Erin Hunter - A Dangerous Path

Sandstorm looked her usual self, alert and focused on their mission. “Cloudtail told us,” she meowed briskly. “Let’s go.”

Fireheart took the lead out of the camp and up to the top of the ravine. Almost at once he picked up Swiftpaw’s and Brightpaw’s scent leading directly toward Snakerocks. There was no need to spend time trying to track them; all they had to do was get to Snakerocks as soon as possible.

But we’ll be too late, he thought. If they meet whatever’s out there…

He raced through the forest, his paws scattering fallen leaves. The stiffness in his injured leg was forgotten. Graystripe ran close beside him, and Fireheart recognized the comfort of facing danger with his friend by his side once again, even though so much had changed.

As they approached Snakerocks, Fireheart slowed down and signaled with his tail for the other cats to do the same. If they dashed straight in without knowing what they had to face, they would be no help to the apprentices. They had to treat this threat, whatever it was, like any other enemy. But something inside Fireheart screamed that it was unpredictable, far beyond the reach of any Clan code, and that he was in more danger than he had ever been in before. Was this how mice and rabbits felt, he wondered, knowing that death could be stalking through the undergrowth?

Everything was still. Fireheart did not want to risk calling to the apprentices in case he alerted whatever was lurking up ahead. Swiftpaw must be right, he realized; this was the center of the darkness that had poisoned the forest, but he began to doubt his theories about what the threat was. Could one dog really cause so much destruction and fear in the forest?

As cautiously as if he were stalking prey, Fireheart slid through the undergrowth until the smooth, sand-colored sides of Snakerocks came into sight. For a few heartbeats he stood and tasted the air. A mixture of scents reached him: Swiftpaw’s and Brightpaw’s, still fresh; the staler scent of other ThunderClan cats; dog, as Fireheart had expected; but over it all the stench of newly spilled blood.

Sandstorm turned to look at him, her eyes huge with fear. “Something terrible has happened.”

Terror coursed through Fireheart. He was about to confront the source of the fear that had stalked him for more than a moon, the faceless enemy that had invaded their forest. He was barely able to make himself go on.

With a twitch of his tail he gestured for his companions to move forward again; now they crept with their bellies close to the ground, intent on seeing without being seen, until the rocks were only a few fox-lengths away.

A fallen tree barred their way. Scrambling onto the trunk, Fireheart looked out over an open space carpeted with dead leaves. Foul-tasting bile rose into his throat as he took in the scene in front of him. The leaves had been churned up by massive paws, and clots of earth sprayed upward to catch in the branches of the tree. In the middle of the clearing Swiftpaw’s black-and-white body lay motionless, and just beyond him, Brightpaw.

“Oh, no,” whispered Sandstorm, as she drew herself up to crouch on the trunk beside Fireheart.

“Brightpaw!” yowled Cloudtail. Without waiting for Fireheart’s order he launched himself across the clearing toward her.

Fireheart tensed, waiting for whatever had hunted down these apprentices to emerge from the trees and attack, but nothing stirred. Feeling as if his legs hardly belonged to him, he sprang down and stumbled across to Swiftpaw.

The apprentice lay on his side, his legs splayed out. His black-and-white fur was torn, and his body was covered with dreadful wounds, ripped by teeth far bigger than any cat’s. His jaws still snarled and his eyes glared. He was dead, and Fireheart could see that he had died fighting.

“Great StarClan, what did this to him?” he whispered. For moons he had been afraid, and now it was far worse than he ever could have imagined. Swiftpaw had been slaughtered like prey. The hunters in the forest had become the hunted. Something had happened in the forest, the balance of life had changed, and for a moment Fireheart felt the ground beneath his paws shift.

Graystripe and Sandstorm stared down at Swiftpaw’s body, too stunned to reply. Fireheart knew that Graystripe was remembering another bloodstained body, all his grief for Silverstream reawakening.

“What a waste,” Fireheart murmured sadly. “If only Bluestar had made him a warrior. If only I’d let him fight, instead of sending him—”

He was interrupted by a screech from Cloudtail. “Fireheart! Fireheart, Brightpaw isn’t dead!”

Fireheart spun around and raced across the clearing to crouch beside Brightpaw. Her white-and-ginger fur, which she had always kept so neatly groomed, was spiky with drying blood. On one side of her face the fur was torn away, and there was blood where her eye should have been. One ear had been shredded, and there were huge claw marks scored across her muzzle.

Fireheart heard a choking sound as Sandstorm came up behind him. “No…” the ginger she-cat whispered. “Oh, StarClan, no!”

At first Fireheart thought Cloudtail was wrong and that Brightpaw must be dead, until he saw the very faint rise and fall of her breathing, and the blood bubbling in her nostrils. “Fetch Cinderpelt,” he ordered.

Sandstorm dashed off while Graystripe stood beside Swiftpaw’s body, all his senses alert in case their fearsome enemy should return. Fireheart went on looking down at the injured Brightpaw. Somehow his fear had drained away. He felt nothing but an icy calm, and a stern, ferocious determination to avenge the young apprentices. He asked StarClan to be with him and to give him the strength to unleash all their fury on whatever had dared to wreak such havoc.

Cloudtail curled himself close to the motionless apprentice and began licking her face and the fur around her ears. “Don’t die, Brightpaw,” he begged. “I’m with you now. Cinderpelt’s coming. Hold on just a bit longer.”

Fireheart had never heard him sound so distraught. He hoped the white cat would not have to suffer the pain he had felt when Spottedleaf died, or Graystripe’s when he lost Silverstream.

One of Brightpaw’s ears twitched under Cloudtail’s gentle tongue. Her remaining eye opened a slit and closed again.

“Brightpaw.” Fireheart leaned close to her and spoke urgently. “Brightpaw, can you tell us what did this to you?”

Brightpaw’s eye opened wider and she fixed a cloudy gaze on Fireheart.

“What happened?” he repeated. “What did this?”

A thin wailing came from Brightpaw, which gradually formed into words. Fireheart stared at her in horror as he made out what she was trying to say.

“Pack, pack,” she whispered. “Kill, kill.”

“Will she live?” Fireheart asked anxiously.

Cinderpelt let out a weary sigh. She had come to Snakerocks as fast as her uneven legs could run and done her best to patch up the worst of Brightpaw’s injuries with cobwebs to stop the bleeding and poppy seeds for the pain. At last the apprentice had recovered enough to be dragged back through the forest to the camp, and now she lay unconscious in a nest among the ferns near Cinderpelt’s den.

“I don’t know,” Cinderpelt admitted. “I’ve done the best I can. She’s in the paws of StarClan now.”

“She’s a strong cat,” Fireheart meowed, trying to reassure himself. When he looked at Brightpaw now, curled among the ferns, she looked anything but strong. She seemed smaller than a kit, no more than a scrap of fur. Fireheart half expected each shallow breath to be her last.

“Even if she recovers, she’ll be hideously scarred,” Cinderpelt warned him. “I couldn’t save her ear or eye. I don’t know that she’ll ever be a warrior.”