Erin Hunter - The Fourth Apprentice

“StarClan might have sent her a dream, I suppose,” Firestar mewed after a moment. “She didn’t mention that to you, did she?”

Lionblaze wished he could have said yes. It would be such a convenient explanation. But lying to his Clan leader would create more problems than it would solve. “No, she didn’t,” he replied.

“Hmm…” Firestar’s whiskers quivered; he was obviously thinking deeply. “What she says makes sense,” he continued eventually. “I don’t mean about the brown animals. But there could be something blocking the stream so that the water doesn’t reach us anymore.”

“That’s what I thought.” Lionblaze was relieved to have a good reason for believing Dovepaw that meant he didn’t have to reveal the truth about her senses.

“There’s nothing in our territory,” Firestar went on in a murmur, half to himself. “And there can’t be anything in ShadowClan’s territory either, or they would have unblocked it.”

“It must be much farther upstream,” Lionblaze mewed. “Let me take a patrol to investigate. There might be something we can do.”

“No, it’s too dangerous.” Firestar shook his head. “We don’t know what might have caused the blockage. Besides, we would need to travel through ShadowClan territory. Blackstar would claw our ears off, and I couldn’t blame him.”

“So every cat has to suffer without water?” Lionblaze challenged him. “Jayfeather is doing his best to keep the Clan going, Firestar, but there’s a limit to what any medicine cat can do. Much more of this, and cats are going to die of thirst.”

“I know.” Firestar let out a long sigh that told Lionblaze of his despair more clearly than words. “But journeying upstream…it’s too much to take on, when we don’t know for sure that the stream has been blocked.”

“Then what are we going to do? Sit around waiting for rain?” Lionblaze’s anger was flaring up again, until he felt as if it would shrivel every hair on his pelt. “StarClan hasn’t sent us any messages to tell us when the drought might end. It’s time we took our destiny into our own paws!” Frustrated, he scraped his claws along the rock floor of the den. Words hovered, unspoken: You know that I’m more powerful than StarClan! Why won’t you believe me when I tell you we can fix this? But Lionblaze managed not to say them out loud.

“Very well, then,” Firestar responded wearily. “If you’re convinced that Dovepaw is right, I’ll let you look into it. There doesn’t seem to be anything else we can do to help. But I still won’t allow a patrol of ThunderClan cats to travel upstream alone. You would never reach the blockage, even if it exists.”

“But-” Lionblaze began.

“I said alone ,” Firestar interrupted. “If ShadowClan would join us, the mission would be a lot less dangerous. In fact, it would be best if we could form an expedition from all the Clans. Four Clans working together would be much stronger than one patrol alone.”

“Would they agree?” Lionblaze asked doubtfully.

“We’re all suffering from the lack of water.” Firestar sounded more energetic now, as if the plan was renewing his strength. “Why shouldn’t we all do something about it?”

Lionblaze shrugged. He found it hard to imagine Blackstar, Leopardstar, and Onestar agreeing to send warriors off into the unknown when life was so tough around the lake. But maybe they were desperate enough to consider it. And if it’s the only way to ease the drought , he decided, I’m sure I won’t be the only cat who’s up for it .

“I will propose it at tomorrow’s Gathering,” Firestar mewed decisively.

When Lionblaze climbed down the tumbled rocks into the clearing, he found Dovepaw and Jayfeather waiting anxiously for him.

“I heard you in there with Firestar!” Dovepaw whispered. “What did he say?”

“If you heard us, don’t you know what he said?” Lionblaze asked, disconcerted to realize that his apprentice might have been listening to everything that he and Firestar had discussed.

“I don’t eavesdrop!” Dovepaw twitched her whiskers indignantly. “That would be wrong.”

“So what did he say?” Jayfeather prompted.

“He wants to send a patrol from all four Clans upstream, to see if we can unblock the stream,” Lionblaze replied. “He’s going to mention it at the Gathering tomorrow night.”

“ All the Clans?” Dovepaw’s eyes stretched wide with dismay. “But-but what if they don’t believe me?”

“Don’t worry.” Lionblaze rested his tail on his apprentice’s shoulder. “Firestar isn’t going to say it was your idea.”

“He’ll probably tell the other Clans that we should explore the area upstream, to find out where the water has gone.” To Lionblaze’s surprise, Jayfeather’s eyes were gleaming.

Lionblaze couldn’t share his brother’s enthusiasm. Forcing the Clans to cooperate with one another seemed likely to cause more trouble than he was prepared to deal with. “You sound very keen on this idea,” he commented.

“Of course.” Jayfeather waved his tail. “All the Clans are suffering. It makes sense that we should work together to solve the problem.”

Lionblaze gazed up at the full moon hanging above the empty bowl of the lake. It outlined the WindClan cats in silver as they headed around the shore on their way to the Gathering. They looked thinner than ever, and they trudged along with their heads down and their tails drooping as if they were too tired to go on putting one paw in front of another.

Lionblaze looked around at his Clanmates and realized they were just as exhausted. Only Dovepaw seemed to have any energy. Her fur was fluffed up with excitement, and every so often she would run on a few paces, then wait for Cinderheart and Lionblaze to catch up. Her ears were pricked and her whiskers quivering. Lionblaze wondered what she could sense, whether she was already listening to murmurs from the island.

There was no need to use the fallen tree to cross the lake to the island. There was no water left in this narrow channel; the lake bottom was exposed to the stars, tumbled with pebbles and bits of wood. Firestar led the way down, jumping gracefully through the scattered debris, his paws silent on the stones.

“I don’t know why we came all this way around,” Foxleap muttered. “We could have just walked straight across the lake from our own territory.

“I suppose so,” Cinderheart agreed. “But we’ve always done it this way. Somehow it doesn’t seem respectful to change.”

Foxleap shrugged with a tired sigh.

Moonlight showed the lake robbed of all its old magnificence, reduced to a bowl of dust and stones. It felt strange to Lionblaze to be padding over an arid waste of pebbles where deep water had once rippled. Above him, the fallen tree didn’t seem so high, either, as when he had to balance carefully on it with the dark lake lapping hungrily below.

The undergrowth on the island was brown and brittle all the way down to the shore. ThunderClan and WindClan mingled together as they padded quietly through it toward the clearing. Lionblaze spotted the WindClan deputy, Ashfoot, pacing beside Crowfeather; the deputy was Crowfeather’s mother, Lionblaze remembered, with a sudden shock at the realization that he had more kin in WindClan.

He dropped back, hoping that Ashfoot and Crowfeather hadn’t noticed him, and found himself walking just behind Squirrelflight and Thornclaw. Cinderheart was beside him, with Birchfall on his other side and Ivypaw and Dovepaw following. Together they pushed through the bushes that surrounded the clearing and emerged in the cold starlight, circled by pine trees. ShadowClan had already arrived. They greeted ThunderClan and WindClan with subdued nods. The shadows that flitted over the ground were as light and frail as fallen leaves; was it Lionblaze’s imagination, or were the cats really making less noise with their half-starved paws?