Erin Hunter - Fire And Ice

Fireheart dropped into a crouch, keeping his ears below the heather. Beside him, Graystripe lifted his dark gray head to peer over the bushes. “I can see them,” he murmured. “They’re hunting.”

Fireheart stretched up cautiously to look.

Four RiverClan warriors were chasing a rabbit through a patch of gorse. Fireheart recognized Blackclaw from the Gathering. The smoky-black warrior pounced, his claws unsheathed, but sat up again with nothing to show for the chase. The rabbit must have made it to the safety of her warren.

Fireheart and Graystripe dropped down again and pressed their bellies against the cold turf.

“They’re not good rabbit hunters,” Graystripe hissed scornfully.

“I guess RiverClan is more used to catching fish,” Fireheart whispered back. His nose twitched as he smelled the scent of a terrified rabbit coming nearer. With a pang of dread, Fireheart heard the pawsteps of the RiverClan warriors fast approaching after it. “They’re coming this way! We’ll have to hide!”

“Follow me,” whispered Graystripe. “I smell badgers this way.”

“Badgers?” Fireheart echoed. “Is that safe?” He’d heard the story of how Halftail had lost his tail in a fight with a bad-tempered old brock.

“Don’t worry. The scent is strong but stale,” Graystripe reassured him. “There must be an old set near here.”

Fireheart sniffed. His scent glands picked up a strong, almost foxlike scent. “Are you sure it’s abandoned?”

“We’ll know soon enough. Come on; we’ve got to get out of here,” replied Graystripe. He led the way quickly through the low bushes. The rustle of heather told Fireheart the RiverClan warriors were closing in.

“Here!” Graystripe shouldered aside a tuft of heather to reveal a sandy hole in the ground. “Get inside! The badger’s scent will disguise ours. We can wait till they’re gone.”

Fireheart slipped speedily into the dark hole, and Graystripe followed him. The stench of badger was overwhelming.

Pawsteps thudded on the ground overhead. Both cats held their breath as the steps halted and one of the RiverClan warriors yowled, “Badger set!” From the rasping mew, Fireheart knew it was Blackclaw.

A second voice answered: “Is it abandoned? The rabbit may be hiding inside.”

Fireheart felt Graystripe’s fur bristling beside him in the dark. He unsheathed his claws and stared at the entrance to the hole, ready to fight if the warriors came inside.

“Wait; the scent leads this way,” meowed Blackclaw. There was a scrabble of paws overhead as the RiverClan warriors charged away.

Graystripe slowly let out his breath. “D’you think they’re gone?”

“Perhaps we should wait a bit longer, make sure none of them stayed behind,” Fireheart suggested.

No more noises came from outside. Graystripe nudged Fireheart. “Come on,” he meowed.

Fireheart followed Graystripe cautiously out into the daylight. There was no sign of the RiverClan patrol. The fresh breeze cleared Fireheart’s scent glands of the badger stench. “We should look for the WindClan camp,” he meowed to Graystripe. “It’ll be the best place to pick up their scent.”

“Okay,” answered Graystripe.

They moved slowly through the heather, keeping their mouths slightly open to pick up the scent of any more RiverClan warriors. They stopped at the foot of a large flat rock that sloped up steeply, past the tops of the gorse bushes.

“I’ll climb up and have a look around,” offered Graystripe. “My pelt will blend better with the stone.”

“Okay,” Fireheart agreed. “But keep your head down.”

He watched his friend creep up the rock. Graystripe crouched at the top and gazed around the plateau, then skidded back down to Fireheart. “There’s a hollow over there, I think,” Graystripe puffed, signaling with his tail. “I can see a gap in the heather.”

“Let’s check it out,” meowed Fireheart. “It could be the camp.”

“That’s what I thought.” Graystripe nodded. “It’s probably the only place up here that’s sheltered from the wind.”

As they neared the hollow, Fireheart raced past Graystripe and gazed over the edge. It looked as if a StarClan warrior had reached down from the sky, scooped a pawful of peat from the plateau, and replaced it with a thick tangle of gorse that grew almost to the level of the ground on either side.

Fireheart sniffed. He could smell many scents, all WindClan, old and young, male and female, and, in the background, the faint odor of fresh-kill that had long since become crowfood. This had to be the abandoned camp.

Fireheart bounded down the slope and plunged into the bushes. The gorse tugged at his fur and scratched his nose, making his eyes water. He could hear Graystripe behind him, cursing as thorns snagged his ears. They pushed through into a sheltered clearing. The sandy ground had been trodden hard by generations of paws. At one end of the clearing stood a rock, worn smooth by many windblown moons.

“This is their camp, all right,” Fireheart murmured.

“I can’t believe Brokenstar managed to drive WindClan out of such a well-protected place!” meowed Graystripe, rubbing his sore nose with one paw.

“It looks like they put up a good fight,” Fireheart pointed out, realizing with a jolt how badly ravaged the camp was. Clumps of fur littered the ground, and dried blood stained the sand. Mossy nests had been dragged out of dens and torn apart. And everywhere, stale ShadowClan scents mingled with the smell of terrified WindClan cats.

Fireheart shuddered. “Let’s find the scent trail out of here,” he meowed. He began to sniff the air carefully and moved forward, following the strongest scent. Graystripe padded after him to a narrow gap in the gorse.

“WindClan cats must be even smaller than I remember!” grumbled Graystripe as he squeezed through after Fireheart.

Fireheart glanced at his friend, amused for a moment. The scent trail was quite clear now-definitely WindClan, but mixed and pungent, as if made by many frightened cats. Fireheart looked down. Drops of dried blood dotted the ground. “We’re heading the right way,” he meowed darkly. Two moons of rain and wind had failed to wash away the signs of suffering. Fireheart could clearly picture the defeated and injured Clan fleeing from their home. With a surge of anger he bounded after his friend.

The trail led them to the far edge of the uplands, where they stopped to catch their breath. In front of them the ground sloped away to the Twoleg farmland. Far in the distance, where the sun was beginning to set, loomed the towering shapes of Highstones.

“I wonder if Nightpelt is there yet,” Fireheart murmured. In a tunnel below Highstones lay the sacred Moonstone, where the leaders of each Clan shared dreams with StarClan.

“Well, we don’t want to find him down there!” Graystripe flicked his tail at the wide expanse of Twoleg land. “It’ll be hard enough dodging Twolegs, rats, and dogs, without meeting the new ShadowClan leader as well!”

Fireheart nodded. He thought back to their last journey across this land, with Bluestar and Tigerclaw. They had almost been killed by an attack of rats, and only the arrival of Barley, the loner, had saved them. Even so, Bluestar had lost one of her lives; the memory of it stung Fireheart like a wood ant.

“Do you think we’ll find any trace of Ravenpaw down there?” Graystripe meowed, turning his broad face toward Fireheart.

“I hope so,” Fireheart replied solemnly. The last he had seen of Ravenpaw had been the white tip of his tail disappearing into the storm on the uplands. Had the ThunderClan apprentice made it safely to Barley’s territory?

The two warriors started down the slope, carefully sniffing each clump of grass to make sure they stayed on the WindClan trail.