Fire And Ice

Suddenly Onewhisker stopped and sniffed the air. “Rabbit!” he called out joyfully before charging away into the gorse. Deadfoot stopped and waited. Fireheart could see a glint in the deputy’s tired eyes. There was a rush of pawsteps in the distance and the rustle of gorse, then silence.

A moment later Onewhisker returned with a large rabbit dangling from his jaws.

Graystripe leaned toward Fireheart. “A little better than the RiverClan warriors, eh?”

Fireheart purred in agreement.

Onewhisker dropped the fresh-kill on the ground. “Anyone hungry?”

They ate the rabbit gratefully. When he’d eaten his share, Fireheart sat up and licked his lips. He felt refreshed by the meal, but a weary coldness was beginning to nag at his bones, and his paws felt sore. If he and Graystripe followed the route they’d come, past Fourtrees, they still had a long way to go. What if they took a shortcut through RiverClan’s hunting grounds? After all, they were on a mission that had been agreed to, at the Gathering at least, by all the Clans. Could RiverClan really object if they passed through their territory? It wasn’t as if they were going to steal prey.

Fireheart looked around at his companions and meowed tentatively, “You know, it’d be quicker if we followed the river.”

Graystripe looked up from washing his paw. “But that would mean crossing into RiverClan territory.”

“We could follow the gorge,” Fireheart explained. “RiverClan doesn’t hunt there; it’s too steep for them to get down to the river.”

Graystripe gently rested a damp paw on the ground. “Even my claws ache,” he murmured. “I wouldn’t mind taking a shorter route.” He turned his yellow eyes hopefully to the WindClan deputy.

Deadfoot looked thoughtful. “Tallstar ordered us to travel with you to Fourtrees,” he meowed.

“If you don’t want to come with us, we’ll understand,” Fireheart answered quickly. “We’ll only be in RiverClan territory for a blink. I can’t see us meeting any trouble.”

Graystripe nodded, but Deadfoot shook his head. “We couldn’t let you go into RiverClan territory alone,” he meowed. “You’re exhausted. If you did meet trouble, you’re in no state to deal with it.”

“We won’t meet anyone!” Fireheart had convinced himself and was determined to convince Deadfoot too.

Deadfoot gazed at him with wise old eyes. “If we did go that way,” he mused, “it would let RiverClan know that WindClan is back.”

Fireheart pricked his ears in understanding. “And once they’ve smelled fresh WindClan scent, they might not be so keen to come rabbit hunting in your territory again.”

Onewhisker licked the last traces of fresh-kill from his lips and remarked, “It’ll mean we’ll be home before moonrise!”

“You just want to make sure you get a good nest in your den!” Deadfoot retorted. His voice was stern but there was a good-natured gleam in his eye.

“Then we’re going through RiverClan territory?” Fireheart asked.

“Yes,” decided Deadfoot. He changed direction and led the cats along an old badger trail that took them away from the barren uplands. Soon they were in RiverClan’s territory. Even through the wind and the rain, Fireheart could hear the roaring of the river as it crashed and thundered somewhere up ahead.

The cats followed the trail toward the noise. The path shrank until it was little more than a narrow strip of grass on the very edge of a deep gorge. On one side the land stretched upward, steep and rocky; on the other it plunged straight down. Fireheart could see the far side of the gorge only a few fox lengths away. The space looked tantalizingly narrow, and Fireheart wondered if he could leap the gap. Perhaps if he weren’t so tired and hungry…His paws prickled with fear at the thought of falling, but he couldn’t resist peering over the side.

Beneath his paws, the ground dropped away in a sheer cliff. Ferns clung to tiny ledges, their leaves glistening, not from rain, but from the spray of the swollen torrent that foamed at the bottom of the gorge.

Fireheart pulled back from the edge, the fur along his spine bristling with fear. Ahead of him Deadfoot, Onewhisker, and Graystripe plodded steadily on, heads down. They would have to follow this path until they could cut away from it, through the small strip of forest that stood between them and ThunderClan territory.

Fireheart stumbled as he hurried to catch up. Deadfoot’s ears were pricked and his tail flattened so that it almost dragged along the ground. Onewhisker was clearly nervous too; he kept looking sharply up the slope beside them as if he could hear something. Fireheart could hear nothing but the roaring of the river. He glanced anxiously over his shoulder, his eyes darting from side to side. The WindClan cats’ wariness was making him uneasy.