The Darkest Hour Page 3

  “Wait—” he began, shouldering his way through the circle.

  It was too late. Speckletail and Frostfur were already standing in the entrance to Bluestar’s den, their fur bristling and their tails fluffed out to twice their normal size as they confronted the strange cats. A menacing snarl came from Frostfur. “What are you doing here?”

  CHAPTER 2

  As Fireheart bounded across to Bluestar’s den, Speckle tail spun around to face him. Her eyes were burning with anger. “There are two RiverClan cats here,” she growled. “Mauling our leader’s body!”

  “No—no, they’re not.” Fireheart gasped. “They’ve a right to be here.”

  He realized that the rest of the Clan had gathered anxiously behind him and he heard Cloudtail yowling a challenge, with snarls of rage breaking out all around.

  Fireheart whirled to face them. “Keep back!” he ordered. “It’s all right. Mistyfoot and Stonefur—”

  “You know they’re here?” The voice was Darkstripe’s; the dark tabby thrust his way through the crowd to stand nose-to-nose with Fireheart. “You let enemy cats into our camp—into our leader’s den?”

  Fireheart took a breath, forcing himself to stay calm. He deeply mistrusted the black-striped tabby. When the Clan had been preparing to escape the dog pack, Darkstripe had tried to slip away with Tigerstar’s kits. He had sworn that he knew nothing of Tigerstar’s plot to destroy ThunderClan with the dogs, but Fireheart was not sure he believed him.

  “Have you forgotten what I told you?” he asked. “Mistyfoot and Stonefur helped me to pull Bluestar out of the river.”

  “So you say!” Darkstripe spat. “How do we know you’re telling the truth? Why should RiverClan cats help ThunderClan?”

  “They’ve helped us often enough in the past,” Fireheart reminded him. “More of us would have died after the fire if RiverClan hadn’t given us shelter.”

  “That’s true,” meowed Mousefur. She had returned with Cinderpelt from the medicine cat’s den in time to hear the confrontation, and now she pushed forward to stand beside Darkstripe. “But it’s no excuse to leave them alone in the den with Bluestar’s body. What are they doing in there?”

  “We are giving honor to Bluestar.”

  Stonefur spoke defiantly, and Fireheart turned his head to see that the RiverClan deputy and Mistyfoot had appeared in the mouth of the den. They both looked taken aback at the reaction of the ThunderClan cats, their fur beginning to bristle as they realized they were being treated as intruders.

  “We wanted to say good-bye to her,” Mistyfoot meowed.

  “Why?” Mousefur demanded.

  Fireheart’s stomach clenched as Mistyfoot faced the light brown she-cat and answered, “She was our mother.”

  Silence fell, broken only by the call of a blackbird from the edge of the camp. Fireheart’s mind raced as he faced the shocked, hostile stares of his Clan. His gaze met Sandstorm’s; she looked dismayed, as if she guessed that Fireheart would never have chosen for ThunderClan to discover their leader’s secret like this.

  “Your mother?” growled Speckletail. “I don’t believe it. Bluestar would never have allowed her kits to be raised in another Clan.”

  “Believe it or not, it’s true,” Stonefur retorted.

  Fireheart stepped forward, warning Stonefur to stay silent with a flick of his tail. “I’ll deal with this now. You and Mistyfoot had better go.”

  Stonefur gave him a curt nod and took the lead as he and Mistyfoot made their way toward the gorse tunnel. Fireheart heard one or two furious hisses as the ThunderClan cats parted to let them pass.

  “The thanks of the Clan go with you,” Fireheart called out after them, his voice echoing thinly off the Highrock.

  Mistyfoot and Stonefur didn’t respond. They didn’t even turn to look back before they vanished into the tunnel.

  Every hair on Fireheart’s pelt prickled with the desire to turn and run from his new responsibilities. The secret that had been so heavy to keep—that Bluestar had given up her kits to another Clan—would be heavier still in the sharing. He wished that he had been given more time to think of what to say, but he knew that it was better for his Clan to hear the truth from him now, instead of from Tigerstar at the next Gathering. As Clan leader he had to face the task, however little he liked it.

  Dipping his head to Cinderpelt, he bounded up onto the Highrock. There was no need to summon the Clan; they were already turning to look up at him. For a heartbeat Fireheart was breathless, unable to speak.

  He could see their anger and confusion, and smell their fear scent. Darkstripe was watching him with narrowed eyes, as if he were already planning what to tell Tigerstar. Bleakly Fireheart reflected that Tigerstar already knew; he had heard what Bluestar said to her kits as she lay dying by the river. But the ShadowClan leader would certainly be pleased to hear about ThunderClan’s confusion and Fireheart’s own difficulties. Tigerstar was sure to find a way to twist it to his advantage in his quest for revenge against ThunderClan and his efforts to recover his kits, Bramblepaw and Tawnypaw.

  Fireheart took a deep breath and began: “It’s true that Mistyfoot and Stonefur are Bluestar’s kits.” He struggled to keep his voice steady, and prayed to StarClan to give him the right words so that the cats would not turn against Bluestar. “Oakheart of RiverClan was their father. When her kits were born, Bluestar gave them to him to be brought up in his Clan.”

  “How do you know?” snarled Frostfur. “Bluestar would never have done that! If the RiverClan cats said so, they’re lying.”

  “Bluestar told me herself,” Fireheart replied.

  He met the white cat’s gaze; her eyes blazed with fury, her teeth were bared, but she did not quite dare to accuse him of lying. “Are you telling us she was a traitor?” she hissed.

  One or two cats yowled a protest. Frostfur spun around, fur bristling, and Whitestorm rose to face her. Though the senior warrior looked stunned with shock, his voice was steady as he meowed, “Bluestar was always loyal to her Clan.”

  “If she was so loyal,” Darkstripe put in, “why did she let a cat from another Clan father her kits?”

  Fireheart found that question hard to answer. Not long ago, Graystripe had taken a mate from RiverClan, and his kits were growing up there now. The ThunderClan cats had been so horrified that Graystripe had felt he couldn’t stay in his birth Clan any longer. Although he had returned, some cats still felt hostile to him and doubted his loyalty.

  “Things happen,” Fireheart replied. “When the kits were born, Bluestar would have brought them up to be loyal ThunderClan warriors, but—”

  “I remember those kits.” This time the interruption was from Smallear. “They disappeared out of the nursery. We all thought a fox or a badger had gotten them. Bluestar was distraught. Are you saying that was all a lie?”

  Fireheart looked down at the old gray tomcat. “No,” he promised. “Bluestar was devastated at the loss of her kits. But she had to give them up in order to become Clan deputy.”

  “You’re telling us her ambition meant more to her than her kits?” asked Dustpelt. The brown warrior sounded puzzled rather than angry, as if he couldn’t reconcile this image with the wise leader he had always known.

  “No,” Fireheart told him. “She did it because the Clan needed her. She put the Clan first—just as she always did.”

  “That’s true,” Whitestorm agreed quietly. “Nothing meant more to Bluestar than ThunderClan.”

  “Mistyfoot and Stonefur are proud of her courage—both then and now,” Fireheart went on. “As we should be.”

  He was relieved when there were no more open challenges, though the tension among the Clan cats did not die away completely. Mousefur and Frostfur were muttering together, casting suspicious glances up at him. Speckletail, tail-tip twitching, stalked across to join them. But Whitestorm moved from one cat to another, clearly backing up what he had said, and Smallear was nodding wisely, as if he respected the hard decision Bluestar had made. />
  Then a single voice rose clearly out of the hum of conversation. “Fireheart,” Tawnypaw piped up, “are you going to be our leader now?”

  Before Fireheart could reply, Darkstripe sprang to his paws. “Accept a kittypet as Clan leader? Are we all mad?”

  “It’s not a question, Darkstripe,” Whitestorm pointed out, raising his voice above shocked exclamations from Sandstorm and Graystripe. “Fireheart is Clan deputy; he succeeds Bluestar. That’s all there is to it.”

  Fireheart flashed him a grateful glance. The fur on his shoulders had begun to bristle and he deliberately relaxed so that it lay flat again. He would not let Darkstripe see that his challenging words had provoked him. Yet he could not stifle a moment of doubt. Bluestar had appointed him deputy, but her mind had been clouded by the shock of Tigerstar’s treachery, and the whole Clan had been shocked because the ceremony had been late. Could that possibly mean he was not the right cat to lead ThunderClan?

  “But a kittypet!” Darkstripe protested. His yellow eyes glared balefully up at Fireheart. “Stinking of Twolegs and their nests! Is that what we want as our leader?”

  Fireheart felt the familiar rage burn in his belly. Even though he had lived with the Clan since he was six moons old, Darkstripe never let him forget that he was not forest-born.

  As he struggled with the desire to leap down and sink his claws into Darkstripe’s fur, Goldenflower rose to her paws and stepped forward to face the dark warrior. “You’re wrong, Darkstripe,” she growled. “Fireheart has proved his loyalty to the Clan a thousand times over. No Clan-born cat could have done more.”

  Fireheart blinked his thanks to her, surprised that Goldenflower of all cats should have supported him so determinedly. She knew of Fireheart’s suspicions that her kit Bramblepaw would end up as dangerous as his father, Tigerstar. Though he had taken Bramblepaw as his own apprentice, he never felt comfortable around the young cat, and Goldenflower knew it. She had defended her kits fiercely against what she thought was Fireheart’s unreasonable hostility. It was all the more surprising now that she should stand up for him against Dark stripe.

  “Fireheart, don’t listen to Darkstripe,” Brackenfur added his voice to Goldenflower’s. “Every cat here wants you as leader, apart from him. You’re obviously the best cat for the job.”

  A murmur of agreement rose from the cats around the Highrock, and Fireheart’s heart swelled with gratitude.

  “And who are we to go against the decrees of StarClan?” Mousefur added. “The deputy always becomes Clan leader. That is the tradition of the warrior code.”

  “Which Fireheart seems to know rather better than you do,” Graystripe hissed, flicking his tail contemptuously at Darkstripe. He knew as well as Fireheart that the dark warrior had plotted with Tigerstar before the dog attack.

  Fireheart gestured with one paw to his friend for silence before addressing the whole Clan. “I promise you that I will spend the rest of my life striving to become the leader that ThunderClan deserves. And with StarClan’s help I will succeed.”

  His gaze was drawn instinctively to Sandstorm, and he felt warmth spread into his paws and the tip of his tail when he saw how proud she looked.

  “As for you, Darkstripe,” Fireheart spat, unable to hide his anger, “if you don’t like the thought of being led by a kittypet, you can always leave.”

  The dark warrior lashed his tail; there was pure hatred in the look he threw Fireheart. If I had never come to the forest, Fireheart realized, Tigerstar would be leader now, and you would be deputy.

  He had never intended to provoke a public confrontation with Darkstripe, but the dark tabby had driven him to it. Though ThunderClan could not afford to lose any warriors, a large part of Fireheart wanted Darkstripe to take him at his word and leave the Clan for good. Yet at the same time he knew that Darkstripe would go straight to ShadowClan and Tigerstar. It was better, Fireheart admitted to himself, to keep his enemies apart. Darkstripe would be less of a threat in ThunderClan, where Fireheart could keep an eye on him.

  The black-striped warrior went on staring at him for a few heartbeats more, before whipping around to stalk away. But he did not head for the gorse tunnel; instead he vanished into the warriors’ den.

  “Right.” Fireheart raised his voice as he turned back to the rest of the Clan. “Tonight we will hold the mourning rituals for Bluestar.”

  “Hang on!” Cloudtail sprang to his paws, tail fluffed up. “Aren’t we going to attack ShadowClan? They slaughtered Brindleface and they led the dog pack to our camp! Don’t you want revenge?”

  His fur was bristling with hostility. Brindleface had been Cloudtail’s foster mother when he first came to ThunderClan as a helpless kit. But Fireheart knew that attacking ShadowClan right now was not the answer.

  He signaled with his tail to silence the yowls of agreement that had broken out as soon as Cloudtail spoke. “No,” he meowed. “This is not the time to attack ShadowClan.”

  “What?” Cloudtail stared at him disbelievingly. “You’d let them get away with it?”

  Fireheart took a deep breath. “ShadowClan didn’t kill Brindleface, or lay the trail for the dogs. Tigerstar did. Every rabbit on the trail had his scent on it and no other cat’s. We can’t be sure that ShadowClan even knew what their leader was planning.”

  Cloudtail let out a snort of contempt. Fireheart fixed his former apprentice with a hard stare, willing him not to argue about this now. He knew that what had happened was due to the moons-old enmity between himself and Tigerstar. The ShadowClan leader would have been pleased to wipe out ThunderClan and take their territory for his own, but that was not his real motive for bringing the pack of dogs to the camp. What Tigerstar wanted more than anything else was to destroy Fireheart. Only then would he have his full revenge for the time when Fireheart had revealed his plot to kill Bluestar and driven him into exile.

  Sooner or later, Fireheart now knew, he would have to come face-to-face with Tigerstar in a final confrontation that only one of them could survive. He prayed to StarClan that when the time came he would have the courage and strength to rid the forest of this bloodthirsty cat.

  “Believe me,” he meowed out loud, addressing the whole Clan, “Tigerstar will pay. But ThunderClan has no quarrel with ShadowClan.”

  To Fireheart’s relief, Cloudtail sat down again, his blue eyes blazing with anger, and muttered something to Lostface. Nearby, Goldenflower was crouched with her tail wrapped protectively around Bramblepaw and Tawnypaw, as if they were still young kits. She had made Fireheart himself tell the young cats what Tigerstar had done, and she was always afraid that the Clan would judge them harshly because of their father’s crimes. As Fireheart gave his decision not to attack, she visibly relaxed, and the two apprentices eased away from her. Bramblepaw flashed a look at Firestar from narrowed amber eyes, and Fireheart wondered if he saw hostility there.

  He pushed the problem of Bramblepaw to the back of his mind as he looked out over the assembled cats. Long shadows were stretching across the camp, and Fireheart realized that the time had come for the Clan to make its last farewells to their beloved leader. “We must pay our respects to Bluestar,” he announced. “Are you ready, Cinderpelt?” The medicine cat nodded. “Graystripe, Sandstorm,” Fireheart went on, “can you bring Bluestar’s body out into the clearing so that we may share tongues with her in the sight of StarClan?”

  The two warriors got up and vanished into Bluestar’s den, reappearing a moment later with their leader’s body supported between them. They carried her to the center of the clearing and laid her gently onto the hard-packed sand.

  “Sandstorm, round up a hunting patrol,” Fireheart ordered. “When you’ve said good-bye to Bluestar I’d like you to stock up the fresh-kill pile. And Mousefur, when you have finished, could you lead a patrol out toward Snakerocks and the ShadowClan border? I want to be sure that all the dogs have gone, and that there are no ShadowClan cats on our territory. Be careful, though—don’t take risks.”

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nbsp; “Sure, Fireheart.” The wiry brown tabby got to her paws. “Goldenflower, Longtail, are you coming?”

  The cats she had named went to join her, and all three moved into the center of the clearing to share tongues with their leader for the last time. Sandstorm followed with Dustpelt and Cloudtail. Cinderpelt stood at Bluestar’s head and gazed into the indigo sky, where the first stars of Silverpelt were beginning to appear. According to the ancient traditions of the Clans, each star represented the spirit of a warrior ancestor. Fireheart wondered if there were one more star tonight, for Bluestar.

  Cinderpelt’s blue eyes shone with the secrets of StarClan. “Bluestar was a noble leader,” she meowed. “Let us give thanks to StarClan for her life. She was dedicated to her Clan, and her memory will never fade from the forest. Now we commend her spirit to StarClan; may she watch over us in death as she always did in life.”

  A soft murmuring spread throughout the Clan as the medicine cat finished speaking and stood with her head bowed. The warriors Fireheart had chosen to go out on patrol crouched beside Bluestar’s body, grooming her fur and pressing their noses to her flank. After a while they backed away and other cats took their place, until all the Clan had shared tongues with their leader in the sorrowful ritual.

  The patrols left, and the other cats retreated silently to their dens. Fireheart stood watching near the base of the Highrock, and as Brackenfur moved away from his leader’s body he stepped forward to intercept the young warrior. “I’ve got a job for you,” he murmured. “I want you to keep an eye on Darkstripe for me. If he so much as looks across the border to ShadowClan, I want to know about it.”

  The young ginger tom gazed at him, alarm battling with loyalty to his new Clan leader. “I’ll do my best, Fireheart, but he won’t like it.”

  “With any luck, he won’t know about it. Don’t make it too obvious, and ask one or two of the others to help you…Mousefur, maybe, and Frostfur.” Seeing that Brackenfur was still doubtful, Fireheart added, “Darkstripe may not have known about the dogs, but he knew that Tigerstar was planning something. We can’t trust him.”