Firestar’s Quest

“It won’t. The SkyClan cat said there would be a place for them to live.”

Sandstorm didn’t look reassured. “What if he’s wrong?”

Meeting the challenge in his mate’s green eyes, Firestar realized he couldn’t answer.

The gorge came to an end, and the cliffs sloped down to rejoin the river as shallow, sandy banks once more. Firestar breathed a sigh of relief when they crossed the border scent markings and left WindClan territory behind. Soon after, the moor gave way to farmland, small fields divided by Twoleg paths and hedges; Firestar led the way down a narrow track between a hedge and a field of wheat.

“Smell those mice!” Sandstorm exclaimed. “I’m starving!”

She plunged in among the crackling stems, and, with a quick look around for dogs or Twolegs, Firestar followed. He caught one mouse with a swift blow of his paw as it ran along a furrow, and a second only heartbeats later. Carrying his prey to the edge of the field he found Sandstorm already there, crouching down to eat.

Firestar joined her, water flooding his jaws at the warm scent of food. Neither of them would take prey from another Clan’s territory, so they hadn’t eaten since they left ThunderClan that morning. When the last bite was gone, Firestar swiped his tongue around his jaws and arched his back in a long stretch. “Let’s rest for a bit,” he suggested. “If we wait until sunset, there won’t be so many Twolegs about.”

Sandstorm yawned, murmured agreement, and curled up in a patch of sunlight. Settling down beside her, enjoying the warmth of the sun on his fur and the comfortable fullness of his belly, Firestar tried to imagine how SkyClan had felt when they came this way. They must have been terrified, driven out of their home with no clear idea of where they were going.

And so many cats—a whole Clan!—would be terribly vulnerable to dogs or foxes. He looked around, searching the shadowy places under the hedge for a familiar pale pelt, and strained his ears to catch the sound of the lost Clan’s wailing.

But all he could hear was the rustle of wind in the wheat and birdsong high in the sky. He blinked drowsily, rasped his tongue a few times over Sandstorm’s ear, and slept.

Loud voices broke into his dreams. Not the yowls of the fleeing cats of SkyClan, but real, and closer, and getting even louder. Firestar scrambled to his paws to see Sandstorm standing rigid beside him, her pelt bristling as she stared up the line of the hedge. Coming toward them were two young Twolegs and a brown-and-white dog. The dog ran a little way ahead of its Twolegs, then bounced back to them, letting out a flurry of high-pitched yaps.

“Into the hedge!” Firestar ordered.

Thorns tearing at his pelt, he flattened his belly to the ground and crept into the middle of the hedge. Then he began to claw his way up the trunk of a hawthorn bush, forcing the spiny branches to let him through.

Sandstorm was scrabbling her way up another bush, but the branches crisscrossed so thickly that she came to a stop, unable to go any farther. Her green gaze, full of terror and frustration, met Firestar’s.

The dog was whining alongside the hedge. Firestar caught a glimpse of it trying to thrust its way through a gap, its tongue lolling and its white teeth gleaming.

“It’s found our scent,” Sandstorm whispered.

Firestar searched for a way to reach her and drag her higher, but they were separated by too many prickly branches.

The dog’s forepaws tore at the earth as it tried to force its way through the gap to reach the cats. Its jaws were no more than a tail-length away from Sandstorm’s hind paws.

Then Firestar heard a Twoleg yowling. A Twoleg paw appeared in the gap, grabbed the dog’s collar, and dragged it out again. The dog let out a bark of protest. Firestar waited, hardly daring to breathe, as the sounds died away and the scents of dog and Twolegs gradually faded.

“I think they’ve gone,” he murmured. “Stay there while I check.”

Leaving tufts of his flame-colored fur on the thorns, he crept to the edge of the bushes and looked out warily. The wheatfield was empty, the rays of the setting sun pouring over it like honey.

“It’s okay,” Firestar meowed, glancing back to where Sandstorm still clung to her branch.

He padded a little farther out, taking deep breaths as he tried to control his trembling. It was Sandstorm’s danger, not his own, that had turned his blood to ice. Would it have been easier to have made this journey on his own, with no other cat to worry about? But when Sandstorm joined him, shaken but unhurt, he kept the disloyal thought to himself.

* * *

They padded through the night, under the light of the half-moon. This was the best time to travel without being seen, and they kept going until both cats were too weary to take another pawstep. They found a place to sleep in a hollow among the roots of a beech tree.