Between the rain and smoke, visibility is worse than limited. Stonetail creeps blindly around the camp's edge, unable to stop and scent for stragglers without drawing in a lungful of ash. The heat from the Great Timber licks at her pelt, even from a distance, and her eyes begin to water. What little light seeps through the smoke comes from the hungry flames.
"Stonetail?" She jumps at the sound of Coal's voice, but manages to hold back a shout. In the choking gloom, Coal's shadowy pelt is perfect camouflage from prying eyes. Only his voice and his amber eyes blinking out of the darkness betray his location.
"What?" Stonetail asks, collecting herself.
"I think I heard someone in the medicine den."
"Go look, and be quick." Before the loner can slip away, she adds, "Meet me in the spare den."
That's just where she's headed. It's far enough from the slowly growing blaze that someone may have tried to use it for shelter. The grass below Stonetail's feet crackles as she slinks into the den, and to her alarm, she finds a pair of burning amber eyes staring straight through her.
For a second, Stonetail is certain she has stumbled into a trap made by Torch, and that he is the cat cloaked in darkness. Her eyes adjust, though, and instead she discovers Beetlewhisker with one leg splayed awkwardly to the side. "I thought you were Featherstar," he growls, losing his alert posture.
"She's still here?"
"Trying to make a splint." He wiggles his injured leg, wincing. "Only way I'm leaving alive."
Stonetail bites her tongue, trying to remember when the WillowClan warrior injured himself. Maybe it's none of her business, but it troubles her that she can't see clearly through the haze of hunger and grief that surrounds the last few days.
Featherstar spares her further discomfort, though, peeling into the den with a drooping mouthful of leaves Stonetail does not recognize. "Eat these," she commands Beetlewhisker, shooting Stonetail a brief glance. If Featherstar is surprised to see her, she does not show it plainly. "I couldn't find any decent bark. You're going to walk out of here on three paws, splint or no splint."
As WillowClan's leader helps her warrior stand upright, Coal arrives, followed by the familiar tabby pelt of Mothmoon. Behind her is yet another cat, this one a dark brown tabby queen. The number of stragglers seems to grow by the minute.
"They're looking for Molepaw," Coal explains, but the brown tabby's wail cuts him off.
"He went looking for Lionpaw before anyone could tell him she went with WillowClan!"
Stonetail's stomach lurches. If Molepaw has gone searching for his denmate, she has a sinking feel that she knows where he stopped first. "Have you checked the apprentices' den?" she asks, mouth suddenly twice as parched as before.
"No," Mothmoon replies. "Part of your Great Timber burned it. There's nothing left." She realizes too late what she's said. A slight hitch in her breath signals her distress even before her eyes widen, and her companion's response is even worse. The brown tabby shrieks, a short, scraping note that turns to a hoarse breath almost immediately. Tremors wrack her limbs, and Stonetail fears the she-cat will collapse into a heap.
"Quailwing, please, we'll search again," Mothmoon whispers. The words must have fought to escape her because she trembles, too. But Quailwing takes no solace in this, and with Mothmoon in desperate tow, she rushes into the smoke, calling for Molepaw between sobs.
Stonetail risks a glance outside. The two BreezeClan cats are hazy silhouettes through the smoke, but a sudden flash of lightning throws them into sharp relief.
Then a second flash shows Torch crouched over their bodies, looking merely inconvenienced as he wipes his claws clean against their pelts.
He heard them, Stonetail quickly realizes. Sound is the only reliable sense amid the smoke, and if Torch hears her before she hears him, she will die.
"You have to go," she says, turning to find Beetlewhisker teetering on three unsteady paws. "Without a sound, through the dirtplace, to the stream. Go!" Ushering them out proves easier said than done, though. Beetlewhisker, like all the Clan cats, is half-starved, and without a fourth leg to stand on, his damaged balance results in more falling down and buckled limbs than Stonetail wants to see, even before he and Featherstar vanish beyond a bank of smoke.
Coal coughs and crouches to avoid a fresh cloud of smoke as it rolls into the den. "Warriors' den and medicine den are clear," he rasps as Stonetail drops to her belly beside him. "Elders' den starting to catch, apprentices' den destroyed. We need to find Greystar."
"I saw Torch," Stonetail confesses suddenly, not at all concerned with the state of the dens anymore. "He found Mothmoon and Quailwing. He heard them."
"He's not fighting?"
"No."
"Then he's looking for Greystar. They probably lost each other in the smoke."
Or he killed her, Stonetail thinks, grinding her teeth as if to trap the thought before it leaps from her tongue. "Then he might find Featherstar," she says instead. "Go find her and Beetlewhisker, get them out, and I'll look for Greystar."
"But…" Coal halts, meeting Stonetail's eye for a fleeting second. "Be quick," he mutters. And then he too is swallowed by the smoke.
Stonetail holds her breath at the mouth of the spare den, straining to catch the sounds of a fight. Nothing comes, though, save for the hammering of the rain and the snapping of the fire as the wind stokes it to new heights. The sounds seem muffled to Stonetail at first, as if filtering through a dream, but the hot ember that lands on her paws is no vision. Neither is the storm or the blaze. Her hiss of pain as she bats the ember out is the final note in the symphony of destruction that she can bear.
Pelt prickling, she rushes toward the warriors' den, taking brief cover against its thorny outer shell. The wind rises, carrying enough smoke away with it to reveal Sootwing's body near the nursery, mangled by the spluttering branch atop it. Though she would prefer to look away from her fallen Clanmate, Stonetail listens for any sign of Torch before bolting out of hiding to take the branch in her teeth and pull it away. At first, it slides smoothly, but then it snags against Sootwing's side, showering Stonetail's muzzle in bright sparks that her sear her down to the skin. Biting down a cry, she leaves Sootwing's body and moves onto the remains of the nursery to double check its fate. Like the elders' den, it is also beginning to burn, and she does not take the risk of searching for survivors.
The limp tortoiseshell paw over the threshold speaks volumes.
And so there is nothing to do but search for Greystar. For a moment, Stonetail pauses, choking on smoke. She can't stay much longer or the smoke will kill her before she ever lays eyes on Torch. Keeping her head down, she listens once again, only to be met by the howl of a sudden burst of wind. The gale clears an unexpected amount of smoke even as it whips the Great Timber into a frenzy.
Not only that, but it clears a path to Torch.
Stonetail locks eyes with him and barely feels her features twist into a snarl. She hears herself hissing clearly, though, and in spite of her aching lungs, she charges. The world around her blurs into something dark and unreal, smudged at the edges with blood and soot.
Torch has nothing to say this time. His glib tongue has abandoned him, and his focus seems to be solely on preparing himself to brush aside Stonetail's fury. In spite of the heat, she flies toward him across the scorched earth, heedless of the pain lancing through her paws. He is so close, close enough that Stonetail throws reason to the winds. The stiller his tongue when she catches him, she thinks, the easier it will be to tear it out.
They meet in an explosion of fur and fangs, spitting each other's faces as they grapple. Torch is older, and despite his lean appearance, he is heavier. Almost immediately, Stonetail feels the full force of his weight as he shoves her away. Falling to all fours, she allows him a vicious swipe, ducking to the outside of the swing to rake her claws over his foreleg. The rogue has moons of discipline to enforce his strength, though; instead of howling, he follows through on the blow, spinning to kick out with his rear legs.
Caught in the chest, Stonetail drops back to catch her breath. If she can't be stronger than Torch, she must be faster, colder, smarter. With a hiss, she rolls out of reach, allowing Torch's perfectly executed leap to meet only empty air. He recovers sooner than anticipated, though, and Stonetail dodges a swipe meant to open her throat. Cherry red seeps through shallow wounds on her chest instead.
"I hate it when you don't die easy," Torch growls, feigning a snap at her ankles before striking at her head. The narrow miss draws a caterwaul of frustration from his raw, puckered muzzle. "You should be dead!" he howls.
"I shouldn't have been born," Stonetail mumbles as she puts another tail-length between herself and Torch. She hates that it's true. Greystar never should have mated with Torch, and Stonetail should never have come into the world squalling like a storm, but it is too late to change that. All that can she can do is bring about the end of Torch.
The wind grows ever stronger, stripping away layer by layer of smoke. Stonetail's lungs still ache, but the clearer her field of vision becomes, the hotter her fury burns.
Again, Stonetail and Torch clash. He rips at her tail. She takes a sliver of his ear. He aims for her belly. She slashes at his eyes. On and on they fight, shedding blood and fur on the earth as they search for openings and weakness and resolution.
Stonetail finds it first.
Claws locked with Torch's, she has a moment to study his scarred muzzle with astonishing clarity. The cracks in the pinkish tissue run deep, like channels carved in the hills by rain. Half of Torch's nose is shriveled and twisted with damage, while the other side is as red as the stone by the river, though hardly as wet. But his eyes are untouched, unclouded by injury. They nearly exude their own yellow light, a product of madness, envy, hate.
And then the moment is over. Stonetail clicks into motion again, disengaging from Torch's grasp and leaping backward. He starts as if to rush her, running forward with unimagineable speed, but when he bunches his muscles to spring and pushes off the wet ground, he slips.
Stonetail is on him in an instant. She pins his shoulders to the ground and gouges her hind claws into the tender spaces where his thighs meet his underside. He howls in response, bucking beneath her, but she shifts her weight backward to apply more pressure.
"You should be dead," she growls, bringing one forepaw to the soft hollow of his throat, claws flickering in the firelight. "Not me. You."
At first he has no response except to glower and squirm under Stonetail's paws. Realizing the odds, though, or perhaps in an effort to preserve his pride, he goes still, curling his lip. "I'm not afraid to take what I want," he says, "and you should be dead for trying to stop me. I hate witnesses."
"And I hate murderers." Stonetail digs her claws into his thighs again, eliciting another yowl. She contemplates ripping him apart, chin to tail just as he has done so many times before. It would be justice. It would satisfy the bloodlust squeezing her gut like a snake.
Suddenly Torch laughs, a harsh and broken sound. "But you're willing to become one? She raised you with cold blood and a dash of righteousness, huh?" Even when Stonetail gives him a violent jab in the throat, he goes on. "I knew Greystar was heartless when she left me for that other tom. Ripped him up before she could leave him in the dust, too. Did him a service. But I didn't finish that job. I made a mistake, if you can believe it."
"Stop talking," Stonetail growls.
Torch thrashes, trying to shake her off. His voice rises. "I didn't show up just to kill him. He was a consolation prize. For not getting what was mine."
"Stop." Stonetail suddenly feels cold, as if the Great Timber's blaze has been sucked out of existence, leaving only a chill in its wake. "Stop talking."
"Are you sure you don't want to hear this? Because I bet your mother won't tell the truth," he sneers, his voice dripping with honey. With bait.
"Stop it!"
"I think it's funny you're so grown up and heartless. You're ready to kill, just like—"
"Stop!"
"—me, just like you were supposed to—"
She drives her claws in deeper. "Enough!"
"—because Greystar wasn't supposed to raise you or even keep you." Now the words come out in a rush. Torch cannot be stopped, and by the wicked gleam in his eyes, he knows it. "She went back on her word, didn't give me my kit. She broke her promise to put the Clan first and chose you instead, so you grew up here, with the soft hearts and kits.
"Somehow Greystar raised a killer for me. But maybe that's not her blood at work, is it, daughter?"
He knows. Stonetail freezes, staring into Torch's yellow eyes for any trace of a bluff, a guess, but she finds one. This is cold, hard fact. He knows who she is. He knows Windfur was never a part of it. He knows so much more than she does.
And Greystar was going to give her to him.
Stonetail is entirely unprepared when Torch sinks his claws into her shoulders and rolls. The world flips, and in a heartbeat, his grey shape fills the sky. He presses his forepaws against her throat, pushing and pushing as he pummels her stomach with his back feet. She tries to loosen his hold, but her vision is tunneling and her paws feel number with every strike Torch makes. By the time he steps off her, she cannot recover quickly enough to stop him from taking her scruff in his teeth and hurling her into the burning branches of the Great Timber.
She screams. She screams at the top of her lungs as her side is consumed with heat, and a last, feeble burst of adrenaline gives her the strength to roll away and smother her burning fur. The energy is not enough to fend off Torch again, though, and this time she is tossed limply to the mouth of the warriors' den.
"I could have raised you better," Torch scoffs.
Stonetail sees a bundle of grey fur smash into Torch's side just as she lets go.