The rain is light and steady, dousing the forest canopy but only misting the undergrowth. Stonetail feels the chill pressing down from the sky, but feels a certain gratitude to the clouds above. For every minute they fail to break open and come crashing down, she can continue her pursuit of Torch uninterrupted.
She wonders how long it's been since Streamheart made good on her threat and went to fetch Greystar. Long enough for a patrol to be on the hunt, provided Greystar cares enough to send anyone. Long enough for Torch to get a little farther away, provided he has any interest in leaving. Long enough that doubt and fear and regret are holding bitter council in her heart.
Shutting Streamheart out may prove to be the worst choice of her life, Stonetail thinks. All their lives, the silver tabby has been nothing but an ally, a confidant, a friend, and how has the grey warrior repaid her? "Enough," she growls to herself, shaking her head. Finding Torch comes first, and worrying about how to mend her friendship with Streamheart comes later. If the order is reversed, she tells herself, then she may not have a friendship to worry about for long.
A damp twig cracks underfoot, and Stonetail nearly shoots for the nearest tree in her panic before silently chiding herself. How careless can she be? If Torch were nearby, he would have a bead on her in moments for making such a rookie mistake. Muscles bunched, she surveys the forest in all directions, turning slowly to examine all the shifting shadows among the pines. Once satisfied none of them are remotely feline, Stonetail blows out a short breath and presses along.
To say that she knows where she is going would be a lie. Torch's scent is wraithlike to begin with, and two days have only made it more difficult to follow. Stonetail had started at the site of their earlier confrontation, but now, it has only led her in broken spirals through the forest, probably thanks to the ugly trail of crowfood Torch laid to lure the foxes in. The possibility that he may try to lay another trail gnaws at Stonetail's gut, but she forces it out of mind. Torch first, other problems later. All other problems later.
Steady as a stone, the grey warrior winds through the forest, ignoring the rising sense that her pursuit is a fruitless one. She can accept no other outcome tonight than one that ends in blood on the forest floor, one that ends in safety for the Clans. But then there's Coal's words.
Didn't you tell me not to be a martyr?
She did, and though she's known, Stonetail finally admits to herself that the loner asked the same of her. There's no promise she can best Torch, either, no promise that this hunt is anything less than a step to self-sacrifice. If she dies—no, if Torch kills her—all of her struggles will fall to someone else. Someone who doesn't deserve it.
Stonetail's limbs lock, and it takes what little energy she can muster to hobble under the nearest holly bush before the shivering wracks her body. She is on a fool's errand, a self-imposed death march, and she could have brought company. She could have brought support. She could have promised life, but she had been too stubborn and full-up with skewed pride to see things straight. Now she is probably going to die for it.
She'll put up a good fight, of course. She'll put up the best fight the stars have ever seen, but maybe that won't be enough. The blinding lightning that suddenly shoots down seems to be in agreement, and the peal of thunder that follows drowns out the strained mewl that escapes her throat.
The patrol will find her. Eventually, the patrol will escort her home, and if they happen to find Torch along the way, so be it. At least there will be safety in numbers. But what if there is no patrol? Greystar could easily justify putting the protection of three entire Clans over the safety of one cat hardheaded enough to risk their life with a killer waltzing freely through the territories, even if that one cat is her daughter.
If Stonetail is going to reach camp, she realizes she'll have to do it alone.
For the longest moment of her life, she crouches under the holly bush and breathes. In, out. In, out. The sound of the rain fades into the background, conquered by the slowing rhythm of her breath and the whisper of her pulse in her ears. If she is going to reach camp, she has to breathe.
But suddenly the breath is stolen from her chest as lightning kisses the top of one of the nearby pines, setting it alight. Stonetail cries out in surprise as the wood splinters with a mighty crack, spraying embers and whole branches to the ground. Before the flames crawling down the length of split pine can reach her hiding place, she launches herself free of the holly, shaking withered flowers aside as she goes, heart slamming against her ribs.
Rain harder! she thinks, scampering to a safe distance from the burning pine before pausing to watch. The fire spreads slowly at first, but without warning, the splintered portion and the remainder of the trunk part ways. The ground shakes with the impact, though the fire has too strong a hold on the pine to be smothered by the fall. Stonetail finds herself watching in horror as it consumes branch after branch, trickling its way into the undergrowth, which is only just now exposed to the rain. Dry as it is, the ground foliage smokes and steams before kindling brightly, and before Stonetail's very eyes, fire begins to snake across the forest floor.
She can't move until an icy raindrop splashes against her spine, having leaked through the branches overhead. It spurs her into blind motion through the forest, cracking as many twigs as she likes along the way, kicking up loose dirt and dead pine needles in the process. Stonetail runs without direction for what feels like an eternity, though it gets her no closer to camp. Heart stuttering, she looks wildly around for familiar landmarks, for anything to give her a solid sense of where she is. How off track could she be? How far from the camp has she led herself?
But Thrushpaw's grave lies at her feet, gently splattered with rain, answering with steady silence.
"Thank you," Stonetail chokes out, quickly moving her paws clear of the upturned earth as she bows her head. Hallowed ground, she reminds herself. Hallowed ground. No matter how hallowed it is, though, there is no response from her former apprentice, no rising from the grave, or visions from beyond. Before she can lose herself to frenzy again, Stonetail rights her course and surges home.
As she runs, the weather worsens. The rain falls with only a little more force, but the wind sings furiously, and lightning fills the sky with greater frequency. To the east, the burning forest billows black, sickly sweet smoke. Stonetail can hardly think with the rumbling thunder overhead, and only one thing stops her from charging headlong to her death.
It's Greystar, tackling her from the side as a pine branch is ripped down by the gale, yowling something that is lost to the rain.
"Get off!" Stonetail shouts, kicking out before she realizes who it is. When she recognizes her mother's solid figure against the fallen branch, though, she sheathes her claws out of reflex.
Greystar doesn't mean to have an idle chat. Swift as the lightning above, she reaches out and clubs a heavy paw against her daughter's side. "Run," she bellows. "He's going to use the fire!"
"What?" Stonetail wonders if she has mud stuffed into her ears. Not even StarClan could predict where the lightning would fall, and even if it could, there was no controlling fire. How could Torch of all cats possibly have any mastery over hungry flames? But then her stomach drops.
Fire spreads. It takes tinder, then kindling, then it consumes whatever fuel lies within reach, always ravenous for more until the world decides to drown it, to smother it, to end it in some way beyond the Clans' capabilities to prevent. But most importantly, it spreads, which destroyed WillowClan and BreezeClan alike. The trail of charred branches in WillowClan territory flash to the forefront of Stonetail's mind, and the darkened path leading down the hill toward BreezeClan's camp follows suit, crowned by the burnt tree. Even as Greystar tries to explain how Coal put it together for her at the first sign of smoke on the horizon, Stonetail knows how the Clans have burned.
It has been one part luck, of course. Violent lightning storms preceded the other two events. The massive willow was struck the first time, and the second time, it must have been the tree overlooking BreezeClan's camp. Nature started the fires, but Torch had to have been watching, waiting for a perfect opportunity to finish the job. He has made the weather work for him whenever possible.
"His face is scarred from dragging branches," Stonetail blurts out, cutting off Greystar's repeated order to run. "He's going to bring the fire to us. To the camp!"
Greystar stiffens and shakes her head vehemently. "No, he's not. He's going to follow us away from camp. He has to. Stonetail, listen to me. You have to run!"
"How is he supposed to know to follow us? He's going to think we're in the camp," Stonetail shoots back, checking over her shoulder for any sign of the rogue. He must be close. The fire must have drawn him in like a murderous moth. He has to be on his way. There's no way he won't be.
And even if she and Greystar are not in camp, Coal and Clay are. Streamheart is. All three Clans are, and if she sprints into the forest now, suddenly her earlier fears are turned on their head. She will not die, leaving her troubles for those still in her wake. Instead, she will flee into the forest, and the Clans will perish in a fire not meant for them.
"Stonetail, please run away!"
The grey warrior looks her leader in the eye, trapped by the urgency she hears. To her surprise, she does not find a command waiting. Instead, she finds Greystar haggard, frantic, desperate. Begging to save a single life at the cost of so many others.
She actually sees a mother.
And so she runs, but not to the hills. Not to the river, either, or to the unexplored borders, but into the heart of the forest, her forest. She runs home as fast as her hungry, weary paws will carry her, flying through the undergrowth as if StarClan has granted her wings, all because she saw a mother in Greystar's eyes.
And not only a mother, but a mistake.
When she slipped out of the dirtplace, Stonetail had been prepared to lay down her life in exchange for the lives everyone still huddled in camp. Now, Greystar has accidentally reversed the stakes. By vanishing into the forest without definitively drawing Torch's attention, she has left the unwitting camp to his mercy. By pleading with Stonetail to run, she has ensured the survival of one instead of many.
Just in sight of the camp entrance, Stonetail slips on the damp grass, feet flying out from under her. Somewhere behind her, lost to the rattling thunder, she catches fragments of the sounds of Greystar's pursuit, only just slower than her own pace. Panting, the grey warrior staggers upright and bolts through the tunnel, only to collide with Morningfur, who carries one of Sageflight's kits in her jaws. Both cats leap back in alarm, but the queen recovers faster, shouldering past Stonetail while offering muffled reassurances to the trembling bundle of fur in her mouth. Meanwhile, Stonetail stares, jaw hanging, at the Great Timber awash in flame and crushing the leader's den with its full weight.
Her first thought is that Torch beat her here with his smoldering branches, that he brought destruction and death before she could arrive to do anything about it, but then she realizes that the Great Timber could never be splintered by the force of a single cat. Just as the lightning struck the forest pine, so it has hailed ruin on ShadeClan's central landmark. The fallen timber is blessedly damp, preventing a full blaze from taking root, but it has caught fire nonetheless, and until the rain puts it out, it remains a danger.
Suddenly a new weight crashes into Stonetail's side, and she is knocked to the ground once again. She collects herself more quickly this time to find Streamheart holding her down by the shoulders. "You mousebrain!" the silver tabby cries. "I saw the smoke out there and sent Coal for Greystar. I thought you…I thought… Stonetail, you are the worst!" But instead of pummeling the grey warrior's exposed belly, she steps aside and buries her muzzle in Stonetail's shoulder, mumbling, "You could have been killed. Mousebrain. Absolute mousebrain."
"A mousebrain," the grey warrior repeats weakly. It's not an insult. It's affection and worry and the slightest hint of smug judgment rolled tightly into one, and Stonetail finds her legs shaking beneath her as she rises.
"You'll probably hear more about this later," says Coal as he slides up on the right, the hint of amusement on his face changing rapidly to grim concern. At his side is Redpaw, who in turn is shepherding Cricketpaw and Mistpaw toward the camp entrance. The apprentices stop with their escort, but he glances down at them and orders them onward with a flick of his ear towards the tunnel.
There isn't time to express her regret or relief. "He's coming," Stonetail says breathlessly. "We have to keep everyone together. Who left already?"
"I took most of WillowClan to the nearest stream." Clay rushes up, sharing thick smudge of soot across his left shoulder with Stonetail as he brushes against her in greeting. His knack for interrupting conversations is as strong as ever, but at least he has something important to share this time. "Their queens and elders went first, but Featherstar is still here. I don't think she'll leave until everyone else is out."
"I was rounding up BreezeClan just a moment ago," Streamheart adds. "They're nearly ready. And I sent Morningfur with Leopardkit to the stream to meet WillowClan. Sageflight won't leave until everyone else does, either. She's been here too long."
They get no further in coordinating the evacuation, though. As Tawnyfeather passes behind them with Brackenheart leaning heavily on her side, Greystar barrels into camp with wild eyes, turning cats back from the hollow log. Spying Stonetail, she races over and shoves Clay aside, much to the tabby's surprise. "We're trapped," she wheezes. Looking directly at Stonetail, who stares in alarm at the long new gash down her mother's foreleg, she says, "He brought a branch. The entrance is burning."
And so the rest of the Clans get their first glimpse at the cat orchestrating their deaths.
Torch tugs his burning branch through the tunnel with a grunt, and when the first warriors realize he is not a part of the Clans, it's too late. The scarred rogue brandishes the branch in a wide arc, setting the grass at his feet aflame before he swipes his weapon toward the nursery. Sootwing lunges forward at this before anyone can bar his way, only to take a shower of embers to the face while silver claws rip his feet out from under him.
He dies slowly, helplessly, Torch's claws plunged deep into the front of his throat. Someone screams.
"Thought I might find you here," the grey rogue says, looking directly at the brothers, then Stonetail, as he drops the branch casually across Sootwing's twitching form, eliciting a wet, strained gurgle that mingles with the rain. "Let's say we finish this? Here and now seems convenient."
Stonetail looks to the brothers first. Their pelts are on end despite the rain, and neither one seems to have the slightest notion of fleeing. Coal spares her a short glance, his amber eyes the meanest slits she's ever seen in her life, but whatever hate is festering there is not directed at her. She nods to him, then looks to Greystar automatically, seeking direction. Fight or flight?
Except Greystar is already rushing to grapple with Torch.
Stonetail vaguely remembers being promised first blood and last blood, but suddenly that matters as much as a mouse's tail. "Get everyone else out!" she cries, butting her head against Streamheart's shoulder and angling her ears toward the dirtplace. It lies opposite the Great Timber and the camp entrance, and though some of the heartier cats will need to push their way through, it's the exit they still need so badly.
For a second, it looks as if Streamheart wants to argue, but instead she darts around Stonetail and points Clay in the direction of the elders' den, where the remains of BreezeClan are huddled in fear. Then she dashes toward the nursery, ducking around the edge of Torch and Greystar's fight, camouflaged by the billowing smoke as it mingles with the tabby stripes swirled across her pelt. Coal wordlessly trails her in, his progress almost impossible to follow in the dark.
Stonetail doesn't have time to play the spectator, though. Instead, running on a mixture of instinct and fear, she barrels first into the medicine den, where Robinfoot is stuffing herbs into leafy packets as fast as his shaking paws will allow him. "I knew he was coming back. I knew it!" he wails, though the moment he realizes he has company, he tries to shove a packet Stonetail's way. "Start carrying these out or we'll lose them!"
Instead, she steps around the packet. "You knew?" she growls. "What do you mean you knew?"
"Please just take the herbs and go or I won't be able to help anyone after this. It's important that—"
"It's important that you explain yourself!" Stonetail snaps. Robinfoot leaps back, eyes round as the moon, and knocks over a tower of dried leaves. They crackle as the brown tabby catches his footing.
"His fur!" he whimpers. "In Thrushpaw's claws. I thought I knew it but wasn't sure, but it's him. He left his fur in Windfur's claws, too. Oh, StarClan, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry…"
Stonetail has heard enough. If Robinfoot's silence had cost lives, she might be angry, but for now, it's just simple cowardice. Irritating cowardice, but simple cowardice. She turns on her heel and flies to the warriors' den, rousing the last elders and remaining warriors with a yowl. "Help Robinfoot with his supplies," she orders them, speaking over whatever it is Oaknose has to say. "The entrance is on fire, so you'll need to carry everything out through the dirtplace. Go quickly!"
It's then that she locks eyes with Lakewhisker, who gets to his feet at the back of the den. He says nothing to her, but dips his head low before addressing the stunned warriors around him. "You heard Stonetail. It's time for us to leave. Pineheart, you're the fastest, so please check the other dens. Make sure everyone is out or get them on their way." And with that, he bolsters Brightface upright, prepared to carry his Clanmate out or face death. Stonetail can only pray it will be the former, or else her relief at seeing Lakewhisker alive will die all too shortly.
"Pineheart, wait!" she calls as the ginger tabby sprints past her. "Streamheart and Coal have the nursery. Check the other dens first."
"I will."
They part ways with that, without a shred of friction, and as Pineheart scrambles into the apprentices' den, avoiding the touch of the Great Timber's burning branches nearby, Stonetail races for the elders' den, relieved to see Tawnyfeather herding her own Clanmates out, sending them in Clay's direction as he paces before the dirtplace's entrance. The responsibility of bearing Brackenheart to safety has been passed to a pale brown tabby tom, though the warrior hardly looks like he's in shape to escort his medicine cat all alone. His whiskers quiver violently, visible even from a distance, and he keeps his ears pinned flat against his skull. When she takes some of Brackenheart's heavy weight on her own shoulder, Stonetail is careful to get the tom's attention first. "The dirtplace isn't very far," she says, fighting to keep her voice level. "I'll help you through."
Step by labored step, they haul BreezeClan's feeble medicine cat through the narrow passage. Thankfully, some of the ShadeClan warriors have already carried out some of Robinfoot's bundled supplies, and Clay holds back a swath of bracken with his claws, broadening the gap enough that the pale tom can take his Clanmate alone from there. Burden relieved, Stonetail tries to turn around and re-enter the camp, but finds her way blocked by the rest of the fleeing cats. They stream through as quickly as they can, some with herb bundles between their teeth, and others with Clanmates pressed close at their sides. Coal and Streamheart slip through in the process, each one with a kit hanging from their jaws. The silver tabby looks particularly distraught, though, and passes her kit to Stormfoot, the cat nearest her with nothing else to carry. Coal does the same, depositing his own kit at the warrior's feet.
"Sageflight and Pineheart are dead," Streamheart says, blocking Stonetail from slipping into the dirtplace again. "The nursery caught as we were getting out, and some of the Great Timber fell on the apprentices' den before Pineheart could get out. I… Don't go back in there. Please."
"We have to make sure everyone is out, though," Stonetail replies, stepping aside so Redpaw, Cricketpaw, and Mistpaw can pass to safety, Clay bringing up the rear.
"Better be quick, then," says the ruddy tabby, giving his thick coat a shake. Ash drifts from his body as he moves on, calling over his shoulder, "I didn't see anyone else, but Greystar is still fighting. Alone."
Clay's innocent tone makes it hard to tell if the remark is pointed, but it strikes hard nonetheless. Stonetail turns on her heel to re-enter the burning camp, only for Streamheart and Coal to stand firmly in the way. They all stare at each other for a second, tension filling the air almost as thickly as smoke, but then Stonetail promises, "I'll only attack him by surprise."
"You won't attack him at all," Streamheart corrects her.
"I can't promise that. And I won't wait until he attacks me."
"So I'll go with," Coal interrupts. "Two against one. Three if Greystar is still in shape to fight." There's a hard set to his narrow shoulders as he trains his eye on Streamheart. The silver tabby shows no sign of relenting, and shifts herself close to the gap in the dirtplace wall.
But she is not so stubborn to turn down a compromise. With a sudden sigh, she steps aside and says, "Clay and I will take everyone to meet WillowClan at the stream. As soon as we get there, we're turning around to come back for you two, whether you're done here or not. Got it?"
"Got it," Stonetail echoes. For a heartbeat she wrestles with the urge to press her forehead to Streamheart's, to give her friend the okay to leave her behind if necessary. Somehow she pushes the urge back into place, though it's like trying to press an uprooted tree back into the earth. This is not a last goodbye, she resolves. When the smoke clears, she will be alive and ready to return to her Clan and to her closest friend. There can be no other ending.
Sparing Coal a brief glance, to which he offers the faintest nod, Stonetail lunges through the dirtplace and into the thickening smoke.
Everything is dark.