Fireheart waited until the only sound he could hear was the pounding of blood in his ears. Then he padded to the edge of the Thunderpath. It stretched ahead of him, wide and foul-smelling, but silent. Fireheart darted out. The ground beneath his paws felt cold and smooth. He didn’t stop until he reached the grass on the other side.
The air here was tainted by the acrid smell of the Thunderpath and its monsters, so Fireheart headed toward the hedge. Still, there was no trace of the WindClan cats. His heart sank.
Suddenly a monster tore past, making Fireheart leap into the air with terror. He scrambled underneath the hedge and crouched, trembling, frantically wondering what to do next.
Then he smelled it: the faintest trace carried on the wind that the monster had stirred up. WindClan had been here!
Fireheart called as loudly as he could to Graystripe. There was a pause, then the sound of paws pounding across the Thunderpath to join him.
“Have you found it?” puffed his friend.
“Not sure. I got a whiff, but I can’t pinpoint it.” Fireheart pushed his way through the hedge, Graystripe right behind him. He lifted his nose toward the open field ahead of them. “Have you any idea what’s over there?”
“No,” replied Graystripe. “I shouldn’t think any Clan cat has ever been this far before.”
“Except WindClan,” muttered Fireheart darkly. Away from the confusing fumes of the Thunderpath, the trail was suddenly clear. WindClan had definitely come this way. The two cats struck out through the long grass, straight across the field.
“Fireheart!” Graystripe sounded alarmed.
“What is it?”
“Look!”
Fireheart stopped and lifted his head. He saw a Thunderpath ahead of them arching high into the air on massive stone legs, illuminated by the eyes of the monsters that moved along it. Another Thunderpath ran below, veering off into the darkness.
Graystripe nodded toward a tall thistle. “And smell this!”
Fireheart inhaled the scent. It was a fresh WindClan marker!
“They must have settled somewhere near here!” Graystripe murmured in disbelief.
A pang of excitement twisted Fireheart’s stomach. Both cats looked silently at each other for a moment. Then, without a word, they moved on toward the stinking Thunderpaths.
Graystripe spoke at last. “Why would WindClan come to a place like this?”
“I guess not even Brokenstar would want to follow them here,” Fireheart answered grimly. He stopped. A thought was nagging at him.
Graystripe paused beside him. “What is it?”
“If WindClan is hiding so near the Thunderpaths,” Fireheart meowed slowly, “they must be fairly desperate not to be found. They’re more likely to trust us if we arrive in daylight than if we creep up on them in darkness.”
“Does that mean we can rest?” asked Graystripe, sitting down heavily.
“Just until it’s light,” meowed Fireheart. “We’ll find somewhere to hide and see if we can get some sleep. Are you hungry?” Graystripe shook his head. “Me neither,” Fireheart agreed. “I don’t know if it’s those herbs or because the stench from the Thunderpath is making me feel sick.”
“Where shall we sleep?” Graystripe looked around.
Fireheart had already noticed a dark shadow in the ground up ahead. “What’s that?”
“A burrow?” Graystripe sounded puzzled. “It’s too big for a rabbit. Surely there can’t be a badger set here!”
“Let’s take a look,” Fireheart suggested.
The hole was larger than a badger set, smooth and lined with stone. Fireheart sniffed it, then put his front paws on its rim and peered cautiously inside. A stone tunnel sloped away, down into the ground. “I can feel air flowing through it,” he meowed, his voice echoing away into the shadows. “It must come up somewhere over there.” He ducked back out and pointed his nose toward the tangle of Thunderpaths.
“Is it empty?” Graystripe asked.
“Smells like it.”
“Come on then.” Graystripe led the way into the tunnel. After a few fox-lengths, the slope leveled out.
Fireheart halted and sniffed the damp air. He could smell nothing but the fumes of the Thunderpath. A roaring noise rumbled overhead. Fireheart’s paws trembled as the stone floor vibrated. Was the Thunderpath above them? He fluffed out his coat against the relentless draft and felt Graystripe’s fur brush against him—his friend was circling, preparing to settle down to sleep. Fireheart crouched down and huddled beside his friend. He closed his stinging eyes and thought of the gentle forest breezes and the rustling of the leaves. Exhaustion fought briefly with a pang of longing to be at home in his den, before he gave in to the blackness that swam into his mind.
When Fireheart opened his eyes again, gray light was glowing at the end of the tunnel. Dawn must be near. Fireheart’s bones ached from the cold hard ground. He nudged Graystripe, who grunted. “Morning already?”
“Almost,” Fireheart answered, getting to his paws. Graystripe stretched and stood up too.
“I think we should head that way,” Fireheart meowed, craning his neck away from the light. “I think this tunnel leads right under a Thunderpath. It might take us nearer to the . . .” His voice trailed off; he had no words to describe the tangle of Thunderpaths they had seen last night. Beside him Graystripe nodded, and together they began to pad wordlessly into the darkness.
Before long Fireheart spotted light ahead of them. They quickened their pace until they were racing up a short, steep slope that led them into a world filled with gray dawn light.
They had come up near the edge of a patch of barren, dirty grass. Thunderpaths enclosed it on two sides, and another arched overhead. A fire burned in the middle of the grass. A few Twolegs lay around it. One of them stretched and rolled over, and another grunted angrily in its sleep, but the noise and stench from the Thunderpaths didn’t seem to wake them.
Fireheart watched them warily, then froze as something else caught his eye: dark outlines that flitted back and forth in front of the flames. Cats! Could it be WindClan? Fireheart looked at the fire and the cats, and his mind flooded with the memory of his dream—the noise of the Thunderpath, the sight of the flames and the cats, and Spottedleaf’s voice murmuring, “Fire will save the Clan.”
A surge of emotion made Fireheart’s legs feel weak. Did this mean that ThunderClan’s fate was bound up with the fate of WindClan?
“Fireheart? Fireheart!”
Graystripe’s voice jolted Fireheart back to reality. He breathed deeply to calm himself.
“We must find Tallstar and speak with him,” he meowed.
“Then you think it is WindClan?” asked Graystripe.
“You smelled their marker—who else could it be?” Fireheart replied.
Graystripe looked at him, his eyes shining with triumph. “We found them!”
Fireheart nodded. He didn’t point out that finding WindClan was only half their mission. They still had to convince them that it was safe to return home.
Graystripe braced himself, ready to leap forward. “Let’s go!”
“Hang on,” Fireheart warned. “We don’t want to startle them.”
Just then, one of the Twolegs sat up with a jolt and began shouting at the ragged cats around the fire. The noise roused the other Twolegs, who joined in with rough, angry voices.
The WindClan cats scattered. All caution forgotten, Fireheart and Graystripe raced after them. Fireheart could feel his fur prickle with fear as he and Graystripe ran straight toward the fire and the Twolegs. Every instinct told him to keep away, but he dared not lose sight of the fleeing WindClan cats.
One of the Twolegs staggered to its feet, looming up in front of him. Fireheart skidded, sending up a spray of dust. Something exploded beside him, pelting him with hard-edged splinters, but nothing pierced his thick coat. He glanced backward, checking for Graystripe. He was relieved to see his friend right behind him, his eyes wide with alarm and his fur standing on end.
They charged into the safety of the shadows beneath the soaring Thunderpath. Ahead, Fireheart watched the WindClan cats stop close to one of the Thunderpath’s great stone legs. And then, one by one, the cats disappeared into the ground.
“Where did they go?” meowed Graystripe in amazement.
“Another tunnel?” Fireheart suggested. “Come on, let’s find out.”
Cautiously, the two friends approached the spot where the WindClan cats had vanished. As they neared, they saw a hole in the earth. Like their resting place on the previous night, the entrance was round and lined with stone, sloping away into utter blackness.
Fireheart led the way, all his senses alert for a WindClan patrol. The floor beneath his paws felt wet and slimy, and the sound of trickling water echoed around them. As the tunnel leveled out, Fireheart pricked his ears and opened his mouth. The damp air smelled rank and bitter—worse than the tunnel they had slept in. Here the Thunderpath fumes mingled with the fear-scent of WindClan cats.
It was too dark to see anything, but after a few paces Fireheart’s whiskers sensed a turning in the tunnel. Fireheart flicked his tail, touching Graystripe lightly with its tip. He couldn’t see his friend in the blackness, but Graystripe must have felt the signal, because he stopped beside Fireheart and together they peered around the corner.
Ahead of them, the tunnel was lit by a narrow hole in the ceiling that led to the wasteland above. Fireheart could see many cats huddled together in the gray light—warriors and elders, queens and kits, all pitifully thin. A cold breeze blew relentlessly through the hole in the roof, stirring the thin fur on the skinny bodies. Fireheart shuddered, for the breeze carried to him the stench of sickness and crow-food.
Suddenly the tunnel shook as a monster roared overhead. Graystripe and Fireheart, already tense, jumped, but the WindClan cats didn’t react. They simply huddled with half-closed eyes, numb to their surroundings.
The noise died away. Fireheart took a deep breath and stepped around the corner, out into the thin light.
A gray WindClan tom spun around, his fur standing on end as he yowled an alarm to the rest of the Clan. In one smooth movement, the WindClan warriors formed a line across the tunnel in front of the queens and elders, their backs arched, hissing fiercely.
With a feeling of dread, Fireheart saw the glint of unsheathed claws and thorn-sharp fangs. These half-starved cats were about to attack.