The Fourth Apprentice

“I’m still surprised Firestar picked Squirrelflight to be a mentor,” Lionblaze muttered to himself. “After she told all those lies about us being her kits.”

“Firestar knows what he’s doing,” Graystripe responded; Lionblaze winced as he realized the gray warrior had overheard every word of his criticism. “He trusts Squirrelflight, and he wants to show every cat that she’s a good warrior and a valued member of ThunderClan.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Lionblaze blinked miserably. He had loved and respected Squirrelflight so much when he thought she was his mother, but now he felt cold and empty when he looked at her. She had betrayed him, and his littermates, too deeply for forgiveness. Hadn’t she?

“If you’ve quite finished…” Leopardstar spoke over the last of the yowls of welcome and rose to her paws, fixing Firestar with a glare. “RiverClan still has a report to make.”

Firestar dipped his head courteously to the RiverClan leader and took a pace back, sitting down again with his tail wrapped around his paws. “Go ahead, Leopardstar.”

The RiverClan leader was the last to speak at the Gathering; Lionblaze had seen her tail twitching impatiently while the other leaders made their reports. Now her piercing gaze traveled across the cats crowded together in the clearing, while her neck fur bristled in fury.

“Prey-stealers!” she hissed.

“What?” Lionblaze sprang to his paws; his startled yowl was lost in the clamor as more cats from ThunderClan, WindClan, and ShadowClan leaped up to protest.

Leopardstar stared down at them, teeth bared, making no attempt to quell the tumult. Instinctively Lionblaze glanced upward, but there were no clouds to cover the moon; StarClan wasn’t showing any anger at the outrageous accusation. As if any of the other Clans would want to steal slimy, stinky fish!

He noticed for the first time how thin the RiverClan leader looked, her bones sharp as flint beneath her dappled fur. The other RiverClan warriors were the same, Lionblaze realized, glancing around; even thinner than his own Clanmates and the ShadowClan warriors—and even thinner than the WindClan cats, who looked skinny when they were full-fed.

“They’re starving…” he murmured.

“We’re all starving,” Graystripe retorted.

Lionblaze let out a sigh. What the gray warrior said was true. In ThunderClan they had been forced to hunt and train at dawn and dusk in order to avoid the scorching heat of the day. In the hours surrounding sunhigh, the cats spent their time curled up sleeping in the precious shade at the foot of the walls of the stone hollow. For once the Clans were at peace, though Lionblaze suspected it was only because they were all too weak to fight, and no Clan had any prey worth fighting for.

Firestar rose to his paws again and raised his tail for silence. The caterwauling gradually died away and the cats sat down again, directing angry glares at the RiverClan leader.

“I’m sure you have good reason for accusing us all like that,” Firestar meowed when he could make himself heard. “Would you like to explain?”

Leopardstar lashed her tail. “You have all been taking fish from the lake,” she snarled. “And those fish belong to RiverClan.”

“No, they don’t,” Blackstar objected, poking his head out from the foliage. “The lake borders all our territories. We’re just as entitled to the fish as you are.”

“Especially now,” Onestar added. “We’re all suffering from the drought. Prey is scarce in all our territories. If we can’t eat fish, we’ll starve.”

Lionblaze stared at the two leaders in astonishment. Were ShadowClan and WindClan really so hungry that they’d been adding fish to their fresh-kill pile? Things must be really bad.

“But it’s worse for us,” Leopardstar insisted. “RiverClan doesn’t eat any other kind of prey, so all the fish should belong to us.”

“That’s mouse-brained!” Squirrelflight sprang to her paws, her bushy tail lashing. “Are you saying that RiverClan can’t eat any other prey? Are you admitting that your warriors are so incompetent they can’t even catch a mouse?”

“Squirrelflight.” Brambleclaw, the ThunderClan deputy, spoke commandingly as he rose from the oak root where he had been sitting with the other Clan deputies. His voice was coldly polite as he continued. “It’s not your place to speak here. However,” he added, looking up at Leopardstar, “she does have a point.”