“To be honest,” Cinderpelt murmured regretfully, “I think most of the Clan has.”
“What are they saying?” Fireheart wasn’t sure if he wanted to hear the answer.
“She has been a great leader for a long time. They are simply waiting for her to become like that again.” Cinderpelt’s reply soothed Fireheart. The Clan’s faith was moving, and should be trusted. Of course Bluestar would recover.
“Are you coming back with me?” he meowed.
“I have to finish up here.” Cinderpelt picked up another berry with her teeth and started to chew.
Fireheart felt strange as he walked away, leaving Cinderpelt alone with the two ShadowClan cats and a stench that made his fur creep. He wondered if he’d done the right thing by letting them stay.
Outside the ThunderClan camp, he sheltered beneath a leafy bush and gave himself a good wash. He screwed up his eyes at the stink of the sick ShadowClan cats. He wished he could wash away the taste with a drink from the stream behind the training hollow, but it had dried up days ago. He’d have to follow its course back toward the river if he were to find water, and it was time he returned, before his Clanmates started to wonder where he was. He would return to find Graystripe another day.
Sandstorm met him as he emerged from the gorse tunnel into the clearing. “Been hunting?” she asked.
“Looking for Graystripe, honestly.” Fireheart decided to admit to the easiest part of the truth.
“I don’t suppose you found any signs of Cloudpaw then,” Sandstorm meowed, apparently unconcerned by Fireheart’s admission.
“He’s not in camp?”
“He went out hunting first thing this morning.”
Fireheart knew she suspected the same as he did—that Cloudpaw was paying another visit to the Twolegs. “What should I do?”
“Why don’t we go and find him together?” suggested Sandstorm. “Perhaps if I talk to him too, we can make him see sense.”
Fireheart nodded gratefully. “It’s worth a try,” he agreed.
He led the way through Tallpines, neither cat speaking as they ran lightly over the ground. The air was still, and the needles felt soft and cool beneath their paws. Fireheart was acutely aware that this trail was as familiar to him as the route to Fourtrees or Sunningrocks, but Sandstorm was more cautious, pausing every so often to sniff the air and check for scent markings.
As they padded out from the pine forest and into the green woods, Fireheart sensed that Sandstorm’s anxiety was building. He glanced at her and saw the tension in her shoulders as the line of Twoleg nests loomed ahead of them.
“Are you sure this is the way he would have come?” she whispered, looking nervously from side to side. A dog barked and Sandstorm’s fur bristled.
“It’s okay, the dog won’t leave its garden,” Fireheart assured her, feeling uncomfortable that he knew things like this. Sandstorm had taunted him about his kittypet origins when he had first joined the Clan, and now that she accepted him so completely as a forest cat, he was reluctant to remind her that he had been born somewhere different.
“Don’t the Twolegs bring their dogs out here?” she asked.
“Sometimes,” Fireheart admitted. “But we’ll have plenty of warning. Twoleg dogs don’t exactly creep through the woods. You’ll hear them before you smell them, and their stench isn’t subtle.” He hoped his humor might help Sandstorm relax, but she remained as tense as ever.
“Come on,” he urged. “Cloudpaw’s scent is here.” He rubbed his cheek against a bramble stem. “Does it smell fresh to you?”
Sandstorm leaned forward and sniffed the bramble. “Yes.”
“Then I think we can guess where he was heading.” Fireheart padded around the bramble, relieved that at least the trail was leading them away from Princess’s garden. He had no desire for Sandstorm to meet his kittypet sister just yet. Since he had brought Cloudpaw to the camp, the Clan all knew that he visited her, but they had no real idea of the affection that bonded him to Princess, and he preferred to keep it that way. It was best to keep the other cats as certain as he was that his heart lay with the Clan, in spite of his friendship with his sister.
As they neared the fence that Cloudpaw had climbed the day before, Fireheart felt an ominous chill ripple through his pelt. There were new scents here, as well as Cloudpaw’s. Something had changed. He led Sandstorm to the silver birch and she followed him lightly up the smooth trunk and into its branches. Fireheart could see her whiskers twitching as she sniffed the air.
Fireheart peered through the windows in the Twoleg nest. The space inside looked curiously dark and empty. He jumped as a door slammed, making a strange echoing bang like a thunderclap. He began to feel alarmed.
“What is it?” asked Sandstorm nervously as Fireheart leaped down to the fence, his tail fluffed up.
“There’s something strange going on. The nest is empty. Stay there,” he ordered. “I’m going to have a closer look.”
He crept across the garden, keeping low. As he neared the door to the Twoleg nest he heard pawsteps behind him. He spun around and saw Sandstorm, her face tense but determined. He nodded at her, silently agreeing she could stay with him if she wanted, then turned toward the door again.
Just then, the loud rumble of a monster started up. Fireheart slipped down the passage that skirted one side of the nest. His fur bristled with fear, but he kept going until he had reached the end of the pathway. He peered out from the shadows to where bright sunshine flooded a treeless maze of Twoleg nests and pathways.
He felt Sandstorm panting at his side, her pelt lightly brushing his. “Look,” he hissed. A gigantic monster, almost as big as a Twoleg nest, stood on the Thunderpath. The deafening growl was coming from the belly of the monster.
Both cats flinched as another door to the nest clattered shut just around the corner from them. Fireheart saw a Twoleg walking toward the monster with something swinging from its hand. It looked like a den woven from brittle dead stems. Through the hard mesh at one end of the den, Fireheart could see a soft white pelt. He peered closer, and felt his heart lurch as he recognized the face behind the mesh, its eyes stretched wide with terror.
It was Cloudpaw!
Chapter 12
“Help! Don’t let them take me!” Fireheart heard Cloudpaw’s desperate yowling above the noise of the roaring monster.
The Twoleg took no notice. It clambered into the monster with Cloudpaw and slammed the door shut. In a cloud of choking fumes, the monster pulled away and headed up the Thunderpath.
“No! Wait!”
Fireheart ignored Sandstorm’s cry as he dashed out of the passageway and pelted after the monster. The rough stone path tore at his pads, but as fast as he ran, the monster went faster, until it rounded a corner and disappeared from view.
Fireheart skidded to a halt, his paws stinging and his heart pounding. Sandstorm called to him again. “Fireheart! Come back!”
Fireheart glanced in despair at the empty Thunderpath where the monster had stood just moments before and then hurried back to Sandstorm. Numb with shock, he blindly followed Sandstorm as she led him along the passageway, past the nest, through the garden, and over the fence into the safety of the woods.
“Fireheart!” Sandstorm gasped when they landed on the leafy forest floor. “Are you okay?”
Fireheart couldn’t answer. He stared at the blank fence, trying to take in what he had just seen. The Twolegs had stolen Cloudpaw! Fireheart couldn’t block out the look of fear on the young cat’s face. Where were they taking him? Wherever it was, Cloudpaw hadn’t wanted to go.
“Your pads are bleeding,” murmured Sandstorm.
Fireheart lifted a foreleg and turned over his paw to look. He gazed blankly at the oozing blood until Sandstorm leaned forward and began to lick the grit from his wounds. It stung, but Fireheart didn’t protest. The rhythmic licks comforted him, stirring long-distant memories of kithood. Gradually the panic that had frozen his mind began to melt away. “He’s gone,” he meowed dismally. His heart felt like a hollow log, ringing with sorrow at every beat.