Tigerstar’s amber eyes smoldered with rage. “Are you sure?” he hissed. “I won’t make the offer twice. Join me now, or you will die.”

“Then at least I’ll go to StarClan as a loyal ThunderClan cat,” Bramblepaw retorted, his head high.

Firestar felt pride thrilling through him from nose to tail-tip. There could be no greater challenge to Tigerstar’s power than for his own son to reject him in favor of the Clan his father despised.

“Fool!” Tigerstar spat. “Stay, then, and die with these other fools.”

Firestar braced himself as he waited for his enemy to launch the attack, convinced that battle was upon them. Instead, to his surprise, Blackfoot raised his tail in a signal.

The bushes on the opposite slope rustled, and Firestar’s eyes widened in shock as more cats emerged into the clearing. He had never seen any of them before. They were skinny, their fur ragged, but he sensed strength in their wiry limbs. The stench of crowfood and the Thunderpath rolled off them. These were no forest cats.

The warriors of ThunderClan and WindClan stared in disbelief as more and more of the strangers padded into the clearing. They fanned out into a semicircle around TigerClan, row after row of them, more cats than Firestar could remember seeing all together in the forest, even at a Gathering.

“Well?” Tigerstar demanded silkily. “Are you still sure that you want to stand and fight?”

Chapter 22

Dismay kept Firestar’s paws rooted to the ground as he watched the newcomers approach. He noticed that some of them were wearing collars.

“Collars?” Ashpaw spat behind him, echoing his thought s. The apprentice’s voice was sharp with disgust. “Look at them—they’re kittypets! We won’t have any trouble beating them.”

“Keep quiet,” his mentor, Dustpelt, warned quietly, “until we have the full measure of our enemy. We don’t know anything about these cats yet.”

Firestar remained silent until all the strange cats had moved into the clearing and gathered around TigerClan. A huge black-and-white tom stepped out of their ranks and went to stand beside Tigerstar. Firestar presumed this was the leader of the new comers. He was almost as big as Tigerstar himself, and he was muscular and battle-scarred. Even though they wore collars, Firestar knew these cats were far from being pampered kittypets.

Behind the black-and-white warrior appeared a much smaller black cat, who stalked light-footed through the grass to stand on Tigerstar’s other side. Firestar could not imagine who he was; he looked more like a medicine cat than a warrior.

Firestar could feel every hair in his pelt tingling, and the air tasted thick, as if a storm were about to break. “So, Tigerstar,” he meowed, forcing his voice to remain steady. “Do you want to tell us who your new friends are?”

“This is BloodClan,” Tigerstar announced. “They come from Twolegplace. I have brought them to the forest to persuade you foolish cats to join with me. I knew you wouldn’t have the sense to agree on your own.”

A hiss of outrage rippled through ThunderClan and WindClan. Firestar heard Thornclaw whisper, “Remember those rogues we scented the day I was made a warrior? I bet they came from BloodClan.”

He could well be right, Firestar thought. A patrol of these rogues from Twolegplace, checking out the forest to see what Tigerstar had to offer them. And what exactly had he offered? To share the forest in return for their help in battle?