Path Of A Warrior

The rage in his voice startled Shadowstar. She had thought that time had mellowed the angry, reckless cat Skystar had been when they were young, but maybe he had just learned to hide that fury. She thought again of those eyes watching from the forest as she died… .

Skystar had pale blue eyes, but plenty of his warriors—Acorn Fur, Quick Water, and Birch, for instance—had amber ones. How far would Skystar go? she wondered.

“I agree with Windstar.” Riverstar spoke calmly, interrupting Shadowstar’s worried thoughts. “The borders are as they are for a reason. Any cat who wants to can seek shelter with RiverClan, but we will not give up our territory.”

Skystar snarled furiously at Riverstar, but the long-furred tom blinked at him, unperturbed.

“Well, RiverClan doesn’t have to worry, does it?” Thunderstar said bitterly. “You’re across the river from SkyClan. Whatever affects us in the forest won’t touch you.”

He and Skystar—father and son—had never looked more alike than they did now, their broad shoulders tense and their long tails slashing from side to side. Thunderstar has amber eyes, too, Shadowstar noticed, feeling slightly sick.

Was she making too much of this? No, she decided. My task is to protect my Clan and to make sure they will go on without me. If I have an enemy, ShadowClan has an enemy.

Thunderstar sighed. “So even if the Twoleg threat gets worse, WindClan and RiverClan are against redrawing our borders,” he meowed. “ThunderClan and SkyClan are for it.” He turned to Shadowstar. “You say you never agreed to give up territory, but will you agree now? Your vote can break the tie.”

“It’s not a vote,” Windstar muttered, but the others ignored her, their eyes fixed on Shadowstar.

Shadowstar tucked her tail around her legs and thought. The clearing was silent, each cat straining to hear her answer. Is redrawing the borders the right thing to do? It was true that changing territories would force the cats of each Clan to learn to hunt in a new way. And there would be less prey if there was less territory.

As well, she still wasn’t sure that there really was a Twoleg threat to SkyClan. Twolegs have wandered through Clan territory before, she thought. Maybe Skystar is seeing danger where there isn’t any.

And what if Skystar or one of his Clanmates had watched the dogs attack her and Sun Shadow? Could she trust them?

She spoke carefully. “I’m not ready to make this decision. There’s a lot I need to consider.”

Skystar’s tail slashed wildly. “Like what?” he yowled. “Do you have to weigh whether SkyClan is worth saving?”

Snarls came from the SkyClan warriors in the crowd below.

“I want to see for myself what the Twolegs are doing on your territory,” Shadowstar meowed steadily. “If I agree that there’s a threat—”

“There is,” Skystar insisted.

“If I agree, then we’ll talk about new territory. Maybe there’s somewhere else nearby where SkyClan can carve out a suitable home. We should look around before we discuss shrinking every Clan’s hunting grounds.”

Skystar glared at her silently for few moments. “Three days,” he meowed. There was a yowl of protest from some of his Clanmates.

“We don’t want a new territory,” Dew Petal growled, and some of the other young SkyClan warriors meowed in agreement.

Skystar hissed them into silence. “Three days,” he repeated. “You can send a patrol to see what the Twolegs are doing, and I’ll listen to any new suggestion you—or any other Clan leader—proposes. But understand I’m not agreeing to anything.”

“Of course,” Shadowstar replied. Maybe there was livable territory near Highstones, beyond ShadowClan’s borders. Anything would be better than trying to get the other Clans to give up their territory—that would only lead to open battle.

She gazed out at the cats massed in the clearing. Every cat, no matter their Clan, looked frightened and hostile.

So many of them had amber eyes.

Chapter Four

“Ugh.” Mud Paws wrinkled his nose in disgust. “I hate the way it smells over here. I wouldn’t mind giving this bit of our territory to SkyClan.”

“You’ll be glad of those rats if we have a hard leaf-bare,” Shadowstar reminded him firmly.

Near the edge of ShadowClan’s territory was a spot where Twolegs in yellow monsters left crow-food and debris in rotting heaps behind a shining silver fence. It smelled horrible, but it was crawling with rats. Usually, the ShadowClan cats left them alone—rats were fierce fighters, and hunting them was bound to leave a warrior with bites and scratches—but it was good to have the prey to fall back on in the harshest leaf-bare.