Prologue
Weak yellow sunlight beamed across the fields and touched the Twoleg's monsters to copper and silver fire. The earth was muddy and churned, crisscrossed by tire tracks and desperately fleeing paw marks. Trees lay stacked in neat piles, as if they were matchsticks in a box instead of live things recently murdered.
In one of the deep gullies, newly formed by the rain, a shivering Clan crouched.
One cat, a tom with a dull red pelt, placed his paws gingerly on the edge of the gully and looked out at the world.
"This was my home," he mewed in a cracked voice. His eyes were a beaten greenish shade, wide and dark with sorrow. They were an aching void; looking into them made one feel as though you really could die of a broken heart.
Beside him, a she-cat stirred and twined her tail with his. She was sand-colored, though her fur was too clotted with mud to show any of that color. Her belly was swollen with kits, who now had no home. Her pale green eyes were glazed, stunned. In a low voice, a parody of her voice, really, she said, "It was all of ours. It was our kit's, too..." She trailed off, her eyes combing the barren landscape for something familiar, anything, but she found nothing.
Quite suddenly, a third voice joined in. "We should have listened to them! None of this would have happened..."
The dull red tom turned to see a pure white cat, his fur splattered with mud. "I'm sorry, Cloudtail," the red tom muttered, his ears flattening.
The sand-colored she-cat flared. "Can't you see he's trying his best!" she hissed, taking a step forward, looking threatening in spite of her swollen belly.
Cloudtail backed off, his amber eyes reproachful. "All right, cool it, Sandstorm, I'm just stating the facts."
Sandstorm turned away, allowing her fur to fall flat.
The red tom watched impassively, staying where he was in spite of a chill breeze that howled across the plains. "So much has been lost..." he murmured, a strange, sobbing sound in his voice. "The forest is not the same."
"Firestar!" cried a dusky brown tabby.
The red tom, Firestar, glanced at the tabby. "Yes, Dustpelt?" he asked.
"It's Ferncloud!" Dustpelt replied, his voice quavering. "If she doesn't get some food soon... She's already sick, you know..." His eyes were pleading. Without prey, his mate and kits would die within days.
Firestar's eyes narrowed, and a troubled expression darkened his features.
He leaped out of the gully and nearly cried out in shock as the cold wind buffeted him. Waving his tail to balance him, he yowled for order.
The whispering Thunderclan cats grew silent and turned their questioning gazed on their leader.
Getting right to the point, Firestar called, "Graystripe, can you lead a hunting patrol? Cloudtail, Dustpelt, and Brightheart will go with you."
The named cats nodded to Firestar and leaped, one by one, out of the gully. Their silhouettes, thin and fragile against the mottled dawn sky, drove a thorn into Firestar's heart. They were so weak, all of them...
Graystripe threw Firestar a reassuring glance and lead the patrol away.
They padded, single file, across the barren mud-choked plain to the crest of a hill.
They vanished over the hilltop, and Firestar silently called, 'Be safe!'