"Sage, wake up. There's someone coming."

Willow's whisper sounded frightened. Sage opened her eyes, blinking until here eyes adjusted to the early morning sunlight. Willow was right… three cats were approaching the ruined camp. Robinfrost was still asleep next to the dead calico.

"Stay here," she breathed to Willow. Without waiting for a response, she got up and walked boldly to meet the approaching cats. She knew she couldn't sneak over to them undetected, so she opted for a show of confidence.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" she demanded. She hoped that they wouldn't notice the nervousness in her voice.

A strange-looking black and gold tom extended his claws. "Who are you? You're the one in our camp," he snarled.

Sage took a nervous half-step back. "You're JuniperClan?"

"Oh, calm down, Emberglow," said a young calico, nudging the first cat. "She's no threat. There's only two of them, and three of us! Yes, we're from JuniperClan. Who are you?" she asked, turning to Sage.

"She's a friend." Robinfrost joined from behind. Maybe she hadn't been asleep, Sage thought.

"Robinfrost!"cried a second young she-cat, who looked a lot like Robinfrost with shorter fur. "I'm so glad you're okay! Quietstorm has been so worried, but I told him you were fine. I just knew it!" She rubbed her cheek affectionately against Robinfrost's jaw.

"Sage, this is Elkpaw, my sister. And those other cats are Emberglow and Chickadeepaw. They're all my clanmates. Everyone, this is Sage, and back there is her sister, Willow. We've been helping each other out since the fire."

Sage nodded awkwardly at the other cats. Elkpaw and Chickadeepaw seemed friendly enough, but Emberglow was still watching her with suspicious narrowed eyes.

Chickadeepaw suddenly gasped. "What… what's that?"

She nodded towards the bodies that Sage had laid out the night before.

"The Clan," Robinfrost said hoarsely. "Sage helped pull them all from Eaglestar's den. They all died in there."

The JuniperClan cats fell into a shocked silence.

"Who?" Emberglow finally asked. "Eaglestar? Shadowfoot?"

Robinfrost nodded.

"What about… Poppyclaw?" asked Elkpaw, her voice hardly more than a whisper.

Tears glistened in Robinfrost's eyes. "Yes."

"No!" wailed the skinny she-cat. "Mama!"

Elkpaw shoved past the other cats and raced to the cinnamon calico that Robinfrost had spent the night next to.

"Mama!" she wailed again, and dissolved into sobs. Robinfrost sat next to her and licked her shoulder, trying to comfort her younger sister.

Emberglow followed, bowing his head next to the still body of Eaglestar.

Chickadeepaw looked over the grieving cats. Grief shone in her eyes as well. She turned to Sage.

"We need to bury them," she said softly. "So they can go to StarClan."

Sage nodded. "Okay. Where do you bury your dead?"

Chickadeepaw frowned. "It's pretty far. A place we call the Ancestor Grove. It's in the forest."

"There are too many for us to carry them all there. We'll have to bury them here."

Chickadeepaw didn't respond. She was looking at the bodies of her fallen clanmates. There were tears in her eyes.

"Come on," Sage said gently. "Let's give them all a proper JuniperClan burial, right here."

Chickadeepaw nodded. "Okay," she sniffed.

"Why don't you get started on digging. I'll see if I can get the others to help, too."

None of the JuniperClan cats took any convincing. Even Willow helped, insisting that she had rested enough. Between the six cats, it only took a few hours before the bodies had been gently laid in the ground and covered in soil.

Chickadeepaw placed a branch of sagebrush on the mass grave. "To protect them from evil as they begin their journey to StarClan's hunting grounds," she explained. "There's a branch of the ClanTree, too."

Sage nodded and padded to the charred juniper tree that she had slept under the night before. It was easy to break off a brittle, burnt branch, which she placed across Chickadeepaw's sage branch.

"You have served your Clan well," she said. "They will remember and honor you in the seasons to come."

The group all bowed their heads and we're silent for a few long moments.

Eventually, Sage lifted her eyes. The sun was now past its highest point. They would need to get moving unless they wanted to spend another night in the empty ruined camp.

"Elkpaw, you said something about another cat… Quietstorm? Are there many other cats with you? Where are they?"

"I'm, yeah, there's a few of us. Cougarstrike helped a lot of is get out of camp when the fire came. We're kind of camped out in the forest, over that way." She nodded towards the distant trees.

"Cougarstrike suggested that we come here to try and find more of the Clan," said Emberglow.

"Is Cougarstrike the deputy?" asked Willow.

"No," said Elkpaw. "Just a warrior. He's my mentor. Shadowfoot was the deputy." She nodded towards the grave where they had just buried his body.

"No Eaglestar, no Shadowfoot, and we still don't know where Thistletail is," Emberglow said with a sigh.

"Thistletail is our medicine cat," Robinfrost explained to Sage and Willow.

"Well," Sage said decisively. "We may not know who the leader is, but the Clan should stick together. Let's go meet up with the group you were with. Emberglow, can you lead the way?"

"You're not JuniperClan," he huffed. "But sure, we need to get back anyway."