The Darkest Hour

“Not anymore,” Darkstripe snarled. “Every cat in the forest can turn to crowfood for all I care. All I want is to see you dead.”

Firestar slipped to one side as Darkstripe leaped toward him, but one of the dark warrior’s paws caught him on the side of the head and he lost his footing. Darkstripe landed on top of him and pinned him down. Firestar twisted, trying to free his hind paws. He scrabbled furiously at Darkstripe’s belly but could not shake him off. The warrior bared his teeth, aiming for Firestar’s neck. Firestar braced himself for a last desperate effort.

Suddenly Darkstripe’s body rolled off him. Firestar got to his paws to see Graystripe struggling with his old Clan mate in a screeching knot of fur and claws. Graystripe’s pelt was torn and his shoulder glistened with blood from an earlier wound, but before Firestar could move to help him he flung Darkstripe to the ground and landed on top of him, panting.

“Traitor!” he hissed.

Darkstripe writhed violently, scoring deep gouges in the earth, but he couldn’t throw off the gray warrior. “Fox dung!” he spat. He twisted his head, trying to sink his teeth into Graystripe’s neck.

Graystripe lashed out with one forepaw. His claws pierced Darkstripe’s throat and blood gushed out. The dark tabby gave one convulsive shudder. His jaws parted as he fought for breath. “There’s nothing left…” he choked out. “It’s all dark—everything’s gone…”

Firestar saw his eyes glazing, a terrible emptiness in them. His struggles faded and his body went limp.

Spitting contemptuously, Graystripe scrambled off him. “One less traitor in the forest,” he snarled.

Firestar touched his nose to Graystripe’s shoulder. Suddenly Graystripe went rigid, staring past his leader. “Firestar…” he rasped.

Firestar whirled around to see Sandstorm and Dustpelt fighting side by side at the edge of the battle. They didn’t seem to need his help, and at first he couldn’t understand what had distressed Graystripe. Then the mass of cats parted briefly to reveal Bone, the huge BloodClan deputy, crouched over another cat who moved feebly beneath him. So much blood clotted the victim’s fur that Firestar could hardly make out its color, and it took him a couple of heartbeats to recognize Whitestorm.

“No!” he yowled, and he hurled himself at Bone with Graystripe hard on his paws.

Bone sprang backward, only to cannon into Bramblepaw and Ashpaw, who came charging across the clearing at the same moment. Firestar saw his apprentice leap onto the huge deputy’s back, while Ashpaw bit down into his hind leg.

Confident that Bone would be distracted for a while, Firestar crouched beside Whitestorm, almost oblivious to the battle that surged around them. Recognition glimmered in the white warrior’s eyes when he saw Firestar, and the tip of his tail twitched. “Good-bye, Firestar,” he rasped.

“Whitestorm, no!” Firestar felt a wail of agony building up inside him. He should never have brought his deputy into this battle, when all along the white warrior had seemed to know that it would be his last. “Graystripe, find Cinderpelt.”

“Too late,” Whitestorm breathed. “I go to hunt with StarClan.”

“You can’t—the Clan needs you! I need you!”

“You will find others…” The white warrior’s gaze, growing rapidly dimmer, flickered to Graystripe and back again. “Trust your heart, Firestar. You have always known that Graystripe is the cat StarClan destined to be your deputy.”

Letting out a long sigh, he closed his eyes.

“Whitestorm…” Firestar wanted to mewl his grief like a tiny kit. For a heartbeat he pushed his nose into his deputy’s blood-soaked fur, the only mourning ritual that the battle allowed.

Then he turned to Graystripe, who was staring in shock at the old warrior’s body. “You heard what he said,” Firestar meowed. “He chose you.” Rising to his paws, he lifted his voice above the tumult of battle. “I say these words before the body of Whitestorm, that his spirit may hear and approve my choice. Graystripe will be the new deputy of ThunderClan.”

A yowl of agreement from behind startled him, and Firestar turned to see Sandstorm and Dustpelt pausing to nod briefly at Graystripe before dashing back into the battle again.

Graystripe had not moved, his yellow eyes fixed on Firestar. “Are you…are you sure?”

“Never surer,” Firestar growled. “Now, Graystripe!”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the BloodClan deputy struggling free from Bramblepaw and Ashpaw. Before Firestar could spring at him, a screech of defiance sounded above the noise of battle and several more apprentices hurtled across the clearing. Bone was barely visible under the writhing heap of furious young cats. Bramblepaw and Ashpaw were there, with Featherpaw and Stormpaw and, yes, Tawnypaw, fighting beside her brother. Within a few heartbeats Bone had stopped trying to defend himself; his body went into a series of spasms, ending in his twitching tail, and as Firestar watched the twitching stopped. Ashpaw let out a hoarse cry of triumph.