Tension was growing in the Thunderclan camp. The cats who hadn't helped to fight off the badger felt ridden with guilt, felt like Fireheart and Longtail wouldn't be slowly and painfully dying if they had helped. They were wrong, of course, for what had happened was written in the stars. Fireheart had to visit Starclan.
He felt like he was falling. This was all he could feel. He was falling and had been falling for all of eternity. Then, it stopped. There was no bump, no jolt, no landing whatsoever, the darkness simply faded and was replaced by a blinding light, brighter than the lights of Silverpelt itself.
"Welcome young Fireheart," boomed a voice, although Fireheart could see no cat and was still blinded, his green eyes full of light, "Welcome to Starclan!" Fireheart couldn't reply, he was stunned into silence. Was this his death? Would it just be constant light and booming voices? Was that all that Starclan was? He wondered in fear.
The voice read his mind. "No, Fireheart, the reason for us shielding ourselves from you is that this isn't a dream, you are very close to death. If you see us, you will join us today." Fireheart was under a trance. "We are sending a warning. A cat in your clan who is like a brown shadow, always watching, always listening; is plotting something which will turn all water to blood and all fresh kill to crowfood. You and the grey one must save the clans. For forever there will be suffering if fire and stone do not merge." The word 'merge' echoed and pounded in Fireheart's skull, drilling each word of the confusing warning deep into his mind and soul. He caught sight of a pair of glowing cat eyes as the light dimmed. Then darkness, once again, ruled.
Tigerstar leapt up onto the huge, grey rock to make his announcement. "The badger and its cubs are dead!" He announced, expecting his clan to cheer. Instead, he was greeted by the cold stare of silence. "Why are you not cheering, jumping for joy?" He snarled at his clan.
"You cold-bloodedly killed a badger and its innocent cubs!" Growled Willowpelt. "You can't expect us to be jumping for joy!" The others mewed in agreement.
"That badger killed Swiftpaw!" Tigerstar retorted. His clan winced at the painful reminder and a she-cat wailed in grief.
"The cubs didn't!" Yellowfang unexpectedly whipped her head round and spat at her leader. "How would you feel, if a cat in this clan, killed another cat in another clan, and the cats of that clan came here and just coldly killed all of our kits?" She probed, Tigerstar found it quite hard to follow her short speech. The she-cat wailed again.
"I would think we deserved it!" Yowled Tigerstar. The clan stared up at him in shock. Tigerstar let out an exasperated grunt and stalked off into his den with his stripy tail slashing violently at the freezing air.
Darkstripe was irritating Yellowfang, a lot. "You would make a dreadful medicine cat!" She announced. "Forget that, you wouldn't make a medicine cat at all!" Darkstripe rolled his eyes and muttered, "That's because I am a warrior." He was attempting to use some grass to stop Longtail's bleeding instead of cobwebs, even though Yellowfang had plenty of cobwebs in her little store and had told him so about seven times. "But the blood comes out too fast!" He had complained. The matted grey she cat responded with a mutter that had something to do with her asking Starclan to switch Darkstripe's and Longtail's minds, and fast.
Graystripe was worried about Fireheart; they'd both been very busy recently and hadn't spoken much. He was regretting this; he couldn't remember when they had last spoken…
Tigerstar lay in his nest plotting, always plotting. He begged Starclan to take Fireheart from his clan and immediately felt a sudden throbbing pain in his head, like a punishment for his thoughts. He got up, stretched and went to carry out his plan. Yes, the one he had been plotting. Plotting, plotting, plotting; it was what Tigerstar did best!