Forest Of Secrets

Nightstar stepped forward, stiff-legged with barely suppressed fury. “Cats of all Clans, listen to me!” he demanded. “Listen, and remember. Until last greenleaf, Brokenstar was leader of ShadowClan. He was—”

Tallstar, the leader of WindClan, stepped forward to stand beside Nightstar. “Why do you speak that hated name?” he growled. His eyes flashed, and Fireheart knew he was remembering how Brokenstar and his warriors had driven WindClan out of their territory.

“Hated, yes,” Nightstar agreed. “And with good reason, which you know as well as any cat, Tallstar. He stole kits from ThunderClan. He forced kits from his own Clan into battle too early, and they died. In the end he was so bloodthirsty that we—his own Clan—drove him out. And where is he now?” Nightstar’s voice rose to a shriek. “Was he left to die in the forest, or scavenge a living among the Twolegs? No! Because there are cats here tonight who have taken him in. They are traitors to the warrior code, and to every other cat in the forest!”

Fireheart exchanged an uneasy glance with Sandstorm. He could see what was coming, and by the troubled look she gave him in return, so could she.

“ThunderClan!” Nightstar yowled. “ThunderClan are sheltering Brokenstar!”

Chapter 19

Shocked and angry caterwauls rose up from the cats surrounding the Great Rock. Every muscle in Fireheart’s body urged him to creep backward into the bushes and hide from their fury. It took all his strength to stay where he was. Sandstorm pressed against his side, as shaken as he was, and he found her warmth comforting.

On top of the Great Rock, Tallstar whipped around to face Bluestar. “Is this true?” he snarled.

Bluestar did not reply to him at once. With great dignity, she stepped forward and faced Nightstar. The moonlight glowed on her fur, turning it to silver, so that Fireheart could almost believe that a warrior of StarClan had leaped down from Silverpelt to join them. She waited until the noise from below had died down. “How do you know this?” she coolly asked Nightstar when she could make herself heard. “Have you been spying on our camp?”

“Spying!” Nightstar spat the word out. “There’s no need to spy when your apprentices gossip so freely. My warriors heard this at the last Gathering. Do you dare to stand here now and tell me they are wrong?”

As he spoke, Fireheart remembered seeing Swiftpaw with the ShadowClan apprentices at the end of the last Gathering. No wonder the young cat had looked guilty, if he had been telling his friends all about ThunderClan’s prisoner, so soon after Bluestar had ordered all her Clan to keep quiet!

Bluestar hesitated. Fireheart felt a pang of sympathy for her. Many of her own Clan had been unhappy with her decision to shelter blind Brokentail. How was she going to defend herself in front of the other Clans?

Tallstar crouched in front of her, his ears flattened. “Is it true?” he repeated.

For a moment Bluestar did not speak. Then she lifted her head defiantly. “Yes, it’s true,” she meowed.

“Traitor!” spat Tallstar. “You know what Brokenstar did to us.”

Bluestar’s tail tip twitched; even from his place below the rock Fireheart could see the strain in every muscle of her body, and knew she was struggling to keep calm. “No cat dares to call me traitor!” she hissed.

“I dare,” retorted Tallstar. “You are nothing but a traitor to the warrior code, if you are willing to give shelter to that…that heap of foxdung!”

All around the clearing WindClan cats leaped to their paws, yowling in support of their leader. “Traitor! Traitor!”

At the foot of the Great Rock, Tigerclaw and Deadfoot, the WindClan deputy, faced each other with their hackles raised, lips drawn back to show their sharp teeth, their noses no more than a mouse-length apart.

Fireheart sprang up too, his fighting instinct sending energy to his paws. He caught a glimpse of Willowpelt snarling at the WindClan queens with whom she had been sharing tongues a few moments before. A couple of ShadowClan warriors paced threateningly toward Darkstripe, and Mousefur leaped to his side, ready to attack.

“Stop!” Bluestar yowled from her place on the Great Rock. “How can you break the truce like this? Would you risk the wrath of StarClan?”

As she spoke, the moonlight began to fade. Every cat in the clearing froze. Looking up, Fireheart saw a wisp of cloud passing over the face of the moon. He shivered. Was that a warning from StarClan, because the Clans seemed about to break the sacred truce? Clouds had covered the moon once before, a sign of StarClan’s anger that had brought the Gathering to an end.

As the cloud passed away the moonlight strengthened again. The moment of crisis had passed. Most of the cats sat down, though they continued to glare at one another. Whitestorm pushed himself between Deadfoot and Tigerclaw, and started to mew urgently into the ThunderClan deputy’s ear.