Firepaw suddenly understood. “Is that why you were driven out of ShadowClan?” he asked. “You have to come back with us and tell all this to Bluestar.”
“Not before I have rescued your kits!” Yellowfang spat.
Firepaw lifted his head and sniffed the air. The rain had stopped, and the wind was dying down. The ThunderClan patrol would be well on its way. They were not safe here.
Graypaw still seemed shocked by Yellowfang’s accusation. “How could a leader kill kits from his own Clan?” he demanded.
“Brokenstar insisted on training them too hard and too young. He took two of the kits away for battle practice.” Yellowfang took a deep, wheezing breath. “They were only four moons old. They were already dead when he brought them back to me. They bore the scratches and bites of a full warrior, not of apprentices. He must have fought them himself. There was nothing I could do. When their mother came to see them, Brokenstar was with me. He said that he had found me standing over their dead bodies.” Her voice cracked and she looked away.
“Why didn’t you tell her it was Brokenstar?” Firepaw asked in disbelief.
Yellowfang shook her head. “I couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
The old she-cat hesitated. When she spoke, her voice was heavy with regret. “Brokenstar is ShadowClan’s leader. Noble Raggedstar was his father. His word is law.”
Firepaw looked away and the three cats sat in silence for a moment. Then Firepaw meowed, “We’ll rescue the kits together. Tonight. But we can’t stay here. I can smell the ThunderClan patrol coming.” He paused. “If Tigerclaw is with them, Yellowfang doesn’t stand a chance. He’ll kill her before we can explain.”
Yellowfang looked at him, alert and determined again. “There’s peat this way; it’ll be wet after the rain,” she told him. “Our scents will be disguised there.”
She leaped into a clump of ferns and Firepaw and Graypaw quickly followed her. They could hear the rustling of undergrowth in the distance now. It was no longer the wind that disturbed the bushes, but an approaching patrol, no doubt hungry for revenge and fired up by Tigerclaw’s lies.
An eerie stillness settled over the woods, and a thin fog was beginning to gather between the tree trunks. Firepaw shook the droplets off his coat and impatiently pulled a burr off his chest.
Yellowfang led them onward. The ground grew soggier, and their paws began to sink into the soft peat. The musty smell choked Firepaw’s nostrils, but at least it would mask their own trail. Behind them, the noise of cats grew louder.
“Quick, under here,” Yellowfang urged, ducking under a broad-leaved bush. The three cats crouched beneath it, drawing in their tails. Firepaw kept as still as he could, trying to ignore the rank wetness of the ground seeping into his belly fur, and listening to the rustling of the ThunderClan patrol as it came nearer and nearer.
CHAPTER 23
Firepaw could tell there were several cats in the patrol, traveling fast. He couldn’t recognize the individual scents of the cats through the earthy bog odors, but he knew it was ThunderClan. He held his breath as the pawsteps raced past and away.
“Are we really going to try to rescue the kits from ShadowClan alone?” whispered Graypaw.
Yellowfang answered him first. “I might be able to find us some help from inside ShadowClan. Not all the cats support Brokenstar.”
Firepaw pricked up his ears and Graypaw flicked his tail in surprise.
“When he became leader,” Yellowfang explained, “Brokenstar forced the elders to leave the security of the inner camp. They had to live on the boundary and hunt for themselves. These are cats who have grown up with the warrior code. Some of them might help us.”
Firepaw stared into her old eyes, thinking quickly. “And I might be able to persuade the ThunderClan hunting party to help us too,” he meowed. “If I can speak to them before they see Yellowfang, I might be able to make them believe her story. Graypaw, you wait at the dead ash, where we smelled the kit blood, till one of us returns.”
Graypaw looked worried. “But do you really trust Yellowfang to bring back help?” he murmured to Firepaw.
“You must trust me,” growled Yellowfang. “I will return.”
Graypaw looked at Firepaw, who nodded.
Without another word Yellowfang sprang past the two apprentices and disappeared into the bushes.
“Have we done the right thing?” asked Graypaw.
“I don’t know,” Firepaw admitted. “If we have, we are heroes and the kits are safe. If we are wrong, then we are as good as dead.”
Firepaw sprinted after the patrol, around brambles, past gorse, and through nettles. The trail was easy to follow. The angry ThunderClan cats weren’t trying to disguise their presence in ShadowClan’s territory.
Overhead, the thick layer of cloud had finally rolled away. Beyond the treetops, Silverpelt glittered across the night sky. The moon was just rising, but its cold light couldn’t pierce the mist that clung to the shadowy undergrowth.
Firepaw concentrated on the scent from up ahead. He could smell Whitestorm. He sniffed again. Tigerclaw wasn’t with them. He raced to catch up and skidded to a halt behind the band of ThunderClan cats.
The warriors turned and glared at him, fur bristling, ears flattened aggressively. Darkstripe was with them and the young she-cat Mousefur, as well as the tabby warrior Runningwind. Mousefur wasn’t the only she-cat in the patrol—Willowpelt was there too.
“Firepaw!” growled Whitestorm. “What are you doing here?”
Firepaw gasped for breath. “Bluestar sent me!” he panted. “She wanted me to find Yellowfang before—”
Whitestorm interrupted him. “Ah!” he meowed. “Bluestar told me I might find a friend out here. Now I understand what she meant.” He looked thoughtfully at Firepaw.
“Is Tigerclaw nearby?” Firepaw asked, feeling a tingle of pride at their shared gaze.
Whitestorm looked at him curiously. “Bluestar insisted she needed him to remain at camp, to protect the remaining kits.”
Firepaw nodded quickly, relieved. He meowed urgently, “Whitestorm, I need your help. I can lead you to the kits. Graypaw is waiting for me. We plan to rescue them tonight. Will you come?”
“Of course we’ll come!” The warriors flicked their tails with excitement.
“It will mean raiding the ShadowClan camp,” Firepaw warned.
“Can you lead us there?” asked Runningwind eagerly.
“No, but Yellowfang can. And she has promised to bring help from her old allies in the camp.”
Mousefur glared at him and thrashed her tail angrily. “You have found Yellowfang?” she hissed.
“I don’t understand,” meowed Whitestorm, puzzled. “The traitor is going to help rescue the kits she stole?”
Firepaw took a deep breath to calm himself, then looked steadily into Whitestorm’s eyes. “Yellowfang didn’t take them,” he meowed. “Nor did she murder Spottedleaf. She wants to help us rescue our kits.”
Whitestorm stared back at him, then blinked slowly. “Lead the way, Firepaw,” he ordered.
Graypaw was waiting by the ash tree, pacing restlessly around its rotten trunk. He stopped as soon as he saw the patrol emerge from the mist and twitched his whiskers in greeting.
“Any sign of Yellowfang?” Firepaw asked.
“Not yet,” answered Graypaw.
“We don’t know how far it is to the ShadowClan camp,” Firepaw pointed out quickly, feeling Whitestorm stiffen beside him. “She may be on her way back right now.”
“Or she might be happily sharing tongues with her ShadowClan comrades while we sit here like fools waiting to be ambushed!” meowed Graypaw.
Whitestorm watched the two apprentices. His ears flicked uneasily. “Firepaw?” he prompted.
“She will come back,” Firepaw promised.
“Well said, young Firepaw.” Yellowfang stalked out from behind the ash tree and sat down. “You’re not the only one who can sneak up on someone,” she meowed at
Firepaw. “Remember the day we met? You were looking in the wrong direction that time too.”
Three other ShadowClan cats appeared from behind the tree and settled themselves calmly on either side of Yellowfang. The ThunderClan cats bristled, alert and suspicious.
Both Clans stared silently at each other. Firepaw fidgeted uncomfortably, unsure what to do now. Eventually one of the ShadowClan cats, a gray tom, spoke. His long body was skinny, and his fur looked dull. “We have come to help you, not to harm you. You have come for your kits; we will help you rescue them.”
“What’s in it for you?” asked Whitestorm warily.
“We want your help to get rid of Brokenstar. He has broken the warrior code, and ShadowClan is suffering.”
“So it’s that simple, is it?” growled Runningwind. “We just drop into your camp, snatch the kits, kill your leader, and go home.”
“You will not meet as much resistance as you think,” murmured the gray tom.
Yellowfang stood up. “Let me introduce my old friends,” she meowed, weaving her way around the ShadowClan cats. She brushed past the gray tom. “This is Ashfur; he is one of the Clan elders.
“And this is Nightpelt, a senior warrior before Raggedstar was killed.” She circled a battered black tom, who nodded at them.
“And this is one of our elder queens, Dawncloud. Two of her kits died driving out WindClan.”
Dawncloud, a small tabby, meowed in greeting. “I do not wish to lose any more of my kits,” she told them.
Whitestorm gave his chest a quick lick to smooth down his fur. “You are clearly skilled warriors if you managed to creep up on us like that. But are there enough of you? We need to know what we’ll face when we raid the ShadowClan camp.”
“The old and sick of ShadowClan are slowly starving,” meowed Ashfur. “The casualties among our kits are more than we can cope with.”
“But if ShadowClan is a mess,” burst out Darkstripe, “how come you have shown so much strength lately? And why is Brokenstar still your leader?”
“Brokenstar is surrounded by a small group of elite warriors,” answered Ashfur. “They are the ones to fear, because they would die for him without question. The other warriors obey his orders only because they are frightened. They will fight by his side as long as they think Brokenstar is going to win. If they thought he would lose . . .”
“They would fight against him, not for him!” Darkstripe finished the elder’s words in disgust. “What sort of loyalty is that?”
The hackles of the ShadowClan cats began to rise.
“Our Clan was not always like this,” Yellowfang interrupted. “When Raggedstar led ShadowClan, we were feared for our strength. But in those days our strength came from the warrior code and Clan loyalty, not from fear and bloodlust.” The old medicine cat sighed. “If only Raggedstar had lived longer.”
“How did Raggedstar die?” asked Whitestorm curiously. “There were so many rumors at the Gatherings, but no one seemed to know for sure.”
Yellowfang’s eyes clouded with sorrow. “He was ambushed by a warrior patrol from another Clan.”
Whitestorm nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, that is what most cats seemed to think. These are bad times indeed, when leaders are picked off in the dark, instead of open and honorable battle.”
Firepaw frowned, his mind racing over different battle plans. “Is there any way of taking the kits without alerting the whole Clan?” he asked.
Dawncloud answered him. “They are very closely guarded. Brokenstar will be expecting ThunderClan to try to take them. You won’t be able to steal them in secret. Open attack is your only hope.”
“Then we must concentrate our attack on Brokenstar and his inner guard,” meowed Whitestorm.
Yellowfang had a suggestion. “The ShadowClan warriors should lead me into the ShadowClan camp. They could say they had captured me. We have to make sure Brokenstar and his warriors are out of their dens. News of my capture will bring them into the clearing. Once they’re all out in the open, I’ll give the signal for you to attack.”
Whitestorm was silent for a moment. Then he nodded, his face grave as he committed his warriors to the attack. “Very well, Yellowfang,” he meowed. “Please lead the way to the ShadowClan camp.”
CHAPTER 24
Yellowfang turned and pushed her way into the bracken. Whitestorm and the others followed her.
Firepaw was tingling with excitement. He didn’t feel the damp chill in the air, and his weariness was long forgotten.
Yellowfang guided them to a small hollow surrounded by thick undergrowth and pointed out the entrance to the ShadowClan camp. The tangled mass of brambles looked very different from the neat gorse tunnel that led into the ThunderClan camp. The camp boundary was full of holes and gaps and the stench of rotting meat wafted toward them.
“You eat crow-food?” whispered Graypaw, curling his lip.
“Our warriors are used for attacking, not hunting,” replied Ashfur. “We eat whatever we can find.”
“ThunderClan, hide in that clump of bracken over there,” hissed Yellowfang. “It’s full of toadstools that will disguise your scent. Wait here till you hear me call.”
She stepped back to let the other ShadowClan cats lead the way, tucking herself into the center of their group as though she were their prisoner. They headed silently into the camp.
The ThunderClan cats settled themselves among the toadstools, tense and alert. Firepaw could feel his coat prickling. He looked at Graypaw beside him. The thick fur on the back of his friend’s neck was standing on end, and Firepaw could hear him panting with suppressed excitement.
Suddenly yowling erupted from the ShadowClan camp. Without hesitating, the ThunderClan cats sprang from their hiding places and raced through the entrance.
Yellowfang, Ashfur, Dawncloud, and Nightpelt were in a well-trodden, muddy clearing, wrestling with six vicious-looking warriors. Firepaw recognized Brokenstar and his deputy, Blackfoot, among them. The warriors looked hungry and battle-scarred, but Firepaw could see the hard muscles pounding beneath their patchy fur.
Around the edge of the clearing, groups of scrawny cats stared uncertainly at the mayhem. Their skinny bodies seemed to recoil at the violence, while their dull eyes looked on, shocked and confused. Out of the corner of his eye, Firepaw saw Runningnose back away and hide beneath a bush.
At Whitestorm’s nodded signal, the ThunderClan cats leaped into the battle.
Firepaw grasped a silver tabby with his claws, but was shaken loose. He tumbled over and the ShadowClan warrior turned on him and gripped him with claws as sharp as blackthorns. Firepaw managed to twist and sink his teeth deep into the cat’s flesh. The warrior’s yowl told him he had found a tender spot, and he bit harder. The warrior screeched again, ripping himself free, and ran off into the bushes.
Firepaw stood up. A young ShadowClan apprentice leaped at him from the edge of the camp, its soft kitten fur fluffed up with fear.
Firepaw sheathed his claws and batted him away easily. “This is not your battle,” he hissed.
Whitestorm already had Blackfoot pinned to the ground. He gave him a vicious bite and the injured deputy raced away toward the camp entrance and out into the safety of the forest.
“Firepaw!” Firepaw heard Dawncloud screech his name. “Watch out! Clawface is—” He didn’t hear the rest. A heavily built brown cat crashed into him. Clawface! Firepaw dug his claws into the ground and whirled around to fight. The warrior that had killed Spottedleaf! Rage surged through him and he flung himself onto the brown tom.
Firepaw pushed the warrior to the ground and pressed his head into the dirt. Blinded by fury, he prepared to sink his teeth into Clawface’s neck. But before he could deal his death blow, Whitestorm knocked him aside and grasped the ShadowClan warrior.
“ThunderClan warriors do not kill unless they have to,” he growled in Firepaw’s ear. “We just need to let them know not to show their faces here again!” He gave Clawface a fierce bite that sent him scre
aming out of the camp.
Still raging, Firepaw looked around wildly. Brokenstar’s warriors had gone.
An angry screech sounded from behind Graypaw. Graypaw leaped out of the way and Firepaw saw Yellowfang gripping Brokenstar with muddy, bloodstained paws. His body bled from several wounds. His ears were flattened against his head, and his whiskers were drawn back as he crouched, flattened beneath Yellowfang’s powerful grasp.
“I never thought you would be harder to kill than my father!” he snarled up at her.
Yellowfang recoiled as if she had been stung by a bee, her face twisted suddenly by shock and grief. She loosened her grip on Brokenstar, and instantly he threw her aside with a twist of his powerful body.
“You killed Raggedstar?” Yellowfang wailed, her eyes wide with disbelief.
Brokenstar eyed her coldly. “You found his body. Didn’t you recognize my fur between his claws?” Yellowfang stared in horror as he continued. “He was a soft and foolish leader. He deserved to die.”
“No!” hissed Yellowfang, her head dropping. Then she gave herself a shake. She looked up at Brokenstar, arching her back. “And Brightflower’s kits? Did they deserve to die too?” she rasped.
Brokenstar growled and hurled himself at Yellowfang, forcing her onto her belly. Yellowfang didn’t even attempt to struggle against his thorn-sharp claws. Firepaw saw with alarm that her eyes were glazed with sadness.
“Those kits were weak,” Brokenstar hissed, bending his face toward Yellowfang’s ear. “They would have been no use to ShadowClan. If I hadn’t killed them, some other warrior would have.”
A wail of grief went up from a black-and-white ShadowClan queen. Brokenstar ignored her. “I should have killed you when I had the chance,” he spat at Yellowfang. “It seems I must have some of my father’s softness. I was a fool to let you leave ShadowClan alive!” He lunged, teeth bared, ready to sink them into her neck.
Firepaw was quicker. He jumped onto Brokenstar’s back before he could clamp his jaws shut. Firepaw dug his claws into the matted tabby fur and pulled him off the exhausted queen, flinging him to the edge of the clearing.