A Dangerous Path

by Erin Hunter

  “Bluestar,” Tallstar spoke again. “Will you come here to me, between our warriors? Bring your deputy with you, and let us see if we can make peace.”

  “Peace?” Bluestar spat. “How can I make peace with prey stealers and rogues?”

  Yowls of protest rose from the WindClan cats. Mudclaw sprang forward, but Onewhisker leaped after him and bowled him over, holding him writhing on the turf. Fireheart saw Darkstripe lashing his tail to and fro; if Mudclaw attacked, Darkstripe would meet him, and all hope of peace would be over.

  “Do as Tallstar says,” Fireheart mewed desperately to Bluestar. “That’s why we’re here. WindClan have suffered from stolen prey, just like ThunderClan.”

  Bluestar rounded on him, a look of venomous hatred blazing in her blue eyes. “It seems we have no choice,” she hissed at him. “But there’ll be a reckoning for this, Fireheart. You can be sure of that.”

  Stiff-legged, her fur bristling, she paced forward until she stood in front of Tallstar, right on the border of WindClan territory. Fireheart followed, murmuring to Sandstorm, “Keep an eye on Darkstripe,” as he left the line of warriors.

  Tallstar watched Bluestar coolly as she approached. The WindClan leader had never forgiven her, Fireheart knew, for sheltering his old enemy Brokentail, but he had the wisdom not to let his grudge influence him now. “Bluestar,” he meowed, “I swear by StarClan that WindClan have not hunted on your territory.”

  “StarClan!” Bluestar sneered. “What’s the worth of an oath by StarClan?”

  The black-and-white tom looked taken aback, his gaze flickering to Fireheart as if he were looking for an explanation. “Then I will swear it by anything you hold sacred,” he went on. “By our kits, by our hopes for our Clans, by our honor as leaders. WindClan did not do what you accuse us of.”

  For the first time his words seemed to reach Bluestar. Fireheart saw her fur begin to lie flat. “How can I believe you?” she rasped.

  “We have lost prey too,” Tallstar told her. “It may be dogs, or rogues. It is not cats from WindClan.”

  “So you say,” meowed Bluestar. She sounded uncertain now. Fireheart thought that perhaps Tallstar was beginning to convince her, but she did not know how to back down without losing dignity.

  “Bluestar,” Fireheart mewed urgently, “a noble leader doesn’t take her warriors into battle without need. If there’s the least doubt that—”

  “Do you think you know more than I do about how to lead a Clan?” Bluestar interrupted. Her fur had bristled again, but this time it was Fireheart who was the target of her anger. He caught a glimpse of the old, formidable ThunderClan leader, and it was all he could do not to flinch from her.

  “Young cats think they know everything,” Tallstar meowed. There was a hint of sympathetic humor in his voice, and Fireheart felt a flash of gratitude toward the WindClan leader for his sensitivity to Bluestar’s fears. “But sometimes we have to listen to them. There is no need for this battle.”

  Bluestar’s ears twitched irritably. “Very well,” she mewed reluctantly. “I accept your word—for now. But if my patrols scent WindClan one tail-length over our border…” She whipped around and called to the ThunderClan cats. “Back to camp!” she ordered, leaping ahead of them.

  As Fireheart turned to follow her, Tallstar dipped his head to him. “Thank you, Fireheart. You did well, and my Clan honors your courage in averting this battle—but I don’t envy you now.”

  Fireheart shrugged, and followed the rest of his Clan. Just before he plunged into the hollow at Fourtrees, he glanced over his shoulder to see the WindClan cats racing back across the open moor toward their camp. The turf gleamed pale in the soft dawn light, unstained by the blood of any cat.

  “Thank you, Spottedleaf,” Fireheart murmured as he turned away.

  Bluestar led her warriors back to camp in tense silence. At the entrance to the clearing, Fireheart bounded ahead to talk to Mousefur, who was sitting outside the warriors’ den.

  “Any problems?” he asked.

  Mousefur shook her head. “No trouble at all,” she reported. “Frostfur has taken out the dawn patrol with Brackenfur and a couple of the apprentices.” Looking him over, she added, “You don’t seem to be missing any fur. I suppose the peace talk worked.”

  “Yes, it did. Thanks for taking care of things here, Mousefur.”

  Mousefur dipped her head. “I’m going to get some sleep,” she meowed. “You’ll need to send some cats out to hunt. There’s hardly any fresh-kill left.”

  “I’ll lead a hunting party,” Fireheart promised.

  “No, you won’t.” Bluestar came padding up behind him. Her eyes were chips of blue ice. “I want to see you in my den, Fireheart. Now.” She stalked across the clearing without looking back to see if he was following.

  Fireheart’s fur prickled with dread. He had expected some sort of recrimination from his leader, but that didn’t make it any easier now that it was about to happen.

  “I’ll see to the hunting party,” Whitestorm meowed, giving him a sympathetic look as he came up with Sandstorm and Dustpelt.

  Fireheart nodded his thanks and headed toward Bluestar’s den. By the time he reached it, his leader was seated on her bedding with her paws tucked under her. The tip of her tail twitched back and forth.

  “Fireheart.” Her voice was quiet; Fireheart would have been less afraid if she had yowled at him. “Tallstar couldn’t have picked a more convenient time to talk to me about the prey theft than if StarClan had told him themselves. That was your doing, wasn’t it? You’re the only cat who knew that I was planning to attack WindClan. Only you could have betrayed us.”

  She sounded as if her mind was clearer than it had been for some time, as if the instinct that had sharpened her senses on the moor had settled into hard certainty. She was behaving like the noble leader he had once respected, giving Fireheart an even more agonizing sense of what they had lost. He still believed that he had not betrayed his Clan, but he had given away the advantage of surprise, because Tallstar had been wise enough to realize that battle must be close. Would Bluestar send him into exile? Fireheart shivered at the thought of being forced to live as a rogue, stealing prey and with no Clan to call his own.

  He came to stand in front of Bluestar and dipped his head. “I thought it was the right thing to do,” he meowed quietly. “Neither of the Clans needed to fight this battle.”

  “I trusted you, Fireheart,” Bluestar rasped. “You, out of all my warriors.”

  Fireheart forced himself to meet her flinty gaze. “I did it for the good of the Clan, Bluestar. And I didn’t tell him about the attack. I only asked him to try making peace. I thought—”

  “Silence!” Bluestar hissed, lashing her tail. “That is no excuse. And why should I care if the whole Clan had been slaughtered? Why should I care what happens to traitors?”

  A wild light was growing in her eyes again, and Fireheart realized that the moment’s clarity had gone.

  “If only I’d kept my kits!” she whispered. “Mistyfoot and Stonefur are noble cats. Far nobler than any of this ragtag bunch in ThunderClan. My children would never have betrayed me.”

  “Bluestar…” Fireheart tried to interrupt, but she ignored him.

  “I gave them up to become deputy, and now StarClan are punishing me. Oh, StarClan are clever, Fireheart! They knew the cruelest way to break me. They made me leader and then let my cats betray me! What is it worth, now, to be leader of ThunderClan? Nothing! It’s all empty, all…” Her paws worked furiously among the moss. Her eyes were glazed, staring at nothing, and her mouth gaped in a soundless wail.

  Fireheart shuddered in dismay. “I’ll fetch Cinderpelt,” he meowed.

  “Stay…where…you…are.” Each word was rasped out separately. “I need to punish you, Fireheart. Tell me a good punishment for a traitor.”

  Nearly sick with fear and shock, Fireheart forced himself to reply. “I don’t know, Bluestar.”

  “But I do.” Now her voice
was a low purr, with a strange note of amusement in it. Her gaze locked with Fireheart’s. “I know the best punishment of all. I’ll do nothing. I’ll let you be deputy still, and leader after me. Oh, that should please StarClan—a traitor leading a Clan of traitors! May they give you joy of it, Fireheart. Now get out of my sight!”

  The last words were spat out. Fireheart backed away from her, into the clearing. He felt as if he had been in a battle after all. Bluestar’s despair pierced him like sharpened claws. But he couldn’t help feeling that Bluestar had let him down too, by not even trying to understand his motives; she had labeled him a traitor without even considering what would have happened if they had fought WindClan.

  Head down, Fireheart padded across the clearing, not even aware that another cat had approached him until he heard Sandstorm’s voice.

  “What happened, Fireheart? Has she sent you away?”

  Fireheart looked up. Sandstorm’s green eyes were anxious, though she did not move close enough to comfort him with her touch.

  “No,” he replied. “She didn’t do anything.”

  “Then that’s all right.” Sandstorm sounded as if she were forcing optimism into her voice. “Why are you looking like that?”

  “She’s…ill.” Fireheart couldn’t begin to describe what he had just witnessed in Bluestar’s den. “I’m going to get Cinderpelt to see her. Then maybe we can eat together.”

  “No, I…I said I’d go hunting with Cloudpaw and Brindleface.” Sandstorm scuffled her front paws, not looking at him. “Don’t worry about Bluestar, Fireheart. She’ll be all right.”

  “I don’t know.” Fireheart couldn’t repress a shiver. “I thought I could make her understand, but she thinks I betrayed her.”

  Sandstorm said nothing. Fireheart saw her give him a quick glance and then look away. There was longing in her eyes, but it was mingled with uneasiness, and he remembered how she had resented deceiving Bluestar.

  Does Sandstorm think I’m a traitor too? he thought desperately.

  After Fireheart had sent Cinderpelt to Bluestar, he headed for the warriors’ den. He felt as if his legs could hardly hold him up, and he could think of nothing except sinking into the soft darkness of sleep. His heart sank when he saw Longtail stalking across the clearing toward him.

  “I want a word with you, Fireheart,” he growled.

  Fireheart sat down. “What is it?”

  “You ordered my apprentice to go with you this morning.”

  “Yes, and I told you why.”

  “He didn’t like it, but he did his duty,” Longtail meowed harshly.

  That was true, Fireheart reflected. He had admired the apprentice’s courage in a tough situation, but he wasn’t sure why Longtail was making such a fuss now.

  “I think it’s time he was made a warrior,” Longtail went on. “In fact, Fireheart, he should have been a warrior long ago.”

  “Yes, I know,” Fireheart replied. “You’re right, Longtail, he should.”

  Longtail looked taken aback at his ready agreement. “So what are you going to do about it?” he blustered.

  “Right now, nothing,” Fireheart meowed. “Don’t flatten your ears at me, Longtail. Just think, will you? Bluestar is distressed at the moment. She didn’t like what happened this morning, and she won’t want to think about promoting apprentices. No, wait.” He flicked his tail to silence Longtail as the pale warrior opened his mouth to protest. “Leave it with me. Sooner or later Bluestar has to realize that what happened was for the best. Then I’ll talk to her about making Swiftpaw a warrior, I promise.”

  Longtail sniffed. Fireheart could see he wasn’t happy, but he couldn’t think of any reason to object. “All right,” the pale tabby warrior mewed. “But it had better be soon.”

  He stalked off again, leaving Fireheart to head for his nest. As he curled into the soft moss, shutting his eyes tight against the early morning light, he couldn’t help worrying about the four older apprentices. Cloudpaw, Brightpaw, and Thornpaw all deserved to be warriors as well as Swiftpaw. And the Clan desperately needed them to take on full warrior duties. But in her present mood, convinced that she was surrounded by traitors, Bluestar would never agree to give them warrior status.

  Fireheart’s dreams were dark and confused, and he woke to find that a cat was nudging him. A voice meowed, “Wake up, Fireheart!”

  Blinking, he focused his eyes on Cinderpelt’s face. Her gray fur was ruffled and her eyes wide with anxiety; Fireheart was awake in a heartbeat.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “It’s Bluestar,” Cinderpelt replied. “I can’t find her anywhere!”

  CHAPTER 15

  Fireheart sprang to his paws. “Tell me what happened.”

  “When I saw her earlier this morning, I took her poppy seeds to calm her down,” Cinderpelt explained. “But when I went to her den just now, she wasn’t there, and she hadn’t eaten the poppy seeds. I tried the elders’ den and the nursery, but she isn’t there either. She isn’t anywhere in camp, Fireheart.”

  “Did anyone see her leave?”

  “I haven’t asked yet. I came to tell you first.”

  “Then I’ll get the apprentices to search, and find out if—”

  “Bluestar’s not a kit, you know.” The interruption came from Whitestorm, who had padded into the warriors’ den in time to hear Cinderpelt’s news. “She might have gone on patrol. For all you know, other cats are with her.” He spoke calmly as he bared his teeth in a yawn and settled into his nest.

  Fireheart nodded uncertainly. What Whitestorm said was sensible, but he would have liked to be sure. After the state Bluestar had been in that morning, she could be anywhere in the forest. She might even have gone to RiverClan in search of her kits.

  “There’s probably no need to worry,” Fireheart reassured Cinderpelt, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt. “But we’ll look anyway, and find out if any cat has seen her.”

  Leaving the den, he spotted Fernpaw and Ashpaw sharing tongues near the blackened remains of the tree stump outside the apprentices’ den. Quickly Fireheart explained that he had a message for Bluestar, but he wasn’t sure where she was. The two apprentices dashed off willingly to look for her.

  “You go and ask if any cat has seen her,” he suggested to Cinderpelt, who had followed him out of the den. “I’ll go up the ravine and see if I can pick up her scent. I might be able to track her.”

  Privately he didn’t have much hope. While he had slept, clouds had covered the sky and a thin rain was drizzling down. It was not good weather for following scent. Before he could leave, Fireheart noticed that Sandstorm was just returning to camp, along with Cloudpaw and Brindleface. All three of them carried fresh-kill, which they went over to drop on the pile.

  Fireheart raced up to them, with Cinderpelt limping behind. “Sandstorm,” he meowed, “have you seen Bluestar?”

  Sandstorm swiped her tongue around her mouth to remove the prey juices. “No. Why?”

  “She isn’t here,” mewed Cinderpelt.

  Sandstorm’s eyes widened. “Are you surprised? After what happened this morning? She must feel like she’s losing control of her Clan.”

  That was so close to the truth that Fireheart didn’t know how to answer.

  “We’re going out again,” meowed Cloudpaw. “We’ll keep a lookout for her.”

  “Okay, thanks.” Fireheart blinked gratefully at his apprentice.

  The young white tom raced off again, with the two warriors following more slowly. Brindleface paused to meow, “I’m sure she’ll be fine, Fireheart,” as she left, but Sandstorm didn’t look back.

  Fireheart’s problems were about to overwhelm him, but then he felt Cinderpelt’s breath soft against his ear. “Don’t worry, Fireheart,” she murmured. “Sandstorm’s still your friend. You need to accept that she doesn’t always see things the way you do.”

  “You don’t either.” Fireheart sighed.

  Cinderpelt let out an affectionate purr. “I’
m still your friend too,” she told him. “And I know you’ve done what you believe to be right. Now, let’s see what we can do to find Bluestar.”

  By the time the sun set, Bluestar was still missing. Fireheart had tracked her as far as the top of the ravine, but after that, with the rain coming down more heavily, the scent was lost among the tang of charred branches and the musty smell of fallen leaves.

  Too anxious to sleep, Fireheart put himself on watch. The night was far gone, and the moon was setting when he spotted movement by the camp entrance. The last rays of moonlight picked out a silver-gray coat as Bluestar limped back into the camp. Her fur was soaked, plastered to her body, and her head was low. She looked old, exhausted, defeated.

  Fireheart hurried across to her. “Bluestar, where have you been?”

  The Clan leader raised her head and looked at him. A jolt ran through Fireheart; her eyes, faintly glowing in the dim light, were clear and bright in spite of her exhaustion. “You sound like a queen scolding her kit,” she rasped, an edge of humor in her voice. She jerked her head in the direction of her den. “Come with me.”

  Fireheart obeyed, pausing only to snatch a vole from the pile of fresh-kill. Bluestar needed to eat, wherever she had been. When he reached Bluestar’s den, his leader was seated in her mossy nest, washing herself with long, careful strokes. Fireheart would have liked to sit beside her and share tongues with her, but after their last encounter he did not dare. Instead he dropped the vole in front of her and respectfully dipped his head. “What happened, Bluestar?” he asked.

  Bluestar stretched her neck to sniff the vole, half turned away from it, and then began to gulp it down as if she had suddenly realized how hungry she was. She did not answer until she had finished it.

  “I went to speak with StarClan,” she announced, flicking the last traces of vole from her whiskers.

  Fireheart stared. “To Highstones? On your own?”